Jewels (42 page)

By the eighth day, Sarah was waiting for William when he arrived with a fresh bouquet of flowers, and she was standing in her sitting room with her eyes blazing.

“If you don’t get me out of here in the next hour, I’m going to take Julian and walk out of here in my nightgown. I feel perfectly well, I’m not ill. And they won’t let me get near my baby.”

“All right, darling,” William said, knowing this would come, “tomorrow, I promise.” And the next day, he took them both back to the apartment, and two days later they all went back to the château, as Sarah held Julian in her arms, and he slept happily in the warmth of his mother.

By her birthday, in August, Sarah was her old self again, thin and well and strong, and enchanted with her new baby. They had closed the shop for the month, Emanuelle was on a yacht in the South of France, and Sarah didn’t even have to think of business. And in September when Phillip went back to school, they went to Paris for a few days, and Sarah took the baby with her. He went everywhere with them and sometimes he slept peacefully in a little basket in her office.

“He’s such a good little boy,” everyone commented about him, he was always smiling and laughing and cooing, and on Christmas eve, he was sitting up and the whole world was in love with him. The whole world except Phillip. He looked angry each time he saw him. And he always had something disagreeable to say about him. It cut Sarah to the quick, she had been so hopeful that he would come to like him. But the brotherly affection she had hoped would come never had, and he remained distant and unpleasant.

“He’s just jealous,” William said, accepting what was, as he always did, unlike Sarah, who railed over what wasn’t. “That’s the way it is.”

“But it’s not fair. He’s such a sweet baby, he doesn’t deserve that. Everyone loves him, except Phillip.”

“If only one person dislikes him for the rest of his life, he’ll be a very, very lucky man,” William said realistically.

“But not if that one person is his brother.”

“Sometimes that’s the way life is. No one ever said brothers had to be friends. Look at Cain and Abel.”

“I don’t understand it. He was crazy about Lizzie.” She sighed. “And Jane and I adored each other when we were young.” And they still did, although she never saw her. Jane had remarried after the war, and moved to Chicago, and then Los Angeles, and they never came to Europe, and Sarah never went to the States, let alone California. It was hard to believe Jane was married now, to someone Sarah didn’t even know. It was just one of those things. As close as they had been, they had drifted apart. But she still loved her, and they wrote each other frequently, and Sarah always urged her to come to Europe.

But no matter what his parents thought of it, Phillip never warmed up to his baby brother. And when Sarah had tried to talk to him about it, he brushed her off, until she pressed him, and then he exploded at her. “Look, I don’t need another baby in my life. I’ve already had one.” It was as though he couldn’t try again, couldn’t open himself up to the risk and the loss and the caring. He had loved Lizzie, maybe too much, and he had lost her. And he had decided, as a result, never to love Julian. It was a sad thing for both children.

William and Sarah had taken Julian to meet his only grandmother, at Whitfield, shortly after he was born, and now they were together at Christmas. And the dowager duchess was enchanted with him. She said she had never seen a happier baby. He just seemed to radiate sunshine, and he made everyone laugh and smile who watched him.

It was a particularly nice Christmas at Whitfield that year, with all of them there. William’s mother was ninety-six now, and in a wheelchair, but always in remarkable spirits. She was the ultimate good sport, the kindest woman Sarah had ever known, and she still doted on William. He brought her a beautiful diamond bracelet that year, and she murmured that she was far too old for such a lovely thing, but it was obvious that she loved it and she never took it off the whole time they were there. And when they left after the New Year, she held William tightly to her and told him what a good son he had always been, he had always, always made her happy.

“Why do you suppose she said that?” William asked, with tears in his eyes as they left. “She’s always been so incredibly good to me,” he said, turning away, embarrassed to have Sarah see him cry, but his mother had really touched him. She had kissed Julian’s chubby little cheek as well, and Sarah, and thanked her for all the lovely presents from Paris. And two weeks later, she died quietly in her sleep, gone to meet her husband and her Maker, after a lifetime of happiness at Whitfield.

