Her Mother's Pearls E-Book

J.a. Jernay

• Herausgeber: J.a. Jernay
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

A string of pearls makes its way through three generations of women in the Clarendon family. Their behavior changes but will respect for family tradition survive?

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

A string of pearls makes its way through three generations of women in the Clarendon family. Their behavior changes but will respect for family tradition survive?

Her Mother’s Pearls

J.A. Jernay

It’s 1857.

Seventeen-year-old Sophie Clarendon gripped the sheets between her fingers and gritted her teeth and clenched her face. Blood vessels formed a small V in her forehead. A small cry escaped her lips.

She was laying on a corncob mattress in the corner of her family cabin with her legs spread out. At her feet was a brass spittoon that someone had cleaned. On a nearby table were a pair of iron forceps.

And between her legs was a pain the likes of which she’d never felt before.

Sophie felt something wipe the sweat from her face. It was a rag soaked in cool water. Holding it was the village midwife. Her name was Maude, and she’d attended every birth in the county for the last three decades. She knew how to assist better than any doctor.

“Set back and don’t you worry,” said Maude. “This will pass shortly and you’ll have offspring.”

“How do you know this will pass?”

“More than twenty years in this line, and not one baby lost yet.”

Sophie could hear the men talking outside the cabin. Her husband was there too, she knew, but he wasn’t speaking. That wasn’t his style. Silent Tom, the other men called him. He was fourteen years her senior and had plucked her straight out of her pappy’s house, with pappy’s permission. They’d married the day after she’d finished eighth grade.

That was three years ago, and Tom had been annoyed that it’d taken so long for her to get with child. He’d even sent her to see some women in the neighboring valley who knew of that sort of thing. They’d given her a bundle of fresh nettle leafs and dandelions for tea, said a few prayers, and sent her back.

Sophia didn’t know if that had been the reason, but a few months later she’d found herself with child. It’d been a painful nine months, what with the housework, the chores, the trips to town on horseback. She wasn’t one to complain but was looking forward to returning to her normal state.

But not yet. Right now she was here in the makeshift birthing chamber, pillows propped under her arms and back, the midwife’s hands rubbing ointment into her belly—and what felt a freight train passing through her nether regions.

“Maude,” she said.

“Yes, dear.”

“I want to hold my mother’s pearls.”

The midwife tilted her head. “Whatever for, Sophie?”

“She got them from her mother and they carry sentiment. I want to feel them in my hands.” She gestured to a rough-hewn dresser in the corner. “They’re in the bottom drawer.”