That Scoundrel Émile Dubois

by Lucinda Elliot

  Émile bite his lip and muttered, “I bleed like a pig, Georges, and deservedly. It was unforgiveable in me to let him sneak up on us so. Sophie, I forbid you to worry, it is nothing. Yet, make me a happy scoundrel by telling me that you forgive me for all the sorrow I have caused you.”

  “Oh, Émile, how can you even think to ask me!” Sophie sobbed, as splashed with blood, she fought along with Georges and Agnes to staunch the flow from the wound in Émile’s side. He knew more about it than she, and she followed his instructions with desperate faith.

  Katarina sobbed aloud and Émile told her, “No more, ma petite. You have not your handkerchief.”

  Sophie wailed at Émile as he began to pass in and out of consciousness: “Émile, you must live! I love you too much to lose you!”

  Georges tried to rally them both. “Monsieur Gilles is too much of a rascal to succumb to a little gunshot wound like that. The ball’s not too deep. Go for Dr Powell, Count. No time to waste.”

  For the first time in his life, Lord Ynyr took orders from a servant. He rushed for his horse, whose tack was still tangled in the hedge.

  Dr Powell was expected home within the half hour. The Count galloped back to the others, cursing himself.

  He felt as guilty of Émile’s danger as the demented Mackenzie. Hadn’t he brought the pistol loaded with the silver bullet half decided to shoot Émile himself? Certainly, he made the distraction which enabled Mackenzie to creep upon them. He was sure now that Émile had been telling the truth when he said it had been Kenrick who had attacked Morwenna.

  In his agony of remorse, the Count even forgot his former outrage over Émile’s making Sophie live among his ruffianly cohorts and the highwayman rumours. He forgot almost everything but how he was now in danger of losing his favourite male cousin as well as his love Morwenna.

  They brought Émile, pale from loss of blood, back to Plas Planwydden in the cart.

  Mr and Mrs Kit at once took charge, Mr Kit meanwhile cursing his bruises for keeping him away from the confrontation. The Count could only find their familiarity with gunshot wounds a relief. Mrs Kit was confident of a ‘Sure as Fire’ method of stopping the bleeding involving ice and Georges rushed to the ice house.

  She spoke briskly to Émile, slapping his face until she got a mumbled response. “Now, I know what I am doing, Mistress,” she told the outraged Sophie. “With respect, don’t interfere.” She forced more brandy between his lips, and crossly sent Agnes to make Sophie tea, while Katarina sobbed and tried to think of some herbal cure.

  Her method worked. The bleeding slowed.

  “That is more like it.” Mrs Kit said, her tone as indignant as if Émile had been losing blood through carelessness. “You is never going to pass out again? Stay with us, you are neglecting the company. I don’t know, I tell you I am still of a mind to pack our boxes and making for home, where it is nice and quiet. Nobody told me of the goings on in Wales, and I am shocked, Monsieur Gilles. Not as if you have not caused a lot of the trouble yourself, what with One Thing and Another I Won’t Mention.”

  “Not another word. Mrs Kit!” exclaimed Sophie, stroking his head. “Oh, Émile, can you hear me? Is it very agonising?”

  “Monsieur Gilles?” Lord Ynyr asked vaguely. “His valet calls him so, too.” He realised he must be in a state of shock to be speaking to this vulgar, unfeeling woman.

  “So did lots of folk.” Mrs Kit looked at Lord Ynyr as if he knew nothing.

  Perhaps she was right, for as she looked at Émile the Count saw the combined fear and tenderness in her eyes.

  Marcel Sly Boots and Felix the Professor seized the bemused and swaying Émile to right him, chuckling in sympathetic recognition.

  Émile looked round, dazed. There was a window, and outside the light was bright, and there was birdsong, too, but no scenery visible. They were in the living room of his old lodgings with Francoise’s Grànd-mère. The ginger cat washed itself by the door.

  Marcel Sly Boots was shaking his head. “That looked bad, Gilles Long Legs. We didn’t like seeing it. When they dig them slugs out, it do hurt. So we brought you here for a little visit.”

  “Here.” The Professor handed Émile a cup. The others laughed, for the Professor had a thing about the healing qualities of boiled water. They had always teased him about it. When they came back cut up from fights, and Francoise fussed and pestered them to let her bathe their wounds, the Professor insisted she boil the water first.

