Anno Dracula (39 page)

At once, a veiled figure was in her way. A vampire in black pyjamas. She bowed an apology and her veil parted. Geneviève recognised the Chinese girl from the Old Jago, who had spoken for the Lord of Strange Deaths.

‘There will be reparation for this wrong;’ she said, ‘you have the word of my master.’

Then, the girl was gone.

‘What was that about?’ Morrison asked.

Geneviève shrugged. The girl had spoken in Mandarin. If Charles was to be credited, she could guarantee that Colonel Moran would not avoid the consequences of his actions. But if punished, it would
not be for brutal murder but for
unnecessary
brutal murder.

The girl had disappeared into the crowds.

Geneviève did not intend to return immediately to the Hall. She wanted to seek out Charles, not so much for himself but to enquire after the condition of his unfortunate fiancée. Penelope Churchward, whom she had met once and hardly warmed to, was the latest of her concerns. With multitudes shovelled into the furnace, how many could she save? Not Druitt, certainly. Not Lily Mylett. Not Cathy Eddowes.

Morrison was talking to her, confiding in her. Having heard nothing, she begged his pardon.

‘It’s Dr Seward,’ he repeated himself. ‘I’m worried that he’s making a fool of himself with this Lucy of his.’

‘Lucy?’

‘That’s what she calls herself.’ Morrison was one of the rare individuals who had met Jack Seward’s mysterious lady-love, and he had not been impressed. ‘Personally, I think we’ve seen her before. Under another name and in shabbier clothes.’

‘Jack has always ridden himself too hard. Perhaps this
amour
is the cure for his habitual exhaustion.’

Morrison shook his head. He was finding it hard to express his exact thoughts.

‘Surely, you can have no social objection to this girl? I had thought those concerns well behind us,’ said Geneviève.

Morrison looked sheepish. Himself of modest birth, his work should have given him an understanding of the situations of even the meanest and most degraded.

‘There’s something wrong with Dr Seward,’ he insisted. ‘He is calm and even-tempered on the surface, more so than of late. But
underneath he is losing his grasp. He forgets our names sometimes. He misremembers which year it is. I believe he is retreating to some Arcadian time, before the coming of the Prince Consort.’

Geneviève pondered the notion. Recently, she found Jack hard to read. He had never been as open to her as others – as Charles, for instance, or even Arthur Morrison – but in the past few weeks he had given away almost nothing, as if his mind were behind lead shutters as stout as the cabinet in which he locked his precious wax cylinders.

They stopped walking and she took Morrison’s hand. At the touch of his skin, tiny memories burst. She still had Charles’s blood in her; with it came fly-blown specks of faraway lands. She kept seeing a face in pain, which she assumed to be his late wife.

‘Arthur,’ she said, ‘madness is epidemic with us. It is everywhere, like evil. There is little we can do to ease the condition, so we must learn to live with it, to make it serve us. Love is always a species of insanity. If Jack can find some purpose in this spinning world, what harm can it do?’

‘Her name isn’t Lucy. I think it’s something Irish... Mary Jean, Mary Jane?’

‘Hardly proof of direst perfidy.’

‘She is a vampire.’ Morrison stopped, realising what he had said. Embarrassed, he tried to smooth over his prejudice. ‘I mean... you know...’

‘I appreciate that you are concerned,’ she told him, ‘and to an extent I share your misgivings. But I don’t see what we can honourably do.’

Morrison was plainly torn inside. ‘Still,’ he said, ‘something is wrong with Dr Seward. Something should be done. Something.’

H
er touch had changed him. For two days, Beauregard had been troubled by dreams. Dreams in which Geneviève, sometimes herself and sometimes a needle-fanged cat, lapped at his blood. It had always been in his stars. The way things were, he would sooner or later have been tapped by a vampire. He was luckier than most, to have given blood freely rather than be drained by force. He had certainly been more fortunate than Penelope.

‘Charles,’ Florence Stoker said, ‘I’ve been running on for close to an hour, and I declare you’ve not heard a single word. It’s plain from your face that your thoughts are in the sickroom. With Penelope.’

