Theft of Life (35 page)

‘Are you going to shoot me and Mrs Rogers?
We
didn’t hit the girl, you know.’

‘Then I shan’t shoot you unless you make any move to harm her.’

‘Do you wish to know my name?’

‘I do.’

‘My name is Dauda. Do you like it?’

Francis cleared his throat. ‘I do. I was born Yoruba.’

Dauda opened his hazel eyes very wide. ‘And so what are you now?’

Francis folded the bag and placed it on the ground. The dogs seemed to take this as some sort of signal and came to flop, glowing with achievement, at his feet. He reached down to rub their heads. Time was, he had found the British attitude to their animals incomprehensible. Perhaps he had become English, after all.

Dauda was still looking at him. ‘Even if I don’t have a footman, I might send Mrs Rogers to fetch help.’

‘Unless she can find someone and bring them here before I load these guns, Dauda, then I will shoot the first one who comes into this room.’

Dauda considered this, then shrugged. ‘She cannot be moved, you know, Mr Glass. She is a sick little girl. So perhaps we cannot get you out, but then you cannot leave to get help either, can you?’

Francis had already realised this. The risk that some harm would come to Penny while he went looking for assistance was too great. ‘My friends have some idea where I am. I shall wait for them.’

Dauda frowned and put his head on one side. ‘What if I send for the man who brought her here?’

‘I think the man who brought Penny here murdered the woman I loved, so please, Dauda, send for him. Then I may shoot him myself.’

The other looked at him through half-shut eyes and long lashes. ‘You are a difficult boy to argue with! What is your real name?’

‘I have told it to you.’

‘That’s not the one you were given when you were born, dearest. That is a slave name.’

‘It was. Now it is the name of a free man. The girl is here – she lives. Do not try and shake me, Dauda, with talk of slaves. What are you?’

He stretched his legs out and yawned, though Francis thought he was neither bored, nor tired. ‘I’m a musician.’

Francis raised his eyebrows. ‘Are you?’

‘Yes, that is what I am.’ His voice suddenly pettish. ‘Though I will admit I have an audience of only one.’ There was the sign of real pain in his eyes at that and Francis felt for him. ‘Oh, put away that foul-looking cheese before it stinks up my lovely cage. I shall give you and your mutts a proper supper. Lord knows if any of us will live much longer. We may as well live in comfort while we can.’

D
R FISCHER CALLED IN
the late afternoon. Cutter told him that they were closed to business and Francis was away, but nevertheless the Reverend was disposed to linger. He made some mention of papers belonging to Mrs Smith that he needed to consult and went into the office without waiting for permission. There he found Eustache and Joshua still at work. He smiled at both boys, then gave Joshua a shilling and asked him to fetch him a pie from the bake house, and something for himself if there was change. Joshua looked a bit baffled and glanced at Eustache. Eustache nodded to him and off he went. Fischer beamed at him as he went, then shut the office door behind him and turned to Eustache.

‘Eustache,’ he said gently, ‘where is it? It is very important you give it to me. The man who wrote it was quite mad, and everything he says in those pages is a lie. I am sure of that. It is fit only for the fire.’

‘You stole my report. You ruined the shop.’

Fischer smiled his bright, handsome, confident smile. ‘I have a temper, I admit that it is a sin, I know, and one I struggle with every day. I was frustrated, Eustache, finding that the manuscript was not here and your rather detailed description of it was. But that does not matter. Give it to me.’

Fischer towered over him, but Eustache was surprised to find he was not afraid. He looked into the square-jawed face of the Reverend, and thinking of what he had read, felt instead a pure white blossom of hate. ‘It is safe in Berkeley Square,’ he said. ‘Everyone will read it. And everyone will know you had Mr Hinckley’s bookshop broken into to try and get it. Then no one will come to listen to you talk. When they have read what I have read, they will throw stones at you in the street rather than hear you preach.’

Fischer’s lips went thin and pale and his anger felt like sunshine on Eustache’s skin. ‘You are a child, you understand nothing of these things! I have made no secret of my time at sea or how I was employed.’

‘I understand this,’ Eustache said clearly and carefully. ‘You say you were a slaver as if it is being a real sailor, and we never thought about it. But you never said you were sorry. You said you were sorry for swearing, or drinking or thinking about women, you talk about spending the nights praying or reading your wife’s letters from home and writing to her every day and how you saw God’s face in a thunderstorm. Why didn’t you see God on the faces of the people you had dying in the hold? Why? You talked to us about spending weeks in Jamaica walking the hills and feeling yourself called to God, but I know that was not all you did there! You are a dog. And soon everyone will know it.’

