At dusk the wind rises, and rain beats against the leaking stagecoach windows. I give thanks to God that the driver let me sit inside. Yet the air is fuggy from so many cramped and sweating passengers, and I am in the most uncomfortable place of any, a quarrelsome gentleman on each side of me, and the floor so full of cloak-bags and bundles of clothing there is scarcely room to squeeze my feet.
Two raw country misses whisper opposite and do not meet my eye. At midday their father delivered them to the turnpike in Chippenham, determined his daughters should ride inside, though I heard him grumble to the coachman about the cost of their fares, and he never stopped for his girls to kiss him good-bye, but returned to his waggon without a word. My own father would not have been so lacking in tenderness to his children. In the corner next to these maids is a slight, bearded man I would put at one-and-twenty. He scribbles calculations in his notebook and takes no part in the chit-chat around him, nor is offered any.
A stout gentleman in a blue velvet frock-coat and tight white breeches continues to speak.
‘As you would see if you were to visit my plantations in Spanish Town, Mr Cheatley, negroes are not worth your concern.’ He has been wrangling with the other gentleman since I took my place at Calne. ‘You would never wring your hands over the plight of an ass or a carthorse. A working animal is just that.’
Mr Cheatley, as pale-faced and meagre as the other is swarthy and fat, shifts irritably and chews his lip before indignation spurs him into speech.
‘Mr Osmund, I could not enjoy my wealth if I knew it derived from the subjugation of my fellow man. My business is manufacture, and for the sake of my conscience and my eternal soul, every one of those I employ are true-born Englishmen, and fairly paid for their labours.’
I am forced to swallow back a ‘Bravo, Sir.’ Neither would welcome an interruption from a girl of fourteen.
‘Ah ha.’ Mr Osmund smiles pleasantly. ‘Remind me, what do you manufacture, Mr Cheatley? Brass, is it?’
‘I own an iron-works. Our foundries produce sundry goods. Nails, beads, chains.’
‘Chains, you say. For what purpose?’
‘Chiefly aboard ship.’ Mr Cheatley shakes out his handkerchief as if to dismiss his interrogator, and makes a small performance of blowing his nose.
‘And the beads?’ A crafty look comes over Mr Osmund’s jowly face. His stubble is so black it looks like ingrained dirt. ‘What be their destination?’
‘Africa’s West Coast. The tribesmen prize our pipe beads very high.’ Mr Cheatley coughs. ‘I have just been up to town, at the invitation of a business associate. You may have heard of him: Master Ralph Fowler, Renter Warden of the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers.’
‘Indeed. But let me see … your profits are bound up with the negro trade just as mine, d’you not concede? For how do the African princelings pay for their barrels of beads and nails?’
Mr Cheatley frowns and blinks, and if a certain friend had not told me how a ship is fitted out for carrying human cargo, I might pity him his probing by Mr Osmund.
‘I cannot be held to account for the destination of my goods. I sell to the highest bidder,’ he says plaintively. ‘If others export my manufactures to purchase captive labour, why, I lament but cannot prevent it.’ The curls of his grey wig quiver, and he fixes his gaze on the other as if to implore his assent.
The burly gentleman considers the point, an amused gleam in his eye, before slapping his broad thigh and pronouncing: ‘No cause for self-examination, Mr Cheatley, as I have said already. The Africa trade is a lawful and moral one which, if it does anything, lifts the negro out of darkness into the light of rational Christian understanding.’ He grins and throws up his hands. ‘We are to be congratulated for the enlightenment we propagate. Excuse me, ladies.’
By this address he refers to me and the other maids. One is about my age, fourteen or so, the other a year or two older. Both peep from beneath their bonnets and blush. Mr Osmund pulls out a flask and draws from it greedily before smacking his lips and replacing the stopper. Then he bethinks himself and offers the flask to Mr Cheatley, who shakes his head with a twitch of the nose and says, ‘Thank you, Sir, I am replete.’
‘As you wish.’ Mr Osmund lifts an eyebrow and tucks the flask away.
‘How long since you arrived from Jamaica, Sir?’ Mr Cheatley asks.
‘Three months. I sail back to Spanish Town a week today, after I’ve met with my fellow shareholders in Bristol. We own a substantial company under-writing ships and enterprises relating to the export-import trade. I was detained in London longer than expected.’ Mr Osmund shifts complacently in his seat, his belly overspilling his lap. ‘By a lady who was kind enough to accept my hand.’
Mr Cheatley inclines his head. ‘Congratulations, Sir. May I enquire where is the lady?’
‘Ordering her wedding clothes. Her dressmaker in St James is working night and day to prepare her trousseau. We’re to be married in St Mary’s Redcliffe on Tuesday next.’ Examining his fingernails, he smiles at the thought.
‘Redcliffe? Forgive me, Sir, the name is inauspicious. You have heard the latest news from Bristol? Perhaps not? The coachman told it to me when we last changed horses.’
