The Sugar Merchant’s Wife

by Erica Brown

  Conrad reached for her hand. ‘Do not blame yourself, my dear. You were not to know. No one was to know.’

  She took deep breaths – one after another in quick succession, and closed her eyes. This was terrible. Finally, she said, ‘But how do you know this for sure? Have you seen a definite benefit from drinking water from one source rather than another?’

  The doctor nodded. ‘I have, ma’am. And I’m sure the water is not only responsible for cholera. I think contaminated water causes other sicknesses too. If I may tell you a story… if you wish, of course… I have after all, taken up so much of your time already…’

  ‘Please go on,’ Blanche interrupted. She wanted to hear! Of course she wanted to hear.

  The doctor cleared his throat. ‘One day I just happened to come across a woman with a sick child in a place called Cabot’s Yard. I advised her to fetch water from the spring that runs from Jacob’s Well and down to St Augustine’s Quay and also to boil all food, all water that she used for washing. She did that. Her child recovered, a rare occurrence indeed. The hovel she lived in was terribly overcrowded.’

  He hadn’t said her name, but Blanche just knew it was Edith. An odd feeling churned in her stomach.

  ‘If we can control the water supply, then we can control the disease,’ she heard the doctor say. ‘New drainage and, in the interim, my great project of having women enter these dark places with disinfectant and good advice, will help us to beat this terrible disease. The women will have to be intelligent and of good character, of course.’

  ‘And this is where myself and other merchants of this city come in. We will help with funding,’ said Conrad.

  Blance leaned earnestly forward. ‘You say you require intelligent women to carry out these tasks?’

  ‘Yes, possibly with some nursing experience, or having been in charge of the women’s section of schools, institutions, those sorts of things… it would be their job to oversee the disinfecting of courtyards and, ultimately, locking off communal water supplies when the situation dictates… but only those water supplies in areas that are known to have a high incidence of cholera. These women would also have to give advice to the people who live in these places, some of whom are less than genteel.’

  Blanche felt a pang of remorse, not just about Anne’s death but also about meeting Tom and wanting to meet him again. The bitter truth about Anne’s death had brought her down to earth with an almighty bang.

  ‘I want to take part in this.’ Her voice rang with commitment and her eyes shone with intent. This was her penitence and she would throw herself into it with all the energy she possessed. ‘I would like to take a more vigorous part in your project. I’m quite capable of sprinkling disinfectant around and I’m sure I can supervise turning off the pipes.’

  ‘My dear,’ Conrad began, his benevolent expression turning to concern, ‘those are not good places to be—’

  ‘Certainly not for those living there,’ she exclaimed resolutely. ‘The heart of this city is falling down. The houses are not fit for pigs, yet women and children are forced to live there, unable to afford anything better.’ She touched her husband’s hand. ‘I need to do this, Conrad,’ she said more softly. ‘I need to have a new purpose in life.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, his expression betraying his undying affection. ‘Of course you do.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Edith had bitten her nails to the quick worrying about her children. They’d been alone for three days. Today, at long last, she was finally going up before the magistrates, unsure of what to say and stinking of prison.

  The courtroom was crowded, though from where she was, poised on the steps leading up from the cells, she could only hear the sound of tramping feet, as one after the other, each felon was swiftly dealt with.

  For the length of the stairwell, bodies stinking of sweat, drink and bad breath pressed against her. Fleas and lice hopped from one body to another. Where there was room to do so, people scratched or popped the parasites between finger and thumb.

  ‘Always the same down thur even though they does it out with carbolic,’ said a fella no older than fourteen. ‘But you’ll get used to it.’

  ‘No, I bloody well won’t,’ Edith responded. ‘I’m innocent and I’m gettin’ out of yur!’

  ‘Only if they gives you chance to speak,’ said a thin woman in front of her. ‘Meself, I’m gonna scream the place down. That’ll get the magistrate’s attention.’

  Edith had been confident that she’d get out of this. From the start she’d entertained the hope that Molly would come to tell the truth. So far she hadn’t. Hope finally died.

