Jonathan Barrett Gentleman Vampire (55 page)

Once finished, I got fresh paper and made copies of both letters, word for word, to be taken to separate outbound ships. Costly in time and postage, but it bettered the chance of at least one reaching its destination.

Addressed, sealed, bundled with others, and ready to go out in the morning or whenever the next post came, I placed my latest packets under the cup of lead shot as usual and, with a sigh, began examining the top paper on the stack Father had left.

* * *

Father and Norwood returned the next day, though I was unable to celebrate their arrival until my evening awakening. It was determined that another tea party should take place, though this one was on a smaller scale than that which had been interrupted by the rebel raid. As more and more supplies were being drained away by the British and Hessian armies, it was not considered wise to be ostentatious in one’s entertaining. If this limitation on our hospitality grated at Mother, she did not show it.

There was only one other change besides the size of the party. This time Elizabeth was not pouring; that honor went to Cousin Anne. Elizabeth offered no objections. We’d discussed it and decided that it was one more way in which Mother maintained her new routine of ignoring her daughter. The usual custom was that if no daughter of the house were available, the task went to another unmarried lady. Lady Caroline might have taken it, but Anne was younger.

As it turned out, Elizabeth’s not-too-convincing chagrin at losing the post was disguised delight, since it freed her to have better opportunity to see Norwood. I’d repeated my conversation with Lady Caroline to her and apparently the lady had done the same with her brother. Norwood and Elizabeth had found a corner that afforded some slight privacy and the two of them were smiling at each other in a manner that could only be described as soppy.

“It looks as though the fever is sorely afflicting them,” Beldon remarked to me, but with vast good humor.

“ ’Tis a painless complaint, I hope.”

“For now, certainly, and for evermore, God willing.”

“You think they’ll make a match for themselves, then?”

“I certainly hope so.”

“Indeed?”

He pursed his lips. “Well, you are aware that my sister has ever entertained certain hopes. It will be of considerable relief to me if things arrange themselves so that she can gracefully abandon those hopes.”

Perhaps not gracefully, but at least in silence, I thought. From the first day they’d descended upon our house Mrs. Hardinbrook had been badgering her brother to woo Elizabeth for his bride. As Beldon had no interest in women for matrimonial or any other purposes, the situation often became awkward for him. I could well understand that Elizabeth’s marriage to another would provide him with a long-desired ease from her nagging . . . until Mrs. Hardinbrook picked out a new prospect for him, anyway.

That lady was even now eyeing Elizabeth and Norwood and drawing deadly accurate conclusions about the glowing, besotted looks passing between them. She glanced at her brother, scowled, then forced her gaze down into her teacup as though it might provide her with either inspiration or consolation.

My former tutor, Mr. Rapelji, came over. A short man with astonishing energy, he had finished his tea but not yet turned his cup over.

“Would you like more, sir?” I asked. “Or perhaps some punch instead?”

“Tea will do, but I’m enjoying this too much.” He nodded at Elizabeth, his eyes shining with good-natured amusement. “Well, well, now I’m wondering if I should pass any of the news on to the girls.”

“The girls” were his elderly housekeepers, Rachel and Sarah. They were known for their exhaustive herb lore, good cooking, and choice gossip.

“It might be a bit premature, yet,” I said. “They’ve only just gotten to talking with one another.”

“They seem to be talking remarkably well. I’ve never seen your sister looking prettier, and I daresay Lord James would agree with me.”

“I think any man would agree with you on that point, Mr. Rapelji,” said Beldon. Though indifferent to women, his nature was flexible enough to allow him to have an aesthetic appreciation of them.

“I shall not debate with you, sir. What do you think of it, Jonathan?” said Rapelji.

“Think of what, exactly?”

“A match between those two, of course.”

“I shall support whatever decision my sister is pleased to make.”

“What? That almost smacks of disapproval.”

“Or a trust in my sister’s judgment.”

“Ho-ho, sir, I wish I’d thought of that one.”

Now Father came over to our group and some of our informality faded. “Good evening, gentlemen. Anything of interest?”

“We were just remarking on the beauty of the ladies, sir,” I said, uncertain whether Elizabeth’s occupation with Norwood was the right subject to bring up with him at this time.

“There is much to remark upon,” he agreed. Then I saw his eyes light upon the couple in the corner and twinkle. His gaze shifted to mine, and he winked. After passing some time with Beldon and Rapelji, he leaned in close to me. “I wondered when he’d work up the courage to finally approach her.”

“For how long?” I asked.

