This Duchess of Mine(49)

Jemma’s handkerchief was woven of Belgian lace and embroidered in the middle with a very elaborate white B, for the Duchy of Beaumont.

“That’s a B,” Mrs. Nibble said, turning the handkerchief this way and that. “My name is Bertha.”

“It’s not a bribe,” Jemma said. “It’s a gift.”

“This place is a gift,” Miss Sophisba said, clutching the gloves. “Does you know that, Miss Duchess?”

“You don’t call her that,” Mrs. Nibble said. “Mrs. Duchess maybe, or ‘my lady.’”

A boy ran by, shrieking like a teakettle in a way that signified he wanted to be noticed. And just to make sure he was, he dropped a handful of smallish wooden balls at Jemma’s feet.

Mrs. Nibble took after him with an enraged howl. Jemma bent down to pick up the boy’s balls, since he was currently being rapped on the head by Mrs. Nibble, though thankfully not with a saucepan.

“How clever!” she exclaimed, turning it over. There was a human face carved into the ball, a face with a laughing, stubby nose and eyes that seemed to twinkle with amusement. She picked up another, which turned out to have the face of a wicked little demon with pointed ears and sharp chin. A third was a round-faced woman.

“Pie makes ’em,” Miss Sophisba said. “See, he’s always carving.” She gestured toward a man in the circle. Pie was holding a tiny sharp knife and flicking at a piece of wood. A steady stream of shavings flew out to his left and right.

“But he can’t see!”

“He sees with his fingers, he says,” Miss Sophisba explained.

Jemma walked over to Pie. “These are absolutely wonderful,” she said, dropping one of the balls in his hand so he knew what she meant.

He grinned. “The wood tells me, that’s all. The wood tells me what’s inside.”

Elijah appeared at her side. “Pie was a master glassblower.”

“We all were,” Knobby said cheerfully. “Only the best for the Cacky Street glassblowers. There’s quite a wait list,” he told Jemma.

“To work in the factory?” she asked.

“His Grace here won’t take any apprentices, ’cause he says they’re too young to decide about whether to give up their eyesight. But those of us that has already got the skills, well, there’s nowhere else anyone would want to work ’cept for Cacky Street.”

“Because of this?” she said, looking around.

“’Course. All paid for, see, and nice to boot. Food we have, and enough to spare over and share about. Wives if we want ’em with us, and if they want to come. It’s always warm, even in the coldest months.”

Elijah was rocking back and forth slightly on his heels. “It’s the least we could do,” he said, his voice harsh. “We’re responsible for taking your sight.”

“Oh no ye ain’t,” Pie said unexpectedly. “’Twas the glass that took my sight. All that lovely, beautiful glass, and I wouldn’t have had it another way. See, when you blow, the glass tells you what’s inside,” he said, moving his face in the general direction of Jemma and Elijah. “That’s what the duke here never understands, for all he feels to blame and such. It’s glass that’s our mistress. I thought I’d go mad at first, when I had to stop blowing. Then someone gave me a knife and some wood and I was away. Thought I’d go mad,” he repeated.

“We have one of Pie’s glass bowls,” Elijah said. “In the drawing room.”

“Not the green one with the fluted edge? Mr. Pie, that is an exquisite bowl,” Jemma said.

He beamed. “She called to me and I just brought her out, that’s all. And now she lives in a duke’s home.” His hands kept moving over the block of wood he held in his lap and then he started flicking away at it again with his knife. “Can’t do better than that.”

“Happy birthday again, Cully,” Elijah said.

Cully genially waved a bottle in their direction and hiccupped.

“I gave him a bit of the best today,” Knobby said.

“Seeing as it’s his birthday. That’s the best gin.”

Elijah took Jemma’s ungloved hand. “Goodbye, everyone.”

The men all turned their heads and chorused goodbye; the children ran by screaming. Miss Sophisba waved her gloves shyly, and Mrs. Nibble glared from her chair next to Nibble.

“They’re blind because of the Cacky Street glassblowing factory,” Jemma said as soon as they were back in the carriage. “Which we own.”

“There’s something in the glass that ruins the eye,” Elijah said. “The doctor thinks it’s in the smoke. It’s not good for their lungs either. They don’t live very long. We’ve lost two in the last six months.”