“I have seen to that. Your uncle settled with me when the will was drawn.”
“Nothing else, then?”
“The funeral arrangements were the first order of business, according to your uncle’s orders. He wished no expense to be spared. There is a substantial bill from Entwistle and Son, but this is a pittance compared to the cost of the marble mausoleum.”
Callender, who had not even considered this, felt thousands slipping through his fingers. “But of course the estate is large enough to pay for this,” he suggested nervously.
“Precisely.”
“And there is nothing else?”
“Nothing.”
Something in this last exchange made Callender feel hollow inside. He could not shake off the feeling that Frobisher was toying with him. He watched the handkerchief working and wondered if the solicitor was laughing behind it.
“When I say nothing else,” Callender began, “I mean no other claims against my uncle’s fortune.”
“Precisely.”
“And when you say the estate is precisely large enough . . .”
“I am speaking as plainly as I can, Mr Callender.”
Frobisher blew his nose and made a choking, wheezing sound.
“Then be plainer still, or be damned, sir! How much is left for me? Speak!”
Frobisher pocketed his handkerchief and picked up a sheet of paper. He glanced at it, blinked, and handed it to Callender. “What is left for you,” he said, and paused to clear his throat, “is precisely nothing.”
Callender looked at the desk, studying the grain of the wood. He found the pattern oddly intriguing; it held his attention totally for some time, long enough in fact for the solicitor to become somewhat alarmed.
“Mr Callender?”
“What?”
“A glass of port, perhaps?”
Callender laughed for an instant, and watched as the solicitor stepped to a sideboard and poured the wine. It struck him as really very decent of the old boy. He could hardly think of anything else except that he would be grateful for the drink, and when he gulped it down, it did restore him to a semblance of sanity. Then all at once his thoughts were racing so fast that he was almost dizzy.
“Nothing left?” he asked. “What became of it all?”
“He spent it.”
“All of it? But he was worth a bloody fortune!”
“So he was, Mr Callender. Not even the bad investments he made in India could have made a pauper of him – or should I say of you? There’s still some accounting to be made in regard to that, but I doubt if you will see enough from the colonies to stand you a good dinner.”
“And the rest of it?”
“As I have said. It is more common than you might suppose for an elderly man of affairs to awake one day and realize that his hours with us are numbered, and that the money he has struggled to accumulate has brought him very little in the way of pleasure. Faced with the choices of delighting you or delighting himself, your uncle unhesitatingly decided on the latter course. You might say that he went out in a blaze of glory. Women, of course, and quite a bit of gambling as well. I suppose if he had won he would have been obliged to leave you something . . . .”
“But to have spent so much,” Callender began.
“He became quite a generous man in his last days. Quite a bit was spent on diamonds, and I personally arranged the gift of a handsome residence to one of his favorite mistresses. He also gave substantial sums to some of the household servants, the only stipulation being that they remain in service until the day after he was laid to rest. There was a man named Booth, and a housemaid; I think her name was Alice. They should be gone by now.”
Callender thought back to the empty house which he had hardly noticed in his eagerness to visit Frobisher and Jarndyce. “I should have whipped her harder,” he muttered.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Nothing. At least there’s still the house.”
“Mortgaged to the hilt, I’m afraid. I think he meant for you to have it, but he surprised his doctors and himself by living longer than he anticipated, and his funds were very low. Still, you might realize something if you can sell it before the inevitable foreclosure. And there might be a bit left over from the Indian disaster; I believe your uncle’s representative is on a ship bound for England now. A Mr Nigel Stone.”
“Cousin Nigel! That idiot! No wonder everything was lost.”
Frobisher consulted another document. “I understand that you were offered the post, but preferred to remain in London at your uncle’s expense. Is my information incorrect?”
Callender pushed himself up from his chair and strode toward the door. He threw it open, then turned for a parting shot. “Of course I’ll contest the will,” he said.
