Rosie (30 page)

‘Well, as Rosie said, there was no mention of either in the National Archive at Kew. Not with the right dates, anyway. You can call things up from there on the Internet now so the research wasn’t too difficult.’

‘No joy, then?’

‘Well, not until I started to look at the names of other people involved, who might have been around at the time.’

‘And?’

‘George Michaels was supposed to be part of a British delegation, wasn’t he? I tracked down that particular visit. It was pure luck, but I suppose all researchers need luck as well as intelligence. Anyway, it struck me that I’d often seen pictures of the two of them – George the Fifth and the Tsar – in naval uniform, and Portsmouth has been the home of the Royal Navy since God knows when. I found a naval archive in Portsmouth library that dealt with diplomatic relations between the British and Russian navies during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1917, the British sent a secret delegation over there. It was during the First World War, remember, so it must have been difficult.’

‘They didn’t give the names of all the people involved, did they?’ asked Nick excitedly.

Alex paused, the better to build the tension. ‘Oh, yes, they did. Right down to the last button polisher. The junior naval attaché at the Admiralty was called . . . George Carmichael.’

‘You clever thing!’ Nick made to take the pad from Alex’s hand.

‘Not so fast. I’ve not finished yet.’

Victoria beamed. ‘She’s very clever, isn’t she?’

‘Brilliant!’ he agreed.

‘That was too much of a coincidence to pass over. But what it didn’t do, of course, was give me any information about the mother. It also failed to show any meeting between the grand duchesses and the delegation. In fact, they had been in two different places – the delegation was sent to Murmansk, right up north on the Barents Sea. It had only been linked to St Petersburg by rail in 1916 and was just about to become an important port because it remained ice-free all the year round. Anyway, when the delegation was in Murmansk, most of the royal family were in St Petersburg, more than five hundred miles away, and there is no record of the delegation going there. They sailed from Portsmouth, up round the Norwegian coast and the North Cape, direct to Murmansk where they met the Tsar. They did not go via the Baltic to St Petersburg and take the train north.’

‘Which knocks Rosie’s theory on the head,’ said Nick, despondent.

‘Well, it does seem to rule out the grand duchesses.’

‘I feel a but coming on,’ said Nick.

‘And there is one. Before he was married the Tsar had a mistress. Now I can only guess at this, and I may be wrong, and there are a lot of ifs.’

‘Go on.’

‘If the Tsar had not relinquished the love of his life, and they still occasionally had liaisons, and one happened to be in Murmansk during the time of the naval delegation . . . and if the mistress did not confine her attentions to the Tsar . . .’

‘You’re right – there are a lot of ifs.’

‘It would hardly stand up in court. Pure conjecture, that’s all.’

‘But what was the mistress’s name?’

Alex spun the book round and showed him. ‘Mathilde Kschessinska.’

He was stunned. ‘Matilda Kitching?’ he wondered aloud.

‘It’s possible.’ She smiled tentatively.

‘What happened to her?’

‘She eventually married one of the Tsar’s cousins, Grand Duke Andrei, in Cannes in 1921.’

‘They escaped the revolution, then?’

‘Yes, although Mathilde’s mansion was ransacked. She eventually ran a ballet studio in Paris – even taught Margot Fonteyn.’

‘But she’s dead now?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘So I don’t suppose we’ll ever know for certain?’

Alex shook her head. ‘It seems unlikely.’

Nick reached out and squeezed her hand. ‘Thank you for going to all the trouble.’

‘It was a pleasure. But I’ve probably just uncovered a lot of coincidences.’

Nick leaned back in his chair. ‘It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it?’

‘Interesting, though,’ piped up Victoria.

‘Yes. Very.’

‘Are you going to tell Rosie?’

‘That depends on how she is.’ Nick’s face bore a distracted look.

The three walked down the long corridor towards Rosie’s bed, Victoria in the middle, holding Nick and Alex’s hands.

As they rounded the corner, they saw Rosie lying in bed, propped up on a mountain of pillows. She raised both hands in greeting, and Victoria rushed across to plant a kiss on her cheek.

