Renfield Read online

  PRAISE FOR

  Renfield

  “Hambly answers many of the unanswered questions about Renfield and develops the character far beyond any of the other spin-offs. She puts flesh on the bones of…the characters. Dracula fans will enjoy the book.”

  —Rocky Mountain News

  “Barbara Hambly does a brilliant job of re-creating the saga with her unique voice. Vampire aficionados will want to add this to their collection.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “Filled with new twists, Renfield is a rich, frightening, and astonishing alternate view of Stoker’s legendary work.”

  —SFRevu.com

  “In Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel, Dracula, the enigmatic R. M. Renfield is confined to an asylum and feeds on insects, spiders, and rats while awaiting the arrival of his dreaded master, Count Dracula. Hambly, however, takes a different tack. Through Renfield’s notes, disturbing dreams, and passionate letters to his wife, Catherine, readers begin to understand the intelligent but delusional Renfield. Hambly is a superb storyteller, and her alternate view of the Dracula story…is an excellent addition to the genre. Recommended for all fiction collections.”

  —Library Journal

  “Hambly retells Bram Stoker’s Dracula from the viewpoint of its most memorable peripheral character, the mad, insect-eating Renfield…imaginative.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  FURTHER PRAISE FOR

  BARBARA HAMBLY’S NOVELS

  “Masterly…haunting.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “Rich and poignant.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  “Brilliantly crafted…riveting.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “[A] menace-filled narrative…lots of atmosphere.”

  —Booklist

  “Fascinating.”

  —The Denver Post

  “[A] sure touch…marvelous description, historical details, memorable characters, priceless dialogue, and intricate plotting.”

  —Library Journal

  “Hambly is a born storyteller, a smoothly natural spinner of tales.”

  —Realms of Fantasy

  “Superb.”

  —King Features Syndicate

  RENFIELD

  Slave of Dracula

  BARBARA HAMBLY

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  RENFIELD

  A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with Moon Horse, Inc.

  Copyright © 2006 by Moon Horse, Inc.

  Cover photo by axb group.

  Cover design by Rita Frangie.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York, 10014.

  ISBN: 978-1-1012-0630-0

  BERKLEY®

  Berkley Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York, 10014.

  BERKLEY® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  The “B” design is a trademark belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  For George

  With special thanks to Neil Gaiman

  All passages indicated with an asterisk are taken verbatim from Bram Stoker’s Dracula

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER ONE

  R. M. R.’s notes

  20 May

  7 flies, 3 spiders

  I’ve filled many notebook pages and scraps of paper with these daily reckonings. Sometimes I look at them and they make no sense to me, nothing at all but scratch-marks. In more sensible moments, I think the counting is just a sad form of mental mischief. It’s a way to avoid thinking about the truly essential question, which is, of course, what does a single housefly mean?

  Letter, Miss Mina Murray to Miss Lucy Westenra

  20 May

  My dearest Lucy,

  I am writing this to you in the happiest of moods. Can you guess why? Yes, I’ve heard from Jonathan today! He writes from Bistritz, the post-town nearest Castle Dracula—to receive a letter a mere two weeks after it was posted is a miracle, for Transylvania. What a great thing it is, to be living so close to the threshold of the twentieth century! He still has heard little concerning his client the Count, save that he is rumored to keep not one but three beautiful wives. This may be proper form beyond the woods and east of the Danube, but I know you will agree that it is two wives too many. I’ve always felt that I am too trusting or too unimaginative to know the pangs of envy. Still, I must admit to a moment of jealousy, and in my idle dreams these women cannot help but notice how fine a man my Jonathan is.

  I know that it would be unreasonable of me to expect Jonathan’s business with the Count—the purchase of property here in England somewhere—to be finished in more than a few days, yet already I begin to fret that he has not outdistanced his own letter and arrived on my doorstep before it. I will write Mr. Hawkins, Jonathan’s employer, that after Jonathan and I are married, when my husband must travel so on company business, I must go with him. Naturally I will tell Mr. Hawkins that I can be of great benefit to his firm with my record-keeping and skill at the typewriter, and further, that the company need not pay me a shilling. I don’t know if I could bear another such separation, and I know that Jonathan surely feels the same—when he can turn his thoughts fr
om the Count’s captivating wives.

  Well, dear Lucy, you mentioned that you will be having dinner soon at Rushbrook House. I have not met your Dr. John Seward, but you have written that he is handsome and quite out of the ordinary. I should suppose so. No ordinary man would invite a young lady to dine at a madhouse.

