by Erica Brown
‘Very well indeed.’
Sam took his leave and said he would pass on her good wishes to Mary.
Other eyes studied her, perhaps disapprovingly, as she sat sipping her tea. It was hardly her fault. She wasn’t old and neither was she ugly.
She had not expected to become a widow before she turned forty. But Conrad had been a big, bluff man with a hearty appetite and, as his weight had soared, his heart had given out.
She settled back into her chair, a gilt-edged cup and saucer in her hand, and eyed the recently built carbuncles hanging from the back of the buildings that lined Pulteney Bridge. They were hideous and spoilt the Italianate architecture the designer had sought hard to achieve. She turned her attention to the painting and smiled again. Bath was a vain city, albeit a beautiful one.
She was still smiling when she heard a voice that fixed her smile to her lips.
‘Blanche?’
Her eyesight was not quite as good as it was, and for a split second she thought Nelson Strong was standing there, which was quite impossible. Nelson, her half-brother, was dead, swept overboard in a terrible storm. But the man standing there had the same corn-coloured hair, the same build and the same merry twinkle in his eye. The face, however, was plumper and unsullied by dissolute living, as Nelson’s had been.
Setting down the teacup, she rose to her feet. ‘Rupert! How nice to see you.’
‘I hope you don’t mind my intrusion.’
‘No. Please. Sit down.’ She gestured to a chair close to her own. ‘Would you like tea?’ She raised her hand to summon a waiter.
‘No… oh… perhaps… yes.’
The waiter went to fetch another cup and saucer.
They talked first about the family and his marriage to an heiress that had doubled his fortune, and finally the situation in Barbados. They spoke as friends. Rupert was ignorant of their relationship. She would not enlighten him of the family’s dark secret.
Blanche felt instantly homesick, something she hadn’t felt for years. White sand, a warm sea and white-topped waves breaking over glistening rocks, she remembered them all. The old memories got the better of her and she couldn’t help interrupting.
‘Did you notice the sky?’
‘The sky?’
‘It’s so very blue. Didn’t you notice that? And the clouds are like fat sheep skipping over the sea. Surely you noticed?’
Rupert looked nonplussed. He was used to people asking him about what it was like to live there, if it was worth holding onto sugar plantations now that sugar beet was being refined in such quantities and whether the country was going to the dogs in the aftermath of slavery, but no one had asked him about the sky before.
They talked more of the family over tea.
‘I heard of Horatia’s loss.’
Rupert looked at her blankly as if he had something else on his mind though, goodness knows, what could be more important than a baby dying shortly after birth? Thank God, she thought, that none of mine died as babies, although Anne, her eldest daughter, had passed away at the age of eight from cholera. The loss still pained Blanche.
‘The baby,’ she said simply. ‘I sent my deepest sympathies.’
‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘Of course.’
‘I take it Tom was devastated by this terrible event.’
‘Yes,’ he said, and lowered his eyes.
She knew immediately that this was not just a chance visit. He had something important to say to her. He seemed nervous about it. She wondered what it could be and decided she didn’t want to wait. If he needed a nudge, then a nudge he would get.
‘Why are you here, Rupert?’
He bit his lip and was a boy again, a mix of bravado and hesitation. He gave a tight, nervous laugh. ‘Must I be here for a reason?’
Blanche sat back in her chair and looked at him accusingly. ‘Only my family knows that I’m here. You have obviously made enquiries of them and taken the trouble to travel here to see me.’
‘I do have some business in Bath,’ he blurted. ‘My wife and I were thinking of buying a house here.’
‘But you’ve sought me out. What is it, Rupert? What is so important that you made enquiries and travelled here to see me?’
Rupert took a deep breath. ‘You have a nephew named Samson.’
She shook her head. ‘I think you mean my cousin. His father was my mother’s half-brother.’
‘Ah!’
‘But he’s younger than me. He always called me aunt.’
Rupert nodded and couldn’t find the courage to raise his eyes and look at her. ‘He’s come to England and is looking for you.’
Although the news startled her, Blanche regarded him silently, waiting for him to continue.
‘I don’t think I need to point out what this might do to your standing in the city if the truth became known.’
Her nostrils flared and she clenched her hands tightly together in her lap. She knew immediately what he was getting at, and imagined the sniggers, the asides, the innuendoes such knowledge might attract. Invitations to soirées, dinners, balls and seats on charity boards would dry up because of her West Indian origins. She could live with that, she decided. But what about Max? What about her daughters Adeline and Lucy? How would they cope?
‘I promised Tom I would warn you,’ Rupert went on, diverting his gaze to a potted palm.
Despite her annoyance, her heart fluttered. ‘Thank him for me, will you?’
‘I am here looking for a house, so it was no trouble to—’
‘Don’t lie, Rupert.’
Her perception took him by surprise. ‘Goodness,’ he said, shaking his head and smiling. ‘You brought me up short then – just as you used to when I was a boy. Shouldn’t be surprised, of course. You always were one step ahead of me.’
‘Especially when we flew kites in the park,’ she said, a nostalgic sparkle brightening her eyes.
Rupert had been a boy when she’d first arrived at Marstone Court.
