The Lost Jewels

by Kirsty Manning

  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 five hundred 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 hat pin (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 the night before, 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 behavior 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 memorized 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 toward 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.

  The area in which they stood was cleared, but it looked like the vines and thick foliage of the rainforest a hundred yards away were creeping back in to swallow the valley. Gemstone roughs were only discovered in this region after they’d been dislodged and washed into the waterways. Streams, rivers, and creeks ran through the mountains, leaving deposits of blue, pink, and yellow sapphires and pink rubies, cat’s-eyes, and garnets, as well as a long list of other colored gemstones—more gemstones than in any other place in the world.

  “Ratnapura: city of gems,” said Marcus.

  Kate looked up into the mountains and marveled that the exact deposits of all these magical stones still remained a mystery. For reasons she couldn’t explain, this cheered Kate. She loved that Mother Nature didn’t reveal all her secrets.

  Marcus ushered them over to a pit, where workers in white shorts hoisted buckets of gravel out with a series of pulleys. Their muscles strained at their necks and backs, their skin was shiny with sweat. Marcus approached the foreman, who was expecting them, and introduced Kate and Liv. With the workers’ permission, Marcus started to take photos.

  Liv spoke first. “I wasn’t expecting it to be so, so . . . hand-driven. I thought mining was mostly done by machine these days?”

  “Open-cut mines are forbidden,” said the foreman. “At the end of the dry season, all these pits are dismantled and the holes filled in. Revegetated. The government keeps a close watch too, regulating pay and conditions.”

  Kate nodded and moved across to a small dam where a handful of men were winnowing gravel and water through straw baskets, sifting for gemstones.

  The men stopped and struck poses for Marcus as he clicked. A few waved shyly at Liv, and she waved back as she started to fiddle with the lens of her own camera. Marcus had given it to her yesterday. “For traveling when you’re done with school. I know it’s cumbersome, but this is the smallest, and you’ve got a great eye, so . . .”

  Liv had given her father the biggest hug. “You really didn’t need to. I’m already so grateful for this trip. Beats studying in Sydney with my brothers kicking balls against my door all afternoon!”

  “Pleasure. And I promise I won’t tell your mother how much you’re missing Jacko and Harry.” He grinned. “Can’t fool me, kiddo.”

  Marcus dropped to one knee beside Liv to show her how to get a better angle to shoot the pits. He was patient and gave clear instructions, even when Liv started to thrust her camera under his nose in frustration because a light was blinking or the shutter wasn’t working.

  “Try again. You’ll get the hang of it.”

  He glanced up at Kate and smiled, cocking his head on a slight angle with just the hint of a raised eyebrow. Kate would miss this look when they flew out on different planes tomorrow.

  While she had been wrapping up her final day’s writing in Galle yesterday, an email had appeared in her inbox from an executive at Cartier asking if Kate were perhaps free to meet with their master enameler, Madame Parsons, at one of their workshops later this week in Paris. There was a private commission they wished to record for their archives, some sketches they’d like her to see—with the utmost discretion, of course. Kate realized that this brief meeting would give her an opportunity to talk with a master enameler about the champlevé ring. Perhaps get a different angle for her magazine article—Jane would be thrilled!

  Kate would go to Paris, then return to London, before she could finally head home to Boston.

  She’d asked Marcus on a whim last night to join her in Paris, but he had to fly back to New York for Fashion Week, and then to Colombia. He was going on from there to Sydney for Liv’s end-of-school celebrations that kicked off in a few weeks.

  “I promised Liv and Jules I’d be there. I missed those precious early moments—I’ll be damned if I’m going to miss this!” His voice softened. “I’m sorry. If I’d known . . .” Marcus’s dark eyes had bored into hers.

  “I get it,” she said with burning cheeks. And she did understand. Marcus dived deep into every moment and held it steady. This was the end of their moment . . .

  She wasn’t surprised. Marcus had shaken something awake in her and for that she was grateful. If she was embarrassed, it was because her mind had o
vershot into thoughts of the future, and the past few years had taught her how dangerous that could be.

  As Kate stepped forward to peer into the pit, she studied the layers of sediment and rock and the shadows on sinewy arms heaving up buckets of gravel. Behind her, the scratching sound of winnowing baskets settled into a rhythm as the mist rolled down the mountains.

  Beside her, one of the miners plucked at his basket of gravel like he was picking flowers. So many hands passed over a jewel from the moment it was removed from the gravel. Each time, a life was altered.

