DINNER WAS LATE AND served with sulky unwillingness. Kbara and the boys had tucked their slave collars under their high neckcloths, but the lower necklines of the women’s dresses meant they could not conceal them. Their chains glinted in the candlelight as they moved around the table, each one labeled like a decanter of drink. Frances thought that at last they were clearly marked for all to see, a Bristol commodity, as much goods of the city as sherry or port wine.
Josiah drank heavily at dinner and ate little. Lord Scott, seated on Frances’s right and opposite Sarah, kept up an easy flow of talk. He had news of Frances’s cousins and of the health of Lady Scott, banished to Whiteleaze for her lying-in. And he had news of London and the gossip from the City and from Parliament.
“The abolition debate is rather subdued at the moment,” he reported. “But there is no doubt that it will rise up again next year. They cannot succeed, not while the gentry is against them, but they can stir up a lot of bad feeling.”
“It will never come to anything,” Sarah said firmly. “Mr. Wilberforce knows nothing of what he is talking about. He should turn his attention to the conditions in the northern cotton mills; that is nearer to his home! But no, he is one of these meddling minds who has to see things at a distance. Why, he has even been party to the setting up of a school for farm laborers’ children near Cheddar. There have been many complaints from farmers that they cannot get the children to work as they should; they are forever running off to Mr. Wilberforce’s school. I should like to see how he would like it if we meddled in his business and started trying to pass laws to ban it.”
“No,” Lord Scott said, smiling at Sarah’s indignation. “I do not think he would like it at all. But surely we cannot hope to avoid abolition forever. Your company might do well to perhaps consider another venture.”
“I do consider it,” Josiah said grimly. “I consider my land-based venture every day, and every day it costs me more.” There was a brief, embarrassed silence. Lord Scott glanced across at Frances.
“I was sorry to hear that you were unwell, Frances,” he said. “Are you quite recovered? Bristol suited you. I was so pleased when you wrote to me that you were feeling so strong and so happy.”
Frances started; she had not been following the conversation at all. “I am quite well,” she replied. She was desperate to know if Mehuru was badly hurt, and she was still shocked at the explosion of violence in her own parlor. She could not look at Josiah. Brought up in a vicarage and shielded from the reality of life by both her status and her sex, she was frightened by the least sign of violence. Josiah’s anger, erupting in her own morning room, was enough to make him a monster in her eyes.
At the end of the meal when the ladies withdrew, Frances whispered to her uncle that she felt unwell and that she would bid him good-bye. He rose from his seat, drew her to him, and kissed her on the forehead. “I am sorry to see you thus,” he said and the phrase took in the whole evening: Frances’s sick pallor and Josiah’s despairing rage.
“Such a thing has never happened before. . . .”
“I will call again,” he soothed her. “As soon as Lady Scott has been brought to bed. And you must come and stay with us.” He turned to Sarah and Josiah. “And you, too, Miss Cole and Josiah. Lady Scott would be delighted to have your company.”
Sarah looked frankly disbelieving, and Josiah hardly heard the invitation. He was slumped in his chair, staring at his glass. Lord Scott’s quick assessing gaze passed over him.
“Good night,” Frances said, and slipped from the room.
CHAPTER
33
AS SOON AS THE family had gone to bed, the slaves had unlocked Mehuru’s door with Cook’s spare set of keys and brought him down to the kitchen. He sat, with the children at his feet, in the fireside chair. The women slaves were seated on the kitchen bench, facing him in a solemn row. Kbara sat at the kitchen table. Cook, her feet on the fender, was seated in the opposite chair and clasped her hands in her lap, controlling her sense of outrage. In the flickering light from the fire, the slave collars on the women’s necks gleamed.
“It isn’t right,” Cook said softly. “I want no part in it. I won’t order you. I won’t work for them anymore if they treat you so. There are many kitchens where I would be welcome. I don’t have to stay here and be a party to this.” She rose to her feet and stirred the coals with a poker through the door of the range. “It isn’t right,” she repeated.
