Swept off Her Feet Page 22

  So which had been sent to Beatrice deVille? The copy or the original?

  Horror swamped me. There was no way of knowing, not without consulting a proper expert—and a proper expert might just decide to go public.

  I looked through the notebook to see if there were any more letters.

  There were quite a few more. Violet had kept her drafts as copies, and each of them was tagged with details of the piece sold, the price paid to Angus for a copy, shipping dates, and any other details that might affect the price she was asking.

  I sank back in the pillows and tried to make sense of it all. Had Violet really been selling off the family furniture almost like a small business? There were transactions covering many years, different items, different letters, but the same breezy tone, treating each transaction as the most marvelous thing, cleverly covering the squalid tang of common or garden retail with skillful charm.

  My mind raced. It wasn’t exactly unheard-of for families in trouble to hawk the silver. Max had once told me about a grande old dame he’d cultivated for years, taking her out for tea in Chelsea while she dropped wistful hints about the Edwardian tiara she was saving “for a rainy day.” Normally he took things like that with a pinch of salt, but in this case her provenance was unimpeachable—she was the daughter of a minor aristo—and he’d had a quick peek at the item in question when she wasn’t looking and been sufficiently convinced to hang in there.

  Sadly for Max, when the rainy day came and he rocked up at the daughter’s house ready to offer his tiara-liquidating services, all he got was the unpleasant job of informing the bereaved family that they’d just inherited a pile of very convincing glass, and that their mother must have cashed it in for ten years of dutiful attention from her Polish companion. To add insult to injury, as he was leaving, two of his competitors were just pulling up in their best black-leather sympathy coats.

  I gripped my hair. Was that what Violet had done? Had she even told Carlisle, her son? Was that why she’d impressed on them the importance of saving the house—because if anyone looked round, they’d realize it was all fake? My imagination sketched in the blanks: the furniture shifted upstairs for each ball, a little less coming back down each time. Some pieces reappearing, but not displayed quite so prominently as before.

  A cold hand—and for once it had nothing to do with any ghosts, real or imaginary—gripped my throat as the ramifications of what I’d discovered sank in. First of all, I was about to look like a complete idiot in front of Max. What was I supposed to do? Ring him up and tell him to ignore any photographs of furniture, and just focus on the porcelain and silver?

  Hastily, I scrabbled back through the notebook. Had Angus copied Sèvres vases too? No. Good. So that at least was safe.

  I looked resentfully at the pointless lists I’d made for Duncan. I couldn’t show them to him now. Five days of crawling around under tables getting dust up my nose and splinters in my fingers, five days of cricking my neck photographing dovetail joints, five days of listening to Max pronouncing Chippendale with a horrible kissy-kissy—

  Oh no.

  The table! The prize table, the Chippendale cherry on the cake that I’d more or less promised Ingrid would solve all Duncan’s money worries. If it was a copy, a two-hundred-year-old copy, it was still worth something. If it had been copied in an outbuilding in Berwick within living memory, it wasn’t.

  Maybe she’d kept it. You couldn’t just knock together a table like that. I flicked through the notebooks and papers and letters, my eyes desperately searching for the word Chippendale, and right at the back, in the records from 1937, I found it: a transaction with Maribel Edwards Schuster of Long Island.

  My heart sank. I’d never realized how true that description was until now: I actually felt my heart fall like a glass paperweight into the pit of my stomach.

  Dear Maribel, [Violet had written on Kettlesheer- headed paper]

  I am so glad [underlined twice] to hear the Chippendale table arrived safely. It is the most divine piece of English history, I absolutely agree! And yes, I can quite picture it in Louise’s dining room in Newport with the candelabra I’ve heard so much about. I hope you enjoy as many magical evenings of hospitality as

  And then it stopped.

  The handwriting had got tighter as the lines went on, as if Violet was having trouble forming the words. At the bottom she’d noted MES’s fiancé’s family in munitions; renegotiate price? But the usual flurry of exclamation marks was missing. There was no joy in this one, no playful tweaking of the pleasantries. This had been a hard letter for her to write.

