Liz shakes her head as Mr Elliott begins to protest. ‘Show me. I’ve a strong stomach, Sir. So does my sister here. We are country girls.’ She looks at me and I stifle a plea to spare me such a dreadful sight. As I do whenever I am fearful, I think of my father, his trust in me and his belief I could rise to any difficulty in my way.
‘Yes indeed, Sir,’ I say earnestly. ‘By no means should you deal with such a thing alone.’
Mr Elliott bites his lip, but seems too distressed to argue. Instead he nods, and on trembling legs leads us across the plot. Liz lifts her skirts and walks purposefully in his wake. I wonder at her cool-headedness, though I recall how she was always sober when the rest of us were in pandemonium.
To the end of my days I shall not forget what lies behind the bothy door.
‘Don’t look, Mistress,’ Mr Elliott begs, but in vain; Liz at once stoops next to the little body and draws back the blanket covering it.
A child with a mop of dark and tangled hair, and a face as innocent as I ever saw, the eyes blue and wide open, and the lips parted in surprise, almost as if the boy had looked up from his slumbers to see a face he knew.
Yet the throat has been cut so savagely the head is half-severed from the trunk, and the bed is soaked with blood.
Liz turns to Mr Elliott. ‘This is Red John’s work and no mistake. Look away, Corrie.’ She leans over the corpse, blocking my view so I cannot see if further injuries were inflicted.
Liz cannot hide the pale, small limbs altogether; it is plain the child is naked.
‘He may have taken the clothes to sell them,’ Mr Elliott says pleadingly, but Liz makes a sound of disbelief.
‘What’s this?’ Her eyes alight on an object lying in the corner of the bothy. She picks it up. A long, wide-bladed knife such as butchers use, the blade dark with clotted blood.
‘Good Lord preserve us.’ Mr Elliott’s voice shakes. ‘It wasn’t dawn when I found the boy, and it was still half-dark when his father arrived. We didn’t see a knife. I never thought to look for one.’
Liz looks on the shelf for a rag and, holding the blade away, wraps the knife securely. ‘I’ll take it home for scouring. The magistrates might want to see it. If not, I’ll give it to my husband. He’s ever in need of knives and suchlike.’
‘He’s a vermin-killer, isn’t he? You must tell him to apply here if he wants work, Mistress. I mean when I re-open.’
‘Thank you, Mr Elliott. I have told him of your kind offers before now.’ I can see from Liz’s face she will never let Bill Eardley near the place. ‘This is my sister, Sir. I hope you’ll pardon the liberty. She’s staying with me. Our mother’s house burned down a few weeks back.’
Despite his distress the old man looks me over. ‘You could have helped with the autumn sowing, Mistress. I should have been glad of someone to plant the beans.’ He draws a shuddering breath. ‘But I can’t hire you now, I promised Thomas Roxall I would close today from respect.’ He turns to Liz. ‘Be glad, Mistress Eardley, you weren’t here when I had to break the news to Thomas.’ Another tear rolls down the old man’s cheek. ‘But I should be obliged if you would stay today. The murderer stole nearly all my tools and helped himself to half the crops. I want to set the place to rights as best I can. I won’t ask you to deal with the bothy, I’ll do that. Poor child.’
Hesitating in case she takes too great a liberty, Liz puts an arm around his shoulders.
‘Let’s tell ourselves Davy was sound asleep and never knew what happened. Come, Mr Elliott, you’ll feel better once we set to. Coronation here will help, she won’t expect paying. I don’t wish to leave you, and I can’t allow her to walk home alone.’
Mr Elliott nods, and far from resenting her familiarity, rests his head on her shoulder and draws breath, gathering his strength. He may be aged, but I wish Liz had met a kind widower like him instead of Bill.
Between them she and Mr Elliott rake the floor, lifting the spoiled straw and stained rushes, then Liz carries out Davy Roxall’s flock bed and between us we remove the truckle he slept on. Mr Elliott says it is old and worm-eaten and he cannot bear to look at it again.
