“I don’t follow,” said Artie. Even at noon he couldn’t have followed, a noon with coffee and lots of daylight, with the newspaper read and the mind awake.
“Right,” said Claire, beaming. “Because I haven’t told you what I did and what I found. I took a chance and got a researcher who had never seen my picture. I didn’t even mention the word cellar, although the work is obviously British, couldn’t be more British if it had the Union Jack chiseled into it. Magnificent scrollwork, grotesque form, God Save the Queen.” Her darling blue eyes rose upward on that. Artie was supposed to understand that.
“I described the jewels and the jade lions. I described the amount of gold, and I did not use the name saltcellar at all. I mentioned history. Where in history might he find it? I wasn’t looking for sales slips from London goldsmiths, mind you.”
Artie minded.
“Perhaps I mentioned the word triumph, I don’t know. But I talked of its grandeur, a grand piece. I talked of royalty. And do you know where he found this cellar?”
Artie shook his head.
“In his uncle’s out-of-date schoolbook, in a patriotic passage that would be ridiculous in a British schoolroom today. A schoolbook. To commemorate the victory over the Armada, Queen Elizabeth,” said Claire, turning to her green and white computer screen, “did have constructed to a weight of fifty pounds a triumphant gold piece with jade lions rampant—our lions—ennobled with the large Christ’s head in a ruby—our ruby—and large sapphire, and diamonds, and lapis lazuli—those little black spots there in my hand-drawn picture—and topaz. I don’t remember the topaz, but your friend Rawson’s list has them.”
“So what do you get? I mean regarding your father.”
“Regarding my father, I’m not sure. But I’d like to know how the Rawsons have claim. I understand European laws regarding ownership are different from ours. But I want to find out. For better or for worse I want to find out. Do you think I’m right?” She waited on Artie’s words, glancing quickly from her drawing on the wall back to her computer.
Finally Artie asked, “Do you care?”
“Yes. I’m asking.” Claire stared drill holes through his eyes.
“It’s not my father and it’s not my property. In any way.”
“Do you think I’m right?” she asked, demanding an answer, impatient and a bit angry that Arthur would even consider attempting to waffle on something he knew was so important to her.
“I see what you’re doing here. I didn’t understand before, just how much you’ve done and what you’ve learned. What you’ve learned is wonderful.”
“Do you think I’m right?”
“You’re learning a lot. You really are,” said Artie, raising his hands as though trying to contain an upcoming assault, his eyebrows arched high with innocence.
“Answer me. This is important, Arthur,” said Claire.
And he knew not only that he had to answer, but that it was going to be something he was going to have to live with, so it had to be fairly close to the truth if not the truth itself.
“You are right if you’re not endangering your life, spending money you don’t have, wasting your good mind, and because you have room for me, too.”
“I think that’s yes, Arthur. I think that’s yes.” For some reason tears rimmed her eyes.
“Yeah. If all those things are so, it’s yes,” said Artie, and he was allowed to shower as she explained that the researcher now had so much more to work on. He had the Tilbury Cellar, as it was called. They only knew now that it had been locked up at Windsor from 1588 to the printing of the schoolbook. Rawson’s claim had to be total balderdash. Total.
“Are we going to see each other tonight?” asked Artie.
“I was planning on it. Did you think we weren’t?” asked Claire.
“No. I thought were were. I hoped we were.”
Neither of them mentioned what was happening. Artie went to Feldman’s apartment house that day and informed the superintendent he was looking for him and also slipped a note under Feldman’s door.
Claire and Artie spent that night together and the next and the one after that, and five days later, when they didn’t spend a night together both of them missed each other, and Claire suggested he not only come over but bring his toothbrush and a few shirts, just so that he would have them at her place in case.
He said that would be a big step and he wasn’t sure of it, and then he showed up with two suitcases and never slept again in his apartment that month, and they both knew without ever saying it that they were living together. Claire thought quite a bit about what it meant, and Artie avoided thinking about it at all. She finally had to tell him it was ridiculous for him to pay so much for an apartment that he wasn’t using, and he said he couldn’t get out of the lease. As it turned out, he had never read the lease, and Claire got it broken with one phone call. Artie put up fierce resistance to save his furniture, most of which he had never liked, and Claire was able to reason him out of everything but his television set, which she thought he watched too much, and an old chair that he refused to have recovered.
“No. Not the chair. Not a daisy, not a peony, not a silk or burlap. I want the gray covering on the gray cushions the way they stay. That’s it. It,” boomed Artie setting the chair in front of the television, which occupied a small corner of the living room opposite the computer screen.
She suggested a new gray cover. There were many nice things that could be done with gray. He said the last thing he wanted was another gray cover. He hated gray.
“You’re being illogical, Arthur.”
“It’s my chair. It. Mine. Closed. No talk.”
“May I put a little something over the cover?” asked Claire.
“No.”
