The Jewel of Gresham Green

by Lawana Blackwell

  She was right. All grumblings gave way to guilty silence.

  In the parlor, Father was sitting up against his bed pillows with the expression of one who had counted the minutes. “Well, how was it?”

  Mother went behind his chair, leaned to kiss the top of his head. “Fine. You may want to give Mr. Nicholls some fatherly advice when he visits.”

  He was staying at the Larkspur. One of the lodgers had left Thursday to visit family in Yorkshire, and offered her room. Aleda and Elizabeth exchanged knowing looks. By sunrise tomorrow, the poor man would have had his fill of preaching advice from the lodgers.

  “We begin chapter eleven,” Jewel said to the squire.

  Becky looked up from the tower of blocks she was building upon the rug. “Mummy, do you think Mr. Fogg and Aouda will marry?”

  Jewel stared at her. The child had not even been inside the bedchamber for every reading, for the women servants still sought her company. She glanced at the squire, and her surprise was even greater.

  His eyes were smiling!

  Jewel smiled, as well. “It’s too early to tell, mite.”

  She cleared her throat and began reading.

  “ ‘The train had started punctually. Among the passengers were a number of officers, government officials, and opium and indigo merchants, whose business called them to the eastern coast.’ ”

  “Mummy? What’s opium and indigo?”

  “Opium is something bad that you must never, ever take. I don’t know what indigo is, but if these merchants are selling it with opium, then it’s bad, too. Now, you must be quiet and allow me to read.”

  She looked at the squire again. If his eyes were smiling before, they positively laughed now!

  “No cheques,” Mr. Maxwell of Maxwell and Son Livery Service said between puffs on a pipe, beneath a nose spidery with red veins.

  “But it’s drawn on the Bank of England.”

  “Don’t mean there’s money in it.”

  There was not indeed, but still Donald took umbrage. “I resent your implication that I’m not a gentleman, sir.”

  The man waved a spotted hand. “No implication, just policy from having been burned by too many ‘gentlemen’ in the past.”

  Were the man not at least twenty years his senior, Donald would have called him out. But even so, how would that get him up to Gresham? He did not fancy the idea of walking twelve miles.

  He tried another tactic. “Have you heard of Squire Thurmond Bartley?”

  Mr. Maxwell cocked his head. “Of the cheeses?”

  “Indeed. He’s my uncle, and very ill.”

  “I’m very sorry.”

  “And so you can see I must get to him straightaway.”

  The man nodded, pointed his pipe. “Then, nip a half block over to the warehouse, and you can catch a wagon on its return. They sometimes take on passengers to and from Gresham. I’ll wager they won’t even charge you the shilling.”

  “Pleasant day, ain’t it?” said the driver as the wagon rumbled along the macadamized roadway.

  “Lovely,” Donald muttered. The money gleaned from the watch was gone. He would have been in deeper hot water had he not had the foresight to purchase a return railway ticket, and to pay the July mortgage before heading over to his Kensington house. Reese went through the rest like a sow through corn, even insisting on another velvet jacket, simply because the sleeves of the one purchased in February creased excessively at the elbows.

  Why the need to dress so smartly, just for hanging about the house? Donald hated to guess.

  “Was you away Friday?” The driver’s voice cut into his thoughts again.

  “Yes.”

  “Rained like the dickens. We couldn’t even take out the wagons.”

  “How utterly devastating for you,” Donald muttered.

  This time the driver caught the sarcasm in his voice and made no more effort at conversation.

  “The manor house, if you please,” Donald said as cottages began popping up on either side.

  The man did not argue that it was not on his route. By now he had surely figured out that Donald would own his livelihood very soon.

  Mrs. Cooper met him in the foyer, looking startled to see him. “I thought I heard horses, sir. Everyone’s to lunch. Will you be wanting something to eat?”

  “I’ll ring for a tray in a couple of hours. I mean to rest a bit, after I look in on Uncle.”

  The housekeeper smiled. “You’ll be pleased. He seems more alert now.”

  Donald stretched his lips into a smile. “Outstanding. You may return to your meal.”

