Hot Winds From Bombay (17 page)

“Her Bible,” he said, nodding. He looked to see what she’d been reading. It was opened to the Book of Ruth. “No doubt where your thoughts were when you fell asleep, my child.”

He leaned down and kissed her cheek, then blew out the lamp. She never woke as he tiptoed out and closed the door.

Her father slept soundly that night, but Persia’s quiet slumber gave way to troubled dreams. She was on a ship upon a storm-tossed sea. In the distance, she could barely make out a lush green shoreline. Two dark figures stalked her night passage, so that neither sea nor shore offered calm repose. She couldn’t make out the visage of the man waiting on the beach, but suddenly the sun came out in her dream and she recognized the long-loved face of Zachariah Hazzard. She awoke with a start and a sudden cry.

In the darkest hour of that dark night she resolved not to wait. She would seek out Reverend Osgood at first light and offer herself as Cyrus Blackwell’s bride. As she had told her father, when the
Madagascar
sailed at the end of November, she planned to be on board.

Her true fate had found her at last. She would not delay but would rush into its waiting arms.

Persia had hoped to be out of the house before her father woke up. But when she hurried down to the kitchen to have a quick cup of tea to guard against the cold before starting out for the church, she found the captain already there. So absorbed was he in his paper that he seemed not to notice her when she sat down.

Their breakfast passed in silence, but it was of the companionable sort. Not a word needed to pass between them for Persia to know that the storm had blown over.

She watched as he folded his paper and laid it aside. His eyes held a merry glitter as he smiled and said, “Are your sea chests packed?”

Relief flooded her. “Not yet, Father, but almost.”

“Well, you’ll be needing some new things anyway. Some traveling suits, fashionable riding costumes, and a ball gown or two.”

Persia stared at him, stunned.
“Ball gowns?
Father, I’m to wed a missionary, not an ambassador!”

He reached across the table and took her hand. “That may be, my dear, but before you become a missionary’s little church mouse, I have another role for you. You know I’ve talked of sailing on the
Madagascar
myself. But we both know such a plan is sheer folly. I’m too old, too ill. So I’ve come to a decision. The captain we’ve signed is a fair merchant as well. But there’s not a man alive who could barter my cargo of ice as well as you can. Those Parsee merchants in Bombay will fall in love with you at first sight. They’ll wine and dine you and treat you to fancy balls in their palaces, and then they’ll empty their silk purses to buy our ice. Mark my words, it’s a solid business move!”

Persia was struck nearly dumb. Why had her father decided this now? Maybe he thought that this last fling, this taste of Oriental luxuries, would dissuade her from marrying Cyrus Blackwell. If that was what he had in mind, he would soon find out it was no use.

“Father, I’m flattered and pleased that you want me to act as your supercargo. I’ll do a fine job for you, I promise.”

“That’s exactly what I plan to explain to Tudor. He’ll have no qualms, I’m sure. But why are you frowning, daughter?”

She waved a hand in the air to dismiss her passing expression. “Oh, it had nothing to do with that. It’s just that I decided last night I have to go first thing this morning to speak with Reverend Osgood.” Her face suddenly became a mask of worry. “Father, what if he turns me down?”

“Turn
you
down?” the captain blustered. “Never! Why, the man would be an idiot not to send you as Blackwell’s wife, if you choose to go!”

“But the gossips… Birdie Blackwell in particular. What if Reverend Osgood feels as they all do—that I’m a scarlet woman because of one foolish, impetuous act in my youth?”

“Don’t you worry your pretty head over that, Persia my girl! I’ll go with you to speak to Osgood. He’ll accept your offer, or else.”

Persia smiled, knowing that her father was going against all his own wishes to help her realize hers. He was a wonderful man. She would miss him desperately.

Persia had dressed carefully for her audience with Reverend Osgood. She wore a simple dress of stark black jersey and a bonnet with a black veil that hid every inch of creamy skin and every strand of fiery hair. She had seen ministers’ wives before in just such drab attire and had felt sorry for them. But now her one goal was to create the impression that she, too, could be unassuming in appearance and especially in attitude.

