The Messenger: A Novel (15 page)

He brooded for a few moments, and it seemed to me that some strong emotion was acting upon him. Indeed, he wiped brusquely at his eyes before he went on.

“His manner was a remarkable thing for me to observe—Adrian, whom I had every reason to hate—was in a panic. He produced a key and ordered Wentworth, the only one of my servants who is aware of the true state of matters, to unlock a set of rooms in the cellars that have been forbidden to the rest of the family. He began scouring his books and at last seemed to believe that he had found a solution to his troubles.

“He did not tell me the whole—but he mentioned that it had something to do with a mourning ring, some power he invested in it.”

“This one?” I said, holding up my hand. “The mourning ring he gave me at Waterloo?”

“Perhaps. I cannot be certain. He collected them. I have asked Wentworth to give you that collection. You are also to have his remaining books and papers.” He frowned. “Do not fail to take them, Captain Hawthorne.”

I assured him I would do as he wished.

“Good…good. In any case, Adrian told me that he must go to Belgium but would return shortly. Now he was quite pleased with himself. He believed he had retained his power of regeneration—that is, of recovering from wounds. It would take him a bit longer without the dog, he said, but he would recover. There were other cemetery dogs and he would find one and draw it to him.

“I had already seen that he had developed the power to bring others under his influence. I, myself, found him difficult to resist, and he seemed to find my resistance more amusing than troublesome. His influence was not merely over humans, most of whom were glad to do his bidding. He could bring birds to his hand. If there was an ill-tempered horse in the stables, he could ride it as if it were a child’s pony. I have seen him coax a fox from its lair and pet it as if it were a cat.

“He felt confident that he had a method of reclaiming his full power, but he also saw an opportunity. His plan was to grow a bit older here, with me playing his grandfather. He would wait a little more than twenty years, and when his body reached forty-four in natural appearance, he would reclaim his gift from you.”

“Why did he want to reach that age?”

“When he had first stopped aging, he noted that although some men lived to be seventy or more, a great many men did not live past forty. As time went on, more men lived longer, and he foresaw this trend would continue. In this day, a twenty-four-year-old man is considered to be a young man. He felt at forty-four he would be taken more seriously in business dealings and the like, and yet still be young enough to travel and partake of sports, take mistresses, and father children.”

“So,” I said, feeling a mixture of relief for my own part and disgust with Adrian, “I will be free of this in twenty years?”

He gave me a sorrowful look. “I’m sorry, Captain Hawthorne. I must most sincerely beg your forgiveness.”

“I’m sure you have it, for I can think of no wrong you’ve done me.”

“Oh, but I have, you see.” He placed a trembling hand over mine. “Forgive me, Captain Hawthorne, but in this very house, I murdered Lucien Adrian deVille, first Baron Varre.”

M
urdered him?” I repeated blankly.

“Yes, I daresay you don’t believe such a thing is possible.”

“Of you? No, indeed—”

He laughed, which induced another choking fit. “Bless you, my boy,” he said, when he was able to speak again. “Bless you for that. But I’m afraid I’m as damned as Adrian. Perhaps twice as damned, for I have caused you take his place for…well, the future is not foreseeable.” He glanced at Shade. “This old fellow may know how long you must remain as you are, but I do not.” He looked back at me. “Adrian told you that you cannot be killed?”

“I hardly believed him.”

“It is true. Indeed, Adrian bragged to me of exacting revenge on anyone who had tried to murder him—many of those men were my ancestors. In the sixteenth century, a group of them had overpowered him and stabbed him in the heart. They sought the dog, too, but this was wrong of them. As it happened, he proved more fierce than Adrian himself, and eluded them. Still, they were happy—Adrian did not stir. He did not breathe, nor did his heart beat. So, certain he was dead, they covered him in chains and threw him into the sea.”

Despite everything I now knew about Adrian deVille, a horrifying
vision arose in my mind, of being in his place. I thought of being brought back to life again and again, only to drown moments later—and to repeat that fate forever.

Lord Varre seemed to understand why I paled. “No need to waste your sympathy,” he said. “Adrian told me he awakened the next morning in a small cottage, one of his many homes here in England, places where he keeps papers and possessions hidden. He placed various protections on these places so that none would disturb them. Thus, while my ancestors were dancing for joy, thinking themselves free of him at last, he was in a comfortable bed, Shade at his side. He was taken with one of his fevers, but while he waited for this to pass, he plotted his revenge.”

He fell silent. Many minutes passed before he spoke again.

“Should you decide to take Shade on a walk through the family cemetery, you will see a great many weatherworn markers for a single year late in the sixteenth century. Anyone will tell you that the plague struck the area, and hardly a man was left standing as a result of it.”

“He caused it?”

“Adrian boasted of bringing it to the place.”

“But that means—he took his revenge on the innocent as well?”