  She did, under protest. “But this is Seine water, Monsieur Felix, than which these Parisians say there is nothing better in the world, certainly not that horrid boiled water.”

  Émile gulped down the water, looking astonished to find himself so thirsty. The Professor nodded solemnly. “That will soon put you to rights.”

  Émile roused to embrace one while patting another on the back. “I never thought to see you again!”

  Marcel Sly Boots nodded solemnly as he clapped him on the back in return. “Gilles Long Legs, I was watching when you got that Kenrick as quick and clean as I could have done myself. I am proud of you…Here.” He handed Émile a cup of wine.

  Émile drank it straight off too. “I had the best tuition from you.”

  The Professor looked uneasy. “Now, less of that violent talk. Old Kenrick couldn’t help being a vampire bat or wolf thing no more than Gilles here.” He glanced out of the window and hurried to open the door. “Alors, here is a surprise!”

  Francoise came in smiling. They all rushed to kiss her. When it was Émile’s turn, she hugged him extra tightly. “Gilles Long Legs, I never had time to thank you for giving me the money so we could have our farm.” She shook her head. “All I could do was light candles for you.”

  He pinched her cheek. “So you did marry your old sweetheart? Give me another kiss while he’s not here to be jealous then, ma petite. It was kind in you to strive for my soul, and I have proved a dismal ingrate, for only yesterday I was in a fair way to becoming a monster. Still, what chance does a rogue have against these religious women?”

  She glanced about, puzzled. “Sure this is not purgatory! What mean you, about monsters?”

  He laughed. “Keep lighting those candles, Francoise, ma chère, and include these reprobates, too.”

  Felix shook his head, smiling. “This may not be purgatory, but poor Gilles Long Legs was in purgatory only now when they were digging out that shot.

  Francoise winced. “That is horrible, Gilles, but how came this about?” She started. “That’s my man rousing me from my doze, I must go. I’m so happy to see you all again –” She was gone, and they all smiled after her.

  Émile said. “It is good she did marry her sweetheart.”

  “Yes. Proper upset she was, when you didn’t come back. We all thought you were dead, especially when we heard you were last seen with Southern Georges. She kept saying, ‘Poor Gilles Long Legs, I never said thank you for the money.’ We had our work cut out to keep her quiet about the money in front of her grasping Grànd-mère. We packed her off a couple of days later, still taking on about you: ‘He was so sweet’.”

  Émile laughed. “Nobody called me so before.”

  “We were all upset.” Felix nodded solemnly. “Then I’m sorry to say I made a little mistake, which cost Sly Boots dear.”

  Here, Marcel Sly Boots turned from looking down at something invisible to Émile. “Never mind, Professor, it were only a Tactical Error.” He liked the sound of that, and he repeated it thoughtfully, before turning to grin at Émile. “Long Legs, who would have thought you were an aristocrat? Just like one of us, you were, and we can’t think of you as this grand Émile Dubois fellow what was raised in that Château with dozens of servants.” He bowed ironically.

  Émile gave him a shove. “Less of that! I’m always Gilles Long Legs.”

  “To think of Southern Georges being a friend of yours all along!” Marcel shook his head. “You kept that quiet. I had to laugh, seeing him in that lackey’s get up, waiting on you.” The
n, he shook his head sadly. “But you should have told us about them sending your Mère et Père for the chop. We would have helped you. Any family of yours is family of ours, eh, Professor?”

  Felix nodded solemnly, his moustache tremulous.

  Émile smiled. “Listen, you were friends, and I hated lying to you. But if you knew about me, your necks would have been in danger, as Georges’ would have had he kept with me. Stopping the tumbrel would have been madness, with you for the guillotine yourselves before you knew it.”

  The others laughed as at a great joke. “I always say, a short life, but a merry one.” Felix the Professor no longer had those terrible shadows under his eyes, and he hadn’t coughed once. He glanced down, as if looking through the floor, and added, “We ain’t got much longer; Gilles, your poor Madame Sophie is sobbing her heart out. She thinks you won’t come back from this one.”

  “Sophie! Ma pauvre petite! How could I forget?!”

