The Jewels of Tessa Kent

by Judith Krantz

  Why was she chatting on and on like this? Tessa wondered, feeling her hands cold with sweat. She’d never been one to chat, especially with perfect strangers.

  “You mean … Miss Kent, you’re going to keep on buying jewels after your own auction?” Monty Foy asked, agog, putting out his cigarette.

  I’d kill him, Liz thought, but death would be too good for that fool.

  “Well, who knows if this auction is even going to happen,” Tessa said lightly. “Maggie doesn’t seem to be showing up, does she? But no, Mr. Foy, I’m not selling my jewels in order to start buying more. I was interested in the extraordinary light green of the beryl. After all, what is an emerald but a beryl with traces of chromium in it? I love green jewels more than any others. Give me a peridot rather than a diamond any day. On the other hand, I’ve never said no to an emerald. In fact, I’ve always gone rather seriously overboard about them. No one is aware of it, but after my husband’s death, I started collecting. Collecting seriously, as a connoisseur, not just to wear. It seemed to comfort me. But, of course, you’ll see everything for yourself, depending on Maggie, that is. I’m almost ashamed to confess it but many of the great jewels that were bought at auction by phone, anonymously, during the past four or five years were sent straight home to me.”

  Good God, Liz thought, she has even more than all the jewels we’ve seen her wearing in photographs. I can’t stand this. Maggie, where the bloody hell are you?

  “In fact,” Tessa continued, “I’ve just remembered something I noticed last night—about the color photos in the Thurn und Taxis catalog. They were better than any I’ve ever seen for any auction, but not good enough to satisfy me. Who works on the catalogs?”

  “I do, Miss Kent,” Juliet Tree answered. “That falls into the marketing department.”

  “I want Irving Penn to take the photographs, all of them. It would make the catalog a permanent artistic treasure, like his flower books.”

  “Penn! But … but … he’s—he’s the most expensive—”

  “I’m aware of that. Even Estée Lauder pales at his prices. I’ll pay for them myself, of course. Always assuming that there is an auction.”

  “Tessa,” Liz asked, clutching at anything to keep her staff from returning to the magnificent Thurn und Taxis catalog, “have you decided which charities you plan to give the proceeds to?”

  “Cancer research, Liz, curable cancer. First breast cancer and then others. I’ll have to educate myself about where the greatest progress is being made, if, that is, the auction actually takes place.”

  “Lung cancer?” Monty Foy asked curiously.

  “No, that’s incurable, didn’t you know?” Tessa said. “You may live with it for quite a while, but you can never cure it.”

  The urbane Mr. Foy paled. He’d smoked a cigarette just before the meeting. It would, he vowed, be the last he’d ever smoke. He wished he’d known, he might have enjoyed it more. Or less.

  Hamilton Scott couldn’t keep silent arty longer. “If the auction takes place, as you put it, Miss Kent, we’d be well advised to make sure that no other big jewelry sales are scheduled at Sotheby’s or Christie’s for the same time period. And we’d have to light a fire under Mr. Penn, today if possible.”

  “But I’ve already established a firm time frame, Mr. Scott,” Tessa answered, irritated. “Didn’t Liz tell you that any sale has to take place no later than six months from now?”

  “We will, naturally, respect your desires, but I still don’t quite understand the reason for such haste,” he persisted, undeterred. Tessa Kent might be the most important consignor they’d ever had, but his family had been running auctions for almost two hundred years.

  “That’s the way it is,” Tessa snapped. She wasn’t about to explain her reasons to anyone, she thought wrathfully. And if Penn couldn’t take the pictures quickly enough, she’d find another great still-life photographer who could, not that there was anyone who came close. It could be made to happen quickly in Hollywood. What was wrong with these plodding, cautious auction people? She felt herself beginning to get warm with growing rage. She didn’t like pompous Hamilton Scott. She should have gone to Sotheby’s … but Maggie didn’t work there, worse luck.

