6
Meaning brisk, lively. A term applied to all bright, fast, or brisk movements. All steps of elevation in ballet fall under the term ‘allegro’ such as sautés, soubresauts, changements, échappés, assmeblés, jetés, sissonnes, entre-chats, and so on. The majority of dances, both solo and group, are built on allegro. The most important qualities to aim at in allegro are lightness, smoothness and ballon.
Great Aunt Theodosia was definitely outstaying her welcome. She had been meant to go home the day before yesterday. She didn’t go. She was meant to go tomorrow. Powerscourt could still hear the diatribe after supper in the drawing room the night before.
‘Another thing, these dreadful trade units or trade unions or whatever they call themselves. They’re always going on strike for more money, it seems to me, always. You can’t open a newspaper today without reading about more of their antics. It’s as if they think they have as many rights to the fruits of their labour as their employers. What rubbish! You support those people as well, I suppose?’
Powerscourt wondered what it would be like to be the last liberal standing in an arena dominated by the Great Aunt. Probably like being the last gladiator left alive in the Coliseum before an emperor in a bad mood.
‘Well,’ he tried, ‘I don’t always agree with their methods. But I do believe in decent wages for these people. Most of them have wives and families to look after.’
‘Stuff and nonsense! Stuff and nonsense! I blame Judge Williams myself. It’s all his fault, if you ask me. I don’t suppose you liberals even know who Judge Williams was, do you?’
Powerscourt shook his head.
‘He was the fool in charge of those early trade unionists or whatever they’re called. Your sort call them the Tolpuddle Martyrs, I believe.’
‘What did he do wrong, Great Aunt?’
‘Wrong? Wrong, you say? It’s perfectly clear what he did wrong. He only sent them to Australia, didn’t he? He should have had them all hanged, every single one of them. That would have been an example to the lower orders. Just think, we might have been spared Australia and Australians altogether if they hadn’t sent the convicts there. Think of the money they’d have saved if they’d all been hanged. The cost of one piece of rope against a ship stuffed with sailors and jailors to guard the prisoners and months and months at sea! Have you ever met any Australians?’
Powerscourt admitted that he had not yet had the pleasure.
‘Terrible people. Deplorable manners. Terrible accent, you can’t tell what they’re saying most of the time! To think we could have been spared all that!’
George Smythe was one of those well-bred young Englishmen who always wear their clothes well. By day he wore them as a trainee at one of London’s prestigious picture galleries, where he was expected to dress the set and persuade old ladies to part with the Raphaels in the attic. By night, in slightly different clothes, he was a man about town, often until dawn, for he loved parties. He was never at his best in the morning. He was also a cousin of Prince Felix Peshkov, the young man who had taken part in the daring jewellery raid on the mothers’ collections before the ball at the Winter Palace in St Petersburg. The gems and precious stones were now in the luggage of the corps de ballet, where they had been stored by the Prince’s Russian friend Anastasia. It had taken Anastasia, now in London as a member of the corps de ballet, a long time to call on George, whose address she had been given shortly before she left St Petersburg. Now she had entrusted a small, but — she hoped — representative selection of jewels to the aristocratic embrace of George Smythe, who was conducting a reconnaissance of possible buyers in Hatton Garden, London’s diamond quarter. Anastasia had been left in a branch of Lyons Corner House at the far end of the street.
‘Johnston Killick, traders in gold, diamonds and precious metals’ seemed to George to fit the bill.
‘Good morning, sir,’ said George with one of those smiles you acquire at Eton and Christ Church.
‘Good morning to you too sir,’ said Mr Killick.
Each automatically began trying to work out if the other man was honest.
‘And what can I do for you this morning, sir?’ said Mr Killick, reminding himself that there was nobody more dangerous in London than the aristocratic con man, fourth or fifth sons perhaps, now on their beam ends, virtually sleeping rough.
‘It’s these jewels,’ said George. ‘These are a few of the best,’ emptying his haul onto the counter and reflecting that the middle-aged like Mr Killick often had half a lifetime of crime behind them.
‘My word, sir,’ said Mr Killick, pulling out a glass and giving the precious stones serious inspection. ‘These are fine indeed; easily the best I have seen this year.’
That’s just the kind of thing the man would say, George Smythe said to himself.
‘The whole collection — I presume you are interested in selling the whole collection? — is bigger than the samples you have brought this morning? How much bigger?’
George didn’t like the word ‘samples’, as if he were selling dodgy carpets, but his upbringing kept him quiet.
‘Fifty times larger maybe? A hundred times larger?’
‘Great God,’ said Mr Killick, who went over to the front of the shop and closed the door.
‘I have to ask, where are they from? They do not look to me as though they were from this country.’
‘They were a legacy, from my grandfather in Moscow,’ George said. He and Anastasia had agreed this as a reasonable explanation of the jewels’ origin.
‘Were they indeed?’ said Mr Killick, with the faintest hint of suspicion in his voice.
‘And why did he not leave them to a granddaughter?’
George and Anastasia had not thought of this, but his time in the art world served him well.
‘He didn’t have any granddaughters, I’m afraid.’
‘You don’t have a copy of the will, I suppose?’
‘I’m afraid not. All the papers are locked up in a Moscow bank.’
‘From whence they are unlikely to depart for these shores, I presume, sir?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
Mr Killick smiled, and George thought for a moment that Killick might be honest after all.
‘Very well,’ the jewel trader said. ‘Can I ask you a question? Are you in a hurry to sell these items?’
‘Yes,’ said George, thinking of the departure dates of the Ballets Russes and the possibilities they afforded for concealment.
‘Very well, I will tell you what my advice is. You will not like it, I fear. I shall keep the shop closed. I want you to go and bring me the entire collection back here. I shall leave some of the items English ladies like for my colleague here to see if he can effect a private sale in London. The rest I shall take to Antwerp, where European private buyers have different priorities in the matter of jewels. I shall be there for three or four days. I may have to travel to Berlin or Munich. Under no circumstances will I offer any of the items to Russian buyers. It is also of the utmost importance that the house of Fabergé here in London do not hear of it, for they would surely be in touch with their counterparts in St Petersburg.’
Killick paused. ‘Have I forgotten anything?’
George Smythe stared hard at the jewel trader. ‘Two things, Mr Killick. One, how do I know that you will not disappear with my grandfather’s legacy? And, second, how much do you think they will be worth?’
‘I shall not disappear, sir. We have dealt with diamonds and precious stones for the coronations of most of the crowned heads of Europe here. If they disappear we should lose our good name and our honour, both of which are irreplaceable. I will not insult you by offering to post a bond in your favour with some local bank. Your jewels could be worth fifty thousand guineas; they might be worth twice that much. It is hard to say without examining them all. Either we trust each other, sir, or we don’t. If you don’t trust me, I wish you and your samples a very good day. But come, you must make up your mind. The trains to Antwerp are much worse in the afternoon.’