The Delicate Dependency: A Novel of the Vampire Life Page 4

  Word that I was Dr. Cletus Hardwicke’s personal assistant spread quickly and I was soon the envy of my peers. Elder professors seldom took on such youthful assistants, and when they did it was a most prized distinction. It established reputation. I felt very warmly toward the strange little man for this. In the trial-by-fire world of academe, reputation was the most important passport.

  True to his word, Dr. Hardwicke was often absent from his laboratory. I, however, was not. I often stayed well into the night and when I left, the streets were foggy and deserted. I did not mind. The stroll by the majestic pillars of the university was relaxing. The darkness was tranquil. Only the distant whistle of the commissionaires hailing cabs from the rank by the river disturbed the calm. It was often well past midnight when I got home.

  It was one evening about a month after I had started the assistantship that I found myself confronted with a list of duties unusually long. I had not gotten much sleep the night before and the prospect of staying up all night was far from attractive. I hit upon a plan. I knew that Dr. Hardwicke’s first lecture wasn’t until the afternoon of the following day and if I returned early the next morning I would have plenty of time to complete the allotted tasks.

  When I arrived home unexpectedly, I discovered him there in my house, dressed in his usual attire, the black coat, waistcoat, and trousers. The white cravat carefully tied. The lavender-colored kid gloves. He appeared to be imploring Camille, hands outstretched in an entreating gesture. Even more horrifying, there was a glint of warmth in her dark eyes, a desperate fascination born of her utter isolation and loneliness. She looked up blankly. The twisted little man showed more surprise. Veins bulged through his thinning, reddish hair. His face puffed crimson. “Gladstone!” gasped the voice.

  I was furious. I moved toward him, but in an instant he was gone.

  That night we fought as we had never fought. Although Camille had no awareness of the incident, Cletus had apparently seen her at one of the dance halls. Perhaps he had hoped ultimately to blackmail her. I don’t know. All I knew was that he had visited her with intents of gaining more than her favor. She had not succumbed to his immoral entreaty, but the mere fact that she seemed to be flattered by it, still took his hand warmly, sickened me. How could she stoop to trifle with such a disgusting little man? As soon as she had discovered his intent, why hadn’t she had him thrown out? My pride was hurt, but there was more, I knew that she was faithful to me, but somewhere deep inside I always wondered what she had secretly wanted to do, what would have happened had I not intervened?

  After I left her I paced for hours in my room. I was torn, torn because my intellect told me I had no right to judge her. It was I who had brought her into a world where she didn’t belong. I knew what she was. I even understood the starvation that had glimmered in her eye for a visitor, any visitor, even that malformed and repulsive little blackguard, but my emotions overwhelmed me. No amount of intellect could ever banish the pain that sprung within me. I was controlled by the pain. Whenever I recalled the image of his gnarled appendage reaching for her sweet hand... It was the pain that caused me to allow her to believe I blamed her when secretly I blamed myself.

  That evening I also began to understand something that I had never quite understood before. I had always thought of myself as a sort of rebel against propriety. When society wrongly judged Camille I had always held her to my heart as an innocent victim. However, there were sides to my beloved, things that both allured and repelled, that even I could not condone. I was loath to admit it, but at certain times I found myself inextricably on the other side of the fence. There were certain issues in which she was quite blameless, but there were also certain issues in which she did stray too far from the norm. I thought I had hated propriety. I knew its hypocrisy, but at long last I realized I too had to believe there were things that simply weren’t done.

  It was well after midnight when I found myself standing before the elaborately carved seashell chair, listening to the echoes its darkness contained. And then, slowly, falteringly, I sat down, encompassed in the alcove of black oak. For the first time I felt oddly comforted by the chair, protected. My legs melted and became one with its cabriole-leg hooves. My arms sank heavily into the worn and polished hand rests. I don’t know how many hours I sat in my father’s chair.

