Renfield

by Barbara Hambly

  But the prisoner did not flee. Instead he shrank from the open, empty doorway, his breathing fast with terror. Though the night was icy, sweat jeweled his face. For a long time he stood, only staring at the open door, and the thin mist that curled across the flagstones. Then slowly he edged forward, like a man approaching a coiled snake, extended a hand visibly trembling, and with a quick move, slammed his prison door shut again.

  Then he stumbled to the fire and collapsed on his knees on the hearth, his face buried in his hands.

  CHAPTER THREE

  R. M. R.’s notes

  21 May

  8 flies, 1 spider

  22 May

  9 flies, 2 spiders

  I find my facility of patience and focus increases with practice. There is a knack to trapping a fly, as much mental and perceptual as physical. I find myself hampered in my efforts by the abject stupidity of the attendants here. Like all men of petty intellect, they cling to regulations as to spars in the storm which the world appears, to them, to be. I have explained repeatedly the nature of my mission here, yet the man Langmore persists in removing the baits I put down, and even in freeing my quarry. Incapable of perceiving underlying patterns, his system, like those of his fellows, seems capable only of animal fear, like buffalo fleeing a thunderclap because they imagine that the release of atmospheric electrical tensions has something to do with them.

  Prune macedoine and beef obtain best results.

  23 May

  10 flies, 4 spiders

  24 May

  10 flies, 3 spiders

  25 May

  16 flies, 4 spiders

  A long talk with Dr. Seward today. Though I explained my business to him carefully, I came away with the impression that he understands nothing. He seems to me a man of good heart but decidedly mediocre mind. Still, though nearly as rigid-mindedly fearful of change as all the others, he did agree with my request that the cook include quantities of honey, sugar, and various confitures in my rations here.

  Letter, R. M. Renfield to his wife

  25 May

  My beloved Catherine,

  Simply the writing of your name raises my spirits, setting before me as it does your lovely face. I must be brief, for I cannot make the fools here understand my need for paper not only to communicate with you and our lovely Vixie, but also to proceed with my work. It is a matter I dare not yet take up with Dr. Seward, the Superintendent, though he and I have begun to come to an understanding regarding the work itself. I thought, in my conversation with him today, that he appeared downcast. Rumor among the attendants is that he has suffered a reverse in love. If that is so, my heart goes out to him in pity. What it would have cost me, my dearest one, had your family prevailed in their opposition to me, and prevented our union, I cannot bring myself to think.

  The dreary rains of spring have ceased at last, and the garden here riots with hyacinth, iris, and the first sweet roses of summer. From my elevated window I look down on the marshlands beside the river, and see them gay with wildflowers, spangled with reflected light, and alive with the birds of the air.

  I understand the difficulties you are having in getting letters to me here. Better that I should suffer a pang or two for want of your dear comfort, than that those who seek to keep us apart should learn of your whereabouts, and so undo all our plans and strivings. Kiss my dearest Vixie for me, and tell her that her papa shall be with her by and by.

  I remain forever,

  Your most devoted husband,

  R. M. Renfield

  “Lady Clayburne.” Dr. Seward set down the card that had been sent in, got to his feet as Mary showed his visitors into the office. “Lady Brough.”

  The younger of the two, a stylish matron of Mrs. Westenra’s type, extended two kid-gloved fingers with the air of one who hoped Seward would not actually touch them. The elder, erect and disapproving in extremely stylish mourning weeds, simply folded her thin hands more tightly around the ebony head of her cane and regarded Seward with a reflexive and ingrained contempt.

  “Please sit down.” Seward fetched them both chairs. Lady Brough scrutinized the seat of hers as if to make sure no one had inadvertently left fresh pig entrails on it, then perched on the edge. Her daughter, Lady Clayburne, settled a little more firmly, but Seward had the impression that she, like her mother, had been carefully schooled that no lady ever let her spine touch the back of any chair she sat on, under pain of death. His aunts and his sister subscribed to that belief as well. “Mary, please bring tea.”

  As the housemaid departed, Seward resumed his own seat behind his desk and switched off the phonograph into which he’d been dictating his notes. “You are here to see Mr. Renfield?” He had not had the impression, when Ryland Renfield’s family brought him to Rushbrook House, that they were the sort of people who would remain in London past the fashionable season for their afflicted relative’s sake. “I’m sure he will be most gratified to have visitors.”

