Aunt Sophie's Diamonds

by Joan Smith

  “Optimist,” Hillary replied.

  “The devil!” Luane shrieked, stamping her foot. “She did it on purpose to annoy me because I wouldn’t marry Gabriel. She thinks to force me to it yet.”

  The racket eventually subsided, and Fletcher frowned at the will while his auditors observed him impatiently, fearing more outrages to be in the offing.

  “What about the money? Surely she is not burying that, too,” Mrs. Milmont declared.

  “‘The money—cash, mortgages and investments, mostly in Consoles . . .’” Mr. Fletcher began, then stopped dramatically.

  “Let’s hear the worst,” Hillary prodded him.

  “‘The disposition of the remainder of the estate, with the exception of a few small personal bequests, will be read one year from this date, in this room, when the same people as are now present re-assemble to have the arrangements explained in detail. In the interim, the monies will be in the control of my solicitor, Mr. Fletcher, and my co-executor, Sir Hillary Thoreau, who will handle said monies as they see fit.’”

  “But how is this!” Marcia Milmont immediately burst into speech. “You mean we must wait a whole year? This is absurd.”

  “We should have had her committed long ago,” Jonathon said in a supporting manner.

  “Certainly, and I only wish we had thought of it,” Marcia added.

  “She was perfectly sane in my opinion,” Mr. Fletcher announced.

  “What do you know about anything?” Marcia charged. “I daresay you were in cahoots with her and are only planning to slip away with all the money.”

  He had expected some opposition and pointed out that Sir Hillary was co-executor.

  She turned her wrath on him. “You are at the bottom of this, Sir Hillary.”

  “How can you say so? I’ve been diddled out of my chess set by this arrangement.”

  “The chess set goes to Miss Bliss, to dispose of as she sees fit,” Fletcher added.

  Miss Bliss nodded to Sir Hillary in an understanding fashion. The set was for him, obviously, but not directly as that would invalidate him as an executor.

  A silver tea service was bequeathed to Mrs. Milmont, who immediately proclaimed it was only silver plated, and she didn’t want the ugly old thing in her house.

  “Can leave it here then,” Jonathon offered.

  “Certainly not! You only mean to sell it, and it is worth a good deal.”

  A pair of dueling pistols went to Gabriel—not a part of the entailed estate by law, as she had purchased them herself at an auction. Claudia was the joyless recipient of a Sèvres vase from the same auction, which had in the interim become severely cracked from a fall to the hearth. Luane was given her personal effects and wondered what she would do with a bunch of well-worn gowns suitable to a seventy-year-old invalid. The captain got nothing else.

  The will finally read, the pent-up ferocity of the mob was unleashed.

  “We must have this abominable will overset,” Mrs. Milmont began immediately.

  “Seems devilish odd. Can’t think it’s legal to go burying diamonds,” Jonathon took it up.

  “They are my diamonds!” Luane said furiously.

  “No such a thing!” Jonathon returned. The girl had inherited only a rusty old tiara and a caseful of glass junk and was thus rejected.

  “Yes, they are. They were always to go to me. It was understood. She promised.”

  “Well, she was crazy,” Mrs. Milmont decreed. “Now, captain, how should we go about getting the will set aside?”

  “See a solicitor, I suppose.”

  “That would be unwise,” Mr. Fletcher told them.

  “Very inconvenient for you, Mr. Fletcher,” Marcia turned on him. “Yes, indeed, you will end up in Newgate for your part in this affair, or I miss my bet. There was coercion at work here.”

  “Nonsense,” Sir Hillary scoffed.

  “There is no nonsense about it. She was clearly mad, to go burying a fortune in diamonds, and not to tell us who gets the money.”

  “The remainder of the will is to be read one year from this date,” Mr. Fletcher pointed out. “The money is not buried, but is to be disbursed according to how events fall out.”

  “What does that mean?” Jonathon asked, confused.

  “It means the money is to be distributed according to what happens in the intervening year,” Mr. Fletcher explained vaguely.

