– XXVII –
As A Child
"Good heavens, Dr Seward!"
The worried exclamation rang in Frankenstein's ears like a warning bell, as he pushed his way through the throng of people in the dark anteroom corner, all leaning over what seemed to be a body on the floor. And indeed, when he finally caught sight of the motionless person ogled by everyone, he instantly recognised the wrinkled, unhealthily grey features of the psychologist. Seward lay there with her eyes closed and mouth open, her arms sprawled out as if she had collapsed without a chance to break her fall. To his great relief, however, she apparently had not suffered any injuries.
Victor hurried to kneel down beside her, feeling her pulse, then checking for a breath – both was there, but only very faint. Patting her ashen cheek, the physician tried to address her:
"Dr Seward! Hello? Can you hear me?"
At first, she showed no reaction at all, but when he advised one of the gawkers to elevate her legs on a chair, and in addition made use of a bottle of smelling salts he found in the practice's first-aid kit, her breathing and heart rate slowly came back to a normal level. After another five minutes of strained waiting, the older woman's dark eyes eventually fluttered open, and with a pained, raspy moan, she raised her head.
"Dr Seward? How are you feeling? Can you tell me what happened?" Frankenstein tried to keep up a calm tone, but could not completely hide his stress, his strong urge to find out more about the catastrophe, the sheer horror that had taken place in this very room.
"...what happened?" the psychologist dully repeated after him, voice still scratchy, bewildered gaze flickering to and fro between the many faces that kept ogling her.
"What happened here in your office, right before you fainted? Can't you remember?!" Victor pushed her in a tone far too agitated for a physician in an emergency situation, but the woman only blinked at this, then stared at him blankly.
"Dr Seward, please!" With that, he seized her shoulders and lifted her into a sitting position, even giving her a slight shake.
This action seemed to reawaken her spirit a bit, for she knitted her brows and shoved his hands away in a brusque gesture.
"Don't you dare treat me like an infirm old granny, young man!" she growled.
A spark of hope rose within Frankenstein's chest when he beheld how her vigour returned to her, but with the next words from her mouth, his heart sank again – and his face fell in shock.
"Who are you, lad?" she demanded to know in a disgruntled tone. "And who the hell is this Dr Seward you keep talking about?!"
Lying on the bed of his new, luxurious room, Richard Renfield contemplated today's encounter with his Lady. As he had been rendered motionless and unthinking by her closeness, he had forfeited the opportunity to enquire the possible concerns she might harbour about a more carnal relationship with him. And, having trembled like a schoolboy under the simple touch of her gloved hand against his bare chest, he asked himself now, if he, despite all his lecherous fantasies, despite all the visions in which he had been with her, was even ready for his dreams to become reality.
Should Lucy truly change her mind in this matter, should her feathery touch one day become a passionate caress, and her caring embrace turn into an ecstatic merging of their bodies, would it be like he had imagined it night after night? Would it meet his – nay, would he meet her expectations? Would he be able to satisfy her wishes? To be honest, he had not the faintest idea what exactly a lady would desire, for the unworthy women he had been with had, in exchange for a shilling, simply done what he had told them to, and he had never bothered to ask any unnecessary questions. The only thing he could tell was that he would do anything, everything his Mistress wished for, in exchange for a single night in her arms.
Having reached a dead end in his train of thoughts, Richard let out a deep sigh of frustration, then decided to distract himself with reading on in Lord Arthur's diary. If he was lucky, he might even find a clue to the enigma he was currently entangled with...
I woke before the morning, I was happy all the day,
I never said an ugly word, but smiled and stuck to play.
And now at last the sun is going down behind the wood,
And I am very happy, for I know that I've been good.
My bed is waiting cool and fresh, with linen smooth and fair,
And I must be off to sleepsin-by, and not forget my prayer.
I know that, till to-morrow I shall see the sun arise,
No ugly dream shall fright my mind, no ugly sight my eyes.
But slumber hold me tightly till I waken in the dawn,
And hear the thrushes singing in the lilacs round the lawn.
