The Counterfeit Heiress (8 page)

“Do you think anyone is still scandalized by seeing a husband kiss his wife in public?” he asked, taking my arm in his as we started to walk. “Or has society become so corrupt that nothing shocks it?”

“Fear not,” I said, “you are as scandalous as ever. Just look at that lady, there, rushing away from us. She has all but covered her daughter’s eyes.”

“If you do not slow down you are going to remove my arm from its socket. I can tell you are on fire with purpose and eager to get wherever it is you think necessary,” he said. “I shall endeavor to follow your lead, though perhaps at a somewhat more reasonable pace.”

I told him our destination, and then took him out of the park and back along Piccadilly, turning into Bond Street. Lafayette Studio had a stellar reputation, partly because its proprietor produced excellent work and partly because he was a favorite not only of the Prince and Princess of Wales, but of Queen Victoria herself. Mr. Lafayette had studios in Glasgow and Manchester, and now one on Bond Street, an expansion he felt necessary due to the number of commissions he received timed to coincide with the Queen’s Jubilee. The studio was on the top floor, up three flights of steps, a climb that would have been exhausting for anyone coming to be photographed in heavy court dress, and a disaster on a hot day. One would be drenched with sweat; hardly an ideal look when having one’s image immortalized.

“A moment, please!” a voice called as we pushed open the door at the top of the stairs. “Close the door behind you at once, and please do be quick about it.”

We followed his directions and then sat in two of the chairs lined up against the wall next to the door. It was a pleasant enough space, genteelly furnished and a comfortable place to wait. A great deal of rustling was coming from the far side of the room through a second door, where I presumed the studio could be found. I peeked in far enough to confirm my suspicion, and was impressed with what I saw. Light flooded in through large skylights in the ceiling, and shelves full of props lined the walls.

“Forgive me,” a gentleman said, coming to us and offering Colin his hand. “I am James Lafayette. I am afraid I did not realize I had an appointment booked for this afternoon. Is this the clothing you wanted to wear in your picture?” He looked us up and down, and although my walking suit was fashionable, I could tell he did not think it appropriate for what he believed was the occasion.

“It is I who must apologize. We are not here to have our picture taken,” Colin said, introducing us and giving Mr. Lafayette the required background on the reason for our visit.

“That is something of a relief, I confess,” Mr. Lafayette said. “My fog-clearing machine has been giving a bit of trouble today, and I have only just now managed to get it nearly to cooperate.”

“Fog-clearing machine?” I asked.

“Essential, Lady Emily, if one is to work with electric lights in a fog-ridden city. Glasgow is the worst, if you must know. London is nothing compared to it. There now, I’m rambling, and you are here on official business. How can I help?”

“Among the photographs of guests you took at the Devonshire House ball, do you recall a gentleman in ancient Greek dress wearing a theatrical mask?” I asked.

“Comedy or tragedy?”

“Tragedy.”

“Alas, I do not,” he said. “The truth is, however, that I had so many sitters it would be virtually impossible to recall them all. Many came here, to the studio, before the night of the party, as they did not want to be rushed by a crush of others while they were posing.” He went to a box on the desk that stood near the door, opened its lid, and started flipping through the photographs inside. “I have developed many of those portraits already, but it will be some weeks before I have finished with the ones taken at the ball.”

I stood next to him, peering over his shoulder as he searched. There were dozens of prints, each the same size, each depicting costumed individuals against backgrounds that quite well mimicked Devonshire House’s lawn and gardens with their lovely statuary. Periodically, he came to one where the false exterior had been swapped for a suitable indoor location.

“I carried the backgrounds with me to the party as well,” he said. “Did I photograph the two of you?”

“No, I am afraid not,” Colin said.

“You shall have to make an appointment and return to me with your costumes,” he said.

“That would be great fun!” I exclaimed. Colin frowned.

“You were set up in the garden, were you not, Mr. Lafayette?”

