She managed a bit of a chuckle. “You’ve always been kind.”
“Not always,” he said, suddenly reserved. Then he looked directly into her golden eyes and offered her a fleeting smile. “You needn’t bother trying to tell me everything in an hour. I would prefer not to leave for a while, unless you ask me to go; and there will be other times for us to talk. I am very much enjoying your company, and your art. You may take your time telling me whatever you’d like me to hear, or you can say very little, and allow me to study your work.” He indicated the pictures on the walls. “I didn’t know there was much interest in representational art”
“Oh, not in some circles,” she said, waving her hand in dismissal. “But a few people still like artwork they can understand directly, and, although they may admire large abstractions, prefer something a bit more … familiar for the walls of their homes.” She pointed to a place high on the wall in the front half of her studio. “That’s one of the studies I did from memory.”
He looked at the watercolor portrait that was, as far as he could tell, a good likeness of his face; Rogerio could tell him more confidently. “I’m flattered.”
She studied it. “I don’t know. I’ve missed something; I think it’s your eyes, but I’m not certain. That color: blue so dark, it’s black. I’ve tried to capture the depths, but so far … That’s hard to achieve. But your presence is even harder. It is strange that you are unchanged, although you warned me you age very slowly.” She looked away and began to pace. “I have the two sketches I did as studies for that upstairs, in my bedroom.” She suddenly went quiet again.
“How very good of you,” he said as if he did not notice her silence. “If you would like to show them to me at some time … Bring them down, if you wish…” He let the suggestion hang in the air between them.
“Not today, I think,” she said, suddenly prim; she made another turn about the studio. “At least, I haven’t made up my mind.”
“Whatever you wish,” said Saint-Germain, and nodded to a small settee in the Edwardian style, covered in faded burgundy velvet. “Do you mind?”
“Go ahead. Sit down. You needn’t stand on ceremony—literally or figuratively,” she told him brusquely, but remained on her feet, walking back and forth, the sharp sound of her heels marking her progress.
He did as she recommended, making himself as comfortable as the old furniture would allow. Looking around at the various sketches and paintings, he said, “I like your subjects; your ability to make implications not apparent at first glance is quite remarkable.”
She nodded, a bit distracted. “Thank you. I’m glad you like them.”
“Oh, I do,” said Saint-Germain. “You’ve developed a strong … voice of your own. I suppose I can call it a voice, although we’re discussing paintings?”
“Yes, you can,” she said, warming in spite of her growing restiveness. “I’m glad to hear you like that about my work: it’s what I like about it.”
He was about to say something more when the side door opened and Clara Powell came into the room, carrying a tray in her hands. There was a large porcelain teapot, two cups-and-saucers, a covered plate, and two snifters of brandy on it, along with a pot of milk and a sugar-bowl, as well as silverware and napkins. She shot a single look in Saint-Germain’s direction, then set the tray down on a small table near the wide rear window. “Just as you ordered, Miss Saxon.”
“Thank you, Clara,” she said, coming to a halt at last.
“Do you want me to stay? Dinner’s in the oven, a leg of lamb stuffed with onions and wild rice, and there’s a salad in the refrigerator; it’ll be done at seven. I’ve set two places at the dining table, but if you’d rather I clean up tonight…” She let the suggestion trail off as she glanced again at Saint-Germain. “You don’t have to be alone.”
“Thank you, Clara; I think I can manage,” said Rowena, smiling at this display of protection.
“I’ll be here another fifteen minutes, if you change your mind,” she said, and withdrew.
“I think she’s prepared to throw me out bodily,” said Saint-Germain, a wry smile touching the corners of his mouth.
“As if she could,” Rowena scoffed.
“She is ready to try,” said Saint-Germain, and nodded toward the tray. “But she is also willing to encourage me.”
“Goodness, yes,” said Rowena. “She has hoped I would find a—she calls it a beau, or sometimes a suitor. Can you imagine a suitor? At my age?”
“Not a swain?” Saint-Germain asked.
Rowena actually laughed. “No, not a swain.” She drew up a chair to the table, where the tray waited. “I don’t imagine I can tempt you with tea or English muffins.”
“Thank you, no,” said Saint-Germain.
“I didn’t think so,” said Rowena, and lifted the cover from the plate, revealing two split, buttered English muffins. She picked up one of the halves, dropped a napkin in her lap, and bit into the crusty, white pastry, taking care not to let the melted butter run down her chin. Then she set the rest of the muffin down and went about pouring herself a cup of tea, putting a little ornamental strainer over the cup to catch the leaves. “These things might not be English, but I do love them,” she said as she stirred milk into her cup and picked up the muffin again.
“You’re hungry,” said Saint-Germain.
“I’m ravenous,” she exclaimed. “If I have to wait until seven to eat, I’ll gobble the table linens.”
He watched her devour both halves of one English muffin and go through three cups of tea. “Do you miss England?”
“Occasionally,” she said. “But not nearly as much as I thought I would.” She wiped her mouth with the napkin—most of her lipstick came away on it.
“What do you miss the most?” He leaned back, crossing his ankles and studying her.
