Gather Ye Rosebuds (2 page)

“Thank you, Brodagan,” I said, and set aside my sketch to dart up the narrow staircase. Brodagan is not much interested in her salary, but she is greedy for praise.

Steptoe was still there, just opening the dresser drawers. Our butler is our only English servant. Mama brought servants with her from the old country when she married, and has replaced them with other Irish servants as they retired or passed away. Steptoe has a polite contempt for all of them except Brodagan, whom he fears. He is of middle years and medium stature, with brown hair just turning gray. I can scarcely write his name without adding Brodagan’s favorite adjective for him, “uppity.” Steptoe was used to work for the local nobility, Lady Weylin.

“Shall I clear away your late uncle’s linens, madam?” he asked. Steptoe always called both Mama and myself “madam.”

“Yes, put all his clothing in boxes. I shall have it taken to the poorhouse.” Even Mama would not insist on keeping old clothing.

He began lifting shirts from the top drawer while I strolled around the room, seeing it in my mind’s eye with the bed gone, the curtains down, the floor covered in linoleum, and the walls painted a bright, reflecting white. When I turned back to Steptoe, he was holding a small leather bag, dangling from his fingers by a cord.

“What is that, Steptoe?” I asked.

He handed it to me. “It rattles, madam,” he said.

I loosened the string and shook the contents out into my palm. The sunbeam slanting through the windows caught the object in my palm and reflected a myriad of iridescent rainbows. A muted gasp hung on the air as I gazed in disbelief at the object. I searched for the clasp and held it to catch the sun’s full beams. It was a beautiful diamond necklace.

From a chain of smallish diamonds, a large sunburst of larger stones suspended at the front. I am not familiar with the terminology of diamond cutting, but I could see there were various shapes and cuts of stones in the sunburst, some of the stones quite large.

Uncle Barry had no fortune. He paid his board from his company pension. “Where on earth did he get this?” I asked.

For a wonderful sixty seconds I thought uncle had made his fortune in India after all. Some prince had given him the diamonds as a reward for saving his life. Uncle told many such wonderful tales. The nawabs, it seemed, had no notion of the value of gems. In that sixty seconds I had set out on a tour of Italy to study the masters, with Borsini as my guide. Mama and I would hire an Italian villa, and visit Florence, the birthplace of the Renaissance. We would float in a gondola down the Grand Canal in Venice to the Palazzo Borsini.

Steptoe came and peered closely over my shoulder. He cleared his throat and said, with a sly look, “It looks very much like the necklace Lady Margaret Macintosh reported stolen five years ago, madam.”

“Stolen! Good God! You mean to say Uncle Barry was a thief!”

“That would not be for me to say, madam, but it is certainly the same necklace, or one exactly like it.”

Chapter Two

I ran downstairs as fast as my legs could carry me, to find Mama waiting impatiently at the tea table. She lifted the pot and began pouring as soon as she saw me. I ran, gasping, and held the necklace out for her to see.

She blinked in confusion. “What is that, Zoie? Where did you get it? Why, it looks like—diamonds!”

“It is. Steptoe says it is Lady Margaret Macintosh’s stolen necklace.”

Mama’s fingers flew to her lips to stifle a gasp. She looked around, to see no spies were listening. “Where did it come from?” She drew back against the sofa cushions, refusing to touch it.

“It was hidden in Uncle Barry’s dresser. He was a thief, Mama! What shall we do with this?”

“Are you sure it is hers?”

“Steptoe says it is. You have a look at it.”

She steeled herself to touch it then. She turned it this way and that in her fingers, with a troubled frown. “I fear he is right. Steptoe would know. Butlers always know everything. And you recall he worked as head footman at Parham for several years. He would have seen it any number of times.”

Parham is the estate of our neighbor, Lord Weylin. When he is not at London, he lives there with his widowed mama, a social whale amidst the minnows of the area. Until Lady Margaret’s death a year ago, she also lived at Parham to keep her sister, Lady Weylin, company.

Five years ago, Lady Margaret’s diamond necklace was stolen. As its loss coincided with my uncle’s arrival at Hernefield, it began to look as though Uncle was nothing else but a thief.

