Tussaud Page 6

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Philidor

  SHE BEGAN RAPPING on the floorboards, calling, ‘Joseph, François, you can come out, you can come out.’ And for a moment his own senses bristled in anticipation of a response, to hear little voices calling back from underneath his feet, yet the silence of their absence reigned. She didn’t seem to notice. ‘Stay down there for the time being then, you naughty boys. Have a sleep while I visit with the gentleman.’

  She raised herself up, looking at him as if trying to read his reaction, her hair fallen loose again. He merely nodded. He would play along with her fancies, for now. There would be time enough for killing her delusions later. Or perhaps they could be channelled to further suit his plans.

  The brass doorhandle was round and fit neatly in the palm of her hand. It gave a high creak when turned. He stepped inside behind her, surprised at the light creeping above the tops of the curtains that hung over the bay windows.

  The area directly in front them was clearly a workspace: long wooden tables with tools and clay and wax spread out in various stages of composition. On the floor were metal buckets and troughs filled with water; a few boxes and cases with hair, glass eyes, paints and powders, and a proliferation of brushes scattered in between them. All very interesting. But where were the creations? She slipped by him and raised the curtain that presumably separated this room from the next. He smiled and stepped under its gauze, then saw the wooden pedestals, immediately recognising some of the heads upon them: Louis XVI, Marat, Robespierre, and the final one that seized the breath in his throat. It was her. He stifled his excitement before calmly approaching the last King of France.

  Louis XVI. Dead at thirty-eight. His rounded face pink as if still coloured with life, his cheeks still plump with flabby jowls and his encroaching baldness compensated for with the grey length curled at either side. She had left the base of his neck torn, as if unsealed, and painted around the jagged edges a thin line of red.

  ‘Made from the death masks themselves,’ Philidor said quietly.

  ‘True,’ she said. ‘I covered the flesh with clay, made the mould, poured the wax …’

  He moved on, passing Marat and Robespierre, who in death were the same as in life. Nothing remarkable about them aside from the detail Tussaud had affected. He was aware he was just stalling now, pacing himself to stand before her. The darkness gathered, and in the trembling glow of the lamp Marie now held from behind, he sensed how his mind had begun to play tricks. A wink of light made Marat’s eyes dart. And Robespierre’s mouth, did it twitch in sardonic amusement? Were they all conspiring to silently mock him behind his back, still having the power to intimidate even from beyond the grave?

  He continued to explore the room, seeing more faces he knew and some he didn’t. Being so close to the heads, so real in the shadows, sharpened his hearing, and he found his shirt collar a fraction too tight. But no, he was made of stronger and sterner matter than this. It was all parlour tricks with light and diversion, elements he specialised in, not her. He was accustomed to not believing what his eyes were telling him, as well as cultivating the atmosphere for others to do the same. This room was no different from his stage; he must master it.

  He glanced around, his eyes catching a solid mass in the far corner of the room: a misshapen form resting on an octagonal table, huddled beneath a sheet. He blinked, and it seemed for a moment to swell, the fabric forming soft hills of limbs as it rose from its rest and then – He must master his damned imagination.

  He drew opposite Marie Antoinette, whose pedestal of marble was positioned as the focal point of the room. She had been immortalised in part because of her beauty, in part because of the notoriety of a queen having been executed in such a demeaning fashion. Her wealth, power and prestige had not guaranteed her a peaceful nor dignified death.

  The attention to detail was exquisite, the wax so much like skin that he wanted to caress the dead woman’s face. In life he wouldn’t have even dared to rest his eyes upon her. Her white powdered hair was dressed in the fashion of the time: the top section pinned from behind to give the illusion of a higher forehead, while the bottom half fell in waves to swirl around her neck, arranged with pins, ribbons and gold feathers that quivered with the nearness of his breath. Her eyebrows arched as if in polite surprise, and her full lips were a pale pink. The skin on her throat was taut and white, smooth and unpuckered, until it reached the wound of the guillotine where it was smeared with blood. She was enchanting. He had to stifle an overwhelming desire to reach out and touch her cheeks, her lips, her hair. To be closer still. To breathe the scent of this woman. He flexed his fingers, then stopped. He’d forgotten he was not alone. He glanced at Marie.