Fischer’s chest rose and fell and his hands clenched into fists at his side.

‘When Mr Glass comes back, I shall tell him everything,’ Eustache said, every word tasting delicious to him. ‘Then Mr Ferguson will set it all in type and you’ll be done, dog. Graves will see it is read everywhere.’

Fischer took three steps towards him and grabbed hold of his wrist, twisting his grip so it stung and pulled the boy close to him. His voice came in a hiss. ‘Graves will hate you for this.’ It was such a surprise to him, Eustache felt his skin go suddenly cold. Fischer shifted his grip, making the bones in Eustache’s wrist ache. ‘Think of those names in your little report, Eustache. Bankers, politicians, Sir Charles and his son. And they all have friends, all very good friends, and slavery is
their
money,
their
trade. It is England’s money, England’s trade – and every right-thinking Englishman agrees. You make trouble for us and we shall make Graves’s life hell. God, he must want rid of you already. Poor modest, oblinging Mr Graves, all he ever wanted was his wife and a chance to live his own life, but your murderous parents ruined that for him, didn’t they? He must loathe you, though he tries to be good, him and poor old Mrs Service, they do
try
so to like you, don’t they? And now you’re going to make it all a thousand times worse. Give me that manuscript, or for ever after, every time Graves looks at you, he’s going to wish you were dead.
Every time
.’ His voice had become a snarl. ‘Your family will be mocked in the papers till even your servants don’t want to look you in the face. Every scandal attached to your name will be repeated every morning in the press. None of the traders in London will deal with anyone who crosses the threshold. The little troupe of freaks and misfits from Thornleigh Hall have pushed the city too far, boy.’

Eustache could not speak. He could only think of Graves, his weary kindness. His rage began to turn inwards and eat at his bones.

‘Or,’ Fischer’s voice became kinder, ‘or everyone could make Graves’s life a little easier. His unfortunate decisions of the past will be forgotten. The family will be praised, loved, invited everywhere. Even Mrs Westerman will be spoken of admiringly in society. Should her son wish to join the Navy, he will find a thousand friends there. You are a clever boy. Perhaps you will go into the Church. You may pick your appointments. Imagine how having good friends in every banking house, every newspaper, in every corner of government, will make your lives
so
much easier. Then Graves will find all his kindness and sacrifice rewarded at last. All you have to do is give me that manuscript – those ravings of a madman about the fate of some poor ignorant slaves you have never met. Give it to me and earn the love that has been wasted on you so long.’

Dr Fischer released his grip on Eustache’s wrist and smiled. ‘Bring the manuscript to me tomorrow morning, Eustache, there’s a good lad.’ Then he simply walked away and left the boy staring after him.

Joshua was very surprised to find Fischer gone when he returned a few minutes later. He offered to share the pie with Eustache, but he was not hungry so Joshua ate it himself and enjoyed the novelty of feeling too full to eat another bite. He wiped the grease off his fingers very carefully before touching any of the papers again.

The supper Dauda returned with on a tray was delicious. The dogs ate chicken breast from china bowls and fell happily asleep on the luxurious carpet in front of the fire. Francis was careful not to eat too much. He would not sleep until Penny was safe.

‘She is still unwell,’ Dauda said, patting his lips with a napkin. ‘She has woken once or twice, enough for us to give her water, but mostly she sleeps.’

‘Where does she think she is?’

‘Heaven. At least, she asked if she were in Heaven when she woke last.’

Francis felt only a soft wave of sorrow. Penny had been snatched back from death; Eliza had not.

‘This woman whom you loved, this Mrs Smith,’ Dauda went on. ‘Was she a white woman?’

‘She was.’

‘Tell me how you knew her.’ But Francis felt his throat close up and said nothing. ‘We have the time, Mr Glass. Indulge me, and who knows, perhaps we will be friends. I have never had a friend – it would be interesting for me.’

The fading light that still lit the room made Dauda’s face look as if it were cast from bronze. Francis found himself thinking it would be like confessing to an idol.

