Little Vampire Women (3 page)

“Never mind that,” Laurie said. “I’ll tell you how we can manage. There’s a long hall out there, and we can dance grandly, and no one will see us. Please come.”

Jo thanked him and gladly went, wishing she had two neat gloves when she saw the nice, pearl-colored ones her partner wore. The hall was empty, and they had a grand polka, for Laurie danced well, and taught her the German step, which delighted Jo, being full of swing and spring. When the music stopped, they sat down on the stairs, and Laurie was in the midst of an account of a vampires’ festival at Heidelberg when Meg appeared in search of her sister. She beckoned, and Jo reluctantly followed her into a side room, where Meg sat on a sofa and held her foot.

“I’ve twisted my ankle. That stupid high heel turned
and gave my foot a sad wrench,” she said, glancing down at the unfortunate appendage, which now pointed inward at a most severe angle. “It doesn’t ache and I can stand fine but the cracking sound the bones make every time I step is disturbing the other dancers. I think we should leave.”

“I knew you’d hurt your feet with those silly shoes. I’m sorry. But I don’t see what you can do, except get a carriage, or stay here all night,” answered Jo, tugging on the bent limb, which would not straighten despite her considerable efforts. The vampire ability to regenerate would heal the appendage soon, but not so quickly that Meg could rejoin the dancing.

“Can I help you?” said a friendly voice. And there was Laurie, with a full cup in one hand and a plate of ice in the other.

“It’s nothing,” Meg assured. “I turned my foot a little, that’s all.”

But Laurie could see for himself that she’d turned her foot a lot and immediately offered to take her home in his grandfather’s carriage.

“It’s so early! You can’t mean to go yet?” began Jo, looking relieved but hesitating to accept the offer.

“I always go early, I do, truly! Please let me take you home. It’s all on my way, you know, and it rains, they say.”

That settled it. Jo gratefully accepted and they rolled away in the luxurious closed carriage, feeling very festive and elegant.

“I had a capital time. Did you?” asked Jo, rumpling up her hair, and making herself comfortable.

Meg agreed that she did up until the moment she twisted her ankle and had to leave. Laurie went on the box so Meg could keep her foot up, and the girls talked over their party in freedom.

“Sallie’s friend, Annie Moffat, took a fancy to me, and asked me to come and spend a week with her when Sallie does. She is going in the spring when the opera comes, and it will be perfectly splendid, if Mother only lets me go,” Meg said, cheering up at the thought.

Jo told her adventures, and by the time she had finished they were at home. With many thanks, they said good night and entered the house. The instant the door creaked, two little heads bobbed up and eager voices cried out…

“Tell about the party! Tell about the party!”

“I declare, it really seems like being a fine young lady, to come home from the party in a carriage and sit in my dressing gown with a maid to wait on me,” said Meg.

“I don’t believe fine young ladies enjoy themselves a bit more than we do, in spite of our burned gowns, one glove apiece, and tight slippers that sprain our ankles when we are silly enough to wear them.” And I think Jo was quite right.

W
ith the holidays over, the girls had to take up their packs, which, after the week of merrymaking, seemed heavier than ever. Beth lay on the sofa, trying to comfort herself with a cat and three juicy kittens she’d found hiding in the basement. Amy was fretting because her lessons were not learned and she couldn’t find her rubbers. Meg, whose burden consisted of four spoiled vampire children, had not heart enough even to make herself pretty as usual by putting on a blue neck ribbon and dressing her hair in the most becoming way.

“Where’s the use of looking nice, when no one sees me but those cross midgets, and no one cares whether I’m pretty or not?” she muttered, shutting her drawer with a jerk as she thought of Mrs. King and her family. “I shall have to toil and moil all my days, with only little
bits of fun now and then because I’m poor and can’t enjoy my life as other girls do. It’s a shame!”

“Well, that’s just the way it is, so don’t let us grumble but shoulder our bundles and trudge along as cheerfully as Marmee does. I’m sure Aunt March is a regular Old Man of the Sea
¹⁰
to me, but I suppose when I’ve learned to carry her without complaining, she will tumble off, or get so light that I shan’t mind her,” said Jo, whose resolute speech didn’t match her dejected attitude. She had been so despondent that she didn’t try to marshal the girls into their usual sunset training session of karate, calisthenics, and boxing, with which they complied with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

Jo happened to suit Aunt March, who was lame and needed an active person to protect her. The childless old lady had offered to adopt one of the girls when the troubles came, and was much offended because her offer was declined. Other friends told the Marches that they had lost all chance of being remembered in the rich old vampire’s will, but the unworldly Marches only said…

“We can’t give up our girls for a dozen fortunes.
Rich or poor, we will keep together and be happy in one another.”

