by Joan Smith
It was neither easy nor palatable to accost one’s friends on such an errand. Palgrave’s credit was not in question. He was foolishly generous, and would offer a tempting rate of interest. A better way of impeding the purchase was to deal with the seller. His only lead was Mademoiselle Feydeau. With this reason, or excuse, in mind, he walked around to her apartment, to find, after a prolonged bout of knocking, that there was no one home. Not even a housekeeper. His knock was not answered.
He turned away, disappointed, considering what to do. Without a single thought in his head of Kruger, he rounded the corner to pass the front of the house. Kruger was just driving up in his carriage. He descended, looked up, and smiled.
“Ah good! You have taken me up on my offer. Come in. Come in, Moncrief. I have got something here I wish to show you. A fine piece of purple jade from Burma—a lovely lavender shade. Uncut—exquisite! You will advise me what to do with it.”
Moncrief’s interest in jade was slight at best. He could admire a fine carving, but to advise on an uncut stone was beyond him. As Kruger was intent on furthering their friendship, however, he entered. The thought lurked at the back of his mind that he might discover Mademoiselle’s whereabouts. He was curious as well to learn why Kruger had suddenly developed this interest in him. The man filled no official capacity in the proceedings of the Congress. Still, any friend of any delegate might be used in an unofficial capacity. A suggestion, a hint, a word of advice sometimes came better from one with no official status to worry about. These unofficial friendships were encouraged by all the embassies. One never knew when a gentleman such as Kruger, with certainly Sagan’s and possibly Metternich’s ear, might be useful.
“Purple jade? I thought it was green or occasionally white,” he answered.
“Brown, yellow, all shades of green, gray-black, even blue. Infinite variety—it shares that quality with a woman,” Kruger answered, holding the door wide.
Won’t you come into my parlor flitted through Moncrief’s mind. Something in the man’s eyes gave rise to the thought. A calculating, assessing look. What was the wily old gent up to?
Kruger chatted on in his genial, rambling way. “Wine. We shall have a glass of wine to become better acquainted,” he said, and passed the order to a servant. Moncrief was shown into a wood-paneled study, where leather-bound tomes covered two walls. Interspersed between the rows of books were small statuary, porcelain, objets d’art of all sorts. His eyes, making a quick examination of the things, found much to admire. Kruger's interest was all on the piece of silver paper in his hands, however. He unwrapped it tenderly, smiled covetously down on a chunk of purple jade about the size and roughly the shape of a baby’s head. “What do you think of that, eh?” he asked proudly.
“Nice,” Moncrief said, feeling the compliment inadequate to the possessor’s enthusiasm. But really, what did one say about a purple stone? “Where did you get it?”
“From old Eynard, the jeweler. He can find you anything.”
“What will you have done with it?” he asked next.
“Oh a bowl, I think. It is large enough for a small bowl, or vase. With careful cutting I might manage another trinket from the excavation. A beautiful piece, is it not? Lightly veined with a bluish-green bit here on the side. It will be interesting to see how the vein develops inside, whether it peters out, or widens.”
“I had not realized there were good jade cutters in Europe. I thought the pieces were brought in already carved from the east.”
“You are looking at one of the best of them,” Kruger said proudly. “Eynard taught me. He is one of the last Renaissance men. He can do anything—I speak of the lapidary arts only. He does not paint or do anything of that sort. He learned diamond cutting in Amsterdam, jade carving in the east and, as for mounting the stones in beautifully original ways, I expect he learned a few tricks from your Hamlet, though he does not confess it. I worked with him when I was a young man—a hobby merely, but it occupied many hours when I ought to have been otherwise employed in making my fortune.”
"Oh yes, I know Eynard.”
“Here, come to my curio cabinet and see my friends,” he invited, with a deprecating smile to show he joked. “I make you an offer, milord. I carved three of these pieces you are looking at. Guess two of the three, and I will give you a small jade medallion I am presently working on. A tablet, to be inserted in gold for a lady’s pendant.”
