Graven Images (4 page)

The next morning, Nicholas ambled downstairs, yawned mightily, swept the shop — and was at once dispatched by Mr. Quince into the sunlight on a round of errands.

Carrying a basket, he strolled down the walk, admiring the fine spring day. He passed Mr. Flinders’s bookshop next door, where he often browsed when he had a free moment, and spotted the owner washing his windows in preparation for King George’s birthday. The event would be celebrated the following day. Bells would be chimed. Balls would be held. The ships in the harbor would fly their colors. The Charleston militia would march on parade and at night the town would glow like a bed of coals with the light of candles and lamps hung from balconies and set before windows.

Cheered by the thought of a holiday from work, Nicholas sauntered down the street. And following visits to the cutler, the baker, and Mr. McPhee, the beekeeper, he found himself standing before the door of the last of his stops, Miss Catchfly’s grocery.

He looked through the window and spied Juliana. His heart burst into a frenzy of labor. Collecting his courage, he flung the door open, ramming it into the ladder from which Miss Catchfly, with broom, was doing battle with cobwebs.

“Thickwit!” she shrieked. “Jinglebrains!” She regained her balance and glared down at Nicholas. “Were you mothered by a
mole,
you blind-eyed oaf?”

Nicholas swallowed. “No, ma’am,” he mumbled. In apology, he raised his gaze to her daggerlike chin. Then he noticed her shoes and spun quickly around, praying she wouldn’t recall who he was. For the shoes had been made in Mr. Quince’s shop — Nicholas remembered them at once. He himself had nailed on the heels, with tacks, he now feared, that might have been a sliver of an inch too long. Tacks whose tips might possibly sprout up through the soles with wear.

“Next time,” spat out Miss Catchfly, “open your shutters and use your eyes!”

With relief, Nicholas returned his thoughts to the lesser of his crimes. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll remember that, ma’am.”

Miss Catchfly snorted and sneered. “I doubt it.” Armed with her broom, she slashed at the ceiling, vengefully laying waste to the cobwebs and causing a fleeing spider to drop onto Nicholas’s back as he approached the counter.

“Three pounds of coffee beans, please,” he stammered.

Juliana turned, in the act of pinning a sprig of honeysuckle to her bodice. Her skin was fair, her eyes deep green. Two amber curls danced on her forehead.

“Plus a loaf of sugar,” Nicholas faltered. “And a half-dozen nutmegs. Please.”

Juliana turned and stifled a yawn, having lain awake most of the night inventing instruments of torture for the benefit of Winthrop Whistlewood, her faithless, and now former, suitor. Yawning again, she opened a jar, drowsily reached her hand inside and removed, by mistake, one nutmeg too many. While Nicholas nervously shifted his feet, Juliana emptied the nutmegs into his basket — and all of a sudden froze stiff at the sight of a spider climbing over his shoulder.

“Juliana!” Miss Catchfly stared at the girl. “Be your wits out to pasture? Look lively now, and finish filling the young man’s order!”

Juliana gaped wide-eyed at Nicholas, then whirled around and fetched coffee and sugar. Unaware of the spider descending his shirt and breeches and scrambling across the floor, Nicholas paid for his purchases, turned, and set off out the door.

Dreamily, he walked down the street, meandering past the empty slave market, cocking his ear to a mockingbird’s song. He stopped to gaze at a cypress tree and recalled the color of Juliana’s eyes. Eyes, he mused, as green as keyholes through which one spied a field of clover. Then at once he remembered Mr. Quince’s lecture and awoke from his reverie. From now on he meant to keep his eyes skinned and his wits as sharp as the point on an awl.

He studied the passersby he met, scrutinizing their manners of dress and deducing their destinations. He noted the wind and appraised the clouds. He marked each carriage that clattered past. He looked down at his basket, inspected the sugar, counted the nutmegs — and found there were seven.

Nicholas stopped dead in his tracks. He counted again, and again found seven.

His eyebrows shot up. His thoughts whirled. He wondered if Juliana had merely miscounted, then recalled the way she’d stared at him so strangely.

