Anno Dracula

CONFIDENCES

'You should be upstairs, resting,' Amworth told her. 'You'll mend sooner.'

'Why should I get well?' Genevieve asked. 'The hopping toad will only return and finish me off.'

'You don't know that.'

'Yes I do. I don't know why it's going to destroy me, but I know it will. I've been in China. Those creatures don't give up of their own accord. They can't be reasoned with and they can't be stopped. I might as well go out in the street and wait for it to come for me. At least that way, no one else would be in the way.'

Amworth was impatient. 'You hurt it last time.'

'And it hurt me worse.'

She was not entirely better. She often found herself moving her head around, to test her broken and re-set neck. Her head had not fallen off yet, but sometimes it felt about to.

Genevieve looked around the lecture hall that had become a makeshift infirmary. 'No Chinese callers?'

The nurse shook her head. She was listening to the chest of a little new-born girl. For a moment, Genevieve thought it was Lily. Then, she remembered. The patient was Rebecca Kosminski.

'I wish I knew which of the enemies I've cultivated was responsible.'

The Chinese vampire was a hireling. All over the East, such creatures were employed as assassins.

'I expect I'll be told. It would seem a waste not to let me know why my head is being torn off.'

'Shush,' Amworth said. 'You're frightening the girl.'

With a squirt of guilt, she saw the nurse was right. Rebecca looked thoughtful but her eyes had shrunk to tiny points.

'I'm sorry,' she apologised. 'Rebecca, I was just being silly, making up stories.'

Rebecca smiled. In a few years, she would never believe a lie that transparent. But now she was still a child inside.

Feeling useless  -  all her duties had been reassigned for a specified period of convalescence  -  Genevieve loitered in the infirmary for a few minutes then drifted out to the corridor.

The director's office was locked; Montague Druitt lurked outside. Genevieve bade him a good evening.

'Where's Dr Seward?' she asked.

Druitt was reluctant to talk to her but got the words out. 'He's off somewhere, with no explanation. It's most inconvenient.'

'Can I be of assistance? As you know, I have the director's confidence.'

Druitt shook his head, lips pressed tight. It was business for warm men, he was thinking. Genevieve could not tell what the man wanted. He was another of the Hall's scorched souls; she had no hope of making common cause with him, much less of being any help.

She left him in the corridor and traipsed out to the foyer, where an unfriendly warm nurse directed a stream of malingerers back into the fog, occasionally deigning to admit someone obviously suffering mortal injury.

Dr Seward had been much absent recently. She supposed he had some private grief. Like everyone else. Through all the pain of her broken bones, she still could not get the death of Pamela Beauregard out of her mind. Everyone lost people. She had been losing people for hundreds of years. But in Charles, the loss still burned.

'Miss Dieudonne?'

It was a new-born woman. She had come in from outside. She was dressed well, but not expensively.

'Do you remember me? Kate Reed?'

'Miss Reed, the journalist?'

'That's right. The Central News Agency.' She stuck out her hand to be shaken; Genevieve responded weakly in kind.

'What can be done for you, Miss Reed?'

The new-born let go Genevieve's hand.

'I was hoping I could talk to you? It's about the other night. That Chinese thing. The butterflies.'

Genevieve shrugged.

'I don't know if there's anything I can tell you that you don't know. It was an elder. Evidently the butterflies are a quirk of its bloodline. Some German nosferatu have a similar affinity for rats, and you must have heard of the Carpathians and their pet wolves.'

'Why were you singled out for persecution?'

'I wish I knew. I have passed blamelessly through life doing nought but good deeds, and am beloved by all whose path I have crossed. It is beyond conception that anyone could nurture in their heart hostile feelings for me.'

Miss Reed did not appear to notice the irony. 'Do you think the assault has anything to do with your interest in the Whitechapel murders?'

That had not occurred to Genevieve. She considered a moment. 'I doubt it. Whatever you might have heard, I am scarcely an important figure in the investigation. The police have talked to me about the effects of the murders on this community, but that is the extent of my involvement...'

'And you've been consulted by Charles... by Mr Beauregard. The other night...'

