Respectable Trade

by Philippa Gregory

  “No, Mrs. Shore is bound to want one,” John Shore said with even greater certainty. “If Lady Scott herself has ordered one, you say?”

  “Yes.” The waiter put a mug of ale before Josiah and brought the joint of beef to the table and started to carve succulent, pink-hearted slices and arrange them, fanned out on the plate. Josiah glanced past him to the table where he used to sit. His old friends were gazing at him in his new elevated position. Josiah grinned at them.

  “And Mrs. Waring must have her page boy,” Stephen Waring agreed. “One hundred and ten, I think you said?”

  “Guineas.” Josiah took a gulp from his ale and smiled over the top of the mug at Stephen Waring. “Guineas, if you please.”

  “You are an astute businessman,” Stephen said pleasantly. “I wonder if you would be interested in a venture I am proposing. I want to sink a deep shaft at my colliery at Bedminster, and I need some extra capital to finance the work. It would be a loan at, say, four percent over two years.”

  Josiah accepted his plate from the waiter and bent over it to hide his elated face. “Possibly,” he said. “What sort of capital sum?”

  Stephen shrugged. “Not more than five thousand pounds. I don’t know if you have that sort of sum by you?”

  Josiah lifted his head, and his expression was calm. “I could have,” he said steadily. “It would depend on the project, of course.”

  “Indeed!” Stephen nodded. “Perhaps you would like to ride out with me and see the mine. It’s good-quality coal, if we can get down to reach it. Are you at liberty this afternoon?”

  Josiah buttered a slice of bread and loaded it with meat. “Perfectly, Mr. Waring. I should be glad to come out and see it.”

  “Very well,” Stephen Waring said. “And now let us have a look at these figures for the port charges. The town clerk suggests that we raise the harbor dues to amass some capital to build a floating dock. Of course we have needed a floating dock for years, but nothing has yet been done. Here are the plans.” He pulled a sheet of paper from a roll beside his chair. “It will mean that the port charges have to go up again—”

  “But not for us,” John Shore added rapidly. “Not for Merchant Venturers.”

  “Not for us,” Stephen Waring confirmed. “The smaller men can carry the cost. There will be no additional charges for us.”

  JOSIAH CAME HOME AT midday to change into his riding coat and breeches. Frances had ordered a horse to be waiting for him at the livery stables, and she saw him off from the front door.

  “I shall not invest,” Josiah said. Frances handed him his gloves and held his hat. “Unless it is very advantageous indeed. I would have to borrow it all, and I doubt I could get a rate to make it worthwhile.”

  “Don’t say one way or another,” Frances advised him. She did not understand about interest rates, but she knew that it was wise not to disappoint a new acquaintance. “Leave it until he has made you a member of the Venturers. Leave it until your supper party and then see which way the wind is blowing.”

  “I do not have the capital,” Josiah said. “I would have to borrow to invest it with him. But I have not said that. I spoke as if I had thousands sitting under my bed.”

  “That is the way to do it,” Frances said encouragingly.

  “I wish you could have seen me in the coffeehouse.” Josiah grinned. “Sitting at the top table and taking my breakfast with them all. And then I saw the plan for the new dock and discussed port charges with them. And selling the slaves—why, I made more than two hundred guineas this morning before breakfast!”

  Frances smiled, catching his enthusiasm. “We are on our way,” she assured him. “But do not spend your two hundred guineas before you have it!”

  “It is your two hundred,” he said fairly. “They were bought with your dowry, and they have been trained by you. You are their owner. They are Miss Scott’s slaves.”

  “Then keep my two hundred guineas safe for me! I am not sure that I want a mine shaft!”

  “Anyway, I do not think it would pay. I would not want us to be overstretched. And he was a fast customer over this house. I will not forget that. I heard today that there are two other houses coming up for sale on this square. I would have done a better deal if I had waited.”

  “Two more houses for sale?” Frances was instantly on the alert. “Why?”

  “Oh, different reasons. There is nothing wrong with the buildings, my dear, never fear.”

