Daughters of the Silk Road: A beautiful and epic novel of family, love and the secrets of a Ming Vase (20 page)

M
iranda retreated to bed
. She had had no word from Charlie; no text or call or message of any kind. The bracelet he had given her lay unworn on the bedside table. A reminder of something – what exactly?

She told Georgie that she was feeling unwell, but Georgie understood the real reason her mother couldn’t face getting up. As she made herself a cup of tea in the kitchen, Georgie dialled Jeremy’s number. ‘Hi Jeremy, I’m a bit worried about Ma. The love-rat has not called. She’s really broken-hearted. I don’t know what to do.’

‘I’ll come,’ said Jeremy. He arrived half an hour later and sat with Georgie in the kitchen.‘So, she’s not got up at all?’ he asked.

‘No, only to go to the loo. And I took her a cup of tea a little while ago and a piece of toast, but she hardly said thank you, and you know what she’s like about manners.’

‘Yes,’ said Jeremy. ‘Yes, I do. I’ll go up and see her. Oh and G,’ he said as he reached the kitchen door. ‘Well done for calling me. It was the right thing to do.’

Upstairs, he opened Miranda’s door carefully. She appeared to be sleeping, her back to the door. But as he walked around the bed he saw that she was crying, tears pouring down her face, her phone lying next to her on the bed beside the Tiffany box.

‘Manda, darling…’ He lay down on the bed next to her.

‘Oh Jeremy, I’ve been such a fool. I thought it was going somewhere, but now I think I was just a distraction.’

‘Oh, I’m sure it was more than that,’ said Jeremy as soothingly as he could. ‘He wouldn’t have given you that bracelet otherwise, would he? I mean you don’t give presents to people you’re about to dump, do you?’

‘Don’t you? Maybe it was to salve his conscience.’

‘What? I’m going to dump her, so I’ll buy her a nice gift from Tiffany's. How weird would that be?’

‘It’s not even from Tiffany’s.’ Miranda shoved the box with the bracelet inside towards Jeremy.

‘Open it… Take a look. There’s no Tiffany logo on the bracelet.’

‘Since when did you become such an expert?’

‘Since I checked on the Internet. All Tiffany pieces have the logo stamped on them, with the date. This is just a cheap fake – like him.’

‘Oh Miranda – that’s a bit harsh.’

‘But true though. I just feel so… Used.’

Jeremy lay with Miranda for some time, cradling her in his arms until she finally fell asleep. Then he carefully moved her off his now dead arm and went downstairs. In the hall he noticed the vase was missing from the table.

‘She’s asleep now G,’ he said, coming into the kitchen. ‘I’ll hang around if you like for when she wakes up. Shall we have coffee?’

‘Sure,’ said Georgina. ‘Thanks Jeremy. I’m sure she appreciates you being here. I know I do.’

‘Think nothing of it,’ said Jeremy. ‘Where’s that hideous vase by the way? I noticed it’s missing from the hall table.’

‘Charlie took it,’ said G, ‘the last time he was here. Mum said he had bought it from her. He is planning on putting it into a sale sometime.’

‘Did she want to sell it? I don’t remember her saying anything about it.’

‘I know. It was a bit strange. She’s always been rather protective of it, actually. I didn’t like it much, as you know. But whenever I made a rude comment about it she always sort of leapt to its defence.’

‘So why sell it now?’

‘I’m not sure. I think he sort of convinced her and then just took it. She said when he’d left that last time she wasn’t really sure it was the right thing to do. I think she felt she’d been a bit manipulated, if that makes sense?’

‘Georgie darling, did your mother ever think to find out exactly where that vase came from?’ asked Jeremy.

‘From her Aunt Celia,’ said G.

‘No, before that. Is it possible, do you think, that the vase might have been rather valuable perhaps?’

‘Valuable? God, I hope not. We used to fling the car keys in it. How could it be valuable?’

‘We are living in a world where the most unlikely things turn out to be worth a fortune. Now where does the love-rat work?'

'I'm not sure – an auction house in Hampshire, I think,’ said Georgie.

'Right; do we know which one?’

‘Mum knows, I think…’

‘Georgie, get your mother’s laptop and bring it to me. I think it’s time we found out a little bit more about Charles Davenport.’

