Hester(55)
* * *
At night, poor Martha Carrier’s daughter lies awake and wishes John Hathorne would fall dead in the street. At her bedside is a needle Sarah found tucked into an eight-pointed flower embroidered in the center of a handkerchief.
She remembers the day her mother put away the cloth and needle. “Such adornment is forbidden,” Martha had said. “But we can keep it here, Sarah—we can keep something beautiful for ourselves alone.”
Terrified at what might happen to her otherwise, Sarah testified in court and said her mother was a witch. Now the courts have said the trials were all a terrible mistake—a frenzy that should never have happened. But her mother is dead, and it is Sarah’s own fault. She has so many questions she can hardly sleep: Has her mother gone to heaven or to hell, and will she ever forgive her? Should Sarah burn the handkerchief with its eight-pointed flower? Should she carry it in her pocket? Or should she use it to make a poppet doll with silver-gray hair just like Judge Hathorne? Will it hurt him when she pricks the fabric? And if she leaves it outside his door with a needle stuck through it, will it blind him?
Sarah sees it in her mind. One day John Hathorne’s body will lie in the cemetery beside his father’s, their two grave markers like cold, pale twins beneath a gray sky.
SEVENTEEN
I arrive at Felicity’s shop to find two ladies in fine hats waiting at the door on Monday morning. I know right away they are the Philadelphia women who’ve come for my gloves—but before I can say good morning Felicity bustles them inside. She makes a fuss about using the key she keeps on the chain around her waist and dusting off the counter before she sets down her bag.
“Please bring the ladies tea.” Felicity speaks as if I am her kitchen girl.
Move between the spaces; know when it is your moment. Hide your strengths until it’s time to use them.
I go up the street to fetch hot water from the cartwright’s shop. When I return, the ladies are seated on the divan, each holding a pair of my gloves and admiring the work. The ladies’ traveling clothes are made of the finest-quality silks in deep jewel colors, and I wish that I were wearing my finest dress, embroidered with my mother’s irises.
“We want to order a dozen more,” the fairer lady says. She speaks with the confidence of a man, and her words are bold and black to match. Certainly she is not endeavoring to walk through the world unseen. “We’ll pay you half now, and the second half upon receipt. You may send them by post.”
“I’ve never seen any embroidery work that matches hers,” the second lady adds. She is handsome and her hands are pale and strong. “You have a keen eye, Mrs. Adams, and we’ll pay what’s required to urge your woman along—we need the gloves right after Independence Day.”
“They must be her work and no one else’s,” the first says firmly. “And they must be made of free cotton, of course.” I prick up my ears, for I have not heard the expression free cotton before. “Naturally we can’t sell anything made with slave labor—Philadelphia women demand cotton grown in free states or in England.”
“A true Christian woman will not wear anything but,” adds the second woman. She calculates the sum and writes a banknote of credit.
I want to ask these women how they’ve come to operate a business that takes them from Philadelphia to Boston, Salem, New York, and beyond. I want to know if they’re shrewd and unfair like Felicity or if they’ve found another way to run a ladies’ shop in a world of men. But all I can do is mark their names: Miss Diane English and Miss Elizabeth Southwick at the Cherry Street Shop in Philadelphia.
* * *
ABIGAIL AND I are leaving for the day when Felicity asks me to stay behind. Abigail shoots a last look to me.
“You heard the ladies,” Felicity says. “How soon can you have the gloves?”
The white-on-white work for Charlotte Silas has taken over all of my time, and I barely have time to work on my shawl for the banquet.
“I’ve begun a new set of petticoats for my husband’s return,” I say. “When Edward comes home my time in the evening will belong to him.”
“Your husband isn’t here yet,” she says. “I’ll pay you a dollar a pair to have them finished by the first week of July.”
“Twelve pair will take countless hours,” I protest, although in truth it can be accomplished with great effort—and a little bit of enchantment, if it can be summoned.
“The ladies paid half already,” she says. “They expect a timely delivery.”
“Then I’ll take half my payment now, too, so that I can buy the finest threads and begin as soon as you’re able to get free cotton gloves.”
I’ve forced her hand. She doesn’t like it, but she counts out my money in silence.
I’m set to walk out the door when she asks, “What word do you have from your husband? Evelyn Boyle’s husband wrote that there was trouble on Captain Darling’s journey.”
“Trouble on the journey? What sort of trouble?”
“Only that one of the men delayed them; she didn’t say the reason.”
I saw the captain sail his ship through storm, gale, and sickness. I know the command he has over his men, the respect and love Ingo gives him, and how he uses that strength to keep the crew in line.