JUNE 1670, LONDON
Alinor was well enough to dine with Alys and Livia in the parlor and was curious where Livia had been all day.
“I am making progress,” Livia said happily. “I have seen the gallery and his garden where we can show the antiquities. They are suitable. So, you can send a ship for my things from Venice.”
“But who will load them?” Alinor asked.
Livia spoke to Alys. “My first husband’s steward still runs his workshop in Venice, as he did when my husband was alive. He still stores our goods, for loyalty. I have no money to pay him since my dear Roberto died. But he will do whatever I ask. I will write to him and tell him to pack the pieces that are stored.”
“You must trust him,” Alinor remarked.
“Oh yes! He was very good to me when my husband died and the family tried to take everything.”
“He helped you to hide the treasures?” Alinor suggested.
“He knew they were mine. It was his workshop where they cleaned and repaired the treasures. He knows I will repay him, when the pieces are sold.”
“He was your husband’s steward; but he served you?” Alinor inquired. “And took your side against his master’s family?”
Livia showed a tremulous smile. “I think he was sorry for me when they tried to steal from me.”
“And Rob did not object to this partnership? This trusting partnership?”
Livia turned a laughing glance at her mother-in-law. “Ah! I see what you are saying. I must tell you that Maestro Russo is an old man, with a granddaughter of my age, and a wife who is a little old lady. His hair is white, he is stooped over a stick. He has been father and grandfather to me. He loved Roberto and thought of him as a grandson. And Roberto knew that he would do anything for us.”
“You’re very blessed in your friends,” was all Alinor replied.
“How long will he need to pack and load?” Alys asked. “We could find a ship sailing for Venice and write to him. But then how long will he need to get the pieces ready?”
“He knows that I came here to sell my goods, he knows that I have no money until I sell my treasures,” Livia replied. “It will take him no more than a few days to pack and get the permissions for them to leave the country.”
“If he can pack them so quickly, I can commission a captain here to take your instructions and bring back goods.”
Livia clapped her hands. “How clever you are! This is what it is to be a woman of business.”
Alinor smiled and looked from one young woman to the other. “You can find the money?” she asked Alys.
Alys nodded. “How much space will they take in our store?” she asked.
“They’ll be padded and crated, I should think they’ll take the whole of the ground floor. But they won’t be there for long, if you will send them on your wagon to Sir James’s house.”
Alys gave one of her rare smiles. “You’re excited.”
“This is going to make our fortune!” Livia exclaimed. “And your wharf will become known as a place to ship beautiful works of art and luxuries. You won’t be heaving coal anymore.” She caught Alys’s hands and did a little dance on the spot; her joy was infectious.
“We’ve never heaved coal,” Alinor said.
That night the two young women talked as they undressed, and brushed each other’s hair.
“Thank you for looking after my darling Matteo today,” Livia said. “Was he really very good for you?”
“I’d forgotten what it was like to spend time with a baby so young,” Alys said. “He was perfect. He had the milk that Carlotta left for him and he slept for most of the time. I worked in the counting house, with him in the cradle at my side, and he and I sat with Ma for most of the afternoon. When he woke and cried, I walked him on the wharf and he watched the boats and the seagulls, I’m sure he was taking notice. He smiled and waved his little hands as if he was excited, and when he saw—”
“Yes, he is very clever,” Livia said absentmindedly.
“And you? You are happy with the premises that you have found? His house is adequate?”
Livia noted that Sir James’s name was apparently not to be mentioned. “Yes,” she replied. “There’s a big hall and an open gallery, and a garden. I can show about twenty pieces, I should think. I can use them as examples and take orders for more.”
“You’ve got more than one load?”
“It was my husband’s great passion,” Livia said. “I hoped to make a business from it, buying and shipping and selling.”
“I am surprised there are so many objects, so many people buying them.”
Livia smoothed her pillow and got into bed. “People were making them for hundreds of years,” she said. “So they are there, all round, if you know where to look, and you care to pick them up.”
“You pick them up? For free?”
“My first husband started his collection from his own land. His quarry had been worked for years, and some pieces were just lying around, and there was a ruin of a house nearby with some beautiful urns—vases. Then all the little farmers who had ancient villas on their land or temples buried in their fields learned that people will pay more for the pieces of stone than for the olive crops! So now they dig them up and sell them to collectors and agents for collectors. You can go into the market in Venice and buy pieces of marble or old jewels and gold rings on the same stalls where they sell oil.”
“There must be treasures in England too then,” Alys remarked. “When my mother was a little girl she used to collect old coins—not gold or silver but the old clipped coins of base metal, just tokens.”
“What would be the point of that?” Livia asked. “Nobody is going to buy chips of copper. It’s not like gold. There’s no profit.”
Alys gave a superstitious shudder. “No, there was no real point,” she agreed, getting into bed beside Livia. “She just liked them. She had a purse of them. It was…”
“What?”
“Just a purse, of dross.”
“No point at all,” the young woman said flatly, and leaned over and blew out the candle so the room was plunged into darkness.