by John Burke
Helen let out a sob, quavering on the verge of hysteria. “I knew we shouldn’t have . . . I knew. If you’d listened to me back there at the crossroads, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“If we’d listened to you, Helen,” Charles retorted, “we’d still be in England.”
“Would that be such a bad thing?”
“You wanted to broaden your mind—”
“If this is what you call a Grand Tour, or educational travel, or—”
“I’m sure it would be very educational if we knew what it was all about.”
“Stop it,” said Alan heavily, “both of you.”
They looked out into the darkness, and back at the flickering welcome of the fire. Diana was the first to move. She went towards the table and stared down at it, nodding incredulously over the place settings.
“Don’t you see?” she said. “Don’t you realize—we’re expected.”
“Ridiculous,” said Alan.
“First the coach which would go nowhere but here. Now the dinner table. We’re expected,” Diana repeated in wonderment.
“How could we be?”
“I don’t know, but we are.”
It was a flight of fancy which Charles, indulgent as he might be towards his wife, could hardly allow himself to encourage. Any moment now four eminently respectable people would come down that flight of stairs and sit down to dinner. He only hoped there would be some scraps left from the table. He was beginning to feel ravenous.
He gazed at the stairs as though to summon the occupants of the castle to appear. Let them hurry; let there be explanations and mutual apologies, and let there be a satisfactory end to the day.
“If there’s anyone up there,” said Diana, “they must be stone deaf.”
There was one way to find out. Charles started towards the stairs.
“No,” called Helen after him. He reached the foot of the staircase, and she cried at the top of her voice: “No! We must get away. We can’t stay in this place . . . mustn’t stay . . .”
Alan put his arm round her, but she struggled away, panting.
“Darling, it’s all right,” he said. “Sit down a moment, and—”
“It isn’t all right. Charles”—she held out her arms imploringly—“you mustn’t go upstairs.”
Her tart criticisms and inherent inability to enjoy herself had several times threatened to spoil the holiday. Now she was going to add hysteria to her little tricks. Charles said impatiently, “I’ll be back before you know it,” and went up the stairs two at a time.
The gallery led to an open door. He went through it and found himself in a long corridor which must run the entire length of one of the outer walls. It was lit by a couple of blazing torches stuck into holders. Between the pulsating pools of light cast by the torches lay shadows and, at the far end of the corridor, near darkness. On the inner wall was a sequence of doors, all closed, all uncommunicative.
He risked another shout. “Anyone there?”
He stood for a moment, thinking there must surely, sooner or later, be some response. He was prepared for surprise, for indignation, for curt dismissal; but not for the sleeping silence of the place. If it had not been for that blazing fire downstairs and for the flame of these torches, he would have believed that the place had not been occupied for generations and that no voice would ever answer.
Charles was not prepared to go back downstairs and admit that he had drawn a blank. He went to the first door in the corridor and tapped lightly. There was no reply. He turned the handle and pushed the door gently open.
Light flickered on the ceiling. Logs burned in a grate and dancing reflections from the ceiling twisted over a four-poster bed. The bed had been made, the sheet was drawn back, and night attire was laid out on it.
Charles was beginning to back quietly away when he saw the suitcases stacked at the end of the bed. He told himself that what he saw was an illusion. The firelight was playing tricks. Then he went into the room and bent over the cases.
There was no doubt about the top one. He had helped to load it on to more than one coach since they set out. The initials A.K. were deeply engraved in the lid.
He turned and went out, back to the top of the stairs.
They looked up at him. Helen put a hand to her mouth and bit her knuckles as though preparing for some grisly news.
“Alan—come up here a minute.”
Helen put out a hand to stop her husband but he was already on his way. He joined his brother, and Charles took him along the gallery and into the corridor.
At the door of the room, Alan held back. “We can’t go in there. It’s someone’s bedroom.”
“Whose?”
“How the devil should I know?”
Charles took his arm and forced him in.
“Whose suitcase is that?”
Alan stared. He went closer and touched the lid. His eyes widened. He came round the bed and picked up a folded nightshirt.
“Yours?” Charles prompted him quietly.
Alan could only nod.
Charles thought of the other doors along the corridor. He turned and went into the corridor, a few paces along to the next room. Again the door was open. Again a fire was burning. And again the bed had been made and the sheet turned back. This time the luggage was his own.
Alan stood in the doorway. “What is this all about? It’s mad.”
There was a scream. It rose from the hall and writhed away into a tormented echo; and came again.
“Helen!”
Charles followed his brother back to the gallery and down the stairs.
Helen was standing in the centre of the hall with her hand rammed into her mouth again. Diana had an arm round her shoulders, and the two of them were facing a doorway in one of the side walls. Charles steadied himself against the heavy balustrade and followed the direction of their gaze.
A tall man with a lean, sallow face and darkly pouched eyes stood there, erect and impassive. He was dressed in funereal black. When he took a step forward into the light, shadows etched deeper and deeper furrows into his cadaverous features.
