Tussaud

by Belinda, Lyons-Lee

  On the third day of checking the clay was dry, she mixed the plaster then painted it thickly over each clay body part. In only a few hours it would dry in interlocking plates that she would prise open, join and seal up again. Then the wax, heated in the metal bucket above the fire, was poured into the mould. She bound each plaster mould in twine and immersed them in troughs of cold water to speed the process. The next day she opened the mould, and the wax limbs were ready.

  While Philidor watched, she sliced each limb open lengthways. With his assistance, the mechanics were inserted and sealed into their respective chambers, and each limb attached to the torso, the head into the spine, the pieces all locked into place with satisfying clicks. The final stages of the aesthetics she worked through herself over the next five days, those of mixing and applying the oil paint to the skin, followed by the pastes, powders and embellishments for the face that needed reapplying, styling the hair and then dressing the figure.

  Antoinette was finally complete.

  That night Marie made herself comfortable with a blanket in the corner of her workshop on an old padded settee, partly hidden behind the tables, boxes, buckets and troughs. Something about the first night of a completed figure was special, almost as if it needed her. But then came a pad, pad, pad on the stairs. Her rest was to be disturbed. The audacity of the man to creep up into her workshop was deplorable. Another breach of etiquette. She’d informed him Antoinette would be ready for tomorrow, and they had agreed they would both test her workings for the first time together. But clearly he couldn’t wait. His word, so freely given to her in Paris, amounted to nothing.

  Marie’s silhouette must have blended in with everything else, so that upon entering the room he failed to see her. He circled Antoinette like a dog panting with thirst, the naked skin of his chest illuminated in the moonlight. Her allure was strong – bewitching, even. Marie had felt it as she had worked on her. To be so close, face to face with one of the most powerful women in history, was an intoxicating stimulant. And so, like any man, like almost every man, he had followed the scent of his desire.

  What was he doing? Touching her cheek, his finger travelling down her throat. The hollow of her neck, across to her breast. Then down, down, and he cupped his hand over the silk of her dress to push between her legs. Ready to explore. Ready to infiltrate. But no. Antoinette did not have the parts required for such an act.

  Marie half rose from the chair still holding the blanket. She would not tolerate this. Antoinette was not – was not a – Oh! Now he pressed himself against her, his hand moving in and out. No more. She let the blanket fall and stood up properly.

  But before she could utter a word, he stepped back. Finished. Whatever his desire, he had sated it. He breathed out heavily, ran his fingers over his lips, then slunk from the room, shutting the door behind him.

  Marie stood there, her heart beating against her rib cage, the blanket at her feet.

  That pig. What should she do? She crossed to the window to take a deep breath of fresh air. Let her emotions settle. She needed to think. Calmly, rationally. How to approach this, him, required strategy. Planning. Not an emotional outburst. Rash. Rash produced mistakes. Mistakes made one vulnerable. To be vulnerable to a man such as Philidor was unthinkable. In only five minutes, perhaps, he’d infected the air with an odious stench of lust.

  Across the street below the window, she spotted movement. Oh, there he is again. Over the past few weeks as she’d worked, she’d had opportunities to watch the gentleman from next door come and go. His rooms were also Druce’s but accessed by a separate front door. Like Marie, this gentleman kept nocturnal hours. He would withdraw a large ring of keys from the depths of his jacket to enter or leave the premises. She gathered he was the owner of the Baker Street Bazaar, which declared on its sign: Rare books and artefacts bought and sold. The gentleman was himself a rare object, with his greying hair worn long and prominent side-whiskers, his collar ironed to sit upright in peaks that almost covered his cheekbones, and a topper with the brim pulled low, obscuring his face.

  What time was it? Already past midnight. Philidor had gone back to bed and her light was surely visible now from the street. The gentleman always crossed the road in the same spot then paused and looked back up at his window – or was it at her, his nocturnal companion divided from him by the bricks and plaster?

