Authors: Christine Trent
How close to shore are we? And what shore? Ireland or Wales? Was she to see land ever again? She shuddered in fear.
And the ship shuddered with her.
With a final moan to accompany the incessant fracturing noises, the ship began collapsing on itself. Marguerite was swept downward, grabbing fruitlessly at objects rushing past her. No, it couldn’t be. The sea was rushing up toward her at a phenomenal rate of speed.
I once wanted to die. Now I want to live.
As she slammed into the rushing water, she performed one last act.
She held her breath.
What was this?
Her feet were touching something solid. Soft, but definitely solid. She reached out for a plank drifting nearby and used it to haul herself to a standing position, promptly falling down again from the effort. Dear God, but she was cold. She spit the taste of brackish water from her mouth.
Shivering, she tried to assess what had happened. They must have hit an embankment. Which meant they were close to shore. But how close? She tried to look into the distance. Was that a shadow of land or just her imagination? Ah, the rain was stopping and the wind seemed to be dying down, a small blessing of relief arriving several minutes too late.
She thrashed about in the water, calling for Marie and Joseph. A surprisingly strong voice called back to her from about fifty feet away.
“There you are, my girl. Thought you might be drowned. Nini’s here with me. Is that rat Philipsthal with you?”
Even in tragedy, Marie never quite forgot her feelings for her old partner. “No, I haven’t seen him since we went topside.”
“Bah, he probably jumped from the ship and used his whiskers to guide him to shore.”
Marguerite followed the sound of Marie’s voice and found her a distance away on the embankment along with about two dozen other passengers. As the rain cleared it was easier to see that the ship had completely broken apart in the storm. Or had their inebriated captain run them aground? Debris and wreckage littered the water as far as the eye could see. Joseph was nearly blue and his teeth were chattering away. Marguerite pulled the soaked boy to her own drenched dress and hugged him in joy of his safety.
Marguerite stepped back and held Marie at arm’s length. “Madame, your hair looks … dreadful, I’m afraid.”
Marie reached up to pat her great vanity, now plastered in flat tendrils around her face, her hat long ago sacrificed to the sea’s torrents.
More passengers were dragging themselves onto the bank, standing or sitting in the shallow water covering it. With the wind and rain dying down to the gentleness of bleating sheep, the sounds of crying and praying rose to full prominence again.
“Do you see your friends anywhere?” Marguerite asked Marie. “I lost sight of them not long after we got on deck.”
“No, don’t see the Callums, either.”
“Madame, wait here with Joseph. I’ll look.” Marguerite wove her way heavily through the stranded passengers, seeking a familiar face from their journey. Finally she found Mr. and Mrs. Callum huddled together, but only two of their girls were with them. They all raised tearstained faces to Marguerite.
Marguerite opened her mouth to say something. Anything. What? Words of comfort?
“My condolences,” she managed to squeak out. They turned back inward together, seeking the private solace that families need when a loss has been shocking.
Marguerite dragged herself around some more but did not see the elderly couple anywhere. Perhaps they were still holding on to some piece of the ship and were keeping afloat in the water. She turned to scour the water nearby but was stopped by a shout from Marie.
“Marguerite! Our cases! Broken open! Come now!”
Marguerite sloshed heavily back to Marie and followed the line of her pointing hand. She could see several of their once-securely fastened crates broken open, their contents spilled into the shallow waters.
“Must save the figures!” Marie shouted, plumes of frosty air emphasizing her distress. She stomped out toward the figure nearest her and with Joseph’s help dragged it onto the embankment. Poor William Wallace looked as though he had just seen action at the Battle of Falkirk again. Marie signaled to a lone man looking for friends or family in the water nearby.
“You! Must help! Find the wax characters and bring them up here.”
“Wax characters? Are you mad? There are living people we need to bring on shore.”
Marie stamped a foot as successfully as she could with both legs partially submerged.
“We must save my collection, too. I’m ruined without it. I need help.”