They found the minister hidden away in his tiny office at the church, counting the collection from the morning before while he sipped a steaming cup of tea. He seemed quite annoyed by their intrusion. Persia noted that his whiskers twitched and his small green eyes narrowed when they walked in on him.

“Sorry to disturb you so early on a Monday morning, Brother Osgood,” the captain said cheerily, ignoring the man’s cold stare, “but my daughter and I have important business to discuss. I’m afraid it won’t wait.”

The reverend glanced from Asa to Persia and back again. “Well, I suppose I can give you a few minutes, if it’s
church
business, that is.”

“Oh, indeed it is! I’d never dream of bothering you otherwise. I know you’ve been wanting to add a new iron fence around the burying ground. And I thought, since my business is going so well, I might be able to see myself clear to donating the materials and labor.”

Osgood’s face lost its sour expression, but Persia’s countenance captured exactly what he had cast off. She’d certainly had no idea that her father meant to come here and
buy
her a husband. But a moment later she realized with a sinking heart that even the much needed cemetery fence would not be enough to purchase a mate for a ruined woman.

“That’s most Christian of you, Brother Whiddington. Bless you!” Reverend Osgood said.

“You’ll bless us both when you hear what my daughter is offering.” The captain turned to her with an encouraging smile. “Persia, tell him.”

“I’ve come to accept Reverend Blackwell’s proposal,” she said with quiet dignity.

For several moments, silence reigned in the room. Persia watched the minister’s face turn pale, then as scarlet as the cape she had cast aside the night before. His whiskers set to twitching again, and he leaned toward them across his desk.

“No! By all that is holy, I will not send Brother Blackwell a
used
woman!”

Persia was quaking with fury inside her black gown, but her father remained calm. “And whom will you send, Brother Osgood? I didn’t notice a line of applicants waiting outside to be interviewed.”

“Better no bride than a tainted one.”

“You seem to speak with great authority about my daughter’s sins. Perhaps you would like to number them for us so that she might offer some defense before she is condemned,” Captain Whiddington said.

Osgood shrank back, unable to find the words for a moment. When they came, his voice quivered with outrage. “There’s no need for me to list her transgressions. Everyone knows.
You
are the one she disgraced, Whiddington. How can you speak so calmly about all this?”

Persia watched a benign smile light her father’s face. “I never felt I was disgraced. My daughter was a mere child, who was enticed away by a man she thought she loved. She’s a woman now. She knows what she’s doing.”

Osgood jumped up, pointing a finger at Persia excitedly. “There! There! You’ve admitted it yourself, Whiddington!
She went away with a man!
What more terrible crime could an unmarried woman commit?”

Persia half rose from her chair. Her voice was muted by the heavy veil as she said, “Please, Father. Let’s go now.”

Asa Whiddington touched her hand, indicating that she should remain seated. Then he turned his attention back to Reverend Osgood.

“Perhaps the greatest sin of all is for us to judge and refuse to forgive. Surely the Lord has forgiven my daughter’s one transgression. Are you telling me that neither you nor Cyrus Blackwell can possibly do the same?” He paused, but Osgood offered no answer. The captain’s voice rose to an angry pitch for the first time. “And you call yourself a man of God?”

“See here, now, Brother Whiddington, there’s no need to shout. I suppose you’re right. We should make allowances for her youth when she strayed from the fold. And, too, if she goes off to India, she won’t be a blight on the village any longer.”

Persia was wavering between tears of shame and anger. This was far more difficult than she had anticipated. Reverend Osgood made her feel as if she really were a bad person. She was glad she could hide behind her veil.

“By damn, I won’t have you making statements like that about my daughter, Osgood! The only
blight
on this village are the tongues of the busybodies, and yours is one of them! Come along, Persia. We’ve taken up too much of the
good
brother’s time.”

They were at the door when Osgood called, “Wait a moment! About the fence…”

The captain was about to tell the man where he could put his fence when Persia pressed his arm urgently. “Please, Father,” she whispered.

Whiddington calmed himself forcibly. “You’ll get your fence and a share of profits from the ship that takes my daughter to India to wed Cyrus Blackwell.”