  ‘Well, I’m goin’ to speak,’ Edith said defiantly. At the same time she studied the woman’s face. She had a nose like a piece of jagged rock, almost as if God had stuck it on her face as an afterthought and an ill-conceived one at that. Edith couldn’t take her eyes off it.

  ‘The beak won’t like that,’ the woman said and sniffed a petulant dewdrop hanging from her right nostril. ‘Only chance though. Otherwise all he’ll do is listen to the charge and lock me up in clink.’

  The woman passed further up the stairwell towards the cream oblong of ceiling, all they could see of the courtroom above.

  ‘Next case!’

  At the command, the line of miscreants was pushed up the stairs until the next case spilled out then was pulled into the courtroom by the guard at the top. ‘Big Nose’ proved to be next.

  ‘Mary Jane Fletcher. Stealing a feather hat from Betsy Booker, milliner, Castle Street.’

  Name and crime had barely finished mention before the woman began her screaming.

  Uproar broke out. There were shouts from the court officials, screams from the woman and scuffles as those representing the law tried to get her under control.

  At last a measured voice pronounced, ‘It seems that this woman is in no fit state to undergo a prison sentence. One month in the lunatic asylum under the supervision of people used to dealing with such outbursts may serve you better, Mary Jane Fletcher.’

  His words chilled Edith to the bone. For a brief moment she had entertained the idea of taking Mary Jane’s advice and making a racket in the hope of gaining her freedom. Following this outcome, she rapidly changed her mind.

  There was something else that made her reconsider. The voice of the magistrate was familiar and she racked her brain to remember where she’d heard it before.

  ‘Next!’

  Bundled up the stairs like a pile of old clothes, she was eventually spewed out into the oak-panelled courtroom like a pot of old stew. At first she blinked in the sudden brightness. The courtroom windows looked out over Corn Street and stretched from floor to ceiling. She could see the rain pattering on the copper pillars – called ‘nails’ – outside the Corn Exchange. Despite the weather a corn merchant was paying his dues to another – ‘on the nail’. She wished she were out there too.

  ‘Edith Jane Beasley. Desecration of a cemetery – possible infanticide.’

  ‘Only possible?’ asked the magistrate, raising one fair eyebrow over a bright blue eye.

  Edith barely heard what they said. Her gaze was fixed on the magistrate. She knew immediately who he was. Before the clerk could say another word, she shouted, ‘No, Mr Heinkel. Not me. You know me. Your wife knows me. I would never do that.’

  Conrad Heinkel’s head jerked up at the mention of his name and that of his wife. Edith congratulated herself for recognizing him in time and took the opportunity to continue.

  ‘The child weren’t mine. It was Molly’s babby! She lives in the cellar below me and she was supposed to wait on the other side of the wall. Told me she couldn’t afford burial, what with there bein’ a shortage of plots an’ that because of the cholera and suchlike. Had to ’elp her. Would ’ave felt guilty not helpin’ seein’ as my little girl was cured, thanks to God and that Doctor Budd.’

  Conrad Heinkel looked amazed. ‘Doctor Budd cured your child?’

  Edith smiled at him br
oadly, nodded at an usher and winked at the gallery. She felt like an actress on the stage.

  ‘Just the water, the doctor said. Go down and fill yer pail from the pipe down on the quay. And I knowed where that was, just past the drawbridge. So my little girl was saved and Molly’s weren’t. And anyway, I wouldn’t have got caught if I hadn’t stopped and said a prayer over the poor little thing. In fact, it was a lullaby Blanche, your wife, taught me.’

  Before anyone could stop her, Edith sang the same lullaby she’d sung over the damp grave.

  * * *

  As the last note died away, the court fell into silence, though it wasn’t long before a rising hum began from those waiting below on the stairwell. What was going on?

  Now it was Conrad who looked disconcerted. Edith guessed he had recognized the tune. He’d surely heard Blanche sing it to his own children.

