The House of the Vampire Read online

  THE HOUSE OF THE VAMPIRE

  by

  GEORGE SYLVESTER VIERECK

  Author ofNineveh and Other Poems

  New YorkMoffat, Yard & Company1912Copyright, 1907, byMoffat, Yard & CompanyNew YorkPublished September, 1907Reprinted October, 1907The Premier PressNew York

  _To My Mother_

  THE HOUSE

  OF THE

  VAMPIRE

  I

  The freakish little leader of the orchestra, newly imported from Sicilyto New York, tossed his conductor's wand excitedly through the air,drowning with musical thunders the hum of conversation and the clatterof plates.

  Yet neither his apish demeanour nor the deafening noises that respondedto every movement of his agile body detracted attention from the figureof Reginald Clarke and the young man at his side as they smilingly woundtheir way to the exit.

  The boy's expression was pleasant, with an inkling of wistfulness, whilethe soft glimmer of his lucid eyes betrayed the poet and the dreamer.The smile of Reginald Clarke was the smile of a conqueror. A suspicionof silver in his crown of dark hair only added dignity to his bearing,while the infinitely ramified lines above the heavy-set mouth spoke atonce of subtlety and of strength. Without stretch of the imagination onemight have likened him to a Roman cardinal of the days of the Borgias,who had miraculously stepped forth from the time-stained canvas andslipped into twentieth century evening-clothes.

  With the affability of complete self-possession he nodded in response togreetings from all sides, inclining his head with special politeness toa young woman whose sea-blue eyes were riveted upon his features with alook of mingled hate and admiration.

  The woman, disregarding his silent salutation, continued to stare at himwild-eyed, as a damned soul in purgatory might look at Satan passing inregal splendour through the seventy times sevenfold circles of hell.

  Reginald Clarke walked on unconcernedly through the rows of gay diners,still smiling, affable, calm. But his companion bethought himself ofcertain rumours he had heard concerning Ethel Brandenbourg's mad lovefor the man from whose features she could not even now turn her eyes.Evidently her passion was unreciprocated. It had not always been so.There was a time in her career, some years ago in Paris, when it waswhispered that she had secretly married him and, not much later,obtained a divorce. The matter was never cleared up, as both preservedan uncompromising silence upon the subject of their matrimonialexperience. Certain it was that, for a space, the genius of ReginaldClarke had completely dominated her brush, and that, ever since he hadthrown her aside, her pictures were but plagiarisms of her formerartistic self.

  The cause of the rupture between them was a matter only of surmise; butthe effect it had on the woman testified clearly to the remarkable powerof Reginald Clarke. He had entered her life and, behold! the world wastransfixed on her canvases in myriad hues of transcending radiance; hehad passed from it, and with him vanished the brilliancy of hercolouring, as at sunset the borrowed amber and gold fade from the faceof the clouds.

  The glamour of Clarke's name may have partly explained the secret of hischarm, but, even in circles where literary fame is no passport, hecould, if he chose, exercise an almost terrible fascination. Subtle andprofound, he had ransacked the coffers of mediaeval dialecticians andplundered the arsenals of the Sophists. Many years later, when thevultures of misfortune had swooped down upon him, and his name was nolonger mentioned without a sneer, he was still remembered in New Yorkdrawing-rooms as the man who had brought to perfection the art oftalking. Even to dine with him was a liberal education.

  Clarke's marvellous conversational power was equalled only by hismarvellous style. Ernest Fielding's heart leaped in him at the thoughtthat henceforth he would be privileged to live under one roof with theonly writer of his generation who could lend to the English language therich strength and rugged music of the Elizabethans.

  Reginald Clarke was a master of many instruments. Milton's mighty organwas no less obedient to his touch than the little lute of thetroubadour. He was never the same; that was his strength. Clarke'sstyle possessed at once the chiselled chasteness of a Greek marblecolumn and the elaborate deviltry of the late Renaissance. At times hiswinged words seemed to flutter down the page frantically like Baroqueangels; at other times nothing could have more adequately described hismanner than the timeless calm of the gaunt pyramids.

