The Sugar Merchant’s Wife

by Erica Brown

  ‘To Barbados?’ Tom raised his eyebrows.

  ‘To Ireland. My father owns a number of abattoirs. He visits the markets around Queenstown and brings livestock over for butchering.’

  ‘And my ship calls in there first,’ said Tom thoughtfully. Stoke was the last person he wanted as a companion on his ship even though he was getting off in Ireland.

  He was still deep in thought when Gilmour said, ‘I trust I haven’t inconvenienced you too much.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  No, it wasn’t Gilmour that had inconvenienced him. It was Horatia. She’d left him worrying about whether the hangman would get him before he could find Clarence Ward. All the wrongs she’d ever done him served to stoke his anger.

  He saw Gilmour Cuthbert to the door and although he smiled, inside he seethed with anger.

  Once the chaise had clattered off down the drive, he turned back into the house, his face like thunder and his fists clenched in tight knots at his side.

  Horatia had known he was innocent, but had not told him and he knew damn well why. Then this about the will… The suspicion returned that she might have had something to do with her father’s death. Nelson had obviously had the same suspicion. Although he wasn’t always in his right mind, the fact that he’d voiced his misgivings – and to a stranger – was doubly disconcerting. He remembered the pearl earring. He remembered her expression at the reading of the will. The two didn’t really marry up, but he had to be sure.

  When he entered her room, she flung her arms around him, her head thrown back, her long neck exposed.

  Arms rigid at his side and fists clenched, Tom did not move.

  Sensing something was wrong, Horatia stepped back and he saw confusion in her eyes. She tried to smile, even laughing in a light girlish way – as if that would be enough to lift the surliness of his countenance.

  ‘What’s the matter? Is Nelson all right? I heard a carriage,’ she went on. ‘Who was it Tom?’ Her voice wavered.

  She reached for him. He stepped back. ‘You have some very admirable attributes, Horatia, but you are also seriously flawed. All my life I observed two sides to your character, that which craves for love and that which craves for power. The latter has always tempered the former; frequently I asked myself how far you might go to achieve your desires. Until this moment, I never had an answer. Now I do. You, my dear, will stop at nothing to get what you want.’

  Horatia was dumbfounded. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Then let me enlighten you. You wanted a ship named after you, and achieved it by devious means. You wanted the power vested in your father. You got that too. You also wanted me. I must admit I was flattered and also lured by the prospect of running my own shipping company – belonging to just my wife and me.’ He shook his head, his eyes dark and his hair flying out of control.

  Horatia looked frightened. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘That you are capable of anything, including murder. I find myself questioning your father’s death yet again. The ropes were thick and strong, but frayed cleanly in one place as though someone had cut them.’

  She shook her head, her eyes and expression full of denial. ‘No! Her voice was broken. ‘I… didn’t… do… it. How could… could… you… how could you… think I would kill… kill… my own father?’

  Tom found himself wanting to believe her. She was beautiful and elever. Any man would be proud to be married to her. To some extent, Tom still was, but he was also wary.

  Horatia’s face burned, and not just with anger. She was terrified of losing him. ‘Don’t hate me, Tom. Please don’t hate me.’

  Her fingers dug into his arms. He tensed and much as he was disposed to respond, he didn’t. He was punishing her for what she’d done and for what she was and realized he’d be doing that for the rest of their married life. ‘I don’t hate you, but I sometimes dislike you.’

  ‘I saw my father asleep in there and saw the lid and the ropes, but I didn’t do anything. I couldn’t and I wouldn’t. He was my father.’

  Her eyes moistened with tears. Tom remembered her crying like that at the reading of the will. He’d believed them genuine. He wasn’t sure now.

  Horatia was surprised at the depth of her feelings. Tom mustn’t hate her. ‘I didn’t do it. I went in there, I came out again, and when I came out…’

  The truth came like a bolt from the blue. Her tears stopped and her mouth hung open. The thought was too terrible, but she couldn’t deny it. Looks had always passed between her and the footman. It had amused her to see the desire in his eyes and the total dedication of a man in love with something he could never have. That look of his, she recalled it clearly. It was as if he had read her mind.

