Respectable Trade by Philippa Gregory Page A

the city always has been. That is where it always will be.”
    At the top of the hill, they forked to the left, skirting a high hill and dropping down toward the river again.
    “But if we had a carriage, you could drive down to your work,” Frances observed, her voice carefully neutral. “And these are handsome houses, and very clean air. I love to breathe clean air, and my health needs it.”
    Josiah shook his head. “It is a whim,” he repeated. “It will pass, and those men who have bought land and built will have bankrupted themselves. Take my word for it, my dear, Park Street is beyond the limit of the city, and Clifton will never be more than a little out-of-the-way village.” He craned his head to see a ship in the dry dock. “The Traveler, ” he said with quiet satisfaction. “I heard she was badly holed. That will put Thomas Williams’s nose out of joint.”
    Ahead of them the river widened out and started to formsinuous curves between banks of thick mud. Dark woodland reared up from either side of the banks and then broke up around the lower reaches of white cliffs of limestone that loomed above them. The little road clung to the side of the river, following the curve of the bank overhung by the cliffs. It was spectacular scenery. Above, seagulls wheeled and cried and dropped down to dive for fish. A small fishing smack slipped downriver, moving fast on the ebbing tide, her sails filled with wind. The air was salty and clean, damp with the smell of the sea. A flat-bottomed trow crossed from one side to another and passed a ferryboat rowed by a man bright as a pirate in a blue jacket with a red handkerchief tied on his head.
    “Sublime,” Frances said. It was Lady Scott’s favorite word of praise. “This is wonderful scenery, Mr. Cole. So romantic! So wild!”
    Josiah tapped the driver on the back with his stick, and the man stopped the carriage. “Will you walk, my dear?”
    The driver let down the step, and Frances alit from the carriage and took Josiah’s arm. “Above is the St. Vincent’s Rock,” he said. “It’s quite an attraction for people who love scenery.”
    Frances craned her neck to look upward at the high white cliffs with wild woodland tumbling down. “I never saw anything more lovely. You would think yourself in Italy at least!”
    Slowly, they walked along the little promenade that clung to the side of the river, tucked in beneath the cliff. An avenue of young trees had been planted in a double row to shade the road and form an attractive riverside walk. Ahead of them to their right was a pretty colonnade of shops set back from the river in a curving half circle, lined with small pillars so that the customers could stroll under cover, admiring the goods on sale, on their way to and from the Hot Well pump room. It was as pretty as a set of dollhouses, a dozen little redbrick shops in miniature under a colonnade of white pillars.
    Frances and Josiah walked along the flagstones, looking in the shop windows at the fancy goods and the gloves and hats,and the crowded apothecary shop. There was a small circulating library, which also sold stationery and haberdashery goods.
    “This is Miss Yearsley’s library!” Frances exclaimed.
    “Who is she?”
    “Why, Anna Yearsley, the poetess, the milkmaid poet! Such a natural, unforced talent!”
    Josiah nodded at the information. “I have not had much to do with poetesses,” he confessed. “Or milkmaids. But I know about her library. This is a new building, all brand-new, and she will be paying a pretty sum in rent. The Merchant Venturers have spent a fortune to make this the most fashionable place in Bristol.”
    “I believe my uncle stayed at the Hot Well when he visited you,” Frances said. “In Dowry Parade. He spoke very highly of the lodging house, but he said it was dear.”
    Josiah nodded. “Whoever takes it on will have to charge a fortune to recoup his investment. Not just these shops but the spa itself has recently been