Blood & Sugar

by Laura Shepherd-Robinson

  It was a way of making him understand. Cruel, but necessary – the hardest thing I’d ever done before or since. I stoked the fire, unable to look upon his face. Then I untied the ribbon and dropped his letters into the flames. We stood and watched as the pages blackened and curled.

  ‘There you are, Hal,’ he said, at last, in a quiet, fractured voice. ‘Now I might never have existed. I’m just a ghost in a story you once told of yourself.’

  I cried silently, there in my bedroom, great sobs that wracked my body. Whatever had been rising in me since Tad’s death, the banks had burst. It washed everything else away, even the creature that was fear. I knew only the loss of him. The loss of myself.

  As I wept, I tallied the debits: America, the letters, my absence from his side when he’d walked into danger. I thought of Amelia too. Our conversation at the church. The last words she’d heard me say were that I didn’t wish to know her. I gazed at the man in the mirror in his tattered uniform. I remembered those battlefields in America where I’d wanted to die.

  Press on with my inquiry and I risked everything. My seat in Parliament, my reputation, Caro and Gabriel. Do nothing and I might as well be dead. The realization calmed me. I had to go forward, because I could not go back. If it seems like the height of madness, then perhaps it was – but you did not know Thaddeus Archer and you never will.

  I thought of the murderer then, a hood where his face should be. I thought of Tad on the Cherwell, smiling, sugar flowing through his fingers. I chose to see it in Deptford terms, not as love or honour, but as a transaction. I owed, and that debt would be paid in full.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Sleep brought me respite from my memories, if only for a while. I woke much later than usual and by the time I had washed the stink of the cell from my aching body, I could hear that Caro was up and about. I went downstairs to the dining room, where I found her breakfasting with Gabriel. She wore a silk dressing-gown and her hair hung in loose curls. Gabriel had a rim of chocolate around his mouth, and she was reading aloud to him from the newspaper, putting on funny voices to make him laugh. It was the scene I had always imagined: my contented house.

  Except none of it was real. My marriage was a blighted moor. All we had was Gabriel and a shared interest in my political prospects. Those prospects would be worth nothing without the support of Cavill-Lawrence. He controlled the ministry’s borough-mongers and the electoral purse-strings. One word from him and my seat in Parliament would vanish like a pricked bubble. Under such circumstances, would Gabriel be enough? Divorce was unthinkable, but separation was a different question. Caro’s inheritance was tied up in trust, which gave her options. I couldn’t bear the thought of parting with Gabriel. And yet how could I take my son from his mother?

  Caro noticed me standing in the doorway. ‘Pomfret told me you were back.’ She registered my expression. ‘Has something happened?’

  I nodded and she rose from the table. We slipped into the hall, where we spoke softly so that Gabriel couldn’t hear.

  ‘Amelia is dead, murdered by the same man who killed Tad.’

  Briefly I recounted the story. Her face paled.

  ‘You might have been killed. I can hardly comprehend it. And arrested, Harry! Are you certain no word of it will get out?’

  I wondered if it was my death or the prospect of a scandal that so alarmed her. I searched her sea-blue eyes for a clue. Sometimes I believed the depths they contained were impossibly vast. Other times I thought them implausibly shallow. Today I found I had no opinion at all.

  ‘Is that all you have to say? Nothing about Amelia?’

  She frowned. ‘Don’t imply that I don’t care. You have no right.’

  ‘I’m only asking what you think. It isn’t a crime, Caro. Perhaps you believe she brought it upon herself?’ I wasn’t angry, only tired now of all the lies and hypocrisy.

  Two spots of colour had risen on her cheeks, and when she spoke her tone was crisp. ‘If you want to know what I think, then I shall tell you. Thaddeus and Amelia were cut from the same cloth. They fought against everything people know and believe to be true. Thaddeus and slavery. Amelia’s elopement. They thought they could refashion the world to suit their own private desires. Yet you cannot break the rules without consequence, Harry. Rightly so.’

  ‘She was a lonely, unhappy woman. She only wanted to find the man who killed her brother.’

