That Scoundrel Émile Dubois

by Lucinda Elliot

  “Émile, I want to go and make sure Sian Jones wears a cross. I am worried for her, with her sister a vampire now; you really don’t know. Katarina has long since sealed her house, but I feel I must.”

  He sighed. “If you insist, Sophie, I will take you.”

  “Are you sure the ride will not be too uncomfortable?”

  “For sure not.”

  The weather being dry, Émile insisted Sophie use the trip to the village to put in some riding practice. As they made their way along the muddy lane, Émile was, as ever, all smiling encouragement, as he was when they played chess.

  Sophie adored the sight of him in his blue coat, admiring how despite his stiffness, he sat easily on the strong, wilful horse. She loved her own lilac riding habit – part of her wedding trousseau – and felt bold in handling her own Myfanwy, who plodded as usual.

  Sian Jones’ belly was impressive already. She tried to curtsey to Sophie and Émile; they had to smile as they pleaded with her not to trouble. Meanwhile, she fixed her eyes on Émile with more than mere nervousness at a visit from the Lord of the Manor’s cousin.

  “There is no need to make yourself uncomfortable, Madame Sian. I will pass the time with those elders while you ladies talk.” Émile lounged over to where a couple of red faced, elderly men sat shouting on a bench, seemingly oblivious to the bitter east wind blowing in their faces.

  Sian didn’t look surprised; Émile’s eccentricities were already well known. Inside, Sophie handed over her basket of treats, remembering coming here with Lord Ynyr last summer and the girl’s Grandmother telling them that the baby was dead.

  Sian’s English was fluent, though like most of the villagers, it was her second language. When Sophie made her discreet speech and offer of the cross, Sian’s look was a veiled. “It is kind in you, Mistress. Do you wear a cross yourself?”

  Sophie was annoyed with herself for blushing. “Yes, and our staff, too. I think it wise at present. We should not let prejudices deter us from such a wonderful protection.”

  Sian frowned. “Begging your pardon, Ma’am, but Mam says we shouldn’t.”

  “It would be such a relief to me were you to protect yourself by wearing it.”

  “You know it’s true what they say, don’t you, Mistress? About the vampires?”

  Sophie swallowed and nodded.

  Sian’s eyes went to the window, looking over at the bench where Émile chatted with the old men, amiable Man Vampire that he was. She seemed to be working herself up to some question. Sophie knew what it would be; had she Maintained Correct Distance, Sian never would think of asking it. She had a wild vision of one of the maidservants confiding to Harriet that John was a vampire.

  “Ma’am, they say that Sir Émile was bitten at the Kenrick house.”

  Sophie knew her look gave her away, for Sian’s eyes dilated, alarming Sophie that these horrors might bring on premature labour. “Little Katarina has been giving him herbs from the first.”

  “My sister was bitten before him.”

  Sophie tried to sound confident. “You must not worry about it, Sian, though you must protect yourself with the cross, for the plant cure His Lordship left with her is the same as Katarina’s. Please concentrate on looking after yourself. I am sure we will defeat this awful scourge in time.”

  That sounded like a one of the rallying speeches from Eugene, the ineffectual hero of ‘Madoc the Magnificent or the Vampyre’s Curse’. Sophie wasn’t surprised Sian looked unconvinced. “But Ma’am, things is getting worse.”

  Sophie tried a bossy tone worthy of Harriet. “We must try to be patient. Meanwhile, you must to wear the cross whatever your Mam says and are not to fret. Do try some of this hothouse fruit…”

  Agnes met her in the hallway, while Émile – less stiff already – strode off to his study.

  Agnes drew her upstairs, and then spoke in a whisper. “Mistress Sophie, these orders Monsieur has given Mr Kit are too bad. We need to take the wine to church, but I cannot go out without Georges now and that won’t serve.”

  Their eyes met as Agnes went on. “There was no keeping Katarina in bed and she guessed at once about Georges. Of course, when she tried to get him to take the remedy he laughed outright.”

  Sophie found herself whispering too. “The book didn’t say if the other cures could work if the first hadn’t been tried. It said little of the cures and so much about the horrors. I will go through it again. I so hate reading it!”