  Kate thought of the tiny black-and-white ring with the diamond from Golconda. Though it was probably mined in the 1600s, it was likely the pit mines had looked a little like this. She reflected on its journey from the mines, perhaps passing through the thick walls of the Golconda Fort she’d walked with Marcus in India, then being traded in Hyderabad’s bazaar with the call to prayer ringing out from the Charminar across the city. The diamond rough would have been wrapped up in silk or cotton, no doubt, then marched on the back of a bullock chain overland to Bandar Abbas, where perhaps this mysterious Polman bought it, along with other precious gems. He’d attempted to bring them to England on a ship, risking pirates and shipwreck, and had been murdered for his efforts. Somehow the diamond had made it into the hands of an artisan jeweler, who crafted the exquisite champlevé band. Such a beautiful diamond, such a hazardous journey. Kate was following the same journey, with the comfort and convenience of a plane. What both journeys shared was the quest for beauty, for truth.

  The Ship

  BANDAR ABBAS, PERSIA, 1631

  Robbie Parker moved along the boom checking folds in the sails, ignoring the steady rocking of the ship. All around him the crew worked to load, roll, and store barrels full of tobacco, Shiraz, and fresh water below deck.

  Behind him, the Discovery’s captain was murmuring with the surgeon about a new passenger.

  “His name’s Polman—Gerhard Polman,” said the captain as he waved the transport papers.

  “Dutch?” asked the surgeon.

  “Indeed. But he’s been here for decades. Paid the East India Company a hundred pounds for safe passage to London. Trouble is he’s poorly . . . and not from the drink.”

  Robbie whistled. One hundred pounds was a king’s ransom. Why was this passenger paying so much?

  The captain caught Robbie’s eye and gave him a stern look before barking, “Help, boy!” He pointed to the longboat knocking at the prow, where the passenger lay on a stretcher, pale and sweating.

  The sailors winched him up to the deck very slowly, careful not to knock him on the rail.

  “Almost aboard,” coaxed the surgeon as the crew brought the stretcher to rest on the deck. The passenger yelped and clutched at his belly.

  The Dutchman’s head tipped to one side and his white shirt caught in the breeze, billowing open at the neck. Beneath the shirt he wore a leather pouch on a string. He moaned and tucked it away, buttoning up his shirt with shaky hands.

  The boy looked around to see if anyone else had noticed, but the rest of the crew were busy hoisting aboard the passenger’s luggage: several heavy trunks as well as smaller wooden caskets.

  The ship groaned and shifted with the breeze. Polman shuddered.

  “Easy, easy.” Robbie touched the passenger on the shoulder in a bid to calm him and studied the shoreline.

  He thought of the girl at his favorite dining room swathed in black silk, her dark eyes traced with kohl. Bands of gold encircling her arms, chains around her belly. The tinkle as her hips swayed when she served him mint tea and plates of steaming yellow rice. How he’d longed to put a hand on each hip and sink his head into the soft strip of flesh above her skirt.

  He glanced at the sun over the mountains behind the city and wondered when he’d visit these shores again. Would he remember where to find the girl? Would her father let Robbie visit after their table’s bawdiness last night as they filled their gullets with Shiraz? He didn’t even think to ask her name . . . Robbie’s chest ached with shame.

  “Carry this gentleman to his cabin,” instructed the surgeon.

  “One. Two—”

  “Wait!” cried the patient, lifting his hand.

  The surgeon shushed the Dutchman as if he were a fussing toddler. “Sir! It will be far more comfortable for you in your cabin. I insist.”

  The passenger ignored the surgeon and looked over to where the last of his trunks was being hoisted aboard.

  A burly sailor yanked hard on the rope, then accidentally released his grip. The trunk spun out of control through the pulleys, creating an unnerving whistle. The sailor cursed under his breath and rubbed his burning hand on his thigh.

  The Dutchman twisted his head to where the trunk had hit the deck. The carpenter was righting the chest and repacking the tools that had spilled from it. Robbie turned to follow the Dutchman’s gaze.

  In among the pile of tools was a rough green stone about the size of Robbie’s fist. He’d been ashore in Bandar Abbas long enough to recognize an emerald. Beside it was a leather sack that had fallen open, and a trickle of clear stones spilled out like running water.

