‘To me – I mean, us?’
‘Naturally.’
‘Persuaded … or forced?’
‘That remains to be seen. Either way, we cannot let our creation – our living, breathing, thinking creation – be gaoled in this madhouse. We have put too much of ourselves into her to have it all come to nothing. Imagine what we could do with her in our show.’
‘Imagine,’ said Philidor, his temperature rising as he imagined Elanor as he’d first seen her, and what he would like to do with her.
‘I’ve spoken with her. She wants to come with us.’
Spoken with her. That was certain then. Marie was hallucinating even though she appeared sane. ‘I see. Then we need to plan how to deal with Cavendish’.
‘It will require some thought.’ Marie tucked up her loose hair into a pin. ‘My faintness has passed. Tell me, what do you think about our creature coming alive? It’s extraordinary, isn’t it? Are you pleased with my little secret?’
Philidor grinned. ‘Your little secret? Isn’t she our little secret now?’
Marie smiled in return. ‘That’s what I was hoping you’d say.’
Heavens, she really was mad! The depth of her madness unnerved him but he needed to appease her for now. After all, it was further evidence for his case that Marie be placed into Gribble’s care. How silly of him to doubt Gribble when it was clear the man in the forest was just another of her fancies. When the time came she would put up a fight, but Gribble’s attendants would help on that account; she would be no match for brute force and a straitjacket.
Gribble had replied not just an hour ago to say he would come alone for breakfast the following morning to make an initial assessment. It would be Marie’s word against Philidor’s, and he was sure that with enough provocation she would demonstrate her hysteria. He would then have Elanor to himself.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Marie
THE VISITOR WAS a bulbous-faced man. His short stature was compensated for by the size of his eyes, magnified by his wire- rimmed spectacles; the glass was so thick that she did not know where he was looking, the morning sunlight glancing off the surface. His bald freckled head furthered this impression, the white skin gleaming with oil, while his suit jacket sagged across the shoulders – an overcompensation, or carelessness. Marie noticed all of this as she entered the breakfast room the next day a little late, having been held up in her bedchamber by a conversation with Harriet.
The visitor was talking to Philidor by the window. When she entered, they turned to greet her. The valet adjusted the cutlery at each place on the table.
‘Good morning, madame.’ Philidor came forward with a strained smile on his face. ‘May I introduce you to Mr Gribble, who has arrived from London just in time to breakfast with us. Mr Gribble, Madame Tussaud.’
‘Good morning,’ said Marie, and dipped her head. ‘I hope I have not kept you waiting.’
‘Not at all, madame,’ Gribble replied.
‘I trust the ride was tolerable at this hour?’
‘Meeting with Philidor was worth the earlier start.’
‘Oh yes?’ said Marie, as she settled in her usual position at the table.
Philidor sat at the opposite end, while Gribble sat halfway along on Marie’s left.
‘And how did you become acquainted with Monsieur Philidor, Mr Gribble?’
‘I had the good fortune of meeting him in London, at the club.’
Marie poured her own coffee. ‘And what do you do with your time in London?’
‘I work in a hospital,’ he said, those opaque eyes peering at her.Or were they?
‘Have you both misled me?’ she asked, affecting a playful tone. ‘Should I address you as Doctor Gribble, then?’
He smiled at her, and coldness stole around her heart. ‘You have found us out, madame.’ His high-pitched nasal tone made her wince. ‘I am indeed a physician, but I prefer not to make this generally known as I find people often have prejudices against my profession – or the opposite, they want to regal me with their ailments. It can make for dull conversation.’
‘One could imagine,’ said Marie, and smiled in sympathy. ‘I shall not succumb to the temptation. At which hospital do you work?’
‘Bethlem,’ he said.
Marie knew it was coming, but the name still shocked her – she had not needed to spend much time in London to hear of its notoriety.
‘Philidor has told me about your creations, madame. What marvels you can make with wax. Such a gift you have!’
She swallowed. ‘Thank you. I am skilled at my art, it is true.’
