The Delicate Dependency: A Novel of the Vampire Life

by Talbot, Michael

  The words struck a note within me and I felt an odd urge to answer.

  “Did he give you any reason to suspect he might kidnap your little daughter?”

  “No, but-”

  “No, he wouldn’t have. You’re obviously an intelligent man. You observe what is going on around you. It would be difficult not to arouse your suspicions.” She stopped for a moment. “Did he tell you incredible stories of his past?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you say he looked just like the angel in that painting?”

  “Yes.”

  “I never knew that painting, but I looked it up after I read all of the articles in the newspapers.”

  “Lady Dunaway,” I said harshly, “you must tell me what all of this has to do with you.”

  “I will,” she said crossly, “but first you must tell me one thing.”

  I suppressed my temper one last time.

  “Did this Mr. Cavalanti sleep during the day?”

  I realized I was in the presence of an utter lunatic. I stood up quickly. “So you’ve read about the hearse, and you have this theory that Niccolo Cavalanti was a vampire. Is that it?”

  For the first time my words seemed to have some effect on her and she looked at me with shock. She was obviously an eccentric English noblewoman, not unlike the frenzied letter writers. I suddenly imagined the two-peaked Sherlock Holmes hat was of obvious significance. Lady Dunaway, if she was a lady, had read the papers and had decided to go sleuthing.

  “I’m afraid I’m very busy,” I snapped. “Please pardon me, but I must ask you to leave.”

  She stiffened. “You think I’m crazy, just like the rest, don’t you? You think I’m crazy?”

  “No, no,” I said calmly as I approached her.

  She drew back in a huff.

  I was afraid she was going to fly completely off the handle, but she abruptly composed herself. With self-assured calculation she stared directly into my eyes. Her breast rose and fell. She was on the verge of saying something. I could tell she was deliberating, hoping. And then she took hold of herself as a single word passed through her lips. “Jettatura...”

  It swept through me like a bolt of lightning. I had not mentioned it to anyone. It was not to be found in any of the newspaper articles. “Why do you say that word?” I demanded.

  “Because I am not crazy,” she returned and grasped my arm tightly. Her eyes were wide and entreating. “And because I, too, have seen an angel.”

  XI

  My heart leaped.

  “Won’t you please sit down,” I beckoned and we both returned to our seats. I almost shook with excitement as I poured her a cup of tea, and once again our eyes locked.

  “My good Lady Dunaway, you must tell me more. Do you know Niccolo Cavalanti?”

  She took a sip as she composed herself. “I knew him.”

  “You do not know where he is now?”

  “I’m afraid I do not.”

  “But how... why?”

  “You must let me explain. You see, after I read about your daughter in the newspaper, and after I saw the name, there was no question that it was the same young man. But I was afraid. I thought it was a trick, some sort of hoax. I thought... well, the vampire was trying to lure me in. They’re very tricky, you know. You can never believe or trust them.”

  I nodded.

  “But please, Dr. Gladstone, tell me what you know. How did you become involved with, well, with them? Tell me, and then I’ll tell you how I met Niccolo Cavalanti.”

  I proceeded to explain the entire incident to my newly found confidante. At every twist and turn of the story she was gasping and nodding excitedly. “Oh, yes, Il Magnifico. Yes, yes.” She sat her cup of tea down. “Lodovico! Oh, yes... Lodovico.”

  Finally, when I had finished, Lady Dunaway literally squealed and embraced me heartily. “Yes, oh, yes,” she kept repeating. I was astonished to see she was crying ever so slightly.

  “You must excuse me,” she said, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief. “It’s just I am so overwhelmed finally to find someone to talk to. Someone who won’t think I’m crazy.”

  The last words touched me and I began to catch a glimmer of the sadness hidden behind her dignified demeanor. When she had once again regained her will, she cleared her throat. A faraway look shimmered in her eyes.

  “My meeting with Mr. Cavalanti was somewhat similar to yours,” she began. “But first I must tell you a little about myself. Have you ever heard of my husband, Lord Lucien Dunaway?”

  I shook my head no.

