291
mountain. Great moors were behind and on each hand of me, and waves of mountains far beyond that deep valley at my feet. I guessed the population to be thin, and I saw no signs of passersby to help direct me or to offer a weary traveller assistance. Or a bit of bread and cheese. Hunger gnawed at me. Even Lowood's porridge would seem appetizing now, so long had it been since I'd eaten. But it seemed it would be longer.
Not a tie held me to human society. Not a charm or hope called me where my fellow creatures were. None that saw me would have a kind thought or a good wish for me, surely, as I was dusty from the road and worn in appearance. I had no relative but the universal mother, Nature. I sought her breast and asked repose.
I struck straight into the heath. I wandered until I found a moss-blackened granite crag at a hidden angle, and I sat down under it. High banks of moor were about me. The crag protected my head. The sky was over that.
Some time passed before I felt tranquil even here. I imagined wild cattle or deer roaming nearby, and that brought to mind the creatures that might hunt such beasts. I had a stake up my sleeve in case of vampyres. If a werewolf came at a charge, I had no idea what to do. Soon, the weather became more a concern than even the wildest creature. The wind whistled, growing sharp. Could rain be far behind?
The next time a ghostly spirit opted to pop in for a visitation, I would tell it to please go prey on a less worthy subject. I could be at home in bed in Thornfield. In Mr. Rochester's bed, warm at his side as his pretend wife. What was I to do now? Where to go? Mr. Rochester was no doubt at home, worried and equally unable to sleep but much better fed.
Regrets would do me no good. I touched the heath. It was dry, yet warm with the heat of the summer day. I looked at the sky. It was pure, no rain in sight. A kindly star twinkled just above the chasm ridge. Nature seemed to me benign and good. Suddenly, I noticed ripe bilberries in a patch off to one side. I gathered a handful
292
and ate them, my hunger somewhat appeased. I said my evening prayers, then made my couch in the heath. I folded my shawl double and spread it over me for a coverlet. A low, mossy swell was my pillow. Thus lodged, I was not too cold.
The next day I felt refreshed and renewed. Everywhere sunshine. Life was yet in my possession, with all its requirements, and pains, and responsibilities. I got up, looked around me, and set out.
Whitcross regained, I followed a road that led from the sun, now fervent and high. I walked a long time, and when I thought I had nearly done enough and might conscientiously yield to the fatigue that almost overpowered me and, sitting down on a stone I saw near, submit to the apathy that clogged heart and limb--I heard a church bell.
I turned in the direction of the sound, and there, amongst the romantic hills, whose changes and aspect I had ceased to note an hour ago, I saw a hamlet and a spire. The valley at my right hand was full of pastures and cornfields, and wood, with a glittering stream running through the varied shades of green. Recalled by the rumbling of wheels to the road before me, I saw a heavily laden wagon labouring up the hill, and not far beyond were two cows and their drover. Human life and human labour were near.
By the early afternoon, I entered the village. At the bottom of its one street, there was a little shop with some cakes of bread in the window. Without bread, I wasn't sure how I would proceed. Had I nothing about me I could offer in exchange for a roll? I considered. I had a small silk handkerchief tied around my throat. I had my gloves. I could hardly tell how men and women in extremities of destitution proceeded. I did not know whether either of these articles would be accepted.
I entered the shop. A woman was there. Seeing a respectably dressed person, a lady as she supposed, she came forward with civility. How could she serve me? I was seized with shame. My tongue would not utter the request I had prepared. I only begged permission to sit down a moment, as I was tired. Disappointed in the
293
expectation of a customer, she coolly acceded to my request. She pointed to a seat. I sank into it. Soon I asked, "Is there any dressmaker or plain-work woman in the village?"
"Yes, two or three." Quite as many as there was employment for.
"Do you know of any place in the neighbourhood where a servant is wanted?"
"Nay. I couldn't say."
"What is the chief trade in this place? What do most of the people do?"