  He did not even take the time to stash his portmanteau, but propped it against the wall beside his uncle’s door. The old man lay facing the doorway. The eye not pressed against his pillow was closed.

  Upon the bedside table lay a copy of Around the World in Eighty Days, he supposed from the library downstairs. He had not forbidden Jewel to read to his uncle, simply because it had not crossed his mind. Mary was illiterate, and he’d assumed anyone so desperate for a menial position as Jewel Libby was probably so, as well.

  Uncle Thurmond lay so still. Did he even breathe? Donald leaned close.

  The eye opened!

  Donald gasped.

  “Whoa! Uncle!” he muttered with a backwards step. He was just about to turn and leave when he realized the gray eye was focused upon him. Not just upon him, but piercing him, reading him like the novel upon the table. And sending forth beams of dislike, if not hatred.

  Mrs. Cooper was right. Jewel was good for the squire, whether because of the reading, or presence of a child, or constant attention, or all three.

  What if his mind became so sharp that his power of speech returned? It was too late to play the part of the attentive nephew. His uncle was not stupid. What would stop him from demanding to see Mr. Baker?

  She has to go, he thought back in the hallway. The only fly in the ointment was that she would run to Miss Hollis. She would take her side, of course. He must choose the lesser of two evils.

  A mental picture of Uncle Thurmond, dictating a new will to Mr. Baker, nudged him into action.

  Chapter 21

  The day’s fare in the servants’ hall was hashed calf ’s head, green pea soup, and brown bread. Plain, but tasty. Jewel relished the one time daily she and Becky joined the others at the table. As much as she cared for Squire Bartley, it was refreshing to chat with adults who could chat back. She had even begun to see the gardeners and stable workers as decent men, though she could not bring herself to allow Becky to run about unsupervised.

  “Yes indeed, the world is round,” Mr. Rignold, chief gardener, was saying to Becky. “Round as an apple. Has your mother not told you?”

  To the inquiring eyes sent her way, Jewel smiled sheepishly. “It never crossed my mind to do so.”

  “She’ll be learnin’ it in school,” laundress Zinnia said.

  “Anyhows, the world ain’t round like an apple,” said Lottie, the scullery maid. “Where would be the stem? Stickin’ out the North Pole?”

  The banter quieted when Mrs. Cooper walked back into the hall and resumed her place at the head of the table. “Mr. Gibbs has returned. I knew my ears weren’t playing tricks.”

  “Meow,” Osborn, the groomsman, said softly. “The cat’s come home, then.”

  Mrs. Cooper looked poised to scold him, but then picked up her spoon.

  “You rang, Mr. Gibbs?” Annabel asked inside the library doorway.

  Donald looked up from the open atlas upon the table. “I’ll have my tray now.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Oh, by the by,” he said as she was turning to leave. “What happened to the statue?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  He nodded toward a wall table and the bare space once occupied by the geisha. “I hope it wasn’t knocked over. But jade is quite hardy, is it not?”

  Her eyes widened, as well they should have, for the library was part of the parlormaid’s responsibility
. “Ah . . . I don’t know, sir. It was there when I dusted yesterday.”

  “Hmm. Tell Mrs. Cooper I wish to see her.”

  She gaped at him.

  Donald clapped his hands. “Chop-chop!”

  The housekeeper took less than three minutes to appear, according to the longcase clock.

  “Yes, Mr. Gibbs?”

  He placed a finger upon the atlas page. “Do you know the location of Cameroon, Mrs. Cooper?”

  She stared at him for a fraction of a second. “I do not.”

  “Nothing to be ashamed of. It’s in Central Africa. I had to look it up myself after catching up on the newspapers and learning the Germans had taken possession of it.”

  “Annabel said something about the jade geisha being moved?”

  “Missing, actually. Perhaps it’s being polished?”

  “Annabel polishes it right there, when she dusts.”

  “Well, then, we have a mystery. I’ve looked about in here. Please search the servants’ rooms.”

  Her face clouded. “Surely you can’t think . . .”

  “Of course not. But that does not change the fact that it is absent, and there will always be that kernel of doubt until you’ve cleared everyone.” He rose. “In fact, I shall help you.