The hint of a smile twitched at the corner of Osgood’s mouth. It was by far the best offer he was likely to receive. And it would make life easier for him if Persia Whiddington was half a world away. The women of his congregation plagued him constantly about her. They feared for their husbands, their sons. As for Cyrus Blackwell, that godly man, he would probably never lower himself to bed a woman anyway. This would be a spiritual mating alone. The missionary would never find out that he had been sent damaged goods.

“Well?” said the captain.

“Done!” Osgood replied.

The word sent a strange shiver through Persia. Her fate was sealed, for better or for worse.

A mixture of sleet and heavy, wet snow sliced almost horizontally across the pitching deck of the
Mazeppa.
Periodic flashes of lightning hurled from the Stygian sky revealed a tall, ghostlike figure on the ship’s quarterdeck. The man’s thick arms hugged his massive chest, and his stanchionlike legs anchored him where he stood. His oilskins flapped like sails in the gale winds, and torrents of water poured off his bristling white beard. A livid scar snaking up the right side of his face through his whiskers stood out like an arrow, pointing to the cold glitter in his dark eyes.

“Haul in more sail!”

The master of the
Mazeppa
shouted the order to his first mate. Immediately sailors gripped the lifeline and hurried without question to do the man’s bidding. Each one had learned during this two-year voyage that under this captain’s command there could be no hesitation, no argument, or else. They feared the man, some even hated him. But they respected him, too. And if ever there was a night when they needed to feel they could depend on someone’s judgment, it was upon them now. After going to hell and back across three oceans, it seemed doom might catch up with them here, almost in sight of the Boston Light.

Because of the dirty weather, they had dared approach Boston only by the long way round, through Vineyard Sound, Nantucket Sound, and the backside of Cape Cod. Now they had rounded the cape, but Massachusetts Bay could be the death of a ship in heavy seas. With the Boston Light not yet in view, a mistake of a quarter of a point in the compass heading could send them crashing into Cohasset rocks or The Graves. The captain knew this full well, and his jaw was rigid with tension and concentration.

“Signal the pilot,” he commanded, ordering a blue light to be flashed in the direction where pilot boats usually anchored, awaiting ships to be guided in. When this failed to arouse any attention, he had rockets set off. But they sputtered and died on the cold, wet air.

“Damn these New England winters!” he spat.

“But sir, didn’t you say this was your home?” asked the first mate.

“I’ve got no home,” he growled in reply, and lightning struck across the sky again, seeming to make his eyes flash with bitter hate.

The first mate said no more. The long night passed slowly, painfully.

Only with first light did help come. The little boat dashed out from behind the Boston Light, where she had lain protected in its lee all through the stormy night. With the pilot safely on board and in control, and the weather settling, the captain went below to change out of the clothes that were nearly frozen to his skin.

A monkey of a cabin boy met him at the door, a heated tankard of grog at the ready.

“The storm, she’s over?” asked the brown boy, wide-eyed.

Before he answered, the captain put the cup to his mouth and downed the fiery drink. He swabbed his lips with the back of his big square hand and thrust the container toward the boy. “Another, Jocko!”

“Aye, sir.”

“In answer to your question, lad, the storm’s over. And I hope not to see another night like this one in my lifetime. Cold as a witch’s tit it was on deck, I can tell you. And the wind howling and spitting like the souls of the damned! All of them out for
my
blood!”

The boy, who had been grinning at his master, sobered suddenly. “You’re having the dreams again,” he said. “You’re thinking that them Africans from the slave ship are after you? It wasn’t your fault, sir.’”

“Shut up!” The words boomed from his twisted lips, and he brought back a hand as if he meant to strike the boy. But Jocko stood his ground, knowing his captain was not given to violence without cause.

Anxious to be out of the man’s way all the same, the boy said, “I’ll fetch water for your bath, sir.”

The big man slumped into a chair and ran nervous fingers through his wild shock of silver-streaked hair. “Aye, do that, lad.”

When the boy left him, he leaned heavily on the chart table and grimaced as if he were in pain. He was, but not of body. It was a hurting of the soul. These past ten years had been a torment. But it was almost over now. No more would he sail the slavers, making his gold by selling other human beings. That last cargo of black ivory had been his undoing.