  The room seemed to have an extraordinary effect on her. She stood taller, shoulders pulled back, her voice deeper and steady. ‘I see you admire her, monsieur,’ she said, standing next to him and tucking a tendril of Antoinette’s hair back in, then mirroring the movement with her own.

  ‘She was a beautiful woman,’ he admitted. ‘And a clever one.’ He paused, his attention diverted again by the lump on the table that seemed to draw all light in the room towards it. ‘But what is that, under the shroud there? A new work, perhaps?’

  ‘It is just a little idea I am having.’ She moved to stand beside the object and trailed her forefinger over its outline. Did it arch its back at her touch, like a cat being stroked? ‘It is for my next exhibition, my Chamber of Horrors.’

  He swallowed. ‘A new head, then?’

  ‘Of a sort. This will be a little more … shall we say, for the stronger constitution.’

  ‘It will shock?’

  ‘Shock and fascinate. See for yourself, monsieur.’ With a twitch, the shroud fell away to reveal a guillotine, gleaming as if polished just a moment before. Yet its wooden handle was mottled and worn smooth.

  ‘Surely it is not the one?’ He approached with his hand extended, the touch of the barbaric blade making the thin skin at the end of his forefinger tingle.

  ‘It is one of many,’ she replied, and watched him studying it.

  ‘To think of what this contraption has accomplished,’ he said.

  ‘They all met death in its embrace,’ she remarked drily.

  ‘Was this the one that killed her? Did you see her die?’

  ‘I saw many die. And prepared myself for the same fate.’

  ‘But you were spared?’

  ‘Not through any of my pleading. Curtius intervened on my behalf.’

  At hearing the name, Philidor looked at her askance. ‘Curtius?’

  ‘My uncle, also my saviour through his intervention. But I had to show my gratitude …’ She paused. ‘Making these heads, from death masks, was part of it.’ She replaced the shroud, the bright blade swallowed.

  Philidor remained silent. Perhaps he could use this unexpected revelation to further ingratiate himself with this woman. He turned away and stood before Antoinette again, his eyes trailing over her features as he stalled for time. ‘I am acquainted with Curtius,’ he said, after a moment. ‘It seems you and I share another thing in common.’

  ‘And what was the first?’

  Their eyes met above Antoinette’s head. The madness had left, and he was now conversing with a sane woman. The change was sudden. Curious.

  ‘A shared love of art and theatrics,’ he said easily. ‘Your windows were the entertainment for most of Paris. My business is of a similar nature.’

  ‘I will return to that later. But for now, I wish to know how you know Curtius.’

  ‘He intervened on my behalf as well. I was imprisoned by the revolutionaries for one of my … performances and accused of pandering to the royals, given that I lived at the palace for a time and was their resident entertainer.’ He took a step back towards the guillotine to escape her gaze.

  Marie followed, parallel with him not a foot away. ‘You lived at Versailles, monsieur?’ she asked, arriving as he did at the guillotine, now between them. Again, their eyes
met for a moment.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘So did I. And yet I never saw you there.’

  ‘Perhaps our paths did not cross as we were occupied.’ He knew she was lying, perhaps matching his own. ‘You were there because …?’

  ‘Like you, I was employed to entertain, as well as to instruct Élisabeth in votive.’

  ‘Élisabeth?’

  ‘The sister of Louis XVI. I’m surprised you didn’t meet her?’

  ‘Of course, Élisabeth – I remember now,’ and he found himself reaching for the shroud and rearranging a particular fold.

  ‘Indeed, and you are acquainted with Curtius … how?’