  “You did find her again, after all.” Marcel Sly Boots sighed. “I do like a bit of romance.”

  Felix nodded. “She’ll keep you in order; les femmes look as though the butter would not melt in their mouths ever do.”

  “I have to go.” Émile’s form wavered.

  They laughed. Marcel said, “That’s what you said that other time. Be lucky this time, eh, Gilles Long Legs? Au revoir.”

  Georges was pouring brandy in Émile’s mouth, while Dr Powell slapped his face. “He’s back. I thought we had lost him.”

  Lord Ynyr looked nearly as pale as Émile. He had never seen shot dug out of a wound before, and he didn’t intend ever to see it done again. Everything seemed distant and his legs felt weak, so he dreaded he might disgrace himself by fainting. If, while they held him down, Émile had groaned and writhed, the Count knew he would have screamed himself.

  “Hold your noise!” Georges said, for Katarina was sobbing as she held the basin of bloody water for Dr Powell while Éloise was hiccoughing as if she had no suspicion Émile had been as delighted to see her blood as she was appalled to see his.

  In her own bedroom, Sophie was almost bawling, while Agnes sniffed as she poured her tea.

  “I don’t want that, Agnes! It tastes strange. I think you right about my condition. Oh! Maybe it will be all I have left of poor Émile! Ah!”

  “There, now, cariad, Monsieur will live to do more mischief yet and you will have a whole brood for sure. I saw this baby on the cards back when I did that first reading when you first came to Plas Uchaf, and I saw the young men from abroad, and the black magic and all the rest of it, and now there is no doubt he will be fully human.”

  “Oh! Ah! It is my fault entirely for stopping Émile from being a Man Vampire.”

  “Oh, nonsense! We had to cure him.” Agnes hurried over to answer the door.

  Dr Powell smiled at Agnes and addressed Sophie in the reassuring voice she knew to be professional, but trusted anyway. “I think he will do, Madame Dubois. He’s a very strong young devil.”

  From the way he had sent her to rest and not witness the gruesome removal of the shot from Émile’s side, Sophie wondered if Agnes might actually told him her mistress might be pregnant. Certainly, she was capable of it.

  Captain Mackenzie sat in the laboratory. He didn’t weep, having long ago forgotten how, but his heart felt as though it would burst.

  The stout, hard faced serving woman who had opened the door to him (he went in for that unnecessary civility here) had told him – triumph glowing in her eyes, clutching her cross – had told him of Kenrick, Ceridwen and Arthur’s end and of the strange impact from the laboratory which had seemed to shake the building.

  “Vanished, Captain Mackenzie, all three.” It was only her fear of him which prevented her from saying, ‘Good riddance’. She added sourly, “Not that Frenchman; his wife and half his household came here too.”

  Mackenzie thought with luck Dubois would die of a festering wound if not from blood loss; he must have been as human as Mackenzie had heard him assuring the Count for the shot to wound him as it had.

  “We are all packing up, now, Sir, and going to close the house. Will you take the keys? I am sure I don’t know who else is to have them. Mr Kenrick didn’t have any relations alive that I know of.”

  Mackenzie held out one hand from the keys. He went to the laboratory.

  The door was unlocked, and the embers still glowed in the grate. He glanced about, tormented by the insane hope that he might hear Ceridwen’s voice. Of course, nothing came. The woman had spoken of a type of explosion, yet the windows were intact, with the only signs of heat a couple of scorch marks upon the floorboards.

  Yet, there had been some extraordinary force at work; an overturned chair near those marks had been warped strangely, legs bent but not broken, while the branches of the chandeliers were distorted.

  Obviously, violence had been done. He saw from odd splashes of blood still smearing the walls there must have been a desperate fight. Someone or something had cleaned up the mess.

  He was sure Dubois had tricked the others somehow. Mackenzie hated all Frenchman as a matter of course, and would have believed the worst of him even if Ceridwen hadn’t taken him as her lover, low robber as he was. Odd, that such a fellow should have come together with Kenrick over that time travel obsession they all had in common.

  Of course, Ceridwen had been happy to draw him in the time-honoured manner. She adored savagery in a man. Dubois’ career as bandit, smuggler and highwayman fascinated her. Murderous brutality was what she so enjoyed in Mackenzie himself, until he had been foolish enough to show his love for her.

