The Grenadillo Box: A Novel (33 page)

At some point I must have gasped out loud, for I heard Miss Alleyn say, “Are you not well, Mr. Hopson? Why have you grown so pale?” Seeing the dread upon my face, and that I was apparently transfixed and unable to respond, she must have moved closer. I heard her give a small cry of shock when she looked inside the casket herself. I opened my eyes to find the receptacle closed and Miss Alleyn laying a light, sympathetic hand on mine.

“Come,” she said softly. “There is nothing for us here, and no need for you to distress yourself further with this. I will send for Justice Westleigh and let him take whatever steps he deems necessary.”

It was several hours before Westleigh arrived to collect the foul casket, by which time the numbing effect of the wine had long vanished and the full import of what I’d found had struck home. Miss Alleyn had left me alone to wait in the library and listen to the oppressive quiet of the room, and the inexplicable creaks and shudders of the passages outside. Soon my nerves were jarred and my terror returned. I couldn’t think how or why I’d allowed myself to be inveigled back to this house. Had not my life been threatened? Had not Robert warned me what he would do if he ever caught sight of me here? However well meaning Miss Alleyn’s assurances that she would keep my visit to Horseheath and my exploration of his room secret, I could not rely on her entirely. If Robert returned unexpectedly, there would be no hiding of the truth. Panic surged within me each time I contemplated my helpless situation, the horrid contents of the casket, and Robert’s warning to me. Upon reflection I saw that this discovery changed everything. Miss Alleyn could not possibly keep my visit a secret; I was foolish to think she could. She would be obliged to disclose that I had come, and for what reason. For how else could she explain the discovery of the casket?

Before long Robert would know I had ignored his warning and returned. He would learn I had been in his rooms, among his possessions, and he would vent his violence upon me. Whether this was in London or here would make little difference. Terror overwhelmed me. I knew I was in danger of losing my faculties altogether. I tried to muster my powers of reason, and tell myself that he would not come here now, and that when I was in London I would be surrounded by friendly faces and thus protected from his malice. But my dreadful thoughts persisted, and the wait for Westleigh seemed interminable.

It transpired, however, that providence smiled upon my craving to be gone. No sooner had Sir James arrived than he declared that the contents of the box should be delivered forthwith to Cambridge, to the apothecary physician who’d earlier examined Partridge’s corpse. He would be happy therefore to give me a ride to town in his carriage. It would be late evening by the time we arrived, too late for any transportation to London, but I could pass the night at the Hoop Inn and take the first stage south in the morning.

In making this arrangement, I ignored the fact that Foley was coming to see me next day and deliberately neglected to send word to him of my sudden change of plan.

I’m not certain if Miss Alleyn knew of the appointment, but in any case she seemed to view my distress with true compassion. Instead of trying to place obstacles in my way, she bade me farewell with a gentle solicitude that reminded me uncannily of my mother.

A
s it turned out, it was a whole week before I finally returned to London. A sudden Siberian blizzard howled across the flat lands of Cambridge, leaving in its wake snowdrifts so deep a man or a horse might easily perish in them. The coachmen understood that if they ventured out in such conditions they would end up helplessly marooned in a drift or a frozen ditch, and refused to budge. I had no choice but to pace my chamber in the Hoop Inn and watch the snow fall. A week may not seem a long time, yet to me the hours seemed like days, and the days an eternity. What could I do but return to the events that so dominated my life? And over the long days spent before a paltry fire, it dawned upon me that I’d become ensnared in the jumble of recent weeks. I’d behaved no more cannily than a kitchen dog on a treadwheel, trotting endlessly round, rotating the spit, and larding myself in the process.

I thought about the grenadillo box I’d taken from Montfort’s hand, surely one of the most exquisite objects Partridge had ever made, and of the half ring I’d discovered inside. Thanks to James Barrow’s testimony, I now knew the ring and the wood from which the box was made were left with Partridge when he was deposited at the Foundling Hospital, but I was still no closer to comprehending where they had come from before that.

At the heart of the deceit surrounding Partridge’s death lay Madame Trenti. I now understood it was she who had precipitated that tragedy. It was she who had fabricated the story that Montfort was his father and dispatched Partridge to Horseheath Hall, in order to wreak revenge for the injustice Montfort had wrought upon her two decades earlier. Granted Montfort
had
wronged her when he deprived her of the child and promised he would bring him up as his own, but my concerns and sympathies lay with Partridge. By raising Partridge’s hopes of his parentage, Trenti had driven him to his death. Moreover, her actions and falsehoods insinuated that
birth,
not
talent,
offered Partridge his deliverance. This was her supreme treachery. That Partridge had no history was bad enough; to have a fabrication foisted upon him annihilated the little he knew himself to be.

I knew Trenti would offer no help over the matter of the ring, but I was nonetheless determined to confront her. While I was incarcerated in Cambridge, my hatred towards her grew until I was overcome by rage and a determination to face her with the evidence of her unscrupulousness.

