Jewel (21 page)

In the end, youth won out over age—that, and the fact that Eli was the Grove’s undisputed boxing champion two years running.

Breathing harshly and standing over the moaning Wilson now lying in the mud, Eli reached down and snatched the ring of keys from the man’s belt. He wiped at the blood filling his mouth and staggered into the office.

After securing the place, he came back outside and found Wilson and the wagon he always drove gone. Tired and beat up, he set out for home. He wanted his wife.

Jewel dragged back to the Grove that evening, cold, wet and covered with grime. It was bad enough that it had rained all day, thus making working outside on the roses next to impossible, but the roads were filled with wheel-swallowing mud and she’d had to stop twice to push and pull the horse and wagon free.

Now as night rolled in and she drove up to her brothers’ house, all she wanted was a long hot shower and bed. She refused to use Eli’s poor excuse for a washroom, and, besides, with things the way they were between them, she wouldn’t know what to say to him anyway, so she was hoping to put off seeing him for as long as she could.

At the door, she removed her mud-caked boots and entered the foyer wearing her thick woolen socks. Not seeing any of her brothers and not really caring, she headed upstairs to her room. She opened the door and stopped abruptly as a middle-aged brown-skinned woman inside spun around with alarm. Jewel asked, “Who are you?”

“Ellie Chance.”

“What are you doing in my room?”

“Your room?” Then her face relaxed and she smiled. “Oh, you must be Jewel.”

“Correct, but we still haven’t established who you are.”

It was obvious the woman didn’t care for the tone, but it was one more thing the weary and out-of-sorts Jewel didn’t care about.

“I’m the new housekeeper.”

“Ah.” Jewel saw now that the room’s walls and furniture had been changed. All of her personal effects were no longer about. “My apologies. I just came to wash up.”

“I see,” she said, critically eyeing Jewel’s dirty denims, shirt, and canvas coat.

“They didn’t waste any time moving me out, did they?”

Ellie opened her mouth in defense but Jewel waved it away with a smile. “It’s okay. Where’d they move my things?”

“This way.”

Her boxed-up possessions were in one of the spare bedrooms. After thanking the housekeeper,
she took the long hot shower she’d craved. Once she donned clean, dry clothing she felt better than she had all day.

She entered the den where her brothers were gathered and saw Eli seated on the sofa next to Noah. She stopped, uncertain. He stood slowly in the now silent room. “Came looking for you after it got dark.”

Noticing the bruises and contusions on his face, she stared. “What happened to your face?”

“Fight. James Wilson.”

As she moved to get a better look, her first thought was to wonder if Cecile had somehow been involved but she pushed it away. “I hope he looks worse.”

He grinned around his cut lip. “He does.”

She reached up and gingerly turned his battered face this way and that. She scanned his swelling eye. “That’s gonna be some shiner tomorrow.”

“Yeah.”

Their gazes held and a rush of feelings that had nothing to do with the strain between them filled her insides. “Let’s get you home and see if we can’t salvage the face beneath all this swelling.”

“You sure?”

Noting that her brothers were watching with interest, she nodded, saying, “Positive.”

After the Graysons departed, the Crowley brothers looked at each other and Paul said, “I say the first child will be a boy.”

“I’ll take that bet,” Noah challenged. And the good natured-wagering began.

“What was the fight about?” Jewel asked, concerned. They were home now and she was placing moist warm cloths on the angry red whelps on his face. Lying propped up on the sofa, Eli basked in how wonderful it felt being taken care of after enduring such a hellacious day.

“He’s been stealing from the tenants. Mother and I decided to sack him.”

“I take it he refused to go quietly.”

“Bull’s-eye. Give the pretty lady a prize.”

She smiled softly. She didn’t like seeing him injured. “How long has he been stealing?”

“Started soon as Nate and Viveca left.”

She was gently moving the cloth from bruise to bruise. “So he was using Nate’s absence to line his pockets.”

“Apparently.”

“I’m glad you put a stop to it.”

“So are the tenants.”