His heart fluttered. His mind spun like a top. Struck blind to clouds and carriages, he slowly digested the astounding truth: while Miss Catchfly was busy, and at great personal risk, Juliana had secretly given him an extra nutmeg as a sign of her love.

In awe he examined the seventh nutmeg. He closed his eyes and sniffed it deeply. Entrusting it at last to his pocket, Nicholas drifted down the street while the amazing fact, flowerlike, gradually unfolded itself.

Juliana, he now realized, had only appeared to ignore him entirely every time he came into the shop. In truth, the girl was simply shy. Words did not come easily to her, so she spoke instead in the language at hand — the language of nutmegs and cornmeal and cloves.

Nicholas walked along in a daze, marveling at Juliana’s courage, courage called forth on his behalf. Had Miss Catchfly caught her, she’d have snatched her bareheaded. Why, that woman would just as soon bite herself as part with a shilling or a speck of her flour. No doubt Juliana had planned the deed for days, or weeks, or even months!

Nicholas crossed a street, stopped, and plucked the nutmeg from his pocket. Hypnotized, he stared at it blankly, seeing in it, as if in a crystal ball, Juliana’s image. Then all of a sudden his jaw dropped open.

She’d worn flowers — he recalled it clearly. Honeysuckle, he believed it was. And at once he thought back to a volume he’d opened in Mr. Flinders’s bookshop one day, a volume devoted to the lore of flowers, including the meanings attached to them.

Instantly Nicholas took to his heels. Each flower, he recalled, bore its own sentiment. And undoubtedly Juliana hadn’t worn just any bundle of petals but had carefully chosen honeysuckle, out of all the plant kingdom, for the message it carried.

He reached the bookshop and charged through the door.

“Nicholas, my scholar, good morning to you!”

Mr. Flinders, baldheaded and bespectacled, lowered the book he was perusing point-blank. “Thirsting for knowledge as always, I see.”

“Yes, sir,” Nicholas answered quickly, aware that Mr. Quince was awaiting him. He glanced about, struggling to remember where he’d seen the book on flowers. Then he made a dash for a shelf in the corner.

“It’s a fine thing to see a youth like yourself so ravenous for books and learning.” Mr. Flinders gazed upon Nicholas as if beholding the hope of the future.

“Thank you, sir,” mumbled the apprentice, desperately hunting the book.

“No doubt,” asserted Mr. Flinders, “you spotted my notice in the
Gazette
and have come to inspect my latest shipment.”

Combing the shelf, Nicholas gradually stooped out of Mr. Flinders’s sight.

“You’ll be glad to know that Pipkin’s
Path to the Temple of Wisdom
has come in at last.”

Just then the apprentice ceased his search and pulled from the shelf the book he sought.

“Plus a fine edition of Plutarch’s
Lives.
And the works of Homer as well.”

Nicholas turned to the index. “Very interesting,” he tossed out in answer.

He ran his eyes down the list of flowers and gulped when he came to honeysuckle. He flipped to its page, and beneath a description, a sketch of the plant, and a summary of its various uses, Nicholas found, with trembling fingers, the sentiment it was said to express: “Boundless and devoted affection.”

The book fell from the apprentice’s hands.

“Mr. Pye’s
Discourse on the Diseases of Cattle
has come in as well,” Mr. Flinders continued. “You can find it next to his
Treatise on Swine.
”

Nicholas snatched up the book. “Excellent,” he replied.

He turned again to the entry on honeysuckle, peering in awe at the message it bore and offering thanks to Mr. Quince, upon whose advice he’d opened his eyes and beheld all about him an unsuspected world alive with signs and meanings.

“‘Boundless and devoted affection,’” he murmured to himself. Then suddenly Nicholas realized that he must reply to the message, and quickly. The public ball in honor of the king would take place the following night — a precious opportunity meant to be shared with Juliana. But first he must reveal to her the receipt of her message and his own matching passion.

Briskly, Nicholas leafed through the book, seeking the proper flower with which to convey his feelings to Juliana.

“Hogg’s
Commentaries on Luther
has also arrived,” Mr. Flinders noted.

Nicholas came to a sketch of a clump of Canterbury bells and stopped at once. He’d seen some growing in a garden that morning. He noted its message, “Acknowledgment.” It was appropriate, he told himself, but something slightly stronger was needed.

