Property of a Noblewoman (11 page)

“It’s not about money or jewels. It’s about the truth. We have a right to that. We always did. Our parents cheated us out of love and affection and kindness while we were growing up. And maybe they cheated us out of our sister as well. If she were alive, we could have gone to find her, and met her when we grew up. Maybe she was alive for all that time. And if so, I want to know that now.”

“You’re always demonizing our parents, and they don’t deserve that. Let their memories rest in peace. What did they ever do to you to deserve this kind of disrespect? They can’t defend themselves now,” Winnie said in a fury.

“They didn’t love me, Winnie, and you know it. I’m not even sure they loved you, or were capable of it. But I know they didn’t love me. I felt it every day of my life until I left and married Lawrence.” She said it quietly and with enormous strength. It was the core truth of her life.

“What you’re saying is a lie,” Winnie said, standing to face her and shaking with rage. “Get out of my house!” she shouted at her younger sister, and what Valerie could see in her eyes was fear, raw terror, of a ghost she couldn’t face and everything she didn’t want to know. Valerie nodded, picked up her coat and bag, and walked out without a word. But the voice of truth she was seeking couldn’t be silenced anymore.

PHILLIP SPENT THE
weekend on his boat, as he always did. Valerie had plans on Sunday night. She had said she was dining with friends, and he knew she had the occasional suitor, men her age who admired her, usually widowers. But she was never interested in them romantically and treated them as friends. Valerie had made it clear to him several times that the only man she had ever loved, or would love, was his father, which was easy to believe, given how happy they’d been together. Valerie went out with friends, but not on dates.

Phillip wanted to do some work at home, but he stopped in to see her on the way to his apartment. He called first, and she was back from dinner. She made tea for them after he declined a drink, and she seemed subdued to him, and he asked her if anything was wrong.

“No, no, I’m fine,” she said quickly, but he wasn’t convinced.

“What did you do this weekend?” He was always concerned about her, and something in her eyes seemed sad.

“I went to see Winnie yesterday.”

“How was that?” He knew how difficult, and aggravating, his aunt could be. He was his cousin Penny’s confidant too. His mother smiled with a small wintry look before she answered.

“She was Winnie. She’s sick, and she wasn’t in a great mood.” And she’d been in an even worse one when Valerie suggested that their mother had never loved them, and might have lied to them about Marguerite.

“You’re a saint,” Phillip said with feeling. He avoided his aunt whenever he could. He had given up trying to have a real or decent relationship with her years before.

They talked about an exhibit of South American artists Valerie had been to during the weekend that she had enjoyed, and another show was coming to the Met that she wanted to see. And then she doubled back to what was on her mind. She didn’t want to say too much about it to him, and tried to sound casual when she brought it up.

“I was thinking about your big jewelry sale again, the one of the contents of the abandoned safe deposit box. It probably sounds ridiculous, but I’d love to see the photographs you have of Marguerite – in fact, all of them. You said you were going to use a few in the catalog, but I’d really like to see them. You never know how it might inspire me – maybe I’ll get a painting out of it. The story is haunting, and the fact that she wound up so alone, from what must have been a very glamorous life when she was young, and married to the count.” She tried to make it sound artistic and historical, rather than personal, and he looked pensive when she asked.

“I’ve only got a few of them myself, and I was going to return them to the clerk of the court at lunch tomorrow. I’m sure she’s not supposed to pass around those photographs, the surrogate’s court is responsible for them, and any papers, correspondence, or documents. But the clerk I’ve been dealing with is a very nice woman, she’s a law student, and she might be willing to make copies for you if I ask her. I’ll ask when I return the ones I have tomorrow.” The way he had said it instantly caught Valerie’s attention, although Phillip thought he had sounded very neutral about it. She knew him better.

“Do I sense some kind of interest there, other than returning photographs to the court?” He was stunned by what she said. It was always as though she could look into his soul. It had seemed almost eerie to him when he was a boy. She always knew what he was up to, as though she could read his mind.

