‘Great.’ Marcus looked over the top of his own laptop and smiled. ‘So can I read the last chapter?’
‘Sure.’ She jumped up, took his laptop and placed it gently on the table, replacing it with her own before snuggling in beside him.
‘You’re seriously going to stare over my shoulder while I read?’
‘Maybe!’
The Cheapside Jewels
A memoir of jewels and family
‘I’ll sit right here and let you read while I drink my hot chocolate.’ She leaned her head against his shoulder as he started to read.
My work as a jewellery historian has taken me deep into tragedies of the past.
But sometimes tracing the stories and the line of a jewel—the light bouncing off a diamond, the hue of an emerald, the floral detail set into champlevé enamel, solder marks on the back of gold buttons—has shown me that, just like jewels, people can be transferred to a new setting and have a different kind of life …
My great-grandmother Essie Kirby wasn’t from wealthy stock. She was an Irish lass who sailed from England to Boston with one suitcase and arrived in America with a clean tunic, starched apron, a spare petticoat, a new husband and a baby in her belly.
We knew the provenance of the baby, my grandfather Joseph—or so we thought.
My great-grandfather, Niall Kirby, was a merchant seaman who made his money in shipping out of Boston. The custom-made sapphire earrings were his gift to Essie on their fiftieth wedding anniversary.
He died quietly in his sleep not long afterwards, with a smile on his face and traces of smoke and his favourite Caribbean rum on his breath. So my family never heard the story of where the sapphires came from—but I suspected from their velvety blue that they were picked up for a song in Sri Lanka back when the Brits called it Ceylon.
My father, Joseph Jr, was a scrap of a child neatly tucked into shirts and long pants at his grandparents’ anniversary dinner. But for as long as I can remember, he loved to spin the tale of how his grandpapa’s eyes sparkled as he handed the earrings to his beloved Essie Rose—the old man’s smooth Irish lilt whispering: ‘Mo stórín.’
My treasure. My love …
‘So?’ Kate studied Marcus’s face, the cup warming both hands as she clenched it a little too tight.
‘So … it’s wonderful. It’s the story of you, Essie and Bella. Who’d have thought a buried bucket of jewels would unearth your own family tale of heartbreak, loss and—’
‘Murder?’ Kate winced. ‘Too much?’
Marcus chuckled and tickled her belly. ‘I was actually going to say love. Unconditional and crazy big-hearted love.’ He kissed her nose, then her lips. He tasted of chocolate, cinnamon and hope.
‘Wait! I just have one more bit to add before I email it off to my publisher.’
Kate put down her cup, elbowed herself upright and grabbed her laptop. She found the title page and typed her dedication:
For Essie, who showed me what to look for.
And Marcus, who helped me find it.