But still, when she sat down after the task was accomplished, she was sweating with exertion. She looked at Antoinette and felt pity for her now, sitting in the underground workshop in a corner, her misshapen features looking desolate in the half light. How quickly she had fallen from being the beautiful Queen of France to the Queen of Horror. Perhaps in Marie’s own exhibition, her Chamber of Horrors, she could have a figure like this slumped in the shadows. The main damage was to the head and neck, which detached cleanly with a twist and a click. The wax had solidified; brittle now, it snapped off easily in chunks. Antoinette’s silk dress had been ruined by the oily residue, and her whole head needed to be cleaved open, the clockwork extracted and a new wax head constructed. Fortunately Marie had brought the death mask with her. She cleaned the dress and started to rebuild.
Marie was pleased with the stable temperature in the ballroom, having experienced the consistency for herself over the days she had been working, the door to her workshop firmly shut. The noise from the workmen had been exceedingly trying as they completed the refurbishment but it was over now: the stage had been extended and deepened, curtains now hung from rails installed above, another chandelier had been added, and the chairs that once lined the perimeter were now cushioned and laid out in rows across the room with wide aisles. The duke had permitted the men to access the grounds as long as they remained out of view of the main house and were gone by nightfall each day. Surprisingly this had transpired without difficulty. Now beautiful tapestries depicting oriental scenes hung from the walls, adding softness and intimacy to an otherwise vacuous space.
Some three days later, Antoinette’s head was finished although her hair would take longer to sew. She would work on this in between Elanor. Philidor had constructed the creature’s metal skeleton remarkably quickly – to be expected, she supposed, given this was his second such model. Marie had measured between the eyes, from eyes to ears, from forehead to chin and the diameter of the head, and combined these measurements with Philidor’s dimensions of the metal skull. As she had done with Antoinette, Marie began by building the wooden armature, which would be the scaffolding for the clay model. She ate her dinner and supper when they were delivered by the clanking meal carts that rode up and down on the rails from the kitchen. Then she unwrapped the block of the same terracotta clay used for Antoinette; it had a granulated texture, and its earthy scent always triggered the doorway to her imagination.
When she sensed the afternoon dwindling, she lit another lamp. She wrenched handfuls of clay from the slab, her fingernails returning to plunge into the moist block again and again. The mass of a head needed to be built up upon the armature gradually, then came the shaping, moulding and measuring again to ensure it was all correct. She ran the scraper over the forehead, shaving off thin layers that gradually receded to balance out the remaining features. The head would go through many stages of looking out of proportion, even ape-like, as each feature was worked on in succession, only coming together to form the whole at the last minute. The cheekbones were then built up, the slightly upturned nose defined and the lips carved out, then extra clay added to plump them out as well as to pronounce the chin that provided the elegant profile.
Turning the head this way and that, Marie tried to capture something of this girl and her character. It was imperative that this indefinable essence was infused, otherwise Elanor would just be a doll. The figure needed to seduce the duke, if only for a moment; he would have to believe the creature was real, real enough that at any time she might open her mouth and talk.
As with Antoinette, she built the torso from her back, spine and buttocks, then turned it over to work on the breasts across the chest, followed by the ribs and stomach, down to Elanor’s quim.
Here Marie paused. She turned the torso around so that she directly faced the opening of Elanor’s genital area. Now she would create what she had never created before: the necessary parts to simulate coupling. She ran her fingers along the smooth clay between the front and rear of Elanor’s torso, as yet unpunctured. Should she do it? She had no choice. With the wooden base of a sculpting tool, she made one insertion then another, and it was done. The duke had not specified the diameter of the openings, so it would be no fault of hers if the size was not adequate. She smiled to herself. But then, what of the pubic hair? He did not provide a sample so Elanor would have none, not like a real woman.