No sooner had I decided upon this course of action than thoughts of Alice intruded. My ruminations about our last meeting disturbed me profoundly; I’d rouse myself, determine that she attracted me only by her elusiveness, and thus banish her from my consciousness. Yet later my resolve would vanish;she’d return to haunt my thoughts and leave me worrying how I’d ever appease her. This pendulum of uncertainty swung constantly, so that when I left Cambridge after a week of musing I was no closer to unraveling my sentiments towards her than when I arrived.

A
nd so I returned to the granite skies and grime of London. I was mud-spattered and wearied by my journey and went first to Nerot’s Baths in King Street, where the heat of the water went some way to soothing my aches and chills. Returning to my lodgings, I donned fresh linen and a clean suit before penning an impetuous note to Alice.

In it I said I trusted she had managed to escape the inclemencies of weather by leaving when she did, although I was disappointed that her departure had been without a word to me. Now that I was returned, there was a matter of a private nature I had to discuss. I begged her therefore to accompany me next afternoon to the Theatre Royal, where I’d heard a musical spectacle was due to be held. Unless I received a message to the contrary I’d assume she was agreeable. I thought about mentioning the discovery of the fingers but decided I’d save her distress and tell her this gently when we met. Then I tipped a post boy twopence to deliver this message and, feeling slightly relieved for having sent it, repaired to the Black Lion for a hearty meal of kidney pudding.

I sat in solitude in a corner stall amid laughter and jostling and a never-ending flow of tankards. I began to fret about Alice’s reaction to my note, and I shunned the attentions of several ladies who presumed me an easy target for their charms. My detachment seemed not in the least perturbing to them. They caught my eye, raising their glasses with knowing glances. It struck me suddenly how long I’d been without company. In Cambridge I’d scarcely spoken to a soul for several days. Fretting that I might be turning into a recluse, quite unlike my true character, on impulse I beckoned to the two fairest to join me. They sashayed over and squeezed themselves on either side of my stall. It was their company rather than the private pleasures they had to offer that drew me, and I quickly regretted my decision. Close up, their faces were nothing but paint and pockmarks. The reek of sour clothes, cheesy breath, and chalk powder turned my stomach, and when they began to finger the collar of my clean coat and stroke my face, I could take no more. I pushed them away with a shilling and in solitude tramped home to my bed.

All that night strange dreams troubled me. I thought Partridge was alive, and I could hear him calling me beneath a window of ice. Then I saw Alice at the window of a building that oddly resembled Chippendale’s cabinet. She too called me to come to her, but each time I turned a corner new compartments and rooms opened before me. Every wall concealed a hidden door, every cupboard led me to another compartment. All this time Alice’s voice directed me until I reached the very heart of the building, at which point her voice disappeared and I knew I would never find my way out again.

N
ext morning I woke to find a filigree of ice intricate as Brussels lace screening my window. The sky had cleared, and as if some celestial artist had daubed the world with white, a thick frost had bloomed. Within this bright tableau the alchemy of city life brewed. A confusion of chaises, carts, and coaches crunched and rumbled over icy streets; smoke belched from soup-kitchen caldrons and chophouse fires; youths shouldered baskets of stiff baked bread and steaming hot pies amid a throng of laborers, gentlemen, beggars, urchins, and whores. I breathed air thick with the stench of cooking meat and rotting vegetables, soot and dung, perfume and coffee, and my spirits soared to be returned from the loneliness of Cambridge into the midst of it.

I took a chair to Trenti’s house in Golden Square, snapping off icicles from the window and throwing them like daggers to the ground. I shuddered as the bearers turned into the square and passed by the railings where I’d been run down. At Madame Trenti’s door I knocked and waited for some time before a maidservant appeared.

“I have come to see your mistress,” I declared, my breath turning to clouds of steam in her face.

“I’m not certain if she’s at home. If you would care to wait…”

At that moment I fancied I heard footsteps above my head, muffled voices, then a brief but high-pitched cry and the echo of further footsteps retreating.

“Someone is at home if not she,” I persisted.

“I believe she may be engaged, sir. I’ll inform her you wish to see her.”

“Don’t trouble yourself, I’ll tell her in person,” I replied rudely, barging past her and bounding for the stairs. “I’m more than happy to offer her an additional breakfast surprise.”

My churlishness was not only due to my anger towards Madame Trenti. I presumed a lady of her habits and reputation was still abed, and that the “engagement” mentioned by the maidservant was no more than a beau enjoying her favors. Had not I observed the facilities she had installed to accommodate her masculine visitors on my previous visit? The footsteps and sounds I’d just heard only confirmed my supposition that she was in the throes of entertaining someone.

“But sir, sir,” called the poor servant girl helplessly towards my retreating back, “it may not be convenient…”

I headed straight for the landing, where I intended to open every door until I found her. Imagine my surprise, therefore, when just as I turned the last twist in the staircase I almost collided with a person coming in the opposite direction.

