Читать книгу Regency Christmas Wishes - Carla Kelly - Страница 16

Chapter Five

A spanking wind off the mainland brought the little coasting vessel to Savannah by midnight. As slapdash as ship’s discipline seemed to be, Captain Grey had to give the man at the helm all due honour. Jem knew how tricky it was to sail in the dark near a lee shore, but the captain had managed such a feat, a testament to years of practice from the grizzled look of him.

Jem woke up when he felt a difference in the direction of the wind on his face. He went to the railing and watched as the vessel turned west into the river’s mouth and proceeded upstream to the city proper, past the barrier islands of Tybee, Cockspur, Long and Bird, names he remembered from poring over colonial charts when he was much younger. Amazing what a man could remember. Beacon lights burned along the route as the sea diluted itself into the Savannah River.

Now what? he asked himself as the ship docked right at the wharf, tying up handsomely. Dockside, he looked around, overcame his natural reticence and inquired of a fellow passenger where a man might find an inn.

The traveller gave him a leisurely look—Lord God, didn’t anyone do anything in a hurry in the South?—and stated his opinion.

‘You, Sir, appear to be a man of means,’ the man said and pointed. ‘Up a street to Bay, turn right and you’ll see the Arundel.’ He tipped his hat and walked slowly into the night.

Up a street and right Jem went. The Arundel was a two-story affair with the deep verandas he was growing accustomed to. The lobby was deserted at this midnight hour. Opening the door must have set off a bell ringing somewhere, because a man in a nightshirt and robe emerged, rubbing his eyes. In a few minutes, Jem had a room on the second floor. He climbed the stairs, let himself into Number Four and was asleep in minutes.

He slept late, enjoying the quiet, until a soft tap on the door and a quiet ‘Sir?’ admitted a child with water, towels and soap. Jem took his time washing, shaving and dressing, appreciative of the early morning warmth that signalled life in the South. Dressed and hungry, he opened the glass doors onto the balcony and stood in silent appreciation of the city below.

Coasting vessels and smaller boats carried on the watery commerce. He wondered how on earth he was going to find a woman named Theodora Winnings, who was probably married by now and with some man’s name. That is, if she hadn’t been sold downriver to work the cotton, or died years earlier in one of the regrettable yellow fever epidemics he knew haunted these shores.

The folly of his enterprise flapped home to roost on the railing like one of the seagulls he noticed, squawking with its feathered brethren. He knew nothing about Savannah. He hadn’t a clue what to do. How did a man find a slave, or anyone for that matter, in a town where he knew no one? He had already been the recipient of wary looks because of his British accent. How would he even know if anyone would willingly help him? The war for independence wasn’t that long in the past.

He frowned and regarded Bay Street, lined with shops, some of a maritime variety advertising turpentine, tar and candles. Another sign swung in the breeze and proclaimed Jephthah Morton to be proficient at tooth pulling.

Jem shuddered and turned his attention to a larger, better-kept sign next to the tooth extractor, advertising a dining room. He could eat and walk around, to what purpose he could not have said. Savannah was too large to go door to door. Had he attempted that, he could see himself run out of town as a suspicious character.

He looked beyond the sign of the bloody tooth and experienced what was probably going to be his only good idea in Savannah. He squinted. The paint was faded, but he could just make out Savannah Times and Tides, with Weekly Broadside underneath in smaller letters on a building that seemed to lean with age.

He pulled on his suit coat, checked his wallet for money, and walked down the stairs. The fragrance of ham and hot bread coming from the open doors of the dining room was nearly a Siren’s call, but he walked past the tooth puller, where someone inside was already screaming, and in the door beyond.

He entered cautiously, because the building seemed to list even more when seen up close. ‘Hello? Hello?’ he called, and tapped on the doorframe.

No one answered. He sneezed from the veritable army of dust motes that floated in the air, and sneezed again.

The sound brought a man wearing an ink-stained apron out of a closed door. He was as wide as he was tall, with a long beard that looked as though birds of prey had been poking around in it, searching for something edible. Spectacles perched on the end of his nose appeared to hang there in defiance of Newton’s carefully thought out law of gravity.

‘How may I help you?’ Jem heard, and rejoiced that every syllable was enunciated. This was not a man from the South.

‘You really publish a broadside?’ Jem asked. ‘I need to place an advertisement.’

The man bowed as far as he could, which wasn’t far, considering his bulk. ‘Then you will be my first advertiser in a long, long time, sir.’ He held out his hand, took it back, wiped off some ink, and held it out again. ‘Osgood N. Hollinsworth, publisher, editor and chief correspondent of the Times and Tides.’

‘Captain James Grey of the Royal Navy,’ Jem said as they shook hands.

