I feel compelled to write in a way I haven’t in a very long time.
Within my mouth rich jewels bloom,
Cabochons, orient pearls of price.
Around my neck and over my heart
Her shimmering golden cord wraps tight.
Her lips that my soul dies for
Her eyes that ever speak true
Her small hands on me, enticing
My skin aflame, the thrill renewed.
There’s more, but I feel out of practice. All my writing dropped off so dramatically after I stopped writing to you.
When I first saw the necklace, I knew it belonged with you. The maharani was showing it off as she danced, and she refused to part with it. But she was a born negotiator, because in the end I offered such an exorbitant price that she was persuaded. Literally a king’s ransom for you. I had to tell Ethan it was a gift. He’d have wondered at my spending money like that. He’d have wanted to repay me for it, and I didn’t want that. I initially thought it would cut my trip short for lack of funds. Then he paid me to continue only so he could take something that was mine. Though I shouldn’t judge his motivations; I’d do anything for you, too. I bought the necklace only with the thought that I’d see you wear it as mine.
Under very different circumstances.
I have been haunted by the what ifs, the choices that I could have made differently. I can hardly sleep for thinking. But then I’ve hardly let you sleep, either. If only I hadn’t been so young then. If only I’d seen what was in front of me. It was more than hesitation or cold feet before destiny. It was something I felt I had to do, leaving. But we pay for these things for such a long time, don’t we? That’s what I’ve learned. That the worst mistakes aren’t the ones that hurt you, yourself, though I have been hurt, as I’m sure you can see. The worst mistakes are the ones that hurt the ones you love. And when that happens, if there’s a way to rectify it at all—then you must. You must even if others will be tangentially hurt in the end. If it is in service to your greater fate. Our greater fate. We must
Here the entry ends, and there are no other writings in the journal.
She turns the page to a photograph lodged in the spine. Ripped in many pieces and then stuck together on the back with yellowed tape, thin and brittle, it shows a young Indian woman in profile, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear and back into her thick braid.
And even though she is in profile, she is very clearly wearing the Moon of Nizam around her neck.
With the picture in hand, Nell rereads that last entry. And then every one before it. Written on the corner of the title page, in the same faded ink, is “Ambrose S. Quincy.” Next to it, a pressed violet still retains a trace of its color.
She’s sure, even with her hazy knowledge of auction house rules, that this will make a pretty package with the necklace, and that it will help prove proper provenance.
She hears tread on the stairs. “You won’t believe . . .” she starts, the journal still in her hands.
She shoves it behind her back when she sees that it’s Pansy on the staircase.
“Won’t believe what?” Pansy asks, eyeing Nell.
Nell starts to panic. She wants time to think through how to play this, and here Pansy is with her ancient totalitarian presence. “Where’s Louis?” Nell asks. “I thought you were Louis.”
“He’s digging around in the garden shed for buckets or something. What have you got there?” Pansy leans around Nell, trying to see.
“Nothing.” Nell feels like a child.
“For real?” Pansy says, putting her palm out. She’s wearing a gold bracelet covered in scrolling vines.
When Nell doesn’t move, Pansy steps closer. “Grow up,” she says.
Nell reluctantly hands it over. What else is she supposed to do, exactly? Is she really going to play a game of keep-away?
After scanning it, Pansy looks up. “Of course this means nothing for anything.”
“It’s everything. And you know it.”
“Because it proves he bought it, I guess? You know the argument based on him stealing it was a loser.”
“Because they had an affair,” Nell says, trying to will Pansy to give the journal back to her.
“I highly doubt it.”
“Did we not just read the same thing?”
“I’m sure it was a very chaste, unrequited sort of thing. It was the twenties.”
“Judging from that, I’m pretty sure people had sex in the twenties,” Nell says.
“But not her type of people. I mean, there wasn’t even birth control, I don’t think. Or it was illegal or something. You know what you’re saying? That she . . . that she would . . .”
“There was birth control, but people had sex before birth control.” As Nell says it, they both stop before she says what is finally so plain. Her mother’s theory supported and justified—history reassembling and dissembling before them both. Nell doesn’t even need to say it. Between the two of them it’s become fact—Ambrose was her mother’s true father, Nell’s grandfather.
Pansy moves her hand toward the top of the book as if she’s going to rip the page out of the journal. Nell puts her hand out, trying to stop her, but Pansy blocks and turns away. Nell doesn’t want to force the conclusion. Footsteps ring on the stairs amid their tussle.
“What are we doing?” Louis’s heavy tread on the stairs stops and his big grin that accompanies his silly use of the royal “we” fades. Reading the energy, he says, “Are we doing something we shouldn’t be doing?”
Pansy puts the journal behind her back, just like Nell did, but Louis just reaches around her.
He fumbles as he puts one arm around Nell’s waist, holding her close into his side, reading. “You know what this means, right?” He’s nodding toward the page as Nell looks on. She can feel Pansy watching them, wide-eyed. Then he’s digging in his pocket for his phone, calling an associate, and walking away as he’s updating, already discussing angles and strategies. She hears him say “contemporaneous record” and “authenticated purchase.”
When he hangs up, he looks at Nell. “Did you know?”
“My mom did, but she never had proof. My dad, too, I mean, he’s the one who told me. She only suspected it because of the family resemblance, but that can be chalked up to anything. This is real proof. I wish she were still here. I wish I could show it to her. She was right.”
“I still don’t see how any of this makes any difference,” says Pansy, nodding toward Louis’s hands, which are securely wrapped around the brittle leather.
“No, you wouldn’t, but it makes all the difference in the world for that,” Louis says, nodding toward Nell’s neckline and the Moon.
THE GOLD BANGLE
Ambrose approached the closed door to the bedroom and knocked softly. When he didn’t hear anything, he slowly pushed in.
She was lying across the big tester bed, facedown, wearing a kimono of deepest blue. One arm rested flat on the bed above her head, the wrist encircled by a gold bangle etched with scrolling vines. She didn’t look up when he came in.
“Mayfair,” he said, reaching down and gripping her bare ankle.