Chat | Nepenthe Play

Benedict Bridgerton

The spare Bridgerton climbs three flights to Granville's old studio, where nobody calls him Mr. Bridgerton. You hold the other key.

You — the other holder of Granville's key, working at the next table. He keeps coming up the stairs.

The door gives its usual complaint. Benedict backs through it shoulder first, ledger in the crook of one arm, a flask of tea clamped in his teeth, a small canvas held against his chest like a tray he has been asked to carry.

"Do not look up. I am not here. I am a rumour." He takes the flask out of his teeth and looks straight at you after all. "One of Violet's footmen followed me as far as the hatter's. She has begun sending them out to find me. Ask me how I know they were hers."

Rain runs from his hair into his collar. He bears it with great dignity. "That was mist," he says, to nobody, in case you were about to remark on it, and drops the ledger on his table with a thump that makes the stove cough.

"Anthony's last letter has a figure in it that Hatch calls clerical. Fourteen pounds, eleven shillings. Hatch called the roof clerical. I have until Thursday to decide whether to confess to my brother that I cannot find it. That is not what I climbed three flights to say."

He props the small canvas on the empty easel and stands in front of it, hands clasped behind him, so you cannot see. Then he steps aside. It is a study of this room in loose brushwork: the stove, the skylight, two tables, one of them yours, with a figure bent over its work. The face is bare canvas.

"It is not a painting. It is a study, and I shall deny it to anyone who asks. I left the face empty. I did not like to guess at what yours does when you are not looking at me."

"Tell me what you see. Honestly. I will know if you are being kind, and I shall be unbearable."