“Since the morning we left for Hempstead. His mind was on Elizabeth for the whole trip, I think, as he was ever eager to talk about her. Can’t say that I’m exactly pleased, though.”

“Have you anything against Norwood?”

“No, he seems pleasant enough, but by God, I hate the thought of him taking away my little girl.”

On that I could commiserate, for I hated the thought of losing my sister to . . . well, though he was a lord, but still a virtual stranger to us. I’d have to try to get to know him better.

“Are you done with your tea, Father?”

“What? Oh, yes, sorry.”

We quietly exchanged cups as usual, and he drained away some of mine.

“Got it just right this time, laddie,” he said with a grateful smile. Father enjoyed lots of sugar in his tea, a habit I’d learned to imitate for his sake.

“Did Cousin Anne make it strong enough for you as well?”

“Yes, but she’s let it steep too long. It’s gone bitter.”

“She may be distracted tonight.”

“Oh? She taken with you, then?”

“Ahh. . . .”

“Or is it the other way around to cause such distraction?”

“Really, sir!” And then I saw that he was only playing.

“She’s a pretty enough girl, long as she doesn’t talk too much,” he said. “I heard her mentioning Shakespeare with some enthusiasm, though, so maybe there’s hope.”

“Hope for what?”

“That she might get that mind of hers into some kind of activity. I dislike waste, and a pretty girl not given the chance to think is a terrible waste, or so it seems to me. To other men, too, I’ve seen on occasion. Having a beautiful but empty-headed woman for a wife can be an altogether wretched existence.”

He looked at Anne in an absent sort of way, his words running on lightly as though there were not much thought behind them. Tea party conversation, nothing more.

Or was it? Then, with a bitter jolt, I realized he was thinking of Mother. She had certainly been beautiful once, if that portrait in the library was anything to go by. What had he been like himself? Young, about my age now, good prospects ahead, and then he falls in love with the stunning Marie Fonteyn. Had he been so wrapped in its fever that he’d not noted the flaws amid the virtues? Possibly. It ran in the family, too, if my feelings for Nora were anything to go by. Perhaps it ran in the whole human race.

Mother had looks—once upon a time—but she was not especially clever. She got on well within the rules imposed by society and custom, but her intelligence was more of a kind of instinctual cunning than anything else. No wonder she worried so much over what people thought. They, unknowing, did her thinking for her, telling her what was right and proper to do and say. All that she did and said came not from her own desires, but were a mirror of theirs.

I fairly gaped at my mother, feeling shock, horror, and pity swirling through me in one uneasy swell. That was bad enough, but to look on Father and feel the same but more of it . . . . God have pity on us all.

“Something wrong, Mr. Barrett?” inquired Beldon, who had returned to stand next to me. Father had gone off to the library with Rapelji. “You seem a little—”

Haunted?

“—pale.”

“I think I should like some air, Doctor.”

He stepped back to give me room to pass. “But it’s cold out.”

“Good.

I left my upended cup and saucer on a table and quietly left, not wishing to draw attention to myself. Going out the front door, I picked up my stride until I was safe from sight behind one of our larger trees. The snow was not so deep on this side of it, barely coming up over my shoes. Not that I was worried about that or much of anything for a time. I breathed in and out, to clear myself of the dusty taste of that suddenly stifling room.

“Mr. Jonathan?”

Bloody hell, I wanted to be
alone.
Jericho came up, wearing a worried face. “What is it?”

One of his eyebrows quirked. “I’m aware of what passed between you and Mr. Samuel.”

Yes, he’d been standing right behind us, busy as usual with the punch bowl. Of course, he’d have heard everything. But could he have heard my very thoughts? He had a reputation for such in the servant’s hall.

“Your father is a great man,” he stated.

More thought divination? No, but Jericho had correctly read my reactions. Having known me since birth, he’d instantly understood what had been set off by Father’s most casual remark.

“He is a wise man, too.

“I’m glad you think it,” I said roughly.

“But a wise man only becomes so after making mistakes.”

“So Father marrying Mother was a mistake?”

“Your judgment of him is.”

As soon as his words were out, I was flooded with shame and bowed my head. “I’m sorry.”

“Your father is human, Mr. Jonathan. As is mine. As are all fathers, all parents.”

“Yes, I know that. I’ve always known that, but tonight it just seemed to strike me all at once.”

“No children are ever happy to learn about the true vulnerability of their parents. It unsettles their world too much.”

That’s what’s happened,
I thought. “You’re exactly right. I’ve been stupid about the whole business.”