  “More tea? More coffee?” I’m starting to squeak, Liz Sinclair thought. If only she’d thought of getting Danish pastries or bagels, the wait might seem shorter. Maggie was well over a half hour late as it was. She must have changed her mind and be too embarrassed to admit it, damn the girl! Why hadn’t she had the gumption to phone?

  “Give me some tea, Liz,” Hamilton Scott grumbled. “Whoever made this coffee should be fired.”

  “I’ll get a floater to brew a fresh pot,” Liz said, wishing her look were a death ray and she could make her brother disappear in a puff of smoke.

  “Sorry! Sorry everybody, the bus broke down, we all had to get out, the next three buses were so full that they didn’t even stop, so I had to walk the rest of the way,” Maggie said breathlessly as she slid into the vacant chair between Juliet Tree and Monty Foy. She busied herself with opening her handbag and taking out a notebook and pencils, not looking at anyone in the room, a neutral expression fixed firmly on her face.

  Tessa’s heart was cleft by a burst of thanksgiving at the sound of Maggie’s voice. She could find no armor to protect herself from her emotions. She felt as bare, as stripped, as she’d ever felt in her life.

  “I believe we can get started now,” said Liz Sinclair, managing to remain majestic as she slid the Master Consignment Agreement across to Tessa, who was seated next to her, and indicating the place for Tessa’s signature. As soon as Tessa scrawled her name, Liz continued. “From now on, Maggie, you’re to travel with a car and driver. Your time’s too valuable to be wasted.”

  “Great,” Maggie responded, opening her notebook and arranging her pencils according to some unknown order.

  She won’t look at me, Tessa thought, but oh, she’s here, she’s here. Tears started into her eyes as she stared hungrily at Maggie, all but a stranger after five years, a self-assured, consummate New Yorker, transformed, God knows how, into one of the bright-eyed, swift, strong, stunningly self-possessed young women who strode the streets of the city as if they owned them. Maggie, her flamboyant, downright voluptuous daughter, who owed her nothing, whose difficult path through childhood and adolescence had been traversed without her, Maggie who’d created herself triumphantly, with the only cards she’d been dealt. Maggie, almost unbelievably, was here today, ready to go to work. Maggie, her daughter.

  “Maggie,” Tessa managed to say, “you look wonderful.”

  “Feelin’ fine,” Maggie replied briefly, with a nod at the room in general.

  She won’t say my name, Tessa thought. She won’t look at me. But she’s here. We’ve made a start. Thank you, God.

  33

  It could be called “unseemly haste,” Tessa reflected, as she sat and watched the transfer of her jewels to the possession of the house of Scott & Scott, or it could be called an intelligent use of time. Each day for the next six months had suddenly become vital once she’d signed the Master Consignment Agreement and made the auction a reality.

  It was only hours since this morning’s meeting and yet Monty Foy and two of his assistants had begun an inventory of every piece of jewelry she owned, in a room two stories underground that the bank had put at their disposal.

  Tessa sat next to the table where they worked, watching them carefully open each jewel box and take out and triple-check each item in low, colorless voices, each man scrutinizing the piece in question and repeating its description. They wrote a preliminary account of each item on a separate sheet of paper, which Monty Foy gave her to sign, and then replaced the contents, closed each box, and added a special seal. Outside the room a large team of couriers and armed guards waited.

  In the room, at their feet, lay a heap of heavy canvas bags, worn and battered briefcases, and sturdy paper shopping bags in which, as each day’s inventory
was completed, the jewels would be distributed and hand-carried from the bank to S & S in specially rented taxis and ordinary cars. Foy estimated that they’d be finished in three days.

  They undoubtedly knew what they were doing, Tessa thought. Harry Winston usually employed the U.S. Postal Service to deliver his precious pieces; Van Cleef had always given her unmarked, plain manila envelopes to slip her purchases into. Did any jeweler but Tiffany’s advertise with those unmistakable turquoise bags, which so often, after a trinket had been taken home, were used to hold brown-bag lunches until they fell apart?

  The velvet mountain of unopened boxes that had been assembled from her various vaults seemed to diminish slowly, yet the pile of sealed boxes on a four-wheeled metal carrier, which looked like a miniature airport baggage truck, grew steadily as the highly trained men worked in deep concentration.

