Respectable Trade Read online

  Frances touched the back of Mehuru’s hand again. The warmth of the dark skin under her fingers encouraged her. “Mehuru,” she said quietly. “That woman. What is her name?” She pointed to herself. “Frances.” She pointed to him. “Mehuru.” She pointed to the woman. “What name?” she asked.

  “She wants your name,” Mehuru said to the woman. His voice was tender, as one would speak to a sister mortally injured. But his resentment burned beneath the quiet tone, and Frances could hear it.

  “My name is Shame,” the woman said quietly. “My name is Shame. My name is Died of Shame.”

  Frances frowned at the quick low exchange and then turned inquiringly to Mehuru.

  “Shame,” he said in Yoruban. “Died of Shame.”

  Frances’s stupid white face brightened; she nodded. “Died of Shame,” she repeated, pleased. She pointed to the next. “And who is this?”

  Kbara did not raise his head. “Despair,” he said in his language, Mandinka.

  “Despair,” Frances repeated happily. “Now we are getting on! And who is this?”

  “Homeless,” the girl said in Wolof.

  “Homeless!” Frances repeated carefully, mimicking the sound.

  Mehuru closed his eyes for a moment at the horror of Frances’s encouraging bright voice mouthing curses.

  “And this?”

  “Grief.”

  “And this?”

  “Accursed.”

  “And this?”

  “Lost.”

  “You’d much better give them English names,” Miss Cole interrupted. “No one will be able to say this gibberish. It doesn’t mean anything. Tell them some new names, Christian names.”

  Frances hesitated. “I will, when I’ve learned their African names.” She smiled at them. Mehuru recoiled from the horrid paleness of her mouth and the white teeth against the pale, bloodless lips. “They need to trust me,” Frances said. “We need to be friends.”

  She rose from her seat at the table and went to the sideboard and rapped on the polished top. “Sideboard.” She waited for Mehuru’s response, sensing his unwillingness. “Sideboard,” she said again.

  There was a glass bowl in the center of the sideboard, piled with expensive hothouse fruit from last night’s dinner. Frances took a warm apricot in her hand. She brought the fruit to the table. She laid it before Mehuru as a woman of a village might lay a gift before the shrine of a difficult god. She had the same supplicating, deferential smile.

  “Apricot,” she said.

  Mehuru looked from the fruit to her intent face. There was a ripple of unease from the others. Frances did not notice; she did not even see them. “Mehuru.” She spoke his name like a caress. “This is an apricot. Apricot.”

  He could not bear the appeal in her face. He dropped his gaze to the polished surface of the table. “Apricot,” he said, very low.

  Frances exhaled slowly, as if he had made some private, long-sought agreement with her. She took the apricot up to her mouth and bit a little piece from it. She took the mouthful from between her lips and offered it in silence to Mehuru. Their eyes met; then his hand came up and took the piece of golden fruit from her hand and put it in his own mouth.

  “Good,” she said, and nodded at him.

  “Good,” he repeated obediently. Then his eyes fell back to watching the table. His face revealed nothing.

  Frances took a knife from the sideboard and cut the apricot into small slices for the rest of the class. “Apricot,” she said to each of them. When they repeated the word, she gave each one a piece. They ate their share delicately and in silence.

  “Good,” she said.

  They repeated the word like automata, without understanding. They kept shooting glances to Mehuru for cues as to how to respond to this strange, dangerous woman who could come for them like Ayelala, the goddess of death and judgment, in the night but during the day was a supplicant, begging for forgiveness, speaking one nonsensical word at a time.

  Frances pointed to the fruit plate. “Plate,” she said. “Knife.”

  “Plade,” they said nervously. “Knigh.”

  Mehuru felt his consciousness back away from reality, as a wounded animal will retreat into its lair, lie in the darkness, and long for death.

  “Plade. Knigh.”

  Frances looked around the table at the shuttered faces. “Smile!” she suddenly commanded. She bared her teeth at them. “Smile!”

  They shrank back from her dreadful white face and the huge, gaping mouth. “Oh, my fathers, save us!” one boy muttered. A woman gave a sob of fear.

  “Steady,” Mehuru warned softly. He was still in his lair, his dark eyes watching Frances, his soul tucked safely away from her.

  Frances turned to him, her eyes—dark like his own—imploring. “I’m trying to help you,” she said. “You have to learn, and I have to teach you. Smile.”

  “Mile,” Mehuru said softly to her. With dead, unfeeling eyes, he curved his lips up in a ghastly parody of joy. “Mile,” he said.

  CHAPTER

  12

  WHEN THE LESSON STOPPED at half past ten and the slaves were sent away, Frances remained seated at the parlor table.

  “Would you like a dish of tea before breakfast?” Sarah offered.

  Frances shook her head. “I shall not be eating breakfast,” she said.

  There was a short silence. “Frances . . .” Sarah warned. “I hope you are not getting vaporish.”

  Frances’s head came up. “Vaporish!” she exclaimed. “I am not vaporish, I am sick to my heart! I don’t believe I can do this, Sarah. I don’t believe it should have been asked of me. I shall speak to Josiah. I don’t think this scheme can work. They cannot be taught, and certainly I cannot teach them.”

  Sarah moved from the window seat and took a chair opposite. “You do not wish to work,” she said bluntly.

  “I cannot do this,” Frances said. “I cannot prepare them for a life of slavery where any master can abuse them as he wishes.”

  “Not in England,” Sarah said quickly. “They would not be abused in England. They would be treated as servants.”

  “Then let them be servants,” Frances replied. “With wages and the right to leave if they find themselves in a disagreeable position.”

  There was a pause. “Where would be the profit in that?” Sarah asked simply. “You have forgotten why we are doing this, Frances. We are doing it to sell them, as we sell sugar and tobacco. We are here to sell them at a profit.”

  Frances dropped her head into her hands and clasped her thudding skull through the tight curls. “I cannot do it,” she said miserably.

  Sarah watched her for a moment. “But you have no objection to slavery in principle,” she remarked quietly.

  “Of course not,” Frances said.

  “You have no objection to taking the profits and enjoying the goods which slavery brings us?”

  “No.”

  “Then your only reservation is that you do not want to do the work yourself.”

  Frances raised her head. “Yes,” she said.

  Sarah shrugged and rose from the table. “This is not principle, this is laziness. I warned my brother that a fine lady would not be prepared to work for his business as he works and as I work. But he believed that you understood the trade you were making. You wanted a family and a house of your own, and he wanted a working wife. You brought him aristocratic connections, and he gave you a handsome settlement. He is keeping his side of the bargain; the house at Queens Square will be yours. But you wish to renege.”

  “I am not lazy,” Frances replied, stung.

  “Then keep your side of the bargain,” Sarah Cole said firmly. “As we are keeping ours.”

  DOWNSTAIRS TWO WOMEN SLAVES were watched by John Bates as they took out the pail and slopped it on the midden. The girl who had named herself Died of Shame fell back as they went through the yard, snatched up handfuls of earth from the foot of the wall, and pushed them down the bodice of her dress.