This time Jericho remained diplomatically silent. For a while. “It is rather cold, sir.”

“So Beldon said to me a moment ago. Very well.” I let him lead the way back to the house. We stamped the snow from our feet. “Will I look at him the same as before, though, I wonder.”

“This time it will be with more understanding, but no less love.”

He returned to his duties as I eventually did to mine.

No one missed us, apparently. The party was going well. Beldon was with Mother and Lady Caroline and saying something amusing. Both were smiling, though Mother’s smile, as ever, was a brittle one. I don’t think she had any sense for humor, but at least Beldon was trying. Elizabeth and Norwood were still in the corner, discussing all kinds of things, probably. Cousin Anne was alone at the tea table, so I went to her for a bit of company.

She reached for the teapot, but faltered, seeing that I had no cup. “Had my fill ages ago,” I told her, “but thank you kindly.”

“A single cup fills you?”

I shrugged amiably and changed the subject. “Enjoying that play, I hope?”

Her eyes glazed as she searched her memory, then brightened. “Oh, the one you gave me? Yes, very much. Some of the language was
very
antique, but it was quite interesting. I went back the next day and got another one to read. He’s a bit confusing in language until one gets used to it, and then it abruptly makes sense. I seem to know exactly what he means, once I’ve worked things out. But people didn’t
really
talk like that then, did they?”

I thought that Rapelji might provide her with a better answer and looked around for him before recalling that he was probably still in the library with Father. As I started to form my own opinion for her, the gentleman himself came into the room. The energy that constantly propelled him through months of rigorous labor pounding knowledge into stubborn skulls had deserted him. He seemed to have just enough strength to totter a few steps in and then had to grab the back of a chair to support himself. He was terribly white.

Rapelji was so quiet that no one noticed but me and only because I just happened to be facing the right direction. The dreadful expression on his face went straight to my heart.

Something was wrong, wrong,
wrong.

“The doctor,” he whispered, voice shaky. “Where’s Beldon?”

Now others stirred and looked over, but I paid no mind as I rushed out the door for the library, sudden fear piercing my brain and body like a swift, icy blade.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The chill did not abate, but increased its numbing effect on my mind, as I strode into the library and found Father stretched on the settee. I called to him, but, disturbingly, he did not respond. He might have been taking a nap, but he was much too still and slack. His mouth was open, but his lips and skin had a blue cast to them that turned my cold fear into frosty panic. I was unable to move, and barely heard or felt Beldon pushing past me to get to him.

He loosened Father’s neck cloth immediately, then pressed an ear to his chest to listen to his heart. I could hear its slow beat, noted his deep, slow breathing, but combined with his stillness, neither seemed . . . right.

Beldon shook Father’s shoulders, trying to wake him, shouting his name as though the man were far across an open field, not right in front of him. The others coming up behind me were greeted by this row, and worried questions began to be whispered in tight little voices. “What’s going on? What has happened?”

“Jonathan?” Elizabeth’s voice managed to penetrate to me. She put a hand on my arm.

I looked at her and saw a reflection of my own white and hollow-eyed face. I turned and hugged her close for a moment, and that seemed to help.

“Someone get my box,” Beldon ordered. From the corner of my eye I saw Jericho sprint off, taking the stairs three at a time.

Other orders were given and various servants rushed to obey him.

“Mr. Barrett.”

This time he addressed me, not Father. I stepped forward. “Help me get him to his feet.”

“Is that wise, sir?”

“Just do it,” he snapped. He was already trying to lift Father to a sitting position. I helped him complete the job, and between us we got him standing. Father mumbled a protest at this liberty and tried to push us away. “We must wake him up and keep him awake.”

The three of us moved from the library into the larger hall like drunken sailors stumbling home from a debauch. The others parted out of our way, scuttling off and collecting in corners like dust. Jericho hastily came downstairs again with the box of medicines clutched in his arms. Beldon told him to put it in the library and then return. When he did, Beldon had him take his place helping me with Father.

“What is wrong with Mr. Barrett?” Jericho whispered.

“I don’t know,” I whispered back, unable to trust myself to speak with a full voice.

Back and forth we went, encouraging Father to walk and to wake up for us. He shook his head at this, whether in denial or in an effort to comply, I could not tell. His face was slack, but now and then a beatific smile spasmed over it and he mumbled unintelligibly. Most of the time he was unaware of us, virtually asleep on his feet.