The chair, as it became known, never the lounging chair or just a chair, was the one point that seemed to collect all of Arthur’s stubbornness, leaving the rest of his life free of contention. Claire could see the virtues and comfort in his easygoing way, and he was learning to appreciate how thorough she was and how, like most perfectionists, she was unable to take a compliment lying down.
He told her once, during some problem she was having getting information from Windsor Castle about the Tilbury Cellar, that she was perhaps the most fantastic all-around person he had ever met. She answered that she had learned to research and question only because she had to do it. If what she had done was not fantastic, what was? he asked.
“Cooking a seven-course dinner,” she answered.
Why didn’t it seem surprising that she would pick the one thing she couldn’t do well as her yardstick for perfection?
There were sensational times of love that ended in deliriously pleasurable exhaustion, and there were some not-so-sensational times of love, but it was always nice in some way. Sunday mornings, not getting out of bed, reaching for a cup, and then touching, and then just getting carried away from kisses that started out as acknowledgment of happiness and transformed their bodies into passion. Their bodies learned to say things their minds only suspected. And there were flowers, and holding hands, and going places, and going absolutely nowhere and doing nothing in better ways than either of them had ever done the most wondrous things before.
Then one night, just before he went to sleep, Artie said to Claire what he had never said to a woman since he was seventeen, when he used to give it out like Crackerjack rings as another device to score. But this he said as a man and he had been thinking about it for more than a week now. It was a most dangerous thing.
It was a response to one of Claire’s constant questions.
“How do you think of me specifically?” she had asked, reading an article in a psychology magazine, with a pencil poised over some list of questions.
“I love you,” said Artie. He heard the magazine drop. He pretended it was a chance remark and kept his eyes closed. Finally she asked, “Have you had many women?”
“I haven’t loved many.”
“How many have you l
oved?”
“Loved?” asked Artie. He knew he was in dangerous territory, but he answered fairly truthfully anyhow. “Just you.”
“You’ve only slept with me? I can’t believe that.”
It was getting more dangerous than he had planned.
“You asked love, Claire.”
“I understood that. Now I am asking how many you’ve slept with.”
“Because I told you I love you and you’re the only one I love, is that why we have to move into an area of possible contention?” He kept his eyes closed, but it was a ridiculous defense.
“I know you love me, Arthur. I was curious about other women.”
“I’ve slept with others. All right? And they don’t matter.”
“How many?”
“I dunno. They aren’t important. You are. There’s only one number that’s important to me. And that’s the right one.”
“Roughly how many?” she asked.
“Who counts? Sick people count.”
“A thousand?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Five hundred?”
“What is it with you and numbers?” The eyes were open and he was sitting up in bed. Her magazine was on her lap and she was staring directly down at him. It was the clear curious eye of a biologist examining what was beneath her.
“Five hundred. You’ve slept with five hundred women.”
“Thirty, maybe. Maybe thirty.”
Claire Andrews pushed herself to the other side of the bed. She did the pushing off Artie’s chest.
“You’ve slept with thirty women?” she asked, her voice ringing with horror.
“I didn’t know you at the time,” said Artie. His chest hurt.
“Thirty women, Arthur. That’s terrible.”
“No, it’s not. If I go out and sleep with someone else now, that’s terrible,” said Artie, offering fidelity, something he had not openly promised before.
“What does someone think of sex when he sleeps with thirty women?”
“You want to know the truth. I’ll tell you the truth. Wonderful. I thought wonderful.”
“Do you think of yourself as promiscuous, Arthur?”
“No.”
“I think that’s promiscuous. Thirty women.”
She pondered that a moment and went out to get a glass of water for both of them. She wondered what things he had done with thirty women. She wondered if that were thirty women in total, or thirty serious or relatively serious women in total. She wondered if that meant he was unstable.
What she really wondered was whether she was thirty-one between thirty and thirty-two, and how thirty-one fared against the field, and hated the idea of a field, until he did the absolutely right thing when she returned with the water.
He kissed her and told her he would at that moment-have-given up having the experience of all the other thirty if he had known she was going to come along.
He did not ask her about her number of times, but she wanted to tell him. There had been someone else, but he was not nice, and he was not a good lover. For someone who had had thirty women, Arthur was too interested in how he stacked up against that one. And Claire told him truthfully that the other had no meaning, other than being a very unpleasant first and second time.
“Do you love me? You didn’t say, you know?”
“When I’m absolutely sure, Arthur, I’ll tell you. I’ve given it an awful lot of thought.”
“That I’m sure, Claire. You give everything an awful lot of thought.”
“Do you think I think too much?”
“No.”
“Do you mean that?”
“No.”
She wanted at that moment to tell him she loved him. But did she? It was a very good question, and it didn’t let her sleep. He was not the kind of person she expected to fall in love with. But what kind did she expect? He certainly didn’t share as much with her as Bob Truet could.