  “No matter. I often wish I hadn’t heard of him myself. In any case, we live in Cornwall. We have an estate, Dunaway Hall, on the cliffs overlooking the English Channel. As you might gather, I don’t get along well with my husband. I am not the type of wife he really wants. He is not the type of husband I want.” She sighed. “I’m going to be perfectly honest with you, Dr. Gladstone. I know it is highly irregular to be so talkative about family matters, but I never talk. No one ever listens, and I must confide in someone.”

  “I understand,” I said quietly.

  “Well...” she said slowly, “Lucien... there’s just no tactful way of putting it. Lucien is a monster. He’s much older than I and he doesn’t want a wife. I mean, he doesn’t want a human being, a thinking and feeling woman. He wants something vacuous. Something pretty, and”—she paused—“he wants something that won’t fight back. A possession, a chattel that he can level abuse upon whenever alcohol and rage sweep his mind. But as soon as the storm is over he wants his chattel to stand up again and smile and greet dinner guests as if nothing has happened.”

  I offered her more tea but she declined.

  “It isn’t so bad, really. I’m a strong woman and I find that I can survive. I seek solace in the sea. The land where we live is beautiful in a desolate sort of way. Dunaway Hall is an aerie on the cliffs overlooking the beach. There’s always the beach, the rugged beach. Here and there on the cliffs are disused mines, you know. They look like tiny abandoned castles. There are always the abandoned castles... and the gray and omniscient sea.

  “It was on the beach that I first found Niccolo Cavalanti. He was ragged, and looked every bit as if he had just washed ashore from some terrible wreck. Now I’m sure it was just another ruse, like dashing in front of your carriage. But then I was fooled. I thought the ocean had given me an omen, a shining and beautiful boy. I had found another creature ravaged by a thoughtless and mindless storm, and I took him into my heart.

  “Oddly enough, Lucien didn’t care. He seemed to glean some amusement from the way I nursed this strange boy. I expected Lucien to be jealous, but I guess one has to love to be jealous. I think Lucien viewed Niccolo as something that would keep me happy, appeased, and Lucien was actually relieved that my heart was going out to him.

  “Of course, it didn’t take long before I found out the bits of the story. As soon as Niccolo realized I needed him, he revealed he was a vampire. As soon as I accepted this, he told me about Lodovico. Niccolo captivated me with tales of Florence and the Medici, and after I had breathed the opium of his words, cleverly, unobtrusively, he began to take an interest in my son.”

  “Your son?”

  “Yes, that is what made me so excited when I read about you in the newspapers.”

  I leaned closer.

  “You see, Lucien and I have a little boy, Ambrose. Ambrose is one of the reasons Lucien hates me so much. Ambrose isn’t the type of son Lucien wanted. He’s nine years old. He’ll never carry on the family name with honor. He’ll never manage the house or the finances. Ambrose is an idiot, at least in Lucien’s eyes. And, yes, he may stick his hands in candle flames, and fail to understand the complexities of opening and closing doors, but Ambrose is no idiot.”

  “He has a talent?”

  “He doesn’t play the pianoforte, but he has an interesting hobby. We didn’t discover it at first. I think Ambrose was six when the cook first started complaining that someone was unraveling
her knitting. As time went on the nanny began to notice that spools of her brightest thread were missing. Then came the gardener. He swore up and down that a brand-new roll of twine had simply vanished from his bag. It wasn’t until a very expensive brooch of mine disappeared that we searched the entire house.

  “We had no luck. The gardener, the nanny, the cook, the maids—we looked everywhere. It was Lucien who discovered the brooch. He was searching Ambrose’s room when he accidentally bumped into the bureau and heard a clicking sound. There, in the scrollwork, was a secret drawer that no one knew about except Ambrose. Inside was my brooch, and do you know what else?”

  I was hypnotized by what she was saying, but I managed to shake my head.