– R. L. Stevenson
Arthur Holmwood's diary
26 November
After Lucy and I had quite a peaceful time at home, today rather strange events took place. In the afternoon, the police was at our door, asking about the missing children and if we had seen anything suspicious. I told them that we knew nothing more than what had been in the newspapers, but for some reason – was it upon descrying Lucy on the stairs? – the inspector insisted on having a detailed conversation, and so I led him to the parlour. He enquired utterly private particulars, such as if we had children or if we wanted a child, even if we had lost one or had problems conceiving...! With every question out of that rude man's mouth I became more enraged. What an insolent thing to ask! When the boor looked Lucy up and down and made a remark about her being a "pretty lass", I could not keep myself from starting up, ready to seize him by the lapels of his shabby coat and drag him out of the house. However, my wife reacted even faster and in an elegant motion suddenly approached the policeman. With what seemed to be a deep, almost hypnotising glance into his rheumy eyes, she assured him that there was nothing of interest here, that he should search for answers elsewhere. And like mesmerised, he thereupon only nodded, overly courteously bid us farewell and left.
Bewildered, I watched my beloved smile her sweet smile in silence. Then, when she turned to retreat to her quarters, she posed an even more bewildering question:
"Maybe we should adopt a child, what do you think, Darling?"
I could thereupon only nod just as simperingly as the inspector, somehow unable to grasp the significance of her words. Now that I have had some hours to truly consider this idea, I must say that after mere days of marriage – and moreover, an unconsummated one – I am in no way ready to give in to that strange, mistimed wish of Lucy's.
30 November
What happened – or rather not happened – today, I cannot contextualise, not to mention explain, so bizarre an experience it was!
This morning began rather pleasurably, as I woke to the ravishing beauty of my darling, who had sat down on the edge of my bed, leaning over me. She smiled down on me in the most angelic way and gently brushed a strand of hair from my forehead, but when I reached up to draw her closer, hoping to maybe now, a week after our uncompleted wedding night, get a glimpse of my beloved's milky white skin, maybe feel the passionate heat of her kiss again, she playfully slapped my hand and told me to stand up and get dressed – for she had made an appointment at an orphanage!
My eyes must have been wide with utter confusion, and I rose rather clumsily, intending to protest against this bizarre idée fixe of hers, but for some reason I kept quiet and put on my shirt, suit and shoes just as she had suggested. And indeed, a few minutes later I found myself sitting next to Lucy in a cab which drove us to Limehouse – a district I usually avoid! – and stopped in front of a decrepit building. The next moments I experienced like in a haze, as if I was just dreaming and not truly entering the orphanage on my wife's heels, as if I was not really shaking hands with an old matron and looking down into grubby children's faces, not actually following Lucy's lead in choosing some blond, blue-eyed, five-year-old girl, not in fact signing some fine print papers. And just as if I had woken from a dream, the next thing I remembered was sitting on the sofa next to the fireplace, watching the flames flickering in their endless dance.
"Arthur, my love, you seem a bit beside yourself today," Lucy spoke to me, sounding concerned.
"Darling..." I uttered hoarsely. "Have we just... adopted a child?"
An amused giggle escaped my wife's perfect crimson mouth at that. "You were dreaming, Sweetheart! It seems you have taken that policeman's stupid questions to heart too much."
"But have you not suggested yourself..." I began, but she interrupted me by putting a finger to my lips.
"That was but a joke, of course!"
Her sweet, bell-like laugh lingered in my ears when she left the room, and strangely I still could hear it after she had closed the door, while I sat there, pondering how I could have so vividly dreamed such nonsense. Lucy is right, I am beside myself – for why the heck should we adopt a child from a Limehouse orphanage?
Aghast, Renfield stared at these entries, written in a hand much less twirly than the one Lord Godalming had used to write in on previous pages. Apparently, Lucy had not only bewitched the police inspector, but her husband as well – for the purpose of making him sign the adoption papers for a child! A cold shiver ran down his spine at the only logical, and though so direful deduction inexorably unfolding in his mind. As his Mistress had never mentioned any wish to have children, he could think of only one reason why she could have done this... Nourishment!