As well, they knew Aunt March was a tough old broad who had been around for more than four hundred years and would likely be around for another four hundred. Their chances for inheritance were already decidedly slim.

The Marches, in their fondness for family over fortune, were not that unusual amongst their contemporaries. Vampire affection, though not as heartwarmingly sentimental as human affection, was deep and sincere. Parents sired their children and kept them close until they reached their majority at fifty chronological years, at which point they could sire a lifemate and settle down. Freshly sired children usually followed.

Mr. and Mrs. March had themselves followed that path, with Mr. March siring Mrs. March and then a century later siring the four sisters, whom he found in an orphanage about to be separated by an unfeeling proprietress. Marmee’s kind heart went out to the benighted foursome and she knew upon seeing them that they were meant to be hers. Her husband complied to her request, feeling, too, that these unfortunate children needed a strong hand and a stronger soul to lead them, and twenty-four hours later, the giddy new mother stood over the four little graves from which her newborn daughters would emerge. It was the happiest day of her life.

Since then, the Marches had come down in the world, for Mr. March had lost his property in trying to help an unfortunate friend. The friend turned out to be a slayer who stole Mr. March’s money through an elaborate counterfeit stock scheme.

That Mr. March allowed himself to be swindled out of ownership of his ancestral home disgusted Aunt March, who urged him to hunt down the cowardly slayer and consume him in a fiery fit of rage. Her nephew resisted her counsel, for he believed strongly in his humanitarian principles and was happier to let the villain live than to compromise himself.

His stubbornness made his aunt so angry she refused to speak to them for a time, but when her husband was beheaded by one of his own servants, she was forced to reevaluate her connections and decided the only associates she could trust were family. It was beyond shocking that Uncle March, the premier vampire defender in New England, was slain in his very own home. Well schooled in stealth and an experienced practitioner of the scientifical method, he should never have fallen for the cartoonish pratfalls of the Buffoonish Butler Hoax,
¹¹
a well-known ruse in which a deadly opponent infiltrates a household by pretending to be a harmless servant who is forever
tripping over the silver and spilling the china.

Terrified, Aunt March immediately dismissed the entire staff (after, of course, they removed her husband’s gooey remains) and recruited her niece Jo, who hoped to one day be a defender, to look after her. The Concord police inquiry into the unfortunate affair concluded that the slayer had worked alone. But Jo’s aunt did not accept the findings because she assumed that the team of human investigators was part of the conspiracy. She therefore remained convinced that a worldwide cabal watched her daily, waiting for its moment to attack.

Being her aunt’s protectress wasn’t all Jo had hoped it would be, for the job provided little opportunity for her to use, let alone hone, her defender skills, but she accepted the place since nothing better appeared. The work was tedious and dull, but it gave her full access to the large training study, which had been left to dust and spiders since Uncle March’s decapitation. Jo remembered the fierce old gentleman who used to let her play with his dart gun and told her thrilling stories of do-or-die hunts. He nurtured her love of adventure but stopped short of teaching her the mechanisms and techniques of modern-day slayer hunting, for he thought it a most unsuitable profession for any woman, especially his niece. The dim, dusty room, with its potions cabinet, investigative instruments, strategical maps, and, best of all, the wilderness of books in
which she could now wander where she liked, made the study a region of bliss to her.

The moment Aunt March took her nap, Jo hurried to this well-equipped place, and curling herself up in the easy chair, studied the many tactical guides and first-person accounts of successful apprehensions of vicious slayers. But, like all happiness, it did not last long, for as sure as she had just reached the heart of the story, the pivotal part of a stratagem, or the most perilous adventure of her defender, a shrill voice called, “Josy-phine! Josy-phine!” and she had to leave her paradise to secure the perimeter, check the points of entry, or wind yarn.