  “We are here to see you, Dr. Seward, not my brother-in-law.” Georgina, Lady Clayburne, folded her elegantly gloved hands and the permanent grooves of disapproval which bracketed the knife-slit of her mouth deepened slightly. “I am certain there is little to be gained by an interview with Ryland himself. How does he here?”

  “Much the same as when he was brought in,” answered Seward. “On one occasion only he attempted to escape, but offered no resistance when apprehended.” He cringed inwardly at the memory of that disastrous dinner-party. At the recollection of how Lucy’s eyes had filled with tears, when he’d knelt to propose marriage yesterday—had it been only yesterday?—at her mother’s villa of Hillingham. How she had blushed when he’d asked her, Is there someone else?

  Knowing full-well that there was.

  “Beyond that, he has been the most cooperative of patients. He occupies his time with trapping flies—spiders and flies, I should say. Did your sister ever mention his keeping such odd pets?”

  “My sister does not hold with pets, Dr. Seward, and never would have them in the house. As for flies, I am shocked that you permit such a filthy pastime.” She looked around the office as if expecting to see assorted tumblers and fruit-jars on every windowsill and in every corner, roaring and buzzing with captives.

  Lady Brough added, in a thin harsh voice, “I thought my son-in-law was brought here to restore the balance of his mind, not to have his crochets indulged.”

  “Of course that is so, Lady Brough,” agreed Seward. “But sometimes one cannot discover the key to madness without observing the tendency of its delusions.”

  “Nonsense. My second daughter—Lady Norrington, she is now, and we never thought to make so respectable a match for her—conceived the notion when she was a girl that she was in danger of contagious infection whenever she went out of her bedroom, and insisted on remaining there and having her meals sent up. A few sound whippings broke her of that caprice.” The old lady’s gaze flicked back to Seward, a bleached and colorless hazel, and cold as stone. “Has my daughter been here to see her husband?”

  “As a physician,” said Seward carefully, “that matter is between my patient and myself.”

  “Don’t mouth platitudes, young man,” snapped Her Ladyship, “as if you were a priest under seal of the confessional. Neither my daughter Catherine nor my granddaughter Vivienne has been seen by any member of the family since Ryland’s incarceration, nearly four weeks ago. Catherine, of course, may do as she chooses. She always has.” There was both contempt and loathing in the old woman’s voice. “But Georgina and I have a responsibility to Vivienne and we will not be turned aside.”

  “It is very like Catherine,” added Lady Clayburne, “to go into hiding in this melodramatic fashion and leave my mother and myself to deal with this most unpleasant and awkward situation.” Where Lady Brough’s voice was soft and cold, like the silk of a garrot, her daughter’s had the clang of a headsman’s ax. “Completely aside from the outrageous fees demanded in this place”—she gestured impatiently aroun
d her—“there is the matter of the funds settled upon Catherine by my late father, money which it was understood was to be used in educating Vivienne and establishing her credibility in the world. This Catherine—encouraged by her husband—has not done. I blame Ryland entirely. What can one expect of a money-grubbing merchant who’s spent all his life in heathen parts among tradesmen?”

  “Catherine was always as bad,” put in Lady Brough. “With her séances and her Theosophical Society lectures and her Ancient Music.”

  “Of course she is, Mama,” agreed Lady Clayburne quickly. “You are quite right. But at least one had some control over Catherine. But Vivienne—Vixie, she is called in the family—is due for her come-out next year. The poor child has been raised on a rubbish of philosophers and economists, with the result that when she does come out, unless something is done to take her education in hand, she will be entirely too outré to make anything resembling a respectable parti. Catherine should have known better, but of course neither Mother nor I could ever tell her a thing. Now that Ryland is, thank goodness, out of the way, Mother and I agreed that it is the perfect opportunity to take that poor child under our wings and make something of her before it is too late.”

  “I see.” Seward reflected that if Lady Brough were his grandmother, he’d go into hiding, too.