  ‘No, she wanted you to find him. She didn’t care who else got hurt. The Archers never did.’

  Perhaps we might have said more, words we would have been unable to take back. Yet Gabriel must have heard some part of our argument, for he burst into tears and she ran to him. I pulled my watch from my waistcoat pocket, the numbers blurring before my eyes. ‘Please excuse me. I must get to Whitehall.’

  *

  I spent the late morning and early part of the afternoon at my desk in the War Office, working through a pile of dispatches that had accumulated in my absence. My clerks were diligent and I fear I tried their patience sorely. All I could think about were the mysteries I’d left behind in Deptford. As soon as I could, I manufactured an excuse to leave my desk. In the lobby I walked past Cavill-Lawrence, deep in conversation with one of our generals. His eyes followed me out the door.

  I still didn’t fully understand his involvement in this business. The ministry had sound fiscal motives to protect the slave trade from its detractors, and it was also in their political interest to placate the West India lobby. Yet when Cavill-Lawrence had questioned me, I had sensed a deeper concern. I felt he hadn’t merely been trying to reassure Napier Smith and the West India lobby of my lack of complicity – he had been trying to reassure himself.

  It was yet another mystery, and I was convinced that some of the answers might lie here in London. Last night Cavill-Lawrence had said that Tad hadn’t acted alone. Tonight I intended to go to the tavern Scipio had told me about to look for the Children of Liberty. Tomorrow I would try to find Moses Graham, the fat gentleman from Tad’s funeral. It had been obvious that he and his skinny assistant, Proudlock, had been hiding something.

  First I wanted to look for The Dark Angel here in Whitehall. I was acutely aware that any search of the ministry’s archives would carry me into dangerous territory. I did not take Napier Smith’s threats lightly and I had few illusions about Cavill-Lawrence. If he felt I’d betrayed his trust, then he’d throw me to the wolves. Yet since last night, I viewed the world through a different prism. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about the consequences. It made me sick just to think of them. Yet Tad had walked willingly into danger and if I was to settle my account with him, then I must be prepared to do so too.

  I stepped out onto Whitehall. The street was a sea of government clerks, hurrying between government offices, their wigs a froth of grey scurf on a black, silk tide. To my right, the spires of the Palace of Westminster stood stark against the sun-bleached sky. I walked in the opposite direction, towards Charing Cross.

  During times of war, many merchants lodged records of their trading voyages with the Admiralty. Should a ship be sunk by the Americans or the French, the owner might have a claim to reparations once the war was won. Lodging a record precluded any dispute over ownership or the value of a cargo. It was possible that John Monday had done so for The Dark Angel.

  I showed my credentials to the guards at the Admiralty gatehouse, and was admitted into the courtyard. Naval officers in blue uniforms strutted like peacocks between the pale stone buildings. I had been here many times before on War Office business, and no one batted an eyelid as I entered the principal building and went upstairs. The Admiralty reading room was long, light and airy, hung with paintings of ships and navy Sea Lords. Lawyers from the Admiralty courts sat at long tables, poring over precedents and statutes.

  I knew the clerk on the desk, a man named Moseley. We exchanged a few words about the latest news from America. Then I asked him if the Admiralty held any records on The Dark Angel. He was gone an unusually lo
ng time, and when he returned, he looked a little troubled.

  ‘We have no records on her, sir. Not here.’

  ‘Are you saying there are records somewhere else?’

  ‘I cannot answer that, sir.’

  ‘What do you mean you cannot answer that?’

  He examined me with what I fancied to be a trace of suspicion. ‘Any queries relating to this ship are to be referred to Under-Secretary Cavill-Lawrence. Would you like me to put your request in writing, sir?’

  That could only mean that the documents had been designated a secret of state.

  ‘No,’ I said swiftly. ‘I will take it up with him myself.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’ Moseley’s eyes were definitely distrustful. I wondered who he’d been speaking to during his absence.

  ‘Can you search for another vessel? The Duc d’Orleans? The owner is the same man as before, John Monday of Atlantic Trading and Partners. Her name is now The Phoenix, but I’m interested in her first voyage after she was bought by Monday – before the name was changed.’

