The Lost Jewels

by Kirsty Manning

  “Stop!” Sachin tried to throw himself between the soldiers and his kneeling brother, as his father had done before.

  The guards kicked Sachin down into the dirt.

  “Shabdkosh!” yelled the guard, and Arjun lunged for the man’s ankle and bit hard.

  The guard threw his red face back and roared like a wolf.

  Sachin felt the stone digging deep into his eyeball as he fell onto Arjun to protect him from another beating and their sweaty bodies wrestled together in the dirt.

  The last thing Sachin heard was the shot of a pistol.

  Once, then twice.

  Chapter 6

  Kate

  LONDON, PRESENT DAY

  “Welcome to The Goldsmiths’ Company.”

  A footman in Elizabethan pantaloons, white stockings, and a red coat greeted Kate, checked her ID, and handed her an elegant nosegay of rosemary, lavender, rue, and a white rose wound in a circle and tied with a navy ribbon. She slipped the ribbon over her wrist and held it to her nose, inhaling the scent of the herbs as she crossed the marble foyer and strode up the grand staircase to the Livery Room.

  It was like she’d entered a giant jewel box, with pink marble Corinthian columns, red velvet curtains set within golden arches, and soaring molded ceilings detailed with gold leaf. Four enormous crystal chandeliers set the room ablaze.

  But the old-world formality was shattered by the beats being pumped out by a six-foot RuPaul-look-alike DJ in the far corner. The room seemed to spin, thanks to a slide show of antique rings, necklaces, and brooches blown up and projected onto the walls at all angles.

  Every June for the last decade, Shaw & Sons Jewellers had hosted the Bijoux Gala at The Goldsmiths’ Company—the fanciest guild in London, just a block from St. Paul’s Cathedral—and it was a highlight of London’s summer season. Kate’s best friend and host, Sophie Shaw, had managed to transform her conservative family business into the jewelry house in London in less than a decade, with zero brothers or sons to help her.

  Kate elbowed her way through the crowd of jewelers, aristocrats, and some elegant Chinese billionaires—some she recognized as her own clients—sipping Krug underneath green archways of star jasmine and bougainvillea. Spying her friend, she grinned like a maniac and waved.

  Sophie Shaw was wrapped in a hot pink sari, sported a new turquoise bob cut at an angle along her jawline, and wore a tiny emerald nose stud. On catching sight of Kate, she returned the wave, grimaced, and pointed at the next room, mouthing, “See you in there,” before miming downing a glass of champagne. Some things never changed.

  Among the crowd walked actors dressed in golden silk skirts and suits. The men wore white ruffs at their wrists and necks, and genuine longswords at their hips. The women’s bodices were so tight Kate worried a perky breast might pop out from the corsetry at any minute. Fashioned onto these Elizabethan costumes were pieces from Sophie’s latest collection. Chunky emerald rings were stitched into the neck ruffs, angular gold brooches sat at the breast, and long swathes of gold chains and pearls were strung over shoulders and swung down to waists. It was contemporary jewelry worn as in the seventeenth century, when Queen Elizabeth I’s ships ruled the seas. The women’s earlobes sparkled with an assortment of modern gold hoops and diamonds, and the black-clad bodyguards standing in every corner looked nervous.

  “Kate. Hello again.” Lucia Wright kissed her on both cheeks. “Isn’t Sophie amazing?”

  They both watched Sophie dance like a robot for a few steps while celebrities and pop stars looked on, laughing and clapping.

  “I love her. I mean, look . . .” Lucia turned to survey the crowd. “She asked to borrow some slides from the museum—she wanted to project London’s jewelry through the ages onto the walls. Watch out for them.” As she spoke an image of diamond and pearl brooches taken from the Crown Jewels flashed onto the wall in front of them. “Oh, and here’s someone I’d like you to meet . . .”

  A short, rotund man was approaching them, smiling shyly.

  “Kate, this is the librarian here at Goldsmiths’, Thomas Green. He might be able to help you with your feature. Thomas, this is Kate Kirby, a brilliant former student. She’s writing about the Cheapside jewels for an American magazine. I’ll leave you to it.” This last line was shouted over the top of an Eminem grind as Lucia turned and headed toward a group of snappily dressed young men.