  She’d pinned some notes from a discussion with Angus: types of wood needed, times, prices. Quite a commission for a little workshop, like building the Titanic in a garden shed.

  I looked at the dates. December 1937. Not long before the war—Violet would have been in her fifties, handsome now rather than beautiful. Would her three adult sons have been signing up? Would the Schaffenacker Bentleys have been begging her to get on a boat and come home to safety in New York? Were they still penniless? Was there even a home to go to?

  Tears filled my eyes. I didn’t want to think of Violet selling the McAndrews’ remaining treasure: the scene of her lavish wedding breakfast, of her ball dinner parties, a link to Ranald’s family and his sons’ birthright. It must have been such a last resort. The Violet I’d conjured up wouldn’t have done that.

  But it would explain why I couldn’t feel anything on it: no parties, no celebration, no history. How could I, if it had been made just seventy years ago?

  Being proved right had never felt so disappointing.

  What was I supposed to do? I didn’t know who was going to be more devastated to find out it was fake: Duncan or Max. At least Duncan hadn’t already mentally spent the money, unlike Max, who was probably lining up imaginary fleets of really rare Dinky model cars and Cuban cigars right now. Not to mention crowing down the Builders Arms to his cronies about finally getting his big TV break.

  A crack of hope appeared in my mind. But what if it wasn’t? What if Violet had done a bait-and-switch, and kept the real thing? But that would make her a crook. Was that better?

  I had to tell someone. But who first? I guessed etiquette demanded that Duncan should get the bad news first, but my insides shriveled at the thought of how exactly I was going to do it. Casually informing someone their revered granny was a con artist on a large scale? Hours before dining off the family-heirloom-no-longer? What sort of social clanger was that?

  I didn’t much fancy telling Max either, although there was the chance he could give me three handy tips for confirming the validity of Chippendale tables one way or another. But there was the risk that he might insist on coming up himself, and I shrank at the lurid pictures that summoned up.

  I closed my eyes, and Violet herself appeared in my mind’s eye. Young and privileged, beautiful and laughing on her way to the ballroom she’d decorated with eagles and violets. I didn’t

  want to see her as a trickster, shilling the family heirlooms to keep the roof from leaking, but it was spirited of her. It showed how determined she was to stay with Ranald’s memory once she’d lost him, how enterprising. …

  Robert. I’d tell him first. He seemed to be supernaturally rational about “the business” of Kettlesheer, as he saw it—maybe he’d be more forgiving of a relative who seemed to share his business instincts.

  First thing tomorrow, before anyone collared me to ask where the lists were, I’d go down to the lodge and share this with Robert. I put the letters and notebooks carefully back into the file box and closed the lid.

  Then I’d just have to cross my fingers that nothing else happened to ruin the ball for the McAndrews before my news about the table did.

  Twenty-two

  “You want to talk to me about something so urgent it can’t wait until after breakfast?”

  Robert ran a hand through his hair, and it spiked up at the front like a newborn chick. He’d obviously just pu
lled on the first clothes to hand—his feet were bare, and he seemed hungover and a bit sleepy still, as if he’d just rolled out of bed.

  This is not the time, Evie, I reminded myself, hopping from one foot to another on the icy doorstep. There’d been another light fall of snow overnight, covering up the tracks like a neat housemaid sweeping the ground clean.

  “I’ve had breakfast,” I pointed out, my breath making puffs of white in the crisp air. “Janet Learmont’s been up at the big house drilling the cloakroom volunteers in hat-and-coat etiquette since cockcrow. But I can make you some coffee, if it helps? And yes, I’d like some too. I have just walked half a mile in someone else’s wellies.”

  “Is that some kind of romantic metaphor?” Robert pushed the door open and stood back to let me and my bag in.

  “Ah, no,” he said at once. “No, I see you’ve brought junk back. That wasn’t the point. I was trying to get rid of some clutter.”