Mehuru nodded. He was reminded for a moment of the lengthy counsels of the villages at home. To an outsider it might look as if no one was capable of any decision; to an outsider it might look as if the men were sitting around idly, chattering. But what was happening was the difficult stages of discussion, working through to a hard-won consensus. What was primitive, Mehuru thought, was the notion of government as a state of permanent warfare—first one side having the upper hand and then the other. The English justice system was no better—a battle between two opposing points of view. The African way was slower and harder, but it worked on the belief that agreement was possible, that men and women could come together and find a course to suit them all. It was neither victory nor defeat.
Kbara was in favor of them taking all that they could carry and running away this very night. But the women, especially Elizabeth, were afraid of what might happen. The newspapers were full of advertisements for runaway slaves, and the rewards offered would tempt anyone.
“But don’t you see,” Mehuru argued, “that the rewards show that slaves are hidden by English people. The owners have to offer a high reward to make English people betray the runaway slaves. The rewards should make us more confident, not less. We could not stay in Bristol, of course. We would have to go to London, and there are thousands of people of our color living there.”
“Maybe,” Mary said slowly. “But they would offer a high reward for all of us, and if we stay together, as we want, we would be easy to find. Besides, what could we do?”
“Mehuru and I could work,” Kbara said.
“Doing what?”
“On the quayside. There are lots of black men working at the port.”
“And we could work as house servants,” Martha suggested. “Laundry, or waiting tables, or housework. We’ve been trained well enough. Elizabeth could be a parlormaid or even a lady’s maid. I could try out as a cook.”
“Could we get the boys apprenticed to a trade?” Elizabeth asked. “They need proper work. I don’t want them working down at the docks. It is rough and it is dangerous, and besides, anyone who wants a slave can just come by and thieve them away from us.”
Mehuru’s face was hard. “They can’t get an apprenticeship in London. The lord mayor himself has ordered that no black boys can be trained for work. They passed a special law to ban black boys from being trained.” He gave a bitter little smile. “They must think us very skillful, if the white men have to be protected against our apprentices.”
“And what about the girls?” Elizabeth pressed. “The girls need work, too. I don’t want them growing up with nothing to do but dirty work. Little Susan is as bright as any child I’ve ever known. She should be sent to school, if we were at home—” She broke off. At home a bright girl could find herself a training; she could work in the palace and rise as high as her skills took her. “It seems a long way away now,” Elizabeth said sadly.
“What about going home?” Kbara asked. “What about this Sierra Leone? We could go to London and take a ship to Sierra Leone. It’s not Yoruba, it’s not my people, but at least we’re in the right place. At least we’re in Africa. And we could maybe travel overland, back to our homes.”
Mehuru shook his head. “We can’t travel home. The trading routes have been destroyed. There are no caravans we could join. There are no villages we could visit. Inland from the coast for miles and miles, the country has been wrecked. The people are enslaved or in hiding. The fields are growing weeds. No one travels down the rivers unless they are hunting for slaves. The country is
unsafe.
“And I doubt very much that this Sierra Leone is safe either. I’ve seen the pamphlets, I read them to you all, but I also heard from a man at the constitution society. He says that it is not a proper colony at all but just somewhere for England to dump unwanted freed slaves. They got volunteers for the first settlement by refusing black beggars their dole unless they signed on and went. When the ships were blown ashore at Plymouth, the captains battened down the hatches and wouldn’t let the black people go ashore. They had to eat the rations they had for the trip while they were waiting, so they were hungry on the voyage. They would not let them have stoves or candles. What does that remind you of ? A long sea journey with not enough to eat and cold all the time? What does it remind you of, Kbara?”
“But if Africa is at the end of it? Africa and freedom?”
“What if at the end of it there are a couple of farms, a stockade fence, and the whole of the country from north to south making war to take slaves, selling slaves at a profit? How long do you think we would last? And these little children would be taken by slavers again. Do you think they would survive that journey twice?”
