Read Jewel of Gresham Green Online
Authors: Lawana Blackwell
Jewel of Gresham Green
The
J
EWEL
Of
G
RESHAM
G
REEN
Books by
Lawana Blackwell
The Jewel of Gresham Green
T
HE
G
RESHAM
C
HRONICLES
The Widow of Larkspur Inn
The Courtship of the Vicar’s Daughter
The Dowry of Miss Lydia Clark
T
ALES OF
L
ONDON
The Maiden of Mayfair
LAWANA
BLACKWELL
The
J
EWEL
Of
G
RESHAM
G
REEN
The Jewel of Gresham Green
Copyright © 2008
Lawana Blackwell
Cover design by Jennifer Parker
Cover photography by Getty Images/Titus Lacoste; Mike Habermann
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Blackwell, Lawana.
The jewel of Gresham Green / Lawana Blackwell.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-7642-0511-8 (pbk.)
1. Children of clergy—Fiction. 2. England—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3552.L3429J47 2008
813'.54—dc22
2008014235
To Margaret Blackwell and Barbara Schmitt
Marriage made us sisters-in-law.
Thirty-plus years of birthday parties, lunches, family reunions,
movies, weddings, funerals, trips, chicken dances, hospital sits,
advice, crawfish boils, a few tears, and much laughter
made us friends.
LAWANA BLACKWELL has twelve published novels to her credit including the bestselling Gresham Chronicles series. She and her husband have three grown sons and live in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Contents
15 A
PRIL
1884
B
IRMINGHAM
, E
NGLAND
Stitch and turn, stitch and turn, stitch and turn . . .
Jewel Libby folded the raw edges of silk into narrow hems as her feet pumped the treadle. Monotony was what made the job dangerous. Most scarred fingers belonged not to the newest workers at J. Mobley,
Elegant Corsets for the Particular Woman,
but to those who had spent enough time in the sewing room to forget that the needle could hypnotize just before it bit.
That same necessity to be alert took away temptation to chat with the women nearest her for the six days weekly, ten hours daily Jewel sat among them. Besides, socializing could get a person sacked, and then how would she feed her daughter?
Mr. Fowler’s whistle shrilled. Machines hummed into silence. Forty sets of eyes mirrored Jewel’s own puzzlement, for no evening sunlight slanted through the west windows.
The manager jumped up onto a chair and clapped his hands; an unnecessary action in the tense stillness. “On account of the birth of Mr. Mobley’s second granddaughter, you may all go home!”
“Four hours early!” Jewel said to another worker while joining the applause.
“God bless the child!” someone exclaimed.
“If she’d only been a grandson, we’d have been given the whole day,” Mrs. Fenton said sagely during the homeward trek up Steelhouse Lane.
Jewel sent a look over her shoulder before risking a guilty smile. Not that Mr. Mobley would be anywhere in the vicinity. She had seen the factory owner once during two years of employment.
“Why are boys more valued than girls, do you think?” Jewel asked the older woman.
“Rich folk care about carryin’ on the name. We poor need sons because we can send them out to work earlier than girls. And they’re paid more.”
Jewel gave her a sidelong look.
Mrs. Fenton shrugged. “Life’s hard, if you ain’t noticed.”
They hurried past Perseverance Iron Works, its chimney belching smoke into the already pewter sky. Windows sent out ripples of heat. Jewel wondered how many sons of the poor sweat inside.
Thank God I have a girl
, Jewel thought. Not that raising a daughter was easy. Most of her worries centered around Becky. Particularly of late.
They turned onto Vesey Street, then Halls Passage. Three-storey tenement buildings rose on both sides, identical in their stained brick, filth, foul odors, and weed-choked courtyards.
“I’ve got it!” a young voice called.
“Over here!” piped another.
Sixty feet ahead in the lane, five young boys played a game of catch with a ball. Near the arched entrance of the building on the right, a man stood holding a small girl’s hand. Jewel’s breath caught in her throat at the sight of the girl’s berry-red hair, so like her own.
“Do you see—” Mrs. Fenton began.
“Becky!” Jewel gathered her skirts and ran.
Mr. Dunstan dropped her daughter’s hand. He was forty or so, tall and solidly built, with blue eyes that could have been handsome if not set above a vulgar smile. He called out, “You’ll be hurtin’ yourself if you slip on them cobbles, Mrs. Libby.”
Automatically Jewel slowed her steps, the immediate danger past. She drew close enough to take four-year-old Becky’s hand. The small palm was clammy from the rent collector’s grasp, and she had to fight the urge to wipe it against her skirt.
“It’s just that she’s not supposed to be out here without Mrs. Platt.”
The corner of her eye caught movement. Mrs. Fenton, slipping into the building. That stung, but how could Jewel fault a woman who was the sole support for her aged mother? When these were the cheapest tenements within walking distance of the factory? When Mr. Dunstan wielded the power to toss a person out into the street?