“What does this mean?” snarled Alan. He had been shaken by the apparition, and although he was slow to anger he grew vindictive when at last he could restrain himself no longer.
“I’m sorry if I startled the ladies, sir. It was quite unintentional.”
Helen whimpered.
“Why the blazes did you choose to appear in—?”
“Why didn’t you make your presence known sooner?” asked Charles quickly, cutting across Alan’s words before they grew too abusive.
The man half bowed, obsequiously bringing the tips of his long, bony fingers together. “I was unpacking your cases. I trust the rooms are satisfactory?”
“Admirable. But I don’t understand.”
“None of us do,” grated Charles.
The man showed his teeth. If the grimace was meant as a smile, it failed in its purpose.
Charles said: “What we want to know—”
“My master’s hospitality is renowned.”
“As we don’t even know who your master is in the first place—”
“If you are ready, I will serve dinner now.”
There were a dozen questions to ask, but it seemed unlikely that this creature would give coherent answers. Charles controlled himself. Besides, he had to confess that hunger was looming very large, taking priority over all other considerations.
He nodded. The man turned and disappeared through the doorway.
“Please,” breathed Helen at once, “let’s leave.”
“I still don’t understand it,” said Charles, “but I’m starving. Dinner is the best idea I can think of at this moment.”
“I agree,” said Diana.
“Diana, you can’t.”
“Why not? A quarter of an hour ago we were stranded in the cold, miles from anywhere. Now we’re warm, we’re going to be fed, and if that man’s master is anything like I think he’s g
oing to be, we’re likely to be entertained as well. I see him as a rather attractive eccentric, with a quirky sense of humor—”
“Let’s sit down,” said Charles firmly. If there was to be any speculation, let it be at the dinner table.
Alan took Helen’s arm. After a brief tug of resistance, she reluctantly accompanied him to her seat.
As soon as they were settled at the table, the man appeared with a tureen of soup. He laid it on the end of the table and began to serve them.
Charles said: “What’s your name?”
“Klove, sir.”
“Well, Klove”—Charles indicated the four place settings with a crooked forefinger—“is your master not joining us for dinner?”
“I’m afraid not, sir.”
“Is he indisposed?”
Klove finished ladling the soup into bowls, and stood up. He said:
“He is dead.”
In spite of the warmth of the fire Charles fell cold. It was as though a door had been opened, not into the outside world but into some bleak inner chamber—a room from which came an unearthly chill. The words had been so matter-of-fact; the servant so imperturbable.
“I’m sorry if we seem a little stupid,” he said, keeping his own voice level. “Perhaps you could explain. This dinner . . . the rooms . . . the carriage. Everything,” he added firmly.
“Certainly, sir.” Klove looked along the table. He could have been a distinguished guest speaker about to clear his throat and embark on a peroration. “My master is dead, but instructions were left by him that the castle should always be ready to receive guests. I am merely carrying out his last wishes.”
“Who was your master?”
Klove raised his head so that he was staring straight at the stone coat-of-arms over the fireplace.
“His name,” he said, “was Count Dracula. An old and distinguished family. I am honored to have served him.”
“Does nobody hold the title now?”
“My master died without issue—in the accepted sense of the term. Now, if you will excuse me . . .”
He padded silently away.
Diana said: “What did he mean by ‘in the accepted sense of the term’, do you suppose?”
Another question with no possible answer, thought Charles. He bent over the soup and tasted it. It was delicious. He could tell that his brother and their wives felt the same. They forgot the problems and savored the reality for a few minutes.
When Charles had laid down his spoon he said: “I expect we’ll get the bill tomorrow.”
Diana was shocked. Her little daydream about the mysterious lord of the castle, though distorted by the announcement of his death, persisted in taking attractive shape. “Surely not. I think he must have been a marvellous man to write into his will that bit about the castle being always ready for travellers.”
“It wouldn’t happen in Wimbledon,” Charles agreed. He sat back and optimistically awaited the next course. “That driver did us a favor when he deserted us, if only he’d known it.”
“He was frightened,” said Helen flatly.
“We all were at first. The unexplained is always upsetting. But you must admit that the food in the woodcutter’s hut wouldn’t have matched up to this.”
“I’m still frightened.” Helen was no longer hysterical. Her numbed resignation was in itself much more disturbing than her earlier histrionics. “There’s something about this place . . .”
To Charles’s relief his brother leaned over and closed his hand over Helen’s. There might be little passion in their relationship, but there was a loyalty and oddly dry affection that one had to respect.
“It was strange at first,” Alan soothed her, “but now everything is explained.”
Helen snatched her hand away. “Don’t you see—that makes it even worse. And remember what Father Shandor said . . . don’t go near the castle . . . remember?”
“That’s because he wanted us to go and visit him at Kleinberg.” Charles reached for the full wine-glass which stood beside his empty soup bowl. He could imagine that an intelligent, active monk would welcome an intrusion from the outside world, with all its potentialities for good conversation and a clashing interchange of views. “It’s my belief that we’re extremely lucky. No austerity. No theological controversies. I suggest we avail ourselves of the late Count’s hospitality and enjoy ourselves. Here’s to him.” He raised his glass. “May he rest in peace.”
