A Taste of Blood Wine

by Freda Warrington

  She knew what Karl would have said: "What they believe of me means nothing. It is what they think of you that matters; tell them I was the blackest villain imaginable, that I used you cruelly; tell them anything but the truth, because you will only lose by it."

  But to that she could only have replied, "How can you think I could be so disloyal? What have I to lose?"

  She answered, "No, he was in no way unkind to me. He was as you knew him, a gentle and courteous man."

  "That's nonsensical!" David exclaimed. Their father gave him a sharp glance.

  "Are you saying that he behaved towards you with courtesy and propriety at all times?" asked the doctor.

  Propriety… Are they asking if he raped me? God, this is sickening.

  "He was a perfect gentleman," she said, her voice gaining strength. It was true—for the time she had been his hostage, at least. She could not stop herself glancing briefly at Elizabeth—silently asking, Would you betray us?—but her aunt remained inscrutable.

  "Charlotte," Dr Saunders said gently, "you realised how strange it must seem, that you were so upset by his death. It isn't quite what one would expect of a kidnapper and his unfortunate victim. I know this is hard for you, but it is only in your own interests that we want to know what happened."

  "I know," she said. She wanted to cry out, It's very simple. I loved him. I don't care what you think or say! But the words stuck in her throat. At last she said thinly, "He—he knew I was frightened and he did everything to put me at my ease. We came to understand one another. We were friends." She could feel their disbelief scorching her; this was not what they wanted to hear.

  "Friends?" repeated her father, looking more confused than ever.

  "Yes. You were expecting me to say I suffered terribly at his hands, but it isn't true. On the contrary, he was more than kind to me; he was honest. He taught me that the harshest truth in the world is not so cruel as deceit, however kindly that deceit is meant!"

  "You are telling us the truth, then," Dr Saunders said gravely. "Not trying to protect him?"

  It was like a gale rattling though her, the sudden intensity she felt. "The truth is that he was not the monster you seem to think. He had released me, and he would never have been seen or heard of again. He only came back because Fleur was in danger; he did not harm anyone in that room. He was trying to protect them from—from another vampire, but he failed."

  David said, "Can you prove it?"

  "Ask the other people who were at the party."

  "The police already have. None of them has a clear story. There's absolutely no evidence that there was any other 'vampire' there except Karl. How could anyone else have been responsible, unless they vanished into thin air the moment we arrived?"

  But that's exactly what did happen! How ridiculous it sounds. Then whatever I say they'll simply assume I've lost my mind. The other people don't remember, not because they were drinking, but because Stefan and Niklas or Ilona fed from them and clouded their memories. Bitterly, she said, "I can't prove anything. But there was no need for him to be slaughtered in cold blood!"

  David shifted, uncomfortable and indignant. "Charlotte, don't you understand why it had to be done? How can you claim he was not evil? He was a murderer!"

  "David, he could have killed you easily, if you hadn't been too busy being heroic to realise the danger. But for some reason he chose not to. He let you win."

  David looked shocked, and said nothing. Perhaps he had realised she was right. I didn't mean to make them so uneasy. What am I doing? Obviously they had expected to hear a tale of woe from a tearful and wilting young woman. Instead, her fierceness was proving a shock to them. She had shocked herself, too.

  "Very well, discounting the face that he almost killed Edward and didn't much care whether it was you or Madeleine he took hostage," Dr Saunders went on, "you maintain that he was a kind, honest gentleman who was, perhaps, so fond of you that he would never have harmed you?"

  "Yes."

  "Then, my dear, how do you explain the puncture marks on your neck and wrist? Do you deny that Karl made them?"

  Charlotte said nothing.

  "We have reason to believe he killed your sister and brother-in-law. Don't you realise he might have killed you too, had David and Anne not arrived at that moment?"

  Charlotte bowed her head, remembering how she had thought death preferable to being separated from Karl. That despair was still in her. But if I faced death and found nothing to fear in it, why do I fear my own family? Why fear their opinion?