Had she actually adopted an orphan girl to drink her blood?! Why would she do such a thing? Surely there were other ways... wait, no! Richard took in a shaky breath, as suddenly the scales fell from his eyes. The missing children in the newspapers, they had disappeared from Hampstead Heath the very couple of days after Lucy had risen from her grave, wandering the park in search for lives...
Of course! She was the "bloofer" lady!
That strange term the toddlers had made up was supposed to mean "beautiful"!
Lucy, in all her otherworldly loveliness, had been the one to lure them away from their playground, and she had drained them in order to restore herself back to health! And it had worked, oh, how it had worked! The purity of children's blood had strengthened her more than any foul animal's or tainted man's life could ever have! It had enhanced her refined mental abilities, augmented her radiant aura, escalated her ravishing beauty to such an extent that she had been able to regain her life as a noblewoman – rendering her husband just as ignorant as these children, almost blind to her new appearance and behaviour, to her true nature. But then, when the police had gotten involved – even though she had averted their suspicion – this procedure had become too risky, and she had contrived a better way to get hold of a child! An unconcealed, official, perfectly legal way!
Clutching the fabric of his silken robe, Renfield tried to keep his hands from trembling. What a malicious method of food-procurement this was! Biting down on his lip, he deeply inhaled the stale air of his room, before daring to turn the yellowed page.
Lord Hyde's stomach turned as his light brown eyes flew over the long list of children's names in the Holmwood file. One would get an uneasy feeling at such an uncommonly high number of adoptions even in case of normal parents, but with the knowledge at hand that at least one of them was a vampire...
What had Lady Godalming done – or what was she still doing – with all these children?! Had she killed them, eaten them, drunk their blood? Or had she turned them into night creatures as well? Was she creating an army of little monsters? Was this the start of an invasion of pestilent, blood sucking parasites, just as the one Victor and his friends had tried to stop not half a year ago?
No matter which of these equally horrifying scenarios was true, they all caused Hyde's antipathy for the lady in white to grow into outright hatred and he wished now more than ever to act against her, avenge himself for the dreadful memory loss and stop her barbarous doing! Bristling with anger, the veins on his temples throbbing, he turned the page and his gaze wildly flickered over the lines, until finally he found what he had come for: Her address!
Clapping the file shut and shoving it back into the endless row of folders on the shelf, Hyde spun around and headed for the exit. In vigorous strides he left the vaults of the register office's archives, calling for his coachman to drive him to Hampstead Heath.
"I have some interesting news, which will not amuse you, Mr Clare," Sergeant Gainsborough's voice oozed with haughtiness and his eyes sparkled with pleasant anticipation as he placed four typewritten documents on the table in the interrogation room.
John knitted his brows, yellowish gaze flickering over the papers.
"What are these?" he asked, trying to maintain a calm tone, but unable to hide a subtle growl in his usually so velvety voice.
"These, Mr Clare, are the testimonies of the four surviving men from Soho," Gainsborough explained. "Mr Bishop, who has escaped unharmed and who already has identified you as the perpetrator. Mr Summers, whose shoulder joint was dislocated and splintered, so that he will never again be able to move his arm. Mr Miller, who suffered a severe skull fracture and is now blind on one eye. And last but not least Mr Hamilton, with four fractured ribs almost penetrating his lung, who is still not out of mortal danger."
As his wrists were shackled to the table, the poet could not reach for the files himself and the Sergeant savoured the moment he kept his suspect waiting, before ever so slowly handing him the testimonies. John sucked in the mouldy Scotland Yard air, before skimming over the texts, and his breathing became more laboured with every sheet he turned, for they all read the same:
Under oath I hereby declare the following:
We were walking home from the pub at midnight, when the man known from newspaper descriptions as the Hampstead Heath animal abuser, later identified as John Clare, stepped in our way and in an unhinged fit of madness yelled insults at us. We tried to escape the unpleasant situation by turning into a side street, but Clare followed us and threatened to beat us for no apparent reason. In self-defence, Mr Andrew Bradley drew his pocketknife, but Clare took it from him by force and used the weapon to cut Mr Bradley's throat, which instantly lead to death. Clare then punched Mr Miller in the face twice, rendering him unconscious. When Messrs Summers and Hamilton tried to help him up, Clare seized Summers by the shoulder and pushed him towards Hamilton with such force that both collided with a pile of debris in their backs. In panic, Mr Bishop fled the side street, saving his life.
