The Grenadillo Box: A Novel (36 page)
Read The Grenadillo Box: A Novel Online
Authors: Janet Gleeson
“And hence you’ve returned to the fireside,” she replied archly.
“Very well. I’ve been questioning the footman about the Bradfield coaches.”
“And did your questions bear fruit?”
“I found there are three carriages, two of which have been used today. But who took one out early this morning I have not yet discovered, though I’m confident that tomorrow morning I shall have the answer.”
“I see.”
I wondered if I should tell her that I suspected the culprit might be Robert Montfort and warn her to be guarded in what she told him, but the color in her cheeks and the energy in her manner made me suspect her nonchalance wasn’t all it seemed. Rather than risk riling her, I decided to hold my tongue. She was safely away from him now; I would speak to her on the matter when her mood was more settled. There was a pause while we looked at each other, uncertain how to proceed.
“Alice,” I said suddenly, “I’m wretchedly sorry if I upset you in Cambridge. If I could have avoided it I would gladly have done so.”
I realized as soon as I said it that this was not what she wished to hear. She drew herself up.
“What gives you the impression I’m upset, Mr. Hopson? Do I not seem full enough of merriment?”
“Yes, but…”
“But what?”
“The manner of your leaving Cambridge…it was so hasty and unexpected, and since then I think you have been somewhat standoffish. You did not wait for me this evening—I presumed it was because you were still angry about Connie.”
She gave a little laugh which I knew she did not mean.
“I grant you I am a woman who acts on impulse from time to time. But you flatter yourself if you believe you have aroused such passions in me. I left Cambridge because I feared the weather might deteriorate and because I’d completed what I set out to do. If I did not disturb you it was out of consideration rather than pique, for if you recall, you were deep in conference with Foley. Since then you have had nothing to complain of. Why, I have been as cordial to you as to any acquaintance. I left word I would meet you at the playhouse, and so I did.”
“But your manner is somewhat…guarded,” I stuttered.
“Are you certain you do not imagine it? After all, it is I who have come to speak to you now. And you who hid yourself in the corridor.”
Whatever she said she didn’t convince me. I knew she was still annoyed and that this parrying was just another way to irk me. She would not have left Cambridge without a word or have spoken so coldly to me in the playhouse otherwise. Both of us knew it, only she would not admit as much. A rush of exasperation at her stubbornness filled my veins. I had no reason to fear her; rather I should fear my own weakness for not confronting her properly.
“Good God, don’t you comprehend my meaning, Alice?” I said. “I have been trying to tell you if only you’d listen. I thought, and hoped, that we had become something more to each other than acquaintances.”
Her eyes opened very wide, and she drew breath as if she was about to say something. But for some reason she held back. Before I could press her further, I felt Foley’s hand on my arm. “Well,” he said, “I believe the moment has come to leave. I trust, Mr. Hopson, the time you spent in the corridor with the footman was useful?”
His intuition on top of Alice’s obstinacy infuriated me. Was I so transparent I could do nothing without him second-guessing it?
“Indeed, Lord Foley,” I replied icily, “I went there for air, and I found it most refreshing.”
“You shall tell me all in the carriage,” he replied, oblivious to my coolness. Then he turned to Alice. “Come, Miss Goodchild. I must congratulate you also. You were something of a success with Robert Montfort, I see. Did you discover anything of interest?”
She gave Foley her sweetest smile. “I found him most charming,” she replied. “We discussed his family’s favorite pastimes. I have discovered nothing of great note so far, yet I do not despair.”
“What do you mean?” I snapped.
“I mean,” she said, threading her arm in mine as we descended the steps, “that he told me he wishes to continue his father’s redecoration scheme at Horseheath. He plans a new staircase to replace the old oak one. It will be made from the finest Cuban mahogany, which he wants me to supply. I’ve promised him a tour of my premises tomorrow morning. I am invited to visit Horseheath Hall and survey it next day.”
W
hen I showed my face at the workshop the following day, two letters were waiting. The first had been sent a week earlier from Yorkshire. It was from Dorothy Chippendale.
January 14, 1755
Otley, Yorks
Dear Mr. Hopson,
The last time we met I little thought that our next communication could be under such tragic circumstances. You may remember the occasion, late last November, when you accompanied John Partridge and myself to Richmond and we all larked about on the river. Now, after all that has taken place, the day seems so distant, it might have happened years ago. I can scarcely believe none of us had any presentiment of the terrible events waiting to overwhelm us.
I won’t burden you with the grief that engulfed me when I read your letter and learned of John’s death. The tragedy that grieves me grieves you too, and I see no reason to add to your suffering by worrying you with mine. I will say only that while the violent nature of John’s death shocked me most profoundly, in a sense I mourned for him even before I learned of it—the reason being I’ve known since leaving London that we’d never be wed, and it made me as miserable as if he’d died.
Don’t think me unfeeling when I say I’m deeply thankful to you for troubling to write and tell me of these events. How much more painful would it have been to be left wondering for the rest of my days what had become of him. For all that, it’s impossible for me not to think on his death and not to share your sense of outrage, and obligation to bring whoever’s responsible to justice. Thus, since you ask me, of course I shall do all I can to help you. To this end I’ve recorded as fully as I can the details of my last days in London.
