“This was my dog,” Frances said. “My little dog.” Her voice quavered slightly. “I had to give her away when I went to work. She was a spaniel.”
Mehuru heard the distress in her voice and looked from the picture to Frances’s face. She tried to smile at him. “My little dog,” she said. “My companion.” Her eyes were bright with tears. “I know it’s very silly.” She pulled a small handkerchief from her pocket. “But she was a wonderful little dog, she used to go everywhere with me. And I lost her, and lost my home, and lost my papa. . . .”
The women glared at Mehuru. “Her tears do not mean much, then,” Grief remarked bitterly. “One tear for Died of Shame, raped three times and dead in a cave, and a dozen tears for a picture of a monkey.”
“No,” Mehuru said. “I was a fool to trust her. Her tears do not mean much at all.”
“They are chattering amongst themselves,” Miss Cole interrupted from the window seat. “How will they learn if they go on talking their own language and don’t even listen to you?”
Frances cleared her throat and dabbed at her eyes. “I beg your pardon,” she said to the sullen black faces. She turned a page of the easel and showed a picture of a church. “This is my father’s church,” she said. She looked at Mehuru and pointed to the building. “Church,” she said. “Jesus. Church.”
The slaves repeated the words in a sulky murmur. Frances smiled, pleased. “Later on I shall teach you stories from the Bible,” she promised.
She turned another page. “And these are flowers.” She pointed to sketches and named each one. They named them as she did.
Frances left the easel and sat down at the head of the table. “Now,” she said brightly. “My name is Frances. I come from England.” She pointed to Mehuru. “Your name is Mehuru. You come from Africa.”
He stared at her in dull resentment.
“Go on,” Grief taunted him. “You are her favorite. You tasted her tear. You trusted her. Speak as she bids you.”
“Say: ‘My name is Mehuru, I come from Africa.’” Frances repeated her command.
He stared at her, a long, burning stare filled with reproach. Frances stammered and lost the thread of the lesson. “What is it?” she asked him in an undertone, glancing quickly toward Miss Cole. “What is the matter?”
He turned his head away from her. There was no mistaking the snub.
“Mehuru!” she whispered urgently. “What is it?”
“My name is Mehuru,” he repeated in clear, perfect English, mimicking her precisely, his accent sharp with anger, his very obedience an insult. “My name is Mehuru. I come from Africa.”
JOSIAH COLE CAME HOME in time for dinner, in a sunny mood. Frances, changing into yet another gown, heard him talking with his sister as he climbed the stairs.
“Two pieces of good work today. Sir Charles is considering placing money with us for us to act as his agents. You did well to suggest it, my dear, and Frances is a credit to us. If she can get him and Miss Honoria tickets for the Scott ball, I will be obliged to her. And even better—Waring has closed the sale of his house with me at last! I was beginning to wonder if he meant to let me down.”
“I was beginning to wonder if it were not better to pull out from the deal altogether,” Sarah said. “Brown told me that number 31 is to come on the market. Two for sale in such a short time must mean that both will be cheapened.”
“Queens Square will always be Queens Square,” Josiah declared firmly. “Prices may fluctuate from time to time, but it will always be the best area of Bristol.”
“It may be,” Sarah said urgently “But have a little patience, brother, and think! With two houses on the square, you could bargain with Waring, you could force his price down.”
“The deal is done,” Josiah said stubbornly. “And I have shaken on it. My word is my bond, everyone knows that. I have agreed a price. I don’t go running back to ask for a discount.”
“And when do we move? When do you have to pay the rest of the money?”
Frances opened her bedroom door, and the two broke off.
“Excuse me.” She felt suddenly shy, as if she had been eavesdropping on a private agreement. “But I heard you mention the house. Have we bought it at last?”
Josiah beamed at her, came up the last few steps, caught her hand and kissed it. “Yes indeed, it is ours!” he said. “You can move in tomorrow!”
“Tomorrow!”
