Part 11 (1/2)
Arthur was sitting in his study, staring at the flames in the fireplace, watching the wood slowly consumed, when Lord Gance rang his bell. He heard his butler give the usual excuse, and then heard Gance's rude response: ”The h.e.l.l he's ill! He's brooding. And he needs company. Now, tell me where he is!”
His butler did not reply, but Arthur was certain the man must have silently agreed and pointed toward the study. A moment later the door banged open and Gance entered, bringing with him a rush of crisp winter air. His pale hair glistened with snowflakes, his dark cape was white at the shoulders. ”I did not come all this way in this disgusting weather to hear that you were ill, Arthur, when it is perfectly obvious to anyone who knows you that you are not. Now, have I offended you in some way?”
”Not until this moment,” Arthur replied with a wan smile.
”Has anyone?”
”No.”
Gance went to the sideboard and poured a brandy, then a second for his host. ”So what in heaven's name are you doing here?”
he asked.
Arthur spread his hands. ”Why, nothing. What concern is it of yours anyway?”
Gance thrust the drink into Arthur's hand and laughed. ”Everyone who counts in this city has made it my concern. They knew there was no one else obnoxious enough to push past the barricade of your devoted retainers.”
”What do you want, Winston?”
”A revolution. The overthrow of Lord G.o.dalming and the return of the Honorable Arthur Holmwood-a young man of wealth who knew how to enjoy himself most thoroughly. Seriously, Arthur, I met your beautiful Lucy a number of times, often enough to know that she would not appreciate seeing you holed up this way.”
”d.a.m.n you, I am in mourning!”
”If you had died in her place, she would not have missed the holiday season, Arthur. Now, don't look so furious. I'm only speaking the truth. Put on something somber. Wear a black arm band or even a widow's veil over your head if it pleases you, but come to tonight's dinner party at the Ellisons'. Otherwise, I will be forced to bring everyone back here afterward.”
All the emotions Arthur had managed to hide surfaced now, with anger and despair the most potent. He pushed himself to his feet with such difficulty that Gance wondered how long he had been brooding in that chair. Swaying slightly, Arthur tossed his gla.s.s into the fireplace and watched the brandy sizzle and briefly flame in the heat of the embers. ”Whatever I have seen or done is my affair, Winston. Now, I am asking for the last time that you leave my house!”
”I'll bring you a plate of sweets. I hear Ellison's cook is even making a rum torte strong enough to put Lady Grayson in her cups.”
Lady Grayson's activities in the temperance movement were notorious, but Arthur did not smile. Instead he walked toward Gance, his expression filled with fury. He was larger than Gance, stronger as well. Gance wisely retreated, stopping only when he had the front door open behind him. ”Good G.o.d, Arthur, what did you see?””The devil,” Arthur whispered. Gance stood outside; all Arthur had to do was close and lock the door behind him and he could return to his solitude. Gance, with his cadaverous body and pale beauty, brought the memories back too vividly. But, oddly enough, Gance was the one most likely to banish them as well.
Arthur hesitated. ”Am I to leave or stay?” Gance asked.
”If you promise not to ask where I've been, stay. Tell me everything that's gone on this season. Be precise. Be sarcastic. Take my mind off all the deaths.”
”Gladly. First I'll pour us both another drink. Even secondhand, the Exeter holiday season is best approached while slightly tipsy.”
One drink, Arthur thought, or two at most. Enough to make me sociable, no more. ”All right,” he said, and returned to the comfort of his chair, the consuming warmth of his fire.
Gance talked. Arthur drank. Each gla.s.s numbed him a little more, each burst of laughter made him feel better, though it was a frantic kind of pleasure. It would end, Arthur knew, end as soon as he was alone. Already he could feel the blackness growing around him, like a pit-from which the only escape was to imagine happiness, though he knew it was an illusion.
Sometime during the course of the evening, Gance mentioned Lucy once more, and Arthur unexpectedly began to cry. Arthur recalled Gance sitting on the arm of his chair, a comforting hand on his shoulder.
Arthur remembered another drink, then nothing, though when he woke, he was in Gance's nightclothes in a guest room in Gance's house. It would be like Gance to drag him out, but to take him home was a different matter.