  “How can I help?” Thomas asked kindly, and Kate liked him immediately. Librarians were some of her favorite people.

  Kate leaned close so he could hear her and asked, “I wonder if you could help me identify who owned the site where the Cheapside jewels were found?”

  “Well, that’s a complicated question. We think the cache was dug up at 30–32 Cheapside . . .”

  “Saanvi gave me the address and I walked past it on my way here,” Kate told him. It was a stone’s throw from The Goldsmiths’ Company—opposite St. Paul’s Cathedral.

  “Did you take the escalator to the basement? It’s right near the Marks and Sparks Food Hall.”

  “I did, but it’s hard to get the seventeenth-century vibe standing between the restrooms and a discount shoe store. The only sense of the past was St. Paul’s dome framed between the glass walls of the escalator.” She wondered how many Londoners knew they were literally pissing on their own history.

  “The problem is, there was more than one tenant on the premises. Rent books show a complex web of letting and subletting. There were local goldsmiths and stranger—that is, foreign—jewelers sharing quarters. Perhaps a group of jewelers combined their working stock in trade and it was those jewels that comprised the jewels dug up by the builder’s laborers hundreds of years later . . .”

  The museum staff had painstakingly identified and cataloged the more than five hundred pieces. It seemed decadent—until you walked into any jewelry store on Bond Street or Park Avenue and counted just how many pieces were on display. And that didn’t include any special stock tucked away in safes.

  “Next week I’ll have another look at the rent books for the 1600s, see what else I can find.”

  “Thank you,” said Kate.

  Mr. Green continued carefully, “But there’s no record of the navvies who allegedly found the stash. And we don’t know the discovery site for certain. Someone could have been covering their tracks. Made up the location so as not to reveal the true source of the treasure . . .”

  “If there are no records, then how do you know the jewels I saw at the museum were all part of the same cache?”

  “Good question. We don’t. The workmen were all digging in the same cellar on Cheapside around 1912. They pocketed clumps of dirt and tied up the jewelry in socks, shirts, and handkerchiefs. Most of the jewels were acquired for the new London Museum over a number of months by an, ah, antiquarian called George Fabian Lawrence—otherwise known as Stony Jack.”

  Kate pulled her notebook out and wrote the dealer’s name on a new page. As she wrote, she asked, “Did all the jewels from that Cheapside site go to him? Could the navvies have sold gemstones or jewels to someone else? Or kept them?” She tried to keep her voice even, but she held her breath, thinking of Essie’s sketches of jewels and remembering the articles and notices she’d read back in Boston: Such articles belong to the City of London . . . liable to prosecution.

  “How would we ever know?” He shrugged. “It’s possible that we’ll never know every piece. One of the workmen could have given a ring to their sweetheart or sold some gemstones to a dodgy diamond dealer on Cheapside. It was known as Goldsmiths’ Row, so there was no shortage of potential buyers.”

  “So some pieces of jewelry connected with the collection could be anywhere in the world?”

  “Exactly.” The librarian smiled and excused himself as one of the actors brushed uncomfortably close. Kate suspected the librarian was eager to escape the surging crowds.

  “Was Thomas helpful?” Lucia was back.

  “Yes. I’ve got plenty to follow up on when I’m bac
k in London in a couple of weeks.”

  “Back? Where’re you off to?” asked Lucia.

  “Jane has instructed us to go to the source.”

  “But the jewels come from everywhere—Colombian mountains, Indian valleys, and Sri Lankan beaches. Pearls from the Persian Gulf and Scottish Isles . . .”

  “I’ve decided to focus on a single piece to start with: one of the little champlevé rings.”

  “The black-and-white solitaire?”

  “Yes. The diamond is from Golconda.”

  “India. Yes, it’s one of our finest diamonds. But no one knows the exact locations of the mines . . . and they don’t mine in the area anymore.”

