When it was over, she meant to slip away – only to find her family all around her, Maddy’s hand through her arm, and David’s sombre voice in her ear.
“Will you come back to the house, please, Charlotte?”
* * *
“We thought you should know,” David said, “that Father cut you out of his will. There’s nothing for you, I’m afraid.”
Charlotte felt a dart of misery – for the loss of her father’s affection, not his property.
“It’s all right, I didn’t expect anything. I hadn’t even thought about it.”
They were sitting around the breakfast room table; David, Anne, Henry and herself, while Elizabeth and Madeleine played host to mourners in the drawing room. Henry had aged visibly, well on course to becoming a bumbling professor. A bulky, bespectacled figure, pompous yet shy and embarrassed by emotion, he was just as Charlotte remembered. So far he hadn’t said a word to her, though it was obvious her presence made him acutely uncomfortable.
“Why did you come back, then?” David said with sudden sharpness. Tired and distraught, he ran a hand over his fair hair. She saw a few silver strands.
“Do you think I loved Father any less, because of the decision I made? How could I not come?” She gazed at her brother, knowing the gleam of her face and eyes disturbed him. “I know I’m making things difficult. I’m sorry. But why on earth did you try to find me? I don’t mean now… I mean last year.”
David cleared his throat. Anne glanced at him, then at Henry, who was looking anywhere but at Charlotte.
“About eighteen months after I left,” she went on, “you sent a private detective called John Milner to find us. And he did.”
“We know,” said David. “Not because he told us, but because he was found wandering in Dover with no recollection of how he’d got there. He was ill for a time; said he was having weird, wonderful dreams of a woman who looked like you. And there were marks on his neck, so faint that most people wouldn’t notice. So we knew, Charli, even though he couldn’t tell us anything. That’s why I didn’t try again, until we saw the photograph. It was too dangerous.”
“But why did you try at all?”
“Because I was worried sick about you!” David exclaimed. “Why d’you think? You’re still my sister; I couldn’t help thinking what that – that man might have done to you!”
“His name is Karl.” From the corner of her eye she saw Henry shudder and put a hand to his face. “All he did was help me become myself.”
“Oh,” said David, “so the kind, shy sister I loved was really a demon all along?”
“David,” said Anne. She touched his arm and he subsided. Anne, it seemed, had already said all she needed to.
Charlotte sat with cruel revelation pouring over her. How they’d changed in such a short time. They had a child already and there would be more; they were growing older, drifting away from her. As Karl had once said, a vampire was like a stopped clock on a landscape: she stood motionless while they travelled without her. The gulf between them felt like a grave. Terrifying.
“You’re right to feel betrayed, David,” said Charlotte. “I did wrong, but love is stronger than reason. I can’t repent. If you want me to say it was all a mistake and I’m coming home – I can’t. It will never happen.”
“I see,” David said wearily. “Just tell me one thing. Does he – does Karl treat you kindly?”
“Of course he does. He always did.”
David sighed. There was an uncomfortable silence. Their unease distressed her, but she couldn’t enchant them into accepting her. They must love or hate her of their own free will.
“Henry wants to say something,” said David.
She turned her gaze to Henry. He could barely look at her, and his voice shook. “I – I have become friendly with a pleasant young lady. We – we want to marry.”
“How nice for you,” Charlotte said frigidly. She could imagine the woman; a prim little Methodist, approved of by Henry’s mother.
“But I can’t marry her, can I!” he exclaimed, slapping the table with both palms. “I’m still married to you! I – I want a divorce.”
A smile frosted Charlotte’s mouth. This became more ghastly by the moment. Thinking she’d lost Karl forever, she’d married Henry only to keep him from walking out on her father. But Karl had come back. She felt cruel, completely a vampire.
“As far as I’m concerned, we were never truly married.”
“Well, as far as the law’s concerned, we ruddy well are!” Henry turned crimson. She felt a sudden ache in her canine teeth.
