“Madam, be assured I’ll willingly pay the outstanding amount, and more for your trouble, for I entirely comprehend your inconvenience,” I said. “Meantime here’s another shilling if you’ll let me just look at his room tonight.” I could see from the glare she shot at me she thought I was an idiot to offer so much when a couple of pennies would have done as well, but she wasn’t about to tell me so.
“Very well. Follow me,” she snarled, snatching the second coin from my fingers.
She led the way through a maze of small rooms, each heaving with foul-smelling bodies. The sounds of the sparring women and the roistering audience followed us up a staircase leading four stories, to the garret. Mrs. Webb was grunting from her exertions by the time we reached the top landing. She took a key from her chain and unlocked the left-hand door. “This is it,” she announced. “Everything there’s like when he left. I’ll give you ten minutes, no longer. You may look but take nothing with you. You’ll come back with the monies owing before you take the stuff away.”
She stood there blocking the doorway, waiting for us to respond. We stared mutely back. “I’m presuming the lantern’s not enough?” She gestured towards Alice’s lamp. “You’ll be wanting a light or two more to see by,” she said crossly, thrusting two tallow stubs at us. “In which case, that’ll be sixpence.” Money was incidental. I simply wanted to see Partridge’s effects and be gone from this foul place. Without remonstrating at the exorbitant cost of this transaction, I produced another coin, which she stowed with the rest before mercifully clumping down the stairs.
The room was meagerly furnished: a bed and bolster—the covers little more than unwashed rags; two old cane-bottomed chairs; a cracked looking glass in a deal frame hanging from the wall; a small wainscot table, on which was an empty iron candlestick. There was only one object here I recognized as belonging to Partridge. Under the eaves beneath the window stood his work chest.
Alice placed her lantern on the table and holding her candle in one hand began rifling through the contents of the table drawer with the other. I meanwhile tried to open the chest but succeeded only in burning my hand with molten tallow. I set the stub on the floor and shook my hand about to cool it.
“Locked.”
“Is this what you’re looking for?” She held out an intricately wrought brass key.
I slotted it into the keyhole. Cautiously I turned the key in the lock and lifted back the lid. Partridge had spent many an idle hour adorning his chest with as much care as if he were decorating the richest commode. Within the unremarkable bitumened exterior were ranks of mahogany compartments, sliding tills and drawers in which chisels, gouges, files, planes, rules, and saws were neatly stored. In the center of the chest was a well divided into three sections: one holding the molding planes, another containing fretsaws, and a third covered with a panel. I retracted the panel and lowered my candle stub into the dark cavity. Here was something that might conceivably be of interest: a slender booklet in a card cover, Partridge’s sketchbook. Before I’d time to examine its pages, Alice knelt beside me. I heard her gasp loudly. She was holding her candle close to the center of the lid, staring fixedly at it.
Last time I’d seen Partridge’s chest, the lid had been lined with plain mahogany. Now an oval had been cut from the center of it and an intricate marquetry picture inset. “Partridge must have made this recently,” I said, “for while I’ve often seen his chest, I never saw this before.”
She was still gazing at the picture. “It’s a curious subject. D’you recognize it?”
I studied it carefully. It was, as she said, most curious: a temple, a bird, and two figures clad in classical robes, one standing, the other prostrate before him.
“I don’t believe I do,” I replied. “But plainly it’s taken from antiquity. Partridge was fascinated by ancient legend. I daresay he took the design from a print.” I squinted again, and then it was my turn to be thunderstruck. I shook my head, unable to believe the evidence before me.
“Why do you look so? What is it you are staring at?” demanded Alice.
“The wood. Look here.” I pointed to the columns of the temple, the robes of the prostrate figure, and the wing feathers of the bird. “Is this not the very same grenadillo wood as the box taken from Montfort’s hand?”
Alice leaned forward. Four stories below I heard a creak as Grace Webb began her ascent of the stairs. She was approaching with surprising stealth and rapidity. There was no time to lose. Without a thought for what I was doing, I stuffed the booklet of sketches in my pocket, slammed down the lid, locked it, and replaced the key in the drawer where we’d found it. Alice remained frozen in her crouched position. I offered my hand to help her, but she ignored me. “Miss Goodchild…Alice…stand up. She’s coming, and I don’t wish her to suspect we’ve taken anything from the chest.”
Alice stood slowly, stiffly, head bowed, as if she’d scarcely heard me but was absorbed in some great problem.
“What’s the matter? Do you not concede that it is the same timber? You have only to regard the figuring to see—”
Abruptly she raised her head and stared frankly into my eyes. “Of course I agree. It’s that very matter I’m considering. It confirms more than you know.”
Plainly my face must have shown astonishment and bewilderment, for she shook her head as if she was impatient with herself. “I owe you an apology, Nathaniel. I should have told you before now. You recall I said I had something to tell you?”
“Yes.”
“It’s all the more remarkable in the light of this. What I wanted to tell you was this: I looked for grenadillo wood in our ledgers yesterday. The timber came from South America; it was popular a century ago but has recently become scarce. And…”
“And?”