  Your loving,

  Mina

  “Cook says, must she obey every order from that Mr. Blaine? Because if she does, she says she won’t be able to get the chicken on the table in time.”

  Dr. John Seward briefly closed his eyes and didn’t even try to imagine what contradictory order given by the elegant butler Blaine—borrowed for the occasion from the local baronet, Sir Ambrose Poole—would preclude Mrs. Davies having the chicken ready for dinner with Mrs. Westenra and her daughter. Ordinarily the maid’s question would have intrigued him. (Did he command her to polish the borrowed silver tureen that Sir Ambrose sent along with him? To fetch newer and fresher lettuce-leaves wherewith to line the platter?) Now it represented yet one more minor monster tussling with his trouser-leg as he prepared for the major encounter of the evening.

  In the quiet, steady voice he’d perfected in a decade of dealings with the insane, he replied, “Please tell Mrs. Davies to use her best judgement, and to refer Mr. Blaine to me if there seems to be a conflict. Tell them both that getting the food on the table for dinner is my first priority.”

  The housemaid Mary nodded, the expression in her eyes clearly proclaiming that there was some major portion of Seward’s instructions which she hadn’t understood, and she darted back through the door of the little pantry and clattered down the corridor to the kitchen. Seward wondered if he should go after her and ascertain what part of his instructions were going to be garbled in transmission this time, but the chiming of the pantry clock claimed his attention like the salvo of a battle’s opening guns.

  Eight.

  Dear God, they would be here any minute.

  You’ve confronted cannibal savages in the South Seas on that round-the-world voyage with Lord Godalming’s daffy brother, Seward reminded himself. You’ve faced off against Comancheros in Texas out to murder you and your friends for your boots. Can one respectable English matron out to secure A Good Match for her daughter be worse?

  Of course she can.

  As he passed through the dining-room—its faded silk wall-papers and graceful proportions a reminder of the house’s patrician origins—he encountered Dr. Hennessey, his night surgeon, pouring himself what was clearly his third or fourth cognac of the evening.

  “Cheer up, Johnny,” encouraged the older man with a rather hazy grin. “This girl—she has money, eh? And she’s pretty? How about this mother of hers, then…She has money, too?”

  Seward blenched at the thought of the fat-bellied and sweaty Irishman—the best that Rushbrook Asylum could get for its rather limited funds—sidling up to Mrs. Westenra with propositions of a double wedding, and said, “I believe the money is all secured in an unbreakable trust,” a patent fabrication that he hoped would hold for the evening. “As for Miss Westenra…”

  The bell pealed and the attendant Langmore, bedight in livery borrowed like everything else for the evening from Sir Ambrose, strode through from pantry to hall, shouting, “I’m comin’, then, keep your…”

  Seward strode ahead of him, cutting him off at the hall door and preceding him into the small and rather gloomy entryway that had been carved out of what had once been the house’s library. All the grand rooms in the main block of Rushbrook House had years ago been converted for the use of the doctors and the patients: the original dining-room into a clinic with a dispensary in the pantry, the drawing-room into a day-room for the quieter patients, the morning-room for hydrotherapy, and the billiard-room—rather grimly—equipped with several patent “tranquilizing chairs” and a Swing. Many of the rooms of the wing alotted to the Staff had a tinkered-with look, where a side door had been given the trappings of a main entrance and rooms originally spacious had been divided to approximate a normal household.

  Mrs. Westenra was taking in all these alterations with a cold blue eye that missed not a halved window nor a single square inch where brick had been substituted for marble. “How very cozy,” she said as Seward escorted her and her daughter across the threshold, and through the hall into the rest of the original library, now doing duty as drawing-room for the Superintendent, i.e., himself. “What a very clever use of space.”

  “I think it’s charming.” Lucy shrugged her wrap into Langmore’s waiting hands, giving the attendant-cum-footman one of those sweetly dazzling smiles that, even glancing, had won Seward’s heart the night he’d first encountered her at a party at Lord Godalming’s. Then she turned the full brightness of her eyes on him. “Are those hyacinths from the garden here at Rushbrook, Dr. Seward? I thought we saw a garden, didn’t we, Mama, as we drove up?”

  “You did indeed, Miss Westenra. Several of our patients enjoy working with plants and flowers. Not only enjoy it, but seem to find it calming to their minds and nerves.” He took her gloved hand, and guided her to a chair: a delicate girl, too thin for her medium height, her flaxen hair dressed in a feathery chignon that further emphasized this ethereal quality.

