The Pendlehurst Collection by Daphne Coleridge

Author:Daphne Coleridge
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: cozy mystery, mystery, english mystery, traditional british, british mystery
Publisher: Daphne Coleridge
Published: 2013-11-20T00:00:00+00:00

The Pendlehurst Purple

“What,” asked Mia, in a voice tinged with disgust, “is this?”

Grace glanced up from where she sat on a sagging red leather sofa looking at the news on her eReader and assessed the object that Mia held with a lazy eye. “I don’t know,” said Grace. “What is it?”

“It wasn’t a trick question,” snapped Mia. “I’ve no idea what the awful thing is. It’s just that I wanted to check to make sure that it wasn’t valuable before I chucked it out into the skip.” Living in a house like Pendlehurst Manor, which had over a hundred rooms and dated back to the fifteenth century, it was always as well to check the provenance of any object, however disreputable, before deciding that it was junk.

“It’s valuable,” said Simon, Grace’s solicitor and friend, “so don’t throw it out.” He was seated next to Grace on the sofa, which was pulled up close to the huge log fire which burned in the Great Hall, and was reading a broadsheet newspaper in defiance of Grace’s preference for more modern technology.

“I can’t believe anyone would pay good money for such a vile object,” said Mia. “What is it, anyway?”

“It is a tulipiere,” said Simon confidently, “and a very fine one at that.”

Grace lifted her eyes again to look at the ornament which Mia had now set on the oak table. It was very large, made of blue and white china, and looked like an odd kind of teapot with far too many spouts. Like Mia she thought that it was rather ugly and ungainly.

“Is that anything to do with tulips?” Mia asked, eying Simon suspiciously. The two of them had never managed to become good friends, and Mia could never be certain if the clever and tricky solicitor was teasing her or not.

“It is indeed intended for the display of tulips,” said Simon, now folding up his newspaper and giving the object on the table his full attention. “I’ve seen it before on the sideboard in the Dining Room and always assumed that it was seventeenth century Delft pottery. Tulips were something of a status symbol back then – hence the clever design which could display many single blooms.”

“So they put a flower in each spout,” mused Grace. “I didn’t know that tulips were ever considered a status symbol. There are loads of them that grow out the back of the house here in the spring.”

“Oh, they were more than a status symbol,” said Simon knowledgeably, “they were effectively a form of currency. Haven’t you ever heard of tulipomania?”

“Now I know that you are making that word up,” said Mia.

“Indeed I am not,” said Simon primly. “It was arguably the first example of a financial bubble – when people invested huge sums of money just for the right to buy a tulip bulb when it became available. It was the diseased bulbs – those that had a virus that broke the colour and made for variegated petals – which were especially valuable. Fortunes were made and lost in the sixteen-thirties in Europe by people speculating on tulip bulbs.

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