The Grenadillo Box: A Novel (15 page)

I
no longer recall how long I sat motionless. I no longer recall what I felt—excitement, revelation, confusion—a little of all three? I remember only that question upon question spiraled through my skull. The date on the second letter showed it was written three days before Partridge disappeared. Could he be the lost child mentioned? Was that why he disappeared? This was evidently what Foley suspected, even if he had not said so directly in his letter. Why would he bother to send it to me otherwise? As quickly as this solution appeared I dismissed it. Foley did not appreciate the closeness of the bond between Partridge and myself—could not know how frequently Partridge had confided his desire to discover his past. Without his history, he said, he lacked the very foundation of his future existence. Talent and good prospects were no compensation for the void of not knowing who you were or where you came from. I was confident that if Partridge had learned something of his origins he would have told me of it. To keep such a matter secret from someone who was closer than a brother to him, then disappear without a word was surely inconceivable. Wasn’t it?

With this thought the disquiet I’d felt at Horseheath when Miss Alleyn had first disclosed Partridge’s visit returned to trouble me. She had said Partridge had fallen on hard times and had come in order to appeal to her brother, Lord Montfort, for financial assistance. Was there more to his petition than she mentioned? Did Partridge go to Montfort because he believed him to be
his father
?

I felt heartily ashamed of myself, but I couldn’t help my misgivings. There was no denying that Partridge
had
kept the reasons for his journey from me. Was it then possible that he had known more about his background and origins than he pretended? Was the tragic tale of his lost history no more than a fabrication to arouse sympathy? Yet the more I thought on it, the more it seemed to me improbably convenient that Partridge should be the child referred to in the letter.

I gazed at the floor, where a pile of corkscrew wood shavings, like perfect ringlets, had been swept into a mound. Who was the child? To discover this would be well nigh impossible. London seethed with countless wards, foster children, foundlings, and workhouse orphans, the dispossessed offspring of illicit or inopportune liaisons of every rank. The letter implied the child was sired by Montfort and raised by some convenient third party. Such arrangements were not unusual.

Yet how then to explain the appearance of Partridge at Montfort’s estate? Whenever I asked myself this, a knot of anxiety, doubt, and suspicion gnawed away at me. The thought kept coming back that Partridge’s appearance at Horseheath was clear proof I
didn’t
know him as well as I believed, that he was not the transparent soul I’d taken him for. I recalled Alice’s words to me the previous night.
Searching for the truth preoccupies every one of us…. Most of us do not even know ourselves.
The notion was alien to me. I was blessed with loving parents and a profession—a past and a future—that were the foundation of my self-belief. I knew precisely who I was. Furthermore, I’d believed (naïvely?) I knew Partridge better than anyone. His death had shown me otherwise.

I turned from this discomfiting realization. Far easier to concentrate on the author of the letter. Who was she? A lady who harbored great animosity towards Montfort, to judge from the tone of her writing. Someone who had recently come to London. The initials M. C. had a certain resonance, an echo of familiarity. I racked my brains to think why, but my memory was unyielding. From the table in front of me I grabbed a leather jug of ale, uncorked it, and held it to my lips. Bittersweet liquid gushed down my gullet. I waited for my agitation to be soothed by alcohol, for some inspiration to replace it. And when none came, I drank some more. I don’t know how long I sat there, drinking, turning the questions over, intermittently rereading the letters, all the while growing more and more confused. At length, when my head began to whirl and I perceived myself no closer to resolving the dilemmas they raised, I folded the letters away in my coat pocket, placed my hat upon my head, and went out.

