by Erica Brown
He was silent and still for a moment. ‘You never want to talk about him.’
‘What good does it do?’
‘I wish you would.’
‘Well, I won’t. Is that clear? I won’t.’
She sensed his disappointment; perhaps he was even a little angry. She vowed to make it up to him, but not by talking about the child. She couldn’t possibly do that. Perhaps in bed? Wasn’t that the best place for a wife to please her husband?
Last night she had almost reached for him, but found that she couldn’t. It wasn’t in her nature to make the first move, not because she didn’t desire him, on the contrary she loved him madly, but she was used to being adored. She’d been treated like a goddess for most of her life. When she’d grown into an intelligent woman who knew how to take advantage of her classic good looks, men had willingly fallen at her feet. Not once had she ever had to declare her adoration for them. Her heart wouldn’t let her, and she really hadn’t needed to. But Tom had always been different. She had always wanted him to make her feel desired, to have him pleading for her surrender. But he never did that and so, just like the space between them in their big double bed, there existed a cold emptiness that neither was willing to cross. Tom, she knew, perceived her stiffness as indifference and, unless he was very desperate, refrained from bothering her.
There would be no more babies. Her fertile years were coming to a close. In one way she was glad; the monthly interruption would not be missed, but the fact she had not presented Tom with a son – his own son – filled her with regret.
He’d been too long away in the West Indies. She’d sometimes wondered whether he was unfaithful, but didn’t want to know. The fire of jealousy would be too all-consuming.
She felt her stomach tightening more forcibly than any corset, touching him in her mind; feeling the tautness of his muscles, the outline of his body against the cold greyness filtering through the window.
God, how she wanted him to want her! To really want her! Perhaps if she widened the gap between them… Absence, or at least a separate bedroom along the landing, might make the heart grow fonder.
As he began to dress, she pulled her gaze away and swung her legs out of bed.
‘I’ve arranged for your things to be moved into the west wing; you always said you liked that wing best.’
She’d said it nonchalantly before sitting down at her mirror where she studied his reflection, waiting for a reaction.
To her consternation, he appeared unmoved. ‘Let me know when it’s done. I wouldn’t want the servants to see me wandering the landing in my nightshirt.’
‘You don’t wear a nightshirt.’
He grinned. ‘That’s what I mean.’
Despite the signs of middle age creasing the corners of his eyes, his grin made him look boyish.
Horatia fought the urge to throw herself upon him. She began vigorously brushing her hair and changed the subject.
‘I’ve decided to sell our share in Heinkel’s Sugar Refinery.’
‘For any particular reason?’
The question sounded casual, but Horatia was not fooled. Tom cared about Max. With a pang of regret, she knew he would have cared about the son she’d given him.
‘I’ve decided we should invest the money in the land around the new docks being planned at Avonmouth by the City Corporation. It makes sense to have direct access to the sea rather than meandering all the way up through the Avon Gorge and into the city. You’ve said yourself that ships can only get bigger, too big to come up the river. Bigger ships carry a larger cargo and thus refineries need to be bigger. Which means Heinkel’s is too small and in the wrong place. Isn’t that so?’ She smiled sweetly.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It is.’
‘So it makes sense to invest in the future. There can be no compromise. I for one have never entertained sentiment in business.’
‘No,’ said Tom, a little too grimly for her liking. ‘No. No one can ever accuse you of being sentimental.’
She stiffened, one sleeve of the expensive lace-edged nightdress falling down to reveal a gleaming shoulder. Her look was frosty. ‘I will not forsake my heritage, Thomas. My father willed the bulk of the Strong fortune to me rather than to my brothers, because he trusted I would run it as well as he did.’
Now fully dressed, Tom stretched out one arm, leaning on the window surround with his back to her. ‘Your father left quite an inheritance. What would you have done, I wonder, if I hadn’t carried out my part of his will, the part that insisted you would not inherit unless you married me? What would you have done if everything had gone to Max Heinkel?’
