theft from a passenger. Lost himself to the drink and gambling when he got out. Couldn’t pay his debts. Old Shaw sat on the stones until the whispers had died down along Cheape Side. Luckily, the old man was always so busy he never wanted for extra stock.’
Aurelia pictured the workshop just three shops down from theirs, but five times the size of her papa’s and brimming with twenty lapidaries, cutters, polishers and jewellers hunched over their benches.
‘Who’s it for, Papa?’
He placed the diamond onto the piece of leather spread in front of him and said, ‘Why, darling, it’s for you. I plan to make it a wedding gift, for when you wed Jacob. Would you not expect a goldsmith to save his finest work for his only daughter?’
He went to the anvil and took the slim gold band off the point. ‘See how I have already shaped the gold? But I need to measure it on your finger.’
As his daughter tried on the ring that would one day become her wedding band, her father sighed. ‘I’ll not be able to hallmark or be given assay and touch until I am a master.’
Papa looked down at the pomander with the broken chain glittering on his workbench, turned it over to study the enamelling. ‘I need to make my masterpiece,’ he said. ‘Only then will I have freedom in this land.’
Amsterdam, September 1665
Dear Aurelia,
My wanderjahre continues to delight! I cannot believe it has been six weeks since Berg de Jong—the finest jeweller and goldsmith in Amsterdam—has taken myself and my apprentice Dirk Jenk into his workshop overlooking the canal. Each day we sit at a long table under a window, leather catch trays affixed to the desk and resting in our laps, just like at home.
Outside our third-floor window barges float up the canal loaded with tulip bulbs, cheese and herring. Also, bags of spices and gemstones shipped from the Dutch East Indies and Ceylon. Cinnamon scrolls from the bakery next door mingle with the smell of metal and soldering.
How I miss your mother’s kitchen, filled with the scent of warm appeltaart and fresh bread.
Every morning, two artists tutor us so that we may indeed be worthy of the title ‘Master Goldsmith’. Currently we are learning to sketch flowers. Yesterday I drew some pansies, starting with the petals and keeping the heel of my hand on the paper until my lines felt confident and unbroken. The flowers reminded me of you with their modest charm and prettiness. Then I added a line of forget-me-nots, in remembrance of those we loved and lost.
I hope you and your mama are keeping well. I know I can rely on you to take care of her and the child she is expecting.
Until next week,
Papa
Chapter 23
ESSIE
LONDON, 1912
Essie stopped hanging out the washing on a line above the oven to dry, then reached behind and loosened her apron strings. She lifted a damp cloth to her face and took a seat at the kitchen table. She was dizzy—tired in a way she couldn’t fathom.
She still had clothes in the boiler on the stove, but was grateful for the spare minutes of soaking she had until they needed to be hung out. Gertie was reading upstairs, Ma was asleep in the front room and Freddie … Well, who knew when Freddie would be home?
Essie leaned down to unlace her boots and felt blood rush to her head. She sat up quickly and eyed the washing, making some quick calculations in her head.
Two months.
Two months since she’d bled.
Essie’s first instinct was to run to Ma and lay her head in her mother’s lap. But there would be no soothing words on the end of her mother’s tongue. No comforting hands through her hair. Only ridicule and shame. Ma would throw her out as soon as she knew her eldest daughter was with child—hadn’t she said as much many times?
Essie sat taller now, and ran her hands across her belly. Was Essie imagining it, or could she feel a flutter? Certainly, her heart fluttered with excitement and her mind filled with thoughts of Edward: his broad hands, the blue corridor in his Mayfair flat, walks in Hyde Park.
She hadn’t heard from him since he sailed for Boston. She’d hoped Edward would write, but understood that he would be preoccupied with work as he was away for such a short time. But if his words were true—and hadn’t they always been—then he was due to be back in London any day