Author's Notes: Nothing to say, for once, enjoy. ^^
Disclaimer: I do not own Integra, Dracula, Carmilla, or Hellsing.
"With all my heart," said the General, with an effort; and after a short pause in which to arrange his subject, he commenced one of the strangest narratives I ever heard.
"My dear child was looking forward with great pleasure to the visit you had been so good as to arrange for her to your charming daughter." Here he made me a gallant but melancholy bow. "In the meantime we had an invitation to my old friend the Count Carlsfeld, whose schloss is about six leagues to the other side of Bistritz. It was to attend the series of fetes which, you remember, were given by him in honour of his illustrious visitor, the Grand Duke Charles."
"Yes; and very splendid, I believe, they were," said my father.
"Princely! But then his hospitalities are quite regal. He has Aladdin's lamp. The night from which my sorrow dates was devoted to a magnificent party. It was not a ball or a masquerade, mind you, for then my ward would have been considered too young to attend, and I would have been forced to leave her at home. I wish to God now that I had; that I should never have allowed her to be exposed to the evil that would pray on her then. I had believed, at the time, the company of ladies and noblemen to be a good influence on my poor Seras, for she was still nursing her residual habit of teasing the hired help, especially the Bernadotte boy."
"T'is a worthy goal, to be sure," my father said.
"The grounds were thrown open, the trees hung with coloured lamps. And such music—music, you know, is my weakness—such ravishing music! The finest instrumental bands and singers who could be collected, it seemed, from all the great operas in Europe. As you wandered through these fantastically illuminated grounds, the moon-lighted chateau throwing a rosy light from its long rows of windows, you would suddenly hear these ravishing voices stealing from the silence of some grove. I felt myself, as I looked and listened, carried back into the romance and poetry of my early youth.
"When the guests were gathered, and the festivities beginning, we returned to the noble suite of rooms that were thrown open for games and pleasantries. It was a very aristocratic assembly. I was myself almost the only 'nobody' present.
"My dear child was looking quite beautiful. Her excitement and delight added an unspeakable charm to her features, and she was quite a favourite among the gentry present, who were fond of their own children, and who felt that she reminded them of their own. During these exchanges, however, I remarked a young lady, dressed magnificently, but whose face was covered flirtatiously by a hand-held fan, who appeared to me to be observing my ward with extraordinary interest. I had seen her in the great hall earlier in the evening, and again on the terrace under the castle windows, similarly employed. A lady who was richly and gravely dressed, and with a stately air like that of a person of rank, accompanied her as a chaperon.
"We were now in one of the salons. My poor dear child had been dancing, an activity which had been expressly called for by various admirers, and was resting a little in one of the chairs near the door; I was standing near. The two ladies I have mentioned had approached and the younger suddenly took the chair next my ward.
" 'Surprise,' the young lady said, mysteriously. 'Were you expecting Prince Charming?'
"Before I could object to such an intrusion, her companion stood beside me. Availing herself of the privilege of her fan, she turned to me, and in the tone of an old friend, and calling me by my name, opened a conversation with me, which piqued my curiosity a good deal. She referred to many scenes where she had met me— at Court, and at distinguished houses. She alluded to little incidents which I had long ceased to think of, but which had only lain in abeyance in my memory, for they instantly started into life at her touch.
"I became more and more curious to ascertain who she was every moment. She parried my attempts to discover very adroitly and pleasantly. The knowledge she showed of many passages in my life seemed to me all but unaccountable; and she appeared to take a not unnatural pleasure in foiling my curiosity and in seeing me flounder in my eager perplexity, from one conjecture to another.
"In the meantime the young lady, whom her mother called by the odd name of Dalv, had, with the same ease and grace, got into conversation with my ward.
"She introduced herself by saying that her mother was a very old acquaintance of mine. She spoke of the agreeable audacity which a disguise rendered practicable; she batted the fan in front of her face coquettishly; she talked like a friend; she admired her dress, and insinuated very prettily her admiration of her beauty. She amused her with laughing criticisms upon the people who crowded the drawing-room, and laughed at my poor child's fun. She was very witty and lively when she pleased, and after a time they had grown very good friends, and the young stranger lowered her fan, displaying a remarkably beautiful face. I had never seen it before, neither had my dear child. But though it was new to us, the features were so engaging and lovely that it was impossible not to feel the attraction powerfully. My poor girl did so. I never saw anyone more taken with another at first sight, unless it was the stranger herself, who seemed quite to have lost her heart to my niece.
"In the meantime, availing myself of the license of an intimate party, I put not a few questions to the elder lady.
