“You’ll be very interested to know, I’m sure, that the Reverend Picklewaite’s Reply to Doubt has arrived in my most recent shipment.”
“Truly,” Nicholas mumbled in answer. He searched the book for another flower resembling verbena but with fewer petals, and came to a stop at the madder plant. It too was said to have narrow leaves and violet petals — four to the flower. Fearfully, Nicholas scanned its description, read the account of its various uses, and came at last to the message it bore: “Vicious accusation.”
The apprentice whitened.
“Indeed,” said the bookseller. “Plus the Reverend’s extremely popular Cure for Noxious Curiosity.”
Nicholas slammed the book shut, as if to extinguish the memory of the error.
“I must see it sometime,” he stuttered in reply.
Too mortified to track Juliana and attempt to explain the mistake to her, he shuffled weakly out of the store and into the shoe shop, where he slumped in a chair.
“Ho there, apprentice,” Zeph called out, stepping grandly down the stairs. “Look up and cast your eyes on your comrade — a mere journeyman at making shoes, but a master craftsman at courting.”
Nicholas found Zeph scrubbed and shaved, clothed in a clean pair of breeches and a coat ablaze with copper buttons.
“Aye, feast your eyes, and remember. No time to dally. Be bold with ’em, boy! And mark me, if I don’t have a woman’s arm in mine by sundown you can call me a dew-eared, fumble-fingered apprentice at the art of love.”
Gaily, Zeph strutted out the door while Nicholas pondered his troubles. He considered the journeyman’s counsel a moment, but the thought of boldly addressing Juliana, after his accidental insult, was too terrifying to contemplate. Yet somehow he had to convince her of his true feelings before the ball that evening — and all of a sudden he remembered her shoe.
He turned and snatched it up off the shelf. There was still a chance she’d come for it before the ball began. And although he feared to approach her in person, he realized he could write her a note, stick it inside, and hope she’d find it.
Quickly Nicholas searched out a quill, a bottle of ink, and a piece of paper. Knowing the note was his only hope, he decided to take Zeph’s advice and be bold, and at once he recalled the flowery phrases Zeph had reported Mr. Quince to whisper in reference to Miss Catchfly’s feet.
You are the pinnacle of loveliness, the apprentice neatly wrote out. Your ethereal beauty fills my thoughts. I regard you as I would a goddess.
Nicholas considered the note, sure that such potent words as those would outweigh the morning’s mishap.
I shall attend the militia review this afternoon, he continued, in hope of finding you. Allow me to regain your precious favor. He paused, then remembered Mr. Flinders’s phrase. Which I crave as others crave food.
Since the author of the message would be obvious, Nicholas didn’t sign his name, and after waiting for the ink to dry, he folded the paper, picked up the shoe, polished its brass buckle with his sleeve, and tucked the note inside.
The apprentice pulled the nutmeg from his pocket. If Juliana attended the review, it would mean that she’d forgiven him. And if she’d forgiven him, he could bear to approach her and propose that they meet at the ball that night. Ardently praying for such an outcome, he put the nutmeg to his nose, sniffed it deeply — and saw the door burst open.
“I demand to see Mr. Quince at once!” The speaker was none other than Miss Catchfly, and Nicholas hurriedly hid the nutmeg in his pocket just as his master entered.
“My dear Miss Catchfly. How good to see you.” Mr. Quince closed the kitchen door behind him and gazed at her adoringly.
“You’ll change your mind about that soon enough!”
In a rage, she produced a pair of shoes and slammed them down on a bench.
“The tacks — they’re driving up into my heel! One more minute of wearing and I’d have never been able to pull them off!”
Mr. Quince examined one of the shoes. Anxiously, the apprentice looked on, wishing he could disappear like smoke up a chimney.
“Tell me, Nicholas,” said Mr. Quince. “Did you not attach these particular heels?”
“Yes, sir,” the apprentice mumbled.
“And did you realize at the time that the tacks happened to be a size too long?”
Nicholas cleared his throat. “No, sir.”
“Leatherhead!” spat out Miss Catchfly. “Idiot!”
Mr. Quince answered her scowl with a smile. “The boy’s new to the trade, you understand. Still learning to follow in the steps of Saint Crispin, patron saint of cobblers.”