“My brother exaggerates,” Sarah said. “It is his way.”
“I do not!” he contradicted her. “The house is being emptied now. When Mr. Waring acts, at least he acts swiftly. He and his wife have moved out to stay in a hotel, and their servants are ordered to move all their goods. He sent me a note to tell me that we can have the keys and call the place our own from tomorrow.”
“And the money?” Sarah demanded urgently over Frances’s cry of delight. “When is it due? We do not have it in hand, Josiah, you know.”
Josiah took her hand. “Have confidence, Sarah,” he urged her. “You do not buy a house like Queens Square outright with saved shillings. I have a long-term loan, against Rose’s profits. I do not have to repay until Rose comes in at the end of next year. This is my first great investment. And I have others in my mind. I have been waiting for this chance for a long time.”
“You have forestalled on a cargo?” Sarah was shocked. “We have never done such a thing before, Josiah! The risk—”
“But how wonderful!” Frances interrupted. “Will we not have to buy a great deal of furniture? Does the house need wall hangings, renewing and repainting? Is there not a lot to be done before we can move in?”
“You shall see for yourself,” Josiah said happily. “We will go first thing in the morning, and you shall judge for yourself. But I believe that there is very little that wants doing. Mrs. Waring had it done throughout in Chinese fashion only last year. If the style is agreeable to you, then we can simply move in our furniture and take up our residence.”
Frances inwardly swore that however dreadful Chinese fashion proved to be, she would not complain. “I am certain it will be delightful! I so long to live on the square.”
“We are taking a risk,” Sarah interrupted. “I will be heard. We are taking a risk in doing business in this way. We are trading on credit, and we have never done such a thing before.”
Frances was quenched. She looked to Josiah.
“We have traded small,” he said firmly. “We had small beginnings, Sarah, and we had to keep to our limits. But there are great profits to be made for men who dare to take a risk. It is my judgment that it is worth it.”
Sarah clutched her hands together in an odd involuntary movement. “It is too great a risk,” she said. Frances looked at her curiously. The woman was near to tears. “If Rose founders, then we are ruined overnight. We cannot stake the survival of this trading house on such a gamble.”
Josiah hesitated, thinking for a moment that he would tell her of the further risks he had taken with Rose—uninsured for the middle passage, overloaded, and ordered to smuggle slaves to the Spanish colonies—but Sarah’s white, anxious countenance dissuaded him. He could not face her anger and distress. He stretched out and stilled her wringing hands. “Peace, sister,” he urged her gently. “There is no need for this worry.”
She looked at him as if he did not understand at all. “I was born on the floor of a miner’s hovel,” she said. “I have been poor, Josiah, as you were not. You were born when we were on the rise; you know nothing about hardship.” She looked at Frances. “You neither. You think that having to work and living here, over the warehouse, is poverty. I know you do; I have seen you looking down your nose at our ways and thinking them very mean. But I have known hardship that neither of you can understand. I have gone barefoot for lack of shoes and hungry for lack of food and I cannot bear to hear you talking, Josiah, about gambling with our livelihood. As if poverty were not waiting beneath our feet every day of our lives, waiting, longing to gobble us up.” She wa
s flushed, and her eyes were bright with tears. “We are in a little trow on a great river of poverty!” she cried. “And your debts and your gambles, Josiah, will overturn us!”
He was taken aback by her vehemence. “Sarah . . . I . . .”
“Promise me you will not run us into debt,” she demanded. “Promise me that we will make an agreement with Mr. Waring and pay him what we owe from our profits, not from forestalling on our cargoes.”
Josiah looked uncomfortable. “Be still, sister,” he said awkwardly. “I am sorry to see you so distressed—”
“Promise me!”
“It is too late,” Josiah admitted. “I have agreed to pay Waring a lump sum, some borrowed, some from Daisy’s profits, and I have sold Rose’s cargo already. The gamble has been laid, Sarah. You will have to accept it.” The rest of the gamble—the missing insurance, the smuggling—he left to silence.
