Page 1 of Margins of Love
CHAPTER1
April 3, 1813.
“Oooohhhhh, I cannot believe her impertinence!”Fave Pearler’s mother growled and crumpled the letter into a tight little ball.
Fave sighed and stuffed the arc liner and graphite sticks into the pouch next to his worn volume of Greek mythology.
“Let me see it.” Fave intercepted the paper before his mother could hurl it into the fire. He straightened the letter, and his eyes glided over the words. Once again, Countess Carol Bustle-Smith, his mother’s alleged best friend of over two decades, had leeched off their fortune and given thanks by way of an insult. “Why don’t you give her the cut direct?”
“You know I cannot do that. I know it. And what is worse, she knows it,Favale.” Feivel Pearler went by the nickname Fave in English or Favale in Yiddish because he had been everybody’s favorite since he was a little boy with golden blond curls. His mother was fiddling with her round morganite cocktail ring. She always wore it at home; it was the first jewel Fave had ever designed for her. Although it was only morganite, the stone looked like a pale pink diamond. He had changed the angles for the cut using a geometric formula he devised for one of his final exams at Oxford—and invented a method along the way to multiply the light trapped within the stone’s facets.
“She makes my skin crawl,” Eve said. It pained Fave to see his mother upset because it was unlike her. She was usually collected and composed, a white-haired lady with an even skin tone and straight back. However, when the dowager Bustle-Smith’s fortune, or lack thereof, had become the source of the standing blackmail his family endured, Eve Pearler lost her temper. She loathed receiving these existential threats from Lady Bustle-Smith. Eve always said it was as if the floor was being pulled away from under her feet when another invoice arrived with the dowager’s latest correspondence. Knowledge, gossip, information—or whatever people called it these days—was Lady Bustle-Smith’s business. She mingled among the ton, Britain’s aristocracy, like a snake slithering in the mud. Fave’s mother had never been privy to gossip about the ton firsthand, but she didn’t need to be, thanks to Lady Bustle-Smith. The more money the ton’s most vicious gossip Lady Bustle-Smith needed, the more often Eve was able to buy the information or contacts she needed. Eve had entered the friendship for commercial enterprise. Through Lady Bustle-Smith, Eve was kept abreast of the latest gossip in the ton. And so, she knew just when one of London's vainest was in need of new jewels. That was when she would send her husband Gustav to the ton to offer up haute-couture pieces that delighted the wealthy and padded the Pearler's bank accounts. It was a business model that had worked well, until now.
The Jewish ton,my dear, is non-existent. You may be culturally self-sufficient, mostly due to your husband’s excellent business sense, but make no mistake that you are not truly participating in the life of the upper classes. Since Jewish traditions are old-fashioned, I expect you to relinquish all ancient life patterns and thought as soon as I introduce Elizabeth. As a patroness at Almack’s, I consider it my duty to ensure our circles are clear of such perversions.
I look forward to seeing Elizabeth’s progress as a debutante at my house party. Please ensure that Gustav has my invoices up to date for the recent renovations. My obligations as a hostess are ever-increasing and trying my nerves as much as my finances.
Yours fondly,
Lady Bustle-Smith
As usual,Fave was right, and the blackmail had gotten worse since Allison Bustle-Smith, the dowager countess’s only daughter, had made her debut into society. And as she attended season after season, so grew the expenses for the Pearlers. Fave’s good heart and innate sense of justice, most likely nurtured by his late grandfather, fueled his sensitivity to such unfairness.
“It has gone on far too long, Mother. We do not owe her a thing. She owesus.How is it that we are the ones being blackmailed?” Fave’s exasperation turned to rage as he finished reading the letter.
Eve rolled her eyes. “Now, now, my dear. Let us refrain from using such wicked labels.” Eve wagged her index finger at Fave, for she had adopted the habit of refined hypocrisy when it came to the dowager countess.
Fave marveled at the trouble one single woman had caused his family. It had all started when Lady Bustle-Smith had a fever and Eve took in her daughter Allison, who at the time was at the tender age of four. She was three years older than Elizabeth, Fave’s little sister. Fave was seven at the time and had entertained Allison.
“I don’t even remember why she blackmails us.”
“Of course, you do! Allison noticed how our way of life differed from hers and told her mother. I suppose no good deed goes unpunished. I never should have taken pity on Allison when her father died. Carol had such trouble managing the households. Misery loves company, and I was too close.”
Fave’s mother had told him innumerable times that she regretted reaching out to Lady Bustle-Smith after the death of her husband, the Earl of Swathmore. What Allison saw in their house and relayed to her mother were the braided challah on Friday evenings, the nine-candle menorah for Hanukkah, and various idiosyncrasies of a Jewish home. These had sparked pointed questions from Countess Bustle-Smith, who had not let them rest until Fave’s mother finally admitted that her family was Jewish. With that secret, Bustle-Smith had gained the power to destroy their way of life among the ton. With one word, Bustle-Smith could turn the Pearlers from thefinestjewelers to theJewishjewelers, jeopardizing their acceptance among the British aristocracy, where Jews were not welcome. Fave knew that the other Jews, their suppliers and goldsmiths, thought his family were traitors for blending in with the gentiles and renouncing traditions to assimilate. And with no place for them in the Jewish community, there was no way back to their roots without compromising their livelihoods. If their secret was revealed, they would lose their source of income, fortune, and their entire existence in England—their home. And that gave Fave chills because he had never traveled outside England.
“She was nice to Father for a while, and then everything turned sour,” Fave said.
“Oh yes, yes, when he lent her money for the charity,” his mother explained. That had happened over two decades ago, when Fave had just been a little boy.
Lady Bustle-Smith had been invited to become a patroness at Almack’s, one of the ton’s most coveted and influential positions for a female constituent of the nobility. She won the position thanks to an act of largesse—donating a large sum of money to a charity. Only Fave's family knew that the sum was a loan from his father. It was given because Bustle-Smith had insisted that she could not carry the burden of their secret without financial compensation – lubricant for the blackmail for years to come. Since then, Bustle-Smith had held the threat of exposure over their heads and profited from it sumptuously. And the stakes had only risen higher since Fave’s mother gained access to influential and wealthy clients for Gustav through Bustle-Smith’s introductions. Outwardly, Eve and Lady Bustle-Smith were inseparable friends. But Fave’s mother loathed her. And her methods.
“We have to go to her house party.” His mother had regained her composure and pasted a placid smile back on her face.
“As you wish, Mother. But I do not have a good feeling. Not one bit.”
“Neither do I, my dear. I have had more of her lowly schemes than I can stomach.”
Just then, Fave’s little sister Lizzie stalked into the green drawing-room. She was a nineteen-year-old dewy-eyed princess as far as Fave was concerned. He adored her as only a proud older brother could.
“I think it is going to be marvelous fun.” Her tightly wound curls cascaded around her delicate rosy cheeks. Fave thought she was just like champagne, sweet and effervescent, but she overwhelmed one’s head in large doses. Thankfully, their mother had trained her to make an entrance, leave an impression, and avoid causing a bad after-taste.
“Oh, Fave, are these the sketches?” Lizzie picked two sheets up and held them to the soft afternoon light coming in through the west-facing window.
“No—”
“Yes, they are! Don’t be so modest, they are magnificent!” His little sister’s enthusiasm warmed his heart.
“But they are all wrong! Look at this,” he said, sorting through the sketches before choosing a second to hold next to the one Lizzie had in her hand. “Do I set the stone against a row of dark sapphires to deepen the cool green tones, or do I choose citrines for warmth?”
