A Day in Bristol
Sunday, April 1
Anne rose early, dressed and breakfasted, and crossed the antechamber to rouse Charlie. To her surprise, he was ready and eager to go. He was usually a slug-a-bed. They had just stepped out into the hallway together when Paul approached them. Anne started. He was wearing two holsters beneath his traveling coat.
He followed her gaze. “Anne,” he said in French as they embraced, “send the boy downstairs to the entrance hall. Georges is waiting there. I need to speak to you.”
Hiding her concern as best she could, she did as she was told. Charlie dashed off, skipped down the stairs, and was soon out of sight. “What’s happened, Paul?”
He took her under the arm, walked her back into the antechamber, and closed the door. “I’ve grown concerned for our safety,” he began evenly, then went on to tell of his encounter with Fitzroy on the portico, his sleepless speculation about Jack Roach. “My fears may be groundless, the stuff of an excited imagination. But, I’ve taken this precaution.” He patted the pistols. “Georges has also armed himself.”
For a moment, Anne remained silent, biting on her lip. Should they cancel the trip? After all, she was responsible for Charlie. But was the danger real or imaginary? They would travel on the main road in broad daylight. It would be folly to allow vague, ungrounded fears to govern one’s life. One might as well be in prison. Finally, she said with more determination than she felt, “We’ll go. But I’ll bring along my duelling pistols.”
***
The morning sun struggled through a crevice in a bank of clouds; a thin mist hovered over the Avon. Hitched to four fresh horses, the coach rolled out of Combe Park down the road to the river valley. Mindful of the real or imaginary dangers ahead, Peter Hyde drove with a blunderbuss at his side. Next to him, Georges held a short-barrelled musket in his lap. Two pistols were hidden beneath his seat.
At the Bristol road the coach met an early morning rush of wagons and carts. Families from nearby villages were arriving, smiles on their faces in anticipation of the city’s Sunday pleasures. A few travelers were leaving for Bristol. In the coach, the sense of danger vanished. Paul laid his pistols on the floor. Across from him, Anne left her pistols in their case at her feet.
Charlie sat next to her, lips parted, delighted to be going on an outing. At first, scenes along the road caught his eye. Sheep grazing on a lush green hillside. Men playing at skittles outside a country inn. Children chasing one another up and down country lanes. After a little while his excitement slackened, and Anne involved him and Paul in word games with signs and gestures.
The coach reached Bristol in an hour and a half without incident. Hyde, who knew the city, drove into fashionable Queen Square. “Sir Harry owns that one,” he shouted, pointing out a house in a long row of elegant residences. “He rents it to one of his partners in the shipping business.” Rogers had lived there for several years until he tired of Bristol’s inbred cliques. He now divided his time between a London town house and Combe Park.
The coach halted in front of a small cottage a mile from the city center. Daffodils were blooming in plots to the left and right of a graveled walkway. Georges remained with the coachman, while Anne led the others to the door. She put Charlie in front and rapped.
At the sight of the boy, Betty cried out his name, hugged him, and welcomed his companions. She was a stout, vigorous, nimble-witted woman with a thick Irish accent. Except for a few gray hairs and wrinkles, Betty wore her seventy years lightly.
“Charlie, my boy!” she exclaimed, “I thought I’d never see you again.”
Her accent baffled him, but he easily guessed her meaning, smiled, and spoke a few clear words of greeting.
“The school’s done you a world of good.” She held him at arm’s length and looked him in the eye. “How do you like Bath?”
He shrugged his shoulders. The corners of his mouth turned down.
For a moment she was silent, then said quietly, “I understand.” She turned to the other visitors.
Anne and Paul introduced themselves and delivered Lady Margaret’s note. As Betty read it, a cloud seemed to cross her face but didn’t lessen the warmth of her welcome. She seated Charlie and his two companions in her tiny parlor and treated them to tea and biscuits.
After pouring the tea, she read the note again and sighed. “Lady Margaret doesn’t know my sister’s recently passed away. It’s hard to write about it. I’ll have to send a note back with you to Combe Park.” Betty’s voice was cheerful, but it couldn’t mask the grief and loneliness of a person whose life had just lost much of its purpose.
Her attention turned to Charlie. Their conversation was difficult because of her accent. Nonetheless, with Anne’s help, he spoke of his teachers and friends at the institute in Hackney. Betty understood most of what he said, and clearly enjoyed his wide-eyed exuberance. Paul remained in the background, a kindly expression on his face. Betty gradually warmed to him and congratulated Anne on having such a fine, handsome friend.