Osgood N. Hollinsworth blinked his eyes. ‘What? Surely we are not at war again and Savannah has already surrendered?’

Not yet, Jem thought. The question made him wonder how long that would be the truth. Already Secretary of State James Madison had warned the Sea Lords in a carefully worded document just what the United States thought about the Royal Navy stopping its ships and confiscating British crewmen.

‘No, sir, no war,’ Jem said. ‘I simply need to place an advertisement.’

‘Good thing you came this week, Captain,’ Hollinsworth said with a shake of his head. ‘I am laying out the final issue. No one in this Godforsaken town reads.’

‘Really? It appears to be a prosperous place.’

‘Perhaps I am hasty. Commerce here is conducted on the wharf, in the cotton exchange, at the slave auctions and in the taverns, without benefit of newspapers,’ Hollinsworth said. ‘I am not mistaken when I suspect that these...these...let’s call them Southerners...don’t trust anyone not from here.’

‘Where are you from?’ Jem asked.

‘Somewhere a ways to the west of here. Considerably west,’ Mr Hollinsworth said, with a vague gesture.

‘I’ve heard Southerners like to duel at the drop of a hat,’ Jem said, half in jest.

Hollinsworth shook a pudgy finger in Jem’s face. ‘You’ve never seen happy-triggered men so devoted to honour! Don’t run afoul of them!’

‘I shan’t, sir,’ Jem said, still amused. ‘About an ad...’

‘I can arrange it,’ the printer or editor or whatever he was said. ‘Soon enough, I will blow the dust of Savannah off my shoes. Do have a seat. I am so overcome by the idea that someone wants to place an ad that I must sit down, too.’

‘You mentioned slave auctions,’ Jem said, and felt his stomach lurch. Amazing that he could live through years of war and typhoons with nary a flinch in his gut. He knew his sailors referred to him as Iron Belly. Good thing they didn’t know how he felt right now, thinking of slaves and high bidders, and Teddy somewhere in between.

‘A travesty, those auctions,’ Hollinsworth said with a shake of his head. ‘Imagine it—a Yankee named Eli Whitney, invented a machine to take the seeds from cotton bolls. Now everyone is rushing to plant more, increasing the need for slaves.’ He gave a bleak look. ‘But you didn’t come here on slave business, did you?’

‘No,’ Jem lied. ‘Years ago, I spent a few months in Charleston, nearly dead of malaria. A young lady nursed me back to health. I hear she lives in Savannah now, and I want to find her.’

That was enough information for a fat little printer with inky hands, Jem decided. Besides, it was mostly true. He had no trouble looking Hollinsworth in the eyes.

What he saw smiling back at him was difficult to comprehend. If he hadn’t known better, he would have suspected that this man he had just met saw right through his careful words and into his heart, that organ many a midshipman would have sworn he did not possess. What in the world? Jem thought, then dismissed his sudden feeling of vulnerability as the drivel it was. He folded his arms and stared back. ‘I will pay you well.’

‘Enough for passage to Boston, like you?’ Hollinsworth said with a wink.

Do you know something about me? Jem thought, startled again. ‘That seems a little high. If you are reasonable, I will be generous.’

Hollinsworth slapped the table between them and the dust rose in clouds. Jem sneezed again. ‘Oops! I can be reasonable.’

He named a small sum, which confirmed Jem’s suspicions that Osgood N. Hollinsworth was a right jolly fellow, and liked to tease even potential clients. ‘That will be fine,’ he said, and took the few coins from the change purse in his coat.

A sheet of paper and pencil stub seemed to materialize from thin air while Jem was blinking his eyes from the dust.

‘What do you wish me to write?’ the publisher said. ‘Maybe something like, ‘Where are you...insert name? Captain James Grey wants to know. Inquire at the Times and Tides on Bay Street.’ Insert name?’

‘Theodora Winnings,’ Jem said and tucked away his handkerchief. ‘Could you run it in big letters?’

‘I can and will,’ Hollinsworth said promptly. ‘There isn’t much news this week, beyond a warning from the mayor about hogs running loose, and a notice about two escaped slaves.’

‘That will do,’ Jem said as he rose, eager to leave this dusty shop before he sneezed again. ‘Now to breakfast.’

‘And I to work,’ Hollinsworth said. ‘The broadside will be distributed tomorrow. You might wish to walk around Savannah and admire what happens when a town is laid out in an orderly fashion. It’s quite unlike your port of Plymouth.’

‘How do you know where I...’

Hollinsworth shrugged, and looked at Jem with that same piercing but kind glance. ‘A lucky guess, Captain Grey. The ham, biscuits and gravy next door are superb, and you might discover an affinity for hominy grits. Good day to you.’