Oddly guilty, he let Florence continue in her belief. After all, he
should
be thinking of his fiancée. They were in the drawing room, awkwardly superfluous. Florence consumed cup after tiny cup of tea. Mrs Churchward occasionally darted in with a noncommittal report and Mrs Yeovil, the housekeeper, would regularly appear with more tea. But, absorbed in his own thoughts, he paid them no mind. Geneviève had taken blood from him, but given something of herself in return. She ran and turned about like quicksilver in his mind.

Penelope was attended by Dr Ravna, the specialist in nervous disorders. A vampire, he had a reputation in the field of diseases of the un-dead. Dr Ravna was with the invalid now, attempting some treatment.

Beauregard had been in his daze for two nights and had neglected his duties in Whitechapel. Penelope’s infirmity provided an excuse but an excuse was all it was. He could not stop thinking of Geneviève. He was afraid he wanted her to drink from him again. Not the simple thirst-slaking of an opened wrist but the full embrace of the Dark Kiss. Geneviève was an extraordinary woman by the standards of any age. Together, they could live through the centuries. It was a temptation.

‘I suppose the wedding will have to be cancelled,’ Florence said. ‘A great pity.’

There had been no possibility of a formal discussion, but Beauregard assumed his engagement to Penelope was now at an end. It would be best if lawyers could be kept out of it. There was no real fault on either part, he hoped, but neither he nor Penelope was the person they had been when they entered into their understanding. With all the other troubles, the last thing he needed was a suit for breach of promise. It was hardly likely, but Mrs Churchward was old-fashioned and might consider that her daughter had been insulted.

Geneviève’s lips had been cool, her touch gentle, her tongue roughly pleasant as a cat’s. The draining of his blood, so slow and so tender, had been an exquisite sensation, instantly addictive. He wondered what she was doing just now.

‘I cannot understand what Lord Godalming was thinking of,’ Florence continued. ‘He has acted most peculiarly.’

‘How unlike Art.’

A screech sounded through the ceiling, barely human, followed by a whimper. Florence cringed and Beauregard’s heart contracted. Penelope was in pain.

The Jack the Ripper business was dragging on without fruit. The faith expressed in his abilities as an investigative agent by the Diogenes Club and the Limehouse Ring might well be misplaced. He had, after all, accomplished little.

A personal note of apology had arrived from the Professor, informing him that Colonel Moran had been severely reprimanded for his interference. Also there had been a peculiar missive in green ink on thin parchment, informing him that Mr Yam, whom he took to be the Chinese elder, would no longer be inconveniencing Mlle Dieudonné. Apparently, a commission had been undertaken, but the Lord of Strange Deaths no longer felt obliged to carry it out. Beauregard made a connection with a news item buried in the pages of
The Times
. A singular invasion, a burglary-in-reverse, had occurred at the home of Dr Jekyll. Apparently, an unknown person effected an entry into his laboratory and scattered fifty gold sovereigns over the ashes of the elder vampire that the scientist had been examining.

‘Sometimes I wish I had never heard of vampires,’ Florence said. ‘I told Bram as much.’

Beauregard mumbled some assent. The doorbell rang and he heard Mrs Yeovil scuttling past the room to admit the caller.

‘Another well-wisher, I should think.’

Yesterday, Kate Reed, Penelope’s new-born journalist friend, had come by and loitered in embarrassed impotence for half an hour, mumbling sympathetically, then found an excuse to dash off somewhere. She had hardly set Penelope a good example.

The front door was pulled open, and a familiar voice explained: ‘I don’t have a card, I’m sorry.’

Geneviève. He was on his feet and in the hallway before he could think, Florence trailing after him. She stood on the doorstep.

‘Charles,’ she said. ‘I assumed I would find you here.’

She stepped past Mrs Yeovil and slipped off her green cloak. The housekeeper hung it up.

‘Charles,’ Florence prompted. ‘You are being remiss.’

He apologised and made an introduction. Geneviève, on her best behaviour, touched Florence’s hand and made a passable curtsey. Mrs Churchward was in the hallway now, come down to investigate the new arrival. Beauregard made a further introduction.