“And I would be happy to represent you, but I do advise against it, since you are in fact the sole beneficiary. The problem is that the whole estate was spent before your turn came. To spend what little you have left on legal fees would be ill-advised.”
“I suppose that advice is free, is it?” Callender looked around desperately. “I believe the old bastard did this just to spite me.”
“I would hardly put it as bluntly as that,” suggested Frobisher. “Mr Callender! You have forgotten your stick.”
Callender whirled in the doorway and stormed back into the room to retrieve his ebony walking stick. He was tempted to smash it across Frobisher’s desk, but managed to stop himself in time with the realization that he could hardly afford to replace it.
Reginald Callender retreated to the nearest public house and drank three glasses of neat gin in quick succession, but even that was not enough to keep his hand from trembling. He left the place and began to walk toward the house where Sally lived, trusting that the time the journey took would enable him to collect his thoughts.
In a sense Sally Wood was his mistress, though he was hardly fool enough to imagine that he was the only man who shared her favors. It was a considerable source of pride to him, however, to reflect that he was almost certainly the only one of her lovers who had never been obliged to pay her. She liked him, apparently; it pleased Callender to believe that was because he was more distinguished than most of the men she met at the music hall. Still, it was at least possible that his stature as the nephew of a wealthy and elderly gentleman had something to do with Sally’s attitude; Callender wondered what she would say if she were to learn that he was destitute. Not that he would tell her, of course, but providing her with little presents or even the occasional meal might become a problem very soon. The real difficulty, though, lay with Felicia; the panic with which he contemplated keeping his poverty from her was what drove him on toward Sally’s door.
Callender possessed a key to her lodging house, but after ascending the dark stairs he felt it advisable to pause at the door to her room before entering. He listened stealthily, always conscious of the occasion when he had intruded on a scene he would have chosen not to witness, yet there was no sound from inside but a woman’s voice humming a snatch of song. Callender knocked. There was a rustling from within, and then the door opened to reveal Sally, undressed except for a black corset trimmed with red silk. A hair-brush backed with mother-of-pearl was in her hand.
“Reggie! Hello, dear.”
Callender’s brief touch of irritation at her use of the detested pet name was soon smothered in the warmth of her embrace. Enveloped in a cloud of perfume, he maneuvered Sally back across the thresh-old and shut the door behind him, then kissed her ravenously while his hands crawled over her exposed flesh. After a few moments she pushed him away, gasping and laughing at the same time. “A girl needs air, you know,” she said, “and a lady likes to be spoken to first.”
She sent him a smile over her shoulder, then sat down at a dressing table covered with pots of paint and powder. For the time Callender was content to lounge against the wall and watch as she brushed her gleaming chestnut hair. Sally was such a contrast to Felicia: ruddy rather than pa
le, voluptuous rather than slender, and distinctly physical rather than spiritual. It puzzled him that somehow he was not satisfied with Sally, who seemed to offer him everything he wanted, yet he was convinced with no proof to speak of that having his way with his fiancee would be a more stimulating experience than any that Sally could provide. It hardly mattered, though; Felicia’s fortune in itself was sufficient to make her a much more suitable companion. A glance around the room was sufficient to convince Callender of that.
The cheerful disarray which might be charming in a mistress would be utterly unsuitable in a wife. The floor was dusty, the bed unmade, and every article of furniture was covered with piles of hastily discarded clothing. The general effect would have been the same, he thought, if there were an explosion in a dressmaker’s shop.
A pamphlet half covered by a crumpled sheet caught his attention; he picked it up and straightened the wrinkled cover, embellished by a crude drawing of a cloaked, skeletal figure looming over a sleeping woman. Bats and gravestones decorated the lurid title: Varney the Vampire, or The Feast of Blood.
“Reading penny dreadfuls, Sally?”
“A girl gets bored sometimes. And it’s a good story.”
“It’s rubbish.”
