Merrick

not on the hand which he gripped so tenaciously—but on both her lovely cheeks.

Why in the world hadn't I foreseen this? Why had I thought that she would not see him except as an unapproachable wonder? Why hadn't I realized that I was bringing into her presence one of the most alluring beings I've ever known?

I felt the fool for having not foreseen it, and I also felt the fool for caring so very much. As he settled in the chair closest to hers, as she sat down and turned her attention to him, I found a place on the sofa across the room. Her eyes never left him, not for a second, and then I heard his voice come low and rich, with his French accent as well as the feeling with which he always spoke.

'You know why I've come to you, Merrick,' he said as tenderly as if he was telling her that he loved her. 'I live in torment thinking of one creature, one creature I once betrayed and then nurtured, and then lost. I come because I believe you can bring that creature's spirit to speak with me. I come to you because I believe I can determine through you whether that spirit is at rest.'

Immediately she answered.

'But what is unrest for spirits, Louis,' she said familiarly. 'Do you believe in a purgatory, or is it merely a darkness in which spirits languish, unable to seek a light that would lead them on?'

'I'm not convinced of anything,' Louis said in answer. His face was full of vehement eloquence. 'If ever a creature was earthbound, it's the vampire. We're wed, soul and body, hopelessly. Only the most painful death by fire can rip that bond. Claudia was my child. Claudia was my love. Claudia died by fire, the fire of the sun. But Claudia has appeared to others. Claudia may come if you call her. That's what I want. That's my extravagant dream.' Merrick was lost to him, utterly lost to him. I knew it. Her mind, insofar as I could read it, was ravaged. She was deeply affected by his seeming pain. Nothing of her sympathies was reserved.

'Spirits exist, Louis,' she said, her voice slightly tremulous, 'they exist, but they tell lies. One spirit can come in the guise of another. Spirits are sometimes greedy and depraved.'

It was quite exquisite, the way that he frowned and put the back of his finger to his lip before he answered. As for her, well, I was furious with her, and saw not the slightest physical or mental fault in her. She was the woman to whom I'd surrendered passion, pride, and honor a long time before.

'I'll know her, Merrick,' said Louis. 'I can't be deceived. If you can call her, and if she comes, I'll know her. I have no doubt.'

'But what if I doubt, Louis?' she responded. 'What if I tell you that we've failed? Will you at least try to believe what I say?'

'It's all settled, isn't it?' I blurted out. 'We mean to do it, then, don't we?'

'Yes, oh, yes,' Louis answered, looking across the room at me considerately enough, though his large inquisitive eyes shot right back to Merrick. 'Let me beg your forgiveness, Merrick, that we've troubled you for your power. I tell myself in my most awful moments that you'll take away from us some valuable knowledge and experience, that perhaps we'll confirm your faith—in God. I tell myself these things because I can't believe we've merely ruptured your life with our very presence. I hope it's so. I beg you to understand.'

He was using the very words that had come to my mind in my many feverish ruminations. I was furious with him as well as her, suddenly. Detestable that he should say these things, and the hell he couldn't read minds. I had to get myself in hand.

She smiled, suddenly, one of the most magnificent smiles I'd ever seen. Her creamy cheeks, her dramatic green eyes, her long hair—all her charms conspired to make her irresistible, and I could see the effect of her smile upon Louis, as if she'd rushed into his arms.

'I have no doubts or regrets, Louis,' she told me. 'Mine is a great and unusual power. You've given me a reason to use it. You speak of a soul that may be in torment; indeed, you speak of long, long suffering, and you suggest that we might somehow bring that soul's torment to a close.'

At this point, his cheeks colored deeply and he leant over and clasped her hand again tightly.

'Merrick, what can I give you in exchange for what you mean to do?'

This alarmed me. He should not have said it! It led too directly to the most powerful and unique gift that we had to give. No, he shouldn't have said it, but I remained silent, watching these two creatures become ever more enthralled with each other, watching them quite definitely fall in love.

'Wait until it's done, and let us talk then of such things,' she said, 'if we ever talk of them at all. I need nothing in return, really. As I've said, you are giving me a way to use my power and that in itself is quite enough. But again, you must assure me, you will listen to my estimation of what happens. If I think we have raised something which is not from God I will say so, and you must at least try to believe what I say.'

She rose and went directly past me, with only a faint smile for me as she did so, into the open dining room behind me to fetch something, it seemed, from the sideboard along the distant wall.

Of course, Louis, the consummate gentleman, was on his feet. Again I noticed the splendid clothing, and how lean and feline were his simplest gestures, and how stunningly beautiful his immaculate hands. She reentered the light before me as if reentering a stage.

'Here, this is what I have from your darling,' she said. She held a small bundle, wrapped in velvet. 'Sit down, Louis, please,' she resumed. 'And let me put these items into your hands.' She took her chair again, beneath the lamp facing him, the precious goods in her lap.

He obeyed her with the open radiance of a schoolboy before a miraculous and brilliant teacher. He sat back as though he would yield to her slightest command.

I watched her in profile and nothing filled my mind so much as pure, utter, base jealousy! But loving her as I did, I was wise enough to acknowledge some genuine concern as well.

As for him, there was little doubt that he was completely as interested in her as he was in the things which had belonged to Claudia.

'This rosary, why did she have it?' asked Merrick, extracting the sparkling beads from her little bundle. 'Surely she didn't pray.'

'No, she liked it for the look of it,' he said, his eyes full of a dignified plea that Merrick should understand. 'I think I bought it for her. I don't think I ever even told her what it was. Learning with her was strange, you see. We thought of her as a child, when we should have realized, and then the outward form of a person has such a mysterious connection with the disposition.'

'How so?' Merrick asked.

'Oh, you understand,' he said shyly, almost modestly. 'The beautiful know they have power, and she had, in her diminutive charm, a certain power of which she was always casually aware.' He hesitated. It seemed he was painfully shy.

'We fussed over her; we gloried in her. She looked no more than six or seven at most.' The light in his face went out for a moment, as if an interior switch had shut it off.

Merrick reached forward again and took his hand. He let her have it. He bowed his head just a little, and he lifted the hand she held, as if saying, Give me a moment. Then he resumed.

'She liked the rosary,' he said. 'Maybe I did tell her the prayers. I don't remember. She liked sometimes to go with me to the Cathedral. She liked to hear the music of the evening ceremonies. She liked all things that were sensual and which involved beauty. She was girlish in her enthusiasms for a long time.'

Merrick let his hand go but very reluctantly.

'And this?' she asked. She lifted the small white leather-bound diary. 'A long time ago, this was found in the flat in the Rue Royale, in a hiding place. You never knew that she kept it.'

'No,' he said. 'I gave it to her as a gift, that I well recall. But I never saw her write in it. That she kept it came as something of a surprise. She was quite the reader of books, that I can tell you. She knew so much poetry. She was always quoting this or that verse in an offhanded manner. I try to remember the things she quoted, the poets she loved.' He gazed at the diary now as if he were reticent to open it, or even to touch it. As if it still belonged to her. Merrick withdrew it, and lifted the doll.

'No,' Louis said adamantly, 'she never liked them. They were always a mistake. No, that doesn't matter, that doll. Although if recollection serves me right, it was found with the diary and the rosary. I don't know why she saved it. I don't know why she put it away. Maybe she wanted someone in the far distant future to find it and mourn for her, to know that she herself had been locked in a doll's body; wanted some one lone individual to shed tears for her. Yes, I think that's how it must have been.'

'Rosary, doll, diary,' said Merrick delicately. 'And the diary entries, do you know what they say?'