The Grenadillo Box: A Novel (45 page)

“Then he must have kept some in store.” My eyes still held hers.

“Do you not think, bearing in mind the significance of this timber, you should accept Chippendale’s challenge after all, and see what secrets his cabinet contains?” she said.

I
am, as I’ve said, expert in divining where even the most artful craftsman might conceal a hidden space. I took out every drawer of the central section and ran my fingers over the aperture beneath, feeling for a bump or a join which might indicate a sliding panel. It took me nearly half an hour to find all the ingenious mechanisms and hidden catches, and to release them with the aid of a cluster of small spiked instruments and keys attached to the fob. At length I’d extracted twelve small drawers from the center and laid them out on the nearby table, leaving a hollow like a mouth behind. We looked at the drawers spread before us. All of them were lined with scarlet velvet as if they were intended to hold medals or coins or jewels. All were empty save one. It contained half a plain gold ring.

As I picked it up and held it in my hand, I felt chilled to the marrow. Removed from its luxurious bed of velvet, held up before the sumptuous golden cabinet, the ring seemed somehow diminished in luster, oddly dull and small.

“What is it?” said Alice.

“Unless I’m mistaken, it is the other half of the ring Foley and I discovered when we opened Partridge’s grenadillo box. I don’t believe you ever saw it.”

I turned the crescent of metal over in my hand. It was inscribed, as the other portion had been, on the inner surface.

“And now I wish only that I had the other piece so I could read the entire inscription properly. From what I remember, the other piece read ‘To C’; this reads ‘from T. C.’ ” Alice had turned her attentions to the tiny drawers I’d retracted. She was picking up each one from where I’d laid them to examine the wood.

“A considerable quantity of timber would be required to band such a quantity of drawers.”

I was hardly listening, for something else was troubling me. My knowledge of my master’s virtuoso skill, together with some vague inkling in my gut, told me finding the ring had been too easy. Chippendale wouldn’t place every secret cavity in a single area and provide the instruments to open them, for then they’d be no more than sham secrets, cavities you were meant to discover to stop you from looking elsewhere. With this thought came the conviction that there was something I still hadn’t unearthed, something more to find.

I turned my attention to the area behind the writing flap, which was divided into a plethora of pigeonholes, and applied the same careful examination to the panels dividing each compartment. I was halfway up the second space when my forefinger touched on a minute but discernible ridge. I peered into the desk. A line no heavier than one inscribed with a pin dissected the panel. The wood had been joined on this side, while on the other there was nothing. I pressed my finger at each end near to the join, and then at each corner in turn. On my third attempt there was a small click, a catch yielded, and the panel came away. Tucked inside, so far back it was all but invisible, was a small slender box, about the length of my little finger.

“What is it?” Alice said.

I gently pulled out the box and opened it. Inside lay a fragment of paper, covered in writing. But as if it had once been drenched in water, the words were blurred and in some parts illegible. I screwed up my eyes to focus them. The script seemed vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t think where I’d seen it before.

“It’s almost impossible to decipher,” I said, as she peered over my shoulder. Falteringly at first I read out the few phrases I could.

“…extremely uneasy at your lengthy silence…I have hardly the strength to hold a pen after illness that overcomes…very weak still, almost to death. I expect every hour…a good woman here has told me of a place…they will care tolerably…if you remember me, remember also our son…will suffer most severely…have sent him with the…recognize him. The block and this…”

I halted. Even as I uttered the words, their significance had struck me. I looked at Alice. She was slumped inert in her chair, apparently lost in thought, hardly listening to me.

“Do you not realize what this is?” I cried, waving the paper under her nose like a flag. “Proof positive of something we never considered.”

She took the letter, looked at it hard, and then grew pale. “And what might that be?” she asked quietly.

“Partridge was Chippendale’s son.” I paused theatrically, expecting her to cry out in astonishment. She said nothing.