  “I know. I’m taking a slightly different approach. I want to see the bazaar of Hyderabad where the diamonds of Golconda were traded. I’ve read so much about the famous European gemstone merchants traveling through Asia and Persia along the trade routes. Jane wants me—and Marcus—to investigate the source . . . so I want to get a feel for the place. Try to capture the hands that traded the stone—then created this ring—between India and London.

  “I’m also going to head to Sri Lanka. Up near Ratnapura, where Marcus says he has some contacts he can introduce me to. I’d like to see how the gemstones are mined today. Saanvi said some of the gemstones from Cheapside were possibly from that region.”

  “Sounds fascinating. Very different angle . . . can’t wait to see what you uncover!” Lucia glanced at Kate’s earrings. “Gorgeous sapphires by the way.”

  “Thanks. They belonged to my great-grandmother.”

  “I bet there’s a lovely story behind them. From the cornflower color . . . I’d say Sri Lanka?”

  “Perhaps.” Kate felt her face grow hot. She knew how ridiculous it sounded. She spent her life flying around the world researching rare jewels, hunting stories, yet she didn’t know the first thing about these earrings. The sapphires were a daily reminder of how little she really knew of her great-grandmother Essie’s story. “I don’t really know,” she muttered, embarrassed.

  “Nothing at all?”

  “My great-grandfather Niall Kirby was a merchant seaman who went into shipping out of Boston. These were his gift to Essie on their fiftieth wedding anniversary.” Had the seaman known of the Ancient Greek belief that the sappheiros was the symbol of sincerity and faithfulness?

  “He died in his sleep soon afterward, so nobody knows where the sapphires actually came from. I suspect you’re correct, though, and they were picked up for a song in Sri Lanka.”

  “It does sound likely,” said Lucia. She took a sip of champagne.

  “Apparently Niall called Essie, Mo stóirín.”

  “Irish. ‘My treasure’ or ‘my love,’ ” Lucia translated. “Now that’s a beautiful story for those earrings.”

  Lucia turned her head and surveyed the room. “We have a roomful of stories here tonight, don’t we? Look at all these people tripping over themselves to touch Sophie’s pieces. I bet they wish they could touch the images on the wall too.” She gestured to where a group was staring openmouthed at an image of some enamel and bejeweled gold necklace blinking on the wall. “I mean, the lure of priceless jewels is one thing, but each of these antique pieces was designed for one person and crafted by another. Each piece has a special story.”

  Kate nodded. This was probably why she was so intrigued by the little diamond ring.

  “That individual piece becomes an heirloom,” she continued. “Like your sapphires.”

  Kate swallowed as she recalled the broad laugh and untamed curls of her great-grandmother Essie. The same curls had covered Noah’s tiny head.

  “When people pass”—Lucia was speaking softly now, and Kate had to strain to hear her over the music—“sometimes it is enough just to bury yourself in something so exquisite, so beautiful, that it reminds us that there is hope. That people can be beautiful, thoughtful, and kind.” The older woman put her hand on Kate’s arm. “Keats was right, you know: Beauty is truth, truth beauty and all that.”

  Beauty is truth, truth beauty . . . The words drew Kate back to another party, another time.

  It was too late by then, of course. You could unpick the past, but never undo it.

  Chapter 7

  Kate

  LOUISBURG SQUARE, BOSTON, 2002

  Kate hadn’t known that her eighteenth birthday would be the last time she’d see Essie.

  “Here you are!” Kate grinned as she poked her head around the study door and saw her great-grandmother standing in front of the bill of sale for the SS Esther Rose. “The party has started without you. They’re all in the conservatory admiring the croquembouche. I brought you a glass of champagne.” Kate held out a cut-glass flute.

  “Thank you, my dear. Happy birthday!”

  They clinked glasses.

  “What’s that?” Kate pointed inside the desk drawer her great-grandmother had just opened.

  “Oh, just random clippings and pictures from England that take my fancy. I never returned to London. It’s my biggest regret—and that door has closed to me now.” She smiled wistfully. “Still, I like to know what’s happening in my homeland . . .”

  Essie pushed the drawer closed with her hip, but not before removing something.