“That’s as may be, but it’s exciting. It’s about a gent who’s dead, but he comes back at night and drinks people’s blood. Sneaks right into their rooms, he does, and drains ’em dry while they sleep. He bites their throats.” Sally touched her own throat to emphasize the point.
“Sounds deucedly unpleasant to me,” observed Callender, flipping through the pages looking for more illustrations.
“And then they turn into vampires themselves, after he’s done with them.”
“He also seems to go about sticking logs into people,” said Callender as he found a particularly lurid drawing.
“Oh, no Reggie. That’s what they have to do to kill the vampires for good and all. Pound a stick of wood right into their hearts, they do.” Sally laid a dramatic hand on her own substantial bosom.
“You don’t believe this nonsense, do you?”
“I don’t know about that, but it’s something to think about, isn’t it? Besides, I like the way it makes me feel. All goose pimply.”
“Then I advise you to light a fire.”
“Would you do it, Reggie dear? I’ve got my hands full.”
“Getting ready to go out?”
“In a bit, dear. Why?”
“Because I know a better way to warm you up.” Callender tossed the pamphlet back onto the bed and walked purposefully toward the dressing table. He buried his face in Sally’s curly, perfumed hair and clutched one of her breasts in each of his hands. She arched her back, closed her eyes, and smiled as she felt his breath on her face.
“Go into a public for a drain of gin, did you?”
“Anything wrong with that?” asked Callender as he fumbled with her corset.
“You might have brought some with you.”
“Aren’t I intoxicating enough?”
“That you are, Reggie. It’s wonderful to have a wealthy lover. Makes a girl feel special.”
Callender tore at his cravat. “You’d love me without that, wouldn’t you?”
“Of course I would. And I was sorry to hear about your uncle.” She pushed his clumsy hands away and quickly undressed herself.
And before long they were on her bed, the forgotten copy of Varney the Vampire crushed beneath their thrashing bodies.
V. The Dead Room
The parade of kings stood still and a common man marched past. He was a guide, dressed in a uniform that made him look like a soldier, and he announced each crowned head of Europe in a hoarse voice that Callender found increasingly irritating. He was thoroughly sick of the officious little man and his apparently endless procession of wax effigies; his dislike of these soft statues and their false finery had begun before he had even entered Madame Tussaud’s, when he had been informed that, due to the flammable nature of the exhibits, he would be obliged to throw away the last of his Uncle William’s imported cigars.
And nothing before or after this affront to Callender had been calculated to soothe his temper. The expedition to Madame Tussaud’s exhibition in Baker Street had begun disastrously when the cab Callender hired had arrived at Felicia Lamb’s residence only to find her absent. Aunt Penelope, however, had been obtrusively present, coquettishly claiming Callender as her escort with the explanation that Mr Newcastle, the medium, had taken Felicia into his coach a quarter of an hour ago. Callender’s initial indignation had rapidly given way to a feeling close to panic; he could not quite suppress the unreasonable fear that his fiancee had been abducted and he would never see her again. The journey to the wax museum, orchestrated by Aunt Penelope’s incessant chatter, had been excruciating.
The upshot, which surprised him by irritating him, had been nothing at all. Felicia, eyes downcast demurely, had stood in the gaslit lobby of the Baker Street Bazaar, and she had been holding Sebastian Newcastle’s long, thin arm. This apparent intimacy, combined with the anti-climax of it all, left Callender fuming, and as Aunt Penelope pulled him toward the exhibition, he thought he saw Felicia smile gratefully at her. Apparently Newcastle had paid for all their tickets, and there was nothing that Callender could reasonably be expected to do about that.
Callender’s tour of the wax museum had become a nightmare long before he reached the chamber of horrors. He hardly noticed the exhibits, but he did not miss a single one of the glances exchanged by his fiancee and Sebastian Newcastle. They seemed to be hanging back deliberately, engaged in private conversation, while Callender was pushed forward by the press of the crowd and by Aunt Penelope, a woman he would willingly have strangled. Callender’s face was hot, and his cravat was choking him: was it possible that Felicia was deliberately snubbing him? He was so intent on the couple behind him that he nearly knocked over the guide when the procession suddenly came to a halt in front of a door barred by a red velvet rope.