I am given an axe and told to heap the pieces in a pile for burning, along with the spoiled straw and a blood-stained nightshirt we find bundled in a corner of the bothy, along with a quality blue-and-white striped neckerchief the murderer failed to see when he stripped the child. While the bonfire smoulders in the icy air Mr Elliott writes an inventory of the tools he has lost, and Liz digs over the plot where the thief pulled up the cabbages and roots and gouged deep footprints in the soil.
‘How will Mr Elliott recover from his losses?’ I ask quietly, when the old man has gone back to his cottage. I have the only remaining tool, a rusting shovel, and Liz and I are labouring in the cabbage bed. The earth is claggy and hard to work, and I am conscious I have not eaten since last night.
‘Master pays into a mutual society. They’ll compensate him. The shock’s worse than the losses for a man his age. Poor Mr Elliott, he’s bewildered.’
‘So must you be, Liz. To think you spoke to the boy only yesterday. How many lads have died in Bristol now?’
She points down the garden, ignoring my question. ‘Look, Mr Elliott’s lit the kitchen fire. He’ll give us a good breakfast even if he doesn’t pay you. After Father he’s the kindest man I know.’
‘I heard half-a-dozen have been killed so far. They were talking of it on my way to Bristol. And now it’s seven.’
Liz lifts a clod of earth and flips it over. ‘Who knows exactly?’ Her voice is defiant. ‘It could be less. Two of them drowned in a quarry one hot day in August. People blamed Red John, but the rest could have died by accident.’
‘You say that, Liz, and yet it could be more were murdered. What if a boy was on the streets, and someone cut his throat and threw him in the river? No one would know.’
‘Don’t say such things.’
‘I’m curious is all. Who’d be desperate enough to kill a child for a sack of carrots and a few old spades and pitch-forks? Is it the same who killed the other boys? The murderer could be a local man, not a pedlar. He could be someone well known—even someone well-to-do.’
‘You always were a morbid creature, Corrie Amesbury. Haven’t we seen enough today to give us nightmares? Come on, let’s find our breakfast. If Mr Elliott thinks you’ve worked hard, he may pay you after all. So when we have eaten, more digging, less talking.’
‘Yes, Liz. I won’t say anything untoward in front of him, I promise.’ I clamp my lips shut to show I mean it. Yet as we put down our tools and go to the water butt to rinse our hands I wonder at my sister. By her own estimation she is a ‘country girl’. I never knew her dodge an ugly truth before.
But then Liz, as I reflected earlier, is always level in a crisis. For weeks I wished the Lord would take me too after Tommy died, and Liz kept telling me it was sinful to despair.
I must not think of Tommy now, not when that other poor young boy lies soaked in blood. It would unseat me, whereas if I take a leaf from Liz’s book and restrain my grief I might find out something bearing on the crime. After all, Liz knew Davy Roxall. She may know more about his murder than she thinks she does. I will bide my time ‘til I can sound her out.
Chapter Eight
Friday, 26th October, 1703
Next day I call at two dozen houses between All-Saints and St-Nicholas. Each smirking footman and ill-favoured housemaid informs me that their mistress refuses to speak to unknown callers and has no need for a servant in any case. Not one glances at my letter from Cousin Mary, in which she lists the qualities of honesty and diligence required in a domestic, assuring whomsoever it concerns that I possess such qualities and more besides, such as cleanliness, punctuality and sobriety.
Cousin Mary does make me sound like a shining example, and I hope no one who reads her letter notices what she does not say. My mother having told her of the business with the squire’s son, Cousin Mary refused to add discretion to my vir
tues.
Saint-Nicholas is at the foot of the hill that rises to the north of Bristol, and once past the churchyard I am almost at the river. I smell the quays before I see them: a briny fish-stink in the wind that catches my skirts as I round the end of Frog-lane. And hear them: cries of labouring men, shrieks and screams of gulls, creak of timbers and great hollow thuds as crates and barrels are heaved and rolled from deck to quay and up the wharves to the warehouses that line the great, wide harbour.
Liz was wrong to be anxious; I am invisible to the swarms of people here. The risk is being crushed under the wheels of a cart or knocked off my feet by a swinging jib, not losing my honour to some brutish sailor.