“I wonder if Barry made a habit of this sort of thing,” Mama said fearfully. “I mean to say, it is odd that he should steal just this one necklace.”

“Don’t say such things, Mama!” I exclaimed, and sank to the sofa. As soon as I caught my breath, I saw she was right. I was mortally afraid to return to the tower and look in other drawers, but if Uncle Barry was a thief, it was best to know the worst. “I shall go upstairs and search.”

Mama had drawn out a handkerchief and was fanning herself, as befitted a Fragonard lady. “I shall stay here and catch my breath. Oh dear, whatever shall we do? You know I never had but a waxen head, Zoie. You must decide what is to be done.”

I gave her hand a reassuring pat and darted back up the two flights of stairs to the octagonal tower. Steptoe had been seized with the same idea as Mama and myself. He had opened all the drawers of both dresser and desk and rooted through them. They stood open and disarranged.

“There does not appear to be any further booty, madam,” he said, relishing that offensive “booty.”

“Keep looking. All his jackets and boots—everything will have to be searched. Let me know if you find anything.”

“Yes, madam.”

His snuff brown eyes were full of sated spite. He could hardly hold his lips steady as he began unfolding sox and smallclothes, shaking them out. When we were finished, I returned to Mama and told her no more booty had been discovered.

“Thank goodness. What shall we do with that?” she asked, pointing to the necklace as if it were a dead rat. She had placed it on the far end of the sofa table. “Lady Margaret is dead and gone. Perhaps if we just hid it away in the attic—”

“Mama! That is no solution. We must return it to Parham, and let them decide what is to be done with it.”

“Lady Weylin has enough diamonds. She will never miss it.”

“It may belong to Lady Margaret’s stepson—entailed, is what I mean. We cannot keep it. That is dishonest.”

“Oh my dear woe! The shame of it. Is there no way we could smuggle it into Parham without saying where it has been all this while? Through the mail, perhaps...”

“Trust diamonds to the mail? That is risky.”

“And someone might see us mailing it, too. We could call on Lady Weylin, and slide it down the back of a sofa, or into a vase. It would be found eventually, and they need not know Barry stole it.”

“We are never invited to Parham, Mama,” I reminded her.

One did not drop in uninvited on the Weylins. They held themselves very high. I had been there exactly three times in my twenty-five years, always with a crowd. Lord Weylin became friendly at election time, and held a large, raucous party. Unfortunately, there was no election in the offing.

“You don’t think Lady Weylin might like to share your lessons with Borsini?” Mama asked. “You could stop by and ask her. He is a count, after all; she is only a countess.”

I liked to think Borsini was a count, but in fact, I did not really believe it. It was only a pleasant fiction. The image of stately Lady Weylin climbing up two nights of stairs to my little studio was too ludicrous to contemplate without smiling. “No, that will not fadge.”

“What of that Book Society you are working up?” The Book Society was Mrs. Chawton’s project. She had read of some book-loving ladies banding together, each contributing a certain sum to buy a book, which they all read and discussed. “Is Lady Weylin bookish?” I asked.

“I see her at the circulating library from time to time. That suggests she is, and also that she is not fond of laying down her gold to buy the book herself. I think we must tackle it, Zoie. It is that or confessing that Barry was a thief. And at the worst possible time. The Season just closed last week; Lord Weylin is home for a visit. Perhaps Mrs. Chawton would like to go with you?”

I could not think the Weylins would appreciate a social call from the doctor’s wife, whose brother runs the taproom. The Chawtons barely pass for quality in Aldershot. Mama and I would hardly be welcome, but at least we were an old, genteel family.

“There is no weaseling out of it, Mama. You must come with me. You try to distract Lady Weylin for a moment, and I shall pop the necklace into a vase, or down the side of the sofa.”

“Let us do it tomorrow, Zoie. I shall need the evening to worry about it.”

“It will be best to make sure Barry has no more secrets hidden away before we go. If Steptoe unearths more booty, we must find some other way to return it.”

“I cannot believe it of Barry,” Mama said, idly sipping her tea. “I know it troubled him that he came home so poor, when half of his colleagues were nabobs, but it is not as though he actually needed the money. I mean to say he did not sell the necklace, but just hid it away. It is so very odd. Could he have been one of those kleptomaniacs like Mrs. Flanagan, who took the bolt of ribbon from the drapery shop?”