  Mrs. Westenra gave an exaggerated shudder. “I hope you don’t have them coming into this part of the house and arranging the flowers, too, Dr. Seward.” Like her daughter, she was a thin woman, her pallor an exaggeration of Lucy’s alabaster delicacy, her eyes the chill antithesis of her daughter’s hopeful trust.

  She glanced pointedly at Langmore. “Or do you use them in your household? I daresay it would take more courage than I possess, to live never knowing when I’d come through the door and find myself face-to-face with a lunatic.” She turned as she said it, and drew back a little as Dr. Hennessey entered, red-faced and swaying slightly, a now-full-again glass of cognac in his hand.

  “Dr. Hennessey,” Seward introduced through slightly clenched teeth, “who is in charge here at night.” And sleeps it off during the day. Hennessey was a relative of Lady Poole—upon whose husband’s patronage Rushbrook House depended—and his employment here owed as much to this fact as to his willingness to work for what Seward was able to pay. Seward was familiar with such links. His own stint of shepherding Lord Godalming’s brother, the erratic Harry Holmwood, through South America, Russia, and the South Seas had resulted in his acquaintance and friendship with his patient’s nephew, the Honorable Arthur Holmwood: the true prize, Seward knew, in the widowed Mrs. Westenra’s matrimonial quest.

  And why not? he reflected, as Blaine entered to announce dinner. The Honorable Arthur was as handsome as a Burne-Jones engraving of Sir Galahad, curly-haired, square-chinned, unfailingly polite (even to the pavement-nymphs they’d patronized in Tampico, San Antonio, Vladivostok, and Singapore), and stood to inherit a very large fortune and the title of Viscount Godalming. Seward had watched his young friend’s eyes at that party at the Godalming town-house and knew he adored Miss Westenra.

  The only problem was that Seward adored her, too. Even at nineteen, she had the tact, taste, and vivacity to make a perfect London hostess. But she also, Seward guessed, watching her as he seated her at his left at the cramped dining-room table, had the instinctive empathy to be a doctor’s wife.

  Even a mad-doctor’s.

  As Blaine brought forth the fish course—a sorry turbot adorned with a half-lemon carved into a crown—and Hennessey launched into a rambling Nietzschean toast, Seward reflected that it was going to be a long evening.

  “Sor?”

  It was Langmore, tiptoeing out of the pantry to whisper in his ear. The attendant’s livery was mussed, his old-fashioned stock pulled askew.

  “It’s the big new ’un, sor. He’s scarpered.”

  Mrs. Westenra was questioning Hennessey—since Seward’s answers had proven unsatisfactory—about the number and variation of patients represented at Rushbrook, turning every now and then to Lucy with little cries of, “How horrible!” whe
n the Dubliner doctor obliged her with a particularly bizarre example of behavior. Unlike many private asylums, Seward had insisted, when he’d been hired, on treating all prospective patients, not merely those who were easiest or least troublesome. Hennessey was regaling the ladies with accounts of Mrs. Strathmore’s assault on Mrs. Jaimeson with the scissors, and Seward only hoped he wouldn’t go on to detail the more revolting aspects of the notorious “Lord Spotty,” as the attendants called him.

  “Please excuse me,” said Seward, rising. “There’s a small matter that needs my attention. I’ll be back in a moment.”

  Dr. Hennessey, refilling his glass, didn’t even think to ask if help was needed. Probably, reflected Seward, just as well.

  As he was leaving, Mrs. Westenra said, “Those cries! Do the poor souls always howl so?”

  Seward paused in his tracks, and reflected that he must be well-fitted to his business. It had been some time since he’d even been aware of the howling.

  Letter, R. M. Renfield to his wife

  (Undated)

  My beloved Catherine,

  I hope this letter finds you in excellent health and the most congenial of spirits. I’m aware that it’s been some time since I’ve written to you, and I beg both your understanding and your forgiveness. It’s been a busy time for me, as I slowly grasp the changed nature of my life. I must accept new ways, puzzling ways, sometimes inhuman ways—but toward what final design? I do not know.

  I have barely a moment to myself each morning and again each night. That’s certainly not enough quiet time for me to order my thoughts and compose such letters as deserve your attention. In fact, I was hoping against reason that you would visit me this last week-end. We might have enjoyed some tranquil time together, you and I, to speak or share the silent moments as we always did.