The Grenadillo Box: A Novel

by Janet Gleeson

  “Master,” I protested, “there can be no question of that. I am dedicated as ever to your enterprise. Why, I—”

  Again he brusquely cut me off. “Enough. I won’t listen to your babble a moment longer. There are just two things I want to know from you, Hopson, and then you may leave. Where were you yesterday afternoon? And what has become of my drawings?”

  “It is that I intended to explain. Events in Cambridge took an unexpected turn—”

  His face ripened to an even deeper shade of purple. “Do you dare to ignore my questions, Hopson? Where are my drawings?”

  I hesitated just long enough to concoct a response to suit my purpose. “Still at Horseheath as far as I know.”

  Chippendale shook his head. “As far as you know,” he echoed incredulously. “Of what use is such a lukewarm assurance?”

  I looked sheepishly back, saying nothing, which only annoyed him further.

  “There is little influences an employer more in favor of his workman, when he wants something awkward, than if the workman is able to deliver it. You, however, have done the very opposite. Knowing what I wanted, you have repeatedly failed to deliver it. Ask yourself, Hopson, were I a patron employing you to furnish my house, would I continue to use you?”

  I forced a penitent sigh and looked at my feet, hoping the meeker I appeared, the quicker the storm would blow itself out, and he’d leave me to get on with my pressing business.

  “You know the terms upon which you entered my service?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Yet you deliberately flout them?”

  “Not deliberately, sir. If I could ask you again, permit me to explain—”

  “Damn you, Hopson! Who are you to make such demands of me? Nothing but a slip-slopping dawdler without an ounce of spirit. When I was your age I’d sooner have hanged myself than carried on in such a manner.”

  I looked about the room, and my eye came to rest on Chippendale’s vast cabinet standing in the corner. The inner compartments and complex interior were complete, and the veneers had been applied. But although I could appreciate it as a masterpiece of craftsmanship, it struck me suddenly that it was utterly frivolous. What was the point of the hours lavished over the creation of something whose purpose was merely to amuse for a few minutes, before its novelty paled and some other entertainment beckoned? It was then that my temporarily suppressed temper got the better of me. Why should I endure such insults from a man who revered such frippery, who had treated Partridge so cruelly, whose ramblings were preventing me from assuring Alice’s safety?

  I stood up and faced him defiantly. “Sir,” said I, “I’ve listened to your complaints and cannot disagree that you have it in your power to dismiss me. But if you do so without first hearing my explanation, I guarantee you’ll stand no chance at all of retrieving your precious drawings.”

  The shaft hit home. Thunderstruck by the sudden change in my demeanor—my expression now bordered on contemptuous—he viewed me in incredulous silence. Sensing my advantage, I continued in the same belligerent tone. “I sorted your drawings as I agreed when I was last at Horseheath, and had secured Miss Alleyn and Lord Foley’s permission to remove them.” (This was untrue, but I’d abandoned all scruples in my quest to be rid of him.) “When Robert Montfort returned unexpectedly to the house, he took against me, and I found myself evicted before I could take them. After I saw you yesterday, at Madame Trenti’s house, I went in search of Lord Foley, in order to suggest that he should accompany me to the house to claim them, whereupon they will be immediately returned. I would have told you this yesterday, only you vanished after speaking to the justice and I didn’t wish to compromise the account you gave him of our arriving at her house together.”

  My fabrication did not hold him at bay for long. He was unabashed by my reference to his untruthful record of the circumstances surrounding Madame Trenti’s death. “So the nub of what you propose is that I must continue to endure your disobedience; for if I don’t I’ll never retrieve my drawings?”

  I nodded gravely. I could see he was still smoldering and that everything hung in the balance.

  “I swear if you do not bring them to me you shall certainly starve. This is your final chance to acquit yourself of the task set you. If you fail, have no doubt I’ll have you carried to the watch house and tried by the justice for fraud.”

  Knowing the threats were far from idle, I made no reply. Was not this similar to the way he had dealt with Partridge? Fortunately, however, he read my silence as meekness and it seemed to satisfy him. He stalked away without a further word.

