The Pearl Thief

by Elizabeth E. Wein

  I snatched up a couple of cold beef sandwiches and two bottles of ginger beer and made a beeline for Francis Dunbar, standing awkwardly a little apart from everybody else, looking a little lost, with one hand deep in his pocket and a cigarette in the other. Father and Jamie were chatting to Moredun about moorland maintenance; Euan had vanished discreetly into the gorse with the rest of the beaters; Sandy was being solicitous of Mary; Jean McEwen was organising the emptying of the ponies’ baskets; and Mother was helping Mrs Menzies be hostess to a party of about twenty-five local people who all knew each other. Frank was a clear outsider.

  ‘Here you are, Mr Dunbar,’ I said, holding up a sandwich and a bottle. He came out of his dream, smiled with pleasure and crushed his cigarette underfoot.

  ‘Thank you, Miss Beaufort-Stuart,’ he said. ‘Have you had a good morning? Oh, and many happy returns!’

  I looked up at him archly (so stupid – perfectly embarrassing behaviour on my part, but of course I was trying to avoid being recognised by Florrie). He took the bottle and sandwich and watched me wrestle ineffectively – on purpose – to get my own bottle open.

  ‘Let me,’ he said, predictably.

  This allowed our hands to brush against each other’s, and me to laugh as the fizzy drink popped and bubbled over the neck of the bottle, and when he gave it back to me we had to wipe our hands on the edge of a tablecloth. And we ended up sitting together.

  ‘I missed everything I shot at,’ I admitted. ‘How about you?’

  ‘Not too bad. I’m out of practice, but I’ve been satisfied this morning. I was a soldier for ten years; I did a lot of game hunting in India.’

  ‘That’s right – you’re a veteran of the Black Watch, like Sergeant Henderson and Alan McEwen! You’ll wear your kilt tonight?’

  ‘Of course!’

  Embarrassing.

  But I was enjoying it too; and when he noticed my birthday present from Mummy, it was an excuse to give him my hand and let him hold it and admire it – my hand, I mean, though the ring was the excuse.

  It is a square-cut ruby in rose gold, set between wee triangles of tiny pearls.

  I told him, ‘It was my great-grandmother’s. My grandmother gave it to Mother for her eighteenth birthday.’ (See how I slipped that in? Quite true, but perpetuating the illusion that today was my eighteenth.)

  ‘Are they Fearn river pearls?’

  ‘All but one of them is. There’s a story about it. The setting is French, and my grandmother lost one of the pearls right after she was married, and the jeweller in Perth couldn’t match it. So my grandfather replaced them all with Fearn pearls that he’d found himself. After my mother was married, she lost another! So my father replaced it with a Dee pearl he’d found in the river on our estate at Craig Castle in Aberdeenshire. They don’t quite match now, if you look closely.’

  ‘Would you believe that after all the time I’ve been at Strathfearn, I still can’t tell a Fearn river pearl when I see one?’ Frank said.

  He raised my fingers and bent his head to look at the ring, then prudently let go, flushing a little.

  ‘Can’t you see the difference?’ I asked.

  ‘One’s almost gold-hued!’

  ‘That’s the one from the Dee. The pinker ones are from the Fearn.’

  ‘Pearls from two of your rivers. I like that.’

  I said honestly, ‘I do too. I love it fiercely for just that. Because it is a little bit of Strathfearn and a little bit of Craigie and a little bit of France, and of my mother and father and grandmother and grandfather, and I will have it with me always. It is all of ours and they are part of me.’

  We caught each other’s eyes. I turned away demurely.

  ‘Have you met my father?’ I asked, recognising the moment when our tête-à-tête was beginning to look too intimate. ‘Come along and be introduced.’

  And that gave me the excuse to be tucked into Father’s side with his arm around my waist, receiving a kiss on the head instead of the dreadful birthday bumps we used to get as small children. By this time I was fairly sure my diversion was successful and Florrie wasn’t gasping for me today.

  When the afternoon was over, one of the big guest bedrooms at Glenmoredun Castle was relegated to the girls to change in; and we got to use the bathrooms, which was delightful (if rushed). The castle is as old as the one at Aberfearn, bits of it fourteenth century, but in good nick. Their hot-water boiler was installed five years ago, modern and efficient, unlike ours which is Victorian.

