And the truth was, she was embarrassed. No matter how one looked at it, she was at least a little bit of a fool. Either the jewels were hidden away at Clair House and she hadn’t found them despite sixteen years of searching, or they weren’t hidden, and she’d been chasing a delusion. She couldn’t imagine how she might explain this to her children, the servants surely thought her more than a little bit mad (they’d all caught her snooping about a washroom at one point or another), and Gareth-well, he was sweet and he humored her, but all the same, Hyacinth kept her activities to herself.
It was just better that way.
She’d chosen the nursery washroom for the afternoon’s search. Not for any particular reason, of course, but she’d finished her systematic search of all of the servants’ washrooms (always an endeavor that required some sensitivity and finesse), and before that she’d done her own washroom, and so the nursery seemed a good choice. After this she’d move to some of the second floor washrooms. George had moved into his own lodgings and if there really was a merciful God, Isabella would be married before long, and Hyacinth would not have to worry about anyone stumbling upon her as she poked, pried, and quite possibly pulled the tiles from the walls.
Hyacinth put her hands on her hips and took a deep breath as she surveyed the small room. She’d always liked it. The tiling was, or at least appeared to be, Turkish, and Hyacinth had to think that the eastern peoples must enjoy far less sedate lives than the British, because the colors never failed to put her in a splendid mood-all royal blues and dreamy aquas, with streaks of yellow and orange.
Hyacinth had been to the south of Italy once, to the beach. It looked exactly like this room, sunny and sparkly in ways that the shores of England never seemed to achieve.
She squinted at the crown molding, looking for cracks or indentations, then dropped to her hands and knees for her usual inspection of the lower tiles.
She didn’t know what she hoped to find, what might have suddenly made an appearance that she hadn’t detected during the other, oh, at least a dozen previous searches.
But she had to keep going. She had to because she simply had no choice. There was something inside of her that just would not let go. And-
She stopped. Blinked. What was that?
Slowly, because she couldn’t quite believe that she’d found anything new-it had been over a decade since any of her searches had changed in any measurable manner, she leaned in.
A crack.
It was small. It was faint. But it was definitely a crack, running from the floor to the top of the first tile, about six inches up. It wasn’t the sort of thing most people would notice, but Hyacinth wasn’t most people, and sad as it sounded, she had practically made a career of inspecting washrooms.
Frustrated with her inability to get really close, she shifted to her forearms and knees, then laid her cheek against the floor. She poked the tile to the right of the crack, then the left.
Nothing happened.
She stuck her fingernail at the edge of the crack, and dug it in. A tiny piece of plaster lodged under her nail.
A strange excitement began to build in her chest, squeezing, fluttering, rendering her almost incapable of drawing breath.
“Calm down,” she whispered, even those words coming out on a shake. She grabbed the little chisel she always took with her on her searches. “It’s probably nothing. It’s probably-”
She jammed the chisel in the crack, surely with more force than was necessary. And then she twisted. If one of the tiles was loose, the torque would cause it to press outward, and-
“Oh!”
The tile quite literally popped out, landing on the floor with a clatter. Behind it was a small cavity.
Hyacinth squeezed her eyes shut. She’d waited her entire adult life for this moment, and now she couldn’t even bring herself to look. “Please,” she whispered. “Please.”
She reached in.
“Please. Oh, please.”
She touched something. Something soft. Like velvet.
With shaking fingers she drew it out. It was a little bag, held together with a soft, silky cord.
Hyacinth straightened slowly, crossing her legs so that she was sitting Indian style. She slid one finger inside the bag, widening the mouth, which had been pulled tight.
And then, with her right hand, she upended it, sliding the contents into her left.
Oh my G-
“Gareth!” she shrieked. “Gareth!”
“I did it,” she whispered, gazing down at the pool of jewels now spilling from her left hand. “I did it.”