The Chemickal Marriage (21 page)

‘A wardrobe,’ muttered Chang. But Miss Temple, compensating for her blush, seemed determined to dismiss all mystery.

‘The trick of it being that a wardrobe
full
of clothing does not allow two people in it, and a wardrobe
without
clothing does not hide them if a diligent searcher opens its door. Further, it does not do at all to heave out half the contents to strike the proper balance – a heap of clothing serving as advertisement for close scrutiny.’

‘Quite the puzzle,’ offered the Doctor.

Her blush returned.

‘We saw nothing of Phelps or Cunsher,’ said Chang brusquely, shovelling earth on the subject of wardrobes.

‘Nor I,’ said Svenson. He described the death of Lord Pont-Joule, the Contessa’s enslavement of Princess Sophia and Mr Harcourt, and the two purloined documents.

‘And you left her alive.’ Chang’s voice was flat, as if the fact of Svenson’s action was damning enough. ‘And she spared
you
. Why?’

‘For the same reason she sent the red envelopes to Celeste’s hotel. She is not strong enough to defeat the Comte on her own – now that the Comte is Robert Vandaariff.’

‘What did she want you to do?’ asked Miss Temple.

‘I cannot say – yet the answer lies in that bit of glass. Infused with her own memories.’

‘Uncharacteristic,’ said Chang. ‘Such
harvesting
is for the lower orders.’

Svenson nodded. ‘There is no way to explain. You must each look into that card.’

Already seated, Miss Temple took the card first. Svenson remained next to her. Though she’d displayed no ill-effects from viewing the glass map, he wanted to be sure that this more potent card did not provoke any. She gasped softly as the cycle completed, but he detected no sudden pallor, no chill upon her skin. Chang watched with a sour expression.

‘How long should we allow her to look?’

‘Another minute.’ Svenson spoke quietly, as if Miss Temple were asleep. ‘The level of detail is prodigious, almost impossible to comprehend.’

‘What
is
it? You have not said.’

‘The Comte’s great painting. The one mentioned in the cutting from the
Herald
.’

‘That cannot be coincidence. Did Phelps find where it is, where it had been shown?’

‘I do not know.’

‘He did not tell you?’

‘We were distracted by the crowd –’

‘But that fact is extremely important! I assume you told him about
your
errands. Was he hiding the information deliberately?’

‘No – yes, we did ask him, but he was not – excuse me …’ Svenson rubbed his eyes.

‘What’s wrong? Are you sick?’

‘In a manner of speaking. It is the glass card – the bodily perspective. One inhabits the Contessa herself.’

Chang took this in, then snorted with a wolfish appreciation.

‘Indeed,’ said Doctor Svenson drily. ‘One is taken aback in unexpected ways.’

Both men turned to Miss Temple. Svenson realized he was staring and cleared his throat. ‘The Contessa made a deliberate examination of that man’s masterwork – again, one assumes she had a reason.’

‘Where is the memory from? Or when? Does she tell us where to find the painting?’

Svenson shook his head. ‘The very scale places the execution in the past.
The Comte simply wouldn’t have had time in these last months. What’s more, as the clipping cites Oskar Veilandt, it more likely dates to before the artist remade himself as the Comte. As to location, that would have to be someplace large.’

‘Harschmort?’

‘I have to think we would have seen it already – we have walked miles through those halls.’ Svenson was painfully aware that only one of Chang’s questions had been answered: the Contessa had spared the Doctor’s life, for her own reasons … but why had Svenson spared hers?

‘I assume she cannot hear us,’ said Chang.

‘I should not think so.’

‘You say the Contessa makes her own glass. I agree. She may have made Miss Temple’s man Pfaff as much her creature as that Princess.’

‘Does Celeste know this?’

‘She knows not to trust him. What about you?’

‘Me? I should not even recognize the fellow –’

‘No. You are continually distracted. Yes, you were injured – and certainly your losses weigh upon you –’

‘No, no – I am perfectly able –’

‘Able? You left this monstrous woman alive!’

‘And my presence of mind with a pistol kept both of you from being taken.’

‘Perhaps, but if we cannot rely upon –’

‘
Perhaps?
Rely?
’

‘Do not become agitated –’

‘Do not presume to be my master!’

Svenson’s words were sharper than he intended, the venting of too many worries, and they echoed off the stone walls. Chang’s hands balled into fists – in the silence Svenson could hear the stretching of his leather gloves.