Beldon, who had gone to the library, called Elizabeth in with him. She’d watched our progress, in agony over the driving need to do something and the utter lack of anything to do, and now jumped at this chance to help. They reappeared again, Beldon with a cup of something in his hand and Elizabeth carrying a cloth and a basin one of the maids had been ordered to bring. We stopped pacing a moment and Beldon managed to get Father to drink what was in the cup.

We resumed walking, with Elizabeth standing nearby. Not much time passed before Father’s body gave a frightening, uncontrolled jerk and he doubled over. Biting her lips and with tears streaming down her cheeks, Elizabeth held the basin for him as he vomited into it. When he was finished, Jericho and I had to support him completely. He groaned, head drooping. Elizabeth tenderly wiped his mouth with the cloth, then draped it over the noisome contents and took it back to the library.

Beldon lifted Father’s head and pried open his eyes. They were like solid blue buttons, with hardly any pupil showing. A madman’s eyes, I thought, a chill stabbing right through me to the bone.

“Doctor . . . .” I couldn’t bring myself to say more, but he heard the pleading tone and put a reassuring hand on my shoulder.

“He’ll be all right, I’m sure. Just keep walking him up and down. I have Mrs. Nooth making strong
cafe noir
and he is to drink all of it.”

“But what is it? What sort of attack has he had?”

“I’m still working that out, sir. For now, keep him moving. No rest, no matter how much he may protest.”

At this point Father was incapable of protesting, period. His skin was dreadfully gray, but it looked marginally better than that unhealthy blue tint. When the coffee arrived, I held him steady while Jericho persuaded him to drink some. The first cup did not stay down, no doubt because of the purgative he’d taken earlier. Beldon had anticipated this, though, for another vessel had been brought in to catch it. The second cup stayed in him, and a third, and so on until the pot was empty. It took a while, but eventually Father walked on his own, though he still needed help for balance and looked far from well.

“There’s something wrong, Jonathan,” he murmured, over and over. “What’s wrong? Please tell me, laddie.”

“Would that I could, sir,” I said, hardly able to hold back my tears.

“It will be all right, sir,” said Jericho. I could not tell which of us he was trying to comfort.

After a brief word from Beldon, Norwood took charge of the others and urged them to wait in the music room. Mother objected to this and demanded a proper explanation for Father’s condition. There was no tremor in her voice, though it was respectfully lowered. I got the impression that she thought Father was himself responsible for his wretched state.

Beldon put on his best physician’s manner for her. “It’s a bit early to tell, but I believe Mr. Barrett has had an attack of the flying gout.”

“Gout? He’s never had gout in his life.”

“That’s most fortunate, but this is the flying gout, with diverse symptoms and diverse manifestations . . . .”

I felt a fist closing hard around my throat. For all his flighty nature, Oliver had given serious study to medicine and shared many observations with me on the subject. Whenever a doctor mentioned flying gout, it almost always meant he did not know what was wrong. I glared at Beldon but did not question him or his medical judgment just then. Beneath his pretence of words I understood he knew exactly what was wrong, but was unwilling to declare it. That would come later, in private, and he’d damned well better account for himself.

Mother was finally persuaded to retire elsewhere with the others to wait and distract themselves with futile speculation. Elizabeth remained by the open door of the library, ready to rush forward if needed again. Archimedes had taken up a guard post at the parlor door and watched everything with a dour face. Only Beldon dared to pass him, and spent some time in that room before emerging to go to the library again.

More coffee was brought and Beldon saw to it Father had an ample sampling. The poor man was awash with it by now, and after Beldon called for a chamber pot we retired elsewhere to allow him a chance to relieve himself. Beldon took that pot away rather than turning it over to a servant, which I thought odd.

Up and down we walked, and Father ceased to ask me his heartbreaking and unanswerable questions. He was silent now, his face looking more normal but his eyes dimmed and groggy despite the coffee and activity.

“Something’s afoot,” he said in a soft but clear voice. We’d just passed the library and seen Beldon within, though we couldn’t make out what he was doing.

I held silent, inwardly agreeing with him.

“And keep that lot away from me,” he muttered.

We’d passed the music room and caught the combined stares of the others. I couldn’t blame him for any shred of reluctance about speaking to them. My heart lifted an inch or two. Father sounded more like himself.

“God, I’m tired. I want to sit down.”

I called Beldon, who came out and looked at Father’s eyes again and listened to his heart. “Very well, but no brandy. Coffee only.”

Father made a sound to indicate that he was sick of coffee, but he obediently drank more when it was offered.

“Can you tell me what happened, Mr. Barrett?” Beldon asked when Father was seated. Jericho had brought a chair out from the parlor.

“What d’you mean?”

