Respectable Trade (2 page)

F
RANCES OPENED
J
OSIAH
’
S LETTER
and reread it for the tenth, the twentieth time. She tucked it into the pocket of her plain gown and went down the vaulted, marble-floored hall to his
lordship’s study. She tapped on the door and stepped inside.

Lord Scott looked up from his newspaper. “Frances?”

“I have had a reply,” she said baldly. “From the Bristol merchant.”

“Has he offered you the post?”

She shook her head, pulling the letter from her pocket. “He makes no mention of post or pupils. He has offered me marriage.”

“Good God!” Lord Scott took the letter and scanned it. “And what do you think?”

“I hardly know what to think,” she said hesitantly. “I can’t stay with Mrs. Snelling. I dislike her, and I cannot manage her children.”

“You could stay here. . . .”

She gave him a quick, rueful smile, her pinched face suddenly softening with a gleam of mischief. “Don’t be silly, uncle.”

He grinned in reply. “Lady Scott will follow my wishes. If I say that you are our guest, then that should be an end of it.”

“I do not think that I would add to her ladyship’s comfort, nor she to mine.” Her ladyship and her three high-bred daughters would not welcome a poor relation into their house, and Frances knew that before long she would be fetching and carrying for them, an unpaid, unwanted, unwaged retainer. “I would rather work for my keep.”

His lordship nodded. “You’re not bred to it,” he observed. “My brother should have set aside money for you or provided you with a training.”

Frances turned her head away, blinking. “I suppose he did not die on purpose.”

“I am sorry. I did not mean to criticize him.”

She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. Her ladyship would have fluttered an embroidered handkerchief. Lord Scott rather liked his niece’s lack of wiles.

“This may be the best offer I ever get,” Frances said abruptly.

He nodded. She had never been a beauty, but now she was
thirty-four, and the gloss of youth had been worn off her face by grief and disappointment. She had not been brought up to be a governess, and her employers did not treat her with any particular consideration. Lord Scott had found her her first post but had seen her grow paler and doggedly unhappy in recent months. She had replied to an advertisement from Cole and Sons thinking that in a prosperous city merchant’s house she might be treated a little better than in the country house of a woman who delighted to snub her.

“What did you think of him as a man?” he asked.

She shrugged. “He was polite and pleasant,” she said. “I think he would treat me well enough. He is a trader—he understands about making agreements and keeping them.”

“I cannot write a contract to provide for your happiness.”

She gave him her half-sad, rueful smile. “I don’t expect to be happy,” she said. “I am not a silly girl. I hope for a comfortable position and a husband who can provide for me. I am escaping drudgery, I am not falling in love.”

“You sound as if you have made up your mind.”

She thought for a moment. “Would you advise me against it?”

“No. I can offer you nothing better, and you could fare a lot worse.”

Frances stood up and straightened her shoulders as if she were accepting a challenge. Her uncle had never thought of courage as being a woman’s virtue, but it struck him that she was being very brave, that she was taking her life into her own hands and trying to make something of it.

“I’ll do it, then,” she said. She glanced at him. “You will support me?”

“I will write to him and supervise the contract; but if he mistreats you or if you dislike his life, I will not be able to help you. You will be a married woman, Frances; you will be his property as much as his ships or his stock.”

“It cannot be worse slavery than working for Mrs. Snelling,” she said. “I’ll do it.”

M
EHURU, DRESSED VERY FIN
e in an embroidered gown of indigo silk and with a staff in his hand carved with Snake, his personal guardian deity, strolled up the hill to the palace of Old Oyo with Siko walking behind him.

It was yet another full meeting of the council in two long months of meetings. The alafin—the king—was on his throne, his mother seated behind him. The head of the military was there, his scarred face turning everywhere, always suspicious. The council, whose responsibility was for law and enforcement throughout the wide federation of the Yoruba empire, was all there; and Mehuru’s immediate superior, the high priest, was on his stool.

Mehuru slipped in and stood at the priest’s shoulder. The debate had been going on for months; it was of such importance that no one wanted to hurry the decision. But a consensus was slowly emerging.

“We need the guns,” the old soldier said briefly. “We have to trade with the white men to buy the guns we need. Without guns and cannon, I cannot guarantee the security of the kingdom. The kingdom of Dahomey, which has traded slaves for guns, is fast becoming the greatest of all. I warn you: They will come against us one day, and without guns of our own we cannot survive. That is my final word. We have to trade with the white men for their armaments, and they will take nothing from us but slaves. They will no longer buy gold nor ivory nor pepper. They will take nothing but men.”

There was a long, thoughtful silence. The alafin, an elected monarch, turned to the head of the council. “And your view?”

The man rose to his feet and bowed. “If we capture our own people, or kidnap men from other nations, we will be ruined within a generation,” he said. “The strength of the kingdom depends on its peace. A nation that trades in slaves is in continual uproar, making war on individuals, on other nations. And we
will never satisfy the white men’s need for slaves. They will gobble us up along with our victims.”

He paused. “Think of our history,” he continued persuasively. “This great nation started as just one town. All the other cities and nations have chosen to join with us because we guarantee peace and fair trading. We
have
to keep the peace within our borders.”

The king nodded, and the queen, his mother, leaned forward and said something quietly to him. Finally he turned to the chief priest, Mehuru’s superior. “And your final word?”

The man rose. His broad shoulders, thickened by a cape of rich feathers, obscured Mehuru’s view of the court and their serious faces. “It is a sin against the fathers to take a man from his home,” he began. Mehuru knew that his vote was the result of months of meditation and prayer. This was the single most important meeting that had ever been held. On it hung the future of the whole Yoruba nation, perhaps the future of the whole continent of Africa. “A man should be left free with his people unless he is a criminal. A citizen should be free.”