Anne cast a grateful sidelong glance at Paul, then ventured cautiously into Betty’s years of service with Lady Margaret.
“Yes,” she said, smiling wistfully, as if conjuring up the past in her mind. “I nursed her as a child and later was her lady’s maid. She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known. Always a pleasure to dress her.”
“And her son?” Anne asked.
“I raised Charlie as well and cared for him during the illness that cost him his hearing. Such a fever he had! A lucky boy to have come out of it alive. I felt sad when he went away to Hackney, but it was for the best.”
Betty was intensely loyal to Lady Margaret, Anne realized. How would she react to the gossip swirling around her mistress? Withdraw behind a wall of silence? Anne sent Charlie out to pet the horses, then turned to the nurse. “I’ve no interest in Bath gossip, but I’m troubled for Charlie’s sake by what I hear and see.” She explained the tension in the Rogers’ family and its effect on the boy.
Betty listened with increasing distress. “I didn’t know Fitzroy had returned to England. Poor lovely Margaret. She’s doomed.” Betty pressed a hand to her mouth. Tears trickled down her cheek. She patted them away with a fine linen handkerchief. “It’s a gift from her,” she said, folding it neatly.
“I wouldn’t ask you to betray a confidence,” Anne began. “But something is terribly wrong in the Rogers’ family. Could you tell us what’s at the root of it? I fear it threatens Charlie.”
“I’m sorry, I promised Lady Margaret years ago I would carry her secrets to my grave. I know I must also watch out for Charlie’s best interest. But at this time, I can do nothing.” With a trusting look, she glanced at Paul, then at Anne. “I do care. Please let me know what happens.”
“Were we the first to speak to you about Lady Margaret?” Anne asked. Too many people knew about this visit for it to remain a secret.
“No, you weren’t! A big man in a red coat came here an hour ago. I didn’t let him in. Didn’t like the looks of him. He offered me money if I’d talk about her affairs with men years ago. I slammed the door in his face.” She paused, shuddered a little. “He said he’d be back.”
***
After lunch at an inn, they drove to the harbor and found Sir Harry’s ship, The African Rose, rocking gently alongside the quay at high tide, its sails furled. It appeared to be over a hundred feet long and about thirty feet wide. The hull’s copper sheathing glistened above the water line.
“Paul, you must know something about ships,” Anne remarked, aware he had sailed to America and back during the war with Britain. “What kind is it?”
“A brig,” he replied, pointing to the two square-rigged masts. “Look at its sleek lines. It can serve as a privateer. I see ports for twenty guns. With a well-disciplined crew, it should sail faster than most brigs—a great advantage when carrying slaves on the Middle Passage. They’re more likely to arrive healthy.”
“Middle Passage?” she asked, unfamiliar with the phrase.
“The voyage from Africa to the West Indies. A slave ship runs great risk of foul weather, disease, slave mutinies. With bad luck, even a fine ship like this could lose half its crew and cargo.”
Paul went on board with Sir Harry’s message. In a few minutes he returned with the captain, who had just finished a meal in his cabin at the ship’s stern. He was a weather-beaten man about forty years of age, hale and hearty, with a sailor’s rocking gait. His blunt speech inspired confidence. Anne had no doubt of his ability to manage a difficult voyage. Without hesitation, he offered to lead the visitors on a tour of the ship.
They started on the main deck. “This being the Sabbath, half my crew is ashore today.” He added with a wink, “at their prayers.” The refitting of the ship continued, nonetheless, if at a slower pace. Sailors were hauling kegs of ship’s supplies up gangways and lowering them below deck through open hatches.
For the occasion, Anne had deliberately chosen a dark brown frock of light-weight wool and a sensible pair of shoes. She intended to be as free to walk and climb as possible. The captain raised a warning hand to her. “You’d better stay on deck with a ship’s officer, young lady, while I take the gentlemen below.”
She stared at him with cool determination. “I came prepared to hitch up my skirts. I’d like to see everything.” Then, nodding toward Charlie, she added, “Sir Harry’s son is deaf. I must explain things to him.”
The captain’s expression softened. He gazed at Charlie for a moment. “I had a boy his age. Lost him at sea in a storm.” He opened his hands in a gesture of welcome to Charlie and smiled.
The boy’s eyes brightened. “Thank you,” he said carefully.
Anne took note of the captain’s gesture. “How do you speak to black people?”
“Natural signs aren’t enough. If I can’t recruit a crewman who knows their languages, I make a point of buying a black man who speaks English.”