“Of course not. She’s been very helpful. I’ve only seen her twice at the bank,” he said, brushing his mother off, but she had an odd feeling that she was on to something.

“Sometimes that’s enough.” She smiled directly at him, not wanting to tell him her own suspicions about her parents lying about Marguerite. “Anyway, see what she’d be willing to let you have. I’d like to see all the photographs if I could.” She was very definite about it, which made him curious. He knew her well too.

“Is there some deeper reason?” he asked candidly.

“No. I just have strong feelings about this woman, of sympathy and compassion. She must have been so lonely, and it’s amazing that she held on to the jewelry for all this time. It must have meant a great deal to her, or the man who gave it to her. It seems like a powerful love story somehow.”

“I hadn’t thought about it that way. The jewels are just very beautiful, and worth a great deal of money,” Phillip said honestly.

“I’ll bet that’s not why she hung on to them, or she would have sold them long ago, particularly if she needed money.” Her circumstances sounded so sad when Phillip had told his mother about her. And now, like him and Jane, Valerie was haunted by her. That much made sense to him.

“Are you at all intrigued by the coincidence of your maiden names?” It wasn’t a loaded question, just a direct one.

“Not really, although I suppose that could be some kind of bond.” She looked vague as she said it, and then got up to take their teacups into the kitchen, and turned the conversation to something else. She hoped that her request would be fruitful and the young clerk he had mentioned would give him copies of the photographs. She didn’t dare bring it up again, or alert him to what she wanted to know. She wasn’t even certain what she was looking for, since she had never seen a picture of her oldest sister, but she hoped there might be some kind of clue, if they were related somehow. You never knew. And she had felt compelled to ask. She had thought of nothing else since the day before. And Winnie’s vehement denial of the possibilities she had proposed to her only made her want to know more. She wanted to actually see Marguerite di San Pignelli now, in the only way she could, in the contents of the safe deposit box.

The next morning, before meeting Jane for lunch, Phillip sent an email to Cartier in Paris, to inquire about their archives. He knew that they saved working drawings of all the pieces they made, particularly the ones for important people, or unusually beautiful orders that had been placed. Cartier prided themselves on their archives. And he explained that Christie’s would be selling several of their more important pieces from the 1940s and 1950s, which had belonged to the Countess di San Pignelli. He gave them Umberto’s name as well, and said he believed that they had lived in Naples and Rome between 1942 and 1965, from when Marguerite had arrived in Europe until her husband died. He doubted that any of the pieces had been commissioned after that. And he said he wanted to know everything about them, who they had been commissioned by, when, and for what reason. The original prices would have been interesting to know too, although they would bear no relation to their current value. And the origin of the stones would be helpful to them too. Anything that Cartier could provide would enhance the catalog and create further interest in the sale. He asked them to email any available information, and said he would also be in Paris in late March for an important jewelry sale being run out of Christie’s Paris office. He said he would be happy to meet with the director of their archives at that time.

He sent a similar email to Van Cleef and Arpels, and had enough time to return a few calls, before Jane arrived. He was finishing his last call, to make an appointment for an appraisal, just as Jane was walking through the impressive lobby, with three-story ceilings and a huge mural, and getting in the elevator to meet him in the jewelry department on the sixth floor. She was a little awestruck when she arrived. She had expected it to be an ordinary office building, and Rockefeller Center was anything but that. It had been home to Christie’s for eighteen years. A young woman in a simple black suit and a string of pearls called Phillip in his office and told him that there was a Miss Willoughby waiting for him in the reception area. Phillip smiled and left his desk instantly.

He came out to meet her, happy to see her, and escorted her back to his office, which was handsome and had an enormous desk.

“So this is where you organize all those important jewelry sales,” Jane said with a soft smile. It made it all seem very real suddenly being there.