  As soon as he’d gone I finished the letter to Alice, stuffed it in my pocket, and grabbed my surtout, ready to dispatch the letter before any further hindrances presented themselves. Alas, I was too late. An apprentice darted in, saying Lord Foley had arrived in the shop and was asking for me. I sighed but went directly, knowing the sooner I spoke to him the sooner I’d be free to leave.

  Foley was dressed in his usual finery—a pale blue velvet coat with curious silver buttons in the form of frogs. “Hopson. Good day to you, sir,” he drawled as ceremoniously as if I were a duke.

  His civilities infuriated me. “Forgive me, my lord, there is a matter of some urgency. I am obliged to leave immediately. Perhaps we may postpone this conversation for some other time?”

  But Foley obtusely refused to comprehend my desperation. Rather he seemed intent on detaining me. The minute I had entered the room where he was waiting, he had closed the door and stood in front of it.

  “Very well,” he said after a maddening pause, “let us be brief then. I came to discover what you learned from Bradfield’s grooms at the mews. I had hoped to meet you there, but you had already departed by the time I arrived, and I confess the stench and the puddles were enough to deter me from questioning the men myself.”

  “It is for that reason I must leave you,” I blurted. “I must send this letter at once to Miss Goodchild, or I fear her life will be in danger. And then I must return forthwith to Cambridge.”

  Foley smiled and fingered the door handle. “In which case, my dear fellow, it is fortuitous that we are having this conversation. I have saved you time as far as Miss Goodchild is concerned. I passed Bradfield’s chaise galloping along the Western Road some half hour ago. In it were Robert Montfort and your Miss Goodchild.”

  I started with alarm. “What the devil was she doing going today, when she told me it was tomorrow she was leaving? Are you quite certain, my lord?”

  “Unquestionably. But gently, gently, Hopson, what’s the reason for your urgency? Is it a young man’s whimsy or something graver?”

  I shot him a withering look. “Then it’s even more urgent that I travel to Cambridge this instant. For I am convinced that Miss Goodchild has inadvertently put her life in great peril, and that Robert Montfort murdered not only Partridge and Madame Trenti but his own father as well.”

  I fancied a flicker of anxiety crossed his face, although his voice remained unruffled as ever. “In which case we shall travel together, in my carriage. On the way you will tell me all you know, for it seems there have been considerable advances since yesterday evening.”

  And so for the second time in a month I found myself coaching in comfort to Cambridge with Foley. Once we’d passed the Hatton turnpike I’d told him all I’d gleaned and what I’d made of it. He gave no sign whether he concurred with my opinions, gazing out of the window, lost in silent contemplation, turning back only occasionally to take a large pinch of snuff. After several hours’ traveling, as we thundered through Royston, he seemed to recall my presence.

  “I think it best, Hopson, if for tonight at least you stay with me at Whitely Court. Bearing in mind your suspicions, and Robert Montfort’s threats, it would be unwise of you to present yourself there unexpectedly, even in my company.”

  “But what of Alice? It is her safety that concerns me, not my own,” I blustered, incensed that he still refused to acknowledge the danger she was
in.

  “If Robert Montfort apprehends you, your presence will only excite his suspicions that the net is closing round him, and might spur him to take drastic action. In any event, Bradfield’s coach is a lumbering vehicle. Miss Goodchild will not have reached Horseheath until late this evening. I wager, however demented our quarry may be, she won’t be in any immediate danger.”

  “What makes you believe so?”

  “Another sudden death with no one else in the house would point the finger of suspicion in his direction. However crazed, I hazard our bird is also a wily one.”

  I was exasperated by his casualness. “Lord Foley, it’s her safety you are gambling with, not a hand of cards. By what right do you treat her life so lightly?”

  His eyebrows shot up, but it was in half mockery;I hadn’t riled him, for his face remained as tranquil as it always appeared. “For one so young you have an audacious line in argument, Hopson. Perhaps that is why you so often fall foul of those above you.”

  “I speak as I see fit, my lord, and make no apologies for that. You have always bade me address you frankly.”