  It was vital, Tessa had been told, to make the transfer as quickly as possible so that S & S’s experts could begin to examine each jewel for an estimate of its value. Their resident experts in the Geneva, Zurich, and London offices had all been notified to come to New York immediately to help Monty Foy and his juniors, who couldn’t possibly cope with the volume of work required.

  The catalog would require a highly detailed description of the size, condition, and number of specific jewels contained in each and every piece, as well as all the details available of provenance. The appraisers would examine every piece and send them through the S & S jewelry laboratories for a thorough check of the quality of each jewel before they set the high and low estimates of what the piece was likely to sell for on the open market, its “fair market value.”

  All jewelry bought at retail, rather than at auction, is routinely marked up to include the retailer’s profit, his insurance, the reputation of his establishment, his advertising, and his cost of doing business. Prices at an auction are less than retail prices by a high of fifty to sixty percent, and a low of twenty-five percent, of the retail price. Tessa knew this, particularly since she’d started collecting.

  Going into a great jeweler’s, selecting a jewel, and taking it home was a luxury for which one paid dearly. But Luke, like the majority of jewelry customers, had been willing to pay that huge markup for the pleasure of dealing with the top jewelers of the world, for their individual design styles, for the knowledge that they stood behind their wares and vouched for their quality, and most particularly for the human desire to buy exactly what you wanted when you wanted it, especially when it was intended as a gift.

  As each box was opened, Tessa felt herself getting more and more irrationally disturbed at the sight of three strange men handling her property. They were as dignified, respectful, and ceremonial as priests serving mass, as they went about their task. But how did they dare so much as touch her jewels, she raged, feeling her heart beat faster and faster as each box was opened and its contents were gently taken out and thoroughly inspected.

  When she’d signed the Consignment Agreement, the “contract” as everyone called it, she hadn’t realized that she would actually witness this scene, this hideous desecration, this rape! So far, everything they’d inventoried had been given to her by Luke. Monty Foy had put his nicotine-stained paws all over the same jewels Luke covered her with before they made love. Now the odious man was holding up the emerald necklace Luke had given her in Èze, on their honeymoon, and intoning, in his detestably monotonous and oily voice, “One emerald and diamond necklace, five pear-shaped emeralds, one pear-shaped emerald pendant, detachable, all six emeralds set in diamonds.”

  His mere contact with the necklace violated one of her most precious memories, made it vanish into a crass transaction, drained it of its magic, turned to ashes the memory of her innocent bliss on that thrilling evening. She’d had no idea how violently it would hurt.

  Tessa turned her head away from the table, concentrating on her engagement ring, trying to escape the sight and sound of the three men, until the moment she had to quickly turn back to sign each description. She was filled with a feeling of astonished wrath at herself. Had she been pig-stupid enough to decide to sell her jewels at auction without ever truly comprehending, in her heart, that an auction meant that she would have to strip herself of these beloved symbols of her past? Was she so slow-witted that she’d believed she could avoid the outrage of strangers treating her most personal belongings as mere objects? Hadn’t she understood that many other women would soon be wearing, at their ears, their wrists, their throats, the only tangible remains of her most private moments? “Oh, yes, you’re absolutely right, it did come from Tessa Kent’s sale,” said with a self-satisfied laugh! Couldn’t she accept the fact that this surprisingly painful defilement was the price she had chosen to pay? Had she somehow had the notion, baroque in its elaborate flourishes, that she could sell her jewels and keep them at the same time? Hadn’t she known that finding a way to have access to Maggie would come at a severe price?

  Shut the fuck up and stop complaining, you ridiculous little twit, she told herself savagely. Just because Maggie never once looked at you today, just because she rushed off halfway through the meeting in order to huddle with Juliet Tree and Penn’s rep, is no reason to whimper. There are almost six months to go. Anything can happen. Something must happen. Nothing was guaranteed except that Maggie and she would be working together on the auction.