T
he Christmas
and New Year holidays had fallen awkwardly midweek, and most businesses had opted to remain closed until the 3rd of January. Jeremy did the same with the bookshop over the Christmas period, which meant that apart from taking long, wintry walks in Richmond Park and popping into Miranda's each day to check up on her and Georgie, he had ample time to investigate the apparently opaque life of Charles Davenport.

'You would have thought,’ he said to Georgie one afternoon, sitting in Miranda's kitchen eating leftover Christmas cake, 'that in this day and age, it would be possible to track someone down and know everything there is to know about them – where they live, the names of their family, their job history, the state of their bank account, embarrassing moments – but this guy has covered his tracks. Until I can get to speak to the auction house, I have absolutely nothing to go on. I'm not even sure he really is an auctioneer. His name is not on the list of associates there.'

'Mum did ring them and they knew him, I remember that. When she first got in touch with him about that book she sold him.'

'OK, so he has worked there at some point – maybe as a freelance. The thing is, G, I'm rather worried that he knows more about that vase than he let on. Let’s go over what we know about it again?'

'Apart from the fact that it was a bit spooky and that Mum's great aunt thingummy left it to her, you mean?'

'Yes, apart from that. I don't even really remember what it looked like,’ said Jeremy.

'Oh, that's easy. Mum took a picture a few weeks back and posted it on Facebook. I remember seeing it and thinking it was a weird thing to do.'

'Facebook? Really? That's amazing. G darling, I'm not actually on Facebook. Be a love and log into it or whatever you’re supposed to do.'

'Oh Jeremy! Give me the laptop.'

Georgina logged into her Facebook page and from there to her mother's.

'There, ' she said, swinging the laptop round to face him. 'There's the photo.’

'Great, well that's something. Can you email that to me or something similar?'

'Sure.’

'I think we need to get in touch with an expert and find out what we can about this vase. If it is worth something, it can't just disappear. It will turn up somewhere at an auction.'

'Do you really think it's valuable?'

'Well, darling, it's the obvious conclusion to draw, I'm afraid. The love-rat disappears along with the vase. What other explanation is there?’

There was a curious snuffling sound and the pair looked up to see Miranda standing at the door to the kitchen wearing a pair of rather grubby blue pyjamas and some old hockey socks of Georgina’s.

'So he's a thief as well as a lying bastard is he?' she said.

'I don't know,’ said Jeremy gently, getting to his feet and drawing her into the kitchen. He pulled out a chair and guided her to it. She sank gratefully down, resting her head in her hands, as if unable to bear her own weight.

‘I just think it's something we need to consider,’ he continued. ‘Georgie mentioned that he was going to put the vase into a sale of porcelain at his auction house in Hampshire at the end of January. I've been online and so far it’s true. There is a sale, but I can’t see any sign of your vase in that sale.’

‘Well, he only took it down there on Christmas Eve, maybe they’ve not had time to put it in there yet?’ Miranda suggested.

‘Online?’ said Jeremy. ‘It would have taken them five minutes in this day and age. No, I think we ought to call them and find out if he ever actually took it there.’

‘But won’t they be closed?’

‘I can but try,’ said Jeremy.

‘But he bought it from me,’ persisted Miranda. ‘I don’t have any right to take it back surely; he gave me a cheque.’

‘Have you cashed it?’

‘No, I’ve not had a chance.’

‘Did he give you a receipt?’

‘No.’

‘Good, then there’s no proof that he owns it. What
we
have to establish is that the vase is
yours
. But first things first. Let me give the auction house a bell.’

It was a brief phone call. Yes, Charles Davenport worked at the auction house from time to time in a freelance capacity. Yes, there was a sale of Chinese and Japanese porcelain on January 23rd. No, a large dragon vase had not been submitted by Mr Davenport for the sale.

No, he had not been to the auction rooms on 24th December, or even been in touch with them for several weeks. And no, they did not know where Mr Davenport was.

‘So,’ said Jeremy, ‘what does that tell us?’

‘That he’s a liar,’ said Georgie.

‘Or maybe he just didn’t have time before Christmas?’ suggested Miranda. ‘I mean, we can’t assume that he’s up to no good.’

