Respectable Trade (38 page)

“You could go to a reading room or a coffeehouse.”

“I have no money,” Mehuru pointed out. “And no time off. I am not a servant, I am a slave. I am not allowed out of the house.”

The doctor muttered something brief and impolite. “Ever heard of Granville Sharp?” he asked.

“No.”

“He’s a Londoner. He lives in London. He’s made a bit of a name for himself, championing the people of your race.”

“Slaves or free?”

The doctor clicked to his horse as they turned in to the square. “Slaves,” he said. “He defended a black runaway slave—what was his name now? Strong, Jonathan Strong, and another, James Somerset—their cases went to court, and the judge ruled they could not be sent out of the country against their wishes. If they try to send you to the plantations, you can refuse to go, slave or not. Did you know that?”

Mehuru jumped down from the seat and ran to the horse’s head. “I did not! I thought they owned me completely.”

“Not completely,” the doctor said with sharp irony. “Even in Britain, in the land of freedom, you have some few rights. For instance, they can beat you, but not to death.”

“Can I speak with you again?” Mehuru asked urgently.

“I dine at the Crossways coffee shop on Mondays,” the doctor told him. “I talk to a number of friends there. We would be pleased to see you, if you could get there.”

“I’ll get there,” Mehuru said.

“Don’t get yourself shipped out before Monday,” the doctor warned wryly, lifting his bag from the carriage. “There’s always a ship going to the West Indies, and you won’t be the first Negro stolen away.”

“I’ll be there Monday,” Mehuru promised.

The doctor nodded and ran up the steps.

The door opened immediately, as Martha had been watching for him. She took him to James’s little room at once. When he came down again, Frances was at the foot of the stairs.

“Is he very ill?” she asked.

“He may pull through,” Dr. Hadley replied. “It’s a violent fever and a putrid sore throat. But he’s underweight and very sick. I’ve given the woman some pastilles to burn in his room and some syrup to bring down the fever.”

“I did not know he was so ill.” Frances could hear the exculpatory tone in her voice.

“He’s only a little boy,” Dr. Hadley said abruptly. “What is he? Three? Scarcely more than a baby. He should be with his mother. What’s he doing here anyway?”

“It is a scheme of my sister-in-law’s,” Frances explained. “We import slaves direct from Africa and train them here for domestic work. . . .” Under his sharp blue stare, her voice died away. “It is better work for them and a better life than on the plantations,” she finished feebly.

“I am sure of it,” he said ironically. “I should think death itself is preferable to work on the plantations.”

“You are against slavery,” Frances accused him. “You are an abolitionist.”

“In this town?” He raised his sandy-colored eyebrows. “A man would be lynched if he acknowledged such beliefs. I am a professional man, a doctor. I attend where I am summoned, and I generally keep my opinions to myself.”

“Shall you come again?”

“I will call later to see how he is. The woman tells me that there is another little boy who is also unwell.”

“I did not know,” Frances said. “Will you please see him, too?”

“When I come tonight. He has gone out now to carry a message for your husband.” Dr. Hadley glanced out the window at the scudding clouds. “A nasty day for a little boy with a fever to be running errands around town,” he observed. “I will not delay you any more, Mrs. Cole.” He made her a brief bow and strode to the front door. “Good day.”

S
TEPHEN
W
ARING WAS IN
his accounting house discussing his colliery with two other men. As they turned to go, he called one of them back into the room as if he had suddenly remembered something.

“Oh! Green! I had forgotten to ask you. You are planning to give up your houses at the Hot Well, are you not? And move your business to Clifton?”

The man closed the door swiftly behind him to prevent eavesdroppers. “Why, yes, I am going to sell the lodging houses in Dowry Parade at the Hot Well. I am sure that Clifton is the coming place; such pretty buildings and such good company.”

“Perhaps you are right,” Stephen Waring said smoothly. “But I know of a man who might be interested in taking on the Hot Well. He might be prepared to buy your place also.”