‘Hello, sweetheart!’ Rosie murmured. ‘How lovely to see you.’

Nick and Alex bent down and kissed her too, then Nick darted off to find three chairs. When he came back he asked, ‘How are you?’

‘Oh, you know.’ She looked and sounded weak. She wore little makeup, and her hair had not been combed. Each time he came he hoped to observe some sign of increased strength, but so far he had not.

‘Need to get you back on your feet,’ he offered.

Rosie nodded. ‘A bit feak and weeble,’ she said to Victoria, who grinned at the little joke.

‘Mummy’s been finding things out,’ volunteered Victoria. ‘About your mummy and daddy.’

Rosie’s face brightened and a light shone in her eye. ‘Have you?’

Nick cut in: ‘She’s been working very hard, but I think we should tell you later when you can take it all in.’

Rosie did not demur. She half closed her eyes. ‘Weary. Sorry.’

Nick glanced at Alex, who read his mind. ‘Come on, Victoria. We’ll let Rosie rest for a while. We’ll come back later.’ And then, softly, to Nick, ‘We’ll wait for you by the car.’

He nodded in agreement, and they left with a wave. Then he swapped chairs so that he was closer to Rosie’s head.

‘Sorry, love,’ she whispered. ‘I’m done in.’

‘Ssh! You get some rest. It’s too early, really.’ It was a quarter to ten. ‘We should have let you sleep.’

Rosie shook her head. ‘Plenty of time for that later. It was lovely to see them both.’

‘Yes.’

‘Lucky boy.’ She nodded in the direction Alex and Victoria had gone. ‘Special. Very special.’

‘I know.’

‘Lucky girl, me. Very lucky girl.’

He stroked her cheek lightly. ‘You sleep now,’ he said. ‘We all need you better.’

She smiled weakly and closed her eyes.

‘Would you come with me to the jeweller’s to have them valued?’ he asked.

‘But isn’t it a bit personal? I mean, do you really want me to know?’

They were sitting on the veranda at the Anchorage, sipping coffee after an early dinner. They had walked the old path from Yarmouth to Freshwater in the afternoon, alongside the river Yar, past the old mill, between the reed beds, as far as Freshwater church, where Victoria had found it impossible to believe that the large stone tomb in the graveyard should contain Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s widow but not Tennyson himself.

‘I think it’s awful.’

‘But he’s in Westminster Abbey. In Poet’s Corner.’

‘Well, he should be here. He shouldn’t have left her alone.’

Alex and Nick had shot each other a sympathetic glance. It had occurred to them both that their current proximity was due in no small measure to Victoria’s romantic leanings.

‘Quite right,’ they said in unison, then laughed.

Right now, Victoria was sitting in the dinghy, pulled out from beneath the veranda and beached on the rough grass in front of the house. Her head was buried in a book, and she absentmindedly curled a strand of hair around her index finger as she read.

‘I don’t want to have any secrets from you. Not even financial ones.’ Nick was adamant.

‘Well, if you’re sure.’

‘Positive.’

‘Could you bear to come over again tomorrow?’

Alex smiled resignedly. ‘I’m turning into a commuter. But I’ll have to be back for Victoria coming out of school. If I catch the nine o’clock ferry over, I could take the two o’clock back. Would that be OK?’

‘Fine. I shall miss you, though, when you go. I always miss you.’ Nick stood up, lifted her off her chair and sat down with her on his lap.

‘Hey!’ she said. ‘I’m far too heavy for this. You’ll regret it.’

‘Never.’ He put his arms round her waist, and they watched Victoria in the boat until the sun sank behind the Dorset hills and it was time for the mainlanders to go home.

 
 
34

. . . best grown with support.

N
ick was nervous. He had the entire contents of the bank safety-deposit box in the inside pocket of his jacket and he had no idea what Elliott Williams would say either about their value or that they were in Nick’s possession.

Before they made their way to the jeweller’s he opened the bag in the car to show Alex.

‘Oh, my God, they’re huge!’ she said. ‘Are you sure they’re real?’

