Marie had decided though, that the locked cavern room was a shrine to the real Elanor, visited by a devoted admirer, who could be none other than the duke. Whether he had kept the real Elanor there prisoner she did know but was this his plan for her creature? Restrained in the dark, on the damp bed? She told herself it was of no consequence – for all the creature’s potential, she was not actually alive and she had been made specifically on commission for the exclusive use of her owner who had paid handsomely for her. Marie had to remember that. But then what about the flowers, the smell, the shifting portrait – was Elanor’s presence still at Welbeck, and was it trying to tell her something? Perhaps Harriet was right, and Elanor was showing Marie favour while asking for her help to solve her disappearance. Her creation, the wax automaton Elanor was intangibly connected to the real Elanor, Marie now intuitively realised this. And she couldn’t, even though she knew she should, just turn away from the mystery of her disappearance.
Marie sat down in the corner of her workshop and studied her hands. The skin was thinner on top than once it had been, the blue veins pushed up and crisscrossed all over. Age was catching up to her. How much time did she have left? How she envied her creations, whom she had captured like she was a boy stabbing pins through butterflies. She had seized each creation at or in a specific moment – paralysed them, even – so they would remain forever fixed in the public’s collective mind as she chose them to be.
This girl in front of her was the same: poised on the brink of her womanhood, a life ahead of her, her sensuality and sexuality at their peak like those of a freshly plucked rose.
Footsteps approached from down the main tunnel. Instinct overtook Marie – she doused her lamp and stepped back into the shadows, the natural rock formation providing plenty of craggy corners for her to mould into.
Was the duke coming to check on the progress of his work in solitude and darkness?
Unlikely.
The valet, then?
He would not risk his position for curiosity.
So perhaps the fox was coming into the trap that she’d set.
The footsteps approached her door. The handle gave a squeak, then she saw Philidor in the flickering light of a lamp turned down low.
It seemed he couldn’t help himself. She heard his quick intake of breath at seeing Elanor naked. His fingers stumbled to close the door, and he held the lamp aloft, surely seeing nothing but the object of his desire.
As always, the effects of the figure’s human size and colouring, combined with the light of flames that brought life and movement, infused the creature with an otherworldly quality. As if Elanor were on the threshold of speaking if so inclined; if the moon was just so, the clock struck midnight, the incense lit and the spell cast. And now she breathed.
Philidor should have been immune to the mischief that light and shadows play, as well as the power of suggestion. But it seemed his defences were thrown asunder once he beheld the breathing girl before him. He paced around Elanor, as he had once Antoinette. He reached out to touch her cheek, to run down her neck, her breasts, stop over her lungs to feel the motion of her breath, then sweep around to clasp her hips from behind as he pressed himself against her.
Marie considered Philidor’s attraction to this girl. He styled himself as a gallant for the aristocracy – if she believed his tales. Perhaps, at heart, he was nothing but a village boy at play. His eyes glittered as he leant into the space between the nape of Elanor’s neck and shoulder and delicately kissed it. He paused. ‘You have bewitched me, my dear,’ he breathed. Marie smiled but the next moment trembled; she would allow him to touch Elanor, but she would reveal her presence before she allowed her creature to be ultimately defiled by him.
He grasped Elanor by her hips, closed his eyes and began rocking. Elanor did not protest. He let his right hand drop from her hip and slide down over her buttocks before he stopped. He must have registered the first opening. A hesitation. His fingers pressed further in and up. A gasp of surprise. He had found it then. He withdrew his hand then grabbed her by the hips again, gave one more thrust, and, with a sigh, released his grip and stepped away. He picked up his lamp and circled to stand before Elanor, studying her body while his right hand travelled up to his mouth and back again. He gave a small bow to her glassy eyes then departed.
Marie exhaled. She realised she’d been breathing sharp and shallow as the scene had unfolded. Twice now she had watched Philidor sneak in to despoil her work with his base instincts. She had warned him after the first time not to touch her creations, and he had not listened. If he had undressed and taken full advantage of Elanor’s capabilities, Marie would have intervened. This little test irrevocably revealed just how duplicitous he was. She had allowed him to want Elanor, to be tempted but have a chance at turning away. He had failed – to listen to her, to respect her and to respect her creation. His desire was strong but not yet satisfied by the act she was certain he would inflict upon Elanor given enough time and favourable circumstances.
He had just demonstrated his vulnerability. Marie would be able to use it somehow.
She relit her lamp, locked the door, picked up a cloth and began cleaning Elanor’s skin. Philidor’s sweaty fingerprints would be all over her, and that was not the way for Elanor to spend her first night upon the earth.
The Latin name of the enchanter’s nightshade, Circaea lutetiana, was derived from the Greek myth of a sorceress who had turned the men around her into animals. The similarity of what was transpiring here, with Elanor, struck Marie. The duke, fuelled by passion, had somehow destroyed her and now mourned her like a dog; Philidor, the fox on heat, sniffed around her ready to vent his lust.
She was resolved. Marie would ensure this incarnation of Elanor would never become a victim. She was not to be exploited, soiled and misused. Not by Philidor. Not by the duke. Not by anyone.