Arthur was from a different place. He thought of a pumpkin as something exotic and of baklava as a snack. She watched him doze off. She didn’t want to lose him. Was that love? Was it ownership she felt? Was it pure sexual pleasure she felt? Was it an end to loneliness she felt?
Was it love?
She put on her bathrobe and went out into her living room. She wished her father was here to talk about it with her. Poor Dad, she thought, as she looked at her drawing of the cellar made so long ago. He had tried to sell it whole apparently. If anything, that was a proof of innocence. What confluence of wealth and desire for such different stones would come together to buy a monster like that? If Dad were dishonest, then he would have broken down the cellar.
His ignorance could be a proof of his moral innocence, if not of the legality of his owning the cellar.
What was bothering her?
Arthur was not the man she had pictured as falling in love with. Arthur was not like Dad. But he certainly had everything she needed, and wanted, things she didn’t know she wanted until he gave them to her, like the comforting touches, like listening to her, and being proud of her, and thinking she was wonderful.
Bob Truet thought she was wonderful. But it was not the same. Why was it not the same?
Deep into the darkest hours of morning, Claire came up with the answer to that question and many others. She went into the bedroom, kissed Arthur on the lips, and said, “I love you.”
“Love you, too,” he said and rolled over, going back to sleep. She was tempted to wake him up and make him be aware of this wonderful thing she had acknowledged. But that was not the way to deal with Arthur. He did not respond well to absolutes, and he did like his sleep. As much as she wanted certainty in this relationship above all, she knew only the days together would let them know for certain where they were going. The rest was hope, and all the questioning and all the analysis could not change it.
She was in the most wonderful thing of her life and it was beyond organizing into categories.
The next day, her latest researcher in England came up with some disquieting news. The Tilbury Cellar, according to Windsor Castle, was still there; it had never left.
“Are you sure?” asked Claire.
“There was an article in May of 1945 about schoolchildren prevailing upon the Crown not to sell off the Tilbury or any Crown jewels to help pay what everyone knew would be a monstrous war debt. Course none of us knew at the time, the debt would be the British Empire.”
“And they didn’t sell it. Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. Still there. I have some more information if you want it. The cellar was called the Tilbury because Tilbury was where it was fashioned by Simon Sedgewick of London.”
“And what was his maker’s mark?” asked Claire.
“On this special cellar there was no maker’s mark. It was taken right from Tilbury Field and, in honor of the victory and the sturdy British seamen, never allowed to be used for salt.”
“Never used for salt?” asked Claire. That was Dad’s. Somehow, that royal cellar might have been sold off secretly and he just as secretly bought it.
“Never,” said the researcher.
“Send me a picture of the Tilbury,” said Claire.
“’Fraid they just don’t do that.”
“Why not? I can buy pictures of the Crown jewels. What’s so special about the Tilbury?”
“It’s not done. I asked.”
“Why isn’t it done?”
“Lots of royal possessions are not photographed.”
“Offer them money.”
“It’s royal.”
“That means you can’t get it, right?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know for certain a picture has never been made? Could you tell me that?”
“No, I couldn’t.”
“All right. This is what I would like you to do. I want you to check out the artists of England from 1588 onward and any foreign references to the valuables of Elizabeth. Don’t read everything right away. Just go looking for the f
orest, so to speak.”
“Quite a forest.”
“It always seems formidable at first, but once you get the forest, you understand better how to go through it.”
“Well …”
“I know it seems awesome now, but it works. Once you have the size of it, you’ll see what can be discarded in simple quick decisions. Believe me, it works. I know. How good are you on foreign langauges?”
“I speak five.”
“European?”
“Yes.”
“Good. There was a time of tremendous intrigue between the Continent and England. On the foreign stuff, sort of let yourself follow Britain’s interests at the time. Who were they considering alliances with and things like that.”
“What would that do?”
“If somebody wants to woo someone, they invite them to dinner, so to speak. Who knows what they would show to or confide in about with someone they want as an ally. They might share things they wouldn’t with their closest court members. More importantly, a foreigner writing about England would notice things your own native British historians and diarists might not. It’s a way to go. And look for visits to Windsor especially. Okay?” she said. And added, “Am I overloading you?”
“It’s a bit.”
“Phone me in two days and let me know how you’re doing. I can get you help. In the meanwhile, ship me everything you have so far on the Tilbury.”
She wrote down the date and the assignment in the researcher’s file and then added a list of more questions she would ask Harry Rawson if she made contact again. Somehow Arthur seemed to be able to reach him and she never could. And why did Arthur like him? She started to add this question to the Modelstein file, when suddenly she erased every reference to Arthur’s name, leaving only questions for the police. Arthur was not part of this file. He was part of her life.
Two days later her researcher called; he had struck paydirt. There was a Count Desini of Bologna, an ally of Queen Elizabeth I in her struggle with the Roman Catholic Church. Bologna contested papal lands at that time, and although the Desinis were staunch Catholics, they had a friendly interest in English survival, especially after it defeated the Armada.
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