Jonathan Barrett Gentleman Vampire

by P. N. Elrod

  We resumed walking, with Elizabeth standing nearby. Not much time passed before Father’s body gave a frightening, uncontrolled jerk and he doubled over. Biting her lips and with tears streaming down her cheeks, Elizabeth held the basin for him as he vomited into it. When he was finished, Jericho and I had to support him completely. He groaned, head drooping. Elizabeth tenderly wiped his mouth with the cloth, then draped it over the noisome contents and took it back to the library.

  Beldon lifted Father’s head and pried open his eyes. They were like solid blue buttons, with hardly any pupil showing. A madman’s eyes, I thought, a chill stabbing right through me to the bone.

  “Doctor . . . .” I couldn’t bring myself to say more, but he heard the pleading tone and put a reassuring hand on my shoulder.

  “He’ll be all right, I’m sure. Just keep walking him up and down. I have Mrs. Nooth making strong cafe noir and he is to drink all of it.”

  “But what is it? What sort of attack has he had?”

  “I’m still working that out, sir. For now, keep him moving. No rest, no matter how much he may protest.”

  At this point Father was incapable of protesting, period. His skin was dreadfully gray, but it looked marginally better than that unhealthy blue tint. When the coffee arrived, I held him steady while Jericho persuaded him to drink some. The first cup did not stay down, no doubt because of the purgative he’d taken earlier. Beldon had anticipated this, though, for another vessel had been brought in to catch it. The second cup stayed in him, and a third, and so on until the pot was empty. It took a while, but eventually Father walked on his own, though he still needed help for balance and looked far from well.

  “There’s something wrong, Jonathan,” he murmured, over and over. “What’s wrong? Please tell me, laddie.”

  “Would that I could, sir,” I said, hardly able to hold back my tears.

  “It will be all right, sir,” said Jericho. I could not tell which of us he was trying to comfort.

  After a brief word from Beldon, Norwood took charge of the others and urged them to wait in the music room. Mother objected to this and demanded a proper explanation for Father’s condition. There was no tremor in her voice, though it was respectfully lowered. I got the impression that she thought Father was himself responsible for his wretched state.

  Beldon put on his best physician’s manner for her. “It’s a bit early to tell, but I believe Mr. Barrett has had an attack of the flying gout.”

  “Gout? He’s never had gout in his life.”

  “That’s most fortunate, but this is the flying gout, with diverse symptoms and diverse manifestations . . . .”

  I felt a fist closing hard around my throat. For all his flighty nature, Oliver had given serious study to medicine and shared many observations with me on the subject. Whenever a doctor mentioned flying gout, it almost always meant he did not know what was wrong. I glared at Beldon but did not question him or his medical judgment just then. Beneath his pretence of words I understood he knew exactly what was wrong, but was unwilling to declare it. That would come later, in private, and he’d damned well better account for himself.

  Mother was finally persuaded to retire elsewhere with the others to wait and distract themselves with futile speculation. Elizabeth remained by the open door of the library, ready to rush forward if needed again. Archimedes had taken up a guard post at the parlor door and watched everything with a dour face. Only Beldon dared to pass him, and spent some time in that room before emerging to go to the library again.

  More coffee was brought and Beldon saw to it Father had an ample sampling. The poor man was awash with it by now, and after Beldon called for a chamber pot we retired elsewhere to allow him a chance to relieve himself. Beldon took that pot away rather than turning it over to a servant, which I thought odd.

  Up and down we walked, and Father ceased to ask me his heartbreaking and unanswerable questions. He was silent now, his face looking more normal but his eyes dimmed and groggy despite the coffee and activity.

  “Something’s afoot,” he said in a soft but clear voice. We’d just passed the library and seen Beldon within, though we couldn’t make out what he was doing.

  I held silent, inwardly agreeing with him.

  “And keep that lot away from me,” he muttered.

  We’d passed the music room and caught the combined stares of the others. I couldn’t blame him for any shred of reluctance about speaking to them. My heart lifted an inch or two. Father sounded more like himself.

  “God, I’m tired. I want to sit down.”

  I called Beldon, who came out and looked at Father’s eyes again and listened to his heart. “Very well, but no brandy. Coffee only.”

  Father made a sound to indicate that he was sick of coffee, but he obediently drank more when it was offered.

  “Can you tell me what happened, Mr. Barrett?” Beldon asked when Father was seated. Jericho had brought a chair out from the parlor.

  “What d’you mean?”

  “When did you start to feel sleepy?”

  Father shook his head. “I’m not sure. I was at the gathering . . . talking . . . Mr. Rapelji and I came away to talk about his school. Perhaps then.”

  “What did you eat and drink tonight?”

  “Same as the others, I think. Ask them.”

  “No medicines?”

  “No, I’m not ill, or at least I wasn’t. What’s this about, sir? Explain yourself.”

  Beldon looked to be in difficulties. He sucked in his lips.

  “Yes, Doctor,” I put in. “I know enough of medicine to understand about the ‘flying gout.’ What’s really wrong with Father?”

