The Delicate Dependency: A Novel of the Vampire Life (14 page)

“Niccolo!” I gasped. “It’s true, isn’t it? You did have something to do with Chiswick.”

“What do you think?” he retorted cuttingly. His face was filled with anticipation.

“I think it’s true!” I cried and he flung his hands into the air.

“Dottore, don’t you see how easy it is to make you turn against me? I said all of those things just to test you, and now I see. You are as suspicious and filled with fear as all mortals are. I thread a few outrageous lies together and you allow them to throw you into a panic.”

I sighed as I wiped the rain off my forehead. “Niccolo, you can’t blame me—”

“No,” he snapped and released his breath. “I can’t blame you, but I can see that the time is drawing near when I must leave your household.”

“No!” I said.

He merely shook his head. “Don’t bother to try to change my mind, Dottore. Whether you like to admit it or not, I can tell that the first germs of mistrust are already growing within you. As I told you, it is inevitable that you will grow to hate me. I think it is better that I leave your household very soon before that happens.”

I felt my emotions welling up inside me, but Niccolo’s pained and distant expression sent me back into silence. For many long minutes we did not speak. I was so lost in my thoughts I almost didn’t notice we had wandered into a small courtyard adjacent to the British Museum; the courtyard contained numerous pieces of Greek and Roman statuary flickering eerily in the lightning. The thunder rumbled as Niccolo paused beneath the statue of a man with his hand outstretched a few feet above our heads, and it looked as if he were offering some blessing.

“Do you know why I ran so clumsily in front of your carriage?” he finally asked.

I regarded him questioningly.

“I was running from Lodovico.”

My eyes widened. “Lodovico’s in London?”

“No...” he said slowly and sadly. “Lodovico doesn’t have to be in London for one to be running from him.” He paused. “Did I ever tell you whom Lodovico had me portray in the
trionfi?
”

“No.”

“He had me portray Endymion. Do you know who Endymion was?”

I shook my head.

“In Greek mythology Endymion was a most beautiful young man, so beautiful that the moon herself fell in love with him and came down in the form of the goddess Selene to court him. As with most mortals loved by divinities, Endymion found only fatal peril in her attention, for when Selene kissed him her kiss sent him into a deep and eternal sleep. That way she could always possess him, and he would remain forever the never-waking lover of the moon.” He paused again. “
Jettatura
...” he murmured and grasped the foot of the statue. “Look at the face.” He made a sweeping gesture over our heads and as I looked up a crackle of lightning allowed me to see the stone visage of a Roman patrician with a straight and delicate nose and a strong, square chin. Also, for just a brief second as the marble flickered electrical blue, I noticed there were no eyes in the sockets, only an impenetrable darkness, and then the night closed in once again with a rumble of thunder.

“Lodovico?” I gasped.

“Yes,” he returned slowly. “This is Lodovico.”

With trembling hands I struggled to shield a match from the rain and gazed at the inscription. The small bronze plaque informed me that the figure was a facsimile of a Roman work, a statue of an Alexandrian scholar from the Arch of Constantine, dated at around A D. 315. I straightened with amazement as I dropped the match and it sizzled in the wet gravel.

“I loved Leonardo,” Niccolo said distantly. I realized he was thinking out loud more than addressing me. “If I would have only known Lodovico always likes to make his move during a celebration, a carnival. I didn’t know then. How could I?” He spat in anger as he let go of the statue and took a few steps, slowly shaking his head. “It’s not that I didn’t love Lodovico, but that I couldn’t love anyone else. How could I knowing that I would see their sweet young faces become embroidered with wrinkles, see them grow old and die, while I remained unchanged in their frightened eyes? But there’s always Lodovico. Oh, yes, forever and ever, no matter how far I run, there’s always Lodovico.” He turned madly about until he found a rock beside the walkway, and then he flung it with his full strength at the statue, neatly snapping the outstretched hand at the wrist.

“Niccolo!” I cried as he vanished into the night. In helpless confusion I picked up the stone hand and noticed for the first time there was a large scar across the top of it, sculpted in gory detail into the marble. For the first few seconds of my bewilderment I hesitated, wondering if I should leave the broken hand. But then, on some strange impulse, I kept it and fled into the darkness to look for Niccolo.