‘I understand you are in need of a doctor familiar with infirmities of the un-dead,’ Geneviève explained to Penelope’s mother. ‘I have not a little experience.’

‘Dr Ravna of Harley Street is with us, Miss Dieudonné. I should think his services sufficient.’

‘Ravna?’ Her face betrayed her opinion.

‘Geneviève?’ he asked.

‘There’s no polite way of saying it, Charles. Ravna is a crank and a buffoon. He’s been a vampire six months, and already he’s declared himself the Calmet of the age. You’d be better off with Jekyll or Moreau, and I wouldn’t trust them to lance a boil.’

‘Dr Ravna comes most highly recommended,’ Mrs Churchward insisted. ‘He is welcome in all the best houses.’

Geneviève waved that aside. ‘Society has been known to make mistakes.’

‘I hardly think...’

‘Mrs Churchward, you must let me see your daughter.’

She fixed her eyes on Penelope’s mother. Beauregard felt the persuasive force of her glance. The wound on his wrist tickled. He was sure everyone noticed how often he fidgeted with his cuff.

‘Very well,’ Mrs Churchward said.

‘Think of it as a second opinion,’ Geneviève said.

Leaving Florence and Mrs Yeovil behind, Geneviève and Beauregard followed Mrs Churchward upstairs. When Mrs Churchward opened the sick-room door, a dreadful odour seeped out. It was the smell of things dead and forgotten. The room was heavily-curtained, a single fishtail gaslight casting a pale half-circle on the bed.

Dr Ravna, sleeves rolled up, was bending over the patient, taking a set of tongs to a wriggling black thing fastened to her chest. The bedclothes were rolled back, and Penelope’s chemise was open. A half-dozen black streaks were fixed to her breast and belly.

‘Leeches,’ Geneviève exclaimed.

Beauregard swallowed his nausea.

‘You damned fool!’ Geneviève pushed the specialist aside and laid her hand on Penelope’s brow. The patient’s skin was yellowish and shiny. She was red around the eyes and angry marks dotted her exposed body.

‘The impure blood must be drawn out,’ Dr Ravna explained. ‘She has drunk from a poison well.’

Geneviève pulled off her gloves. She plucked a leech from Penelope’s chest and dropped it into a basin. Working methodically and without distaste, she detached all the sluglike things. Bloodspots welled where their mouths had been. Dr Ravna began to protest, but Geneviève stared him silent. When the job was done, she rolled up the bedspread, and tucked it around Penelope’s neck.

‘Fools like you have much to answer for,’ she told Dr Ravna.

‘My credentials are of the finest, young lady.’

‘I’m not young,’ she said.

Penelope was conscious but apparently unable to speak. Her eyes darted and her hand took Geneviève’s. Even ignoring the obvious symptoms of her illness, Penelope was different. Her face had changed subtly, her hairline shifted. She looked like Pamela.

‘I just hope your leeches haven’t destroyed her mind utterly,’ Geneviève told Dr Ravna. ‘She was already sick and you’ve dangerously weakened her.’

‘Is there anything that can be done?’ Mrs Churchward asked.

‘She needs blood,’ Geneviève said. ‘If she’s drunk tainted blood, she needs good blood to counteract it. Draining her veins is worse than useless. Without blood, the brain is starved. Maybe irreparably injured.’

Charles unfastened his cuff.

‘No,’ Geneviève said, waving his unspoken offer away. ‘Your blood won’t do.’

She was firm on the point. Beauregard wondered whether her motives were entirely medical.

‘She needs her own blood, or something close. What Moreau says is true. There are differing types of blood. Vampires have known that for centuries.’

‘Her own blood?’ Mrs Churchward said. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Or something close, the blood of a relative. Mrs Churchward, would you be willing...’

Mrs Churchward could not conceal her disgust.

‘You nursed her once,’ Geneviève explained. ‘Now you must do it again.’

Penelope’s mother was horror-struck. Her hands were held to her face, wrists crossed over her throat.

‘If Lord Godalming were truly a gentleman, this would not be necessary,’ Geneviève told Beauregard.