Gather Ye Rosebuds Read Free Page A

must return it to Parham, and let them decide what is to be done with it.”
    “Lady Weylin has enough diamonds. She will never miss it.”
    “It may belong to Lady Margaret’s stepson—entailed, is what I mean. We cannot keep it. That is dishonest.”
    “Oh my dear woe! The shame of it. Is there no way we could smuggle it into Parham without saying where it has been all this while? Through the mail, perhaps...”
    “Trust diamonds to the mail? That is risky.”
    “And someone might see us mailing it, too. We could call on Lady Weylin, and slide it down the back of a sofa, or into a vase. It would be found eventually, and they need not know Barry stole it.”
    “We are never invited to Parham, Mama,” I reminded her.
    One did not drop in uninvited on the Weylins. They held themselves very high. I had been there exactly three times in my twenty-five years, always with a crowd. Lord Weylin became friendly at election time, and held a large, raucous party. Unfortunately, there was no election in the offing.
    “You don’t think Lady Weylin might like to share your lessons with Borsini?” Mama asked. “You could stop by and ask her. He is a count, after all; she is only a countess.”
    I liked to think Borsini was a count, but in fact, I did not really believe it. It was only a pleasant fiction. The image of stately Lady Weylin climbing up two nights of stairs to my little studio was too ludicrous to contemplate without smiling. “No, that will not fadge.”
    “What of that Book Society you are working up?” The Book Society was Mrs. Chawton’s project. She had read of some book-loving ladies banding together, each contributing a certain sum to buy a book, which they all read and discussed. “Is Lady Weylin bookish?” I asked.
    “I see her at the circulating library from time to time. That suggests she is, and also that she is not fond of laying down her gold to buy the book herself. I think we must tackle it, Zoie. It is that or confessing that Barry was a thief. And at the worst possible time. The Season just closed last week; Lord Weylin is home for a visit. Perhaps Mrs. Chawton would like to go with you?”
    I could not think the Weylins would appreciate a social call from the doctor’s wife, whose brother runs the taproom. The Chawtons barely pass for quality in Aldershot. Mama and I would hardly be welcome, but at least we were an old, genteel family.
    “There is no weaseling out of it, Mama. You must come with me. You try to distract Lady Weylin for a moment, and I shall pop the necklace into a vase, or down the side of the sofa.”
    “Let us do it tomorrow, Zoie. I shall need the evening to worry about it.”
    “It will be best to make sure Barry has no more secrets hidden away before we go. If Steptoe unearths more booty, we must find some other way to return it.”
    “I cannot believe it of Barry,” Mama said, idly sipping her tea. “I know it troubled him that he came home so poor, when half of his colleagues were nabobs, but it is not as though he actually needed the money. I mean to say he did not sell the necklace, but just hid it away. It is so very odd. Could he have been one of those kleptomaniacs like Mrs. Flanagan, who took the bolt of ribbon from the drapery shop?”
    “What I wonder is how he ever got next or nigh the necklace. He was never at Parham, was he?”
    “Why no, he was not,” Mama said, brightening. “He was in London when Weylin had his last election do. And really, you know, I seem to remember Lady Margaret lost it at Tunbridge Wells. She used to go there often for the chalybeate waters.”
    “Uncle Barry never went to Tunbridge Wells, as far as I can remember.”
    “No, why would he? He was healthy as a horse—until he died, I mean. He was used to run up to London as often as he could find an excuse. He liked to visit at East India House, and chat to the lads, but Tunbridge Wells—never.”
    “So how did he get the necklace?” I asked.
    Mama bent her mind to