“I wonder if we might be paid a wage,” he said.
“What?” She recoiled as if he had slapped her. “A wage?”
“We work as Cook works,” he went on persuasively. “She is paid wages and has time off. We are servants as she is.”
“But you are slaves!”
“I wish we could be servants. I could be content as your servant. I could serve you and have my pride.”
“It’s not possible. . . .”
“No, Frances,” he said quickly. “It is this which is not possible. I cannot be owned by you any longer. I have to have my freedom. I cannot be with you as I want to be with you, unless I am a freeman. Anything else shames us both. I want you to pay me, to pay all of us, and then at least I would be here by my own choice, I would be my own man.”
“Josiah would never agree. . . . Sarah would never allow it.”
“If you paid me enough, I could rent a room and you could come to me. We could be together under my roof, not hidden, not secret.”
She shook her head. “It is not possible, my dear. It is not possible.”
“You are the owner.”
“In name alone. Everything I own, from my clothes to my father’s dining table, became Josiah’s when we married. It is his scheme; he bought you and the others. If you and the others were freed, who would pay? Sarah keeps the accounts. There are the shipping costs and your food and livery—”
“We could pay you back, out of our wages.”
She shook her head. “Mehuru—you have been sold and John has been sold for a hundred and ten guineas each! You could never earn that amount! Cook is paid only thirteen pounds a year, and she is trained. This is all part of a scheme; you are the first consignment, and then there will be other slaves coming, and they . . .” She trailed off at the thunderstruck look on his face. “What is the matter? What is it?”
“Did you say I am sold? And the little boy John is sold?”
She nodded.
“You have sold me?”
Her eyes flickered from him to the door as if she wished someone would interrupt them. “Cicero, I—”
“Don’t call me that!”
“What?”
“Don’t call me Cicero!” he said in a sharp undertone. “In your bedroom you called me Mehuru! I won’t be a freeman in your bed and a slave in your parlor.”
“Mehuru . . . the sale has not gone through. It was an offer only, and Josiah has accepted it. It was before Easter . . . before I knew. . . . It was before we . . . I did not think . . .”
He turned abruptly, strode over to the window, and glared out into the backyard. It was a warm, sunny morning. A rosebush, sprawling over the backyard wall, was slowly opening its buds. He watched a bee land and struggle through the rich parcel of petals to the orange center.
“You will sell me?”
She could not see his face and did not know what the tight tone in his voice might mean.
“No,” she protested. She could feel a sense of panic rising. She had never argued with a man before, had never faced a man’s anger. “Please, Mehuru, be patient. You know I could not bear to be without you. You know that. I will tell Josiah that we have to keep you, and we will sell Julius in your place.”
He turned on his heel. “Until you are tired of me,” he said bitingly. “When you have had your fill of me, you can sell me then. You could sell me to a woman who wanted a man, with a special recommendation. You could tell her I am not fit to be paid a wage for a decent day’s work, but that I can be played with and”—in his anger he stumbled over the English words, but he made an obscene gesture with his hand—“used like a bull to a cow.”
Frances went white and dropped into a chair. “It isn’t like that. . . . It isn’t like that. . . .”
He stalked to the door. “Excuse me. I have not carried the night soil pail down from the women’s room. It will be stinking. I have work to do.”
“Mehuru!” she called. But the door had slammed behind him, and he was gone.
Frances rose from her chair, ran to the door, and flung it open. But in the empty hall she hesitated, her hand on her heart to still its painful racing. She could not cry out for him, could not chase him around the house. He was her servant. He was lower than her servant; he was her slave. To betray for one instant that she had forgotten her position and his would be a disgrace so total that death itself could not be worse. If Josiah knew, if Sarah knew . . . Frances shuddered at the thought and went back into the parlor. She seated herself again at the table and stared unseeingly at the notepaper.