She remembered him climbing trees and his devotion to Tom Strong. It still showed in his eyes, and she was glad it did.
But he was no longer a boy. Day by day, the British Empire was expanding its territory and its influence. Young men like Rupert were ruling that world and had firm views on what was and was not acceptable.
What he said next surprised her.
He leaned closer, an intense expression hardening his eyes. ‘The best thing you can do is to get a servant to answer the door and tell Samson and his family to go away.’
She was speechless.
He reached for his hat and got up. ‘You should be thanking me for telling you. I promised Tom I would and that the information would go no further. We accept you for who you are, but you have to understand that not everybody—’
‘I’m tired,’ she said suddenly, her face burning with fear and confusion. ‘I think you should go.’
She stayed staring out of the window onto Pulteney Bridge long after Rupert had left, thinking about what she should do if Samson and his family came knocking at her door. Her children knew nothing of their West Indian ancestry or that Emmanuel Strong was her father. They knew of her maternal grandfather, the sea captain, who, she told them, had married a woman of Spanish origin. Conrad had advised her to concoct an alternative story when she’d been younger and at her lowest ebb. It had been all part of his plan to ease her transition from daughter of a slave to a lady of status. It had worked. So why was she feeling so angry?
Conrad was no longer there to curb her impetuousness or emotions. Rupert would never have noticed it, but she’d felt angry with him for reminding her that she had lied to her children. And what if she did tell them the truth? She refused to accept that her children, who had been brought up in the Christian household of Conrad Heinkel, a leading light in the Unitarian Church, were likely to condemn her for her ancestry.
Once the anger had subsided, she began putting her thoughts in some sort of order. She thought of Lucy’s finishing school,
Adeline’s marriage and Max’s enthusiasm for being accepted as an equal by the businessmen of Bristol. His youth already counted against him. Could she really gamble his future against her principles?
That night she slept badly, her heart and her head battling. Perhaps she might have accepted the news more calmly if Tom had brought it. She wished that he had, but could understand his reasons for not doing so.
She was now a widow, but Tom was still married. One breath of scandal, and Horatia Strong would make their lives a misery.
Chapter Four
Like a thousand, thousand tears, the rain dripped from overhead branches where springtime buds sprouted like small green hearts. Between tilted gravestones, long grass lay flattened into damp mattresses of last year’s stalks and this year’s shoots.
Her face stiff with tension, Horatia Strong watched from beneath a black umbrella as Tom approached the family mausoleum. This was the moment she’d been dreading. She hated herself for what she had done. What kind of woman would deceive her husband into thinking that their son was buried here?
Tom would despise her if he ever found out the truth. It must not happen. She had made arrangements to guarantee it. She pushed away her guilt with all her might. It was like pushing shut a heavy oak door.
The rain dripped from the brim of Tom’s hat and down his neck as he gazed at the words engraved in gold block lettering:
Isaiah Thomas Strong
Born 12 February
Died 17 February
In the Year of Our Lord 1848
Hesitantly, he reached out, his fingers tracing each letter of their son’s first name. Then his arm fell to his side. He bowed his head and turned away.
Watching him do it made her heart flutter and her limbs tremble. She slipped her arm into his. ‘We could try for another baby.’
It was nonsense of course. Dr Owen had told her to refrain from bearing another child.
‘There are ways, my dear lady,’ he had told her, his eyes suitably downcast as though he were prescribing nothing more than a stomach powder, instead of abstinence from sexual relations.
Tom didn’t look at her. She felt terribly hurt. She so wanted him to move closer to her – not in the physical sense, although heaven knew, the act of marital intimacy did not happen very often – but emotionally, a sharing of sorrow.
‘Did you hear what I said? We could have another—’
‘I think not,’ he said, his tone deep but distant.
Her chest tightened. The air felt colder when she breathed it, and not just because of the rain. Although he walked beside her, it was as though her husband, Tom Strong, were somewhere else, somewhere warmer and happier, and with someone for whom he felt true passion. Without a moment’s hesitation, she mentioned the one subject that would bring him back to her side.
‘We still have Emerald. We have to remember that.’
His tension eased, his eyes flickered and he gave her a curt nod. ‘Yes.’
He took hold of the umbrella and Horatia hugged his arm more closely to her side.
They were as one, locked together in grief. He would be presuming that her thoughts were as sad as his, which, in a way, they were. The child was gone.
But the closeness was good, and she found herself wishing they could be this way for ever.
They walked back to Marstone Court. The rain that had poured since breakfast finally stopped and the sun shone through. A bright rainbow pierced the clouds, an arc of colour ending somewhere towards the Avon Gorge, just below where Mr Brunel had built a brick tower that would eventually form part of the new bridge.
They stopped and silently admired it.
‘We have to be thankful for what we have and cease grieving for what we have lost,’ Tom said at last.
Horatia caught her breath. The lie had worked. She should have felt relief, but didn’t. The guilt lay more heavily. She had told the most terrible lie to the man she loved. He didn’t deserve to be deceived so badly, and in her heart of hearts she believed she would live to regret it.