He went to the glass-fronted cabinet and looked at several shelves of statuary. There were figures of people—magicians and ceremonial figures of all sorts; there were animals, flowers, and several small bottles and bowls covered with all manner of lotus flowers, dragons and abstract designs. Kruger opened the door to hand him various statues, mentioning dynasties whose names meant little to Moncrief.—Shang, Sui, Ming—they sounded Chinese and old, and nothing more. While he spoke, the man caressed his “friends” with the hands of a lover. “Feel how cool and smooth it is to the touch. Note the veining here.” After ten minutes, Moncrief professed himself at a loss and gave up.
With an air of triumph, Kruger reached in and pointed out three pieces that rested right beneath his nose. They appeared to be as well done as the others.
“Done with my own hands,” he said. “Jade is a very difficult medium to work in—so hard. You have no idea how hard till you try it. Amazing how well it was done in the old days with virtually no tools—a reed drill perhaps. Many, myself included, feel the older carvings are better done than what we get today. There were no bad carvers in olden times they say. They took the time to finish with a hand rubbing, as I do myself. But here, take a look at this elephant,” he went on, handing one of his own pieces to his guest. “You will see no rough edges, no cutting errors. It took me three years to carve this fellow. In my spare time, you understand,” he explained, as Moncrief widened his eyes in disbelief at so lavish a disbursal of time with so little results.
“It is a labor of love,” he explained. “Notice how the green coloring fades slightly in the tusks. A clever bit of planning, if I may indulge in the ungainly exercise of patting my own back. That is the joy of jade, arranging your design to fit nature’s pattern. You are presented with a riddle. Who knows till the cut is made whether the coloring will hold, or some change will occur, to make your plan ridiculous. I once began to carve a pretty little Ho Hsien-ku—the only true female of the eight immortals according to Chinese philosophy. A delicate white piece I had, with hints of goldish-pink. Imagine my chagrin to find a perfectly brown spot, just where the nose was to be! You saw the piece on my front hallway table. There was nothing for it but to dye the whole a darker shade. That is all junk out there. Scratch it with a penknife and you will see it is dyed. The bowl is not jade at all, in fact, but soapstone."
The man talked on with the greatest enthusiasm for a long time. Moncrief began to feel he was wasting a morning. It seemed Kruger did indeed want no more than an audience to admire his collection, and his work. He was skilled certainly, highly skilled, and extremely patient to have expended the many hours he spoke of, but it was all of limited interest to his caller.
“This has been delightful,” he said, after a decent interval.
“Forgive me! I become a great thundering bore when I speak of my jade. My daughter always tells me so. Where is she? I shall call Maria to have a glass of wine with us before you leave,” he said.
Moncrief’s eyes did not narrow, but he began to wonder if the true purpose of the invitation was to find a beau for Maria, recently dumped by Count Rechberg. “Delightful,” he said, concealing his resentment beneath a smile. He liked to do his own pursuing where women were concerned.
She was summoned and came wearing her haughty, impatient air. “What is it, Papa? I am very busy. The modiste is here,” she said. Then glancing around, she noticed the caller. “Oh Lord Moncrief, I did not know you were here. Good morning,” she added in a friendlier tone. “I see Papa has been prosing your ear off with his hobby.
Did you win the medallion?”
“She betrays her familiarity with my spiel,” Kruger said.
“I am not at all knowledgeable on the subject of jade,” Moncrief replied.
“You really should not shanghai innocent souls off the street to pester with your affairs, Papa. Here Lord Moncrief came to call on Mademoiselle Feydeau, and gets stuck for an hour’s lesson on jade. I noticed you from the sewing room, Moncrief. Mademoiselle is not home. She has been away for two days—gone to the country to visit friends. She will return this evening.”
He was happy to have gleaned at least one nugget from his morning.
“Gone to bring back the blue diamond for your cousin, I expect,” Kruger said with a knowing laugh. “Or a reasonable facsimile thereof. I do not know so much about diamonds as I do about jade, but if I were you, milord, I would have the piece thoroughly checked before allowing my cousin to lay down his money for it. Eynard is your man. The best in the city, or the country.”