  “No, I did not think that there was. But why are the other houses for sale?”

  “One family is moving to Clifton, and the other is building off Park Street, I think.”

  Frances looked thoughtful. Josiah took his hat from her. “They are foolish,” he said easily. “This will always be Bristol’s best address. Clifton is too far away and the Park Street houses are a jumble of designs. There is no elegant square like this one.”

  “No,” Frances agreed politely. Then she saw a shadow of self-doubt pass over his face. Josiah was not always as confident as he seemed, and he trusted in her judgment more and more. “I know you are right,” she reassured him. “And this is a beautiful house! I would not live anywhere else!”

  “It is the best,” Josiah repeated. “The biggest and best on the square. There is not another of better proportions. It is a very good investment.”

  Frances nodded. “I know it.”

  Josiah opened the door and nodded his farewell. “I’ll be back before dusk,” he said. “By five.”

  “We will dine late, then. Enjoy your ride.” Frances waved him off and went indoors to sit in the best parlor.

  Sarah was seated at the table with the book for Daisy’s accounts laid out before her. Frances hesitated in the doorway, but Sarah looked up. “Come in,” she said. “I wanted to speak with you.” Sarah closed the book and waited while Frances pulled out a chair and sat, rather nervously, opposite her.

  “I am about to start the afternoon lesson,” Frances began defensively.

  “It’s not that.”

  “Is it still the tea party?”

  “No, it’s more important than that.”

  There was a little silence.

  “You are a powerful influence on my brother,” Sarah started. “Since we moved to this house especially. He admires your taste; he takes your advice.”

  Frances nodded, saying nothing.

  “You should be aware of our situation,” Sarah said.

  “Is it no better?”

  “How can it be, when we have trebled and quadrupled our expenses by moving to this house and our earnings have remained the same?”

  “Is it very much more expensive here?”

  Sarah bit her lip to contain her temper. “Instead of one fire burning during the day, we have four,” she said. “You have bought curtains and wall hangings for five rooms. You have bought chinaware—those Chinese vases and the porcelain dragons—and much furniture. I am aware that you brought many of your own things to furnish the house, but even so the carters had to be paid. Today Josiah has hired a horse; three times this week you have hired a carriage. I imagine that soon you will want to buy a carriage, and then we shall have to buy horses and set up stables and pay a coachman to drive them for you.”

  “Josiah hired the horse to ride to Mr. Waring’s coal mines to look at an investment,” Frances observed. “We are not wasting money, sister. We are keeping a house in the style that Josiah’s station in life demands.”

  Sarah folded her lips together and placed her hands gently in her lap. She was determined not to lose her temper. “I am aware of my brother’s ambition,” she said quietly. “And I know that you support him. But I must remind you, Frances, that we do not have the money to spend on high living. The housekeeping bills have more than doubled. Your dressmaker’s bill arrived today. You have spent more in a month than I spend in a year. The business cannot support this kind of spending.”

  “Josiah has taken two orders for the slaves only today,” Frances countered. “From men
who were at my tea party. At one hundred and ten guineas each!”

  “Then let them be sold at once. And let us have the two hundred and twenty guineas without delay. I have bills at the chandler’s for Daisy’s stores and a bill at the sailmaker for her sails which I cannot meet.”

  Frances shook her head. “They are not ready,” she said reluctantly. “They can do simple tasks, but only Mehuru—Cicero—is fluent.”

  “They must be sold as soon as possible,” Sarah said. “All but two women. Now we have such a large house, we will have to keep two of the women to do our work. After Easter, I shall let Brown and the scullery maid go. We cannot afford a staff of so many.”

  “Yes.” Frances suddenly thought of Mehuru’s hand, the warmth of his palm under her finger, the fascinating tracery of brown lines against the paler skin of his palm, the turn of his head, and that charged moment between them when he had snatched her hand. “I wish . . .”

  “What?”

  “I wish we could keep them longer. There is so much that they will have to learn. It is such a strange world to them.”

  “You are not teaching them for their convenience,” Sarah said. “You are teaching them to increase their value. And Daisy will bring you a dozen more on her return.”

