The Jewel of Gresham Green

by Lawana Blackwell

  Though the bath water had grown tepid, his fingers were prunes, and his skin stung from heavy-handed scrubbings with the cloth, Donald could not get clean.

  But he must not miss the express to London. He should have instructed the servants to pack his things before making a beeline to the water closet.

  Tomorrow would not be too late. But he had spent enough time in this prison. How good it would feel to spend the night in his own house again.

  He pulled the stopper chain and stood, reached for a large towel and dried himself. Mr. Baker would by law be required to inform him when the will was to be read. And Priscilla Perkins had been most generous, reaching into a lockbox and coming out with fifteen pounds.

  He could hear her squeaking voice in his mind. My parents won’t miss it if you repay me next week.

  Next week, three weeks, perhaps yes, perhaps no.

  Swathed in his wrapper, padding up the corridor, he barked to Mary, the first servant to cross his path, “After I’m dressed, I shall need you to pack my things.”

  “Yes, sir. For how many days?”

  “Pack it all. Everything.”

  When he walked out of his bedchamber wearing his finest pinstripe suit, Mrs. Cooper was waiting in the landing. Clearly, Mary had gotten to her.

  “You’re leaving, Mr. Gibbs?”

  Try not to look so broken up, he thought. “When my trunk is ready, have the carriage and a driver sent around.”

  “But it’s Jeremiah’s afternoon off.”

  “Then put Osborn to it. He drives wagons. How difficult can it be to drive a carriage?”

  “Yes, sir.” She hesitated.

  “Well?”

  “The sky is growing somewhat dark. If you’re going to Shrewsbury, perhaps the coach would—”

  “Yes, yes.” He could see her logic. And besides, there could be an angry husband out there. Not so wise, riding through Gresham in an open carriage.

  Mrs. Hollis drifted downstairs, still looking a wreck.

  “I’ve kept the stew warm,” Jewel said, and pulled out a chair.

  “Thank you.” She held up an amber bottle. “But have we any more salicin?”

  “You have a headache?”

  She rubbed her temple. “A genuine one this time. There was only about a teaspoon left. It’ll wear off in an hour.”

  Becky, only recently awake from her nap, stared at her splotched skin and pillow-matted hair.

  “Am I not a beauty?” Mrs. Hollis said.

  “No, ma’am,” Becky said with childish honesty.

  “Pick up your toys in the parlor, mite,” Jewel said, and to Mrs. Hollis, “Why don’t you have some food, and I’ll look for some salicin.”

  Listlessly, Mrs. Hollis picked up her fork. She looked up at Jewel. “I never did anything immoral with Mr. Gibbs.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” It was none of her business anyway, as she had been so told.

  Some skepticism must have shown upon her face, for Mrs. Hollis said, “Yes, meeting him in secret was wrong. But he never came inside except to make tea.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “Begging your pardon, but why would it matter?”

  “It just does.” Mrs. Hollis gave her a pained smile. “You’re the closest friend I have in Gresham.”

  She seemed invited to voice her opinion, so she would do so. “It shouldn’t be that way, ma’am.”

  Mrs. Hollis sighed. “Yes.”

  Jewel left her to her lunch, and searched the cottage. When she returned to the kitchen, Mrs. Hollis was pushing aside her plate. The bread was untouched, and more than half of the stew still remained.

  “I’m too nauseous.”

  “I’ll nip over to Trumbles. I’ll have to leave Becky with you, or it’ll take me twice as long. Let’s put you in the garden. Maybe fresh air will help.”

  They stepped outdoors, Becky carrying her doll. Jewel noticed dark clouds hovering over the Anwyl. The sky overhead, while cloudless, had assumed a hue between blue and pewter. Still, there were no rumblings.

  She helped Mrs. Hollis into a chair, and then turned another around so she could prop her feet. Leaning her head back, Mrs. Hollis looked up at the sky and said, “Perhaps you should wait and see . . .”

  “I don’t hear thunder. I’ll hurry.”

  “Will you please buy peppermints?” Becky asked.

  “Hmm. We shall see.”