“Yes,” the photographer replied. “My tent was brightly lit, and the duchess’s guests could choose whether to pose inside or out, if you will. I had Turkish carpets and a variety of pieces of furniture and walls we could use to create the right scene for each.” He continued going through the box of pictures until he reached the end. “I am afraid there are no masked Greeks here.”

“Not many people wore masks that night,” I said. “Do you remember anyone hiding his face?”

Mr. Lafayette was a decent-looking man, tall enough and well put together. He pulled his eyebrows close as he considered my question. “I cannot say that I do. Most likely, if someone wearing a mask had come to me, I would have suggested that he take it off for his photograph. I would display it in the picture, of course, but it is best to see one’s subject’s face.”

“I suspect that our Greek came to the ball without a proper invitation,” I said. “If that was the case, it is not surprising he would not have sat for a photograph in advance. Are any of the pictures taken on the evening itself finished?”

“A small number, but I have only just finished with them and can assure you they do not include your Greek tragedian,” Mr. Lafayette said. “If you will come with me, we can look at the negatives from which I have not yet made prints.” He led us through his studio into a room with blacked-out windows. Electric lights shrouded in red glass illuminated the space. Stacks of photographic plates were carefully arranged on tables. “It is a tedious task, but you are welcome to look through them all, so long as you are careful.”

He showed us how to handle the plates and how best to look at them. Mr. Lafayette was nothing if not honest: the work was tedious, but fascinating as well. Each image was presented as a negative of how it looked in life: black became white and vice versa, making the individuals photographed appear more like creatures out of classical mythology than London’s high society. For nearly two hours we held plates up one at a time until, at last, I found that for which I had searched.

“It is he!”

Estella

v

When Estella woke up, for a moment she thought she was in her cupboard at home. The darkness was lovely, no light fighting to turn her closed lids red, and the surface on which she lay was hard. Too hard, though, she thought, and too rough to be the carpet Nurse had placed on the floor for her all those years ago. She opened her eyes, but the movement had no discernible effect on her senses. Wherever she was, it was pitch-black, so dark that her eyes could not adjust to it, no matter how long she waited.

And she did wait. What else was there to do? As the time passed, her breath grew ragged and fear began to creep through her. She was fully awake now, and only just beginning to realize she had not been dreaming. She felt around her, her hands meeting stone in every direction, and determined that she was on some sort of raised surface. Sitting up, she slowly and with great care moved her legs until they dangled off the edge. The edge of what?

Panic bloomed. What if she fell? How far was the drop to the ground below her? She could see nothing. Swallowing bile, she methodically moved her hands along the edge of what she suspected was a slab of some sort, until she had a general idea of its dimensions. It was long enough for her to lie flat, and wide enough that she need not worry she would roll off it and plunge to her death. She pooled saliva in her mouth, as much as she could, and spat over the side, listening to hear how long it took before hitting the ground. There was no sound of impact. Fear gripped her chest, and she clung to both sides of what she now considered her lifeboat.

As she did this, she realized—stupid that she hadn’t noticed at once—that her reticule was still hanging from her wrist. It felt heavier than she remembered. Slowly, she sat up again and opened it. Inside, she could feel her handkerchief and her coin purse, but there were two other objects that had not been there when she left home: something long and smooth and waxy and a small box that rattled when she shook it. A candle and matches! Her hands were trembling so forcefully she nearly dropped the box, so she did her best to still herself, to calm the terror bubbling in her, and to steady her nerves. Perhaps Dr. Maynard’s Formula would have come in handy after all, she thought, not appreciating the irony.

With great deliberation, she pulled a breath in for a full count of ten, then released it at the same pace. She did this, over and over, until she began to relax, at least physically. Confident that she could proceed, she picked up the box from her lap and slid it open, feeling her way to the slim wooden sticks inside. She pulled one out, felt for the bulge on its tip and then for the strip on the side of the box. Lifting her hands, she struck the match, three times before she managed to get it lit.

The small flame did little to illuminate the space around her. Without thinking, she put the box back in her lap and tried to grab the candle. Before she could do so, however, the match’s flame nipped at her finger and she dropped it, plunging herself again into darkness.

