The Delicate Dependency: A Novel of the Vampire Life (19 page)

The more I thought about it, the happier I became that Lady Dunaway had come to me. Suddenly I had a kindred spirit, a true compatriot in whom I could confide who was confronted by the same bizarre set of circumstances as myself. By late afternoon of the next day I found myself anxiously awaiting her arrival. When I heard someone at the front door I rushed from my study to see who was there. To my disappointment it was only Ursula. She was dressed in a light summer blouse with a large white hat and carrying a parasol.

“Hello, Father,” she greeted.

“Hello,” I said smiling as I turned to go back to my study. But then I noticed something, a faint but familiar smell.

“Where have you been?” I inquired.

She looked at me innocently. “Out to tea. Why do you ask?”

“Because I smell Egyptian cigarettes.”

“There’s nothing unusual in that. I’ve been to tea with Dr. Hardwicke.”

I gave a start. “Why?”

She wrinkled up her brow. “He invited me. What’s so odd about that? Dr. Hardwicke has been a friend of the family for quite some time. Is it so unusual that he should ask me out to tea?”

“Did he ask you any questions about Niccolo?”

“Of course he did, but you needn’t worry. I didn’t tell him anything you wouldn’t have told him yourself. In fact, if anything, I made him suspicious with how mundane my story was.”

I wrung my hands together and began to pace. “That old devil.”

Ursula gave a light and airy laugh. “I don’t know why you and he don’t get along. He was ever so kind to me. And,” she added, “he spoke very highly of you, asked about your research and all that.”

“You didn’t tell him—”

“No, Father;” she said rather sharply. “I didn’t tell him a thing about your discoveries. Really, I think you’ve misjudged Dr. Hardwicke.”

I snorted.

“No, really. I think Dr. Hardwicke ia one of the kindest—”

I turned upon her grimly. “You do not know Dr. Cletus Hardwicke as I know him.”

Ursula frowned, a little angry that I would not explain myself more fully, and then left.

It was only moments later that a deep-maroon-colored brougham drawn by two fine Yorkshire coach horses pulled up in front of the house. They were driven by a handsomely dressed driver. Lady Dunaway had arrived. She waved happily from within the coach. “Dr. Gladstone,” she called as I slipped on my jacket and went to greet her. “Come, come,” she continued. “I’m much too excited to stop for tea. Let us go to the museum.”

I stepped up into the brougham.

As I looked at Lady Dunaway I was struck anew by her presence. I was touched by the wistful happiness in her face. It was obvious she did not experience happiness very often. I fancied she had once been a spirited woman. One could see it in the way she held herself, a certain cast of the eyes. Her brow had long since hardened, but an ember still glimmered through. There was something else about her. It took me several moments, but then I objectified it. She effused a rare, even a profound determination. I did not know her well. I knew her not at all, but I could see it there, the hard core of an incredible will. The plaid cape and ulster and the two-peaked Sherlock Holmes cap took on new meaning for me. Her encounter with Niccolo had transformed her. The ridicule she had suffered had been the final straw, and her markedly masculine attire was an emblem of her rebirth. As in our first meeting she fondled the locket around her neck. It was not a nervous habit, but reverent, as if the trinket had some special value for her.

“Aren’t you a little warm?” I asked, gesturing at her heavy garments.

“I’m not a healthy woman,” she returned. “I catch a chill easily if I don’t protect myself.”

After several seconds of silence I continued. “This is a very nice brougham.”

She shrugged. “It’s Lucien’s. Before’ I left, I went into his bedroom and took a good deal of money from his wall safe.”

I raised an eyebrow. “That’s illegal, you know.”

She remained unaffected. “I’m sure he doesn’t even know I know the combination. I’m afraid I stole the brougham as well. I hired the driver in Plymouth.”

She opened the sliding panel of glass. “Oh, Ferguson, do you think you could go a little out of your way and pass through Regent’s Park?”

He nodded.

“I so love Regent’s Park,” she said distantly. “And such a sunny day it is.”

I smiled tolerantly. I was not overly fond of London in the summer. One had to endure the stench of the horse droppings and the swarms of flies that accompanied them. There was also the choking sulphurous fumes from the steam engines of the Underground Railway.

