The Blood of the Vampire

by Florence Marryat

  He wondered if all girls were so—as capricious and changeable! Bobby had not seen much of women. He had been kept in the schoolroom for the better part of his life, and his Mamma had not impressed him with a great admiration for the sex. So naturally he thought Harriet Brandt to be the most charming and beautiful crea­ture he had ever seen, though he was too shy to whisper the truth, even to himself. He tried to bring back the smiles to her face in his boyish way, and the gift of an abnormally large and long sucre de pomme[110] really did achieve that object better than anything else. But the defalcation of Captain Pullen made them all lose their interest in Brussels and they returned to Heyst a day sooner than they had intended.

  As the train neared the station Harriet’s forgotten smiles began to dimple her face again, and she peered eagerly from the windows of the carriage as if she expected Ralph Pullen to be on the platform to meet them. But from end to end she saw only cinders, Flemish country women with huge baskets of fish or poultry on their arms, priests in their soutanes and broad-brimmed hats, and Belgians chat­tering and screaming to each other and their children as they crossed the line. Still, she alighted with her party, expectant and happy, and traversed the little distance between the entrepôt and the Hotel far quicker than the Baroness and her husband could keep up with her. She rushed into the balcony and almost fell into the arms of the proprietaire Madame Lamont.

  “Ah! Mademoiselle!” she cried, “welcome back to Heyst, but have you heard the desolating news?”

  “What news?” exclaimed Harriet with staring eyes and a blanched cheek.

  “Why! that the English lady, cette Madame, si tranquille, si charmante, lost her dear bébé the very day that Mademoiselle and Madame la Baronne left the Hotel!”

  “Lost,” repeated Harriet, “do you mean that the child is dead?”

  “Ah! yes, I do indeed,” replied Madame Lamont, “the dear bébé was taken with a fit whilst they were all at dinner, and never recovered again. C’était une perte irréparable![111] Madame was like a creature distracted whilst she remained here!”

  “Where is she then? Where has she gone?” cried Harriet, excitedly.

  “Ah! that I cannot tell Mademoiselle. The dear bébé was taken away to England to be buried. Madame Pullen and Mademoiselle Leyton and Monsieur Phillippe and le beau Capitaine all left Heyst on the following day, that is Wednesday, and went to Ostende to take the boat for Dover. I know no more!”

  “Captain Pullen has gone away—he is not here?” exclaimed Miss Brandt, betraying herself in her disappointment. “O! I don’t believe it! It cannot be true! He has gone to Ostende to see them on board the steamer, but he will return—I am sure he will?”

  Madame Lamont shrugged her shoulders.

  “Monsieur paid everything before he went and gave douceurs to all the servants—I do not think he has any intention of returning!”

  At that juncture, the Baron and Baroness reached the hotel. Harriet flew to her friend for consolation. “I cannot believe what Madame Lamont says,” she exclaimed; “she declares that they are all gone for good, Mrs. Pullen and Miss Leyton and Captain Pullen and the doctor! They have returned to England. But he is sure to come back, isn’t he? After all his promises to meet us in Brussels! He couldn’t be so mean as to run off to England without a word or a line unless he intended to come back.”

  She clung to Madame Gobelli with her eyes wide open and her large mouth trembling with agitation, until even the coarse fibre of the Baroness’s propriety made her feel ashamed of the exhibition.

  “’Old up, ’Arriet!” she said, “you don’t want the ’ole ’ouse to ’ear what you’re thinking of, surely! Let me speak to Madame Lamont! What is all the row about, Madame?” she continued, turning to the proprietaire.

  “There is no ‘row’ at all, Madame,” was the reply, “I was only telling Mademoiselle Brandt of the sad event that has taken place here during your absence—that that chère Madame Pullen had the great misfortune to lose her sweet bébé, the very day you left Heyst, and that the whole party have quitted in consequence and crossed to England. I thought since Mademoiselle seemed so intimate with Madame Pullen and so fond of the dear child that she would be désolée to hear the sad news, but she appears to have forgotten all about it in her grief at hearing that the beau Capitaine accompanied his family to England where they go to bury the petite.”

