The Attenbury Emeralds Read Online Free PDF

“It means: ‘ I will not cease striving until I achieve my desire …’ This is indeed one of the jewels we are trying to trace. I think my master the Maharaja will offer to buy this stone from you, Lady Attenbury.”
    ‘“It is not for sale, Mr Osmanthus,” she said.
    ‘So he bowed, and made fulsome thanks and said that at least the family he served could be sure that the jewel was safe. There were many Indian princely families sending their jewels to Cartier and others to be re-cut in western style, he said. Obviously nothing of that kind would happen to the Attenbury jewels.
    ‘Lady Attenbury made no reply to this remark. She replaced the jewel in the clip and put it back in the silk-lined box, and courteously but firmly bade Osmanthus goodbye.
    ‘She offered Mr Whitehead tea, but he declined, having a train to catch, and the two of them were shown out of the house together.
    ‘I was glad to be done with dealing with this for Attenbury; I didn’t think it was quite the thing, although I was an old family friend. Lady Attenbury didn’t think so either. “We have been imposing on you, Peter,” she said. “Although of course, Arthur is very busy with so many guests in the house.”
    ‘“A pleasure, I assure you,” I said. “I am lucky to have seen the things so close up. What dazzlers.”
    ‘“I can’t imagine what Arthur was thinking of, letting that fellow near them,” she said. “And as it is, we should perhaps have left them in the bank. Charlotte doesn’t want to wear them. She says they are grim and horribly dated, and couldn’t she just borrow my pearls.”
    ‘“All the girls like pearls,” I said, foolishly. Privately I rather agreed with Charlotte.’
    ‘Why, Peter?’ asked Harriet.
    Bunter, presumably having decided the conversation would be long and rambling, had resumed dusting books.
    ‘Well, Charlotte was certainly a beauty,’ said Peter, ‘but of a pallid kind. Very light brown hair, pale hazel eyes, slender and willowy. There wasn’t much substance to her. She became a fine figure or a woman, but she was a wispy sort of a girl back then. And those great jewels take a bit of wearing, Harriet. They take a bit of carrying off. If they are more striking than the woman wearing them they quench her fire. You could have worn them…’
    ‘“Nobody asked me, sir, she said.” And I would have been as reluctant as Charlotte. Green is not my colour.’
    ‘Well, there we are. Lady Attenbury told me she had told Charlotte sharply that the emeralds were to be her father’s marriage gift to her, and she must wear them when she was told to. Then she took the jewels from the library to the little safe in her bedroom, and we all pottered about until it was time to dress for dinner.’
    ‘There was an element of showing off the dowry?’ Harriet asked.
    ‘Precisely. Well, so we all went down for drinks at the appointed hour. Charlotte didn’t appear, but I supposed she could be forgiven for wanting to make a grand entrance. I had time to study the prospective fiancé. He addressed a few nondescript remarks to me, but naturally his chief concern was to be charming to his future parents-in-law. Discreet flattery was his line of talk. Asked me about my regiment. Asked Gerald about the estate at Duke’s Denver. Asked Freddy about prospects for investing in South American railways. Thoroughly presentable chap. Awfully boring. Attenbury seemed pleased with him. Lot of talk about how the golf had gone. I could hardly have endured it if Lady Attenbury hadn’t noticed my difficulty and plied me with questions about the books in the library. Well, everyone had been assembled for some time. Even little Ottalie was there, done up Adèle-style, with her nanny sitting in a corner beside her. Special dispensation – she was allowed to stay to see Charlotte in glory, and then she had to scamper back to the schoolroom. She told me that herself.
    ‘Time went on, and both Lady Attenbury and Lord