  ‘Duncan,’ she said, her voice hardly above a whisper.

  Tom smiled sardonically and shook his head. ‘How very like you to blame a servant.’

  ‘But it’s true!’

  ‘More lies? Let me know when you wish to tell the truth.’ He stopped by the door. What hurts most of all is you not telling me about the letter from Clarence Ward. Would you have let me hang if I hadn’t agreed to marry you and go to Barbados?’

  ‘Of course not!’

  He eyed her coldly. ‘I wish I could believe that.’

  ‘You can’t go!’ He was her husband, bound to her for life in a proper ceremony in a church. There was no Blanche to stand in her way, no one at all to stop her from having what she wanted most. Why oh why hadn’t she been straight with him? Why hadn’t she told him that they didn’t need to go to Barbados?

  ‘I didn’t think you would obey the terms of my father’s will unless it was your only hope of escaping the gallows,’ she blurted.

  Suddenly he knew she was telling the truth, but somehow it seemed irrelevant. His anger ran too deep. ‘Didn’t you trust me to be innocent?’

  ‘It wasn’t that…’ Her voice trailed away. In his youth she’d thought Tom capable of anything, after all, he had been born into the direst circumstances. Her heart felt as though it would burst. ‘You’re not leaving?’

  He turned back. His eyes were dark with anger – and something else. Hatred, she thought, and instantly clutched at her bosom. He couldn’t hate her. He said he couldn’t yet she could see it there in his eyes.

  ‘I find it hard to countenance living with a murderess.’

  ‘But I didn’t kill him. Duncan! It must have been Duncan. He was obsessed with me…’

  Tom raised his eyebrows. ‘Do you mean that a man actually loves you enough to kill for you?’

  Horatia froze, her mouth wide open. Tom’s words had sliced into the heart. What he was actually saying was that he didn’t love her. She had convinced herself that her father’s will was not the only reason for him agreeing to marry her and that he did harbour some affection for her, perhaps not exactly love, but something close to it. Now he was flinging the truth into her face. Well, he could only push her so far…

  Her heart turned to ice and her words were bitter. ‘So you only married me for my money.’ She forced herself to laugh mockingly. ‘You’ve sold yourself to a woman – just like your mother sold herself to men!’

  It was the worse thing she could possibly say.

  He hit her, the flat of his hand stinging her face. She fell. The portraits, the rich drapes, the velvet-covered furniture seemed to blur into a mass of colour, like paints on a canvas running into each other. She was on the floor, the room still spinning; one side of her face stung from the force of the blow.

  Tom was instantly regretful. ‘I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have done that…’

  He reached down to help her up. Horatia slapped his hand away, her face stiff with anger.

  ‘Get out of this house! I never want to see you again. Get out! Do you hear me? Get out! Get out! Get out!’

  Tom’s moment of regret evaporated. This was the old Horatia, the haughty woman who became angry when she didn’t get her own way, who didn’t get involved in charitable works and tr
eated her servants like dancing dogs. He reminded himself that she’d lied to him, that he’d suffered agonies wondering whether they’d get away in time before he was re-arrested, his mind torn between a fleet of ships and self-preservation.

  His mouth closed in a grim line, and his eyes seemed to sink deeper into his head. ‘I’ll go, and I won’t be back.’

  Horatia staggered to her feet with the help of a side table on which balanced a Chinese vase, brilliant in the shine of its glaze and the blue of its pattern.

  ‘Go! Go!’ she shouted.

  Tom opened the door and closed it behind him swiftly as the Chinese vase flew through the air and against the door where it shattered and showered to the floor.

  He made his way to see Nelson, who was now quite lucid, though the ravages of his addiction had left his skin stretched tightly over his skull, and his eyes sunken deep into their sockets.

  ‘Is it true?’ he asked.

  Nelson didn’t seem to know what he was talking about. Tom found himself telling him everything. Nelson listened silently. At last he said, ‘You should have married Blanche. You love her. You’ve always loved her.’

