Property of a Noblewoman (7 page)

When Phillip arrived for dinner on Sunday night, Valerie was cleaning her brushes and had just finished painting. She was working on a portrait of a woman that had a mystical quality to it, and Phillip stood staring at it for a long time. Valerie had real talent as a painter, her gallery shows got good reviews, and all her pieces sold. She was represented by a respected gallery near her apartment in SoHo. They had lived there for as long as Phillip remembered, long before it became fashionable. And she enjoyed how lively it had become, and all the young people who lived there. She compared it to the Left Bank in Paris.

“I like your new painting, Mom,” he said admiringly. It was a subtle change from her previous work. She was always pushing herself to grow as an artist, and studying new techniques.

“I’m not sure where I’m going with it. I had a dream about it the other night. The woman in it has been haunting me. It’s driving me crazy,” she said with a broad smile, looking happy and untroubled. The smell of her paints was heavy in the apartment, it was a familiar part of the artistic ambiance around her, along with the bright fabrics and interesting pieces she and his father had collected over the years, some pre-Columbian, others European antiques, some from India, and a number of paintings and sculptures by her artist friends. His father had thrived on the eclectic people she drew to them, and had enjoyed meeting most of them. He had called it a “modern-day salon,” like those in Paris in the twenties and thirties, or the entourage around Picasso, Matisse, Cocteau, and Hemingway or Sartre. She also collected playwrights and writers, anyone who was steeped in the arts, or creative in some way.

“I’m sure you’ll solve it,” he said, referring to the painting. She always did. She put a great deal of thought into her work. They chatted easily while she spread out all his favorite food on the kitchen table. One of her greatest joys in life was spoiling him, in whatever way she could, even with a simple dinner in her kitchen. He was touched by the effort she made.

He complained about the jewelry department at Christie’s again, and she reminded him that it was up to him to make a change, and not just sit there stagnating, waiting for fate to take a hand. And then he told her about the collection of jewels he was going to see that week, and how impressive they appeared to be from the photographs he had seen.

“Who did they belong to?” she asked with an interested look.

“Some countess who died penniless with a fortune in jewels, and no heirs,” he said, summing it up for her from the little he knew himself.

“How sad for her,” Valerie said, sympathetic for a woman she didn’t know, as she pushed her mane of white hair back with a graceful hand, and they sat down to dinner together. And eventually she got around to asking him if he was dating anyone special at the moment. He shook his head.

“Not since the last one I broke up with almost a year ago. I’ve just had casual dates since then. She hated my boat. I think she was jealous of it.” His mother grinned at what he said.

“I think I would be too. You spend more time on that boat than with anyone you’ve gone out with. Women are funny about things like that – they expect you to spend time with them too.”

“Oh, that,” Phillip said, and laughed. “I will spend more time when I meet the right one.” His mother gave him a cynical glance, and he looked sheepish for a minute. “What’s wrong with spending weekends on a sailboat on Long Island Sound?”

“A lot, in freezing weather in the winter. You have to do other things too, or you’ll wind up alone on that boat forever. I was talking to your aunt Winnie about going to Europe together next summer, by the way,” she said, as she handed him a platter of tomatoes and mozzarella with fresh basil leaves on it. “But she’s not an easy person to travel with,” Valerie said about her older sister.

“Are you going?” Phillip was curious.

“I don’t know. I love Winnie, but she worries about everything and complains all the time. And everything is scheduled down to the last second. I like trips to be more free form, and make decisions as I go along. That drives Winnie nuts, and makes her anxious. We have to stick to her schedule at all times. It’s a bit like enlisting in the army. I think I’m getting too old for that,” she said, smiling.

“Or too young. I wouldn’t enjoy that either. I don’t know how she doesn’t drive you insane.” Phillip had kept his distance from his dour old aunt for years.

“I love her. That helps make her more tolerable. But traveling in Europe with her might be too much to ask.” She had done it before, but always swore she wouldn’t do it again, and then she did, mostly out of pity for Winnie, who had no one else to travel with. Both women were widowed, but Valerie had a much larger circle of friends, many of them artists, and in a wide variety of ages. Some of her friends were Phillip’s age, and others were even older than she was. Valerie didn’t care about their age as long as they were interesting, intelligent, and fun.