“Do you really think I’d waste my time, sitting about in court? How can you cite Karl, when the police think he’s dead? I suppose one of us could pretend to commit adultery in a boarding house while some private detective takes notes; David has a friend who does that sort of thing.” This dig caused her brother to blush. “It’s ludicrous. Do what Karl and I do. Live together.”
She knew her words would horrify him. Henry seemed close to exploding with outrage. “This isn’t Bloomsbury! It’s out of the question!” He stood up suddenly. “You are a monster, Charlotte! The Prof was never the same after you left. It should have been you in that coffin instead! You killed him!”
Her fingers tightened on the table edge. She stared at the shine of her taut white knuckles. “I think we’d better continue this conversation in private, don’t you?”
Henry harrumphed. “I suppose so.”
Anne and David looked uneasy. Charlotte said, “Go on. It’s all right.”
They left. Charlotte’s presence seemed to have undone Henry’s composure entirely. Alone with her, he became rigidly correct and unapproachable, but he dabbed his upper lip with a handkerchief. His hands trembling. From the way he stared she knew, with dismay, that her vampire allure was affecting him.
“You can say what you like now.” She stood up as she spoke. He edged away to the window. “Go on. I’m a monster and I killed my father?”
“You look –” he stammered. “You look just the same.”
“What did you tell people, when I left?”
“The truth,” Henry said gruffly. “That you’d run off with another man.”
“That was brave. Most men would have felt too humiliated.”
He turned on her, pale with anger. “How could I be any more humiliated than I already was?” As his anguish came pouring out, she could only stand there and let it wash over her. “You were – intimate with Karl while you were engaged to me! How could you? You seemed so shy, so virtuous, Dr Neville’s perfect daughter. It was out of the question that I’d do more than kiss your cheek until we were married, but with Karl you – I still cannot believe what you did!”
“Hurt your pride?” His pain roused only mild sympathy, mixed with irritation.
“That is not fair! I loved you!”
Charlotte looked down. “I did you a terrible wrong. I only married you to please my father, not you or myself. The woman you thought would make a quiet, unthreatening wife wasn’t me. My fault, for letting you think it was. But Henry, what were you offering me?”
The question seemed to dumbfound him.
“A respectable marriage,” he said stiffly. “A family.”
“But what about passion? You say you loved me, but the few times we consummated our so-called marriage, neither of us enjoyed it. It was just our duty, and I must be a scarlet woman for wanting anything more! Everything, duty. How could you expect me to live like that?”
Henry’s face coloured. “You are a heathen, Charlotte. In a previous age you would have been burned at the stake.”
“And you would have lit the fire; not enjoying it, just doing your duty to God. I wish you could understand why I gave myself completely to Karl, again and again, and why I left you for him.” She was provoking him now, relishing his discomfort. “I wish I could make you feel just one moment of that passion!”
As she spoke, desire ignited beneath her heart. With excitement danci
ng through her, she went to Henry, pushed him into a chair and sat on his knee. Too stunned to stop her, he caved in beneath her as if he’d lost all his strength.
Even when she twined her arms around his neck, she knew he was dying of embarrassment. He’d put the fact that she was a vampire out of his mind, because he couldn’t believe it. While he was rigid with outrage, she sensed his puritan nature warring with his secret dark impulses, with the fact that he was and always had been her slave.
Her lips found the artery beating beneath the salty skin. Mouth wide, she bit down, felt blood and salt rushing onto her eager tongue. The red starburst convulsed her. She hugged Henry to her, experiencing perfect happiness, laughing through the blood.
Henry uttered a single cry, as if a wasp had stung him. Then he was silent, passive; not touching her, not resisting, as if he’d found a very deep, dark place inside himself that only her bite could touch.
It was the first exchange of genuine, unfettered passion that had ever passed between them. First and last.
Charlotte found it easy to stop, to slip lightly from his knee as if nothing had happened. Henry’s head lolled forward. He took off his glasses, squeezed his eyes shut and pinched his forehead.