  By the time the ceilidh was to start I’d been fully transformed not just by the green-gold dancing frock and long white gloves and priceless necklace that wasn’t mine, but also by my fairy godmother Solange’s incredible magic wrought with hot curling tongs and sugar-water. I swear it took a full hour for her to wave my hair and, if it was not as swift a transformation as Cinderella’s, it was certainly as complete. Not a single hairpin was used and I ended up looking like I was ready to be photographed for Vogue.

  Solange indeed looked beautiful too, in a dress of asymmetric black and white panels that she bought the last time we were all in France. The other girls were rather in awe of her recent brush with injustice; I found myself feeling protective and proud.

  The party was bittersweet, knowing we’d probably not be here next year. Also, as I found myself whirling and stamping to the same tunes that Euan had piped us three weeks ago, I grew melancholy about the McEwens.

  I had a moment of glory during one of the breaks as everyone sang ‘For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow’, and Father made a speech in which he teased me about my aim but praised my fortitude, in light of my not-so-recent accident. I did not sit out one single dance. This, of course, was because I was being cunning about whom I danced with. And Francis Dunbar looked splendid in his Black Watch kilt and black Prince Charlie jacket twinkling with silver. It took careful planning to end up across from him.

  Ellen’s necklace was a source of much probing curiosity.

  The other ladies, to Mother: ‘My dear Esmé, where do Julia’s pearls come from? That’s surely not a birthday gift?’

  ‘They’re part of the Murray Estate. She says Sandy found them among the objects he’s cataloguing for the Murray Collection.’

  ‘Really, they ought to be locked up.’

  ‘She’s to return them the second she takes her clothes off, I can assure you. And they will be locked up, or more likely put on display in a museum, but don’t you think it’s lovely that they’re being worn?’

  And the Menzies girls, my own age, to me: ‘Are those your pearls, Julie?’

  ‘They’re on loan from the Murray Estate.’

  ‘I’d be terrified to touch them, let alone dance in them!’

  ‘Go on, touch. They don’t bite!’

  And Francis Dunbar, mid-waltz: ‘Are those Fearn pearls too?’

  ‘No, they’re Tay pearls. They’re not mine. They’re part of the Murray Estate.’

  ‘Part of the Murray Estate,’ he echoed, staring down at me with that air of perpetual bafflement that makes him seem faintly vulnerable and which I find so appealing. ‘I thought those pearls were sold.’

  ‘Sandy found ’em in the Hoard,’ I said. ‘They have to go back tonight.’

  ‘How disappointing for you!’

  ‘No, I’m happy I get to wear them for my birthday party. They make me sensational.’

  He laughed. ‘You’d still be sensational without them.’

  And because Mary had given me the key to her kitchen door to allow me to return the pearls to the Murray Collection straight away, Mummy let me have the Magnette so I could stop at the Inverfearnie Library on my way back to Strathfearn House. And because Frank was going back to Strathfearn House too and there was an extra seat in the car, I asked him to come along with me.

  Oh, that was probably an error. My own error. I should have at least told someone he was coming with me. But I was no longer being watched over like a Russian princess and it was late, and I was feeling
adult and elegant and sure of myself – dressed for Vogue, old enough to be married – and I thought I was being responsible.

  18

  AS FAIR ART THOU, MY BONNIE LASS

  The moon was one single night past full, the light flooding and shadowing the birch wood and the River Fearn. It was stunningly, ethereally beautiful. The little library on Inverfearnie Island had two yellow lights left welcomingly glowing, one in the kitchen and one upstairs.

  ‘Mary went straight home after the shoot. She said she’d go to bed about nine,’ I said, as I drew the car up on the gravel in the circular drive in front of the old building and shut off the motor.

  The undying night voice of the Fearn was suddenly interrupted by a sharp, warning bark. Frank started.

  ‘Is that the Travellers’ dog?’

  ‘It’s the heron. They sometimes hunt at night. Listen …’

  The heron cried again, wild and strange in the dark.

  ‘I’m glad you know what it is!’ Frank told me.

