Authors: Catherine Johnson
‘“I need help,” he said.
‘Mother Hopkins dabbed away the blood and said, slow and not interested like: “I can see that, my lad. Now, what is it you think we can do for you?”
‘He told us then about his owner, man name of Captain Walker, lived over Greenwich in one of them big new houses, stuffed to the gills with paintings and silver. Mother Hopkins’s ears pricked up at this. But we’d already guessed as much, for the poor chap was wearing one of them god-awful silver collars that the rich put their slaves in. Have you seen them? Bet you’ve never worn one! They’re the devil and that’s the truth. Heavy as lead, and there’s nothing so likely to make you feel like a dog as wearing one of them. Sam’s collar read:
SAM, Capt. Walker’s Negro. Please return to Croom’s Hill, Greenwich
in that curly writing. I felt a deal of pity for the boy just for that.
‘Sam Caesar said he’d heard there was folk here who knew how to turn situations around, and his was a situation so parlous that he could not imagine any way out.
‘So Bella put another cup of ale in front of the boy and smiled at him. If she hadn’t been seeing Jack Godwin, she’d have set her cap at him, I’m sure of it. Sam Caesar was fine looking – at least he would be when the gash on his head was cleaned up.
‘Turned out Captain Walker had brought our Sam over from Jamaica when he was a lad. Captain Walker wasn’t just a sea captain, oh no. He had a deal of estates in Jamaica producing sugar and rum. Owned hundreds of slaves, Sam said, and still owned his mother, Juno. Turns out she’d been a favourite with the captain – so favourite that Sam had a lighter skin than his mother, if you get my meaning. So favourite that she’d begged the captain to take Sam to London and give him some kind of education. So Sam had come over with the captain and grown up in Greenwich as their page; wearing one of them flashy outfits – slippers with those curly toes and a turban. Never learned nothing but serving chocolate and tea to visiting ladies, mind. Then a few years ago he’d grown too big for that lay and they used him as a footman. But the captain never liked him: any excuse and he’d get a clout like the one he was wearing today. And then he hears the captain’s only gone and sold him to a mate and is having him shipped back to Jamaica on the
Retort
to be a field hand!
‘I knew then why he trembled so. If you ever heard the old men in St Giles talking about life in the Indies, it
would
make your hair turn white. Floggings so hard flesh hangs in red ribbons from a man’s back. Men, women and children worked until they break . . . Arms, ears, tongues cut off! Death is your only friend out there, I’ve heard say, because it’s a sleep you never have to wake from.
‘So, already wanting to help, I said, “He wants to disappear.” But Mother Hopkins shot me a
shut-up
look. “He’s not free, Cato, not like you!” she said. “Someone’ll buy him, sell him, in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. He’s not free, Cato,” she said again.
‘I said nothing. Mother Hopkins was always right. Whenever I was sold, usually in some town such as Nottingham or Derby or Bedford – once as far as Chester – we were up and had a distance of twenty miles between ourselves and my newest masters before they’d realized I had gone. And if anyone
was
foolish enough to come after me, Mother Hopkins had a tame lawyer – Mr De Souza in the Strand – with enough writs to confuse and confound our enemies. And failing that, Jack and Sam, who have more muscle than most . . . Anyway,’ I said to the Ordinary. ‘I am off the track of my tale and time is passing . . . What was I saying?’
The priest squinted hard at his paper. ‘You were talking of this Sam, and the matter of being free . . .’
‘That sounds like it. And wouldn’t I give anything for a little bit of that selfsame freedom.’
The Ordinary glared at me.
‘I know, I know, this is Sam’s tale, and I can see him, in my mind’s eye, fair jump up out of his seat at the mention of liberty. “Free!” he said. “Captain Walker promised my mother he’d make me a free man. I was there when he made the promise, and she gave him a letter! She put it into his hand the day I left. He denies it all, of course, says my mother could hardly speak English, let alone read and write. They never bothered teaching me, so I can’t tell. I found a bundle of letters but they all look the same – black lines on white paper, like the trails of ants or some such.”
‘After Sam’s outburst Mother Hopkins thought a long minute. “So this man owes you at least your freedom?” Sam nodded. “And he has plenty of rhino about the house?” she asked him. Sam looked blankly at her, which was no surprise given where he’d come from. So Mother Hopkins said, “Rhino, ready money, cash?”