  Then she thought, So, tell them the truth! Tell them you stayed with Karl of your own accord, that you're as bad as him! Why can't I say it?

  She knew there was nothing she could say to explain the wounds. What lay behind them was too private. In anyone else's view, they were only proof positive that Karl had been evil, and nothing could redeem him in their eyes. And how can I tell them about Ilona, argue and argue with David when he would never believe it? He can't afford to; it would make everything impossibly complicated. I can't do that to him.

  I can't tell them, because I'm incapable of making them believe me. It's as simple as that.

  She glanced at her father. To her surprise he was looking at her not with condemnation but with loving concern. "We won't go on if it distresses you."

  "It doesn't distress me," she said faintly. "But if I spent all day explaining I still couldn't make you understand. I think it's better if I don't say any more."

  "Would you—would you prefer to talk to a clergyman?"

  The thought startled her. "Why, to confess my sins?"

  Her father looked steadily at her. "My dear, you don't think you have sinned, do you? You might feel more able to talk to a chaplain than to us. If you feel you have done wrong in trying to defend Karl, a chaplain might help you to give thanks for your deliverance, and to pray for forgiveness. God's mercy is infinite."

  The words went into her like hot knives. How could her father seem so imperceptive, then strike at the very root of her pain?

  "Forgiveness?" she said. "But I am not repentant. I can't renounce my love for Karl, I can't believe he was completely evil. If that's wrong I don't want—I don't deserve to be forgiven! Let God forgive Karl! I'll pray for him—not for myself. No chaplain, please."

  Her outburst seemed to leave them all at a loss for words. Dr Saunders stood up, easing the tension. "We've talked enough; you're obviously tired, my dear. We'll leave you to get some rest."

  Subdued, they left her, but she could hear their voices on the landing and moving away down the stairs, agitated. I've hurt them. A few minutes later, Elizabeth came back on her own, sat beside her and studied her, head on one side.

  "Well, you have caused quite a stir," said her aunt.

  "What did they say about me?"

  "The consensus seems to be that you were almost literally tempted by the Devil." Her tone was tongue-in-cheek.

  "I was what?"

  "Karl mesmerised you and made you believe he was good and worthy of your love. Naturally he was not cruel to you. Satan is more subtle than that. He deluded you so consummately that you cannot believe he would ever have harmed you, even when the proof was right in front of you. So it was all his fault, not yours."

  Elizabeth's candour astonished Charlotte, but she was glad of it. It seemed clear and sharp as wine, after the cotton-wool kindness of the others. She lay back on her pillows, reflecting on the fear that had governed her life. Fear of people, not only of strangers but of her own family. I seemed to spend my life in hiding, wishing I could melt into the scenery. Now the anxiety's gone. Some of Karl's detachment has rubbed off on me, now that it no longer matters. I'm not even afraid of Aunt Lizzie any more.

  "What do you think, Auntie? You sound as if you don't agree."

  "I'm not so sure that I do. They want to believe you are still a sweet, helpless girl, and it would take more than you are capable of to disillusion them."

  "Of course," Charlotte said flatly. "I a
m not capable of forming a view which so wildly contradicts theirs, so I must be the victim of a delusion."

  "Created by the Devil, no less! You should be glad that they are so determined to think highly of you… whatever the evidence to the contrary."

  "Should I?" Charlotte exhaled wearily. "I feel I've returned to a world of deceit, where they're all kind and comforting to my face, then exchange looks they think I don't notice and talk in whispers behind my back. But I can guess everything they are thinking and saying. They are the ones who don't understand!"

  "Naturally." Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. "And I am sitting here now because you are the only person in this household whom I do not find utterly predictable. You know, I've been wrong about you. You have spirit after all; true, independent, amoral spirit, which runs far deeper than an ability to shine at parties. After all, no one is without faults, for all their high words. And we can't help with whom we fall in love."

  "You don't condemn me, nor think I've fallen under a spell?" said Charlotte.

