Sat, May 19 2012
Sympathy for the Vampire - Season of Change
In the deep fastness of midwinter at Shillingworth Magna Rebecca Fogg sat quietly in the drawing-room reading in her book. Phileas was out on his rounds, doing his duty as the master of Shillingworth; Jules was expected in a few days, Phileas had sent his valet Passepartout off to fetch him from Paris in a thinly-disguised ploy to ensure that Passepartout should have a holiday before Christmas to see what family he might have tucked away in odd corners of the French coastline between London and Paris.
No one was expected; so when Rebecca heard a decisive knock at the front door she was surprised, and put aside her book to wait for McIver to come and tell her what was afoot. She hoped it wasn't Lady Bessemere. It had been the studied practice of Rebecca's entire life at Shillingworth Magna to avoid Lady Bessemere completely. Lady Bessemere had known Rebecca's parents, had known Rebecca herself when Rebecca had been a very young child, and liked to remind Rebecca of how tragic a life she'd had - of how sorrowful and pitiable she was. And Rebecca simply did not have much time for sorrowful or pitiable. Not even now: although the challenges she faced were truly daunting.
She tucked a stray tendril of hair back into its place in her coiffure, and turned to the door as McIver coughed to announce himself. "There's a gentleman to see you, Miss," McIver said. The taciturn Scot had never had much use for the polite forms; he was a most unusual butler, but he'd saved Sir Boniface's life before Phileas had been so much as engendered, and had a place in the household for as long as he cared to avail himself of one. "Foreign person. Desires to be admitted to your presence, he says."
McIver sounded suspicious, almost hostile. He'd become very protective of her, since her return from Italy. She bore it as best she could. "Does this foreign person give a name, McIver?"
A disturbance at the door to the drawing-room; McIver looked back over his shoulder, and for a moment seemed to consider maintaining his not inconsiderable body as a barrier in the open doorway. Still McIver knew her as well as her own cousin did, in some ways, and would be confident that she was more than a match for any foreign person, among whom McIver paradoxically included most Englishmen. And Jules Verne. But McIver knew Jules; so it wasn't that, what was it?
McIver moved away out of the doorway, and Rebecca could see for herself.
Angelo. Angelo Rimini.
His Grace, the Duke of Carpathia. Him. His beloved silhouette, standing there in the doorway with his coat still on, the snow across the dark fabric a clear visual reminder of the strong slope of his shoulders, his costume perfect in every detail. Not even Phileas could out-dress Angelo. There was so much native dignity in him, he wore a gentleman's starched collar and a black silk neck-cloth as though they were gilt armor, or the ermines of some half-savage Russian prince -
"Oh, it's you," she said. She hardly knew what else to say. It had been three months. She had his letter. But she had done her best to believe it would not come to be, because she wanted him so much; and even needed him, she who had been almost entirely self-sufficient all her life. "Thank you, McIver, his Grace and I are acquainted. It's all right."
McIver scowled at Angelo suspiciously, but took Angelo's coat and gloves and cane with adequate courtesy and went away.
Angelo.
He stepped into the room as McIver left, and turned his back, and closed the door, which McIver had very pointedly left open for reasons of his own.
"Rebecca, my angel," Angelo said, and it suddenly occurred to Rebecca that though it had been very overcast and dreary all day it was yet no more than two o'clock in the afternoon. Daylight, if only in theory; while she was trying to sort sense out of this idea he took her hand and bowed over it, kissing it on exactly the right place over the curve of the wrist-joint. His fingers were cold: but he'd just come in from outside. Of course. "I have counted the hours. Can I hope to be received with forbearance, Rebecca? Because I have something that I very much wish to show you. - And no, it is not that," he added, in a mild and admonitory tone, when she could not help but smile at him, happy despite herself at the thought. "Although if I am fortunate far above my desert I may hope to win your sufferance on some such an issue as well. Later."
She couldn't very well throw herself into his arms and caress him in the drawing-room of Shillingworth Magna. Not really. Certainly not in mid-afternoon. "What, then, my Angelo?"
He had not released her hand. Now he turned his own hand so that it was palm-up; and set the tips of her fingers across the inside of his wrist with his other hand. She frowned, confused, a little puzzled; then she felt something, and gasped aloud.
A pulse.
It did not beat very strongly, perhaps, or perhaps it was still too deep to be readily discernible. But it was there. In the veins at the inside of Angelo's wrist a heartbeat pulsed: like that of a living man.