She nibbled at her bread. Everything cordial. Polite. When would the real game begin?
‘And yet,’ the physician began, ‘not every woman could survive the horrors of the Revolution such as you have.’
Here it is. The first charge you knew would come. Blink hard. Once. Be ready.
‘I have, Mr Gribble. But it is over now, and, as you hinted before, some subjects make for dull conversation in company.’
He put his knife down, and his pale face swivelled towards her, as if he was straining to hear what she wasn’t saying. ‘I can tell by your tone, madame, that you are still haunted by it. That is understandable.’
The man made her cold – oh, so very cold. He was the type who enjoyed dispensing pain – tight, strategic pain designed to make one vulnerable, break the spirit and the mind. To make one weep, beg, scream, while he watched on impassively, those eyes not blinking and the freckles on his head clouded over with the perspiration of his excitement. He would enjoy tying a woman up, strapping her down in a chair or a bed, stripping her of her clothes, having her at his mercy.
The icy sensation crept down to Marie’s feet. ‘No, monsieur, I am not haunted by it – on the contrary, I have lived through it. One cannot simply cut out the memory and toss it away, but my art continues to be my solace and consolation. As well as my boys.’
‘But as I understand it from Philidor, your boys are being raised by your husband?’
She could no longer feel her feet yet her heart knocked hard against her rib cage. A loud, insistent, impatient knock, like that of the soldiers against the door of her home. Coming to imprison her. Coming to kill her.
‘My boys are at a grande école in Paris,’ she managed smoothly. My boys are out of your reach, she thought. Steady heart. It isn’t over yet.
‘Ah,’ said Doctor Gribble. ‘They have aspirations – wonderful. You must be proud. Forgive me for pressing, madame, but I find myself most curious. You did have to touch the heads, didn’t you? Of the victims of the guillotine?’
She was there again. Facing the guillotine and waiting. Yes, she remembered her resolve to complete her prison sentence while learning how the game of deception, betrayal and power was played. She felt again the stab of pain from her right hipbone and remembered how she had swung the basket onto her left. Her fingers had dug into the gaps in the weave of the cane to steady the weight, and the dry skin around her nails had soaked up the liquid congealing there. Surely, surely, she had thought, if she just held on a bit longer, there would come a time when she could win a game of her own design.
Back in the breakfast room. Philidor. Gribble. The valet. Silence. Was it her turn to speak? Yes. The game was playing out in front of her, and she needed to win this round.
‘My!’ she said. ‘Philidor seems to have told you so much about me.’ She glanced at Philidor, who was carefully studying his plate.
‘It is a unique subject,’ said Gribble. ‘You are a unique woman.’
‘I touched the heads, monsieur, but more than that. I held them, cradled them, lived with them in my workshop as I made the wax replicas. I had their blood on my hands, on my dress, my skin.’ She realised her voice was rising. Control. Breathe. Watch the tone.
‘And what has this done to you?’ he asked softly, his whole body angled towards her.
She put down her roll before carefully wiping her fingers on her napkin, th
en gave him a steady look. ‘It has made me the woman I am today, Mr Gribble. Now, if I may ask a question of you, pray tell me exactly what kind of physician you are.’
‘I specialise in the mind,’ he said, then chewed his meat for what seemed an inordinate length of time before he swallowed. Paused. Stared at the wall opposite him before taking another mouthful.
A few moments of silence passed as they ate. The cutlery scraped excruciatingly across Gribble’s plate. He appeared not to notice – vulgar manners.
The valet moved in and out among them, adding more meat, topping up Philidor’s and Gribble’s tea, then returning to his position just inside the door.
‘Given your interest in the mind,’ Marie said eventually, ‘it is no surprise that you have much in common with Philidor, whose speciality is the power of suggestion.’
‘We do have much in common,’ said Philidor, who up until then had not spoken. ‘I wish to discuss a new idea with Gribble this morning – the reason for his visit.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘It is not appropriate for me to discuss it with you at this time,’ said Philidor. ‘I’m sure you understand.’