I swear that what I deposed in this statement is the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God.
"So, Mr Clare," Gainsborough grinned at him in a self-satisfied way. "As you are going to hang anyway, will you now also confess the murder of the boy in the backyard?"
Greedily and without restraint, like the starving animal he was, he licked up what was given to him from the most noble veins. Within mere moments it restored his lacerated body and his numbed senses, this ancient blood that had brought eternal life to hundreds, and damnation to thousands. Forever he wanted to bathe in this soothing liquid, bask in its balmy warmth and vitalising strength. Only when he was pushed away roughly, he started up from his state of blissful trance.
"Master...! What happened?! Where am I?!" Francis Fenton confusedly stammered in a puerile voice, his unnaturally blue gaze scampering about.
This was none of the hiding places he remembered, none of the decrepit, abandoned buildings his brothers and sisters had used as their lairs. Instead of a low-ceilinged and narrowing cranny, he beheld a vast hall, so high that it seemed to have no ceiling at all, as if the slender columns disappeared straight into the black sky. And instead of the stench of piled up corpses he could smell only old, dank stone – and a faint hint of incense.
"This, my lost child, is Carfax Abbey, a former monastery," Dracula explained in a calm, fatherly tone. "It is the largest of my London properties, but quite dilapidated, so no mortal soul has been to this place in years. You are safe here."
The boy's lips began quivering thereupon and a tear of blessed relief rolled down his cheek. He had not been abandoned! Not left for dead! The recurrent dream from his long, comatose sleep had become reality!
"Thank you, Master!" In a quick, spidery motion he threw himself at Dracula's feet. "You rescued me, you saved my life!"
A dark chuckle escaped the devil's brother's mouth and, pleased with his humble creature's submissive behaviour, he let his crimson gaze linger on Francis for a while. Absolute obedience. This he expected from all his children. He had always made that clear and, in addition, it was his custom to punish those acting against his orders in the cruellest ways. And though, those two, the ones he had come for, those mischiefs because of whom he had felt obliged to visit this loathsome city again, they had dared to secede from their maker, to walk their own paths!
Exhaling and straightening his posture, Dracula waited for his anger to subside, before he spoke again.
"In your mind I saw that, shortly before I found you, you encountered someone of our kind."
The boy raised his head, blue eyes wide in rapture upon the simple fact that his Master was interested in what he had experienced.
"Yes, indeed, there was this man..." Francis hurried to answer, but failed in finding the right words for a report on the events of the last days.
Dracula sighed upon the naïve little vampire's inability to speak up but decided against reprimanding him for it. What he wanted now was information, not grovelling excuses.
"Why don't you start with describing this man, my dear child?" he inquired in a soft, mesmerising tone.
Arthur Holmwood's diary
2 December
I keep on having strange dreams, always related to children. Images of their little round faces keep appearing before my inner eye, and in quiet hours I think I hear them babble. Then, I always wake up to Lucy's soothing touch and she assures me that there is no-one here with us. Is it possible that I imagine all those things? I never had any dramatic experiences involving children, as an only child not even had all too much contact to younger ones, so why would they now appear to me in dreams?
The longer I think about what is happening to me, the more I find it unsettling, at some points disturbing. Should I contact Dr Seward about these visions? Lucy is strictly against this, for it would mean letting someone from our old life in on the secret of her apparent death and our marriage. I understand her concerns, but someday we must reveal the truth, mustn't we?
5 December
We drove out of town, for the fog is more than suffocating these days, and I desperately need some fresh air. My beloved strangely seems unaffected by the toxic vapours, although I clearly remember that she complained about a dry cough during the winters before our marriage. Has the change that came with her "resurrection" strengthened her health to such an extent?