  Now that I’ve located Cameroon.”

  “Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle,

  The cow jumped over the moon. . . .”

  Becky stood at the bedside, unabashedly piping nursery rhymes. The squire’s gray eyes stared at the ceiling. Yet there was something in his stillness that gave Jewel reason to think he enjoyed the little entertainment.

  “The little dog laughed to see such sport,

  And the dish ran away with the spoon!”

  “What should I sing next?” she asked.

  “What would you like to sing?” Jewel said.

  Becky walked around the bed and whispered into her ear, “Will ‘Jesus Loves Me’ make him sad?”

  Jewel stroked her head. “Why would it make him sad?”

  “Because I think he’s going to be up with Jesus soon. Like Papa.”

  Jewel looked at the squire, hoping he had not heard. But then, surely his own mortality had crossed his mind, if his injured brain had allowed it. “I think he might like to hear it.”

  “Jesus loves me, this I know,

  for the Bible tells me so. . . .”

  The door opened. Zinnia entered with anxious expression. “Mrs. Cooper and Mr. Gibbs are asking for you in the library.”

  Jewel cast about for a response. “Shall I bring Becky?”

  “I’m told to take her out to play in the garden.”

  “Do you know why?”

  Zinnia bit her lip. “I think something’s missing.”

  Donald wished he had thought of another plan when Jewel walked through the doorway, doe-eyed and pale. He had nothing against her, and of truth, enjoyed having a child lighten up this mausoleum of a house. He usually ended up regretting his impulsive actions. But with time of the essence, what else could he have done?

  He expected Mrs. Cooper to lead, but she stood as ramrod straight and tight lipped as a palace guard. Donald sighed, nodded at the statuette standing upon the atlas table.

  “Would you care to explain how this found its way into your trunk?” he said sternly, but not coldly, for after all, she was a human being. And innocent.

  “It couldn’t have been in my trunk,” she said.

  “I found it myself,” he said gently. “I assume when you came down here for something to read to Uncle, it caught your eye.”

  “No, sir!”

  “You’re not used to nice things, are you?”

  “I have never stolen anything . . . in my life!”

  She buried her face in her hands and wept quietly, shoulders shaking. Donald could barely stand to look at her.

  Be strong, man! Think of Reese! Think of your debts!

  “Becky, perhaps?” Mrs. Cooper asked, finally breaking her silence. “Thinking it was a toy? She’s so young. . . .”

  “No! I never allow her to wander the house by herself.”

  “Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to leave,” Donald said.

  A sob tore out of her. She gave Mrs. Cooper a beseeching look, and when the housekeeper looked away, she turned and fled the room.

  Donald’s heart raced. He felt ill. He despised scenes. “I assume she’ll return to Miss Hollis. Please see that their things are delivered.”

  Mrs. Cooper raked him with her eyes. “Yes, sir.”

  The dislike emanating from such a stoic person shook him a bit. “And pay her whatever wages she’s due. As you said, it could have been the girl.”

  And then to remind her that he was head of the house, he raised his chin and said coldly, “I never got my tray, by the way. Send an early supper in here.”

  Aleda’s fingertips upon the keys could almost not keep up with the scene playing out in her mind. This is good!

  Someone was knocking. With a sigh, she finished a sentence and then went downstairs to open the door. Her eyes took in Jewel Libby’s red-splotched cheeks and swollen eyes. Becky, holding her hand, was trembling.

  “I don’t mean to be a burden,” Mrs. Libby rasped. “But we’ve nowhere else to go.”

  “Come in, come in,” Aleda said, her annoyance carried away on a tide of guilt and compassion. She moved ever-curious Tiger to the side with her foot and pulled out a chair. Mrs. Libby stood sniffing incessantly, with Becky pressed into her side.

  Rather than abandon them to run upstairs for a handkerchief, she grabbed a tea cloth. She just had to trust the thoroughness of Mrs. Moore’s laundry.

  Mrs. Libby pushed it away, sniffed, “No, thank you. It’s too fine.”

  “Blow.”