Anyone coming into the parlor would have seen a lady of quality, fashionably dressed, writing letters. Frances, as still and as elegant as if she were sitting for her portrait, listened, in case Mehuru relented and came back into the parlor. She listened and she waited all morning. The rapid, fluctuating beat of her heart raced every time she heard a footstep in the hall, but he did not come.
CHAPTER
25
AT MIDDAY JOSIAH CAME home from the coffeehouse where he had been forward-selling the cargo of Daisy. She had been seen loading off Africa and should be home in December. Josiah wanted to raise money to give him some ready cash for the housekeeping costs. He was gambling that she would be home on time and with a good cargo of sugar. He met a friend of Stephen Waring’s, Mr. Green, who was enthusiastic about the Hot Well lease. He assured Josiah that it was a fine piece of business and that only his commitment to building in Clifton meant that he himself was not in the running for it. In the meantime he offered Josiah a Hot Well lodging house at a price anyone could see was attractive. He complimented Josiah in seeing the opportunity of the Hot Well for what it was, a potential gold mine. Josiah came home excitable and with a sense of moving in the circles of the highest power in Bristol, where a whisper could make or break a man.
Frances hastily sent down a message to Cook that Josiah was home and wanted some luncheon. Within half an hour, a cold collation was laid in the morning room. Sarah joined them.
“You are pale, Frances,” she observed. “Are you unwell again?”
Frances shook her head. “I am perfectly well,” she said. A small, niggling pain at her heart contradicted her, but she ignored it.
“Will you take a little rum and water?” Josiah offered.
Frances refused. “No. I will have a glass of ratafia and just a piece of bread and butter.”
He helped her to her place and rang the bell. “I had an inquiry for one of our boys. The surviving one is promised to Mr. Waring. He is well enough to be sold now, is he not?”
Frances caught her breath. “Oh, no,” she said hastily. “Not yet. I don’t think so. And he is very little.” She glanced over at Mary, who was serving them from the sideboard and who knew enough English to follow the conversation.
“How old d’you think he is?” Josiah asked around a mouthful of bread and ham.
“About four years, perhaps five,” Frances answered.
“Old enough, then, to run errands. He could go as a page boy.”
“I am not yet happy about his health,” Frances said desperately. “It would look very bad if we sold him and then he was sick or even died. We must make sure he is well before we let him go.”
“Yes,” Josiah agreed. “But we could use the money, Frances.”
“What news of Rose?” Sarah demanded. “Have you had bad news, Josiah?”
He shook his head. “No, no news at all, sister. I was thinking merely that it is time that the slaves were sold. We have had them for more than half a year. We always thought they would go within six months.”
“Their training was so interrupted, with moving house and everything,” Frances insisted breathlessly. “You must give me longer. If they are to be a credit to us . . . They don’t all speak well . . . and we have to keep Mehuru, I mean Cicero, to run the house and train the others. . . .”
“Very well,” Josiah said pacifically. “No matter. Whenever you think fit, my dear.”
U
nseen under the table, Frances pushed her fist against her rib cage, where she could feel a sharp, growing pain.
“And what have you been doing this morning?” Josiah asked, making ponderous conversation.
“I have written to my Uncle Scott,” Frances said. “He is staying with some friends in Yorkshire.”
“Yorkshire, eh?” Josiah exclaimed. “I have no friends in Yorkshire, I am sure. That’s where that blackguard Wilberforce comes from. They’re very hot on abolition in Yorkshire; it is a nest of agitators.” Josiah nodded at Sarah. “I think we have no cause for concern as yet. The Venturers say that it will all blow over. Wilberforce has the support of only a few men, and we are a powerful lobby. All the main cities of the kingdom and all the manufacturers are against him.”
“When is the vote?” Frances asked. “It is this month, is it not?”
“The eleventh,” Josiah replied heavily.
“What would we do if the trade were to be abolished?”
Josiah gave her a small smile. “Beg, borrow, or buy ships and do as many voyages as we could. The profits on slaves would go through the roof.”
“If it were banned?”
