The Grenadillo Box: A Novel by Janet Gleeson Read Free Book Online Page A

undress.
    Partridge’s gargantuan bookcase faced this garden and, appropriately enough, resembled a Roman temple. Ancient architecture had recently become his obsession—how often he lauded its symmetry, its precision, its order. For in the ancient past, he claimed, were proportions and details that had never been improved upon, and therein the fashionable future lay. This notion had been the cause of some dissension within the workshop. Chippendale, though fond enough of meticulous design and classical architecture, preferred a multiplicity of decoration whenever possible. If patrons could be persuaded to festoon their commissions with chinoiserie knickknacks in the shape of hoho birds, dragons, and pagodas, or with ribbons and roses and watery cascades, extra might be charged and the piece would appear suitably sumptuous. Urns and pilasters didn’t compare visually or commercially.
    Partridge’s fondness for antiquity was shared by Lord Montfort, who had spent some months in Italy as a young man. In Rome, like every other youth of his generation and rank, he had studied ancient architecture, acquiring much of the statuary visible from the window as well as the collections within the house. He agreed with Partridge’s classical theme—a room devoted to learning demanded some reference to ancient civilization. Yet he was equally obsessed by the need to impress his acquaintances, and fretted that scholarly restraint would be too subtle to be remarked. Thus to Partridge’s austere pilasters, urns, and pediment he added Chippendale’s suggestions for sundry swags of trailing foliage and flowers. The resulting structure resembled nothing so much as some classical temple relic overgrown with Arcadian vegetation.
    It was New Year’s Eve, my fifth day at Horseheath, before I made Lord Montfort’s acquaintance. He exploded into the room, swirling his hunting cape, a mangy lurcher skulking by his side.
    “Hopson, where are you, man, you rascal, you idler?” he thundered. “I come to remind you I expect company tomorrow. Unless they can admire this room and its fittings to my satisfaction I shall be pleased to inform Mr. Chippendale of your tardiness and detain my payments accordingly.”
    The fact he could not see me, for I was presently perched on top of a ladder ensuring that the plinth of an urn was precisely square to the column beneath, further infuriated him. Like a freak tide with no sandbags to halt it, the onslaught surged forth unabated. “And you may tell Mr. Chippendale when you see him that, under the circumstances, he need not trouble himself to demand the return of his folio. I shall keep hold of it for as long as it pleases me.”
    I had no comprehension of this reference to a folio, but in any case his fury had thrown me into such red-faced confusion I would scarcely have recognized my own mother.
    “Lord Montfort,” I exclaimed, hastily folding my two-foot rule into my pocket, descending to his level and bowing. “I am Nathaniel Hopson.”
    Montfort peered at me through small bloodshot eyes. The lurcher thrust forward, growling, the hair on its back standing up like a thistle. I tried to ignore the dog and fix on the man. He was stout-figured, aged perhaps fifty and five years, wigless, with lank hair and a belly that strained at his breeches. He was sweating profusely, and from his incessant twitching and blinking I judged him to be in a state of high agitation.
    “I trust when your lordship examines the progress thus far you will not be displeased. The bulk of the work is already completed. It remains only for me to make minor adjustments that will be accomplished in the next hours.” The lurcher sniffed my breeches, its ears pressed back close to its head, its snout pushing insistently at my groin. It was still growling. Ignoring his dog, Montfort took in for the first time the work I had virtually completed.
    The scale and magnificence of the room could hardly fail to inspire his awe. He drew