" 'You have puzzled me utterly,' I said, laughing. 'Is that not enough? Won't you, now, consent to stand on equal terms, and do me the kindness to lower your fan?'
" 'Can any request be more unreasonable?' she replied. 'Ask a lady to yield an advantage! Beside, how do you know you should recognize me? Years make changes.'
" 'As you see,' I said, with a bow, and a rather melancholy little laugh.
" 'As philosophers tell us,' she said; 'and how do you know that a sight of my face would help you?'
" 'I should take chance for that,' I answered. 'It is vain trying to make yourself out an old woman; your figure betrays you.'
" 'Years, nevertheless, have passed since I saw you, rather since you saw me, for that is what I am considering. Dalv, there, is my daughter; I cannot then be young, even in the opinion of people whom time has taught to be indulgent, and I may not like to be compared with what you remember me. You have no mask to remove. You can offer me nothing in exchange.'
" 'My petition is to your pity, to remove it.'
" 'And mine to yours, to let it stay where it is,' she replied.
" 'Well, then, at least you will tell me whether you are French or German; you speak both languages so perfectly.'
" 'I don't think I shall tell you that, General; you intend a surprise, and are meditating the particular point of attack.'
" 'At all events, you won't deny this,' I said, 'that being honoured by your permission to converse, I ought to know how to address you. Shall I say Madame la Comtesse?'
"She laughed, and she would have met me with another evasion—if, indeed, I can treat any occurrence in an interview every circumstance of which was pre-arranged, as I now believe, with the profoundest cunning, as liable to be modified by accident.
" 'As to that,' she began; but she was interrupted, almost as she opened her lips, by a gentleman. He was dressed in black, looking particularly elegant and distinguished, with this drawback, and his face was the most deadly pale I ever saw, except in death. He was in the plain evening dress of a gentleman; and he said, without a smile, but with a courtly and unusually low bow:
" 'Will Madame la Comtesse permit me to say a very few words which may interest her?'
"The lady turned quickly to him, and touched her lip in token of silence; she then said to me, 'Keep my place for me, General; I shall return when I have said a few words.'
"And with this injunction, playfully given, she walked a little aside with the gentleman in black, and talked for some minutes, apparently very earnestly. They then walked away slowly together in the crowd, and I lost them for some minutes.
"I spent the interval in cudgeling my brains for a conjecture as to the identity of the lady who seemed to remember me so kindly, and I was thinking of turning about and joining in the conversation between my pretty ward and the Countess's daughter, and trying whether, by the time she returned, I might not have a surprise in store for her, by having her name, title, chateau, and estates at my fingers' ends. But at this moment she returned, accompanied by the pale man in black, who said:
" 'I shall return and inform Madame la Comtesse when her carriage is at the door.'
"He withdrew with a bow."
" 'Then we are to lose Madame la Comtesse, but I hope only for a few hours,' I said, with a low bow.
" 'It may be that only, or it may be a few weeks. It was very unlucky his speaking to me just now as he did. Do you now know me?'
"I assured her I did not.
" 'You shall know me,' she said, 'but not at present. We are older and better friends than you suspect. I cannot yet declare myself. I shall in three weeks pass your beautiful schloss, about which I have been making enquiries. This moment a piece of news has reached me like a thunderbolt. I must set out now and travel by a devious route nearly a hundred miles with all the dispatch I can possibly make. My poor child has not quite recovered her strength. Her horse fell with her, at a hunt which she had ridden out to witness, her nerves have not yet recovered the shock, and our physician says that she must on no account exert herself for some time to come. We came here, in consequence, by very easy stages—hardly six leagues a day. I must now travel day and night, on a mission of life and death— a mission the critical and momentous nature of which I shall be able to explain to you when we meet, as I hope we shall, in a few weeks, without the necessity of any concealment.'
"She went on to make her petition, and it was in the tone of a person from whom such a request amounted to conferring, rather than seeking a favour. This was only in manner, and quite unconsciously. Then the terms, in which it was expressed, nothing could be more deprecatory. It was simply that I would consent to take charge of her daughter during her absence.
"This was a strange, not to say, an audacious request. She in some sort disarmed me, by stating and admitting everything that could be urged against it, and throwing herself entirely upon my chivalry. At the same moment, by a fatality that seems to have predetermined all that happened, my poor child came to my side, and besought me to invite her new friend, Dalv, to pay us a visit.
"At another time I should have told her to wait a little, at least until we knew who they were. But I had not a moment to think in. The two ladies assailed me together, and I must confess the refined and beautiful face of the young lady, about which there was something extremely engaging, as well as the elegance and fire of high birth, determined me; and, quite overpowered, I submitted, and undertook, too easily, the care of the young lady, whom her mother called Dalv.