I hurry between rows of these warehouses, smelling spices from one, tobacco from another, and from the last, molasses and something sweet and cloying I fancy might be vanilla. I ought to leave and resume my search for work, yet the harbour draws me on, notwithstanding buffets of icy wind that make me clutch the sides of my bonnet and give thanks for my warm cloak.
I am eager to see the river itself, and press forward, dodging a pair of men with a sea-chest so heavy they are obliged to drag it over the rough cobbles, swearing and grunting as they go. The way is claggy with seagull droppings and some black oily dirt peculiar to the place, and I keep my eyes down to avoid tripping on the stout ropes anchoring each ship to the quayside. The oozy mud that lines the river banks reeks worse than any ditch. I hear water slapping the hulls and jetties, but cannot see it, the river being thick with vessels, foreign-looking ones with fancy flags, skiffs with a single pair of oars, and schooners dwarfed by the great triple-mast slave ships of which I count three by the time I near the end of St-Augustine’s-back.
No sailor seizes me or offers me rude words; I might as well be nobody in my straw bonnet and homespun gown. A warm gust from a factory chimney brings a scent of burned molasses with it, and a memory of nibbling gingerbreads at the fair in Devizes at Whitsuntide; and the strangeness of the scene begins to weigh on me. The ships’ masts are indeed as tall as steeples, and yet this is not Salisbury with its beautiful cathedral and chattering choristers and sober clergymen, but a vast place devoted to business and foreign trade, and every nook and cranny of it teems with folk I do not know.
I am about to turn and retrace my steps when I notice a rowing-boat being tied up at the quayside. Its passengers, mainly negroes, are busy clambering ashore, while the man in charge of them, a hawk-nosed, grizzled, wiry fellow in a moss-green coat, chivvies them up the wharf with rough cries of ‘Faster!’ and ‘Quit crying’.
I am used to passing black faces on the streets of Bristol, but these people are weighed down with fetters and chained together by their necks and ankles, and I fancy from their drawn expressions and stained clothes they have been many months at sea, and come from some sailing-ship at anchor on the river. Their first steps on English soil draw half-a-dozen bystanders, and unable to resist I weave through the little crowd for a better view.
‘Your head’s in my way,’ grumbles a dame with a basket on her arm of foodstuffs bought at market, but she winks when I beg her pardon, and offers me a cobnut from a paper cone. From her cheerfulness and those of others about me it is almost as though we assemble to watch the Punch and Judy man, though the scene we witness is plainly one of misery.
While half-a-dozen of the negroes are roughly herded by a couple of sailors towards the city, where I suppose they shall be offered for sale, a tall young man is rudely separated from the rest by the man in the green coat, who unlocks the padlock chaining him to his fellows, fixing him instead to a leather leading-rein tied to his own wrist.
The enslaved man trembles and calls out to his companions, but the overseer orders him to be silent, following this with a slap that leaves an angry welt on the negro’s face. Powerless to respond, his eyes express his outrage.
The man then picks out the next in line, a slim, dark-skinned woman about my age, handing her to a carrier in a brown smock and frayed straw hat whose waggon waits above the wharf.
As well as wearing collars, both negroes are shackled at the ankles so that even when no longer linked to the rest they walk with short and painful steps. Collars and shackles alike inflict red running sores which are dreadful to see, but their distress, expressed in sobs and groans, seems to arise less from bodily suffering than from the prospect of parting from one another. The man in green tugs at the negro to go with him along St-Augustine’s-back, while the carrier points impatiently for the weeping girl to climb aboard his waggon.
No carrier could afford a black servant; I suppose he is sent to fetch her by some lord from Somerset or Gloucestershire. The pair shed piteous tears, clutching each other’s hands despite their keeper’s rough commands. The young man seeks to comfort his loved one with a torrent of words, their meaning alien to our ears but his agony plain enough.
How the man in charge of this fellow, who is as handsome and upstanding as the other is wizened and ill-favoured, can be so callous as to bellow at the prisoner and tear him from his grieving lady is more than I can fathom. Harsher still is the rude-looking carrier, for when the negress falls to her knees, pleading to be allowed to stay, he yanks her to her feet, livid with indignation, and kicks her towards his vehicle.