  And with rather a contemptuous smile upon her face, Madame Lamont re-entered the salle à manger.

  “Now, ’Arriet, don’t make a fool of yourself!” said the Baroness. “You ’eard what that woman said—she’s laughing at you and your Captain, and the story will be all over the Hotel in half an hour. Don’t make any more fuss about it! If ’e’s gone, crying won’t bring ’im back. It’s much ’arder for Mrs. Pullen, losing her baby so sud­denly! I’m sorry for ’er, poor woman, but as for the other, there’s as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it!”

  But Harriet Brandt only answered her appeal by rushing away down the corridor and up the staircase to her bedroom like a whirlwind. The girl had not the slightest control over her passions. She would listen to no persuasion and argument only drove her mad. She tumbled headlong up the stairs and dashing into her room, which had been reserved for her, threw herself tumultuously upon the bed. How lonely and horrible the corridor on which her apart­ment opened seemed. Olga Brimont, Mrs. Pullen, Miss Leyton, and Ralph, all gone! No one to talk to—no one to walk with—except the Baroness and her stupid husband! Of course, this interpreted simply meant that Captain Pullen had left the place without leaving a word behind him, to say the why or wherefore, or hold out any prospect of their meeting again. Of course it was impossible but that they must meet again—they should meet again, Harriet Brandt said to herself between her closed teeth—but meanwhile what a wilderness, what a barren, dreary place this detestable Heyst would seem without him!

  The girl put her head down on the pillow, and taking the corner of the linen case between her strong white teeth, shook it and bit it as a terrier worries a rat! But that did not relieve her feelings sufficiently and she took to a violent fit of sobbing, hot, angry tears coursing each other down her cheeks until they were blurred and stained, and she lay back upon the pillow utterly exhausted.

  The first dinner bell rang without her taking any notice of it, and the second was just about to sound when there came a low tap at her bed-room door. At first she did not reply, but when it was repeated, though rather timidly, she called out,

  “Who is it? I am ill. I don’t want any dinner! I cannot come down!”

  A low voice answered, “It is I, dear Miss Brandt, Bobby! May I come in? Mamma has sent me to you with a message!”

  “Very well! You can enter, but I have a terrible headache!” said Harriet.

  The door opened softly and the tall lanky form of Bobby Bates crept silently into the room. He held a small bunch of pink roses in his hand, and he advanced to the bedside and laid them without a word on the pillow beside her hot, inflamed cheek. They felt deliciously cool and refreshing. Harriet turned her face towards them, and in doing so met the anxious, perturbed eyes of Bobby.

  “Well!” she said smiling faintly, “and what is your Mamma’s message?”

  “She wishes to know if you are coming down to dinner. It is nearly ready!”

  “No! no! I cannot! I am not hungry, and my eyes are painful,” replied Harriet, turning her face slightly away.

  The lad rose and drew down the blind of her window, through which the setting sun was casting a stream of light, and then captured a flaçon of eau de Cologne from her toilet table, and brought it to her in his hand.

  “May I sit beside you a little while in case you need anything?” he asked.

  “No! no! Bobby! You will want your dinner, and your Mamma will want you. You had better go down again at once and tell her that if my head is better I will meet her on the Digue this evening!”

  “I don’t want any dinner, I could not eat it whilst you lie here sick
and unhappy. I want to stay, to see if I can help you, or do you any good. I wish—I wish I could!” murmured the lad.

  “Your roses have done me good already,” replied Harriet more brightly. “It was sweet of you to bring them to me, Bobby.”

  “I wish I had ten thousand pounds a year,” said Bobby feverishly, “that I might bring you roses, and everything that you like best!”

  He laid his blonde head on the pillow by the side of hers and Harriet turned her face to his and kissed him.

  The blood rushed into his face and he trembled. It was the first time that any woman had kissed him. And all the feelings of his manhood rushed forth in a body to greet the creature who had awakened them.