A clap of thunder, striking down at the roof above from nowhere, unheralded and violent beyond all reason, shook the building. The flames in the fireplace bent for a fraction of a second as though a mighty breath had puffed derisively upon them.
Diana and Alan raised their glasses dubiously.
Diana said, in a voice which was lost in the vastness of the hall: “Count Dracula . . .”
Without making a sound, Klove came from the inner secrets of the castle and began to collect the soup bowls. There was hardly a chink of crockery as he put them on a tray.
He looked again along the table. Alan, Charles, and Diana set their glasses down.
“Count Dracula,” Alan echoed with a polite nod.
Klove was staring at Helen’s glass. It was full. She had not raised it with the others.
4
The time had been long. Too long. Once the peasants in the valley had trembled at his approach, almost as delightfully as they had trembled when his master drove out in the coach with the black stallions. Now he did not go out much. The cringing idiots were still scared and still dodged out of his way; but they were not as respectful as they had once been, not as bowed beneath the dark yoke of the Count—and one day they might summon up the courage to strike, and then he would be lost. Without his dark master behind him he would not be able to fight them off. If they chose to slaughter him and overrun the castle, there was no one to stop them. They still did not quite realize this. He didn’t want them to realize it. Let the old fear still seethe within them. Let them keep their fists down, still scared to raise them.
And let the time come when the conditions would be right, as his master had said they would be, and the power and the terror could be restored over the valley. He had waited too long.
Tonight all things were as the Count had ordained they should be. Folk had shunned the castle for many years, but tonight four human beings had come here and were trapped within its walls. They did not know they were trapped, because they had not so far considered trying to leave. They were here. They could be used. The Count had waited for these visitors and now the Count should be satisfied. His appetite should be sated.
Klove paced the corridors and conjured up a vision of the past that was also a vision of the near future. Everything would be what it had once been. His master would walk again, there would be light and laughter again—and, even richer and more desirable, the darkness and the blood and the screams that were more exquisite than laughter.
Quietly, in little more than a whisper, he stopped beside a guttering torch and said: “Helen.”
He waited, then moved to one of the closed doors.
Again he said: “Helen.”
From within the room there was the faint rustle of someone turning over in bed. A yawn, a muttered question, a reluctant wakefulness.
The woman’s voice said: “You . . . Alan, what was it?”
“What’s the matter? Mm?”
“You . . . someone called my name.”
“No. Go to sleep.”
“You . . . someone called my name.”
“You dreamed it.”
“Please, Alan. Go and see.”
“It’s too ridiculous. Really . . .”
But there was the soft pad of footsteps. Klove turned and went quickly to the end of the corridor. He felt the house coming alive all round him. What could they know about it, those pitiful nonentities in there? The name of Dracula had meant nothing to them, the splendor of the castle meant no more than the trappings of some tawdry Austrian hotel, the undead prese
nce of the great master escaped them. Klove was a servant, and proud to be a servant of such a master. These others were not fit to be the most despicable lackeys of one such.
The door opened. Klove slid out of sight as Alan Kent came out, yawning and holding a candle aloft.
The great trunk was in the shadows, waiting. It looked no more than a large black travelling box with bronze hinges and hasps. Only he knew the treasure it contained. Only he knew what could be made to happen when the conditions were right—when the lid was lifted, the words uttered, the life offered. A paltry life transformed into a magnificent one.
He pulled the trunk across the end of the corridor. There was the faint rustle of a footstep. He paid no attention. The man had seen him. That was as it should be.
Klove sweated over his precious burden but did not complain. It was not just the weight that slowed his pace: he had no intention of losing his cautious pursuer. Deliberately he waited until he was sure that Alan Kent was almost upon him, then jerked the trunk behind a tapestry and opened a door in the wall. He gave the tapestry a last twitch with his hand to ensure that it should continue to sway when this gullible, absurd, doomed Englishman should approach it.
A fool. But a fool with the stuff of life in his veins; a creature of no consequence, but a creature in whom the essential spirit burned.
Now it would not be long.
Klove lugged the trunk down the winding flight of steps . . . down and down, past ground level, and at last into the cellar.
He had been instructed that this was where it must happen. When their enemies had believed that the end had come, this was where Count Dracula had told him there could be a new beginning. Here defeat could be turned into victory. Here death could become a rebirth. Here the sightless eyes could see again, the hunger and thirst be avid again.
When the conditions were right . . .
The fool called Alan had found the door behind the tapestry. He was coming down the stone stairs. His candle flame shrank and then burned high again. Its light flowed out in a pale wash over the cellar as his foot touched the bottom step.
Klove backed away. One part of the ritual had been completed. In the centre of the cellar was the finely chiselled, ornate coffin on its noble plinth. And in the shadows beside Klove was the urn in which lay all that was most splendid among the things he had known in his humble life—ashes which could still burn, the fine dust that could be made flesh.