PART FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Philidor
HE PLACED the playbill beside her spot at the breakfast table then returned to his seat. He had slept poorly the night before, his fingertips still tingled from touching Elanor’s skin and try as he might to banish the thought of her from his mind, the image of her naked made it impossible for him to rest easy beneath his sheets. Although he made a show of being absorbed in the newspaper, his ears were attuned to the approach of Marie’s footsteps. He almost missed them but for a whisper of silk, and there she was, sliding into her seat and reaching for the bread knife to butter her roll. Her eyes flicked over the playbill while she took a small bite, then she brushed her hands on the linen napkin spread across her lap.
She picked up the playbill by its corner. ‘What is this?’
‘What it says it is.’ He looked at her over the top of the paper. ‘The playbill for our next show.’
‘Our next show?’
‘Who else’s would it be?’
She let the paper fall to the table and looked up at him before taking another bite of her roll, chewing slowly and swallowing deliberately.
His anger seethed at this performance, and his eyes blurred on the black print before him. There must always be a drama with her. These pauses, double meanings and insinuations that he had to decipher like a damned code. She was impossible. He must find a way to be rid of her soon.
‘These are not our playbills, any more than this is our show. The clue is in the size of the font, monsieur, for your name is large, in red and gold, while mine is where … Oh, yes, I see it now, tucked away like a little black mouse in the bottom corner.’ Her voice rose as she pointed the butter knife at him. ‘This is about you. All about you. You and your big name, monsieur, when it is I, I who have given life to Antoinette, and it is I who have done the same with Elanor,’ she hissed. The name echoed in the room, and she held the knife towards him for another moment, then put it back on the table and smoothed her skirts.
‘You will kindly keep your voice down and remember your manners,’ he said, his voice low in warning. ‘You will g
ive the servants something to talk about, and besides, it was an oversight. A simple mistake. You have been locked up in your workshop for weeks and I had to prepare the advertisements myself. You are the one who instructed me you were not to be disturbed! And now you complain!’ He paused to see if his words would turn her anger at him into a contrite admission that this was her own fault. But she remained focused on running her hands across her skirts, the sound of fabric being rubbed making him further irritated.
He pressed on, ‘The fellow printed it without showing me a draft. I can advise him of the changes and have a new one made with your name enlarged, perhaps not quite the same size as mine, for we will not fit all the information on the page if that is so. But still, your name, underneath mine, perhaps half the size and in red and gold as well?’
In truth Philidor had designed the playbill himself in this manner on purpose, but she didn’t need to know that. He would not have her name the same size as his – how ridiculous! He was the creator, the designer, the magician of this whole venture. The audacity of the woman to try to elevate herself alongside him again. But then, he had to remind himself, she was just a woman. Even though she seemed to have long periods of sanity, she was clearly prone to hysterics, as he’d just witnessed. Threatening someone with a knife was more than enough grounds for admittance to an asylum. But he would have to placate her for now, so that she kept on using her skills to his advantage.
‘You will tell this printer all this,’ she declared. ‘He will make a new one, and I will see it before you order the final run. Madame Tussaud will not be tucked away again.’
‘Of course. I’m going to London this afternoon – I have an appointment with the bank, then I shall go directly to the printers and demand the new copy to be ready tomorrow.’ Just another task to complete while she sat around and applied lip paste to the commission; as if he didn’t have enough to worry about with the bank manager wanting a second appointment to discuss the loan when it had already been dispensed. A perplexing request and one that did not bode well.
She swallowed the last of her roll, took a final sip of her coffee and announced, ‘The commission is finished.’
‘Excellent.’
‘You will come down, and we will test all her functions, yes? Before you go to London and see this printer in person. He must be made to understand.’
He nodded. ‘In half an hour.’
‘And if our test goes well, then what? When will he come down to see her?’
‘I will consult with the valet to ascertain what His Grace intends.
And perhaps I will arrive in the ballroom at eleven o’clock?’
‘That will be fine.’ Marie paused. ‘I think, monsieur, that this new creature is … the extraordinaire, as they say. She has something that Antoinette does not.’
‘What, you think she is a superior model?’
‘She has not the grandeur of Antoinette, but she possess something indefinable. Perhaps it is my execution of her skin, her features. She possesses … How can I put it? A certain bewitching quality, although you will have to see her to judge for yourself.’
His mouth felt unnaturally dry. He reached for his tea and swallowed. ‘Well, I found it easier to assemble her parts after my experience building Antoinette. I tightened joints where I knew they would wear, added extra oil, and used smaller cogs and gears so that her movements will be more fluid.’ He paused. ‘It seems a shame, as you say then, that our best creation so far is for someone else.’ He felt the stirring of desire again, this time mixed with something else: jealousy. Elanor was bewitching – that was exactly the word for it. It was her purity. Her innocence. He wanted to possess it. Possess her. She needed protecting from whatever the duke planned on doing with her. To her.
‘I didn’t say she was superior to Antoinette, only that she was … different,’ said Marie, rising to her feet. ‘I will await your arrival in the ballroom.’ She left the room with her head held high.
