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Dissatisfied, unhappy, he walked around that day, stayed awake at night staring at the ceiling.
Tired of his own company and wishing he had cared enough to bathe and shave, he stood on the veranda of the Arundel in the morning, looked toward the print shop and saw her.
Certain he was mistaken, Jem squinted his eyes shut and rubbed the lids. Almost afraid to look, he opened them, and knew the woman across the street, standing there with a broadside in her hand, was Theodora Winnings.
He remained where he was, rooted to the spot, certain she would disappear if he took one step closer. She wore a drab dress, unlike the pretty muslins he remembered. Her hair was invisible under a blue bandanna wrapped around and knotted high on her forehead. He had seen this head covering on slaves in Charleston and Savannah. She was slimmer than he remembered, which told him all he needed to know about her hard life. Holding his breath, he looked down and saw bare feet.
‘Good God, Teddy,’ he whispered, then addressed his silent partner. ‘Sir, why didn’t anyone take care of her?’
It was my job, he told himself. He walked toward the woman he knew he still loved, no matter her circumstances, her race, her current matrimonial status, her anything.
‘Theodora,’ he said, when he was halfway across the street.
The woman had been staring down at the broadside, and then looking at the dilapidated print shop, as if wondering what she was doing there.
Maybe he was wrong. Maybe it wasn’t Teddy. He cleared his throat and spoke louder. ‘Theodora Winnings.’
Honest to God, if he didn’t feel his heart pound like a drum when she looked at him. He stood still in the middle of the street, barely mindful of a carter cursing at him to move. He gave a don’t-bother-me wave of his hand to the driver but consciously willed himself to move.
She stared at him, holding the broadside in front of her as if to shield her body. Slowly she raised it to cover her face, which broke his heart.
He stood right in front of her now. Silently he took the broadside and pulled it away from her face. ‘Teddy,’ he said. ‘Teddy. I owe you such an apology.’
Now that he looked at her, really looked at her honestly, without any of his malaria fever dreams, he could see the smallest trace of Africa. His recent weeks in Savannah had accustomed him to the beautiful shades of dark brown, barely brown, and Teddy’s own creamy complexion found on the kindly, patient people who waited on his table, changed his sheets, and ironed his shirts.
‘Lieutenant Grey?’ she asked, her voice as musical as ever.
He smiled. ‘Captain Grey, actually, Miss Winnings, like it says in the broadside,’ he told her. ‘I grew a little smarter and achieved some rank.’
He wanted her to smile because she looked so serious, with sorrow writ large that he knew was his fault, because he had failed her.
To his dismay, she did not smile. Her shoulders drooped. ‘I should have told you,’ she said simply, and turned to go.
He reached for her, but she was quicker. ‘You don’t want to make a scene here,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Believe me, you do not.’
He lowered his hand. ‘Why did you come then?’
‘I had to see you, Captain Grey,’ she said and took a deep breath. ‘Now I’ve seen you.’
‘But I...’ He saw the tears on her face as she kept backing away.
‘No,’ she said. ‘No.’
‘Sir, this is not fair,’ he said out loud. ‘Not at all.’
She looked around, as if wondering to whom he spoke, when the door to the print shop banged open and Osgood N. Hollinsworth stood there glowering.
‘Get in here right now, Teddy! Your mistress promised me a day’s work!’
Chapter Seven (#u0127df64-7fd3-5f4e-9620-5c63f7e14f27)
She ran inside the shop as Hollinsworth glowered at her as though she were a disobedient servant. Jem stood in front of the open door, astonished, wondering what power the man had to command someone he probably had never seen. Jem could have staggered under the weight of the whole awful business when he realised that in the eleven years since they had met, Teddy had become subservient and knew when to obey a white man. Either that, or she knew a ruse when she saw one. Jem already knew how intelligent she was.
‘Sir,’ he whispered under his breath to the Lord above. ‘Help me know what to do.’
Once Teddy was inside, Hollinsworth’s expression changed to his usual cheery demeanour. Jem understood. ‘Captain Grey, we’re going to let every flying insect into this print shop. Hurry up and come in!’