  Tom was on the verge of saying that Nelson had loved her too, when he remembered that they were half-brother and sister and that Nelson should have loved her as such and not as a woman. Instead he said, ‘At least there is one good thing to come out of this. Horatia won’t go to Barbados by herself, and I won’t go with her, which means you’ll have to go.’

  Nelson raised himself up on his elbows, his eyes regaining some of their old sparkle. ‘Well, Tom my old friend, that at least means that one of us is going to have a happy marriage. Distance, as they say, makes the heart grow fonder, and my wife is indeed going to be at a great distance. I shall be in Barbados and she shall remain in Bristol.’

  Tom grinned, the corners of his mouth quivering with amusement. ‘I think the correct saying is that absence makes the heart grow fonder.’

  Nelson laughed. ‘Whatever the word, the saying is certainly going to work for me.’

  Tom shook his head and smiled, but still felt a need to apologize. ‘I’m sorry for springing this on you.’

  ‘Tom, I think it’s a wonderful suggestion.’ Nelson smiled dreamily. ‘Dusky maidens, a moonlit beach and pounding surf – and my wife on the other side of the Atlantic. I couldn’t think of anything more wonderful!’

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Deke Beasley sneaked back to Little Paradise when no one was there but he never went back to his ship. Not only did Edith not get any money from him, but she also found that he’d taken the little bit she’d saved, which she kept in a jug in the cupboard.

  Lack of money forced her to go looking for him in the taverns and doss-houses along the waterfront, and she sent Freddie out looking too. There was no sign. Edith knew she’d be better off without him and, wicked as it was, she’d often prayed for a storm and a mishap at sea.

  Money being tight, Blanche helped out as much as she could with leftover food and fresh vegetables from the garden. She also gave her a little money, ‘for all the little extras you do,’ she said.

  None of the servants in the Heinkel household complained about her getting preferential treatment, though Cook, who’d taken pity on Edith and her offspring, did say that her presence attracted Jim Storm Cloud to the house, which distracted the servants from their work. They were fascinated – aroused might have been a better word – by the bulging biceps and the silky black hair that hung to his waist.

  ‘Now that’s what I call a man,’ said a scullery maid and got a thick ear.

  Coping alone began to show. Edith looked tired and Blanche ordered her to have an extra day off.

  ‘I can manage,’ Edith protested. In order to emphasize the point, she went hell for leather at the dining table, until her tiredness caught up with her and she fell flat on her face.

  On her extra day off, she slept in until eight-thirty, a luxury to someone who usually got up at five-thirty in order to get to Somerset Parade by six. As on other days, the children had taken care of themselves, warming up the porridge she’d made the day before, Freddie scooping it out into pale green porcelain bowls that were see-through if held up to the light. These had been one of Horatia’s donations to Edith’s household, too fine a quality for a humble cottage, but all that remained of a larger set at Marstone Court.

  ‘One for you, Ma,’ said Freddie proudly as he set her a bowl on the table. ‘And I’ve made you tea.’

  Edith sighed at the four little faces watching her from the other side of the table. She was blessed indeed. Her children were the most valuable gifts Deke Beasley had ever given her, in fact the only ones.

  The porridge was thick but thinned after adding a little milk.

  ‘Very nice,’ she said when she’d finished, then thought of last night’s supper and frowned. ‘Do we have any of that mutton stew left for dinner and supper?’

  Freddie peered into the iron pot hanging from a trivet above the fire. ‘Enough. Though I’m not hungry, mind you.’

  Edith shook her head. ‘I can tell from your expression, Freddie Beasley, that we ain’t got much left. I also know that you’re bound to be hungry. It’s only natural. You’re a growing lad. There’s nothing for it, but we have to see what we can get to throw into the pot and make it go further.’

  But I’m not spending too much, she thought. The money Blanche had given her would go back into her tea caddy, which she’d hide much more efficiently this time. Without Blanche, they would all have starved, but Edith was proud. She preferred to stand on her own feet and make money for herself.

