The Delicate Dependency: A Novel of the Vampire Life (3 page)

“Camille, what are you doing?” I demanded, but she ignored me. She gathered up the sheets and actually began to leave the room with them.

“Camille!” I shouted. I ran after her.

She fled down the stairs and hesitated at the front door.
No, she couldn’t,
I thought, overwhelmed by visions of her bursting out into the street, neighbors and passersby aghast—a mad little wraith dressed all in white, holding the bottom of her nightgown in each hand and bundles of bedsheets under each arm. Possessed, like one of the nuns of Loudon.
No, she couldn’t, mustn’t!

To my slight relief she glanced at me briefly and then ran to the back door, sprinting out into the garden. She rushed past the dark wet lilacs and I heard the familiar creaking of the stable doors.

That was worse.
Did she plan to ride out on a horse?

But when I arrived at the stable I found her engaged in furiously rubbing the crumpled white sheets all over the back of one of the deep brown carriage horses. The animal, a young but gentle stallion, was frightened at being plucked so rudely from his sleep and began to stamp and snort. Camille was delirious.

I wanted to grab hex; but I could not get near her for the rearing horse. Then, just as quickly, she finished and returned to the house. I caught up with her in the entranceway at the base of the stairs. The sheets were dirty and smelled of the stable, resinous and heavy. She flung them out and bit my leg as she pulled me down into the disheveled mass. I was filled with anger and restrained myself from using my strength. The soiled sheets were close around my face and I recoiled, trying to shut out all awareness of the smell, the dense and penetrating smell, but Camille was all about me. Just as I was about to sit up she gently held a single hand, outstretched, against my chest. The white nightgown slipped from her shoulders and she was golden once again in the faint light from the stairs.

We had been married a month when I read Camille the
Rubáiyát.
We did not know it then, but we conceived a child that night. We were much too concerned with other things to suspect it. I was busy fashioning Camille into a proper wife. It took another two months of rigorous drilling to separate the last wheat from the chaff. It is difficult to say how Camille felt about the changes she had to undergo. It was obvious she wanted to live up to my expectations, for she accepted the constant corrections of her speech and manners calmly and courageously, but I sometimes suspected she was enduring more of an inner struggle than she let on. She had lost a little of her effervescence. On occasion her smile seemed just a bit forced. Still, all things considered, she adapted to her new life with amazing facility.

Naturally, London society would never have tolerated such an intrusion of the classes, and so it was necessary to fabricate a mysterious past for Camille. There was a suggestion of a wealthy father dying when she was a child, an invalid and reclusive old aunt, an estate in Yorkshire. It was very simple, really, but quite expectedly Camille was uneasy. When at last the time came for our first social appearance I chose the Lyceum. I knew an evening at the theater would provide only brief opportunity for social contact and give Camille a chance to feel more at ease. Because of my overwhelming love for Camille I could not fathom that anyone would feel any differently. Camille did not share my utter confidence.

The moment we stepped down from the brougham I sensed her prickle. She tried to conceal it. She moved with grace. She smiled just enough, but there was a nervousness in her eyes.

I surveyed the crowd. It was typically genteel. The gentlemen all wore dress coats with black waistcoats, and very narrow, inefficiently tied white ties. There was a profusion of top hats and canes. The women, what few women there were—for society women attending the “legitimate” theater were the exception rather than the rule—all wore billowy evening dresses with very small, tight waists. At a distinct level of the crowd fluttered a handful of fans like so many cabbage butterflies.

I didn’t see anything that should have caused Camille’s apprehension. As we passed through the majestic gilt arcade of the Lyceum and into the lobby I spied one of my professors. He was a man named Hardwicke, Dr. Cletus Hardwicke, a piteous fellow. Polio had twisted his frail and diminutive little form into a most trollish figure. Through his thinning, reddish hair, freckles and age spots dotted his bulbous forehead, and his long, yellowed fingers bulged with veins. In his top hat and suit he looked like old Nick, and so he was in the lecture hall—a hellish professor, as feared for his vitriolic cross-examinations as he was esteemed for his knowledge. There was even a sort of a mystery about him. He always seemed to be up to something, although no one was quite sure what. For stretches of time he would spend every free moment in the library, but he never published, or revealed any fruits of his research. He had a habit of asking sudden odd and personal questions, but it was a credit to his discretion that no one ever apprehended why. On top of everything else, his private life was equally enigmatic. He was always seen gadding about, but never with friends or acquaintances. No one knew how he spent his leisure time.