She was seated on the edge of the sofa, ministering to him. As the cloth cooled, she stood to take it back into the kitchen and place it into the warm water heating on the stove, but he gently took her hand to prevent her from leaving just yet. For a few heartbeats they viewed each other silently, then he said to her softly. “I’m sorry my past reached out and hurt you, more sorry than you could ever know.”

Standing there, she looked away for a long few moments and felt the pangs return.

“I have no defense, sweetheart. Yes, I made love to her, you already knew that but it doesn’t diminish what we shared in any way.”

“She made me feel common, foolish, used.” The resentment and anger closed around her heart like a fist.

“I apologize for that as well. You are none of those things. Yes, I’ve made love to many women under the moon, but not a one ever had my heart. You do.”

Emotion stung her eyes.

“None of them have ever heard me say this either: I love you, and I will forever.”

Stunned, she stared through unshed tears. His declaration echoed again and again.

“Speechless?” he asked.

She wiped away the moisture. “I am. I never thought…” she was too overcome to find the words.

“I’ve also never made love to a woman in the middle of a kitchen floor.”

She smiled.

He tugged at her hand and coaxed her back down beside him. He scooted over as far as he could and when she leaned into his chest, he wrapped her up and pulled her close. The sensation of holding her was so exquisite it was almost painful.

Jewel was moved as well and acknowledged how much moments like this had come to mean. “I’ve a confession to make.”

“And it is?”

“I’ve loved you since I was fourteen and you waltzed with me at my birthday party.”

He pulled back and stared down with surprise. “Truly?”

She nodded.

“Why didn’t you say so?”

“And make that head of yours swell even larger? I think not.”

She cuddled down again. He kissed her hair. “So, no divorce.”

“Not unless I catch you making love to Cecile in the middle of my kitchen floor.”

The threat was like music to his ears. “You won’t have to worry. Rumor has it I threatened her life.”

“Did you?”

He shrugged and told her of the call he’d paid that morning. “I was so angry I’m not sure what I said.” He clearly recalled Creighton’s presence in the room, but kept that to himself. For now. “I believe she got the message, regardless of what I said.”

“Let’s hope so.”

Jewel looked up and silently studied the face of the man she loved, and who remarkably loved her in return. Cecile still loomed like a dark cloud, but Eli’s love made the sun shine. “So, can we go back to having fun?”

“Yes. I’d like that.” He traced her lips lazily. “I’ve missed you.”

She whispered. “I missed you, too. And once you heal up and stop looking like a demon spirit from the underworld, I plan to show you how much. I’ll even put on one of those gowns, just so you can take it off.”

“And buttons?”

She smiled remembering the promise she’d made to him yesterday right before Cecile’s visit sent everything sideways. “I’ll open as many buttons as you like.”

Loving his familiar countenance even if it was crooked and battered, a content Jewel Grayson placed a soft kiss on her husband’s bruised cheek and went into the kitchen to rewarm the cloth.

The cold rainy weather held the Grove in a dreary grip for the next few days. Even though the calendar showed it to be late May, the temperatures were more reminiscent of April—early April. Being Michigan residents, though, the people were accustomed to the changeable weather, and so dressed accordingly and went about their business.

The mud hindered progress on the house, but the work was proceeding and Adam was convinced it would be ready to be occupied in another two weeks. Jewel couldn’t wait. She spent those days helping at the house, seeing to pest-infested roses, and riding all over the Grove to deliver used clothing and other donated items to those in need of them on behalf of the Female Intelligence Society. Eli spent his days and some of his nights getting the office ready for the printing presses he and G.W. were looking forward to receiving, and polishing his editorial.

Jewel came home one evening and found him seated at the kitchen table scribbling away. After
offering her a welcoming smile, he handed her the draft he’d been working on. “Read this if you would, and let me know what you think.”

“Okay.” Taking a seat on his lap, she read silently.

