Jewel (23 page)

“I did. Edna said Temperance was muttering about Satan’s handmaidens. Never thought
there’d come a day when I’d agreed with Temperance Moss, but I do on this.”

Jewel did, too. “Is there a legal way to make her leave town?”

“I’m sure there isn’t, so I suppose we’ll just have to wait for Nathaniel to return and hope he can figure something out. By then, though, the men here may be warring over her like she’s the dusky version of Helen of Troy.”

“Let’s hope it won’t come to that.”

Abigail sighed and shook her head. “I’m going up Dowagiac later on today with Edna. The niece of the Patterson twins is due to have her baby. With Viveca away, Edna’s midwife again.”

“Okay. Does Pa know your plans?”

“Yes, I told him this morning before he left for Niles with your brothers.”

“Have a safe trip.”

“We will.”

They shared a parting embrace and Jewel went back to her wash, wondering what would happen next.

Eli was happy as a man could be who had a beautiful passionate wife and a newspaper that would be up and running in another week. The newsprint he’d ordered from Grand Rapids had been delivered by wagon earlier that morning and he was stacking the boxes of it in a corner of the area where the new printing press would go when it arrived. Whistling with contentment, the
tune trailed off as he saw the Reverend Anderson drive past the window. Next to him on the seat sat Cecile dressed in a crisp white outfit that looked new. He shook his head. Satan’s handmaiden indeed. It was the first time he’d ever agreed with the Widow Moss in his thirty plus years of life. That Cecile had the reverend under her spell was obvious to anyone with the eyes to see. Eli had once been just as mesmerized but not anymore. Jewel was his world. He was just about to turn away when he saw James Wilson who’d been standing in front of the store step down off the plank walk and into the street. He approached the buggy. The reverend stopped. Eli could see their mouths moving but couldn’t hear the conversation due to distance. Next he knew, Wilson’s face was contorted with anger and the reverend stormed out of the buggy looking angry as well. The two looked ready to fight.

“Aw, hell,” Eli groused aloud. As the stand-in mayor, he was also the stand-in constable, so he left the office and headed to the scene.

They were already rolling in the dirt by the time he approached. Fists were flying as fast as curses. Were it up to him, he’d have let them beat each other to pieces, but he was supposed to be the keeper of the peace, and one of the combatants was a man of the cloth—at least on Sunday mornings.

Eli yelled for them to stop. Vernon came running up, as did the five feet, two inch tall undertaker, Solomon Bates, and a few men from inside
the store. They waded in. It took a few minutes to pry the combatants apart. Verbal insults filled the air as the two continued to strain against the men holding them at bay. The reverend appeared to have a broken nose. Miss Edna hurried out with wet cloths and her doctoring kit. Cecile sat on the bench looking pleased with herself.

Eli turned away from her in disgust and eyed the two grown men who’d been fighting in the street like lunatics. He paid no attention to all the folks standing on the walks watching. His voice stern, he announced to Wilson and Anderson, “I don’t want to know why this started, but I do know how it will end. Both of you can either calm down and take yourselves home, or I can toss you in the lockup and fine you fifty dollars for disturbing the peace.” He knew fifty dollars was a large sum and he’d intentionally set the fine high in order to keep this nonsense from being prolonged, or from happening again. “What’s it to be, gentlemen?”

“This heathen attacked me!” the reverend said nasally while Edna packed his nose.

Wilson tried to have another go at it but the men holding him kept him away. The incensed reverend, riled again, twisted free from his holders and delivered a solid right hand to Wilson’s jaw that dropped him cold.

Eli looked down at the knocked-out Wilson and drawled, “Guess it’s the cell. Pick him up, fellas. Edna, when you’re done, escort the reverend down to Nate’s office, if you would, please.”

“Will do, Eli.”

Cecile came to life. “Who’s going to take me to the hairdresser? I don’t know how to drive.”

Eli tossed back. “Guess you’ll have to figure that out on your own.” He told his helpers holding Wilson, “Bring him along, men.”

Because Wilson was still out, the toes of his boots scraped the ground as he was dragged away.

Eli related the incident to Jewel as they sat on the porch after dinner.

“Are they still locked up?” she asked.