A servant brought him breakfast. Gance came in later with a deck of cards. They played for an hour, then Arthur napped until dinner. As he went downstairs in clothes rumpled from days of wear, he discovered Mina and Jonathan with his host.
Arthur picked at his food. Gance devoured his quickly then sat sipping a gla.s.s of wine and listening for some news of the others'
journey. Though they had been together for weeks, they did not mention the trip.
The group took tea and dessert in the warmth of Gance's parlor. As they went in to it, Mina stayed behind with Gance for a moment. He expected her to mention the parcel, but instead she whispered, ”Thank you for calling us. He does seem worse than when we saw him last week. I'm glad you forced him out.”
”He was raving last night about the devil in human form. Could he be possessed, do you think?”
Gance said it so seriously that Mina could not tell if he was joking. ”I think not,” she said.
”There are legends in Romania, of wolves and bats that can turn into men. Vampires, I believe they are called, though they're hardly as silly as that Varney character in the penny dreadfuls. They infect their victims, I hear, enslave their souls or something like that.”
”Please, Lord Gance. I doubt that your friend had been infected by anything,” she replied. ”I'm amazed you consider such things possible.” It surprised Gance that she did not smile. He had intended the notion to be utterly outrageous.
”Madam, if G.o.d can work miracles, why not His greatest enemy? However, I only wondered about the stories since Arthur kept repeating something that seemed so odd.”
”What was it?”
”Denn die tolten reiten schnell. You know German, don't you?”
”No,” Mina answered, though she knew that phrase well enough.
” 'For the dead travel fast.' I find that most interesting, especially since I can't help but think of poor Arthur as haunted.”
They sat in near darkness, with the burning logs in the marble fireplace and the candles on the table shedding a dim golden light on them all. Gance had set a specific mood, Mina thought, one ideal for ghost stories and primitive legends, but none of them had any desire to speak of those. The thought of discussing any of what they had seen or heard disturbed Mina. Yet, there was poor Arthur, as helpless as she was, both of them unable to shake the memories of that journey. Perhaps together they could exorcise their ghosts.
As they were leaving, she took Arthur's hand, then looked at Jonathan. ”Darling, I'd like to come tomorrow and see Arthur. Do we have any plans?”
”None. Perhaps Winnie would accompany you.”
”I'll ask her,” Mina replied, though she knew Winnie would be spending the day at the hospital.
Mina went over the household accounts with Millicent during breakfast the next morning. She would have preferred to eat and do the work afterward, but Millicent did not like to waste time. When they'd finished, they discussed the menu for a holiday party she and Jonathan were giving the following week for Jonathan's clerks. Millicent argued against all of Mina's suggestions, noting quite correctly that she did the shopping and knew what was available. ”There are no lambs to be had, dear, only yearlings and mutton, which are too strong for curries. The sturgeon are at their freshest in winter. Beef is marbled and tender.” She went on planning a menu nothing like the one Mina had in mind. In the end, Mina let her have her way. Millicent had an affection for food that Mina would never understand, though she respected and enjoyed the result.
But the kitchen was the only part of the house Mina would cede to Millicent. Her own life, and the running of the house, had gradually fallen into Mina's control. She had become used to dealing with Laura and the other hired help, but Millicent's position in the household was too nebulous. And now that Millicent was established here, Mina saw no polite way to ask her to leave.
Mina avoided the woman as best she could. She did so now, waiting until Millicent had gone to market before leaving the house herself and walking the short distance to the Gance estate.
A servant answered Lord Gance's door and showed her upstairs, where she discovered Arthur sleeping soundly. The draperies were closed, but in the dim light she saw a scratch on his cheek, and on the side of his neck a pair of marks that might have been a shaving cut, an insect bite or ... She wanted to run or to shake him awake. Neither seemed correct, but the latter, at least, would set her mind at ease. ”Arthur,” she called, lightly so as not to alarm him. ”Arthur, please wake up.”
”Lucy,” he whispered and opened his eyes. A smile touched his lips just for a moment; then, when he saw Mina beside him, it vanished, to return as something polite rather than blissful. ”I was dreaming of Lucy,” he said. ”Did I call out her name?”
”You did. Are you better?”
He laughed without any real humor. ”Better than what? Than self-pity, Winston would answer, but then he has never really loved anyone. I used to feel sorry for him. I envy him now.”
”He seems to care a great deal about you.”