  “One triple-strand ruby necklace, set in diamonds …” Monty Foy had reached the boxes and boxes of rubies, carefully set aside in their own vault, not one of which Tessa had touched since Luke’s death. She would have gotten rid of them long ago, but even the idea of coping with their existence had been too much to face. She couldn’t stand the sight of them.

  “I’m going out to get a cup of coffee,” she said, rising abruptly.

  “But we can’t continue without you,” Monty Foy said. “I can’t touch these boxes unless you’re here to verify the inventory.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Mr. Foy, I trust you. You’re not going to stuff them in your pockets! Or smoke them! Finish the inventory of every last ruby without me and I’ll initial each sheet of paper,” she ordered him.

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that, unless you appoint someone, a lawyer or an accountant, to do it in your place.”

  “Send in one of those security people.”

  One of Foy’s assistants opened the door and motioned to the first man standing against the door.

  “What’s your name?” Tessa asked him.

  “Bernie Allen, ma’am.”

  “Mr. Allen, please witness the inventory of my rubies, sign each paper Mr. Foy gives you, and I’ll sign them again when you’re finished.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He raised an eyebrow at Monty Foy, who shrugged his shoulders and waved him forward.

  Tessa left the room and headed for the ladies’ room at the end of the corridor. Suddenly, walking toward her, dark against the glare of the fluorescent light, was the tall, slender shape of a girl wearing the black outfit Maggie had had on this morning. Tessa’s hand flew to her throat. Maggie! Oh, Maggie! The girl approached, and quickly she realized that it wasn’t Maggie but a stranger, with dark red hair worn in close-cropped curls, dressed in that black quasi-uniform they all wore.

  “Miss Kent, I’m Janet Covitz, Maggie’s assistant press officer. She sent me over to see if there was anything you needed. Can I get you a cup of tea or a Coke or some Perrier? Have they made you comfortable in there? Are there any personal errands you’d like me to run for you while you witness the inventory? Any phone calls you’d like me to make? Maggie told me to tell you that from now on I’ll be totally at your disposal.”

  “No, thank you, Janet, nothing. I’m just taking a breather. What do you mean, ‘totally at my disposal’?”

  “Maggie’s going to be super busy for every minute of the next six months, Miss Kent. She’s formed a team with one of the other press officers and two floaters to work directly with her, and she’s delegated me to do everything she’d normally be
doing for you herself if she had the time.”

  “I see. I could use a cup of coffee. I’m just going to stand out here in the corridor for the moment. It’s claustrophobic in there.”

  Her mind a blank, searching helplessly for a way around Janet Covitz, Tessa paced the hall, oblivious to the security team, until Bernie Allen reappeared.

  “Mr. Foy’s finished with the rubies, Miss Kent.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Allen. When a young lady shows up with coffee, please tell her I’ve changed my mind about it. She can go on back to her office.”

  Tessa returned to her chair, just as Monty Foy lifted her Tiffany pearls from their box. “I’m keeping these,” she said, snatching them from his hands.

  “Quite right,” he said understandingly. “They’re hardly in the same ballpark as the rest of the collection, are they? Some sentimental value, I assume.”

  “No more value than your lungs, Mr. Foy.”

  34

  How’d the meeting go?” Sam asked eagerly even before he’d kissed Tessa. All of yesterday evening, he thought, she’d been negotiating her way across a tightrope of nerves in a way that was completely foreign to his experience of her. She had been so wound up that she could talk of little other than the fact that today, this very afternoon, since all the jewels were now in the possession of S & S, she’d find herself in the same room with Maggie for the first time since the day when she’d signed the auction contract.

  “I’m not sure,” Tessa answered in a white, muted voice, her vitality and conviction lost. “I’m just not sure at all. I may have blown it.”

  “What are you talking about?” he asked, tipping her lips up for a kiss. “You said this was just a preliminary strategy meeting. How could even you, with all your amazing ability to screw up your life, possibly blow a six-month effort right at the beginning, darling?”

  Tessa gave him a smile that was no more than a faint attempt at smiling, so miserable that he felt genuine alarm. “Tell me everything that happened,” Sam ordered, “from the beginning, so I can explain it to you, because you don’t make sense.”