Page 34 of The Girl with a Secret
For a second, her mother stilled, and Rosa thought she saw something in her face—the twist of her lips, the shadow in her eyes—that made her wonder if her mother regretted their relationship, or lack of it. Then her mother looked away.
“You’re overreacting, as usual.”
“I’moverreacting?” Rosa repeated in disbelief. In all their years together, their family fractured from the first, her mother had been the one prone to theatrics. “You did this for Father,” she stated quietly, her voice throbbing with emotion. “Bought a new dress and have done your hair, decked yourself out in jewels, and all in an attempt to keep the interest of your own husband, who will look anywhere else but atyou!”
As soon as her words rang out into the taut stillness of the room, Rosa wished she could take them back. She’d never,everstated the truth of her parents’ marriage to her mother’s face. They’d all tiptoed around it, everyone knowing the truth yet never admitting it out loud, not in its gruesome specifics. And now she just had… and she had no idea how her mother would react.
“Mutti…” she began, like the whimper of a child, and then she stopped.
Slowly, her mother turned around. Her face was drained of color, her lips bloodless and her eyes burning like dark coals in her face as she closed the space between them in a few sure steps. Then, without hesitating for a second, she drew back her hand and slapped Rosa hard across the face. Her diamond ring caught the corner of her lip, and as Rosa pressed her hand to her cheek, her eyes smarting with tears, she felt a warm trickle of blood seep from the edge of her mouth.
“Don’t,” her mother said in a low thrum of a voice, “speak about what you don’t know and can’t possibly understand.Ever.”
Rosa wiped the blood from her lip as she straightened. “Don’t,” she replied, her voice as deadly as her mother’s, “steal from me ever again. Or you’ll find it’syourjewels that are the ones in the window of the pawn shop.”
“How dare?—”
“Where is it?” she cut across her mother, her voice now as sharp as a knife. “Where did you sell it?”
“It doesn’t matter?—”
“Tell me.”
Her mother gave a restless shrug as she sighed. “Oh, very well, but you won’t be able to get it back. Suttons, on Victoria Street, near the big cathedral.”
Rosa shook her head slowly. “How did you hear of them?” She thought her mother hardly ever left the flat.
“The woman upstairs told me about them. She said they gave good value, but I’m not sure she was right.”
As if Rosa wanted to discuss how much she’d pawned her emerald for! She started back to her room to get her coat and handbag.
“Rosa, what are you doing?” her mother demanded when she’d returned to the living room. “You haven’t any money to redeem it.”
“I don’t suppose you’ll give me one of your jewels to do it,” Rosa flung at her.
Her mother eyed her coolly. “No, I won’t.”
For a second, Rosa was tempted to storm into her mother’s bedroom, upend her precious jewelry box, and take what she could. But no, she wouldn’t stoop to the level her mother had.
As Rosa headed out of the flat, she heard the creak of a door, and realized the Rosenbaums, so quiet in their room, had heard the entire altercation, with her railing at her mother like a fishwife.
Rosa found she was too upset to care what they thought of her.
Suttons, on Victoria Street, was an elegant shop, not the dingy, squalid place Rosa had been half-expecting. Diamonds nestledon black velvet in the window, along with an array of other expensive-looking items—necklaces and rings, watches and even a sparkling tiara.
As Rosa opened the door, a frock-coated gentleman stepped smartly from behind the glass-topped counter.
“May I help you, miss? I’m afraid we are just about to close.”
For a second, Rosa could only stare at him, unable to find the words in English. It was ironic, she thought bitterly, that her mother had the best English of them all, and she so rarely went out. She’d managed to communicate what she wanted here, obviously.
“My mother was here today,” she stated carefully; the man’s bland expression didn’t betray so much as a twitch at her German accent. “She sold a… jewel. A… bit of a jewel. I… wish… to buy it.”
“You wish to buy it back, miss? Was this a piece of emerald, perhaps?” His voice was as bland as his expression, solicitous without giving away anything.
“Yes…” Her voice trembled and she lifted her chin.
The man nodded slowly. “Do you have the receipt for the item in question, miss?” Rosa stared at him blankly. “Your mother was given a ticket,” he explained. “Suttons keeps any item for six months in case the seller wishes to buy it back, but, naturally, you must produce the item’s receipt.”