  He glanced around at us all. Elizabeth and Archimedes both drifted closer; Jericho stood on one side of Father, I knelt on the other. The five of us looked back, each with the same intense need to know.

  “I hope I am wrong,” he began hesitantly. “If I am not, then we have a most unpleasant situation to deal with.”

  “Out with it, sir,” said Elizabeth, her gaze fairly burning through him. “What is it?”

  His expression was such as to make it clear he would have preferred to be very much elsewhere. “I’ve made a thorough examination of . . . things and—”

  “What things?” I asked, sensing he was trying to be delicate. “The—ah—contents of the basins and chamber pot. I’ve also checked my medicine box and found . . . a notable reduction in the contents of the laudanum bottle.”

  No one spoke. The silence was that awful, brittle, waiting kind that happens when something terrible is about to crash into your life and it’s impossible to leap out of the way.

  Father was the first to break it. “You mean I’ve taken laudanum, Doctor?”

  “Yes, sir. Quite a lot of it.”

  “Please clarify that,” said Elizabeth.

  “The dose was sufficient to have serious consequences.”

  “How serious?”

  Beldon’s answer got stuck somewhere in his throat.

  “That serious,” stated Father in a dry whisper. He rubbed his face and sighed heavily, unhappily. “How?”

  “It would have to have been in your tea, the taste disguised by plenty of sugar.”

  At this, Father’s weary eyes suddenly sharpened. His hand had been resting on my shoulder; its grip tightened.

  “Tea? How might it have gotten into just one cup, then?”

  “That is something we shall have to ask Miss Fonteyn.”

  “You think that girl tried to—”

  Beldon shrugged. “I don’t know, sir. It seems unlikely. People were milling about at one time or another during the party, especially when the first cups were being poured. Anyone could have made an opportunity for themselves. Questions must be asked . . . and answered, for there is a chance this could happen again.”

  “
Again?”

  “The amount of laudanum that was taken . . . . Well, not all of that which is missing may have been used tonight.”

  Elizabeth drew in a sharp breath and put a hand to her lips. She looked as gray as Father, and for a moment I thought she might faint. I knew because I felt the same.

  “Everyone must be questioned,” Beldon insisted, pressing on. Though he could see what it was doing to us, the alternative was worse. The implications of what might happen should there be a yet unused portion of laudanum waiting in our future were frighteningly clear to us. “I said it would be unpleasant,” he added forlornly.

  Father made a soft, contemptuous snort at Beldon’s understatement.

  “Yes . . . no . . . . Oh, how my head buzzes. I need rest. No questions tonight, Doctor. I’m not up to it.”

  “I can do that task, sir.”

  “No.”

  “But, Mr. Barrett—”

  Father gently waved him down. “No, sir. If any questions are to be asked, then I shall ask them. If someone in this house played a-a careless joke on me, then I shall face them myself. I’ll not leave it to another to do my business for me.”

  Beldon’s face went first pale, then red with outrage and fear; he stared down at his patient. “Sir, you could have died tonight! This was a most serious and considered attempt on your life. I will not allow you to delude yourself into thinking otherwise.”

  “Nor have I. But I am asking you to be silent over it.”

  “But, why?”

  “As you said, this promises to be a most unpleasant situation. Would you really care to question the entire household?”

  “It’s necessary in order to find out who’s responsible.”

  “I believe I already know, sir.”

  That silenced Beldon. It silenced the whole room.

  “Archimedes.” His valet straightened a little.

  “Sir?”

  Father swallowed. With difficulty, as though ready to be sick again.

  “I want . . . want you to discreetly go through Mrs. Barrett’s room. You’ll be looking for . . . what? A twist of paper or a small bottle?”

  Beldon murmured agreement.

  “The doctor will show you what the stuff looks like. If you find nothing, then you’ll look again tomorrow. Pay special attention to the pockets of the garments she’s worn tonight. Jericho, I want you to check the parlor right now for the same thing, and the music room later after they’re all out of there. Go through the drawers, check under the furniture, the whole room, every corner.”

  “Sir.”

  “And don’t let yourselves be seen by anybody. What you’ve heard here, stays here.”

  Both nodded with grim faces and waited impatiently as Beldon went to the library for the bottle of laudanum to show them what they’d be hunting.

  “What happens should they find it?” I asked.

  Father let his head fall against the back of the chair and shut his eyes. “They give it to Beldon, who will lock it in his medicine box, once he has a lock put on the thing.”

  “What about Mother, though?”

  “Nothing. We do nothing.”

  Elizabeth shot me an anguished look over him. “But we can’t!” Father was quiet. Thinking, or tired beyond thought. “She tried to poison you!”

  “It failed, by the grace of God. I have my warning and shall be more alert now.”

  “No, Father! You can’t live in a house with that woman, day after day knowing that the next bite of food you take could be your death. I won’t have it!” Her voice had dropped to a shaken whisper, but was as forceful as a shriek.

  Father made no response. The lines on his forehead deepened as his brows came together.

  “This has gone too far. You must do something about her,” she insisted.

  “I will, but in my own way.”

  “But—”

  He raised one hand slightly from the chair arm. “In my own way, daughter.”