  “Last night, when I was locked the wine cellar with Georges, for sure he was furious he couldn’t get at that Captain – for Their hearing is so sharp he could follow everything people said. Still, he found time to laugh nastily and gloat at me, ‘Aren’t you scared to be trapped with a monster? I am tempted to Make You Mine!” and suchlike. Is horrible he is become already, though mortified he was he couldn’t yet escape by changing form.”

  Sophie winced. “Agnes, you are brave. But I do not like to work behind Monsieur’s back.”

  “Yet we must, Mistress Sophie, for Katarina says the cure of the Charged Wine is painful, and by that stage, none will agree to it. They have to be surprised into taking it. In the meantime, she is working on amulets. They may help.”

  “Oh, dear! Well, I shall take you and Katarina to Llangynhafal Church tomorrow, for the church in Llandyrnog is being repaired this week.” Even in her anxiety, Sophie felt a stir of pride at her pronunciation of the Welsh names; Agnes was a good teacher. Then she wondered if Émile or even Georges could still enter a church. She was sure neither of them thought to try since the wedding. She had gone as usual with Agnes and wished that she had taken the wine then. “We must hide it there and come back for it.”

  “In Llangynhafal Church the Lord of Ruthin’s own pew is full of hollows under the carving, and will make it easier to hide away the – ” they turned at a movement in the hallway below.

  A dark, tall man, swathed in a greatcoat with many cloaks, was striding in high boots towards the passageway leading to Émile’s laboratory. Sophie only glimpsed his profile for a moment, but she thought he wore a mask. Agnes clutched her arm.

  Even as Sophie hoisted her skirts and dashed down the stairs, Agnes behind her, the figure vanished. As she reached the corridor opposite there was nothing to be seen. She ran to Émile’s study and knocked loudly.

  “Who is it?” He sounded irritable, and Sophie guessed at once he was at work on what the Dowager Countess would call ‘Mischievous Experiments’.

  “Ma chère?” Émile smiled wolfishly as he opened the door, perhaps thinking he looked genial.

  “Émile, I saw a man in a greatcoat come up from the hallway, and then vanish–”

  “What?! Stay here!” He was gone.

  She and Agnes clutched each other. “Could that Captain have got in?”

  They heard Émile and Georges’ yelled instructions and running feet as the search began, with Dolly’s voice raised in expostulation. Katarina came trotting to join them, holding a couple of leather bags, which Sophie supposed must be the amulets.

  The doorway to Émile’s study was still open. Candles burned in the sconces at either side of the mirror close to his desk. Sophie could see a large memoranda book open on the table nearby, and a closed leather bound one.

  She could also see an old book with a faded gold title on the spine, ‘On the Use of Imitative Representation.’ She had heard Émile say that Kenrick talked of using something called ‘Thought Forms’ in his magical experiments with time. Was that ‘Imitative Representation’?

  She felt it wrong to spy about Émile’s study, when he always discouraged her from knowing anything about this strange work with which he hoped to counter Kenrick’s. She dreaded its nature, which he didn’t deny was magical. Yet she felt drawn to the doorway, almost as if by a force stronger than her will. Agnes and Katarina followed fearfully.

  Sophie looked down on the open memoranda book at the odd, faded pictures, which seemed to quiver, almost coming into focus. She was aware of
the others behind her.

  “Don’t, Miss, it’s dangerous!” Agnes forgot Sophie’s married status in her alarm.

  A large hand was placed on Sophie’s arm. “That ain’t something you want to look at, Mistress.”

  Sophie spun about. “Mr Kit!”

  “Funny things happen in here.” As he tried to insinuate his bulk between them and the desk, Sophie senses his anxiety to get them out.

  She felt indignant. “Not only in here! Is the intruder found?”

  “No, Mistress Sophie, but we are searching the house and grounds.”

  Sophie remembered something odd about the figure. She didn’t know if it made her more frightened or less so, but she blurted it out. “Agnes, when I saw the figure in the hall, I think I saw part of another floor behind him.”

  Katarina gave a squeal, though that peculiarity could hardly be worse than the things the girl once dreaded every day in the Kenrick house. Agnes took Katarina’s hand, her eyes widening.