‘Not another loss at sea? Damn it, we should have crossed to Spanish Town before the winter storms. Eliza is fearful already; a wreck will hardly calm her nerves.’
‘I hear no tell of shipwrecks. This is closer to home. A murder—a series of murders round Bristol and Somerset, the latest in Redcliffe. All were youngsters asleep in hay-lofts, stables and other outdoor places. Bristol folk are up in arms, hunting a pedlar named Red John. He left two brothers for dead in an old quarry. It’s said they’d been horribly abused.’
The country girls’ eyes are as round as buttons, and the younger steals her hand into her sister’s.
Mr Osmund shakes his head. ‘The children of the idle poor have always been preyed on and always will. I daresay the parish won’t miss them.’
His words recall the day we were ‘consoled’ with a similar suggestion when my brother’s fat al injuries left my mother and father with one less mouth to feed. My heart pounds and I cannot let such a cruel remark pass. ‘The boys’ families will miss them, Sir, don’t you think?’
Mr Osmund’s eyes widen with surprise. ‘Well, well.’ His lips twitch as he decides to take my question in good humour. ‘A tender-hearted young person we have before us, Mr Cheatley. Your compassion does you credit, Miss. Ah ha, you blush now. Most becoming.’ He winks at the sisters opposite.
The memory of Tom gives me strength. ‘Please don’t mistake me, Sir. I lost my brother lately. It taught me the truth of Scripture when it tells us God is no respecter of persons. My brother was much loved and is much grieved for.’
I speak steadily, and no one would guess there are tears trapped in my throat. The coachman who killed our Tom hoped to salve his conscience by giving me my seat today for nothing, but as my mother told him, a place in the Bristol stagecoach is scant recompense for a life. Mr Osmund seems at a loss. He folds his handkerchief and takes another long drink from his flask before subsiding in his seat, wordless.
The coach clatters on, lurching and bucking along the miry road. The sisters close their eyes as daylight fades. Soothed by his brandy, and wrapped in a travelling-cloak, Mr Osmund begins to snore. Next Mr Cheatley joins him, a fact I much regret since his nodding head finds its way to my shoulder, requiring me to shake him off at intervals.
I can’t help being aware of the only passenger still alert, the quiet, foreign-looking man in the corner opposite, who wears his own hair in dark locks that reach beyond his chin. When portly Mr Osmund hiccups in his sleep the foreigner catches my eye, and thereafter, when one or other of our companions produces an extravagant snore or mutters a word or two of nonsense, he sends me a look as if to say, ‘These people are not like you and me.’
At last, when the rain becomes so heavy it rattles the shutters, the young man rises, pulls down the blinds, and makes this an excuse to begin a murmured conversation.
‘I know you alighted at Calne, Mistress. Have you come far?’
‘I took the carrier’s cart from Erlestoke, Sir. My sister is wed to a farmer there.’
‘Erlestoke?’ He hesitates over the word; pronounces it with a faint hiss. ‘A village?’
‘Near Westbury.’
He nods, though I do not think he has heard of either place.
‘And you are travelling to a situation in Bristol, Miss—?’ Again, there is something particular in his way of speaking. It has a rhythm I have not heard before.
‘Amesbury. Miss Coronation Amesbury.’
‘Honoured to make your acquaintance, Miss Amesbury. Mr Aaron Espinosa.’ Since he is seated, he makes a show of bowing from the waist. ‘You must be sorry we’re obliged to break our journey in Bath tonight. The roads this winter.’ He shakes his head.
‘I’d hoped to reach my sister’s house without the trouble of a night in Bath.’
Mr Espinosa’s expression is as sympathetic, his tone as delicate, as Mr Osmund’s was coarse and careless. ‘The West-gate Inn is very comfortable, Miss Amesbury. And the fees not excessive.’
I wish my blushes did not give me away quite so readily. After a pause he says hesitantly: ‘Your mother and father will miss you now you have left to make your way in the world. Or are they deceased, begging your pardon?’
What a strange, stiff way of speaking he has. From his sallowness I hazard he must be an alien—Spanish or Portuguese, though in honesty I do not know what either race is like. I try to quell the feelings produced by his question but I know my cheeks redden.
‘My dear father died last year,’ I say quietly. ‘My mother lives in Salisbury, as I did for a time. Our cousin lives there, her late husband was a clergyman.’ I could add that I gained what little learning and worldly knowledge I have in my own village, not Salisbury, but no one will draw me on that subject.
He clears his throat.
‘My condolences, Miss Amesbury. The loss of a parent is hard to bear.’
I detect he has known sorrow himself from the way he plays with his thumbs. This may be why I run on and say more than I intend.
‘We was dealt another blow, Mother and I. A month ago our cottage was burned down and all our belongings were lost.’ I nearly add, ‘Even the little nightgown we kept when my brother died, and the wooden ship and sailor Father carved and painted for him’, but my mouth is too dry to let out the words.