Anne thought she must have looked doubtful, for the captain went on to say, “On the African coast, many speak our tongue. Sir Harry’s footman, Lord Jeff, he was one. I bought him and his mother ten years ago. Prime domestic servants. Sold them in Jamaica to a planter for twice the average price.” He appeared to reminisce. “Yes, I recall Jeff. Had an African name back then. Big strapping fellow. Spoke like an English school boy.”
“Jeffery was on this ship?” asked Anne, incredulous.
“That’s right,” the captain replied. “Smart. Knew what was good for him. His mother fell sick. We took care of her; he helped us.”
The captain led them down a hatchway to the lower deck. They shuffled between bunk beds, trunks, racks of muskets and cutlasses, a cook’s galley. Anne thought it incredible so much could be packed into so little space. Between decks she could barely stand upright.
The captain signaled for them to climb back up to the main deck. Anne protested, “I’d like to see the hold for the slaves.”
The captain frowned, waved away the idea, as if she had asked to taste the bilge water.
“This is a ‘respectable trade,’ is it not?” she asked. “Where do you put the human cargo?”
Nettled by her irony, the captain turned to Paul, who seconded her request. The captain pointed to a heavy door with a small barred window. “There’s another entrance at the far end of the hold.” He pulled the door open, remarking wryly, “We keep it locked and barred when the blacks are in there, three hundred and fifty of them and just thirty-five of us.” He explained that the slaves could also be reached from hatches on the main deck that were normally covered with heavy iron grates. These were now open to receive goods to be sold in Africa in exchange for the slaves who would be brought to Jamaica.
Anne peered through the door. The slave hold occupied the central portion of the ship. With Charlie in hand, she entered the low, dark, cavernous space, already half-full of cargo. Small, high portholes allowed for some circulation of air. She forced herself to imagine hundreds of men, women, and children lying manacled side by side for weeks on end.
Charlie tapped her arm and asked, “What did the captain say about Jeff?”
“He was taken with his mother from his home and put on this ship. Might have lain here.”
The boy looked around the hold, his face screwed up with distaste. Shuddering, he drew close to Anne. She put her arm on his shoulder.
The captain stared at her. “I know what you’re thinking, Miss. The Abolitionists say we’re brutes who maim and kill the blacks for the pleasure of it. Well, I find my pleasure in bringing as many of them to market as I can.” The captain swung his arm out in a sweeping gesture. “We put them in this cramped place for six to eight weeks or more. Without proper care, they’d nearly all die. We can’t afford to let that happen, so we keep the place clean. Weather permitting, the blacks come up on deck during the day. We make them move about, dance, even if they don’t want to.”
Turning to Paul, he remarked, “During the war, Colonel, I transported our soldiers to America in conditions worse than this.”
The slave trade was taking on a lurid aspect in Anne’s mind. She had seen black men and women in London but had thought of them only as exotic servants. They bore no visible marks of servitude or mistreatment. She had paid little attention to controversy over the slave trade. But this visit to The African Rose roiled her mind. She saw herself lying in the hold among the slaves, chained, naked, filthy, overpowered by stifling heat and the stench of excrement and urine. Horrid images of the Islington jail seeped into her imagination. She began to feel nauseated and trapped. Her companions swayed, the wooden floor rose up toward her.
Paul moved quickly to her side, held her under the arm. “Fresh air, Anne?”
For a moment, she leaned against him, her hand on his shoulder. “I’ll be all right.” Drawing a deep breath, she steadied herself and thanked him. Turning to the captain, she asked as evenly as she could, “How many slaves die before you reach Jamaica?”
“About one in twenty during a fifty-day voyage,” he replied, then added apologetically, “Some slave ships lose half. That’s a waste. We buy strong healthy blacks and don’t pack in as many per square foot as other traders. Our ship’s doctor tends to the sick.” The captain warmed up to his topic. “We’re able to sell more slaves in good condition at the other end and at a higher price than anybody else. That’s sound business, says Sir Harry.”
Anne whispered to Paul, “Sounds like Satan’s business, I’d say.”
“Yes,” he replied softly. “Unfortunately, it’s thriving.”
Their tour ended in the captain’s quarters where he served Charlie a hot chocolate and the adults a fine brandy. In the course of conversation, Paul inquired about the ship’s call in Bordeaux.
“Thanks to the new commercial treaty between our countries,” the captain replied, “we shall exchange English woolens for French wine.”
“Do you take passengers?”
“Occasionally officers bound for duty on the slave coast travel with us. When we’ve had space, and for a good price, we’ve also carried a few convicts in irons, condemned to servitude at British posts in Africa.”