  This time the clerk was gone only a few minutes and when he returned, he had a file in his hand. ‘You need to sign the docket, sir. And again when you return it.’

  I did as he requested, and withdrew to one of the library tables. A cavalry exercise was taking place on the parade ground outside, and the thump of hooves and barked commands drifted up to me through the open window.

  It took me nearly half an hour to go through it all. The file contained a copy of the certificate of sale, as well as a bundle of correspondence between the Admiralty and various interested parties. Letters from John Monday, from Captain Vaughan, from the naval officer who had captured and sold him the vessel, and from the acting-commissioner of the slave fort at Cape Coast who had witnessed the sale. The letters only mentioned The Dark Angel in passing and told me nothing of significance.

  The final letter was from Monday’s insurer, a gentleman named Hector Sebright of Lloyd’s Coffeehouse, Pope’s Head Alley. It confirmed that the vessel and its cargo had been insured with him for the sum of eight thousand pounds. According to the letter, the ship’s manifest and a list of the investors were attached. I turned the document over, but I couldn’t see them. I went back through the file, looking for these documents. They weren’t there.

  Had they been mislaid? Perhaps. Yet another possibility occurred to me too. Monday had said that Vaughan had bought the Duc d’Orleans using letters of credit backed by his investors – the same syndicate which had financed The Dark Angel. Had Cavill-Lawrence removed the names of these gentlemen from the public record, just as he’d removed all trace of The Dark Angel?

  I returned the file to Moseley and the fussy fellow handed me his docket to sign. As I did so, an entry on it caught my eye. The file had been withdrawn as recently as yesterday and I knew the name of the man who’d signed for it very well. I stared at his signature, wondering whether I needed to re-examine any of my suspicions in the light of it. Deptford’s magistrate, Peregrine Child, had come here looking into the Duc d’Orleans. I wondered if he had taken the same path through the files as I had – if the genesis of his search had been The Dark Angel? Almost certainly.

  Pondering this discovery, I left the reading room. At the door I glanced back. The clerk was still watching me, his face sharp and thoughtful. I departed by the rear entrance, onto the Horseguards Parade Ground, where formations of cavalry wheeled and turned. As I walked towards Buckingham House, the shouts of the cavalry officers ringing in my ears, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched.

  *

  I spent several more hours searching for The Dark Angel in the archives of the Southern Department and the Court of the King’s Bench. Either nothing had ever been there, or Cavill-Lawrence had been thorough.

  My last port of call was the Cockpit, a rambling, red-brick building on Whitehall, where Tudor courtiers had once watched their King play tennis. These days it housed the Board of Trade and the Privy Council, with bedrooms for clerks squeezed into the airless attics. It had occurred to me that the arrival of The Dark Angel in Jamaica, missing two-thirds of her cargo, would have been quite an event. It was possible that the governor of the island had mentioned it in his dispatches.

  I showed my credential to the Board of Trade’s archive clerk and asked him for all correspondence from the Governor of Jamaica during the months of December 1778 and January 1779. He returned with three packets of documents and I signed the corresponding docket, uneasy that I was leaving a trail of my inquiries across Whitehall. I took the documents to one of the cubicles designated as reading rooms.

  The first dispatch contained only the usual diplomatic business that a governor of an English crown colony has with his masters back home: summaries of meetings with local dignitaries and planters, reports on the condition of fortifications, and the inevitable pleas for better naval defence and extensions to crown grants. I read it through, and then put it to one side.

  The second dispatch seemed little different to the first, and yet as I scanned the pages, a name leaped out at me. The Dark Angel. Here she was at last. My heart beat a little faster. Cavill-Lawrence had been diligent, but even he was capable of making a mistake.

  I turn now, your Lordship, to an odd piece of business that has lately been the talk of all Kingston. A slaving vessel, by name The Dark Angel, lately docked in port, the larger part of the cargo having been destroyed by the crewmen during the voyage. I happened to be down at the dock on business when the surviving blacks were led off the ship, blinking in the sunlight, looking as if they had been carried to hell and back.

