‘Kate?’ Marcus had finished setting up.
He stood in front of a cluster of emerald pieces gathered together, glinting and drawing the eye like a line of showgirls.
An emerald watch, a salamander brooch and a parrot cameo. Saanvi picked up the salamander in her gloved hand and held it up under one of the spotlights. The creature had been picked out in circles of emeralds soldered together with gold links. Kate wanted to poke her fingers into the tiny mouth dotted with black enamel because she was certain she would feel teeth. The brooch was turned over to reveal twin curved pins to secure the salamander to a hat, and more flecks of black enamel on a white belly that looked like the finest strands of hair.
‘The mystical creature who rose from the fire, the salamander,’ said Saanvi.
Kate tilted her head. It was one of the collection’s most iconic pieces, five hundred years old, and yet she didn’t know what to make of it. It was trying to tell her something … but what?
Marcus pointed at the hexagonal emerald watch as big as a baby’s fist. ‘I’ll shoot this first. I’ve never seen an emerald so big. Is it Colombian?’ he asked.
Saanvi nodded. ‘Muzo. I can’t believe this stone didn’t splinter when they carved out the inside for the watch. We think the watch parts could have been made and assembled in Geneva.’
Kate sucked in her breath. It was the most spectacular and audacious pairing of craftsmanship and imagination she was likely to see in her lifetime. If anybody ever asked her again why she worked as a jewellery historian, she’d simply point them to this exquisite emerald-cased watch. She copied the precise dimensions from Saanvi’s catalogue and then jotted down some questions.
Was emerald cut in London? What cities would it have passed through?
Royalty or wealthy aristocrat?
The next display was a series of bejewelled enamel buttons, together with some enamel necklaces with flowers: roses, bluebells and pansies.
Kate leaned over the last four buttons, gathered in a separate velvet box, and checked to see that Saanvi and Marcus were busy setting up the shot for the emerald watch. While the photographer moved to his bag to grab a different lens, she slipped the clear envelope with Essie’s sketches from the back of her notebook and held it beside the buttons.
‘Where’d you get that picture?’ asked Marcus as he came up behind Kate’s shoulder. ‘It’s the same button, isn’t it?’
Kate flinched and put her index finger to her lips as his eyes widened in recognition. She’d spent years trying to access these buttons at the museum, and the picture did appear to be similar to the jewels in front of her.
Essie—or whoever had drawn Essie’s pictures—had captured the likeness. The spirit. Kate imagined a line of these beauties down the back of a prim Elizabethan gown, or used to tether a gentleman’s cape as it flew behind him atop a galloping horse. Her great-grandmother could have seen a button like this anywhere. There was no proof that Essie’s sketch was of a Cheapside button.
Marcus’s eyes flicked across to where Saanvi was setting up a shot in the lightbox, then to Kate as he sucked in his breath. He mouthed, ‘Sorry,’ and raised an eyebrow.
Kate shrugged and slipped the image back into her notebook, hoping he would get the hint.
As Marcus left her standing beside the buttons, she realised that matching this picture to them didn’t prove a thing. The buttons were similar, that was all.
She glanced at the emerald watch and thought of Essie. Her great-grandmother had had the Irish gift of the gab and would sing Kate to sleep in her nursery with wild tales of leprechauns and faerie queens. She spoon-fed her folklore and history with every mouthful of colcannon.
But Kate’s favourite was the tale of a mysterious man who bewitched Essie with his emerald eyes in Cheapside.
Chapter 3
ESTHER MURPHY
LONDON, 1912
The jewels were discovered the same day Essie Murphy fell in love. She had her brother to thank for both, of course—though in the years to come she’d often wonder which one came first.
A buried bucket of jewels.
A man with emerald eyes.
The tale would become as much a part of her Irish folklore as Midir and Étain. Cut and polished over the years, with the roughs tossed out with the sorrow, betrayal and loss. No-one would know it had begun as equal parts tragedy and romance.
That fateful morning, Essie had pulled the front door shut behind her and prayed her mother was drunk enough to remain in bed.
Freddie had left at dawn for his long walk to work. It was up to Essie to walk her sisters to school before she too started work.
Behind her, the little twins Flora and Maggie giggled as they sat on the front step. Gertie, who was older, bent down to fasten their laces, snatching their skinny ankles and saying, ‘Stop moving about or I’ll ties these laces together. See how far you’ll get!’
The girls each lifted their pinafores to reveal boy’s boots that were several sizes too big.
Gertie gave Maggie’s leg a sharp tug as the little girl wriggled. ‘I’m warning you …’ she said, blue eyes blazing.
Essie sighed as Flora tugged at a gaping hole in her black woollen stocking and waggled her finger like a worm. Maggie put her hands over her mouth and started to giggle, before it dissolved into a hacking cough. Essie bent down and patted Maggie’s back to soothe her, worrying as she felt the child’s bones jutting through the thin fabric. Their plaits still reeked of sarsaparilla—remnants of the Rankin’s oil Essie had massaged into everyone’s heads last night to at least try to get rid of the lice that kept them scratching all night.
Gertie looked up with softer eyes and met Essie’s gaze before looking away with a gulp. ‘Every damn day …’ she muttered.
‘Gertie. Enough!’ But Essie’s scolding felt hollow.
There was nothing in the house for breakfast. Ma had fed the last hard crusts to the chickens. But the chicks were so hungry they were only laying every other day and now all residents of their Southwark garden flat were starting their day with empty stomachs. Again.
‘Up you get, girls,’ said Gertie with a weary voice much older than her fourteen years. ‘Here, each of you take one of my hands.’
‘Sing us a song, Gertie,’ begged Flora.
‘Please,’ her twin chimed in.
The trio leaped onto the footpath ahead of Essie, and Gertie started to half-sing ‘Colcannon’—a folk song about creamy mashed potatoes stirred through with green herbs, spring onions and kale. Essie rolled her eyes. Trust Gertie to sing about food they couldn’t have. ‘Really, Gertie,’ she said, ‘I don’t think—’
But the twins started to sing along tunelessly as they stumbled along, trying to keep up with Gertie in their too-big boots, looking like a pair of sailors after too many pints.
Or their mother any day of the week.
Essie tried to swallow her anger and resentment. Ma hadn’t always been like this, and she didn’t want the little girls to grow up hating their mother.
Every Halloween, Ma used to mix a batch of buttery mashed potato with bacon and herbs in her favourite skillet pot and poke in a coin, a button and a gold ring. Gertie always got the button in her bowl and Da would tickle her tummy and declare there was no man in Ireland good enough for his girls anyway.