Frances flushed at his mention of a son, but Josiah had no idea that he was indelicate. He pointed to the grand house, the best house on the square, three redbrick stories high with little attic windows let into the roof. Long white stone columns ran the length of the windows on each story; above each window was a carved face. The double doorway was large and imposing, flanked by more pillars. Stone-carved gateposts and wrought-iron railings shielded the front of the house and emphasized its importance. “This is it, Mrs. Cole. This is our house-to-be. I happen to know that it is coming up for sale, and I shall bid for it, you may be sure. And I shall have it. No one will outbid me, cost what it will. It is generally known that you and I are wed. It is generally known that I am looking for a town house to establish my family.”
Frances looked around the square, trying to imagine what it would be like to live there. A curtain in a front parlor beside them twitched, and dimly she saw a woman step back from the window. It would be a little community, ingrowing and inbred. There would be small feuds and long memories. Frances did not mind. She had lived in a country village, dependent on the goodwill of the lord, her uncle. She knew how small communities worked.
“We should drive on,” she said gently to Josiah. “We will be noticed if we stay here any longer, looking.”
“So?”
“These people will be our neighbors,” she explained. “We wish them to have an agreeable impression of us.”
He was about to argue, but she saw him hesitate, and then he nodded. “You know best, Mrs. Cole,” he agreed. “You are the one to teach me. It shall be as you wish. Now, is there anywhere else you would like to see?”
“I don’t know the city at all,” Frances said. “I have never visited here. I had some friends who drove out to a picnic and looked at the Avon Gorge. They told me it was sublime.”
Josiah leaned forward and gave the order to the driver. “We can go and look at the gorge,” he said. “You will not think it so sublime when you understand what it costs me in barge charges. We can drive to the Hot Well at the foot of the gorge. I have a particular interest in it.”
The carriage turned out of the square and bumped along yet another dockside beside another river.
“This is the Avon again?” Frances asked.
“The river Frome,” Josiah corrected her.
“It is as if we live on an island,” Frances said. “Surrounded by water.” She nearly said “foul water.”
“The old city was a defensive site ringed by the two rivers, the Avon and the Frome—like a moat,” Josiah told her. “Now it is all docks.”
They waited for the drawbridge ahead of them to be dropped, and then the carriage bowled over the wooden planks and turned left, away from the docks.
Frances looked ahead as for the first time the city seemed something more than a dockside slum. The pretty triangle of College Green was before them, with two churches on their left. The college church was an imposing building with the Bishop’s Palace behind it. Frances heard birdsong—not the irritable squawk of seagulls but the summery ripple of a blackbird’s call. Looking up, she saw swallows and house martins swooping and wheeling around the cathedral.
The thick foliage of the elms threw dark green shadows over the road, and as they drove up the steep hill, the air grew fresher and cleaner and the sun shone brightly on the new buildings.
“Oh, if we could only live up here!” Frances exclaimed. Set back from the track were occasional terraces of houses in soft yellow stone, built in the style that Frances liked—plain, regular, and square.
Josiah shook his head. “It’s a whim. One or two people are building here, but no true merchant will ever move away from the city. The river is our lifeblood. Clifton is too far to go. It is country living—not city dwelling at all. There are people buying land and putting up houses, but it will never be the heart of the city. We will always live along the riverbanks; that is where the city always has been. That is where it always will be.”
At the top of the hill, they forked to the left, skirting a high hill and dropping down toward the river again.
“But if we had a carriage, you could drive down to your work,” Frances observed, her voice carefully neutral. “And these are handsome houses, and very clean air. I love to breathe clean air, and my health needs it.”
Josiah shook his head. “It is a whim,” he repeated. “It will pass, and those men who have bought land and built will have bankrupted themselves. Take my word for it, my dear, Park Street is beyond the limit of the city, and Clifton will never be more than a little out-of-the-way village.” He craned his head to see a ship in the dry dock. “The Traveler,” he said with quiet satisfaction. “I heard she was badly holed. That will put Thomas Williams’s nose out of joint.”