  Anxious to understand what had occurred, I had the captain brought to me, along with the ship’s surgeon. The pair claimed the vessel had run out of water and the slaves were drowned to preserve the health of the crew and remaining Negroes. Yet the captain’s account was rambling and confused, and my overall impression was that the pair were hiding something. The captain, a swarthy character named Vaughan, is said to be an opium-eater and perhaps his habit played a part in what transpired. If the captain fears for his professional reputation, that might explain his reticence.

  The surviving slaves have now been sold – all save one, the personal concubine of the captain – and the usual purchases of sugar and tobacco been made. The ship is due to weigh anchor for Deptford tomorrow morning. Though I pray nightly that Providence delivers our merchant shipping safely to these shores, I do not mind saying that I will be glad to see her go.

  In such sentiment, I fear I am not alone. Even here in Jamaica, the slaves’ demise in such a fashion was greeted with some distaste. I do not doubt that the reaction at home would be infinitely more censorious. I therefore ask that all efforts be made to suppress reporting of this matter, should it reach the ear of our journalist friends in Grub Street. Our plantation owners are beleaguered enough as it is. They need no more burdens with which to contend at this difficult time.

  My fingers tingled with the sensation a new discovery begets. The news that Captain Vaughan smoked opium was surely pertinent to my inquiry, but more significant still, I felt, was the revelation that he had brought a woman slave, a survivor, back to Deptford. Vaughan’s landlord at the coaching inn had made no mention of a slave girl and I wondered if he’d subsequently sold her. If so, I could hazard a guess at the name of the buyer.

  I remembered Cinnamon’s expression as she’d described the murder of those children, her voice shaking with the passions her tale inspired. Was it the anger of one who’d undergone that hellish voyage and lived to tell the tale?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  The shadows were lengthening by the time I reached the parish of Marylebone on the north-west fringes of the city. I remembered when there had been little but fields between here and Oxford Street, but the city had been steadily encroaching northwards, and now threatened to swallow up Marylebone entirely. I was greeted in the village by the thwack of cricket balls on the green and laughter from the many skit
tle-grounds and taverns.

  The Yorkshire Stingo was distinguishable from the other taverns only by its patrons. An overgrown garden was packed with drinking blacks, many wearing footmen’s livery, evidently enjoying their evening off. Other Africans wore ragged versions of my own uniform, or the shabby coats universal to working men.

  Inside the taproom, a band were playing a jig and couples were dancing. Most were black, but a few white patrons bounced African whores upon their laps. The black tapwoman smiled at me.

  ‘You looking for a friend, soldier? A drop of dark honey to sweeten your ale?’

  She was a pretty girl with a freckled nose, a flash of gold tooth, and plump brown breasts spilling out of her stays.

  ‘I’m looking for the Children of Liberty. Someone said you might know where I could find them.’

  The gold tooth disappeared, along with her smile, and she snatched up a cloth. ‘Can’t help you there, soldier. Mind out now.’ I drew back as she swept her cloth along the bar.

  I guessed they had to be wary about spies and informers. ‘Thaddeus Archer was a friend of mine,’ I persisted. ‘If you could just pass on that message.’

  ‘I told you, soldier, you’re in the wrong place.’

  Looking at her expression, I decided against offering a bribe, and retreated with my pot to a nearby table. She gave me a cold stare, and leaving her potboy to mind the bar, walked to a curtain in the wall that presumably led to one of the back rooms. Standing in front of it was a huge African built like a boxer. He stepped aside to let her through.

  She emerged a few moments later, and I felt her gaze on me again. Who had she been speaking to back there?

  For the next hour, I sat and watched the drinkers, looking out for anyone who displayed overt signs of abolitionist allegiance. Most of the patrons were engaged in the usual tavern pursuits, and the only political activity I witnessed was a shabby African handing out pamphlets. I held out my hand for one. It advertised an abolitionist meeting in Bishopsgate later in the week. I saw with interest that Moses Graham, the fat African gentleman I’d met at Tad’s funeral, was listed as one of the speakers.