was misplaced and I only received her reply in September. Granted, eleven years is a long time...’
He let his voice trail away. He knew enough of people to tell, even with her back to him, how upset Mother Abbess was. ‘I had good intentions,’ he insisted. ‘I proposed, after all.’
She turned around. ‘You don’t understand.’
‘Understand what?’ he asked, fearful and bracing himself for what, he had no idea. ‘Mrs Winnings must have had children. Teddy was one of them.’
‘Teddy is a slave.’
‘Shame on her for not telling you,’ Mother Abbess said as she sat down.
Astonished, Jem couldn’t speak. He took Teddy’s battered letter from his inside coat pocket and spread the paltry thing on the nun’s desk. He stared at the few legible words through new eyes. ‘But you need to know...’ suddenly made sense. So did, ‘I should have...’ farther down the page.
‘She didn’t come here of her own free will, just to be kind?’ he asked, perfectly willing to ignore obvious evidence, even though he understood the shamble of a letter now. I want to see her anyway, kept bouncing around in his brain. ‘Maybe?’
‘No, sir. During fever times, and when we ask, some of the better class of ladies send their slaves here to help.’ She made an offhand gesture. ‘They’re just slaves. If something happens to them...well, you understand.’
‘No, I don’t,’ he said, uncertain if he were more angry or more appalled at her words. He closed his eyes, which was the only way he could glimpse Theodora Winnings’ ivory skin. True, her hair was curly and her lips full, but God above, he had curly hair, too. ‘She’s so fair-skinned.’
‘So was her mother, but by half,’ the abbess said. ‘Roxie was a house slave and a great beauty. If memory serves me, Roxie was the daughter of a plantation owner and another slave. I assume Mr Winnings fancied her and bought her for his own purposes. Theodora was their child, with a quarter African blood, therefore not so noticeably of African descent. It happens all the time.’
Mother Abbess’s callous appraisal caused the growing gulf between them to yawn wider by the second. They sat in the same small room, worlds apart. Jem did his best to control the complicated emotions beginning to pinch at his heart like demons from a painting he had seen in a Spanish monastery, thrusting pitchforks into some saint or other.
‘I like sailing the oceans,’ he said finally. ‘The thing I hate the most is patrolling the Middle Passage where we sometimes encounter slave ships.’
He watched her eyes, in his dismay pleased to see some of the complacency in them disappear. ‘They stink to high heaven. I have never seen more wretched people, thirsty, starving and chained below decks. Mothers holding their dying babies up to me, as if I could help them. God, it chafed my heart.’
Her face was still serene, but she rattled the beads on the rosary that hung from her waist. ‘Why are you telling me this?’ Mother Abbess asked.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Should Teddy have said something earlier? I mean before I fell in love with her, because fall in love with her I did.’
‘Certainly she should have told you,’ the nun said with some vigour. ‘More shame to her and good riddance.’
‘If you were a slave and you saw a way out of this...this... I don’t know what... Would you have said something?’ He asked, irritated that his voice was rising.
Silence. The beads rattled louder.
Jem went to the door, eager to leave the suddenly stifling office. ‘Can you...or will you...at least tell me where Mrs Winnings took her household, after her husband died and she sold the business?’
Perhaps Mother Abbess saw he was in complete earnest. She joined him at the door to her office. ‘Some slaves were sold at auction. Others went with Mrs Winnings to Savannah, where she was from. It was years ago. I doubt any records remain. Leave it alone.’
‘I have the time,’ he heard himself say. ‘I also have the means and the inclination. Good day. Thank you for your ministrations to me eleven years ago. I do owe you for that.’
She opened her mouth to speak, but Jem had no desire to hear another word. He outdistanced the novice who had seated herself in the hall, and had the satisfaction of slamming the front door hard.
On the other side of it, he shook his head at his own childish behaviour and took a deep breath, which brought a whiff of the harbour, and tar, and the sugary fragrance of gardenias, in bloom in December.
He stood there in front of the convent, angry at himself and wondering if he had wilfully overlooked signs of Teddy’s parentage. In Italy and Greece he had seen lovely women with cream-coloured skin like hers. Had he assumed she was of Mediterranean extraction? He looked down at his feet, distressed with himself. Did it even matter? He loved Theodora Winnings.
What now, you idiot? he asked himself, as uncertain as he had ever been in his life. A man across the street was scrubbing steps leading up to a modest house, and children were jumping rope beyond the servant. Jem had the distinct feeling he was being watched so he turned around slowly, and laughed at his folly. It was the statue of the Virgin looking over him.
‘Am I an idiot?’ he asked her, then felt instantly stupid for talking to a statue.
He felt disgusted with himself for tossing away money and time on a long voyage to the United States, on the highly unrealistic chance that nothing would have changed from the time he sailed away. God Almighty, he had chastised midshipmen at length for that kind of illogical thinking, and now he had committed worse follies than theirs.
His breathing slowed down as he began to admire the pretty statue’s carved serenity. He had long harboured the nagging suspicion that his was not destined to be an easy life, or even a lengthy one. A realist, he knew the Treaty of Amiens would only last until First Consul Napoleon felt he was sufficiently prepared with new warships sliding down the ways into the sea around Spanish Gibraltar. The war would begin again in more earnest. When that happened, he did not think it would end anytime soon. Like other men of his class and career, he would have to fight on until the armies wore themselves out, and the seas ran with blood.
The more fool he, that on the Atlantic crossing he had begun to imagine for a tiny moment a happy life with Theodora Winnings, who was waiting for him in Charlestown with love in her heart, even after eleven years. What folly. He had no idea where she was.
He looked at the statue with the modest downcast eyes. ‘Any suggestions, madam?’ he asked, after looking around to make certain he was still alone on the street. ‘Please consider the season. My mother used to tell me that wonderful things happen at Christmas.’
Nothing. What now, oh, brilliant man? he asked himself. He could go to Savannah, but for all he knew, Teddy Winnings had been sold down river and wasn’t there. He could also travel north to Boston, which he wanted to see again. Admiralty had no idea where he was, and he had enough funds to chase any number of will-o’-the-wisps.
Do I go north or south? he asked himself, uncertain, perplexed, irritated and above all, sad.
As