When he spotted me he nodded and gave a brief smile. Restrained but cordial. When he saw Camille he nodded again. This first hint of acceptance by a stranger from my class calmed her a little, but a host of other worries plagued her. As we sat in our seats I noticed she was still shifting about skittishly and I asked her what was wrong.

“It’s just very new to me,” she said.

I looked around again and although I didn’t notice anyone gazing at us boldly I fancied the eyes of the women in the crowd, and a few of the men glanced our way with more than chance regularity. Was Camille’s paranoia contagious? Were these people really staring at us, or was I just imagining it? I tried to dismiss it, but the feeling persisted. The fans concealed, the monocles glinted, and like frogs nervously peeping out of water, heads turned and quickly looked away.

Why was it, I wondered, a lady of society could never be without her fan? To the Japanese the fan was the symbol of life. The rivet end was the starting point and as the rays expanded, so the road of life widened out Thus fans were decorated with armorial bearings and the totems of families. In some strange way, the history and honor of ponderous generations were represented on those totem fans of the Japanese.

It was at the beginning of the play, a performance of
Antony and Cleopatra,
that it happened.

Demetrius and Philo had just walked out onstage and as the royal couple approached with their band of eunuch attendants, Philo gave his opening lines. When he finished he gestured at Antony and his Egyptian queen and proclaimed: “The triple pillar of the world transformed into a strumpet’s fool: Behold and see!” With that last line, every paper and ivory fan in the theater snapped shut.

It was a rude interruption, but who could say it wasn’t just a coincidence, that there was a judgment in those fans?

Camille said nothing.

In the days to follow such occurrences continued to happen. An old matron would give a deadly smile. A carriage wheel would come just a bit too close to a puddle. Each time the action was indirect enough we could not be sure whether we were being overly sensitive, or whether somehow society was able to see through our ruse and chose to make their condemnations in hostile but subtle ways.

The most forward incident took place just two weeks after our evening at the Lyceum. It was at the reception of an opera singer given by one Lady de Grey in her Georgian home in Belgravia. The reception was the largest social function Camille and I had attended together. I don’t remember the name of the opera singer (she was a massive German woman with hundreds of tiny scarlet ribbon bows encircling her immense white bosom like a wreath around a racehorse). I vividly remember where the reception was held. It was in the conservatory of Lady de Grey’s stately home. Lady de Grey’s conservatory was a sight to behold, a huge glass and white-frame structure like a transparent miniature Gothic cathedral. The floor was of white and black marble with various tiers and fountains and pools inlaid with Florentine mosaic. Aside from a verdant jungle of palms and ferns, one other type of plant dominated the wondrous room, lilies. There were white lilies and moon lilies, and most of all, orange and salmon-colored tiger lilies. Everywhere and everywhere, tiger lilies. Clusters and explosions amid terra-cotta
putti
and the trickle of a dozen fountains. Tiger lilies.

After the old German opera singer finished shaking the glass with her thundering arias, wispy cricketlike men in black tails quickly clattered the chairs away, and the orchestra turned to lighter music. The rapid strains of a waltz swept through the room and the floor filled with the
élégants
of London—whaleboned and waistcoated couples spinning stiffly like so many music-box dancers.

Amid this stood Camille.

Camille was a ghost, a small pale vapor of a woman, but in her pale peach evening gown she acquired a powerful and beautiful presence. Her tight-fitting bodice revealed what would later be known as the Edwardian Profile, and years before her time she was not unlike that other Camille, Camille Clifford, the famous Gibson Girl.

I recall Camille rushing weightlessly across the floor and into my arms. She laughed, spun around. She was becoming much stronger and more at ease in public. “John?” she asked in a mock-innocent tone of voice that was all too familiar with me.

I stared down into her dark eyes. “What do you want, Camille?”

