AN EXCERPT FROM
DUEL OF HEARTS
DUEL OF HEARTS
CHAPTER ONE
“She’s eighty-two-years-old,” an elderly black woman wearing a cream-colored
hat told another woman standing on the sidewalk beside her. They were in
front of a newly painted whitewashed house and seemed somewhat curious about
its owner who was by her front door, cheerfully
waving her farewells to a cluster of guests. “Do you know in all the time
I’ve been coming to these church luncheons,” the woman added for clarity,
“I’ve never known her to break wind.”
“Lilian!”
Lilian chuckled. “It’s true, Martha.”
“I heard they used to call her ‘Miss Uppity,’ back in the 1960s,” remarked
Martha quite casually, wearing a floral pale blue dress. “Of course, that
was on account of her being married to that preacher from back home.”
“Pastor Henry Charlesworth,” Lilian added. “Did you know he had an affair
with Miss Gracie, the organ player’s daughter? They tried to hush the whole
thing up until they found out the poor girl was pregnant.”
“I heard all about it,” Martha said conspiratorily. “Miss Gracie Manning was
sent to New York and was hastily given in marriage to Pastor Erskin
Rutherford and had her baby there.”
“A girl,” Lilian recalled.
“No, it was a boy,” Martha contradicted. “He was named Ralston Rutherford
and I heard that Henry Charlesworth went out to New York almost every Easter
and Christmas to see him.”
“Whatever became of the boy?” Lilian inquired in blatant curiosity.
“He grew up, got married to a Puerto Rican girl, and had a boy of his own,”
Martha clarified. “Devon Rutherford, they called him. And guess where he is
now?”
“Where?” Lilian asked on raised eyebrows, certain she was about to hear
something spectacular.
“Right here in Birmingham,” Martha proclaimed on a scandalous note. “Living
right here in Handsworth Wood at that house with Miss Uppity.”
“No!” Lilian gasped, wide-eyed. “Dame Carmilla Charlesworth’s dead husband’s
grandson is living in her house?”
“She’s calling him her godson,” Martha gossiped for emphasis. “Since Pastor
Henry passed away and the boy’s parents are also dead, I think she felt an
obligation to look after her late husband’s family.”
“It’s shameful,” Lilian mocked, her mouth unhinged. “And in the name of
propriety, too.”
“Pastor Henry and Dame Carmilla did have a boy of their own, you know. He’s
called Porter Charlesworth,” Martha continued, hardly noting the black taxi
cab that had pulled in at the curb. “Porter’s entitled to half her
inheritance, but this godson is entitled to some, too.”
“I wonder what Carmilla Charlesworth thought of that?” Lilian chuckled, as
though the news had tickled her fancy.
“Not so Miss Uppity now, is she? Turning her nose up at everybody since she
became a dame for her contributions during the war by the queen,” Martha
complained. “She’ll always be remembered as —”
“My grandmother,” the young woman who had stepped from the taxi suddenly
intruded.
“Excusez-moi, but that is who you were talking about isn’t it, the lovely
madame over there?”
She indicated with a nod of her head the eighty-two-year-old woman standing
on the top step outside her home with a charming smile on her face.
“You are?” Lilian inquired, noting the French accent.
“Jasmine Charlesworth,” the young woman introduced, while popping a tablet
of chewing gum into her mouth. “And you two must be heathens, oui?”
Copyright © 2005 Sonia Icilyn
ISBN 1-58314-686-5
BET Books
Release Date: Nov 2005
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