  ‘Me too,’ I laughed. ‘I don’t like ghosts!’

  I got out. Frank had a harder time extracting his long body from the confines of the little Magnette. I laughed again, and went round the front of the car to hold the door for him.

  ‘I’m supposed to do that for you!’ he objected.

  ‘Never mind, I know you can be chivalrous when you try.’

  The night air was still warm; even in the evening wind of the open motor car I hadn’t wanted a wrap. I got out Mary’s key. Frank offered me his arm as we made our way around the back. He held the door open for me, and followed me inside.

  ‘Have you been here before?’ I asked softly. Silly, I know, to keep our voices low, as Mary couldn’t possibly have heard us. But knowing she might be sleeping made me want to be quiet.

  ‘I’ve not been inside.’

  ‘How ridiculous! It’s a national treasure. It’s one of the oldest public lending libraries in Scotland, opened in the seventeenth century. Mostly just useful stuff for farmers and landowners, but there’s a rather wonderful display of first editions of Robert Burns, and …’

  It was too dark to see the display cases downstairs. I didn’t want to switch on lights.

  ‘I can’t show you in the dark, but there’s a pearl bracelet that belonged to Mary Queen of Scots as a child. She gave it to the Murrays and they gave it to the library.’

  He drew in a breath, then exclaimed, ‘How wonderful!’

  I led the way upstairs.

  ‘This is the Upper Reading Room. This is where they’ve been cataloguing the Murray Collection.’

  The casement window was propped open to the silver night. The Keiller jar of stolen pearls (minus the ones I was wearing) was still sitting on the big table in the middle, unopened, undiscovered.

  There was one electric standing lamp which Mary had left alight by the stairs. I glanced over my shoulder at Dunbar, a pace or two behind me; his face was shadowed, but the light behind him caught on his silver cuff buttons.

  ‘Can you help me with the necklace?’ I asked. ‘It’s not got a proper clasp – the pearls are strung on a thread that ties at the back. I can’t see to untie it.’

  I turned around and bent my head. His fingertips at the nape of my neck were hard and gentle. I turned again when he’d finished and held out my hand for the pearls; they slid like running water from his palm into mine.

  Again I turned around, and dropped the pearls into the small round wooden cup, cracked and black with age, where I’d first seen them, and they piled up in its dark globe like a little celestial host of moons.

  That’s where you belong, I told them silently, and spun on one heel back to Dunbar.

  ‘Oh, Julie, stop there a moment,’ he begged. ‘You never stop moving. Let me look at you. Just for a moment.’

  I did stop. It was startlement – the longing in his voice was so genuine, and unexpected. I froze and I tried to imagine what he saw: Tinker Bell in a cloud of spring-green chiffon, my mouth and eyelids dark with grown-up paint, lamplight glinting on the glossy artificial waves of my hair.

  ‘Julie,’ he repeated hoarsely.

  No, he didn’t see a dusted fairy. He saw clear hazel eyes like Cairngorm amber in the lamplight, and defiant hair like ripe wheat, and smooth skin like new milk. He saw through the coloured powder and the floating silk. He saw a woman.

  I took a step backward and found myself trapped against the library table. I grabbed the edge for support; the polished chestnut was slippery beneath my gloves. Here it comes if you want it, I thought, that kiss.

  And suddenly I wasn’t sure I did. I wasn’t … well … I didn’t know if I was ready.

  But he was more beautiful than ever in the black coat and silver buttons and Black Watch tartan, and I thought, Shame on me if I don’t try.

  So I stood still and let him look at me. I had to turn my face aside a little so that the lamp behind him didn’t blind me. After a long, hushed moment he stepped across the space between us. He leaned down towards my face and kissed me very chastely on the lips. Just briefly, but so intimate.

  ‘You are …’

  ‘What am I?’ It came out as a whisper, half-caught in my throat.

  ‘I don’t exactly know,’ he laughed.

  And then he took me by the shoulders and suddenly it wasn’t chaste any more; suddenly another kiss came slamming into me like a rolling wave and I was caught in it like an empty shell dashed against shingle.

