Respectable Trade (22 page)

Miss Cole shook her head decidedly. “No. We prefer to live in the town. My brother says that a merchant is happiest where he can see the masts of his ships.”

“I am sure he knows best,” Sir Charles said pleasantly. “And so the next time I come to visit you, I shall see you in a beautiful town house, Mrs. Cole.”

“Yes,” Frances said thinly.

Sir Charles nodded for more wine at the black slave who stood behind him, and the man stepped forward and poured. Frances shook her head. “I drink only water at noon.”

“Why, that is why you are so pale!” Sir Charles exclaimed. “You must let me give you a little of my own rum, in a punch of my own devising.” He nodded to the slave. “Punch, Sammy. Punch. Quick-quick.”

The man bowed, unsmilingly. “Yassuh.”

“Please don’t bother,” Frances protested. “I assure you, Sir Charles . . .”

He smiled and leaned toward her. He put out his hand and rested it over hers. Unseen by Miss Cole, his little finger slid
beneath her wrist and caressed the delicate skin. “You must indulge me,” he said. His voice was very warm. “I have been spoiled in the Sugar Islands, and I bring my luxurious ways home with me. You must indulge me, Mrs. Cole.”

Frances, thinking of his indulgences last night and the woman who today smeared earth on her face and filled her mouth with dirt, took her hand away.

“You are a fine host,” Miss Cole said sharply, keeping a critical watch on Frances. “My sister will be delighted to taste your punch, and then we must go home. We have much to do in the afternoon, as you will understand. My sister is no longer a lady of leisure; she is the wife of a working merchant. She has duties now.”

Sir Charles shot a sympathetic look at Frances. Then his slave came in with a silver punch bowl, and he turned his attention to the drink.

“I must speak with Mr. Cole on business this day,” he said after he had squeezed the lemons and added the sugar. He nodded to the slave and watched him carefully as he handed around the silver cups of punch.

“My brother will be delighted,” Sarah replied instantly. “Is there any way that I can be of assistance?”

“You can advise me, ma’am,” Sir Charles said pleasantly. “I am dogged by the troubles of getting my moneys to England. There are investments I wish to make; I wish to buy land here. I shall return to live here one day, of course, and there is Honoria’s dowry to think about. I don’t like to send bullion on a strange ship, and I have no agent in England to handle notes of credit for me. I even have some gold with me now, but I need the name of someone whom I can trust to handle it for me, to invest it.”

Miss Cole thought for a moment. “You have no family here?”

He shook his head. “It was all done by my brother; he was my factor. But he died two years ago, and I have no one to take his place.”

Miss Cole cleared her throat. “If I might be so bold as to offer our services . . .” she began tentatively. “We have had a long and successful trading relationship, Sir Charles. I know that both my brother and I would be honored. . . . You could place your moneys with us, and we could serve as your agents in England. We could purchase what things you needed and send them out to you on our ships. You could give us notes of credit for all the slaves you purchase from other traders, and we could pay them when they were presented to us.”

Sir Charles hesitated. “I know trading companies do this. But mostly in London, and, forgive me, they are all larger concerns.”

Sarah touched her tongue to her dry lips. “We are expanding, as you know,” she persisted. “And we have reserves of our own capital to draw on. We are experienced in the trade.”

“But the purchase of land . . .” Sir Charles let his doubt trail into silence. He implied, but did not say, that a self-made Bristol trader would hardly know how to buy good agricultural land.

“You would want to choose your own estate, of course,” Sarah continued desperately. “But we could collect the rents for you.”

“Yes,” Sir Charles said slowly. “But land is a very different thing from the trade, my dear Miss Cole.”

“I am sure my uncle, Lord Scott, would be happy to assist,” Frances interrupted suddenly.

Both Sir Charles and Sarah looked toward her, surprised. Frances felt irritated that they should assume that she had nothing to say in a conversation about business, that she was as much of a parasite as Honoria, who was gazing blankly out the window.

“He told me that Josiah was to call on him at any time,” Frances said. “And he owns much land in Somerset, and he also has a large estate in Scotland and a lot of land in Ireland.”