Phillip left shortly after dinner, and went back to his apartment to catch up on some work. His mother hugged him warmly, and he had a feeling she was going back to work on the painting of the mysterious woman after he left, and he wasn’t wrong. Mother and son knew each other well.

“And good luck with that woman’s estate this week,” she said to him as he was leaving. “It sounds like her jewels would make an impressive auction, particularly if you tell something about her story in the catalog.” She was right, of course, along with using photographs of the countess wearing some of the pieces, if they had any. It would certainly be more interesting than the heading that the jewelry was being sold by the surrogate’s court of New York, which they would have to say too.

“Property of a Noblewoman,” he said to his mother, quoting a typical catalog description, and she smiled.

“I like the sound of it already. Good luck,” she said, and kissed him.

“Thanks, Mom. I’ll call you, thanks for dinner.”

“Any time,” she said, and hugged him again, and a moment later he left. And just as he had suspected, the moment the door closed behind him, she went back to work. She was determined to get further insight into the woman she was painting. Maybe the subject of her canvas was a noblewoman too, she thought to herself, and smiled again. Her work always had a certain mystery to it, and told a story, but sometimes it took her a while to figure out what it was.

JANE ARRIVED AT
the bank before Phillip on Tuesday morning. It was pouring rain, her umbrella had turned inside out as soon as she left the subway, and she was soaked. She felt like a drowned rat. He looked no better when he arrived. He had forgotten his umbrella in the cab he had taken from Christie’s, and he was ten minutes late. Traffic had been awful.

She saw him glancing around the lobby of the bank when he got there, trying to figure out who she was. She was talking to Hal Baker, and had spotted Phillip immediately in a dark suit and a Burberry raincoat. She noticed how tall he was and how businesslike he appeared. He looked more like a banker than an auctioneer. She had forgotten that he would be doing an auction immediately after. She was wearing boots and a down coat that had soaked the water up like a sponge, and black jeans and a heavy sweater. It was windy and cold outside despite the rain. Spring seemed like it was an eternity away, and New York was chilly, wet, and gray.

“Miss Willoughby?” Phillip asked, looking uncertain as she smiled and nodded, shook his hand, and then introduced him to Hal Baker. Phillip seemed personable and polite, as the two men greeted each other.

“Sorry to bring you out in such awful weather,” Jane said apologetically. “I think it might be worth your while, though. The pieces are really beautiful,” she said as they followed Hal downstairs to the safe deposit boxes. They didn’t need the notary this time, as all the official work had been done, and the inventory had been notarized and was complete. Now all they had to do was make a decision about how to dispose of it. They had stopped running the notices that week, and no heirs had appeared. Jane thought it was really a shame that no one had surfaced.

Hal unlocked the box as he had before, and they followed him into the same cubicle where Jane had first seen the pieces and the other contents of the box. He set the box down on the table, and left them there alone. Jane took out the jewelry boxes one by one and set them on the table. Phillip began opening them. The first box he opened held a diamond and sapphire brooch from Van Cleef, and he looked visibly impressed. He saw the ruby ring next. He took a jeweler’s loupe out of his pocket, and held it to his eye.

“This is a ‘pigeon’s blood’ Burmese ruby,” he said to Jane as he looked at it. “It’s the finest quality and color there is.” He took the loupe from his eye then and gazed seriously at her. “I’d say it’s about twenty-five or thirty carats, at a guess. It is incredibly rare to find a ruby of this quality in that size. It’s a knockout, and would sell for a fortune.” He examined the emerald ring after that, which he guessed was about the same size as the ruby, or slightly larger, and declared it to be first rate as well. He placed it back in its box with great care, and opened the box with the diamond ring next, which was even larger, and this time he smiled. “Wow!” he said, sounding like a kid, and she laughed.

“That’s what I said when I saw it,” she admitted, and then looked sheepish. “I tried it on,” she confessed, and he grinned as he imagined it.

