CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

His Grace William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Portland

WILLIAM HAD AGREED to the terms and conditions of Marie’s letter the day before for two reasons. Firstly, the woman had somehow unearthed the fact of his involvement in Elanor’s death. Secondly, he did not want his name dishonoured by word spreading of the broken contract. His valet had shown him the wisdom of patiently seeing the three months out, guaranteeing William safety and security during this time, and then it would all be over.

Except that girl would still be here: still living, breathing even, under his roof, and he couldn’t bear it. He longed to talk with her, to be with her again, but he was terrified. For what was she, in reality? He shuddered. He had preferred it when Elanor was dead, or even when she was a simple wax doll; the perfect company who looked at him without seeing and who listened to him without demanding anything in return.

If the mantelpiece and its strange enchantment had a hand in activating life, then perhaps he could do something to reverse its effect. He had talked this through for hours with the valet, who had counselled him simply to be rid of the thing, as he called it – bury it in the coffin deep in the forest, he had suggested. Although he had entertained the idea in the privacy of his thoughts, it sickened him to the stomach when voiced by another.

Perhaps he should talk with the Tussaud woman, but he had no wish to take her into his confidence. She was prepared to use his secret against him when he was most vulnerable. And if she discovered that her creature was alive, she might act irrationally – want to make a spectacle of it in a show or something of the sort. Philidor was the same: greedy for fame and money. Abusing William’s trust by destroying his ballroom. It had been lunacy to think he could do business with them without a scandal erupting.

William had allowed his valet to move the thing up to the tower. Unthinkable for it to be put in Elanor’s cavern – the real Elanor’s cavern. The valet and the maid had prepared a room where the thing would be alone and contained, the valet assuring William that the maid was so simple she had not even asked for whom the room was being readied. This was good news, for William had thought her earlier curiosity was ingrained.

Even though he had just returned from London, he had not the time or the energy after sitting for the portrait to attend to some pressing business at the Baker Street Bazaar: a client had just returned from the Orient with a particularly interesting chest of antiques. William had arranged a time to meet with the fellow in a few days time before he grew impatient and starting hawking his wares to other dealers who didn’t operate on such fickle terms.

William expected to encounter the Druce woman there again– what a nuisance. Always popping up when he least expected it and bleating his name like some demented goat. He was putting off the inevitable, but the fact was that being both Thomas Charles and the duke was getting too complicated to manage, more so now he had been exposed onstage. What if Druce came sniffing around Welbeck asking questions, then gossiping back in Baker Street? No, it wouldn’t do. He would go to Baker Street and meet his client, pay Druce any sum owing, and close the bazaar.

Now he saw that the life he had lived as Thomas Charles in London was built on a romantic notion. He had envisaged it as the life he should have had with Elanor, but now he knew the truth: she would have hated London entirely. The noise. The crowds. The smell. The pretentiousness of it all. Elanor had loved the open air, green grass and fields of flowers. She would have laughed at the affected operas, the lavishly dressed ladies, the suffocating manners of society.

It was time for him to discard this life that haunted him, it had become too much of a danger for his future. Last month he had received a letter to confirm his position as a peer, a politician with responsibilities, although he had yet to visit Parliament. Being granted the title of Peer of the Realm was all very well, but he needed to ensure he brought nothing but honour to his family name in taking it. Yet the more he had withdrawn from public life, the more the gossip had grown.

But the valet could be trusted to help William navigate it all, just as his father had. To have such a boy at his disposal was invaluable.

The old valet had helped him the night when William had needed it most, and for that he would be forever grateful. After he had heard the gunshot, he’d crept downstairs to find the back door open and run out into the moonlit grounds, knowing, desperately knowing, what had befallen him but still not wanting to believe it.

His father had been standing over the body; there was a look of such surprise on his face, it was as if he’d shot an angel from the sky, not his son’s best friend.

William had been due to meet her in ten minutes’ time, at midnight, to climb the old oak and sit in its branches in the warm air of the summer solstice. But his father, who suffered from bouts of mania, had decided that tonight the grounds needed patrolling; he had become convinced that thieves were trying to gain access to the house. This was also why he’d had the underground caverns built. In his delusions, these thieves were cleverly disguised as hawkers camping nearby, due to leave on the morrow. He had shot at movement in the trees as Elanor had approached.

It was William’s fault – if he’d been early, as he had always been before, he would have seen his father patrolling, scrambled away and gone to warn Elanor that their plans were foiled. But he was on time that night, the back door already open and the shot already fired when he came running across the lawn.

The old man, his father’s valet, had taken William and his father back to the house and left Elanor alone under the tree in the night. The stars were the only other witness to the tragedy, their silent outrage cold against William’s back as he was led away.

His father was raving, ‘But it was a thief! I’m sure I saw a man with a knife,’ while William remained silent. The valet returned to the tree and dug the grave, then put some of the family’s silver into a sack and threw it into the lake. Just to be sure. Being a duke meant that questions were not usually asked, and if they were, a duke’s word was enough to silence them but still, it was prudent to ensure the servants did not have cause to talk. The valet then put the word out that the girl had been seen leaving with the hawkers after stealing some of the family’s silver. Her parents, tenant farmers on the adjacent fields, struggled to believe this of their daughter, but when the 4th Duke said it was so, what choice did they have but to lower their eyes and grieve silently, even if their hearts asked private questions?

His father said that he would be generous to the family in their loss, so that their remaining daughter, only a young child then, could come into service when she was old enough. And she had: Harriet.

William had almost dismissed her for being impudent, but he had stopped himself at the last moment – to dismiss her may have stirred it all up again. And as the valet had pointed out, she was a dull child, simple even. The boy didn’t know the great secret that his father kept, the secret that involved Harriet and Elanor. In fact he only knew what was common knowledge in these parts, that a girl called Elanor had disappeared from the estate.

For this reason Elanor – no, not Elanor, not really, rather the creature impersonating Elanor could not be seen by the maid, or who knew what would unfold. Harriet might feel a strange connection to the thing, some sort of kinship. She might ask questions. Try to talk to it. Or even try to talk to him about it. What if she worked out what had happened to her older sister?