  The two men had reached the street. Reginald wrapped his long springcoat round him.

  "I shall expect you to-morrow at four," he said.

  The tone of his voice was deep and melodious, suggesting hidden depthsand cadences.

  "I shall be punctual."

  The younger man's voice trembled as he spoke.

  "I look forward to your coming with much pleasure. I am interested inyou."

  The glad blood mounted to Ernest's cheeks at praise from the austerelips of this arbiter of literary elegance.

  An almost imperceptible smile crept over the other man's features.

  "I am proud that my work interests you," was all the boy could say.

  "I think it is quite amazing, but at present," here Clarke drew out awatch set with jewels, "I am afraid I must bid you good-bye."

  He held Ernest's hand for a moment in a firm genial grasp, then turnedaway briskly, while the boy remained standing open-mouthed. The crowdjostling against him carried him almost off his feet, but his eyesfollowed far into the night the masterful figure of Reginald Clarke,toward whom he felt himself drawn with every fiber of his body and thewarm enthusiasm of his generous youth.

  II

  With elastic step, inhaling the night-air with voluptuous delight,Reginald Clarke made his way down Broadway, lying stretched out beforehim, bathed in light and pulsating with life.

  His world-embracing intellect was powerfully attracted by the GiantCity's motley activities. On the street, as in the salon, his magneticpower compelled recognition, and he stepped through the midst of thecrowd as a Circassian blade cleaves water.

  After walking a block or two, he suddenly halted before a jeweller'sshop. Arrayed in the window were priceless gems that shone in the glareof electricity, like mystical serpent-eyes--green, pomegranate andwater-blue. And as he stood there the dazzling radiance before him wastransformed in the prism of his mind into something great and verywonderful that might, some day, be a poem.

  Then his attention was diverted by a small group of tiny girls dancingon the sidewalk to the husky strains of an old hurdy-gurdy. He joinedthe circle of amused spectators, to watch those pink-ribboned bits offemininity swaying airily to and fro in unison with the tune. Oneespecially attracted his notice--a slim olive-coloured girl from a landwhere it is always spring. Her whole being translated into music, withhair dishevelled and feet hardly touching the ground, the girl suggestedan orange-leaf dancing on a sunbeam. The rasping street-organ,perchance, brought to her melodious reminiscences of some flute-playingSavoyard boy, brown-limbed and dark of hair.

  For several minutes Reginald Clarke followed with keen delight eachdelicate curve her graceful limbs described. Then--was it that she grewtired, or that the stranger's persistent scrutiny embarrassed her?--themusic oozed out of her movements. They grew slower, angular, almostclumsy. The look of interest in Clarke's eyes died, but his whole formquivered, as if the rhythm of the music and the dance had mysteriouslyentered into his blood.

  He continued his stroll, seemingly without aim; in reality he followed,with nervous intensity, the multiform undulations of the populace,swarming through Broadway in either direction. Like the giant whosestrength was rekindled every time he touched his mother, the earth,Reginald Clarke seemed to draw fresh vitality from every contact withlife.

  He turned east along Fourteenth street, wher
e cheap vaudevilles arestrung together as glass-pearls on the throat of a wanton. Gaudybill-boards, drenched in clamorous red, proclaimed the tawdryattractions within. Much to the surprise of the doorkeeper at aparticularly evil-looking music hall, Reginald Clarke lingered in thelobby, and finally even bought a ticket that entitled him to enter thissordid wilderness of decollete art. Street-snipes, a few workingmen,dilapidated sportsmen, and women whose ruined youth thick layers ofpowder and paint, even in this artificial light, could not restore,constituted the bulk of the audience. Reginald Clarke, apparentlyunconscious of the curiosity, surprise and envy that his appearanceexcited, seated himself at a table near the stage, ordering from thesolicitous waiter only a cocktail and a programme. The drink he leftuntouched, while his eyes greedily ran down the lines of theannouncement. When he had found what he sought, he lit a cigar, payingno attention to the boards, but studying the audience with cursoryinterest until the appearance of Betsy, the Hyacinth Girl.