  “It won’t be the same,” Frances murmured, half to herself.

  “You have not forgotten that they are slaves?” Sarah reminded her sharply. “They are trade goods, sister, the same as sugar or brass kettles.”

  “I have not forgotten,” Frances said quickly. “I am not likely to forget my place with them. I have commanded servants all my life.”

  “These are not servants. These are goods.”

  “I don’t forget it,” Frances said.

  JOSIAH STOOD WITH HIS hands thrust deep into the pockets of his new winter coat and watched his ship, the Lily, sail into port on the last day of February.

  It was a cold, raw day, but nothing could shift the beaming smile from Josiah’s round face. The rowboats brought her carefully to the side, the quayside workers fended her off and caught the ropes to make her fast. The gangplank came down, and Josiah strolled on board.

  “You made good time,” he said to the captain.

  “We did,” the captain replied. “And a good profit also. Slave prices are high in the West Indies again; for a couple of the best of them, I got seventy pounds!”

  Josiah’s grin broadened even further. “And the sugar price? And tobacco?”

  “Fair,” the man said. “I think you will be pleased. I have the books to hand.”

  “Do you carry much gold?”

  The captain nodded to his cabin. “I have three hundred pounds’ worth in my strongbox. It’s all accounted for.”

  “Unload it now,” Josiah said. “I’ll have it at once.”

  “There’s the crew to pay, and the bonuses,” the man demurred.

  “Pay them tomorrow,” Josiah said. “I’ll see to it. You’ll get your share, don’t worry.” He whistled for one of the sailors, and the captain let him take the strongbox down the gangplank to the old empty warehouse.

  “I’ve never seen him do that before,” the captain said to himself. “Usually it’s the books or the cargo he wants. I’ve never seen him rush the strongbox ashore before he’s even tasted the tobacco.”

  He shrugged his shoulders and yelled to the crew to start the unloading. They lashed a wheel to the mast and began to haul the heavy hogsheads of tobacco out of the hold and onto the dock. The hold was foul with the stink of slaves; the men wore their scarves pulled up over their mouths. Not even the powerful scent of new tobacco and the rich, heavy smell of molasses could overcome it.

  Josiah in his office was counting the money and setting it into heaps of coins balanced on bills. He had not yet settled all the Daisy’s bills, though she was more than a week out of port. He owed the carpenter and the plasterer for the Queens Square house. He owed the sweep, and he had not yet paid for the new curtains and carpets. The profits of Lily’s voyage—which usually paid for her refitting and victualing—would be spread among Josiah’s debtors, and he would seek extra partners for her next trip to meet her costs.

  “Damnation!” Josiah had rung a coin on his desk and found it to be false. It did not ring true. It was lightweight base metal, gilded to look like gold. He was only a guinea short, the strongbox held more than three hundred pounds, and his ship was well loaded with sugar and tobacco, but for a moment, knowing himself to have been cheated, Josiah looked absolutely afraid.

  Scott House,

  London.

  Friday 20th March 1789

  My dear niece,

  This letter is to bring you my very Best compliments and to inform you that the Family will be arriving at Whiteleaze at the end of May.

  You will be pleased to hear that your Sir Charles Fairley and Miss Honoria presented their Cards to Lady Scott and—as you asked—were invited to our Ball. Despite some little roughness of tone, they Acquitted themselves Moderately well, and Sir Charles in particular Endeared himself to my guests by Losing heavily at Piquet. I have introduced him to my Club, where his inability to Win makes him a Constant favorite.

  On a more Serious note, he tells me that he is considering Cole and Sons as his agent, and I have Promised him that I will make myself Busy in seeking out a Suitable house for him and Consult with you. He has described to me the size of Establishment and the Extent of land, and I am Certain that I can Find him such a place—and under terms which are Advantageous to all of us. I am Delighted to find that you have Become such a shrewd Woman of Business—since Your destiny has called you to be such. In Sir Charles you have a Customer to be Proud of, generous and, Indeed, feckless. I think we will all benefit from the Association. He is Extremely wealthy.