  She had love for only one, of course; her dead baby.

  She never would behave rationally about that. He had pointed out to her if only she came away with him, they could have children enough if she wished. They would have made bloodthirsty household, perhaps, but a cheerfully robust one.

  But she wanted her dead baby, and only that baby, and insisted on remaining with Kenrick in the desperate hope he would be the means of reuniting them.

  Kenrick, with all the amazing beauty of Ceridwen before his eyes, was equally blind to his present possibilities of happiness. He longed for that dowdy little woman in the picture behind the curtain in his study, and nobody else.

  Absurd there should be talk of his deliberately killing his first wife! She had died falling downstairs, running away from one of his biting fits. A bathetic end, not unlike the one which happened to the floozy Mackenzie had picked up in Chester the day he’d walked out on Ceridwen, resolving to leave her for good. As if he hadn’t made that vow dozens of times, always returning for more humiliation.

  How would he get through all those years to come without Ceridwen? He wouldn’t take care of himself and he might have the good luck to be killed in action if something pierced his heart. If not, then a Man Vampire could exist for perhaps two hundred years.

  Later, when the door opened, Mackenzie knew it was an accomplice of Dubois’ even before he saw him.

  He knew a murderously loyal man when he met him; he wouldn’t have risen through the ranks to Captain otherwise. He had predicted that either the fat fellow or the dark one who chased him earlier would come to kill him. He cared little for the outcome of the fight. Still, he would fight; it was his nature.

  It was the almost cherubic looking man with the black curls like a water spaniel, smiling broadly.

  He hurled his knife even as Mackenzie snatched for his, only to be dazzled by a burst of light. As Mackenzie’s eyes cleared, he found himself looking into Ceridwen’s slanting black orbs.

  Georges, temporarily blinded by the flash, staggered backwards, bracing himself against the force wrenching him into the pulsating light after Mackenzie. The struggle seemed endless to him, yet could not have lasted for more than half a minute.

  Then the lights were gone, and Mackenzie and Georges’ knife with them.“Merde!” Georges stared about wildly and went on aloud: “That was more than his turning tail. I think he�
�s gone like them others. I think I got him, but now I can’t make sure and kill him for Gilles.”

  The Dowager Countess dropped her embroidery, which may or may not have been in a Sad Tangle. Lord Ynyr couldn’t tell and didn’t care. “Émile badly shot? And by Captain Mackenzie? Surely you are misinformed, Ynyr! That sort of thing does not happen hereabouts. You bring me such a tale as this in return for my happy news Morwenna is rallying!”

  Lord Ynyr sent Mrs Brown for the smelling salts. He saw her smile as she scampered away. He hoped that it was a lingering smile over Morwenna.

  “I am sorry, Madam. The man is clearly deranged. Dr Powell is hopeful.” Lord Ynyr didn’t remind her that he had been hopeful until twelve hours before the Late Count’s death.

  The Dowager Countess was so anxious that she insisted on coming to see Émile in the squalor of his sickroom the next morning.

  Dr Powell was been there, along with a Sophie almost as pale as Émile himself, and Agnes, relieving Éloise and Katarina. Émile, rambling and wild-eyed, had seized the Count’s coat sleeve. “When I heard her voice in that accursed place, it was worse than anything I have known. Ynyr! There is too much delay – they have been for Morwenna already –”

  Dr Powell came over to the Dowager Countess with his most soothing manner. “Your Ladyship must not be too anxious. This is as strong a young fellow as ever I have bled.”

  At this, Émile’s fever bright eyes flashed (but only in a human way). “I’ll see you damned before you get your teeth in my neck! It was bad enough with That Woman.”

  “He is delirious quite, Madam.” The doctor ushered Her Ladyship from the dismal scene of bloody bandages and draughts.

  Clearly, the absurd stories that were going about in the villages must have been preying on Monsieur’s mind, though it was the first time Dr Powell had heard himself named as a vampire; ironically, along with the missing Kenrick couple and Arthur Williams, Monsieur himself was usually named as the most likely suspect.

  “This is getting to be a habit with me, chérie, and dull enough for you. You did not marry me to become my nurse. Wicked Gilles Long Legs was at least robust.”