“No ban would be immediate,” Sarah explained. “Any ban on the trade would take several years to come in, and during that time prices would be at a premium. Everyone would want to stock up while they could.”
“And compensation would be paid to slavers,” Josiah supplemented. “The greater profits one could show, the greater the compensation. But in any case, I am not afraid of abolition. We have too much power. This is our Parliament, chosen by our electorate and stuffed with our placemen. Of course it will serve the interests of honest traders and landlords.”
Frances nodded.
“I shall drive out to the Hot Well this afternoon,” Josiah said. “Will you come with me, Frances? I want to see how busy it is midweek. This is the prime season; it should be coining money.”
“Certainly,” Frances replied. She had a swift thought that now she would not be able to see Mehuru until the evening. But Josiah’s wishes must come first. “I would like to see it.”
“You can take a glass of the water,” Josiah said cheerfully. “Will you come, sister? You must come and see it. I am serious about buying the lease. I have had sight of the books, and they show that the major expenditure has all been made. Stephen Waring is sure that we can earn a return from it.”
“A return such as a voyage to Africa and the West Indies will make?” Sarah demanded. “I doubt it.”
“A different business with different costs and different benefits,” Josiah assured her. “We have to move with the times, Sarah. All the great Merchant Venturer companies have shipping, but they have land and collieries and building interests, too. We have to be like them—we have to have some of our money out at sea and some of it safe home here on shore. And it is steady, Sarah. There is not the long wait for your profit. Now that we have high and steady expenses, we need a business which pays us every month, not once every two years.”
Sarah cleared her throat. “You can go, Mary,” she said. Mary curtsied and left the room. Sarah waited until the door had closed behind her. “I did not want to speak before her, but, brother, I must speak to you and Frances frankly.”
Josiah looked deeply unhappy. “Speak, Sarah. You know I always value your advice. This is your company as much as it is mine, and your fortune as well as mine depends on it.”
Sarah glanced at Frances. “I am not against Frances, or you, brother,” she began. “But I must question what is happening to the company. In my father’s day and in the early days when you and I ran the company, we took a pride in trading with cash in hand. We bought trade goods with cash, we bought slaves with trade goods, we sold slaves for gold, we bought sugar with gold, and we sold sugar at a profit on the quayside for more gold, which then paid for the next voyage.”
Josiah nodded.
“When we realized that the trade was slipping away, that fewer and fewer large investors were taking a share on our voyages, we decided to sell slaves direct into England. You married Frances to obtain her dowry to finance their purchase and so that she should teach them for free and sell them to her friends.”
Frances, who had never before heard Josiah’s proposal explained in such bald terms, blinked but could not disagree.
“Why do we now think of changing everything?” Sarah demanded passionately. “The money we earn from the sale of these slaves should buy more slaves. The money we earn from each voyage should equip another voyage. But instead it is being wasted on this house and high living, and all I hear from you is one scheme after another. We do not need schemes. We already know how to make a profit. Trade is what we have always done, and trade is what we should do—trade with cash in hand.”
Josiah and Frances were silent.
“There is another thing,” Sarah continued more quietly. “I know that you have longed all your life to be a Merchant Venturer, and I congratulate you on your election to the company. I believe it was bound to come to you in time, as an honest, profitable Bristol trader. But I would remind you, brother, that these are new friends, they are not tried and tested. If Mr. Waring advises you of an opportunity or wants to borrow money, you should treat him with as much suspicion as an out-of-work captain in the coffeehouse. He cheated us over this house—”
“Now, Sarah! He never did!” Josiah exclaimed.
“He did! He did!” she cried passionately. “Three houses on the market the moment we paid him the deposit. All of them friends and neighbors of his! All of them cheaper than this! He told them to hold off until he had landed his fish, Josiah. And you are so besotted with becoming gentry you, will not see it.”
