NEW-BORN
Art had left Penelope to see herself out. She was in a species of a swoon as he told her why he was dashing off. Something to do with the Prime Minister. Affairs of great import and urgency. Masculine matters, she assumed, and none of her concern. It seemed as if Art talked to her from the end of a long tunnel, a great wind blowing against him and carrying off his voice. Then he was gone and she was alone with herself...
... she was turning. It was not what she expected. She had been told it was quick: a brief pain like a tooth being pulled, then a period of dozing, comparable to the pupal stage of an insect, followed by a reawakening into the vampire state.
The pain, raging red throughout her body, was terrible. Suddenly, in a hot gush, her monthly was upon her. Her underthings were clogged. Kate had warned her, but she had forgotten. At the moment, there was little consolation in the prospect that this was the last time such feminine inconvenience would bother her. Vampire females, she understood, do not menstruate. That curse was lifted forever. As a woman, she was dead...
* * *
... on the divan where Art had taken her, where she had bled him, she gripped a bolster to her stomach. She had expelled every scrap of food on to Art's Persian carpet. Then, in a more convenient moment, she had voided her bowels and bladder. She understood why, even as he was making a hasty escape, Art took the trouble to tell her where his privy was. During the turn, her body expelled all its wastes.
She felt feverish and empty, as if her insides had been scooped out. Her jaws ached as the buds of her teeth opened, sharp enamels scraping together. She had the enlarged, pointed teeth of the typical vampire. This was not a permanent condition, she knew. Her teeth would change in the moment of passion or anger. Or, as now, pain. Adapting to her new mode of feeding, her incisors became fangs.
Why had she chosen this? She could hardly remember.
Her hand was close to her face. She saw veins and tendons under the skin, undulating like worms. Her trimmed nails were daggerish diamond-shapes. There were even a few coarse black hairs. Her fingers had thickened and her engagement ring cut into her skin.
She tried to concentrate.
Her hand stopped writhing and dwindled into its familiar shape. With her tongue, she tested her teeth. They were small again, and she no longer felt that her mouth was full of pointed palings.
She was on her back, head lolling off the edge of the divan. She saw the room upside-down. Art's father stood on his head in a full-length portrait. A blue standing vase hung from the carpeted ceiling, dangling sharp fronds of white pampas grass. A frieze of delicately upturned flowers ringed the room. Inverted gaslights stuck out of the skirting board, blue flames jetting down towards the painted floor.
The flames grew until they were all she could see. The fever was in her brain. In the flames, she saw a man and a woman embracing. He was fully clothed in evening dress but she was naked and bloody. The faces were Charles's and Pamela's. Then her cousin's face became her own and Charles turned to Art. They were clothed in flame. The image lasted a moment, then flowed again until the faces were unrecognisable. They meshed and burned together, forming one four-eyed, two-mouthed, hair-swathed face. The conglomerate face of fire grew and engulfed her completely.
'Penelope for ever after,' she had shouted as a child. 'Long live Penny.'
The flame burned all around...
... with a single shiver, she was instantly awake. She tingled all over, clothing scraping her sensitive skin.
She sat up and arranged herself on the divan. The memory of her turn was fading fast. She felt her neck and breast and could not find a trace of the wounds Art had made.
The room was brighter and she saw into the shadowed corners. She saw things differently. There were subtler gradations of colour. And she could smell more scents. The odours of her own bodily discharges were distinguishable, and not offensive. She thought all her senses were sharpened. Her tongue longed for new tastes. She wished to experiment.
She stood up and padded in her stockinged feet to the bathroom. There was, of course, no mirror. She divested herself of her soiled clothes, and wiped herself off with a balled petticoat. She washed herself all over. In her former life, she had rarely been as completely naked. Her old self seemed a dream. She was new-born. When satisfied that she was clean as any cat, she left the bathroom. She needed clothes. The garments of her warmth were useless now, sodden with useless blood.
Someone moved in one of the rooms off the corridor and she was instantly alert. She ran her tongue over sharp teeth. A door opened, and a thin face poked out. Shocked by her nudity, Art's manservant gulped and withdrew, locking his door behind him. She laughed. Flexing her hands, she wondered if she could wrench open the door and get to the man. She could smell his warm blood. 'Fi fifo fum,' she whispered, her voice loud in her head.
Opening one of the doors, she found Art's dressing room. A suit of his morning clothes was laid out ready for him. Formerly, being tall had been an embarrassment. Her mother had trained her to sit down as often as possible and, without stooping, to arrange herself so she would not tower over a man. Now her height suited her well.