“This concludes the tour of the exhibition,” announced the little man in the blue uniform. “The general exhibition, that is. But behind me, ladies and gentlemen, behind this rope, behind this door, there stands The Dead Room. Or, as some have been generous to call it, Madame Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors. Those of you who have purchased tickets for this special display may follow me now, but I caution you that this is a room filled with effigies of evil and engines of extermination. Here are the most notorious murderers and malefactors of history and of the present day, together with authentic devices of torture and execution, including the very guillotine that killed the King of France. In addition, you will see replicas of the severed heads of the King and his Queen Marie Antoinette, along with those of such notables as Mister Robespierre, all of them authentic impressions taken immediately after decapitation by the fair hands of Madame Tussaud when she was but a young girl, more than half a century ago. This is not an exhibit for the faint-hearted, ladies and gentlemen, but you have been warned, and those of you who are willing to brave The Dead Room will now please follow me.”
Callender watched in some surprise as the crowd melted away; whether they were prudent or merely parsimonious, the British public did not seem inclined, at least on this night, to feast on horrors. In fact, there were finally only four customers, and they were all of Callender’s party, although of course it was really Aunt Penelope’s, a point she emphasized with a little cry of excitement as the portal to the Chamber of Horrors opened to admit her.
The room was dark, deliberately, thought Callender, and his first impression was of a crowd of men waiting in the shadows. As his eyes became accustomed to the lack of light, he realized that the figures had been grouped like prisoners waiting for sentence in the dock. And he noticed that there were women scattered among the men; an ancient woman in a gray gown particularly caught his eye. In general, though, they seemed to be a nondescript lot, and only statues anyway.
“So this is the celebrated Dead Room
,” boomed Callender, conscious that Felicia was following him. “It doesn’t look that frightening. I’d gladly take the hundred guineas to spend the night among these frozen fiends.”
“Sorry, sir,” replied the smiling guide. “Dame Rumor offered that reward, not Madame Tussaud, who has no wish for visitors after we close our doors at night at ten o’clock. The only living human being allowed to spend the night among these figures is Madame Tussaud herself.”
“Would you really have done it, Reginald?” gasped Aunt Penelope, and Callender was conscious of a certain satisfaction, even though he would have preferred to elicit a response from Felicia. He risked a glance backward, and was pleased to see her pale blue eyes upon him.
“Of course the story of the reward is a lie,” he said. “There’s nothing here to scare a school-boy. Who are those two fellows?” He gestured with his stick at a pair of shaggy ruffians bedecked in caps and ragged scarves.
“Well, sir, you’re taking them out of order, but since there are so few of you tonight I don’t suppose it matters. Those are Burke and Hare. Ghouls, graverobbers and murderers, who stole bodies for a doctor’s dissecting lessons, then turned to killing when the supply of fresh corpses ran short. Burke was executed in 1829, on his partner’s evidence. They stole dignity from the dead and breath from the living. A most despicable pair, and one of our most popular groupings.”
The story, which reminded Callender of something in his own past, did not really amuse him. “Of course this sort of thing is far behind us,” he observed, “now that we provide our medical schools with the specimens they need.”
“Yet still there are vermin who would rob the dead,” said Sebastian Newcastle. Callender’s hand moved involuntarily toward the pocket of his waistcoat, and toward his Uncle William’s watch. He wondered again how much power the medium might possess, then shook off his suspicions together with his memories of the seance. That vision had been the result of hypnotism, or fatigue, or perhaps of some drug, but it certainly had nothing to do with the supernatural.
The Mammoth Book of Vampires: New edition (Mammoth Books) Page 68