Marie’s skull had begun to throb. She was exhausted, having worked close to sixteen hours a day over the past week to bring this creation to life. Her concentration broken, she looked towards her closed door. Was that a voice down the tunnel? The air around her stirred ever so slightly in response. Philidor had returned to his bedchamber after another meeting in the ballroom with the four local village men who he had employed as attendants for the show. The men could access the grounds easily by foot and understood the peculiarities of the duke. Philidor had been meeting with them every day to run through the order of events for the show, insistent that they were meticulous in the carrying out of his instructions. He’d also been teaching one of them how to use the glass armonica to create the sounds of a thunderstorm. But the workmen were gone now, the noise she heard was likely just the wind echoing.
Marie looked down at what she had completed. The clay model was finished. As always, the gap between what she saw in her mind as the finished creation and what stood before her was present. She was never completely satisfied in every respect with her work. Yet Elanor was the closest she’d come to it. Closer even that Antoinette. She put her tools down. Fresh air was needed. She extinguished the candles and took up her lamp, leaving Elanor alone in the dark.
At the lip of the tunnel, Marie put the lamp by her feet. The breeze picked up, and the towering elms that lined the drive bent their tips this way and that. The air was moist, and the force of wind that rushed towards her, past her and down into the tunnel brought with it dust, grains and broken shafts of hay from the dried-out fields that stung her face. ‘Something’s coming,’ she said beneath her breath, as the clouds colluded across the visible patch of sky to snuff out the light. The temperature dropped, the wind rose further, and then a crack of thunder sliced through the air so that even the stone block on which she rested her hand affected a shudder. The hesitant rain picked up confidence and pushed down upon the earth, grounding the dust and bringing with it a sweet smell of nature at its most truculent. A summer storm.
As the lightning stamped itself on the black sky, Marie glorified in the power of the elements and felt herself to be so terribly inconsequential but so terribly alive. These were perfect conditions for creating life, and she smiled as she thought of her creation, Elanor, naked and waiting for her beneath the earth.
Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a man cut across the driveway, three long strides, before he was lost amongst the trunks of the forest. Tall, lean, with a well-cut dress coat whose tails just caught the wind. Not Philidor’s build, nor the valet’s and neither the workmen or groundstaff would wear a coat such as that. It must be him, but why would he go out on a night such as this?
To follow or not. The rain continued to fall, heedless of her dilemma. If the duke caught her, if he merely saw her, it would mean instant execution of the commission and their show. But still, what was he doing? She flipped up the hood of her cape, extinguished the flame of her lamp and stepped out into the rain.
After turning right, she quickly passed along the main path into the forest. Surely he wouldn’t have taken off into the dense thickets, but if he had, there would be evidence of it. Her thin leather boots were quickly coated in mud, but she was careless of them. As she paced ahead, she sloshed through the fast-growing puddles, the branches rustling around her like an acknowledgement of her passing. This was not a wild forest, but still, to be lost in such a place in the midst of a storm would be frightening. She quickened her pace, aware of the twigs snapping beneath her feet, her hand shielding her eyes from the rain that swept in past the rim of her hoo
d.
Another few paces, around a bend, then she stopped. She had reached this crossroad before. One of the three paths remained unexplored and her reluctance to go down it persisted. Was it fate that drew her back here now? The trees huddled close around the crossroad. She could hear his voice up ahead on the path she feared to tread, a soft babble that faded the longer she stood still. How foolish of her to come out like this; she could catch a cold and then who would care for her? Her eyes blurred with the rain. But she would follow, just a few paces more.
Soon she was catching up; he was still babbling and was making so much noise in his own haste that she had no fear of being overheard. Sometimes she could see clearly in the patchy moonlight, before being plunged again into shadows and forced to slow down. Her soaked skirt hem clung around her ankles. A stab of pain on her right cheek – a branch had lunged out at her, sharp as a dagger from where it had been broken off by the figure ahead. Her fingers sought out the spot underneath the fabric protection of the hood. It had not broken the skin. Embarrassed, feeling exposed, she pulled the hood tighter.