Mehuru glanced around. The faces were grave, but people were nodding.

“It is a sin against the earth,” the chief priest pronounced. “In the end it all comes back to the earth, the fathers, the ancestors, and the gods. It is a sin to take a man from his field. I say we should not take slaves and sell them. I say we should protect the people within our borders. They should be safe in their fields.”

There was a long silence. Then the king rose to his feet. “Hear this,” he said. The old women who had the responsibility for recording decisions of the council leaned forward to hear his words. “This is the decision of the council of the Yoruba kingdom and my command. Slave trading with white men of any nation shall cease at once. Kidnap of slaves within our borders is forbidden. There shall be no safe passage for white men or their agents when they are on slaving hunts. Other trade with the nations of white men such as gold, ivory, leather goods, brassware, and spices is allowed.”

There was a murmur of approval, and the king seated himself again. “Now,” he said with an ironic smile, “we have the policy—all we have to do is to enforce it while black slavers hammer at our western borders and white men’s ships cruise up and down our coastline in the south.”

Mehuru leaned forward and whispered to the high priest. The man nodded and rose to his feet. “The Obalawa Mehuru has made a suggestion,” he said. “That we of the priesthood should send out envoys to the country and the towns to explain to the people why it is that we are turning away from this profitable trade. Already some cities are making handsome fortunes in this business. We will have to persuade them that it is against their interests. It is not enough simply to make it illegal.”

The king nodded. “The priests will do this,” he said. “And we will pass the orders down to the local councilors, from our council down to the smallest village.” He shot a little smile at Mehuru. “You can organize it,” he said.

Mehuru bowed low and hid the look of triumph. He would travel to the far north of the Yoruba kingdom; he would speak in the border towns and convince people that slaving was to be banned. He would serve his country in a most important way, and if his mission was successful, he would make his name and his fortune.

“I am honored,” he said respectfully.

Whiteleaze,
nr Bath,
Somerset.

Thursday 25th September 1787

Dear Mr. Cole,

I am Honored and deeply conscious of the Compliment you pay me in your kind letter and your Proposal.

I was indeed Surprised at the Abrupt termination of our interview before you had explained my Duties or introduced my Pupils; but now I understand.

It gives me great Pleasure to accept your Offer. I will be your wife.

My Uncle, Lord Scott, will Write to you under a separate cover. He tells me he will Visit Bristol shortly to give himself the Pleasure of your Acquaintance, and to Determine the Marriage Contract, and date of the ceremony.

Please convey my Compliments to your Sister Miss Cole.

Your obdt servant,
Frances Scott.

Josiah tapped on the door of the parlor and entered. His sister was seated at the table, the company books spread before
her. A small coal fire was unlit in the grate; the room was damp and chill. Her face was pale. Only the tip of her nose showed any color, reddened by a cold in the head. She was wearing a brown gown with a black jacket and little black mittens. She looked up, pen in hand, as he came in.

“I have a reply from Miss Scott.”

“She has assented?”

“Yes. His lordship himself is coming to Bristol to draw up the marriage contract.”

“I hope it serves its purpose,” Sarah Cole observed coldly. “It will cost a great deal of money to keep a wife such as her.”

“She will have a dowry,” Josiah pointed out. “If nothing from her father, then her uncle, Lord Scott, is likely to dower her with something.”

“She will need a larger house and a carriage and a lady’s maid.”

Josiah nodded, refusing to argue.

“Her tastes will be aristocratic,” Sarah said disapprovingly.

“It is a venture,” Josiah replied with a small smile. “Like our others.”

“In the trade we know the risks. Miss Scott is a new kind of goods altogether.”

Josiah’s quick frown warned her that she had gone too far. As his older sister, responsible for him throughout their motherless childhoods, she still retained great power over him, but Josiah could always call on the prestige of being a man. “We must take care not to offend her,” he said. “She will find our business very strange at first.”

“She was prepared to come here as an employee,” Sarah reminded him.

“Even so.”

There was a brief, irritated silence. Brother and sister each waited for the other to speak.

“I’m going to the coffeehouse,” Josiah said. “I shall see if anyone is interested in coming into partnership with us for the
Lily.
She is due home at the end of November; we need to buy in trade goods and refit her.”

Sarah glanced at the diary on her desk. “She set sail from Jamaica this month, God willing.”

Josiah tapped his large foot on the wooden floorboards for luck. The modest buckle on his shoe winked in the light. “You have the accounts for the
Lily
’s last voyage to hand?”

“You had better seek a partner without showing them. We barely broke even.”

Josiah smiled. His large front teeth were stained with tobacco. “Very well,” he said. “But she is a good ship, and Captain Merrick is usually reliable.”

Sarah rose from her desk, crossed over to the window, and looked down. “If you see Mr. Peters in the coffeehouse, we are still waiting for his money for the equipping of the
Daisy,
” she said. “The ship sailed two weeks ago, and he has not yet paid for his share. We cannot extend credit like this.”

“I’ll tell him,” Josiah said. “I will be home for dinner.” He paused at the door. “You do not congratulate me on my engagement to be married?”

She did not turn from the window, and her face was hidden from him. He did not see her look of sour resentment. Sarah’s marriageable years had slipped away while she worked for her father and then for his heir, her brother, screwing tiny profits out of a risky business. “Of course,” she said. “I congratulate you. I hope that it will bring you what you desire.”