“Why are you home early? Got one of those woman complaints?”
Jewel’s cheeks burned.
Becky held out a pigeon feather, her face pinched with worry. “I found this for you, Mummy.”
“It’s lovely, Becky,” Jewel said, grateful for the excuse not to reply to his coarse question.
That was the most maddening thing about being in the company of Mr. Dunstan—having to maintain the charade that he was just an ordinary decent person. To pretend not to notice the lust in his eyes, bad enough when directed toward her, but terrifying when fastened upon Becky.
Rumors added fuel to that fire. Such as the reason the Kents moved out last month, with their two young daughters. Mr.
Kent’s job at the foundry paid twice what Jewel earned at the factory, so they could afford that luxury.
“Good day, Mr. Dunstan,” Jewel forced through a tight smile, while thinking,
Norman would wipe that leer from your
face!
But two years ago he and another bricklayer had perished when scaffolding collapsed at the unfinished Castle Maltings building on Tower Street.
She dragged Becky by the hand, up the steps and through the doorway. Without knocking she turned the knob to number seven and entered. Mrs. Platt sat rocking a pair of sleeping infants. A tot squatted in a corner, picking at the straws of a broom. Another lay upon the filthy threadbare rug, playing with his own feet. Both ceased activity to send Jewel openmouthed stares.
“Mrs. Platt!” Jewel said with a shaking voice. “Becky was outdoors!”
“Mrs. Libby, mind you’ll wake the babies,” the woman said through teeth as gray and crooked as old gravestones. “She whined to play with the older ’uns. She’s too big for the babies. What was I to do?”
“What I pay you to do, that’s what,” Jewel said with less volume but more intensity. “Mr. Dunstan had her hand! God alone knows what would have happened if I hadn’t come home early.”
One infant stirred and whimpered. Mrs. Platt frowned above its downy head. “There you go again, harpin’ on Mr. Dunstan, when he’s the soul of mercy.”
“
Mercy?
He pays too much attention to little girls.”
“You should be grateful . . . your poor fatherless baby.” A bony hand moved from the infant’s back to shake a crooked finger at Jewel. “If you’d been here in Mr. Archer’s time, you’d appreciate Mr. Dunstan. Gin on his breath, even in the mornings! A hairsbreadth late with the rent, and you’re out on your ear.”
“I
don’t
appreciate having my instructions ignored. Keep her with you, or I’ll find someone else.” As if she had not already tried, but Mrs. Platt did not have to know that.
Grimy landing windows provided the only illumination on the staircase, sticky and reeking of urine and sour spilled beer. Those forced to take the steps at night carried candles or lamps. Chest burning, Jewel hitched Becky up to her hip and kirtled her skirts with her left hand.
“I’m sorry, Mummy,” the girl said halfway up the staircase.
“Don’t speak now, Becky,” Jewel said.
In the corridor, she set Becky on her feet and fished the key from her pocket. The door to number twenty-one opened to a tiny parlor that led to a smaller kitchen and still smaller bedroom. Washing up was done in the scullery, with water carried up from a tap in the piece of bare earth that served as the courtyard. Chamber pots saved nighttime trips to the privy, only yards away from the tap. Furnishings were sparse. Shortly after Norman’s burial, Jewel was forced to sell off most of their secondhand furniture before moving herself and Becky from the small but cozy back-to-back house on Hurst Street.
Jewel locked the door behind her and turned to Becky. The tears brimming in the brown eyes, the trembling lips, broke her heart. Had hardship driven from her all memory of what it was like to be a child?
“Ah, Becky,” she said, kneeling to pull her into her arms. She stroked her back as sobs wracked the small frame. “My dear, brave little girl. I love you so much.”
“I don’t like to go to Mrs. Platt’s!” Becky sobbed against her shoulder.
“I know, I know.” Jewel’s voice thickened. “But Mummy must work.”
She held her daughter until the sobbing ceased. Tempting as it was not to distress her any more, Jewel unwound her arms and moved her back a bit so that she could meet her eyes.
“Becky,” she said, gently, but with a sternness born of fear. “You’re old enough to remember that you’re not to go outdoors without Mrs. Platt.”
“But she never goes,” the girl said through trembling lips. “And the boys are allowed.”
The unfairness of it tugged at Jewel’s heart. But safety came before fairness. “You
must
stay with Mrs. Platt.”
She swallowed, dreading the answer to the next question. “How long was Mr. Dunstan there?”
“Not for a long time. He’s not a bad man, Mummy. He said he wished he had a bright girl just like—”
Jewel groaned as a shiver snaked up her spine. “Just because someone smiles and speaks kindly doesn’t make him good. Did you go anywhere with him?”