He turned towards her. Tom had always had a direct way of looking into her eyes, as though he were trying to catch her true feelings before she had chance to hide them away.
Like a young girl, she found herself blushing. ‘He’s the grandson of a black slave!’
‘He’s also your father’s grandson, and therefore your nephew.’
‘I won’t have you blackening my father’s name.’
Looking bemused, Tom shook his head. ‘I think your father was quite capable of besmirching his own name without my help.’
‘It is my family name.’
‘Horatia, there’s a painting of your grandmother in the attic. It’s no accident that she bears a strong resemblance to Blanche Heinkel, and not just through your father. Did you ever wonder about her breeding?’
‘You’re accusing her of being a Creole! A mulatto! A nigger!’
Horatia was shouting now, barely able to control her anger and at the same time sounding unnaturally defensive, as though the fault were hers.
He shook his head. ‘No, I’m not. She’s dead and can’t answer for herself. I’m merely pointing out to you that as plantation owners, the men of the Strong family had unlimited access to their female slaves. Don’t be surprised if another skeleton falls out of the Strong closet. It’s only to be expected.’
He didn’t look back when he left the room. If he had, he would have seen her ashen complexion. Dark hair and a small, soft body; flesh of her flesh, how could she have done it? How could she?
Stiff and unyielding, she sank into a chair, her jaw aching with the effort of holding back the sobs that jerked at her throat.
* * *
No one he passed would have guessed from Tom’s profile what was going on in his mind. No one knew Horatia as well as he did. People could fall dead by the wayside so long as she got her own way. She was plotting something big, determined that the Strong family would be the winners. In that event, Max Heinkel could only be the loser.
He frowned. Max was a grown man and, hopefully, could look after himself and his widowed mother. Tom cared for them both, but he also loved his little daughter, Emerald. For her sake, he had to make the best of his marriage. He couldn’t condemn Horatia for throwing herself into the development of the new port with such enthusiasm. She’d lost a baby. It helped her cope. That was why he had not objected to moving into a separate room. She needed time to get over the birth. At least, that was what he told himself.
* * *
‘It really suits you, Mrs Heinkel,’ said Magdalene Cherry, the milliner sent by Madame Mabel with Blanche’s new hats.
The first bonnet was mauve, its silk covering sewn into tight concertina pleats all around the brim and bunches of violets fastened over the place where the strings were sewn in. A long veil of fine French lace hung from the back.
Blanche eyed herself in the mirror.
‘Very nice,’ said Edith who was sitting in on the session, her head tilted as she considered each one.
The next bonnet was of blue velvet, and the third of green and red tartan.
‘That ‘un looks like a drum,’ said Edith of the latter with a sniff of disdain and a slip into Bristol dialect.
‘That’s a daft thing to say,’ chirped Magdalene. ‘Oh. Sorry, Mrs Heinkel. Didn’t mean to speak out of turn.’
Blanche smiled and shook her head.
‘Why not? Edith does.’
She found herself liking the girl. She was small and dark, her eyes large and brown. There was an alertness and a quickness about her that reminded her of Edith in her youth, except that Magdalene didn’t tell tall stories.
It came as a great surprise when a knock came at the door and Max entered.
‘Very nice, Mother,’ he said, nodding at the tartan bonnet, his eyelids flickering briefly before his gaze settled on Magdalene Cherry.
‘No, it isn’t,’ said Edith. ‘It looks like something a regimental drummer might beat with a couple of sticks.’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Max, who was clearly not listening.
Via her reflection Blanche exchanged a smile with Edith. Max’s eyes were fixed on Magdalene.
The milliner, if she noticed at all, remained aloof, busily adjusting ribbons, putting in an extra stitch or a chalk mark here and there where alternations were needed.
‘Mother, I’m off for a meeting at the coffee shop near the Corn Exchange, then to the refinery,’ Max said, bending down and kissing her cheek.
‘Yes, dear.’