“Children, women, men who had nothing to do with the plot—diaries from the time recount terrible suffering. Early on, when the head of this house and all his family died, Adrian reestablished himself here as the heir to the barony, and turned a deaf ear when any of his remaining persecutors begged for mercy for their families.

“Although little survives in the family records from the time before the plague, there are a few letters and diaries from the times that followed. Stories have been handed down for generations—family tales of ‘Our Monster,’ as he became known. What I tell you next, I’ve learned in part from those stories and writings, and in part from Adrian himself.

“When he returned some thirty years later, his own anger toward the place had not abated. He did not bother with charm now. He was more debauched than ever, behaving insultingly to the women here, and cruelly to the children. He had spent this time, it seemed, learning to inflict pain on others. The family sent their servants away, in order to
protect them, and would have sent their own women and children from the place had not Adrian forbidden it. Among the servants, a few stouthearted men stayed to be of whatever help they could. One of them bore the name of Wentworth.”

“An ancestor of your butler?”

He smiled. “Yes. Adrian felt invulnerable, but he was only one man, and the family awaited their chance. One night when he was, as usual, drinking heavily—perhaps you have noticed a change in the way drinking affects you?”

I shook my head. “I enjoy wine as much as the next man, but I’m afraid too much of it makes me so ill, I—” I broke off.

“Assuming you respond to alcohol as Adrian did,” he said calmly, “you will find that you now have what is commonly called a ‘hard head.’ It will take a great deal of drinking before you begin to feel the effects of alcohol, but you may then go on to become remarkably inebriated, to the point of passing out. A moment or two after you reach unconsciousness, you will awaken clearheaded, but suffer nothing more than a brief, slight fever. No headache, no queasiness. In short, you may become stewed to the eyebrows without being punished.”

“I find the prospect less attractive than you may believe.”

He smiled. “You are not much like your predecessor.”

“You were telling me about the second attack on him?”

“Ah, yes. That time, his downfall was at the hands of a raven-haired girl of fifteen, one of the fairest daughters of the house. She was his own granddaughter, but this made no difference to him. He flirted with her as if she were no relation to him. She decided to turn this to good use and enlisted the help of the rest of the household. She was a brave girl, but she professed a great fear of the dog, and on a night when Adrian was drinking and making amorous overtures, she asked Adrian to shut Shade away. For reasons we do not understand, Shade meekly allowed this.”

He paused and scratched the dog fondly on the ears.

“The girl gave a signal as soon as Adrian was well separated from the place where he had locked Shade away. Adrian was set upon again. This time they burned his body and scattered his ashes in the wind.

“They went back to the manor and were of a mind to harm the dog, but the girl stopped them. I do not know that they would have been able to do any of the things they intended to do to Shade, for he is capable of defending himself. She came close to Shade and said, ‘You will protect us, won’t you?’ and set him free.

“The men argued with her, but she paid them no heed.

“Again the dog sought Adrian, and had no difficulty finding him. Again Adrian awoke alive and whole in a place of his own. But for reasons he would not disclose to me, he did not return until long after that young woman had married and died in childbirth. With one notable exception, whenever he came back to visit this place, he reverted to his most charming manner. He usually came here, as I’ve mentioned, in another guise, most often posing as a European cousin who outranked a mere baron. He might be demanding, insist on special treatment and the best rooms, but he brought his own servants, paid for his luxuries, and threatened no one.”

“The notable exception?”

“This last visit. He returned here two weeks after Waterloo. He was demanding, as usual, but also unhappy—he could no longer drink to excess. He needed sleep. He grew hungry several times a day, and it was no longer the kind of mild sensation he had previously thought of as hunger.

“His arm was in a sling—he had been slightly injured on his journey north and the wound had become infected, a matter of some carelessness on his part in treating it, developed over several hundred years of never needing to concern himself over minor wounds. While here, he bumped his head, which raised a lump. Listening to his howls over it, one would have thought the world was coming to an end.

“The realization that he was now humanly vulnerable was emphasized by the fact that he arrived without his dog. Never before had I seen him without Shade. It was immediately clear to me that Shade had in some way restrained Adrian’s worst behaviors on visits to this household.

“I also learned that whatever supernatural gifts Adrian had lost, he
was not entirely without power. His temper led to unhappiness with the staff. The staff who upset him began to suffer painful maladies and serious injuries. Two died. Other servants began to talk of the house being accursed, and despite the shortage of work in this area, they quit. That was when I went to him and begged him to have a care. I needed the staff to see to his comfort. What’s more, my two sons and their families would be closing up their London houses and returning here for the summer. I expected them at any moment.

“He laughed in my face and told me he’d do as he damn well pleased.”

He again fell silent. I waited for his story to continue, but then I saw that his eyes were filled with tears. Shade came closer and sighed softly. Lord Varre gradually regained his composure. “Late that same evening,” he said, “I learned that my sons and their wives and their four young children were numbered among those who perished in a fire at an inn, a place where they had stopped along the way during their journey north. The youngest was a boy of four.”