After the revelation that the vampire possessed a body of learning that Niccolo asserted would dwarf the accomplishments of the human race, I begged him incessantly to tell me more, but he remained silent. He also refused to reveal any further glimpses of Lodovico, save for the disclosure that his mysterious mentor had, indeed, been alive at least since the time of Constantine, the first Christian Roman emperor. From this I began to understand why Lodovico must have been so delighted with the interest of the Medici in the works of antiquity. If he had been an Alexandrian scholar he could very well have known the authors of the ancient classics firsthand. He had walked the colonnades and papyrus-lined corridors of the library of Alexandria itself. Nonetheless, when I suggested this to Niccolo, he still said nothing. Even when I showed him the scar on the stone hand he only shrugged.

I immersed myself in everything ever written on the Arch of Constantine, but I could find no more than the briefest mention of the disfiguration. None of the books offered either a clue to the origin and meaning of the scar, or a hint of the scribe’s identity. I developed a strange aversion to touching the object. It was not that it didn’t fascinate me. I would sit for hours gazing at it as it rested upon the black velvet table shawl on the tea table in the study. What deeds had it wrought? What shoulders throughout history had it rested upon?

To my dismay, little Camille took an unnatural interest in the hand. Several times I came upon her staring off into space while her hands, embued with a life of their own, turned the object over like a puzzle box. Of the precious few times Camille had made contact with the nonacoustic world around her, I was at an utter loss to explain why she was fascinated by the cold marble hand.

After the incident in the courtyard all communication between Niccolo and me became very strained. He grew increasingly reluctant to allow me to check his pulse and body temperature, and even mentioning the taking of blood samples became a
bête noire
. We had several heated arguments over this issue, and I could tell he blamed his unwillingness on me, although he said nothing to this effect. I made a further observation. Impossibly, Niccolo’s legs had completely healed, but the peculiar rhythm of his walk remained. There was a ghostly cadence to his step. I asked him about this as well, but he only flared with anger. It was more than apparent that my accusations and suspicions had hurt him deeply Nothing could persuade him that the disintegration of our mutual trust was not imminent. This, of course, caused me no small amount of anguish. I realized more and more I had to penetrate the world of the vampire, not only because of the medical knowledge they already possessed, but also because unraveling the secrets of their incredible condition offered, perhaps, unfathomable medical advances for the world of men. I had to hold on to Niccolo, for he was the bridge, the only tie I possessed with a dark and unbelievable world.

The only thing Niccolo did seem interested in pursuing was his relationship with Ursula, and as the days continued to pass this took an unexpected turn. They still indulged in vehement, even passionate debates, but it was undeniable Ursula was beginning to mellow. Her counterattacks became softer. Instead of storming out of the room she tended more and more to lapse into periods of rapt attention as Niccolo prattled on eloquently in French and Latin. In itself, I did not mind this change. What I did mind, what disturbed me greatly was that Niccolo was just a little too conscious of my presence during these victories. After he had caused her to gasp or smile over some magnificent point he had just made he would invariably throw a glance my way as if to make certain I was aware of the tiny bit of influence he was gaining over her. At first I thought I was reading too much into the situation, but then his parleys became too obviously staged and directed for my benefit He would dazzle her with a closing line of his argument just as I was coming out of my study, or extract a word of admiration from her at the very moment I started to descend the stairs.

As for why he was doing this, I assumed it was his way of getting back at me for hurting him with my accusations. It was more than obvious I disliked his cruel game. He seemed to bask in my uneasiness. As for Ursula, to my surprise she was completely blind to his manipulations. She was much too involved in her own role in the situation to notice Niccolo’s words were for anyone else but herself. Although this saddened me, I did not look unkindly at Ursula’s blindnesses. It was Niccolo and Niccolo alone whom I blamed, and the rift between us grew greater every evening.