She pulled on Art's shirt and buttoned it up. She mastered the intricacy of the collar and the cuffs. Her fingers were abler now and solved all the problems presented to them. She threw aside Art's underclothes and pulled on his trousers, fiddling with the unfamiliar braces until the contraptions set on her shoulders. The garment settled on her hips, and she pulled it up tight, crotch snug, then shortened the braces to suit her. She found a cravat and tied it around the too-large collar. A waistcoat and a coat completed the ensemble. Barefoot, she returned to the room where she had turned. Her shoes were under the divan, and still fitted her. She imagined she cut quite a dash, and wondered what her fiance would think.
Running her hands through her hair, she considered whether she should do anything to make herself look less of a fright. But she did not really care any more how she looked. The dead Penelope would have been shocked senseless. But the dead Penelope had been so different.
She felt a twinge of thirst. The taste of Art's blood lingered in her mouth. She had found it bitter and salty last night. But now it was sweet and delicious. And necessary. What to do? What to do?
She did not know if she was managing this terribly well. But if Kate Reed, who could barely pour tea from a pot without consulting Mrs Beeton, could become a successful vampire, then Penelope the Conqueror would not be daunted by the complications.
In the hall, she found an opera cloak, lined with red silk. It did not feel heavy. She tried to set one of Art's top hats on her head, but it slipped down around her ears and visored her eyes. The only headgear on Art's rack that could be made to suit her was a soft check cap with ear-flaps. It hardly fit with the rest of the get-up she had appropriated but it would have to do. She was at least able to bundle up her hair under the cap and get it out of the way. Some vampire girls cut their hair short, like a man's. She might consider that...
... outside, the sun was rising. She thought she should get home and stay indoors. Maybe she should rest during the hours of daylight. Kate told her the sun could harm new-borns. She supposed she would have to put herself in the invidious and humiliating position of seeking Kate out and soliciting her advice on any number of unforseeable points.
She left the house and found the early morning fog thick. Yesterday, she would not have been able to see the other side of Cadogan Square. Now she could distinguish things a little better, although her vision was better with shadows than fog. If she looked up at the foggy clouds that blocked the sun, her eyes stung. She pulled her cap down, so the peak would shade her face.
'Missy, missy,' a voice said. A woman was coming at her out of the fog, dragging two small children.
The thirst was upon her again - the red thirst, they called it - and her mouth was parched, her teeth pricking. It was not to be compared with the needs she had known as a warm woman. It was an overpowering desire, a natural instinct on a level with the need to breathe.
'Missy...'
An old woman, her hand out, was before her. She wore a tatty poke bonnet and a ragged shawl. 'Do you thirst, missy?' The woman grinned. Most of her teeth were missing and her breath stank. Penelope could smell twenty layers of differing dirts. If Fagin had a widow, this was she.
'For sixpence, you could drink your fill. From one of my pretties.'
The woman picked up a bundle. It was a girl child, one of a pair. The face and hair were dirty but the girl was pale, mummy-wrapped in a long scarf. The woman disentangled the scarf from a thin, many-times-scabbed neck. 'Just sixpence, missy.'
The woman clawed at the little girl's neck, scraping scabs. Tiny drops of blood welled. The child made no sound. The blood-smell caught in Penelope's nostrils. It was a hot, spiced, penetrating scent. She thirsted.
The girl was handed to her. For a moment, she hesitated at the intimacy. When warm, she had not cared to be touched, had especially not cared to be touched by children. She had vowed after Pamela's death never to submit to a man's lusts, never to bear children. That eventually came to seem childish, but she had not relished the thought of her wedding night. That side of things had very little to do with her engagement. What she had done with Art had been more than a feeding, more than an agent of the turn. There had been a carnal element, repellent and exciting. Now, it was acceptable, even desirable.
'Sixpence,' the woman reminded, her voice dwindling as Penelope concentrated on the child's neck.
With Art, the drinking of blood had been an unpleasant necessity. She had felt a strange thrill, not quite indistinguishable from pain, when he bit her. Taking his blood had been a repugnant chore; this desire was different. The turn had awakened something in Penelope. As she touched her tongue to the open wound, her old self truly died. As the blood trickled into her mouth, the new-born she had become awoke.
She had chosen to become a vampire because she thought it proper. She had been angry with Charles, for his dalliance with that elder creature, for his failure to appear and make sufficient apology. He treated the warm woman badly, but perhaps his attitude would be different if she turned. All of that was absurdly by the bye.
She gulped, feeling the blood seeping throughout her. It did not just slip down her throat, but pumped into her gums, spreading through her face. She felt it swelling in her cheeks, throbbing in the veins under her ears, filling out her eyes.
'There now, missy. You'll polish her off. Have a care.'
The woman tried to pull the child away and Penelope threw her off. She was not satisfied yet. The child's whimpering was in her ears, an encouragement in the feeble whine. The girl wanted to be drained dry, as much as Penelope needed to take her blood....
... finally, it was over. The child's heart still beat. Penelope set her down on the pavement. The other girl - her sister? - gathered round, and wrapped her up.
'A shilling,' the woman said. 'You took a shilling's worth.'
