Words Spoken True: A Novel Read online

  Blake stared across his desk at the posters and news articles tacked to the wall in front of him without seeing any of the words. Behind him Joe was shouting at one of the hands, but Blake was only vaguely aware of the noise.

  He shouldn’t have told Adriane she had his sympathy. Still, he wasn’t sorry he’d said what he had. A woman like Adriane Darcy should not even consider marrying a man like Jimson. Blake wondered what would have happened that afternoon if he had charged across Mrs. Wigginham’s parlor to forcibly remove Adriane from the man’s clutches and help her make her escape.

  He smiled a little at the foolish thought. She, no doubt, had no desire to be rescued, since women generally set great store on marrying well. If he’d learned nothing else from his tragic affair with Eloise, he learned that.

  He’d had nothing to offer Eloise but the infatuation of a foolish young man with dreams of someday running his own newspaper. Her father wasted little time pointing out to his daughter that dreams could not supply fancy dresses and servants, much less a house in the better parts of town where society ladies would stop in to leave their cards.

  Any hint of a smile vanished from Blake’s face as he rubbed his forehead. He didn’t often think of Eloise, but here she had come back to haunt him twice in one day. It was the murders that brought her to mind, he supposed, but it did little good to think of her now. She was beyond his help, and perhaps had been ever since she’d made her choice.

  “You do understand, don’t you, Blake?” she’d told him that day almost five years ago as tears wet her pale cheeks. “It’s not that I don’t love you. I do. Desperately. But I must do as Father says.”

  While Blake hadn’t understood at the time, he accepted her choice and, surprisingly, had not mourned that choice very much. Instead he embraced his newfound freedom and decided love was a distraction he could do without until after he managed to achieve his goal of having his own paper.

  It remained a distraction he could do without. He picked up his pen and wrote a couple of sentences on the paper in front of him as he tried to shove thoughts of Adriane Darcy out of his head.

  So what if she intrigued him? Lots of things intrigued him. Such as who the river slasher was. Such as whether or not the Irish boy he’d grabbed that morning knew anything about the murders. Such as deciding which political candidates the Herald should support in the spring elections. Such as making sure he beat Wade Darcy to every important headline and making the Herald the most widely read paper in Louisville.

  “Hey, boss.” Joe came over to his desk. “Ain’t you got that piece ready to go yet? You said it wouldn’t take you five minutes.”

  “It’s ready.” Blake scribbled down one last line, then glanced quickly back over the paragraph he’d written and hoped it would please the old lady. It mentioned her name three times and the good cause twice. Still, it was short and not very flowery. Adriane Darcy’s story would be better.

  He handed the page to Joe who was watching him with a worried look on his face. “You ain’t sick, are you, boss?”

  “I’m fine, Joe.” He smiled at the short, wiry man.

  When Joe came around begging a job shortly after Blake took over the Herald, Blake had been ready to send him on his way, but Joe started talking before Blake could say the words.

  “I need the work, Mr. Garrett, and I’m good at it. Just give me a couple of weeks to prove it to you.” Keeping his eyes on the ground, the man had twisted the rim of his hat as he went on. “I guess maybe you might’ve heard I once upon a time had a problem with the drink, but I’m married now and she’s got two little ones by her late husband—God rest his soul—and we need what money I can make for food, not the drink.”

  Blake hesitated. “What experience do you have?”

  “I reckon at one time or another I’ve worked for nearly every paper in town,” Joe said.

  “The Tribune?”

  “Some years back. But Mr. Darcy or his man Beck don’t put up with much in the print shop. So I didn’t last long.” Joe’s eyes darted up to Blake’s face and quickly away. “You understand that was before I give up the drink.”

  “I understand,” Blake said thoughtfully. “Well, Joe, it just so happens that some of the hands walked out when they heard Mr. Chesnut had hired some fellow down from New York City.”

  “I heard some talk on it. That’s why I come over.” Joe raised his head and looked directly at Blake for the first time since he’d come to the door.