“The smallness,” she said at once, as if she had thought this out some time ago and was satisfied with her answer. “Here everything is vast—you travel for hours and hours and still you’re far away from your destination. In England, nothing is that far away, and although the heaths and dales are wonderfully wild, they aren’t remote in the way things are here; the scale is entirely different. It’s a cozy place, England. California, while beautiful, isn’t cozy, and America is huge. When I came across the country in my grandfather’s private railway car, all those years ago, I was astonished by the size of it.” She poured herself a fourth cup of tea and stirred in milk. “At first, the amalgam of people perplexed me; now I’ve come to like it, and I’m sorry for all the artificial divisions that remain.”
Saint-Germain regarded her thoughtfully. “The amalgam—do you ever paint that?”
“Oh. Yes. Ten years ago I did a series of street-scene studies, looking for places that had the greatest variety of subjects in them. There was a total of nineteen paintings in the suite. I did three in North Beach, along Columbus Avenue, where the Italian part of the city almost touches Chinatown. I did another out on Geary, where the Japanese and Russians have settled, and two around Mission Dolores, where the Irish and Spanish tend to live. I did a couple at the crest of Nob Hill, at the front of the Mark Hopkins, and studies of passengers on the trolleys, fishermen at the Wharf, the Cliff House in the fog. They were fairly well-received in a one-woman six-week show I had in ’28. Most of the paintings sold, and the reviews were better than I had expected.” She smiled with a touch of embarrassment at her pride. “It was probably the best one-woman show I’ve had so far; I haven’t had one on my own since. I’m almost afraid to try another, in case it doesn’t go as well.”
“It must please you to get recognition for your work,” he said, contemplating her changing expressions.
“Most of the time,” she admitted. “But it can be awkward; it depends on the circumstances.” She reached out and turned on one of the standing lamps in the room, casting back the shadows that had begun to thicken in the fog and fading day.
“I can imagine,” said Saint-Germain with a hint
of irony. “Successful women, especially those in the arts, can be—”.
She interrupted him. “Men don’t know how to deal with me, and women worry that I’ll take their men away from them. There. Now you know.” She put down her teacup with a bit more force than necessary. “It happens less often now that I’m over fifty, but from time to time I find it difficult to mix in certain circles. A woman on her own can be a social liability, and that doesn’t change as one gets older. And I’m not inclined to spend my time with the groups of widows one sees everywhere—not that most of them would have me. My friend—the one I wrote you about, who had the stroke?—he used to be my escort to social events, which suited us both down to the ground. We enjoy many of the same things, and he’s been very good company, with no complications. I think I made things easier for him, as he did for me. Now that he isn’t able to leave his bed, I try to visit him once a week, but he is … so unresponsive, I don’t know if it does him any good.” Reaching for one of the snifters of brandy, she said, forcing herself not to dwell on her friend’s misfortune, “I haven’t gone out much since Greg was stricken.”
“Poor man,” said Saint-Germain; over many centuries he had seen many of the ills that could blight the human body, but the isolation imposed by stroke seemed to him one of the crudest. “He must be suffering.”
“Yes,” she said, and pinched the bridge of her nose as she held the snifter. “On many accounts. And there is nothing very much that can be done for him.” She looked away from Saint-Germain. “He had a companion for years, who tried to care for him, but after a while had to hire nurses for Greg.”
“I gather your friends are homosexual,” said Saint-Germain.
She looked up at him sharply. “Yes. They’re very discreet, of course. If you didn’t know, you wouldn’t know. Penelope was horrified when she found out that I was willing to be seen with such a man, though I reminded her I was perfectly safe with Greg; which she should have found reassuring, but she didn’t, as if she thought something perverse might be communicated to me. She believes in the stigma associated with such men, as if they wore brands, or—”
“There was a time, not so long ago, when many did, if they were caught: wore brands, and worse,” said Saint-Germain.
Rowena took a deep breath. “Not that Penelope knows only heterosexual men, as much as she may think that is the case.” Her features softened. “You don’t seem surprised.”
“I’m not,” said Saint-Germain.
“Why do you say that?” She was deeply interested.
“Because it’s a pattern I’ve seen before, in many guises,” he replied, thinking back to Ettore Colonna in Rome, not quite three centuries ago, and all that he had endured. “At least they don’t kill homosexuals anymore, though there are still some hard laws against it, and a great deal of blame and fear; much the sort of things vampires have endured, and for similar reasons.” He paused. “There have been times and places when homosexuality was openly exalted and privileged, but those were few, and circumscribed. For the most part, except in very specific circumstances, there has been intolerance at best and persecution at worst—centuries and centuries of it.”
She fiddled with her napkin. “Have you ever—? I mean, with men?”
“Of course, but rarely. Among other things, men are not so willing as women to accept my impotence.” He saw the question in her eyes. “Just as I have come to think that most of those who love their own sex are born with that predisposition, so most of those who love the opposite sex are also predisposed. I was a man long before I was a vampire, and I have found that I have a greater inclination to love women than men; not wholly exclusively, but preferentially.” His candor spared her the distress she had begun to feel.
“And you still feel something for me?” She brought up her chin as if daring him to let her down.