William was very shaken by her loss, but even he had to admit that she had had a good life, held a very long one. She would have been ninety-seven that year, and she had enjoyed good health all her life. There was much to be thankful for, as they all stood at the cemetery at Whitfield. King George and Queen Elizabeth came, her surviving relatives and friends, and all those who knew her.

Phillip seemed to feel her absence most acutely. “Does this mean I can’t come here anymore?” he asked, with tears in his eyes.

“Not for a while,” William said sadly. “It will always be here for you. And one day, it will be yours. We’ll try to come over for a bit every summer. But you can’t come here on holidays and weekends, as you did when Grandmother was alive. It wouldn’t be right for you to be here alone with the servants. You can come to La Marolle, or Paris, or stay with some cousins.”

“I don’t want to do any of that,” he said petulantly, “I want to stay here.” But William didn’t see how he could do that. In time, he could come here on his own, when he was at Cambridge. But that was still seven years away, and in the meantime, he’d have to be satisfied with occasional visits in the summer.

But by the spring, it had become obvious to William that he was not going to be able to be away from Whitfield as much as he expected. Not having any member of the family present there anymore suddenly meant that there was no one to watch over things and to make immediate decisions. He was startled to realize how many things his mother had actually done, and it was suddenly very difficult to run the place without her.

“I hate to do this,” he admitted to Sarah one night, as he read page after page of complaints from his estate managers. “But I really think I need to spend more time there. Do you mind terribly?”

“Why should I?” She smiled. “I can take Julian anywhere right now.” He was eight months old and still very portable. “And Emanuelle has the shop perfectly in control.” She had hired two more girls to work there, so all in all they were four now, and die business was extremely successful. “I don’t mind spending some time in London.” She had always liked it. And Phillip could join them at Whitfield for the weekends, which she knew would please him.

They spent the entire month of April there, except for a quick trip to Cap d’Antibes at Easter. They saw the Windsors at a dinner party, and Wallis made a point of mentioning that she had just bought some very pretty pieces from Sarah’s shop in Paris. She seemed very impressed with their things, particularly their new designs. All over London, people seemed to be talking about Whitfield’s.

“Why don’t you open one here?” William asked her one night as they left a party where three women had practically devoured her with questions.

“In London? So soon?” They had only had the shop in Paris for two years, and it worried her a little to spread herself so thin, and she didn’t want to be forced to spend a lot of time in London. It was one thing if she was here with him, but an entirely different matter if she had to spend all her time dashing back and forth across the English channel. And she wanted to spend most of her time now with the baby, before he grew up and walked out of her life like Phillip. She had too strong a sense now of how fleeting were the moments.

“You’d have to find someone very good to run it. Actually”—William looked pensive, as though he was trying to dredge up a distant memory—“there used to be a marvelous man at Garrard’s. Very discreet, very knowledgeable, he’s young but a bit old-fashioned perhaps, but just what the English love, full of good manners and old traditions.”

“Why do you think he’d ever want to leave them? They’re the most prestigious jewelers here. He might be shocked by a new venture like Whitfield’s.”

“I always got the impression that he was a bit underrated there, sort of the forgotten man, but a very good one. I’ll stop in next week and see if I see him. We can take him to lunch if you like.”

Sarah grinned at him, unable to believe what they were doing “You’re always trying to get me into more trouble, aren’t you?” But she loved it. She loved the way he encouraged her, and helped her do the things she really wanted. She knew that without him she could never do it.

True to his word, William stopped in at Garrard’s the following afternoon, and bought her a lovely antique diamond ring. It was very old and very pretty. And while he did, he had spotted his man. Nigel Holbrook. They had an appointment for lunch with him at noon, at the Savoy Grill on the following Tuesday.