He had carried other guilts like festering sores on his heart for years and years. But none so painful as this. Would he ever be able to forget that dark night he’d guided his final shipload of slaves from the Ebo tribe up the marshy waterways of the Georgia coast? He had planned that one to be his last contraband cargo. It was time to give it up when dreams became nightmares… when the stench refused to leave his nostrils… when the slaves anguished cries would not be banished from his brain.

“Too bad you were such a greedy bastard,” he snorted in self-derision. “Had to have one more pouch of ill-got gold, didn’t you?”

But in the long run, it was he who had paid.

He could still see it all when he closed his eyes. The ship had anchored in a deep cove where the slave traders had awaited their precious goods with dogs and whips. He’d ordered the plank laid down. Then he’d watched as, chained together, the Ebos had marched out of the hold, chanting mournfully: “Water brought us here. Water take us away.”

Before anyone had realized their intent, his entire cargo—three hundred prime Africans, three hundred
human beings
—had marched themselves not to shore, but into the deep muddy water of the river.

They had drowned. Every last man, woman, and child of them had died—choosing mass suicide over the white man’s bondage. He had seen his share, but this was a horror like none he had ever before witnessed.

No more would he ply the southern climes. Yes, he hated the New England winters, but there cargoes were clean and honest. He would sell the goods in his hold—tobacco, molasses, and rum—on the Boston market. And then he would seek out a post on an ice ship.

Long ago, that had been his plan. Long ago, he had had many plans. But fate had seemed determined to have her way with him. Now, after all these painful years, he was determined to reshape his destiny and make it of his own choosing.

He took out his ship’s log and dipped a quill into the inkpot. In a bold black scrawl he wrote: “Arrived Boston harbor in foul weather, but with crew and cargo intact, on morning of November 1, 1846.”

Too weary to write more, he simply signed his name: “Captain Zachariah Hazzard.”

It was a stupid thing to do! Zack knew it, but he couldn’t stop himself. Almost ten years had passed since the day they should have been married. And not one of those days passed on which he hadn’t thought of Persia Whiddington. She was like a fever in his blood.

Ten long years!

Why, they should have children belt buckle high by now! Instead, all he had were memories of their one, long-ago night together. That seemed little enough to keep romance alive.

Still, he’d been dreaming all this time of seeing her again… imagining how it would be. But now that he was nearing Quoddy Cove again, he felt nervous and foolish somehow. What would he say to her?

“Pardon me, madam. You may not remember me, but you and I ran away to be married once. We didn’t quite make it, however. You see, I got shanghaied… was on the
Alissa May
for five years, unable to escape… almost drowned when the ship was wrecked off Java… washed up on that island more dead than alive, but this lovely golden-skinned native girl nursed me back to health, you’ll be happy to know… and when I came out of it and tired of life in paradise, I signed on as first mate of a slaver plying the southern seas… stayed on as captain out of sheer greed until I couldn’t stomach the job any longer. But I always thought of you… I always
meant
to come back. And now here I am if you’d still like to marry me!”

“Balderdash!” His breath exploded in the cold air.

He had his nerve going back to Persia with such a tale! Even if she had loved him before, she’d certainly never be able to find it in her heart to love the bounder he had become. He should have moved heaven and earth to get back to her before now. But then, maybe she’d been happier without him. He was no prize catch, after all. Persia deserved better!

Yes, he had been right to stay away all these years. Surely by now she had a passel of children, fathered by some worthy and loving man. And the last thing he wanted to do was intrude on her life.

He revised his plan. He would make no attempt to see her, he told himself. He only needed to go back to where it had all started between them. Maybe then he’d be able to purge her from his senses and lay the past to rest.

Still, he couldn’t deny it, going back to Quoddy Cove
was
a stupid thing to do!

Zack Hazzard’s reason dueled with his emotions all the way from Boston to Quoddy Cave. He was so absorbed in his own thoughts that he had trouble keeping his hired team on the snow-covered road.

He was nearing the village. For one mad instant, he thought about driving right up Gay Street, halting the sleigh in front of her house, and pounding on the front door. What would she do? Would she melt into his arms as if the past years never existed? More than likely, if she was even there, she would order him away with angry words and ice in her blue eyes.