  Émile was in the doorway, all smiling reassurance, though Sophie could see his resentment at their intrusion sparking at the back of his eyes. “Mesdames, we have found nothing so far, but whom better to protect you than Mr Kit? Tell me more of that figure and promise me should you see such another, you will keep well away from it. But trouble not yourselves greatly, for I believe it to be insubstantial, without full consciousness.”

  He came to take Sophie’s hand; at that moment he seemed to her no longer half human; he felt purely inhuman.

  “No more after this, or I will be in my altitudes* and useless as a guardian for our humans.”

  Émile placed his bottle of wine down by the chair. He was in his study and the worse for drink. Used to putting it away, he had taken more than the amount on which even he could appear sober and was talking to himself.

  He clicked his tongue. “Mischievous Experiments, eh? I cannot keep away from ‘em. So Tom has turned up, and not through anything I did. What else can Kenrick do in the way of manifestations with time? I have need of something to distract myself from these worries. Why cannot those delectable women safeguard themselves from his bite at least by joining us? I dread finding he has sank his filthy teeth into one of them. There’s always a danger another of the servants will take a bribe or he may hypnotise one of them.” He stretched his hand down, searching for his glass without looking. “Viens ici –”

  Saying this seemed to disturb him. He shuddered, shook his head violently and swore. He raised his glass. “Salaud… What ails me? Salaut –” At that, he dropped the glass and leaned back in the chair, eyes closed, and sweat breaking out on his face.

  Muttering angrily and again shaking his head, he got to his feet, his stiffness gone. He stared at the illuminated mirror by the desk, breaking off to curse himself now and again. Finally, the image of the Château, stark against the night sky, appeared.

  He was breathing as though he had been running. The images blurred, coalesced, and resolved into one of a corridor filling with smoke. Émile gazed at it, wild determination in his eyes. “I do not care for my own worthless carcase, and its loss might well do my lovely girl a good turn.”

  He opened the book and taking up a little magnifying glass, began to move it about on the open page. Part of the ceiling brightened and images of stumbling figures began to swirl. Loud crackling and snapping sounds came sharply and a faint smell of burning.

  Émile stood gazing up for some moments, and then he lurched and sank to the floor. A blurred image of him appeared above, stumbling towards those other figures. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. He reached out his arms, and then seemed to struggle desperately against some force, his streaming eyes – half shut against the smoke – fixed.

  The images vanished. Émile was stirring on the study floor, while out in the frosty air came the sound of crows calling loudly and repeatedly as though questioning.

  He muttered, “I knew it! I was there outside my old self!”

  He sat on the floor for some time, his head in his hands. Then he got up, shaking himself again, and went back to looking through a series of jotted formulas and figures.

  Some time later, he raised his head at a distant sound, and went out, striding quickly through to the back of the house.

  As Émile turned into the kitchen corridor, Georges marched towards him, face frozen; they both ducked down as a plate whirled towards their heads to smash against the wall behind them.

  Émile grabbed Georges arm, bringing him to a halt. “How now, Agnes? I hoped we were friends.”

  “I’m sorry, Monsieur Émile, it wasn’t meant for you, but is disgusting!”

  Georges struggled and reddened, unable to break free from Émile’s grasp. Émile grinned at Agnes. “What has this rascal been about?”

  “You know full well, Monsieur!” Agnes met his eyes steadily. “And I hope you don’t start doing the same by the Mistress neither. But as she don’t look quite as content as she did, I wonder.”

  Émile wore his inscrutable look. He squeezed Georges’ arm. “Come, Georges, I need some relaxation, and I want your company on a trip to the little town of Denbigh.”

  The barmaid in the Castle Inn wasn’t surprised to see the young Frenchman back again, having told him of her nice room and how pretty the other barmaid was, should he care to bring a friend.

  If anyone had dared to call Alys a floozy or say that the Landlord was a bully* then she would have slapped his or her face. If her gentleman admirers gave her presents, it was her affair; if she gave away part to keep the Landlord sweet that was between the two of them.

  She had guessed these two foreigners were scoundrels, if only from the way they bought everyone in the inn a drink. She asked Monsieur Gilles what he did for a living. He wore clothes well made but old; cast-off finery, no doubt; typical of such a flashy rogue.

