Respectable Trade Read online

  Josiah nodded, took a small sip of port, and swallowed down his distaste. There was a tap on the door, and Frances stood in the doorway, wearing a loose gown and with her cap hastily pinned on her hair. “May I speak with you, husband?” she said.

  Josiah rose and went to the door, half closing it to shield their conversation from the guest. “What are you doing downstairs dressed like this?”

  Frances glanced at her wrapper, the usual morning dress for ladies in their homes. “I had gone to bed,” she said reasonably.

  “You come before a guest half dressed?”

  Frances gave a little laugh and then, looking into Josiah’s face, saw that he was serious. “Excuse me, husband,” she said carefully. “I had no idea that you would object.”

  The gulf between his world and hers suddenly opened before them. Josiah knew that on all matters of etiquette she was bound to be in the right, but he was an ambitious man, anxious about his respectability. “I do object,” he said, knowing himself to be in the wrong, knowing himself to sound foolish. “I do.”

  Frances bowed her head, wary of his drunken irritability. “Shall I go and change my dress?” she asked.

  “No. Tell me now what it is that you wanted.”

  “Brown brought me a message.” Frances had been distracted by his disapproval; she tried to regain the initiative. “I came to ask you . . . It seems so strange at this time of night . . . May I ask what you want to see a woman for?”

  “No, you may not, madam! Sir Charles wishes to inspect the slaves. I sent for the keys, which should be in your safekeeping. There was no need for you to come downstairs at all and no call for you to question me.”

  “It is just for him to see a woman?” Frances broke off. “To look at her? It is not to . . . er . . . to trouble her?”

  Josiah flushed dark red. “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Cole! You amaze me with your boldness! Please give me the keys and go to your chamber. I do not want Sir Charles to see you like this nor hear such slander spoken against him!”

  Frances stood her ground, scarlet with embarrassment. “I cannot give you the keys,” she maintained, her voice shaking slightly. “I beg of you, sir, not to ask me. I am supposed to be teaching them; they are in my care. You are speaking of my pupils. I cannot permit it. I have to have an undertaking from you.”

  Josiah came out into the hall and shut the door behind him. He was trembling with drunken anger; his spittle flew as he hissed at her. “You are shameless! Your insinuations are shameless! This is an honored guest! A man who has done many years of very profitable business with me and my house. If he wishes to look at one of our slaves, then of course we will allow it. Why not? Why on earth not? Go and fetch one of the women, Mrs. Cole!”

  Frances backed away from him until she reached the newel post at the foot of the stairs. She had the keys in her hand behind her back. “I must ask for your assurance . . .” she insisted weakly.

  “My assurance?” he repeated, ready to explode with anger.

  She collapsed before his bluster, her breath coming short, her hand to her thudding heart. “Very well. But you will just look at her, won’t you?”

  “Fetch one of the slave women, Mrs. Cole,” he said angrily. “You should have stayed where you were and sent the keys to me by Brown. I am much displeased. Since you insist on coming down, you can fetch the woman yourself, and then go to bed!”

  Frances’s face was white as she turned from him and went slowly, very slowly, down the stairs to the kitchen.

  Brown and John Bates were sitting on either side of the kitchen range, waiting for the family to go to their beds so that they could lock up. At her step they rose to their feet.

  “I am sorry to trouble you,” she said. Her lips were cold and stiff; she found it hard to speak. “Bates, could you come with me to the cellar? Your master wishes to see one of the women slaves.”

  Bates thrust his hands into the armholes of his jacket and straightened his stock. Frances went to the cellar door and turned her key in the lock.

  The cellar below her was shadowy. As she went down the steps, she heard the chink of the chains. One or two of the slaves had been sleeping, but as they heard the door open, they stirred nervously and woke. Mehuru rose slowly to his feet, looking from John Bates to Frances, trying to read their faces.

  She did not meet his eyes. She looked around the cellar in the shadowy, unreliable light of the lantern and then pointed to the biggest woman, the one who seemed the most robust. “Her,” she said.

  John stepped forward and unchained the woman from her handcuffs. She flinched away from him as he came toward her and shot a look at Frances—a look that was both a question and an appeal. Frances’s face gave nothing away; she was like a cold stone statue.

  “What does she want of me?” the woman demanded of Mehuru.

  He shook his head, his eyes on Frances. He could sense her powerlessness. He could feel her sense of defeat and something more—a deep sense of shame.

  “I don’t know,” he said softly. “Have courage, sister.”

  The woman trembled and would have fallen, but John Bates grabbed her around the waist and pushed her toward the steps. Her knees buckled beneath her, and she crouched at the foot of the steps. “They will eat me,” she whispered. “Look at her face. She has come for me, and she will eat me.”

  Mehuru glanced swiftly toward Frances and saw her horrid narrow lips bitten even thinner. “No,” he said certainly. “It’s not her choice.”

  “Save me,” the woman begged softly. “Mehuru, save me!”

  Mehuru stood very still and felt the depths of his helplessness wash through him and over him. He knew that she would be raped and all that he could do was watch her be taken. He was unmanned, perhaps forever. “Have courage, sister,” he said tightly. “We are a proud people. Bear this proudly.” He heard the hollow bravado in his voice, even as he spoke. He was a proud man no more; he was less than an animal, for he did not have even a safe lair.

  She found her feet, managed to stand.

  Bates, growing impatient, asked Frances, “Shall I carry her upstairs? I don’t think she can climb them.”

  “Yes,” Frances said shortly. She did not dare to look at Mehuru. She kept her eyes on her feet. She had dainty gray silk sandals to match the gown she had worn at dinner. She pointed her toe to look at the sheen on the silk and the twinkle of the paste buckle.

  John Bates caught the woman up. She grunted as his meaty shoulder butted into her emaciated belly, but she was silent as he climbed the steps. She seemed to have fainted from her fear; her head lolled at each step, her arms dangled down. “Shall I carry her to Mr. Cole’s office?” he asked.

  “Yes.” Frances followed him up the steps and carefully locked the door behind them. Slowly Bates walked through the kitchen, with Frances behind him. Brown watched them pass in silence. Frances kept her eyes on the worn heels of Bates’s boots.

  When they left the warmth and light of the kitchen and went into the dark hall, the woman started muttering the prayers for death. Over and over again, she called the name of her husband, who was still waiting for her, still hoping for news of her. Over and over again, she called to her ancestors to prepare a place for her and begged them to forgive her for whatever wrongs she had done that she had been sent away from her home to die in dishonor in exile.

  Frances heard the babble of pleas without understanding. She did not know that the woman was calling on her, demanding of her what was wanted, what they wanted her to do, if there was any way she might be spared. Frances walked behind Bates, nursing her ignorance, deaf and blind to pain.

  She tapped on Josiah’s door and then swung it open, her face impassive. Bates marched in with his burden, and Frances closed the door on them all and went steadily up the stairs to her bedroom. Through the closed office door, she heard the woman call out suddenly and clearly, “Day-bull! Day-bull!”

  She was trying desperately to please them. To say “table” as they had wanted her t