  The corner of his mouth twitched. “Very well, if you persist in your concern, I give you my word I’ll visit Horseheath myself this evening on some pretext. I’ll have a word with her, give her your letter, warn her of the danger she’s in, and insist she’ll be safer if she comes and stays at Whitely.”

  “I urge you not to press too forcefully,” said I. “All I have learned of Miss Goodchild in recent days has taught me she is not a lady to be ridden roughshod over.”

  He smiled at this and concurred. He too had observed a certain rebelliousness in her character and concluded she required gentle handling.

  “May I make one other request, my lord?”

  “Name it.”

  “Would you let the maidservant, Connie, know that I’m here? There’s some matter she wishes to discuss with me. She sent me a letter, and mentioned it once before when I was at Hindlesham, so it must have preyed on her mind. Tell her I’ll speak with her tomorrow.”

  It was already past seven o’clock by the time we reached Whitely Court and I caught my first glimpse of Foley’s mansion, a gracious two-story Queen Anne house with none of the pedimented pretensions of Horseheath. Lady Foley, a tall woman with a serene expression, greeted her husband with a brisk but affectionate peck on the cheek and professed herself ashamed. She hadn’t expected him till the morrow and had nothing to offer but a bit of cold mutton for supper. Foley waved away her concerns with an airy assurance that we’d eaten already on the road. My spirits sank to hear him, for I’d taken nothing since breakfast and had been craving a good meal for the past hour. Lady Foley must have suspected something of the kind, for she amiably reproached him. Even if he were not hungry I must be, she said, for young men were always in need of nourishment, and she would hear no objections to her offer of a plate of something cold and a glass of wine.

  Foley was now impatient to pay his call to Horseheath. While his wife sent instructions to the kitchens, he escorted me to his library, directing me to entertain myself as I wished until his return, which he expected to be within an hour or two.

  I ate my supper by the fireside, staring at the walls around me as I munched, trying halfheartedly to distract myself from my fears for Alice. It occurred to me then that there was more to Foley than frog buttons and velvet finery. This was the room of a true connoisseur of wide-ranging taste. Ranks of leather-lined volumes filled the shelves, some broken and cracked, others newly bound with gold tooling on their spines; a large library table overflowed with papers, pamphlets, and correspondence, and a microscope with various slides in a box sat among them. Above the fire hung a canvas depicting antlike gentlemen surveying a vast building I recognized as the Pantheon in Rome. In a collector’s cabinet various antiquities were ranged—a piece of mosaic, a few ancient coins, cameos, and an old silver buckle. Many of the objects were chipped and cracked, but each had an idiosyncratic appeal, as if flaws were irrelevant; each item had been chosen from a true understanding and appreciation rather than a desire to impress.

  But all the while I’d gazed about the room my anxieties had not diminished. Far from it: I kept thinking of Foley, wondering if I’d been wise to agree to let him go to Horseheath Hall alone to speak to Alice. Should I have braved Robert’s wrath and gone with him? Sitting here I felt a sense of inexpressible helplessness. What would I do if Foley arrived too late? Suppose, horror of horrors, Alice was already dead?

  Suddenly I had no appetite for supper. I pushed away the tray, turning disconsolately to the table, where in order to distract myself from my rambling fears, I picked up the first volume that came to hand, an album of engravings after Italian old masters. The cover inside was beautifully dedicated in copperplate script, “To Jane from your loving friend Margaret on the occasion of your birthday, November 1754.” I was halfway through the pages when I heard a soft step behind me. Lady Foley had entered the room to ensure I had all I required. She saw the book in my hand and smiled.

  “You have discovered something of interest, Mr. Hopson?” she said, locking her eyes on mine.

  “Forgive…forgive me, my lady,” said I, stumbling over the words in my confusion. “I didn’t mean to pry among your belongings. His lordship bade me read what I chose and I happened upon this book to distract me from my concerns.”

  “Don’t trouble yourself, Mr. Hopson, you are welcome to look at it. And as for your concerns, I take it they are regarding Horseheath. I don’t know all that goes on in that house, but the little I have heard is enough to unsettle me too. Miss Alleyn, you see from the inscription in that book, is an old friend of mine, thus I am apprised of some of it.”