  ‘I’m surprised you didn’t know of our acquaintance.’ He dropped the fabric and met her eyes boldly. ‘If he was, as you say, your uncle. Perhaps he did not think it fitting you were privy to his affairs, but he had an interest in the type of entertainment I specialise in, had been to a number of my shows and could testify to the fact that while I was gifted, I was not a royalist. And so he intervened.’

  ‘It seems the good gentleman saved us both then,’ she said, her tone brittle. ‘And now we stand in my workshop … I wonder what it is that has brought us together?’ She picked up a thin brush from a gilded box next to the guillotine, squeezed some red paint onto the palette, dipped the bristles in and stood before Antoinette, pausing. The red liquid beaded at the end while it waited, another drop of blood about to be bestowed on its victim’s throat. This room was so deliciously full of horror. Imagine what they could do if –

  ‘I have a proposition for you,’ he said, then paused to reflect. The shifting appearance of madwoman to a sane one was making it hard to know how best to present his case. ‘Forgive me for speaking aloud my observations but I feel compelled to, madame. I notice you are living far below the standard to which you were previously accustomed. And while you may have become used to this style of living, it does you no favours. Your talents, skills and knowledge seep out of you like … like an open wound,’ he finished, not sure if the reference would be lost on her. He studied her profile – could not ascertain what she might be thinking.

  She softly began to dab at the base of Antoinette’s throat, the sharp smell of the oils sending a throb of pressure straight between his eyes.

  ‘You are living as if you are already dead, madame. Surrounded by dusty windows with wax figures from children’s tales and these heads that nobody else sees.’

  ‘There is a certain stillness to being dead, monsieur. A quietness that means one is left alone.’

  ‘But too much time alone can be detrimental to the human spirit,’ he pressed.

  ‘I have seen too much of the body, monsieur, to concern myself with the spirit. We all bleed the same. Spirit or not.’

  ‘You know that’s not true. We are more than flesh and blood. I know we are. You must have felt the quickening within when creating, the lively pulse of something else moving through your hands as you work.’

  ‘What I feel and what I make it to mean are my own business.

  The solitude has been necessary – healing, even.’

  ‘I note you said “has been”. Not “is”.’

  Her brushstroke swept above Antoinette’s blood line onto virgin skin.

  ‘And so I wonder, madame, if you still dream of the thrill of creating for a crowd? Not just a head, but something more, something that would make them swoon again. What if I offered you the chance to create for a much greater audience?’

  ‘You have my attention,’ she said.

  ‘I am going to create something myself. Something the like of which the world has never seen before. But I can’t do it here, I need to go to London. And, once I’m there, I will send you the necessary information to complete the construction, if you understand.’

  ‘What am I to understand? You have told me nothing but a riddle.’

  ‘I cannot tell you the details until you accept in principle,’ he said. ‘But be assured it is not beyond your capacity, and it will be the greatest spectacle this world has ever seen.’

  ‘London.’ She folded a clean cloth over the bristles then pinched her thumb and forefinger down, once, twice, thrice, smearing the linen with red. ‘You are going to London to create this grand … idea of yours. And I will remain here to add the finishing touches. Interesting. I don’t know that I care to disrupt my own work for this idea of yours. Perhaps I am content here alone, adding new sculptures for my own show.’

  ‘You cannot think that this is all there is for you. A life shut away in a dark, cramped apartment – no, madame, it must not be. And what of your boys, will you see them follow in their father’s footsteps to become philanderers, drunkards and gamblers?’

  Her pinch tightened around the cloth-covered bristles. ‘What do you know of my boys, monsieur?’

  He swallowed. Perhaps he had pressed too hard. ‘Nothing. Except what is known by everybody that you …’ He needed to change tack. Regain composure. ‘Madame, my show is nothing but tricks, your wax models nothing but dolls, but together – together we can create life, or at least mimic it like never before, and in doing so make us rich. You can buy a townhouse in the richest quarters of Paris or a cottage in the countryside, and fill it with light, rooms to create. And think of the opportunities you could provide for the boys! Surely you can see that this is the way out of the … the tomb you’re in.’