The mists of rain and water had completely dissipated now, leaving a clear enough view to see that the shore was only about a hundred yards away. Marguerite was struck with an inspiration. She went out to the man. “Kind sir, we think our wax figure collection will help save us all. If we can bring enough of them onto the embankment, everyone can use them to float to shore.” She pointed so that he could see how close land was to them now.
He understood at once and gathered whatever men he saw nearby.
As Marguerite and a handful of men sloshed in the shallow waters, dragging out figures, Marie stood on the embankment like a field marshal, instructing those huddling in the cold to grab figures relative to their size and push off the other side of the embankment toward the shore. Marguerite watched out of the corner of one eye as Marie gestured to the passengers how the figures would help keep them afloat. Taking his mother’s cue, Joseph demonstrated by stepping out into the water with his head and arms across the torso of some now unrecognizable petite character figure.
He paddled out about thirty feet while his mother vigorously motioned toward the shore.
Soon there were more passengers wanting a wax figure than could be easily produced from the wreckage. A shout from one of the men wading about looking for them took Marguerite’s attention away from what Marie was doing and her own futile search.
The man had found a crate lettered
TUSSAUD—WAX FIGURES—
16
CLARENDON STREET—DUBLIN.
He held a piece of iron pipe high over his head to bring it down on the crate to smash it open.
“Non!
No beating the chest! Leave it alone!” Marie was screaming as she scrambled heavily to where the man lowered his weapon. “These figures are safe. Must keep them safe.”
“Sorry, mistress, we need these floaters to get us to shore. You said so yourself.” The man swung the pipe up in the air again and slammed it against the crate. Several blows cracked the lid enough that with the assistance of two other men he was able to start digging out figures and dumping them into the water for the others to drag to the embankment.
While the three men worked on their found cache of “floaters,” Marguerite continued wading through the debris and wreckage, trying to find other figures they might have overlooked. Several other men had taken on the sorrowful task of searching for passengers who had not survived the breakup of the ship, and two ironic groups of bodies were being placed on the embankment—wax figures, which were immediately grabbed and used to help the next person waiting to get to shore, and dead men, women, and children, largely ignored yet difficult to distinguish now from the lifeless wax characters.
She noticed a dark cape flapping in the water nearby. Another wax figure had floated in. From the looks of the attire she guessed it to be part of their Separate Room collection, either Robespierre or Jean-Baptiste Carrier. At least they would have a starting point for recreating their most popular tableau. She’d have to put this one aside for one of the brave men working to save everyone else, to ensure he had his own “floater” for getting to shore. The figure was face down so she rolled it over.
Marguerite’s chilled heart managed to leap from its icy resting
place and into her throat as she held the figure’s cape in her hand. Revulsion mixed with a strangled desire to laugh.
It was Paul de Philipsthal.
His right hand still clutched the nib of a pen.
So what did your meaningless will document promise me? Your useless Phantasmagoria equipment?
She shook her head in dismay. No need to think ill of the dead. She must get him up on the embankment and return to work on the living. She guided his body back to where the man was pulling corpses out of the water and lining them up like a row of petrified soldiers.
Marguerite shuddered as Philipsthal was dropped unceremoniously at the end of the line. His death was not cause for grief, but it was haunting just the same. Had she somehow been granted an answer to her prayers for rescue, in this morbid way? Did Paul and the others have to sacrifice their lives so that she could escape him? Or was she to suffer herself for his sacrifice? God alone knew.
She resumed her work on recovering wax figures and was grateful that she found no more human bodies. Before long she thought she had found all there was to find, and her activity was no longer sufficient to maintain any kind of warmth. She would need rescue soon herself.
For the last time she sloshed back to the embankment, where now only a handful of people still stood next to the few remaining wax figures. She avoided looking farther down at the line of corpses.
Without a word, she joined Marie. “Where is Joseph?” she asked.
“Already on shore. My Nini escorted a group of children. So brave. I waited for you.”
And together the two women joined the last stragglers from the ship with their makeshift rafts and headed for shore.
By the time they reached the shore, a handful of villagers had gathered to help the bedraggled passengers. Many of them gawped in astonishment at the number of wax corpses also floating in. But Marie took charge the minute she was able to stand on firm ground.
