Kate nodded and said softly, ‘I can’t help it. It’s selfish, but when I see Emma …’
Bella squeezed Kate’s hand. ‘I understand. Of course it hurts; your babies were born only months apart. Each birthday must be a reminder.’
‘I love them so much. Jessica, too. It’s just that when I look at their family I can’t … I can’t forget my own.’
‘No-one expects you to forget. But you’re part of Molly’s family too. Don’t forget that. Your sister loves you like crazy. Remember when she punched me in the nose when I was teasing you about … ?’ Bella paused, screwing up her nose. ‘I don’t even remember what for. I can only remember taunting you one minute, then lying spreadeagled on the sand the next. She was vicious.’ ‘Still is. Don’t mess with her girls.’
They both laughed as a waiter arrived with their shared plates. The clatter of cutlery on tabletops offered a reprieve as dishes filled with fresh burrata and char-grilled scallops were placed in front of them.
Both women ate with gusto as they veered into more comfortable territory, swapping work stories and catching up on holiday plans. When the waitress came to clear some empty plates, Kate and Bella each ordered a glass of rosé and more focaccia to mop up the juices. Grief and focaccia went together quite well, Kate was discovering.
As the waitress withdrew, Bella scooped some squeaky burrata into her mouth.
‘Mmm, this is heavenly. Trust the out-of-towner to know the best places to go. If it had been left to me we’d be at my local Italian. Which is good, but not this good.’
She wiped some crumbs from her lips with her serviette and pushed the white cheese towards Kate. ‘Have some before I eat it all.’
The waitress returned with their rosé.
Kate took a sip, and felt herself growing calmer. She wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol, or the courtyard brimming with greenery, good food and twilight.
She sat still, trying to lasso her emotions within the walls of the courtyard. It was crushing to have the world look at you with pity. People meant well when they shook their heads and said sorrowfully, ‘I don’t know how you get out of bed every morning.’
The truth was, neither did Kate.
But she did get out of bed, day after day, and she had kept moving until she’d started to feel a little less numb. Since Noah’s birth, Kate had sought out small things to make her smile. The perfect espresso. Sitting on her front stoop with the autumn sun on her face while Emma rolled around in the tiny golden leaves that covered Louisburg Square. Valrhona chocolate.
In time, Kate had also started to set herself small goals and take on some assignments. The uncovering of a lost watercolour sketch for a maharaja’s emerald neckpiece in the Cartier archives—each stone measured, scaled and placed just so. Unscrambling the annotations in the jewellery inventory of Anne of Denmark and working out which pieces had been reset or sold.
Now, trying to find out how a small gold button had made its way into her family—and if it could indeed be connected to the Cheapside buttons she’d seen at the Museum of London.
Uncovering history took her deep into tragedies. But sometimes tracing the line of a jewel, the light bouncing off a diamond, showed Kate that, just like jewels, people could reset and have a different kind of life.
As if gauging the shift in Kate’s thinking, Bella said, ‘I’m not sure where this button—or pendant—has come from, but that drawing of yours links us and our great-grandmothers. Your job is to trace heirlooms and origins of precious pieces, but it’s hardly surprising this Cheapside mystery is more than a job for you. I see it all the time in my work. People will do anything to keep their families together. And when they fail, they need to find something to fill their hearts.’
Bella paused and took another sip of her wine. When she spoke, it was in a voice as soft as cottonwool. ‘When everything has been lost, families ruined, it’s not uncommon to cling to something that reminds you of happier times.’
Kate thought of her pregnancy journal, then her sapphire earrings.
Bella gently took the necklace from Kate and held it up so the button pendant caught the light. ‘Gertie drew those sketches of the button, I’m sure of it. So she must have seen the button—or one like it—with the jewels intact.’
Kate sat still, sipping on her wine, pondering the coincidence that these buttons were the same as the ones she’d seen at the museum earlier this week. If Bella’s button was linked to the Cheapside collection, then, as a historian, Kate would be obliged to expose it. After all, she was writing a report for her Swiss client suggesting he repatriate his treasured ring. Bella would have to give up her heirloom and it would join the other buttons at the museum.
It was a professional conundrum, but at the heart of it was a far more personal question: had Essie stolen a button from the Cheapside collection? Was that why her great-grandmother had never returned to London? But Essie spent eighty years in Boston, and surely the chances of being caught had faded. No-one was going to arrest an old woman for the theft of a button, were they?
Chapter 11
ESSIE
LONDON, 1912
The walk home from school was always slow. Essie dropped her metal bucket to one side of the railway track running alongside their street, then placed a boot on the steel to feel for the familiar rumble of oncoming locomotives. Flora and Maggie joined her, scavenging for pieces of coal to fill the bucket as if they were on a treasure hunt.
The twins bent low to peer between the sleepers and slipped their small hands underneath to be certain they didn’t miss any chunks that had spilled from the coal car as it roared past. Down near the wharves along the Thames, dear Freddie would be doing the same—collecting sticks and stray bits of wood to keep the old stove and boiler running at home.
Once the bucket was full of coal, the girls wiped their filthy hands on the grass beside the tracks and started to walk home.
Essie looked into her bucket, and then thought of the rotting bucket filled with soil and jewellery Danny and Freddie had found over at Cheapside the day before. It was impossible to get the image of the clump of soil dotted with gemstones out of her mind. She’d wanted to stay for a closer look at this treasure, but Mr Hepplestone had ordered everyone to down tools and step out of the cellar and sewerage lines onto the footpath. No-one was to breathe a word about what they’d seen.
With every step she tried to rid herself of the picture in her head of the foreman’s warm and open smile, the way he’d touched the brim of his hat and greeted her like a lady. She’d been drawn to him, a bit like Gertie staring at her gold button, as if she couldn’t quite believe something so shiny and golden existed. Just like the button, the foreman wasn’t meant for the likes of her.
And yet, he’d written after they met yesterday. His ivory calling card stamped with gold copperplate letters was tucked into her apron pocket. On the back was a hastily scrawled note.
Dear Miss Murphy,
I hope you don’t think it impudent of me to write. Our conversation was somewhat interrupted yesterday and I’m most sorry.
I would be delighted if you would agree to correspond with me, if not meet for tea with an appropriate chaperone of your choosing.
I’m hoping this note may find you by way of your brother. Most sincerely,