Mr Espinosa clears his throat. ‘A fire is a great misfortune,’ he says. ‘One of the most terrifying ordeals a person might endure.’
He seems to speak with particular feeling.
‘Have you experienced a fire yourself, Sir?’
He nods reluctantly. ‘Yes, Miss. When I lodged in Whitechapel.’
‘Was it the same as happened with us? A chimney blaze?’
He rearranges his jacket collar. ‘It is painful to admit that some malevolent person thrust a lighted paper under the door when I and a fellow lodger, also a Jew, were abed. Only the good offices of a neighbour saved us.’
‘Someone sought to burn you alive?’ My skin prickles at the thought. ‘Because you are a Jew?’ Having only a hazy idea of what a Jew is, I want to ask, Because you wear your hair a certain way?
Mr Espinosa’s eyes are fathomless. Eventually he says: ‘People mistrust those different from themselves, Miss Amesbury. It can make them desperate.’
Wicked, I want to say. ‘I never heard of anything so barbarous. Did they catch them?’
He drops his gaze and his silence says all. In my mind I see the event unfold: the two young men fast asleep, unsuspecting, while down in the street a hooded creature creeps forwards with a burning roll of paper, only to melt back into the darkness as the fire takes hold.
‘Mr Espinosa, your story makes me question the wisdom of going to Bristol in hopes of a new life. They are sure to consider me foreign, coming from thirty miles away.’
‘No, no. Do not perturb yourself, Miss Amesbury. Bristol teems with young people seeking their fortune. They come in from every place within a hundred miles.’
‘Is that what you did, Sir? Went to Bristol to seek your fortune?’
He looks startled. ‘After a fashion. I came with my master, Mr Sampson the banker, when he moved to Bristol to establish a business. There are many opportunities for those with enterprise and means. I’ve just returned from London on his behalf and …’ He stands up and re-draws the blind in an attempt to staunch the flow of rain-water into the carriage from the ill-fitting leather. ‘… I shall be glad to find myself back in Bristol and only wish it weren’t necessary to stay in Bath tonight. For all its popularity I confess I’ve never relished Bath and its crowds of visitors.’
Just then my stomach lets out a betraying growl; it is more than sixteen hours since I ate breakfast with my Wiltshire sister and her husband.
‘We’ll be there soon,’ Mr Espinosa says. ‘In the meantime, won’t you take one of these?’ He takes out a handkerchief which he unrolls to reveal a couple of hard, flat cakes the colour of oatmeal. ‘Not exactly delicious, but sustaining, and a good repast for one bound for Bristol. Ship’s biscuits, sailors swear by them.’ He taps one with a knuckle to demonstrate its toughness.
However light-headed, I am not foolish enough to indebt myself to a man I do not know.
‘Thank you, Mr Espinosa, but I’m not in the least hungry.’
He tilts his head, accepting the rebuff, and I try to shut my ears as he munches.
In a short while the coach descends a steep hill, the road twisting this way and that, and not long after the mud and potholes beneath the wheels give way to gravelled road, and at last the postillion sounds his horn, the coachman hauls on the reins, and we come to a creaking, rattling halt, horses stamping with eagerness for their oats, the outside passengers clambering down with thumps and exclamations of relief. Up fly the window blinds, released with a tug by tun-bellied Mr Osmund, and I peer out to glimpse lamps on either side of an inn door, a flurry of grooms running out for the horses, and the landlord standing in a canvas apron with a tally in his hand.
We inside are last to leave the coach, and I am thankful on alighting to find my box still lying in the basket behind the wheels. It looks small among many four times its size. The inn master’s wife, a tall, stooping woman in a yellow gown, listens to a soldier who cares nothing for the number of folk kept waiting while he harries her for coach times to Exeter in the morning. I am standing patiently in line when Mr Osmund seizes my hand.
‘Excuse me, Madam,’ he says to the landlady. ‘This young person would like to dine in my rooms if you would be good enough to send up supper.’
I try to break free, but his grip is strong. ‘Please, Sir, let me go,’ I say, and at that moment Mr Espinosa steps from the shadows.
‘The young lady is a close friend of my late mother’s, Ma’am, and I am her chaperon until she reaches her sister’s house. Forgive me, Sir.’ He bows to Mr Osmund. ‘I fancy you must be mistaken as to the young lady’s identity. It’s dark, and we’ve been half-asleep this past hour.’ Taking my other hand, he indicates the sisters, who stare but lack the wit to voice surprise. ‘Miss Amesbury wishes to share accommodation with these ladies.’
He looks directly at Mr Osmund, who purses his lips before letting go of me. My relief is tempered by his growling ‘damned little Israel’ in a voice the rest of us hear clearly. I feel a prickle of shame that anyone, most of all a gentleman, could speak so, and stiffen in case Mr Espinosa is stung to retaliate and the two should stoop to blows.
But Mr Espinosa turns aside with a shrug, and as we move inside I cannot help thinking that his dignified silence is more of a rebuke.
Even so, I should insult him myself, were I a man.