On Starlit Seas by Sara Sheridan

Author:Sara Sheridan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black & White Publishing
Published: 2016-06-28T04:00:00+00:00

18

Bristol

The drawing room sported a carved mantle of green Carrara marble and the long windows looked westwards so as the sun dropped from the sky every last beam of cold light was on show. The women were decked in velvet and satin, each curl in place as they listened to the piano. The men stood, their clothes darker and their hair powdered. Richard Fry longed to pick the pockets of the worthies at these events, but though he knew how to effect such a crime, he restrained himself as the mournful sonata (number 31, his mother hissed) got underway. Instead, the boy’s attention was taken up by the butler’s shoes, the amount of rouge worn by the three ladies of marriageable age, and the noting of a tiny mouse, dead but unattended by the waiting staff, where the skirting met the floor.

Mrs Graham perched on a chaise upholstered in lavender velvet. Captain Henderson’s hand, she became aware, was a mere inch from her shoulder. Joseph Fry hovered nearby.

As darkness settled over Bristol like glossy tar and the Avon was shrouded in black almost in time to the music, the glow from the candelabras made the small glasses of Madeira that had been distributed shine like topaz. It had been a while since the captain had needed a fire and the flaming logs in the grate intrigued him. He settled to listen. For Henderson, the music was simply a hymn to Maria and to this as well – this grand occasion of coming home. He had never been invited to a recital. The ease with which Fry had extended his invitation and the delight of the hostess at meeting Maria, an unexpected guest of honour, was full of promise. It was exactly what he had hoped of England. The world he had left behind was, it seemed, quite as he imagined it.

At dinner, the long mahogany table stretched from one end of the house to the other, decked with glittering tableware. Henderson was seated next to Mrs Fry on one side and a young lady so shy she could barely bring herself to speak on the other. The girl’s mother glared, silently lashing blushes out of the child, whose cheeks reflected the vermillion dining room walls.

‘Don’t concern yourself,’ Henderson whispered. ‘Conver-

sation can be overrated.’

This at least made the child relax and Henderson turned his attentions to Mrs Fry, who was concerned by the tardiness of her male relations and the ins and outs of morality. She scarcely drew breath as she ranged between these subjects.

‘I have no idea, Captain, where the Fry gentlemen get to. One hesitates of course to act the harridan, but they hold up everything. Why, even when we are to meet.’ Here she lowered her voice in the manner of someone whispering on stage. ‘For we are Friends, you see. Quakers. And tonight – a social engagement with such dear acquaintances. The Fry gentlemen are perpetually half an hour late. The music was wonderful, wasn’t it? Many of my husband’s brethren don’t hold with the playing of music.

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