***
The Tolzey is a narrow walk behind a set of arches, notable for a row of round bronze trading ‘nails’ or counters, each of which is in use by a huddle of merchants when I arrive. Among them are a number of prosperous-looking widows, as well as one or two planters whose broad bellies and liverish complexions remind me of Mr Osmund, though most are well-dressed citizens of Bristol whose clerks wait while their masters pore over papers and rub their chins as if to say the terms proposed are not quite as they need to be.
Standing at the bronze nail nearest the entrance is Mr Tuffnell, dressed in a fine, black woollen suit and listening with ill-concealed impatience to a short, squat alderman with a heavy gold chain of office round his neck. Mr Tuffnell exclaims with ill-disguised relief at the arrival of a gentleman in fashionable grey silk who, bowing low to the alderman, succeeds with one or two polished phrases in dislodging him from their company.
As soon as the old fellow stumps off, the two embark on a spirited but low-voiced discussion of the alderman’s failing brickworks due to ‘lack of clay, lack of fuel, and lack of wit’.
A clerk stands at a respectful distance with an armful of papers and a pair of quill pens.
‘I’ve brought this for Mr Tuffnell,’ I tell him.
The clerk lifts a finger to bid me wait. ‘He won’t welcome an interruption now, Miss. Let him finish his meeting. The other is a lord, you see.’
I take his advice, and from our station a few yards away it is easy to overhear the conversation between the two.
‘Of course, we hoped the Prudence would set sail some weeks ago. The captain needed a neap tide and a strong north-easterly,’ Mr Tuffnell says. ‘So large a vessel requires both to clear the Channel. She’ll soon make up for lost time.’
The lord asks something about the terms agreed with Mr Tuffnell’s partner. His languid manner is quite at odds with Mr Tuffnell’s lively air.
‘Oh, very good terms, my lord,’ Mr Tuffnell says. ‘Mr Cheatley has many deep concerns, as they say. His manufactory in Bristol is long-established, and I have every confidence in him. He’s my chief partner in the Prudence, though lesser men have smaller shares—why, even my agent Mr Henry Wharton invested a percentage. Small by my standards, but a significant outlay for him.’
The lord says something in an undertone. Mr Tuffnell appears to brush the remark aside. ‘I admit the last year has been challenging,’ he says. ‘Two voyages incurring losses … a claim lodged with our underwriters, which no man of business is pleased to find himself obliged to make. But the Prudence is a bigger vessel than those others, Captain Stiles is a sound fellow, and we shall hardly fail with the coastal traders when we can offer them munitions on the scale made possible by our partnership with Mr Cheatley.’
The lord nods sagely. Then he leans forward, smiling. ‘And are rumours correct that you may be expanding your interests in Jamaica very soon?’
Mr Tuffnell throws up his hands. ‘You have my measure, Sir. No chance of keeping enterprises secret here in Bristol. It’s true, I’ve recently made connections of a personal kind in Jamaica.’ He smiles a little bashfully. ‘Since my marriage. In time I hope they’ll strengthen my hand in selling my negroes, and my sugar, at a higher margin than is possible when I rely on the offices of strangers. In a year or two, when the Prudence comes in, I may even look to buying an estate myself—contracting sugar production to an experienced man, of course.’ He slaps the lord’s shoulder. ‘Exactly as your ancestors left the running of your Somerset estates to stewards and yeomen farmers these seven hundred years.’ Both men laugh, the lord nodding sheepishly at the comparison.
Their conversation having reached a pause, the clerk clears his throat. ‘You may give in the letter now, Miss.’
Mr Tuffnell may be rich and important but he is not above looking me over as thoroughly as he would a negro slave. If we were not at the Tolzey I daresay he would try to kiss my hand or worse. Fortunately, he does not seem to recognise me from the quays.
‘From your wife, Sir,’ I say boldly. Without a blush at this reminder of his married state he takes the letter and scans the contents, all the while watched over with frank curiosity by the lord.
Mr Tuffnell looks up smiling. ‘My wife is an angel, Lord Fitzhaven. She received just today a small dividend from her property in Jamaica. The land and the operations on it are in her name, and yet she seeks my approval to make a modest donation to a charity case—a distant relative of hers fallen on hard times. Such openness and trust in a wife can’t be valued too highly, my lord. To incur liabilities through an extravagant spouse would be a pitiable state of affairs, and yet some unlucky gentlemen are in that position exactly. No such risk with my dear Maria.’