  They traded smiles; Becky, because she understood what that meant, and Jewel from the enjoyment of having enough income to treat her daughter. She ran upstairs to fetch fivepence. She was meticulous about not charging personal items upon the Hollis account. On her way out, she took an umbrella from the stand.

  “Take good care of Mrs. Hollis,” she said.

  “I will, Mummy.”

  Chapter 33

  Jewel was not the only person trying to outrun the rain. Standing fourth in queue at Trumbles, she wrestled with herself over whether it would be rude to explain to the two customers just before her that she had but one purchase to make.

  Two, she corrected herself. She would not return without Becky’s peppermints, even if she got soaked.

  But how could she know but that the two—a boy of about twelve, and a woman of forty or so—had any less to purchase? What she did know was that the elderly man at the counter appeared to be stocking up for winter.

  “And some of thet Fry’s Cocoa,” he said.

  “Sorry . . . I’m out of Fry’s,” Mr. Trumble said with an apologetic look toward his waiting customers. “They sent Suchard’s this time.”

  “Is it any good?”

  “See here on the box? It says Nature’s Choicest.”

  “Well now, they ain’t gonter write Tastes Like—”

  “Cocoa is cocoa, Papa,” Jack Sanders called from the post office side.

  “What’s the matter, ma’am?” Becky asked in the garden.

  Loretta opened one eye and stared into the girl’s worried face. She did not realize she had groaned aloud. She rubbed her temple. “My head feels like nails are sticking through it.”

  “May I bring you some milk?”

  “No thank you.”

  Becky turned to look about the garden, as if seeking a remedy. “Would some berries make your head better?”

  “I think not.”

  “They’re very good.”

  She looked so hopeful that Loretta sighed and said, “Perhaps one or two. Mind you be careful, as your mother says.”

  As the boy made his purchases, the woman who had been in queue before him paused before Jewel with her parcels.

  “You’re Doctor Hollis’s maid?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Pity, what happened in the hat shop. We’ve known him for years, and he don’t deserve a harpy such as—”

  “Madam,” Jewel said. “I’ll thank you not to speak of my employers.”

  “Well, hoity-toity!” The bell jingled angrily over her exit.

  Fortunately, the boy purchased only a tin of matches. But his eyes purchased and devoured the jar of Pomfret Cakes. His shirt sleeves were frayed, but most village children seemed to wear their worn clothes for romping, so that was no indicator. Still, he was a child.

  Jewel stepped up to place a penny on the counter. “Please add some licorice to his order.”

  The boy gave her an incredulous grin as Mr. Trumble weighed out the black lozenges. “Thank you, miss.”

  “You’re welcome.” How refreshing, to be on the giving instead of receiving end.

  Thank you, Father, again and again. She vowed that if she ever had the means, she would help those less fortunate in more substantial ways than sweets.

  To his credit, Mr. Trumble did not mention whatever scene must have happened in the millinery shop. He dropped both salicin bottle and peppermint sticks into a small paper sack. “Mind you hurry home.”

  A brisk and damp breeze met her outdoors. The clouds had thickened, rolling in from
the west, sending smaller ones scudding across a pewter sky. At the crossroads, a fat drop plopped onto the back of her hand. She was fiddling with the umbrella when her ears caught the sound of hooves clopping against the stones. Squire Bartley’s coach rolled up Church Lane behind a team of horses, the driver wearing mackintosh and hood. He pushed it back to grin at her. Mr. Ramsey. She smiled and waved.

  Her gaze slanted down toward the coach window, and caught sight of Mr. Gibbs. No one could mistake the dark mustache. Now that his poor uncle had passed, he had no reason to stay and pretend to care, meddle in marriages, and accuse children of stealing.

  She cared nothing about the rain splatting against her umbrella. Her feet plodded along the wet stones, but her spirits danced. A low rumble sounded behind her, and she picked up the pace.

  Something wet hit Loretta’s forehead, then cheek. She opened her eyes just as a clap of thunder sounded. She pushed aside the other chair and hurried to her feet as more drops hit her.