It was depressing to realize the secret was so publicly broadcast, but as it was, Moncrief replied, “The ruby was certainly not a counterfeit.”
“No, a star ruby cannot be faked. I shall presume on age’s privilege and tell you a little tale that once happened to me, Sir. I am a covetous man. I confess it, as it is necessary to my story. I covet jade, but other pretty things as well. Jewelry, porcelain, paintings. And women. I am also something of a voluptuary, but that is neither here nor there. I saw in the home of an acquaintance in your England when first I was sent there with the embassy, a very fine painting by Vermeer. Small, exquisite, as Vermeer always is. I had to have it. The price was not exorbitant. I had the sum in the bank, and bought the painting. The small canvas that hung in your Mama’s room when she was alive, Maria. My friends all congratulated me on my astuteness. I felt wise, clever and greedy. The man who sold it to me also possessed a larger canvas by Rembrandt. For it he wanted a higher sum of course. Nearly what the thing was worth, but not more than half what it would be worth in another decade. Well, to cut my story short, I borrowed the sum from the moneylenders. A thousand pounds, which caused me considerable hardship in the repaying. I took my purchase home and hung it on the most conspicuous wall of my saloon and admired it for a fortnight, showing it off to all my callers. I was a man of taste and perspicuity, you see, to have snapped it under the nose of the anglais. Then about three weeks later, the thing began to pall on me. I don’t know how else to say it. I began to dislike it. Something in it jarred on my nerves every time I looked at it. I have always adored Rembrandt. With a great painting, one becomes more enamored as time passes. The work becomes a friend, almost a part of oneself. But not my Rembrandt. I came to hate the thing, and finally put it up for sale, as it gave me so little pleasure. The buyer was not so sure of his judgment as I was. He turned the painting this way and that, took the frame from the wall and tapped the wood. Lo and behold, beneath the stain of the wood, the words Dutton Tea Company were visible. Dutton Tea Company on a piece of wood purportedly Dutch, purportedly one hundred and fifty years old. An investigation proved the Dutton Tea Company to have come into existence in 1789, more than a hundred years after Rembrandt’s death. I had been taken in. My little Vermeer was a genuine bargain, to set me up for a swindle.”
He hunched his shoulders. “I say no more, except to remind you that the ruby was indeed a genuine bargain. Hah—a nod is as good as a wink to a blind man. That is what you English say, is it not? What very peculiar expressions you have.”
“A word to the wise, I think, is the expression you meant, Papa,” Maria said.
“I shall bear your warning in mind,” Moncrief added.
“Not that it is any of my affair,” Kruger went on, “but as Mademoiselle makes her nest under my roof, I feel a little responsible."
“How does it come she stays here?” Moncrief risked asking.
“Maria, my dear, had you not better return to your modiste?” her father mentioned, before answering the question.
“Yes, Papa. I should be quite disillusioned to hear you let Mademoiselle have the apartment in hopes of occasionally sharing it with her. Good day, milord.” With a pert smile at her father, she curtsied with great grace, and left them.
“Minx!” her father laughed. “Well, there you have it in a nutshell. Mademoiselle came along looking for a room. Someone told her of the apartment I had standing empty. I had not offered it to a friend because of its dilapidated condition—unlived in for a decade, and a shambles. She batted those big eyes at me, and mentioned that she would be lonesome . . ." He shrugged his substantial shoulders and tossed up his hands. “The next morning, she moved in with a dragon of a chaperone, and herself transformed from a strumpet to a nun. Another take-in. My history is littered with them. I am gullible. I do not usually expect the worst from people. It is why my career in the diplomatic corps was such a resounding failure. Diplomacy is for cynics. I bungled everything, believed all the fairy tales the other diplomats told me. A disgrace to my nation—a credulous man. But you are eager to go, Moncrief,” he said, arising.
