The Wolfman (5 page)

Lawrence debated telling the driver to fetch back the trunk and get the hell out of this place. He tasted the words and how clean they would feel on his tongue, but then an old memory stole like a thief into his mind. Lawrence and Ben, a pair of boys playing at being pirates, running from the portico to the shelter of the
trees. Ben with a wooden cutlass, Lawrence with a tree root shaped like a boarding pistol.

Where are you, Benjamin,
he wondered for the thousandth time since he had first read Gwen Conliffe’s desperate letter.
Come out, come out wherever you are.
He sighed and unfolded himself from the carriage and stepped down on the same flagstones across which those boys had run a thousand times. But that was before Hell came to Talbot Hall and all things merry and light had been torn away. Now he and his brother were grown men who had never once met face to face. Lawrence wondered if there would ever be a chance to walk these grounds with Ben, just a couple of young men sharing brandy and cigars and chatting about the separate worlds in which they lived. Lawrence feared that it would never happen, even if Ben was found hale and healthy. This place seemed drained of all of its potential for comfort.

The driver, no lout, caught something of Lawrence’s air. “Shall I wait, sir?”

Lawrence looked at him for a moment, lips pursed, but then he shook his head. “No, thank you. This’ll do.”

He handed over a fistful of uncounted coins and the driver beamed a great smile and climbed back onto his carriage. The horses moved off sprightly as if happy to be quit of such a dreary place and soon even their echo had vanished away down the lane, through the arch, and out through the iron gates. Lawrence stood as still as the ancient trees until only silence rolled back toward him.

“Ben? . . .” Lawrence called lightly, but not even the birds in the trees answered him. Lawrence sighed again and began the long climb up to the front door.

The door was closed and Lawrence had never
possessed a key. As a boy he hadn’t needed one, and he had never been here as a man. He knocked on the heavy wood.

A chill wind sent dry leaves skittering across the steps as if even the moistureless debris of autumn wanted to flee this place. He turned and looked around, saw nothing, and knocked again.

No one and nothing answered his knock.

On a whim Lawrence tried the doorknob and was surprised when it turned under his hand, the heavy lock clicking, the oak panel yielding to a little pressure. Lawrence grunted and pushed it open and stepped in, leaving his trunk behind. Even though the carriage had gone, just knowing that the trunk was still outside made him feel that he still had the option of flight.

He stepped inside, his eyes adjusting from the dappled sunlight to the gloom of the enormous entry parlor. Rich wood paneling covered the walls, paintings of old relatives scowled from their dusty canvases, a once luxurious and now moth-eaten Turkish carpet stretched forward into the brown shadows of the inner house.

Lawrence looked around, listened. Nothing.

Silence.

“Hello!” he called. “Father?”

Nothing.

On a whim he called, “Ben?”

The only sound he heard was the steady ticking of the old family grandfather clock. That at least was a sign of life; somebody had to wind it. Lawrence moved to the foot of the sweeping double staircase that led to the upper landing. Between the stairways hung a tapestry depicting strange monsters and heroes from Hindu legend. Lawrence studied it for a moment, as fascinated now as he had been as a boy, always discovering a new creature,
a new brave warrior. He absently twirled his new cane through his fingers, the wolf’s head chasing itself through the air. Lawrence sighed, slid the cane into a Ming urn full of umbrellas that stood beneath the tapestry, and turned to call out again . . .

. . . but a fierce growl froze him in place as something huge and furry rushed at him from behind.

Lawrence cried out in shock and recoiled as the massive form of a great Irish wolfhound—two hundred pounds of muscle and sinew—galloped toward him across the big foyer, its savage teeth bared in a terrible snarl of pure rage.

Lawrence instantly backed away, backpedaling until his heels found the stairs and then he began to climb backward as the hound stalked him. He raised an arm across his throat, but even the thick wool of his greatcoat would be like tissue paper to those fangs. The hound began barking with a deep-chested bay that shook the whole foyer. Lawrence flinched at the noise and then cried out again as he collided with something behind him on the stairs. He whirled.

And there was his father.

Sir John Talbot stood tall and imposing, a huge rifle in his hands.

“I—” began Lawrence. He awkwardly retreated a step or two, caught now between the barking hound and the sudden and powerful presence of his father.

Sir John’s eyes were cool and calculating and he looked down at his son, but spoke to the dog. “Samson!”

The hound instantly went quiet.

The hall fell into an electric silence. Lawrence stood on the bottom step, one hand gripping the banister, the other frozen halfway into a gesture of contact—hand open as if to touch his father, but his reach withheld. He
swallowed and took one last retreating step, standing on the landing. Close to the hound, but closer to his walking stick, totally uncertain how this drama would play out. There were so many ways it could turn bad.

Sir John descended the stairs until he stood in front of his son.

“Lawrence . . .” he murmured, and there was surprise in his eyes. Confusion, too, as if Sir John was waking from a dream and found that fantastic images had followed him into the real world. “Lawrence?”

Lawrence cleared his throat.

“Hello, Father.”

Sir John’s eyes roved over Lawrence, taking his measure. “Lo and behold,” he said softly. “The prodigal son returns. . . .”

Despite everything, Lawrence smiled.

Sir John blinked and looked down at the big Holland & Holland “Royal” double rifle he held, smiling bemusedly as if surprised to see such a thing in his hands.

“Not too many visitors these days,” he said as he broke the rifle open and draped it comfortably over the crook of his arm. With that done the tension in the room eased by slow degrees as father and son stood there, each lost in the process of calculating all of the possible meanings behind this encounter, and feeling the tides of memory surge in on them.

“Shall I slaughter the fatted calf?” said Sir John with a rueful grin.

Lawrence stiffened. “Don’t go to any trouble on my account.”