“Lord Scott himself would be prepared to advise me?” Sir
Charles asked. He glanced toward Honoria. “You would introduce us?”

Frances, who might know nothing of business, knew a great deal about social values. “My uncle, Lord Scott, would be delighted to assist you and to welcome you and Miss Honoria to Scott House in London. My aunt and uncle are there for the Season. My aunt generally gives a ball. I could ask her for tickets.”

Honoria, who had been daydreaming during the business discussion, straightened in her chair and fixed her father with a meaningful glare.

“Well, well.” Sir Charles smiled. “What an excellent idea! I should be honored with Lord Scott’s acquaintance. I should be happy to enter into an agreement with you, if Lord Scott were our adviser. It might be a very good idea indeed.” He beamed at Frances and shot an indiscreet wink at Honoria. “I should be grateful,” he said. “Grateful to make his lordship’s acquaintance. And Miss Honoria would be glad of a ticket to the ball, I don’t doubt! You are obliging, Mrs. Cole. I appreciate it.”

“It is my pleasure,” Frances said coldly. She knew that she was a fool to be led into favors for Sir Charles, but her pride had been piqued at being neglected at the luncheon table; she had been driven by an unworthy desire to outshine Sarah and by irritation at being excluded from the conversation. She did not know how to be his guest and yet keep her distance from him. And she had longed to put Miss Honoria in her place.

Sir Charles sent them home in his hired carriage, as it had come on to rain. As they drew near to the quay, Frances could smell the sweet, nauseating stench of the river. The rain was washing smuts down out of the heavy sky. The dark, dirty clouds of smoke from the glass furnace and from the leadworks hung around the spire of St. Mary’s, staining the intricate carvings and trailing tears of soot down the faces of the stone saints. It was growing dark with the early dusk of midwinter. Sarah was bubbling with suppressed elation. “You did very well,
Frances,” she said. “Very well indeed. Sir Charles is a fine man to have as a friend.”

Frances felt her momentary excitement drain away. “I do not like Sir Charles,” she said in a small voice. “And I have a headache.”

“He is a most important man to us,” Sarah snapped. “And your mention of Lord Scott was very helpful. Will you be able to bring his lordship up to scratch, d’you think?”

Frances stepped out of the carriage and went to the front door. A new ship was in port near to the Cole dock, and the Merchant Venturers’ great crane was screeching as it swung out and hauled barrels up from the hold. The noise jarred on Frances’s taut nerves. She was sorry that she had been persuaded to go to lunch and angry with herself at her complaisance to Sir Charles. She had wanted to enter into the world of persuasion and business. With the return to the dirty little house on the quayside, she realized that she had been exercising her social charm on a rapist to benefit a petty dockside trading company.

“Lord Scott has my interests at heart,” Frances said distantly. “I am sure he will do anything I ask him.”

“If we can get him to come in, then we can be Sir Charles’s agents, and our problems of cash will be over.”

The door opened. Frances stepped inside before her sister-in-law. “I hope so indeed,” she replied, smothering a cough.

Sarah clicked her teeth together. “You did offer,” she reminded Frances. “You will have to come up to scratch. You cannot promise something and then renege. These are business matters; your word must be sacred.”

“It is not religion,” Frances said tartly. “You speak as if a contract were one of the Ten Commandments.”

Sarah nodded. “It is. That is exactly what you must learn as a merchant’s wife. You should break one of the commandments before you break your word. Everything this house has been built on depends on the reliability of our word.”

“I will try to understand,” Frances said with dull resentment. “I am teaching the slaves, sister. I will do everything else that is in my power to further our business. And if Josiah wishes it, I will ask Lord Scott for his advice and ask him to invite Sir Charles and Miss Honoria to Scott House.”

“He is a fine gentleman,” Sarah insisted. “He would be perfectly at home in Scott House, I don’t doubt.”

“I do not share your confidence. But Lord Scott will understand and make allowances.”

Sarah knew herself to be snubbed but let it pass without comment. Brown closed the front door behind them as Frances started to climb the stairs.

“You will teach the slaves this afternoon,” Sarah reminded her.

“I will have a rest and teach them at four o’clock.”

“I hope you will feel better then,” Sarah said grudgingly. “You have done well today, sister. I do recognize it.”