"The gentleman in black returned, and very ceremoniously conducted the lady from the room.
"The demeanour of this gentleman was such as to impress me with the conviction that the Countess was a lady of very much more importance than her modest title alone might have led me to assume.
"Her last charge to me was that no attempt was to be made to learn more about her than I might have already guessed, until her return. Our distinguished host, whose guest she was, knew her reasons.
" 'But here,' she said, 'neither I nor my daughter could safely remain for more than a day. I removed my fan imprudently for a moment, about an hour ago, and, too late, I fancied you saw me. So I resolved to seek an opportunity of talking a little to you. Had I found that you had seen me, I would have thrown myself on your high sense of honour to keep my secret some weeks. As it is, I am satisfied that you did not see me; but if you now suspect, or, on reflection, should suspect, who I am, I commit myself, in like manner, entirely to your honour. My daughter will observe the same secrecy, and I well know that you will, from time to time, remind her, lest she should thoughtlessly disclose it.'
" 'It is true,' the young lady said, rather impertinently. 'I am very terrible with keeping secrets, as well as telling lies.'
" The Countess then whispered a few words to her daughter, no doubt reminding her of the importance of exercising a little prudence. She then kissed her hurriedly twice, and went away, accompanied by the pale gentleman in black, and disappeared in the crowd.
" 'In the next room,' said Dalv, 'there is a window that looks upon the hall door. I should like to see the last of mamma, and to kiss my hand to her.'
"We assented, of course, and accompanied her to the window. We looked out, and saw a handsome old-fashioned carriage, with a troop of couriers and footmen. We saw the slim figure of the pale gentleman in black, as he held a thick velvet cloak, and placed it about her shoulders and threw the hood over her head. She nodded to him, and just touched his hand with hers. He bowed low repeatedly as the door closed, and the carriage began to move.
" 'She is gone,' said Dalv, with a sigh.
" 'She is gone,' I repeated to myself, for the first time —in the hurried moments that had elapsed since my consent— reflecting upon the folly of my act.
" 'She did not look up,' said the young lady, plaintively.
" 'The Countess had lowered her fan, perhaps, and did not care to show her face,' I said; 'and she could not know that you were in the window.'
"She sighed, and looked in my face. She was so beautiful that I relented. I was sorry I had for a moment repented of my hospitality, and I determined to make her amends for the unavowed churlishness of my reception.
"The young lady, replacing her fan, joined my ward in persuading me to return to the grounds, where the concert was soon to be renewed. We did so, and walked up and down the terrace that lies under the castle windows. Dalv became very intimate with us, and amused us with lively descriptions and stories of most of the great people whom we saw upon the terrace. I liked her more and more every minute. She gossiped without being ill-natured, was extremely diverting to me, who had been so long out of the great world. I thought what life she would give to our sometimes lonely evenings at home.
"This party was not over until long into the night; for gentile parties generally do last many hours, even days, and the Grand Duke was having such a grand time that loyal people could not go away, or think of bed.
"We had just got through the front gate, when my ward asked me what had become of Dalv. I thought she had been by her side, and she fancied she was by mine. The fact was, we had lost her.
"Now, in its full force, I recognized a new folly in my having undertaken the charge of a young lady without so much as knowing her name; and fettered as I was by promises, of the reasons for imposing which I knew nothing, I could not even point my inquiries by saying that the missing young lady was the daughter of the Countess who had taken her departure a few hours before.
"Just when all recovery of our young charge seemed futile, she stole behind my ward, and in a voice that was insinuative, if not seductive, 'Have you missed me, dear Seras?' and wrapped her pretty, pale fingers around my ward's slender neck. She gulped.
" 'Is that you, my Dalv?' she asked, with shuddering breathes, as the young lady behind her traced lazy patterns around her collar with long, smooth forefingers. There could be no doubt that our young friend had turned up; and so she had. Would to heaven we had lost her!
"She told my poor child a story to account for her having failed to recover us for so long. Very late, she said, she had gotten out to the rose garden by mistake, had then fallen into a deep enchantment with the moon, and had not sufficed to recover her wits until long after she realized how much time had passed.
"I could not bring myself to be put out for long, for she said all of this in such a calm, demure, if not apologetic, manner. She then instantly won our hearts again with her delightful wit and lively stories; and by the time our coach arrived, the whole of the incident was all but forgotten.
"That day Dalv came home with us. I was only too happy, after all, to have secured so charming a companion for my dear girl."