Paul’s face brightened. He and Georges exchanged glances. Anne read their minds. With Sir Harry’s connivance, they could conceivably put Fitzroy in irons on the ship and drop him off in Bordeaux. She wondered, it was almost too good to be true.
***
From his seat next to the coachman, Georges peered into a darkening, late afternoon mist. He and his companions had driven without incident halfway back to Bath. Traffic was light, but the friendly greetings they received from a few fellow travelers warded off their fears. At a bend in the road a coach from Bath slowed down as it passed, and a hand drew back a curtain but did not wave. Soon afterwards, a large hooded horseman from Bristol overtook them at a gallop and was soon lost in the mist.
Then they came upon a wagon that had lost a wheel and was blocking the road. Georges became immediately suspicious. Why hadn’t the Bath coach or the horseman stopped to help? Could the accident have happened in the last minute or two? An unlikely coincidence, he thought.
An elderly man and woman left the wagon and started walking toward the Combe Park coach. No one else was in sight. Thick hedges lined the road. Peter Hyde reined in his horses and turned to Georges. “A trap?”
He nodded. “An old trick.” Leaning over, he called out a warning in French to Colonel Saint-Martin in the coach. Hyde picked up the blunderbuss and Georges the short-barrelled musket.
The coachman ordered the couple to go back and push their wagon out of the way. Instead, they drew pistols and dashed forward, firing. One of the shots took Georges’ hat off. At the same moment, four bandits charged out of the hedges, pointing their pistols toward the coach.
Georges shot the old man just as he reached the horses. Hyde’s blunderbuss blasted away at the woman, who fled limping into the hedge on the left. Anne fired from her window. Two of the bandits dropped to the ground. Saint-Martin felled the leader of the band and one of his companions, then leaped from the coach and picked up their loaded pistols. Anne reloaded her weapons and trained them on the wounded men. From behind the hedge came the sounds of horses galloping away. The combat was over as suddenly as it had begun. Only the smell of gun powder lingered in Georges’ nostrils and the echo of the shots rang in his ears.
He pulled out his pistols and jumped down to the colonel’s side. Searching the hedges, they determined that the bandits must have numbered at least eight. Besides the six who had attacked the coach, two more must have guarded the horses hidden behind the hedges.
“It was a large, well-organized ambush,” Georges said. “The coach with the drawn curtains stopped traffic behind us to gain time for the attack. And the rider galloping past us must have alerted the bandits ahead.”
“A clever, daring plan,” the colonel agreed. “But they didn’t expect us to come heavily armed and alert.”
Three of the bandits lay unconscious where they had fallen. The fourth man, who had posed as elderly, sat up moaning in pain from a shoulder wound. The bandit leader was dead. Georges looked closely at his scarred face. “I saw him with Roach at The Little Drummer last night.” In the man’s pocket, Georges found a description of the coach and its passengers with Anne and Charlie’s names underlined, the two Frenchmen crossed off.
With Anne and Paul standing by, Georges leaned over the wounded man and demanded to know what he and his companions had intended to do. At first, he refused to speak. But, when Georges placed a pistol at his temple, then cocked it, he admitted they had orders to tie up the coachman, kill the two Frenchmen, and bring the young woman and the boy to an abandoned cottage a mile from the road. Then their leader “Scarface”—that was his name—would pay them off with watches, jewelry, and gold coins. The injured man claimed to have no idea what Scarface had planned for the captives.
“That’s probably true,” said Georges to Anne and Paul, “And with Scarface dead, we’ll never know what he intended.” Georges and Peter Hyde tied up the wounded men and laid them on top of the Combe Park coach together with the body of their leader. The disabled wagon was pushed off the road, and the coach set out again for Bath, forty minutes away.
***
Not until they settled back in their seats did shock set in. Anne felt limp and numb. Paul seemed tense and anxious, the color drained from his face. At the same moment, both of them glanced at Charlie, but he appeared untouched. When the shooting began, Anne had pushed him to the floor of the coach. While the others were engaged with the bandits, Charlie had gotten up and hung out the window, intent on the scene. His eyes were now bright and lively, his lips parted in amazement. The spectacle had exhilarated him.
When their spirits returned to normal, Anne remarked to Paul, “This is frightening. The bandits knew who we were and where to find us.”
“Thank Critchley,” Paul exclaimed in a voice heavy with irony. “As soon as he had prepared Sir Harry’s message to the ship’s captain, he must have gone to Roach. Then, last night at The Little Drummer, Roach instructed the bandit leader to attack us.”
She studied the paper from the dead man’s pocket. “Why was he told to kill you and Georges? Roach doesn’t know either of you.”