  And I realised I wasn’t ready. It really is that simple.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy it. It was that I knew I was about to lose control. Ellen had let me choose. Even the Water Bailiff had let me choose. Francis Dunbar wasn’t going to.

  Our mouths were glued together and I was gripping the edge of the table behind me with both hands. I let go with one hand and reached up to grab him by the back of his neck, trying to dig my nails in to get his attention, trying to hurt him enough that he let go for a moment. The gloves foiled me. My nails were blunted and he mistook my grip for returned passion. I changed my tactic and got my fingers hooked between his collar and his throat, and pulled until he had to come up for air.

  ‘What?’ he gasped.

  ‘I lied to you!’ I babbled wildly. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have, but it was so easy! I’m not eighteen.’

  ‘It’s not your birthday?’

  ‘I’m not eighteen!’

  Oh, heaven help us, does passion make all men so stupid? He still didn’t understand that I was trying to turn him away.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Julie,’ he said. ‘You needn’t lie to me. No matter when. You’re unbelievably lovely –’

  ‘I’m sixteen,’ I rasped at him. ‘Sixteen today. It’s my sixteenth birthday today.’

  He looked baffled for a moment, then showered me with his slow and melting film-star smile. He shifted his grip on my shoulders and murmured enticingly, ‘Many happy returns of the day.’

  I heard myself make a sound that could as easily have been a gasp of laughter as a sob of frustration. O God, I was being terribly cack-handed. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

  He moved his hands across my shoulders. He’d been a soldier and a hunter in India; his touch was firm and experienced, and his fingers were large and strong and restless. They slipped lightly a little down my torso and hesitated, tautening, over my breasts. He explored the lines of my body through the silk. I could tell he was doing it on purpose, touching me. It made me feel entirely naked.

  ‘Don’t,’ I said sharply. ‘Stop.’

  He paused. He was so much taller than me.

  ‘You vixen,’ he said quietly, moving his hands back up to grip my shoulders, and bent his mouth to mine for another plunging kiss.

  I was wholly out of my depth.

  I tore my face away from his; it hurt to do it.

  ‘Mary!’ I screamed desperately, ‘Mary!’

  Of course she couldn’t hear me.

  But Francis Dunbar could, and h
e took a baby step backwards, though he was still holding tight to my shoulders.

  ‘Why, Julie!’

  He was shocked, amazed to discover I didn’t want this. No, not amazed – disbelieving. Because he wasn’t toying with me. He was serious. This is how a lad gives a kiss when he means it.

  ‘I’m not … I’m not ready!’

  ‘Let me show you.’

  ‘I know how. I’m not ready for you. It’s not right.’

  Oh, if it had been right, he’d have listened to me.

  ‘Julie,’ he said gently, relentless as a roadroller, ‘it’s easy. Don’t be afraid. You are so beautiful. I won’t hurt you again.’

  And it was true – he wasn’t hurting me now. He was … worshipful, almost. But fearfully intimate. Now he’d somehow got his thumbs worked into the low neckline of my frock, and beneath the fabric he rubbed them gently across the bare skin of the sides of my breasts – and … God. It made the fine down stand up on my spine, like a cat’s.

  Mary wasn’t going to come. I was on my own. I had to do something to wake him up – something he’d notice, something he’d mind.

  I was arched backward now, cringing away from him, but still trapped by the table’s edge. One of my gloved hands slipped again and I thought fleetingly of throwing myself across the table, except it would make chaos of the Murray Collection, just when Sandy had finished sorting most of it out – and worse than that, I’d risk Francis Dunbar throwing his hot and heavy body over mine. He didn’t care about the blinking flint arrowheads and bronze blades.

  My hand, sliding backward, stopped abruptly against the baize table cover and knocked over the wooden cup with the necklace in it. I heard the pearls’ watery cascade as they slid out on to the table.

  And a jigsaw hole tore open.

  ‘How do you know there are pearls in the Murray Collection?’ I whispered.

  He sucked in air. For a moment he wore his look of bewildered worry, then regained his composure with that foolish, winning smile.

  ‘I didn’t, till I saw these.’

  ‘When I told you they were part of the Murray Estate you said you thought they’d been sold. Even my mother didn’t remember those pearls. How did you know about them?’