Diamond Duo by Marcia Gruver

Author:Marcia Gruver [Gruver, Marcia]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781607420569
Publisher: Barbour Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2011-12-19T17:14:35+00:00

No two ways about it, Miss Annie had the gift. Wonder of wonders, she convinced Doc Turner to put Jennie in a room upstairs at Brooks House while she mended. Thomas, who witnessed the whole thing, said Miss Annie insisted he would be doing her a great kindness, considering she wouldn’t need to walk clear back to the servants’ quarters to tend Jennie’s ankle. Thomas claimed that Doc Turner, who didn’t stand a chance against Miss Annie’s beguiling ways, just lifted his hat and nodded while grinning like a love-struck boy.

When the shock from the unlikely arrangement wore off, Sarah had Henry and Thomas brace the jabbering Jennie between them and help her to the foot of the stairs. Then Henry took over, winding her arm about his neck while she hopped on one leg up the steps. A wide-eyed Thomas followed, holding his fidgety arms out front as if ready to catch Jennie’s tumbling body. Sarah figured he might as well save himself the trouble. If Jennie fell, she’d take them all to the bottom with her.

Sarah brought up the rear, one hand laden with a bowl of Cook’s hot broth, the other with fresh linens. At the top landing, Jennie nodded to the right, too busy talking to stop and give directions. Henry guided his cumbrous burden around the polished banister post then along the hall to the first door. Thomas bobbed in front to turn a key that dangled from the lock.

Henry glanced back at Sarah and shook his head. By the look on his face, she knew what he had on his mind. He often pondered white folks’ uncommon fixation with bars and bolts, considering his people had fought so hard to be free of them, so a key stored on the outside of a locked door would be just the thing to vex his mind. But Sarah knew the reason. Jennie once mentioned it let the maids know which rooms were empty and needed cleaning.

Thomas swung the door open onto the prettiest room Sarah had ever seen, even counting Miss Blow’s house back home. The walls, so high you could stack two and a half men against them head to toe, were covered in wallpaper the color of a sunset, like pink stirred up with orange peels. Rows of tiny flowers, the shade of eggshells, dotted the pink. Tall mahogany posts of equal height jutted to the ceiling from the four corners of the high bed. The same molasses-colored wood as on the posts, rubbed with carnauba wax to a high shine, made up every stick of furniture in the room.

Jennie pointed at a spindly-legged bench that looked too fragile to hold her. “Jus’ drop me on the settee, Henry, while Sarah makes the bed. Thomas, pull up the stool yonder for my poor old foot. Sarah, you can put my broth on the side table to cool, but lay a napkin over it so no dust settles on top. And by the by, hold the pillow out the window and beat it good a’fore you covers it.

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