“And a fine edition,” the bookseller went on, “of Coddington’s
Commentaries on Hogg.
”

“Truly,” replied Nicholas absently.

He considered the cowslip, whose sentiment was “I waste away without you.” Too strong, he decided. He mustn’t affright her. Then he flipped to verbena, whose message was “Enchantment” — and knew that his search was over. Quickly, he read the flower’s description: five petals, from pink to violet in color, toothed leaves, hairy stems. Recalling that he was long overdue, he studied the sketch of the plant, replaced the book, thanked Mr. Flinders, and hurried on to the shoe shop next door.

“Well, well!” crowed Mr. Quince from his bench. “Look who’s come through the door
at last.
”

Nicholas lowered his guilty eyes and speedily emptied his basket.

“Tell me, Zeph,” said Mr. Quince, aiming a wink at his brawny journeyman. “Does the boy seem to have grown since he left?”

Zeph scratched at his grubby whiskers and clamped an eye on Nicholas. “I believe you’re right, sir. Shot up like a beanstalk.” He raised his mallet and returned to pounding the leather on his lapstone. “One more chore on his list of errands and I’m afraid he’d be stoopin’ to get through the door.”

Nicholas cast a glance at the doorway and Zeph let out a gravelly laugh.

“Your job’s
making
shoes,” barked Mr. Quince, “not wearing ’em out. To work with you, lad!”

The apprentice sat down and commenced beating leather, staring raptly across at his master, who was finishing up a shoe brought in for repair by Juliana herself. Dreamily, Nicholas eyed the shoe’s buckle, as if beholding in the glint of the brass the sparkle in Juliana’s own eyes.

“And remember, lad! Alert as a hare — a hare with hounds at its heels!”

A butcher’s wagon stopped in the street. Mr. Quince stepped out to inspect the meat while Nicholas endeavored, as best he could, to put a harelike look in his eyes.

“Spring be late this year, apprentice,” boomed Zeph above the noise of their mallets.

“Yes, sir, it is,” replied Nicholas.

In unison they pounded their lapstones, softening pieces of sturdy sole leather.

“Aye, the courtin’ season be short.” The journeyman grinned at Nicholas. “Not a moment to lose, lad!” he shouted out. “Take a lesson from Zeph and be bold with the girls!”

He launched into whistling a merry tune. Then he stopped his pounding. Nicholas stopped too.

“Now, take the case of our Mr. Quince.” He leaned toward Nicholas and lowered his voice. “His suffering heart’s in thrall to Miss Catchfly, and has been now for six full years!”

The apprentice gaped at Zeph in shock. Such an unlikely possibility, like that of the sun falling out of the sky or the oceans draining into the earth, had never before occurred to him.

“Why, that sulfur-tongued spinster would snatch up a suitor quick as a frog would a fly. And yet our master is
still
accumulating the courage to speak his heart to her. And has been ever since he first took her size — and beheld her delicate pair of feet!”

The journeyman burst out into a laugh and returned to beating his leather.

“‘Ethereal,’ I’ve heard him call ’em. ‘Fit for a goddess.’ ‘The pinnacle of beauty.’ Whispered to his workbench, mind you, instead of to the woman herself.” He shook his head and returned to beating his leather. “Nay, boy, take your learning from Zeph. Don’t dally about with the girls. Be bold!”

He flashed a grin at Nicholas as Mr. Quince walked in, empty-handed.

“Poor-looking pickings?” Zeph inquired.

Mr. Quince heated a burnishing iron. “On the contrary, the meat was of the highest quality — if you were looking to make it into boots.”

He rubbed the hot iron along the heel and sole of Juliana’s shoe, vigorously bringing a gloss to the leather. Then Nicholas watched as Mr. Quince quickly applied a coat of tallow, dismayed that his master should handle the shoe with such familiarity, instead of the reverence it deserved.

“No, my lads, no meat, I’m afraid. But Nicholas has guaranteed we shan’t starve.” Mr. Quince eyed the shoe, set it on a shelf, and lit his pipe with an ember. “That is, if our dreamy-eyed provider remembered to purchase bread at the bakery.”