by Erica Brown
Tom was startled when Horatia touched him on the shoulder. ‘I’m sorry about the ship,’ she said, and he fancied she was crying.
He didn’t look up at her, just mumbled a grateful acceptance.
‘I’d like to kill those responsible,’ he added, but didn’t see Horatia’s hand tremble as it left his shoulder.
Jeb turned piteous eyes on his beloved adopted son. ‘No… killing… sin… stays with you… atonement.’ He raised a fragile hand and tapped his chest.
Did he mean that he’d killed? Tom found it hard to believe. Jeb was a religious man, known for his good works, his amiable attitude, his adoration of his deceased wife and family. The next slurred statement turned him cold.
‘I… killed…’ He sighed, threw his head back and closed his eyes.
Tom exchanged swift glances with Nelson and Horatia. The former looked calm though concerned; the latter seemed agitated, almost beside herself with grief.
‘Take her out of here,’ Tom said to Nelson.
‘Come along, Horatia,’ said Nelson, placing his arm around her shoulder and guiding her to the door.
Jeb seemed relieved when they’d gone. He took a huge breath, as though what he had to say could not be said in the halting manner he’d adopted so far. Resolve stiffened his body and held his head erect as he said, ‘I was young. In Barbados. My brothers and I had been drinking… There was a mulatto slave. Pretty. Brought to us… naked.’
In the oppressive heat of his heavily draped sick room, Jeb’s few words painted a picture of rich young men out from England, the heat of the tropics, the strong, brown-skinned women and the plentiful supply of rum. Between deep breaths, he described waking to see a man spitting into his brother’s face, fearing the worse and bringing a candlestick crashing on to the man’s head. ‘I killed him,’ he said quietly and coughed so badly, it seemed his lungs might collapse there and then.
Sensing he had more to say, Tom remained silent, and kept his gaze fixed on Jeb’s face as he waited for him to continue.
‘She conceived,’ Jeb said. The regret he obviously felt seemed to pull at the loose flesh of his face, almost as if it were likely to slide off his skull. Tears poured from his eyes. ‘Otis looked after her… and the child.’
‘Blanche,’ said Tom. He wished she were here. She’d been so sure that Otis was her father. Was Jeb admitting this? He looked down at the floor. ‘Blanche suspected Otis was her father, but he’d never admitted it.’
Jeb shook his head. ‘Otis and I… had drunk too much.’ He pushed on, determined to finish. ‘Patience. Samson’s first wife… Emmanuel’s mother,’ said Jeb sadly. ‘Otis and I…’ He patted his chest as he coughed and fought for his words. ‘Second marriage.’ Patience. The name etched in one of the panels at the mausoleum and splattered with mud. Like a dreadful spectre, the scene he’d witnessed in the churchyard between Nelson and Blanche drifted into his mind. ‘God, no!’ he groaned, his head sinking into his hands.
‘Lord’s name… vain…’ slurred Jeb.
‘The Lord’s gone deaf,’ Tom said bitterly. ‘Didn’t hear Jimmy Palmer shouting for help, did he?’
‘Patience…?’ Jeb said, his power of speech receding, now. ‘Blanche…’
Sick as he was, Jeb sensed that something more than the burnt-out ship was troubling Tom.
‘I have to see Nelson,’ he said, getting up and turning towards the door. ‘I’ll come back.’
Before he got there, it was opened from the outside by Duncan, the footman, his face shiny as a conker, his powdered wig as white as snow. Horatia brushed past him without a second glance. The door closed. Horatia stood alone, her face flushed, her hands tugging nervously at the braided loops that fastened her bodice.
With ill-disguised revulsion, she glanced at her uncle’s pallor, the stained bib and the rolling eyes. ‘Tom, I have to speak to you about the fire. Is it true that no one was hurt?’
‘One man’s dead.’
‘And the children?’
‘Safe except for one who is unaccounted for.’
She sighed. ‘Thank goodness. When Benson told me—’
‘How did Benson know?’
‘Because… I heard… be… be…’
Her hesitation worried Tom, though he couldn’t exactly say why. Perhaps it was because Horatia never got flustered or stuck for words, yet here she was stammering.
At last she managed to say, ‘He was brought news, and rushed straight out to see me.’