  When both noses were groomed, Aleda gently disengaged Becky from her mother, who seemed now in another world. She led the child up into her room, pushed back her typewriter— and half-finished page—and took a sheet of paper from the drawer.

  “Why don’t you draw your mother a picture?”

  The girl looked back at the door.

  “I think it will make her feel better. Don’t you?”

  She nodded and allowed Aleda to heft her into the chair. Aleda handed her two pencils. “A spare, just in case. I’ll come for you shortly to bring you back downstairs.”

  “What should I draw?” the girl asked, thin fingers clutched around a pencil.

  “Anything you like.”

  Downstairs again, she fortified Mrs. Libby with tea before sitting beside her and allowing her to give the story.

  Once it was out, Aleda shook her head. “Rubbish!”

  Mrs. Libby blinked swollen eyes at her.

  “Donald Gibbs is just waiting for his uncle to die. You were obviously good for the squire.”

  “I think we were, Becky and me. Sometimes he communicated with us, as outrageous as it sounds.” She put her hands to her face again. “Oh dear. Mary Johnson cannot read. He loved being read to, I could tell. If Mr. Gibbs hires another day nurse, will she?”

  “I don’t know,” Aleda said honestly.

  “And there will be that shadow over me. Who will hire me now?”

  “He didn’t send for Constable Reed, did he?”

  She shook her head.

  “And I’m sure by now the squire’s servants have figured him out. Besides, my father’s recommendation carries far more weight than Mr. Gibbs’.”

  “I just hate to be—”

  “Yes, yes. But you’re not a burden. In fact, you may keep house for me while we’re looking. I rather enjoyed having everything tidy for a change.”

  Mrs. Libby closed her eyes, took in a long breath, opened them. Finally there was some hope in her face. “Thank you. But not for wages. It’s enough that you’ve taken us in—twice.”

  Aleda shook her head. “You’re quite stubborn, Mrs. Libby.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ve been told.”

  “Well, so am I. And I�
��ll not take advantage of your situation. The laborer is worthy of his hire. Or her hire.”

  Mrs. Libby took Aleda’s hand, kissed it. “May God bless you for this . . . not for my sake, but for my daughter’s. I have prayed for your father. Is he still recovering?”

  “Yes. He’s been home for over a week now.” Aleda pushed out her chair. “In fact, it’s been a few days since I last looked in on him. Please make yourselves at home. If I know Dora, I’ll be bringing back supper, so don’t cook anything. And Becky’s drawing a picture for you.”

  Out of hope and habit, she swept the path with her eyes. Jonathan, John, and Luke had helped retrace her steps several times. Mr. Trumble had allowed her to post a notice offering a reward. She could only hope someone would come forward.

  Aleda’s pace quickened on Bartley Lane, out of range of the lost watch.

  The manor house loomed ahead.

  Mrs. Cooper answered her knock almost immediately, as if expecting her. “How is Jewel?” she asked.

  “She’s crushed.”

  The housekeeper’s lips all but disappeared in a thin line.

  “But we’ll take care of her.”

  “That’s very good of you.” Mrs. Cooper looked back over her shoulder, lowered her voice. “None of us believe . . .”

  “I know.” Aleda cut her off for her sake, lest Mr. Gibbs be skulking around the corner. “And she’ll appreciate hearing it. May I speak with Mr. Gibbs?”

  Again the lips tightened. “I’m afraid Mr. Gibbs is unavailable for the remainder of the day.”

  What a coward, Aleda thought. “May I leave a message?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Please tell him I said he’s a horse’s rump.”

  The housekeeper nodded, a ghost of a smile at her lips. “My pleasure, Miss Hollis.”

  Chapter 22

  What opium did for some and gin did for others, shopping at Redfern’s did for Loretta. The shop assistant at the millinery counter tied the bow to the Marie Stuart–style bonnet fashionably below her left ear, and angled the standing mirror.

  “Madam looks lovely,” said the Frenchwoman, who could not have been more than eighteen, making Loretta feel old at twenty-five.

  Sharon Fry sidled up to her. “That won’t do. Too matronly.”