  From that day on I had as little to do with Dr. Hardwicke as possible. As might be expected, some contact with him was necessary, but I resigned my assistantship and shunned any contact with him that wasn’t absolutely necessary for the attainment of my degree. Toward the end of our first year of marriage two things happened that brightened our world. I graduated from medical school and Camille gave birth to our first daughter; Ursula. From the very beginning Ursula was such a perfect child I often found it difficult to believe she was a product of the two of us. Not only was she even more of a beauty than her mother, but also she was precociously intelligent. By the time she reached fourteen, in a day and age when young women were supposed to modestly pretend not to know that animals were of different sexes, Ursula had mastered French and Latin, learned to recognize the major constellations and recite their myths, and had raised two litters of champion whippets. As for Camille, she was never truly happy, but the child helped. As the years wore on Camille hid her discontent behind a proper smile, and looked quite regal in her chinchilla toque and her muff with a tiny bunch of violets on it.

  It goes without saying I was pleased at Ursula’s passion for life, at her mettle and ardor. I realized she was far from being the prim and delicate granddaughter my father would have demanded, and this delighted me. At the same time I was filled with a subtle and yet terrible fear. When I searched myself I realized it was because of my experience with Camille. My intellect told me this was silly, but the feeling remained. No matter how hard I tried to suppress it, every once in a while the poison would leak into my veins and I would yield to a painful fear that the child conceived on the night of the Rubáiyát reading might somehow become “fallen” like her mother.

  Two years before Ursula’s coming-out party I accepted a position on the faculty of Redgewood University Hospital. For the first time in my life this afforded me the resources to undertake the medical research I had yearned to do for so long. During this period Camille also became pregnant with our second child and it looked as if everything was going right in our lives. It was in the winter of 1887 that Camille became ill. There was an influenza epidemic sweeping London, and when she showed the first symptoms I put her directly to bed. I was not worried at first, for Camille had always possessed a strong constitution. She could dance all night if I would let her and for the first few days those tiny hands gripped the edge of the bed defiantly. But then meningitis set in and my reserved concern became obsessed terror.

  Memory of those terrible days is foggy. When I try to recall them I see gauze-masked policemen in snow-flurried streets, pots of eucalyptus boiling on the stove, and Camille’s sweat-beaded face, motionless in the deep recesses of her pillow. Her fever raged. I went insane, cursing myself. It seemed the greatest irony that of all the occupations I could have chosen, I became a doctor and still was powerless to help her. At last the tiny hands went limp. It was only by performing a caesarean that I was able to save the child.

  There are no words to describe the pain I felt. I’m sure I would have lapsed into shock if it weren’t for the child. Because she was born two months prematurely it was necessary for me to keep a constant vigil over her and this, at least, kept me occupied. I named the baby Camille. She wasn’t as striking a child as her sister, but I cherished her nonetheless. The first indication that something was wrong came when she was about ten weeks old and had still not learned to focus her eyes properly. Initially I attributed this to her prematurity, but her failure to register even the faintest hint of recognition when I held a candle up to her eyes revealed she was completely blind. At the age of two it became evident she was severely mentally retarded and incapable of all but the simpl
est of communications. Her only avid interest in the external world was a peculiar fascination for sounds. She would sit for hours listening to the cook shelling peas, or to the rhythmic clacking of the carriage wheels on the bricks of the street outside.

  Although I have never told a soul, I was at first repulsed by Camille. Perhaps it was my grief and guilt, but I viewed her imperfection as somehow connected to the imperfection of that little man. I knew it could not possibly be, but some irrational part of me kept suggesting her mother’s long-ago association with Hardwicke had somehow laid a blemish upon the child. Worse yet, even though she did not physically resemble her mother, there were times in her constant stupor that she struck the same vacuous expression that had so unsettled me about Camille. Was it fate? Was it cruel justice that I would come into the room and find her standing there in her white little frock and black knee-stockings, with her small pink mouth opened dumbly and her hazel eyes in that same vacant stare? It was coincidence, but it was her mother’s gaze.

