I began this story on:
Monday, August 8, 2011
11:32 PM
THE JEWEL BOX
By Ora Lea Harrison
Finding seats in the back of the already crowded room, Diana and Rae looked at their numbers, sixty-four and sixty-five, on their paddles and tried to see what was being sold.
They were disappointed that they hadn’t gotten there early enough to view the items that would be sold, up close. Rae had brought her tiny binoculars in order to get a closer view so they wouldn’t be fooled by something that might look better from this far back.
“We’ll just have to be careful not to bid unless we’re really sure,” Rae told Diana.
They both had been to auctions before and knew what to expect so sat back to enjoy the show.
They eventually did have several items that they felt were good choices. Among the items was a lamp and a set of dishes for Rae and an occasional table for Diana.
The auctioneer held up an antique trinket box, as he called it, slightly shook it, announcing that it held promising goods and Diana felt that this was a worthy item.
The bidding started at ten dollars and she hesitated.
As the bidding continued, several people were excited about getting it and Diana decided that it would be worthwhile to join in the bidding but wanted to wait the bidders out to see how high they would go.
When it got to fifty dollars and there were only two bidders left, she held her paddle up, afraid that she might miss this most important item.
Her number sixty-five was noted by the auctioneer’s helpers and one of the other bidders dropped out.
The man still in, who was sitting up front, turned to see whom he was bidding against but Diana tried to be cool and not look interested while he was looking her way.
Holding onto her paddle tightly, she knew that she couldn’t go much further in the bidding but the man didn’t bid again after her second bid and she let out a sigh of relief.
Rae grabbed her arm; she was so excited for her. “Come on, let’s go now, we’ve got enough,” Rae looked at her expectantly.
Knowing that she had reached her limit, Diana stood up and she and Rae made their way to the table in the back to wait for their purchases to come to them.
After paying the cashier, they took their things and headed out the door. They had parked a little way down the street so Diana waited while Rae went to get her car.
As she waited, the man that she had bid against came out of the door and looking over at her, said, “You got the jewelry box, didn’t you?”
“Why, yes, I did, it‘s really beautiful, isn‘t it?” she answered.
Looking at her more closely, he said, “Yes, it is, I was hoping to get it for my wife, she’s an invalid and I had hoped the jewel box would cheer her up.”
Diana wondered at his talking like this after he had dropped out of the bidding. Did he want her to give it to him?
Rae pulled up to the curb in front of her, popped her trunk, and they quickly loaded the car.
Diana got into the car, holding the bag that held her precious box.
The man stood on the sidewalk in front of the car, looking like he wanted to pursue the subject at hand further.
Rae got in the car and they drove away.
Looking at Diana, she said, “You look a little peaked, was that man harassing you?”
Diana tried to laugh it off and said, “He was giving me a sob story about an invalid wife and how he hoped that the box might cheer her up. I’m sort of anxious to get home to see what I did buy.”
Soon they were at Rae’s house and Diana gathered her things and put them in her car.
“Can you come in for a while to visit before you go home?” Rae asked.
“Thanks for asking but my Mother wants me to go shopping for her unless I can beg off until tomorrow.”
“That’s what you should do, Diana, just call her when you get home and tell her that you’re tired and will do her errands tomorrow.”
Giving Rae a hug, Diana got into her car, waved bye, and drove towards her own house, not far away.
Here, she’d been so excited and now she was feeling uneasy after that man had talked to her in that way. She wondered what was so important to him about that box, she’d just wanted it but he seemed really to need it. She wondered if he really did have an invalid wife.
Driving up to her house, she saw that Dallas was sitting on the porch, waiting for her.
“Dallas, did you lose your key?”
“No Mam‘, I hadn’t planned on coming and didn’t bring it with me. I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop by. What’ve you been up to?” Dallas walked down from the porch.
Dallas was such a sweet son, thought Diana as she popped the trunk.
“Rae and I went to an auction and I got a couple of things for the house.” Diana told him.