  Oh no! There was Druce, crossing the street, her hand raised as if hailing him. He looked behind, saw her and tried to hasten to the carriage. Oh, bad luck, she’d caught up with him. Marie watched them interact, saw Druce reach out to touch the gentleman, who dropped his books, picked them up and disappeared from sight. His carriage pulled away, and Druce crossed back over below Marie’s window. A detestable woman. What was the meaning of such behaviour?

  Marie turned back to Antoinette. It was a warm night, so sitting up with her creation was going to be pleasurable; she felt like a mother with her newborn. Unless the pig trotted in again. She grabbed a cloth and began cleaning Antoinette’s skin. Philidor had betrayed her. This was something that she would not forget.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Philidor

  HE COULDN’T SLEEP knowing that the creature was in the room above him. Standing there, alone in the dark, the only witness

  to her existence the furnishings and the moon, which glared down upon him and grew his restlessness. There was nothing for it but to get up. The desire was strong, illicit even, and infected him with a notion of otherworldliness, that perhaps if he snuck in silently or peeked unseen through the ajar doorway, he may just surprise her sitting at the window in the moonlight, wondering what sort of life she had been given. The whole notion was fanciful. But still. He would get up, look in on her and then, if still unsettled, go through the account ledger again.

  The floorboards on the stairs were cool, a welcome sensation after the hot sheets that had enshrouded his twitching feet. He’d no need of a blanket over his shoulders but went as he was, clad only in trunks. He turned his lamp low and watched his silhouette stretch as he moved, so that he was pleased, proud even, of his profile. He stopped to admire it, running his hands over his chest and stomach, congratulating himself on his slimmer form that circumstance and lack of money had brought. He had used all the money from the bank on this venture, supplies and materials, lodgings, securing the theatre; there was no fat to spend on extravagant suppers – or women. Thank heavens for his arrangement at the Strand.

  When he opened the door of Marie’s workshop, it didn’t squeak. He’d been careful to smear lamp oil on all the hinges in their lodgings without Marie’s knowledge. He slipped inside and extinguished the lamp. The moon was already in full and open admiration of the woman standing in the centre of the room. The dress. The skin. The hair. It was all so real. So breathtakingly, horrifically real that he had to tell himself, under his breath, that she was not real. He inhaled her scent: oil, paint and something else, an elegance, a regal essence that was intangible yet present. The bare skin of his chest tingled, brushing her arm as he circled and recircled her. Her perfumed hair quickened his heart and stirred further the beguiling twinge of desire. For to be so close to this woman, this queen, and be touching her was logically impossible, but his senses intuited otherwise. This was what his shows were about: weaving a spell of deception with sleight of hand, with smoke, mirrors, cloths of silk and shadows that hid and suggested all manner of things. His necromancy that summoned visions of the departed was largely thanks to the mechanical contrivance of the magic lantern, which he was replacing with the Argand lamp. Even more effective in its image projection apparently. Yes, this figure before him was just a fully formed version of this technique. But the final test would be if this creature actually worked. If his great experiment was able to come to life.

  He’d agreed with Marie to wait until the morrow. But he gave his word away without thought all the time. It was past midnight, and Marie would likely not take well to being disturbed. Waking her would be unkind. He would
wind Antoinette now, while the moonlight gleamed upon her skin and made her eyes resonate with a depth that the harsh daylight would betray as glass. He reached up above her neck, noting the tiny indentation between the base of her skull and the beginning of her spine. Such a lovely, soft dip, and then the compact metal handle of the key was between his fingers … He stopped. He didn’t know why, only that he didn’t want to break the enchantment of stillness by seeing her jerk or flail in the gloom. He paused, savouring the tension of anticipation. It needed release. He touched her. Slid his hand under her dress and between her legs, and for a moment it was real. She was warm, soft. His eyes widened. Did she blink? Was that a sigh? Then he turned away, taking one last look as he closed the door to seal her in.