Ahead of them the river widened out and started to form sinuous curves between banks of thick mud. Dark woodland reared up from either side of the banks and then broke up around the lower reaches of white cliffs of limestone that loomed above them. The little road clung to the side of the river, following the curve of the bank overhung by the cliffs. It was spectacular scenery. Above, seagulls wheeled and cried and dropped down to dive for fish. A small fishing smack slipped downriver, moving fast on the ebbing tide, her sails filled with wind. The air was salty and clean, damp with the smell of the sea. A flat-bottomed trow crossed from one side to another and passed a ferryboat rowed by a man bright as a pirate in a blue jacket with a red handkerchief tied on his head.
“Sublime,” Frances said. It was Lady Scott’s favorite word of praise. “This is wonderful scenery, Mr. Cole. So romantic! So wild!”
Josiah tapped the driver on the back with his stick, and the man stopped the carriage. “Will you walk, my dear?”
The driver let down the step, and Frances alit from the carriage and took Josiah’s arm. “Above is the St. Vincent’s Rock,” he said. “It’s quite an attraction for people who love scenery.”
Frances craned her neck to look upward at the high white cliffs with wild woodland tumbling down. “I never saw anything more lovely. You would think yourself in Italy at least!”
Slowly, they walked along the little promenade that clung to the side of the river, tucked in beneath the cliff. An avenue of young trees had been planted in a double row to shade the road and form an attractive riverside walk. Ahead of them to their right was a pretty colonnade of shops set back from the river in a curving half circle, lined with small pillars so that the customers could stroll under cover, admiring the goods on sale, on their way to and from the Hot Well pump room. It was as pretty as a set of dollhouses, a dozen little redbrick shops in miniature under a colonnade of white pillars.
Frances and Josiah walked along the flagstones, looking in the shop windows at the fancy goods and the gloves and hats, and the crowded apothecary shop. There was a small circulating library, which also sold stationery and haberdashery goods.
“This is Miss Yearsley’s library!” Frances exclaimed.
“Who is she?”
“Why, Anna Yearsley, the poetess, the milkmaid poet! Such a natural, unforced talent!”
Josiah nodded at the information. “I have not had much to do with poetesses,” he confessed. “Or milkmaids. But I know about her library. This is a new building, all brand-new, and she will be paying a pretty sum in rent. The Merchant Venturers have spent a fortune to make this the most fashionable place in Bristol.”
“I believe my uncle stayed at the Hot Well when he visited you,” Frances said. “In Dowry Parade. He spoke very highly of the lodging house, but he said it was dear.”
Josiah nodded. “Whoever takes it on will have to charge a fortune to recoup his investment. Not just these shops but the spa itself has recently been improved. These trees are new planted. For years the place has been open to anyone—you can take a cart from the city for sixpence to come here and drink the water for free. Any tenant who takes it on will have to charge more and exclude the common people. A successful spa must be for the fa
shionable people only, don’t you think? Will you take a glass of the water? I am sure you do not need it for your health, but you might enjoy the experience.”
They walked toward the pump room, which stood on the very edge of the river, its windows overlooking the water and the Rownham Woods on the far side of the bank. Josiah paid an entrance fee, and they went in. The place was busy. A string quartet positioned in a corner of the room played country dances. Invalids advertised their ill health with yards of shawls and rugs across their knees, but there were others, whose visit was purely social, flirting and laughing in the corners. A few people promenaded self-consciously up and down the length of the rooms, stopping to greet friends, and staring at the new arrivals.
Frances straightened her collar where it fell elegantly at the neck of her walking gown, and held Josiah’s arm. He seemed to know no one. No one stopped to speak to them, no one hailed him.