“No. Creighton came and paid his father’s fine about an hour later.”

“Where in the world did he get that kind of money?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, but I put it in the safe, and he took Wilson home.”

“I wonder if it came from that phony tax he was charging.”

“That did cross my mind.”

“And what about Reverend Anderson?”

Eli thought back on the reverend and shook his head. “Ironically, the only person he could think to wire for the funds he needed to pay his fine was his wife. By the end of the day he hadn’t received a reply, so I sent him on home.”

“Poor man. I think Cecile has made him lose his mind.”

“Apparently.”

Eli dropped his head back against the porch
post. “I can’t wait for Nate to return so he can take back this mayor’s job. I swear, if I had to do this all day, every day like he does, I’d shoot myself.”

“He’ll be home eventually.”

“But will it be before the rest of the men in town turn into lunatics is the question.”

Jewel chuckled. “So, did Satan’s handmaiden get someone to take her to the hairdresser.”

“Yes. Sol Bates.”

“The undertaker!”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Lord have mercy.”

“Exactly.” He then asked her, “Would you do me a favor?”

“I’ll certainly try. What is it?”

“Come here and let me open some buttons. I’m hoping it will make me feel better.”

She laughed. “Speaking of lunatics.”

But she granted him the boon, and lo and behold, they both felt better.

Cecile was lying in the dark in Sol Bates’s lumpy bed while he snored loudly beside her. The short fat undertaker had not been a memorable lover, not because he was short in stature, but because he was short in the area where it mattered most. She’d given some of her best performances on her back but tonight, she should have been awarded a prize. She sighed. He’d offered her a place to stay, however, and that was what mattered most at the moment.

Now that she would be sharing Bates’s bed, she could afford to discard the oh-so-righteous Reverend Anderson, and the judgmental James Wilson. Because of her return to town, their lives, especially the reverend’s, were in tatters, and she was enjoying the turmoil tremendously.

Back during her marriage to Nathaniel Grayson, Anderson and Wilson had been two of the many lovers she’d commanded; however, when Nate divorced her and tossed her out of his life, neither lifted a finger to help. Penniless and in need of transportation to leave town, she sent messages to Miller, whose wife had still been alive at the time, but received a reply stating she was never to contact him again. Anderson, who’d told himself he was saving her soul by bedding her then and now, was suddenly too busy to do anything but walk past her as if they’d never met, let alone had had sex regularly in the choir stall at the church.

In her mind, both men deserved to be the subjects of public scorn. She knew the moment she saw them again that they wanted her, and what better way to get her revenge than to ruin them. The only one who seemed immune was Eli. Him, she’d wanted back simply for the sheer pleasure. It never occurred to her that he’d not want her for the same reason. The day he’d shown up at her door, he’d been so angry, he’d frightened her. She’d managed to hide it, but knew from that moment that he was lost to her
and would not betray the little Crowley whelp the way he’d betrayed his cousin.

Oh, well, she told herself. At least Anderson and Wilson’s life were in shambles, or at least Wilson’s would be once he learned she’d been sleeping with his son, and she couldn’t wait to alert him to that titillating fact. She guessed the good reverend would be looking for a new wife and possibly a new church if only to escape the damning gossip.

All in all, it had been a good stopover in turnip town, she decided, and as soon as she got her hands on a little bit more money, she’d be on her way somewhere else.

On the last Friday night in June, everyone turned out for the annual Sweetheart Ball sponsored by the Grayson Grove Female Intelligence Society. It was always the group’s most successful fund-raiser, and this year, from the looks of the numbers of people in the well-dressed crowd, the profit would be a record breaker.

The dance was held at the town hall. The decorating committee had tacked red doily hearts to the walls and strung white streamers across the ceiling. Vernon and his band were playing, and the cakes, pies, and homemade candies that were always for sale at the dance filled a white-clothed table.

Jewel was dancing slowly with her husband to the ballad being played by the band. “Everybody looks so nice.”

Eli agreed. Even Maddie, dancing with G.W., was wearing a lovely green gown instead of her usual buckskins. “Maddie must really be in love if she’s wearing a gown.”

Jewel looked toward them and nodded. “She looks very beautiful, don’t you think?”