  “These are for you.” She passed Kate a tiny wooden jewelry box. “Consider it an eighteenth-birthday present . . . coming of age, whatever you want.” She waved her hand and collapsed onto the couch with a sigh.

  “Essie, you’re already giving me this party,” Kate said in protest. “I don’t need another gift.”

  “Pfft. I just couldn’t fathom the thought of standing around in that concrete and glass mausoleum your mother insists on calling a home.”

  “It won Wallpaper House of the Year!”

  “I have no idea what that means, my darling. Your mother doesn’t design homes. A home has spirit and warmth. A history. I’m always afraid if I stay at your house too long she’ll whisk me into one of those hidden storage cupboards. Now, open the box!”

  Kate chuckled and opened the box to find a pair of sapphire earrings. And not just any earrings—they were Essie’s favorites. She snapped it closed. “I can’t accept these. Niall gave them to you.”

  “Nonsense. I insist. I never had any heirloom passed to me except trouble, if you count that . . .” She looked sad, and suddenly a decade older. “Besides, I can’t wear them anymore; my earlobes touch my shoulders. Look!” Essie tugged an earlobe under her mop of wild white curls.

  Kate laughed. “They do not.” She unfastened the earrings from the box and held the sapphires up to the light. It felt like gazing into the ocean. She’d played with these very earrings hundreds of times as a little girl, rolling them around on her great-grandmother’s dressing table.

  Essie’s expression was a strange mix of love and melancholy as she drew out a long necklace tucked under her collar and let the gold run through her fingers. As if somehow she didn’t quite deserve it.

  “Take the sapphires, Katherine. I insist. Every young woman needs a little something in the hem of her skirt when she sets sail. And you, my dear, are setting sail.”

  Kate sat on the arm of the couch, touched by the gift, but slightly confused. Essie’s quip about jewels in the hem of her skirt seemed an odd thing to say. Then again, she was always repeating little Irish sayings . . . Essie wrapped her arm around her great-granddaughter’s waist.

  “They’re beautiful—thank you,” said Kate as the tears welled in her eyes. She’d miss her weekly visits with Essie. “Will you phone me every week?”

  “I certainly will not! I detest those handheld phones, or whatever it is you young people use. I only have a phone because your father insisted on being able to contact me at all times. But who wants that? It’s none of your father’s business what I get up to.”

  “What if they can’t reach you in an emergency?”

  “A woman has to keep a little mystery about her.”

  “Speaking of mysteries, remem
ber how I asked for your permission to write about you in my college admissions paper?”

  “You had my blessing, child. Lord only knows why you wanted to. There are far more interesting women getting about than me.”

  “You’ve never much talked about your life in London. Why you left all by yourself . . .”

  Kate hesitated, regretting her lack of subtlety. She knew the bare bones of Essie’s childhood: kippers on Fridays, the clanging sound of Big Ben striking on the hour, suffragettes in white striding around the Monument. Skinny kids kicking a football made from sheep guts in narrow cobbled lanes. A poor Irish immigrant family crowded into a garden flat. Some of the siblings never made it to adulthood. No wonder Essie preferred to make her early years in London sound like a fairy tale—the reality must have been awful.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry. It’s just that I’ve always been curious about how you made a new life on the other side of the world. Colleges want to know how we overcome challenges, but . . .”

  She blushed as her great-grandmother sipped champagne.

  Kate pulled a copy of her college entrance essay from her purse. “I brought you a copy. I thought you might like to read it sometime.”

  “You read it to me now.”

  “No!” said Kate.

  “Please? My eyesight is so poor . . .”

  There was no use arguing. Kate cleared her throat and began to read:

  “Perhaps it is the Irish blood in my veins that makes me yearn to tell stories. My Irish great-grandmother, Essie, crossed the Atlantic to find a better life in the New World for herself and the family that was to come.

  “This story of a girl, a boat, and a heart full of hope is as much a part of me as my left arm. And yet stories from her old world were spun into fairy tales, and I’ve never been sure where the fantasy ended and the truth began.”

  Kate looked over the top of her page and saw that Essie had closed her eyes and was nodding. There was a trace of a smile—or was she asleep?