The Lazarus Curse (6 page)

S
ir Theodisius Pettigrew had embraced the game of golf with great enthusiasm if not skill. The Oxfordshire coroner had found that since taking to the sport only a few months ago, he might even have shed a few pounds from his not inconsiderable midriff. Of course he could not play a whole round without recourse to his hamper, carried alongside his clubs by his caddy. But suitably sustained by the frequent consumption of chicken legs, sausage rolls, and the occasional plover’s egg, he found the new pastime an excellent way to spend his leisure hours.

After the frightful weeks spent in the grip of the Great Fogg, he had promised his dear wife, Harriet, that he would take her to London so that she could shop in Oxford Street. While there he could combine her pleasure with his own business. He had a few small interests that required his attention and had been delighted when an invitation had come from Hubert Izzard, an acquaintance of many years’ standing, to join a party to play golf at Blackheath Club.

It was a crisp, clear morning when the four gentlemen set off for the first hole on the heath course. The purple heather carpeted the rough and the views of the Thames below were quite breathtaking. Hundreds of ships, large and small, could be seen plying up and down the river, or stationary in dock, forming a forest of masts in the water.

“A sight for sore eyes, eh, Sir Theodisius?” declared the ruddy-faced gentleman who strode out toward the first tee, taking in the view. The coroner and Mr. Izzard had been joined by Mr. Samuel Carfax and his associate Mr. Josiah Dalrymple, accompanied by his Negro slave Jeremiah Taylor. Both merchants were vaguely known to Sir Theodisius as being involved in shipping and, more particularly, slaving and the sugar trade, although how Izzard knew them was beyond his ken.

Dalrymple was handsome enough, but clearly not a real gentleman. There was something slightly studied in his mannerisms, thought Sir Theodisius. Each one of his gestures appeared to be a flourish rather than a mere practicality. The way he brandished his club, or waved his kerchief, rankled, as if he had learned the affectations rather than been born to them. His manner with his slave was also overbearing and harsh. The Oxfordshire coroner took an instant dislike to him.

“London’s great wealth is built on those ships,” butted in Dalrymple.

“Or more particularly on their cargo!” corrected Mr. Carfax, raising a stubby finger in the air. He was squat and pigeon-chested and his short neck caused his large head to disappear between the humps of his broad shoulders. Word had it that he had his eye on a rotten borough in next year’s elections and was in town to garner support. His manner was bluff, but jolly, no doubt helped by the regular swigs of rum he took from a hip flask.

“Yes, those slaves are black gold to London,” he said, letting out a hearty laugh.

Dalrymple shot a sideways glance to Izzard. “How true,” he agreed.

Izzard snorted. “Be careful, sir. Your slave has a club in his hand.” He nodded at Jeremiah, who was supplying his master with the appropriate irons for the shot. “I certainly would not trust one. Bludgeon you to death as soon as look at you!” he quipped.

The round was enjoyable enough. None of the players produced great shots and Sir Theodisius, coming the latest to the game, was not made to feel woefully inept. His willingness to share his sausage rolls seemed to more than compensate for his awkward swing and slow gait in his companions’ eyes.

The casual talk centred on the price of sugar and tobacco and the recent slave revolts in Jamaica, where the men owned plantations.

“Dreadful business over at Melrose’s estate,” commented Carfax, shaking his head. He paused thoughtfully before adding: “What those savages did to the overseer!”

Sir Theodisius was aware of the incident, one of a growing number, where slaves were rising up against their masters on the island.

Dalrymple smirked. “Trouble is Melrose was too soft. He started treating them too well. Regular floggings, that’s what they understand. What, Jeremiah?!” He let out a contemptuous laugh as the slave remained impassive at his master’s side, then swung at the ball and hit it hard into the distance. “No mercy!” he said, smiling, as he watched the ball drop just a few feet away from the intended hole.

Sir Theodisius raised a brow and Carfax caught his look of approbation.

“We must not bore our guests with merchants’ small talk,” he upbraided his friend. He took another swig of rum from his hip flask, but Dalrymple would not be put off.

“The next thing you know, the do-gooders will be calling for abolition and then where would we be, gentlemen?” he asked, shaking his head. His conjecture was met with laughter from both Carfax and Izzard.

“Just wait until I get my seat in Parliament, old chap!” chuckled Carfax. “I’ll see their sort get no quarter!”

The banter continued, although Sir Theodisius began to tire a little of the men’s talk and thought instead of the mutton pie Cook would have waiting for him on his return home.

At last they reached the fifteenth and final tee. Just after he had taken his shot, however, the coroner noticed that Samuel Carfax seemed to be experiencing pain of some sort. He had lately spied him wincing as he took aim. Could his resort to the rum be designed to ease his discomfort? he wondered. He waited until the other fellows were occupied before broaching the subject.

“My dear sir, forgive me for the intrusion, but I have noticed you seem to be having difficulty with your arm.” He pointed at Carfax’s coat.

“Ah, nothing escapes the coroner’s notice!” he replied with a smile, then, easing back his sleeve, he revealed a bandage of gauze with a large yellow stain at its centre just above his wrist. “Some sort of bite, I believe. Getting worse, too.” He groaned a little as he pulled down his cuff.