She lost her color at once and swayed as if she might faint with fear. Frances, a silent observer between the two of them, thought that the older woman looked as if she had lost the love of her life. Sarah was obsessed with financial security. Nothing frightened her more than debt.
She took a deep breath and rallied. “I am sorry to hear it.”
“It is signed and sealed and done,” Josiah said, impressing her with the finality of the deal.
“Then I can say nothing more,” she said with dignity. “Except that I wish you had talked it over with me first, Josiah.” She carefully avoided looking at Frances. “You would have discussed it with me in the old days. You should have discussed it with me even now.”
“I would have discussed it with you,” Josiah placated her. “But it all took place in the coffee shop; it was quickly and easily done. And there is no great risk, Sarah. Rose is a good ship. There is no reason to think she will not come home safe.”
Sarah at once knocked on the wooden banister, and Frances saw Josiah tap his foot involuntarily on the wooden tread of the stair.
“We had to buy the Queens Square house or throw away the deposit,” he reminded her. “And I had promised a new house to Frances in the marriage settlement.”
“This house was our father’s pride,” Sarah observed.
Josiah turned on the stair and smiled at her. “It has been a good house for us,” he agreed. “We have made our start from here. But now we must go upward in the world.” He stopped himself and laughed. “Here! I must go upward to my bedchamber and wash before dinner. I am famished. I did not stop to eat at noon, I have been so busy this day.”
“Why?” Sarah asked, following him up the stairs. “Have you found partners for Daisy?”
“Sir Charles is in for his share, of a thousand pounds, of course, and I have other partners to hand,” Josiah said happily. “Money breeds money. Now it is known that Sir Charles has bought a share, the others want to come in, too. And when we are living in Queens Square, it will be even easier. Have you had a good day?”
“We have done badly,” Sarah told him. “Frances has lost one of the new slaves.”
Josiah looked quickly at Frances and saw her stricken face. “One here or there does not matter,” he said kindly. “Sarah, you must not reproach her. We are bound to lose two or three from a batch. It does not matter.”
He came up the last few steps, took Frances’s hand, and led her into her room.
“I am sorry,” Frances said. “I do not think I should have the care of them. It was a woman. It was the woman . . .” She wanted to put the blame on Sir Charles, but she could not bring herself to speak of what he had done. “It was one of the women. She ate earth, and I let her be put in a bridle, and now she is dead.”
Josiah seated her gently before her looking glass and stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders. “It does not matter,” he said gently. “I promise you, my dear, do not fret. One here or there makes no difference. This is an experiment. If we do well and sell at a profit, we will repeat it on a grander scale. If they all die tomorrow, then we will have learned that it cannot be done. Don’t fret, my dear, you are doing the best you can, and it is a difficult business, breaking slaves.”
He loosened the pins in the back of her head, and Frances’s coils of hair started to tumble down around her shoulders.
Frances felt lulled, as if she were a little girl again with her mother plaiting her hair. “I do not know that I can teach them, Josiah. It is not like teaching children. They are so different from us, and the man who understands the most, Mehuru—” She broke off. “He is not like a slave,” she said inadequately. “I cannot think of him as a slave. I keep thinking of him as a civilized man.”
Josiah took up her silver brushes and gently brushed her hair. “This is nonsense,” he said gently. “You are overtired. Just do your best, my dear; it is nothing more than an experiment. We have to try, and we have to take chances. I cannot make the life for us which we desire without taking chances. We have to learn to take risks. I am a venturer, Frances! Not a shopkeeper!”
He swept the hair back from her forehead and from her temples where her pulse throbbed. It was a soothing, gentle caress, the pressure of the soft bristles on her head and then the clean sweep.
“It makes me uneasy,” Frances confessed. “To think of them all in my charge.”