  Forgive my speaking plainly, but I know you will not Take offense. You have done your husband a good turn Indeed by winning Sir Charles’s fortune to your Trading house. I am happy to do all I can to help Yourselves—and indeed to help Myself to the Benefits of such an association. That Sir Charles benefits also Cannot be in Doubt. I will keep you Informed of all opportunities of Investment which come my way and of which you should be Informed. My favorite project at the moment is a building scheme in London of Which I shall reserve a Share for Cole and Sons, if I think fit. Also, there is a New scheme for Wet Docks at Liverpool which is seeking investors. I will keep you informed.

  Forgive me this Odd mixture of Business and family Matters, but I am anxious that you and your Husband continue to Prosper. I imagine that it Would help your standing with your New neighbors if Lady Scott were to Drive over for Tea? I will take the Liberty of promising her Attendance on you as soon as she is in the Country.

  You will have heard that the Abolitionists, headed by Mr. Wilberforce, are planning to bring a Bill before Parliament in this session to Abolish the Trading of Slaves. I am assured that he will Fail. There are Too many men in the House whose fortunes depend on the Trade. However, for the Future you would be well Advised to move Some of your Business away from shipping Slaves. A Law to limit the Numbers of Niggers packed into the Holds is almost Certain to pass, which must make Shipping less profitable. If you could find Another such as Sir Charles you could move your Business from Shipping to Agenting—The movement of Money, my dear, is So much Easier than that of Goods, or even people!

  I Trust you are well Established in your new House and that the furniture all Arrived safely. I think of you Often, and your Happiness and Prospects are always Dear to my heart.

  Your loving Uncle,

  Scott of Whiteleaze.

  Frances put down the letter and looked into the red embers of the fire. Josiah was home late. It was a supper party of the Bristol merchants; they rarely finished before midnight, and Josiah was rarely home sober. The excesses of the corporation were legendary even in a hard-drinking city. Josiah would return red-faced and smelling of strong roast meat and sweet rum, hoarse from singing bawdy songs and shouting jests.

  S
arah might be tight-lipped with disapproval at breakfast, but Frances believed that Josiah was carousing his way into the very inner circle of the Bristol Corporation and Merchant Venturer power—the unholy alliance that ruled Bristol completely. Besides, however drunk Josiah had been the night before, he was never late to work. He was always on the quayside at the usual time, before any other trader. He was always last in the coffeehouse for breakfast, always alert and ready for the small sale, for the little investor with a bandbox of money.

  Frances looked at her uncle’s letter again. If he was right, and if their business could develop, then Josiah’s scramble for the capital of small men might be over. The ceaseless worry of insurance and ships, of storms and broken masts, might be replaced by the easy transition of capital from one moneymaking scheme to another. She shook her head. Nothing would wholly wean the Coles away from trade, nothing would make them feel as secure as their bond house full of tobacco, their storeroom full of barrels of rum, of sugar. The handling of notes of hand was too distant for them. They liked goods they could taste and wealth they could weigh.

  The rest of Bristol had moved away from the slave trade—abandoned it to the quicker, more efficient Liverpool ships. But the Coles had clung to it, and clung to it still. Even Josiah’s dream of buying the Hot Well was not to replace his main business as a trader but to supplement it.

  Sir Charles’s money left with them for safekeeping when he had gone to London had not been fully used. If Josiah had had his own way, he would have stowed it all securely in a locked chest under his bed, bought only those goods Sir Charles required, paid Sir Charles’s bills from it, and kept it safe for him. He would have invested only on his own ships, borrowed from it with his own note of hand. It was Frances who insisted that it be used to buy a share in a ship leaving for the Americas for cotton, and Josiah had watched unhappily as another trader left port with Sir Charles’s money invested in a rival voyage.

  Josiah was as jealous of Sir Charles’s capital as of his own. But Frances would be proved right. The good ship Endeavour would show a profit of more than 50 percent and a handsome 40 percent of that could go straight into the coffers of Cole and Sons.