“I consulted another encyclopedia. It seems that when the timber was fashionable, it was termed something else.”
I frowned at her, not following her drift at all.
“Nathaniel, grenadillo was also commonly known as partridge wood.”
I stared back at her, feeling more dazed and giddy at this information than if I’d drunk a bottle of wine. “Are you certain?”
“There were many references.”
“Can it be a coincidence that the wood used in the box found in Lord Montfort’s hand and in this picture has the same name as our dead friend?”
“I think not,” she said. “He must have seen it as his signature. Moreover, there’s another question to address.”
“What’s that?”
“The timber grows only in Brazil, and as I said has been scarce for the past decades. We haven’t sold any for twenty years, nor I’ll vouch has any other wood merchant in London.”
“And what of that?”
“How then did Partridge come by a wood that has disappeared from view these past twenty years?”
Alice and I gazed at each other and fell into puzzled silence. An instant later Grace Webb threw open the door and glared at us like a gorgon.
Chapter Twelve
London’s Foundling Hospital stands in the midst of the green expanse of Lamb’s Conduit Fields, off the road that leads from the city of London to the outlying villages of Hampstead and High-gate. The edifice was newly built to a simple but imposing design: two broad wings flanking a central chapel, and a rectangular courtyard extending to lawns on either side. Pleasant surroundings, charming inmates, and an estimable collection of paintings by masters such as Reynolds, Hogarth, and Gainsborough exhibited on its walls had established the hospital as a fashionable visiting spot among London society. From my desk I gazed through long sash windows at ladies in fur-trimmed cloaks. They stood in a small cluster admiring a picturesque curiosity: a dozen or more uniformed children digging frosty earth, sweeping the courtyard, and working the pump.
What would it be like to be an inmate here? To be dressed in regulation brown, to sleep in a dormitory with a dozen other children who knew no more about their parentage than you? The place seemed clea
n and pleasant enough, the food adequate. I supposed it would be preferable to being abandoned on the street or consigned to the miseries of the workhouse. But how different it would have been from my own tranquil childhood, where no doubts about who would care for me had ever intruded on my consciousness.
I was presently seated in the grand courtroom, where I had come to sift through the hospital’s records. I executed this task under the watchful eye of the warden, an elderly gentleman weighed down by a heavy braided coat and a flowing full-bottomed wig. Madame Trenti had told me that Miss Alleyn’s letter had supplied her with the date—the very day the hospital opened, March 25, 1741—when her child was deposited here. From this information she had traced records relating to Partridge, records that made her certain Partridge was her child. Since hearing her account I’d felt uneasy; instinct told me her story was a deception. Yet my only evidence for these qualms was a vague prickling at the back of my neck and a feeling of emptiness in the pit of my belly—nebulous sensations that, I acknowledge, weren’t a solid foundation on which to base my doubt. And so I’d resolved to come to the hospital to ascertain what exactly (if anything) she might have found to convince her that Partridge was her long-lost son.
I’d asked the warden about the events of that first evening. In answer to my inquiry he handed me the first committee book, in which the hospital’s opening was thus described:
March 26, 1741
Having according to the resolution of the general committee with all possible diligence put this hospital into a condition proper for the reception of children, this committee met at seven o’clock in the evening. They found a great number of people crowding about the door, many with children and others for curiosity. The committee were informed that several persons had offered children but were refused admittance, the order of the general committee being that the house should not open till eight o’clock at night and this committee were resolved to give no preference to any persons whatsoever. The committee were attended by the peace officers of the parish and two watchmen of theirs, who were ordered to assist the watchmen of the hospital. They had orders to prevent any child’s being laid down at our door and to give a signal to the parish watchman in case any child was refused to be admitted into the hospital, who thereupon was to take care that it was not dropped on the parish.
At eight o’clock the lights in the entry were extinguished. The outward door was opened by the porter, who was forced to attend that door all night to keep out the crowd. Immediately the bell rang and a woman brought in a child. The messenger let her into the room on the right hand, and carried the child into the stewards’ room, where the proper officers together with Dr. Nesbitt and some other governors were constantly attending to inspect the child. According to the director’s plan, the child being inspected was received, numbered, and the billet of its description entered by three different persons for certainty. The woman who brought the child was then dismissed without being seen by any of the governors or asked any questions, then another child was brought and so on constantly till thirty children were admitted, eighteen of whom were boys and twelve girls…. Two children were refused, one being too old and the other appearing to have the itch…. About twelve o’clock, the house being full, the porter was ordered to give notice of it to the crowd who were without, who thereupon being a little troublesome…and the governors observing seven or eight women with children at the door and more amongst the crowd desired them that they would not drop any of their children in the streets. On this occasion the expressions of grief of the women whose children could not be admitted were scarcely more observable than those of some of the women who parted with their children, so that a more moving scene can’t well be imagined.
The account continued in similar vein, describing the agonies of these poor wretches, which seemed to me at once remote and indescribably poignant. And yet I found none of the details pertaining to each child that I wanted. I coughed gently. “Forgive me, sir.”
