Signals of Distress Read Online Free Page A

that’s for sure. It’s good, hot food he dishes up, and fit for eating, except it’s Buttered Tracts and Bible Soup and Psalm Tea.’
    ‘… and Hebrewed Ale,’ said George. He’d said the same a hundred times before.
    ‘… and the Word Made Flesh,’ added Aymer, after a short moment’s silence.
    Aymer had meant to make a good impression in Wherrytown. He knew that he would never have a reputation for vivacity, and that he was more comfortable with documents than company, but still
he’d meant to be amusing and relaxed, putting George at ease, demonstrating to Mrs Yapp that he, though firm and businesslike, was happy to be informal. But once he had been taken down two
short flights of steps and left alone inside one of the balconied rooms above the courtyard he almost wept. He had, he felt, been treated with hostility. The woman hadn’t even stood to greet
him. That was not behaviour to admire. And George the parlourman had seemed to find his conversation comic, except when he attempted jokes. He hadn’t even shown gratitude when Aymer had
presented him with a bar of white soap by way of thanks.
    His room was on two levels and had four curtained beds, none of which was welcoming, and none of which had sheets. There was no other furniture nor any draping on the windows. There was a
chamber pot, a water jug and two small tin basins. The walls and floorboards smelled of fresh lime wash. At least the bedbugs had been treated. Aymer couldn’t imagine spending a single night
in any comfort there. Perhaps he could conclude his business in one day and take the Sunday return passage on the Tar , home again. He went out on to the balcony and looked across the
courtyard and the harbourfront to where the Tar was docked amongst some smaller fishing boats that had been damaged by the gale. The cold, the breeze, the brightness of the sky, his shoulder
pain, the dislocation that he felt from being far from home, brought water to his eyes. It didn’t help that he had travelled all this way with nothing but bad news.
    He chose a bed close to the windows, where there was light enough to read and write. He took a quill, some paper and a pinch of ink from his bag. He mixed sufficient ink with spittle and began
to write, unsteadily, using his knees as a desk. He put the title of the family firm in capitals at the top of the page:
    HECTOR SMITH & SONS
Manufacturers of Fine Soap
    And then he added his address:
    The Only Inn
Wherrytown
    Saturday, 19th November
    Sir, he wrote , I am this morning arrived on the coastal packet in Wherrytown and lodged at the inn. I would be obliged if we could meet at your soonest
     convenience. I have disclosures that concern our business interests and that I wish to communicate with some urgency.
    He added his own signature and then, on the reverse of the folded sheet, the name of the agent who at that very moment was riding in the shallows to haul a Yankee from the sea
    where the Belle of Wilmington had beached: Walter Howells, Esq.
    Now he wrote a second letter, to his younger brother:
    My dear Matthias, I am safely come to Wherrytown and have survived the worst of storms at sea. Already I have summoned Mr Howells and am awaiting his reply. I write this
     letter for the return of the coastal packet which will depart tomorrow, Sunday, in case my business does not allow a swift departure from this place. Despite my deprivations I am convinced of
     the propriety of my coming here, and hope that in my brief absence you will come to recognize that our responsibilities to these people could not be satisfied by pen and ink and paper but only
     by the presence of at least one son from Smith & Sons.
    He read the last line several times aloud. He hoped his brother would detect reproof but not the coldness that he felt. Matthias was a businessman who had no moral code. But
    Aymer? He was moral code and little else.
    Aymer, at forty-two, was senior to Matthias by nineteen months – yet he was the