Sir Theodisius sucked in his flaccid cheeks and clicked his tongue. “You have seen a physician?”

Carfax shook his head. He had been back in England less than a week and the demands of business had taken priority over his own health.

“Can you recommend one? ’Tis too trifling a matter for Izzard, yet I fear a quack who thinks a good bleeding is a cure-all.”

The coroner’s jowls wobbled as he nodded and thought of Thomas Silkstone, a physician and surgeon whose dislike of venesection was as well known as his distaste for pomposity and show.

“Indeed, I can recommend a most excellent chap,” he said, before helping himself to another sausage roll.

T
he foreshore leading to the Legal Quays was so packed with people and handcarts that the carriage was obliged to drop Thomas a quarter of a mile away in Thames Street. Clutching his case tightly to his side, he battled through the melee. He knew he was headed in the right direction. Up above him in the distance he could see the masts of the ships, rising skyward like the great giant pine trees of his homeland. On either side were workshops and warehouses. Men hammered rims on barrels, or forged iron chains, the clatter of their heavy hammers barely audible above the din of the street. Others barged past him, crates or sacks on their shoulders, their heads angled with the weight of their burdens.

Sir Joseph had impressed upon Thomas the need to oversee the unloading of the cargo. The quays in the Pool of London were a notorious hunting ground for gangs of thieves who roamed the shore looking for opportunities to steal. He’d heard of the Scuffle-Hunters and the River Pirates and did not want to trifle with them. Just what they would make of the
Elizabeth
’s cargo was open to conjecture, but he did not want to give them the chance to lay their grubby hands on the priceless consignment that could be worth more to medicine than any amount of French brandy and fine cheese.

Finally he reached the quayside. Rarely had he beheld such a scene of mayhem. It was as if the Thames had brought in on its tide the flotsam and jetsam of humanity and deposited it on the shore. Merchants mingled with fishwives and costermongers, and sun-beaten sailors rubbed shoulders with porters, their eyes wild from months away at sea. A hapless preacher, perched on an upturned crate, struggled to be heard above the curses and oaths below. Whores hawked for business alongside gingerbread sellers, while in among them cutpurses and pickpockets plied their trade largely unchallenged.

Beyond the chaos Thomas’s eyes were drawn to the vast masts that rose from the river. Flags flapped like leaves in the gathering gusts and the ropes that hung from them reminded him of giant vines. Somewhere in that tangle of wood and rope and spars and ladders lay the
Elizabeth.

He craned his neck above the crowd and spied the Customs House a few yards up ahead. Sir Joseph Banks had already sent a letter to take to the chief customs officer, explaining the nature of the
Elizabeth
’s cargo. There should be no duty to pay. The tide waiter, taken on board at Gravesend, would be able to confirm that.

The imposing building itself was also teeming with people, mainly merchants and captains, anxious to register their cargo. There seemed to be no orderly queue and Thomas found himself being buffeted by elbows and his toes trodden upon by eager feet. At the far end of a large hall, four men sat behind desks on a raised dais. He guessed they were the officials and he, too, joined the fracas, edging his way slowly, and not without considerable discomfort, to the front.

The officer to whom he eventually delivered the letter deliberated for a moment, then frowned. He rose, consulted with a colleague, and returned to deliver the news. Looking down his nose through spectacles, the official told Thomas that the
Elizabeth
had been directed to a sufferance wharf.

“This ship is not here, sir,” he informed Thomas, “but downriver. You’ll need to take a ferry.” He clamped a piece of paper into his hand. On it was written the name of the wharf.

The young doctor could not hide his frustration and groaned at the news. This new world of customs and excise was completely foreign to him. Even the language that was spoken on the quayside with its strange vocabulary may as well have been ancient Greek. He would have to reenter the fray and take to the water in search of the
Elizabeth.

Steeling himself for the onward journey, Thomas left the Customs House and ventured once more onto the wharf. A lighter had just berthed at the quayside and the gangplank had been lowered. Two seamen were the first to disembark, but instead of walking away from the ship, they stationed themselves on the quay, as if waiting for something. Thomas did not have to watch for long to find out what cargo they had been carrying. From the deck below a Negro man emerged, followed by another and another. He counted about two dozen in all, and three women. The men wore the red coats of the British Army. Some were limping and were supported by their fellows. Others were clearly wounded, their arms in slings or their heads bandaged. The women bundled themselves in thin shawls and looked anxious.

Most of them kept their eyes to the ground, as if they were still wearing the slave yokes from the auctions. They were bloodied and they were bowed. But there was one man who stood prouder than the rest. He was looking about him, taking in the detail of this cold and drab place where he now found himself, and as he looked about him, his eyes latched on to Thomas. Their gazes met fleetingly and it was as if their two worlds came together for a split second and each understood the other, before they were lost in the melee once more.

A crowd had gathered to watch the arrival of these strange visitors. A horse-drawn tumbrel pulled up and the seamen began shepherding them on board. One woman spat at a Negro man as he passed her. Fists were raised, insults hurled. “Monkey men!” shouted a sailor, who proceeded to jabber and swing his arms, much to the amusement of the mob.

