It’s just that I seem to keep ruining your shirts. First brandy, now soup.”
“I drink Jack Daniels and have plenty of shirts.” George dropped her arm when Birdie pushed into the kitchen.
“Go on doing whatever you was doing. Old Birdie has to wash those shirts. Don’t think about me none.”
“I’ll take it off right now and put it in some cold water.” George fled the scene.
“Now, I didn’t mean to do that. I was only joking with him, but Miss Virginia made him jumpy like that. Just when he was starting to warm up to you, too. Why, he hasn’t come home to lunch in months, and this time it wasn’t to see old Birdie.”
Great, Suzanne thought, returning to the silver spread on the dining room table. Now, she had two men she did not want, and one of them happened to be her boss. The afternoon rolled downhill from there. She started to check the larger pieces: the punchbowl; a pair of candelabra; a tea set with an amazing number of pieces from a waste bowl to sugar tongs. Each item seemed to have some little niggling thing wrong with it. The manufacturer’s mark and the sterling symbol were obscured and illegible on the punch bowl, though Virginia Lee listed it as Tiffany. The candlesticks had the proper weight for sterling, but something about their patina bothered her. She questioned Birdie, too heavily, perhaps.
“So you’ve been here thirty years,” Suzanne began subtly.
“More like forty. Mr. Fred and Miss Beatrice took me on right out of school to help old Effie. Then they died within a year of each other, Mr. Fred of a stroke and Miss Beatrice from missing him, I think. She got the pneumonia and wouldn’t call in a doctor ’til it was too late. Effie and me kept the house up until the boys got home from the war and settled everything. Then, Effie retired. Said she was too old to learn new tricks from the likes of Miss Virginia.”
“How often have you polished all this silver over the years?”
“Oh Lawd, least once a month, more when Miss Virginia entertained, maybe not so often after she got sick. I mean Mr. Georgie never has folks over, and it takes all my time to keep the place clean by myself. ’Fore, we had other maids and a cook. I does my best.”
“Of course you do, but look at these candelabra. When a piece has been polished often, it develops this sort of deep glow called a patina. This article seems almost new, but Mrs. St. Julien’s note dates it as 1853 and values the pair at nearly $4,000.”
“Well, I don’t know nothing ’bout that. That’s one of her new candlesticks she got the last five years, traded it for her old set with her antique dealer, trading up she said. So maybe I didn’t shine it so much. It’s hardly been out the bag since she got it. Liked the old ones better myself. They was all covered with curlicues and had these little cups to catch the wax.”
“Bobeches.”
“What say?”
“Bobeches, the little cups that catch the wax.”
“Yeah. They were the devil to clean, but I liked them sticks better. They did sort of glow.”
“Did Mrs. St. Julien trade any of the other pieces?”
“Nearly all the big ones. Trading up, she told me, every time.”
“It’s just that some of the pieces don’t quite match their descriptions.”
“I don’t know about that neither. When Miss Virginia died, the estate people took the inventory, one punch bowl, one tea set. They was all here. They still is.” Birdie’s lower lip protruded belligerently.
“She might have made some mistakes,” Suzanne suggested, trying to calm her down.
“Miss Virginia collected that silver for thirty years. You just a kid. What you know about it?”
Suzanne decided not to argue the point. She needed Birdie’s goodwill, and even more, her friendship in this lonely house.
“I think her dealer may have tried to cheat her.”
“Not old Mr. Mort. She dealt with him twenty years or more. Why he’d go off to New Orleans or New York, even London, England, and Paris,
“I drink Jack Daniels and have plenty of shirts.” George dropped her arm when Birdie pushed into the kitchen.
“Go on doing whatever you was doing. Old Birdie has to wash those shirts. Don’t think about me none.”
“I’ll take it off right now and put it in some cold water.” George fled the scene.
“Now, I didn’t mean to do that. I was only joking with him, but Miss Virginia made him jumpy like that. Just when he was starting to warm up to you, too. Why, he hasn’t come home to lunch in months, and this time it wasn’t to see old Birdie.”
Great, Suzanne thought, returning to the silver spread on the dining room table. Now, she had two men she did not want, and one of them happened to be her boss. The afternoon rolled downhill from there. She started to check the larger pieces: the punchbowl; a pair of candelabra; a tea set with an amazing number of pieces from a waste bowl to sugar tongs. Each item seemed to have some little niggling thing wrong with it. The manufacturer’s mark and the sterling symbol were obscured and illegible on the punch bowl, though Virginia Lee listed it as Tiffany. The candlesticks had the proper weight for sterling, but something about their patina bothered her. She questioned Birdie, too heavily, perhaps.
“So you’ve been here thirty years,” Suzanne began subtly.
“More like forty. Mr. Fred and Miss Beatrice took me on right out of school to help old Effie. Then they died within a year of each other, Mr. Fred of a stroke and Miss Beatrice from missing him, I think. She got the pneumonia and wouldn’t call in a doctor ’til it was too late. Effie and me kept the house up until the boys got home from the war and settled everything. Then, Effie retired. Said she was too old to learn new tricks from the likes of Miss Virginia.”
“How often have you polished all this silver over the years?”
“Oh Lawd, least once a month, more when Miss Virginia entertained, maybe not so often after she got sick. I mean Mr. Georgie never has folks over, and it takes all my time to keep the place clean by myself. ’Fore, we had other maids and a cook. I does my best.”
“Of course you do, but look at these candelabra. When a piece has been polished often, it develops this sort of deep glow called a patina. This article seems almost new, but Mrs. St. Julien’s note dates it as 1853 and values the pair at nearly $4,000.”
“Well, I don’t know nothing ’bout that. That’s one of her new candlesticks she got the last five years, traded it for her old set with her antique dealer, trading up she said. So maybe I didn’t shine it so much. It’s hardly been out the bag since she got it. Liked the old ones better myself. They was all covered with curlicues and had these little cups to catch the wax.”
“Bobeches.”
“What say?”
“Bobeches, the little cups that catch the wax.”
“Yeah. They were the devil to clean, but I liked them sticks better. They did sort of glow.”
“Did Mrs. St. Julien trade any of the other pieces?”
“Nearly all the big ones. Trading up, she told me, every time.”
“It’s just that some of the pieces don’t quite match their descriptions.”
“I don’t know about that neither. When Miss Virginia died, the estate people took the inventory, one punch bowl, one tea set. They was all here. They still is.” Birdie’s lower lip protruded belligerently.
“She might have made some mistakes,” Suzanne suggested, trying to calm her down.
“Miss Virginia collected that silver for thirty years. You just a kid. What you know about it?”
Suzanne decided not to argue the point. She needed Birdie’s goodwill, and even more, her friendship in this lonely house.
“I think her dealer may have tried to cheat her.”
“Not old Mr. Mort. She dealt with him twenty years or more. Why he’d go off to New Orleans or New York, even London, England, and Paris,
Similar Books
