“Very pretty, darling. They’d look lovely on you in the garden. Go wonderfully with green …”

“Be serious.” She told him the woman’s story then, and he felt sorry for her too.

“Can’t we just give her a check? I feel like a scoundrel taking these away from her. Even though I must say they’d look very pretty on you.”

“Thank you, my love. But what are we going to do about her?”

“I’ll come down and talk to her myself.” He had already shaved, and was wearing trousers and his shirt and his dressing gown. He was getting very good at dressing himself in spite of his limitations. He followed Sarah out of the room, and worked his way downstairs on the ramp they had had made for him.

Mrs. Werthéim was still waiting nervously for them in the kitchen. She was so frightened, she was almost tempted to flee without her jewels, for fear they would do something terrible to her, but Emanuelle had insisted they were nice people. Emanuelle knew the people who had hidden Mrs. Wertheim in the cellar, she had met them in the Resistance.

“Good morning.” William greeted her with a smile, and she tried to look relaxed as she waited to hear about her emeralds. “I’m afraid we’ve never done anything like this before, and it’s a bit of a novel idea to us.” He decided to put the woman out of her misery and go right to the point. He had already decided he wanted to help her. “How much do you want?”

“I don’t know. Ten? Fifteen?”

“That’s ridiculous.”

She quaked, and spoke in a whisper. “I’m sorry, Your Grace … five?” She would have sold them for next to nothing, she was so desperate for money.

“I was thinking more like thirty. Does that seem reasonable? That is, thirty thousand dollars.”

“I … oh, my God …” She started to cry, unable to control herself any longer. “God bless you … God bless you, Your Grace.” She dabbed at her eyes with an old lace hankie, and kissed them both when she left with his check in her handbag. Even Sarah had tears in her eyes when she left.

“The poor woman.”

“I know.” He looked somber for a moment, and then put the necklace and bracelet on Sarah. “Enjoy them, my darling.” But they both felt good about the charitable deed they had done.

And before the end of the week, they had the chance to do another.

Sarah was helping Emanuelle clean up after dinner, and William was in his study, which still vaguely reminded Sarah of Joachim, when a woman appeared at the kitchen door. She was young and looked even more frightened than Mrs. Wertheim. She wore her hair short, but not as short as she had just after the Occupation. Sarah thought she had seen her with one of the German officers who had lived in the château and worked with Joachim. She was a beautiful girl, and before the war she had been a model for Jean Patou in Paris.

Emanuelle almost growled when she saw her, but she had told her to come. This time though, she promised herself, she would take a bigger commission. From Mrs. Wertheim she had taken almost nothing at all, but the old woman had insisted on at least something.

The girl glanced nervously at Emanuelle and then at Sarah. And it began again. “May I speak to you, Your Grace?” She had a diamond bracelet to sell. It was from Boucheron and it was very pretty. It was a gift, she told Sarah But the German who had given it to her gave her more than that. He had left her with a baby. “He’s sick all the time … I can’t buy him food … or medicine. I’m afraid he’ll get TB….” The words went straight to Sarah’s heart as she thought of Lizzie. She glanced at Emanuelle and asked her if it was true, and she nodded.

“She has a German bastard … he’s two years old, and always sickly.”

“Will you promise to buy him food and medicine and warm clothes if we give you some money?” Sarah asked her sternly, and the girl swore she would.

And with that, Sarah went to see William, and he returned to look at the girl and the bracelet. He was impressed by both, and after talking to her for a while, he decided she was honest. He didn’t want to find himself buying stolen jewels, but there seemed to be no question of that here.

They bought the bracelet from her for a fair price, probably what the German had paid for it, and she left them, thanking them profusely. And then Sarah looked at Emanuelle and laughed, as she sat down in her kitchen.

“Just exactly what are we doing?”

Emanuelle grinned broadly. “Maybe I’m going to get rich and you’re going to get a lot of very nice jewelry.” Sarah couldn’t help smiling at her. It was all a little mad, but fun and touching at the same time. And the next day they bought the extraordinary pearls from the woman in Chambord so she could rebuild her house. The pearls were fabulous, and William insisted that she wear them.

By the end of the summer, Sarah had ten emerald bracelets, three necklaces to match, four ruby suites, a cascade of beautiful sapphires, and several diamond rings, not to mention a very lovely turquoise tiara. They had all come to them from people who had lost fortunes or houses or children, and needed money to find lost relatives, or rebuild their lives, or simply put food on their table. It was philanthropy neither could have described to their friends without feeling foolish, and yet it helped the people they bought from, and Emanuelle was indeed growing rich from her commissions. She had begun to look very sleek. She was getting her hair done in town, and buying her clothes in Paris, which was more than Sarah had done since before the war. And next to Emanuelle, she was beginning to feel positively dowdy.

“William, what are we going to do with all this stuff?” she asked one day, as she upset the balance of half a dozen Van Cleef and Cartier boxes in her closet, and all of them fell on her head, and he only laughed at her.

“I have absolutely no idea. Maybe we ought to hold an auction.”

“I’m serious.”

“Why don’t we open a store?” William asked good-naturedly, but Sarah thought the idea absurd. But within a year, they seemed to have more inventory than Garrard’s.

“Maybe we really ought to sell it,” Sarah suggested this time, but now William wasn’t as sure. He was involved in planting extensive vineyards around the château, and didn’t have time to worry about the jewelry. Yet it kept coming to them They were too well known now for their generosity and kindness. In the fall of 1947, William and Sarah decided to go to Paris to be alone and leave Phillip with Emanuelle for a few days. They’d been home from England for a year and a half and hadn’t left the château, they’d been so busy.