“You!” She pointed to a teenaged boy. “You find a wagon for hire and bring here. Need to get to Clarendon Street in Dublin.”
Then she addressed a group of women. “Have been shipwrecked and need help. Tell authorities. Bring us hot tea and blankets. Go on, what do you stare at?” Marie flapped her hands at the women, motioning them to do her bidding.
“Careful! Don’t hurt the figures. Put them over here.” Marie moved off, issuing orders that no one at the scene thought to question in the absence of the captain or any other figure of clout.
Marguerite sank to the sandy shore, wrapped her arms around her knees, and laid her head on top of them. Exhaustion was becoming a powerful influence, quickly overcoming the cold in its ability to sap her strength.
So tired, she thought. Just need some sleep.
She began humming to herself to blot out the other noises around her and, despite her soaked body, began to drift off to sleep. And dreamed of nothing.
Whether she had been sleep seconds or minutes, or perhaps even hours, she wasn’t sure, but she awoke, startled by a tug on her arm.
“Mrs. Philipsthal! Mrs. Philipsthal! Maman says you must wake up now or never wake up.” She lifted her head to find Joseph Tussaud staring worriedly at her.
“Hello, Joseph. Yes, I suppose my work is not yet finished. But I am no longer Mrs. Philipsthal.” Marguerite rose up, ignoring the question on the boy’s face. She reached out her hand to him and, as they walked to where Marie was directing the loading of figures onto a wagon, said, “You know that you truly are the brave and good boy your mother says you are. I must ask her if we can reward you for your chivalrous acts today.”
“What is ’shivrous’?” Joseph asked.
“It means that you have behaved far better and with more bravery than some men four times your age, and you are held in high esteem as a result.”
Joseph’s chest swelled in pride and he broke away from Marguerite to run to his mother to let her know that he was a shivrous boy who must be steamed right away.
Marie looked at him in confusion, but forgot him as she saw Marguerite’s approach.
“Ah, dear girl, I was worried that you go to sleep for good. Would not be a happy event. See here, figures and tools are being loaded for Dublin. We’ll join them later. Need to find an inn for food and rest. I think we lost about half of the collection. Half! Years of work. Our work. Gone. It will take years to remake figures. Philipsthal’s fault. We wouldn’t be here if not for him.”
“I don’t think you need to worry about Paul de Philipsthal troubling us any longer.” Marguerite let her words hang in the air with no further explanation.
But for whatever difficulties Marie Tussaud had in speaking the English language, she had no trouble understanding it and its subtle nuances. Only a passing look of shock crossed her face, to be immediately replaced by relief. She wept and laughed in turns, nearly hysterical. “I would not wish this for anyone, no. But this makes you free now, doesn’t it? And to be rid of Philipsthal is to be worth all the work in front of us to rebuild collection. The storm is a tragedy, yet we are blessed, dear lady. Thank the Almighty for the storm He sent us!”
Marguerite could not quite bring herself to be overjoyed about Philipsthal’s death, no matter how cloying and dishonest he was in life.
And so now I’m twice a widow. Any man would be mightily unlucky to associate with me now.
And so with a heavy heart to compliment her leaden dress, she accompanied Marie and a prideful Joseph into the village to find warm food, clothing, and beds for the night before following their remaining cache of wax figures to Dublin.
She swore silently to herself. Except to return to England, I swear this is the last ship voyage I will ever take.
As always, Marie had secured a location well situated for attracting visitors. Their new salon was housed in the amusingly named Shakespeare Gallery on Clarendon Street. In her typical way of arranging things sight unseen, their new exhibition was positioned neatly in the center of the triangle marked by Dublin Castle, Trinity
College, and St. Stephen’s Green. Even without Marie’s lavish praise of the locale, Marguerite knew that it was to be a successful location, as they would draw patrons from the new United Kingdom MPs, academic scholars, and from the aristocratic families surrounding St. Stephen’s. Although commoners made up a large percentage of their visitors, Marie was always most pleased when the upper classes came, not only because she could charge them more, but because they increased the exhibition’s respectability.