“I think G.W. should get some lifts for his shoes.”

Jewel swatted him playfully on the arm. “Be nice.” Maddie was a good five inches taller than her beau. “You know, this is the first year she and I have ever come to the dance and not been behind the punch table serving. So thank you for being my escort this evening.”

“You’re welcome. Did I tell you how fetching you look?”

“Yes, you did.” Jewel had made a special trip to Niles to purchase the indigo gown she was wearing from Sally Payne’s shop, and she felt like a queen twirling around the floor with her handsome husband dressed in his formal wear. “You look very fine, yourself, Mr. Grayson.”

“Thanks. How about we take a long time undressing each other when we get home?”

She laughed and whispered, “Behave yourself.”

“Only while we’re here at the dance. Once we leave, I won’t be responsible for my actions. Ever made love in a buggy?”

Wondering what she was going to do with this outrageous man whom she loved as much as she did breathing, she told him, “Dance.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

When the band finished the selection, Eli led her off the floor and over to the punch table. As one of the hostesses ladled out portions for them into short glass cups, they sipped and fed on each other with their eyes.

Jewel told him quietly, “You really should stop looking at me that way.”

He sidled close enough to smell her rose-scented perfume. “What way?”

“As if you want to remove my clothing.”

“Didn’t I already say that?”

She shot him a humorous look.

He grinned over his cup. Eli couldn’t wait to get his wife home. He was just about to tell her that when he noticed James Wilson enter the hall alone. Eli hadn’t seen him since the day of the fight but heard he was working in Chicago on the docks during the week and returning to the Grove on weekends. Eli had no idea if Wilson had chosen to work so far away so as not to see Cecile being squired around by her newest pet, Sol Bates, but Eli didn’t really care. He just wanted Wilson not to cause any trouble.

Jewel looked across the hall to see what was causing her husband’s cool glare. Spying James Wilson, she said, “The reverend has already blessed the gathering and gone home, so we’re spared them coming to blows and ruining the dance.”

The band struck up a lively tune, but Eli, still watching Wilson, saw him stagger into a chair. “He’s drunk,” he said stonily.

Sure enough, Jewel could see Lenore and Creighton’s father moving about on wobbly legs and bumping into some of the dancers. Eli handed Jewel his cup. “I hate being mayor.”

She watched him thread his way through the crowd. As wary couples moved away from the stumbling Wilson, the floor cleared. The band stopped playing and all eyes were directed Wilson’s way.

Suddenly, he yelled drunkenly, “Kill the whores! Kill them all!” Then he began to cry, tears running down his face.

Jewel saw Eli reach out and gently take hold of Wilson’s arm, intending to steer him outside, but Wilson snatched free and shouted emotionally, “She slept with my son! That whore slept with my boy.”

A collective gasp shot through the hall and Jewel shook her head sadly.

“Kill her!” he yelled again angrily, doing his best to fight off Eli and the men who’d come to aid him. “Kill the whore!”

But in the end, Wilson crumpled to the floor and the sounds of his pain-wracked sobs filled the silent hall.

Eli and the others finally managed to escort the broken man away and once they disappeared, the place buzzed with reaction.

Maddie and G.W. walked over to where Jewel was standing and Maddie said, “Satan’s handmaiden, indeed.”

“I know. I never thought I’d feel sorry for Mr. Wilson, but I do now.”

G.W. voiced tersely, “And to think I brought this woman here.”

Maddie sought to reassure him. “Don’t blame yourself. If it hadn’t been you it would have been somebody else.”

Jewel saw Abigail imploring the band to commence playing, and once they began, couples moved back out to the dance floor, but the whispers went on for the rest of the evening.

Jewel drove home alone and waited up for Eli. She was in bed reading when he returned a short while after midnight, and his face was grim. “We left Wilson at his house. Didn’t see Creighton.”

“Do you think he was telling the truth about Cecile and Creighton.”

Eli nodded. “He was in her room the morning I warned her to stay away from you. I wondered at the time if Wilson knew he was sharing Cecile with his son, but I guess we have the answer now. What a mess.”

Jewel agreed. “There should be a law to make her leave town.”