“An auction, oh, cool, I’ll have to go to one sometime. I bet Gloria would get a kick out of that. Here, I‘ll help you with the table.”
“Thanks, Dallas,” Diana got the bag with the box herself and holding the door for Dallas, said, “Make yourself comfortable, there’s tea in the frig’, I need to call Mom before I stop. She’s expecting me but I’m going to have to do her errands tomorrow.”
After talking to her Mom, she looked at the little table that Dallas had brought in. Glancing around the living room, she decided on a place next to a chair.
Taking the box to the kitchen, she put it on the table to show Dallas.
The box was just a simple mahogany but to her it was a true thing of beauty.
“Wow, Mom, that’s just the kind of thing you hope to get at an auction.” He exclaimed. “Was it very much, did you have to bid a lot for it?”
Diana related to him what all had happened at the auction and afterward.
Dallas furrowed his brow and said, “Not a very good sport, was he? Here, let’s open it and see what all the fuss was about.”
Diana started to lift the lid but it wouldn‘t open.
Dallas took a turn to see if he could open it but it wouldn’t open for him either.
Turning the box over, they saw inside a carved out place, an old ornate key, the kind that you wind up to play music inside the box and the words ‘To Zoe, 14 years, Father, Wm. W. Duncan, June 3, 1841‘ were carved on the bottom of the box.
"Dallas, this box was handmade by this man, William Duncan in the early 1800's, can you believe it?" Holding the box upright, she wound the key a little and she and Dallas watched in amazement when the lid began to open slowly as it played a melody, possibly not played in many years.
Diana began humming the tune, not understanding where she had heard it and asked Dallas did he recognize it.
“No but I bet Gloria would,” Dallas said, “she studied music in school."
The lid was fully up now and they both looked wonderingly at the beautiful jewelry inside. There was a heart locket, a pearl ring, an amethyst ring and bracelet set, a cameo brooch and a girl's button bracelet, a popular item back then, Diana remembered from her books.
Diana took up the heart locket and picked at the lock until it sprung open. Inside, on either side were tiny pictures of a young man and woman. Looking closely at the pictures held up to the light, she realized that the people actually favored Dallas and her, when she was a young woman.
“Look at these people, Dallas” she passed the necklace to her son.
Taking the heart locket Dallas squinted at the pictures and asked his Mother if she still had her magnifying glass.
“It’s been a while since I used it, I believe it should be in my desk”, she left the room and came back shortly with it. “Here you go, is that better?”
“Let’s see now,” Dallas held the glass up to the pictures. “Mom, I believe we’re probably related to these people. Did that name on the bottom sound familiar to your ancestry line?”
Looking on the bottom of the box again, Diana said, “Duncan, I can’t really be sure. I could ask Mom; she may know. I hadn‘t thought that Zoe was such an old name, had you?”
“I haven’t known anyone by that name, for sure, maybe that means it’s older than we had supposed.” Dallas had gone further than Diana had in school and she felt that he was more knowledgeable than she was about some things.
“Just seeing this is worth the money that I paid,” Diana put in.
“I believe this is worth something monetarily but really, the sentimental value, especially if these are our people, is priceless." Leaning over to give his Mother a kiss on the forehead, he said, "I‘d better be going, Mom, Gloria will be holding dinner for me. I just wanted to see if you‘re doing alright, I promised Dad, you know. You did good, I'm proud of you.”
Diana smiled at her son, “Thank you and give my love to Gloria, okay?”
After Dallas had gone, Diana took the jewel box to her bedroom and without any to-do, got in the middle of the bed and overturned the box. As she was righting the box, she heard a little tinkle sound, like there was jewelry still in it, although she had already removed it. Looking into the box, she only saw the velvet lining. She had thought that the weight of the box was contributed to the heavy wood that it was made from and the music box that was hidden in it's recesses. Now, she wondered, and gently shaking the box, she realized that it had something more in it. It was a puzzle about how to find out how to get to it without breaking the box.
It suddenly struck her, if the key on the bottom could open the box, maybe there’s a similar key inside that open’s another partition to the jewelry box.