‘Of course.’ Marie knew her place in the hierarchy of this dynamic; she would accept it. What Gribble could do to her if she resisted was unthinkable.
‘And how do you find your surroundings at Welbeck, madame?’ the physician asked.
‘Most pleasant. The country air is a welcome respite from London.’
‘You are not troubled by the isolation?’
‘I am not isolated,’ she said, perhaps a little too quickly. Do not show irritation or impatience. ‘I have my creations, my art. I work best when left alone.’
‘Is that why you speak to your heads?’
She could see his eyes now. Focused. Unblinking.
‘To what are you referring?’
That dog Philidor – a coward who would not meet her gaze even now. She reached instinctively for the handkerchief in her corset. Touched its edge, felt the dried blood. She looked up to find Gribble still watching her. Had he detected her show of vulnerability?
‘I imagine,’ he said, ‘that after what you have witnessed – a woman such as yourself, with a sensitive disposition, an artiste – it would be hard for you to differentiate between which head was real and which was not. It would be perfectly reasonable, to me at any rate, if you believed the heads talked to you, animated again, as a way for your psyche to make sense of witnessing so many brutal deaths.’
All at once she could not feel her hands. She looked down to find them on her lap. When she moved her fingers, they felt cold, thick, firm. ‘An interesting theory, Mr Gribble. You seem most curious about my welfare. Are you seeking to make a study of me?’ She met his eyes with a challenge, yet smiled to disguise it.
Philidor stilled. She could almost hear the valet draw breath. And Gribble smiled in return. ‘I confess I find you a very intriguing woman, Madame Tussaud, and your story fascinates me – from a medical point of view, you understand. Forgive me if I have been too direct.’
‘To create, an artist must interact with her creation, must call to it, bring it to life. I am no different.’ She offered the men a polite smile as she rose from the table. She had to start moving, get her blood circulating again before she froze to death.
Those two white orbs were still trained on her.
‘Excuse me, gentlemen,’ she said. ‘I must attend to my preparations for the show in three nights time. But you have inspired me, Mr Gribble. Perhaps, given your interest in my story, others would be interested also. I shall think about writing a book. Good morning, gentlemen.’
She glanced at the valet on her way out the door; his eyes did not meet hers. But as she continued past the doorway of the library on her way upstairs, she saw Harriet standing there. The maid would have heard everything, given the breakfast room’s door had remained open. And, just for a moment, their eyes did meet.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
His Grace William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Portland
WILLIAM HAD AGREED to the terms and conditions of Marie’s letter the day before for two reasons. Firstly, the woman had somehow unearthed the fact of his involvement in Elanor’s death. Secondly, he did not want his name dishonoured by word spreading of the broken contract. His valet had shown him the wisdom of patiently seeing the three months out, guaranteeing William safety and security during this time, and then it would all be over.
Except that girl would still be here: still living, breathing even, under his roof, and he couldn’t bear it. He longed to talk with her, to be with her again, but he was terrified. For what was she, in reality? He shuddered. He had preferred it when Elanor was dead, or even when she was a simple wax doll; the perfect company who looked at him without seeing and who listened to him without demanding anything in return.
If the mantelpiece and its strange enchantment had a hand in activating life, then perhaps he could do something to reverse its effect. He had talked this through for hours with the valet, who had counselled him simply to be rid of the thing, as he called it – bury it in the coffin deep in the forest, he had suggested. Although he had entertained the idea in the privacy of his thoughts, it sickened him to the stomach when voiced by another.
Perhaps he should talk with the Tussaud woman, but he had no wish to take her into his confidence. She was prepared to use his secret against him when he was most vulnerable. And if she discovered that her creature was alive, she might act irrationally – want to make a spectacle of it in a show or something of the sort. Philidor was the same: greedy for fame and money. Abusing William’s trust by destroying his ballroom. It had been lunacy to think he could do business with them without a scandal erupting.