‘Cardinal Chang –’

‘There is no time for any of this,’ Chang announced coldly. ‘It must be half nine o’clock. Wake her up.’

Distracted by her experience, Miss Temple did not notice their anger. She insisted that Chang too must look, promising to pull the card away after two
minutes. Once he was installed on the divan with the card before his livid eyes, she turned to Doctor Svenson with a shrug.

‘Five minutes will do just as well. You are right to say one cannot get one’s mind around the painting, if one can even term it that. Beastly thing.’

Svenson studied her face for a toxic reaction. This painting went straight to the Comte’s alchemical cosmology, to his
heart
.

‘One does not appreciate being stared at,’ she told him hoarsely.

‘My apologies, my dear – I am worried about you.’

‘Do not be.’

‘I’m afraid I must. Did you – well, from the Comte, did you recognize the painting?’

‘In fact I did not,’ she replied, ‘or, I did, but not in the detail I should have expected – I should have expected to lose my last meal – but it struck me like the memories of a distant summer. The awareness of being there, but no longer the knowledge.’

‘Because the memory comes through the Contessa?’

‘Possibly, though I couldn’t say why. Perhaps the Comte wasn’t himself at the time.’

‘You mean opium?’

‘I don’t mean anything. But I’m sure we will puzzle the matter out. I have a great fondness for reading maps, you know, and you must have experience with codes and ciphers – we are halfway home.’

‘It is more than that, Celeste. Think of the thirteen paintings of the Comte’s
Annunciation
, and the alchemical recipe they contained for physical transformation. Think of Lydia Vandaariff.’

Svenson recalled the hellish scene in the laboratory at Harschmort: the Comte in a leather apron, cradling a snouted device of polished steel, Karl-Horst von Maasmärck lolling in an armchair, stupid with brandy, and Robert Vandaariff’s daughter tied to a bed, a pool of bright blue fluid between her legs. Whether she had been impregnated by the Prince or by the Comte himself barely mattered. Sailing to her wedding in Macklenburg, oblivious to all that had been done, the young woman had grown rapidly more ill, as poisons strove to remake her issue for a madman’s dream.

Miss Temple shuddered. ‘But it cannot have
worked
. Lydia would not have given birth to … to any living … I mean – transformed –’

‘No,’ said Svenson. ‘I am sure she would have died. But what is death to the Comte’s – now Vandaariff’s – madness? And this new painting is more than three times the size of the
Annunciation
. We know it is a recipe for
something
. We must not delude ourselves at how terrible it may be.’

‘That is the snap of it,’ said Miss Temple. ‘Now he has the money.’

‘Exactly. His plot with Lydia was done in the shadows, indulged by the others in exchange for what they saw as his
true
work with the blue glass.’ Svenson sighed. ‘But now, what he only imagined before, he can make real.’

‘Or so he believes.’ Miss Temple shook her head. Her voice was ragged but firm. ‘And where is Francesca Trapping? Has she been harmed?’

Svenson was surprised by the leap in Miss Temple’s thought. ‘The Contessa would not say. My guess is that the child has been hidden in the Palace, yet with the Contessa’s flight I think she must have been moved.’

‘Have they enslaved her too?’

‘Children are resilient,’ said the Doctor, without confidence.

‘But she will remember.’

The words carried a quiet gravity. Svenson waited for her to say more. Chang inhaled through his teeth – the cycle of the card coming full circle. The Doctor nearly pulled the card away. He dreaded to receive Miss Temple’s confidence, despite his curiosity as to what she might say.

Miss Temple sighed heavily, almost a groan. ‘We were together, you know … the Contessa and I, in a goods van, from Karthe. I was cold, and so tired.’

‘Were you harmed?’

Miss Temple’s voice took on a pleading tone. ‘I did nothing wrong. She is a wicked woman.’

‘Celeste.’ Svenson knelt in front of her. ‘Elöise told us you had looked into a glass book – Celeste, you cannot blame yourself –’

‘Of
course
I can’t! I did not ask for this – this –
infestation
! I cannot think! I cannot go two minutes –’ Her cheeks went red and she covered her face with both hands. Svenson touched her knee and Miss Temple yelped.
He stood at once, blushing. ‘I have
tried
,’ she whimpered. ‘But even with her – her of all people. She sees through my skin. I cannot
think
but I am overcome. God help me – God help me!’

