The Blood of the Vampire

by Florence Marryat

  “I have no doubt of it,” again, gravely, responded the old doctor.

  “Ah! you might send some of your patients to us, Doctor, and we’ll pay back by recommending you to our friends. Are you a Gout man? Prince Adalbert ’as the gout awfully! I’ve rubbed ’is feet with Elliman’s Embrocation,[103] by the hour together but nothing gives ’im relief! Now if you could cure ’im your fortune would be made! ’E says it’s all the English climate, but I say it’s over eating and ’e’d attend more to a medical man if ’e told ’im to diet than ’e will to me!”

  “Doubtless, doubtless!” said the Doctor, in a dreamy manner. He seemed to be lost in a reverie and Margaret had to touch his arm to remind him that the meal was concluded.

  She wanted him to join the others in a promenade and see the beauties of Heyst but he was strangely eager in declining it.

  “No! no! let the youngsters go and enjoy themselves, but I want to speak to you, alone.”

  “My dear doctor, you frighten me! Nothing about baby, I hope!”

  “Not at all! Don’t be foolish! But I want to talk to you where we cannot be overheard.”

  “I think we had better wait till the rest have dispersed then, and go down upon the sands. It is almost impossible to be private in a hotel like this!”

  “All right! Get your hat and we will stroll off together.”

  As soon as they were out of earshot he commenced abruptly, “It is about that Miss Brandt! You seem pretty intimate with her! You must stop it at once. You must have nothing more to do with her.”

  Margaret’s eyes opened wide with distress.

  “But, Doctor Phillips, for what reason? I don’t see how we could give her up now unless we leave the place.”

  “Then leave the place! You mustn’t know her, neither must Miss Leyton. She comes of a terrible parentage. No good can ever ensue of association with her.”

  “You must tell me more than this, Doctor, if you wish me to follow your advice!”

  “I will tell you all I know myself! Some twelve or thirteen years ago I was quartered in medical charge of the Thirteenth Lances and stationed in Jamaica where I knew of, rather than knew, the father of this girl, Henry Brandt. You called him a doctor—he was not worthy of the name. He was a scientist perhaps—a murderer certainly!”

  “How horrible! Do you really mean it?”

  “Listen to me! This man Brandt matriculated in the Swiss hospitals, whence he was expelled for having caused the death of more than one patient by trying his scientific experiments upon them. The Swiss laboratories are renowned for being the most foremost in Vivisection and other branches of science that gratify the curiosity and harden the heart of man more than they confer any lasting benefit on humanity. Even there Henry Brandt’s barbarity was considered to render him unfit for association with civilized practitioners, and he was expelled with ignominy. Having a private fortune he settled in Jamaica and set up his laboratory there, and I would not shock your ears by detailing one hundredth part of the atrocities that were said to take place under his supervision and in company of this man Trawler, whom the girl calls her trustee, and who is one of the greatest brutes unhung.”

  “Are you not a little prejudiced, dear Doctor?”

  “Not at all! If, when you have heard all, you still say so, you are not the woman I have taken you for. Brandt did not confine his sci­entific investigations to the poor dumb creation. He was known to have decoyed natives into his Pandemonium[104] who were never heard of again which, raised at last, the public feeling so much against him that, I am glad to say, his negroes revolted and, after having murdered him with appropriate atrocity, set fire to his house and burned it and all his property to the ground. Don’t look so shocked! I repeat that I am glad to say it, for he richly deserved his fate, and no torture could be too severe for one who spent his worthless life in torturing God’s helpless animals!”

  “And his wife—” commenced Margaret.

  “He had no wife! He was never married!”

  “Never married! But this girl Harriet Brandt—”

  “Has no more right to the name than you have! Henry Brandt was not the man to regard the laws, either of God or man. There was no reason why he should not have married—for that very cause, I suppose, he preferred to live in concubinage.”

  “Poor Harriet! Poor child! And her mother, did you know her?”