A few feet more, and she stumbled into a clearing. A brief flash of lightning illuminated the enormous oak, burning it into her retinas. On a cloud of white flowers at the base of the tree lay a huddled form. She remained hidden among the trees as she made her way around the edge of the clearing, then she stopped a few paces from the man, who had not moved.
At first she thought he’d been hurt, struck by a bolt. She stepped forward to help him, but then he sat up amidst the pale glow of the flowers. She caught his expression in the flashes of lightning and it equalled the worst grief she’d witnessed in the prison. His voice carried through the rain. ‘What have I done?’ he cried, staring up into the tree. ‘Will you come back to me? Will you live again through her?’
The pitiful tone Marie was familiar with; she had often heard such pleading in La Force. But with whom was he pleading?
‘I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t, you must believe me. But I was confused. Scared. And you … you were —’
She noted his youth, which surprised her; she had been expecting a much older man, and he had to be about thirty. Side-whiskers down to his chin, dark hair bedraggled around his face – normally brushed back, she assumed – and a strong nose and jawline. She could not see his eye colour but she had seen his likeness before. And she never forgot a face.
He spoke well, his deep voice almost hoarse with emotion. ‘I am doing this for you,’ he said, rising to his feet while the rain pushed everything down before it. ‘I must make it right.’
His movements now slow and deliberate, he walked out of the clearing and started back along the path to the crossroad.
She waited, then approached the tree. The enchanter’s night- shade grew all around the trunk and crept out in an ever-widening circle into the forest. She reached down, the rain making the stem slippery, hard to snap off, and it was strong for such a delicate- looking plant. A tug. She held it to her nose and sniffed. There it was: something rotten, combined now with wet earth. She tossed it aside and tipped her head back to let the rain fall on her face while she held her hands up for the water to stream down her fingers, across her palms and into her sleeves. She wanted to be cleansed of the smell of decay. The painting in her room – it was of this place.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Marie
‘PLEASE ATTEND TO my hair,’ said Marie, the following morning as she settled at her dressing-table mirror. ‘I would like it combed, then pinned up.’
‘Yes, madame,’ said Harriet, picking up the comb and beginning.
‘I am pleased over these last few weeks with your efforts, your touch is lighter and your fingers have found the way to curl my hair just so.’
‘Thank you Madame.’
‘And I do so enjoy the little tete-a-tetes we have been having,’ continued Marie. ‘Although I see today you look a little flushed, dear.’
The girl didn’t meet her eyes in the mirror.
‘Almost like you’ve been out walking.’
‘I’ve been outside.’
‘You like to walk the grounds?’
‘I like to walk in the forest,’ came the confession. ‘I’m allowed once I’ve finished my chores.’
‘How delightful,’ soothed Marie. ‘And what do you see in the forest?’
The girl looked up and caught Marie’s eye in the reflection. ‘Nothing,’ she stammered. ‘Nothing but the trees and the birds.’
Marie picked up her trinket box and peered within. ‘I find promenades most refreshing. And a rosy complexion favours you. Has your beau noticed?’
A pause, before, ‘I don’t have a beau, madame.’
‘Oh, not the valet then?’
‘He’s not my beau,’ said the girl, and her comb snagged a knot.
‘Forgive me, I misunderstood. Have you fallen out?’
‘It’s not … it’s not proper to talk about it, madame.’ The girl looked uncomfortable as she combed the knot out a little too vigorously.
‘Oh, but you can tell me,’ said Marie. ‘I can keep a confidence.’
Harriet released Marie’s hair. ‘Forgive me for troubling you, madame, but my mother and father are both dead, and I have no one in this house to talk with.’
‘Consider me your confidante,’ said Marie, and turned to face her. ‘Sit there.’ She gestured to the end of her bed. ‘Tell me, you do not like him anymore, no?’
‘It’s not that. Well, it is – but, oh, I don’t know where to begin.