This failure, and the three that followed it, caused her hands to shake again, but at last she managed to light the candle. Relief flooded her. First, she looked down and laughed, almost maniacally, when she realized she had never been more than a few feet above the stone floor. She slipped down from her seat, stood, and in the span of a few heartbeats went from feeling relief to being swallowed by a sensation so awful she could not name it.

She was in a room, a small room, no more than ten feet by eight. Its walls and floor were stone, as she had suspected in the dark, and the ceiling, also stone, hung low. There were no windows, which, to a girl accustomed to hiding in a cupboard, did not in itself prove worrisome. The trouble came from something else.

There was no door.

6

The image captured by Mr. Lafayette’s negative was not so clear as I would have liked. As the photographer had suspected, he had not taken the shot with the mask covering the man’s face. The subject held it in front of his chest, albeit at an awkward angle, but unfortunately for us, his visage was not clear. He had moved before the photographer was done, and his features were blurred. I called for Mr. Lafayette, who had left us searching the photographic plates in the darkroom while he attended to business in his office, and he came at once, reminding us to keep the black curtain that hung not far from the door in place so that no light would damage his undeveloped plates. I handed him the negative in question.

“Do you have a record of who this is?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “I kept track of everyone. This is plate 632. Let us see what we have.”

Colin and I followed him out of the room and back into the bright studio, our eyes smarting. The photographer opened a thick notebook. For each numbered plate, he had entered the name of the person sitting, the role his costume was meant to represent, and whether the portrait had been taken in his studio or on site at Devonshire House.

“Here we are.” He turned the book so we might see the entry.

“Abel Magwitch.” My mouth hung open. “Is this meant to be a joke?”

“I am afraid, Lady Emily, that I am not acquainted with Mr. Magwitch.” Mr. Lafayette bent over the book. “He was meant to be portraying the poet Homer.”

“Homer would not have been wearing the mask of a tragic actor, but Mr. Magwitch’s inability to satisfy even the barest requirements of historical accuracy is the least of my concerns.” I sighed, frustrated. “I suppose it was foolish to think he would have used his real name.”

“How do you know this is false?” Mr. Lafayette asked.

“Abel Magwitch is a character in Mr. Dickens’s
Great Expectations,
” I said. “He secretly financed Pip’s advancement. I cannot imagine there is any true person in possession of the same name.”

“It is not altogether meaningless, perhaps,” Colin said. “First, would it be possible for you to make us a print of the photograph, Mr. Lafayette, and have it sent straight over to our house in Park Lane?”

“Of course, sir, it would be my pleasure.”

My husband turned to me. “Now, Emily, think about the novel. Who is Magwitch? A criminal, yes? An escaped convict, but a man who is trying to do something good, at least once he meets Pip.”

“Yes,” I said. “So our Mr. Magwitch, although he is perpetrating a fraud of some sort, means to suggest he is not all bad?”

“I think we have our first glimpse of insight into his character,” Colin said.

Mr. Lafayette scowled. “I am more sorry than I can say that the image is not clearer. I do remember the gentleman now. It was nearly as difficult to get him to stand still as it had been to convince him to lower his mask. I feel foolish for not recalling the incident sooner.”

“There can be little doubt his movement was deliberate,” Colin said. “He did not want to leave a recognizable image of himself.”

“I wonder that he had his picture taken at all,” I said. “Although, thinking about it, we all initially entered the garden near Mr. Lafayette’s marquee. Mr. Magwitch might have caught unwelcome attention if he had made a point of avoiding being photographed. Easier to have a picture made and make sure it’s blurry than to act in a way that might have seemed odd to one of his fellow guests.”

Colin grunted. “No one commented when I refused to be photographed.”

“Yes, my dear, but everyone in the vicinity is bound to have the incident carved vividly into his memory. You were rather insistent on the subject.”

“Was that you, Mr. Hargreaves? Dressed as Beau Brummell?” Mr. Lafayette asked.