As they advanced towards the door, Kruger chatted on. “I shall tell you another time how I single-handedly set back Anglo-Austrian relations a hundred years. You are a good fellow. You must come to dinner one evening. I have the second best chef in Vienna, second only to Carême. Perhaps my man’s desserts are better. We specialize in sweet confections. A special Congress Torte my man has invented, quite superb. Are you free Monday? Maria has one of her petits soupers planned. A small party, but the company is good. Are you free?”
“I would be delighted to come.
“Excellent. Excellent. No doubt we shall see you waltzing the secrets out of the Russians before then. Au revoir. Give some thought to my jade as well. What would look well is lavender? Think about it.”
He left, his head reeling with the man’s various stories. An amusing old rascal. He liked him. He seemed almost proud of his weaknesses and failures. An Englishman would be at pains to hide them, but from familiarity, Moncrief was coming to recognize that basic difference between the nationalities. The Austrians were voluble, saying more than they meant, whereas the English usually said a good deal less. The Austrians were at pains to be amusing, good company, even at the expense of flaunting their shortcomings. Then his thoughts turned to Maria. No self-criticism from that quarter. The girl was more outspoken than her English counterpart would be. Young English ladies did not speak of their fathers’ affairs—not before eligible bachelors in any case. He wondered if she knew it was her father’s intention to foster a match between them. Or so he assumed. No other reason for the sudden flourish of friendship and invitations occurred to him.
His mind soon passed from the Krugers to their intriguing tenant. He was very curious to see Mademoiselle Feydeau again. “Transformed from a strumpet to a nun.” He was equally keen to encounter either incarnation.
* * *
Chapter 9
The afternoon was taken up with official business—working in committee on documents for presentation to the Four Allies, and a report for Liverpool, which would reach Whitehall long after it had any relevance to anything but history. Dinner with Lord Cathcart. His stomach was becoming accustomed to the Austrian habit of dining at five o’clock. There would be time between Cathcart’s dinner party and the more or less compulsory attendance at Italy’s evening do to call on Mademoiselle Feydeau. It was eight-thirty when he approached the apartment, noticing with satisfaction that lights burned within. He was admitted by the same brawny housekeeper, to find Mademoiselle seated in her parlor, working on a box puzzle.
The word nunlike did not apply to her appearance this evening; neither did strumpet. She looked like any well-reared young lady, outfitted for a party. Her gown was not black, but a deep green. There was no fichu at the neck this time, but neither was there the sort of décolletage favored by a Googie Palgrave. A suggestive swell of white velvet bosom peeped out at the top,
no more. He realized then how much more exciting a glimpse could be than the whole works of God spread out on display. Her expression, her manner differed from before as well. That trace of sadness was gone. Her gray eyes sparkled almost playfully as she made him welcome.
“I know why you are here, and I do not have the Blue Tavernier for sale, milord,” she said, before he mentioned the subject.
“What makes you think that is what brings me?”
“What else? You are not a Herr Kruger I hope, to come pestering me for—for things you should not. Had I ever suspected for a moment what he had in mind when he let the place to me . . . But he gave no indication of it till after I was installed. And places are so impossible to find, you know, that I cannot move out as I would like. I count utterly on my Madame Blanchard to protect me.”
Moncrief felt an urge to help her, but knew the folly of looking for accommodation at this time. “I called earlier today, but there was no one home,” he said.
“I have been out of town for a few days.”
“I hope you had a pleasant visit.”
“Yes, merci. And I hoped you enjoyed the Congress during my absence.”
“I would have enjoyed it more had you been present.”
“Sir, shall we stop wasting each other’s time?” she asked, but with a smile. “You are come to ask again whether I have the blue diamond. I tell you I have not. If you are a gentleman, you will accept my word at face value and leave, and if you are not a gentleman,” she added playfully, “then certainly you must leave at once. This very instant.”
“I have heard of a loaded question, but this is a new stunt.”
“No, no, I have no stunts about me,” she laughed.
“And no more diamonds either? I think you have, perhaps, some notion where one might lay hands on the blue diamond. Are you not interested to hear the price I am willing to pay?”