Читать книгу A Respectable Trade - Philippa Gregory - Страница 14

Frances drew a breath. She seated herself gingerly in the chair at the head of the table. Sarah went to the windowseat and gazed avidly at them all. ‘Go on,’ she said impatiently. ‘Teach them something!’

The noises from outside the window were very loud. Josiah was auctioning his sugar on the quayside, Frances could hear his excited shout as the bids went higher.

‘Go on,’ Sarah said.

Frances looked down the table. The children were whimpering softly, each stretching out for the woman seated beside him. Only Mehuru was looking at her, with his strange judging gaze. As their eyes met he slightly inclined his head. It was as if he had given her some permission. She felt an unexpected sense of humility before him. She looked at him more closely. His forehead was lined with raised tattoos showing dark blue against his black skin. Around his mouth there were half a dozen blue circles that drew the gaze to the wide sensuality of his lips. His eyes were dark and unfathomable. His nose was broad and flat. His skin was perfectly black and smooth. Frances wanted to touch him, to feel that he was real.

She dragged her eyes from his face and tapped the table with the flat of her hand. ‘Table,’ she said quietly.

They looked at her in silence. They were all of them frozen with fear.

She slapped the table again. ‘Table,’ she repeated more firmly.

Miss Cole glared irritably at her across the bowed black heads. ‘They clearly don’t know what you mean,’ she said. ‘You must make them speak.’

Frances drew a breath and paused. She did not know what to do.

‘Begging your pardon, ma’am, he can speak.’ John Bates pointed with the butt end of his whip at Mehuru. ‘Spoke in the yard when the lad asked him to make a noise. Him with the drawings on his face.’

Frances looked at Mehuru. ‘Say: table,’ she said, without much hope. ‘Tay-bull.’

‘Day-bull,’ Mehuru said.

Frances jumped. He had a pleasant confident voice, the voice of a man who is accustomed to being heard. She was as surprised as if the table itself had said its name to her. She had not expected him to speak – she had not expected him to have this strong clear baritone.