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.
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?