‘When I came to England first, my master lodged with her family in Norfolk Street. That was in ’sixty-six and I was ten years old, two years a slave and very frightened. I could speak little English. My master, Allear, was a trader in Bridgetown and I was one of his warehouse brats, though he would sell my labour to whomever was willing to pay.’ The window was open slightly so the evening air could stir through the sickroom from time to time, and the plain little English birds were singing out the last of the light. ‘I think he meant to give me to someone as a present when we came to England, but found that the rich women whom he sought to be his patrons wanted blacks who could sing or recite, not just some weakling child who could hardly speak. Eliza and her brother made a friend of me and tried to teach me English. When I did well, they would reward me with slices of their mother’s apple pie.’

‘And so won your loyalty forever,’ Dauda said gently.

Francis nodded. ‘Their kindness was the first I’d met with since I was taken. And the pie was delicious.’ Dauda’s musical laugh rippled among shadows. ‘I was sold to another man and taken back to Jamaica, though I learned to read a little on the journey. Then I was sold again and brought back to London by another man some months later.’

‘Why did no one wish to keep you, Francis?’

‘I cannot say. But I was a gangling child with no strength and the appetite of a grenadier.’

Dauda laughed again. ‘Poor Francis. Was your last master a better man?’

‘No better or worse than the one before, but my English had improved by then and I had taught myself to read well, and to write a little so I was more use to him. Still, he whipped me every day and I was so frightened of him I began to piss my bed. Then he would whip me more. Once I woke up in the night with the sheets damp and I was so frightened I ran away. I found Norfolk Street, broke in through the kitchen window and stole an apple pie.’

‘You did not! Why, Mr Glass, you poor miserable infant. You come in here with your mud and your dogs and your threats, and now I fear you will break my heart. Did they know it was you?’

‘They guessed. I went up for theft in front of the Old Bailey, sure they would hang me, but Mr Smith, Eliza’s father, told the judge how I had not stolen the silver spoons from the larder and that he forgave me the pie. I was found not guilty and released. I was sure I was dead, but the man I had stolen from put his hand on my shoulder and called me his friend. I would have crossed the earth for him after that.’

‘That does not surprise me, Mr Glass. Now tell me the rest. What happened between your release at the Old Bailey and the hour you appeared on my doorstep with your silly dogs?’

So Francis told him, as the light continued to fade and the dogs chased rabbits in their sleep, how Mr Smith had bought him, and told him he was free the same day. How he was christened and Mr Smith stood his godfather, how he had fed his love of books and learning, and had eventually got him work with his old friend Mr Hinckley. How one of the proudest days of his life had been when he had paid back his purchase price to Mr Smith from his wages; Mr Smith had held a party to celebrate and they had cleared the front parlour of the house in Norfolk Street so that they could dance, and dance they had.

At some point in the story Dauda had rung for the candles to be lit and Mrs Rogers had come upstairs with a taper in her hand. The dogs were woken and taken to sleep outside. Now Dauda listened to the story of Francis’s work, his constant love for Eliza, and her death – the hopes taken from him.

‘Tell me who did this, Dauda. I must learn some time. Why should I not hear it from you? Why protect him?’

‘I cannot tell you, Francis. I simply cannot. I wish I had been loved, as you have been loved, but only my mother cared for me that way. After she was gone I had to take what forms of love I could find, and imperfect as they are, I still must honour them tonight.’

Dauda smiled at him then stood and turned his back. Before Francis understood what he was doing, he had taken off his beautiful coat and waistcoat and lifted his undershirt so Francis could see his naked back. The light drifted over his skin as if it wanted to caress it. He was perfect, unmarked. He let the shirt fall again and sat down. ‘I have always been too beautiful for the whip. It has been a blessing and a curse.’ He stretched out his legs, crossing them at the ankles, and rested his chin in his hand.

‘I shall tell you what I can, Francis dear. I was born in Jamaica. My mother was the favourite slave of an overseer on a good plantation. After his wife died she lived in the house like a white woman and ate with him when there were no visitors. I was brought up there and treated like a little pet by the household. Only my father’s white daughter ever beat me. Slapping and pinching and delighting that the bruises hardly showed on my skin. Then sometimes she would hold me and tell me stories, and I would love her so much for those moments.’ Francis remembered the devotion George and Eliza had inspired when he had learned he need not fear them. ‘I think my mother believed she and the overseer were married, that I was safe as a pure white boy. Then when I was thirteen a man offered a great deal of money to buy me, and my father accepted. My mother begged him not to, but it did no good.’