‘You are fortunate,’ agrees the lord, though from his uncomfortable expression I wonder if he has personal knowledge of the evil Mr Tuffnell describes.
‘She is the most generous of benefactresses, and yet she never calls on me to fund her acts of charity,’ Mr Tuffnell repeats.
The alderman has waddled back, and interposes himself between the gentlemen. ‘Eh?’ he asks. ‘What’s this you say? Talking of some milk-sop philanthropist? Not you, boy, I hope?’ He digs Mr Tuffnell in the ribs.
‘No, no. My wife. An improvident relative duns her for a few shillings, and she seeks my consent even to this trifling act of kindness.’
‘Does she now?’ The alderman narrows his small dark eyes. ‘A few shillings mount up by and by. A relative is harder to shake off than your common or garden sponger.’ He taps his fleshy nose with a fat finger. ‘Be on your guard, Sir. It will be pounds, not shillings, next.’
I see Mr Tuffnell is vexed by this advice though he succeeds in not rising to it. The old man totters off, and the other two begin an earnest discussion in which the lord seems eager to know how he might obtain a loan from Mr Tuffnell, and Mr Tuffnell seems equally eager to avoid offending the lord with a refusal.
Neither remembers me, and I turn to leave when the clerk gives a sudden sneeze and drops a quill. It rolls towards Mr Tuffnell and I stoop unthinkingly to pick it up, determined to prise the quill from the crack into which it fell. I hear the lord snort and Mr Tuffnell mutter something the meaning of which I easily guess, and I rise with as much dignity as I can and hand the clerk his pen, reflecting that these great men are no better than the louts who go to sea on their behalf. Indeed, Mr Wilks who helped me on the Prudence was more gentlemanly than Mr Tuffnell or his hard-up lordly friend.
As I leave the Tolzey, and glance back at Wine-street where the fine brick chimneys of Barbuda House stand high above all others, I realise I have another cause to be indignant, for Mrs Tuffnell told me I was going to the Tolzey, and yet I only did so at her bidding, and she paid me nothing.
So aside from my sixpence my day in Bristol has gained me little beyond a cautiousness toward Mr Tuffnell and his wife that would satisfy even Mrs Esther Wharton—though doubtless Abraham would say I still have much to learn.
Chapter Thirteen
Tuesday, 30th October, 1703
When the wind began to rise last night, Liz, Bill and I were forced to pull our stools so close up to the fire our shins were scorched. Then we lay shivering through the night as the house walls creaked, and trees were stripped of twigs and even branches. This morning the sky is mottled grey, leaves spin on the street corners, and down at the river the Prudence has vanished from her mooring. Mr Wharton looks up from his papers as if he has forgotten who I am.
‘Any messages today, Sir?’
‘No, nor any day this week. The ship has sailed, my work is done.’ He takes a breath, releases it, then sees my disappointment and adds, not unkindly, ‘The cook-shop on the High-street may want a pot-washer. It’s busy for them, the day of sailing.’ He bends over his accounts once more, and I see now that he was only civil to me in the presence of Mr Espinosa, and gave me work because he needed a swift pair of heels, and that my dreams of becoming Mrs Wharton’s friend and confidante and Mrs Tuffne
ll’s lady’s maid were the silliest dreams I ever had, for to Mr Wharton and his friends I am nobody, of no account or interest.
Accordingly, I trudge back to the city, and since I cannot return to All-Saints’-yard before nightfall, and have no notion how to fill the time, I take Mr Wharton’s advice and try the cook-shop. It stands on the corner where the High-street meets the Shambles, and is more than an ordinary shop of its kind, being a meeting-place for folk arriving in Bristol or waiting for their ship to sail, and crowded and noisy and filling the air for yards around with the smell of broth and frying bacon. It serves as an office for the passing on of news by word of mouth, and many posters are nailed to the sides of the shop, some advertising rewards for the return of runaway apprentices and negroes, others asking for information about thieves and highwaymen. This morning my attention is caught by a large new poster referring to the horrid and unnatural murders of several young boys between March 1702 and October 1703, believed to be the cruel and wicked work of a hawker known as Red John.