The elderly warden stopped writing and peered at me between a frame of white-powdered curls.
“This ledger provides an admirable record of the hospital’s first night, yet nothing specific relating to the children accepted. What records exist of them?”
“There are entries for each infant in the billet books.”
I recalled Madame Trenti’s mention of such books. Perhaps this was a sign she had come here after all and her account was not the fabrication I took it for. “Has a lady been here recently asking for the same thing? A small foreign lady, finely dressed?”
He gave a brusque laugh and shook his head, causing the lappets of his wig to flap noiselessly. “Every day there are callers wishing to trace an infant from some date or other. Do you really expect me to recall them all?”
“Of course not, sir. But this lady is a famous actress—Madame Trenti. Perhaps you recognized her.”
He puffed himself up. “Do I look the type of man who is familiar with actresses?”
“No, sir,” I said, chastened, “you misunderstood me. I merely thought you might recall her because she is very…flamboyant.” He glared at me again. “May I see the first volume?” I added hurriedly.
He made a great show of putting down his quill, rising from his chair, and hobbling reluctantly to an inner office. Some minutes later he returned, carrying a slender leather-bound volume, which he placed on the table before me.
I opened it. Each child was described on a separate sheet, to which were pinned various poignant mementos and a record of any note left with them. On the back of each sheet was a number, the name of the nurse to whom the child had been sent, and one or two words which indicated the child’s fate—died or apprenticed. I turned my attention to the first pages, which ran thus:
March 25, 1741
1. A female child about a fortnight old with the enclosed paper: “March 2, 1741. This child is baptized and her name is Dorritey Hanton.”
2. A male child about 2 months old, gown flowered on white with a white dimity mantle with the enclosed note: “Robert Chancellor, born January the 29.” Piece of fabric enclosed.
3. A male child 4 or 5 weeks old, a clout marked “FA” pinned on the breast, came in a brown cloak.
4. A male child about 3 weeks old, blue satin sleeves turned up with sarcenet.
5. A female child 6 or 7 weeks old, white dimity sleeves, laced ruffles, and white ribbon about the head. “Elizabeth Ayers born Feb 14, 1741, christened at St. Clement Danes, I beg the favor that this paper may be kept with the child.”
6. A female child about 3 weeks old, almost starved.
7. A male child, cleanly dressed, wrapped in a red cloak, with the enclosed letter: “Whether this child live or die, be pleased to send account there of it to the Old Bell Inn, Holborn, in one month’s time. Direct it to C.—it will be acknowledged a great favor.”
8. A male child about 4 weeks old, with the enclosed letter pinned on its breast: “This child is not christened, the father has not been found, the mother has deserted it. The mother’s name is Dorothy Smilk.”
9. A male child about 1 month old very meanly dressed.
10. A female child about 1 day old with the enclosed letter: “I am daughter of Samuel Wilde, water gilder, who died February 24, I was born March 24, pray let my Christian name be Alice…”
So far as I could see, there was no mention here of any child who could conceivably have been Partridge. I looked up from the page, shaking my head in bewilderment. “These children were all extremely young, no more than infants?”
There was a great silence, during which my words seemed to hang in the air like a pall of smoke on a windless day. Eventually the warden looked up, flaring his nostrils as if infuriated by the crass stupidity of such a question. “It is a matter of record that the governing body stipulated only children under the age of two months should be admitted.”
“And the infants accepted were all raised here?”
He put down his pen wearily, as if resigning hi
mself to the fact he was dealing with a half-wit. “This building had not yet been constructed. The hospital was then quartered—as you would have read, had you paid proper attention to the committee book—in a building in Hatton Garden.”
“And that is where they were raised?”
“No, Mr. Hopson. It is not. They were dispatched to nurses in the country, where it was felt the clean air would assist their chances of survival. Only at the age of five or six did they return to the hospital. Whereupon they were educated until about eleven or twelve years, then apprenticed to trade.”
This was what I had suspected all along, and yet I was heavy with dismay. Far from confirming Madame Trenti’s story that she had found a record of Partridge here, this information disproved it. The problem was one of date. If Partridge had been left in March 1741, as Miss Alleyn had claimed in her letter, he must have been about four or five years old. Far too old for the hospital directors’ specification for children aged not more than two months. I pursued another track.
“If, for argument’s sake, an older child had been presented, what would have happened to it?”
“Such a child would not be eligible to be granted a place—it would have been rejected. As you saw in the notes, there were guards and watchmen to ensure no child was abandoned.” His tone was growing overtly snappish, and he gazed regretfully at the ledger from which I was still distracting him.
“Who was the warden that night?”
“My predecessor, James Barrow.”
“Is he employed here still?”
“No longer. He retired some years ago.”
From the way he glared at me I could see his patience was at breaking point. Still I was stubbornly determined to persist. “One last question if you please…. Where may I find James Barrow?”
“He lives in Hatton Garden, I believe. Nearby the old premises of the hospital. More I cannot tell you. Now I really must—”
The Grenadillo Box: A Novel Page 19