  “Don’t speak to me of her mother. She was not a woman she was a fiend, a fitting match for Henry Brandt! To my mind she was a revolting creature. A fat, flabby half caste who hardly ever moved out of her chair but sat eating all day long until the power to move had almost left her! I can see her now with her sensual mouth, her greedy eyes, her low forehead and half-formed brain, and her lust for blood. It was said that the only thing which made her laugh was to watch the dying agonies of the poor creatures her brutal protector slaughtered. But she thirsted for blood, she loved the sight and smell of it, she would taste it on the tip of her finger when it came in her way. Her servants had some story amongst themselves to account for this lust. They declared that when her slave mother was pregnant with her she was bitten by a Vampire bat, which are formidable creatures in the West Indies and are said to fan their victims to sleep with their enormous wings whilst they suck their blood. Anyway the slave woman did not survive her delivery and her fellows proph­ecied that the child would grow up to be a murderess. Which doubt­less she was in heart, if not in deed!”

  “What an awful description! And what became of her?”

  “She was killed at the same time as Brandt. Indeed the natives would have killed her in preference to him had they been obliged to choose, for they attributed all the atrocities that went on in the laboratory to her influence. They said she was ‘Obeah’, which means diabolical witchcraft in their language. And doubtless their unfortunate child would have been slaughtered also, had not the overseer of the plantation carried her off to his cabin and afterwards, when the disturbance was quelled, to the Convent where, you say, she has been educated.”

  “But terrible as all this is, dear Doctor, it is not the poor girl’s fault. Why should we give up her acquaintance for that?”

  “My dear Margaret, are you so ignorant as not to see that a child born under such conditions cannot turn out well? The bastard of a man like Henry Brandt, cruel, dastardly, godless, and a woman like her terrible mother, a sensual, self-loving, crafty and bloodthirsty half-caste—what do you expect their daughter to become? She may seem harmless enough at present, so does the tiger cub as it suckles its dam, but that which is bred in her will come out sooner or later and curse those with whom she may be associated. I beg and pray of you, Margaret, not to let that girl come near you or your child any more. There is a curse upon her and it will affect all within her influence!”

  “You have made me feel very uncomfortable, Doctor,” replied Mrs. Pullen. “Of course if I had known all this previously I would not have cultivated Miss Brandt’s acquaintance, and now I shall take your advice and drop her as soon as possible! There will be no difficulty with Miss Leyton, for she has had a strange dislike to the girl ever since we met, but she has certainly been very kind to my baby—”

  “For Heaven’s sake don’t let her come near your baby any more!” cried Doctor Phillips, quickly.

  “Certainly I will not, and perhaps it would be as well if we moved on to Ostende or Blankenburghe, as we have sometimes talked of doing. It would sever the acquaintance in the most effectual way!”

  “By all means do so, particularly if the young lady does not go to Brussels, as that stout party was proposing at dinner time. What an extraordinary person she appears to be! Quite a character!”

  “That is just what she is! But, Doctor, there is another thing I should like to speak to you about concerning Miss Brandt, and I am sure I may trust you to receive it in the strictest confidence. It is regarding my brother-in-law, Ralph Pullen. I am rather afraid, from one or two things I have observed, that he likes Miss Brandt—O! I don�
��t mean anything particular, for (as you know) he is engaged to be married to Elinor Leyton and I don’t suspect him of wronging her, only—young men are rather headstrong you know and fond of their own way, and perhaps if you were to speak to Ralph—”

  “Tell me plainly, has he been carrying on with this girl?”

  “Not in the sense you would take it, Doctor, but he affects her company and that of the Gobellis a good deal. Miss Brandt sings beautifully and Ralph loves music, but his action annoys Elinor, I can see that, and since you think we should break off the intimacy——”

  “I consider it most imperatively necessary, for many reasons, and especially in the case of a susceptible young man like Captain Pullen. She has money you say—”

  “Fifteen hundred a year! So I am told!”

  “And Miss Leyton has nothing, and Ralph only his pay! O! yes! you are quite right, such an acquaintanceship is dangerous for him. The sense of honour is not so strong now as it was when I was a boy, and gold is a powerful bait with the rising generation. I will take an early opportunity of talking to Captain Pullen on the subject.”

  “You will not wound his feelings, Doctor, nor betray me?”

