Snyder and Goodrich Antiques.
Years before, Mother had actually hinted we might consign some of the less used silver and donate the proceeds to charity. I wasn’t surprised, for she’d inherited Mother Woolsey’s inclination toward charity along with her sterling. She never measured our worth in troy ounces, so I knew we wouldn’t miss a few oyster forks that hadn’t been touched since the Civil War.
I’d never part with the dinner forks, of course.
The Snyder and Goodrich Antiques Shop was just far enough downtown to be discreet, located next to a thriving little shop that sold realistic hairpieces. Everyone acted differently once they ended up at Snyder and Goodrich, selling their family heirlooms to support a rummy uncle or an overdue tax bill. Betty’s second cousin, whose husband went to jail for tax evasion, swallowed a bottle of pills the day her wedding china went down to Snyder and Goodrich. She recovered, but her reputation never did.
Those with buckets of money to spare didn’t care a fig about appearances. After spring cleaning, they’d send a liveried chauffeur or uniformed housemaid down to S&G with the items to be disposed of. A dingy Hamadan carpet. Limoges finger bowls.
Mother never kept a chauffeur for the city, and our few maids left on staff were up at The Hay, so one morning I took a roll of oyster forks from the pyramid of rolled Pacific cloth bundles in the silver closet at the apartment and delivered them myself. Mr. Snyder would no doubt be glad to see the Woolsey silver.
I stepped through the shop door into a haze of cigar smoke. Inside, one got the impression there were more glass cases in that room than in the entire Museum of Natural History. The walls were filled with floor-to-ceiling cases, and more ran around the perimeter of the room, counter high and a body’s length from the wall. All showed the linty evidence of fresh Windexing and stood choked with household artifacts arranged according to category: swords in ornate, tasseled sheaths; coins and paintings and legions of matching stemware. And the sterling silver and silver plate, of course, in separate cases, kept a discreet distance apart.
A trim man, well into his sixties, stood at one of the waist-high cases. He’d spread out pages of The New York Times there and was polishing a silver caviar set atop them with his wooden matches, orange sticks, and polishing rags arranged in a ring around an article. I could read the headline upside down: HITLER BEGINS WAR ON RUSSIA, WITH ARMIES ON MARCH FROM ARCTIC TO THE BLACK SEA; DAMASCUS FALLS; U.S. OUSTS ROME CONSULS.
The man introduced himself as Mr. Snyder, unfurled my felt roll, and extracted one oyster fork, as gently as one extracts saffron from a crocus. With his jeweler’s loupe to one eye, he examined the Woolsey family crest atop it. Mr. Snyder would no doubt be impressed with that coat of arms, extraordinary in sterling: two filigreed lions in silhouette holding the crest aloft, above it a naked arm, shinbone in hand, rising from a medieval knight’s helmet.
Mr. Snyder read the words inscribed on the band of the crest: “Manus Haec Inimica Tyrannis.”
“It’s our family code. It means ‘This hand with shinbone shall only be raised in anger against a tyrant or tyranny itself.’?” How could Mr. Snyder not be eager to have such history in his shop?
“What is your best price?” I asked.
“This is not a tag sale, Miss Ferriday—Clignancourt flea market is that way,” he said, pointing in the direction of Paris with one tarnish-blackened finger.
Mr. Snyder spoke excellent English with just a trace of a German accent. Though his name sounded English, he was of German extraction. I assumed Snyder was once spelled Schneider and was anglicized for business reasons. After World War I, transplanted Germans had been the targets of American prejudice, though that tide had turned recently in the United States, and many Americans were decidedly pro-German. The name Goodrich had probably been added to make the store sound British, for there was no evidence of a Mr. Goodrich.
Mr. Snyder felt the oyster fork all over as a blind man might feel a face, flexed the ends of the tines, then huffed a breath onto it.
“Tines not stretched. That’s good. Hallmark is clogged. Have these been dipped?”
“Never,” I said. “Only cotton wool and Goddard’s.”
I fought the urge to curry favor with a smile. With the French at least, smiling was a tactical error, a sign of American weakness.
Mr. Snyder took the four-sided end of a wooden matchstick and twirled it in the hallmark. The pink of his scalp, which shone through his thin white hair, matched the polish on his rag.
“Good,” Mr. Snyder said. He waved a finger at me. “But always leave silver tarnished, and polish as you need it. Tarnish protects it.”
“The silver belonged to my great-grandmother Eliza Woolsey,” I said. I was surprised that I suddenly wanted to cry.
“Everything in here belonged to someone’s great-grandmother. I’ve not taken a lemon, sardine, cherry, or oyster fork in five years, never mind your twelve. No market for them.”
For someone who proclaimed the benefits of tarnish, he kept his own sterling well shined.
“Maybe I’ll try Sotheby’s,” I said.
Mr. Snyder began rolling up the brown cloth. “Fine. They don’t know a bouillon spoon from a nut scoop.”
“The Woolsey silver is featured in the book Treasures of the Civil War.”
He waved one hand toward the case behind him. “That Astor punch bowl is from the French Revolution.”
Mr. Snyder changed his attitude once I switched to his native tongue. For the first time, I was happy Father had insisted I learn German.
“The book also mentions a loving cup which belonged to my great-grandmother Eliza Woolsey,” I said, forcing the German past tense of “belong” from some deep recess.
“How do you know German?” he asked with a smile.
“School. Chapin.”
“Is your loving cup sterling?” he asked, continuing in German.
“Yes, and gold. Given to her by the family of a young corporal she nursed at Gettysburg. He would have died from his wounds were it not for Eliza, and they sent her the cup with a lovely letter.”
“Gettysburg, a terrible battle. Is the cup engraved?”
“To Eliza Woolsey with deepest gratitude,” I said. “It features the god Pan on the front holding baskets of gold flowers.”
“Do you still have the letter?”
“Yes, it details the corporal’s escape from the swamps of Chickahominy.”
“Good provenance,” Mr. Snyder said.
I would have taken a bullet rather than part with that cup, but the story softened Mr. Snyder enough for him to make me an offer on the forks.
“Forty-five dollars is my best,” he said. “Sterling hasn’t recovered since the difficulties.”
It had been more than ten years since Black Tuesday. By 1941 our economy was on the mend, but some people could still not bring themselves to say the word “depression.”
“Mr. Snyder, you could melt them down and make seventy-five dollars.”
“Sixty.”
“Fine,” I said.
“You are a pleasure to work with,” Mr. Snyder said. “The Jews come in here like they are doing me a favor.”
I pushed myself back from the counter.
“Mr. Snyder, I am sorry if I gave you the impression I would tolerate any kind of slur. I don’t know how they do things in Germany, but I don’t do business with anti-Semites.”
I rolled up the brown cloth with my forks inside.
“Please, Miss Ferriday. I misspoke. Do forgive me.”
“This country was founded on principles of equality and fairness, and you would do well to remember that. I don’t think it would help your business to have people think you harbor negative feelings toward any one group.”
“I certainly will remember that,” he said and gently pulled the forks from my hands. “Please accept my deepest apologies.”
“Apology accepted. I don’t hold grudges, Mr. Snyder, but I do hold the people I do business with to high standards.”