A Respectable Trade. Philippa Gregory

to keep a courteous distance from them but was dragged forward by the shortness of the chain. Frances made herself look away and stepped back to let the line go by her. She did not look up again, not even when she heard the thud of someone struck with the butt end of a whip.

      ‘He was lagging, ma’am,’ Bates explained cheerfully.

      Miss Cole led them up the narrow stairs to the little parlour. When the line walked into the room they hesitated, and did not know what to do. Miss Cole pulled out a chair but then could not bring herself to touch the leading woman to guide her to her seat.

      ‘Bates,’ she said shortly. He put a broad red hand on the woman’s shoulder and thrust her into a seat. Then the other woman and the youth perched on the very edge of the hard chairs and looked at Miss Cole and Frances with eyes which were blank with terror. The little boys had to be lifted up on their chairs. John Bates stepped back from the table and set himself with his back against the door, two pistols stuck in his belt, and his whip held across him.

      ‘Sit at the head of the table, Frances, and start their lesson,’ Miss Cole ordered.

      Mehuru kept his head down, but he noted the tone of command, and he saw that the young white woman obeyed.

      Her looks were horrible. She was as smooth and as pale as polished ivory. But the worst thing about her was her hair, which was as long and as thick as weeds in the river and was piled upon her head with trails of it coming down around her shoulders and curling like water weed around her face. Unpinned it must stretch down to her buttocks like some dreadful smooth cloth. Her eyes were as dark as his own but she moved like one of them, with small steps and a hunched body as if she hated herself, as if she were trying to hide her breasts and her belly.

      She was bony and small, like an ugly child. He scanned her body and saw the uselessness of her narrow pelvis and the skinny buttocks. She was too thin, a man could not embrace her and roll her over and over on the ground. She would not seize a lover and take him with laughter. She would not shout joyfully at the approach of pleasure. He thought of his woman at home and how he would thrust his shoulder against her open mouth to muffle her singing cries when she opened her legs wide to him. This ghostwoman knew nothing of this, could learn nothing of this. She moved as if she had denied herself of pleasure for many years, as if she had never known lust, as if she had never known desire. She held herself like a criminal, not like a woman at all.

      Mehuru suddenly realised that she was looking at him, and feared that his thoughts were showing on his face. He flushed quickly and looked away from her.

       Chapter Nine

      Frances drew a breath. She seated herself gingerly in the chair at the head of the table. Sarah went to the windowseat and gazed avidly at them all. ‘Go on,’ she said impatiently. ‘Teach them something!’

      The noises from outside the window were very loud. Josiah was auctioning his sugar on the quayside, Frances could hear his excited shout as the bids went higher.

      ‘Go on,’ Sarah said.

      Frances looked down the table. The children were whimpering softly, each stretching out for the woman seated beside him. Only Mehuru was looking at her, with his strange judging gaze. As their eyes met he slightly inclined his head. It was as if he had given her some permission. She felt an unexpected sense of humility before him. She looked at him more closely. His forehead was lined with raised tattoos showing dark blue against his black skin. Around his mouth there were half a dozen blue circles that drew the gaze to the wide sensuality of his lips. His eyes were dark and unfathomable. His nose was broad and flat. His skin was perfectly black and smooth. Frances wanted to touch him, to feel that he was real.

      She dragged her eyes from his face and tapped the table with the flat of her hand. ‘Table,’ she said quietly.

      They looked at her in silence. They were all of them frozen with fear.

      She slapped the table again. ‘Table,’ she repeated more firmly.

      Miss Cole glared irritably at her across the bowed black heads. ‘They clearly don’t know what you mean,’ she said. ‘You must make them speak.’

      Frances drew a breath and paused. She did not know what to do.

      ‘Begging your pardon, ma’am, he can speak.’ John Bates pointed with the butt end of his whip at Mehuru. ‘Spoke in the yard when the lad asked him to make a noise. Him with the drawings on his face.’

      Frances looked at Mehuru. ‘Say: table,’ she said, without much hope. ‘Tay-bull.’

      ‘Day-bull,’ Mehuru said.

      Frances jumped. He had a pleasant confident voice, the voice of a man who is accustomed to being heard. She was as surprised as if the table itself had said its name to her. She had not expected him to speak – she had not expected him to have this strong clear baritone.