Paris was even more wonderful than Sarah had expected. They stayed at the Ritz and spent almost as much time in bed as they had on their honeymoon. But they found lots of time for shopping, too, and they went to dinner at the Windsors’ on the Boulevard Sachet, in yet another lovely house decorated by Boudin. Sarah wore a very chic new black dress she got at Dior, her spectacular pearls, and a fabulous diamond bracelet they’d bought months before from a woman who’d lost everything at the hands of the Germans.

And everyone at dinner wanted to know where she got the bracelet. But Wallis was wise enough to spot the pearls, and told Sarah kindly she’d never, ever seen any like them. She was intrigued by the bracelet, too, and when she asked where it was from, the Whitfields said “Cartier,” without further explanation. It even made Wallis’s jewels look a little pallid by comparison.

And much to her surprise, for most of their trip to Paris, Sarah found herself fascinated by the jewelers. They had some lovely things, but so did they at the château; in fact, they had a lot more, and some of what she had was even better. In fact, most of it was.

“You know, maybe we really ought to do something with it sometime,” she said vaguely as they drove home, in the special Bentley that had been built for him after they left England.

But it was another six months before they thought of it. She was busy with Phillip, and wanted to enjoy him before he left for Eton the following year. Sarah really wanted to keep him in France with her, but in spite of having been born there, and having lived at the château all his life, he had a passion for all things English, and he was absolutely begging to go to Eton.

William was too busy with his wine and his vineyards to think much about the jewelry. It was the summer of 1948 before Sarah absolutely insisted they do something with the mountain of jewelry they’d collected. It was no longer even a good investment. It just sat there, except for the few pieces she wore, and they were lovely, but not many.

“After Phillip leaves, we’ll go up to Paris and sell it all off I promise,” William said, distractedly.

“They’ll think we robbed a bank in Monte Carlo.”

“It does look a bit like that.” He grinned. “Doesn’t it?” But when they went back to Paris in the fall, they suddenly realized that there was clearly too much to take with them. They took a few pieces, but they left the rest at the château. Sarah was feeling bored, and a little lonely, with Phillip recently gone. And once they’d been in Paris for two days, William looked at her and announced that he’d found a solution.

“To what?” She was looking at some new suits at Chanel with him when he told her.

“The jewelry dilemma. We’ll start a shop of our own, and sell it.”

“Are you crazy?” She stared at him, still looking very handsome in his wheelchair. “What would we do with a shop? The château is two hours from Paris.”

“We’ll let Emanuelle run it. She has nothing to do now with Phillip gone away, and she’s gotten a little fancy to do housework.” She’d been buying her clothes at Jean Patou and Madame Grès, and she was looking very elegant.

“Are you serious?” She had never even thought of it, and she wasn’t sure if she liked the idea. But in some ways it might be fun, and they both liked jewelry. And then she began to worry. “You don’t think your mother will think it’s vulgar?”

“To own a shop? It is vulgar.” He laughed. “But such fun. Why not? And she’s such a good sport, I daresay she’ll love it.” At over ninety, she seemed to get more and more open-minded with the years, rather than less so. And she was enchanted with the prospect of having Phillip stay with her for holidays and weekends. “Who knows, one day we can call ourselves Jewelers to the Crown. We’ll have to sell something to the Queen to do that. And I daresay Wallis will go mad, and want a discount.” It was a totally insane idea, but they talked about it all the way back to the château, and Sarah had to admit that she loved it.

“What’ll we call it?” she asked excitedly, as they lay in bed and talked about it the night they went back to the château.

“‘Whitfield’s,’ of course.” He looked at her proudly. “What else would you call it, my dear?”

“Sorry.” She rolled over in bed and kissed him. “I should have thought of that.”

“You certainly should have.” It was almost like having a new baby. It was a wonderful new project.

They wrote down all their ideas, inventoried the jewelry they had, and got it appraised by Van Cleef, who were staggered by what they’d collected. They spoke to attorneys, and went back to Paris before Christmas and rented a small but extremely elegant shop on the Faubourg-St. Honoré, and set architects and workmen to work, and even found Emanuelle an apartment. She was beside herself with excitement.

“Are we totally mad?” Sarah asked him, as they lay in bed at the Ritz on New Year’s Eve. Now and then she still got a little worried.

“No, my darling, we’re not. We’ve done an awful lot of people an awful lot of good with the things we bought from them, and now we’re having a little fun with it. There’s no harm in that. And who knows, it might turn out to be a very successful business.”

They had explained it all to Phillip, and William’s mother, when they’d flown over to England to spend Christmas at Whitfield with them. William’s mother thought it was a fine idea and promised to buy their first piece of jewelry, if they’d let her. And Phillip announced that one day he’d open a branch in London.

“Wouldn’t you want to run the one in Paris?” Sarah asked, surprised at his reaction. For a child who had grown up abroad, and was only half English anyway, he was amazingly British.

“I don’t want to live in France ever again,” he announced, “except for vacations. I want to live at Whitfield.”

“My, my,” William said, more amused than distressed. “I’m glad someone does.” He could never imagine living there again. And like his cousin, the Duke of Windsor, he was happier in France, and so was Sarah.

“You’ll have to tell me all about the opening.” The dowager duchess had made them promise when they left. “When is it?”