‘Miranda,’ said Jeremy exasperatedly, ‘stop deluding yourself. They told me that he had not mentioned the vase to them, hadn’t seen them in weeks. He was never intending to put that vase in the sale in Hampshire. He lied to you.’

‘Maybe he’s going to put it in a sale somewhere else then?’ said Miranda.

‘Now that is the first sensible thing you’ve said all Christmas,’ said Jeremy. ‘G, start trawling the Internet for sales of Chinese porcelain. Let’s see what we can find out.’

A
t thirty-three
years of age, Hans Kaerel considered himself a success. He was married to a charming and pretty wife with whom he had three children and was the owner of a fine home on the Herengracht, the most fashionable street in Amsterdam. Earlier that day, he had been appointed to the Board of Directors of the company his father had helped to establish –
Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie – the VOC. He had just one problem: a secret that had begun to tear him apart.

Hans sat in his private study at the rear of the house, checking his accounts. Meticulously tidy, the room was panelled in dark oak, with glazed bookcases built on either side of the fireplace. Hans’ desk stood facing towards the door and his back was to the garden. The garden was his wife’s domain and held no interest for him. Hans preferred to work in his study at night, after dinner, with the dark red damask curtains closed against the night sky. By the light of the oil lamps, the room was suffused with a warm, peaceful glow; the only sounds were the spitting of the fire in the grate and the quiet snoring and snuffling of his favourite dog Kuntze. The dog was a Kooiker, a breed much prized at the time. Intelligent and friendly, he was a good hunting dog. He was the perfect companion for a man such as Hans, who required total devotion from everyone around him. To say Hans was difficult would be incorrect. Exacting would describe his nature better. He was also a man of determination and quick intelligence. He knew what he wanted, and he was not to be crossed.

He could hear his wife Antoinette singing in the room next door. Unlike the rest of the house, which was dark and masculine, this little parlour of hers had been decorated in shades of pale blue, which reflected the sky on a winter’s day; the floors were a chequerboard of russet and white tiles, covered with Turkish carpets. She had a couple of chairs, a small table also covered in a colourful carpet, and beneath the window, her beloved spinet – a gift from her husband on their wedding day. She played well and liked nothing better than to practice first thing in the morning. She refrained from playing in the evenings for fear of disturbing Hans’ work. The fireplace was tiled with Delft blue and white tiles and above it hung a painting of a rural scene, exquisite in every detail.

Antoinette often stood at the large latticed windows overlooking the garden, which had been recently redesigned in the latest Baroque style, with box-edged beds set out in a geometric pattern filled with seasonal plants. Star amongst these annual delights were the tulips, purchased at huge cost. The tulip had become the latest craze in Amsterdam and was considered a symbol of wealth. Antoinette professed that her passion for the flowers was simply that she ‘loved their beautiful colours and form.’ But secretly, she was thrilled that her husband was able, and willing, to spend thousands of guilders to beautify her garden with this most fashionable of flowers. The tulips would only be in bloom for three or four weeks in April and early May. As soon as the first flower opened its petals, Antoinette threw herself into a whirl of social activity. Guests were served coffee, tea or lunch in the small pavilion that had been built at the bottom of the garden. From here, they had a perfect view of the spectacular display whilst the magnificent fountain that had been erected in the centre of the flowerbeds spattered water into a marble bowl at its base.

The drawing room at the front of the house was reserved for larger parties. It had views out over the canal and was lined with engraved and gilded leather panels specially imported from Venice. Turkish carpets in rich tones of blue and red covered the black and white tiled floors and the large oak table that stood against the wall. Chairs upholstered in blue leather were arranged around the room. When the candles were lit in the twin brass chandeliers that hung from the high ceiling, Antoinette thought it the most elegant room on the Herengracht.

The cabinets on either side of the large fireplace in Hans’ study were filled with examples of fine porcelain, imported by generations of his family. One piece was particularly prized amongst the rest: a Ming vase, at least two hundred years old, that had been in his family since its creation. At least, that was the story he had been told by his mother Clara and grandmother Beatrice, who had inherited the piece from her mother Maria Margret Corso. Beatrice had married one of her cousins – Thomas van Vaerwye, the son of Peter van Vaerwye. Together they had moved to Amsterdam from Antwerp during the war with Spain in the early 1580s. Beatrice had then handed the vase on to her own daughter Clara when she married Hans’s father Johan Kaerel.