  As for Harriet Brandt, the boy’s evident admiration flattered and pleased her. The tigress deprived of blood will sometimes condescend to milder food. And the feelings with which she regarded Captain Pullen were such as could be easily replaced by anyone who evinced the same reciprocity. Bobby Bates was not a beau sabreur,[112] but he was a male creature whom she had vanquished by her charms and it interested her to watch his rising passion, and to know that he could never possibly expect it to be requited. She kissed and fondled him as he sat beside her with his head on the pillow—calling him every nice name she could think of, and caressing him as if he had been what the Baroness chose to consider him—a child of ten years old.

  His sympathy and entreaties that she would make an effort to join them on the Digue, added to his love-lorn eyes the clear childish blue of which was already becoming blurred with the heat of passion, convinced her that all was not lost, although Ralph Pullen had been ungrateful and impolite enough to leave Heyst without sending her notice, and presently she persuaded the lad to go down to his dinner and inform the Baroness that she had ordered a cup of tea to be sent up to her bedroom, and would try to rise after she had taken it and join them on the Digue.

  “But you will keep a look-out for me, Bobby, won’t you?” she said in parting. “You will not let me miss your party, or I shall feel so lonely that I shall come straight back to bed!”

  “Miss you! as if I would!” exclaimed the boy fervently, “why! I shall not stir from the balcony until you appear! O! Miss Brandt! I love you so. You cannot tell—you will never know—but you seem like part of my life!”

  “Silly boy!” replied Harriet, reproachfully, as she gave him another kiss. “There, run away at once and don’t tell your mother what we’ve been about or she will never let me speak to you again.”

  Bobby’s eyes answered for him, that he would be torn to pieces before he let their precious secret out of his grasp, as he took his unwilling way down to the table d’hôte.

  “Well! you ’ave made a little fool of yourself, and no mistake,” was the Baroness’s greeting, as Harriet joined her in the balcony an hour later, “and a nice lot of lies I’ve ’ad to tell about you to Mrs. Montague and the rest. But luckily they’re all so full of the poor child’s death, and the coffin of white cloth studded with silver nails that was brought from Bruges to carry the body to England in, that they ’ad no time to spare for your tantrums. Lor! that poor young man must ’ave ’ad enough to do, I can tell you, from all accounts, without writing to you! Everything was on ’is ’ands, for Mrs. Pullen wouldn’t let the doctor out of ’er sight! ’E ’ad to fly off to Bruges to get the coffin and to wire half over the world besides ’aving the two women to tow about, so you mustn’t be ’ard on ’im. ’E’ll write soon and explain everything, you may make sure of that, and if ’e don’t, why, we shall be after ’im before long! Aldershot, where the Limerick Rangers are quartered, is within a stone’s throw of London, and Lord Menzies and Mr. Nalgett often run over to the Red ’Ouse and so can Captain Pullen if he chooses! So you just make yourself ’appy and it will be all right before long.”

  “O! I’m all right!” cried Harriet, gaily, “I was only a little startled at the news, so would anyone have been. Come along, Bobby! Let us walk over the dunes to the next town. This cool air will do my head good. Good-bye, Baroness! You needn’t expect us till you see us! Bobby and I are going for a good long walk!”

  And tucking the lad’s arm under her own, she walked off at a tremendous pace, and the pair were soon lost to view.

  “I wish that Bobby was a few years older,” remarked the Baroness thoughtfully to her husband, as they were left alone. “She wouldn’t ’ave made a bad match for him, for she ’as a tidy little fortune and it’s all in Consols. But perhaps it’s just as well there’s no chance of it! She ain’t got much ’eart—I couldn’t ’ave believed that she’d receive the news of that poor baby’s death without a tear or so much as a word of regret, when at one time she ’ad it always in ’er arms. She quite forgot all about it, thinking of the man. Drat the men! They’re more trouble than they’re worth, but ’e’s pretty sure to come after ’er as soon as ’e ’ears she’s at the Red ’Ouse!”

  “But to what good, mein tear,” demanded the Baron, “when you know he is betrothed to Miss Leyton?”