The lady cries out, clutching her belly with both hands. She is so thin that her condition has not been evident until now, but I judge her a few weeks before her time, and wonder how she endured a sea-voyage. Enraged, her lover lunges towards her, intent on protecting her, only to find himself the victim of the overseer’s rage, who punches him to the ground and follows this with a savage blow to the negro’s head with a pistol butt.
One or two spectators gasp at the gouts of blood that follow and the farmer gives up trying to bully the young woman, seizing and bundling her into the waggon. At this her lover emits a howl of such anguish that one or two of the onlookers around me murmur, and a joiner shakes his mallet and cries, ‘For shame!’
Deaf to all protestors, the farmer jumps onto the driver’s seat and lashes his horse so viciously the cart leaps forward. The overseer, meanwhile, busy yelling at us to mind our own business, fails to notice the negro hastening as fast as his fetters will allow in the wake of the moving cart. When the laughter of the audience at the sight of his hobbling progress alerts the attendant, he shrieks with rage and chases after the fellow, bringing him down with a blow that leaves him lifeless.
I should scarcely be surprised if the man in green did not proceed to shoot the negro, and perhaps he might have done if the sight of a gentleman dismounting from his horse did not interrupt his fit of rage.
The startled driver almost drops his weapon. ‘Mr Tuffnell, Sir!’
‘What is this, Roach? I trust you haven’t lost one of my slaves already?’ The mildness, even good humour, of the question, is in stark contrast with what I witnessed.
Roach hastens to explain himself. ‘Forgive me, Sir, but yonder fellow has been the worst trouble of any blackamoor I ever brought ashore. Two hours in the long-boat while he writhed and cried and struggled and protested, then he threw an oar into the water, God knows how he contrived to do it, and near as dragged me overboard when we was in the middle of the river. I hope I haven’t injured him to your detriment, Sir, but I say you ought to be glad he is quelled, at least for now.’
Mr Tuffnell is bright-eyed, cheerful, and attired in a smart black suit and neat silk shoes. It does not occur to him to question Roach’s version of events. He simply bends to inspect the prone figure, and straightens up when the young man’s eyelids flutter.
‘Here.’ Mr Tuffnell takes out a leather flask and lets a few drops splash the negro’s face, nodding briskly as the man emits a groan. Satisfied, Mr Tuffnell gestures to Roach, who hastily steps forward and drags the moaning victim to his feet.
‘Tell Mr Wharton to lock him in the warehouse. The sale can be postponed ‘til he has cooled his heels. Hear that, fellow?’ Mr Tuffnell speaks slowly and loudly to the negro. Then he wi
nks at Roach, checks the fine gold timepiece at his waist, and whistles for his groom to bring his horse.
‘Mr Tuffnell, Sir!’ God help me, but before I have time to think the gentleman is looking at me in surprise. I believe he mistakes me for a beggar, for he pauses, sighs and fishes for his purse.
I point at the negro. ‘Your charity should be kept for this unlucky man, Sir. Your servant beat him cruelly.’
Amusement ripples through the onlookers. I go on. ‘He half-killed him, Sir. All because the man sorrowed at parting from his wife. The negro should see a surgeon, and this man should pay the fee.’
Mr Tuffnell stares at me for a moment, then barks with laughter. The little crowd has swelled now, and from the back comes a call: ‘Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings.’ Other onlookers murmur ‘Aye’, ‘Well said’, and someone advises, ‘Fetch a surgeon.’
Mr Tuffnell decides to face down these critics, dismissing them with ‘Be off with you all.’ However, he offers the negro his flask again, and even hands him a handkerchief to staunch his wound.
Painfully, slowly, the negro responds, holding the handkerchief to his bleeding head and seeming to nod to Mr Tuffnell’s brisk enquiry that he does well enough. Shortly afterwards the black man manages to take a shuffling step or two, and Mr Tuffnell mounts his horse, leaving Mr Roach to follow after him, holding the suffering slave by the leather strap he fixed to his collar when he picked him from the line.
The other slaves having long since departed, and the farmer’s cart having left likewise, the crowd, realising that the show is over, begins to drift away. I am about to do likewise when a low whistle alerts me to a figure peering from the corner of a nearby building.
A Pair of Sharp Eyes Page 7