If her great-grandmother was a thief, Kate wasn’t sure if she could write about it. Should she? Her great-grandmother had created a great legacy in Boston, championed many worthy causes. Why ruin Essie’s reputation?
Kate winced. ‘I’m not sure that’s a story I want to tell.’
Marcus pulled the pillow from between them as he leaned on one elbow. ‘Well, you don’t have to decide now. There’re so many grey areas.’
‘Marcus, I’m preparing a report for a collector demanding that a ring be repatriated to the Dutch Jewish family it belonged to before they fled the Nazis in 1940. If I don’t ’fess up, that would make a me a total hypocrite as a historian. Bella’s button belongs with the others at the museum.’
‘Not … exactly.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, for starters, none of the jewellery in the collection was owned by the Museum of London. The museum didn’t even exist in the 1600s.’
‘Sure, but—’
‘So who buried the collection? I mean we don’t know who owned the jewels, right? Also, how did your relatives stumble across these pieces hundreds of years later?’
‘Essie had an older brother, Freddie. He was a navvy—a builder’s labourer—who died on a worksite near Cheapside. It’s possible he saw the jewels when they were recovered in 1912 … or found some.’ Kate couldn’t quite bring herself to say, or stole some. But from the expression on Marcus’s face, he understood.
Kate continued, ‘Essie used to tell us a fairytale of a big box of treasure being pulled out of the ground—pouches of pearls, handfuls of gold chains and rings for every finger and toe. It was guarded by a man with eyes the colour of emeralds. He cast a spell on her.’
‘What kind of spell?’
‘She didn’t say.’
‘Sounds like a typical Irish fairytale to me.’
‘This was different.’
‘She transferred it to her life in London. So, was this mystery man a leprechaun? Leprechauns are known for making mischief. Did she capture him?’
Kate eyed him and gently pushed his shoulder. ‘I’m serious!’
Marcus brushed a piece of hair from her face and said, ‘Kate, folktales are made up. But at their heart they’re stories about the messy business of being human. Rage, jealousy … lust.’ He ran a finger across her stomach.
Kate and Marcus stared at each other and the only sound came from the blades of the fan beating overhead. All those years behind the lens had taught him where to focus.
‘Now about Bella’s gold button … one sister had the drawing in Boston, the other sister kept the button in London. Both match the buttons in the museum. Surely the button must be the key to what you’re looking for?’
‘I don’t know.’ She shrugged. ‘But I’m worried it’s somehow tied up with the reason Essie left London and never returned.’
‘Perhaps you’d better answer that first.’
Marcus had a point. She needed to widen her parameters.
Kate rolled over to grab her glass of water from the bedside table and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror lit up by the moon. Her face was scattered with freckles—no doubt brought out by the tropical sun. Her curls were a knotty jumble from humidity and salt water. But her face looked softer, more relaxed. Gone was her tightly clenched jaw. Grief and guilt would always be a part of Kate, tucked deep within like organs. But as the moon highlighted her crooked nose and slightly sunburnt cheeks, she recognised something quieter, something happier …
Beyond the Sparkle: Behind the scenes at the Museum of London (draft)
BY DR KATE KIRBY
Photography by Marcus Holt
For over a century, academics and historians have been trying to unravel the mystery of who buried a priceless collection of over 500 jewels and gemstones in a Cheapside London cellar, and why. But the journey of the jewels from the roughs in the ground to painstaking creation is every bit as intriguing.
A jewel never lies. It expresses the very best of humanity—beauty, devotion, loyalty, adventure and hope. It can be a commitment to love, or a reminder of a loved one in death. However, underneath the polishing and soldering often lies trauma, terror, guilt and greed.
One of the oldest pieces in the collection is a Byzantine white sapphire carved with the image of Jesus presenting his nail-punctured hands to a doubting St Thomas on one side and backed with an exquisite enamel flower on the other …
(Insert pics)
(Caption: L–R) Enamel necklaces; a Byzantine white sapphire cameo; an exquisite pomander to be filled with scented oils; timepiece inset in Colombian emerald; salamander emerald hatpin (tbc); champlevé ring with diamond from Golconda.
Chapter 19
On their final day in Galle, Marcus asked Liv to come with them in the chopper up to Ratnapura.
‘Don’t pull that face, Liv. Physics, chemistry and the Bard can wait.’
Liv smiled at her father then Kate, and said, ‘Okay.’
Was Kate imagining the slightest knowing smile on the teenager’s face?
Marcus turned to look at Kate, who felt naked under his gaze. Every time their hands brushed at dinner it was electric. When he’d helped Kate return their dinner plates into her hotel room last night, he’d pressed her up against the wall hidden from Liv, kissing her neck slowly and pushing his groin against hers. Her thighs throbbed with the memory.
It was as if Kate and Marcus were naughty lust-struck teenagers, and Liv the parent they had to hide their holiday trysts from. They snuck between bedrooms when they suspected Liv was long asleep, then set phone alarms before dawn so they could start the day in their own rooms. Kate put her unusual behaviour down to the tropical air.
Marcus read her early paragraphs of the Cheapside piece, and they edited the photos of the emerald watch, the salamander, the pomander and the white sapphire St Thomas pendant together.
‘What about the champlevé ring—did you get any close-ups? I’d really like to have a look at the enamel. It’d be great to feature that detail.’
‘I haven’t finished processing them all, but I’ll send the images through for you to have a look at when I’m done. Give me a week.’
The one topic they avoided was what would happen when she flew back to London to finish her research and then returned home to Boston.
Instead, in the dark of night Kate pressed her cheek to Marcus’s skin and memorised the whorl where his skin puckered with the scar—as severe and beautiful as the star in any sapphire.
They spent the morning flying over the coast, past fishermen crouched on stilts sticking up out of the ocean, before heading inland over dense tropical rainforests and up over mountains ribboned with tea plantations.
Eventually they landed on an alluvial plain beside a river, not far from a large cluster of open huts with steeply pitched thatched roofs. Marcus grabbed his camera bag and said, ‘C’mon. These are the mines.’
The trio crunched their way over river pebbles towards the huts.
‘Those are mines?’ asked Liv, pointing to the holes secured with bamboo scaffolding to prevent them from collapsing.
‘Sure are! The roof is just to keep the sun off. They can only mine here in the dry season as these river flats swell when the rains come.’ Marcus had put his bag down and was screwing his wide lens onto his camera.