  “What has she told you?”

  “Nothing of late. Since her brother Montfort’s death that night I have not seen or heard from her. She has passed some time in London, Foley tells me. I pray, however, that she is happier now than she was before her brother’s death.” She halted for a minute and looked attentively at my face. “I did what I could to help her, though sadly I must own it was not a great deal, for Foley opposed me. You see, I asked him several times to help Miss Alleyn, but he always refused. Her position in that house was dreadfully precarious.”

  My face must have shown my puzzlement. “I had understood her brother was most solicitous of her, that he stipulated particularly that her future in the household should always be secure.”

  Jane Foley shook her head. “Then I fear you have been misinformed. Montfort blighted her life.”

  “In what way?”

  “She was engaged to be married once. It was a short-lived engagement, for Montfort’s first wife, Robert’s mother, died soon after she became betrothed. Her brother, finding himself in need of a housekeeper and someone to raise his infant son, demanded that she leave the small cottage where she lived happily as a companion to a distant elderly relative and come and run his household. She didn’t conceive, when she agreed, that her brother would take every opportunity to involve himself with her husband-to-be and ultimately to dissuade him from marrying her. I do not know precisely what passed between them, only that at some stage Montfort encouraged her betrothed to join his gaming activities and cheated him in some way. Within a month of coming here she found herself no longer betrothed, without a chance of rearing a family of her own. Instead she became what she has been ever since: a spinster housekeeper.”

  I felt sympathy now for Miss Alleyn’s plight, for the selfish way her brother had treated her. I now comprehended her unusual nervousness; but it didn’t alter my conviction. She had been duped by Robert to abet him in the murder of Madame Trenti. Robert lay at the root of all this. “Did not her affection for her nephew, Robert, compensate for her brother’s unpleasantness?”

  “If you believe that then you deceive yourself, Mr. Hopson. Miss Alleyn was fond of her nephew, it is true. But that did not outweigh the fact that her brother was a notorious bully who delighted in making her feel her dep
endence on him. I wanted Foley to help her, but whenever I raised the matter he said the Montfort family was no better than a nest of adders, no more deserving of sympathy, no more susceptible to guidance…”

  I nodded sympathetically. I could almost hear Foley saying it, although I was surprised to learn that he had always been so unfeeling towards the Montforts. Hitherto I’d assumed it was only the gambling debt that had cooled the relationship, and that prior to that he and Lord Montfort had been the closest of friends.

  “Miss Alleyn explained a little of her predicament to me quite recently, though she gave me no inkling she was so unhappy in her position.”

  “She’s a woman of extraordinary resolve, Mr. Hopson. Imagine the two decades she has spent living under Montfort’s roof. Imagine the daily humiliations, the frustrations of realizing that if she had only refused his demand to live with him, she might have enjoyed the happiness of wedlock and a family of her own. In return for her unselfishness, how has she been repaid? The only outlet she has had for her maternal warmth is Robert, whom she regards as her own son. Furthermore, when Lord Montfort married Elizabeth, she was kindness personified towards her. That is why I hold her in high esteem and wish to assist her.”

  “And have you done so?”

  “Not yet. But perhaps now that Montfort is dead everything may change. If, as I trust he will, Robert repays his aunt with but a fraction of the kindness she has shown him, her security will be assured and her old age will be a happy one.”

  “Do you think he will?”

  She gave me a level look. Her face betrayed nothing. “I wish I knew, Mr. Hopson, for it would ease me greatly to know she was well cared for. My fear is that Robert resembles his father in many respects, not least in the ingratitude he shows towards his aunt. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll send the maidservant for the tray.”

  Left to my own devices, I speedily forgot Miss Alleyn as my impatience grew for Foley’s return. What was detaining him at Horseheath? Had he handled Alice discreetly as I’d bade him, or had he stirred up her rebelliousness? I paced the room, then finding this exercise only made my blood race more, took a seat at his table to calm myself.