  Blake studied him intently. “I plan to make the Herald the biggest paper in this city, and in order to do that I need the right kind of men to back me up here in the shop.”

  “I know just about everything there is to know about printing a paper, boss. You learn a lot moving around the way I have.”

  Blake reached behind him and took an apron off the rack. “All right. You’ve got the job. We’ve been late with the last two issues. I don’t want to be late again.”

  “Won’t be no late issues while I’m here, Mr. Garrett. You can count on that.”

  Joe had been true to his word, staying sober and becoming as loyal to Blake and the Herald as a stray dog who’d finally found a home. Before a month was gone, he was practically running the shop. He knew all kinds of tricks to make the printing go faster and had a way of keeping the other hands on task. Best of all, he knew most of the other papers in the city inside and out, and he was just as anxious to see the Herald pass them by as Blake was.

  Now Blake looked at Joe and said, “I met Wade Darcy’s daughter this afternoon.”

  “Adriane?” Joe’s face softened a little. “She’s something, ain’t she, boss?”

  “What do you know about her, Joe? I mean, did you meet her back when you worked for the Tribune?”

  “Meet her?” Joe’s voice went up a level as if Blake’s question surprised him. “The girl was always in the shop helping do this or that. Beck used to say he had her setting type before she was ten. I reckon when I was there she might have been about thirteen. Pretty as a picture even back then. Not that she did much girlie stuff. She was already living and breathing the news. It was right unnatural when you thought about it.” Joe frowned a little.

  “Unnatural? How do you mean?” Blake watched Joe intently as the man twisted his mouth to the side and thought about his answer.

  “I don’t know,” he said after a moment. “I guess that a little girl like she was then could know what folks would want to read in the paper and what they wouldn’t. She had a feel for it, right enough. There’s plenty of ink in her blood, and that’s a fact.”

  “Didn’t she go to school?” Joe’s answers were making Blake even more curious.

  “Oh, I suppose she might have. I don’t rightly remember. I do remember Beck used to worry about her some, especially when he heard people talking about her.”

  “What kind of talk?” Blake thought about pulling out his pencil and scribbling down a few notes the way he did when he was working on a story to make sure he kept his facts straight. But this wasn’t for a story, and it was unlikely he’d forget a word of anything he heard about Adriane Darcy.

  “You know how folks are. And I don’t suppose it was exactly proper a little girl like that spending so much time working with us fellows. ’Course at that time there wasn’t nobody but me and old Beck, and I reckon we’d a both died on the spot before we’d have let any harm come to little Addie.” Joe smiled a little. “That was Beck’s pet name for her.”

  “What do you think about her now?”

  “I ain’t seen her for a long spell, but they say she grew up real pretty. ’Course I still hear talk about her.”

  “What kind of talk?”

  “Same old stuff.” Joe waved his hand in dismissal. “How this or that ain’t proper. How she’ll never find no decent gent to marry her because of the way she don’t mind telling a body what she thinks without worrying about who she’s talking to.”

  “I guess they were wrong about that.” Blake pushed back h
is chair and stood up from his desk. “There’s a big party tonight announcing her engagement to Stanley Jimson.”

  “Is that a fact? Stanley Jimson.” Joe looked thoughtful. “Who’d a thought it? But maybe she got tired of setting type.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on that.” Blake watched Joe’s face as he went on. “You sound like you were really fond of her.”

  Joe looked down at the floor, then back at Blake. “Now, boss, I know how you feel about the Tribune, but I ain’t gonna say nothing bad about the girl cause there ain’t nothing bad to say. I don’t care if she is Wade Darcy’s daughter.”

  “Ease down, Joe.” Blake smiled and held his hand palm out toward Joe. “I was just curious about her. Besides, I don’t think you need to worry too much about defending her. She’s capable of that all on her own.”

  “Sounds like the two of you might have had a little run-in. I wouldn’t want to make no wagers on which of you bested the other.” Joe grinned.

  Blake laughed a little. “If we’d had pistols, we’d both be bleeding. That’s for sure.”