  Mary entered with the tea-tray, and dipped a little curtsey to the two ladies as she set it down on the corner of Seward’s desk. What there was about the tea things that didn’t meet Lady Clayburne’s standards, Seward had no idea. Neither the cups nor the saucers were visibly chipped, the bread-and-butter was fresh, no sugar had been spilled, and the milk was wholesome. But Lady Clayburne’s thin mouth compressed still further, as Mrs. Westenra’s had when Seward had re-entered the dining-room the other night in his gray tweeds, and Lady Brough regarded the tea-cup Seward offered her through her lorgnette for a long moment before, reluctantly, accepting it.

  Lady Clayburne demanded, “Has my sister come to see Ryland?”

  “It remains a matter between herself and me, as Mr. Renfield’s physician, but no, she has not.” Quite possibly, guessed Seward, because Mrs. Renfield suspected that her family would attempt to trace her in precisely this fashion. But it was curious, he thought, that Renfield had mentioned to him neither wife nor child. “The girl Vivienne is Mr. Renfield’s only child?”

  Lady Clayburne sniffed derisively. “The dear Lord only knows what he got up to in India, all the years he was there, but Vivienne is my sister’s only child.”

  “Ryland was married in India.” Lady Brough set her tea aside untasted. “My solicitor, Joseph Wormidge, has instituted inquiries among the business and Army communities of Calcutta and has found little against him save his passion for Wagner. Horrible, dreary racket!” Her pale eyes narrowed. “Nevertheless, the inquiry is not yet concluded.”

  “When his first wife died—I understand she was an invalid for many years—Ryland returned to England to manage his business from here,” went on Lady Clayburne. “He met Catherine at one of those dreadful theosophical lectures she was patronizing that year. We did everything in our power, Mother and I, to keep her from throwing herself away on a tradesman and a man twenty years older than herself into the bargain. Well!” She took the tiniest sip of her tea, with the air of one making a heroic sacrifice to prevent her host from killing himself with well-deserved chagrin, and set the cup and saucer firmly aside. So much for THAT. The bread-and-butter she simply ignored.

  “Understand me, Dr. Seward. Mother and I have only Vixie’s good at heart. Goodness knows how we’re to keep it quiet that there is insanity in the family long enough to find her a husband, even with a year or two at a good Swiss boarding-school to straighten her out…the cost of which Mother and I are quite prepared to shoulder. Once we locate them, of course, we have instructed Wormidge to begin proceedings to re-claim Father’s trust funds, which Catherine has quite clearly misused.”

  Seward said nothing. A parson’s son who had been raised on the edges of Society, he knew with deadly exactness what options lay open to a woman once control of her own money was taken out of her hands.

  “Neither Catherine nor Vivienne, as I have said, have communicated with any member of the family since Ryland was found wandering the streets of London in what can only be described as confusion.” Anger glinted in Lady Brough’s soft voice. “Their house in Nottingham was closed up, and when Wormidge effected an entrance, he found their clothing missing, as if for a long stay elsewhere. Ryland’s house in London has clearly not been re-opened, but he was a wealthy man even before he married Catherine and helped himself to her inheritance. Because his solicitor, Mr. Lucius Bolton, dropped out of sight at the same time, we suspect that Catherine and Vivienne are in hiding somewhere, and using Bolton as a go-between. We intend to find them.”

  The cold determination in her voice, and the self-righteous expression on Lady Clayburne’s face, reminded Seward of the reminiscences Lucy had shared with him of her one nightmarish year in a French finishing-school. She had begged her mother to at least let her return to England, to go to school with her friends.

  Lady Clayburne opened her tiny reticule of jet beads, withdrew a card-case. “A young lady’s future is at stake, Dr. Seward,” she said, and laid a card on the desk. “Please do not make her life more difficult than it will already be with an impossible tradesman—let alone a lunatic—for a father. When she comes here—if she comes—please do what you can to urge Catherine to return to Mother and myself. In any case, I expect to be notified of her visit.”

  She slid a second card across the desk at him. “This is Mr. Wormidge’s card—our solicitor, in Bedford Row. If Ryland should make any reference to Catherine, or say anything that might indicate where Catherine or Vivienne might be found, please contact either myself or Mr. Wormidge.”

