The Secret Wife. Gill Paul
last.
Mon chéri,
I beg you to send two lines telling me you are safe. I’m full of such fear that I find it hard to concentrate on my work. My sisters talk to me and I realise after several minutes that I have not been listening because all my thoughts are with you in Poland. I will not rest easy until I hear you are safe.
The most recent letter told him that in October she and Olga would be joining their father at Stavka, the army headquarters in Mogilev, where Alexei was visiting the troops. It was her fondest hope that Dmitri might be close enough to ride over for even an hour: ‘To see your face and hear your voice would be bliss, even if we cannot be alone together. I will only be assured that you are well when I can see it in your eyes.’
Dmitri cursed. Mogilev was several hundred miles south of his current position. He went to ask his commander if there might be some mission that could take him down that way, perhaps delivering a message to the Tsar, but was told that he could not be spared.
It was unbearable to think of Tatiana coming comparatively close yet not be able to see her. Mogilev was not on the front line but if the Germans made a sudden push forwards it was not unthinkable that their shells might penetrate so far. What was Tsar Nicholas thinking? It proved he had no concept of how strong this German opponent was or he would not have considered bringing his family to the area. Dmitri tortured himself with images of Tatiana being torn apart by a howitzer shell and knew he would not sleep easy till she was in St Petersburg once more.
Lake Akanabee, New York State, 20th July 2016
The morning after her arrival at Lake Akanabee, Kitty drove into the nearby town of Indian Lake to buy tools and provisions. A row of purply-red clapboard houses and shops with white eaves and sloping roofs were set along a dusty main street, with skeins of overhead wiring looping from lamppost to lamppost. There were no traffic lights and she hardly saw another car as she crawled along looking for a hardware store.
The road was lined with fast-food outlets, camping equipment stores and adventure sports shops with racks of canoes outside. She drove straight past ‘Lakeside Country Stores’ first time and it was only on the way back that she noticed their sign advertised hardware, plumbing and decorating materials as well as camping gear. She pulled into the yard and dug out the list she’d scribbled. She needed a battery-powered chainsaw, a drill, woodworking tools, a spade, and a brush and shovel; she also needed a gas cooking stove, an oil lamp, and some cups, plates and cutlery. The man behind the counter piled up her purchases, obviously delighted to make such a substantial sale.
‘Do you have a sliding bevel?’ she asked, checking against her list.
‘You sure you need one?’ he asked, an eyebrow raised in a manner that indicated he didn’t think women knew about such things.
‘Yes. I have some steps to rebuild and need to get the angles right.’
He shrugged and began searching the shelves. ‘Just arrived?’
‘Yesterday.’
‘Your husband with you?’
Kitty bristled. Why did men in DIY stores always assume there must be a man behind the scenes? ‘Nope,’ she said shortly.
He produced a bevel and she unfastened then retightened the wing nut before adding it to her pile.
‘You’ve come at the right time,’ the storekeeper said. ‘We’re nearing the end of bug season. A couple of weeks ago you would have had to fight your way through swarms of them.’
‘I did get a couple of bites last night,’ she admitted, scratching her neck. ‘Is there anything you recommend?’
‘Yup,’ he said, and added a large bottle of insect repellent to the pile. ‘Round here we wear this twenty-four seven, April to October.’
The chip and pin machine wasn’t working so she had to sign for her purchases.
‘Is there a supermarket nearby?’ she asked.
He directed her to one further down the main street. ‘You can’t miss it.’
‘How about a jeweller’s?’ She fingered the pendant she’d found, which she’d slipped inside her purse. It would be interesting to get it valued.
‘Lake George is the nearest jewellery store, but my brother-in-law used to work in the trade and he still keeps a stock of gift items. You’ll find him down Bennett Road.’ He wrote the name and address for her on the back of his business card. ‘Say Chad sent you.’
Kitty went to the supermarket first and stocked up on the type of tinned foods that could be heated over a camping stove, as well as crackers, cheese, apples, coffee and a few bottles of wine. The car was full to bursting as she drove down to Bennett Road, which was easy to find as there were hardly any other cross streets off the main road. When she rang the bell, two Great Danes came bounding across the yard, followed by a bearded man in a disconcertingly bright cerise shirt.
‘Hello,’ she began. ‘Chad said you used to work in the jewellery trade. I was hoping to get a valuation on a pendant.’ She took it from her purse and handed it to him.
He had a quick look. ‘Sure. Come inside.’
She took a seat at his kitchen table, which was covered in a floral waxed tablecloth. The man fetched a jeweller’s loupe from another room and held the pendant up to the light of the window before giving a low whistle. Kitty waited. He examined the setting of the stones then turned it over and squinted at the back. There was silence while he concentrated, then finally he turned to Kitty.
‘This is Fabergé! It’s one of the most beautiful pieces I’ve come across.’
‘You’re kidding!’ Kitty was not a jewellery expert but Fabergé was probably the world’s best-known luxury brand. Her grandfather must have been wealthy; or perhaps it was a family heirloom.
‘If I’m not mistaken, it’s rose gold set with a sapphire, a ruby and imperial topaz. The engraving on the back is a maker’s mark. It’s a little worn but it looks as though the workmaster’s initials were H.W.’
‘Can I see?’ Kitty peered through the loupe but couldn’t make out anything that looked like either ‘Fabergé’ or ‘H.W.’
‘It’s the Cyrillic alphabet,’ the man told her. He produced an iPad from a drawer and typed in a password then looked something up. ‘As I thought … it’s Henrik Wigström, who was their head workmaster from 1903 through to 1918.’
‘Was he Russian?’ Kitty asked, wondering if Dmitri had brought the object over from Russia with him.
‘Wigström was from Finland but he worked at the company headquarters in St Petersburg, under the great Michael Perchin, the most famous Fabergé workmaster.’ He glanced up to see if she recognised the name, but she looked blank. ‘The company was so popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that they used independent artisans to make up orders based on sketches supplied to them by Fabergé’s designers. You’ll have heard of the famous Fabergé eggs …’
‘Erm … I think so.’
He seemed disappointed by Kitty’s ignorance. ‘They were extraordinary jewelled creations that the royal family gave each other for Easter, with hidden surprises inside. Only sixty-five of them were ever made and recent prices at auction have reached close to ten million dollars each.’
‘Oh my God!’ Kitty was stunned. ‘For an Easter egg?’
The jeweller laughed. ‘Yeah, well, the one Tsar Nicholas gave to his mother in 1913 was made of platinum and gold, studded with’ – he read from his iPad – ‘1,660 diamonds on the outside and 1,378