  “Before Christmas, I worked helping my cousin, whom you might call an apothecary. I breed horses; at the moment I am resisting the urge to breed bats.” He smiled on her, and she decided she liked him despite everything.

  “Ugh! Why would anyone do so?”

  Meanwhile, his friend had her friend on one knee, tickling her.

  Upstairs, after a few kisses, she came to herself to find Monsieur Gilles bathing her neck. He forced on her a sum she thought ridiculous, though he had taken nothing for which she would have demanded payment. Perhaps he suffered from problems with virility?

  Her friend wouldn’t tell her the details of what had gone on with the other rascal, though Alys knew she received a huge present, too. The young men hurried off, looking sheepish, promising to return.

  They did, soon enough. Monsieur Gilles undressed her to her corsets, and responded to that normally enough, but then she remembered nothing until she came to herself on the bed. This wasn’t through a lamentable performance on his part, as he didn’t even begin to enjoy her. She found the marks on her neck, too, while her friend went about in high necklines for a while.

  Alys didn’t mind; Monsieur gave her so much money she was able to marry and start up her own lodging house. Of course, she heard the talk about vampires, and laughed. You wouldn’t catch her being daft enough to turn into a bat!

  Sophie suspected Émile and Georges had gone out to sate their appetites for blood. She chewed her fingers in a torment of anxiety for Émile’s chosen victim, and jealousy of her too.

  Émile hadn’t bothered to let her know he was leaving the house. No doubt he thought a man was under no obligation to do so. Naturally, it was different for her.

  That he should leave them in Mr Kit’s care so soon after the sinister figure’s appearance made her suspect he was confident it had nothing to do with a vampire attack. Certainly, as she described its high boots and caped greatcoat, Émile, Georges and Mr Kit had looked conscious.

  Mr Kit patrolled with a deliberate air. Sophie was sure he hid a pistol in his clothing. What use was a pistol against a vampire? Of course, Mr Kit’s might have a silver bullet in it. Perhaps Ém
ile had been able to order one to be made up before he started to change? There was no point in asking Mr Kit; his answer would be evasive.

  Once Mr Kit opened the door of Sophie’s sitting room where she sat sewing with Katarina. His conspiratorial air seemed to seep through the space, annoying her. “Mr Kit!”

  His tone was suave. “I am just following orders, Mistress Dubois.”

  Katarina bit her thread with a loud snap. Sophie started. “Don’t do that, dear, you might chip your teeth. Mr Kit, as Monsieur Émile doesn’t wish us to go out unaccompanied; I want to take Katarina and Agnes to arrive early for morning service at Llangynhafal church tomorrow.”

  Mr Kit looked bland. “What hour, Mistress?” Naturally, he was shameless about having no idea about service times.

  She told him, and he gave his peculiar bow, a sort of plunge of the head, and withdrew. He at least didn’t have a bat’s hearing.

  Agnes knocked. “Excuse me, Mistress Sophie. Where do you wish to take tea?”

  “Come in, Agnes. I don’t think Monsieur Émile is back, so I may as well have it here. Mr Kit is to escort us to church tomorrow. I ought to hope he will come in with us, but matters being as they are, it will be easier if he stays smoking and whistling outside.”

  “Is not troubled by conscience he is, Mistress Sophie. I do believe the figure we saw was one of them –” she glanced at Katarina – “Old Associates of his.”

  “And Georges’ and Monsieur’s?” Katarina’s eyes were sharp.

  Sophie spoke brightly. “Most likely. Now tell us of the amulets you made, Katarina, for it touches not upon the subject in that book.”

  “They are near ready. The difficulty will be in hiding them in the victim’s clothing.”

  Sophie’s voice lost its briskness. “It is so disappointing the herbs have not proved effective.”

  Katarina shook her head. “It is difficult to know for sure yet, Mistress Sophie, with the symptoms being the same whether they work or no.”

  “You can imagine how Monsieur jeered at the notion of amulets.”

  “Amulets aren’t to be scorned.” Agnes said stoutly. “Nain did always say done properly they are powerful. It is them mountebanks* who have given them a sad reputation.” She dimpled. “I will plant one upon Georges, if only to serve him out for being so nasty in the wine cellar.”