  Seward murmured, “Of course,” and slipped both her card and the solicitor Wormidge’s into his desk drawer. It was his duty, as Superintendent, to keep Rushbrook House a paying proposition, entirely apart from the fact that his usefulness to its patients depended on his remaining on good terms with their families. At least Lady Brough and Lady Clayburne were not obviously insane themselves, as were the relatives who had had Lord Alyn locked up.

  He wondered if Vixie Renfield had begged her parents not to send her to “a good Swiss boarding-school” to “straighten her out.” Had pleaded to be allowed to remain in England, with her friends.

  Letter, Miss Mina Murray to Miss Lucy Westenra

  2 June

  Dearest Lucy,

  No time for more than a note, as this is the busiest time of year at the school. The weather has turned hot here, and damp. How I envy you, walking along the cliffs and downs of Whitby! It seems like a year, instead of only a month, until I join you. Tell your mother again how much I look forward to it, and how grateful I am for the invitation.

  One of the dearest aspects of true friendship is that, in all the years we’ve played together and worked together over those dreadful samplers at Mrs. Druggett’s school, whenever one of us has been sorrowful or afraid, the other has been able to cheer her up. Lucy, I am both sorrowful and afraid now. I have had no letter from Jonathan since the middle of May—nearly two weeks now—and though I know perfectly well that they do not have the penny post in far parts of the world, and that I cannot expect him to take time from his work to write to me often, still I cannot rid myself of the fear that he is in some terrible trouble.

  There! Now tell me I’m being a goose—as I know perfectly well that I am.

  So good that your dear Arthur is in civilized parts (or as civilized as Ireland ever gets!) and you can get those daily notes you write of. They do, indeed, bring the sound of the voice, the sight of the face, before our eyes—as your notes to me have done all this week.

  Thank you, my dearest friend, for being my dearest friend. You know and I know that wherever he is, Jonathan is just fine.

  All my love,

  Minar />
  CHAPTER FOUR

  R. M. R.’s notes

  5 June

  14 flies, 1 spider

  I knew this would happen. Seward ordered me to “get rid of” my “pets” as he calls them, though I have explained to him—or thought I explained—the critical importance of what I do. I obtained three days’ grace. What can one expect, when surrounded by the pettiness of ordinary minds?

  Dr. Seward’s Journal (kept on phonograph)*

  18 June

  [Renfield] has turned his mind now to spiders, and has got several very big fellows in a box. He keeps feeding them with his flies, and the number of the latter has become sensibly diminished, although he has used half his food in attracting more flies from outside to his room.

  1 July

  His spiders are now becoming as great a nuisance as his flies, and today I told him that he must get rid of them. He looked very sad at this, so I said that he must clear out some of them, at all events. He cheerfully acquiesced in this, and I gave him the same time as before for the reduction. He disgusted me much while with him, for when a horrid blow-fly, bloated with some carrion food, buzzed into the room, he caught it, held it exultantly for a few moments between his finger and thumb, and, before I knew what he was going to do, put it in his mouth and ate it. I scolded him for it, but he argued quietly that it was very good and very wholesome; that it was life, strong life, and gave life to him…

  Letter, R. M. Renfield to his wife

  (undated—early July)

  My dearest Catherine,

  I trust that this letter finds you in the best of good health, and that you and Vixie are enjoying the mellow beauty of this English summer. It gives me daily comfort to picture your sweet faces. Though I now realize how difficult it would be for you to visit, still I hope and pray that one day you and she may find a way to do so without drawing undue attention to yourselves, for I miss you sorely.

  My work proceeds apace, though unbelievably hampered by the stupidity of my colleagues here. Seward is well-meaning, but beyond imbecilic. His mania for regulations has forced me to begin on the next stage of my efforts prematurely. I pray that no ill will come of it, knowing how much depends upon its successful progress. His colleague, Hennessey, is not only venal, but dangerous. Only yesterday, in Dr. Seward’s absence, he entered my room with three young gentlemen from one of the London colleges—not medical students, but simply young rakes who paid him half-a-crown apiece “to see the loonies,” as they put it. When I was moved to protest, he threatened me with the Swing, a most appalling “treatment” that “calms” through nausea and dizziness. Valuable in dealing with the truly mad, of course, but as horrifying to a normal man as the rigors of the Spanish Inquisition.