  This did not sit well with Elizabeth, not at all well. Her eyes were red from tears shed and tears yet to come. “What is that, then?” she asked, her voice thin as she tried to maintain control.

  “We’ll take steps to see that the opportunity Dr. Beldon referred to has no chance to repeat itself.”

  “That hardly seems enough,” she objected. “And what if she seeks another means to bring harm to you?”

  Father was still ill and greatly weakened or he might have chided her. All he could do was shake his head, reminding me that now was not the time for such discussions. Later, when he was well, but not now. “We’re only worried for you, Father,” I said unnecessarily, using it to cover a warning look thrown at Elizabeth. It got through and she shut her mouth, though her jaw worked dangerously.

  “I’m worried for all of us,” he said. “This was unexpected, but it can be dealt with. Actually, I’m not too surprised that something’s happened, I just didn’t anticipate it would happen in quite this manner.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve been careless, laddie. About . . . Mrs. Montagu. Your mother’s finally worked it out and this” —he indicated himself— “is her reaction. I’d thought that should the day come, she’d fall into one of her fits, but she’s changed lately. She’s gotten more subtle.”

  “Suppose it wasn’t Mother?” I asked uneasily.

  His eyes opened. “Who else would want to?”

  The names of all those people living with us tumbled through my mind. Longtime servants, guests old and new. None of them could possibly have any quarrel with Father. None. He was a well-loved, well-respected man. The only person in the house who did not love or respect him was Mother. She had access to Beldon’s medicines and was certainly familiar enough with the use of laudanum by now. The more I thought about it, the likelier it seemed.

  She was a strong woman, but not stronger than Father, so a physical attack against him would be futile. But poison . . . now that would equalize things nicely. There was a horrid, repulsive coldness to poisoning, but also an ugly fascination in the process. To stand by and pretend concern while watching with secret interest as the stuff gradually carried away a life—that was a kind of wickedness so alien that I could hardly credit its existence. But here it was, right in my own house.

  “What will you do?” My voice was thin, ghostly.

  “Take more care,” came his simple reply.

  You’ll need more than that, I thought, my heart filled with leaden sickness.

  Elizabeth made a choking sound and turned away to hide her tears.

  Much more than that.

  * * *

  Archimedes and Jericho found no laudanum that night or in the days to follow. Though uncommonly diligent in their searches, we were left with the uncomfortable conclusion that either nothing was there to be found, or that Mother had been more clever at hiding it. Beldon offered the slim hope that the amount taken from his box had all been used that same night. No one was eager to accept his optimistic assessment, though.

  Beldon saw to it that a stout lock was attached to his medicine case and began to lock his room whenever he left it. He kept both keys on his person and soon developed a habit of now and then tapping the pocket they occupied to make sure they were there. Their soft clink was a source of great reassurance to him, it seemed.

  He also continued—at Father’s firm request—to perpetuate the fiction about the attack of flying gout. It was bad enough for us to know the truth behind his illness, but it would have been much worse for the others to know as well. For all to suffer with such knowledge . . . well, the strain and worry would have made the place impossible to live in.

  The story also served well enough to cover the reason why Beldon demanded Mrs. Nooth’s close supervision of Father’s meals. As for drink, the cabinet in the library holding a small stock of wines and spirits
also quietly acquired a lock. Father hinted to the locksmith about petty thievery and rather than confront the tippler, he preferred to confound him. The tale was so common that it would hardly be worth repeating, which was what Father hoped for and likely got.

  Father was shaky the next day, his body trying to recover from the aftereffects of too much laudanum and coffee, but he was more himself on the next, and out doing his usual business after that. He made one brief visit to Mrs. Montagu, mentioning it to me later.

  “I told her that things were becoming difficult here, requiring my presence, so she mightn’t see me as often. I did not tell her what happened, nor do I wish her to know.”

  “Hasn’t she the right?” I asked.

  “Yes, but she’s burdens of her own to bear at this time. Later, when I’m ready, she’ll hear it all, but not just yet. In the meanwhile, I’d appreciate it if you’d look in on her now and then when you’re . . . out and about. See that things are quiet. You know.”

  “I’ll be happy to do so.” He knew all about my flying adventures, such as they were. The winter nights were perfect for this activity, at least when the winds were not too fierce. The cold weather drove people indoors and kept them there, allowing me considerable freedom to enjoy the open sky without fear of being seen. More than once I’d let myself drift all the way into Glenbriar to socialize at The Oak or visit Molly Audy or both. Molly’s fortune improved for my extra business, and at the inn I was able to expand my knowledge of the German language by talking some of the night away with the Hessians there. Would that things were as amicable at home.

  The evening following the tea party was a quiet one. Father was up in his room, the rest were downstairs pursuing cards or music. Beldon had gone so far as to tune up his fiddle and attempt a duet with Lady Caroline. Norwood and Elizabeth managed to place themselves on the same settee, ostensibly to listen. Mother, Mrs. Hardinbrook, and Anne were at some sort of three-handed card game I couldn’t readily identify. All appeared peaceful and normal. Perhaps it was, but my perceptions had been so altered that I saw things in a skewed manner.