The Pemberley Vampire Hunters

by Huw Thomas

  She picked up the tobacco box to sniff its contents — and as she removed the lid, she saw a small key gleaming inside. A moment later, she had unlocked the desk and was perusing the first of several moderately diverting folk-tales that she found inside, recorded on a sheaf of ageing papers collected together in a leather binding. A handful were in English; several others were incomprehensible. In one case, she didn’t even recognise the script, though the story was illustrated with many fantastical engravings. Caroline chuckled at how ridiculous the monsters in the stories seemed — rising from graves! Drinking blood! Pursued by hunters armed with needle-sharp stakes!

  Who but a child would credit such nonsense?

  Then she came to a most vivid account of a ghostly clan that haunted a great mansion while the distinguished family who dwelt there — many generations of them — lived in ignorance and safety … until a mysterious visitor helpfully advised them of their unnoticed lodgers, after which the tale came to an abrupt and blood-soaked end.

  That story caught her imagination more than the others, and Caroline set the binding aside with a shiver. She almost wished the house were not so empty, even if it meant giving up her investigations. Then she pulled herself together. Coming across such a fable in a strange room in a largely deserted house … the story’s vividness had frightened her, that was all. She determined to put it behind her, for it changed nothing about the secrets the others were conspiring in, or her determination to uncover them.

  She opened another drawer and smiled at what she found: a gorgeously polished case of the kind used to store duelling pistols. It was crafted from a rich, fine-grained wood and furnished with a leather handle; the escutcheon and lock were both of gleaming brass. The monogram read ‘C.A.’ but Caroline paid it little attention, being more interested in what she hoped to find within — for firearms were both familiar and mysterious to her.

  She had fond memories of being allowed to accompany her father and brother to a street near Berkeley Square where Manton’s famous gun shop and shooting range was to be found, there to watch in fascinated envy as the gentlemen loaded and fired their weapons. Caroline, of course, had never been permitted to handle the firearms, but in her imagination she was a dead shot: the terror of every French agent and every Barbary slaver.

  A small key hung from the leather handle, fastened by a length of frayed twine, and so she was able to open the case. Inside was a handsome pair of flintlock pistols, each with its own ramrod and all snugly nestled in velvet-lined compartments along with other accoutrements including a powder flask and a heavy shot canister that rattled ever so slightly as she opened it.

  Up to now all had been as expected, but a single glance at the balls carefully ranked and serried inside their round box told Caroline that they were made from something other than lead. They were as smooth as polished ebony and each glowed with a warm sheen that spoke of some exotic oil. Carefully, she plucked one out between forefinger and thumb, and found that the projectile had plainly been fashioned from a piece of wood — an exceptionally hard and dark-coloured species, and surprisingly heavy in her hand, but wood nonetheless.

  How she longed to prime and load one of these fine pistols and try it out! She briefly considered taking her prize into Mr Hurst’s large back garden, but even there the sound of a shot would surely bring some manservant running. It was bad enough to be prying, she told herself; to be caught prying would be infinitely worse.

  That thought made her consider the hour. She glanced out of the window and saw that the spring evening was drawing in; the lamp lighters had already done their work in the street outside. The theatre-goers would be returning presently, chattering about the play they’d seen and hungry for their supper. It was past time to put everything away, and to return to the drawing room.

  VII

  Upstairs once more, Caroline stood at the window and watched as night crept into the street. A coach drew up and for an instant she hoped that the others had returned, but when the conveyance’s door opened it was two strangers who emerged. Both were tall men.

  The driver was slighter and shorter than his passengers, and so pale that he seemed lit from within — except it was not a he, Caroline realised with a start; the coach was in the charge of a young lady with flame-coloured hair.

  One of the disembarked men dragged a large and brutish-looking dog out from the coach, then slammed the door. The woman flicked her long whip over the horses, who responded instantly. The conveyance moved off at a rapid clip.

  One man approached the front door directly below Caroline’s window. The other led the dog across the street and seemed to melt into the darkness of a shadowed doorway, though Caroline from her vantage point could just make out the stranger’s pale face and felt certain he was keeping watch.

  A violent blow sounded against Mr Hurst’s front door, muffled by distance and filling Caroline with alarm. She waited for one of the servants to answer, but nothing happened.

  A second blow came. Where were the servants?

  A terrible splintering sound told Caroline that the front door had yielded. How could no-one have heard that? Surely someone would come to investigate now.

  She went to the drawing room door and opened it as silently as she could. A slow, heavy tread sounded on the stairs below, mere yards away. She stepped out of her slippers, turned on silent feet, and ran lightly up the next flight, then entered the first room she reached.

  She was unfamiliar with this part of the house but she found herself in what could only be Mr Hurst’s chamber. A large bed took up most of the interior wall, while beneath the window stood a small table that held a few of his personal items. Directly across from the door where she had entered, the fireplace was laid with kindling and coal, ready to light. To the left of the mantle-piece, almost adjacent to the bed, she noticed a small and discreet door, such as would be used by servants whose duties brought them to this room from their own part of the house.