“How did it look?” he teased her a little. This was suddenly fun. The jewels were fabulous, and if the surrogate’s court sold them with Christie’s, it was going to be a fantastic sale.

“It looked pretty good. It’s the closest I’ll ever get to a rock this size,” she said, smiling back at him. “How big is it?”

“Probably about forty carats, depending on how deep it is. That’s just a guess.” But he had gotten good at estimating size and quality of stones during his two years in the jewelry department, and had taken a basic gemology class to educate himself. These were the finest pieces he’d seen so far.

He studied the invisibly set sapphire necklace and earrings from Van Cleef, and the pearls, which he said were natural, which made them incredibly valuable too, and the tiara, the pearl and diamond antique choker from Cartier, and the pieces from Bulgari in Rome. He went through all of it in under an hour, and looked at Jane when he was finished, deeply impressed.

“Until I saw the photographs, I figured all you had here was junk. And once I saw the pictures, I knew it would be good stuff, but I didn’t expect quality like this. And no heirs have come forward at all?”

“None,” she said sadly. “Would you like to see the photographs of the countess? She was a beautiful young woman.” She took them out, and they went through them together. He pointed out where she was wearing the jewelry – there were several photos. And what struck Jane again was how happy she looked with the handsome count, and how much he seemed to love her as he gazed at her adoringly.

“He appears to be old enough to be her father,” Phillip commented.

“He was thirty-eight years older,” Jane responded. She had figured it out from his obituary and her passports.

“What were their names again?”

“He was Count Umberto Vicenzo Alessandro di San Pignelli. And her maiden name was Marguerite Wallace Pearson – di San Pignelli, once they married. She was eighteen then, and he was fifty-six.” Jane looked wistful as they stared at the photographs together, and Phillip glanced at Jane in surprise.

“It’s a fairly common name, but my mother’s maiden name was Pearson too. Maybe they were distantly related, cousins or something, although it’s probably just a coincidence. There was no Marguerite that I know of. I’ll have to tell my mom. I’m not suggesting that she’s an heir,” he said, looking embarrassed, “it’s just an odd coincidence of name. She’s never mentioned a relative who married an Italian count, and the countess was a generation older than my mom. Maybe she was a distant cousin of her father’s, or more likely no relation at all.” But the name had sparked his interest, though not as much as the jewels, and the fabulous auction and buzz they would create. He hadn’t seen jewels like that in all the time he’d been there, and they had sold some beautiful things in the past two years. “Who should I speak to about an auction?” he asked Jane directly.

“My boss, Harriet Fine. I’m just a temporary clerk. I’m finishing law school in June.”

“NYU?” he asked with interest.

“Columbia. I had to do an internship or clerk for a court to finish. Surrogate’s court hasn’t been too entertaining till now,” she admitted to him as Hal Baker came back and locked up the safe deposit box again, and they followed him out. “All the clerkships I wanted were taken, family court and criminal, so I got this. I took it instead of probate, which would have been worse.” She smiled ruefully, and so did he in answer.

“The jewelry department at Christie’s isn’t much better. They transferred me from the art department two years ago, which felt like a prison sentence, although I have to admit, this auction would be spectacular. Are they talking to any other auction houses?” he asked, and she shook her head.

“No. Just you. Christie’s was my boss’s first choice. She told me to call you, so I did. I’m glad you like Countess di San Pignelli’s things. I think they’re beautiful too.”

“They’re better than beautiful. They are all of the finest quality. It’s rare to see pieces of that caliber, with such important stones. The count and countess must have led quite a life.”

“It looks like it from the photographs,” Jane said quietly.

“I wonder what happened after that,” he said, curious. It was impossible not to wonder about her and the count.

“I wish I knew too. They look so happy together, although she had sad eyes.”

“Did she?” Phillip was surprised. “I didn’t notice. I was too distracted by the stones.” He smiled, thinking that Jane was an interesting woman. He had expected to meet some boring humdrum clerk. She was a vast improvement over that.

“What happens now?” Jane asked him when they were standing in the lobby of the bank again, and Hal had left them to go back to his desk.