  “Knots. Dozens of knots. Not just simple bows or square knots, but the most beautiful and complex knots you have ever seen. Mathematical sculptures. Knots as big around as oranges, but made up of thousands and thousands of strands of the finest thread. They were works of incredible intricacy, and yet each one was different. Like snowflakes. Lucien rumbled into a slow rage, but I begged and pleaded with him to understand. How could he be angry at the boy? Couldn’t he just look at those knots and see that each one was a cosmos?”

  She reached into one of the inside pockets of her ulster and withdrew a cream-colored ball about the size of a doorknob, and handed it to me.

  As I examined it I must admit I was impressed. At first I didn’t immediately realize that the hard little object was a knot. It was more like a piece of carved ivory with ripples and whorls all laid out in a dazzling symmetrical design. Only when I looked at it closely did I see that it was made up of sewing thread, spools and spools of sewing thread, meticulously braided and crosshatched into a knot of breathtaking complexity.

  “Can you imagine the mind that can conceive that design? Can you imagine the little boy, withdrawn and silent as a frightened sparrow, who can spin a creation like that somewhere in the universe behind his empty blue eyes?” Her deep voice cracked sadly. “In Greek mythology King Gordius of Phrygia possessed a knot that was so complex no one could unravel it. An oracle told him that if anyone ever did undo the Gordian knot, that person would become the master of Asia. Alexander the Great solved the riddle. He sliced the knot in two with his sword—a barbarous solution to a puzzle of such gossamer complexities. Lucien would draw the sword. Lucien would cleave the knot without ever seeing the meaning of the design.”

  “So Ambrose is also an idiot savant?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Niccolo, did Niccolo take your child as well?”

  Lady Dunaway looked at me, but her eyes passed right through me. Her face was empty, without even the vaguest hint of what her answer might be.

  “You liked Niccolo, didn’t you?” she asked slowly.

  “Yes, very much.”

  “You didn’t even have to tell me. As you must realize by now, Niccolo is one of those rare beings whom it is impossible not to be completely enraptured by. He truly is an angel, an earth angel to be sure, but something celestial glows in that face of his. That’s why Lodovico chose him, you know.” Lady Dunaway became even more dreamy. “Oh, I’m sure Lodovico fell in love with him, as you and I, but I’m also sure Lodovico realized what use such a shining youth could be put to. A candle for so many moths.” She toyed listlessly with the handle of her teacup. “And you felt betrayed, didn’t you?”

  “Of course I did.”

  “Yes, betrayed because such a youth could lie so guilelessly. But don’t judge him too harshly. You must have noticed how tortured he was.” She looked at me.

  I thought back to the sad reveries he used to drift into, and the rage with which he threw the rock at the statue of Lodovico. “Yes,” I admitted.

  “And why? Because Niccolo is unlike most men. He is both male and female; an androgyne, and like a woman he is vulnerable. He cannot pretend to be friends with someone without getting attached. I’m sure he had true affection for you, Dr Gladstone.”

  I listened, but said nothing.

  “I’m sure he had true affection for me as well. Just a short time before he left, he tried to warn me. I could see it in his eyes. He loathed what he was doing. I’m certain he almost came right out with the whole affair. We were walking along the beach and he stopped and turned about madly. He wanted to speak. He wanted to tell me what he had been sent to do.”

  “But did he tell you?”

  “No,” she replied sadly, “he didn’t. But he told me something else. Something very strange.”

  “And what was that?”

  Lady Dunaway’s expression became at once remote and deadly serious. “He told me he was worried I would be drawn into the world of the vampire. He said they were a very clever society existing hidden and within our own culture, and if I was swept up into their world I must remember one thing: Never trust the vampire, for everything they say and do is for some other purpose. They will play a cruel and enigmatic ‘game of the mind’ with you and it will be up to you to solve the puzzle, unravel the Gordian knot.”

  She motioned once again at the ivory-colored ball.

  “What happened?”

  “One evening Niccolo came and told me Lucien had fallen on the rocks of the beach and was hurt. I rushed to look for him, more out of hope that I might be rid of him, than fear for his safety. But when I arrived there, Lucien was nowhere to be found. I think I instantly understood what had happened, for I was gripped with terror as I ran back to Dunaway Hall.”