It was one night toward the end of April that I knocked on Ursula’s door and opened it to discover her sitting in the middle of her pink and gray Persian carpet. Her boudoir was cluttered, in accordance with the most contemporary tastes, with a large mahogany bureau and vanity, various rosewood occasional tables, gimcrack chairs of black lacquer inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and small tables of fretted teak brought from Burma. Heavy rose velvet curtains covered the windows and walls, and everything was decorated with voluminous drapes of velvet, plush, and brocade, and trimmed with fringes, tassels, and chenille baubles. It was a cacophony of styles, and in the middle of the room sat Ursula in a Japanese kimono illuminated by several large silver candelabra. She was surrounded by several branches of white hawthorn, which she was carefully weaving into a garland.

“Good evening, Father;” she greeted, threading a needle through one of the blossoms.

“Whatever are you up to?” I asked.

“Fixing my costume for the celebration of May Eve. You know it isn’t that far off.”

The remark startled me a little. “You’re going to go through with the celebration?”

She regarded me quizzically. “Why not?”

“After your dream, I thought maybe you would be a little too afraid.”

She chuckled as she momentarily positioned the garland upon her head and casually glanced at herself in the mirror. “I told you, Father, I didn’t take the dream literally. I just thought it represented some sort of major change in my life.”

“And do you have any idea what that change might be?” I asked as I sat down gently beside her.

“No,” she murmured unconvincingly. She removed the garland and once again began threading blossoms. “You know,” she began, “Mr. Cavalanti may be a smug and supercilious young man, but I have to admit, he amazes me sometimes.”

I gazed at her inquiringly.

“Well, the other afternoon when I arrived home he told me I deserved to be called a dirty name if I had the nerve to lead a young man on by going to tea with him and then slap him in the face when he made an advance. He further added that it served me right for picking such a crude and rough young man and then asked me who my dark-haired gentleman caller had beat up the night before. The odd thing is that I had just been to tea with young Mr. Wooland, the umbrella salesman from Briggs in St. James Street. I confess I guess I did lead him on in that a young woman can’t even accept an invitation to tea without the young man thinking it’s a flirtation. He said something vulgar to me. I slapped him and he called me a high-class rump. Of course, I left, but the odd thing is that during the course of our tea he boasted he had beat up a young man just the night before. And,” she added, “he’s certainly not my suitor, but he did have dark hair.”

“You went out with an umbrella salesman?” I asked in surprise.

“Oh, Father;” she huffed and then continued. “I was so amazed. I asked him how on earth he knew all of that, and, of course, he said it was all very obvious. He said my hair smelled faintly of cigarettes, not Turkish or Egyptian, but Benson and Hedges, and since young women don’t smoke I must have been out with a gentleman. He deduced that it was too late for lunch, and whether I liked to admit it or not, I was too proper to do anything else, so I must have been out to tea with a young man. As for my slapping him and his making a vulgar comment, Mr. Cavalanti conceded that this was an educated guess. He pointed out that my face was flushed and my heartbeat was very rapid, as if I had just been either frightened or embarrassed. He further noted this,” she said, holding up the blouse she had been wearing and pointing to a faint blackish streak on the sleeve. “He said he couldn’t be sure, but it looked very much like a cigarette had brushed against my clothing. Judging from the regularity and angle of the smudge it seemed more than apparent that the cigarette had probably flown out of the young man’s mouth after his head turned swiftly to one side, as if rebounding from a hard, firm slap. Taking these several bits of information along with a knowledge of my character, Mr. Cavalanti said it wasn’t too difficult to imagine my leading the young gentleman on in what he called my usual ‘feigned naïveté,’ he making an advance, I slapping him, the cigarette flying from his mouth, and he saying something vulgar, causing me to blush.”

After she had finished I stood in mute awe for a few moments and then asked, “How did he know that this Mr. Wooland had dark hair and had been in a fight the night before?”

“It’s too incredible,” she said and held her open hand for me to examine. “Do you notice anything?”

“A sort of reddish tint to the fingers,” I murmured, “but what does that mean?”

“
Papiers poudré
,” she said, “makeup of the type used in Madame Rachel’s shop down the street on ‘wild’ young men who come to have their black eyes and other marks of fist encounters repaired and
maquillé
so that they might be presentable for a social occasion. I must have gotten it on my hand when I slapped him. As for the black hair, Mr. Cavalanti confessed that was merely a lucky guess.” She shook her head in amazement.