Chapter 5 #2
—H. Williams
Bold of her to presume I can read.
Silas had been educated as well as means would allow, his father having put all his hopes of social advancement into his firstborn son, but not many men of his station in life were so fortunate.
Miss Williams couldn’t have known. He wasn’t sure if her thoughtless assumption that he was her mental equal was flattering or merely further proof of her naivete.
He glanced at the note again, then crumpled it up and tossed it in the rubbish bin. It might have been better if he couldn’t read; it would have saved him from seeing such nonsense.
A hundred and twenty pounds to make an ass of himself. The sum was incredible enough to give him pause. If the woman was searching for ways to bankrupt herself, would it be so wrong to help her along? He could use the money.
Besides which, what if she truly needed his help? A bit of a bind could mean anything. She’d been so rash before; who knew what she might do if Silas ignored her plea.
But if he turned up on Miss Williams’s doorstep, her brother would have little choice but to put a stop to the show. No. He wasn’t getting involved in this. The girl had a good family that seemed to care about her, which was more than could be said for most. And Silas had his pride.
Anyway, there were less humiliating ways to earn a living. He was going to see about some of them right now, in fact. It was only seven o’clock, but this was the best time to make his way to the dockyards, before the day’s work began. He set a hat upon his head and then he was off.
Of all the dockyards in town, St. Katherine’s and the adjacent London Docks were the ones nearest his modest lodgings in Southwark.
As he drew nearer to his destination, the neighboring alleys seemed to grow more cluttered, the buildings a little sadder and more crooked.
There were common lodging houses by the dozens proclaiming low rates for the dockers and watermen who worked nearby.
Silas might easily have been forced to sleep here, in a run-down doss-house with twelve men to a room, if it weren’t for his prize money.
And Miss Williams’s sixty pounds, he reminded himself. Despite his misgivings, he couldn’t deny that the stack of banknotes she’d thrust in his hands yesterday bought him some comfort.
The shops had begun to take on a maritime character, and Silas assessed their potential as he walked. Here was a slopseller, the windows full of hammocks, flannel shirts, canvas trousers, and well-oiled sou’wester hats. Beyond that stood a tavern, and then a sack maker’s.
None of them seemed particularly promising, until Silas came upon a window full of bright brass instruments—sextants and chronometers and a large mariner’s compass.
This might do. Navigation was one of the first things he’d learned as a cabin boy when his father had apprenticed him out to the navy.
If he asked for work here, he would bring some skill with him.
The shop looked to be closed, but he could see movement inside. Silas raised his hand to knock on the door, but stalled in midair, unable to bring himself to do it.
Was he really going to beg for work in a shop?
He could just imagine what his father would say.
Actually, there was no need to imagine. He’d already heard it when he’d arrived home after being discharged—the first time in thirteen years he’d set eyes on his parents.
Have you any idea how much I’ve sacrificed to give you the chance to raise yourself up?
And this is how you repay me, by bringing shame on our family name!
Silas sucked a breath in through clenched teeth. It didn’t matter what his father would think; they weren’t likely to see each other again. The old man had made that clear enough.
And why should Silas regret it? His parents were little more than strangers to him after so long at sea. He didn’t need them now; he was able to make his way alone.
If only he could bring himself to knock on the door first.
Silas lowered his fist. It wasn’t that he was still chasing his father’s approval—God knew he’d never been able to earn that, even before things went bad—but the sinking feeling in his gut told him this really was a fool’s errand.
Even if Silas found work here, he would be nothing but a shopkeeper’s assistant, counting coin and delivering parcels.
Wouldn’t it be smarter to find some enterprise he could make his own?
His prize money and the winnings Miss Williams had given him weren’t enough to live on forever, but they could serve as a modest investment.
Silas continued on to the docks, arriving at the main entrance just in time for the morning call on.
A crowd of several hundred men had gathered in the square before the gates: young and old, English and foreign, all jostling one another for a place near the front.
As the gates opened, the calling foremen made their appearance and read out the names of the men they needed.