Jo’s ambition was to do something very splendid. What it was, she had no idea as yet, but left it for time to tell her, and meanwhile, found her greatest affliction in the fact that she couldn’t read, run, and ride as much as she liked. A quick temper, sharp tongue, and restless spirit were always getting her into scrapes, and her life was a series of ups and downs, which were both comic and pathetic. But the training she received at Aunt March’s was just what she needed, and the thought that she was doing something to support herself made her happy in spite of the perpetual “Josy-phine!”

“W
hat in the world are you going to do now, Jo?” asked Meg one snowy evening, as her sister came tramping through the hall, in rubber boots, old sack, and hood, with a broom in one hand and a shovel in the other.

“Going to hunt vampire slayers,” answered Jo.

“I should think two treks at twilight would have been enough! It’s wet out, and I advise you to stay dry by the fire, as I do,” said Meg.

“Never take advice! Can’t keep still all night, and not being a pussycat, I don’t like to doze by the fire. I like adventures, and I’m going to find some.”

Meg went back to reading
Ivanhoe
,
¹²
and Jo began
to search the paths with great energy. A garden separated the Marches’ house from that of Mr. Laurence. Both stood in a suburb of the city, which was still countrylike, with groves and lawns, large gardens, and quiet streets, all of which provided excellent cover for a slayer. A low hedge parted the two estates, offering additional concealment. On one side was an old, brown house, looking rather bare and shabby, robbed of the vines that could further hide a predator. On the other side was a stately stone mansion, plainly betokening every sort of comfort and luxury, from the big coach house and well-kept grounds to the conservatory and the glimpses of lovely things one caught between the rich curtains.

Yet it seemed a lonely, lifeless sort of house, for no children frolicked on the lawn, no motherly face ever smiled at the windows, and few people went in and out, except the old gentleman and his grandson.

“That boy is suffering for society and fun,” Jo said to herself. “His grandpa does not know what’s good for him, and keeps him shut up all alone. He needs a party of jolly boys to play with, or somebody young and lively. I’ve a great mind to go over and tell the old
gentleman so!”

The idea amused Jo, who liked to do daring things and was always scandalizing Meg by her queer performances. The plan of “going over” was not forgotten. And when the snowy evening came, Jo resolved to try what could be done. She saw Mr. Laurence drive off, and then sallied out to the hedge, where she paused and took a survey. All quiet, curtains down at the lower windows, servants out of sight, and nothing human visible but a curly black head leaning on a thin hand at the upper window.

“There he is,” thought Jo, “poor boy! All alone and sick this happy night. It’s a shame! I’ll toss up a snowball and make him look out, and then say a kind word to him.”

Up went a handful of soft snow, which cracked the window, as Jo frequently forgot how powerful her vampire strength made her, and the head turned at once, showing a face which lost its listless look in a minute, as the big eyes brightened and the mouth began to smile. Jo nodded and laughed, and flourished her broom as she called out…

“How do you do? Are you sick?”

Laurie opened the window, and croaked out as hoarsely as a raven…

“Better, thank you. I’ve had a bad cold, and been shut up a week.”

“I’m sorry. What do you amuse yourself with?”

“Nothing. It’s dull as tombs up here.”

“Don’t you read?”

“Not much. They won’t let me.”

“Can’t somebody read to you?”

“Grandpa does sometimes, but my books don’t interest him, and I hate to ask Brooke, my tutor, all the time.”

“Have someone come and see you then.”

“There isn’t anyone I’d like to see. Boys make such a row, and my head is weak.”

“Isn’t there some nice girl who’d read and amuse you? Girls are quiet and like to play nurse.”

“Don’t know any.”

“You know us,” began Jo, then laughed and stopped.

“But you’re not girls, you’re vampires,” cried Laurie.

“I’m not quiet and nice either, but I’ll come, if Mother will let me. I’ll go ask her. Shut the window, like a good boy, and wait till I come.”

With that, Jo shouldered her broom and marched into the house, wondering what they would all say to her. Marmee did not protest the visit, for she firmly believed that the only way to improve vampire-human relations was to increase vampire-human interaction, and, after fortifying her daughter against any unbecoming urges with a tall glass of pig’s blood, sent her to the neighbor’s house with her blessing.