Frances nodded and went into her room, closed the door, and leaned back against it. If it had been furnished with a bolt, she would have locked it against her sister-in-law, and against the claustrophobic house, and against the imposing vulgarity of Sir Charles.

Sarah had not seen that tiny, distasteful caress of his finger on her wrist, and Frances did not know what would have been said. In her world—the world of the country aristocracy—a flirtation after marriage was a normal state of affairs. But in this anxious world of Bristol merchants, where a fortune hung on appearances, Frances did not know how she should behave.

She had no feelings to guide her. Even as a girl, Frances had never fallen in love. She had watched her cousins’ passing infatuations and agonies at balls and dances and picnics with mild amusement. When they declared that she was cold, she had not denied it. She lacked passion, and the years had made her cool and distant—even from herself. The death of her mother, and then a year later of her father, had taught her that the price of
love is vulnerability, and she never wanted to feel the grief of loss again. She thought that all her feelings had died with her father, that she had wept them out of her heart, and that for the rest of her life she would see everything through a thick pane of glass and feel everything as though through gloves.

Frances rubbed her face, pressing her fingers against her temples where her headache drummed. She lay down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. In the street outside her window, someone was rolling barrels; the rumble of the wood against the cobbles seemed to shake the very house. She shifted her head on the pillow, seeking comfort but finding none. Then she closed her eyes and slept.

H
ER BEDROOM DOOR OPENED
, and Brown came in. “Miss Cole said to wake you,” she said apologetically. “She has ordered the slaves up from the cellar. Bates will take them to the parlor when you say.”

Frances yawned. “I slept.”

“You’d have been tired out, late last night with Sir Charles at dinner and then lunch with him today.” Brown moved around the room deftly folding laundry and putting it into the drawers, straightening Frances’s silver-backed brush and comb on the ponderous chest of drawers. “Even Miss Cole took a rest, and that’s not a thing which happens often.”

Frances sat up in bed. “I’ll change my gown,” she decided, glancing down at the creased muslin. Nothing stayed clean in this city. At home she would wear the same gown all the day, but in Bristol the continual drift of smuts and ash covered everything with a fine, dark grit that soiled white linen within hours.

“There’s the sprigged muslin with a green silk sash; that’s pretty. But rather fine for staying home,” Brown suggested.

“I’ll wear it,” Frances said.

Brown shook the gown by the shoulders and spread it out
for Frances to see. It was tightly fitted over a silk bodice, with smooth, close-fitting sleeves. The sprig in the white muslin was in the pattern of little flowers, and the green sash was embroidered with matching flowers. It was a dress for springtime, a dress for walking on a warm, well-clipped lawn in the country.

Frances nodded and stood with her arms out while Brown unhooked her at the back, helped her step from her old gown, and then threw the afternoon gown over her head.

“Just tie my hair back,” Frances ordered. “I’ll wear it in a knot.”

“You have such pretty hair,” Brown said. “I could put a little curl in it. There’s the kitchen fire lit; I could have the tongs heated in a moment.”

“No,” Frances said, reaching for a warm shawl against the chill of the bedroom. She did not want to confide in a servant, but she thought that it was hardly worth curling her hair when there was no one to see her but her sister-in-law and her husband. Mehuru would see her, of course. But Mehuru was hardly interested in whether her hair was curled or straight. For a moment she wondered if he saw her as a woman at all, or only as a slave driver, as an enemy. She hoped very much that he knew she was not his enemy. “Tell Bates to take the slaves to the parlor. We can start at once,” she said.

She waited while Brown went downstairs, and then she heard the slaves slowly coming up the back stairs from the kitchen. She heard their low, frightened whispers from the hall before she went to the head of the stairs and walked down.

Mehuru, looking up at the noise of her bedroom door closing behind her, saw her coming down, almost floating, down the stairs, gliding like a ghost in a white mist of a gown. Frances, seeing his face upturned and watching her, paused on the stairs and put her hand to the base of her throat, where her pulse was suddenly thudding. Mehuru saw the color rise into her face and go again, leaving her even whiter than before.

“Mehuru,” she said.

“France-sess.”