I had noticed this cook-shop on previous mornings, for among the printed notices are small hand-written ones, in which out-of-work servants state their availability for hire, and I had wondered if I should post a notice there except Liz warned I should pay sixpence for the privilege. The street door, normally propped open, is shut against the weather, and as I open it a blast of hot air greets me and I breathe the scent of boiling meat and vegetables. Women in travelling cloaks talk at the tops of their voices while children cling to their petticoats. A good fire burns in the hearth and a serving-woman hands out dishes of stew, and parcels of cooked food that customers seated at the back of the shop wait to carry home.
I take my place in line, jostled by the sailors’ wives, until the serving-woman asks me what I want.
‘I was told you might need a pot-washer. Mr Tuffnell’s man of business said to try here.’
She looks me up and down; her eyes are shrewd.
‘I’ve worked for Mr Wharton now and then,’ I tell her. ‘I believe he’d vouch for me.’
A customer behind me screeches. ‘Get a move on. Some of us haven’t eaten since last night.’
The woman nods to me. ‘Go on then. Through to the back-room.’
There I find a low stone sink, a jar of sand, and a bucket of cold water. Dirty pots wait on a shelf, and before I can make a start a boy runs in and dumps down a stack of pewter plates and a tray of wooden trenchers thick with grease and gravy.
I have just dealt with them when the serving-woman brings in a pair of brass pots, the insides black with burned-on fat. ‘You picked a good day to ask for work,’ she says. Out in the kitchen the women’s voices grow louder and more shrill.
‘Are most of those wives of sailors on the Prudence?’
‘And other ships. They’ve all been waiting for the wind to change.’
I scrub and rub until my hand is sore, and at midday I am let stop for a few minutes, and given bread and dripping. When the sailors’ wives have had their fill a dozen butchers crowd in and order ale and beefsteak, and after that a procession of hungry tradesmen come in for bacon and boiled cabbage; but finally the light begins to dim and the woman locks up and ladles me a bowlful of soup. ‘Martha Downey,’ she says, indicating the bench next to the counter, and sticking out a hand as damp and swollen as my own.
She plants herself down next to me. Sweat darkens her sleeves under her arms, and her hair sticks to her forehead. ‘So who are you?’ she asks, blowing on her soup.
‘Corrie.’
‘Coral? What possessed your father and mother to call you that?’
‘Corrie. Short for “Coronation.” My father was a supporter of King William and wished to remember when he took the throne.’
‘I’d be quiet about that if I was you. “Coral” would serve you better. You’re not from Bristol, are you? Most Bristol men would sink a knife into any Dutchman they met on a dark night. Bloody Dutch, bloody pirates. My Ned hates every man Jack of them.’
‘Is Ned a sailor?’
‘Sail-maker. Off to Africa this morning on the Prudence, not due home for twelve long months or more. Let’s hope he brings us back a few gold coins. If he does, I promised to forgive his endless sea-wanderings and not ask about the whores who’ve shared his hammock.’ A throaty laugh before she takes a spoonful and I drink a little of my own soup.
‘I was on the Prudence yesterday.’ I cannot resist an audience for my story. ‘I carried a letter to the captain. The long-boat skipper rowed me out and I scaled the ladder by myself.’
‘So that’s what they’re calling it, is it?’ She bursts out laughing. ‘If you could see your face! Prim little country girl. What d’you think of the Prudence? Fine ship, isn’t she?’
‘She looked so tiny from the shore, then when we were waiting to climb aboard … even the water casks on deck were this big.’
‘You should see the main hold. My old man says it’s solid cargo, hammocks slung in every leftover corner they can find. But wait ‘til they trade that cloth and metal for slaves. They fit her out all over again with chains and bunks, and then it’s a floating goal, wind screaming in the sails and the negroes crying and wailing below like the damned in the mouth of hell.’
I shudder, remembering how my beloved Robert spoke of slave ships when we lived in Erlestoke, but Mrs Downey seems unconcerned by the picture her words have painted, and rises to her feet. ‘Right Corrie-Coral, whatever-your-name-is, rinse these last dishes and you can get off home.’
At that same moment a shrunken old fellow in a fustian coat and patched breeches lets himself in through the back of the shop, wheezing and sighing and sinking onto a chair without a bye-your-leave. I wait for Mrs Downey to throw him out, but she fetches a bowl of stew and places it in front of him. ‘There you are, O’Malley. Mop up that rum before they drag you to the roundhouse.’