  “That tells us nothing,” Mrs. Milmont exclaimed. “Do you mean we must do something in the meanwhile to get it? Then you must tell us what it is that is to be done.”

  “No, that is not the way she wanted it. She wishes you all to go on as though there were no money, and then when a year is up, the conditions will be read, and the money dealt out accordingly.

  “Yes, you silly man, but according to what?”

  “It just occurred to me,” Miss Bliss said calmly, “it might be according to who doesn’t try to have her declared insane. Just an idea,” she added deprecatingly.

  “Sounds exactly like her,” Jonathon said, much impressed at Miss Bliss’s insight.

  Mrs. Milmont was sent reeling at this horrendous possibility. “Well, I am sure you all know I was only fooling! As though I would ever seriously say such a thing about my own dear sister.” She then fell silent trying to figure what other implications the phrase “according to what happens in the intervening year” might conceal.

  Sir Hillary said aside to Gabriel, “She might have had in mind your marriage to Luane. It was what she always wanted.”

  Gabriel frowned and nodded. The same idea had occurred to him. Luane had the identical thought and expressed it aloud. “She is trying to make me marry Gabriel again.”

  Jonathon looked startled. That too sounded exactly like Aunt Sophie. It was not long in striking him that the terms might be more generalized than that. Maybe if either himself or Gabriel married her in the interim . . . What had she said? Something about she would leave her money to him if Luane would have him. Or if neither of them took her, he might come into the blunt himself. On the other hand, Luane might. Or even Claudia. With such a surfeit of possibilities, he was at point non plus, and went and sat alone in a corner to think.

  Various other interpretations of the wording of the will were spoken of. Maybe if any of them lost or sold their inherited jewel it would cut them out. Possibly she wanted the captain to do something with Swallowcourt—to bring it into shape, in which case he would have proved himself able to handle the money. The awful idea even darted into Mrs. Milmont’s head that what was meant was for her to take Claudia to live with her. Sophie had never approved of keeping the girl with the Milmonts. Or was it conceivably Luane she was expected to take on? She was the girl’s aunt and only living relative of the proper age and sex to chaperone her. But then, to take her and have the will mean something else entirely . . . Her brain, like the captain’s, was reeling. The only thing perfectly clear was that none of them were to get the diamonds. They were to rot away in the ground.

  “That seems oddly unlike Sophie, to go wasting a fortune,” Hillary remarked when someone mentioned the fact. “She was too well aware of the value of money to throw it away.”

  “Maybe something different is to be done with them at the end of the year,” Miss Bliss suggested.

  “That sounds more like it,” Hillary agreed, thinking the mystery was solved, for he could not credit her intending them to remain buried forever.

  Captain Tewksbury, after cudgeling his brain for ten minutes, determined that the wisest course was to remain on very good terms with both the nieces, and to this end he rejoined the party. “Seems to me she’s creating a lot of mischief,” he said, going on to make it perfectly clear he didn’t mean to imply she was crazy, but only thoughtless. No harm in that. “Mean to say, if the story gets about there’s a fortune buried in the grave, there’ll be any number of robbers after it.”

  “It would be wisest to keep the fact to ourselves,” Fletcher advised them.

  “Even so . . .
” Jonathon looked at Gabriel in a suspicious manner.

  “No doubt another term of the will is that the grave is not to be tampered with in the intervening year,” Sir Hillary commented.

  “Who’s to know who did the tampering?” Jonathon asked. “If one of you makes off with the diamonds, he’s got a cool fortune, and won’t care a peg about the rest of the blunt.”

  “One of us, shall we say?” Sir Hillary corrected with a lazy smile.

  “For the sake of argument say one of us then, though I shall be in London.”

  “You are the owner of Swallowcourt now,” Hillary reminded him. “Do you not mean to sell out and set up as a country gentleman? Much more the thing, Jonathon.”

  “What about my uniform?”

  “Yes, you would lose the advantage of your regimentals. That is certainly a point against the scheme. But then you might have them put into a glass case in the armaments room to replace the reproductions of the jewels.”

  Jonathon sensed a little irony at this point and reverted to the real item of interest. “Fact remains, I’ll be in London, and you and Gabriel will be here—right on the doorstep of the buried diamonds.”

