The Shadow Catcher

Edward didn’t blink. “Are you saying that the nugget isn’t pure?”

“It is very pure. Outstanding carat. And for that very reason I am loath to melt it down. But I will tell you what I think it’s worth and you can use the trade to purchase rings from my selection of hand-crafted wedding bands.”

Clara watched him write a figure on a piece of paper and pass it to Edward — she saw Edward’s color rise — then the jeweler passed a wooden tray to them, lined in purple velvet and gold wedding bands.

“What will you do with the nugget?” Edward asked.

“I will preserve it. Make a tie pin of it. Very elegant.”

Sir, Edward said and reached to stay the jeweler’s hand.

Edward explained who he was and that he had just entered into an agreement with Mr. Rothi, the jeweler’s neighbor, and that he and the jeweler were going to be commercial residents on the same street and that if the jeweler would consider holding the nugget as surety against the cost of the two wedding bands Edward would like to reserve the right to come back in three months’ time and pay him for the two rings as well as paying for the jeweler’s craftsmanship to convert the nugget to a tie pin.

Clara watched without a word — watched Edward wield persuasion as an enticing snare of conversation, charming the jeweler with that same unyielding focus that could sometimes distance but that never failed to win her over.

They chose two beveled bands, identical except for size, Clara feeling, again, that she would weep, when she tried hers on.

“And what sentiment would you like engraved inside?” the jeweler asked.

Edward shook his head, explaining, “None…we need to take them with us, right away.”

“I can do it while you wait,” the jeweler offered, and Edward’s face went blank.

“I would like,” Clara piped up: “I would like, inside of mine, the single word—Edward.”

“—and you?” the jeweler asked, turning to Edward.

Edward held the ring and stared at it then looked at Clara, seeking her permission.

“Scout,” she told the jeweler: “Etch in the word ‘Scout.’”

They waited while the jeweler took the rings to his engraving desk beneath a window, Clara passing the time by looking at the jewelry in the cases — filigreed necklaces and ladies’ watch fobs, earrings strung with freshwater pearls, pink and green with iridescence.

“—let me know if something takes your fancy,” the jeweler told her and she blushed, feeling she should turn away for lack of justification, from such opulence.

Meanwhile Edward surveyed the shop, judging the way it was assembled, how the inventory was presented to the public. He particularly took notice of the nearly empty walls — the lithographs hung as meager decoration to make the customer feel at ease among the products.

“I see you are a ‘connoisseur’ of Mt. Rainier,” he told the jeweler, pointing to the framed art.

Clara kept her head down to suppress a smile. Connoisseur. She had taught him the word. His pronunciation was a perfect duplicate of hers.

“It is my own ‘mountain of mountains,’” he added conversationally. “Perhaps I can interest you in purchasing my photographs of it to enliven your emporium.”

Clara smiled again at Edward’s language.

“Are you a mountaineer, Mr. Curtis?” the jeweler asked.

“I have ascended to Pinnacle Peak. Twice,” he answered. “Carrying my dry-plate camera. Fourteen thousand feet.”

The jeweler stopped and looked at him.

“You have photographs taken from the peak?”

Edward nodded.

“Then perhaps I can interest you in showing them to our Mazamas Club. Have you heard of us?”

Edward shook his head.

“We are the premier mountaineering group of the Pacific Northwest. Do you mountaineer, as well?” he asked of Clara.

“No, I’m sorry. My pursuits are more interior…”

The jeweler turned his attention back to Edward: “I’ll put you in touch with the Club leader, we make several expeditions a year into the Cascades and Olympics…”

As the men talked Clara began to see into a world of symbiotically connected links, a society like the one she had known her parents to have had in the art world when she was growing up in St. Paul, formed of men and women whose interests overlapped. But then the jeweler said, “It will help your business,” and Clara realized there was another aspect to the world of mutual pursuit that she had yet to learn.

The bell on the door chimed and what appeared to Clara to be a beggar woman entered with a damp smell accompanying her, rising from the crude reed basket that she carried covered with a cloth. She was all of four feet tall, almost equally as wide around her hips, with a faded blue bandanna tied around her weathered face from which tiny crescent eyes peered at Clara without expression over thin down-turning lips.

“Good morning, Princess,” the jeweler greeted her with what Clara thought sounded like mockery. “What have you got for me today?”