  With thudding heart, she waited as he considered the matter, willing him to set her free. She blurted, ‘Let me go ’ome to my children, sir. Please let me go ’ome. They’ve been without me for three days now and I’ve lost enough of them to cholera, and them in Lewins Mead all alone.’

  Her outburst seemed to speed up his decision.

  ‘Have you an income?’ he asked.

  ‘Only when me old man’s ’ome,’ she replied. ‘If he don’t drink it away before I can get me hands on it.’

  He scribbled something on the paper in front of him. ‘Then it’s time you had an income of your own. Perhaps that will be enough to keep you out of trouble. I declare you are bonded to my wife’s good offices. She has told me something of your misfortune. I believe a practical approach is needed here. My wife needs help in the house and you need honest work. I think my decision will suit you both. Case dismissed.’

  He leaned over his high table, as Edith walked swiftly past him, heading for the exit. ‘Make arrangements to report to my wife in the morning. Here is the address.’

  Edith was ecstatic. It didn’t matter that she’d only be a maid in her old friend’s household. Bad things made good, she thought to herself. She did not realize that as a religious man, Conrad Heinkel would normally have given her a prison term for desecrating a churchyard, but she had mentioned her child, his wife and Dr Budd in the same breath. He had felt obliged to show mercy – for his wife’s sake rather than for hers.

  * * *

  What remained of its ancient plaster clung to the walls of the shabby house like large cowpats, ugly and in imminent danger of falling off.

  Situated in a stinking alley between Lewins Mead and Christmas Steps, the house was old, dark and looked as if it had been thrown into the gap between the buildings either side of it.

  A huge beam divided it halfway up, so large it seemed the ground floor was buckling beneath its weight. Carvings of crosses, initials and a blessing written in Latin betrayed the fact that this noble beam had been purloined from the abbey that had once stood here. All that was left of St Augustine’s was an ornate gateway and a colonnaded courtyard, hemmed in by the miserable hovels of a less holy time.

  Two men took it in turns to hammer on the door of the house with fists the size of sledgehammers, the noise echoing around their dismal surroundings and attracting the attention of pale faces behind ill-fitting windows and ramshackle doors.

  Taking a breather, one of the men stood back and shouted, ‘Open up in there.’

  His colleague looked over his shoulder to where the property’s owner, the man they knew as Sydney Cuthbert, stood watching, his son by his side.

  Stoke didn’t usually attend the eviction of non-paying tenants. All physical aspects of his property business were left to his henchmen, but this particular exercise was for the benefit of his son. He badly wanted Gilmour to become like himself, to focus on business and not let compassion colour his judgement. He blamed himself for having left the boy’s mother to bring him up, but he’d had no choice. Children and wives were an encumbrance to a young man out to make his way in the world.

  Stoke nodded his approval to the big-fisted man. ‘Get on with it.’

  The banging resumed, but the door was stout, ancient and made of oak. Like the beam above, it might also have once formed part of the abbey.

  Gilmour grimaced. He didn’t like this sort of thing at all. Much as he’d appreciated the learning he’d received thanks to his father’s wealth, he would never stop missing his mother. Sometimes he actually felt bitter towards her that she’d died only eight years before. They had lived quietly together, neither of them having much contact with his father. After she had died and been buried in St Anne’s Churchyard at Oldland Common, a small village on the outskirts of the city, he’d spent some years in boarding school. Once that was finished with, he’d had no choice but to live with his father.

  Stoke was proud of having a son and congratulated himself on not having had close correspondence with the boy until he was well past babyhood and childhood, and of an age when a father could be proud. A son gave purpose to the wealth and status he’d achieved. Gilmour was a spur to his plans and, with a growing awareness of his own mortality, Stoke was grooming him to take over when he was gone.

  ‘Let the poor woman alone,’ someone shouted from an upstairs window. ‘She’s been sick.’

  ‘And she’s a widow,’ someone else shouted.

  Stoke’s weasel-like eyes darted upwards, scouring each window for the defiant expression that would soon turn to fear when he told them they were evicted too.