"Some are farm labourers. A good deal work at Mr. Oliver's needle factory, and at the foundry."
"Does Mr. Oliver employ women?"
"Nay." She smiled as if it were an idiot's question. "It is men's work."
"And what do the women do?"
"I knawn't. Some do one thing, and some another. Poor folk get on as they can. We don't like strangers much in this town, miss.
We've had trouble."
"What sort of trouble?"
She wouldn't offer more. She seemed to be tired of my questions. Indeed, what claim had I to importune her? A few neighbours came in. My chair was evidently wanted. I took leave.
I passed up the street, looking as I went at all the houses to the right hand and to the left. I left them and came back again, and again I wandered away, always repelled by the consciousness of having no claim to ask--no right to expect interest in my isolated lot. In crossing a field, I saw the church spire before me. I hastened towards it.
Near the churchyard, and in the middle of a garden, stood a well-built though small house, which I had no doubt was the parsonage. I remembered that strangers who arrive at a place where they have no friends, and who want employment, sometimes apply to the clergyman for introduction and aid. Renewing then my courage, and gathering my feeble remains of strength, I pushed on. I reached the
294
house and knocked at the kitchen door. An old woman opened. I asked was this the parsonage, and if so, was the clergyman in?
"He was called away by the sudden death of his father. He's at Marsh End now, some three miles off, and he will very likely stay there a fortnight longer."
She was housekeeper, I discovered, and of her, reader, I could not bear to ask the relief for want of which I was sinking. I could not yet beg. I went away.
A little before dark I passed a farmhouse, at the open door of which the farmer was sitting, eating his supper of bread and cheese.
"Will you give me a piece of bread?" I asked. "For I am very hungry."
He cast on me a glance of surprise. Without answering, he cut a thick slice from his loaf and gave it to me. I imagine he did not think I was a beggar, but only an eccentric sort of lady who had taken a fancy to his brown loaf. As soon as I was out of sight of his house, I sat down and ate it.
I could not hope to get a lodging under a roof and sought it in the wood. But my night was wretched, my rest broken. The ground was damp, the air cold. Besides, a group of intruders passed near me, and I had to huddle into the bushes to avoid their notice. There were three of them, two men and a woman, and I couldn't help overhearing them.
"I've got to eat something," one of the men said. "I haven't had a taste since Tuesday, and my stomach's like to cave in on itself."
"Rest easy, love. There's a farmhouse at the edge of town, looked to be some livestock milling about i'the yard."
"Farm? I don't want another pig, hyacinth."
"Listen, Jack, will you? Where there's farms, there's people, eh? A whole row of houses down the line. We should ha' no trouble picking 'em off one at a time. Georgy's there setting 'em all up for us."
Vampyres! My stomach tensed. My instinct warned. I was grateful for the damp chill and wind for helping to hide my scent. I made every effort to control my movements, not even daring to breathe.
295
My supposed lack of noble blood wouldn't turn the appetites of this lot, I was certain.
"Looks like an austere sort of place," the other male said. "I like it better when they're prone to vice. They're so sweet when their blood's all tainted with whiskey and mead."
"Not
as sweet as your mother was on Tuesday," the first male, Jack, added with a wicked laugh.
"I rather thought ye fancied his wee brother Charlie best, love," the woman jested in a sharp-edged drawl.
"No matter," the other male said with a wave of his hand that came dangerously close to my hiding place. "It serves 'em all right for turning me out without a cent, don't it? They ain't scoffing at ol' Desmond now, huh?"
They all laughed, a pack of hyenas, as they rambled towards the town.
Despite my weakness from hunger and weariness from cold, I felt recharged. I still had a stake up my sleeve. I couldn't possibly handle all three of them, plus the referenced Georgy on the inside, but I could possibly warn the family. At best, I could take out the female, who seemed to be the brains of the group. At worst, I would end up as dinner, but it seemed I was headed towards a bad end as it was. I might as well go out with a fight. My uncles Reed and Slayre would be proud.