“Will you dance with me?”

“Camille, it isn’t proper for a lady to ask a gentleman.”

“Then you ask me.”

I smiled.

“Will you ask me now?”

She was so exquisitely beautiful

She raised her eyebrows hopefully, knowingly. “Will you ask me in a little while?”

I smiled again and she read the message in my eyes.

“Very well.” She lifted her dance card to consult her list of partners. “I’ve been asked by that jabbering old fool, Loni Langtry, to dance, and I’ll dance with him first. But after I’ve danced with him, and perhaps the second cousin of the Duke of Marlborough, I expect you to seek me out and be a proper gentleman.”

“Yes, Camille,” I conceded.

And instead of laughing coquettishly, she dropped the silly girlish façade and tilted her face back in an expression that was frightening in its emptiness. The dark eyes leveled upon me, vacant and yet infinite. The mouth fell open to reveal a slight glimpse of small white teeth, a red tongue. The tongue moved ever so slightly in a gesture that was so suggestive, I blushed.

“Camille!”

She continued the silent gaze for a few seconds, like a snake captivating a sparrow, and then she came out of it, throwing her head back in her familiar flirtatious manner, as she laughed and resumed her former self.

She hurried off, her dress rustling upon the marble like a piece of paper in the wind.

In moments she had grabbed an old walrus of a gentleman—Lord Langtry, I presume—and went virtually flying around the dance floor with him amid the slow and surprised crowd. Apparently refreshed by the spectacle, the orchestra picked up tempo and a livelier waltz surged up through the room.

I have to admit, I was slightly embarrassed by Camille’s behavior and I didn’t notice someone had ambled up beside me.

“A gentle bird,” a raspy voice murmured and I gave a start. I turned to see old Hardwicke standing to my right. His black coat, waistcoat, and trousers fit his deformed little body with perfect neatness. His white cravat was carefully tied, and his lavender-colored kid gloves might have adorned the hands of a clergyman. Since I had seen him socially at the Lyceum he had been just a little more cordial toward me in his lectures.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“It’s all right,”,! returned. “What was it you said?”

“A gentle bird,” he repeated. “Pardon my saying so, but your wife is very beautiful.”

“Thank you,” I said, somewhat surprised at his friendliness.

With lurching movements Dr. Hardwicke lit a Laurens Egyptian cigarette and awkwardly circled around to my other side. He seemed very deep in thought.

“Where did you meet your wife?” he asked presently. “I was introduced to her by one of my aunts at the Richmond Horse Show.” The lie rolled glibly off my tongue.

“I see,” said Hardwicke, impressed. “And after you graduate, you intend to set up practice on Bond Street?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, good. You’ll make a fine living for her following in your father’s footsteps.”

“Did you know my father?”

“I knew of him, a fine physician, a very successful physician.”

“Thank you,” I said, nodding.

Hardwicke gave a big puff of blue smoke and clicked his feet together. “Do you know what made your father such a successful physician?”

“What are you getting at?” I asked.

“Not that he wasn’t a fine doctor; as I’ve said. But do you know what made him so successful as a society doctor?”

Images from the past swept through my mind. “Yes, I know,” I said dryly. Hardwicke did not seem to hear.

“He carefully cultivated his clientele. He cultivated them and he pampered them.”

“Yes, indeed, he did.”

“And you must do that.”

“What?”

“What I mean, my boy, is that sometimes you are going to have to be a hypocrite. You are going to have to lie and put up a façade because those people out there are going to be your future patients.” He wafted a gnarled hand at the crowd. “Those people out there will be your bread and butter, my boy, and no matter what you feel inside, you are going to have to please them to insure their patronage.”

“I understand,” I said, smiling. I was amused because Hardwicke was so smug and pompous about everything I imagined he must have given that little speech to a hundred former interns.

“Do you?” he said with a curious edge to his voice. I looked at him and for the first time I realized there might be more than boastful chitchat on the little gremlin’s mind. He was clearly watching my reaction. I turned to the crowd. Yes, these would be my future patients, a very fat woman in white and covered with jewels; a man with a monocle and goiter. I turned back to Hardwicke.