“And scoundrels!” Fiercely, Miss Catchfly glared at the shoemaker. “I demand the shoes be repaired at once — before they make a martyr of me.”
“But madam, it being a holiday for the lad —”
“Aye, so he and the rest can wander free as pigs, getting into mischief! Why, just this morning I scared off a boy about to steal a fistful of flowers.”
Nicholas froze stiff as a fence post.
“The brazen rascal,” responded Mr. Quince.
“From the front of a church!” Miss Catchfly added. “That be the sort of villainy that holidays from work will lead to.”
Terrified that she’d recognize him, Nicholas turned his back to her and headed quietly for the stairs.
“Aye — and that be the boy right there! With the rip running down the back of his shirt!”
Nicholas halted. He felt for the rip, and cursed himself to recollect that he’d only been spotted from behind.
“Nicholas!” boomed Mr. Quince. “Is this so?”
The apprentice lowered his eyes. “Yes, sir.”
His master stared at him in shock. “Upstairs with you, boy, and change your shirt! Then you’ll come back down and devote the rest of the afternoon to Miss Catchfly’s shoes — putting a brand-new heel on each, to remember your carelessness by.”
Mr. Quince smiled across at Miss Catchfly while Nicholas shuddered, recalling the note.
“But sir — the militia review! I’d arranged —”
“The comfort of our customers’ feet comes first. Remember that, boy. Now be off!”
Sulkily, Nicholas climbed the stairs. He made out the sound of the militia’s drums and calculated it would take three hours at the least to finish Miss Catchfly’s shoes. By the time he was through, the review would be over and his last chance to speak to Juliana would be gone.
Slowly, Nicholas changed his shirt, bitterly eyeing the rip from the rose thorn and wishing he’d never heard of verbena. Stepping down the stairs, he saw that Miss Catchfly had departed, watched as his master left for the review, and realizing that the note he’d written to Juliana must be removed, turned toward the shelf — and found the shoe gone.
A chill scurried up the apprentice’s spine. Madly, he combed the shop for the shoe, then suddenly knew what had happened. While he’d put on another shirt, Juliana must have picked up her shoe, and left.
Desperately, Nicholas rushed out the door. He peered up and down the street in a panic, but Juliana was nowhere in sight.
The apprentice felt the strength drain from his limbs. After reading the note, attending the review, and waiting in vain for him to appear, she’d conclude that he’d meant to make a fool of her — and would never set eyes upon him again.
In utter despair, he shuffled inside and turned to Miss Catchfly’s shoes. Unconcerned with the time, he gloomily took the heels apart, ignoring the sound of the militia marching only a few blocks away. He constructed a pattern, and from the heaviest cowhide laboriously cut out eight pieces of leather. Hardly aware of the hours passing, he built up the heels layer by layer, only dimly aware by the time he’d finished that the sound of drums had long ceased.
Nicholas stood up. He felt numb inside and vowed to forget Juliana entirely. Putting Miss Catchfly’s shoes on the shelf, he glanced about, wandered outside, and chanced to look up at the weathervane.
Saint C
rispin was facing west at the moment, though a breeze butted Nicholas from the south. He recalled how the vane had faithfully led him to a patch of verbena and to Juliana. And having nothing better to do, he set off in a westerly direction, wondering what it was Saint Crispin held in store for him.
The streets were noisy with singing and shouting. Firecrackers rang out in the distance. Nicholas stopped while a cart passed before him, pulled by a pair of blindered horses — and at once the apprentice’s eyes lit up. He wondered if this could be the sight his patron saint had meant him to see — for his troubles would never have begun if he hadn’t cast off his blinders, opened his eyes, and noticed the extra nutmeg.
Puzzling over Saint Crispin’s intent, Nicholas pressed on farther to the west, caught a glimpse of the harbor, and halted. The saint, he suspected, had meant him to see the water, and suddenly the apprentice knew why. He must fling himself into the sea at once. Only that would solve his problems, and Nicholas anxiously turned toward the weathervane, wondering if this indeed was its meaning.