A wall of fog, gray as a gentleman’s periwig, engulfed me as I left the workshop and turned right into St. Martin’s Lane. The ale had fuddled rather than cleared my senses, and brought on a mood of melancholy. I walked slowly, with a mournful heart and pounding head, looking for answers with every step. I turned down Hemmings Row into Whitcomb Street, colliding with a milkmaid whose creamy load slopped over my shoes. What did that spillage signify? In the dinginess of Princes Street, I paused to listen to a street singer whose sorry air mirrored my mood. She held a baby to her breast and warbled “The Ladies Fall,” to the accompaniment of a hautboy player. The lad was dressed in rags, miserable, skin paler than ashes stretched taut over his bones. He glared fiercely in my direction as he played, and I spun a silver sixpence towards his hat. The coin bounced on the rim and tinkled to the ground so that he had to scrabble desperately to get it before it rolled to the toe of a fish vendor’s boot. I looked up at the red-faced man swearing at the child groping at his feet. There was a signboard above his head that caught my eye. It was in the shape of a shield, gaudily painted with fishes and oysters. Perhaps it was the sight of that creaking board which conjured a sudden image in my mind. I could picture Partridge carving those initials, M. C., carefully on a shield…but where? Where?

Half an hour later I emerged from a warren of narrow streets into Golden Square. This place, I should add for those not familiar with London in recent times, is no longer deserving of its gleaming name, lying pressed in on all sides by a maze of alleys and narrow, dingy passages. As the city has sprawled north and westwards, its grandest residents have moved on to the newer mansions of Hanover and Grosvenor Squares. These once-esteemed buildings are now home to temporary residents of modest means and dubious occupation, who will not rest long enough here to notice their gradual crumbling.

Through the mist I squinted at the shadowy forms of three small ruffians playing at chuck, shouting obscenities of incredible color and variety at one another. I wandered closer. I was heading, reluctantly, for my rendezvous with Madame Trenti, whose house was on the opposite side of the square. Although I confess I was in no mood for chitchat, I still felt honor bound to call on her and discover what she had to say on the subject of Partridge. And there was something else that drew me, a certain urgency, a compulsion to see her. I could feel it pulling me towards the house, although I couldn’t tell you what exactly lay at its root.

So engrossed was I in worrying about Madame Trenti and watching the urchins at play, I didn’t remark a black chaise emerging at breakneck speed from a side alley. It was only when the equipage careered dead towards me that I realized the danger and shouted loudly to alert the driver.

But still it continued to bear down on me, and now it was too late to escape. An instant later and I could feel the horses’ steamy breath on my face and smell their sweat. I hurled myself flat against the railings, but the vehicle brushed so close that its wheel caught my kneecap. I fell tumbling to the ground, slamming my head on the railings as I went.

Looking back at that moment, I’m unsure where imagination and reality divide. I recall isolated details: my heart pounding as I rolled myself against the railings in an effort to escape what I believed was certain death; a vivid green stripe on the carriage door passing over me; the barreling silhouette of the horses’ bellies; the jangle and shine of their harnesses; the clatter of polished hoofs on cobble, so close I feared they would penetrate my skull; then lying on my back in the filth of the street too winded and stunned to rouse myself. Undoubtedly the driver saw what he did, for I remember catching sight of a hunched figure swathed in a dark green caped coat looking down at me as the chaise thundered past. I looked up at him helplessly, and the chill finger of fear probed my heart as I recognized the look of malice in his eyes. I knew this man wanted me dead. Yet was it a figment of fancy that made me think there was something oddly familiar about the set of his figure? Was my mind merely addled by shock and terror?

I think I must have lost consciousness then, for I had the sensation of being bathed in dazzling white light before tumbling into blackness that made my skin creep with cold. Then I was in a gray fog of nothingness, oblivious to everything until I saw a shield like the one above the fishmonger’s head, only this time made from gold that shone like the setting sun with the initials M. C. emblazoned upon it. The next thing I recall was the voices of the urchins close to my ear and the feel of their fingers nimbly rifling my pockets. I came rapidly to my senses, sat up, and swatted them away like pestilent flies. “Get away from me, damn you. Ruffians, rogues! How dare you take advantage of a man when he’s down. Get off or I’ll have you up before the justice for pickpocketing,” I said, as firmly as I was able given my shaken state.

“We weren’t doing no harm, sir. Just seeing if you was alive,” said the largest, a pinch-faced urchin with a white scar down one cheek.

“I’m alive as you can see. Now be off.”

“Been at the liquor, ’ave you, sir?” said one impudently. I made as if to cuff him, and he scampered a short distance off.