And the moment they walked into the restaurant, Sarah knew exactly who he was from William’s earlier description. He was tall and thin and very pale, with blondish gray hair, and a small, clipped mustache. He wore a well-tailored pinstripe suit, and he looked like a banker or a lawyer. There was something very elegant about him, distinguished and discreet, and he was extremely reserved as William and Sarah told him what they were thinking. He said that he had been at Garrard’s for seventeen years, since he’d been twenty-two, and it would be difficult to think of leaving them, but he had to admit that the prospect of a new venture like theirs intrigued him greatly. “Particularly,” he said quietly, “given the reputation of your shop in Paris. I’ve seen some of the work you do there, Your Grace,” he said to Sarah, “and it’s very fine indeed. I was quite surprised actually. The French can be”—he hesitated, and then went on—“shoddy sometimes … if you let them.” She laughed at the chauvinism, but she knew what he meant. If she didn’t watch the workrooms she used, they would be inclined to cut corners, and she never let them. She was pleased with what he’d said, and the reputation they were obviously earning.

“We’d like to be around for a long time. We want to do things right, Mr. Holbrook.” He was die second son of a British general, and had grown up in India and China. He’d been born in Singapore, and had become entranced with the jewels in India as a boy. And as a young man, he’d worked briefly in South Africa, with diamonds. He knew his business well. And Sarah agreed with William completely. He was exactly the man they needed in London. It was a totally different atmosphere here, and she sensed instinctively that they would have to move into it with more grace, less panache, and the kind of dignity that Nigel Holbrook had to offer. They asked him to call them when he’d thought about it, and a week later, Sarah was dismayed that he still hadn’t called them.

“Give him time. He may not call for a month. But you can be sure he’s thinking about it.” They had made him a very handsome offer, and no matter how loyal he was to Garrard’s, it was difficult to believe that he wouldn’t be tempted. If not, William was prepared to be truly impressed by how faithful he was to his current employers. Because he knew that he couldn’t possibly be making a salary anything like the one he’d just been offered.

As it happened, he called them at Whitfield, the night before they left. Sarah waited impatiently while William took the call, and he was smiling when he hung up. “He’ll take it”, he announced. “He’d like to give Garrard’s two months notice, which is damn decent of him, and then he’s yours. When do you want to open?”

“Good Lord … I hadn’t even thought of it… I don’t know … end of the year … Christmas? Do you think we really should do it?”

“Of course you should.” He always insisted on giving her all the credit. “I have to come back in a few weeks anyway, we can look for a location then, and speak to an architect. I know a good one.”

“I’d better start buying some new pieces.” She had been using the money she’d been making in the Paris shop to buy new pieces, and have new designs made, but now she’d need some capital, and she planned to use the money she still had from the sale of her parents, house on Long Island. And if London was anything like Paris, she knew they’d be making money quickly.

And then William said something she hadn’t even thought about. “Looks like Phillip’s got his shop,” he said with a slow smile as they made plans for their return to London.

“It does, doesn’t it? Do you suppose he’ll really ever do it?”

“He might.”

“Somehow I can’t imagine him coming into the business with us. He’s so independent …” And so cool, and so distant … and so angry about Julian …

“He might surprise you one day. You never know what children will do. Who ever thought I’d become a jeweler?” He laughed and she kissed him, and the next day, they went back to Paris.

Nigel flew to Paris several times in the next few months to meet with them, and talk to Emanuelle, and see the way the operation worked in Paris. They were actually talking about moving to a new store, business was so good, but Sarah didn’t want to press her luck, particularly now with the opening in London.

Nigel was extremely impressed with everything they were doing in Paris. He even began to grow rather fond of Emanuelle, who had accurately guessed long since that ladies were not entirely his passion. In fact, she didn’t think they were at all, and she was right, but she admired his impeccable taste, his excellent business sense, and his good breeding. She had spent the last several years trying to acquire more polish herself, and she particularly admired Nigel’s quiet elegance and incredibly good manners. They had dinner together whenever he came to town, and she introduced him to some of her friends, including a very important designer, who became someone very important in Nigel’s life. But most of the time, they turned their foil attention to business.

They had found a beautiful little store on New Bond Street, and William’s architect came up with some wonderful ideas. They were going to do everything in navy-blue velvet and white marble.