‘Sam understood then and nodded again. “His wife is most fond of the cards, though she loses as often as she wins, and she has jewellery too – they have so much money from the backs of their slaves, who work day and night for them but are paid nothing!” I tell you, Sam was so angry when he spoke, it was hard for him to keep still. “But whatever plans you make, it must be soon,” he said. “I am to leave his household in a fortnight, and go to Rotherhithe, where the boat will be loaded.”
‘Now, Mother Hopkins seems to sit at the heart of a web that stretches all over the city. She had Addy go over to Greenwich to check out the gaff, and Bella went to some rather genteel card games with her pockets full of flummery – fake cash to you – where she picked up a not inconsiderable amount of info. I was to be the inside man, although as I was just eight, I suppose you would say
boy
. But I had done the job so many times before, I was no bother. Bella let slip there was a sale in Long Acre. Mother Hopkins had the bills produced:
‘
FOR SALE: CATO, A MOST PLEASANT AND AGREEABLE NEGRO BOY OF ONLY SIX YEARS OF AGE
, they said (I know, I was eight – never believe any advertisements ever).
NEW FROM THE JUNGLES OF ZANZIBAR, HE IS A MUTE, HAVING BEEN RAISED BY LEOPARDS
! (What did I say about advertisements?)
‘Mother Hopkins knew it would hook the captain’s wife. Sam had told us she was looking for a new page, and that she wanted one more exotic and more mysterious than Mrs Gerald’s boy, of whom it was said – mostly by Mrs Gerald herself – that he had been found floating in the Indian Ocean in a giant shell.’
The Ordinary smirked as he continued to write, his quill scratching across the page furiously. I had no idea how he could see anything in this gloomy light.
‘I always hated the sales. We had played this game so many times before – me the slave, sold by Mother
Hopkins
, over and over all around the country, and I never stayed in any of them fine houses longer than a fortnight . . . There’s another hundred more tales for you, sir! I know, I know, I must keep to one story at a time.
‘So, even though in my heart of hearts I knew I would be back at the Nest of Vipers within the week, there was something about the saleroom that made my eye moisten and my lip tremble every single time. Mother Hopkins encouraged this as she said it made a good spectacle.
‘Captain Walker was a nasty piece. I could tell this by the way he checked my teeth as if I was a horse, prodding around inside my mouth so hard I could not help but flinch. I was much minded to bite off his fingers, but Mother Hopkins fixed me with her evil eye. He paid five guineas for me, then he took me straightway by boat to Greenwich, and Addeline was right: the house was one of those big show-off white-icing affairs.
‘It is strange that people who wouldn’t dream of walking through the streets with their money hanging out of their pockets are more than happy to advertise their wealth through clothes or carriages or houses. Don’t you agree, sir? The house gleamed like a beacon to the cracksmen of London, and I thought they would have fine pickings here.
‘I tell you, my jaw fairly dropped when I got inside. Paintings – ships and portraits mostly (I would ignore the portraits; they never sold) and one of horses in the
modern
style that Mother Hopkins would be most pleased with. I reminded myself to keep my hands hard in my pockets, though, for our spoils were to be human rather than material.
‘Then Mrs Walker comes down the stairs clapping her hands and saying, “Oh! Oh! He is a darling, and he is mute, John? Such a fetching affectation!” Then the captain says to her, “He’ll do. At least he’ll be quiet. How is Elizabeth? Did she like the Stapleton lad? His father is a marquess: we could not do better.”
‘So the missus says, “Oh yes, John, she’s quite taken with the diamond necklace he bought her. And all that dreadful business can be forgotten. They’re coming round for tea this afternoon and now little Sam here can do the honours in his fine suit.” She claps her hands together again. “What a pet!” she coos, chucking me under the chin, and says to me very slowly, as if she reckons I can’t understand the Queen’s English: “You’ll be our Sam now – the name’s on the collar and we’re not about to change it. We’ve always had a Sam here and we always will.” She leans down to me and her eyes are pale and watery and she says, “You’ll find Greenwich a deal of difference to the jungle, little Sam.” I have to bite my tongue hard to stop myself laughing out loud. And she leads me away to put on the threads I am to spend my working week in.
‘The suit is brocade, navy blue and also heavy as lead
and
the turban too big. Mendes, the cove that Mother Hopkins sells old threads to, would give a pretty penny for the lot but they don’t half itch. And the collar! Wouldn’t you know it is the same one Sam had been wearing the week before, so it is far too big and digs into my shoulders a good deal.