He had tended her through fever, bathed her, applied poultices, yet, as Miss Temple so boldly revealed herself a creature of appetite, the Doctor felt his view of her could shift. Was he such an ape? Was he so
fragile
? He bit down hard on the inside of his cheek, tasting blood. Miss Temple pulled her hands away and Doctor Svenson saw, without question, her tear-brimmed eyes dart to his groin.

‘Chang and yourself – you mentioned a wardrobe – did you –’

‘Did we what?’ she asked hopelessly.

‘Did you see anyone else?’

‘In the wardrobe?’

‘In the Palace.’

‘Hundreds of them! That was why we had to hide!’

‘Yes – of course –’

‘It was terrible! That tiny space! Do you not
understand
?’

‘I do – my poor dear – but – does Chang – I mean to say, did you –’

His gaze slipped to her bosom, and, before he could shift it, she had seen. To Svenson’s dismay Miss Temple’s expression altered in an instant. Within her undimmed agitation appeared first a flash of unfeigned hunger and directly after a grimace of contempt that shook him to his core. Then her face fell into her hands. Her huddled shoulders shook.

He felt the cold isolation creep back into his bones. The girl was a quivering ruin.

‘My dear Celeste. Gather yourself. Say nothing more. We will find the Contessa. We will find the Comte.’

‘They think it all a perfect
joke
!’

‘That is laughter they will choke on. Be brave still, and wipe your eyes. There is no shame. We must reclaim Cardinal Chang.’

When the card was removed, Chang cursed and set to rubbing his eyes and the skull around them. Svenson heard a new note of hoarseness in Chang’s voice, and noted the pallor of his lips, the shine of fluid at his nostrils.

‘Are you ill? Is it the card?’

‘It is nothing at all.’

‘You should let me examine you.’

‘We have wasted enough of the evening.’

‘You have not
seen
the wound – truly, if you would just –’

‘
No
.’ Chang slipped his dark glasses back into place. ‘I am perfectly well. Certainly compared to either of
you
.’

Despite Chang’s bad humour, Svenson was glad for the distraction. Miss Temple had done her best to restore her face, turning away as if to examine the tapestry.

‘The floors above are thick with people,’ said Chang. ‘We cannot hope to pass unseen. That no one has come down and found us is only due to their fear of past contagion.’

‘What contagion?’ asked Svenson.

‘The sickness! The glass woman’s legacy!’

‘But we are well away from Stäelmaere House, under the Palace – not twenty yards from the river.’

Chang pointed through the archway. ‘Twenty yards will take you to the Duke’s own cellars.’

‘But – but the Contessa told me –’

Chang snorted.

‘But why would she lie?’

‘To aide her own escape. Or provoke your capture.’

‘But you two fled deeper into the Palace,’ said Svenson. ‘Why come back?’

‘We knew no other way out,’ Miss Temple said. ‘And hoped we might find others in hiding – as we in fact did.’

‘Then we may be near Phelps and Cunsher. If they are taken, we must rescue them.’

Chang exhaled with impatience. ‘That would be the height of folly. To search means throwing away our own lives and abandoning all hope of stopping Vandaariff and the Contessa. Phelps and Cunsher
know
this.’

Svenson did his best to swallow his irritation, hating how expressing simple decency rendered him, in Chang’s eyes, a sentimental fool.

‘Well, then, if we search for Vandaariff –’

‘Vandaariff is
gone
,’ Chang scoffed. ‘He only came for his fireworks in the square, and for the pleasure of his hosts’ abasement.’

‘Then where do we find him?’

‘Harschmort. Raaxfall. Setting off another blast in Stropping Station. Anywhere.’ Chang jerked his chin at Miss Temple. ‘Ask
her
.’

‘I have no idea.’ Miss Temple spoke quietly, and to his dismay Svenson realized she had just consulted the Comte’s tainted memories, surely to compensate for displaying her weakness a moment before. He had told her to be brave, but hadn’t intended self-punishment.

Between Chang’s distemper and Miss Temple’s distress, the Doctor felt it was for him to set their path. But he could not make sense of the most basic facts.
Had
the Contessa left him to be captured? Why reveal the Comte’s painting if she simply wanted to see him hang? Svenson fought the urge for a cigarette. What
had
the Contessa told him, exactly? And once the Doctor had eventually wrenched himself from the blue glass card, left to himself, would he not have followed her direction?