Hester(75)

Hours later, he’s at my door.

“My uncle and I are leaving for New Haven in the morning.” He looks down at his feet, which he shuffles in the dirt. It’s dark. Behind him I hear the night owl calling and a swallow’s whistle. There’s nothing in his hands. It seems he hasn’t actually found the scrimshaw button but has come of his own accord. Did I summon him, or did I not?

“You’ve stayed away so long.” There’s a catch in my throat.

“I’m sorry, Isobel. I’ve thought of you and longed to come, but my family has been much upon me.”

“I’ve been wretched without you.”

He reaches for me, but I fade from his touch.

“I would have sent word if I could,” he says.

“The rock—” I bite the inside of my mouth. I don’t want him to see my tears. “You could have left a sign or a note at our rock.”

He raises a hand to my cheek slowly, and I do not pull back this time.

“How long will you be gone?” I ask.

“Three weeks or more. Through the end of August if we go on to New York or Philadelphia.” He pauses, and the air is heavy between us. “Your husband’s ship will be here in a few days,” he says into the silence. “I dread our goodbye, but it’s best if I’m gone when he returns.”

I pull gently out of his arms. He’s called me his darling Isobel, his beauty, his red-haired flame, a woman with poetry in her needle.

“I had a letter from the captain.” I’m standing with my back to the lighted cottage room. I can see his face, but I think he cannot see mine. “Edward may not be on the ship.”

He looks at me with a puzzled expression.

“May not? What do you mean?”

I tell him what little I know.

“If the captain wrote to you in the spring, why didn’t you tell me sooner?” There’s an edge in his voice that wasn’t there before.

“I didn’t know what would happen—I thought that any day I might have a letter and there would be some certainty. Edward can be very unpredictable.”

“And you’ve heard nothing more?”

“Nothing.”

I step to one side, and the light from the lamp illuminates Nat’s face. He looks tired and wary.

“What trick do you think he’s up to?” Nat asks. “I heard he went about the city taking investments for something he called the elixir of life. He went to my Uncle Robert and made a proposition—as if my uncle wouldn’t know that alchemy is nonsense.”

“Nonsense?”

I remember the book that Edward did not want to let go. George Ripley’s Compound of Alchemy.

“Do you pretend not to know it?”

“I pretend nothing,” I say.

“The elixir of life promises everlasting youth by turning silver into gold.” Nat’s voice drips with sarcasm.

From the first day I met Edward, I believed that he had a deep knowledge of medicines. I doubted his self-control but never his knowledge, for he had the books to prove it.

“But it is herbs and other … things. Spiderwebs,” I try, hating how my voice falters.

“Spiderwebs?” Nat scoffs. “Now who’s lost to hopeless enchantments, Isobel?”

I remember when Edward whispered in my ear that I was fearless, and in saying so he made it almost true.

“Did your uncle give him money?” I ask. In all the time we’ve spent together, we’ve never spoken of Edward. Now I feel ashamed, as if Nat’s known all along that Edward is a fraud and a thief.

“My uncle put him out at the heel,” he says. “But the apothecary on the next block gave him money, and so did a few others. He speaks well, your husband, and there are always men hungry for gold.”

At this moment I realize that if Edward doesn’t return, everyone who invested in his venture will be my creditors, and I will be in their debt.

“Why have you never told me?”

“I assumed that you were aware of your husband’s business propositions.”

Silence hangs between us.

“It’s possible that he won’t return.” I’ve imagined Nat would receive this news with delight. Now I understand that we have seen things differently from the beginning.

“You’re fortunate that you have a great skill—and the ladies in Philadelphia have already bought your work.” His gaze is impenetrable and his words are hollow.

“Yes, I’ve thought the same.” I feel my tears coming. “I know the ladies’ names and might go to them directly.”

“Then you can finally do what you’ve urged me to do—put your name to your work.”

“And what about you?” I ask. “What will you do?”

“I’ll do the same. I’ll make my name one day.”

His face is half in shadow now. I feel him pulling away, but I have to ask.

“Would you come to Philadelphia if I went?”

He shakes his head slightly, as if there’s water in his ear.

“You’re another man’s wife.” I see these words in white and black, the colors leached from them.

“The Philadelphia ladies know nothing about me,” I say. “They don’t know I have a husband—they’ve never spoken to me. They don’t even know my name.”