How long must the Colored voter wait to enjoy the fruits of the Constitution promised to all? We compose no insignificant portion of the Republican Party, yet our needs are not only not brought forward, but are universally ignored. This is a government of the People, a commonwealth of equals, and no one party, race, or class can claim to have a God-given right to govern. The voter of color has been used, nay abused by those elected to speak on its behalf. The Lily White Republicans stand and do nothing while on the other side of the rivers of blood flowing through the south stand the Democrats, and among them men determined that we vote Democrat or not vote at all, preferably from the grave. What has happened to liberty, what has happened to the promises wrung by the thousands of black souls who gave their lives in order to aid this Perfect Union’s need during the war. We protest the arrogance that would demand a return to the past, an arrogance that can be seen as the country turns away from the slaughter and disenfranchisement taking place under our very noses while offering up the nonsensical separate but equal. There are those in the national press who say we should be grateful. For what may I ask? I quote David Walker’s
Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World
and ask again, are we to give thanks for our ancestors being chained and handcuffed? Or maybe for the brandings or having fire crammed down our throats? Surely we must be grateful for slavery and
being kept in ignorance and misery. This editor is not, nor will he ever be until the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution apply to one and All!

Jewel handed the paper back to Eli. “This is very good.”

“It’s not the final version, but it is close.”

“When will it be printed?”

“Soon as I think it says all that it should and hand it over to G.W.”

“Do you think the country will ever do right by the race?”

He shrugged. “It’s hard to be optimistic in the face of all that is happening.”

She thought about the killing and violence in the South; the people burned out of their homes; the teachers tortured; the parents lynched and murdered in front of their children. It was hard to be optimistic. “Pa is convinced that in the future members of the race will be elected regularly to national offices and may even be nominated for president.”

“To be alive to see that,” he said wistfully. Eli couldn’t imagine such a thing, but he could.

“It would be wonderful, wouldn’t it?” She kissed his cheek. “Keep holding the country’s feet to the flame and who knows, maybe one of us will run for president. A female perhaps.”

The male in Eli shuddered. “You’ll have to get the vote first.”

“A minor detail,” she told him leaving him to go back to work. “A minor detail.”

The next morning, Jewel rode into town to see if the paint she’d ordered for the house had arrived at Miss Edna’s store. The home she and Eli were to share was all but finished and now needed paint to give it character. On the way down the walk, she paused to stick her head into the Lending Library.

Maddie waved her in. “I want to talk to you.”

“Let me go to the store first. Do you want me to bring back coffee for you?”

Maddie left the box of books she was readying to send to one of the fledgling Black colleges down south and came to the door. “No, I’ll go with you.”

On their way, they spotted Cecile up ahead. She’d just stepped out of the seamstress shop and was wearing a blue gown that was way too fancy for the Grove, and a matching hat.

When they drew even to her, she drawled cynically, “Well, if it isn’t the little bride and the whore.”

“Burn in hell, Cecile,” Jewel tossed out, not breaking stride.

Once they were by the stunned woman, Maddie grinned. “I liked that.”

Cecile must have recovered because she called out, “Send Eli my love. Tell him I’ll be waiting in the moonlight.”

Jewel wasn’t impressed and hollered. “Poor comeback!”

Maddie eyes filled with humor. “That’s what happens when you have your brains between your legs.”

Jewel burst out laughing and continued all the way to the store.

They were back at the Lending Library drinking coffee and getting caught up with what had been going on with each other when Jewel asked over her cup, “So. How are you and G.W. getting along?”

“He is the nicest man. Wants me to marry him. I already said yes.”

Jewel spit coffee across the table, and began to choke on the portion that had been going down her throat.

A chuckling Maddie slapped her friend on the back a few times, “Are you all right?”

Still choking, Jewel thought she’d die if she didn’t stop soon. Shooting Maddie a smiling look, she finally regained control of her breathing and then wheezed out, “You said yes?”

“Soon as he asked. Of course when I told him the story of my life, he did what you just did. I thought he’d keel over then and there, but he didn’t. I told him why I’d done what I’d done, and where and how I lived. In the end, he said, he didn’t care.”

Jewel thought that good news.