  “And you say she’s planning to tie the knot with Stanley Jimson.” Joe’s smile disappeared. “I’ll bet poor old Beck is grieving some over that.”

  “Why do you say that?” Blake’s eyes sharpened on Joe.

  “Well, you know Stanley Jimson, boss. And old Beck fairly doted on the girl. He’d want better than that pantywaist for her. For a fact, I’d wish better than that for her my own self.”

  “And who would you match her up with, Joe, if you were playing matchmaker?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” A wicked little glint lit up the man’s eyes as he stared at Blake. “You maybe, boss. The two of you together might start a newspaper dynasty. Why, you’d have your kids setting type before they could walk.”

  Blake threw his head back and laughed. “Wade Darcy would shoot me first.”

  “Now that could be a fact. And I reckon he’s happy as a pig in mud with the whole setup. With Jimson behind the Tribune, he won’t have to worry much about the Herald overtaking him.”

  “And with the Tribune behind Coleman Jimson, Jimson may think his way’s clear to the state senate house.” Blake’s face tightened at the thought. He wasn’t going to let that happen without a fight.

  “You saying he has another think coming, boss?” Joe raised his eyebrows.

  “Could be.”

  Joe suddenly looked worried. “Things could get ugly if you take on Jimson and the Know Nothings. They’ve pretty well got the town wrapped up right now. Most of the old Whigs is going their way, and the Democrats ain’t got nothing to stop them.”

  “Don’t worry, Joe. I’m going to step easy till I know exactly which way I want to go with the Herald. But once I’ve got my facts gathered, I’ll slam them so hard and fast they won’t know what hit them.”

  Joe shook his head. “It may be you not knowing what’s hit you. I’ve heard talk, and some of them Know Nothing fellows is ready to do whatever it takes to make sure their candidates come out on top. You know yourself there’s done been some riots in other cities. It could happen here.”

  “Then we’d better make sure we’re on the right side.”

  “The right side or the one that sells the most papers?” Joe peered at him across the desk.

  “We have to hope they’re one and the same.” Blake pointed at the paper he’d given Joe. “Now if you don’t go on and get that story set up, Mrs. Wigginham won’t see her name in the Herald tomorrow and I won’t ever get invited to any more of her newsworthy events.”

  Joe started to turn away, but then stopped to ask, “You been invited to this wingding tonight?”

  “Not officially, but I’m sure Coleman Jimson wouldn’t mind if I decided to show up. He hasn’t given up on the idea of pulling me and the Herald into his camp yet.”

  “I ain’t seeing that happen, but if you do go, you tell Addie hello for me, boss. Maybe if you make eyes at her, she’ll forget young Stanley.” Joe shot another grin at Blake before he moved back toward the galley table.

  Blake watched him a moment and then let his eyes stray around the shop where the men were getting the press ready for the first run. He loved this part of putting out the paper, when all the words were ready and it was time to start cranking them out.

  He even liked it when he was a boy helping his father put out their weekly back in Castleton, Virginia, and they’d done all the cranking by hand. His father would always grab the first sheet off the press and look at it with a hint of wonder. “By golly, it’s done it again,” he’d say. “Look here, boy. That press has transformed our ordinary old words into news.” Then he would lay the sheet reverently aside to run his hand gently along the frame of the press before they started in cranking out the copies again.

  “A newspaperman can never break trust with his readers, boy,” he’d tell Blake as they worked. “He always has to print what he believes is the truth, no matter what the consequences.” And his father always had, up until the day an angry reader, taking offense to that truth, shot him out on the street.

  Blake still missed him all these years later. Hardly a week went by that he didn’t wish he could ask his father’s advice about the stories he wrote. And there were times when he almost felt his father peeking over his shoulder as some long-forgotten bit of his homespun wisdom would surface in Blake’s mind while he was trying to get down the words of a story.

  He wondered what kind of advice his father would have about Adriane. Blake smiled a little as he could almost hear his father’s words echoing in his mind. “A newspaperman has to gather as much information as he can before he can make the right decision about how to go with a story. If a man’s thoughts are fuzzy, his words are going to be like a pied tray of type.”