  As they were about to leave, someone knocked at the door. She didn’t recognize the man who stood there when she opened it, but he looked like a shabby crow. His clothes were black and shiny with age and grease. There was mud on his shoes and on his trousers. Around his neck, which stuck forward like that of an angry chicken, was the most ragged and dirty scarf she had ever seen.

  He bowed slightly as he lifted his hat from his head. ‘Mrs Beasley?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oscar Odcombe’s me name and I’ve come to collect me money.’ His hand shot out so fast, Edith took a step back.

  ‘Money? Money for what?’

  He looked surprised, but not at all embarrassed by what he said next. ‘The money for burying the recently deceased, yer husband, one named Deacon John Beasley.’

  Edith was shocked. Mouth hanging open, she looked down into the begrimed hand of Oscar Odcombe, noting the black lines crossing his palm like the veins in an autumn leaf.

  It took a moment for what he’d said to sink in. Once it did, she lashed out.

  ‘Get away from yur! Me husband’s not dead. No one’s told me he’s dead. Yur just one of them people who takes advantage of other’s misfortunes.’

  Oscar Odcombe used both arms to protect his head from Edith’s blows and began his retreat.

  ‘It’s true, Mrs Beasley, it’s true! I knows I should have told you two days ago, but we’ve been busy, and I did explain to Doctor Budd that I’d get round ’ere when I could.’

  At the mention of the doctor, Edith’s arms dropped to her side. ‘Doctor Budd told you to come here?’

  The frightened gravedigger nodded, though left his arms folded over his head. ‘He ain’t stopped, poor bugger. Didn’t realize you ain’t been told. Wouldn’t ’ave been so blunt if I’d known.’ Slowly, he let his arms drop from his head.

  Edith thought about the few shillings left from her wages in her tea caddy. ‘How much do I owe you?’

  ‘Half a crown,’ he said, and cautiously held out his hand.

  Edith closed the door in his face and went to fetch the money. As she was counting it out, she thought of something that was both awful and funny. She hadn’t asked how her husband had died.

  Adopting as mournful a face as possible, she went back to the front door, slipped the man his money and asked him.

  ‘Cholera,’ he said.


  ‘Cholera,’ she repeated, as though saying it helped it to sink in. She let the money fall into his palm. Deke Beasley died from cholera, the disease he had thought left behind on his ship. It seemed a fitting end in one way, yet on the other hand, it did not. Deke Beasley had received a decent Christian burial, unjust for a man who had never been to church in his life except to be christened and married. It seemed ironic that his burial had been swift, compared to Molly McBean’s little one.

  Edith sighed. Her coffers and her food larder were less full than they had been. Despite still feeling tired, she had to go out to buy food.

  Freddie insisted on accompanying her to the market in St Nicholas Street. Together they trawled behind the ramshackle counters behind which the merchants and farmers in from the country sold their produce. Edith was trying to save her money to buy meat, which would flavour another stew once the mutton was gone. Discarded vegetables were preferable to discarded meat.

  What meat there was left proved too expensive. Edith bit her lip and wondered whether she could get a bit of fish down on the quay, or perhaps even a brace of pigeons from the street seller who hung around there until mid-morning. Their search for him took them along St Augustine’s Quay until they were level with Tom Strong’s ship. Jim Storm Cloud was hanging over the rail and his gaze never left them as they approached. There was no sign of the street seller.

  Edith nodded a quick greeting. Jim Storm Cloud liked her a lot, judging by the times he came calling at Somerset Parade. So far, he had not visited her at Little Paradise, perhaps because he knew Deke would be there. Whatever customs they might have in North America, she was sure they still held marriage to be sacrosanct.

  But you’re not married any longer, she thought, and a thrill of excitement shot through her.

  She stopped the moment they came level with the ship. ‘I’m out doing a bit of shopping,’ she said brightly. ‘Thought I might buy a brace of pigeons from a bloke that hangs around here sometimes. Haven’t seen him, have you?’