  He stood for a moment in indecision, looking out his bedchamber window. The roofs were a dishevelled stretch of grey and purple fields, the shambled slate of the poorer dwellings competing with the smooth slate of the high street townhouses. He couldn’t summon the energy for the Strand now. But he was still wide awake. Aroused and needing release. Perhaps it would be worth paying Druce a visit. She was so eager to please, and her winks and pinches made it clear she offered more than lodgings.

  Heavens, was that Druce out there now talking to that gentleman? Surely she had no interest in antiques and artefacts, or it could be about the rent. Whatever it was, the fellow looked impatient to leave. Yes, he dropped his books and then his carriage blocked Philidor’s view. A moment later it pulled away. Druce made her way back across the road, and Philidor stroked the bridge of his nose. He could afford at least one extra coin tonight.

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  His Grace William Cavendish, the 5th Duke of Portland

  IT WAS ALWAYS hard for William when he was at the threshold of his two worlds. The Baker Street Bazaar took enormous energy to run, and there were times when simply arriving and opening the door blew it all away. And he was always mindful of the incessant nosing and snooping and watching and listening of his landlady, the Druce woman. She was a pest, an insect that bumped up against his head, her wings of chatter agitating the fine hairs in his ears and making his skin itch and twitch and prick when he felt her eyes upon him. By nature of the business, his hours were irregular, which should have circumvented her designs. Heaven help him if he ever established a routine, then she’d lie in wait and accost him with pleasantries that would make his throat close over and his tongue swell. He paid the rent regularly but that wasn’t enough to sate her. She had little intellect but plenty of mental space, and she’d decided that he and his Bazaar were just the objects to occupy it.

  The Bazaar was run by appointment, his clients writing to him to arrange mutually suitable times. The type of people William dealt with didn’t always keep business hours, arriving as they did from ships all over the world that docked at all hours of the night. He had acquired a sizeable library and collection of interesting artefacts thanks to this arrangement. His areas of interest were wide but included myths, legends, folk stories, superstitions and tales from around the seas, sculptures depicting mythology as well as maps, illustrations and drawings related to the same subjects. He was also, by way of a secondary pursuit, interested in magic, the occult and witchcraft.

  Welbeck Abbey was the name given to the manor, grounds and estate he had inherited that stood on the outskirts of London where there were still fields left untouched and woods filled with game. He ensured that silence and solitude reigned at Welbeck, making his life there tolerable.

  But to get to Welbeck from Baker Street was becoming increasingly difficult – due in considerable part to Mrs Druce. It was as if she sat by her window, day and night, for the express purpose of sighting then waylaying him. He crept down the narrow staircase from his upstairs room, after having doused his lamp and casting one last eye over his collection. His room comprised a sizable desk and table, two leather armchairs and a rug that softened the wainscoting around the perimeter of the room.

  It was comfortable here, filled with old wooden crates, boxes, metal trunks and chests with rusting hinges. The air was charged with the damp salty residue of a sea voyage, combined with the faint tangs of exotic incense and spices. He liked the disordered feel of the room, so deliberately at odds with the way Welbeck was managed. Here, lids were thrown back, abandoned, like his inhibitions when he was safely enclosed in its walls. This was his adventurous, liberated other life; the life he was forced to keep guarded and locked up, literally. If he was honest with himself, this was the life he could have had with her. The person he could have been, damn it, had the great misfortune not transpired. They could have lived together in Cavendish Square in London, gone to the museum, the theatre and the ballet, had picnics in the parks and hosted suppers where she would have presided over the table, proud of her husband. It would have been a life of culture, gaiety, intellectual stimulation, and laughter – free from the shackles of Welbeck, whose chains, though familiar, were heavy with obligation, guilt and remorse.

  But the great misfortune had happened. And as his two brothers had died in their infancy, William had been the next in line to inherit. Upon his death a distant cousin who he had never met stood to inherit everything, and William had no plans to change his will or meet the cousin.