Laurie was in a flutter of excitement at the idea of having company, and flew about to get ready, for as Mrs.
March said, he was “a little gentleman,” and did honor to the coming guest by brushing his curly pate, putting on a fresh collar, and trying to tidy up the room, which in spite of half a dozen servants, was anything but neat. Presently there came a loud ring, then a decided voice, asking for “Mr. Laurie,” and a surprised-looking servant came running up to announce the vampire.

“All right, show her up, it’s Miss Jo,” said Laurie, going to the door of his little parlor to meet Jo, who appeared with a covered dish in one hand and three kittens in the other.

“Here I am, bag and baggage,” she said briskly. “Mother sent her love, and was glad if I could do anything for you. Meg wanted me to bring some of her blanc mange,
¹³
and Beth thought cats would be comforting. I knew you’d laugh at them because you don’t suck the blood out of living animals or even dead ones, but I couldn’t refuse, she was so anxious to do something.”

It so happened that Beth’s funny loan was just the thing, for in laughing over the fact that, no, he did
not
suck the blood out of living animals or even dead ones, Laurie forgot his bashfulness, and grew sociable at once.

“That looks too pretty to eat,” he said, smiling with pleasure, his manners unfailingly polite, as Jo
uncovered the dish, and showed the blanc mange, surrounded by a garland of green leaves, and the scarlet flowers of Amy’s pet geranium.

“It isn’t anything. Meg has no idea how to cook so she just put something white in a saucer. I don’t know what it is but I’m sure it’s inedible. What a cozy room this is!”

“How kind you are! Yes, please take the big chair and let me do something to amuse my company.”

“No, I came to amuse you. Shall I read aloud?” and Jo looked toward some books nearby.

“Thank you! I’ve read all those, and if you don’t mind, I’d rather talk,” answered Laurie.

“Not a bit. I’ll talk all night if you’ll only set me going. Beth says I never know when to stop.”

“Is Beth the one who stays at home a good deal and sometimes goes out with a little basket?” asked Laurie with interest.

“Yes, that’s Beth. She’s my girl, and a regular good one she is, too.”

“The pretty one is Meg, and the curly-haired one is Amy, I believe?”

“How did you find that out?”

Laurie colored up, but answered frankly, “Why, you see I often hear you calling to one another, and when I’m alone up here, I can’t help looking over at your house, you always seem to be having such good times. I beg your pardon for being so rude, but sometimes you
forget to put down the curtain. And when the lamps are lighted, it’s like looking at a picture to see you all around the table with your mother, taking turns draining every last little drop of blood out of a beaver or other small mammal. I haven’t got any mother, you know.” And Laurie poked the fire to hide a little twitching of the lips that he could not control.

The solitary, hungry look in his eyes went straight to Jo’s heart. She had been so simply taught that there was no nonsense in her head. Laurie was sick and lonely, and feeling how rich she was in home and happiness, she gladly tried to share it with him. Her face was very friendly and her sharp voice unusually gentle as she said…

“We’ll never draw that curtain anymore, and I give you leave to look as much as you like. I just wish, though, instead of peeping, you’d come over and see us. Mother is so splendid, she’d do you heaps of good, and Beth would sing to you if I begged her to, and Amy would dance. Meg and I would make you laugh over our hunts, and we’d have jolly times. Wouldn’t your grandpa let you?”

“He’s very kind, though he does not look so, and he lets me do what I like, pretty much, only he’s afraid of vampires,” began Laurie.

“We are not only vampires, we are neighbors, too, and he needn’t think we’d eat you. We are strict humanitarians!”

“You see, Grandpa lives among his books, and doesn’t
mind much what happens outside, so he doesn’t know there are good vampires like your family out there.”

“That’s a shame.”

“Do you like your school?” asked the boy, changing the subject, after a little pause, during which he stared at the fire and Jo looked about her, well pleased.

“Don’t go to school, I’m a vampire defender—well, right now I’m in training. I protect my great-aunt from imagined assassins, and a dear, cross old soul she is, too,” answered Jo.

Laurie opened his mouth to ask another question, but remembering just in time that it wasn’t manners to make too many inquiries into vampires’ affairs, he shut it again, and looked uncomfortable.

Jo liked his good breeding, and didn’t mind having a laugh at Aunt March, so she gave him a lively description of the paranoid old lady, her aunt’s parrot that talked Spanish, and the study where she reveled.