Again she saw his eyes slide sidelong to Magdalene, fancied a faint blush came to his cheeks and imagined the quickening of his heart. She sometimes worried about the air of self-importance Max had adopted since his father’s death. It could so easily lead to arrogance, but now she saw that his heart, for once, was ruling his head. From the look in his eyes, she could see that Magdalene Cherry had captured his heart. Whether the girl knew it or not was beside the point. Max was enraptured and Blanche was glad.
* * *
The smell of freshly ground coffee was conducive to the warm atmosphere of Carwardine’s Coffee Shop. The walls, floors and furniture were of dark wood, enlivened by brass rails along the backs of the booths. Conversation hummed like a well-oiled machine, punctuated by the clink of silver spoons against fine ironstone china.
Heads nodded in greeting as Captain Tom Strong entered. Although there had always been comments about him marrying into money, they’d come to respect his firm manner and obvious integrity.
‘Did you know he used to be a bare-knuckle bruiser?’ they’d say one to another, then chortle and express their intention never to give him cause for anger.
In the wake of Horatia’s news, he’d sent a note to Max Heinkel inviting him to an urgent meeting at the coffee house. He had considered going direct to the factory, but hoped the more congenial surroundings might help Max see sense.
‘Fill two cups,’ Tom said to the waiter on seeing Max come through the door. ‘With cream and sugar.’
No one that Tom knew of had ever questioned Max Heinkel’s paternity. Judging the young man by looks alone, it was easy to believe that the darkness of his hair was inherited from his mother, and its inclination to acquire blond streaks in strong sunlight was inherited from his father. Conrad had been a big, blond German with an easy smile and a congenial nature. He and Tom had liked each other, and both had loved Blanche.
They shook hands, and Max sat down.
He was wearing a dark coat with a lighter collar and cuffs and matching buttons. His trousers and waistcoat were beautifully tailored, and a gold chain crossed his chest, no doubt with a handsome half-hunter swinging on the end of it.
Tom was about to ask whether Max had given more consideration to his suggestion that he transfer the refinery to the new port, but Max got there first.
‘I’ve fully considered all you said about the shortcomings of our original site on The Counterslip, and I agree with your observations.’
Tom felt his whole body relaxing. ‘I’m glad to hear it.’
‘I have thought long and hard, and have decided that in order to compete in this fast-changing world and maintain or increase profit at The Counterslip premises, we must look to increasing our investment in steam processes and vacuum driers.’
Tom looked at him in dismay. ‘That won’t solve your transport problems.’
Max tilted his head and looked at him with eyes that were the same pewter grey as Blanche’s. It was impossible not to be affected by them. ‘I have done some preliminary sums and am sure that one will compensate for the other.’ He spoke with self-assurance, his face bright with youthful zeal, and a sudden intensity firmed his handsome features. ‘I have to do this, Tom. You don’t mind me calling you Tom, do you? Only my father and my mother always referred to you by your first name—’
‘I don’t mind at all.’
The truth was that his sudden intimacy affected him greatly. He felt an instant need to balance the situation. ‘How is your mother? I haven’t seen her in quite a while.’ After saying it, he took a sip of coffee and looked into its dark surface as though he were seeing something more than was actually there, just in case Max, his son, their son, could read the look in his eyes.
‘You know she hasn’t been well?’
Tom shook his head. The news shocked him. ‘Is she well now?’
Max smiled with the typical confidence of a young man for whom illness and death seem too far removed to worry about. ‘It comes and goes. At least, that’s what she says.’ He grinned amiably. ‘Sometimes I think it’s just an excuse to stay a few days in Bath. She has a favourite hotel there. And she has come out of mourning at last. In fact, I left her trying on some hats… which reminds me…’
His confidence seemed to falter suddenly, as though he’d been found out to be only a boy pretending to be a man. He scrutinized the fine face of the half-hunter he pulled from his pocket, put it back in his waistcoat pocket and drained his cup. He got to his feet. ‘Do excuse me.’