“When did you start to feel sleepy?”

Father shook his head. “I’m not sure. I was at the gathering . . . talking . . . Mr. Rapelji and I came away to talk about his school. Perhaps then.”

“What did you eat and drink tonight?”

“Same as the others, I think. Ask them.”

“No medicines?”

“No, I’m not ill, or at least I wasn’t. What’s this about, sir? Explain yourself.”

Beldon looked to be in difficulties. He sucked in his lips.

“Yes, Doctor,” I put in. “I know enough of medicine to understand about the ‘flying gout.’ What’s really wrong with Father?”

He glanced around at us all. Elizabeth and Archimedes both drifted closer; Jericho stood on one side of Father, I knelt on the other. The five of us looked back, each with the same intense need to know.

“I hope I am wrong,” he began hesitantly. “If I am not, then we have a most unpleasant situation to deal with.”

“Out with it, sir,” said Elizabeth, her gaze fairly burning through him. “What is it?”

His expression was such as to make it clear he would have preferred to be very much elsewhere. “I’ve made a thorough examination of . . . things and—”

“What things?” I asked, sensing he was trying to be delicate. “The—ah—contents of the basins and chamber pot. I’ve also checked my medicine box and found . . . a notable reduction in the contents of the laudanum bottle.”

No one spoke. The silence was that awful, brittle, waiting kind that happens when something terrible is about to crash into your life and it’s impossible to leap out of the way.

Father was the first to break it. “You mean I’ve taken laudanum, Doctor?”

“Yes, sir. Quite a lot of it.”

“Please clarify that,” said Elizabeth.

“The dose was sufficient to have serious consequences.”

“How serious?”

Beldon’s answer got stuck somewhere in his throat.

“
That
serious,” stated Father in a dry whisper. He rubbed his face and sighed heavily, unhappily. “How?”

“It would have to have been in your tea, the taste disguised by plenty of sugar.”

At this, Father’s weary eyes suddenly sharpened. His hand had been resting on my shoulder; its grip tightened.

“Tea? How might it have gotten into just one cup, then?”

“That is something we shall have to ask Miss Fonteyn.”

“You think that girl tried to—”

Beldon shrugged. “I don’t know, sir. It seems unlikely. People were milling about at one time or another during the party, especially when the first cups were being poured. Anyone could have made an opportunity for themselves. Questions must be asked . . . and answered, for there is a chance this could happen again.”

“Again?”

“The amount of laudanum that was taken . . . . Well, not
all
of that which is missing may have been used tonight.”

Elizabeth drew in a sharp breath and put a hand to her lips. She looked as gray as Father, and for a moment I thought she might faint. I knew because I felt the same.

“Everyone must be questioned,” Beldon insisted, pressing on. Though he could see what it was doing to us, the alternative was worse. The implications of what might happen should there be a yet unused portion of laudanum waiting in our future were frighteningly clear to us. “I said it would be unpleasant,” he added forlornly.

Father made a soft, contemptuous snort at Beldon’s understatement.

“Yes . . . no . . . . Oh, how my head buzzes. I need rest. No questions tonight, Doctor. I’m not up to it.”

“I can do that task, sir.”

“No.”

“But, Mr. Barrett—”

Father gently waved him down. “No, sir. If any questions are to be asked, then I shall ask them. If someone in this house played a-a careless joke on me, then I shall face them myself. I’ll not leave it to another to do my business for me.”

Beldon’s face went first pale, then red with outrage and fear; he stared down at his patient. “Sir, you could have
died
tonight! This was a most serious and considered attempt on your life. I will not allow you to delude yourself into thinking otherwise.”

“Nor have I. But I am asking
you
to be silent over it.”

“But,
why?
”

“As you said, this promises to be a most unpleasant situation. Would you really care to question the entire household?”

“It’s necessary in order to find out who’s responsible.”

“I believe I already know, sir.”

That silenced Beldon. It silenced the whole room.

“Archimedes.” His valet straightened a little.

“Sir?”

Father swallowed. With difficulty, as though ready to be sick again.

“I want . . . want you to discreetly go through Mrs. Barrett’s room. You’ll be looking for . . . what? A twist of paper or a small bottle?”

Beldon murmured agreement.

“The doctor will show you what the stuff looks like. If you find nothing, then you’ll look again tomorrow. Pay special attention to the pockets of the garments she’s worn tonight. Jericho, I want you to check the parlor right now for the same thing, and the music room later after they’re all out of there. Go through the drawers, check under the furniture, the whole room, every corner.”