  “Becky?” Cobwebs crowded her mind, but she had enough presence to look over at the gooseberry bush. When the girl was not there, she scanned the garden, calling. Her doll lay on the seat of another chair, being pelted by rain. Loretta snatched it up and hurried into the cottage.

  “Becky?” she called, closing the door as a rumble shook the sky.

  She climbed the staircase. The garret room Becky and Jewel shared since the Hollises’ arrival was empty. On her way back down she looked into hers and Philip’s bedrooms.

  Rain was drumming against the roof. She was starting to panic.

  “BECKY?”

  Water closet, she thought on her way downstairs. But the pantry was closer, and she could vaguely recall the child offering her some milk. She looked inside. Empty. She was turning when Tiger, mewing piteously, attempted to wrap herself about Loretta’s legs. Losing her balance, Loretta caught the edge of the dresser with her hand. A tart pan clattered to the floor.

  She recalled the blackberry tart Jewel had baked, just days ago.

  Becky said berries! Not gooseberries!

  But she would know better than to go into the woods alone.

  She’s four years old. She strews her toys. She’s not perfect.

  Holding her breath, Loretta looked back into the pantry. The pail was missing!

  She had to get help. She’d go to Elizabeth.

  But the rain’s tempo increased upon the roof. Surely she had not slept long, or Jewel would have returned. Becky could not have gone far. She yanked her umbrella from the stand and plunged into the rain.

  “BECKY!”

  It seemed the sky grew darker by the minute. The curtain of rain blurred the cottages and gardens past the rim of Jewel’s umbrella. Flowers bobbed, shrubs danced, and the branches of young trees swayed. Her boots were damp, and the back of her dress was plastered against her skin. It would be good to get to the cottage and shrug into her flannel wrapper, if only long enough to dry out before starting supper.

  She was nearing Mr. and Mrs. Raleigh’s cottage, and flinched when thunder roared across the sky like a cannon shot. Should she bang on the door and ask for shelter? They would give it warmly.

  But this rain promised to set in for hours, perhaps all night. The thunder would frighten Becky. Mrs. Hollis needed her medicine.

  Holding her umbrella with her left hand, she shoved the parcel down her collar with her right, then hitched up her sodden skirts to her knees. She did not worry about immodesty. She was the only person in Gresham foolish enough to be outdoors in this deluge.

  “She’s moving,” Philip said softly. He had never used chloroform on such a tiny patient. Just four months old. But everything he had read in Doctor Rhodes’ journals indicated that the sooner the surgery is performed, the less disfigurement the child suffers.

  Even with stitches, little Amy was beautiful, with her father’s wide, deeply lashed eyes, and evidence of her mother’s fine bone structure.

  He could only hope that these were not merely muscle twitches and spasms he was witnessing.

  Five minutes later, the girl’s lusty cries filled Doctor Rhodes’ well-scrubbed surgery.

  “Nothing the matter with her lungs,” Doctor Rhodes said as the parents hurried in from the waiting room.

  “She’s angry, not hurt,” Philip assured them. “I’ve injected her lip with a small amount of morphine.”

  On the other side of the examining table, Billy Casper put his arm around his wife’s shoulders. Both sets of eyes shone, Phoebe’s behind wire-rimmed spectacles. Hard to believe, Philip thought, that his former schoolfellow had been the bane of Phoebe’s youth, with his teasing and tormenting.

  “She’s beautiful,” Billy said as tears coursed down his cheeks.

  “Yes,” Phoebe said, weeping, as well. “But how will I feed her?”

  “The same as always. It will be an adjustment, but I believe she’s up to the task.”

  “May I feed her now?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Mrs. Rhodes, gray-haired and bent-shouldered, stepped through the doorway. “No one will disturb you in the parlor.”

  So intense was Philip’s attention during the surgery that he had paid scant attention to the thunder clashes, the rain lashing against the windows, the extra lamps brought in. The darkness pressing against the glass surprised him.

  But his patient was foremost in his mind. When mother and child had left for the parlor, he held out a jar for Billy’s inspection. “You must rub this onto her lip four times daily. It contains carbolic acid for killing bacteria, morphine for the pain.

