The Delicate Dependency: A Novel of the Vampire Life (31 page)

“The freedom of the house?” I heard Lady Dunaway question.

“You will be allowed to wander around as you wish,” the butler said contemptuously. “There are some rooms you are not allowed in but the falcon will let you know which rooms. Of course, the falcon will not let you leave the house.”

“Well, if only one of us can go, why don’t you go,” I called to my companion.

“Oh, no, Dr. Gladstone, you are too kind, but I insist you go.”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t.”

“No, no, I insist.”

“But if I go—”

Grelot scuffed his foot. “So it’s you, Monsieur le Docteur?”

He jingled the large ring of keys and approached the bars. The cell door opened with a creak. The falcon jumped off its perch the moment I stepped into the anteroom. As we left I glanced back and saw her sitting in front of the fireplace with one hand under a shawl on her lap. She was reading a book. “Do have fun and remember what we discussed,” she bid happily.

When we reached the lavender foyer I noticed that the bustle of the human maids and cleaning boys had moved down into the corridor of the statues. Grelot lit a candelabrum, handed it to me, and started to walk briskly away.

“Wait,” I called. “Aren’t you going to watch me?”

“Monsieur des Esseintes says you can walk around with only the falcon as your guard tonight. He gives you that measure of trust.”

With that he sauntered swiftly up the rosewood staircase.

Infernal creature
, I thought as I glanced down at the little beast. Nictitating membranes flicked quickly over its dark copper eyes.
So I was free to wander around the house.
Was it mere kindness or did the vampire have other motives in this unusual liberty? I glanced longingly at the front door, and back at the bird. I still fancied it possessed the sentience of more than just a falcon. I decided to test my freedom.

I took a step toward the door.

The bird did nothing.

I took another step.

Still nothing.

At last when I lifted my foot to step within about three feet of the heavy latch... calmly... silently, the falcon haunched its shoulders, readying its attack. From the tension of its muscles and the sudden prickle of the feathers about its neck I could tell that my slightest movement would spur it into action. I looked at the meathook edge of the talons. I very gingerly moved away from the door. I admired the bullrushes and stuffed birds and ran my fingers across the black harmonium before I made my way up the circular staircase.

As always, the falcon hobbled behind me, hopping ludicrously up each step like a court dwarf. On occasion it gave a flap or two with its broad wings to propel it, but it never really took to the air Aside from my shadow, I was like a child on Christmas morning wandering about the house. On impulse I made a motion to move toward one of the thin and narrow outside windows. I had become so disoriented keeping such odd hours and being locked up. I wanted to see Paris to reassure myself that it was still there.

Again the falcon acted. It casually jumped upon the sill. It blinked at me. It ruffled its feathers. It was as if it were daring me to make a further move. At first I thought this was odd. The window was heavily grated. I could not escape. Then I remembered des Esseintes’s remarks about keeping the windows dark so no one would notice his nocturnal habits. It was true: All of the rooms were separated from the outer walls of the house by hallways. Thus, any windows they possessed faced inward to one of the various courtyards of the house. Even when the rooms were being used it enabled the gentleman monk to keep the hallways and outer façade dark. Was it possible the falcon was keeping me from flashing a light in the window? Could it possibly be so well trained?

Undeniably, it was guarding the window.

I felt a chill. What was I up against in this bird?

I moved farther into the darkness of the house, and heard the tap tap of its talons following me on the slate floor. Although it was dark I noticed the vast labyrinth of rooms seemed to be quite empty. Grelot had vanished and the rest of the servants were apparently cleaning the downstairs corridor. I opened each door cautiously, but with a youthful anticipation, as if opening a gift, to marvel at the room beyond. First I returned to the playroom where Lady Dunaway and I had hidden. I wanted to examine the toys more carefully, the puppets, the circus ornaments, the eighteenth-century French carousel horses. Some of the music boxes seemed very old and I wondered if any of them had been made by the monks of the Vosges. I took a particular liking to a tiny nightingale in a miniature cage. I touched it and was entranced to see it tinkle into life. The song it sang varied little from the songs of other music-box birds, but its repertoire of movements was impressive. It lifted its feet. It moved its wings. It blinked. It preened.