“Most certainly,” he said. “I have tasted your blood and I know you; how can I not love you?”
“There is so much I want to say to you,” she said as she put the snifter down, its contents untasted. “I don’t know how to begin.”
“There is plenty of time, Rowena. I have no plans to leave yet awhile,” said Saint-Germain. “You needn’t do anything that troubles you, not now, not at any time. I don’t expect you to offer yourself to—”
“But I may lose my nerve,” she admitted.
“You make being with me seem dire,” he said lightly, but with an underlying note of sadness.
“No, not dire. Anything but that. I remember so well how it was in Amsterdam.”
“It will be different now,” he told her gently.
“Because I’m older and you aren’t?” she asked, a little downcast.
“Because time has passed and our lives are different than they were,” he said with such utter kindness that the breath caught in her throat.
She was silent for the better part of a minute. “Would you like to stay to dinner?”
His dark eyes lingered on her. “You understand that this would mean you would be in danger of becoming like me when you—”
“—die?” she finished for him. “Yes. I know that. But just now I am more concerned with my life than my death.” She rose, moved her tray aside, and came toward him where he now stood ready to take her into his arms.
TEXT OF A LETTER FROM CENERE IN LONDON TO COLONEL ANDREAS MORALES IN MADRID.
Browns Hotel
London, England
29 September, 1936
Colonel Andreas Morales
22, Calle Real
Madrid, Spain
Dear Colonel,
First, my congratulations on your promotion. No doubt it is highly deserved and one of which you can be proud. The eyes of your superiors must be on you.
This is coming to your home address in order to spare you—and me—any difficulties regarding the errand on which I am embarked, on your behalf. I am convinced that this mission on which you have sent me exceeds your authority, but I will not hold that against you as long as you continue to support what I am doing to promote your agenda. Like you, I am a professional, and I have certain standards to maintain if I am to preserve my reputation and continue in my chosen occupation. For this reason, I will endeavor to complete my assignment to your satisfaction in all regards, just as I will anticipate your upholding our agreement. You may have questions put to you that you would prefer not to answer officially, which this private communication will make it possible for you to do; you can still deny my work, which undoubtedly suits us both.
I have, in accordance with your wishes, continued to try to locate Ferenc Ragoczy, le Comte de Saint-Germain. As you may recall, I had traced him as far as Cherbourg, but after that, I had drawn a blank, so, as you know, I went to England, where, as you can see, I still am now. I have been busy attempting to get information, but without much success. His household staff were not forthcoming, although I have managed to get a little from one of them, which I have attempted to confirm, for to run off across the Atlantic on only the word of a servant would be irresponsible.
To that end, day before yesterday I had occasion to accost his attorney, one Miles Sunbury, in his flat in Siddons Lane. Sunbury had been avoiding me for some little while and I decided to approach him directly, and press the urgency of my inquiries. He was not inclined to impart the information I sought willingly, so I was forced to make my argument more physically. It took me longer than I expected, and required more stringent measures than I had anticipated; Sunbury turned out to be stubborn and I am afraid our interview became harrowing for him. He was alive when I dropped him off just outside of a large local hospital. I did not bother to get the name of the institution. If he received prompt care, he will probably recover, although he may need to walk with a cane, and his face isn’t quite what it used to be.
I have learned that Saint-Germain has indeed gone to America, and Sunbury at last provided the names of a number of law firms to which he referred the Comte, the most prominent of which is a firm in Manhatt
an. I propose to take the next ship to New York and begin there, for I don’t think the servant who said he had gone to Boston knew what she was talking about New York is a much more obvious place for a man like Saint-Germain to go, and it would amaze me if he was foolish enough to confide his intentions to a servant. I will hope to find him without much delay, and I will do as you have charged me. You needn’t fear that any of my efforts will be traced back to you. I have been able to keep your name out of this and will continue to do so.
However, once I reach New York, I will need additional funds if I am to continue this chase. You will have to wire money to me at whichever bank you use in New York. Let me know which bank and the account number so I can use the money promptly. If you fail to provide me with what I need, I will return to Spain and make you regret what you have neglected to do: the very questions you seek to avoid would have to be asked and neither of us would acquit ourselves well in such an eventuality.
I anticipate a complete resolution to your problem no later than the end of the year, if all goes well. It may be that I will not find the Comte as quickly as I anticipate, and if I require more time, I will so inform you. I will keep you abreast of my progress as I have the opportunity to do so.
Yours to command,
Cenere
chapter five
It was sunny to the north of San Rafael, a golden, early-autumn morning that was warm except in the shadows, where the chill in the air was a reminder that winter was coming. The Packard rolled along Route 101 past the cemeteries at a steady fifty-five miles per hour until they reached Novato, where they slowed down to twenty, having been warned about the eagerness of the local police to ticket speeders passing through their town. Once beyond the city limits, they resumed the higher speed and continued on up the highway. There were dairy farms along the road, and the fields were filled with grazing cattle. At Petaluma the dairies were replaced with poultry farms and large, hand-lettered signs advertising fresh eggs for sale. Beyond Petaluma the farms were bigger, with sheep and goats as well as cattle out in the fields. The morning grew warmer as they traveled.
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