He controlled his urge to drive by her house and headed instead for the pond. At least he could sit there for a time, remembering how it had felt to hold her in his arms as they skated… how that first kiss from her innocent but willing lips had tasted so very long ago. Perhaps that would be enough to satisfy him.

“Perhaps,” he murmured. “But I doubt it.”

On the morning she was to be married, Persia felt she had to get away by herself for a time. She felt nervous, uncertain, and ready to back out of the whole thing. Never mind going to India! She would stay safe in her snug Maine harbor town for the rest of her life.

She dressed quickly in the simple taffeta gown she’d made for her wedding and slipped out before her father was awake. Without even thinking where she was going, she headed for the ice pond.

By the time she reached it, she had her emotions in hand. The heavy sound of the Irish ice-cutters’ booming voices and the jingle and slap of the horses’ harnesses as they worked came as a comfort to her. This was here; this was now. She needn’t worry over Cyrus Blackwell, the reality of her future, or Zachariah Hazzard, the fantasy from her past.

Lifting her dark skirts and brushing aside the heavy veil she had adopted as part of her missionary’s wife’s costume, she quickened her pace. Soon she was standing at the edge of the pond, which was alive with men, horses, and ice-cutting tools. It was going well, she could see.

Every phase of the operation was in progress at once—clearing, scoring, grooving, and sawing. Closest to her, thick-muscled men were hard at work with shovels, clearing the packed snow from the ice. One man was using a horse-drawn scraper. He spied her watching and waved. She waved back.

On the far side of the pond, she saw one of the workmen seated on the scoring sled—a chairlike contraption pulled by a single horse. The apparatus had iron runners with saw teeth about eighteen inches apart. As the scoring sled was pulled by the horse, the man’s weight upon it dug even lines across the ice.

Next would come the grooving operation. Long lines would be cut by a plowlike machine at ninety-degree angles in the other direction, marking the ice off into blocks roughly three feet square. Men with hand saws would then cut it free.

“A good mornin’ to you, boss lady. Would you be wantin’ me to clear a patch for you to skate?”

“Thanks, no, Mike,” she called back. “I’ve only come down to see how the work is progressing.”

“Oh, ma’am, we’ll have that new ship of your daddy’s packed tight with these crystal cubes of Yankee coldness before Paddy’s pig can blink his eye at a serpent.”

Suddenly, Persia’s gaze traveled beyond the copper-whiskered workman to the far side of the pond. A strange sleigh was drawn up under a stand of elms. One lone figure sat behind the team, staring across the ice field at her.

“Mike, who’s the man over there watching us?”

He glanced in the direction she indicated and shrugged his wide shoulders. “Beats me, ma’am. He’s been there a while, though. I was over to that side of the ice about a half hour ago and got a close look at him.” He squinched up his jowls and whispered, “Evil-looking cuss, he is! Scar down his face that would frighten Old Nick himself. But he’s not in the way and doin’ no harm, so I didn’t chase him off. I will, though, if you want, ma’am.”

“No, Mike. He’s probably just curious to see the ice harvest. It does seem odd, though, that a stranger would be out here this time of morning.”

“Takes all kinds, ma’am.”

“Yes, of course, you’re right.”

Sensing that the “boss lady,” as all the men called Persia, had drifted off into her own thoughts, the ice-cutter went back to work.

She was indeed in her own world, thinking of Zack and their first night together at the pond. She could still see him as he had been that night—strong, tall, and ruggedly handsome, his face smiling down into hers. Warmth crept through her veins as memories tumbled from some secret, long-locked part of her heart. She realized suddenly that she was smiling, but at the same time tears swam in her eyes.

It hurt to think of Zack. It hurt like the very devil, even after all this time!

She found her gaze straying across the pond once more to the lone man pacing beside his sleigh. He had a slight limp, but he carried himself with a certain restrained, arrogant power that touched a spot somewhere deep inside her. No, she decided suddenly, it wasn’t the stranger who had touched the chords of her heartstrings, but an old love—gone forever.

She turned from the pond, unable any longer to endure the pain brought on by the memories this place held. She had no right to feel this way. Before noon, she would be another man’s wife.

Without further ado, she hurried up through the woods and out of sight of the man whose dark eyes followed her.