If His Grace ever found out, I’d lose my position.’
‘He won’t, you can trust me. Now tell me what’s happened.’
‘At the start Albert, the valet, was kind, showed me how to do my chores, told me how this place was run, and I was grateful. And I smiled at him, even blushed, so what’s happened is my own fault. I encouraged him, he said, I encouraged him, and now I am being cruel by fighting him each time.’
‘Encouraged him to what?’
‘Take liberties with me. He said at the start he’d marry me if I let him. And I didn’t. Not properly, and then I told him to cease altogether. But every night he catches me in some corner, or behind a door, or out the back by the well – that’s his favourite place. The other night in the courtyard, he had me up against the well wall and his hands under my skirts, and I couldn’t fight back otherwise he said he’d tip me over and no one would be the wiser.’ Her eyes watered, and she rubbed them distractedly. ‘I am to blame, I know that, but I don’t know what to do and I have no family and if I lose this position, well —’
‘Firstly, do not suppose it is your fault that this man degrades you in such a way. Your smiles and blushes were not an invitation for him to treat you in such a manner. This is perhaps the hard way to learn, but you have learnt nevertheless.’
‘I fear I have learnt that too late, madame, but what can be done about it now? I dread each night and cannot sleep knowing what I must face again the following.’
‘What you will do,’ said Marie calmly, patting Harriet’s hand, ‘is leave it up to me. I want you to avoid him. Lock yourself in your room after supper and do not come out no matter what the instruction. I will tell him you are working on something for me and cannot be disturbed.’
‘Oh, but he will be so angry. And that can’t go on forever.’
‘It needn’t.’ Marie stood up. ‘It will do for a few weeks, and by then both our problems will be solved. Now go wash your face, and send the valet up to me in half an hour’s time.’
‘You’re not going to tell him I told you?’
‘I am your confidante, and I will look after you,’ said Marie. ‘But, now I think on it, perhaps you could help me in return?’
Harriet gave her a questioning look.
‘I have been meaning to ask you for some time and now that we are more intimately acquainted, I would like to talk with you about these flowers, the enchanter’s nightshade, in the painting. They are the same as what
you left here in my room are they not?’
Harriet didn’t look at the painting although her eyes seemed to sharpen.
‘Yes Madame.’
‘And so I would like to know what you meant by your remark about these flowers being left for me as a sign of Elanor’s favour.’
Harriet blanched. ‘Nothing,’ she whispered. ‘And please don’t ask me about it again.’ She looked down at her fingers.
‘If I am to help you, I need to know what has happened here.
With Elanor.’
Harriet pushed the tip of her thumb so that the wound reopened; it began to bleed. ‘I want your help, madame, and am most grateful for it, but I didn’t know it would come with conditions. I’m sorry to have troubled you with my own trouble. It was wrong of me, please forget we ever spoke.’ She made for the door.
‘Wait,’ said Marie. She had pushed too far; she needed to build on the trust established today first. ‘I’m sorry my curiosity overrode my manners, it’s just that I am a woman like you all alone in this house and trying to make sense of everything here. I do hope we can be sympathetic with each other.’
Harriet stared at her for a long moment. ‘Thank you, madame. I will do what I can to help you, and I appreciate you will do the same for me.’ She bobbed and withdrew.
Marie paused in her stirring of the plaster later that morning, almost ready to pour over Elanor’s clay mould. Over the past weeks she had grown accustomed to the sounds of wind rupturing the silence at the opening of the tunnel, bringing blunt gusts that died out valiantly. Otherwise the air remained still and the sounds carried underground. Unnatural sounds, sometimes. But the air had been perfectly still when she’d come down not half an hour since. The sky bright and clear. No clouds that foretold a summer storm this evening. Yet there it was again, the wind. Creaks of the timber flooring in the ballroom. Contracting and swelling with changing temperatures. Another creak, louder this time. Then a groan.
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