Tom felt sick at heart. Max did not have the experience to fight Horatia, and he knew that any advice to the strong-headed young man wouldn’t work. Max was too like his father.
He could have told him of Horatia’s plans, but he knew her too well. She’d destroy him, but most importantly, she’d destroy Max.
He left the coffee house feeling far less hopeful that Max Heinkel would survive in this fast-changing world. Although he would try to convince Horatia not to sell the shares held by the Strong family, he couldn’t stop her – unless he bought them himself, or got someone else to buy them.
Perhaps out of respect for her father’s wishes, she had always resisted selling the shares. But since the death of their son, she had thrown herself into business and had become, if it were possible, more ruthless and ambitious, and less inclined to follow family sentiments.
He gritted his teeth, waved his carriage away and turned onto the cobbled towpath that would take him eastwards out of the city. He needed to clear his mind. Was there any way he could persuade Horatia to reconsider?
The cobbles turned to gravel and crunched beneath his feet. Tufts of grass and bright yellow weeds jostled for space with purple buddleia, each bush dappled with tortoiseshell butterflies. The air was fresher here and although the city was encroaching along the side of the canal, there were still fields on the other bank curving out towards St Anne’s.
A family of ducks scurried from the weeds and scooted off across the water towards a pair of brightly coloured narrowboats, lines of washing fluttering over their cabin roofs.
Up ahead, moored opposite a redbrick boarding house, was a gaudier boat, a ginger cat curled around its smoke stack, the name Lizzie Jane painted on the side. The cat got up at Tom’s approach, stretched then lay down again, licked its mouth and closed its eyes. The boat looked familiar. A feather of white smoke curled from the stack and the smell of black shag tobacco and suet pudding hit his nose before he saw her.
‘Aggie!’
On hearing his voice, a woman wearing a black bonnet and smoking a pipe squinted at him as hard as she could.
Aggie’s eyesight is going, thought Tom, and was saddened. They’d arm-wrestled many a time at The Fourteen Stars tavern. Aggie had usually won.
Once he was up close, she recognized him. ‘Tom Strong? Well, you old rum-wrencher. Come on aboard and I’ll get thee a drink
.’
The words and the way she said them were like music to his ears. It seemed an age since he’d seen her or heard those words spoken in a Forest of Dean accent – an odd cross between Gloucestershire dialect and Welsh.
She forced him to sit down and accept a drink from a chipped enamel mug decorated with yellow and red flowers.
‘Now tell me all what you bin doing. How’s that dark beauty you was so fond of? Blanche, wasn’t it?’
‘I married Horatia Strong, Aggie. I told you that years ago.’
She waved his protests aside. ‘Yes, yes, and you live at that posh place out at Ashton, but I know you, Tom Strong. A ladies’ man you are and always will be. So what ‘appened to her then?’
‘She married Conrad Heinkel and lives in Somerset Parade, Redcliffe. I believe I told you that, too.’
‘Memory’s not so good,’ she explained and wiped a dribble of snuff with the corner of her apron.
‘I thought you’d be retired by now, Aggie,’ he said after they’d clinked mugs.
Aggie laughed and Tom noticed she’d lost more teeth. She was more hump-backed than when he’d last seen her, thinner too.
‘This is me home, old butt.’ She patted the boat’s roof with a nut-brown hand, the skin shiny and thin enough to see the veins through it. ‘I’ve lived on the Lizzie Jane for most of me life. Only way you’ll have me off yur is in a box!’ She laughed again, her teeth wobbling.
Tom leaned well back. Aggie had never boasted the sweetest of breaths.
‘That’s me sister’s place.’ She nodded at the brick boarding house.
The windows shone, the paint was fresh and although flowering weeds grew from the foundations and around the chimney, they made it cheerful.
‘I gets all me water from there fur me cooking and me kettle. I could have enough to bathe in if I wanted, but I ain’t goin’ to change the habits of a lifetime at my age. Shock of cold water might kill me.’
