Hester(81)

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I’M IN MY garden slowly digging up radishes when Mercy comes down at the end of the day. I’m relieved to see her, for I do not want to be alone with my despair. The captain’s visit was a reprieve, but the darkness is close and the doorway between life and death that Edward once spoke of seems nearer than ever.

“The captain was here,” I tell her. “He didn’t tell me the truth about Edward, but he came close enough. He took my gloves—said he’s going to a small dinner and—”

“A small dinner for a hundred people,” Mercy says with a huff. “Hosted by old Captain White at Hamilton Hall. Every summer he invites all the Whigs, and Captain Darling goes so that…”

I don’t hear anything else she says.

“A hundred people—you sure?”

“I helped Mrs. Remond and her daughters chop carrots and onions for the beef this very morning.”

“He can’t wear the gloves there.” Panic burns my throat. He said it was a small dinner, and I did not ask him to keep my secret. “He can’t show my gloves to a hundred people.”

“Can’t stop it.” Mercy shakes her head. “The men are well into the wine by now, and turtle soup will be served at seven sharp.”

Mercy doesn’t understand what will happen if my work is revealed. Even I am afraid to find out what the penalty will be.

“Felicity Adams lies about those gloves; she doesn’t tell anyone they’re my work, and I’ve agreed—it’s our arrangement.”

“Already done,” Mercy says again. She takes the hoe from me and eases me onto a stump. “And that’s not what matters.”

“I have been warned of Felicity’s ire many times,” I say. “It does matter—very much.”

“Not as much as this child matters,” Mercy says.

“But Felicity…”

“That’s not what’s important now,” she says. “Because pretty soon—maybe here and now—you’ve got to think about this baby. And you’ve got to decide some things.”

“Decide?” I decided to marry Edward and he ruined us. I’m not deciding anything else until Nat returns from the trip with his uncle. “I decided to work for Felicity so I could earn the money I need to live.”

“You’ve got a child to think of,” she says. “A child’s the most precious thing you’ll ever have. And right now, before it’s too late, you’ve got to decide how you’re going to keep yourself and this child.”

“I don’t want to decide,” I whisper. Every choice I make is wrong.

“Doesn’t matter what you want—don’t you see? The baby needs you and is gonna need you for a long time. I’ve seen what comes from trying to shed a child that wants to be born. I’ve seen sorrow and misery and a motherless child and that’s not what your child ought to be.”

Her words are too close to my fears.

“Stop it.” I turn away, but she follows me like a dancer, keeping her face in mine.

“You think you’re the first woman to make herself a fool for a man?” she asks.

I think back to the night it began. There were shooting stars—I thought that was a sign. I was angry at Edward. Nat’s colors were bright and vivid, and I thought they were my fate and my promise. My gift and my curse.

“Well, you aren’t,” Mercy goes on. “You’re foolish, but you’re brave and strong—that’s what you’ve got to remember.”

My mother told me the colors could ruin me. I was a little girl then. Maybe she wanted to say more. Maybe she wanted to explain that there were many ways a woman can be ruined and that the colors might mislead me exactly as they did when I was with Nat.

“You listening?” Mercy’s face is filled with urgency. “You’ve got to make a life for you and the child.”

“How?”

“Your needle is how. Trust the needle. You’ve got a gift for colors, you’ve got to use it.”



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I DON’T KNOW what will happen when I get to the shop, but I’m expected on Tuesdays at ten o’clock and I go. I leave early, for my nerves will not let me stay at home any longer. In the last row of hemlock and heather before I reach the wharf, birds that took up roost in spring are warbling and learning to fly. The busy work of spring has turned to the glory of deep summer just as the words my pap told me have come around again through Mercy.

Trust the needle.

In my pockets I carry the needle case I brought from Scotland. I’ve used all six needles in my work and am bringing them to show Felicity—from a quarter inch in length to six inches long, tucked into the pocket beside my pliers and stiletto blade. Trust the needle, trust the needle.

I’ll explain things to Felicity. If the captain said the glove work is mine and she’s found it out, then we can make an agreement—one that is mutually beneficial. I remember the captain used this term with Edward, and I am prepared to use it now.

But the moment I step through the door, I know things are different. The shop is dead quiet but for the sound of crates hissing across the floor in the small storeroom. Soon Felicity’s heels tap from the back to the front of the shop. When she sees me, her face twists into a snarl.