‘At least I am right good at pouring chocolate from a silver pot. Mother Hopkins has taught me well. And I see the daughter, Miss Elizabeth – well, I see her sparklers, which are as beautiful as she is, only more honest looking, and I’m so busy thinking about how Mother Hopkins would die of delight if she could see that necklace that I forget to serve the visitors – Lady Stapleton and her lumpy son.
‘“Sam!” Mistress Walker chucks me under the chin. I do nothing for a long minute on account of having forgotten I’m now Sam and not Cato. “Sam, our guests!” Then she says to Lady Stapleton, “He is newly come from Africa, directly from the jungle . . . He doesn’t speak a word . . .” She looks at me with mock pity. “Captain Walker says he is the son of a prince and was brought up by leopards!”
‘I stood up straight, and I would have laughed if Miss Elizabeth hadn’t been pinching me hard – to see if I’d squeal, I reckoned. I had to feel pity for the girl – there she was being lined up for the Stapleton boy, just like me at the auction. I looked hard at him. It would not be a
barrel
of laughs being married to him. But at least her collar was made of diamonds, and she did not seem to mind. I think she was set on his fortune, not on his looks or manners, and in view of her pinching, her manners were of the same rank as his.’
I paused, trying to make myself more comfortable, although that was impossible. My final hours were no luxury.
‘Sam had been put to work in the garden and bade not to leave the house or grounds. I could see him through the window, turning over the cold earth. He ate with us in the kitchen but as I was supposed to be mute, nothing was ever said. He was nervous though, I could tell.
‘At night I slept down in the kitchen and talked to Sam then. I sprang the lock on my collar – they insisted I sleep in it – and resolved to take Sam’s letter. I tiptoed back up the stairs to the study. The lock was feeble and the door opened easily, as did Captain Walker’s bureau. Inside, however, there were so many letters I lost all faith that I would find it . . . Letters from moneylenders and ships’ companies, sums of money flying back and forth across various oceans and through various banks. But eventually I came across the very same. It was
written on behalf of a Mistress Juno Walker of Spanish Town, Jamaica, by the Reverend Butler
. Juno, I thought to myself – Sam’s mother. I knew the fashion for giving us darker-skinned people such fanciful names as have come out of legends
or
history. For example, Cato is not – as Addeline would tease me – the king of Cats – but the finest Roman that ever lived. Although as you see, sir, I am not myself a Roman, and neither, I expect, was this Juno, who probably had a priest write for her and, by her words, beg that her son should be treated better than she was. And Walker? Well, don’t most slaves wear their masters’ names, whether or not they wish to?
‘Back to the letter . . . The writing was faded and old. I held it up to the window where the moonlight streamed in over Greenwich Park and thanked Mother Hopkins for teaching me the reading as I reckons that sometimes it is more valuable and just as useful as the best set of lock picks money can buy.
‘The next few days dragged as slow as the Cheapside night watchman, and he has such a limp that he can hardly make it down St Paul’s Churchyard. The household was busy enough: Captain Walker with his shareholdings, Mistress and Miss Walker with the wedding that had been brokered with the Stapleton family. I stood in the corner of the drawing room with my silver tray, saying nothing. They treated me much as they would a lap dog: from the mistress it was soft words, from Miss Elizabeth pinches, and from the captain slaps and kicks. I felt sorry for Sam having such a father and was glad I had none. I was looking forward to the day I could walk out of their house and take off the torturous
silver
collar for good. I was only sorry I wouldn’t see the look on the captain’s face when he realized what was happening.
‘I busied myself with secreting little things they wouldn’t miss: a hatpin with a pearl, a couple of silver spoons, and the captain’s seal, which he used for business correspondence. I tossed them all over the wall when I knew Addy was waiting by the park, as a little taster. I threw the letter over too, knowing Mother Hopkins would make the best use of it and that Sam would like to see his mother’s letter when this was all over.
‘The captain noticed his seal gone that evening. He was like an ox that’s been driven wild at Smithfield by the ’prentices, and made the same amount of noise and mess, throwing his papers about and bellowing. The mistress was obviously well used to this behaviour. She told him it had probably been just misplaced or, worst of all, fallen down between the boards, and not to go so red in the face. His anxiety would be the death of him, she said, and made Miss Elizabeth sing to soothe him, which I think only made him worse.