Hester(21)

“If all goes as planned, the New Harmony will return in July with a full hold and a good profit,” Captain Darling says.

I consider warning him of what befell us at home but decide it’s best for my husband to have this new opportunity. Captain Darling has sailed his ship to China and back more than once. Surely he’s an excellent judge of character. It’s my hope that he will bring out Edward’s strength and set our lives on a true and right course.

Edward must see emotion in my face, for he takes my hand and touches his lips to my scar, all that’s left of our first meeting.

“We’ll have wealth and prosperity again,” he says. The captain busies himself polishing his pocket watch. Ingo is quiet as always, his eyes watching.

“I hear of great tropical herbs and medicines in the islands,” Edward goes on. “I’ll bring back plants that are new and rare—riches for you and for our child.”

The captain doesn’t look in my direction and I’m thankful, for I’ve flushed to my scalp at the allusion to the pastime Edward enjoys each evening, while I lie back, staring over his shoulder, thinking of new uses for my needle and thread, and hoping for a child to take hold in me.



* * *



WHILE THE MEN draw up agreements and crews load the hold, I make our cottage snug with new yellow curtains, freshly whitewashed walls, and waxed floorboards. I, too, am making plans for myself in this new city. I’ve listened to the captain and learned some of the words and phrases of business: margin, profit, percentage. What percentage will you give me? What margin will I ask, and what agreement can we strike that profits us both?

The path to town is a little more than thirty minutes on foot, past the Mill Pond and hedgerow to the small bridge beyond Broad Street. I go whenever I’m able, for there’s always some new notion to find, some new street to discover.

Salem is home to ten thousand people and is nothing like the teeming city of Glasgow. Glasgow was full of gray and brown stone buildings, brick factories, towering cathedrals, and a large park green that was often filled with workers protesting their pay or some other civic matter I had not heeded.

Here the people are quiet, and I do not see evidence of political agitation or the public drunkenness that could be found in the alleys back home even on a Sunday morning.

Along Derby Wharf, victual sellers and fishmongers ring their bells and shout out the day’s offerings. A farmer pushes a cart piled with carrots, potatoes, and radishes—items I will grow in my small garden if I tend it right. Derby Street runs along the waterfront, and it is a place of wonder, with storehouses filled with pepper, coffee, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ivory, dates, figs, and raisins sold from upturned kegs and barrels.

Even the heaps of trash and rotted vegetables, the fish innards pounced upon by wharf cats, and the mounds of horse manure mixed with hay at the edges of the brick road do not ruin the sense that the Americans are orderly and kind.

Twelve noon is the fashionable hour for calling in Salem—I deduce it by the ladies leisurely walking along Chestnut Street with intricate beaded and fringed camel-hair shawls draped over their shoulders. Some ladies sport fabulous leghorn bonnets decorated with plumes and flowers; a few wear black or white embroidered lace veils draped over their faces. In a milliner’s shop on Essex Street, the window and cases are filled with handsome ribbons and veils that can be embroidered with delicate flowers on the scalloped edges; across the road is a genteel men’s shop with a broad-coat and a waistcoat displayed upon a mannequin placed in the doorway.

To make up for my lack of training in dress-or pattern-making, I let the streets become my teacher. Servants’ dresses are simple and crisp, while wealthy ladies’ walking dresses are made of rich black silk.

Like women everywhere, the wealthy are dressing for one another. Their calling outfits are printed muslin and chintz, pink-and mauve-striped silks, and other dear fabrics that are sewn so that the wearer seems to float above the wooden sidewalks and glide effortlessly from carriage to parlor door. Against their simple dresses, some of the ladies wear shawls ornamented with fringes, beads, and flowered embroidery, each more elaborate than the next. Three ladies in dresses the color of tulips, with veils that match, turn a corner at the top of the street and enter a house where the doors seem to open magically for them.

Widow Higgins doesn’t sneak up on me during any of my walks through town, and I am glad. And when I find myself looking about for Mr. Hathorne, I try to push him out of my mind as well. A handsome man who makes my tongue flatten against the roof of my mouth will not help me in my efforts. I must find inspiration, not flirtation. Yet I cannot deny that all of it—the colors, the designs I make in my sketchbook, the wind off the sea in Salem, the hope for another glance at Mr. Hathorne’s smothered smile—intoxicates me. The promise of the New World feels within my grasp.

In a dry goods shop, I find a new ladies’ magazine that features an illustration of two Boston women in fashionable walking costumes. Each wears a high skirt and a trim belted jacket, each carries a parasol and sports a wide-brimmed hat. Their skirts are narrow, their waistcoats made with intricate detail.

I haven’t seen this narrow skirt fashion in Salem and decide that I will make one ball gown and model a second dress upon this fashion. I will use my gold to buy striped silk, muslin, chintz, lace, and brocade cotton. When I’m finished, I’ll present a shop owner with a beautiful dress embroidered with orchids on the hem—orchids, the exotic flower that is traded for riches—and my finest decorative work on the sleeves, collar, and waistband. I’ll ask him to display it in his shop, and then I’ll do as the Widow Higgins suggested: take assignments. In time, I’ll save up enough to open a shop of my own. The colors and pictures I’ve drawn and dreamt of since childhood will be embroidered upon my work. And what I learned from Auntie Aileen—hidden pockets, tricks to hide a limp or a lump, the dropped waist for a stout woman, and long buttons for a tall, skinny one—will one day be part of my trade.