  When she began to sing, his mind still wandered. The words of her songwere crude, but not without a certain lilt that delighted the unculturedear, while the girl's voice was thin to the point of being unpleasant.When, however, she came to the burden of the song, Clarke's mannerchanged suddenly. Laying down his cigar, he listened with raptattention, eagerly gazing at her. For, as she sang the last line andtore the hyacinth-blossoms from her hair, there crept into her voice astrangely poignant, pathetic little thrill, that redeemed the execrablefaultiness of her singing, and brought the rude audience under herspell.

  Clarke, too, was captivated by that tremour, the infinite sadness ofwhich suggested the plaint of souls moaning low at night, when lustpreys on creatures marked for its spoil.

  The singer paused. Still those luminous eyes were upon her. She grewnervous. It was only with tremendous difficulty that she reached therefrain. As she sang the opening lines of the last stanza, aninscrutable smile curled on Clarke's lips. She noticed the man'srelentless gaze and faltered. When the burden came, her singing was hardand cracked: the tremour had gone from her voice.

  III

  Long before the appointed time Ernest walked up and down in front of theabode of Reginald Clarke, a stately apartment-house overlookingRiverside Drive.

  Misshapen automobiles were chasing by, carrying to the cool river'smarge the restlessness and the fever of American life. But the bustleand the noise seemed to the boy only auspicious omens of the future.

  Jack, his room-mate and dearest friend, had left him a month ago, and,for a space, he had felt very lonely. His young and delicate soul foundit difficult to grapple with the vague fears that his nervous brainengendered, when whispered sounds seemed to float from hidden corners,and the stairs creaked under mysterious feet.

  He needed the voice of loving kindness to call him back from the valleyof haunting shadows, where his poet's soul was wont to linger overlong;in his hours of weakness the light caress of a comrade renewed hisstrength and rekindled in his hand the flaming sword of song.

  And at nightfall he would bring the day's harvest to Clarke, as aworshipper scattering precious stones, incense and tapestries at thefeet of a god.

  Surely he would be very happy. And as the heart, at times, leads thefeet to the goal of its desire, while multicoloured dreams, likedancing-girls, lull the will to sleep, he suddenly found himselfstepping from the elevator-car to Reginald Clarke's apartment.

  Already was he raising his hand to strike the electric bell when a soundfrom within made him pause half-way.

  "No, there's no help!" he heard Clarke say. His voice had a hard,metallic clangour.

  A boyish voice answered plaintively. What the words were Ernest couldnot distinctly hear, but the suppressed sob in them almost brought thetears to his eyes. He instinctively knew that this was the finale ofsome tragedy.

  He withdrew hastily, so as not to be a witness of an interview that wasnot meant for his ears.

  Reginald Clarke probably had good reason for parting with his youngfriend, whom Ernest surmised to be Abel Felton, a talented boy, whom themaster had taken under his wings.

  In the apartment a momentary silence had ensued.

  This was interrupted by Clarke: "It will come again, in a month, in ayear, in two years."

  "No, no! It is all gone!" sobbed the boy.

  "Nonsense. You are merely nervous. But that is just why we must part.There is no room in one house for two nervous people."

  "I was not such a nervous wreck before I met you."

  "Am I to blame for it--for your morbid fancies, your extravagance, theslow tread of a nervous disease, perhaps?"

  "Who can tell? But I am all confused. I don't know what I am saying.Everything is so puzzling--life, friendship, you. I fancied you caredfor my career, and now you end our friendship without a thought!"

  "We must all follow the law of our being."

  "The laws are within us and in our control."

  "They are within us and beyond us. It is the physiological structure ofour brains, our nerve-cells, that makes and mars our lives.

  "Our mental companionship was so beautiful. It was meant to last."

  "That is the dream of youth. Nothing lasts. Everything flows--panta rei.We are all but sojourners in an inn. Friendship, as love, is anillusion. Life has nothing to take from a man who has no illusions."