  That’s just how Blake’s mind felt right now. Like a tray of type dumped out on the floor and scattered every which way. And Adriane Darcy was the sole cause.

  He’d go to that party tonight. Adriane couldn’t have been as beautiful as he’d thought, and seeing her again would help him put everything in proper perspective. He wouldn’t let his thoughts just stay jumbled like that pied tray of type because of a woman.

  That night when Blake arrived at the Jimsons’ house, the street was crowded with carriages and the party was already in full swing. Music and laughter spilled out to him even before a servant ushered him into the long, ornate parlor. Gilt-framed mirrors on every wall reflected the gay colors of the ladies’ dresses as they swirled among the dark suits of the gentlemen.

  Meta Jimson stood just inside the parlor greeting late arrivals with a stiff smile that didn’t soften when Blake spoke of the happy occasion they were celebrating. He was relieved when she turned away from him to the next arriving guest and he could move past her on into the room where, at last, his eyes fell on Adriane.

  He’d thought her beautiful that afternoon at Mrs. Wigginham’s, but now in a dress the same vibrant blue as her eyes with a neckline that revealed an enticing amount of creamy white skin, she took his breath away. Her dark brown hair was swept up in soft waves and caught high on her head, and his fingers tingled at the thought of pulling out the jeweled combs that held it there to let it cascade down around her shoulders. Blake had a sudden understanding of why men tried to pen poems. Not that he had the gift of poetry, but looking at her, he wished he did.

  He was sure she saw him the minute he entered the Jimsons’ parlor, but she pretended to be unaware of him as she turned to smile at another guest. Wade Darcy made no such pretense. For a moment Blake thought the man was going to barge across the room and demand he leave, but after a whispered conference with Coleman Jimson, Darcy simply scowled and turned his back on him.

  Coleman Jimson, on the other hand, came hurrying over to make Blake welcome. “Mr. Garrett, it’s so good of you to come to our little gathering.”

  “I couldn’t miss an event of such note.” Blake did his best to match the man’s enthusiasm as they shook hands. “Even if
I wasn’t invited.”

  “You need no invitation, sir.”

  “I’m not sure Mr. Darcy agrees,” Blake said.

  “Don’t mind Wade. He’s never handled competition well, and you’ve been giving him a run for his money lately with Chesnut’s rag.” Coleman Jimson laughed as he clapped Blake on the shoulder. “Of course if you print anything unfavorable about his daughter tomorrow, he may call you out, and I must warn you he’s a superb marksman with a pistol.”

  Blake’s eyes drifted over to Adriane. “He needn’t worry about that. It would be hard to write anything the least unfavorable about such a vision of loveliness. Your son is an extremely fortunate man.”

  “Not everybody agrees with that, but it just so happens that I do. If anybody can make a man of Stanley, our Adriane can.”

  Jimson noted how his words took Blake by surprise. He laughed and pounded Blake on the back again as he went on. “And if you quote me on that, Mr. Garrett, I’ll swear on my mother’s Bible you made it up. Every word. Now come along and I’ll take you over so you can congratulate the couple in person. That is why you came, isn’t it?” Jimson’s eyes were suddenly sharp on Blake.

  “That and the chance for some free refreshments.” Blake pushed a bland smile out on his face.

  “There’s plenty of that for the taking.” Jimson led the way across the crowded floor to where Stanley and Adriane were greeting people.

  “We have a surprise guest, children,” the elder Jimson thundered in his booming voice, catching the attention of everyone in the room. “Blake Garrett from the Herald. I’m sure you know my son, Stanley, Mr. Garrett, and this is our Stanley’s lovely intended, Miss Adriane Darcy.”

  Adriane smiled a little, but she refused to meet Blake’s eyes directly as she greeted him politely. “How nice to see you again so soon, Mr. Garrett.” She looked over at Coleman Jimson to explain they’d just met for the first time that very afternoon at Mrs. Wigginham’s gathering for the Library Aide Society.