Laurie enjoyed that immensely, so she told him about the prim old gentleman vampire who came once to woo Aunt March. In the middle of his fine speech, Poll tweaked his wig off to his great dismay, so the suitor bit the head off the bird in retribution. But the parrot was itself of a special avian vampire species, so its head grew immediately back to insult the gentleman anew. The boy was so amused, he lay back and laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks, and a maid popped her head in to make sure the young master wasn’t
being consumed by his guest.

“Oh! That does me no end of good. Tell on, please,” he said, taking his face out of the sofa cushion, red and shining with merriment.

Much elated with her success, Jo did “tell on,” all about her famous defender uncle, her plans to follow in his footsteps, and her fond wish to someday invent a clever instrument that would improve the method by which one caught slayers—though what that was, she couldn’t imagine. Then they got to talking about books, and to Jo’s delight, she found that Laurie loved adventure tales as well as she did and had read more than herself.

“I wish I could be a vampire so I could go on grand hunts, too,” he said.

“Oh, you don’t have to be a vampire to go on hunts. Anyone can do it.”

“But you have special powers,” pointed out Laurie.

Jo shrugged. “Not really. I know people go on about our special vampire strength and senses, but it’s a lot of work to develop those things and nobody bothers anymore. Now we use clever instruments like the one I’m going to invent. The new method employs the many modern advances of science and is far superior to the old method of relying on natural skill and instinct. All you need is a daily regimen of calisthenics and barbell lifting to be strong. I’d be happy to train you myself.”

“But you can see in the dark and hear and smell
things from far away.”

Jo admitted that these were advantages of her race but insisted that devoted study could go a long way to compensate for their lack.

Laurie’s eyes glowed with excitement. “Really?”

“Absolutely! It’s simply a matter of hard work.”

“My grandfather would never agree. Couldn’t you just turn me into a vampire? That way, I don’t need his permission.”

“I couldn’t possibly,” said Jo earnestly, not sure if he was teasing but also not caring, for she hated the thought of turning any mortal man. She knew all vampires did it eventually, for that was how they mated, but she couldn’t bear the thought of doing it herself. Although there were many reasons to sire that didn’t include finding a lifemate, such as friendship, whimsy, fondness, or spite, the act always created some kind of connection and Jo loved her independence too well to be tied to anybody on such a deep and abiding level. She knew her sisters would do it one day, though perhaps not Beth, who was far too shy. But that was a long way off—a decade, at least—so she wouldn’t have to think about it for ages. “But I’ll talk to your grandfather.”

“You aren’t afraid of him?”

“I’m not afraid of anything,” returned Jo, with a toss of the head.

“I don’t believe you are!” exclaimed the boy, looking at her with much admiration and desiring the vampire
state even more for the courage it seemed to confer.

Laurie led her to the library to wait for his grandfather. It was lined with books, and there were pictures and statues, and distracting little cabinets full of coins and curiosities, and Sleepy Hollow chairs, and queer tables, and bronzes, and best of all, a great open fireplace with quaint tiles all round it.

“What richness!” sighed Jo, sinking into the depth of a velour chair and gazing about her with an air of intense satisfaction. “Theodore Laurence, you ought to be the happiest boy in the world,” she added impressively.

“A fellow can’t live on books,” said Laurie, shaking his head as he perched on a table opposite.

She stood before a fine portrait of the old gentleman and said decidedly, “I’m sure now that I shouldn’t be afraid of him, for he’s got kind eyes, though his mouth is grim, and he looks as if he had a tremendous will of his own.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” said a gruff voice behind her, and there, to her great dismay, stood old Mr. Laurence with a wooden stake raised high in his hand.

For a minute a wild desire to run away possessed her, but that was cowardly, and the girls would laugh at her, so she resolved to stay and get out of the scrape as she could. She hated the thought of hurting her new friend’s elderly relative but she would gladly knock him down with a scissor kick if necessary to her survival.

The gruff voice was gruffer than ever, as the old
gentleman said abruptly, after the dreadful pause, “So you’re not afraid of me, hey?”

“Not much, sir,” she said with a glance to the stake.

Mr. Laurence took a threatening step forward. “What have you been doing to this boy of mine, hey?” was the next question, sharply put.

“Only trying to be neighborly, sir.” And Jo told how her visit came about.