William had allowed his valet to move the thing up to the tower. Unthinkable for it to be put in Elanor’s cavern – the real Elanor’s cavern. The valet and the maid had prepared a room where the thing would be alone and contained, the valet assuring William that the maid was so simple she had not even asked for whom the room was being readied. This was good news, for William had thought her earlier curiosity was ingrained.
Even though he had just returned from London, he had not the time or the energy after sitting for the portrait to attend to some pressing business at the Baker Street Bazaar: a client had just returned from the Orient with a particularly interesting chest of antiques. William had arranged a time to meet with the fellow in a few days time before he grew impatient and starting hawking his wares to other dealers who didn’t operate on such fickle terms.
William expected to encounter the Druce woman there again– what a nuisance. Always popping up when he least expected it and bleating his name like some demented goat. He was putting off the inevitable, but the fact was that being both Thomas Charles and the duke was getting too complicated to manage, more so now he had been exposed onstage. What if Druce came sniffing around Welbeck asking questions, then gossiping back in Baker Street? No, it wouldn’t do. He would go to Baker Street and meet his client, pay Druce any sum owing, and close the bazaar.
Now he saw that the life he had lived as Thomas Charles in London was built on a romantic notion. He had envisaged it as the life he should have had with Elanor, but now he knew the truth: she would have hated London entirely. The noise. The crowds. The smell. The pretentiousness of it all. Elanor had loved the open air, green grass and fields of flowers. She would have laughed at the affected operas, the lavishly dressed ladies, the suffocating manners of society.
It was time for him to discard this life that haunted him, it had become too much of a danger for his future. Last month he had received a letter to confirm his position as a peer, a politician with responsibilities, although he had yet to visit Parliament. Being granted the title of Peer of the Realm was all very well, but he needed to ensure he brought nothing but honour to his family name in taking it. Yet the more he had withdrawn from public life, the more the gossip had grown.
But the valet could be t
rusted to help William navigate it all, just as his father had. To have such a boy at his disposal was invaluable.
The old valet had helped him the night when William had needed it most, and for that he would be forever grateful. After he had heard the gunshot, he’d crept downstairs to find the back door open and run out into the moonlit grounds, knowing, desperately knowing, what had befallen him but still not wanting to believe it.
His father had been standing over the body; there was a look of such surprise on his face, it was as if he’d shot an angel from the sky, not his son’s best friend.
William had been due to meet her in ten minutes’ time, at midnight, to climb the old oak and sit in its branches in the warm air of the summer solstice. But his father, who suffered from bouts of mania, had decided that tonight the grounds needed patrolling; he had become convinced that thieves were trying to gain access to the house. This was also why he’d had the underground caverns built. In his delusions, these thieves were cleverly disguised as hawkers camping nearby, due to leave on the morrow. He had shot at movement in the trees as Elanor had approached.
It was William’s fault – if he’d been early, as he had always been before, he would have seen his father patrolling, scrambled away and gone to warn Elanor that their plans were foiled. But he was on time that night, the back door already open and the shot already fired when he came running across the lawn.
The old man, his father’s valet, had taken William and his father back to the house and left Elanor alone under the tree in the night. The stars were the only other witness to the tragedy, their silent outrage cold against William’s back as he was led away.
His father was raving, ‘But it was a thief! I’m sure I saw a man with a knife,’ while William remained silent. The valet returned to the tree and dug the grave, then put some of the family’s silver into a sack and threw it into the lake. Just to be sure. Being a duke meant that questions were not usually asked, and if they were, a duke’s word was enough to silence them but still, it was prudent to ensure the servants did not have cause to talk. The valet then put the word out that the girl had been seen leaving with the hawkers after stealing some of the family’s silver. Her parents, tenant farmers on the adjacent fields, struggled to believe this of their daughter, but when the 4th Duke said it was so, what choice did they have but to lower their eyes and grieve silently, even if their hearts asked private questions?
Tussaud Page 26