It was soon after noon on December 17—the same day, I presume, that Partridge went missing—that my brother Thomas Chippendale called me to him.
I’m not sure if you are aware of it, but at that time I had lived with my brother’s family for some four months, having been brought from Yorkshire to help my sister-in-law Catherine with her three young children. Until then all my life had been spent in Otley, a quiet market town ten miles from Leeds, the same region where my brother Thomas was born and raised. I was the youngest of our father’s fifteen children, Thomas being the eldest; his mother had died soon after he was born, and our father remarried and sired fourteen more children. You will understand, however, that since I was born almost twenty years after him, until my arrival in London we were scarcely acquainted.
The little I knew of my brother was gleaned from my father, a country joiner, who’d naturally intended his eldest son to follow in his business, as generations of Chippendale sons had done before him. He told me how, ever since Thomas was a child, he’d harbored a burning desire to better himself. He was just beginning his apprenticeship in my father’s workshop when a London architect, working on the mansion of a local landowner, commissioned him to make a model of the same mansion. So impressed was the architect by Thomas’s work, he offered to sponsor him to go to York and then to London to learn the cabinetmaking trade. Thomas, acting as if he’d been expecting something like this to happen all along, took it as his due and departed without a backward glance, five years before my birth. Our father meanwhile continued as he’d always done in his country enterprise, fabricating furniture and wainscoting and staircases and whatever else was needed, with only the occasional letter from his son to inform him of his progress.
But after my brother married and his third child, Mary, was born, he wrote to our father asking if I would care to join his household to assist his wife with the children. We all knew by then that he had made something of a name for himself, so when this request arrived from his illustrious son, my father could hardly refuse. He accepted on my behalf, only mentioning it to me one day after dinner when I was due to leave next morning. Thus at the age of eighteen I was dispatched two hundred miles to London, a city I’d never expected to set eyes on, to live with my brother whom I’d met only three times before in my life.
I first encountered John Partridge one day last summer. He’d been sent to the house by my brother to repair a wall sconce in the hallway. My sister-in-law was occupied in the nursery and told me to watch over Partridge and be sure he did the job properly. He was aged nineteen, a tall, gangling youth with a mischievous smile, yet a look of sadness in his eyes. Perhaps it was his poignant expression that made me forget my gaucheness. At any rate he made flippant conversation with me, to which I made some clumsy replies, which only encouraged him to joke and chatter more. In any event, when the sconce was fixed and he was about to leave, he turned abruptly and asked me to accompany him on a promenade to Vauxhall next Saturday. I was so startled I accepted.
Reading this you may think that we had little common ground on which to build our friendship. I’d come from a modest yet well-established family; he was haunted by having none. He’d lived almost all the life he remembered in London; I was a stranger in the city. Yet despite our differences, our friendship ripened. By autumn he spoke of marriage and, as Christmas approached, we decided to make our intentions known to my family.
So that nothing would mar our future happiness, he was anxious all should be done correctly. But we were unsure how to proceed. Should he first approach my brother, since he was my guardian and employer, or should he apply directly to my father for my hand? By now I’d grown close to my sister-in-law Catherine and decided to seek her advice.
I mentioned the matter to her the day before my sudden departure. She gave me no cause for alarm, congratulating me warmly on our mutual affection while hoping I wouldn’t leave her household immediately. As for the etiquette of asking for my hand, she promised that as soon as an opportunity arose, she would raise the matter with my brother, and discover from him what we should do. Thus I’d no sense of foreboding the next day when my brother summoned me to him. It was only when I entered his study that I saw something was terribly amiss. His face was contorted with rage. His mind was quite made up.
I must leave the household that very afternoon, without a word to Partridge or anyone else.
I was, needless to say, dumbfounded, especially since having made this astonishing proclamation he seemed unwilling to provide an explanation for it. Eventually I overcame my shock and pressed him. The least I deserved was to know how I’d displeased him, since I had thought until then that he was satisfied with all I’d done. But my brother refused to respond, saying only that I’d performed my duties well enough but that I’d grown too close to Partridge for his liking.
“Evidently, for we wish to marry,” I replied boldly.
“It is not a union I think in the least desirable, nor one to which I will ever give my consent,” he thundered.
I dared to persist further, whereupon he fell into an even more violent rage, shouting repeatedly that we were too close, that Partridge was a common bastard of no known background, that his mother was without doubt some form of strumpet, and such a marriage would do nothing for his reputation or mine, indeed, would bring disgrace on the entire Chippendale family.