A
nd now it
had come to him. He gazed up at the Ming Vase. It stood in pride of place on the top shelf. Other pieces were arranged on the lower shelves: a flask – bulbous at the base, with a narrow neck, that also featured a dragon chasing round the centre. There was a small Ming tankard; a wine jar that was decorated with charming scenes of Chinese courtly life, depicting slightly windswept ladies sitting with their children in a garden as a companion played the flute. A pair of blue and white bowls stood on the shelf below. He had given a similar bowl to the young painter Rembrandt just the week before. The artist had recently moved back to Amsterdam, and when Hans visited his house he had been much impressed with the range of ‘props’ that Rembrandt kept in his studio storeroom. An extensive collection of porcelain, crystal claret jugs with silver necks and lids – some of considerable merit – were meticulously stored on shelves around the room alongside more bizarre items: weapons of all kinds, skulls of dogs, stuffed birds and game. The artist clearly had a passion for purchasing items that would one day be the centrepiece of one of his paintings. In the studio next door, where Rembrandt worked alongside one or two young apprentices, Hans observed the artist was painting a large Ming bowl he had sold to him the previous year. He thought the young men were capturing the bowl’s detail beautifully, although there was no doubting who was the master and who the apprentice. Hans suggested to Rembrandt that it might ease the artist’s persistent money problems if they effected a swap whereby Hans could provide one or two new pieces of porcelain in return for the painting. The artist had readily agreed and that painting hung now above the fireplace in Hans’ study.

He looked back at his books, moving the oil lamp closer to the work. His eyesight was getting weaker, which concerned him. He would request a visit from the spectacle maker. He had commissioned a new ship, which he hoped to take to China that year. Laid out on his desk in tidy piles were the invoices from the shipwright. He had visited the shipyard earlier that day and had been impressed with progress. But it was an expensive venture and he needed to study and check the invoices carefully.

He had chosen a name for the ship. It was to be christened the
Vliegende Draek
– ‘The Flying Dragon’ – after the vase. He knew the mythology that surrounded the vase: whoever had care of it would have good fortune. His mother, however, disapproved of the name.

‘It will bring you nothing but despair. You mark my words, Hans. Look what has happened to me. I had care of the vase and look at all the tragedy that has befallen me.’

It was true that his parents had had their fair share of tragedy. Clara had given birth to seven children and lost all but one. Three children died in their first year of life. When Hans was born she lived in terror that he too would be taken from her. But he survived, and when he reached the age of two years, she began to hope that her bad luck was behind her. She had three more children in quick succession, hoping for a large, happy family. But tragedy struck again four years later when her fourth child Karl died of scarlet fever. His sister Magda contracted the same illness and died weeks later. Her seventh and final child, Katje, mercifully escaped the illness. A beautiful child with long dark hair and bright blue eyes, her parents adored her. She was gentle and kind and had an extraordinary ability for one so young to intuitively understand what the people around her required. Her mother could hardly bear to be parted from her, even sharing the nursery with her at night. During the day, she dressed her, brushed her hair and spent hours playing with a collection of miniature household items she had collected for the child. In fact, she scarcely left the large nursery at the front of the house on the Herengracht.

As Hans grew from a boy to a young man, he observed this close relationship between his mother and little sister. He was not jealous in any way, for he too cared for Katje. She was a delight and adored her older, handsome brother. Besides, he was relieved that at last his mother had another child to whom she could devote herself. For the loss of so many of her children had made her neurotic and anxious. Until Katje’s birth, she had tried to control Hans’s life from the moment he woke until the time he went to bed. She was fearful if he ventured out of the house alone. In the winter months, when the canals froze, Hans and his young friends loved nothing better than to get out onto the ice and skate. Hans would wake in the morning and if the canal was frozen he would put on his warmest winter clothes and run down the oak staircase and into the basement where the kitchens and laundry were the domain of their kitchen staff Mitze and Saskia.