Picking the box up again, she began looking more closely at the velvet lining. What an unusual box, she thought; the man who made this was security conscious, for sure.
Reaching for the phone next to her bed, she called Dallas and asked if he could talk for a minute.
“Hi Mom! I was just telling Gloria about your find, what’s up?”
She described the situation about the apparent hidden compartment and wondered if he had an opinion about it.
Dallas didn’t speak for a moment and Diana wondered if the connection had broken.
“Dallas?” she spoke into the mouthpiece.
“I’m sorry, Mom, I’m eating my dinner, that sounds cool but I would really have to look at it again to see what the key might be. Are you sure about this?”
“Dallas, the music box isn’t even on the top compartment. I don’t believe it would be making that kind of noise anyhow, listen,” she picked up the box and shook it close to the phone. “Can you hear that?”
The sound wasn’t loud enough for him to hear it but he offered to visit the next day and see what he could see.
Hanging up the phone, Diana realized that she was spending her whole evening with the box and got up and put it back on the dresser and went to the kitchen to make a quick supper for herself.
While she ate, she began wondering if the size of the box measured up to the inside depth and as soon as she was finished with the kitchen, went to check.
Sure enough, there was an inch that wasn’t included in the inside.
It couldn’t be the music box, they’re just not that large, not for a small jewel box, anyhow.
Diana began working her fingers around the perimeter of the inside of the box, pushing on the bottom of it. All of a sudden, she touched a spot and the floor of the box tipped somewhat. Still, there wasn't a way to pull up the tipped floor that she could see without cutting into the velvet lining. Getting her shears, she cut the fabric where the bottom of the box was tipped. Putting her finger into the created hole in the velvet, she could feel objects below it.
She took the shears and cut all around the bottom of the box until she was able to lift the divider. She was stunned by what she saw there. There were gems that were of a good size and would have been worth a fortune even back in the day they were stored there. There were diamonds, rubies, emeralds and several other stones that she didn't recognize.
This was so unreal, she imagined that the father had created this box for his daughter and put these valuables in it to take her through any hardship that she might come across.
The fact that they were still in place, meant that either the girl, grown up, had never had to sell them or never even knew about them.
What a shame, thought Diana. I hope she never suffered undue hardship. Surely, the father had told her about this, seeing as how he probably wouldn’t outlive her. She wondered how the box had been protected through the years and even through the Civil War when things like this had a way of disappearing.
Closing the top of the bottom layer, Diana put the girl’s jewelry back in the box and onto the dresser.
She then walked around the house, making sure that all the windows and outside doors were locked.
She wondered if she should put the box in the little safe, where she kept her important things that she didn’t want hurt in case of fire or should she take it downtown the next day and put it in the safety deposit box at the bank.
She felt the mantle of responsibility for this box upon her. She’d known the same feeling when raising Dallas.
The next morning, Diana put the jewel box in a large cloth carry-all bag that she sometimes took with her when going out and left to go to her Mother’s.
When she got to her parents home, she decided to take the box inside to show her parent's, knowing that they would enjoy seeing her find.
Going into the house, she saw that her Dad wasn't in the room and she called out to him. After she had their undivided attention, she took the box from the bag.
Lillian got a strange look on her face and Diana thought that she might faint. “That looks like my Mother’s jewelry box!” she exclaimed loudly, to the astonishment of Diana.
“What are you talking about? This isn’t your Mother’s, I bought this yesterday at an auction.”
Taking the box from Diana, Lillian held and looked at the box for a long time, seemingly lost in thought. Then, turning it over, she read the inscription on the bottom. "Zoe Duncan was my Big Momma's own Grandmother. This box was always supposed to be in our family."
Diana was unable to believe her own ears.
“Mother! What’s this all about?” she in her turn was speaking a little loudly.
"I remember that there was a trick to opening it, I'm not sure what it was." Lillian was looking thoughtfully at the jewel box.
Diana said, "Here, Mom, let me see it, I've already learned how to open it. Dallas and I were looking at it last night." Taking the box, Diana turned the little key and the box began to slowly open.