I recognized him instantly. As usual he was smartly dressed, although just now he seemed singularly red in the face and flustered, as if he’d recently exerted himself. Evidently he was as surprised to see me as I to meet him. For some moments we both stopped dead in our tracks, neither of us saying a word, both gripping the banister as if it offered our only hold on reality.

It was Chippendale who spoke first. “Why, Hopson, I believed you to be in Cambridge.” His voice was soft and quiet and showed no sign of the anger I might have expected, having been thus apprehended.

“So I was, sir. I returned only yesterday night. It was my intention, once I’d made this early visit, to present myself at the workshop directly.” I paused to gauge his reaction to my faltering excuse. I was curious to know what had brought him here, yet dared not inquire and risk riling him. In any event I expected he would speedily recover himself and chastise me for my unsanctioned presence here. But on the contrary, he looked somewhat bemused and responded with unusual candor. “I myself had called on Madame Trenti to discuss the installation of her cabinet. It is to stand in her bedchamber, and I presumed I would find her waiting for me there. However, it appears she is sleeping, for I’ve knocked several times and cannot rouse her.”

It occurred to me that it was an unusual call for the proprietor of a large workshop to make at this early hour, especially to a woman of Madame Trenti’s reputation. But, as I said before, I did not wish to inflame his temper, and so I said none of this, merely remarking that it seemed strange he had not found her, for I was quite certain I’d heard footsteps, a cry, and a voice not a minute or two earlier.

“Perhaps the steps and the voice were mine, or those of a servant on the back stairs. As to a cry, I too fancied I heard something but presumed it to have come from down below,” he returned.

“Where were you standing, sir, when you heard the sounds?”

He pointed to the first door on the landing behind him. “That is the door to her chamber. I knocked and waited there.”

I lifted my eyes towards the landing and strained my ears. The house was as silent now as the square outside. In front of me were four large oak doors. All were closed. Thus, I reasoned, any noise I’d heard was more likely to have come from this landing than from inside Madame Trenti’s chamber.

“Perhaps I might try,” I suggested.

Chippendale moved to let me pass. I went to the door and turned the handle. It rotated in my hand, but the catch held fast. I pressed my ear to the panel and listened. Not a sound came from within. I knocked and listened again. Still no clear sound, although some way off I fancied I heard a patter of footsteps descending a stair.

A footman accompanied by the maidservant I’d treated so rudely now joined us.

“Is this your mistress’s door?” I asked. “I fear she may be unwell, and the door is locked.”

They nodded. “That is most strange,” said the girl. “There was naught wrong with her an hour ago when I brought up her breakfast tray.”

“Did she expect any callers?”

“None that I know of, save Mr. Chippendale.”

“And you didn’t show him up?”

“He said there was no need, he knew his way.”

I marveled at the intimacy this comment implied. Never had I once suspected that a woman such as Madame Trenti would have appealed to someone of Chippendale’s fastidious taste. I’d always assumed him to be immune to the desires of the flesh. I turned to the maid again.

“And when you brought in the breakfast, did you enter by this door?”

“No, sir, I came up by the back stairs.”

“Show me.”

She led us to the door next to Madame Trenti’s, a chamber furnished as a lady’s boudoir. Opposite the entrance was a second, smaller door. It was almost invisible since it was flush to the wall and hung with the same pink watered silk as the walls. The footman opened the latch and ushered us through to a small landing from which a narrow staircase led directly down, presumably to the kitchens. A few feet along was a second door, presently standing ajar.

“The servants’ door to Madam’s bedchamber,” signaled the footman, pressing himself back against the wall to allow us to enter.

Madame Trenti’s bedchamber was luxury incarnate. The walls were hung with Chinese paper on which strangely plumed birds fluttered through a forest of wispy bamboo and gnarled trees and monstrous gaudy blooms. In one corner stood a vast dressing table, its looking glass festooned with billowing silk draperies, its surface strewn with more silver-lidded bottles and enamel boxes, porcelain trays of cosmetics, more puffs and perfumes than I’d ever beheld.

The bedstead opposite was equally ornate: japanned fire-breathing dragons perched over a pagoda headboard; the tester hung with yet more swags of pale blue damask. Usually these draperies would have been artfully arranged, but now they had been violently ripped from their supports and hung limply across the bed, like laundry hung out to dry.

I strode across the room and whipped back the drapery screen. A sea of rumpled bed linen confronted me. It took some moments before I realized that the contorted object in the midst of this derangement was Madame Trenti. She was without her wig, and her thin, mousy hair was spread in seaweed strands against the pillow. A strip of white lace that might have trimmed the flounces of her finest gown had been wound deadly tight about her neck. Her face had turned livid and waxy, and her eyes and tongue protruded unnaturally from her head.