Hester(17)

And he will be ready.





SIX





Edward’s snoring wakes me our first morning in Salem. He’s on the floor beside the bed, boots sticking straight up where he landed, coat stuffed under his head for a pillow. His face is red from drink and there is a cup of ale spilled across the floorboards. The copper clang of pots and trays below mix with sounds of land and home that I have missed: carts rolling over cobblestones, women’s pastel voices calling to one another, the smell of fresh baking bread.

The morning sun shining through the white curtains makes a delicate scrim of lace flowers on the moss-painted wall, and soon a man’s deep voice rises up to my window as if he’s standing directly beneath it.

“The type is being set this morning—you’d best get your advert to the office straightaway. And I’m sorry, Nat—your story won’t run this week. Maybe I’ll get it in for next week.”

I peer over the window ledge and spy Mr. Hathorne—now I know his name is Nat—with hands jammed in his pockets, head bent. I watch as the two men walk down the street and turn the corner out of sight. My legs wobble as I step over my husband to pull on my iris-stitched dress, but the room steadies as I lace up my boots, grab my cape, and latch the door behind me.

The alehouse is still closed as I slip into the street, but the city is awake with horses, carriages, and shop owners readying for the day. The air smells of the sea, and gulls caw overhead. The townsmen are dressed in plain brown and black day clothes, the women in simple skirting and dull cloaks. Their clothing matches the gray sky, the beige landscape, the sand-and-pebble walkways, and the alleys where chamber-pot slop and horse dung are washed away. It is a small town compared to Glasgow, and I feel the peace of the place as a welcome respite.

I’m not looking for Mr. Hathorne, not in any direct sort of way, but I keep my eyes alert for a tall man in a long cape who leans just slightly to one side as he walks with a steady lope. I haven’t gone far when I see Mrs. Batchelder’s shop—the very shop Captain Darling said would sell the books from London. A display of leather-bound notebooks and a packet of colored pencils in the window catches my eye, an envious spectrum of hues I could put to great use for my sketches.

I’m imagining how I will design my first gown when a woman’s voice startles me.

“The pencils are beautiful.”

“Widow Higgins.” I turn and greet the woman from the wharf. “Good morning to you.”

She stands so close that I can feel the brush of her skirts on mine.

“I’m afraid I gave you a scare yesterday, Miss…”

“Mrs. Edward Gamble.” I take a step back. “And there is no need to apologize—it takes more than a fainting spell to frighten me.”

With a nod to the colorful irises that decorate the bottom of my skirt, she compliments the work and asks if it’s mine. I tell her it is.

“And may I ask—where did you learn?”

I take in her plain black dress and the sharp glint in her eye. I do not like her so close, as if she sees something I want to keep hidden.

“My mam taught me. Home in Scotland.”

“Scotland, is it? Not Ireland?” She doesn’t wait for an answer. “’Tis a pity, for you sound like an Irish lass.”

“Where’s the pity, Widow Higgins?”

“I suppose it matters little.” She shrugs. “New Irish aren’t liked in Salem—drinkers without enough sense to control their urges. New Scots are a rough lot, too,” she adds.

Has she seen some weakness in Edward, some worry in me?

“I assure you, my mother raised me well.”

“Did your mother make her money with the needle?”

“No,” I say. “But I worked in a tambour shop. White on white, for almost ten years.”

She touches my sleeve. I feel that she’s sought and found me for a purpose. But what purpose?

“We have many fine embroiderers here,” she says. “The Peabody sisters teach needlework in their school for young ladies. But your work is quite special. Will you be taking assignments?”

“Assignments?”

A sallow man in a black hat trudges down the road pulling a cart behind him, and when he passes, I see the bodies of the dead wrapped in burlap and gray cloth. He looks at me, but I look quickly away, for it’s bad luck when the undertaker looks you in the eye.

“Will you work for hire?”

“I would like that very much,” I admit.

“And what meeting will you attend in Salem?” she asks.

I search for something in her eyes, something in her words, but there are no hints.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Church, Mrs. Gamble. What is your church? I pray you’re not a Catholic.”

“No, I am not.” I do not add that Edward is a Catholic or that I believe in God the Father and Jesus Christ but I also believe in our stories and myths, selkies and elves and changelings that come when the wind rises and birds fly across the sun. “Where do you worship, Widow Higgins?”

“I go to East Meeting House,” she says after a moment’s hesitation. She drops her voice, as if to share a confidence. “If you live here you must take meeting every Sunday and be sure you’re seen doing it.”