"That's it!" Her Momma exclaimed and smiling broadly, she took the box from Diana and sat down on the sofa.
Diana and her Dad sat down on either side of her and as they browsed the box, she began to tell her story.
“My Great-Great Grandmother was born in the early part of the 1800’s, see, it’s here on the bottom of the box," she said, turning the box over. "Her fourteenth birthday was on June 3, 1841, as you can see. That was the day that my Great-Great-Great Grandfather William Wesley Duncan, her father, gave her this box that he had made for her. She cherished it, of course, and passed it down to her own daughter until it came to my Mother. The greatest of care was always taken of the box as it was their family heirloom.”
“Oh, I can’t believe I’m really holding it after all this time.” She had tears in her eyes and her husband and Diana hugged her from where they sat next to her.
“Momma, what happened to it? How did I happen to see it at the auction? Did it get stolen?” Diana was trying to drag the story from her Mother.
“Well, it was perfectly shameful and I’ve never told anyone before now,” she continued, “but one day, when I was about 6 or so, I took it down from Momma’s dresser where she kept it and when she wasn’t looking, I took it outside to play. When Momma called me in for lunch, I just left it sitting in my pretend playhouse in the front of the house. When I went back outside, it was gone. Momma missed it that very day but I never confessed. Come to think of it, she probably knew that it was me but she never did say anything to me after I said that I didn‘t know anything about it. I never even knew the real worth of it until now, when I‘m looking at it. My poor Mother.”
Diana said, “Momma, there’re things that you may not know about the box.” Whereupon she proceeded to show her Mother the little hidden place in the box, which wasn't really hidden any longer since she had cut into the cloth that had disguised it from the naked eye.
Her Momma was wiping her eyes with the tissue that her husband had handed her and she and he were astounded at the discovery. This was overwhelming to them, to see the jewels and know that it could have been their’s all this time.
“There’s something else that I’m curious about, Momma, do you know the little tune that the box plays? Dallas and I couldn’t place it but it does sound familiar.”
Her Momma and Daddy both looked at her with a peculiar expression on their faces. Her Dad took her hand and said, “Sis, surely you remember that song, you used to sing it when you were little. It‘s an old Scottish melody, ‘The Eriskay Love Lilt‘.”
“I knew the words to the song?” Diana asked.
“You must have been too little to remember but when you were small, we lived in Scotland and we would go to the Eriskay Islands sometimes and we taught you that song. It was written by someone who had lived there but was unable to any more; it’s a love song for the Island.
“We did live in Scotland, didn't we? I had almost forgotten.” Diana remembered.
“Yes, I spent some of my time in the service over there and after I got out of the service, we went back so that I could go to the university in Edinburgh. You were born there and had a strong Scottish accent for a long time,” her Dad explained.
“What a strange two days it’s been,” Diana smiled, “Do we have ancestry in Scotland? Did our people come from there, do you think?”
“That would be a good thing for you to research, Diana,” her Mother said. “Look, this is your box, it’s supposed to be passed to the daughter. I'm so sorry that I let it get lost and you didn't get to have a childhood with it. Since you don’t have a daughter, you’ll pass it to Dallas’ daughter, if he has one. If he doesn’t have one, tell him to be sure and keep in in the family. There’re other kin people in the line that could legally claim it. My Mother was the oldest daughter in her family so she had first rights to it is why we had it.”
“Mom, I think you should keep it for as long as you like and then I’ll be happy to take it home with me. It really is a treasure, isn’t it? To think that I bought it at an auction for $70.00 and it was your’s to start with. What a miracle.”
Diana could hardly wait to tell Dallas and Rae her good news.
The End
August 21, 2011, 4:24 PM
The background music is 'Eriskay Love Lilt, a pretty melody.
I'd love your feedback on my stories. You can email me at ora.lea @ gmail.com Thank You
These stories have been written by me, Ora Lea Harrison.
The Jewel Box ~ June 3, 1841
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