Kbara was silent for a moment. “So what shall we do?” he demanded. “What shall we do? We have to do something now, while Josiah is away from the house all day and Sarah is too worried about the business to watch us. And we will not bear these collars. This is our chance, Mehuru.”
“I know,” Mehuru said gently. “You are right. Our chance is now, and we should take it. I don’t think we can go back to Africa, and I don’t think we should stay in Bristol. But there are other cities and towns. There are places where we could get work, perhaps send the children to school, teach them trades. Stuart Hadley would help us get away; he would advise us where to go.
“I cannot stay here.” He touched his shirt where the silver collar rubbed against the skin of his neck. It was smooth and well made, but he flinched as though it scratched him with every move he made. “I cannot bear it,” he said.
“We stay together,” Mary decided. “I want to stay with you, all of you.”
Elizabeth dropped her hand on Mary’s. “You are like my sister. I could not bear to be without you.”
“I will ask Stuart to advise us,” Mehuru said. “I will creep out and find him tomorrow.”
JOSIAH WAKENED IN THE morning with a thick head and a foul taste in his mouth. He washed quickly and dressed without care. He brushed past Kbara in the hall, and his silent, sulky step to one side reminded Josiah that Mehuru was still locked away.
He turned, ran up the stairs, and tapped on Frances’s bedroom door. She was awake but still in her bed. When she saw him, she shrank back against her pillows and her hand went to her throat. She was afraid of him. She remembered the sullen rage of his drinking through dinner and the sudden explosion of violence when he had pummeled Mehuru to the floor. Frances flinched at the sight of him, and underneath her fear was resentment.
Josiah did not even notice. He was too anxious about his business—too absorbed in the disaster that was building every day. He had forgotten the slow growth of confidence and ease between them, had forgotten the pleasure of making Frances smile. He had forgotten the ease and sense of plenty in the luxurious house and the slowly blooming beauty of his expensively bought wife. All he could see now was the mounting weight of his debts; all he could hear was the steady tick-tick of accruing interest. All he saw when he looked at Frances, pale and defensive in her bed, was another expense.
“The slaves are supposed to be in your keeping,” he said brusquely. “See that Cicero is fit to be released this morning, and have him ready for sale. If I can speak with Stephen Waring, I shall close the sale today. And the little boy. I will sell the others as soon as they can be advertised. We are desperate for money, and I am sick of having the house cluttered up with their idle bodies.” He tossed the key to Mehuru’s room onto the bed, where it fell with a weighty clink.
“He cannot be sold,” Frances protested. Her voice was a little thread against Josiah’s angry gruffness.
“Why the devil not?”
He had never sworn in her presence before. Frances flinched. “I . . . He is promised to my Uncle Scott,” she lied quickly. “You can sell Julius to Mr. Waring. He will not know the one from the other, but my Uncle Scott specifically asked for Cicero.”
“He’s a fool, then,” Josiah snapped. “After the man’s behavior, he should be shipped out to the plantations.”
“You would not—”
“Only because it would not pay,” Josiah said spitefully. “If I could sell him for hounds’ meat at a profit, I would do so. Now, get up, madam, and set the house to rights. You are idling here while everything is going wrong. The slaves are your charge, and they are running wild. God knows how much they cost me. God knows how much you all cost me.”
He stamped from her bedroom, leaving the door carelessly ajar. Frances stayed very still in her bed, frozen with fear, until she heard his feet thunder down the stairs and across the hall and the front door slam.
It was a brisk November morning in the square. A gardener was sweeping the fallen leaves into large, damp piles. Josiah did not look up at the pale sky nor enjoy the fresh, cold air on his face. He could smell the tang of the incoming tide as it washed the flotsam and garbage back into the heart of the city. This tide should bring in Rose, he thought, and strode down to the quayside to scan the splashing water for his ship. He looked along the length of his quay in all its neat, lonely emptiness. He looked downriver to where the gorge started to rear up. There was no ocean-weary ship being towed inland. There was no sign of her. There was still no sign of her.