  “Trust me for doing neither! I shall speak from my own experi­ence, as I have done to you. If he will not take my advice you must get some one with more influence to caution him about it. I hardly know how to make my meaning clear to you, Margaret, but Miss Brandt is a dangerous acquaintance for all of you. We medical men know the consequences of heredity better than outsiders can do. A woman born in such circumstances—bred of sensuality, cruelty, and heartlessness—cannot, in the order of things, be modest, kind, or sympathetic. And she probably carries unknown dangers in her train. Whatever her fascinations or her position may be, I beg of you to drop her at once and for ever!”

  “Of course I will, but it seems hard upon her! She has seemed to crave so for affection and companionship.”

  “As her mother craved for food and blood; as her father craved for inflicting needless agony on innocent creatures and sneered meanwhile at their sufferings! I am afraid I should have little faith in Miss Brandt craving for anything except the gratification of her own senses!”

  They were seated on the lower step of the wooden flight that led from the Digue to the sands so that, whilst they could see what went on above them, they were concealed from view themselves.

  Just then Harriet Brandt’s beautiful voice, accompanied by the silvery strains of the mandoline, was heard to warble Gounod’s “Marguerite”[105] from the open window of the Baroness’s sitting-room. Margaret glanced up. The apartment was brilliantly lighted—on the table were bottles of wine and spirits, with cakes and fruit, and Madame Gobelli’s bulky form might be seen leaning over the dishes. She had assembled quite a little party there that night. The two Brimonts were present, and Captain Pullen’s tall figure was distinctly visible under the lamplight. Harriet was seated on the sofa and her full voice filled the atmosphere with melody.

  “There’s something like a voice!” remarked the old doctor.

  “That is the very girl we have been talking of!” replied Mrs. Pullen. “I told you she had a lovely voice and was an accomplished musician.”

  “Is that so?” said Doctor Phillips, “then she is still more danger­ous than I imagined her to be! Those tones would be enough to drag any man down to perdition, especially if accompanied by such a nature as I cannot but believe she must have inherited from her progenitors!”

  “And see, Doctor, there is Ralph,” continued Margaret, point­ing out her brother-in-law. “I left him with Miss Leyton. He must have got rid of her by some means and crept up to the Gobellis. He cannot care for them. He is so refined, so fastidious with regard to people in general that a woman like the Baroness must grate upon his feelings every time she opens her mouth, and the Baron never opens his at all. He can only frequent their company for the sake of Harriet Brandt! I have seen it for some time past and it has made me very uneasy.”

  “He shall know everything about her to-morrow and then if he will not hear reason—” Doctor Phillips shrugged his shoulders and said no more.

  “But surely,” said his companion, “you do not think for a moment that Ralph could ever seriously contemplate breaking his engagement with Elinor Leyton for the sake of this girl! O! how angry Arthur would be if he suspected his brother could be guilty of such a thing—he, who considers that a man’s word should be his bond!”

  “It is impossible to say, Margaret—I should not like to give an opinion on the subject. When young men are led away by their pas­sions they lose sight of everything else—and if this girl is anything like her mother she must be an epitome of lust!”

  “O! you will speak to Ralph as soon as ever you can,” cried Margaret, in a tone of distress. “You will put the matter as strongly before him as possible, will you not?”

  “You may depend on my doing all I can, Margaret, but as there seems no likelihood of my being able to interview the young gentle­man to-night, suppose you and I go to bed! I feel rather tired after my passage over and you must want to go back to your baby!”

  “Doctor,” said Margaret, in a timid voice, as they ascended the hotel stair-case together, “you don’t think baby very ill, do you?”

  “I think she requires a great deal of care, Margaret!”

  “But she has always had that!”

  “I don’t doubt it, but I can’t deny that there are symptoms about her case that I do not understand. She seems to have had all her strength drawn out of her. She is in the condition of a child who has been exercised and excited and hurried from place to place, far beyond what she is able to bear. But it may arise from internal causes. I shall be better able to judge to-morrow when my medicine has had its effect. Good-night, my dear, and don’t worry. Please God, we will have the little one all right again in a couple of days.”

  But he only said the words out of compassion. In his own opin­ion the infant was dying.