I could no longer see the trio up ahead, but I could still hear their voices and an occasional ribald comment in entirety when the wind died. Aware that their senses were sharper than my own, I moved with caution, not too fast or too clumsily. After some minutes of silence, I feared I'd lost them, or that they planned an ambush as Mrs. Reed used to do with her children to corner sheep. I stopped and leaned against a tree, taking a moment to catch my breath and listen carefully. I thought I detected sounds of merriment from afar. When I came around the trees to start down the slope, I saw a light in the window of the farmhouse where the farmer had given me bread earlier in the day. And there, just entering, was the vampyretrio.
296
They'd made quick progress, probably eager to get inside and find their meal.
I didn't have the energy to run, and what little I did have might be better saved for self-defense. Before long, I was standing at the entrance. I went around to look in the window, which proved too high for me to see in, so I went to the back hoping to find a better window. There was no window, but there was an open door. I could see the trio seated at a round table with a woman and two other men, one of them the farmer who had shared his bread. The woman was petite, but round with curves. I could not get a look at her face. They seemed to be having a friendly conversation, but from the way one of the men from the woods kept leaning over, as if to drink in the aroma wafting from the man next to him, I assumed the humans were in imminent danger.
My heart raced, more with excitement than with fear. I realised I was gripping my stake tightly in one hand. As I pondered my next course of action--making a noise to distract them, perhaps, and telling the humans to run when they came out--the second vampyre female turned around, the one called Georgy. I got a better look at her face and nearly fainted. Georgiana!
She was heavily rouged and, from the look of her, perhaps intoxicated. Hadn't she gone to London with her uncle Gibson? I could only surmise that they must have had a falling out once he realised her lifestyle greatly differed from his own. At any rate, she had sunk low to be running with such a crowd, perhaps as low as her brother had before his death. I shuddered to think what Eliza would make of her sister now.
Dread rolled through my stomach. Georgiana was out murdering innocents, or worse, turning them to monsters like herself. She had to be stopped. She was my cousin but--I had to stop her. I had killed Aunt Reed, perhaps, but it was different to think of staking Georgiana. I knew Aunt Reed had repentance in her heart. I could take comfort in that I was reuniting her with her mortal soul. In the case of Georgiana, I was certain she was beyond remorseful
297
thoughts. If I drove a stake through her heart, I would be sending her to hell, eternal damnation--a choice, in all fairness, she had already made for herself.
Then she would no longer prey on the unsuspecting nor create more vampyres to murder more souls in turn. I saw the need for it. I sensed what I had to do. My pulse thrummed with that familiar feeling of power. I had to stop them from eating the farmer and the other man, who looked to be his brother. I wondered how Georgiana had persuaded strangers to let her in when I'd had so much trouble earlier in the day. Perhaps if I simply called out to her and--
I was suddenly wrenched away from the door.
"What are you doing here?" a low voice said in my ear. "I've been tracking this group"--he gestured to the door with a nod--"and you're not one of them. Or, are you?"
In the gleam of lamplight that streamed from the door, I saw the face of the man who held me. He was the sort of man I used to fear before I fell in love with Mr. Rochester, a classically handsome youth. He was probably between twenty-eight and thirty, tall, slender, with a face that riveted the eye, pure in outline, with a straight nose and an Athenian mouth and chin. I contemplated using my stake, but he didn't quite have the look of a vampyre. He studied me intently, as if trying to make up his mind about me as well.
"There are vampyres inside," I warned him, too worried and perhaps light-headed from hunger to be concerned with his opinion of my mental health. "Those people are at risk."
"How would you know unless you're a risk as well?" he narrowed his eyes. "You're not one of them," he said decisively as if he had just come to that conclusion somehow.
"No. I overheard a plot and followed from the woods. I--"
"It's a dangerous night to be out. Run on home now! Run home to safety, young lady. Read your psalms once you arrive."
"Psalms!" I twisted free of him. "I have read enough psalms to last a lifetime. Rest assured, I can look after myself."