I persisted in a louder tone. “Do you not see, this letter can only have been written by Partridge’s unfortunate mother on her deathbed? It’s here because she sent it to
Chippendale.
That was why Chippendale couldn’t allow Partridge to marry Dorothy, his sister. Dorothy was his aunt. That was what he meant when he said they were ‘too close.’ ”

Still Alice was silent. She sat bolt upright in the chair, letter in her lap, staring dead ahead, as expressionless as if I’d said nothing.

“Alice, do you not comprehend me?” I repeated. “Partridge was Chippendale’s child. The letter here proves it. The wood is another link, and the initials T. C. in the ring must refer to Thomas Chippendale—”

Suddenly she stood and held up her hand to halt my tirade. “I heard you, Nathaniel,” she said almost wearily. “I’d reached the same conclusion. And, what is more, I believe I know who the unfortunate mother was.”

A
lice explained then that the handwriting was that of her aunt Charlotte, the same relative who’d made the mirror hanging in her parlor. I realized then why the writing had seemed familiar. I’d seen it before on the design we’d consulted to identify the wood from which the temple box was made.

Alice had never known the reason for her aunt Charlotte’s sudden departure from London. She had been an infant of scarcely two years when it took place. Afterwards, whenever her aunt’s name was mentioned, it was said she’d acted against the advice of her family, left home under a cloud of disgrace, and died soon after from consumption. The whereabouts of her grave and the identity of her fickle betrothed were never discussed, nor, and here Alice was quite adamant, had any mention of a child ever been made.

Now she came to think on it, however, Alice recalled that as soon as Chippendale established his business and began to thrive, her father had manifested a curious antipathy towards him. This first showed itself in the unusually sharp tone of his voice when Chippendale came to buy wood, then in a marked reluctance to provide him with supplies unless it was stock of inferior quality—worm-eaten or rotten or poorly seasoned—that he couldn’t sell elsewhere. He had never offered any reason for this dislike, and once Chippendale realized the poor service he was receiving, he took his trade elsewhere. It was only after her father had left on his travels and she learned of the flourishing Chippendale concern that she’d taken it upon herself to reestablish a rapport with his workshop. Now she regretted her actions.

“You cannot blame yourself for your ignorance,” I said.

“Had I known, though, I would have felt exactly the same as he. I should never have courted Chippendale’s trade.” She hesitated. “I only wonder why my father never took care of the child after his sister died.”

“Perhaps he knew nothing of it. Your aunt may have been so shamed by her situation that she was unwilling to confide in anyone after Chippendale rejected her. Or perhaps when she was dying and wrote to Chippendale, telling him of the child’s existence, he assured her he’d take care of the child and she believed it would be unnecessary to bring further disgrace on her own family.”

Alice sighed heavily, as if she couldn’t quite convince herself. “Could my father have rejected his own sister, Nathaniel? I shudder to believe it of him. Yet if he did not, why was her name so rarely mentioned? Surely being jilted and falling ill would not be sufficient to have made him shy from speaking of her?”

The confusion in her face made me see she was facing disillusionment in the same way I had on learning of Chippendale’s deception. I loved the way her expressions changed so rapidly and reflected her thoughts so frankly. Watching her now, the realization that, just occasionally, I
could
understand her spurred me to do my utmost to distract her.

“We cannot know for certain why Chippendale took on Partridge as an apprentice. Let us view it in the best possible light and believe that he did so deliberately, knowing this talented youth was his son. The fact that he kept Charlotte’s ring and letter for all those years and secreted them in the writing cabinet bears out this theory, does it not? It proves he did feel some pang of remorse.”

Alice thought about this for a moment. “How can you speak of remorse, bearing in mind the way he treated Partridge? He never viewed him in the same way as his legitimate children. Chippendale may have decided to rid himself of Partridge because he wanted to marry Dorothy, but that was merely an excuse he’d been searching for for some time. Quite simply, he was jealous of Partridge’s talent and worried that if Partridge stayed in his workshop his own position, and later that of his legitimate offspring, would be usurped.”

“As jealous of his talented son as Daedalus was of Talos?” I said wryly.