‘Well, no, I’m not – apart from the one Rosie gave me, which she said was real.’

Alex pushed at them with her finger, the better to make them sparkle. ‘I’ve never seen anything like them. Not even in a jeweller’s window.’

‘It’s a bit scary, isn’t it?’

‘And you don’t know where they came from?’

‘Not exactly. Rosie said she converted her savings into diamonds – bought in London presumably – then handed them to Dad for safekeeping, but she kept mine back to give me on my birthday. That’s this one.’ He indicated the smallest of the five stones. ‘Rosie reckoned this was worth twenty-five grand. I don’t know what the others are worth, or why there are five altogether. There was supposed to be one each for Alice, Sophie and me.’

‘And you think these came from Russia?’

‘That’s what the hotel writing-paper said.’ Nick had already explained about the visit from his father and the two heavies who had come to collect the packet.

‘So these ones just turned up out of the blue? In the post?’

‘Yes. Recorded delivery.’

‘And the note said nothing about where they were from?’

‘Here it is.’ Nick pulled the note from the small linen bag and handed it to Alex. ‘See what you make of it.’

Alex read it. Then she repeated: ‘“The enclosed were given to me by Rosie to take care of. Well, their friends were.”’

‘What do you make of that?’

‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? These aren’t the diamonds Rosie gave him.’

‘Yes. But are they better ones or fakes?’

Alex looked thoughtful. ‘Well, he wouldn’t have sent fake diamonds by recorded delivery, would he?’

‘Unless he wanted me to believe they were real.’

‘Would your dad really do that?’

Nick shook his head. ‘No. At least, I don’t want to believe he would.’ He tipped the stones back into the bag. ‘But there’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?’

Elliott Williams was as welcoming and urbane as he had been on their first meeting, and especially solicitous to Alex. Coffee was made promptly on their arrival by another bright young thing (Elliott clearly had a private supply), and then he said, ‘Right. Let’s have a look at the stones.’

He reached under the counter and took out a roll of dark blue velvet, which he smoothed out across the glass surface.

Nick handed him the small linen bag and watched as he undid the top and tipped the stones out on to the fabric. They fell silently, and then picked up the light from the overhead spotlights and he suppressed a gasp.

At first Elliott Williams said nothing. He put the magnifying loupe into his eye and held up each stone to it for what seemed an age. As he finished with each one he laid it down on a different part of the velvet.

As he lowered the last of the five stones, he removed the glass from his eye and cleared his throat. ‘Yes, well . . .’

Nick and Alex hung on those words. All sounds, except the ticking of the long-case clock in the corner of the shop, had subsided.

‘We have here three different grades of diamond.’ He gently pushed the one Rosie had given Nick towards the front of the cloth with his little finger. ‘This one is pretty good. A VVS1, if you remember what that is?’

‘Very, very small inclusions?’ offered Nick. Alex looked impressed.

‘Precisely. Not flawless, but very fine nevertheless. Value? Around the twenty to twenty-five thousand mark.’

‘That’s what I thought,’ said Nick, involuntarily.

Elliott Williams shot him a look. ‘Oh, only because that’s what my gran – that’s what I was told it was worth when it was given to me.’ And then, to reassure the jeweller that he was not wasting his time, ‘That’s the only one I was given a value for. I haven’t a clue about the others.’

‘Right. These three here . . .’ he pushed a matching trio forward ‘. . . are internally flawless and worth probably around seventy-five thousand apiece.’

‘Gosh!’ Nick tried to hide his surprise.

‘And this one,’ Elliott pushed forward a diamond the size of his fingernail, ‘is flawless. Quite beautiful and very well cut. It will be worth between seven hundred and seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds.’

Alex gasped. Nick said, ‘Good God!’ and Elliott Williams said, ‘You’re a very lucky man.’

‘Yes. I suppose I am.’ And then, ‘Are you sure I don’t owe you anything for the valuation?’

‘Absolutely not. It was my pleasure to see them. And if you need them set – in a ring or a pendant – I’ll be happy to do the job for you.’