Sir John stepped closer and once again took his son’s measure. As an actor, Lawrence was skilled at reading faces, but as bits of emotion flitted onto and away from his father’s face he found it impossible to get a read.
When his father nodded to himself, Lawrence said, “What? . . .”

“I’ve often wondered what you’d look like.”

“I doubt that.”

“It’s quite true.” Sir John wore a heavy robe trimmed with leopard fur. His hair and beard were snow white but his blue eyes were youthful and charged with vitality. His personal energy was completely at odds with the rundown state of the grounds; however, his cool smile was in perfect harmony with the chilly and cheerless house. “Yes,” he said more to himself than to his son, “I’ve often wondered . . .”

Lawrence didn’t know how to respond to that, and didn’t want to try. Instead he said, “You seem well.”

Shutters dropped behind Sir John’s eyes. “Do I?” He paused. “You come here for your brother, then?”

“Of course.”

“Of course,” echoed Sir John.

“Has there been any word?”

Sir John turned away without answering. He crossed the hall and entered his study. After a moment’s hesitation Lawrence followed.

The study was a man’s place, with many sofas and chairs and bookshelves crammed with volumes in a dozen languages. Tables were scattered about, some bearing bottles of wine and brandy, others covered with maps, and one with an open book on astronomy. Tall windows of thick leaded glass let in filtered light, which was warmed and colored by the glow from a thick knot of logs in the fireplace. Pistols, swords and weapons of ancient design were mounted on the walls or set in cases of museum quality. But as much as it was a man’s room it was also a predator’s room, with the heads of a score of animals—rhinoceroses, lions,
bears—gazing fatalistically into the chamber, tiger and leopard skins on the walls, and a plaque on which were mounted claws and teeth from ten species of great hunting cats.

Lawrence lingered in the doorway, his attention not drawn by the violent majesty of the décor but by his father’s odd behavior. It was true that Lawrence had not seen his father in many years, but a chance meeting of this kind should have provoked some flicker of humanity. Instead, Sir John seemed distracted, his attention drawn inward instead of outward to his son’s presence.

Lawrence said, “Miss Conliffe learned that my company was in London. I was going to invite you and Ben. . . .”

“I see,” said Sir John, stopping by a globe and idly tracing a line of latitude.

“I was going to send word to you,” said Lawrence. “To invite you to a performance. You and Ben. . . .”

But his voice trailed away as Sir John turned to face him. The look on his father’s features was oddly twisted as if he was in physical pain.

“Well,” said Sir John quietly. “A fine idea. Some years too late, but a fine idea.” He was trying to sound offhand, but Lawrence could tell that something was wrong and his father’s next words drove home that suspicion with terrible force. “Unfortunately your brother’s body was found in a ditch by the priory road yesterday morning.”

The words hit Lawrence like fists. He staggered back against the door frame.

“Good God! Father . . .
what happened?!
”

Sir John’s eyes went cold, his conflict resolved into an icy control that Lawrence remembered from all
those years ago. Sir John clasped his hands behind his back and stood ramrod stiff. If he had any compassion for what his words had just done to his son, not one flicker of it showed on his stern face.

“I assume you have something to wear to the funeral.”

Lawrence had no words. There was a soft sound behind him, a discreet clearing of the throat, and he turned to see a tall Sikh in a deep blue turban, loose jacket and trousers.

“Sir John, I heard Samson, is . . .” The Sikh stopped talking as he realized that the man in the doorway was not the master of the house. His eyes snapped wide and he smiled in delight. “Master Lawrence!”

“Singh!” cried Lawrence as he clapped the other man on the shoulders. “My God!”

Singh regarded him in a more fatherly way than had Sir John, looking him up and down and appearing to be greatly pleased at the tall, handsome man he saw before him. But then his face clouded.

“I’m so very sorry, Lawrence. We’re all shocked. This has been a terrible, terrible event.”

“Thank you, I—” as Lawrence fished for words Sir John gave the globe an irritable spin and stalked past him. His footsteps echoed with force and anger throughout the hall. Lawrence and Singh watched his stiff retreating back.

Singh met his eyes and then busied himself with taking Lawrence’s traveling cloak and hat. “It’s good that you’re here.”

“Is it?”

Singh hung the cloak and paused for a breath before turning to face him. “Yes,” he said, “it is.”

“Ben’s fiancée . . . Miss Conliffe?”

“She’s here,” said Singh. “Sleeping upstairs. Poor lass is in a very bad way.”

“She must be devastated,” Lawrence said, his eyes drifting toward the staircase.

“Her father arrives tomorrow. For the funeral.”

“That’s tomorrow as well?”

“Yes.”

“This has all happened so fast.” Lawrence shook his head. “Where . . . where’s Ben?”

“Being cared for,” said Singh.

“I want to see him.”

Singh shook his head. “It would be better if you did not—”

“Tell me,” said Lawrence.

N
one of the horses Lawrence had ridden as a boy were still at the estate but there were several healthy animals stabled behind the house. Lawrence saddled a sturdy black gelding and as he rode away from the Hall he wished the horse could sprout wings like Pegasus and fly far and away, not back to London—no, he wanted to go home to America. Home was there, not here. This place had not been home for a long time, and he suspected it never would be again.

There were too many ghosts.

Ben.
God almighty, Ben!

He had lived so long without Ben in his life that he should have been better prepared for such a catastrophe, but with every second the knife of grief drove deeper into his heart. Benjamin. He could
not
be dead.

Not now. Not when Lawrence was here, at home. It was so unfair, Lawrence wanted to scream at God.

He walked his horse as far as the stone arch and finally stopped and sagged against the wall, all of the power gone from his muscles. He clutched the reins with one hand and balled the other into a fist.