“Do you have no friends here?” she asked after they had walked the length of the room. They paused before the fountain of the spa. Josiah paid for a glass of water, and the woman pocketed the coin and poured a small glass for Frances. It was light-colored and cloudy, sparkling with little bubbles.
“My friends are working traders, not pleasure seekers,” Josiah said. “They will be at their warehouses at this time in the afternoon, not dancing and walking and drinking water. How does it taste?”
Frances took an experimental sip. “Quite nice,” she said cautiously. “Bland, a little like milk. And quite hot!”
“Very strengthening!” the woman at the fountain asserted. “Especially for ladies. Very effective for skin complaints, stomach complaints, and the lungs.”
Frances blushed at the frankness of the woman’s language and forced the rest of the glass down. “I would not care to drink it every day.”
“Many people do,” Josiah replied. “Some of them are prescribed a glass every couple of hours. Think of the profit for the tenant in that! Many come and stay for weeks at a time to drink it. And it is cried all around the city and sold like milk at the back doors. And bottled and sent all around the country. A very good business if one could afford to buy in.” He took her arm and walked her back down the length of the pump room. “How does it compare to the pump room at Bath, in your opinion?” he asked. “I have a reason for my interest.”
Frances thought for a way to tell him that would not seem offensive. “Of course it is smaller,” she began carefully. “And very much prettier. The scenery is wonderful, much better than Bath. But Bath has more . . . Bath is more . . . established.”
“Only a little place, but I think it will grow,” Josiah said as they left the room. “But I am glad you like it. I am glad you like the rocks of the Avon Gorge even if you do not like the taste of the water.”
“One could not help but admire it,” Frances said. The carriage had followed them down to the pump room; she took the driver’s hand and stepped in. “I am a great admirer of fine landscape.”
“Do you draw or paint?” Josiah asked her.
“A little,” Frances said. “I should like to come to try my hand at drawing this scene.”
“So you shall,” Josiah said. “You shall hire the carriage whenever you wish, and my sister will drive with you. You shall teach us how to enjoy leisure, Mrs. Cole. And we will teach you about business!”
“I shall be happy to learn,” Frances said. The carriage turned back toward the city and to the dark little house by the noisy quay filled with the stink of the harbor. “I shall be happy,” she repeated firmly.
CHAPTER
5
JOSIAH’S ATTEMPTS TO BUY the house at 29 Queens Square were not at first successful. The building was owned by Mr. Stephen Waring, a Merchant Venturer and a member of the corporation of the city. He was building a grand new house halfway up Park Street in a new road to be called Great George Street. Josiah approached him as he sat in the coffeehouse with his brother-in-law—another Merchant Venturer—on one hand and his cousin standing behind him.
“Good day,” Josiah said. He tried not to sound deferential, but he could hear the hint of inferiority in his voice—a tinge of Somerset, a trace of servility. He sounded like a man who had been born on the floor of a warehouse. “Good day, Mr. Waring.”
The man looked up. “Cole?”
“I wonder if I might speak with you on a matter of business?” Josiah’s plain, three-cornered hat was in his hand. He felt himself turn it and tap the points, like a servant fidgeting before a master.
“Yes?”
Josiah glanced at the other men. They were staring at him with open curiosity. No one made any movement away from the table; they did not even trouble themselves to turn aside. His business would have to be done before them all.
“I am interested in your house in Queens Square,” he said. “I understand that you may be selling it? I am newly married, and my wife—”
The man laughed gently. “I do not think you would like it, Cole,” he said. “It is the wrong side of the river for your little warehouse, and you would find my neighbors very poor company.” He smiled at his brother-in-law and turned his back on Josiah. The meeting was concluded.
Josiah flushed with embarrassment. There was nothing he could do but sketch a bow and go back to the table where he usually did his business, with the smaller traders and the unemployed captains. They had been watching him; everyone in the coffee shop had seen him rebuffed. Josiah pulled out a chair and seated himself, trying to look jaunty and hide his mortification. “I have mentioned my interest in the house at Queens Square to Mr. Waring,” he said to the table generally. “I shall write him a letter with my offer.”