  I could not be cruel to the child. I forced myself to show this poor little creature the affection that innocence and helplessness rightfully deserved, but it was a struggle. Limited though Camille was in her reasoning faculties, her acute hearing enabled her to recognize the weight and rhythm of my step. Whenever I stooped she would run and lovingly wrap her arms around me. The pressure of her tiny hands against my back seemed more than the pressure of a child’s hands. There was a firmness in her grasp, almost a passion that reminded me uncannily of her mother. It took all of my will to conceal the uneasiness the touch of those innocent little hands caused in me.

  I only revealed my feelings once. It was late one night as a terrible thunderstorm shook the house. Camille had become anxious over the vibrations, and Ursula brought her to my bedroom to be comforted. It was more than I could take. The moment those helpless hands pressed against my nightshirt—the nightshirt her mother had so often pressed with her own tiny hands—my feelings got the better of me and I lost my temper. I yelled at Ursula and told her she could just as easily have comforted Camille. It had never been my nature to lose my temper and Ursula was stunned. That was the first evening I became aware of the music.

  I had just been lulled asleep by the storm when I was awakened by the strains of a beautiful waltz. For the first few moments I lingered on the edge of my dreamy state listening to the music, but then my curiosity became aroused. I did not recall owning a gramophone disc of that particular waltz. I sat up in bed and listened. Against the background of the storm someone was playing the piano. I slipped on my robe and made my way to the upstairs drawing room. I pushed the massive walnut doors aside. The flashing of the lightning through the French windows intermittently lit the room. There was no one at the ornate gilt and rosewood pianoforte.

  The mysterious music repeated. I heard it when I came in late one evening, but by the time I ascended the stairs it had stopped. I even heard it in the daytime. On one occasion it met my ears when I was strolling through the garden. I looked up at the French windows, but I could not see anything through the glare.

  One afternoon I was napping in the study when the music began. There was no mistaking it. The muted tinkle was coming from the room over my very head. I rushed in my stocking feet to the upstairs drawing room. When I pushed the doors open my eyes were greeted with a miraculous sight. There, framed by the golden sunlight streaming through the French windows and seated at the gilt and rosewood pianoforte, was little Camille. The small china face looked up at me, the mouth agape. At first she seemed frightened, but when her large hazel eyes turned toward me and encompassed me with the infinity of their emptiness, I sensed a change in her. She was hesitant, but she resumed her playing. Her face remained blank and expressionless, but her small, delicate hands melted into the keys with such skill and emotion I was overwhelmed. I looked down at the hands.

  The thin, rapid music filled the room. The waltz she played sounded familiar, and then it came to me. Cook often hummed it as she was working. Somehow Camille had memorized it and had learned to play it upon the pianoforte. Still overcome with amazement I placed a red wax disc upon the gramophone and one of Mendelssohn’s simpler melodies from his Songs Without Words issued scratchily from the large horn. As soon as it had finished, Camille returned to the keyboard. Without hesitation she tapped out the plaintive melody precisely as it had been arranged in the recording. In complete awe I played s Bach fugue, and then a Mozart sonata, and each time she played them back, note for note, measure for measure, exactly as they had been written.