“Some of them. I don’t make the decisions here, I just implement them. And we have offices all over the world.” He told her about the upcoming Paris sale then. Some of Marie-Antoinette’s jewelry was going to be auctioned off by a family that had owned it since the Revolution. They had offered to sell it to a museum, but they wouldn’t pay enough, so it was going to a public auction, along with other important pieces, many of them historical. Paris had seemed like the right venue for the sale. There were often equally important sales in London, and some in Geneva, but New York was the venue for most of their important sales. He explained to Jane that whatever the location, there would be people bidding on the phone, and in the room, from around the world.

“It’s very exciting, especially when the bidding gets hot, and there are several active bidders determined to get the same item. That’s when the price goes sky high. It all depends on how badly someone wants it. Jewelry is very emotional, but the really big prices are in art. That’s not just about passion, it’s about business and investment. Art is perceived as a better investment than jewels. But things can get pretty heated at our jewelry auctions too. The Elizabeth Taylor sale in 2011 went right through the roof. It was the highest total for any collection we’ve ever achieved before or after. There was a lot of mystique to the woman and her jewels. There are only a handful of people who create that kind of excitement and demand, like the Duchess of Windsor. You could sell one of her handkerchiefs and make a fortune.” He smiled at Jane as he explained. “I had just started here, and was still in the art department during the Elizabeth Taylor sale. We sold a number of her paintings too. She had some fabulous art, most of it given to her by Richard Burton. It was a tumultuous relationship, but he was very generous with her. She was the kind of woman who inspired that. Even the sale of her clothing brought in a huge amount, as though women felt that if they could wear some item of her wardrobe, they could ‘be’ her, or inspire the same kind of love and passion she did. It’s all part of the magic of an auction, which is why we want to make Marguerite di San Pignelli’s sale as personal as we can. The provenance, and who owned it previously, is very important to a lot of buyers.” Jane was riveted by what he had said. He made auctions sound almost magical. It was all new to her.

“I’d love to come to the sale,” she said softly, as he led her out of his office.

“I told you, you can sit in the room if you like, or with me at the phones and hear what’s happening with the bidding. It can get pretty crazy, especially at these big prices.” They were still working on the estimates they were going to put on the pieces, but the final results were always hard to predict – it all depended on how much a buyer wanted a piece, or better yet two or several buyers, determined to get an item at any price, to create a bidding war. The seller and the auction house always hoped for that, and the bidder who ultimately prevailed, no matter what the cost. Phillip would love Marguerite’s pieces to draw that kind of interest, and the more they could put in the catalog to add to the excitement, mystique, and hype, the better it would be for the sale. And even though the sale was only to benefit the state of New York, Phillip’s innate professionalism made him want the results to be exceptional. The pieces they were selling deserved it.

He explained all of it to Jane as they went through the lobby, left the building, and walked two blocks to the restaurant. It was a tiny place, but cozy, pretty, and warm. He had asked for a quiet table, and Jane settled back against the banquette and smiled at him. Everything he had told her had been interesting, and had helped to put her at ease with him. This was obviously not a date, and Alex had been right, she had nothing to feel guilty about. This was all about the upcoming sale that they were both involved in. She felt foolish now for having been worried about it.

“So how did you spend your weekend?” he asked.

“I went to the movies with a friend,” Jane said benignly. “And did some review work for the bar exam, and worked on my final paper.”

“That doesn’t sound like fun,” he said, looking sympathetic. She seemed like a serious person, and he admired her for what she was doing, and had done very well, with the Pignelli estate. “What kind of law do you want to go into?” he asked with interest.

“Family law. Child advocacy. While parents are battling in a divorce, sometimes people forget what’s best for the child. All these tug-of-war arrangements, joint custody where a child switches homes on alternate nights, or every few days, or flip-flops week by week so both parents feel they’re ‘winning,’ can screw the kids over in the end. I want to start there, in a family law firm, and see where it takes me after that. Foster care, working with indigent kids. There are a lot of possibilities.”