She had caught him on the raw. His voice rose to match hers. “How dare you say such a thing! In all my years trading, I have never been bested, but I have always seen chances which you would have missed. You’ve never moved on, Sarah. You’ve always looked back. You were happiest living with Da over the warehouse and with one racked old boat. You think small, Sarah, and you want to cut me down to your size!”
Frances ducked her head down and sliced bread and butter into tiny slivers, longing to be out of the room and away from the loud voices.
“I think as you should think,” Sarah hissed. “I think that you are a small trader, and now you are swimming in a large pond with greedy men who will gobble you up, Josiah. I do not trust Stephen Waring. I do not trust his ideas. And I certainly do not trust the Hot Well if it comes with his recommendation! Why can you not see that! Why can you not keep to the trade you know?”
Josiah pushed his plate away and strode to the window, his face flushed, his feet stamping on the floor in anger. He glared out the window, and a street seller who had been about to set up his pitch and sing his ballads picked up his tray and hastily moved on.
Josiah gripped the windowsill until his knuckles showed white. He fought his anger until he had it under control. Then he cleared his throat and turned back to the table. “Now, Sarah,” he said kindly, “don’t rant at me. I am trying to do my best. Let me explain my thinking to you, and let us be friends.”
She was still quivering, but she nodded that she would listen. Brother and sister glanced down the table to Frances. Her head bent low, she was pleating and repleating the napkin in her lap. Brother and sister regarded her with mild irritation and then returned their attention to each other.
“When we buy goods—trade, slaves, whatever—we move them to make our profit. We take them to another market, where they command a better price.”
Sarah nodded.
“And it costs us to move them. We can never be sure what damage a ship will suffer. It can lose a mast, it can lose its sails. If the worst occurs, we can lose the whole ship and the crew and cargo.”
Sarah nodded again. “So?”
“But when we buy land—such as the Hot Well spring—we can work it where it is. We know the risks. Nothing can go wrong with it. It’s not like a shi
p tossed about by the wind and the weather. The water comes out of the ground hot and bubbling, and we bottle it and sell it, or we sell it at the spa. It’s safe money, Sarah. Safer than your ships. And there’s another profit, a hidden profit.”
“How?” she asked reluctantly.
“Everything is costing more,” Josiah said. “It was his lordship, Lord Scott himself, who showed it to me. We were talking about his rent rolls when Frances’s dowry was to be paid, and he showed me. They are using new methods to farm, the land is yielding more, and so every farm, every farm in England, is more valuable than it was twenty years ago. The ground beneath our feet, even here in the city, is more valuable. When we come to sell this house, we will get more than we paid for it. When we come to sell the Hot Well, we will get more than we paid for it. Every day everything we own becomes more valuable.”
Sarah shook her head at the incredible concept.
“It is like a miracle,” Josiah breathed. “A miracle, Sarah. Everything we own is becoming more valuable. Even the warehouse, even the rock of the caves. Everything is growing in profit. All we have to do is to turn the warehouse, the rock, the land under our feet into cash.”
Sarah would have interrupted, but Josiah was entranced by the prospect of self-generating wealth. “Look at the prices for land on Park Street. If we had bought land on either side of the street ten, twenty years ago, we could have had it for ten pounds an acre. Do you know what it is worth now?”
Sarah shook her head.
“Hundreds,” Josiah said. “You could name your price.”
“But we did not buy it,” Sarah maintained stubbornly. “Because we did not know that it was going to become fashionable. We did not know it would be valuable. We could not have predicted it. You have never looked beyond a house here, in this square.”
“Yes, but now we can make predictions,” Josiah said. “We did not guess that people like the Warings would move up the hill to Park Street because we did not know them. I did not hear them speak of it; I was not invited to their table in the coffeehouse. But now I am there, Sarah, and I do hear the rumors. Now I know where the fashion is taking hold. And I tell you, it is the Hot Well, it is Park Street. We are too late for Park Street. But we can snatch at the Hot Well, and in ten years’ time we can sell it for ten times what we have paid for it, as well as running it at a profit now.”