  If anyone who knew his identity saw this room, they would struggle to comprehend, to reconcile it and the man he was here with the 5th Duke of Portland, owner of Welbeck Abbey and soon to be Peer of the Realm. He’d already had two sittings for his portrait which was to hang in the House of Lords, only one now remained. A difficult experience but a necessary one. Yes as the duke he was so reclusive, so peculiar, so set in his ritual and ways. Refusing even to be looked upon!

  But behind these walls of Baker Street, he could become someone else. Or was it just another version of himself? Or, perhaps, who he really was, a truer version. Not that he had a complete change of personality; he was still quiet and reserved, but he was more relaxed within his congenial surroundings. The fears, anxieties and hallucinations did not plague him here. His mind was stiller, calmer, not driven like a team of horses trying to bolt in different directions while the carriage shattered into pieces.

  All this aside – whatever it was, whoever he was, he found it hard to leave Baker Street. Metaphorically and literally.

  He listened to sailors, merchants, captains, military men who sat across from him in the armchair, smoking a pipe, drinking from crystal glasses whatever alcohol they pleased – for William stocked a vast array – while he asked question after question of their travels: whom they had seen, what they had seen. And he would listen, with the wide eyes and open imagination of a starved and captive man, desperate for the lights, sounds, colours, sights of far-distant shores. Then he would grow tired; the teller of tales would notice his head had tipped against the back of the chair, his eyes had closed, and the teller’s voice would falter and then cease. A moment, perhaps more, of silence when the space between the clock ticks seemed to stretch, then William would rouse himself and say, ‘Thank you.’ He would put his glass on the table and pay his visitor the agreed price for their addition to his collection.

  This night, after one such scene, William descended the stairs in darkness with the bundle of books he had just secured tucked under his arm. This was no easy feat, but the light of a lantern or a candle would increase his chance of exposure to Mrs Druce. Although her living quarters were on the ground floor of next door’s apartment, she was ever vigilant. Imagine, he thought, having to sneak past her door as his neighbours must, every time they left the premises. Ghastly.

  He opened the front door, turned quickly, retrieved his keys and locked it. He looked up – was someone there, at the first-floor window next door? The second floor? Good gracious, was Druce at her window as well? No, the curtain was pulled over. He was safe.

  But as he crossed the road, quieter at this hour, a door slammed behind him.

  His stomach tightened. If he could just make it t
o the carriage door, he might not even have to see her face. The books slipped; he clutched them closer to his chest.

  ‘Mr Charles!’ he heard her call. ‘Thomas, dear, just a minute.’

  Good heavens, how had it happened that he was being called ‘dear’? By this woman? In public?

  He was nearly there, stepped up onto the footpath, his hand reaching for the carriage door while his books slipped again from his grasp. He lunged to catch them but they fell to the ground. He was trapped.

  ‘Thomas,’ said the voice sharply. And there she was before him.

  All pink face, bosoms heaving, her lips shiny with spit.

  He ran his free hand across his forehead. Not a scene; he hoped she would not create a scene. He bent over and began picking them up. This one’s spine was broken, the corner of this one was squashed, and –

  ‘You said you were going to come and see me before you went home,’ she accused, stepping in closer so he could smell her. Greasy meat, was all he could think of. And the splotches of sour milk on her dress. The baby. Oh dear! But what were his loins doing in response?

  ‘I did?’ He righted himself, books safe again in his arms. ‘Pardon me, I remember no such thing. I wouldn’t promise that – I mean, I haven’t seen you since … well, since last week when I paid the rent. And I thought that was for the next month as well, so I needn’t trouble you unnecessarily.’

  ‘Oh, that’s a lie, that is,’ she said, a fine spray of spit arriving on his lips from hers.

  He wiped his mouth, feeling hot. His body was throbbing in a most unusual way.

  ‘I know you remember last night.’ She reached over to pinch his arm. That big slow eye winked at him in a manner that felt horrifyingly knowing.