  In two weeks, we should be able to remove the stitches.”

  “And hold her as much as possible,” Doctor Rhodes said. “It will actually help with the pain.”

  “As well as keep her fingers from straying toward her lip,” Philip said.

  Billy was beginning to look overwhelmed, so Philip said, “I’ll write it all down, as well as stop in every day for the first week. But do remember what we said about holding her.”

  Phoebe’s stepfather stepped in from the waiting room. If Billy was once the bane of Phoebe, Harold Sanders was once the disgrace of Gresham. But marriage to a widow with four children changed him into a pillar of the village, an outstanding dairyman, and tenor in Saint Jude’s choir. His frame was still imposing, though the shock of straw-colored hair was dull with gray. The deep-lidded green eyes were red rimmed.

  “You don’t have to worry, Doctor,” he said. “She will be held.”

  “You must all stay here until this weather clears,” Mrs. Rhodes said, coming into the surgery again. “And if it doesn’t, we have enough beds.”

  Philip went over to the window. Because of the lamps, all he could see was his reflection in a fluid sort of way. But the fury of the storm could be felt. It rattled the panes as if a creature were demanding to be let in. A loud clap of thunder startled him, and he took a backwards step.

  “You can’t go out into that, Philip,” Doctor Rhodes said from behind.

  He would have argued but for one thing. They were right. No one should be out in this storm.

  The thunder was terrifying by the time Jewel turned from Church Lane onto the path. You should have waited at the Raleighs’. What good is a dead mother to Becky?

  She plodded on doggedly. The rain fell pitilessly. Through the torrent she caught sight of the picket fence. Home!

  The gate banged open and shut, open and shut. Had she forgotten to latch it? But she pushed past, through the garden and the slick steps.

  “Mummy!” Becky shrieked in the kitchen, throwing her small body against her. Her little face was almost as red as her hair, and she shivered as someone with a fever.

  The umbrella rolled an arc on the floor where Jewel tossed it. She got on her knees and cradled her sobbing daughter.

  “Sweetheart, the thunder can’t hurt us in here,” Jewel said over the wind howling down the chimney and rattling the windows. “Why didn’t you go to Mrs. Hollis? Is she upstairs
?”

  When Becky was calm enough to speak, she held out her finger to show her a small gash. “I tried being careful. I wanted to bring her a treat.”

  “You mean you were picking gooseberries?”

  “She said I may,” Becky said with anxious expression.

  Jewel squeezed her. “Sweetheart, it’s all right.”

  “I didn’t want to wake her.”

  “She fell asleep in the garden?”

  “Yes, so I washed my hands in the water closet, but I couldn’t reach the medicine Doctor Hollis showed us. So I got the berry-picking bucket to step on.”

  “Brave girl,” Jewel said. But she was troubled. She could understand Mrs. Hollis falling asleep in the garden. Even a small dose of salicin could make one sleepy. Becky was not an infant who needed constant watching, and the thorn prick was not serious. But to then shut herself upstairs during a thunderstorm and leave the child downstairs in hysterics?

  Perhaps her headache is much more severe, she thought. Too painful to think clearly. She should take the salicin and a beaker of water upstairs, before changing into dry clothes.

  Another blast of thunder launched Becky into her arms again. Jewel held her until it was over, then kissed the top of her head. “Come with me. We shall see after Mrs. Hollis.”

  “She’s not here,” Becky said.

  Terror pushed Loretta into hysteria. Hugging herself with her arms, she could not stop sobbing even to call out for Becky, though she was hoarse from doing so.

  O Father, please help us. Where’s Becky? I’m so sorry, so sorry, oh please, send Philip, oh please!

  The tempest shrieked and wailed and howled like a thousand wild beasts, the water assaulting her face, her clothes, her eyes. It had whipped her umbrella from her hands. Barely could she see the trees swaying and rocking and snapping, lashing their branches.

  Loretta had made it to the blackberry bushes, as evidenced by the stinging wounds across her palms and backs of her hands. Brambles had snagged her clothes as if trying to pull her in, and when she jerked and stumbled away, she lost sight of the path.