“What I wonder is how he ever got next or nigh the necklace. He was never at Parham, was he?”

“Why no, he was not,” Mama said, brightening. “He was in London when Weylin had his last election do. And really, you know, I seem to remember Lady Margaret lost it at Tunbridge Wells. She used to go there often for the chalybeate waters.”

“Uncle Barry never went to Tunbridge Wells, as far as I can remember.”

“No, why would he? He was healthy as a horse—until he died, I mean. He was used to run up to London as often as he could find an excuse. He liked to visit at East India House, and chat to the lads, but Tunbridge Wells—never.”

“So how did he get the necklace?” I asked.

Mama bent her mind to this problem and soon came up with an answer. “This goes from bad to worse, Zoie. He must have been part of a gang! One of them did the robbing, and others peddled the goods.”

“If that were the case, he should have been rich. You know he hadn’t a sou to his name when he died. One would have thought he would have squirreled away a couple of hundred pounds at least. He had no expensive habits.”

“And I only took a nominal sum from him for board,” Mama added. “Why, from his pension alone he ought to have saved up a few hundred. I made sure his savings would at least bury him, but I had to pay for the coffin along with everything else. He must have been a secret gambler,” she decided, as she could think of nothing else to explain the mystery.

“Perhaps he had a woman in London,” I suggested. There had been a certain Surinda Joshi in Calcutta. Barry never mentioned her in his letters, but Mama’s family used to write about her. They feared he would marry this dusky beauty.

“Now, that is entirely possible. He was always a mouthful among the parish for his flirting ways. He could have been sending money to Surinda.”

“It is odd he had not sold the necklace, if that was his plan. The thing was stolen five years ago, and he still had it when he died.”

I never thought I would come to hate the sight of diamonds, but that glittering little heap on the table was enough to make my blood run cold.

Steptoe came in and said, in his uppity way, “There does not appear to be any more stolen jewels among Mr. McShane’s belongings, madam. Shall I send the necklace back to Parham?”

“You must not think of it, Steptoe!” Mama exclaimed.

In our confusion, we had forgotten we had Steptoe to contend with. It seemed best to take the bull by the horns. I said, “We plan to return it secretly, Steptoe. We would appreciate it if you did not speak to the servants, nor indeed to anyone, of the necklace.”

Steptoe remained silent a moment, scanning this for opportunities of exploiting us. He was a perfectly self-centered man. He presented a good appearance and lent a certain cachet when he answered the door, looking down on all our callers, but really he was not at all pleasant.

“Very well, madam. Ah, and while I have your attention, might I inquire whether you have given any thought to the matter of increasing my wage?” he asked, while peering at us from under his lashes.

Steptoe is always after an increase in his wage. He has had three while Brodagan has had one. This latest demand was nothing less than extortion, but it was not the time to chastise him.

“How much increase will you need, Steptoe?” Mama asked fearfully.

“Five pounds per quarter would be convenient, madam.”

“You only asked for three last week!” I objected.

“Yes, madam, but now I find five would be more convenient.” His eyes slid to the diamonds, then turned to Mama with a speaking look. “Thank you, madam.” He bowed and left.

“That one will be no stranger in hell,” Mama said.

“This is intolerable! We shall not give him another sou.”

“The alternative is to tell Lady Weylin—and Lord Weylin—the truth, Zoie,” she pointed out.

“I daresay we can eke out another five pounds per quarter, but if he demands one more penny, Mama, we must turn him off. Let him tell what stories he likes; no one will listen. People know we are honest.”

“They do not know Barry was honest. There were a few rumors in town about that unfortunate bookkeeping error in India. How very disagreeable it will be, having to call at Parham tomorrow,” Mama said, gazing forlornly into her teacup. “My blood shakes to think of it, for I haven’t the heart of a mouse.”

“We must go in the morning. Borsini will be coming in the afternoon.”

“Gracious, as if having a thief in the family were not bad enough! I hope Weylin is not there when we call. His mama is enough to frighten the dragoons, but if I have to face him with stolen diamonds in my pocket I know I shall crop right out into a confession and land in the roundhouse.”

“Dangle from a gibbet is more like it.”