Tom knitted his eyebrows and stepped closer to her. ‘Why would he do that? What’s it to him? What’s it to you, for that matter?’ Horatia nervous? He couldn’t remember ever seeing her look like this before, excepting close to Clifton Gate when the carriage horse had reared and come down on the wrong side of the shaft. She’d been in the company of Benson then.
‘He takes care of my investments,’ she said using a small voice, as if she were weak or a child. ‘He advises me on business matters, and we wanted the berth because the mail to North America—’ She didn’t need to go on.
Incidents that had seemed unconnected suddenly clicked into place. It was Benson that had gone to see the port authorities about paying more for the Miriam Strong’s berth. Someone had mentioned that you see the tower of St Mary Redcliffe church from her decks, and Temple Meads Meadows beyond that, where the navvies were building a station. The Miriam Strong’s berth was close to Temple Meads Meadows and big enough for an ocean-going vessel of the sort developed by Mr Brunel. All in all, it was the ideal place for the mail carried from London to Bristol by steam train, on to a ship and across the Atlantic.
‘The berth was closest to Temple Meads Meadows…’
‘It was a golden opportunity!’ Her eyes shone with excitement. ‘You must see that, Tom. The railway bringing mail from all over the country for onward passage to America, Africa and all the far-flung places where British people are leaving their mark. Wasn’t it worth transferring the training school ship to another berth?’ Tom looked at her lovely face, her shining hair and wished she were a man so he could land his fist on her chin.
‘Was it worth setting light to her? Was it worth a man’s life and the homelessness of orphans?’ His tone was bitter and there was hatred in his heart.
Too angry to move lest he forget she was a woman, Tom stood like a rock, studying her expression. A torrent of emotions showed in her eyes, echoing the speed of her thoughts. He guessed she was tumbling from guilt to guile, from shame to ambition.
‘Darling, Tom,’ she purred, and tried to stroke his arm.
He hit her hand away, saw the hurt in her eyes and felt no regret. His gaze held steady.
Then she threw her hands over her face. ‘Oh, Tom! I’m so sorry.’ She was crying. He’d never seen Horatia cry before. It surprised him even more when she sank down on her knees before him, her hooped skirt spreading out around her like a blue silk tent. ‘Please forgive me.’
‘Who did it?’
She raised her tear-stained face and for a moment he allowed himself to believe that she was regretful, really contrite. ‘I didn’t mean for that to happen. That wasn’t what I asked for.’
A sudden movement from the bed caught his attention. ‘Sinners, Tom. We’re all sinners.’ He spluttered.
Tom rushed to him, eased him forward. ‘Get that bowl,’ he shouted at Horatia.
She looked confused but got to her feet and found the bowl. It pleased Tom to see her wince, as Jeb brought up a mix of porridge and bread.
Tom laid Jeb back on the pillows. Horatia’s complexion turned daisy white as she set down the bowl and covered it with a piece of red flannel.
‘Tom…’ said Jeb, his voice as weak as his body.
Tom shook with anger and indicated with a wave of his hand for Jeb to be silent. Hair tumbling over his forehead in casual disarray, he glared at Horatia, his deep blue eyes as unfathomable as his heart. ‘I’m going to see Benson,’ he said and attempted to remove Jeb’s hand from his arm. Surprisingly eno
ugh, it wasn’t easy. Somehow and from somewhere, Jeb found the strength to grip and he was shaking his head, his eyes big with pleading.
Tom looked down at him. ‘I’m in no mood to forgive and forget, Jeb.’ He shook his head forlornly. ‘I can’t.’
Horatia looked desperate. ‘I didn’t actually set fire to the ship, and neither did Josiah, Tom. He just misunderstood my instructions. It was another man, whom everyone in the family has used at some time or another.’
Tom grabbed Horatia’s shoulders.
‘What man?’ he asked.
‘Reuben Trout.’
He might have known.
‘Please forgive me, Tom,’ she said, wheedling like an errant child that wants to be loved.
Tom studied her. Horatia was cleverer than her brother. There was much she knew, much she kept to herself.
Jeb’s body was again racked with the fierceness of his coughing. ‘Blan… che!’