It took us twenty minutes to reach the rows of Georgian homes circling the park. We rolled past armies of dark-uniformed nannies pushing perambulators, and a cavalcade of casually dressed men and women carrying brass-knobbed walking sticks and parasols. I wondered how long it had been since Lady Dunaway had been in London. She gazed at everything as if she had once loved the city.

When we reached the British Museum we descended the brougham and I escorted my new friend to the courtyard where the statue stood. It looked much different in the light of day. We approached from the back. It wasn’t until I walked in front of the marble figure that I saw Lady Dunaway squinted through her glasses. “I thought you said the hand was broken off.”

“Obviously they must have repaired it,” I said, looking at the monument with its outstretched appendage once again intact.

“Yes,” she murmured slowly. She meditated upon the matter for a moment. “Shall we find someone who works here?”

Before I could answer she strode off toward a large man with broad shoulders and blond hair who was polishing a bronze plaque on a nearby piece.

“Excuse me,” Lady Dunaway said.

The man looked up. He had an elfish face and faint blond eyebrows. “Yes, miss?”

“Are you in charge here?”

“Sometimes I is.”

“Doyou know about that work over there?” She pointed at the Alexandrian scholar.

“Yes, miss.”

“Well, I could have sworn it was missing a hand the last time I was here.”

“It was, miss.”

“See, there I told you,” she said, nudging me in the ribs. “When did they repair it?”

“Just three days ago. Uncivil business. Broken by vandals.”

“Indeed. I suppose they had to construct an entire new hand?”

He grinned. “That one is the strange part, that is. I guess whoever broke it got guilty ’cause we got the hand by post about a week ago.”

I felt a surge of excitement, but Lady Dunaway remained calm.

“What a nasty group of fellows. Do you think they got cold feet?”

“You can say that again, miss. Not English.” He snorted and began to swagger a little.

Again she remained reserved. “Not English?”

“No, miss. It was the French. You know how the French are. Those blighters, they come over here and look down their weird little noses at everything.”

“Did you catch them?”

“Oh, I say not. They’re too cowardly for that.”

“And how do you know it was the French?”

“Because of the address,” he said matter-of-factly. “What was the address?”

“Oh, I can’t tell you that, miss. That’s confidential museum business.”

“I see. Thank you very much then.”

After going through a labyrinth of intermediaries and stately marble corridors we finally were directed to the office of one Dr. Dalyrymple. We knocked for an undue length of time. Finally a young man no more than nineteen or twenty admitted us. Without saying a word he motioned at a little man napping behind a desk. The little man had ruffled gray hair.

He awoke with a start “Hmmm, yes. May I help you?” He slipped on his pince-nez and squinted at us.

Lady Dunaway walked bravely up to his desk. “Yes. We’re from Redgewood University. I’m Dr. Dunaway and this is Dr. Gladstone.”

“Indeed,” the little man greeted. “I’m Dr. Dalyrymple.” My courageous comrade continued. “We’re interested in the statue of the Alexandrian scholar in the courtyard. Do you know anything about it?”

“Yes, it’s from the Arch of Constantine.”

“We read that on the plaque.” She placed her gloved hands firmly upon his desk. “But do you know anything about the exact person it depicts?”

“No, I’m afraid that’s lost in the mist of antiquity.”

“Do you know anything about the scar on the back of the hand?”

Dr. Dalyrymple raised an eyebrow. “How did you know about that?”

Lady Dunaway was momentarily rendered agog. She turned toward me.

“We had an opportunity to examine the original in Rome,” I offered quickly.

“That would be a good trick, considering the original is several hundred feet off the ground.”

“We were part of an expedition sent to scale the arch for purposes of measurement.”

“When?”

“During the summer of last year.”

“How come I’ve never heard of this expedition?”

“It was sponsored in the States.”

“Oh...” Dr. Dalyrymple finally assented, and I breathed a silent sigh of relief.

“So what can I do for you, anyway?”

“We wonder if you know anything about the scar?” I repeated.

He stood from his desk and took in a long breath. “Well... as you probably know from Jahn’s
Ueber den Aberglauben des bösen Blicks,
there are many such hands with scars upon them to be found in antiquity. Indeed, we have several Etruscan and Roman examples here in the museum itself.”

“And all of them have scars?”

“Well, not necessarily scars. Some of them have various fingers purposefully broken off, and inscriptions. We believe they are amulets for protecting against the evil eye.”

“And is the hand on the Alexandrian scholar an amulet?”