  “Yes! and ’e’ll marry Miss Leyton, too. ’E’s not the sort of man to let the main chance go! And ’Arriet will console ’erself with a better beau. I can read all that without your telling me, Gustave. But Miss Leyton won’t get off without a scratch or two, all the same, and that’s what I’m aiming at. I’ll teach ’er not to call me a female elephant! I’ve got my knife into that young woman, and I mean to turn it! Confound ’er impudence! What next?”

  And having delivered herself of her feelings, the Baroness rose and proceeded to take her evening promenade along the Digue.

  - CHAPTER X -

  The Red House at Holloway was, like its owner, a contradiction and an anomaly. It had lain for many years in Chancery, neglected and uncared-for, and the Baroness had purchased it for a song. She was very fond of driving bargains, and sometimes she was horribly taken in. She had been known to buy a house for two thousand pounds for a mere caprice and exchange it, six months afterwards, for a dinner service. But as a rule she was too shrewd to be cheated, for her income was not a tenth part of what she represented. When she had concluded her bargain for the Red House, which she did after a single survey of the premises and entered on possession, she found it would take double the sum she had paid to put it into proper repair. It was a very old house of the Georgian era stand­ing in its own grounds of about a couple of acres, and containing thirty rooms full of dust, damp, rats, and decay. The Baroness, however, having sent for a couple of workmen from the firm to put the tangled wilderness which called itself a garden into something like order, sent in all her household gods[113] and settled down there with William and two rough maid servants, as lady of the Manor. The inside of the Red House presented an incongruous appearance. This extraordinary woman, who could not sound her aspirates and could hardly write her own name, had a wonderful taste for old china and pictures and knew a good thing from a bad one. Her drawing-room was heaped with valuables, many of them piled on rickety tables which threatened every minute to overturn them upon the ground. The entrance hall was dingy, bare, and ill-lighted, and the breakfast-room to the side was furnished with the merest necessities. Yet the dressing-table in the Baroness’s sleeping apartment was draped in ruby velvet and trimmed with a flounce of the most costly Brussels lace which a Princess might not have been ashamed to wear. The bed was covered with a duvet of the thickest satin, richly embroidered by her own hand, whilst the washing-stand held a set of the commonest and cheapest crockery. Everything about the house was on the same scale; it looked as though it belonged to people who had fallen from the utmost affluence to the depths of poverty. Harriet Brandt was terribly disappointed when she entered it, Bobby’s accounts of the magnificence of his home having led her to expect nothing short of a palace.

  The Baroness had insisted on her accompanying them to England. She had taken one of her violent fancies to the girl and nothing would satisfy her but that Harriet should go back with her husband and herself to the Red House, and stay there as
long as she chose.

  “Now look ’ere,” she said in her rough way, “you must make the Red ’Ouse your ’ome. Liberty ’All, as I call it! Get up and go to bed; go out and come in, just when you see fit—do what you like, see what you like, and invite your friends as if the ’ouse was your own. The Baron and I are often ’alf the day at the boot shop, but that need make no difference to you. I daresay you’ll find some way to amuse yourself. You’re the daughter of the ’ouse remember, and free to do as you choose!”

  Harriet gladly accepted the offer. She had no friends of her own to go to and the prospect of living by herself in an unknown city was rather lonely. She was full of anticipation also that, by means of the Red House and the Baroness’s influence, she would soon hear of, or see, Captain Pullen again—full of hope that Madame Gobelli would write to the young man and force him to fulfil the promises he had made to her. She did not want to know Prince Adalbert or Prince Loris—at the present moment it was Ralph and Ralph only, and none other would fill the void she felt at losing him. She was sure there must be some great mistake at the bottom of his strange silence, and that they had but to meet to see it rectified. She was only too glad then, when the day for their departure from Heyst arrived. Most of the English party had left the Lion d’Or by that time. The death of Mrs. Pullen’s child seemed to have frightened them away. Some became nervous lest little Ethel had inhaled poisonous vapours from the drainage—others thought that the atmosphere was unhealthy, or that it was getting too late in the year for the seaside, and so the visitors dwindled until the Baroness Gobelli found they were left alone with foreigners and elected to return to England in consequence.