“I wish you joy of the dear little Methodist you wish to marry. She’ll never do that to you. Or will she? Appearances can deceive. One day she may tire of making afternoon tea for Cambridge dons and develop a taste for their blood.”
Now he was staring blankly at her, as if his memory had already erased the unacceptable.
“What?” he murmured. “I feel dizzy. Bit of a headache.”
“You’ll be all right.” She crouched down beside him with the easy affection she felt for her victims. “Henry, listen to me. Go and join the funeral feast, have some tea. When it’s over, come back and I’ll give you my answer.”
He blinked at her. “Answer?”
The solution was obvious. It invaded her, with Henry’s blood, like a kind of insanity. Amid the desolation of her father’s death, the funeral, her family’s grief, the answer was like a jewel, a polished moonstone in a perfect setting.
“I’m going to set you free, dear.”
* * *
Charlotte waited until the guests were leaving as darkness fell. Then she went into the hallway to share the goodbyes and expressions of sympathy, for all the world as if she were still part of the Neville family. The least she could do for her father was to show his friends that his daughter had loved him.
Once they’d gone, she followed the others back into the drawing room: Anne, David, Henry, Madeleine and Elizabeth, all in black. No one sat down.
Feeling calm, Charlotte saw them as if through a lens. How distant they looked, like figures in a play. The ghastliness of her plan infused her like cold madness. Perhaps she had gone mad; there was no better explanation.
Karl had said, “Be gentle with them.” She tried to speak kindly, but her tone could not shield them from her stark words.
“I don’t want to stand in the way of Henry’s happiness,” she began. “And he said he wanted to see me in a coffin. Well, so be it.”
“What are you talking about?” said Anne.
“I’m thinking of Henry. His family are strict churchgoers. A divorce would be scandalous and messy, and might sour things between him and his fiancée. But if I were dead, everything would be simple, wouldn’t it?”
Henry stared at her, sweat beading on his flushed face. She thought, I really should not have fed on him… but his blood was irresistible.
“You can’t just pretend to be dead,” said David.
“I’m not talking about pretending,” she said. “I’m talking of a legitimate death certificate and a real burial. Strictly speaking, I’m not really alive anyway. At least, no longer human.”
Henry sat down heavily on the sofa. David said hoarsely, “For God’s sake, Charli, what are you proposing?”
“The doctor pronounces me dead. You place me in a coffin and bury me. Henry’s free to remarry. Well, why not?”
They looked stricken, as if this were some black joke. She saw their faces as if through gauze. Mentally she was travelling away from them, cutting the chains.
“Stop this,” David said. Madeleine’s eyes were round with disbelief.
“It sounds a perfectly good idea to me,” Elizabeth said acidly.
“A few conditions: hold the funeral as quickly and quietly as possible. I’ll pay, of course. And don’t let the undertaker touch me. I wouldn’t appreciate being embalmed.”
“How – how –?” Henry stammered.
“Like this,” Charlotte said softly. She sat beside him and composed herself, arms at her sides, head tipped back. She made her slow heartbeat stop completely. She remained like that, not breathing, not blinking, until they began to edge nervously towards her.
“Charlotte?” said Anne. She shook her arm hesitantly, then gripped her wrist. “My God, there’s no pulse!” Anne shook her, but Charlotte was a glass-eyed rag doll in her hands. “Charlotte!”
Their horror was tangible. With a gasp, Madeleine backed away and ran out of the room.
Charlotte looked up at Henry’s white stare, Anne and David’s consternation. Only Elizabeth’s supercilious face was blank. Then she stirred and sat up. They all started violently.
“Do you see?” she said. “The doctor will be convinced I’m dead. Tell him I fell ill after the funeral. When you bury me, I won’t really stay in the coffin, of course. I’ll vanish.”
David stood frowning, battling to maintain his composure. Eventually he said quietly, “I’m going to see how Maddy is,” and he turned and walked out.
Anne ran after him. “David!”