He thought for a moment. “Nooo, I don’t think so. You see, many of the amulets have other figures upon them. Snake tattoos and scales, frogs and scarabs. And, of course, there’s the whip of Osiris or
courbash
of modern Egypt. The hand of the Alexandrian scholar has none of these.” He paced across the room. “There’s always the
mons
Jovis, the hand of the god, to consider as well. But it must have the face of a little divinity worn upon it like a ring, the Serapis, the Jupiter Serapis. The hand of the Alexandrian scholar has no Serapis either.” Again he paced. “But then there’s the Mano Pantea.” He glanced distractedly off into space. “No, no, the Mano Pantea always has an eagle on it. And it’s usually Hittite, not Roman.”

“Do you have any explanation for the scar upon the hand?” I asked in exasperation.

“None whatsoever.”

Lady Dunaway glared. “Then tell us this, Dr. Dalyrymple: Who recovered the hand after its recent mishap?”

“It was sent in anonymously.”

“From where?”

“There was...” He looked at her sharply. “Wait a minute. Why do you want to know that?”

“Because Dr. Gladstone here is doing a paper on the sociological aspects of vandalism, and he would like the information for his research.”

“Very well,” he gave in, and went scampering to his files. Within moments he returned with a sheet of brown wrapping paper with several canceled French stamps upon it. He placed it on the desk and we both stepped forward excitedly. “I’m afraid there was no return address,” he murmured. “But there’s a postmark.” Several of the round inked circles were indistinct, but one was legible. In it were three words: Île Saint-Louis.

“The Île Saint-Louis is one of the two islands in the middle of the Seine, you know... Notre Dame is on the other. The islands are the most ancient part of the city—”

“Yes, I know,” Lady Dunaway began crisply, but then she mellowed. She smiled sadly at the little man. “Yes, thank you very much.”

Outside in the hall she gripped my arm. “We must leave for Paris.”

I sighed once again. “We still don’t have an address. There are quite a few streets on the tie Saint-Louis, and many, many houses. Are we to search every one?”

“We must use our minds!” she reprimanded. “Surely a household of vampires stands out in a neighborhood. Oh, of course, they keep their identity carefully hidden, but they must be viewed as eccentric neighbors, to say the least. We will listen for stories, rumors, and suspicions. Possibly someone has seen something strange, noticed a certain household whose lights burn all night. Or heard the most beautiful piano playing in a house where no playing was heard before. We must go to Paris.”

“What about Niccolo’s warning?”

“What about it? We are not pawns. If we find ourselves being swept into any games, we always have our free will. We can leave. We must be careful and intelligent and we will solve their puzzle. Surely you would do anything to find your child?”

I stood gazing at the strange, tall, and handsome woman with her spectacles and queer costume. She held herself unperturbedly, but I could tell she was filled with worry. Her hands were clenched at her sides. It was her final hope. It wasn’t that I was not willing to risk everything for Camille. The wound was still open. I simply wanted to consider all possibilities before making a rash decision. The core of profound will rippled through the woman.

“Will you go, Dr. Gladstone? Will you help me search the Île Saint-Louis? Or shall I go alone?”

After several seconds of reticence I answered. “Yes, I’ll go.”

When we reached the slick maroon-colored brougham Lady Dunaway stopped. She examined the carriage briefly and drifted into a reverie. “I’ll have to sell it, I guess.”

“The brougham?”

“Yes. I have plenty of money, enough to last me for the rest of my life. But this carriage”—she sadly stroked the finish—“I can’t take it back, you know. In fact, that’s why I must go to Paris. Lucien will be outraged at the loss of his carriage and a handful of his precious money. If he ever got his hands on me he would kill me. I can never go back.”

It was an understatement to say my decision was a relief to Lady Dunaway. She had obviously placed all of her hopes on my agreeing to cooperate, as if it were the single most important issue of her life. She touchingly reminisced about Ambrose, telling how frightened he was of mirrors, and unconcerned by heights. Her affection was so poignant I could almost feel the presence of the child. She insisted we leave for France that very night. With much diplomacy I convinced her that that was out of the question. There were too many arrangements to be made. I had to put to order my duties at Redgewood. There was my research to consider. Lady Dunaway still insisted I pack that afternoon—as a covenant of my intention to accompany her. There was such a look of faith in her eyes I found it impossible to refuse her.