  Meanwhile Harriet, having finished her songs, was leaning out of the window with Ralph Pullen by her side. She wore an open sleeve and as he placed his hand upon her bare arm the girl thrilled from head to foot

  “And so you are determined not to go to Brussels,” he whispered in her ear.

  “Why should I go? You will not be there! The Baroness wants to stay for a week! What would become of me all that time, moping after you?”

  “Are you sure that you would mope? Monsieur Brimont is a nice young man and seems quite ready to throw himself at your feet! Would he not do as well, pro tem?”

  Harriet’s only answer was to cast her large eyes upwards to meet his own.

  “Does that mean, ‘No’,” continued Captain Pullen. “Then how would it do if I joined you there after a couple of days? Would the Baroness be complaisant do you think, and a little short sighted, and let us go about together and shew each other the sights of the town?”

  “O! I’m sure she would!” cried Harriet, all the blood in her body flying into her face, “she is so very kind to me! Madame Gobelli!” she continued, turning from the window to the light, “Captain Pullen says that if you will allow him to shew us the lions of Brussels, he will come and join us there in a couple of days—”

  “If I find I can manage it!” interposed Ralph, cautiously.

  “Manage it! Why, of course you can manage it,” said the Baroness. “What’s to ’inder a young man like you doing as ’e chooses? You’re not tied to your sister’s apron-string, are you? Now mind! we shall ’old you to it, for I believe it’s the only thing that will make ’Arriet come, and I think a week in Brussels will do us all good! You’re not looking well yourself you know, Captain Pullen! You’re as white as ashes this evening, and if I didn’t know you were such a good boy I should say you’d been dissipating a bit lately! He! he! he!”

  “The only dissipation I have indulged in is basking in the sunshine of your eyes, Madame!” replied Ralph gallantly.

  “That’s a good ’u
n!” retorted the Baroness, “it is more likely you’ve been looking too much in the eyes of my little friend ’ere. You’re a couple of foxes, that’s what you are, and I expect it would take all my time to be looking after you both! And so I suppose it’s settled, Miss ’Arriet, and you’ll come with us to Brussels after all!”

  “Yes, Madame, if you’ll take charge of me!” said Miss Brandt.

  “We’ll do that for a couple of days and then we’ll give over charge. Are we to engage a room for you, Captain, at the Hôtel de Saxe?”

  “I had better see after that myself, Madame, as the date of my coming is uncertain,” replied Ralph.

  “But you will come!” whispered Harriet.

  “Need you ask? Would I not run over the whole world only to find myself by your side? Haven’t you taken the taste out of everything else for me, Harriet?”

  - CHAPTER VIII -

  Doctor Phillips was a man of sixty and a bachelor. He had never made any home ties for himself, and was therefore more inter-ested in Margaret Pullen (whose father had been one of his dearest friends) than he might otherwise have been. He feared that a heavy trial lay before her and he was unwilling to see it aggravated by any misconduct on the part of her brother-in-law. He could see that the young man was (to say the least of it) not behaving fairly towards his fiancée, Elinor Leyton, and he was determined to open his eyes to the true state of affairs with regard to Harriet Brandt. He spent a sleepless night, his last visit to Margaret’s suffering child having strengthened his opinion as to her hopeless condition, and he lay awake wondering how he should break the news to the poor young mother. He rose with the intention of speaking to Ralph without delay, but he found it more difficult to get a word with him than he had anticipated. The Gobelli party had decided to start with the Brimonts that afternoon and Captain Pullen stuck to them the entire morning, ostensibly to assist the Baroness in her preparations for departure, but in reality, as anyone could see, to linger by the side of Miss Brandt. Miss Leyton perceived her lover’s defalcation as plainly as the rest but she was too proud to make a hint upon the subject, even to Margaret Pullen. She sat alone in the balcony, reading a book, and gave no sign of annoyance or discomfiture. But a close observer might have seen the trembling of her lip when she attempted to speak, and the fixed, white look upon her face which betrayed her inward anxiety. It made Margaret’s kind heart ache to see her, and Doctor Phillips more indignant with Ralph Pullen than before.