Hester(89)

This isn’t the first time that Abigail has surprised me with her cunning intelligence.

“I thought you might have lost the child when you missed your days at work. But you look wonderfully round in the middle, so I know you and the babe are healthy.”

Abigail is examining a man’s jacket I am repairing when it slips off a hook and reveals a dress I am making with the captain’s silks. It is the verdigris green.

“This is exquisite.” She lifts the edges of the dress toward the light. “You must use this to make a gown for the Light Infantry banquet. You know it’s the most important event of the season, all the town’s dignitaries wear their old uniforms from the days of Mr. Madison’s war—”

“I’m not going to the banquet,” I say.

Abigail stops her rattling and tips her head at me again.

“Nonsense,” she declares. “You must.”

It’s been a long time since I took anyone into my confidence, and I am not trustful even now. But Abigail does not seem to notice, else it does not deter her. In a flash she has draped the green silk around my shoulders and begun to pin it in an approximation of a gown.

“What has Felicity said of me?” I ask.

Abigail narrows her eyes.

“She doesn’t dare say much, Isobel. She cannot very well accuse you of anything when the captain himself said the gloves are your work. She won’t put her word against his, for Captain Darling is very well liked in Salem and respected by everyone. Think about it, if she speaks against you then she’d have to explain why there are no more gloves coming into the shop now that you’re not there.”

Abigail props the dress on my shoulder and steps back to study the effect.

“The color is perfect with your hair and eyes.” She claps her hands and brushes away the gathering where I’ve tucked up the empire waist. “Take off your skirts, I must make the measurements and cut the fabric now.”

I comply—it is enjoyable to have her attentions, and the dress will go twice as fast with her help, no matter who it is for.

“You mustn’t hide your condition,” she goes on. “You must walk into the banquet and announce to everyone that you’re having Edward’s child.”

Nat said that he needed time. Nat said perhaps if there was no child.

She looks at my belly, which is bulging when I sit, and I see the child is evident even now.

“I don’t expect the child until February or March—a full year since Edward’s ship set sail. Who will be fooled by then?”

“That doesn’t matter,” Abigail insists. “What matters is that you tell the story and make them believe it. There’s already gossip in town, and Felicity will gladly do her part to turn others against you—you must go to the ball and say you’re carrying Edward’s child. And you must let me start telling others the same right now.”

She tips her head.

“Unless…” She leans across the table. “Will the father stand beside you?”

I think of Nat in town, his sister on his arm. Healthy, upright, and untroubled. So unlike the man who insists he hates Salem society.

I wish I could love him fully or hate him fully and be done with it.

“Isobel, does he know of your condition?”

I nod.

“And has he said he will stand beside you?”

My mind is racing—do I hate him or do I love him? Do I want him or would I scorn him?

“No.”

Abigail takes this in with a simple nod, all while shaping the dress with pins and tucks and small stitches. “Then you must go to the banquet with your friend Nell and do as I’ve said.”

She sees my grimace.

“Perhaps you don’t know it, Isobel, but without a family to speak on your behalf you can be put out of Salem for almost anything. Judges and ministers delight in punishing a fallen woman. You must make the dress and do as I say.”

I do as she says, and make the dress in verdigris green. True green, to cover a lie.





THIRTY





My nerves are so racked the night of the banquet I can barely button my cloak.

There’s a flush in Nell’s cheeks and her eyes are bright. Her husband exclaims over the way we look together, “like two lasses from the Scottish and Irish countryside.”

I’ve made a fashionable veil to cover my face, and before we get out of the carriage I fold up the cape and snap the veil into place using the scrimshaw buttons I bought when I was first under his spell. I’m surprised at the relief the veil brings. Seen but unseen, hiding in plain sight as Mercy advised.

There are other ladies also veiled, and when we pass one another I peer through the lace and try in vain to read their eyes. What are they hiding? Nat said that every heart has a grave in it, but I didn’t know what he meant until now, walking masked amid a crowd with my own fear and sadness hidden in plain sight.



* * *



FROM OUR PLACE beneath a wide chestnut tree hung with lanterns, Nell, Stephen, and I stand shoulder to shoulder with at least a hundred other shopworkers and house servants who’ve come to watch the wealthy revelers and dignitaries arrive behind the marching band.

The black iron fence that circles the perimeter of the yard is marked by tall, flaming torches that dance in the night. The windows and interior of the hall glow with hundreds of candles. The sound of bugles, flutes, and percussion float through the open windows, each with its own thread of color—shiny yellow for the triangle, ropy lavender for the violin, dark blue footsteps for the bugles.