  ‘None of my concern,’ he shouted back. ‘I don’t put a roof over your head fer nothing. I expect to be paid!’

  His voice echoed between the gabled roofs and crumbling walls.

  ‘There, son,’ he said, tapping Gilmour’s chest, as the two men continued to hammer on the door. ‘Respect, that’s what you want from them. Treat them firm and they’ll give you it. Now, Bill and Casey know what’s got to be done. I’m leaving you here to oversee matters.’

  ‘But I don’t… ’ Gilmour began, stammering slightly.

  ‘Pull yourself together,’ said his father through clenched teeth. ‘Respect. Earn their respect.’ His grimace turned to a smile as he patted his son’s shoulder. ‘Don’t let me down, son. Make me proud of you.’

  Gilmour’s heart pounded and he felt sick. When would his father ever understand that he took after his mother and was not like him at all? Swallowing nervously, he stood rooted to the spot, listening as the sound of his father’s carriage clattered away from the street at the end of the alley.

  Casey, one of his father’s henchmen, turned away from the door and bent to take up a sledgehammer, the sort road menders used for breaking stones. ‘We’ll soon be getting that door down now,’ he said in a lilting Irish accent as he spat on one meaty palm then on the other.

  Gilmour wasn’t so sure. The pale faces that had retreated behind their broken windows and doors reappeared. He could see them gazing out like pale ghosts from the dark interiors. Their murmurings of disapproval resumed, rumbling like wagon wheels through the alley.

  The truth was, he was not at all comfortable carrying out his father’s wishes. It wasn’t in his nature to oversee the eviction of a sick woman – and a widow at that. How could his father do such a thing? He answered his own question. Easily. That was the way his father was. His mother, no more than a girl of fourteen at the time, had always regretted marrying him. He sensed by her nervous hand-wringing and the reddening of her cheeks that she’d had no choice, that she’d already been with child. Perhaps his father had forced himself on her. Then, after tiring of being a married man, he had set out alone to make his fortune in the city.

  Thinking of his mother made him angry. His father had not treated her right. He would not, in fact, he could not do his bidding. He made an instant decision to make things right – for his mother’s sake as much as for his own.

  ‘Wait a moment,’ he shouted to the two men as they raised their sledgehammers, ready to reduce the old oak door into splinters. ‘How much rent does she
owe?’

  The two men looked at each other, as Gilmour rummaged in the inside pocket of his fine, grey frock coat.

  Bill, a red-haired man with a freckled face and a lopsided grin, shook his head. ‘We can’t do that. The old man – begging yer pardon, yer father – would have our guts fer garters.’

  Gilmour was surprised at the strength of his resolve. His voice was strong. ‘How much?’

  They exchanged a swift look then shook their heads. ‘No.’

  Gilmour became aware that people had come out of their houses, curious as to what would happen next. Those within earshot had heard him offer to pay the woman’s rent.

  ‘Go on,’ one of them said. ‘Mrs Parker’s got three kids and no husband. Wouldn’t hurt fer someone to pay her rent, would it?’

  Gilmour sensed that Casey and Bill actually enjoyed their work. Their eyes glowed at the slightest hint of violence and confrontation. He found them obnoxious. Sometimes, he thought the same thing about his father. How could they possibly enjoy throwing someone out onto the street with nowhere else to go but the workhouse?

  ‘You can’t do this,’ Gilmour shouted and attempted to drag them away from the door.

  Casey pushed him gently, but firmly back. ‘We’ve got work to do.’

  Gilmour found himself among the crowd that had gathered. Although mindful of the size of the men and the force of the sledgehammers, many were shouting obscenities and catcalls of derision.

  Gilmour found their anger contagious. ‘You’ll be damned for this,’ he shouted.

  A cry of delight arose from the crowd as the two men were drenched by the contents of a chamber pot poured from an upstairs window.

  Someone shouted, ‘And very wet,’ and was accompanied by catcalls and hoots of derision.

  Dripping piss from their noses and turds on their shoulders, the two men shook themselves, their expressions ripe with disgust at the stink and the stuff that covered them.