His face grew set. “After the funerals, I went to London, telling Adrian I needed to settle my sons’ affairs. I did, but I had another purpose as well: to discover whether anyone matching Adrian’s description had been seen in either of my sons’ homes. He had indeed visited, posing as a young émigré cousin. A maid he had trifled with recalled that he had asked one of my sons for recommendations for places to stay along the road north.

“I knew Adrian had been responsible for their deaths,” Lord Varre said. “He would doubtless arrange for mine as well, and ‘prove’ that he was next to inherit the title. I knew that I had little time to act.

“I remembered the stories I had heard of his previous ‘deaths,’ but I prayed to God that without Shade, he might be denied his restoration to life. I returned home determined to neither eat nor drink anything Wentworth had not prepared himself, and to keep a sturdy footman by me at all times. I had developed a plan, and I asked for Wentworth’s help, something I had no right to do, but he readily agreed to give it.

“The evening after my return, Wentworth brought a bottle of the best brandy in our cellars to the table, and I feigned readiness to refuse
it, but of course Adrian insisted we drink to ease our sorrows, although he showed no more concern for their loss than a cat feels for the loss of a canary. As usual, he drank to excess, calling for additional bottles when the first was emptied. I convinced him to remove to the library, where we could be more at ease. He agreed and took the most comfortable chair for himself. I had expected this.

“He continued to drink, saying his arm was troubling him, and this might help him sleep. Fortunately, he did not worry that my own glass was nearly untouched—this meant I would not be taking brandy he wanted for himself. He remained unconvinced that he had lost his former immunity, and like many a drunkard before him, believed he held the reins of a horse that had instead fully harnessed him. He dozed off in his chair.

“When I was sure he was deeply asleep, I rose from my own chair and quietly dismissed the footman who had been standing just outside the door, ready to intervene should I fall under attack from Adrian. Wentworth arrived just then, carrying a new bottle. We entered the library together. I moved toward the desk, where I had earlier placed a dagger. I had just opened the drawer when I heard a rather sickening thud. I looked up to see Wentworth wiping off the bottle he had used to strike a very nasty blow to Adrian’s head.

“‘You’ll forgive the liberty, my lord,’ Wentworth said, ‘but I believe I owe something to all the generations of Wentworths who have suffered this man’s presence.’

“I asked if Adrian still lived, and Wentworth announced almost regretfully that he did. ‘I have prepared a place in the cellars, my lord. Upon reflection, it seemed better not to carry out our work on this Aubusson.’

“I gradually realized that Wentworth, so devoted to me and my sons and grandchildren, was furious with Adrian, and had only just restrained himself from murdering Adrian outright. He was also thinking more clearly than I was—he was right that we should not leave stains upon the carpet. I took the dagger and its sheath from the desk and hurried to help Wentworth carry Adrian to the cellar.

“This was not difficult. He was not a large man, and I had not yet fallen ill.”

He paused.

“I will not make you suffer every detail of Adrian’s murder. Despite my hatred of him, I found it distasteful. Still, I will tell you that it was a long night’s work. I left nothing to chance, and in the end, nothing was left but an iron chest filled with ashes and ground bones. This chest I surrounded with iron bands and heavy locks.

“We took it to a seaport. There I entrusted it to a dear friend of mine who was on his way to his family plantation in Jamaica. He solemnly swore to me that he would not attempt to open it, and would drop it into the deepest part of the Caribbean. I watched him set sail on the
Morgan Bray
.” He fell silent, then said, “I may have sealed his fate.”

He pointed to a newspaper. I picked it up and saw the article that had caused his dismay. The
Morgan Bray
had been caught in a storm off Jamaica and gone down with all hands aboard.

“The chest was at the bottom of the sea, just as I had asked, but Adrian took my friend and all the crew with him.”

“Such storms are common in that part of the world, I am told,” I said.

“I suppose you are right,” he said, but sounded thoroughly unconvinced.

“If this news has made you fall ill, my lord—”

“No, no. Whether these matters and the loss of all my beloved children took its toll on me, or whether Adrian had already planned that I would sicken, I do not know, but by the time I returned home from seeing the
Morgan Bray
set sail, I had already fallen ill, and became as you see me now, a dying man. I am now the last of my name. I have arranged for the care of my servants and the disposal of my wealth.

“But until today, I worried that I might have damned myself for naught. I feared that Shade would leave your side and seek Adrian, that Adrian would reappear in some cottage or hunting box not far from here, and come forward with his false documents to claim the title. I had inquired of you from the army, and was first told you were dead, and
then that you were alive but injured, and finally that you were no longer with the army and were traveling to Brussels. I hardly knew what to believe until Wentworth told me of your arrival.”

He looked at Shade again and smiled. “I can see his loyalty is to you now, Captain. I cannot tell you how greatly I am relieved.”