  She became a little distraught “It was too late. Niccolo... my dear, lovely Niccolo was gone. And he had taken Ambrose with him.”

  She began to weep again, and dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief.

  “Oh, this is silly,” she said, pulling herself together and straightening a little. “I’m a strong woman. I have to be. When Lucien returned from town, where he had been all along, I told him what had happened, and I think he was actually relieved Ambrose was gone. The local constable made a halfhearted attempt to find the boy, but I’m afraid I made a mistake you were intelligent enough not to make, Dr. Gladstone. I told the constable all about Niccolo and the vampire. I even wrote to Scotland Yard, but everyone thought I was crazy, a lunatic. When no ransom note ever came they gave up all hope of finding Ambrose, and I guess I was expected simply to forget the entire thing. Can you believe that, Dr. Gladstone? I can see in your eyes that you are a man of some emotion. You love your daughter, I can tell. Can you believe they all wanted me simply to give up my son?”

  “I’m so sorry,” I tried to comfort.

  “That’s why I came to you. After I read about your daughter I realized the same thing must have happened to you. I hoped. I prayed. I knew you would help me. We can help each other.”

  “My dear Lady Dunaway, I would love to help you. There’s nothing more that I would like to do but to get my little Camille back. But how are we going to do that? I have no idea where they have taken our children. Do you?”

  She slumped a little. “I don’t know where they have taken them, but I have some information.”

  I leaned closer.

  “When I arrived back at Dunaway Hall that fateful evening, the nanny said that another man had come to fetch Niccolo and my little Ambrose, a tall and handsome man with deeply set eyes. They explained to her that they were taking Ambrose to me, and so she did not object. But she did overhear them talking. She told me that they had mentioned France. She got the distinct impression they were planning on going there soon, and she also overheard something else. They kept repeating a curious expression. Days, something, and then a long a sound. And then son, only accented as if they were actually saying saun- in the word saunter. Days a son, they said. Days a son. Do you have any idea what that might mean?”

  “Days a son,” I repeated and shook my head.

  “I thought, perhaps, there might be someone out there named Daysa or something, and, perhaps, they too might have a remarkable child, a son. Do you comprehend? At this very moment Niccolo and Lodovic
o might be plotting to take Daysa’s son. It’s horrible. They must be stopped. Even if they will play a cruel ‘mind game’ with us, we must do something to try to get our children.”

  “But once again, Lady Dunaway, we really have nothing to go on. Are we just supposed to travel to France and hope that we stumble into them? And even if they went to France, how do we know they weren’t just passing through and continuing to Italy? That’s where they’re from, you know. I know I just can’t stand waiting around while nothing happens. We must do something. Do you know anything I don’t? Do you have any clues? The only thing I can think of is that there is a statue of Lodovico here in London, at the British Museum.”

  Her eyes lit up. “A statue?”

  “Yes, Niccolo showed it to me one evening. It’s a copy of a Roman work, a statue of an Alexandrian scholar from the Arch of Constantine, dated at circa A. D. 315.”

  She became very excited. “That fiend! That horrible creature. Why didn’t you tell me about this statue sooner?”

  “You’ve been talking.”

  “No matter, no matter. I must see this statue.”

  “Well, it’s getting rather late. We could go tomorrow.” She nodded eagerly. “Yes, tomorrow.” She paused. “Is there anything else you might tell me?”

  “Well, yes. There’s one thing. In a fit of temper Niccolo flung a rock at the statue and broke one of its hands off. I never reported it to the authorities, and I don’t know why, but I kept the stone hand. It had a scar across the back of it If we ever run into Lodovico we will be able to identify him.”

  “Wonderful,” she returned. “Do you still have the hand?”

  “No, I’m afraid little Camille took a morbid liking to it. She took it with her when they abducted her. In fact, Scotland Yard has just located the hearse in Dover, and a witness there says he saw her playing with the gruesome object.”

  “Dover!” she pounced. “You see! Why would they be going to Dover, but to travel to France?”

  “We may know that, Lady Dunaway,” I repeated, “but that still tells us very little.”