‘Edith! Fetch Blanche! Now,’ Tom shouted, leaning over the bed, trying hard to catch the words that Jeb was hardly able to whisper.
A red-faced Edith rushed in from the other room. No doubt she’d heard everything that had gone on between him and Horatia.
Fidgeting and hesitant, she at last blurted, ‘Blanche is gone.’
Tom felt his knees go weak, and his expression turned to thunder. ‘When?’
Jeb began to splutter again.
‘Yesterday!’
Tom grabbed her arm. First the ship going up in flames, Jimmy dead, Clarence missing and now this. ‘Blanche went yesterday?’
Her shoulders stiffened. ‘Yes.’
Tom glared at Horatia who shook her head. ‘I know nothing about it.’
The room echoed to the sound of Jeb’s lungs as Dr Langdon entered. Never a man to rush, he placed his bag on the top of a glass-fronted credenza and blew his nose loudly into a lace-edged handkerchief before approaching the bed.
‘Well?’ snapped Tom, as the doctor laid his palm on Jeb’s chest.
Casually, as though, like Pontius Pilate, he had washed his hands of the whole affair, Dr Langdon shook his head and turned away.
Tom would have hit him there and then, but Jeb’s gasping breath suddenly became a loud rattle interspersed with half-formed words as his cold fingers reached for Tom’s hand. His voice broke through the ugly sounds. ‘Tom.’
Tom dropped his head close so he could hear better, uncaring how bad Jeb smelled and that the spittle from his cracked lips was dribbling down his chin and saturating his nightgown.
‘You… are… a… good… son.’
Tom squeezed his eyes shut, but it failed to stop the tears.
When he opened them again, he knew that something had changed. Jeb sighed, just once. There was no more rasping breath, no more rattling lungs. Jeb Strong was dead.
The room remained silent, Tom sitting on the side of the bed, the doctor standing by the window, not sure what to do or what Tom would do if he dared to abscond before Tom gave him leave.
‘I never told him,’ Tom said softly.
The doctor asked nervously, ‘Told him what, sir?’
With finger and thumb, Tom closed Jeb’s eyes.
‘How much his son loved him,’ he whispered, referring to himself, not some angelic boy who’d died through misadventure. Whether by drowning or suffocation, Jasper was long gone. It would have done no good to tell Jeb what had truly happened. Anyway, they were together now.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Mrs Harkness wore a cotton bonnet with red strings. Every so often, she used the latter to swipe at the streaks of snuff that ran from her nostrils and into her mouth. Her eyebrows were like hairy caterpillars, forever on the move, each seemingly independent of the other. Stiff hairs bristled from her upper lip, and her breath smelled of stale liver.
Her eyes didn’t seem to move, but Blanche knew a bawd when she saw one. She was in a house of ill-repute, and wasn’t sure how easy it would be to get out again. She should have known better. If she hadn’t been so tired, she would not have gone along with the man who called himself Cuthbert Stoke. She recalled now that Fen and Edith had said something about him, a comment in passing. It hadn’t seemed important at the time.
At present he was standing between her and the door, leaning on a walking stick and eyeing her speculatively, no doubt calculating her worth and his profit.
As he watched her, he spoke to Mrs Harkness about the weather, the ships in port and the flood of navvies earning good money for digging tunnels and laying rails.
Mrs Harkness was a woman of few words.
‘Spain and Portugal,’ she said.
‘No. I’m from—’
Stoke interrupted. ‘I think Mrs Harkness is referring to the seamen at present in port.’
‘Oranges, wine and sherry,’ said Mrs Harkness, her gaze never shifting from Blanche’s face.
‘You’re probably right,’ said Stoke. ‘There’s a few fast-sailing barques up from Jerez. Plenty of sailors with money in their pockets.’
‘Rough navvies,’ said Mrs Harkness.
‘Big men,’ said Stoke. ‘From all over, I hear tell. Some are wearing boots for the first time in their lives and proud of ’em. Only wear them fer working and hang them around their necks the rest of the time.’
Blanche was amazed at the one-sided conversation. Mrs Harkness uttered a few seemingly unconnected words, and Stoke replied. He obviously knew her well.
She was tired and trapped, but her mind was working fast. If she made a run for it right away, he’d stop her. Best to appear docile, she told herself. Bide your time. Wait and run for it when you can.