When the song was finished it even tilted its little head and seemed to gaze at me sadly with its lifeless glass eyes. The falcon tilted its head curiously at the captive bird. So you are not infallible, I thought. You do not realize that this is a clockwork creature. The discovery made me feel slightly more at ease about my adversary.

It was then, in the midst of this reverie, that I noticed something most significant about the playroom. From the corners of the floor to the corners of the dollhouse, everything was immaculate. This room was used, I thought to myself, but used by whom? An unseen child in the house? Camille or Ambrose?

I moved on with a new hope, searching for some further clue. After all, the house was massive. Our children could be under our very noses and we might never know.

In one wing of the second floor I discovered the quarters of the human servants. Their furnishings were meager and they displayed but the simplest array of possessions: here a scenic French postcard tacked tastelessly on the wall; there a shawl of Flanders lace. In what I presumed to be Geneviève’s room I saw shelf upon shelf of empty wicker and wire birdcages. I gave a grim smile, amused by the pathetic irony of it all.

In other wings I discovered the more sumptuous rooms of Monsieur des Esseintes, and here I stood in awe. So this was the inner sanctum of a vampire. All of my notions about his breed, of castles and dark belfries were banished, for the endless splay of rooms exuded life, more life than is found in most mortal dwellings. To describe the splendor of the rooms would take many books. Suffice it to say, they were the palatial chambers of an extremely wealthy nineteenth-century Parisian gentleman. Each one was as incredible in its own way as the turquoise-and-gilt sitting room. The first thing I noticed was the openness of the spaces. Unlike Victorian interiors, one room flowed into the next, and from the warm glow of many lamps I discerned an airy maze of Arabian columns and arches. There was also a magnificent richness of color and texture: fine woods and Indian mattings, Japanese papers and iridescent Tiffany glasses. Indeed, there was an unusual accumulation of these Tiffany glasses with their deep and flowing colors, slender vases and blown glass orbs. My eye fell upon a Favrile paperweight on a low table and for a moment I was lost in the swirls of indigo and Prussian blue. Somehow the very spirit of the rooms was distilled in these glasses.

All of this served to substantiate a theory I was forming, that in some strange way des Esseintes needed this richness. Everything suggested it: his use of drugs, the incense, the orchids. He was not unlike an elderly person who has salted his food until he can no longer taste it. It was as if he had been jaded by the centuries into needing greater texture and complexity in his surroundings.

As I strolled from room to room I realized it was like being in a museum. As always, there was a clutter of furniture, ornately carved tables and bureaus, Turkish sofas, gossamer curtains, and stained-glass lamps. These in themselves were impressive. What was truly unbelievable was the profusion of treasures large and small. My eye never stopped taking in more details. Every inch of floor and wall space housed an endless array of objects. An Art Nouveau gramophone with a horn shaped like a blossoming flower. A suit of armor. Scarabs. Postage stamps. Snowstorms in glass globes. Hundreds of portraits and miniature paintings. Doll’s heads. Austrian crystals. Shadow boxes filled with seashells. Ebony walking sticks. A crystal unicorn. A twelfth-century ivory chess set. Innumerable jeweled boxes, vases of peacock feathers, porcelains, and ormolu clocks. It was not unlike the horde of a noble ancestry, like the endless memorabilia one finds in an old English manor house—save that there were no family trees, crests, or coats of arms. It was the collection of a single personality, and for all its clutter it possessed an odd homogeneity.

In the throng of objects I began to discern that des Esseintes had, indeed, come from simple origins. Some of his accumulations were not unlike the treasures of any country adolescent gifted with a desire for knowledge. Hidden within the displays of butterflies and rocks was the suggestion of a young boy who searched the meadows. Concealed within the motif of birds, the peacock feathers, and the porcelain herons was the intimation of a mind that had spent hours watching the marshes and the sky.