“He’s a warm man,” Captain Legge warned. “I’ve heard that he paid more than two thousand pounds for his new house off Park Street.”
Josiah blinked. “That is a new house, though,” he objected. “New built and according to his specifications. The house in Queens Square must be nearly seventy years old!”
“And his father and the rest of the landlords made profits enough in the first year!” a small merchant commented. “The leases on those houses were an extortion. Many a tenant was ruined in the first year if he was not a member of the Merchant Venturers, who had insiders’ terms.”
Another trader nodded. “How convenient it was that the corporation chose to build in brick when the Waring family owned the brickyard,” he remarked slyly.
“That’ll do,” Josiah said swiftly, glancing toward the top table, where Mr. Waring had summoned one of the masters of his ship and was examining a cargo manifest. “The Corporation of Bristol and the Merchant Venturers have together brought this city to the highest prosperity. We all know that.”
“It’s joining them that’s the challenge, eh, Josiah?”
Josiah Cole flushed. “Gentlemen,” he said, “my future plans are my own concern, I think. Now, I heard that you were interested in my sugar, Mr. Williams. Shall I send you a sample?”
FRANCES WAS SEATED AT the parlor table, the ledgers of the company spread before her. Sarah was teaching her the business, showing her the books of the ship Daisy due home in December.
“This page shows the cost of fitting out a ship,” Sarah explained patiently. “See, here is every item, and along the line”—her finger traced the row of ink dots—“here is what it cost. At the foot of the page is the total cost.”
“I see,” said Frances wearily. Outside the window the Rose was being fitted with new ropes and newly mended sails. There was a continual bellow of orders and screams of quayside sellers. They had a pulley rigged on the mast, which screeched every time it took the weight of a load, and then the crew started a chant to help them pull the ropes together. The sun burned in at the parlor window, and the reflected light on the ceiling danced a dizzying ballet. The tide was coming in, and the filth and sewage that had been draining downriver were now washing up and down the quayside wall. The wind blowing up the gorge brought the acrid stink of burning lime from the Clifton
Woods to mingle with the pervasive smell of Bristol: boiling fat for soap, smoke from the furnaces. The window was tightly shut as usual. The parlor was hot and stuffy, the sun beating in through the glass of the panes. Frances had a headache; she sat very still and straight and did not complain.
“So the total cost of repairing and fitting out the ship was £907.2s.”
Sarah Cole nodded. “Correct. On the next page, we show the trade goods supplied.”
Frances passed her cool fingers over her eyelids. “What are all these names?”
“These are our four partners. Merchants and tradesmen who joined with us for this voyage. Here you see that they supply the trade goods themselves. Here is a cutler—he supplied the knives and forks and tin dishes. We show the goods and the value of them. Here is a haberdasher. He supplied cloth and lace and some hats. The other things—some beads, Italian blue beads, and the guns—we bought direct. The other partners supplied the money to buy them.”
Frances looked down the page. There were many things listed, but the greatest quantity of money had been spent on muskets, Bonny muskets at nine shillings each, gunpowder and flints. “What a lot of guns,” she said.
“They are the most popular trade goods,” Sarah Cole said. “And a great cost to us. They can only be bought from Birmingham, and no Birmingham firearm maker will come in with us as a partner. They are quick enough to make a profit from us, but they will not share the risk. Now, Frances, can you see how much it cost to send out the ship?”
Frances looked wearily to the foot of the page. The shifting light in the room seemed to be beating on her eyes. “Yes, £5,692.16s.0d,” she said. “What a great deal of money!”
“Now you see!” Sarah exclaimed. “Now you begin to understand. This is why I don’t want a grand house. This is why I don’t keep a carriage. I daresay Lord Scott himself could not find such a sum, and find it three times every two years! Every time we send out a ship!”
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