Anno Dracula

With Druitt hoisted on to the wagon, the show was over. The idlers drifted off to the next spectacle and the policeman returned to his duties. She was left with Morrison, at the edge of the wharf. They walked towards Rotherhithe Street, a row of rope-merchants, public houses, sailors’ lodgings, shipping offices and bawdy houses. This was the Arabian Nights quarter of London, a bazaar in the thin fog. A hundred different languages mingled. It was a heavily Chinese district and the rustle of silks still touched her with dread.

At once, a veiled figure was in her way. A vampire in black pyjamas. She bowed an apology and her veil parted. Genevieve recognised the Chinese girl from the Old Jago, who had spoken for the Lord of Strange Deaths.

‘There will be reparation for this wrong;’ she said, ‘you have the word of my master.’

Then, the girl was gone.

‘What was that about?’ Morrison asked.

Genevieve shrugged. The girl had spoken in Mandarin. If Charles was to be credited, she could guarantee that Colonel Moran would not avoid the consequences of his actions. But if punished, it would not be for brutal murder but for unnecessary brutal murder.

The girl had disappeared into the crowds.

Genevieve did not intend to return immediately to the Hall. She wanted to seek out Charles, not so much for himself but to enquire after the condition of his unfortunate fiancee. Penelope Churchward, whom she had met once and hardly warmed to, was the latest of her concerns. With multitudes shovelled into the furnace, how many could she save? Not Druitt, certainly. Not Lily Mylett. Not Cathy Eddowes.

Morrison was talking to her, confiding in her. Having heard nothing, she begged his pardon.

‘It’s Dr Seward,’ he repeated himself. ‘I’m worried that he’s making a fool of himself with this Lucy of his.’

‘Lucy?’

‘That’s what she calls herself.’ Morrison was one of the rare individuals who had met Jack Seward’s mysterious lady-love, and he had not been impressed. ‘Personally, I think we’ve seen her before. Under another name and in shabbier clothes.’

‘Jack has always ridden himself too hard. Perhaps this amour is the cure for his habitual exhaustion.’

Morrison shook his head. He was finding it hard to express his exact thoughts.

‘Surely, you can have no social objection to this girl? I had thought those concerns well behind us,’ said Genevieve.

Morrison looked sheepish. Himself of modest birth, his work should have given him an understanding of the situations of even the meanest and most degraded.

‘There’s something wrong with Dr Seward,’ he insisted. ‘He is calm and even-tempered on the surface, more so than of late. But underneath he is losing his grasp. He forgets our names sometimes. He misremembers which year it is. I believe he is retreating to some Arcadian time, before the coming of the Prince Consort.’

Genevieve pondered the notion. Recently, she found Jack hard to read. He had never been as open to her as others – as Charles, for instance, or even Arthur Morrison – but in the past few weeks he had given away almost nothing, as if his mind were behind lead shutters as stout as the cabinet in which he locked his precious wax cylinders.

They stopped walking and she took Morrison’s hand. At the touch of his skin, tiny memories burst. She still had Charles’s blood in her; with it came fly-blown specks of faraway lands. She kept seeing a face in pain, which she assumed to be his late wife.

‘Arthur,’ she said, ‘madness is epidemic with us. It is everywhere, like evil. There is little we can do to ease the condition, so we must learn to live with it, to make it serve us. Love is always a species of insanity. If Jack can find some purpose in this spinning world, what harm can it do?’

‘Her name isn’t Lucy. I think it’s something Irish... Mary Jean, Mary Jane?’

‘Hardly proof of direst perfidy.’

‘She is a vampire.’ Morrison stopped, realising what he had said. Embarrassed, he tried to smooth over his prejudice. ‘I mean... you know...’

‘I appreciate that you are concerned,’ she told him, ‘and to an extent I share your misgivings. But I don’t see what we can honourably do.’

Morrison was plainly torn inside. ‘Still,’ he said, ‘something is wrong with Dr Seward. Something should be done. Something.’

45

DRINK, PRETTY CREATURE, DRINK

Her touch had changed him. For two days, Beauregard had been troubled by dreams. Dreams in which Genevieve, sometimes herself and sometimes a needle-fanged cat, lapped at his blood. It had always been in his stars. The way things were, he would sooner or later have been tapped by a vampire. He was luckier than most, to have given blood freely rather than be drained by force. He had certainly been more fortunate than Penelope.

‘Charles,’ Florence Stoker said, ‘I’ve been running on for close to an hour, and I declare you’ve not heard a single word. It’s plain from your face that your thoughts are in the sickroom. With Penelope.’

Oddly guilty, he let Florence continue in her belief. After all, he should be thinking of his fiancee. They were in the drawing room, awkwardly superfluous. Florence consumed cup after tiny cup of tea. Mrs Churchward occasionally darted in with a noncommittal report and Mrs Yeovil, the housekeeper, would regularly appear with more tea. But, absorbed in his own thoughts, he paid them no mind. Genevieve had taken blood from him, but given something of herself in return. She ran and turned about like quicksilver in his mind.

Penelope was attended by Dr Ravna, the specialist in nervous disorders. A vampire, he had a reputation in the field of diseases of the un-dead. Dr Ravna was with the invalid now, attempting some treatment.

Beauregard had been in his daze for two nights and had neglected his duties in Whitechapel. Penelope’s infirmity provided an excuse but an excuse was all it was. He could not stop thinking of Genevieve. He was afraid he wanted her to drink from him again. Not the simple thirst-slaking of an opened wrist but the full embrace of the Dark Kiss. Genevieve was an extraordinary woman by the standards of any age. Together, they could live through the centuries. It was a temptation.

‘I suppose the wedding will have to be cancelled,’ Florence said. ‘A great pity.’

There had been no possibility of a formal discussion, but Beauregard assumed his engagement to Penelope was now at an end. It would be best if lawyers could be kept out of it. There was no real fault on either part, he hoped, but neither he nor Penelope was the person they had been when they entered into their understanding. With all the other troubles, the last thing he needed was a suit for breach of promise. It was hardly likely, but Mrs Churchward was old-fashioned and might consider that her daughter had been insulted.

Genevieve’s lips had been cool, her touch gentle, her tongue roughly pleasant as a cat’s. The draining of his blood, so slow and so tender, had been an exquisite sensation, instantly addictive. He wondered what she was doing just now.

‘I cannot understand what Lord Godalming was thinking of,’ Florence continued. ‘He has acted most peculiarly.’

‘How unlike Art.’

A screech sounded through the ceiling, barely human, followed by a whimper. Florence cringed and Beauregard’s heart contracted. Penelope was in pain.

The Jack the Ripper business was dragging on without fruit. The faith expressed in his abilities as an investigative agent by the Diogenes Club and the Limehouse Ring might well be misplaced. He had, after all, accomplished little.

A personal note of apology had arrived from the Professor, informing him that Colonel Moran had been severely reprimanded for his interference. Also there had been a peculiar missive in green ink on thin parchment, informing him that Mr Yam, whom he took to be the Chinese elder, would no longer be inconveniencing Mlle Dieudonne. Apparently, a commission had been undertaken, but the Lord of Strange Deaths no longer felt obliged to