“Does he know what the lease for the Well will cost?”

“I believe so. But he thinks he can make it pay.”

“I thought they would never get someone to take that lease,” Green exclaimed incautiously.

“The Merchant Venturers have too much money tied up in the Hot Well,” Stephen said smoothly. “I for one should like to see that money released for other projects. And if the Hot Well can be made to pay, we would all benefit. The debt should be cleared, and this is the man to clear it for us.”

Mr. Green hesitated. “If it can be made to pay,” he said. There was a hint of warning in his voice. “Fashionable society is moving up to the heights of Clifton, not down along the river. However elegant the assembly room—it is in the wrong place. If he is a friend of yours, you may wish to warn him. It is a fine building, but I think Clifton is the place to be.”

“It is a venture like any other,” Stephen observed pleasantly. “There is always risk where there is profit to be had. He is a trader—he should know that.”

W
HEN
D
R.
H
ADLEY CAME
back to visit James late that night, the child was worse. His fever had broken, but the boy was no better. He was cold now, instead of hot. He lay very still and quiet on the little bed, his rasping breath coming slowly and sluggishly. When the doctor took the thin, dark wrist, he could hardly find the pulse. The doctor looked at the black woman sitting at the head of the bed. She had the soft fringe of her shawl in her hand, and she was leaning forward and gently stroking it against the boy’s cheek. His head was turned to her, and his eyes were shut.

The doctor raised an eyebrow to her.

“No better,” she said softly.

He opened his bag and took a small bottle of laudanum and mixed four drops in a glass of water. “If he cries,” he said simply, “if he cries for pain, he can have this, a bit at a time.
I can do no more for him. He’s sinking fast. He’s going now.”

“Going home,” she said simply.

Stuart Hadley found that his eyes were smarting. He bent down and put his hand against the damp little cheek. The boy was so small that the white hand cupped his entire face from curly hair to rounded chin. He was barely more than a baby.

“Going home,” he agreed softly.

He snapped his bag shut and went from the room.

Frances was waiting for him in the hall. “Is he better?” she asked.

He looked at her coldly. “He is dying, ma’am. He will be dead by tomorrow.”

She staggered slightly and went white.

“It is a risk you will have to carry,” he said precisely. “If you bring slaves into England. They are susceptible to English diseases, just as white men quickly die in Africa. They are susceptible to the English cold and damp. Is this the first one you have lost?”

“No,” Frances admitted. She remembered the woman called Died of Shame and the unmarked grave in the Redclift churchyard.

“What did that one die of?”

Frances shook her head wordlessly.

“Was she sick?”

“She ate earth,” Frances said, her voice very low. “And she was found dead one morning. She died in her sleep.”

“How awkward,” he observed savagely. “Well, I must be getting on. I send my bill to Cole and Sons, do I? It is a commercial loss, is it not?”

Frances flushed. “I shall pay.”

The doctor bowed and went to the door.

“You despise me because we own slaves,” Frances accused.

He looked into her face. Her eyes were filled with tears and she was trembling.

“No,” he said with sudden honesty. “That would not be fair,
of me. I used to take sugar in my tea, and I still love sweet puddings. I smoke tobacco, I wear cotton. I benefit from the trade as much as you do, but I manage to keep my hands clean; I take my profits from the trade at a distance. How can I measure what good it does me? My university is endowed by rich men who draw their wealth from the colonies. My patients are all traders. We all profit from the thieving in Africa. If we stopped it tomorrow, we would still be rich from their loss.”

“Would you wish to see slavery abolished?”

“I believe the trade will be ended,” he said certainly. “And I pray to God that I will see it ended this very month in Parliament. But the cruelty we have learned will poison us forever.”

The parlor door behind Frances opened, and she gave a guilty start. “Oh! Sister! This is Dr. Hadley. He is just leaving.”