“Perhaps. Though I still hold the relevance of that story to be no more than a strange coincidence. If you deal a pack of cards on a table or roll a pair of dice, sequences may repeat themselves. Is it destiny, or God, or merely blind chance if a pair of sixes appears twice?”

Suddenly I didn’t disagree. “You may be right, for there’s another reason that might explain it.”

“What’s that?”

“Madame Trenti. She was prepared to blackmail Montfort on the subject of his illegitimate child. Who’s to say she didn’t uncover the truth about Partridge and try the same with Chippendale? Perhaps on her visit to the Foundling Hospital she found evidence linking Partridge to Chippendale. She removed the evidence, fearing that if it remained her story that Partridge was Montfort’s son would be ruined. But she used the discovery nonetheless. Knowing how Chippendale’s reputation was of paramount importance to him, she threatened him with the scandal of his illicit liaison. And that would explain his reason for creating for her such a lavish piece of furniture, would it not?”

I had scarcely finished speaking when I heard the creak of an upstairs door and the slow thud of Chippendale’s boots descending the stair.

“Hopson, is that your voice I hear? Who’s with you? What are you about? Not thieving my stock, I trust.”

Instead of calling out to him, I fixed my eyes on Alice’s, held a finger to my lips, and gestured towards the door. She nodded back at me, roundeyed and docile. Taking her hand, I led her out through the side door to the street. “Wait here,” I whispered. “I shan’t keep you long.”

I stepped back inside and came face-to-face with Chippendale. He was looking down at the writing cabinet’s drawers still spread over the table, and back at the gaping hole from where we’d removed them.

“So now you’ve dismantled my masterpiece and got at the truth,” he said quietly. “Perhaps you’ll rest easier than I.”

But in place of the fury I might have expected to cloud his face, I saw a flash of something else. I still do not know what to call it precisely. Remorse? Satisfaction? Triumph? A mixture of all three? Whatever it was, I knew I’d no need to feel trepidation. It was only later that I began to understand that my finding the letter was thanks as much to his skillful manipulation as to my own clumsy efforts. It was his challenge that made me search the cabinet. He had granted me permission to find the truth; he was still a master of his craft.

But that realization came only with hindsight. At the time I foolishly believed it was I who’d gained the upper hand. “As you see, sir,” I said firmly, “I’ve examined your handiwork, admired its ingenuity, comprehended how you constructed it. For my taste there is a surfeit of novelty here. I prefer my furniture simpler, more straightforward, more honest.

“Now, by your leave, I must ask you to replace it all, for I have urgent business to which I must attend. My boxes are packed and ready in the workshop; you may look at them when you will. I trust you’ll find nothing concealed and will let the carter take them away when I send him in the morning.”

With these words I bowed curtly and left him standing before his dismantled cabinet, fitting the delicate pieces back together. My final glimpse as I closed the door behind me was of him holding in his hands the compartments from which the letter and the half ring had been removed. He must have known both were in my pocket, but he’d resolved that was how it should be and did nothing to prevent me from leaving.

Alice stood outside in the sunshine, her hair a mass of ruby light. I could see from a slight tightness in her lips and a glimmer of a frown that she was growing impatient, but her crossness only underlined her beauty and made my spirits soar.

“I find I’m suddenly consumed by hunger. Let’s dine together at Lucy’s Chophouse, and you can tell me how well you’ve recovered from your injuries and what you made of the history I wrote.”

She smiled, a rainbow after the tempest. “Very well, Nathaniel. I accept your offer. And while we’re on the subject of injuries, I’ll tell you of a curious coincidence that’s come to my notice.”

“What’s that?”

“In Bath I chanced to meet a silversmith by the name of Samuel Harling. He claimed to know of you, and moreover to know how you came by the mark on your head. He made mention of a certain brass candlestick hurled from his wife’s bedroom window…”

I put a playful arm about her waist and kissed her cheek softly. “That man is famous for his histories,” I declared. “I should warn you it’s a grave mistake to give them much credence.”

She flashed me the drollest of glances, but she didn’t push me away.