  “We need to talk about it.” I hesitated as I entered the kitchen, unsure if we were alone, but it was empty and tidy as ever. Just Robert’s laptop on the table next to a bowl of green apples. The same apples that had been there all week. I wondered if they were wax.

  He put the kettle on and started to get cups out. “Not more talking. What is it now? Dad’s actually Winston Churchill’s bastard son?” He frowned, looking for coffee.

  “Let me,” I said, reaching for the cafetière sitting next to the modern range. No Aga here. “You’re going to need a strong one to get your brain in gear for this. Sit down.”

  Trudging across the park, safely out of range of human ears, I’d rehearsed various approaches of breaking the news of Violet’s double-dealings. My imagination had revved into overdrive with the benefit of a night’s broken sleep, and I’d had to brush away visions of a shell-shocked Duncan, a weeping Ingrid, Robert nobly agreeing to marry some bug-eyed heiress to save the castle, etc., etc.

  But now, in front of him—and in Violet’s old house—they all seemed a bit . . . well, melodramatic. For once, I tried to stamp on my more creative tendencies and present the facts just as they were.

  I took a deep breath.

  “I think Violet sold the family furniture to keep the house going after Ranald died,” I said. “Either that, or she had it copied and sold fakes to half the society families on America’s Eastern Seaboard.”

  There was a moment’s silence, and then Robert did a double take.

  “Say that again?” He turned round in his chair to look at me properly. His forehead was creased in confusion. “I thought you were going to tell me you’d found a will in a sideboard leaving everything to the Battersea Dogs Home.”

  I grimaced. “Sorry. I hate to be the bearer of bad news. But here, it’s all in these books. The one you found was a record of what was in the house. But I found this other one, with details of how she had it copied and sold.”

  “Where did you find that?”

  “In a secret compartment in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom.”

  He did another incredulous double take. “Get out of here. Where was it?”

  “Seriously.”

  “Well, then I owe you an imperial pound of doubloons.”

  The kettle boiled as I showed him the bookkeeping and the tabs Violet had kept on her old social circle, homing in on their need for upmarket wedding gifts, and the super-discreet operation she’d run from her sewing room.

  Robert flicked through the pages while I talked.

  “Right,” he said eventually, his face giving nothing away. “So, what does this mean? There’s nothing for Dad to sell after all?” And the penny dropped. “Mum said you’d hinted that there was something really valuable in the house—I’m guessing it’s that big dining table. Don’t tell me that’s a knockoff too?”

  “Well, that’s the thing . . . I don’t know,” I confessed. “I’d need to get a second opinion. Third, too. There’s a big difference between a real Chippendale and a fake one.”

  Robert raised an eyebrow. “How much difference?”

  “Several hundred thousand pounds’ difference. But if we get an expert up here, and it is a fake, then . . . it’s going to be quite embarrassing. And, as you say, there’s nothing to sell.”

  He whistled. “Blimey.” A pause stretched between us. “But what’s your gut feeling?”

  I wanted to be cool and professional, but he was gazing at me so intensely that the words came spilling out of their own accord.

  “I can’t feel anything on it. A table that old, of that quality, should feel . . . I don’t know, alive with something. Age, experience, something. My fingers tingle when I touch something old. Don’t laugh.”

  “I’m not.” Robert’s eyes were serious, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t laughing at me. “And there’s no tingle on our table?”

  “No.” I twirled a teaspoon round in my fingers to break the unsettling eye contact long enough to get my brain under control. “Maybe it’s just a bit out of my league.”

  “Your tingle detector only works on tables?”

  I risked a glance upward. He was still looking at me with that half-amused glint. I squashed the butterflies in my stomach: not the time.

  “Tables, evening bags, porcelain,” I said. “Inanimate antique objects only. It’s a knack.”

  “Useful skill to have, clairvoyant fingers.”

  “Not when you work in London,” I said. “You don’t want to know where half that stuff’s been.”

  Robert laughed, once, and poured the coffee, pushing one cup across the table to me. He stirred sugar into his own, and flipped over a few more pages of the notebook, saying nothing.

