Prologue

      This wasn’t a story shared widely. After some thought and a few laughs, New Bedford shipbuilder James Grey and his wife, Theodora, decided to tell their little ones this odd Christmas tale of how they’d met, or re-met, after years apart. They thought it wise to tell it before those same children reached maturity and no longer set much store by St Nicholas. Later, if more adult scepticism took over—well, that was their worry.

      It was Christmas story to tell around the fireplace, drinking Papa’s wassail and gorging on Mama’s pecans nestled in cream and caramelized sugar she called pralines. None of the children’s New Bedford friends ate pralines at Christmas, even though many of them had seafaring fathers who travelled the world.

      None of their friends had a mother like Mrs Grey, or for that matter, a father like James Grey. If their parents’ origins were shrouded in mystery, everyone in New Bedford appreciated the solidity of Russell and Grey Shipworks, whose yards employed many craftsmen at good wages. More quietly whispered about was the boundless charity of Mrs Grey, who assisted slaves to freedom in Canada, or helped free men and women of colour find work in New England.

      From the first, a deckhand out of Savannah, to the latest, a young couple fleeing Mississippi and a brutal owner named Tullidge, she and her network of volunteers provided food, lodging, employment and hope.

      She was a woman of great beauty, with the soft accent and leisurely sentences heard in the South of the still new United States. James Grey spoke with a curious accent that placed him not quite in Massachusetts, but not quite in England, either. He had a mariner’s wind-wrinkled face, and the ships he and his partner built were sound and true. That James adored his lovely wife was obvious to all. That the feeling was mutual was equally evident.

      Something about the Christmas season seemed to reinforce this tenacious bond even more. Their oldest friends had heard the pleasant story of how they met in a distant Southern city, after years apart. There always seemed to be more to the story than either party let on, but New Englanders were too polite to ask.