IN THE HOUSE IN Queens Square, Frances dressed quickly and then climbed the stairs to Mehuru’s room, the key in her hand. She tapped on his door.
“Yes?” he answered in Yoruban.
“It is me,” Frances said. “I have the key.”
She fitted it in the lock and opened the door. Mehuru had washed and shaved and changed his linen. He looked elegant and impassive. His eye was bruised, a dark shadow against the darkness of his skin. “I am sorry,” Frances said inadequately.
“Will you take my collar off?”
She looked down at his feet. “I don’t dare,” she admitted shortly. “I don’t dare go against him.”
“I will run away,” he warned. “I will run, and you will never see me again.”
She stole a quick glance at his face and then looked away again. “Indeed I think you should go,” she said, her voice very low. “He wants to sell you; he said he would close the sale today. I have delayed him with a lie, and so he will sell Julius instead. I cannot keep you safe, Mehuru. I cannot keep any of you safe. I am sorry, I am so sorry.”
“We will go tonight,” he said.
She nodded without looking at him. “Very well.”
“We will never come back.”
They stood, a foot apart, neither touching nor looking at each other.
“I know I will never see you again,” she whispered. “I wish you Godspeed.”
“Won’t you come with me?” he asked. “Take the chance now, Frances. Now, while there is nothing to stay here for. Josiah is in trouble, Sarah openly dislikes you. Come away with me. We will find somewhere to live. We will find somewhere that we can be together.”
She shrugged her shoulders, a small, unhappy gesture of defeat. “I cannot,” she said. “I dare not. I have no money, and I cannot work. I am ill, Mehuru. You would not get very far with a sick woman. And I have no courage.” She looked up at him honestly. “I have no courage at all. I saw him strike you last night, and I did nothing but jump to my feet and say, ‘Josiah!’ and then I poured him his tea. I am ashamed.”
He shrugged. “There was little you could do,” he said tightly. “And I have had worse beatings.”
“But I did nothing,” she persisted. “Nothing to save you, nothing to save Died of Shame. I lack courage, Mehuru. When I was a girl, I was full of spirit, but I ha
ve been made into the very essence of an English lady—all I can do is watch and wring my hands and pour the tea.”
“You could run away from it all,” he suggested. “Run away to be the wife of an African, be an African woman.”
“I dare not.”
There was a noise of a door opening below them. “Frances?” Sarah called, her voice sharp.
The color rushed into Frances’s face as she turned to go at once, instantly obedient. Mehuru put his black hand on the white sleeve of her gown.
“Hire a carriage,” he said quickly and insistently. “Let us drive out together this afternoon, for the last time, Frances. Let us be together this afternoon, for we will never see each other again.”
She kept her head turned away. She could not bear to look at him, did not dare to risk looking into his intent face and seeing the longing in his eyes.
“Yes,” she whispered, and went downstairs.
JOSIAH WENT FOR HIS breakfast to the quayside coffeehouse. The door was swinging open and shut as busy men pushed in and out. The cold drafts billowed in, and the sweet smell of rum, tobacco smoke, and sugar billowed out. There was a small silence as the traders saw Josiah—a pause no longer than a heartbeat—but Josiah noticed it. It was the silence of the herd when they notice an animal mortally sick. They were ready to turn on him and drive him out. They were ready to eat him alive. Their own survival was a stronger force than any friendship or loyalty. The word was out that Josiah was overextended and that Rose was two weeks overdue.
A man stood up from a table in his path and put a hand on his sleeve. “Josiah,” he said pleasantly. “A word with you.”
Josiah was on his way to the top table, to the Merchant Venturers’ table. He hesitated, scowling at the man from under his brows. “Yes?”
“A little bill overdue, a trifle,” the man said. “From fitting out Lily when she was last in port.”
Josiah nodded. “An oversight,” he said gruffly. “I’ll see to it. Send it in again. It must have been mislaid.”