“I don’t know. I got nothin’ to say to ye. Now leave me be.”
“Where is he? Is he here in London?”
“I told ye I don’t know where he is.”
“Did you tell him about Abraham?”
“Abraham? Who do you mean?”
“My brother, damn you. You know exactly.”
Laura looked at him with cold, stony eyes and said nothing. Morgan shook her shoulders, his voice cracking with emotion.
“Did he know my brother?”
“I have nothing to say. Now leave me be.”
Laura’s unsentimental stare remained unchanged, but this time she spoke in a strident voice that had the sharp edge of a cutting knife.
“He called your brother a half-wit who got what ’e deserved.”
“What do you mean by that?” Morgan cried out. “Did he say anything else?”
“No, no. He didn’t say more.”
She struggled to free herself.
“Let me go. I ain’t done nothing wrong.”
Morgan pressed his face closer to hers and tightened his grip on her arm.
“Tell me, what does he look like?”
“’E’s much bigger than ye. Dark, frizzled hair and a big firm stomach, a scar across ’is forehead. A brawler with snake tattoos down ’is arms. ’Is upper eyelids . . .” She stopped and didn’t finish.
“What about his upper eyelids?” Morgan asked. “Tell me!”
“’E can hardly see. ’Is eyes are like tiny slits. Almost like ’e ’ad some kind of disease.”
She paused for a moment, and then hardened her voice.
“If you keep pursuing him, I believe ’e will kill you. That much I can tell ye.”
Morgan never stopped looking at her. By now, he had calmed himself and put his anger aside. She seemed sincere. He had never wanted to believe that she had been party to Blackwood’s scheming. Her eyes were moist and he thought he saw some feeling in her face, a touch of remorse. For the first time he thought he detected something of the young woman he had once cared for, but then he shook himself and wondered how he could be so stupid as to trust her. She had lied before and was probably lying now. He handed her a fistful of shillings and walked away without ever looking back. His stomach churned with a mixture of anger and hurt. His heart beat at a rapid rate.
He walked halfway back to the docks, collapsing on a bench in the middle of a small courtyard, and put his head in his hands. He was a fool. He felt like his search for Abraham was hopeless. A huge sadness engulfed him. He felt empty and alone. He pulled out the pennywhistle and without knowing why began practicing some of the notes in “Running Down to Cuba.” It was one of the old tunes Abraham had taught him when they were boys dreaming of faraway adventures.
15
A week later, the Philadelphia pulled in at its scheduled stop, just off Portsmouth harbor, ready to board the first-class passengers. With the anchor down and holding, Morgan gave the order to keep the ship’s topsails in their gear to make a quick departure by catching the outgoing tide. He left the quarterdeck area to walk toward the bow. As he went along, he admired the stretch of his new ship’s main deck, the varnished yellow-pine topsides, and the bleached white decks. She was roomy for her length of 132 feet, but still sleek, he thought, despite her thirty feet in width. For him, this new 542-ton vessel was a rite of passage, a sign that Mr. Griswold and his associates now thought of him as a qualified packet captain. He was master of a ship that was on par with the other four packets in the Black X Line, including the newly built Montreal and the President. The old Hudson had been sold off as a whaler like many of the older transatlantic packets. She was now a lowly blubber boat, destined to sink in some distant harbor.
He watched from the junction of the bulwark and the main fife rail the new men he’d hired in London. They were a rough bunch dressed in dirty, ragged canvas trousers and patched-up coats. Hardened, weather-beaten, dried fish-scale faces, their heads covered with woolen caps or bandannas, their arms heavily tattooed and scarred from rope burns. They had the look of Thames scuffle hunters, many of whom had done prison time.
He didn’t like the looks of them, but he’d had no choice. Only one day before leaving London, six of the crew had mysteriously come down with a severe illness that caused a high fever, vomiting, and diarrhea. Perhaps it was something they’d eaten as they’d all been ashore the night before. He’d been forced to leave them behind in the care of a doctor, and he’d had very little time to find replacements. Reluctantly, he’d instructed Icelander and Whipple to go into the East End and talk with the “Paddy West” man about getting half a dozen sailors. He’d stood on the quarterdeck and watched the new arrivals as they tramped up the gangway.