  “Say something,” I said, unable to bear it any longer.

  “Not sure what to say,” he replied. “You think they’re going to want their money back?”

  “Who?”

  “The people she diddled. Or didn’t.” He pointed to the books. “I mean, at least we know where all our stuff is. If we ever had the money to get it back. She left a paper trail of our family valuables, at least.”

  “It wasn’t for her—she didn’t have a choice!” I protested. The more letters I read, the more I could see Violet blinking back her furious tears as she packaged up the last consignment of Ranald’s childhood. “How else was she supposed to pay the bills? You saw that postcard—Ranald more or less made her promise she’d never leave!”

  “I’m not criticizing her,” he replied evenly. “How can I? She sold what was hers. I mean, we were planning to do much the same.”

  “Maybe the table is real! Maybe she didn’t bring herself to sell it in the end! There’s no final copy of the letter.”

  Robert’s expression softened. “You really want it to be the genuine article, don’t you?”

  I nodded. “I do.”

  “Why?”

  “Because . . . I like Violet. Whether she was a hustler or not. I don’t want people to think less of her. I can understand exactly why she fell in love with this house. It has a character. Your dad’s in love with it. You would be too, if you let yourself . . .” I trailed off. I was letting it get too personal again. This wasn’t doing my professional appearance any favors.

  “But surely,” said Robert, “it’s better if it is fake, and out of respect for my dead great-granny’s cottage industriousness, I decide we do have something in common? Isn’t that what you’re secretly hoping too?”

  I felt something buzzing in my pocket: my phone was ringing.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “Might be Alice.”

  Robert pulled an I’m saying nothing face as I checked to see who it was—Max. Quickly I sent the call to voicemail.

  “Oh dear,” he said, spotting my stricken expression. “That bad?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Let me guess—the date you’re blowing off to come to the ball tomorrow night?”

  “No date,” I said. Hadn’t I made that perfectly clear the other night? Maybe he was just being kind. “My boss. I sent him s
ome photos before I found the second notebook, and he’s got a buyer. They’ll be gagging to get the table before someone tells you to offer it to a museum. It wouldn’t be that hard to”—I hooked my fingers in the air—“have a change of heart about letting it go, but you’ve got to do that before they get a look and work out why you suddenly don’t want to sell.”

  “And you don’t want to look like an idiot.”

  “No,” I said. “But I have a feeling this will be the excuse my boss has been looking for to downsize his staff.”

  “Sorry.” Robert sounded as if he meant it.

  “It’s okay,” I sighed. “Do you need an office assistant at ParkIt? I’m not very tidy, but I can do great invoices.”

  “I’ll put your résumé on file.” Robert sipped his coffee and regarded me over the top of the mug.

  I smiled wanly.

  “I assume you haven’t told Dad any of this?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “I wanted to sleep on it first. I didn’t eat a thing at dinner last night. Thank God Sheila was there, talking about clan tartans all night, and whether you should be forcibly put into a kilt.”

  Robert’s face contorted.

  I moved swiftly on. “I can stall Max until Monday. He’ll be run off his feet selling photograph frames for Valentine’s Day. But please don’t tell Duncan before the ball. I don’t want to ruin it for him.” I paused. “I feel bad enough already about, you know, gate-crashing your party.”

  “You’re not gate-crashing, you’re invited. How is Alice? Any news on the . . . ankle, was it?” His eyebrow hooked up in a sardonic nonquestion.

  “To be perfectly honest, she hasn’t called me recently,” I said. I didn’t want to cover for Alice too much, but I could see what she meant about Robert’s high standards when it came to Fraser. He looked annoyed. I crossed my fingers under the table. “She must be in a fair amount of pain.”

  “To be perfectly honest myself, she’s gone down in my estimation for this. Fraser’s the best guy I know. And your sister . . .” He trailed off. “Well, sometimes there’s nothing wrong with a bit of romance. Anyway, are you all set for tonight? Did any of Cat’s dresses fit?”