He hurried, closing the door after him. Teddy stood behind the drafting table, as if afraid of them both. Her eyes were huge in her face until Hollinsworth bowed from the waist and introduced himself. To Jem’s relief, she smiled.
‘Miss Winnings, I had to do something to get this slow-moving captain out of the street. He doesn’t understand Savannah the way we do, does he? Do have a seat, please. No one here is going to harm you.’ The printer gestured toward the stool in front of the drafting table. He propped a broom against it. ‘If anyone sets the doorbell tinkling, start sweeping.’
Teddy nodded and sat. With a pang, Jem watched her smooth down the rough fabric of the shapeless dress she wore, recognising the graceful gesture from many a time when she sat beside his bed in the hospital in much better clothing. His heart eased, as he realised Teddy was still Teddy.
Jem had to admit that Osgood N. Hollinsworth had a certain charm, something he had not noticed before in their various exchanges. Teddy appeared to relax as the tension left her face. ‘Yes, Sir,’ she said. ‘I can sweep.’ Jem saw the dimple in her cheek and relaxed further. ‘No one will know I don’t belong in here.’
The capable, assured, confident post captain that James Grey knew himself to be had vanished. He stood there like a lump, awkward as though his feet and hands were five times larger than usual. At least so he felt, until Hollinsworth took his arm in a surprisingly gentle grip and motioned him toward the other chair beside the drafting table.
Hollinsworth regarded them with something nearly resembling beatific goodwill toward men. ‘Talk,’ he said. ‘I am going to the Marlborough for some food. Captain, do you have any money? You know what a poverty-stricken editor I am. Why is it writers cannot make an honest dime?’
Wordless, Jem reached inside his coat and took out several bills. ‘What do you like to eat, Teddy? I remember macaroons and something with pecans.’
She smiled for the first time, and Jem felt his heart cuddle down into a little pile. ‘You remember well... Jem?’
‘That’s still my name,’ he said, even though all he had heard in years was Captain Grey, or something more informal. ‘My men call me Iron Belly, but only out of my hearing.’
Her smile grew larger. ‘I recall a time when all you did was puke.’
Hollinsworth rolled his eyes. ‘My land! Eleven years and this is the best you two can do? I’m going, before I smack you both!’
Jem laughed, and Teddy put her hand over her mouth, a gesture he remembered as though the hospital was mere days ago, when she was a lady and too polite to laugh out loud.
‘Fried chicken and greens? Corn bread?’ Hollinsworth asked. ‘Crab sandwiches?’
‘It all sounds wonderful, sir,’ Teddy said. ‘I haven’t had chicken in a long time.’
The door closed, and Jem absorbed the sight of Theodora Winnings, still the loveliest woman he had ever seen, and he had been in many a foreign port since his proposal by letter. He wished he could tell her he had been a chaste, celibate man, but that would have been a lie. He wished he had received her letter years sooner.
He could have said all that; instead, he held out his hand to her. He could have died with delight when she held out her hand and grasped his in a firm hold. Her hands were rough and her grip strong, much like his own. He remembered her delicate touch and the softness of her hands, but much time and many tides had rolled over them both since he wrote that letter and she answered it.
She opened her mouth to speak. He held up his free hand, ready to break a social rule.
‘A gentleman would let you speak first, Teddy, but I have to start. I won’t have you apologise for anything when I owe you the apology.’
It didn’t work. ‘Jem, I’m a slave. I always was. I never told you.’ Her voice was low and earnest. ‘It was wrong and I’ve regretted it for years. May I please apologise first?’
‘No, you may not.’ He felt like he floundered, but he was still a man used to command. ‘Teddy, I didn’t get your letter until September.’ He reached in his pocket and pulled out the fragile thing, setting it carefully on the drafting table. ‘You see what I could read. Mrs Fillion had set a box on top of it, and there it remained for years.’
‘You told me to send a letter care of the Drake,’ she said. ‘Her hotel?’
‘We officers of the fleet based in Plymouth have long used the Drake as an informal place to store our personal effects. Everyone passes through there sooner or later,’ he explained. ‘What happened in this case is that the owner of the box on top of your letter died.’