"Then look!" he shouted, and once again got his hands on me,
298
this time to pull me close only to shove me in the other direction, right into hedges.
When I landed and looked up, I knew why. He was tangling in a new embrace, this one of a vampyre male with extended canines. I looked from left to right. His friends--and Georgiana--could not be far behind. My stake! I'd dropped it when he tossed me.
I scrambled in the dirt, under the hedges, searching for my weapon. By the time I found it and looked up, the stranger had a dusty pile at his feet and was putting a stake into a second.
"How--how did you?" I stared down at the pool of clothes and up, as the other one evaporated to a fine powder. "How did you do that?"
He turned to show me his hand, covered in some sort of gauntlet. As I started towards him for a better look, suddenly Georgiana leapt on him in a fury, all teeth and claws.
"How could you?" she practically hissed. "How could you kill them? I worked so hard to train them!"
Train them? Georgiana was their leader?
She was on him with a vengeance, getting the upper hand with the element of surprise. He'd been knocked to the ground, his hands pinned under him, and she'd bared her fangs as she leaned over him, reminding me all too much of John Reed bending over me while Georgiana--petted, spoiled Georgiana--cheered him on in the background.
"Enough!" Before I realised what I was about, I had her by the shoulders. "Georgiana, enough!"
She looked up and shock registered. "Why if it isn't Cousin Jane! What on earth--you're the last person I expected to run into in a quaint old village as this." She rose.
"Indeed, Georgiana," I said. "Snacking on common blood? Now what would your dear mother say?"
She tipped her head back and laughed, a cackle really, more like something I might expect from a witch, not from a vampyre. "Oh, Jane, you always were a singular delight. You know this fellow?"
299
She gestured to the stranger.
"Yes," I lied. "We're together."
She snorted. "Not bad, Jane. Not bad." She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and licked at the corner of her lips. "Tasty, too."
He got to his feet. I gestured for him to stay back. Surprisingly, he did. But only, I realised, because he was reloading the device that was at the centre of his gauntlet.
"Georgiana," I said, a distraction. "You didn't enjoy London?"
"I adored London!" She laughed. "Oh
, dear me, such fun. Uncle Gibson was a delight. Absolutely. Down to the last drop."
I stifled a gasp. Her own uncle? She had murdered her uncle?
"Don't look so shocked, Jane. He was horrid. He wanted to marry me off to an apothecary, for God's sake."
"I can't imagine," I muttered, keeping track of the stranger's movements with my eyes. He stood back, as if allowing me to finish my conversation before doing what I knew he meant to do. "So you narrowly escaped?"
"The apothecary? Yes. And do you know? He tasted like quinine!" She grimaced. "But his shop was near a tavern, where I met this lot. We're taking a little country tour. We heard this place was a good one to lie low, find some good blood. Join us, Jane! Have you ever considered becoming a vampyre?"
"Yes," I lied again. Convincingly, I hoped. "You always suspected how much I wanted to be like you."
"I did!" She practically sparkled with the news. "I knew it, Jane! And you're a good sort, honestly. You did off Mother, but no loss really, hm? She'd become such a bother, really. She would die to hear me say, but--oh, well, she's already dead, isn't she?" She broke off in a laugh, then resumed, "I could do it. It won't hurt. I drink your blood. You drink some of mine. It's that simple. We could do your friend, too." She smiled in a way I thought to be lecherous. "And him, and you, and me, and Hyacinth--what happened to Hyacinth?" She broke off and looked around. "Hy! Hy, darling!"
300
While she was distracted with looking for Hyacinth, I stepped closer to her. I indicated, with a nod, that the stranger should hold back. He seemed ready to strike. I knew, suddenly, that I couldn't allow it. I could not allow this strange, handsome youth to brutally stake my cousin, thus sending her to hell, because--
Because, I wanted to give Georgiana Reed her due. I felt the power surging through my veins, and I knew. I knew.
Jane Slayre Page 31