“It is the nature of the trade,” Josiah comforted her. “You must not think of them as people, or you will get distressed. They are commodities, my dear, they are goods, and English merchants have been trading in them for more than a hundred years.”
“So long? I did not know it had been so long! Why, how many slaves have we taken?”
“Oh, my dear! Who can say? English ships have grown bigger every year. The trade has doubled and quadrupled.”
Frances saw in the mirror that her face was shocked. “Hundreds of slaves? Thousands?” she asked.
Josiah shrugged. “More. Many many more. Millions. It is an enormous business—three million slaves taken by the English in this century alone, and all the other European countries are slavers, too.” He smoothed her hair away from her face. “I see you are surprised,” he said. “It is a mighty trade. It is the very backbone of Britain; there is not a port that does not deal in it. There is no family in the country that does not feel the benefit. We all profit from it. It is the greatest trade that the world has ever known. It crosses and recrosses the Atlantic, it makes massive fortunes. We all profit.”
“I did not know,” Frances said. She thought of the light, easy conversation at her uncle’s dining table, of her father’s gently reproachful sermons against the sin of laziness, or gluttony. No one had ever questioned the ethics of the slave trade in her hearing. No one had even thought about it. She had heard nothing but complaints of radicals and abolitionists who wanted to threaten the prosperity of Britain, ruin the colonies, and overpay idle workingmen. “But it must have destroyed Africa,” she exclaimed suddenly. “Taking so many people, and all of them young, and most of them men. It must have emptied villages, it must have ravaged whole countries.”
She tried to imagine what it would be like in England if three million young men and women had been stolen away in only a hundred years. The country would be devastated. There would be no wealth, no farms, no industries, no roads. It would be a blow to the very heart of a nation. And the absence of three million people would mean that children were not conceived, that babies were not born. In the next generation, seven million would be missing, in the next fifteen. There would be a gap, a gulf into which poverty and despair would flood. Inventions would not be made, industries would not develop, farms would lie idle, the whole fabric of society and order would collapse.
Josiah nodded. “Africa is our farm, my dear. The farm produces the stock, and we ship the stock to where it is needed. Africa is a slave farm to serve the civilized world. It is a most elegant and efficient system.”
Frances leaned forward and let her hair hide her face from Josiah’s easy smile. She felt dizzy with the view of the world suddenly opened before
her. She could not imagine how she had known none of this, how successfully it had been gilded over. And now her livelihood depended on its successful continuance. “It must be wrong,” she said. But she spoke without conviction. “It cannot be right for us to farm a whole continent for our own use. And they are not stock, Josiah. The men and women I am teaching, they are not stock. They are people, and they feel as we do—at least I think they do.”
“Who knows?” Josiah asked comfortably. “When you have taught them to speak and civilized them, perhaps you will teach them Christian feelings, too, Frances. That would be a fine thing to do. I am sure you are doing well, far better than most ladies could.”
Josiah brushed softly and steadily, and then his hand came under her hair and caressed the back of her neck. Frances sat still and let him do what he wished. She thought of the thousands of deaths he must have caused and the heartbreak in those hundred, thousand, million homes. She looked up and met his kind face in the mirror.
“I fear it is not right, Josiah,” she said.
He smiled at her. “You’re looking very pretty,” he said gently. “I love your hair let down.”
CHAPTER
16
JOSIAH AWOKE FRANCES EARLY. He came into her room himself and drew back the window curtain and the half curtain at the head of her bed. The fire had been lit in skillful silence by the scullery maid before dawn, and the room was warm.
“Up and awake, Mrs. Cole!” Josiah cried joyfully. “I have a carriage ordered for us at eight. I am taking you to see your new house today!”
Frances sat up in bed and laughed at his eagerness. “But the Warings will still be packing their goods!”
“I shall throw them out the back door when you enter the front!” Josiah exclaimed.
There was a tap on the door, and Brown stood hesitantly in the doorway with Frances’s tray in her hands.
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