  “The graveyard is not on my doorstep,” Hillary replied. “Really, you cannot think I would tolerate so funereal a view. The prospect from my doorway is of gently rolling lawns, well manicured, with discreet groupings of trees at well-placed intervals. Relieves the monotony of just grass without impeding the long-range view.”

  “That’s all very well, but you’re here,” Jonathon said.

  “Well, so are you at the moment. Will it be shovels and spades at midnight, captain?” he asked in a quiet undertone laden with significance.

  Jonathon’s eyes widened, and he was conned for a moment into thinking Sir Hillary was serious. “You may laugh and joke about it, but someone will dig her up before the year’s half out, and if you don’t know it, you ain't such a knowing one as I take you for.”

  “Very true. I expect the traffic will be heavy in the graveyard the next few nights. I’ll speak to Fletcher about setting up a guard.”

  Jonathon was silent a moment, frowning, but soon added, “Yes, by Jove. Ought to be done.”

  Luane was recovering from her first spasm of anger and beginning to formulate plans for the retrieval of her diamonds. Her eyes scanned the room, going more than once to Gabriel and Claudia. She went to Gabriel and tugged his sleeve. “I must see you alone before you leave. Come to the armaments room with me. We’ll pretend we’re looking at my paste jewels.”

  They slipped out at once, and in the general confusion and noise, which were still at a high level, no one noticed their exit except Miss Milmont. Once they were safely alone, Luane put her plan to Gabriel.

  “I mean to dig up the grave as soon as may be and get my diamonds,” she said.

  Gabriel looked at her, not in surprise certainly, but not quite in agreement either. “They are bound to be stolen long before the year is up,” he said. “I don’t trust Jonathon for one, and the story is bound to get about locally, too. I can’t imagine how Sophie came to do such a cork-brained thing. They must be meant for you at the end of the year.”

  “Of course they are, and this is just spite because you—we wouldn’t get married at Christmas.”

  “Of course it is, the old devil. I wish we had gone through with it then—though I’d feel a fool being married and leaving my wife behind while I go back to school like a boy. Hil wants me to take my degree, you know.”

  “I had no wish to be pushed into it, and I know you didn’t want to do it . . .”

  “I told you, Loo, after I graduate. Hil thinks that is the event referred to in the intervening year. I daresay he’s right.”

  “I haven’t said I’ll have you.”

  “I haven’t asked.”

  She sniffed. “Never mind that. Will you help me get my diamonds?”

  “I don’t think we can, though I’d love to have a go at it. Hil says he and Fletcher will have a guard set to watch the grave. That must be done, I think.”

  “I bet you it won’t be done today.”

  “You mean we should go after them tonight?”

  “The sooner the better. What time shall we meet there?”

  “Late. About twelve, I suppose. Can you get out?”

  “What is there to stop me?”

  “You can’t go down there alone. I’ll come here and get you. I’ll have to make some excuse to Hil.”

  “He’ll be asleep long before that, but I’ll take Cousin Claudia with me.”

  “Don’t be a sapskull, Loo!”

  “No, she’s all right, and she hates the diamonds herself. Besides, she needs some excitement, poor old thing. I feel sorry for her, with that horrid old mother.”

  “She don’t see much of her from what I hear. Are you sure she’s trustworthy?”

  “Oh yes. We’ll meet you at the graveyard at midnight then. How exciting it will be. I can hardly wait. What about shovels and things?”

  “I’ll take care of that.”

  “It isn’t stealing, you know,” Luane said, in a questioning voice.

  “Stealing from the dead—there’s no harm in that. I suppose it’s illegal, however.”

  “We must be careful not to get caught. Hush, someone’s coming.”

  It was Sir Hillary and Fletcher, come to take Luane’s case of paste jewels. “Would you like to see them?” Fletcher asked her.

  Not two steps behind the gentlemen came Captain Tewksbury, to see what was going on.

  “No, I see them every day,” Luane answered.