  By some stupendous fluke of nature, Camille, the idiot child who could not perform the simplest of everyday tasks, possessed a genius for music unequaled by even the most accomplished virtuoso. Although she could not see to read a single note or even express the slightest comprehension of the word “music,’” it was only necessary for her to hear a composition once, any composition, and she could play it perfectly, with inspiring expertise. In psychological terminology she was what was known as an idiot savant, an individual who was retarded or subnormal in intelligence, but who possessed an incredible skill or talent in one specific area. Several of my colleagues urged me to put little Camille on tour and profit from this talent, but I could never bring myself to exploit her. For the first time in my life I realized I could not view Camille as a deficient human being. She may not have been a normal child, but a talent like hers belonged to no mere mortal. In some ineffable way Camille was very special In time, my repulsion for Camille, for that poor, sweet child, began to fade. Instead of the empty infinite, I began to see innocence in her face. I grew to love the child with a love I would never have thought possible. As I worked I would find myself thinking of her face. It was not a striking face. It was plain. Her eyes were ashen. I would find myself smiling when I thought of how her chestnut hair curled around the tiny, perfectly formed little ear. It might have been the face of any urchin on the street, soft and round, unmarred by experience, a simple face plucked from the ocean of children, and yet it was captivating merely because it was a child’s face. I took her frequently on walks. I held crickets to her ear. Slowly, cautiously, I abandoned myself to the haunting touch of her hands. In time I even grew to look forward to her artless embraces, the pressure of her fingers against my back. I comforted her when it thundered. I warmed beneath her touch. It was her only expression outside of her music. Her hands.

  Understandably, Ursula was surprised by my change in attitude toward little Camille. Ursula never mentioned it, but I could tell she was mystified by my conversion. She did not seem jealous. Indeed, it was often I who was hurt by her aloofness and independence. In time she grew accustomed to my new closeness with Camille. Only once or twice did Ursula’s gaze reveal that perhaps she was hiding something, that she was a little more deeply affected than she let on by my special love for her sibling.

  IV

  These were the events that shaped my character, and the events that left me on the doorstep of something I was not quite prepared for. I did not know it then, but the series of occurrences that followed would ultimately change my life. After Camille’s birth Haemophilus influenzae became the consuming passion of my life. I spent all of my free time either in my office at the university or in the laboratory I had set up in my home. I was obsessed with deciphering all the intricacies of the killer and had published several papers on the subject. The success of the experiments that followed these papers was so promising I was certain I had made an important scientific breakthrough. I was keeping all of my newest work secret because the project had become a very personal vendetta with me. I didn’t want anyone to beat me to the discovery of a cure and this was becoming a growing fear. Since the epidemic many of the senior faculty at Redgewood were concentrating their efforts on influenzae and several of them had hinted they were making dazzling discoveries.

  It was shortly after Camille’s fifth birthday that a most disconcerting thing happened. One of the older faculty members at Redgewood, a Dr. Willi
am Chiswick, announced at a trustees’ meeting that he had made a great discovery and was going to publish his findings within a very short time. For several weeks the university buzzed with anticipation, but when Chiswick was approached concerning his coming revelation he became irritable and strangely apprehensive. He had the locks changed on the door of his office and even had wire grates placed over the windows. When more time passed and he showed less and less inclination to release even the tiniest bit of information, the trustees became nervous. They approached Chiswick, but this only caused his peculiar paranoia to rage completely out of control. The next night he took a hammer to all of his equipment and tore his office to shreds, burning every file, book, and paper he possessed. And then, strangest of all, he vanished, completely, and after following every lead Scotland Yard could offer no explanation for his mysterious disappearance.

  A rumor spread about the hospital that Chiswick hadn’t actually made any discovery, and rather than admit his lie to the trustees, had destroyed everything. Those of us who knew him found this hard to believe. William Chiswick was a very respected physician. The notion that he would end his illustrious career in that way was out of the question. Something very strange had happened, but certainly something that was no stranger than the incident that befell me scarcely a week later. It was a very rainy and cold spring night in April. I was riding in the brougham along Coventry Street on my way to the hospital when suddenly I heard the horses rear up, and the carriage careened to a stop.

  “What’s wrong?” I shouted, pounding on the glass.

  “I’ve ’it ’im,” the driver stated breathlessly as he jumped down from his seat. I wiped the steam off the side window and peered out. There, lying facedown on the wet cobblestone, was a man in a blue evening coat with gilt buttons sparkling faintly on the sleeves. I quickly stepped down from the brougham and raced to his side.