'Again, he has spoken with me but nothing more. I understand I owe him a debt of gratitude for distracting the elder.'

Miss Reed was rather intent on digging out something. Genevieve had the impression that the lady journalist was more interested in Charles than in the Ripper.

'And what is Mr Beauregard's actual involvement in the investigation?'

'That, you would have to ask him.'

'I shall,' Miss Reed said. 'When he can be found.'

'He can be found here, Kate,' Charles said.

He had come into the foyer a few minutes ago. Genevieve had not noticed him standing quietly in the corner. Miss Reed's eyes narrowed and she slipped on a pair of smoked glasses. She had the new-born's pallor, but Genevieve discerned the ghost of a blush on her cheeks.

'Um,' Miss Reed said. 'Charles, good evening.'

'I come to call upon an invalid, but I find her quite recovered.'

Charles bowed to Genevieve. Miss Reed's line of questioning had petered out.

'Thank you for your time, Miss Dieudonne,' she said. 'I shall leave you to entertain your caller. Charles, good night.'

The new-born flitted out into the night.

'What was all that about?'

She shrugged, and her neck hurt. 'I don't know, Charles. Are you familiar with Miss Reed?'

'Kate's a friend of my... a friend of Penelope's.' At his own mention of his fiancee  -  whose veiled face and guardedly hostile eyes Genevieve had cause to remember  -  Charles's face fell, and he shook his head. 'Maybe she has been talking with Penelope,' he suggested. 'It is more than I have been.'

Despite herself, Genevieve was interested. She should be beyond such things, but in her weakness she reverted to a silly gossip.

'I had the impression that you were required to call upon Miss Churchward this afternoon.'

Charles half-smiled. 'You were not alone in that impression but circumstances intervened. There was trouble in St James's Park.'

She found Charles holding her hands as if feeling the bones for damage.

'Forgive me for being overly inquisitive but there is something about your domestic arrangements that puzzles me.'

'Oh, really,' he said, cooling.

'Yes. Am I correct in assuming that Miss Churchward, Penelope, is a connection of Mrs Beauregard, Pamela, your former wife...'

Charles's face betrayed nothing.

'I would assume them sisters were it not for the fact, demonstrated by Mr Holman Hunt and Miss Waugh, that if such were so, your engagement would constitute incest under English law.'

'Penelope is Pamela's cousin. They were brought up in the same household. As sisters, if you will.'

'So you intend to marry the pseudo-sister of your late wife?'

He picked his words carefully. 'That was indeed my intent.'

'Does this not strike you as a peculiar arrangement?'

Charles let go of her hands and turned away with a suspiciously casual aspect. 'No stranger than any other, surely...'

'Charles, I do not wish to embarrass you, but you must remember... the other night in the cab... through no fault of mine, I have some, uh, some understanding of your feelings, for Pamela, for Penelope...'

Sighing, Charles said, 'Genevieve, I appreciate your concern but I assure you it is quite needless. Whatever the motives for my engagement might have been, they now mean nothing. It is my understanding that, through no action of my own, I am released from my promise to Penelope.'

'My condolences.' She put her hand on his shoulder and turned him so she could see his eyes.

'Condolences are unnecessary.'

'I was flippant about Penelope the other night. I was light-headed, you understand. Close to hysterical.'

'You'd nearly been killed,' Charles said, with feeling. 'You were not responsible.'

'Nevertheless, I regret what I said, what I implied...'

'No,' Charles said, looking at her straight-on. 'You were exactly right. I was being unfair to Penelope. I do not feel for her as a man should for his wife. I was merely using her to replace the irreplaceable. She is better off without me. Just recently, I've been feeling... I don't know, feeling as if I'd lost an arm. As if I were not complete without Pamela.'

'You mean Penelope?'

'I mean Pamela, that's the terrible thing.'

'What will you do now?'

'I'll have eventually to see Penelope and clear things between us. She'll find a far better catch than me. As for myself, I have more important affairs to consider.'

'Such as?'

'Such as the Whitechapel Murders. Also, I want to see what I can do about saving your life.'