Philidor continued with his breakfast, the bacon fat shiny and congealing as it lost its heat. He pushed it aside and finished his toast. The idea of giving up the creature to the duke was abhorrent; a dirty man didn’t deserve her. She was Philidor’s. His creation. He owned her. He remembered the feel of her skin, the way the lamplight caught her eyes and the beat of her heart against his as he had pressed against her. His fingertips tingled as he thought of the dark holes they had explored. When could he see her again?
The sound of other footsteps, and the valet slid into the room. ‘Everything to your satisfaction, sir?’
‘Yes, the best news is that Madame Tussaud has announced that the commission should be ready for His Grace to view early this afternoon – all being well once I conduct the final tests this morning.’
‘The duke has decided that he wants the commission moved to his study upstairs once deemed complete, sir.’
‘The study?’
‘His Grace does not have to give his reasons.’ The valet paused.
‘You will need to be patient with him, sir. He has always had his ways, but since the war he has been more exacting in them.’
Philidor ignored this. ‘How is she to be moved?’
‘He has had a box made for her.’
‘But it would have to be as big as her, and … well, it would almost have to be like —’
‘Precisely, sir,’ replied the valet. ‘A coffin.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
His Grace William Cavendish,
5th Duke of Portland
HE SAW HER coffin immediately upon entering the study. On his desk lay the instructions on how to operate her. He sat down to read them, his hands trembling in anticipation of opening the lid and looking upon her face again. It appeared that the right hand was the centre of operation for the gears, and each fingertip on it activated a series of movements; if one was pressed, once, twice or even thrice, the movements changed again. It was complicated, she was complicated, but he had plenty of time to unravel the intricacies. He put the instructions aside. It was three o’clock, midafternoon, and he wondered if this was the right moment to unveil her. She had been ready since earlier in the afternoon, but he hadn’t been. He had thought himself ready now, but … should he wait until the morning? Or perhaps tonight, when he could be sure of absolute solitude? Should he say something over the coffin before he opened it – a prayer, an incantation maybe? Light candles? Draw the curtains? He had been imagining this moment, this reunion for so long, yet now that it was upon him, he found all his certainty had fled.
For the sight of the black coffin, its silver handles gleaming in the daylight, had unnerved him. Had taken him straight back to her original coffin, smaller and plainer – much plainer. Her parents hadn’t been able to afford a lavish funeral, and his father had refused to contribute towards the cost, so she’d been buried in a simple pine box. Well, there hadn’t been a body, but there had been a ceremony; an opportunity for the family and the village to say farewell before they started the laborious task of pretending to forget. Not what she deserved, and he felt the guilt of it still.
Now she was lying alone in a sealed case. How could she breathe? He stifled the instinct to throw back the lid and allow her to sit up, gasping for air. But she didn’t need it, he told himself – she didn’t have lungs. Despite what his eyes might tell him when he saw her, she was not alive. It was at best an imitation of her, a doll that could move on its own but had no voice, no mind, imagination or soul. But this was inconsequential; in fact, he preferred it like this. The last thing he wanted was an actual woman to share his rooms, someone who lived and breathed and smelled and wanted to converse all the time. He couldn’t tolerate it, not even with her. Although, he wondered again, as he often did – especially when in London at Cavendish Square – could he have once, if it all hadn’t gone terribly wrong? If he’d never gone to war? If he hadn’t become … like this?
He pulled the curtains over, sat back down again and lit his pipe. The smoke snuck around his
eyes, wafting on the breeze of his breath, piling around his head like a grey garland. He would finish the pipe, light his lamp, do some more reading while he dined, light the fire and then, at nine o’clock precisely, he would open the coffin lid. What he did then he would do without any risk of unexpected interruption.
When the clock struck nine o’clock, though, he found himself strangely reluctant to confront the thing. It seemed to him that to open the coffin would be akin to opening a grave. The fear of finding her body in there, decomposed and rotting, had grown in his mind; he was certain he had caught the scent of death seeping through the wood. He had struggled to occupy himself fully while awaiting the appointed hour, always aware, through his puffing, eating, drinking and reading, that someone else was in the room, or perhaps just the imprint of someone else. The black rectangular shape filled the space and only grew bigger, or so it appeared, as the shadows in the corners of the room manifested with a will of their own, arriving where they had no business being. And soon, as he extinguished his lamp and let the light of one candle and the firelight in the hearth remain, the coffin’s silhouette seemed to possess a certain quality that the shadows lacked: it felt alive, waiting, mocking him and his frail nerves.
‘This is what you wanted,’ he said aloud, his voice stretching beyond his small circle of light. ‘You wanted to see her again, and so you shall. You wanted to atone, and you can. You have nothing to fear, you fool.’ He got to his feet and swayed slightly, with too much fortifying liquid and not enough grounding potatoes. After settling his candle on the small table next to the coffin, he ran his hands along the polished lid each way. The funeral parlour was the best in the business; he’d paid handsomely for this casket, with no questions asked as to whose body it was to contain. Money brought certain privileges.
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