* * *
Samson Rivermead, his wife and two young children spent most of the time being sick on the crossing from Barbados to Bristol. The journey had taken longer than anticipated on account of bad weather. Pitching and rolling in the fast race that runs between the rump of southern Ireland and the Welsh coast, the ship had run for Queenstown where it had stayed until the wind had died and the waves diminished.
The sun was shining and a rainbow spanned the Avon Gorge as the ship made its way upriver.
‘Look,’ said Samson. ‘A rainbow. That means no more rain. God Almighty sent a rainbow after the great flood, his promise that there would be no more rain. It’s a good omen,’ he said, mostly to himself. The storms, the journey, the food and the general conditions had made him question his decision to leave Barbados. If he’d stayed he might well have been killed, purely for disagreeing with a plot to attack civilians rather than the military garrison. There had been times in the midst of the Atlantic when he swore that some old witch had stirred up this storm to get him anyway.
‘The rainbow’s a good sign,’ he said again.
The sky had turned grey by the time their ship docked.
The customs officer asked for their names and Samson eagerly replied. Out of habit he called the man ‘sir’, and felt no different for doing so.
The officer adopted a disbelieving expression. ‘That’s a fancy name for a black man. You sure you didn’t pinch it?’
Samson frowned. ‘No, sir! My family used to work for the Strong family. They comes from Bristol, but their plantation in Barbados was called Rivermead, so we got given the name Rivermead, too.’
Surprised, the customs officer looked him up and down. ‘Is that so? Would they be the Strongs who live at Marstone Court?’
Samson shrugged. He’d never heard Marstone Court mentioned by anyone he knew. All he’d ever known was that the family hailed from the city of Bristol in England. Its exact position on the west coast he’d worked out on their journey across with the help of the sun, the stars and the sight of land after they’d crossed the Atlantic Ocean.
Assuming the man would at least be polite, he said, ‘I’m looking for an aunt of mine. Her name’s Blanche Bianca. Would you know where she lives?’
The officer smirked and winked at his colleagues. ‘Well, she wouldn’t be living at Marstone Court, would she? Not if she speaks and looks anything like you anyways!’
There were chortles from others gathered there, and perhaps the things they said might have become more cutting, but a crowd of people were pouring off an adjacent ship, falling to their knees and kissing the ground, some crossing themselves.
The customs officer frowned. ‘Bloody Irish!’ he muttered under his breath as he stalked off towards them. ‘Let’s hope the wind changes soon and they’re off again to America. Best bloody place for ‘em!’
Samson thought of the big houses back in Barbados. He’d always avoided them. They were too intimidating. He’d avoid this one too and look for a lead elsewhere.
Samson’s wife, Abigail, took in the bustling seaport, its tall buildings surrounding the quays and the others that pressed behind, like an army trailing over the hills around them. ‘What do we do, Samson?’
He tucked his son, Hamlet, beneath his arm and stroked his chin. There were so many buildings and so many people. Where did they go? What did they do?
He looked behind him at the filthy water. In Barbados the water had been blue. Here it was almost black and didn’t smell too good, and yet he felt loath to stray too far from it.
‘Follow the river,’ he said, picking up one of the six bundles they’d brought with them. ‘We’ll find somewhere to stay first. There’s sure to be somewhere beside the water.’
Samson did not know it, but he’d soon strayed from the river and branched off along the towpath beside the canal. Waterside cottages, their front gardens thick with cabbages, raspberry canes and gooseberry bushes, bordered its ban
ks. Older houses, built before the canal, leaned against each other. Some were derelict, their gables gaping and roofs open to the sky. A man with white whiskers supping ale outside an ancient inn watched him with narrowed eyes.
Samson gave him no regard. His priority was to find a bed for the night.
Those lodging houses that did look fairly decent had no vacancies, and those that looked dark, dirty and slowly decaying, he refused to consider.
His daughter Desdemona began to drag her feet. ‘I’m wearied.’
‘I know, I know,’ he said in a way meant to chivvy her that bit further. ‘We come a long way. Come all across the ocean, so we ain’t gonna let a bit of walking get between us and a bed for the night, are we?’
Desdemona grunted a half-hearted agreement.
Dusk was falling. The heart of the city was behind them, although the smell of soot hung in the air, and he reckoned they’d walked at least a mile. The water had swerved between the left and right of them and it no longer looked like a river. The banks were without undulation, the sides rigid with brick or stone, and foliage hanging wetly over the water.
By the time they came across the narrowboat, the lamplighter had started his rounds and an isolated gas lamp popped into existence.
Samson had never seen such a boat as this, a riot of colour, and the light falling from its tiny window proclaimed a general air of cosiness. A ginger cat curled around the smokestack and bluebirds and roses cavorted around the castles painted on its side. It was moored close to a narrow bridge, only wide enough for pedestrians. He smelled tobacco, saw it glimmer and stepped closer.
The smoker moved slightly. She was sitting close to a small door where the smell of greasy bacon and stewed tea drifted out into the night.
Samson put down his bundles and rubbed his sweating palms down his trousers. He approached the woman nervously. ‘Excuse me, missus.’
Although the light was fading and her features were indistinct, he knew she was looking at him.