  "I could see he wasn't completely the fiend your father and brother thought him. Whatever you think of me, I never wished you ill and I am sorry that you had to lose him. But now you had better decide whether you are going to continue shocking your family until they send for an exorcist—or make life easier, for yourself and them, by letting them believe what they need to."

  "I can't go on hurting them. It will just be my secret, won't it?"

  Elizabeth smiled, in her thin cool way. "Even though my lessons were lost upon you, you have somehow learned the rules of the masquerade in another way."

  "What do you call a masquerade, Auntie?"

  "Society, people, life; what you will. You went straight to the heart of something while everyone else was tiptoeing around the edge, not daring to look. I almost feel proud of you."

  Charlotte felt a silent, hollow amusement. "That's ironic. Once, your approval would have meant everything to me, but all I had from you were cruel words and criticism. Now, suddenly, I've won your favour—just when, for the first time, your opinion of me doesn't mean a thing."

  Elizabeth sat back in her chair, her lips narrowing. "Touché" she said drily.

  ***

  Charlotte was out of bed the next day but resting on the small sofa in her room, turning a visiting card round and round in her fingers. She had found it in the pocket of the dress Fleur had lent her; a white card with a Mayfair telephone number and the message, We are here sometimes, scrawled across it in unfamiliar copperplate handwriting. Nothing else. Someone put this in my pocket on the night of the party.

  She was still puzzling over it when she received an unexpected visitor. Henry.

  He sat down nervously at her side, his familiarity oddly soothing. His large face was shiny behind his glasses, his hair as untidy as ever. The laboratory smell that clung to his clothes brought a cluster of memories and emotions into her throat.

  "I—I hope you don't mind me coming to see you, but I heard you'd been ill, and—"

  "There's no need to pretend," she said, unable to be either polite or hostile to him. "You know I haven't been ill."

  He paused, embarrassed. "I—I know. But how are you, anyway?" And after a little laboured small talk, he said, "Thing is, I was rather hasty, storming out like I did… "

  "Hardly that. I've never known you to 'storm' anywhere." She wasn't making things easy for him, but he persisted. "No, I was too precipitous, and in fact I have apologised to the Prof and he's asked me to come back, but the thing is… "

  He seemed to be waiting for her to respond. "I hope there are no hard feelings between us," she said. "I can go on as we were before, if you can."

  "Well, that's just it. I don't think I can, actually. But—well, I—it occurred to me that, that when we had our, um, disagreement, you weren't feeling quite the ticket and, er… "

  She stared down at the enigmatic card and said without feeling, "Are you trying to say that when I broke off our engagement, I didn't know what I was doing?"

  He took off his glasses and rubbed at the red marks they had made on his nose. Without them, his face had a raw, schoolboyish look. "Perhaps I'm wrong. The truth is I haven't enough pride to stay in a huff, Charlotte, and I do still think such a lot of you. I just wondered, you know, now it's all over, if you wouldn't, er, reconsider your decision?"

  Charlotte felt nothing, not even surprise. All she saw, in a strangely distant, calculated way, was an opportunity to make her father happy. "Do you mean that if I marry you, you will come back?"

  "Just so," he said. "Exactly."

  ***

  Charlotte regained her health swiftly, because she was young and strong and the mechanisms of nature healed themselves independent of her will. Her family showered her with love and she returned it, seeming content in a tranquil, removed way, all her painful shyness gone. Madeleine and David were delighted; only Anne suspected that her recovery was not what it seemed.

  "You're not going to get away with this, you know," said Anne. She had found Charlotte in the garden shed that Dr Neville used for storing and making equipment. She was already working again, although it was only four days since the events in London.

  "With what?"

  "Silence. You used to be able to confide in me; don't you still feel you can?"

  "Don't, Anne. I can put on a brave face for David, Father—anyone but you."

  "You don't have to for me. Are you angry with me? Perhaps you feel I was partly to blame for Karl's death."

  Charlotte was leaning over a bench, making some kind of wooden strut; she stopped, and her shoulders went rigid. "Perhaps I do, however unfair it seems."