“Is the boy better?” Sarah asked.

Frances shook her head. “Dr. Hadley thinks he will die.”

Sarah nodded brusquely. “Thank you for calling anyway, Doctor.”

Dr. Hadley bowed to them both and let himself out the front door.

Sarah looked crossly at Frances. “Another burial,” she said pointedly. “They all cost money, you know. I shall order the undertakers to call tomorrow morning.”

“When the undertakers come, I will see them,” Frances said.

“It’s not necessary.” Sarah went around the parlor blowing out the candles, without asking Frances if she were ready to go to bed.

“I know it is not necessary, but I want the little boy to be buried as he should be buried.”

Sarah took her cup and threw the dregs of the tea on the fire to damp down the last smoldering small piece of coal, which she had been sitting over since supper. “They know their business. You can leave it to them.”

“He is an African boy,” Frances protested. “There will be things which they will want to do for him. The woman who has
been sitting with him, Elizabeth, she nursed him as if he were her own child. She will not want him taken from her and thrown into a grave. She will want to say farewell to him, in her own way.”

Sarah straightened up, her face full of suppressed anger. “You can make a big parade of your feelings over this,” she snapped. “I heard you talking with that doctor. You can attend the funeral, you can hire a hearse. It is throwing bad money after good. The child is dying, and you knew when you started this that at least two or three would die during the first year. It is natural wastage. It is the natural loss of stock. If we have to go into mourning every time a slave dies, we might as well grieve for a broken barrel of sugar.”

“He is a child!” Frances cried passionately. “A little boy . . .”

“He is our trade,” Sarah said. “And if we cannot make this trade pay, then we are on the way to ruin. Wear black crepe if you like, sister. But get those slaves trained and ready for sale.”

I
N THE MORNING
F
RANCES
did not summon Mehuru to ask him how the slaves would want to say farewell to little James. She went down the corridor to the kitchen and found Elizabeth, her head in her arms, half asleep on the kitchen table.

“May I come in, Cook? I want to speak to Elizabeth.”

Cook bobbed a stiff, unwelcoming curtsy. “Of course, Mrs. Cole. This poor girl is worn out. I don’t think she’s slept for more than a few hours in these last two days.”

Frances pulled up a stool and touched Elizabeth gently on the arm. Elizabeth started awake at once. Frances saw that her eyelids were swollen from lack of sleep and from weeping.

“The men are coming to bury James,” Frances said, speaking slowly and carefully, watching Elizabeth’s face. “But I have said that you may make him ready and see it done as you wish. Would you like that?”

Elizabeth nodded.

“I shall tell Mehuru to spend the morning with you and the men to make sure it is done as you wish,” Frances promised. She rose up from the stool. “I am very sorry,” she said softly. Her eyes were on Elizabeth’s face as if she were asking for forgiveness. “I am very sorry that James was ill, and that we lost him in the end.”

Elizabeth nodded, her face grave.

Frances went to the hall to find Mehuru. He was on his hands and knees in the parlor, sweeping the grate.

“Cicero, the men are coming to bury James. You are to stay with Elizabeth and see that they do what she wants. He is to be buried as she wishes, as far as it is possible. You can tell them that I will pay for anything extra.”

Mehuru rose to his feet and wiped his hands on the rough apron protecting his livery. “How do you want it done?” he asked.

Frances looked into his face for the first time. “In your way,” she stumbled. “However you wish. In the African way.”

He shook his head, his eyes on her face. “Elizabeth is Yoruban, as am I. James was Sonke. Kbara is Mandinka. How do you wish him to be buried?”

Frances shook her head in frustration and clapped her hands together. “I don’t know!” she cried. “I was just trying to make it better, Mehuru! I was just trying to make it right!”

He caught her hand and held it gently. Coal dust smeared her hand as black as his. “There is no little way to make this right,” he said gently, almost tenderly. “It is as wrong as it could be. But I will see him buried with care.”