Sitting opposite her during the ride in the coach, I had the opportunity to take a long and close look at my wife, and I find myself wondering again how her skin can be so pale, as translucent as that of a ghostly apparition, and her lips though so red, so full of life. And her eyes! I have not mistaken them for glowing of their own due to a trick of the light, no, they actually are! How can that be? I begin to ask myself if she has told me the whole truth about those dreadful past days. What has truly happened to my darling after she had been buried, or even before, during her illness?
Having arrived at our country house, I instantly had to lie down for a while, so exhausted was I. Again, I dreamed of adopting a child, this time a boy from a nearby village, and woke up upon the innocent question "Are you my new daddy now?".
These six words, spoken in his puerile voice, haunt me ever since.
10 December
Lucy and I have returned to London, for the country brought no improvement to my condition – I call it this now, for I believe that there is indeed something wrong with me. Again, I suggested to consult a psychologist, if not Dr Seward, then someone uninvolved, who has no knowledge of our past, but my wife convinced me I should better not talk about my strange perceptions to anyone. She fears they would commit me to an asylum like they had intended to do with her upon hearing of her visions and nightmares. And so, I agreed, for actually, the images and voices of these children must be harmless compared to what my darling had had to endure. Maybe I should – like the mediums able to see ghosts and spirits – come to terms with them somehow.
15 December
Have I indeed written that I may get used to the children's voices in my head? For I cannot! With every day they seem louder, not just babbling or asking innocent questions, but weeping instead! Endless, afflicted whining, wailing, sobbing...! I can barely take it! I feel like crying myself! When I, almost panic-stricken talked to Lucy about this alarming change of symptoms in my apparent mental illness, she was shocked. Then, however, she drew me close, stroked through my hair and promised she would put a stop to this. A strange thing to pledge, I must say, for how could she manage to do so?
16 December
Silence, oh sweet silence! Finally! I am so relieved! When I woke today, for some unexplainable reason, I did not hear those voices anymore, not a word! As if they had vanished into thin air, or as if a thick, soundproof wall had suddenly been built between me and them. Elatedly, I walked down to the sitting room, and, meeting my darling, could not help but take her into my arms, kissing her feverishly in sheer thankfulness – as if indeed Lucy herself had released me from my suffering. She kissed me back just as passionately, and we even ended up on the sofa, with her on top of me. Just like in our wedding night, I thought she may accept my advances now, but once more I was disappointed, for she again stopped herself when caressing my neck. What is it about my neck that repels her so? My perfume? I never apply too much of it. Or some stubble? I meticulously shave every morning! So, what the hell could it be? My very pulse...?
– But I am being ungrateful asking these questions now. I should rather be glad to finally have found peace of mind!
Renfield had to swallow the lump in his throat, for Lord Arthur's last journal entries, written in more and more scratchy lines, were summoning a dark déjà-vu, rising within him like the lightless new moon. It appeared Lady Godalming's manipulations on her husband's mind had utterly unhinged his sanity, just the way Dracula's influence had done with his own! Lucy, however, still being an inexperienced vampire, had not noticed the damage she had unintentionally done to her beloved. Only as Arthur had told her about the ghostly children he saw and heard – undistinguishable those he had truly met from those created by his own subconscious – she had acted and drawn up a mental barrier between him and them. Just as she had done that misty night, when he himself had collapsed on the stairs due to the devil's brother's suffocating presence in his head. Upon the unfortunate accident that had caused her husband such alarming hallucinations, his Mistress had refined her abilities, however, she had still been afraid of physical closeness, still very much concerned she would hurt Arthur.
Richard was now almost sure it was the same with him! When she had scrutinised his wound, the way she had touched him – there had been so much more in that touch of hers than an objective interest in his healing process. And when she had looked up at him, there had been more than pity with an injured servant in her cerulean orbs. But then, she had only embraced him, as if she had stopped herself from proceeding further, just like in her husband's notes! What an odd fate he shared with the late lord!
Renfield's gaze involuntarily wandered up to Arthur Holmwood's portrait on the sitting room wall again, pale blue eyes meeting green ones – and suddenly, his heart stopped. Had he, when he had last looked at the piece of art, noticed some strange, unexplainable familiarity with the lord in utter bewilderment, he now stared at it, aghast, completely shocked by the strong resemblance of the painted features with his very own face...!