Overwhelmed with grief, I sobbed and wailed as loudly as I was able, but far from rousing his compassion and altering his resolve, my distress left him utterly unmoved. By now it was nearly two o’clock. Still ignoring my anguish, and with evident distaste, he wrapped me in my cloak and bundled me into a hackney carriage, into which he climbed beside me. I was thus summarily escorted to the White Hart at Holborn, where the stage for York stood ready to depart in half an hour. Without any consultation, my brother paid the fare and put me on the coach, watching from the yard—presumably in case I should dare to try to escape. Just before it pulled away, he approached the window and gave me this final warning: I should know by now how great was the sphere of his influence. I should not under any circumstance attempt to write to John Partridge. If I disobeyed him he’d easily discover it, in which case he’d accuse John of theft or some other trumped-up crime, instantly dismiss him, and do whatever was necessary to ensure he never again found work in London.
Thus was I silenced. Of course I longed to write to John, to explain my sudden disappearance, but knowing that he had no family to protect him and that without his profession he would have nothing, I dared not defy my brother’s wishes. Naturally I assumed that my brother would likewise keep his part of the bargain and leave John to continue quietly in his employment. It was only thanks to your letter that I learned how cruelly he had deceived me.
I am, sir, your grateful and obedient servant,
Dorothy Chippendale
The second letter was from Constance in Horseheath. It was written in a childish, scarcely decipherable hand, dated two days ago.
Nat
I’ve been wantin to tell you since I saw you last. ’Tis too tricky to write it, tho’ John’s helped a bit, it has to do with Lord M’s dying. ’Tis stupid but you mightn’t think it. Anyway now Lady E’s sent for me in London so I
will
tell you. Meet me Wed by the church in Covent Garden, six o’clock. How’s Alice, still lovesick are you?
Connie
I read both these letters again more slowly, pondering the significance of each. Connie’s letter was tantalizingly cryptic and confused. Dorothy’s letter, by contrast, completed my understanding of the events leading to Partridge’s departure for Horseheath. I now realized how stupid I’d been not to have guessed much of it. From what I knew of their devotion to each other, I should have known that Dorothy would have abandoned Partridge only if he was threatened in some way. I’d already surmised that the story of Partridge pestering her was a mere fabrication.
I was well aware of Chippendale’s ruthlessness, but the treatment he had meted out in this instance startled me. What had made him send his own sister away so abruptly and dismiss Partridge? Why did he refuse to discuss the matter candidly with her? Neither had committed any wrong—unless affection had become criminal in his eyes. Was it merely a matter of Partridge’s doubtful birth, or did jealousy lie at the root of it? I suspected Chippendale had grown irritated, threatened even, by Partridge’s effortless talent at drawing and cabinetmaking. Perhaps the prospect of marriage into his family made him see how easily Partridge might usurp his position. So he had banished his sister and dismissed Partridge, assuming that he would simply disappear and take up some other life where their paths would never cross.
Of course it had been a grave misjudgment. With so little bedrock in his life, Partridge would inevitably cling to whatever he had, grasp whatever opportunity presented itself. His craft was all he knew; thus when Madame Trenti happened at this vulnerable moment to confront him, naturally he’d readily embraced her story that Montfort was his father and gone to Horseheath praying for acknowledgment and financial backing to begin his own enterprise. Yet tragically not only had Montfort denied him but something else had taken place that had left him dead and frozen in the icy waters of the pond.
I now understood what had driven Partridge to Horseheath, yet I was still no closer to fathoming
why
he’d been killed. I considered Foley’s theory that his death might have been the result of someone
believing
him to be Montfort’s son and discounted it. There was no proof of Madame Trenti’s assertion that Montfort and she had ever been married. This was doubtless another of her manipulations to gain sympathy. And in the eyes of the law, what right did a bastard have even if he knew his father? None.
I thought about the injuries Partridge suffered. Were they more significant than I realized? To mutilate a craftsman’s hand would effectively condemn him to penury, even if the wounds themselves were not fatal. He could never have worked again. Was there therefore some symbolic import in the manner of his death? If Chippendale could have devised a punishment for his talented, threatening employee, this surely would have been it. Yet why did I still consider Chippendale? My inquiries at Horseheath, coupled with the circumstances of Madame Trenti’s death, had forced me to discount such a convenient solution.
I tucked the letters in my pocket and headed towards the back streets of Leicester Fields. With luck, by now Bradfield’s grooms would be at work in the mews preparing the horses and carriages. One of them must be persuaded to divulge who had used the smaller carriage on the previous day. Thus would I discover the identity of the driver of the chariot I’d seen outside Madame Trenti’s house. Thus would I identify the person who had run me down and murdered Montfort and Partridge and Madame Trenti.
T
he carriage, with its distinctive black and dark green paintwork, stood in the alley outside the coach house. A small boy polished its brass lanterns and moldings, while a groom harnessed up a pair of chestnut mares. Were they the same horses that had nearly trampled me to death? The same horses that had flashed beneath Madame Trenti’s window?
The whole place reeked of straw dust and horse dung. I strode closer, trying my best to avoid the pools of slurry, and addressed myself casually to the groom.
“That’s a fine chariot.”
He turned slightly to eye me, gave a noncommittal grunt, and continued securing his buckles.
“I myself intend to purchase a similar equipage. Does it ride well?”
The groom turned warily and looked me up and down. I was wearing a newish blue coat and clean linens, and even though I’d spattered my stockings, I knew I might pass for a middle-ranking merchant.