  “That the reproductions you’re talking about?” Jonathon asked. “I’ve never seen them out of the case. Like to have a look at them before they go.”

  Mr. Fletcher, rather curious himself, was willing to open the case and did so. “Try on your diamonds, Loo,” Gabriel said, with a secret smile at her.

  She reached out and took them but didn’t bother trying them on. Jonathan’s hands reached out and lifted them from her fingers. “They’re very real looking,” he said.

  “The reproductions are works of art in themselves,” Mr. Fletcher pointed out. “In the rings, for example, the mountings are made of gold, and it is only the stones that are false. The reproductions altogether are worth a couple of hundred pounds. That’s why the case is kept locked.”

  “The workmanship is very fine,” Jonathan said, handling the diamonds, then giving them back to Luane.

  She flung them angrily on the lid of the glass display case. “Poo, who cares for a bunch of paste stones,” she declared.

  “Not you apparently,” Hillary replied, picking up the necklace and replacing it in the velvet setting.

  Jonathan looked at the glass case where she had thrown them, then looked again closely. He then reached once more into the case and lifted out the necklace. “Of course, the stones don’t sparkle like the real thing,” he said, holding them up to the weak light filtering in through the window. There was a distraction at the door, for Mrs. Milmont entered at this point and demanded to know what everyone was doing. While she was being shown the reproductions, particularly the pearls, which she hinted she could put to very good use, Jonathon set the diamond necklace on to the lid of the display case, and carefully arranged it. Mrs. Milmont had then to compare the fake pearls to her real ones and even test both with her teeth.

  “Yes, there is no mistaking the real thing,” she said, and handed the ersatz ones back to Mr. Fletcher.

  He put all the reproductions back in their allotted places, locked the case, and gave it and the key to Hillary. “They are to be kept in trust by you for the present.” He gave him Luane’s tiara, too.

  “Shall we be getting back to Chanely?” Hillary said to Gabriel.

  “Welcome to stay to dinner,” Jonathon offered mechanically.

  “Until you have had time to restock your cupboards and hire a new cook, we must decline,” Hillary replied and went to take his leave of Miss Bliss and
Claudia.

  As soon as the gentlemen and Fletcher left, Luane approached Miss Milmont and requested her company for a walk about the garden. As it was cold and windy with no sign of the sun outdoors, Claudia went with some curiosity to get her pelisse. She could not believe a desire for fresh air formed any part of the reason for this walk. From the excited eyes and high color of her cousin, she thought an adventure was in the offing. The minute they were safely outside, she said, “Do tell me we are to dig up Aunt Sophie and take the diamonds! I have been hoping you didn’t mean to exclude me from the adventure.”

  “Oh, cousin, how did you guess? I told Gabriel you were a right one. Will you come with us?”

  “Oh, is Gabriel to come? I thought it would be more dangerous if we went alone at midnight, just the two of us.”

  “Yes, so it would, and I shouldn’t have bothered asking him if I had been sure you would come. But one can never be sure with old people.”

  “Very true, there is no saying we won’t take an attack of gout or an ague at just the crucial moment, but I shall wrap myself up well.”

  “Oh, cousin, you are not that old! I’ve been thinking about what we should wear, and I believe trousers will be more comfortable.”

  “Trousers, to be sure. An excellent notion, but I’m afraid I didn’t bring any with me. Do you happen to have two pairs?”

  “We will steal old livery. There are several suits in camphor in the cedar closet, all eaten with moths, but we shan't mind that.”

  “Certainly not, it will lend us an airy quality.”

  “We are to meet Gabriel at the graveyard at midnight. It is two miles; shall we ride or walk?”

  “I have no mount, though I confess a two-mile hike in the pouring rain—it is best to plan for the worst, and the sky is very cloudy—is a little more excitement than I bargained for. Is there a farm animal I might ride?”

  “There is Casper—the gig horse, but I’ve ridden him.”

  “He sounds just the thing. Will it be possible to get the horses out without being discovered?”

  “We can always hit the groom on the head.”

  “Now why didn’t I think of that?”

  “I don’t expect you have had many adventures, cousin, but I shall contrive all the details.”