And with her face full of satire, she stands over him as he eats. ‘Come on, O’Malley, what is it? You look miserable as sin.’
The steam from the soup makes his nose run, and he wipes it on his sleeve. ‘I’ll tell you, shall I? Only don’t lay the blame on me if you can’t sleep tonight. Bristol is heading for Judgment Day is all.’
She throws up her hands. ‘And what was it last time you had a dream? A plague of locusts? I caught a cricket on the hearth in May if that’s a plague.’
‘Ha, ha. This time it isn’t any dream, Missus, I wish it was. I blew in from Barbados late last night, and I never knew such a crossing as we endured. If the storms out west follow us here, we’ll have the worst winter for a century. Winds to pull down steeples and smash every ship in the Bristol Channel to smithereens.’ He bangs his bowl on the table. ‘Dig yourself a cellar is my advice, and make it on high ground.’
‘You mad old prophet you,’ she says fondly, fetching a cup of beer and slapping his shoulder as she sets it down. ‘I be glad to see you, you know, for all your bad tidings. There’s none like you, O’Malley, even if you love to scare us from our wits.’
‘I’m telling you gospel truth,’ he protests, ‘what weather they have in the Indies is like to be here a week after,’ and as if to prove his point the back door slams shut.
Mrs Downey winks. ‘Best get yourself gone then, before the roofs blow off. Come on, O’Malley, the rest of us have homes to go to if you don’t.’ She turns to me. ‘You can have this, condition on bringing it back washed tomorrow.’ She pours the dregs from the pot into an earthen jar. ‘And take the parings to the pig, will you? Out the back, mind you latch the gate.’
‘So you’ll be wanting me tomorrow?’
‘I can’t promise. You can ask.’
In the yard the pig trots over and while he guzzles I look past his sty to the plot with its tidy rows of leeks and cabbages and wonder how Mrs Downey came to buy her shop, and whether she was a servant first, and for how long. How many years, I wonder, before I can hope to own a shop like this one, or is such a possibility as far off as my being maid to Mr
s Tuffnell?
I set off for All-Saints. When Mr Gip spoke of the voyage ahead of him, he claimed he might never return to England, instead dying on board in battle or from fever. Listening to O’Malley’s talk of tempests, who is to say that the dear friend I knew in Erlestoke survived his passage west? Though whether he did or didn’t makes no difference, since I shall never see him in this life.
The rain has begun in earnest and the wind is almost a gale as I make my way up St-Nicholas-street with my small pot of soup and my lonely aching heart.
Chapter Fourteen
Wednesday, 31st October, 1703
After working two days at Mrs Downey’s shop, and tired of pot-washing, I toy with returning to Mr Wharton’s warehouse, but more than likely Mr Wharton has awarded himself a holiday now the Prudence has set sail, and is breakfasting this very moment with his wife and children, comfortably seated in his parlour in the Hot-wells with a dish of tea and Baby Emma on his knee.
Liz tells me the hiring-man may be found at the New Inn, so I make my way to the High-street, resigned to giving up half a shilling to register my name.
Just before the bridge a sight has drawn a crowd to gather by the roadside. The master of a coach-making concern has thrown open his gates, and a glittering new coach is being wheeled out of the workshop for approval by a lady in a blue gown and silk-trimmed blue headdress. Her face is hidden from view, but her page is clearly visible as he holds her skirts out of the mud. His hair is black and densely curled, and I do not need a second look to know that this is Abraham and Mrs Tuffnell.
The new coach is a splendid object, sleek and gleaming, as light and elegant as any I ever saw. The limner has finished the carriage in gloss blue, with red-and-white linings and a gilded coat of arms adorning the centre of the glazed and curving door. The wheels are high and as narrow as whipcord, and the fittings shine like gold.
Mrs Tuffnell claps and laughs and salutes the maker in a voice which carries across the street, assuring him that her dear husband will be along presently to look the equipage over for defects, and that meanwhile she is determined to take it for its first outing, up to the market cross and back again, when her groom is finished putting her two bays in the traces. Mr Roach stands balefully to one side during this discussion, and I suppose he has been made to walk the horses through the crowded streets while Mrs Tuffnell tripped ahead of him with her ‘Afric son’.
A Pair of Sharp Eyes Page 12