A Respectable Trade. Philippa Gregory

‘When will they arrive?’

      ‘January at the latest,’ Josiah replied. ‘It takes more than a month to load the ship in the West Indies, and then he will have to come home through the autumn storms. Please God they will make safe landfall by Christmas.’

      ‘We will be in the new house by then,’ Frances said. The end of the summer had brought an end to the dreadful smell of the dock and the continual fear of cholera and typhoid in the old town; but autumn wind and rain meant that Frances was confined even more to the little parlour. She suffered painful claustrophobia from the small rooms and low ceilings of the little house. It would never be anything more than a warehouse with rooms tacked on the side; the fireplaces were inadequate and the constant smoke made Frances cough and cough. The rainy weather made driving a rare pleasure, and she could not walk out among the dockside workers. She spent every day in the cramped parlour with Sarah, unless she chose to sit alone in her unheated bedroom. Nobody called at the little house on the quayside. No-one invited them to any parties. Nothing would breach the Coles’ loneliness and isolation until they moved into Queens Square. ‘Surely we should be in the new house by then!’

      Josiah glanced at her. ‘I am sorry for this delay,’ he said. ‘It is all the fault of Mr Waring. I have paid the deposit we agreed but his builder is taking longer than he promised and Mr Waring’s new house is not yet ready. He has been delayed by the weather. We are all waiting on each other.’

      ‘We would have been hard pressed to pay the whole in any case,’ Sarah pointed out. ‘If we do not move until after Daisy comes in, we will have her profits to go towards the final payment.’

      ‘Another two or three months!’ Frances exclaimed involuntarily.

      Sarah looked at her sharply. ‘This house was a palace to my mother. I have always been proud to live here.’

      Frances bit her lip. In the four months of her marriage she had learned that Sarah was defensive about their home. ‘I did not mean to be impolite,’ she said carefully. ‘But I should like to be able to walk out of doors, and the noise from the quay is very disturbing. We will have no society until we move.’ She glanced at Josiah. ‘It was part of the agreement,’ she reminded them. ‘When Josiah first wrote to me, he promised that we would live in Queens Square.’

      ‘She is right,’ Josiah said fairly. ‘And Queens Square is our side of the bargain. We will move as soon as we can and, if need be, I can find the money, with or without the Daisy.’

      ‘You mean borrowing,’ Sarah snapped.

      ‘I mean forward selling,’ Josiah said steadily. ‘I can sell Daisy’s cargo while she is still at sea and complete the payment for the Queens Square house with the money.’

      ‘It is a risk,’ Sarah said. She glanced at Frances, hoping for support. ‘If the ship sinks then we have to carry the loss and repay the buyers of the cargo. I am sure Frances would not want us to take such a risk just for her benefit.’

      Frances gave Josiah a demure smile. ‘If you think it is worth the risk, Husband, then I must follow your judgement. And if it ensures that we get the house …’

      ‘Very wifely,’ Sarah commented acidly.

      ‘As soon as Mr Waring is ready to leave I will complete the sale and we shall move to Queens Square,’ Josiah declared, closing the subject. ‘But I am glad to have heard that Captain Lisle is well. The Daisy always was a lucky ship. God speed to her as she sets sail!’

      When the Daisy was ready to leave, the little shelter that they had made on her deck was dismantled, and the slaves returned to the hold. Mehuru was not strong enough to stand, he lay on the dirty straw and watched the others hold out their hands for manacles and their feet for leg-irons.

      The sun shimmered on the blue water, the quayside of St Kitts wavered before his dazed eyes. The dark green terraced hills melted slowly into the low beautiful grasslands of his home. Mehuru thought that soon his body would release its tenacious grip on life. Soon the pain would be over. Soon he would be home. If the gods were kind to him, if his ancestors sought his soul, he would be home and lying on the breast of the kindly fertile earth of Africa once more.

      The captain, watching them as they were chained and sent below, noticed for the first time that Mehuru’s skin and muscles were wasting away.

      ‘What the devil is ailing him?’ he demanded. ‘Is he sick?’

      They watched him when the food came and saw that he lay, his face turned away. Then they came and bolted an iron mask around his head with a funnel going into his mouth. Twice a day they poured scalding soup down his throat. The first day Mehuru felt nothing, he was floating and gliding down the sweet river of his home. But that night he was tortured with pain as his shrunken stomach griped on the food. Next day he felt the spiteful heat of the soup, burning his throat and his mouth. The third day he fought them, but they got it down despite his struggles. The fourth day they took the mask off and he knew he was hungry. He came back from his journey into darkness and he heard Snake’s voice counselling patience and wisdom. He knew himself to be wiser for having risked everything. He tried to find within himself some power as a survivor, as a living ghost, since all his power as a man, even as a human being, had been stolen from him.

      The ship set sail. Mehuru felt himself rolling on his shelf again and wondered if he was to spend the rest of his life in half-darkness with the wash of waves pouring through the grating, longing for his home and forever in exile. He would not fast again, he could not bear the grip of the white men and the sharp evil pain as the boiling soup threatened to drown him. Instead he ate his share of the common pot of food.

      It grew bitter, colder than any weather Mehuru had known before. When they were ordered on deck to dance Mehuru could not recognise the sea, could not recognise the sun. The waters were a deep sullen grey, the wind had a smell behind it which was icy cold. He could not comprehend where the sun had gone, it seemed to be walking farther and farther away and it was losing its heat and strength. Every day it grew smaller and paler. Mehuru thought that the ship was sailing into permanent night. When the shadow of the grating moved across the floor of the hold the squares of sunlight were insipid and pale. Through the grille he could see the sky veiled, slurred with clouds. He had never seen a sky so thick. Even in the rainy season at home the storm clouds would suddenly part and the sun would burn through. He and one of the other men lay close together for warmth. Mehuru missed the others who had gone. They seemed very few in the echoing hold, and they were fearful and could not comfort each other.

      One of the infants became sick. They thought she was dying of the cold. Mehuru saw that as the sun sickened and grew weaker the child sickened too. There was nothing they could do for her. She cried a little, very pitifully, and then died while a woman held her and rocked her. When Mehuru brought the little body up on deck for burial they took her roughly from him and tossed her over the side. Her arms and legs flew up as she went over and Mehuru had a heart-stopping moment when he thought she cried out. But the ship plunged down into the deep grey waves and her little black head bobbing in the water was hidden from him.

      Days stretched beyond counting, weeks, and then months. They took the flux – dysentery – and one of the men died and another of the infants. The weather was too stormy for them to dance on deck, and besides they were all growing weaker. Mehuru wondered if they would sail on and on until they were all dead. When they were called up to empty the waste pail, two of the boys slipped through the nets hung around the rigging to keep them on board and flung themselves into the sea. Mehuru felt shame at their loss. He should have given them hope, he should have given them a reason to live. But there was no hope and there was no reason to live.

      The bucket of food grew more and more stale but it did not rot. Unbelievably it was too cold for that to happen. Then in the night Mehuru felt the rhythm of the heaving ship steady and change. He heard the yell of the men dropping the sails. There was a long time of rocking gently as if they were anchored, and then a new jerky movement as the ship was taken into tow.

      Mehuru waited in the darkness of the hold, listening for any clues which might tell him what was happening