And she remembered, suddenly, that for a moment she had almost believed that she felt his heart beat in his chest as she lay resting her head on his naked bosom. She had discounted the anomalous memory, half-convinced that she had simply dreamt it out of fantasy and wish-fulfillment. This could not be explained away.
"Angelo." What could she say that would express all that she felt? "How does this happen?"
"I have had a hard time believing it." There were so many things behind the little that he actually said. "But I have woken up hungry, Rebecca, for bread and apples. Cheese. And even beer, things I have not been able to stomach for nourishment in so very many years. It is a sign from God, that I am destined to be your servant on this Earth, and dedicate my energies entire to making you as happy as may be in my poor power to achieve."
He always had had a very pretty cant. Rebecca smiled, by no means averse to this suggestion. There was something Angelo did not know; and no matter how awkward everything would be there was no time like the present to share her news with him.
"As long as it is show-and-tell, Angelo." she said, wanting to kiss his mouth and knowing that she had to wait. For hours yet, perhaps, but she would have a kiss, he would not have come to show her what had changed in his life and not planned to stay for at least a little while. She trusted him for that. "There is something I can show to you which may be of interest. As well."
He had her hand clasped between his, showing her his pulse. He had tasted her blood; somehow - in some unknown and occult fashion - he was beginning to become mortal again. Alive. Vampires weren't immortal, but they weren't alive, they had no pulse.
Taking his right hand in hers Rebecca carried it to her waist and settled it there, palm flat to her belly, to the gentle swell that had begun to shorten her petticoats. It had only just begun to show visible, physical signs, but she had known. Because the moon had no more power over her body. She had known it was a terrible risk; she had been willing to take it, at the time, for Angelo's sake. And she had never guessed that it might actually come to this.
Phileas was unhappy enough as it was, because he knew perfectly well that something was amiss. They were too close for him not to know, and she had caught him looking after her and frowning - trying to make up his mind, she thought, what it was that seemed different to him, about her.
Angelo sank slowly to his knees on the drawing-room carpet, his hand raised to her still only very slightly pregnant belly as if in prayerful invocation of the saints. "Oh, Rebecca," he said, and his voice broke. "Can I hope it is to be mine to call this treasure my own?"
Well, rather, she wanted to say. But she had had three months to get used to the idea, and it had only just now been sprung on him.
"It will come as a surprise to many, I'm afraid, Angelo." McIver knew, though Rebecca wasn't quite sure how. Phileas suspected. Jules would be miserable, wondering if he had abandoned her one night in a villa on the coast near Rimini and left her vulnerable to outrage. She was not and had not been outraged. But Phileas was unquestionably going to need handling. "I don't suppose you care to turn Church of England, by any chance?"
He staggered to his feet, meeting her eyes with an expression of pain so deep and genuine that it made her ashamed. "How can you make sport of me at such a time as this, Rebecca. Anything. I will do anything that I must do to have the privilege of being my child's father."
No, the years he had seen in his vampiric existence - however many they were, and whatever that existence had been - had made him more deeply sensitive to the responsibility he faced, rather than as she had almost feared deadening his moral sense.
"Then put a ring on my finger, my Angelo, and say that we have been man and wife for three months now." Documentation could always be obtained. "And prepare yourself to face the wroth of the British Secret Service. And Phileas Fogg."
He looked at his own two hands with something a little like panic, clearly realizing that neither of the rings he wore would fit her hand. Then realizing further that it was a symbolic lack that could be made up later.
"Is it permitted to your husband, then, to kiss his wife, although it is in the afternoon?"
The ideas people had of English reticence were really rather odd. It gave her carte blanche, however, to decide whatever she liked, and present it as customary behavior.
"Please do," she agreed. He put his arms around her. She folded her hands one over the other at the back of his strong neck, and surrendered herself up to Angelo's embrace, and was happy.
Afterword
The character of Angelo Rimini, vampire Duke of Carpathia, was introduced in the episode "Rockets of the Dead." In the third draft of the script by Gavin Scott (December 31, 1997) Rebecca was still Phileas' sister, rather than his cousin; making possible the following bit of Memorable Dialogue from the end of the story, at a point at which Phileas and Rimini are grappling:
PHILEAS: My sister! A vampire! What were you thinking about?
RIMINI: Little vampires. Lots of them.
It is to this interchange that this story is dedicated with Affection, Love, and a moderate amount of Snickering. The entire script may be found at www.twoevilmonks.org/jvhistory/scripts, and the entire Two Evil Monks site is rich in content and visual interest.
Chapter 3 | Chapter 4