Thomas felt his blood course through his veins at the sight. He knew these people to be Black Loyalists. They had fought for King George against his fellow Americans and in return they had been granted their freedom. He felt no animosity toward them. Any man would have done the same. Yet it was clear that although they were no longer in chains, the taunts and jeers of the white men and women who stood on the quayside with their fists raised were as cruel as any plantation overseer with a bullwhip. Thomas suddenly felt a great sorrow wash over his anger. Despite their newfound freedom, he knew their color would enslave these people in England.

In the attic room of the Carfaxes’ villa, the houseboy’s head rolled on the bare ticking. His forehead was dotted with beads of sweat and his skin was as hot as a branding iron, yet his teeth chattered with the cold. It was Phibbah who found Ebele collapsed on the floor in the hallway. His slave name was Sambo, but she refused to call him that. His mother was an Igbo. His name meant mercy and that is what she prayed her weakling son would be shown when she had handed him over at the plantation to be seasoned. Phibbah dragged him out of sight before the mistress saw him and Cato carried him upstairs to the attic room where the male slaves slept.

There they had removed the ridiculous silk turban he was forced to wear on his head. If anything he should have worn a fine headdress of carved wood and antelope horn, the mark of a brave warrior people, not the costume of the very Arab traders who had sold his mother into slavery in the first place. Not content to rob him of his freedom, they had stolen his identity, too.

Phibbah tucked a coarse blanket under his chin, but it was so cold in the room that her own breath whirled around her head every time she spoke. Taking out a rag from her pocket, she began to dab his wet forehead. He was much younger than she, but she did not know how old. What she did know was that he had been a sickly child and it was a wonder that he had survived infancy. After he had been seasoned and bled for the cane fields, he had grown even weaker and was often unfit for work. That was why they had set him to domestic duties rather than on the plantations. He had a pretty face and a beguiling smile that seemed to endear him to white ladies. They cooed over him in his bright red turban and his baggy silk pants. “How charming,” they would say when he offered them their dish of tea. They spoke of him as they spoke of the mistress’s pug dog. He was a plaything. A pet. And now he lay fighting for his life.

“You told Venus?” Phibbah asked Cato, as she knelt by the boy’s side.

The great bear of a man nodded. He was a Coromantee, too, fierce and proud. Tilting his head toward the landing, he replied, “She come now.”

Seconds later Venus, the housekeeper, appeared in the room and glided over to where the child lay. She was a mulatto woman, her skin the color of milky coffee, and she wore her black hair piled on top of her head the white woman’s way. From a belt around her small waist hung a bunch of keys, the keys that locked the doors at night so that the slaves could not run away. In effect she was their jailer, even though she, too, was denied her freedom, but she was kind enough. Rumor was that she had been born into the Carfax household, the result of a union between one of the master’s nephews and an Ashanti woman. There was a poise in her manner and an elegance in her gait that set her apart. She did not carry herself like a slave, always looking low, afraid to let her eyes roam freely. Her gaze was always steady and now it settled on the boy.

“How long has he been like this?” she asked, leaning over the palliasse.

“I found him downstairs. He had fainted away,” replied Phibbah. “He very bad.”

“I can see that,” Venus replied, calmly looking down her long, thin nose at the child, whose breathing had become labored. She thought for a moment. “He needs medicine.”

Cato nodded. “I fetch white doctor?”

“No,” the housekeeper replied firmly. Her reproving gaze slid sideways. “You know the mistress will not let you call one. They cost too much.” Cato looked crestfallen, but a smirk crept over Venus’s lips. “I have something much better than white man’s medicine,” she said.

Delving into the pocket in her skirt, she pulled out a small glass bottle and held it up to the square of light from the window. Inside was a pale liquid.

“This was given to me by a myal man before we left Jamaica. He say, if you are troubled by any white man’s disease, this will make it better.” She nodded her head as her eyes flitted between Phibbah and Cato. They both seemed heartened by her words. They knew the myal medicine to work.

“Hold his head,” Venus instructed as she uncorked the bottle.

Kneeling down Phibbah slid one arm under Ebele’s neck, so that his body was forced up. His head tilted back limply, but Cato held it steady as the girl opened his lips with her free hand. Venus edged forward and poured the bottle’s contents into the boy’s mouth. He spluttered and jerked his body, but the housekeeper clamped his lips shut until she was sure he had swallowed the liquid. Taking a step back, she watched as the boy’s breathing relaxed almost immediately.

“There!” she said triumphantly. “By tomorrow he will be back to work.”

Phibbah and Cato glanced at each other and smiled. They both knew the myal men on Mr. Carfax’s estate had great powers. They could ward off the duppies with their dances and drumming. They possessed healing magic. Their potions did good. Ebele’s ancestors would watch over him as he slept and he would soon be restored.

“Now you must leave him and get back to your work, too,” Venus told them, clapping her hands quickly to hurry them along. “Do not trouble yourselves about Sambo.”