  Anne moved closer to her. "I know you loved him, and it must have been terribly painful to be disillusioned. I tried to prevent the worst, but even if I'd pleaded with David on my bended knees I couldn't have stopped what happened. However awful it was, I can't see what other solution there could have been."

  "Don't worry, Anne." There was a distant and bitter edge to Charlotte's voice. "I know that you and David only acted in my own best interests."

  "Don't be so cold!" Anne exclaimed. "I'd rather you shouted at me—said you hated me and couldn't forgive me—than treated me like a stranger!"

  Charlotte flinched. "Oh, God, Anne, I'm sorry. Of course I don't blame you. Sometimes I think, what difference does it make whether Karl is dead or not? He was going to leave me—in my best interests, naturally—and so he has. He's left me. Gone." And then she suddenly turned and put her arms around Anne's neck. Anne held her, but Charlotte remained dry-eyed.

  "You might feel better if you had a good cry," Anne suggested.

  "No. If I started crying I should never stop. Oh, what kind of friend am I to you, Anne? I can see how terrible this has been for you, and for my family. Poor Father, especially… but it's as much my fault as Karl's."

  "Charli, that's nonsense—"

  "But it was, because I was under no illusion about him, no enchantment. I understand why David thought he couldn't have acted otherwise. But I loved Karl and I always will. That makes me as evil as him, doesn't it? You don't know the half of it."

  "I can see that," Anne said softly, thinking, Obviously I don't know even the merest fragment. "And you did try to explain it to your family, didn't you? You gave them a hard time."

  "I didn't mean to. All I wanted… was for them to say, 'Yes, it's your fault!' I wanted someone to blame me; to acknowledge that I have a will of my own, that I'm capable of doing wrong as well as right. But they can't. Inside, I am not who they think I am. I never have been, really. I had one attempt to make them see it and that taught me that it's best to keep my mouth shut, to pretend everything's going to be all right—for their sake, not for mine. Do you understand?"

  "I think so," said Anne. Charlotte's eyes were a grey-violet glaze sealing in a void of misery, but still she didn't cry. "It's too private, isn't? I can understand that things may not be the way your father and David would like to imagine… and
I've no right to judge you. Who has?"

  "I don't deserve a friend like you." Charlotte kissed Anne's cheek, stroked her hair. "Actually I think it would break Father's heart to know the truth. That's why I have to hide it—because nothing can make it better. Because it's mine. And because Maddy and Father need me to be strong, to help them get over Fleur."

  The door creaked. Anne ignored it, thinking it was a draught. "We all have to get over it together," she said. "We'll help each other."

  Charlotte nodded. "I'm going to marry Henry after all," she said.

  Anne was dumbfounded. "But why?"

  "He said he'd come back to work here if I did."

  "Is that all? You have to have a better reason than that. If you don't love him you won't be happy."

  "But I won't be happy anyway!" Charlotte burst out. "Don't you understand, that's just the point. Without Karl, nothing matters! I don't care whether I'm married or single, alive or dead. So I might as well marry Henry as not, because it just doesn't matter!"

  Some instinct made Anne turn her head and she saw Henry standing in the doorway. He looked stricken, bewildered; yet strangely, not surprised. And it struck Anne that he would still marry Charlotte, even after what he had overheard, because he loved her and he had no pride at all.

  ***

  They had dug the trenches by connecting each grave to the next, a line gouged across the limitless mud of the cemetery. The corpses stood on their coffins to keep watch over the battlefield, sunken chests pressed to the clay, their uniforms pale and tattered shrouds.

  And now the enemy was advancing, wave on wave of them, animal heads under the grey helmets—but animals such as Edward had never seen before, deformed and primeval with huge prominent jaws and curved yellow incisors. And their hands… those were not hands on the ends of their arms but perfect little vampire faces with slanting green eyes and red mouths agape.

  They screamed as they came. It was the screaming Edward could not stand…