‘So there it sat,’ she said with a sigh.
‘Every so often, Mrs Fillion advertises in the newspaper, listing the names and property, hoping next of kin will claim the items,’ he said. ‘Someone finally did. I happened to be in port when she found the letter underneath.’
‘And you dropped everything and ran away to the United States? Captain Grey, I don’t remember you as an impulsive person. Aren’t you at war? Did you bring your frigate with you?’
The way her eyes twinkled made him laugh. Funny how they had picked up where they left off. When his malaria fevers had begun to subside and he lay there in the convent, stupefied and even unsure where he was, Theodora Winnings had jollied him out of the doldrums by reading a book of wise remarks and tomfoolery by Benjamin Franklin. He knew she liked to laugh, and by God, he could have used a few laughs in the past decade.
‘There is no war right now. First Consul Bonaparte has foisted the Peace of Amiens on us.’
‘That’s a good thing, I would imagine, Jem.’
He smiled to hear her affectionate name for him. Amazing how eleven years could nearly vanish. With a start, he realised that since his parents’ deaths years ago, no one called him that except Teddy Winnings.
‘Amiens is good for me,’ he assured her. ‘Most of us post captains were thrown ashore on half pay, which meant I could book passage on the first ship to the United States and the Royal Navy is none the wiser.’
‘You came all this way without knowing even where I was or whether I was alive or dead?’ she asked.
He heard the wonder in her voice. He could assure her that was the truth, or he could be honest. Which would it be? He knew now she was a slave, a woman of Ashanti or Ibo origin two or three generations back, someone who had to bend to the will of others. He could chat with her, satisfy himself she was well, and leave for Baltimore at the end of the week, as planned.
He might have done precisely that, if he had not looked into her eyes and remembered what it was beyond her amiability and breathtaking beauty that made Theodora Winnings so memorable. Kind eyes looked into his and he recalled with delight her amazing ability to give whomever she was talking to her complete and undivided attention. He knew it was a rare gift. He would be honest, because she was paying attention to him, completely focused.
‘Teddy, I wanted to assure myself that you were alive,’ he said. ‘I had no doubt you would be married and with a family of your own.’
‘Not this slave,’ she said. ‘Why else are you here then?’
He couldn’t help looking around to make sure British spies weren’t pressed against the front window, peering in and listening. I’m an idiot, he thought, suddenly weary.
‘You can tell me,’ she said, putting her hand over his. ‘I don’t expect you to come to my rescue. You had no idea I even needed rescuing. What else?’
Her hand was warm. He turned his over and interlocked their fingers. ‘Teddy, I wanted to go home again to Massachusetts. After I assured myself that all was well here, I was...well, I am...taking ship north to Baltimore and then to Boston.’
He felt her fingers tremble and tightened his grip. ‘You told me eleven years ago how a howling mob burned your house when you were a boy, killed your dog, and sent you all fleeing north to Halifax,’ she said. ‘Why would you ever want to return there?’
‘I liked Massachusetts,’ he said simply. ‘I wish I had a better explanation. Have you ever just liked something?’
She nodded. ‘Since we are truth telling and it sounds to me like you’ve already booked passage...’ Her voice trailed off and he heard the regret. It might have been wistfulness, or even envy that he could travel about on a whim.
‘Have you?’ he asked.
‘I liked you,’ she said, her brown eyes claiming his total attention. ‘You sailed away at Christmas, Jem. Every year I wondered how you were doing. I lit a candle every year at Congregation de St Jean-Baptiste, hoping you were still alive.’ She broke off her glance. ‘I wasn’t going to this year. I was done with it.’ She looked up and he felt his heart start to beat again. ‘But here you are, at least for now. I know you are alive and I suppose that must suffice.’
‘Then why are you crying?’ he asked, his voice soft.
Chapter Eight (#u0127df64-7fd3-5f4e-9620-5c63f7e14f27)
The shadow of a man passed the door and Teddy gasped, tears forgotten. She grabbed the broom and began to sweep a floor that looked as though it had not been touched in a generation. Dust flew and Jem sneezed.
