A life without Molly, her partner Jessica and little Emma didn’t bear thinking about.
She looked closely at the clipping photograph of the young Gertrude wearing a mortarboard and academic gown. The law graduate had gleaming eyes and creases at her temples that hinted at the anticipation and sadness she recognised in the lines on Essie’s wrinkled face.
Gertrude Murphy had been the only female graduate in her class. Kate wondered what it would have been like to be the lone woman among all those young men in stiff shirts and ties. She thought of her own art history classes—the ones she made it to—where it was commonplace for the class to be filled mostly with women, slouched low at their desks in the unisex Californian uniform of denim cut-offs, slides and a loose T-shirt.
It had been refreshing to go to college on the West Coast. Kate took student loans and paid her own way like any other student. It was liberating to be unhooked from the Kirby family back in Boston and the expectations that came with it; to be free to surf and to study whatever subject piqued her interest, from French to Elizabethan Jewellery to Life Drawing.
But lately the tide had turned. Perhaps it was living in the old Louisburg Square house, or a mellowing that came with age, but Kate wanted to lean in towards Essie and her family. Unscrambling the London secrets would be a start.
As she reached for an olive, Kate saw out of the corner of her eye a tall, striking woman in elegant wide-legged pants, heels and a green blazer striding towards her, briefcase in hand.
‘Sorry!’ said Bella as she bent to kiss Kate on both cheeks before sitting down. ‘It’s been quite the afternoon.’
‘Tough case?’
‘Is there any other kind in family law?’ Bella grimaced and waved at the waiter, then pointed to Kate’s drink indicate she’d like one of the same.
‘I guess not.’
Bella leaned back in her chair and breathed in the warm air. ‘Had to extricate myself from the bailiff, then console a distraught father.’
‘God, how awful … I’m sorry,’ said Kate, thinking of her own father and grandfather. Her grandfather had spent hours every summer teaching Kate and her sister to sail, while the girls’ father had taught them to surf.
Bella noticed the notebooks. ‘Looks serious! You mentioned in your email that you’re interested in my great-grandmother, Gertrude. I’ve been waiting for years for someone to ask me about her! Before she and Dad retired to Majorca, Mum left me with a box full of papers from her family history years; she’s more into scrapbooking and Pilates these days.’
Bella reached down into her bag and pulled out a manila folder on which was written in neat capitals: MURPHY FAMILY TREE. She handed it to Kate, who opened it out on her knees and unfolded the family tree that had been laminated into three sections.
Bella smiled. ‘So, we share great-great-grandparents, Clementine and Conrad Murphy. Clementine was widowed when Conrad died in the Boer War. She had seven children, and the only ones that seem to have survived into adulthood were our great-grandmothers, Gertrude and Esther. See here.’ She tapped the first branch of the tree. ‘Freddie, the eldest, was killed on a worksite near St Paul’s Cathedral when he was nineteen. Crushed when an unsecured wall of bricks toppled down on him, poor bugger.’
‘Then there’s Esther Rose, my great-grandmother,’ Kate observed, ‘followed by Gertrude, who was yours.’
‘They were the lucky pair. Their younger sisters Flora and Maggie—twins—didn’t even make it into their teens, and two little girls either side of Gertrude died of measles and whooping cough as babies.’
The spider’s web of lines below Clementine and Conrad Murphy gnawed at Kate. She imagined tiny coffins in the back of a horse and cart bobbing and swaying over cobblestones, headed to a pauper’s graveyard somewhere on the outskirts of London.
Bella caught her eye and winced. ‘But they did have some happier times. Gertrude and Essie met in Hawaii for a holiday together once a year after they both turned fifty. I guess they were too busy with work and family before that. Gertrude’s notebook and her letters to Essie are now part of a permanent collection at the Serpentine, along with her paintings. We can go together when you’re back in London, if you like?’
‘There are paintings too?’
‘In her later life she became an artist. Her work is very Modigliani meets Yves Klein. Mum can’t stand them, but I quite like her paintings. I have a couple in my study at home. They feel happy … kind of buoyant, if that makes any sense?’
‘Looks like the talent ran in the family. I think these were drawn by Essie.’ Kate pulled the protective envelopes from her notebook and showed her cousin the sketch of the two laughing girls.
Bella frowned. ‘That’s Flora and Maggie, I’m sure of it. The notebook gifted to the Serpentine was lined, just like this page, and there are pictures of the girls that look very similar. They could even be the same hand. The notebook definitely belonged to Gertrude, though; her name is written on the front.’
‘You think Gertrude drew these, not Essie?’ asked Kate, feeling the familiar rush of adrenaline that coursed through her when she made a historical connection between artwork or jewellery, no matter how tenuous. ‘Would it be possible to compare them with the drawings in the notebook?’
‘Of course! I’ll call my contact at the gallery and request access.’ Kate reached for her drink and took a sip, enjoying her gin. The sun was low, softening to twilight, and as she sat across from Bella, something metallic caught her eye.
Kate leaned forwards, shading her eyes with her hand. ‘Your necklace—may I have a look, please?’
‘This?’ Bella pulled a gold chain from underneath her silk shirt. ‘It’s a pendant my mother gave me as a graduation present when I finished law school. Her mother gave it to her. It belonged to Gertrude, apparently.’ Bella looked down as she continued, ‘Bit big for me—too flashy for court. But I like it close to my skin for some reason, so I just tuck it under my shirt. Here …’ She lifted the gold chain over her head and passed it to Kate.
Kate ran her thumb over the gold chain and held the pendant in her palm, her heart fluttering. The pendant was gold, with layers of petals resembling a rose. There were a couple of flecks of white and blue enamel, but otherwise the pendant was bare.
‘See these tiny squares?’ Kate pointed to a grid pattern in the petals with square shapes. ‘These indentations in the gold suggest that it was studded with table-cut stones, but they must have been removed at some stage. And this isn’t actually a pendant—it was originally a button.’ Kate flipped the pendant over and pointed to the tell-tale soldering marks at the base of gold hoops that enabled it to be stitched onto cloth. ‘See?’
Bella’s eyes were wide. ‘I had no idea. I’m not sure what happened to the original stones; I didn’t know there were any—I just assumed those marks were a pattern. Gertrude was one of the first women at Oxford to read law, so perhaps she flogged them to play for her education? Although it seems unlikely.’ She tapped the family tree. ‘There’s nothing here to suggest the Murphys had two pennies to rub together, let alone a fancy button filled with gemstones. Gertrude’s mother Clementine died of liver failure in the workhouse, so they weren’t exactly well off. I’d always assumed this was a present from Granny Gertie’s husband—my great-grandfather Hubert.’