  She replaced the brush in its tray and slowly closed the lid of the box before walking back into the main room. Mentioning the boys had been clever; it showed he understood. Would it pay off, this tantalising vision he had painted? He followed as she pulled the bay-window curtain aside in the main workshop, letting the sun push through the dust motes surrounding the silhouettes of the wax figures. The rays fell full upon her upturned face. She closed her eyes. For a moment, just a moment, he thought she was almost beautiful.

  She sighed. Then turned to face him. ‘What exactly is your plan, monsieur?’

  CHAPTER NINE

  Marie

  ‘YOU’VE HEARD of Pinetti?’ he began, drawing opposite her to stand by the window.

  A promising start to the conversation. How much should she reveal? ‘I’ve read his advertisement in the newspapers.’ She omitted to say she’d also seen Philidor’s name in the papers.

  ‘He styles himself as the Professor of Natural Magic, but his show is nothing more than smoke and lights. And his hands are made clumsy by too many ridiculous rings.’

  She heard the mockery in his voice and noted that he was a jealous man. Pinetti must have something that Philidor didn’t, then. What was it?

  ‘His most recent attraction, though, is what concerns me. Us, actually. He has an automaton peacock painted to look gold, and it moves as though it’s alive. It even follows commands. Whatever else he is, Pinetti is no fool when it comes to designing automatons.’

  ‘And so it is this that you want … this peacock?’

  Philidor shook his head. ‘Just the plans.’

  ‘Aha,’ she said, and took his measure. ‘Because you want to build your own automaton as a rival?’

  ‘And that’s why I need you. I will create the mechanics for the frame, and then I need you to create a wax person – a complete person, not just the head. Then, limb by limb, I will put one inside the other and have, for the first time, a seemingly flesh-and-blood automaton.’

  She looked at him for a few seconds as she visualised this … creation.

  ‘The question is, madame, can it be done?’

  ‘The bodies of my figures are usually made with leather and horsehair. It would mean making the whole figure out of wax.’

  ‘Can it be done?’ he repeated.

  ‘Upon my word it can,’ she snapped. ‘Do you doubt my skill?’

  ‘Not that. Never that. But would it work, do you think?’

  ‘The main concern would be the interaction of the wax with the metal on the inside. The clockwork being in perpetual motion would build up heat – it may s
often the wax.’

  ‘Melt, you mean?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ She gestured to the figures behind them. ‘We would have to see. Wax normally requires a temperature no higher than thirty-seven degrees. In summer, I used to rotate my displays here a number of times a day, with the sun shining directly on them. Being clothed, they couldn’t last more than an hour in this window.’

  ‘But we would only need the clockwork to be working for an hour at most during the performance.’

  ‘This may work. Again, we have to see.’ Marie paused. She would need to go delicately here if she was to get what she wanted, so she would try an appeal to his vanity, continued reassurance of his prowess, as well as the power of suggestion.

  He pushed on. ‘I will go to London, assemble the parts then send the dimensions to you here. You will make the limbs then send them back to me, to put it all together.’

  ‘We agree, monsieur, that my skills in this endeavour are necessary. No one can create wax figures like Madame Tussaud. But, I wonder if the distance between us may affect the making of this automaton. There could be errors and miscalculations, and time would be lost sending items back and forth. Trunks could get opened on the ship, lost, damaged.’

  ‘But if you packed each limb securely, then —’

  ‘I do not trust my creations to the care of sailors, monsieur. And another thing – how, may I ask, will you coerce Pinetti to let you see and copy his drawings?’

  ‘They were stolen from him last night.’

  ‘You stole them?’

  Philidor nodded, and she noted the gleam of triumph in his eyes. He was also a proud man; this was further information to store away for later use.

  ‘And suppose he reports the theft to the authorities?’

  ‘He will not risk damage to his reputation by looking foolish, nor will he want it public knowledge that his secret has been stolen. He will keep it quiet and try other means of finding the thief. By then I will have left the country.’