“I refuse to have anything to do with this grotesque charade!” he called over his shoulder. Anne hesitated in the doorway, swore under her breath, then marched back to Charlotte.
“You can’t mean to go through with this!”
“Why not?”
“It’s too horrible! And the doctor will want an inquest on a young woman who dies for no reason.”
“Oh no, he won’t. I’ll see to that.”
“I think we should let her do it,” said Elizabeth. Her hard brown eyes met Charlotte’s. Although there was little affection between them, they’d long ago reached a truce. “For Henry’s sake. I’ll make the arrangements, if the rest of you can’t face it.”
Anne was shaking her head, her face a mask of dismay. “But you won’t really be dead, will you?”
Charlotte spoke gently. “No, but you can forget me then, or at least let go. Let yourselves believe I’m dead. Because actually I am. Undead.” She touched Anne’s cheek. “It’s for the best.”
Anne, for once, permitted the touch. Charlotte closed her eyes, feeling madness rushing around her, like a gale through a dark cathedral, like the earth walls of her father’s grave. And she thought, I can’t make them accept me but at least they don’t hate me. That will have to be enough.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SWALLOWED IN THE MIST
Alone in the library, Robyn dreamed. She seemed to be in the nursery again, with figures whispering around her. Everything had the understated malevolence of a nightmare. The light was flat grey on heaped shadows, while the walls and ceiling tilted at terrifying angles. In the greyness were two ghosts. One was Rasmila, the other a slender man as pale as Rasmila was dark.
They whispered urgently to each other, their words nonsensical but unspeakably sinister.
“She is the one Lilith loves. If she comes here… jealousy… he will destroy her, he will break her wings… He can do what Simon cannot.”
Then she dreamed she was breaking glass cases, tearing birds off their perches, snapping their reed-like bones and shredding their feathers, weeping bitterly because she didn’t want to destroy their beauty, even if it was dead beauty.
“Robyn? Such groans!”
She started. Sebastian was there, holding her hand.
“Oh, I was hav
ing awful dreams,” she said, annoyed at her own imagination.
“Don’t dream in this house,” he said wryly. “It might come true.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.” She got up, shaking off the nightmare. In retrospect it seemed a waking dream, a bizarre train of thought into which she had drifted while waiting for Sebastian. “Where have you been? You told me to stay here because you had a surprise for me. That was four hours ago!”
Sebastian only smiled enigmatically. “Surprises like this can’t be prepared in ten minutes. Come along.”
He led her upstairs to a large bedchamber. Robyn remembered the room as being semi-derelict, nothing in there but a big packing case under a sheet. Now she found the place transformed. There was a fire in the marble grate; even the ancient wallpaper took on a bloom of luxury in the light. Bright Persian rugs lay on the floorboards.
The sight that stopped her breath, however, was a magnificent bed that had appeared from nowhere. A four-poster draped in lavish canopies, it looked pristine, too new for its surroundings.
Robyn held the fabric between her fingers, marvelling at the embroidery. A cream background, hand-sewn with flowers in jewel colours and gilt thread. And swathes of dark blue Chinese silk, sewn with dragons, deer, and storks. Months, if not years of work.
“Do you approve?” Sebastian enquired.
“Wonderful… but where did it come from? It looks old, yet brand new.”
His smile was one of unaffected pleasure. “You saw the packing case? The bed was delivered to the house in 1735, a wedding present that was never used. So it is old but perfect. I never had a reason to assemble it, until now.”
“The colours are so bright!” she said. “Silly, but I imagined antique furniture being as faded then as it is now.”
“Well, it wasn’t,” he said. Amazing to think that he remembered those times. That he could be so old, yet eternally young… “It ought to be christened, don’t you think?” Taking her hands, he pulled her on to the bed. “Or whatever the infernal opposite of christening is.”
“Wait,” Robyn said, laughing. “Fold back the covers first. It would be sacrilege to damage this beautiful embroidery.”
The Dark Blood of Poppies Page 42