What memories objects contain, I thought. I recalled how but a brief glimpse of the pianoforte conjured up Camille. I wondered how magnified this experience must be for des Esseintes. For a moment I imagined him wandering through these rooms, tall and gaunt and draped in a flowing silk robe. How easy it must be for him to become lost here, to stop and fondle his panoramic memories. How disorienting and isolating immortality must be, and how strong he must be to weather it.

Reluctantly I moved on, still possessed with the hope of finding a further clue that there might be a child in the house. I went up another flight of steps, to the third floor, and came to the door of des Esseintes’s study. Just as my hand was about to reach the brass knob the falcon ruffled. So I was not allowed in there. I cautiously withdrew my hand. I hated the bird. I hated it with a growing passion. When I reached the next door I watched it closely to make sure this was allowed. It regarded me for all the world as if it thought I was a fool. My hand touched the knob. The door opened.

I had to hold the candelabrum high in here, for it was quite dark. On the opposite wall was a single grated window from which one could see the opposing wing of the house, somber and traversed with balconies and ivy. When I finally looked around I was a little surprised to see it was another study, just as eclectic and cluttered as the first. It was different in that it was musty and cool. It obviously was not used very often. I was struck by the fact there was a marked absence of any contemporary objects. Everything was antique.

I went to the next room, and the next. And each one was a study, a little older, a little more forgotten than the one previous, but each as packed with books and papers. In some it was even evident what branch of knowledge the vampire had been pursuing when he had used it. One contained a profusion of charts of the heavens, yellowed and molded, a dusty telescope, an antique planetarium. Another was filled with cages, many empty cages, and the mounted skeletons of a myriad of small mammals. Still, even in these older studies one subject remained beloved above all others. Not a single alcove was without its racks of abandoned growing trays, mounted leaves, and charts of plant filaments and seeds. That was the thread. Many branches were explored, but that was the first and continuing love. I marveled at the scholar who did not die at the end of his field of research, but moved on to the next, and the next. What creature, indeed, would a Galileo mutate into? A Linnaeus?

Oddly, I felt a sudden overwhelming kinship with this being, even an envy. In a meditation, I moved toward the courtyard window, and saw the orchid conservatory far below, nestled like a jewel amid the surrounding wings of the house. To my surprise I could see the tiny form of des Esseintes working among the flowers. He was once again dressed as the monk and Ilga stood a few paces away. It was difficult to tell but des Esseintes seemed to be performing some sort of experiment. In his hand he held a clutch of papers and every few moments or so he would walk: over to Ilga and apparently read something. When he finished, Ilga would murmur some dictum, which des Esseintes would furiously scribble down and then return to his work. It was easy to see why he had referred to the pathetic creature as
la machine.

I was drawn to him because of the world he had been allowed to carve out for himself. When I worked it was always against time. When I pored over my papers it was with the hope that I might make that one cherished medical discovery before I died, but he, he had miraculously been picked out of the river of seekers and placed in an infinite world. I was jealous of his freedom. I felt kinship for his devouring mind, but I was still frightened by him. For all of his human characteristics, he was not human. There was no telling how nearly a dozen centuries had changed him; what really lay hidden behind his tranquil and mechanical smile.

At length I moved on, and in the last study I entered, a very old study, I noticed a distinct path had been traced through the dust on the carpet The air was also not as stale, but fresher; as if the room had been opened quite recently. I followed the path across the room and to a wall of books. Madly I began to scan the volumes. What book did he come here repeatedly to get? What page did he turn to and why?

They were very old books, handbound and crumbling with illegible gilt titles. I held the candelabrum steady in one hand as I moved my finger across the bindings, leaving a distinct line in the dust. At last, on the bottom shelf I came to a row of volumes on which I left no line. They were not dusty. The gilt on these was also newer and more legible. Hands trembling with excitement, I withdrew the final volume and gazed at its cover. On it was written the words,
Histoire de ma vie
, or
A History of My Life: The Memoires of Childeric, Pepin, Brother C.L.R, Frederiche von Ulrich, Baron de Bourbon, Comte de Saint-Vallier, Jean-Francois Auguste des Esseintes.