  To go back would be to encounter the intruder; to stay here would be to risk discovery and then who knew what? The only choice was to go on.

  Caroline darted across the room, opened the small door, and slipped through. She found herself in a passageway leading to the narrow service staircase, toward the rear of the house. As quickly and quietly as she could, she descended to the ground floor, where she made her way back into Mr Hurst’s study, praying that she would find the door key in the lock so that she could shut herself safely inside.

  To Caroline’s dismay, she saw no such key.

  Except she knew there was a key: the one that fitted Mr Hurst’s desk. She had placed it back in the tobacco jar, setting all exactly as she had found it before returning upstairs. Now she fumbled it out from the jar once more, spilling fragrant leaf across the desk’s leather surface. The key did not seem to fit the drawer lock at first, but on her second attempt she managed it and pulled out the weapon case. This was difficult to unlock too, because her fingers were trembling.

  Caroline took one of the pistols and cocked it. The sturdy clicking sound steadied her. She wiped off the flint and the frizzen as she had observed from Charles’s lessons from patient old Mr Manson. Then she charged the barrel with powder, shot and wads. She pulled the ramrod from its slot and pushed the outer wad home against its bullet. Finally she primed the pan. Then she picked up the second pistol and cocked it in readiness for priming.

  She sensed, rather than heard, the presence of the man in the passageway outside. The door knob turned; the door opened; time stopped while the intruder stood just outside the study, regarding her.

  He was sallow of face and lank of hair, and stooped about the shoulders as if under some eternal burden. He stepped into the room. He held a length of hempen rope clutched between his two fists, as if ready to bind her hands — or perhaps to strangle her.

  As Caroline raised the loaded pistol, her fear departed. Now all she felt was the weapon as an extension of her arm. The tamped charge, resting at the back of the unwaveri
ng steel barrel, primed and potent and ready to explode, waited to be unleashed at the touch of her finger.

  A shrill whistle sounded from outside the house. Then came the sound of hooves on cobbles, and the rumble of carriage wheels. Caroline’s thoughts raced at twice their normal speed, for even as she perceived that her companions were returning at last (and that the whistle must be a warning from the intruder’s accomplice hidden outside) she also kept her full attention on her foe.

  The whistle was repeated, even more ear-splitting than before. The man looked toward the window and seemed to hesitate. A savage baying erupted, swiftly followed by a high-pitched shriek and the sound of boots hammering on flagstones as though some poor soul were running from the very devil.

  The intruder gave a ghastly smile. “Your friends appear to have met our dog,” he told her.

  “Stay back!”

  “Miss Bingley, you are a female. A mere girl, and newly fetched in to my lady’s world. You will not shoot me. You can not shoot me.”

  He advanced into the study.

  Caroline shot him.

  The bullet spun the man around and staggered him back against the door frame.

  He turned his head toward her, his left shoulder all bloody and his eyes glittering with rage. Calmly, she set the discharged pistol on the desk and picked up its partner. It was cocked but not charged or primed, but how would he know that? It mattered not a whit in any case for what else could she do? If he came at her again, she would use the firearm as a truncheon. She stepped fearlessly around the desk and forward, keeping the barrel pointing steadily towards his head, debating whether it would be better to smite him about the temples or in his injured shoulder.

  He took one step back, then another, clutching his wound. Caroline followed him out into the hallway. The man turned and fled — and cannoned through the returning theatre party who had reached the threshold not an instant before.

  They paid no heed at all to the shattered door frame, and hardly any to the man who hurtled through their midst, for all their attention was on poor, collapsed Louisa whose gown was stained dark with blood all down one side, from waist to knee.

  VIII

  Caroline Bingley had never seen her brother so incandescent with rage.

  “How could you do such a thing?” he demanded. “How could you disgrace yourself so? How could you shame your family and the memory of our father — before our closest friends? What must Mr Hurst think of you? What must Mr Darcy think?”

  Mr Darcy remained studiously silent.

  “I am truly sorry.” Caroline could think of nothing else to say. Her feelings of shame arose not only from her actions downstairs in the study, but also from what had befallen her sister outside. She could not have explained how the dog’s attack on Louisa could be her fault, but in her present state of mind she felt no doubt that it must surely be so.

  Worse even than the thought of injured Louisa was Mr Darcy’s silence and his impassive face. She had known him for many weeks now, but it was only at this moment that she realised how much she valued his good opinion. She felt her cheeks burning and longed to be somewhere else … but that would not do either, for she was most painfully aware that somehow, eventually, she must explain herself to the others and seek their understanding.

  Mr Hurst entered the drawing room and Caroline could see from his demeanour that he brought good news.

  “I am glad to say that Miss Bingley’s injury is much less grave than I feared,” he announced. “The great artery was not opened. I have administered a draught of laudanum and she is sleeping peacefully.” He hesitated, glancing at Caroline, then continued in a determined tone: “Mr Bingley, I wonder if you might be so kind as to indulge me with a moment of your time?”