Saskia had been with Johan and Clara since they were first married and had cooked for them ever since. She was a sturdy woman with a kind round face and strong forearms. It appeared to Hans that she was in every way perfect – kind, calm and loving – and always with something delicious cooking in the huge range. Hans would go first to the kitchen to see if there were any sweet treats – a Speculoos biscuit perhaps, made with cinnamon and nutmeg for the feast of St Nicholas on December 5th. Then, stuffing the biscuits into his pockets, he would run to the boot room and find his skates, put on his thick woollen cloak and head off to the canal where he would meet his friends. But often as he emerged from the basement kitchens he would find his mother standing dourly in the hallway, her thin face contorted in anxiety.

‘Where are you going, Hans? It is cold outside. You will surely catch a chill. Stay indoors with me and little Katje. We will do a puzzle together perhaps?’

Hans was unable to argue with his mother, but could also not bear the prospect of a day trapped indoors when the sun shone outside and the water lay frozen and inviting. At these times, he would seek his father’s intervention. Fortunately, Johan was inclined to take the boy’s side.

‘Let the boy go, Clara – he wants to meet with his friends. You can’t keep him cooped up in here all day.’

Clara would eventually relent and Hans would rush from the house before she could change her mind. As he raced down the large stone steps of the house on Herengracht, his skates dangling over his shoulder, he was aware of his little sister watching wistfully from the drawing room window.

His young teenage years were spent in study and as much outdoor activity as possible. He was a good student, and his father was proud of him, but he was no academic. Johan was one of the original partners in the VOC when it was founded in 1602, and they needed young men who were prepared to travel abroad and protect and manage the Dutch trade in spices on which the company had been granted a monopoly. When Hans was eighteen, Johan formally introduced him to his partners in the VOC and they agreed that young Hans was to be sent out on the next ship sailing for the East to learn the business.

Clara argued desperately that Hans should remain in Amsterdam. ‘Let him stay here, Johan, I beg of you. Do not send him away. He is only eighteen. He should go to university. He must be educated. Besides, so many terrible things could befall him. He could drown at sea, or die of one of the terrible diseases over there. You know how the young Baeker boy died of malaria on that trip. Please, Johan.’

But Johan was not to be persuaded and Hans was delighted to be sent away to sea under the command of Chief Merchant Jacob van Neck. He travelled to the spice islands of Malaku where they were to collect a shipment of pepper and establish a direct trading route between Holland and the islands. Hans was given the position of Chief Merchant’s Assistant – answerable only to Jacob, himself. As such, he was one of the major officers on board and held a position of some responsibility. He was in effect the ship’s secretary and accountant.

Their first voyage took them down the west coast of Europe and West Africa. They paused at the Cape to bring on fresh provisions before setting sail for Malaku, one of the islands off the coast of China that would eventually become known as the Dutch East Indies. Hans had been abroad for nearly eighteen months when he received word from his father telling him that Katje had died from tuberculosis. She was barely ten years old. Nine months passed before Hans could return to Amsterdam, on board a ship with a cargo of cinnamon and nutmeg. Johan confided in his son as soon as he arrived:

‘I fear your mother has lost her mind. She never leaves Katje’s room. She spends most of her time in the nursery, lying on Katje’s bed, surrounded by the child’s clothes and toys. If she bothers to get dressed at all, she chooses a simple black day dress and a black cap. She becomes hysterical if we even suggest she leaves the room. Mitze tried to persuade her to put some of Katje’s clothes away the other day and I thought she would kill the poor girl. Go to her, but I warn you, she is much changed.’

Hans gently knocked on the oak door to Katje’s room, but there was no answer. He slowly pushed it open. His mother sat in the small nursing chair, her hands in her lap, gazing at a portrait of Katje she and Johan had commissioned for her tenth birthday.

His mother had become almost unrecognisable – gaunt, pale, her blue eyes permanently red-rimmed from crying.

‘Mama, I am here.’ He knelt down at his mother’s side and took her painfully thin body into his arms. She stiffened at his touch.

‘So you are,’ she said finally.

He followed her gaze towards the oil painting of his sister, set in an elaborate gilded frame. The girl was dressed in blue organza, her dark hair falling around her shoulders, her rosebud mouth smiling obediently. Her bright blue eyes looked wistfully at the viewer. It seemed to Hans that she was pleading with the observer in some way – to rescue her perhaps from the oppressive relationship in which she was bound with her mother.