Penelope hissed at the pandering bitch, spitting through her fangs. It would be easy to open her from stomach to neck. She had the talons for the task.
'A shilling.'
The woman was resolute. Penelope recognised a kinship. They were both living with a need that superseded all other considerations.
In her front pocket, she found a watch and chain. She detached them from the waistcoat and tossed them to the panderer. The woman made a fist and snatched the prize from the air. Her mouth formed into a disbelieving grin.
'Thank you, ever so, missy. Thank you. Any time, you're welcome to my girls. Any time.'
Penelope left the woman in Cadogan Square and walked off in the fog, a newfound vitality electrifying her. She was stronger inside than she had ever been...
... she knew her way in the fog. The Churchward house was only a short distance away, in Caversham Street. As she walked, it was as if only she of all the city knew where she was going. She could have found home with her eyes closed.
With the child's blood in her, she was light-headed. She had not often had more than a single glass of wine with dinner, but she recognised her current state as akin to intoxication. Once, she and Kate and another girl had emptied four bottles from her late father's prized cellar. Only Kate had not been sick afterwards and she had been infuriatingly superior about it. This was like that, but without the roiling in her stomach.
Occasionally, people would sense her coming and get out of her way. Nobody even stared or passed comment on her unusual dress. Men had kept the convenience of their clothing to themselves. She felt somewhat piratical, like Anne Bonney. Even Pam, she was sure, had never known anything as exhilarating as this. At last, she outshone her cousin.
The fog thinned, and her cloak hung heavy on her shoulders. She stopped, and found herself dizzy. Had the girl carried any disease? She clung to a lamp-post like a drunken toff. The fog was just wispy strands. A breeze was blowing from the river. She could taste the Thames on the wind. The world seemed to spin as the early fog dissipated. In the sky, a merciless ball of fire expanded, reaching out light-tendrils. She threw a hand over her face and felt her skin burning. It was as if a great magnifying glass were suspended in the air, concentrating the sun's rays on her as a boy directs a killing beam at an ant.
Her hand hurt. It was an angry lobster-red. The skin itched fearfully and split in one place. A curl of steamy smoke emerged from the crack. Pushing away from the lamp-post, she ran over uncertain ground, her cloak streaming behind her. The air dragged at her ankles like swamp-water. She was coughing, spitting up blood. She had glutted herself overmuch, and was paying for her greed.
Sun lay heavy on the streets, bleaching everything around to a shining bone-white. Even if she shut her eyes fast, an agony of light burst into her brain. She thought she would never reach Caversham Street and safety. She would stumble and fall in the road, and resolve into a smoking woman-shape of dust under the crumpled fan of Art's cape.
Her face was taut, as if it had shrunken on to her skull. She should never have ventured out into the sun on her first day as a new-born. Kate had told her. Someone got in her way and she bowled him over. She was still strong and swift. She bent double as she ran, the blast of the sun on her back, heating her body through several layers of cloth. Her lips were drawn away from her teeth, stiff and shrivelled. Every step hurt, as if she were skipping through a forest of razors. This was not what she had expected...
... a homing instinct brought her to her street, to her own front door. She fumbled with the bell-pull and hooked one foot under the boot-scraper to prevent herself from falling backwards. Unless admitted into the cool shade at once, she would die. She leaned against her door and banged with the heel of her hand.
'Mother, mother,' she croaked. She sounded like an old crone.
The door was opened and she fell into the arms of Mrs Yeovil, their housekeeper. The servant did not recognise Penelope, and tried to push her back out into the cruel day.
'No,' her mother said. 'It's Penny. Look...'
Mrs Yeovil's eyes grew wide; in their horror, Penelope saw her reflection more surely than she ever had in any mirror.
'Lord bless us,' the servant said.
Mother and Mrs Yeovil helped her into the hallway and the door was slammed shut. Pain still streamed through the stained-glass fanlight, but the worst of the sun was kept out. She lolled in the embrace of the two women. There was another person in the hallway, standing at the door of the withdrawing room.
'Penelope? My Lord, Penelope!' It was Charles. 'She's turned, Mrs Churchward,' he said.
For a moment, she remembered what it was all about, what it had all been for. She tried to tell him, but only a hiss came out.
'Don't try to talk, dear,' her mother said. 'It'll be all right.'
'Get her somewhere dark,' Charles said.
'The cellar?'
'Yes, the cellar.'
He pulled open the door under the stairs and the women carried her down into her father's wine cellar. There was no light at all and she was suddenly cool all over. The burning stopped. She still hurt but she no longer felt on the point of exploding.
'Oh, Penny, my poor dear,' her mother said, laying a hand on her brow. 'You look so...'
The sentence trailed off and they laid her out on cold but clean flagstones. She tried to sit up, to spit a curse at Charles.
'Rest,' he said.
They forced her back and she shut her eyes. Inside her head, the dark was red and teeming.