“But Captain Fitzroy does. And his guards, Tarleton and Corbett, met with Roach last night to negotiate an alliance. Apparently the captain didn’t yet know that Roach was helping Sir Harry build a case against Lady Margaret.”
“Curious allies.” Anne traced the underlining with her finger. “I also seem to have been one of their targets, Charlie the other.” She spoke in French as calmly as she could, aware that Charlie was watching her lips.
With a glance at the boy, Paul also spoke French. “Underlining your name and Charlie’s doesn’t tell us what they meant to do. We can only guess. Perhaps Scarface was supposed to carry you away to Roach, while holding little Charlie for ransom.”
“Assuming Roach is the mastermind,” Anne suggested, “let’s suppose someone wanted Roach to kill Charlie too.”
“And who might that be?”
Anne replied with a low, strained voice, “A passionate man, duped by his wife and her lover. Such a man would see in Charlie the living symbol of that betrayal.”
***
It was twilight when they drove into Bath, the bandits trussed and unconscious on top of the coach. At the market place, Paul hired a carriage to bring Anne, Charlie, and himself up to Combe Park. The Rogers’ coach with Georges and the wounded bandits drove on to the prison.
On the way through the city, Paul and Anne agreed to tell Sir Harry and Lady Margaret about the incident, but without suggesting that Roach was behind the attack or that Critchley had informed him. To accuse them without proof would risk alienating Sir Harry, who was depending on those men for evidence against his wife. Only Scarface could have implicated Roach.
The sun had set and guests were entering the house as Paul, Anne, and Charlie arrived. Jeffery lowered the step on the carriage for Anne to descend. She thanked him with new feeling born of her experience on the slave ship. He might have noticed the change in her voice. His brow lifted slightly.
Lady Margaret, regal in a purple silk gown trimmed with gold thread, stood in the entrance hall and greeted the guests as they arrived. Nearby, relaxed and jovial in an embroidered white suit, Sir Harry spoke to a fashionable gentleman about the forthcoming boxing match. When the host and hostess were free, Paul and Anne approached with Charlie between them.
Lady Margaret first smiled, then looked uncertain and touched her husband’s arm. Paul drew them together and asked softly, “Could we meet privately in the study? The hall is unsuitable for what we have to tell you.”
Startled, the Rogers glanced at one another, sensing that something untoward had happened. Lady Margaret beckoned the steward who was passing through the entrance hall. “Mr. Cope, please show the guests in. Sir Harry and I have been called away for a minute.”
Sir Harry closed the study door behind them and distractedly gestured for everyone to find chairs for themselves. “Now, tell us, Colonel, what can be the matter?” His voice betrayed some irritation.
“On our return journey, Sir Harry, forty minutes from Bath, a large band of armed men attacked us.” Paul paused, allowing the shocking news to sink in. Lady Margaret raised a hand to her heart. The creamy whiteness of her face turned to gray. Sir Harry’s irritation gave way to an expression of dismay.
Anne picked up the story. “Fortunately, none of us were injured. Charlie, in particular, is well.” She put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and faced him so that he could read her lips. “He was a brave fellow.”
Charlie drew up his courage and said, “One of the bandits is dead.”
“And his four companions are now in prison,” Paul added. He went on to describe what had happened. Sir Harry interrupted frequently with questions. Lady Margaret appeared confused and said nothing. She glanced repeatedly with concern at Charlie.
Leaning back in her chair, Anne studied Sir Harry’s reaction for signs of complicity or guilt. The news of the attack appeared to surprise him. But what troubled him, Anne thought, was not the danger to his son but the size and boldness of the band. “Very puzzling,” he said again and again. It seemed unlikely to Anne that he was behind the attack.
By the end of Paul’s report, Sir Harry’s brow had deeply furrowed. “Robbers are common on the roads out of Bath, but they usually work in the dark singly, or in two’s or three’s at the most. And they use clubs, or swords, rarely pistols. Your attackers carried on like a band of desperate smugglers.” He clasped his thighs in a gesture of determination. “I’ll speak to the mayor. We must root them out!”
He rose from his chair and gathered his wife. “It’s time to return to our guests. We’re glad you’re all safe and sound. Join the party.” As they walked out the door, Sir Harry hailed a guest in the hallway. Music drifted toward them from the ballroom. Voices melted into a general din.
The three travelers started to follow the Rogers. Suddenly, Anne stopped, closed the door, and looked at Charlie. He was fighting back tears. She hugged him, stroking his head. In French she said to Paul, “While you were speaking of violent men charging our coach, our pistols firing—his son in the gravest danger—Sir Harry never once looked at him.”