  Charles nodded readily enough, but his expression remained grim as he rose from his chair. Caroline watched the two men leave the room, thinking it very likely that they were off to some private corner to discuss what should be done with her. She stole a look at Mr Darcy and found that he was regarding her impassively.

  “We should be grateful for your sister’s sake that Mr Hurst is such a competent physician.” He favoured her with a keen glance. “It is also most fortunate— if rather unexpected in a young lady such as yourself — that you have been instructed in the mysteries of flint and black powder. Your knowledge of firearms is your father’s doing, I suppose.”

  Caroline nodded.

  “I knew Mr Bingley for too short a time, but it was long enough to discern that he was not only a gentleman of consequence but also an unusually devoted parent — an opinion that is most agreeably confirmed on closer acquaintance with his children.”

  She looked at him with bewilderment. “I had expected you to berate me, Mr Darcy. I deserve no less.”

  He shrugged. “The superior mind does not absolve itself by placing the blame on another, even if a suitable scapegoat presents herself. Tell me if you would, what compelled you to explore Mr Hurst’s study?”

  Caroline hated to admit to the jealousy and exclusion from which she had suffered, for they made her (in her own eyes) seem weak and petulant, no better than a spoiled infant. But admit them she did, for who could deny the truth to a man of such understanding as Mr Darcy?

  He listened gravely until her confession had faltered to its close. “I see that by indulging my own curiosity, and my feelings of friendship and admiration for your brother and for Mr Hurst, I have been at fault. As have the other gentlemen, I believe, and perhaps even your sister.”

  “I do not know what you mean,” she said. “It is I who have indulged my curiosity — and in a most improper manner. Charles has every right to despise me.”

  He shook his head. “I pray you should not concern yourself with that, Miss Bingley. Your brother is angry because he has received a shock, but he is no fool. When he reflects fully on what passed, Bingley will understand his own part in it — and then he must forgive you and berate himself instead.”

  “I wish I could believe that,” Caroline said, “truly I do. Yet experience has taught me that a brother’s mind, once made up, is difficult to change.”

  “Do you find it so?” Mr Darcy asked with a smile. “I know him less well than you, of course, but in truth I believe him to be unusually amenable to rational argument, and indeed, this aspect of his character is admirable to a man such as myself, since I often have the impression that others consider me too unyielding.”

  Caroline wished now to contradict Mr Darcy’s poor assessment of his own character, but before she could find words to do so he continued:

  “And so I am full of confidence that your brother will see the truth of things. As must you, for there is certain intelligence that you shall presently hear — information that will dismay you and teach you that the world is darker than you believed it could possibly be.”

  “Whatever can you mean?”

  “I am not the best one to explain it,” Mr Darcy said. “Mr Hurst is the superior instructor in these matters.” He walked over to the window and gazed out, which Caroline had come to learn meant that Mr Darcy did not intend to engage in further discourse.

  It was not long before the other two gentlemen returned. Mr Hurst entered the drawing room with a jaunty step and with an expression of such delight that Caroline began to wonder if he was glad that Louisa had been hurt. As for Charles, his previous ill-humour had vanished completely, for he somehow contrived to look both pleased and startled at the same time.

  Mr Hurst came straight to Caroline and took both her hands between his own. “I have just asked Bingley a certain question that I have had on my mind for some months now, concerning your sister, and we have received his blessing. Miss Bingley did me the honour of accepting me while I was cleaning and dressing her wound, which was perhaps just as well since otherwise the treatment would have represented quite a liberty!” He chuckled. “I am the happiest man alive, and quite unable to be angry with you, for I am resolved that you shall be as dear to me as any sist
er could be. If you had not explored my study, you would not have been able to lay your hands on my pistols — and I shudder to think what might then have happened.”

  “If she had not explored your study, she would not have been drawn into this at all,” Charles said.

  Mr Darcy stepped away from the window, from where he had observed the nuptial announcement. “May I offer you the heartiest of congratulations, Mr Hurst. As for you, Bingley, perhaps you should be content that your sister proved able to defend herself. Think how different things might be today, if certain other young ladies had been able to resist capture so gallantly.”

  “Well,” Charles said, “Perhaps there is something to that.”

  “Of course there is,” Mr Darcy replied. “Now, I wonder if we should not furnish both the Miss Bingleys with pistols of their own, and with further instruction in their use?”

  Charles tried to speak but could only manage to splutter.

  Mr Darcy continued, “We must all take a share of the blame for having given Miss Bingley reason to be curious in the first place. In future, we must be more careful.” He looked at Caroline. “I mean that as an admonishment to the rest of us, Miss Bingley, but now I fear it must include you. The matters you have already discovered, as well as what you are about to learn, must remain secret even from your closest friends. Mr Hurst, I believe it would be best if you explained.”

  And so Mr Hurst led Caroline to a chaise longue and pulled up a chair opposite her, and (accompanied by the sound of hammering from downstairs, where a servant had been urgently engaged to repair and reinforce the front door) began to explain.