‘It’s very kind of you to put me up,’ she said in the manner of a demur maiden with no idea of who and what this woman was. ‘A little rest, a little food and I’ll be on my way in the morning.’
‘Eat, drink, sleep,’ said the woman, her smile revealing few teeth but plenty of gum. She went to the door, leaned past Stoke and shouted, ‘Mary! Now!’
Within seconds, a pale girl in a blue dress and a less than clean white apron limped into the room. Mousy locks fell from beneath a mop cap and completely obscured one eye. She was thin, though not necessarily poorly nourished. Tall and gangly, her arms were long and her neck seemed to jut forward, which gave her a curious look, as though she were looking for what lay around the next corner.
Mrs Harkness barked out her orders. ‘Special broth, special drink, special guest room.’
Mary limped off. Blanche turned cold at the thought of how the girl had come to be limping, why her hair fell over only one side of her face. She’d heard tales in Bridgetown of bawds breaking runaways’ legs, damaging their looks.
‘Ladylike,’ said Mrs Harkness, looking her up and down and assuming – wrongly – that Blanche knew nothing about whores, bawdy houses and rough waterfronts. And that’s the way it would stay, Blanche decided. For now she would play the part and she could do with some food and rest.
Stoke was telling her that she’d be right as rain in the morning, and that he was sure he could help her get to where she wanted to go-
Mrs Harkness suddenly reached out and ran her finger down Blanche’s cheek.
Stoke explained. ‘She’s just checking that you really are that colour. Amazin’ it is, how some people try to pretend they’re exotic when they ain’t. Now you, my dear girl, are exotic and I don’t think yer name should be Blanche.’
Mrs Harkness frowned and nodded in agreement.
‘So how about calling you Sharitari? How’s about that for a name, eh, Mrs Harkness?’
‘Sharitari,’ repeated Mrs Harkness, and her frown disappeared.
‘No, ma’am. My name’s Blanche.’ She clutched her bag tightly against her, a nervous little virgin lost and all alone. Inside she felt angry and determined to get the better of them. Why did everyone in this country want to call her by anything but her own name?
‘A white dress,’ said Mrs Harkness, looking her up and down as if she’d made a d
ecision.
Out of the corner of her eye, Blanche saw Stoke straighten, his eyes full of interest. ‘Innocent and exotic,’ he said thoughtfully.
‘If you could tell me how much my bed and board will cost,’ she began, ‘I’m sure I can pay you before very long.’ She was wise enough not to admit she carried money or valuables.
‘Mrs Harkness will be fair with you,’ said Stoke. ‘Just as I shall be for the rendering of my services.’
She wondered at the relationship between him and Mrs Harkness and who actually owned the house. Stoke most likely. Mrs Harkness merely ran it for him.
Before Mary came back, a clattering of feminine footsteps came from the stairs. A dark-haired woman, then a redhead, glanced her way. She saw the pitying look in one set of eyes, the warning in the other.
Mrs Harkness was making small talk. ‘Fans. If you come across one, Mr Stoke. I like fans.’
Stoke smiled and said, ‘I expect you like fans too, don’t you, Blanche? Shall I get one for you too?’
Blanche smiled bashfully and pretended that she was too overcome with nerves to speak.
When Mary came back, Mrs Harkness put her arms around Blanche’s shoulders and guided her towards the stairs. ‘Up with Mary.’ She reached for the leather bag that Blanche still clutched tightly to her chest. ‘I’ll take care of your bag.’
Blanche smiled, shook her head and held it more tightly. Once her bag got into the bawd’s grubby hands, she’d never see it again.
Mary led her up a narrow staircase that wound left at the top into a narrow, dark passage. About halfway along, Mary kicked at a door. The noise of her kicking bounded off the musty smelling walls. The door refused to budge. After kicking it a few more times, it opened, groaning like an old man with stiff knees.
The room smelled of lavender. A generous bunch was strung in front of the window, though it wasn’t quite enough to keep out the miasma wafting up from the city sewers. The room had chalky walls and bare boards. A length of green tartan served as a curtain to one side of the window. Two bolster pillows lay at one end of the bed, tubes of fine lace falling from the ends of each.