“Let us help you up first, sir,” said another, holding out his hand. I let him haul me to my feet, for in truth my head was still reeling from the fall and my knee throbbed with pain. As I stood there, watching the square spin round, they turned on their heels and vanished in the mist. Only later did I discover they had relieved me of the ten shillings and the pouch of tobacco in my pocket.

I limped to the steps of La Trenti’s house, where a footman in a striped Valencia coat and ribbon shoulder knot looked me up and down. I announced myself and my business, and it was in the midst of this conversation that I remarked a stench of dung rising like a foul mist around me. With a rush of shame I looked down. Every piece of clothing I wore, my skin, my wig, the very hair beneath it was saturated in filth from the tumble I had taken. I was a malodorous sponge. I smelled like a dung heap and resembled one too. Plainly the footman had judged me by my sartorial deficiencies and took me for a vagabond, for he stood with his nose in the air and refused to meet my eye.

“I’ve an appointment with your mistress,” I stammered again. “I met with a misadventure just now, a carriage ran me down. I’m in no state to see her. Will you convey the message to her that I have not forgotten our appointment and will return…”

As my voice faded away a bell rang impatiently from within. The footman turned on his heels and mounted the steps to the entrance hall, closing the door behind him. I hovered irresolutely on the threshold. It was hopeless. I had turned to leave when the door opened again and a second footman appeared. Madame Trenti had somehow overheard my exchange with her servant. She deeply regretted my accident but was anxious nonetheless that we should not postpone our rendezvous. I was to be provided with facilities to put myself to rights, and we would then hold our discussions as previously arranged. I had little choice in this matter; Madame Trenti was quite adamant.

The first stony-faced sentinel now reappeared and became suddenly animated. I was herded up the stairs to the threshold, where the second footman took over, bustling me up another flight to a small closet set up as a gentleman’s dressing room, with a copper bathtub, washstand with basin, jug, pomades, and shaving requisites. Without questioning why a single lady would have a room so well equipped for a gentleman, I allowed myself to be stripped of my foul apparel, only just managing to retrieve Foley’s letters from my coat pocket before the garment was dispatched I know not where.

I’d soaked and scrubbed myself thoroughly and emerged from the bath when I realized the blow to my head must have been graver than I thought. I had a waking vision. I was toweling myself and standing naked at the window, waiting for clothing to be brought, when there came a sudden parting in the fog. I thought I saw Alice grasping the railings, squinting up at the house, directly at me. Did I imagine it, or was there fury in her eyes? I grabbed the drying cloth, closed my eyes tight, shook my head in disbelief, and opened them again. The fog was once more as thick as a wall. Alice did not exist.

Before I had time to dwell on this, the footman arrived to help me dress. Having donned a fine costume of purple broidered waistcoat, black breeches, white stockings, a dark blue frock coat, and a cut wig, I regarded myself in the looking glass. I don’t know if it was the knock to my head or the newness of the clothes, but for once my lopsidedness seemed to have vanished. I was as fine as a Covent Garden beau. Feeling thus satisfied, I splashed myself with eau de cologne and descended the stairs, dapper, sweet-smelling, and self-satisfied.

Madame Trenti’s saloon was the height of fashion: French-style furnishings, a gilded ottoman, an ingenious card table, a mahogany commode, walls swathed in sage green damask hung with a vast gilded looking glass and modish paintings—one of which portrayed a lascivious gentleman spying on a woman at her toilette, reminding me uncomfortably of my recent vision. But my eyes were chiefly drawn by the looking glass above the chimneypiece. A vague memory of this object had impressed itself in my mind as I’d watched the hautboy player in the street, and had even permeated my unconsciousness. Here was what had made me eager to keep my appointment with Madame Trenti.

More exactly it was the frame rather than the glass at which I gazed. It was elaborately carved with an almost life-sized image of Venus emerging from reeds. How well I remembered Partridge carving the figure. The beauty of the female form was matchless, but it was a further detail I’d recalled that interested me. Above the head of Venus fluttered two putti attendants. Between them they held a shield, like the one above the fishmonger’s head, only this was gilded and embellished not with oysters and herrings but with their owner’s monogram. I narrowed my eyes and deciphered the intricate interlaced characters. They were as I remembered them. The letters M. C.