  Among them was a diamond rough that shone a little brighter than all the others, with the slightest hint of gold. He stepped forward to pick it up but was pushed aside by one of the deckhands, who grabbed the diamond along with all the others, placed it in the chest, and slammed the lid shut.

  Chapter 20

  Essie

  LONDON, 1912

  “What’s happened?”

  Mrs. Yarwood had greeted Essie at the Yarwoods’ front door with a distraught expression.

  “It’s Flora.”

  Essie had arrived home a little later than usual this Saturday evening, having lost track of time as she enjoyed her first silver service Devonshire tea at Fortnum & Mason with Edward.

  “I’m so sorry, love . . .” Her neighbor choked on her words.

  Essie bolted down the hallway to find Flora and Maggie on a mattress, chests wrapped in brown paper, hair lank around their pale faces. The room smelled of pine oil and fear.

  Ma was kneeling beside the twins, rubbing Flora’s chest with Mrs. Yarwood’s oil before reaching for each of their hands and pressing them to her heart.

  Gertie entered the room carrying a bowl of hot water, while Mrs. Yarwood draped a woolen blanket over both girls. Flora’s skin was gray and her rib cage shuddered with each breath. Maggie started to cough, her head lolling to the side when the attack had subsided. She found Essie’s eyes, and the edges of her lips moved a fraction.

  “I’ve sent Mr. Yarwood off to fetch the doctor,” Mrs. Yarwood told her.

  But the words barely registered as Essie ran to the twins.

  Mrs. Yarwood had hardly spoken when they heard the front door open. Essie’s stomach flipped with relief, and she squeezed Maggie’s tiny cold hand.

  “You’ll be right soon enough,” she whispered as Gertie stared at her across the steaming bowl of water.

  But the man Mr. Yarwood ushered into the room was no doctor; Essie looked up to see Father McGuire, draped in his black robes. He smelled of cigarettes and scorn.

  “It’s the croup, Father. Their little lungs are so weak—bless their souls,” sobbed Ma. “Please!”

  Essie looked at Flora and Maggie, who were straining to breathe.

  Gertie rolled her eyes and muttered through gritted teeth, “The girls need a doctor.”

  Essie doubted there was a prayer in the world that could save these two, but without so much as a glance at the sweaty, sallow faces of Flora and Maggie, nor a word of solace to their mother or sisters, the priest began to recite the Hail Mary.

  Essie dug her nails deep into her palms and tried to swallow, tried to find words to protest as the walls started to close in.

  “Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us now, and at the hour of our death . . .”

  * * *

  When Gertie was tucked up in bed each night, Essie lit the oil
lamp, tiptoed upstairs, and lifted Gertie’s notebook from the side table. She sat in the rocking chair with the ledger in her lap and opened to the page with the lost twins. She studied the fine line of Maggie’s limbs, the bow-tie birthmark on Flora’s neck. Ran her fingers over their loose braids and kissed their freckles, as if she could breathe life onto the page.

  This was the room where she’d rocked the twins to sleep in a shared cradle through long winter nights. When they were sick, she’d rubbed Russian tallow or goose fat into their sunken chests, wrapped them in brown paper, and held them close to keep them warm.

  It had taken just two days from the Saturday when they had fallen ill for Flora and Maggie to draw their last breaths. Inseparable till the last, Flora had clung to Maggie’s limp form as they both faded away.

  The church sent a horse and dray filled with coffins, and the twins were carried out and loaded into the smallest two.

  The funeral had been almost a week ago now, but the day of the funeral remained stark and vivid in her mind.

  As the dray clattered over the cobblestones, the coffins slid around and Essie wished she could shout to the driver to take a little more care. She knew the girls couldn’t feel the bumps, but all the same . . .

  Essie walked beside Gertie, clutching her hand.

  Ma stepped gingerly behind, half carried by Freddie. Essie’s brother had turned up on the night the girls took their last breaths, filthy, broke, and ashamed. When he’d seen the state of the twins, his wretched face reflected the grief and regret of them all.

  The funeral in the stone church was attended by a handful of local Irish families, and a line of coffins blessed in a batch. It was a service that could have just as easily been presided over by the tax collector, it was so devoid of emotion.

  A line of coffins, a litany of prayers. An unconvincing homily. It finished with a burial in the paupers’ yard up the road.

  Gertie muttered to Essie as the priest gave a righteous sermon denouncing sin and asking for forgiveness, “It’s a little late for prayer now.”