‘No, it wasn’t an insurance valuation, as it happens,’ said Cara, with a small suggestion of laughter in her voice. ‘I’ve no idea how often those have to be done. But I bet my eyes they just stamp the form and sign it and never look at the things. Nobody ever does. I bet more than half the “jewels” you see are fakes, no matter how closely guarded and heavily insured they are.’ She was even nearer laughter now, but a weary kind of laughter which suggested to me that she was ready to tell all to anyone just for sheer relief.
‘The last time they were all out together was here, you know. Since then they’ve been out of the bank once to have pastes made and twice to be cleaned. All at different times, too, because our usual jeweller doesn’t care to have the whole lot in his safe at once. Do you see what I’m saying?’
‘Yes, but there’s something bothering me about that -’ I began, then I really did see what she was saying.
‘He cleaned them all,’ said Cara, burbling with a laughter that almost did away with the weariness in her voice, ‘solemnly refusing to acknowledge that they were worthless. And then he made pastes of pastes, again solemnly going along with it. Such excruciating discretion. And after the whole thing came out, it was clear that he does it all the time. It’s killing.’
I could see the funny side of this, of course, and we smiled ruefully for a moment before I spoke again.
‘I wonder what happened to them,’ I said, carefully, probing. Again Cara spoke as though letting out the words was a relief of some unbearable pressure.
‘Well, it must have been someone who had time in advance to have copies made for the substitution,’ she said. ‘Someone who had seen them before. You see? Someone we know.’ Much as I loathed to admit it, she was making perfect sense.
‘And I suppose,’ I said slowly, ‘I suppose it’s a mere fluke that you found out at all. That you decided to have them valued, and took them to a different jeweller, that a callow apprentice got his hands on them and blew the whistle.’
‘Well, not quite,’ said Cara.
I thought furiously, kicking into the path with the toe of my boot, but I could make no headway with this. Cara was chewing her lip and looking at me out of the corner of her eye. Suddenly she seemed to make up her mind and spoke again.
‘I was having them valued to sell,’ she said quietly. ‘I rather think that’s what brought the jeweller to his senses. And I’ve simply got to talk to someone about it before I burst.’
I was nodding, trying not to look too eager.
‘But you must promise not to tell anyone,’ Cara went on. ‘Oh Lord, listen to me! I’ve always hated that, haven’t you? I promise not to tell anyone, and then tell you not to tell anyone, and you’ll extract the same promise from whoever you tell…’ She sounded almost hysterical.
Just then we were forced to abandon the conversation to negotiate a birch sapling which had fallen most inconveniently across the path. It was slim enough for us to step over, but we had to concentrate on keeping our skirts clear of the up-thrusting branches and so I had a little time to think. My questions, none of which I could possibly have asked her out loud, were: first, why in heaven’s name with marriage to Alec Osborne weeks away was she planning to sell the diamonds she was surely to wear at her wedding; second, what could she possibly need the money for; third and most important, why on earth had she told her mother about it? Had it been me, I should have bribed the jeweller with everything I owned, and then simply slipped the things back into the bank and kept my head down.
Over the tree at last, we patted ourselves down and regarded one another.
‘You poor dear,’ I said at last. And I meant it. Mrs Duffy was not someone I should care to cross, unconnected and unbeholden as I was. I could hardly imagine Cara revealing to her mother not only that she had been planning to offload the famous collection for cash – and how did she manage to get them out of the bank, anyway? – but that the family treasure was Woolworth’s best.
Cara was shaking her head and spoke in a very calm voice.
‘Please forget I said anything at all. It’s just that I’m so very confused and I don’t know who to turn to -’ She broke off, shook her head again, then repeated even more firmly: ‘Please just forget I spoke. It’s probably nothing.’
We were just emerging from the wood then, and we could see across a stretch of parkland the coloured frocks of the ladies on the croquet lawn, and a short procession of dark-suited footmen carrying tea trays across to a ring of chairs where Alec Osborne and Daisy were seated, with Silas in turned-down waders looking like Dick Whittington standing between them. My heart sank. Tea outside in summer one must learn to put up with, but this early in the spring one ought really to be able to count on a crackling fire and an armchair; Daisy has gone terribly hearty and Scotch in some ways over the years. Still, I could see a footman on his way with a pile of rugs and at least the tea would be hot. Cara, beside me, laughed suddenly.
‘Silly old me with my wedding nerves,’ she said, unconvincingly.
‘More than likely,’ I said, unconvinced.
‘Although to be honest I don’t care how awful the wedding is, as long as it actually happens and isn’t called off.’ She had lost me again. Why should the wedding be called off? Were the diamonds her dowry and Alec unlikely to take her without them? But then why should she sell them? To get rid of him? If so, it had not worked, for he didn’t look like jilting her. What was going on? I forced myself to pay attention to what she was saying.
‘I don’t say that I shall lock myself in a tower and pine to death if it all falls through, but I am very keen to be good and married, and no going back.’
I looked at the distant figure of Alec Osborne, lying back in his lawn chair, laughing at something Daisy was saying, and wondered at Cara’s easy admission of her indifference. I could quite see that she would want to be off despite it, though, since things must be unbearably frosty between her and her parents. They ought to have been grateful really; she might so easily not have told them. At the very least it had been brave of her to come clean.
‘You mustn’t berate yourself, Cara dear,’ I said, wondering if I was yet old enough to pull off this kind of wise condescension, and fearing that I was. ‘You are a good girl, you know, to tell your mother. You mustn’t fret about it. And whatever spot you have got yourself in, everything will be different after you are married.’
‘What?’ said Cara, turning towards me and blinking, clearly having drifted off and making me wonder if maybe her feelings for Alec were less impeccably modern than she had implied. ‘Oh yes, I’m a good little girl,’ she said. ‘I always have been, you know. I do exactly as I’m told every time and it brings me nothing but joy.’ I grimaced, pained to hear such world-weariness in one so young.
Mrs Duffy and Clemence came out as we arrived at the tea table and in the fuss of arranging chairs, cushions and parasols, a few whispered words were exchanged.
‘What have you been asking Cara?’ Lena demanded. ‘Much better for you to come to me.’
I was startled. Was it quite settled in her mind then that I had undertaken to do her bidding? I supposed it was.
‘Why, nothing,’ I said, my startled look backing my words nicely. ‘We were chatting about dresses and flowers, actually. But I do need to speak to you, certainly. Certainly I do.’
‘Come when we are home again,’ she hissed. ‘Come for luncheon next week.’
A few more of the men began to drift back from the river as tea got under way, and there was much protestation from the ladies, who affected to be outraged by the mud and fish scales clinging to their husbands’ clothes and shrieked at the trout tails peeping from basket lids. Daisy, as I might have predicted, was stony-faced; she has always loathed the sight of women flirting in public with their own husbands. Alec and Cara were no help, chatting quietly to each other and ignoring everyone else; Mrs Duffy and Clemence were as thick as ever, sitting close together with identical expressions of pursed disapproval on their mouths, and I’m ashamed to admit I was very poor value too, for I sat utterly silent, brooding.