When the footsteps receded, Jem grabbed the broom. ‘Hey now, lady, he walked on by.’
He tried to pry the broom from her grasp, but Teddy was strong and hung onto it. ‘You don’t understand that I am a slave and this is the South,’ she said and yanked on the broom. ‘Let go.’
Jem released the broom, acutely aware of the terror in her eyes. He watched her edge toward the door and knew he had no incentive to keep her there, if she wanted to leave. Her fear told him chapter and verse of what could happen to a slave alone with a white man. Eleven years had changed Theodora Winnings even more than it had changed him. Better keep talking.
‘When I did not hear from you, I was moderately philosophical about the matter, I’ll admit,’ he told her. ‘Who was I, after all? A Royal Navy first lieutenant barely alive and still shaky. I assumed you were the pampered daughter of a Charleston merchant, determined to do good in a fever hospital. I was nothing but very small fry.’
As practical as he remembered, Teddy shook her head. To his relief, she put down the broom and moved away from the door, not far, but far enough to give him reason to hope. It began to matter to him more with each passing minute that she not leave.
‘Captain Grey, no one volunteers at a fever hospital,’ she said, enunciating each word in a most un-Southern way. ‘Mr Winnings hated it, but Mrs Winnings volunteered me all the time. I had no choice.’
‘My God, what kind of woman is she?’ he asked.
‘A sad woman who could not produce any children of her own and could only look on as I was born and cherished by her husband,’ Teddy told him. ‘He even taught me to read and write, which is illegal, I assure you.’
‘White folks are afraid you’ll get ideas?’ he asked, unable to mask his disgust.
‘Most likely.’ She sat down. She smiled at him, and years fell away. ‘Don’t get a swelled head, Captain Grey, but going to the fever hospital became the best part of my week.’
The smile left her face soon enough and she settled into that neutral expression he had seen on many a slave’s face in his brief tenure in the South. ‘I should never have walked through the convent grounds with you when you started feeling better.’
‘Probably didn’t have a choice, did you?’ he asked, his understanding growing of Theodora Winnings’ life spent balancing on the tightrope of keeping Mr Winnings happy and not irritating Mrs Winnings too much.
‘I did, actually,’ she said. ‘For all that they were cloistered, religious women and unacquainted with actual life, some of the nuns could see what was happening between us. They told me I should find another patient, or at least tell you of my parentage.’ Her expression softened. ‘They didn’t order me away, however.’
As he watched her, Jem wondered how easy it would have been to ignore that ruin of a letter Mrs Fillion gave him. He could still be in England, restless at being ashore on half pay, and thinking about nothing more interesting than what he would be having for dinner that night. All things considered, this was better. Come to think of it, any time at all in Theodora Winnings’ gentle orbit was better. Maybe this was his odd little Christmas gift from St Nicholas.
She sat back on the chair, her guard down again. ‘Every morning before I went to the hospital, I told myself it would be the last time. I ordered myself to tell you I was a slave, and every morning, I could not.’
In for a penny, in for a pound, he thought. ‘The thing is, Teddy, it would have changed nothing,’ he said and took his own deep breath. ‘I remain firm in my resolve.’
‘You can’t be serious,’ she replied.
‘Never more so.’
‘Even if you know any sort of...connection between us is impossible?’ she asked.
He shrugged. ‘Why? I assume you could not tell me the truth because you loved me.’ He touched the ruined letter on the drafting table. ‘Your letter confirmed it eleven years ago.’
Teddy opened her mouth to speak, then gasped as another shadow approached the door and opened it. She leaped to her feet and crouched behind the drafting table as Osgood Hollinsworth opened the door, bearing a pasteboard box of food.
Go away and let me talk to this lady, he wanted to shout as Mr Hollinsworth set the box on the desk.
‘You can talk after we eat,’ the printer said. ‘I’m not going anywhere until we do. Chicken, greens, Johnny cake!’
How was it that this round little man seemed to know what he was thinking? I am losing my mind, Jem thought, exasperated.
‘Captain Grey! Coax that pretty miss out from behind my drafting table. You can be as high-minded as you wish, but we need to eat. You know, as we puzzle out what to do.’