Horses and wagons hurried past, while men piled wood in the street for a bonfire. Nervously, Nicholas scanned the harbor. He decided to push on a block or two farther, just in case he might have misinterpreted Saint Crispin — and looked up to find himself suddenly face to face with Juliana.
“Good day,” she offered, stopping. “Again.”
The apprentice paled. His heart bolted. She didn’t seem to be angry, and in an instant he abandoned his vow to forget her and decided to right matters once and for all.
“Forgive me for not appearing!” he burst out.
The girl seemed amused. “Not appearing where?”
“At the militia review — this afternoon!”
Juliana gazed at Nicholas, baffled.
“As I’d promised you in the note.”
“What note?”
“The note I tucked in your shoe, of course!”
“What shoe?”
Nicholas gaped in wonder.
“The brass-buckled shoe you brought in for repair and picked up this very afternoon!” He fixed his eyes on her, then glimpsed the sight of Mr. Quince crossing the street — strolling arm in arm with Miss Catchfly.
“That?” cried Juliana, disbelieving. “But that shoe was Miss Catchfly’s. She merely sent me to bring it in to be mended.”
The apprentice stared at Mr. Quince as he and the woman he worshiped turned a corner and disappeared from view. In a flash he knew what must have happened. While he’d been upstairs changing his shirt, Miss Catchfly had left the shop with her shoe and had read the note, devouring the praise that Nicholas had meant for Juliana and that Mr. Quince had originally meant for her feet. And since it was Mr. Quince who must have handed her the shoe, she’d naturally assumed the note was from him — and had joyfully joined him at the review.
Marveling at this turn of events, Nicholas realized that Juliana hadn’t waited for him and might still be disposed to look on him favorably.
“As for this morning,” the apprentice sputtered, “it wasn’t a bouquet of madder I’d brought you —”
Juliana cocked her head quizzically.
“I didn’t mean ‘vicious accusation’ at all. It was verbena I’d picked, with five petals to the flower.”
Juliana chuckled. “Does it make a great difference?”
Nicholas eyed her in disbelief.
“Why, the message,” he faltered. “I’d brought verbena for the sentiment it carries — ‘enchantment.’ In reply to the honeysuckle you wore.”
“In reply?” She appeared surprised at the notion. “And tell me. What message does honeysuckle bear?”
The apprentice gaped at her, dumbfounded.
“Why, ‘Boundless and devoted affection’ — of course.”
“Truly,” she replied. “How very interesting.”
Nicholas could hardly believe his ears.
“You were wearing some yesterday morning,” he declared as if pleading for his sanity. “The morning you gave me the extra nutmeg.”
He produced the nutmeg and held it before her, the undeniable proof of her love.
“Extra?” The smile fled her lips.
“Don’t you remember?” The apprentice trembled. “I ordered six and you gave me seven!”
“I did that?” Juliana gasped, and glanced about. “I must have been half asleep,” she whispered. “If Miss Catchfly knew, she’d scald me and skin me!”
Nicholas slowly absorbed her confession. He caught sight of Zeph, a block ahead, with a woman on his arm as promised. Staring cheerlessly at the couple, Nicholas put the nutmeg in his pocket and vowed never again to try his hand at the craft of love.
The cannons at Fort Johnson saluted the king. Sighing, the apprentice turned to go.
“As you surely know,” Juliana spoke up, “there’s a public ball to take place this evening. To honor the holiday.”
Nicholas, entombed in his gloom, hardly heard her words.
“I was wondering,” she persevered, “if I might expect to find you there.”
The bells of St. Michael’s church rang out. Thunderstruck, the apprentice stopped.
“You don’t seem at all like that odious Winthrop Whistlewood,” Juliana shouted, straining to be heard above the pealing.
Dazed, Nicholas wondered vaguely whom it was she was speaking of. In disbelief, he stared at her. He swallowed hard. He cleared his throat twice.
“Yes, of course,” he announced over the chiming. “I thought that I — that I might attend.”
A ship in the harbor boomed a salute. Firecrackers exploded nearby. His thoughts spinning dreamily, Nicholas turned, squinted, spied the copper image of Saint Crispin, and felt sure that this was what his patron saint had been pointing toward all along.
