Chapter 9 - The Salt Garden
By July, the salt-marsh roses had opened along the stone walls of the Cliff Walk.
The shop on Wickenden Street had become an institution in the neighborhood. Megan had hired two RISD students—quiet girls with ink on their knuckles who understood how to handle eighteenth-century bindings and didn't drop the zinc buckets—to manage the retail floor while she worked upstairs in the studio.
The Indian Point collection was nearly complete.
The forty-sixth piece—a mahogany tall-case clock with works made by a Quaker silversmith in Newport in 1785—stood in the corner of the studio, its brass pendulum swinging with a slow, hypnotic tick-tock that filled the room with the measured pulse of the eighteenth century.
Megan stood by the northern windows, her hair pinned up with a boxwood bodkin she had turned on her small lathe, watching a summer storm roll up Narragansett Bay. The clouds were the color of bruised plums, their bellies dragging sheets of gray rain across the oil tanks of East Providence.
A light knock sounded on the landing.
It was not Keller. Keller never knocked; he simply appeared like an unpainted post.
Moren stepped into the room, wearing her city clothes—a dark navy wool coat and a straw hat with a plain ribbon. She carried a basket covered with a checked cloth.
"The lavender was dry enough to cut," Moren said, setting the basket on the corner of the drafting table. "Mr. Vance thought you might want it for the sachets you put in the linen chests."
"Thank you, Moren," Megan said, smiling. "Is he in Newport?"
"He is at the state house," Moren said, untying the ribbon of her hat with a small, sharp tug. "The governor’s council is holding hearings on the harbor leases. Some gentlemen from New York thought they could purchase the municipal piers without asking the people who own the tugs."
A dry chuckle escaped Moren’s throat.
"They'll be back on the five o'clock train to Manhattan with their pockets inside out," the housekeeper added. "Mr. Vance does not care for New York accountants."
Moren walked to the tall-case clock, her hand smoothing down the mahogany door where Megan had matched the crotch-veneer with six layers of shellac.
"You do good work, child," Moren said softly.
"The wood was good to begin with," Megan replied. "It just needed the dirt off."
"Most things do," Moren said. She turned, her sharp, experienced eyes studying Megan’s face—the healthy color in her cheeks, the clear light in her hazel eyes, the way her shoulders rested naturally away from her ears. "He’s thirty-six years old, Megan. He’s lived in that house since he was twelve with nothing but old ledgers and his grandfather’s ghosts. If you're going to stay on Wickenden Street, stay. But if you're going to keep running to Newport every time Keller taps his horn, you might consider packing more than one skirt."
Megan felt the heat rise into her cheeks, but she didn't look away. "He hasn't asked me to pack a skirt, Moren."
"Mr. Vance does not ask for things he believes he has no right to claim," Moren said, picking up her basket. "He was raised by a thief, Miss Walsh. He spent twenty years learning how not to take what isn't offered. If you wait for that man to give an order, you'll be an old woman with a shop full of clocks and no one to hear them strike."
The older woman walked to the door, paused, and looked back over her shoulder.
"The dinner tonight is at eight," she said. "The table has been cleared. No one is sitting beneath it."
The door clicked shut.
Megan stood by the window for ten minutes while the summer storm broke over the city. The rain hit the glass with a sudden, violent roar, washing away the summer dust, turning the slate roofs into sheets of dark, shimmering silver.
She walked to the small chest in the corner, pulled out her canvas bag, and packed her clean linen blouse, her good wool skirt, and the four-inch block plane she had used to finish the Townsend bureau.
She walked down the yellow pine stairs, locked the street door with the heavy brass key, and stepped out onto the wet brick sidewalk.
May you like
The olive-drab Scout was already idling at the curb.
Keller didn't say a word. He reached over, pushed the passenger door open, and shifted the transmission into gear before her boots had even cleared the running board.
