Joan Smith: Gather Ye Rosebuds

From a chain of smallish diamonds, a large sunburst of larger stones suspended at the front. I am not familiar with the terminology of diamond cutting, but I could see there were various shapes and cuts of stones in the sunburst, some of the stones quite large.

Uncle Barry had no fortune. He paid his board from his company pension. “Where on earth did he get this?” I asked.

For a wonderful sixty seconds I thought uncle had made his fortune in India after all. Some prince had given him the diamonds as a reward for saving his life. Uncle told many such wonderful tales. The nawabs, it seemed, had no notion of the value of gems. In that sixty seconds I had set out on a tour of Italy to study the masters, with Borsini as my guide. Mama and I would hire an Italian villa, and visit Florence, the birthplace of the Renaissance. We would float in a gondola down the Grand Canal in Venice to the Palazzo Borsini.

Steptoe came and peered closely over my shoulder. He cleared his throat and said, with a sly look, “It looks very much like the necklace Lady Margaret Macintosh reported stolen five years ago, madam."

"Stolen! Good God! You mean to say Uncle Barry was a thief!"

"That would not be for me to say, madam, but it is certainly the same necklace, or one exactly like it."

I ran downstairs as fast as my legs could carry me, to find Mama waiting impatiently at the tea table. She lifted the pot and began pouring as soon as she saw me. I ran, gasping, and held the necklace out for her to see.

She blinked in confusion. “What is that, Zoie? Where did you get it? Why, it looks like-diamonds!"

"It is. Steptoe says it is Lady Margaret Macintosh's stolen necklace."

Mama's fingers flew to her lips to stifle a gasp. She looked around, to see no spies were listening. “Where did it come from?” She drew back against the sofa cushions, refusing to touch it.

"It was hidden in Uncle Barry's dresser. He was a thief, Mama! What shall we do with this?"

"Are you sure it is hers?"

"Steptoe says it is. You have a look at it."

She steeled herself to touch it then. She turned it this way and that in her fingers, with a troubled frown. “I fear he is right. Steptoe would know. Butlers always know everything. And you recall he worked as head footman at Parham for several years. He would have seen it any number of times."

Parham is the estate of our neighbor, Lord Weylin. When he is not at London, he lives there with his widowed mama, a social whale amidst the minnows of the area. Until Lady Margaret's death a year ago, she also lived at Parham to keep her sister, Lady Weylin, company.

Five years ago, Lady Margaret's diamond necklace was stolen. As its loss coincided with my uncle's arrival at Hernefield, it began to look as though Uncle was nothing else but a thief.

"I wonder if Barry made a habit of this sort of thing,” Mama said fearfully. “I mean to say, it is odd that he should steal just this one necklace."

"Don't say such things, Mama!” I exclaimed, and sank to the sofa. As soon as I caught my breath, I saw she was right. I was mortally afraid to return to the tower and look in other drawers, but if Uncle Barry was a thief, it was best to know the worst. “I shall go upstairs and search."

Mama had drawn out a handkerchief and was fanning herself, as befitted a Fragonard lady. “I shall stay here and catch my breath. Oh dear, whatever shall we do? You know I never had but a waxen head, Zoie. You must decide what is to be done."

I gave her hand a reassuring pat and darted back up the two flights of stairs to the octagonal tower. Steptoe had been seized with the same idea as Mama and myself. He had opened all the drawers of both dresser and desk and rooted through them. They stood open and disarranged.

"There does not appear to be any further booty, madam,” he said, relishing that offensive “booty."

"Keep looking. All his jackets and boots-everything will have to be searched. Let me know if you find anything."

"Yes, madam."

His snuff brown eyes were full of sated spite. He could hardly hold his lips steady as he began unfolding sox and smallclothes, shaking them out. When we were finished, I returned to Mama and told her no more booty had been discovered.

"Thank goodness. What shall we do with that?” she asked, pointing to the necklace as if it were a dead rat. She had placed it on the far end of the sofa table. “Lady Margaret is dead and gone. Perhaps if we just hid it away in the attic-"

"Mama! That is no solution. We must return it to Parham, and let them decide what is to be done with it."

"Lady Weylin has enough diamonds. She will never miss it."

"It may belong to Lady Margaret's stepson-entailed, is what I mean. We cannot keep it. That is dishonest."

"Oh my dear woe! The shame of it. Is there no way we could smuggle it into Parham without saying where it has been all this while? Through the mail, perhaps…"

"Trust diamonds to the mail? That is risky."

"And someone might see us mailing it, too. We could call on Lady Weylin, and slide it down the back of a sofa, or into a vase. It would be found eventually, and they need not know Barry stole it."

"We are never invited to Parham, Mama,” I reminded her.

One did not drop in uninvited on the Weylins. They held themselves very high. I had been there exactly three times in my twenty-five years, always with a crowd. Lord Weylin became friendly at election time, and held a large, raucous party. Unfortunately, there was no election in the offing.

"You don't think Lady Weylin might like to share your lessons with Borsini?” Mama asked. “You could stop by and ask her. He is a count, after all; she is only a countess."

I liked to think Borsini was a count, but in fact, I did not really believe it. It was only a pleasant fiction. The image of stately Lady Weylin climbing up two nights of stairs to my little studio was too ludicrous to contemplate without smiling. “No, that will not fadge."

"What of that Book Society you are working up?” The Book Society was Mrs. Chawton's project. She had read of some book-loving ladies banding together, each contributing a certain sum to buy a book, which they all read and discussed. “Is Lady Weylin bookish?” I asked.

"I see her at the circulating library from time to time. That suggests she is, and also that she is not fond of laying down her gold to buy the book herself. I think we must tackle it, Zoie. It is that or confessing that Barry was a thief. And at the worst possible time. The Season just closed last week; Lord Weylin is home for a visit. Perhaps Mrs. Chawton would like to go with you?"

I could not think the Weylins would appreciate a social call from the doctor's wife, whose brother runs the taproom. The Chawtons barely pass for quality in Aldershot. Mama and I would hardly be welcome, but at least we were an old, genteel family.

"There is no weaseling out of it, Mama. You must come with me. You try to distract Lady Weylin for a moment, and I shall pop the necklace into a vase, or down the side of the sofa."

"Let us do it tomorrow, Zoie. I shall need the evening to worry about it."

"It will be best to make sure Barry has no more secrets hidden away before we go. If Steptoe unearths more booty, we must find some other way to return it."

"I cannot believe it of Barry,” Mama said, idly sipping her tea. “I know it troubled him that he came home so poor, when half of his colleagues were nabobs, but it is not as though he actually needed the money. I mean to say he did not sell the necklace, but just hid it away. It is so very odd. Could he have been one of those kleptomaniacs like Mrs. Flanagan, who took the bolt of ribbon from the drapery shop?"

"What I wonder is how he ever got next or nigh the necklace. He was never at Parham, was he?"