Lightning twitched like a dreaming dog’s legs. The wind blew. Rain fell. And Zorelli lay awake in the night.
Wide-eyed, he listened to the beating rain, enduring each drop that struck the roof. He turned toward Marta, his wife, beside him. She was sleeping soundly, unaware of the weather, and he gazed at her with contempt. He himself had never found it possible to sleep on a rainy night.
Rain, after all, was the enemy of stone, pounding it finally into dust. And Zorelli was a stone carver by trade, a maker of monuments.
“Lolling in the doorway, letting in the cold.” Marta looked up from scrubbing the floor, sighed wearily, and shook her head. “Come now, Zorelli — will that keep us fed?”
The sculptor ignored her and surveyed the sky, while his cat, Angelina, coiled about his ankles. The storm had passed over the rooftops of Genoa. The cobblestones glistened, and the morning air was filled with the gaudy crowing of roosters.
“Is this any way to lure a patron?” Marta pleaded with her husband. “Unshaven, dressed in a filthy tunic, lurking about the doorway like a thief?”
A pair of mounted soldiers rode by. A fruit seller passed, pushing his cart. Zorelli looked down at Angelina, who cried and rubbed meaningfully against his legs. He stepped inside, searched the kitchen, and fed her the last scrap of cheese in the house.
“That cat of yours never lacks for food, but what of us?” asked Marta. “Already the mice have deserted the house. By tomorrow night, we’ll have nothing to gnaw on — unless, of course, you pick up your hammer and carve us a roast goose out of granite.”
Zorelli glared at her in silence, then turned and stormed into his studio.
Restlessly, he paced the room. He was a powerful man, broad-shouldered, proud-chinned, and he settled himself at last on a stool, took note of the spotless floor, and sneered. It should have been littered with chips of stone. There ought to have been granite dust in the air. But commerce was bad, Genoa’s harbor was still, and the mighty Boccas and Varentinos, whose fleeting features Zorelli had transferred to statues of imperishable stone, no longer had money to spare for his skills. Even the ruling Ferrantes, his grandest patrons, seemed to have forgotten him.
In disgust, he gazed at his i
dle tools. If no commission came his way today he’d be forced to return to work at the quarry, toiling once again beside his loutish father and his foul-smelling brothers. And yet, Zorelli reflected, he was an intimate of the high-born now. He’d strolled down the halls of the cultured and rich, arranged them in poses, engaged them in talk. He jumped to his feet and strode outside, shuddering to think of descending once more to the coarse, sweaty company of the quarry.
Aimlessly, he roamed the town, walking briskly in the chill autumn air. Down a side street he caught a glimpse of the plaza and his mounted statue of Lorenzo Ferrante, governor of Genoa, her leader in arms and great patron of culture. Zorelli paused, then marched ahead, savoring his link with the man.
He entered the swarming marketplace and erupted in a rage when a man bumped him in passing. After all, he was no worthless commoner like the rest — his customers were persons of influence. His wares were no melons or stinking fish, but immortality itself!
He picked his way through the motley gathering. Vendors bellowed. Pigs squealed. Beggars and thieves circulated like maggots. Zorelli was struggling to escape the crowd when all of a sudden a shout rang out. Chickens scattered, the throng parted, and Lorenzo himself, mounted on his steed, solemnly entered the market.
At last! thought Zorelli, straining for a view. In the midst of the rabble — a man worthy of stone!
Genoa’s governor towered above the crowd, peering ahead with hawklike aloofness. Gazing in reverence upon the great man, Zorelli noticed his black cloak and hat and knew he must be bound for the grave of his nephew, the infant Alessandro, to pay his yearly respects. Zorelli himself had carved the tomb for the child, who’d taken a chill one night and died.
Grimly, Lorenzo rode through the market. Zorelli longed to catch his attention, to be acknowledged and elevated above the rest. Like a sunflower, he slowly turned, devotedly facing Lorenzo as he passed, while the object of his veneration stared ahead, unaware of his presence.
The noisy bargaining resumed. Scornfully, Zorelli regarded the crowd.
Mayflies! he swore. Creatures of a day! Never would their paltry lives earn preservation in stone!
Graven Images Page 4