  "It has nothing to give him."

  They said good-bye.

  At the door Ernest met Abel.

  "Where are you going?" he asked.

  "For a little pleasure trip."

  Ernest knew that the boy lied.

  He remembered that Abel Felton was at work upon some book, a play or anovel. It occurred to him to inquire how far he had progressed with it.

  Abel smiled sadly. "I am not writing it."

  "Not writing it?"

  "Reginald is."

  "I am afraid I don't understand."

  "Never mind. Some day you will."

  IV

  "I am so happy you came," Reginald Clarke said, as he conducted Ernestinto his studio. It was a large, luxuriously furnished room overlookingthe Hudson and Riverside Drive.

  Dazzled and bewildered, the boy's eyes wandered from object to object,from picture to statue. Despite seemingly incongruous details, the wholearrangement possessed style and distinction.

  A satyr on the mantelpiece whispered obscene secrets into the ears ofSaint Cecilia. The argent limbs of Antinous brushed against the garmentsof Mona Lisa. And from a corner a little rococo lady peered coquettishlyat the gray image of an Egyptian sphinx. There was a picture of Napoleonfacing the image of the Crucified. Above all, in the semi-darkness,artificially produced by heavy draperies, towered two busts.

  "Shakespeare and Balzac!" Ernest exclaimed with some surprise.

  "Yes," explained Reginald, "they are my gods."

  His gods! Surely there was a key to Clarke's character. Our gods areourselves raised to the highest power.

  Clarke and Shakespeare!

  Even to Ernest's admiring mind it seemed almost blasphemous to name acontemporary, however esteemed, in one breath with the mighty master ofsong, whose great gaunt shadow, thrown against the background of theyears has assumed immense, unproportionate, monstrous dimensions.

  Yet something might be said for the comparison. Clarke undoubtedly wasuniversally broad, and undoubtedly concealed, with no less exquisitetaste than the Elizabethan, his own personality under the splendidraiment of his art. They certainly were affinities. It would not havebeen surprising to him to see the clear calm head of Shakespeare risefrom behind his host.

  Perhaps--who knows?--the very presence of the bust in his room had, tosome extent, subtly and secretly moulded Reginald Clarke's life. A man'ssoul, like the chameleon, takes colour from its environment. Evencomparative trifles, the number of the house in which we live, or thecolour of the wallpaper of a room, may determine a destiny.

  The boy's eyes were again surveying the fantastic surroundings in whichhe found himself; while, from a corner, Clarke's
eyes were watching hisevery movement, as if to follow his thoughts into the innermostlabyrinth of the mind. It seemed to Ernest, under the spell of thispassing fancy, as though each vase, each picture, each curio in theroom, was reflected in Clarke's work. In a long-queued, porcelainChinese mandarin he distinctly recognised a quaint quatrain in one ofClarke's most marvellous poems. And he could have sworn that the grin ofthe Hindu monkey-god on the writing-table reappeared in the weird rhythmof two stanzas whose grotesque cadence had haunted him for years.

  At last Clarke broke the silence. "You like my studio?" he asked.

  The simple question brought Ernest back to reality.

  "Like it? Why, it's stunning. It set up in me the queerest train ofthought."

  "I, too, have been in a whimsical mood to-night. Fancy, unlike genius,is an infectious disease."

  "What is the peculiar form it assumed in your case?"

  "I have been wondering whether all the things that environ us day by dayare, in a measure, fashioning our thought-life. I sometimes think thateven my little mandarin and this monkey-idol which, by the way, Ibrought from India, are exerting a mysterious but none the less realinfluence upon my work."

  "Great God!" Ernest replied, "I have had the identical thought!"

  "How very strange!" Clarke exclaimed, with seeming surprise.

  "It is said tritely but truly, that great minds travel the same roads,"Ernest observed, inwardly pleased.

  "No," the older man subtly remarked, "but they reach the sameconclusion by a different route."

  "And you attach serious importance to our fancy?"