Silas had to wait for the crowd to thin and the rejected men to slink back home before there was room to press on. A cool morning mist hung low in the air, chilling his bones.
He wasn’t like these men. They were unskilled laborers with little choice than to break their backs unloading cargo for wages that would barely pay their rent.
He knew how to navigate and handle rigging; how to splice ropes and mend sails; how to read and write; and how to do sums. He would find better options inside.
And if you don’t, you still have time to declare your love for Miss Williams in exchange for a hundred and twenty pounds.
Where had that thought come from?
No matter how tempting, it was an absurd offer. He needed to find something real, not the fantasy she was living.
The dockyard itself was within a walled enclosure spanning some twenty acres, divided into Eastern and Western docks with distinct areas dedicated to various imports.
The air grew pungent, the smells of the cargo layering over one another in waves—tallow, rum, tar, and burnt tobacco.
(This last one was ever present, rising in great black plumes from the long chimney of the tobacco warehouse, where they burned the leaves that had been ruined by mold or rot.)
Imposing, yellow-gray brick buildings framed the quay in an orderly row that stood six stories high.
Most of these were bonded warehouses to store the wealth of the empire’s colonies—tobacco, sugar, tea, timber, ivory, and all other manner of goods.
Silas didn’t stop here to inquire about work.
That sort of trade was an ugly business, and not one that he wanted to be a part of.
The bright, ringing sound of a hammer striking metal drew his attention to a middle-aged man on the quay, hammering iron hoops around a large oak cask. The wood staves that formed the rounded sides of the cask trembled slightly with every blow.
Silas’s father was a cooper, though he worked for a brewery rather than a dockyard. Still, crafting kegs couldn’t be that different from crafting barrels to hold whale oil or wine.
If only the old man had seen fit to teach me the trade.
He’d been adamant that Silas wouldn’t need it. He would have been furious to see his son come back to this, despite all his efforts to claw their family up the social ladder.
Perhaps that, more than anything else, was what pushed Silas to approach the man.
“Good morning,” he called.
The cooper acknowledged him with a nod, pausing to wipe the sweat from his brow and catch his breath. “You lookin’ to buy?” He gave Silas a once-over, trying to assess what his role might be.
“No,” he replied swiftly, before he could give rise to any false hopes. “I’m looking for work.”
“Are you a cooper?”
“No, sir.” He seemed to be good at causing disappointment. “But my father was. I grew up watching his craft.”
A shameless exaggeration. Silas couldn’t remember more than bits and pieces of his father’s work—the sounds of beating metal and the scent of toasted wood mingling with the yeast of beer from the brewery. He’d done more growing up at sea than he had at home.
“It takes at least five years to be better than useless, an’ most of my apprentices start young.
” The cooper raised up his hammer again, apparently deciding that he’d taken enough time from his work.
When he spoke again, Silas had to strain to catch his words between his strikes on the iron hoop that banded the wooden staves together. “How old are you?”
“Four-and-twenty.” An age by which he’d hoped to make lieutenant.
“Bit late to start on somethin’ new.”
Silas stiffened at the frank assessment. Did this man think he was clever to have noted the obvious? “Be that as it may, I need work.”
“Why didn’t your father take you on?”
“I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” Silas said coolly. This was going about as well as his conversation with Miss Danby at the gambling club.
Steady, he reminded himself. You can’t afford to lose your temper.
“Beg pardon,” he forced himself to add through a stiff jaw. “I’d rather not get into it.”
The cooper shrugged, though only with the shoulder that wasn’t engaged in hammering.
“I already have an apprentice.” He glanced up at Silas, his gaze lingering on his arms. “I might find room for a strapping fellow like you, but only if I could be sure you’d stay on long enough to be worth my while.
Plenty of folks say they want to learn the craft, but don’t have the eye for it.
I’ll not waste my time if you lose heart after a year or two. What’s your name?”
“Silas Corbyn.”
“John Davies,” the cooper replied without formality. “You have someone who can vouch for you? Someone who can prove you’re a man to finish what he starts?”