On the Transcendent Nature of Interpretive Dance
“Oh, Lord Finbar? Lord Finbar? Oh, there you are!”
The vampire was in the library putting the finishing touches to his arrangements.
The library was near twice the size as previous. As its collection was not yet sufficient to fill all the shelves, it was currently characterized by a certain sparseness, but it would be marvelous, Dimity knew, in only a few years.
It was a true library, however, for only in this one room had Dimity permitted the Gothic aesthetic to survive. All the furniture was dark and heavy, but also plush and welcoming. She’d chosen gold brocades and brown leather, not black. It had the general feel of a gentleman’s club or a very nice cigar box, and it was easy to see why Lord Finbar loved it so very much. Dimity had replaced the old worn carpet with a subdued affair of maple-leaf paisley, and added a large bay window seat to the back – with thick, heavy wine-red curtains to keep the sun out, seeing as both vampires and books need protection.
In front of those curtains, Lord Finbar had arranged a little stage upon which rested one ornately fabulous gilt chair – for the featured orators. Facing this stage, he’d brought in and set up the dining chairs, with all the other settees and wing-back chairs of the library turned about to face the stage from their various nooks.
“My, but it looks very fine, Lord Finbar. Perfectly melancholy, yet attentive.”
“You’re too kind, Mrs Carefull. Ah, are these the first of our guests?”
“No indeed, Lord Finbar, these are two of our presenters. Please allow me to introduce my dearest brother to you. You have read his excellent translation of Catullus, I believe.”
“Your brother? The noted Latin translator? Here? In my hive! What an honor. Welcome, sir, welcome indeed.” If it were possible for Lord Finbar to look pleased, then he no doubt would.
Dimity’s brother, Pillover, was an Oxford don who did very little in life but mutter about things in Latin and overindulge in the pudding course. Dimity considered him, of course, an utterly useless codswallop, always had, but for some reason the intellectual set absolutely adored him. He was also, she hated to admit, the better looking of the two of them. Dimity knew herself to be passing pretty, and she’d been trained to make the most of her assets, but Pillover was a sulky, pouty slob who looked like some dark fallen angel with transcendent thoughts and secret passions.
He was no such thing, of course, but tell that to the young ladies always setting their caps at him.
“Oh, please do calm yourself, Lord Finbar. He’s not a drone candidate, you understand? Yes, I told him what you are and that this is a hive house. You may depend upon his discretion – he doesn’t gossip. In fact, he has very little to do with the modern world.”
“I prefer the past,” intoned Pillover, “and the supernatural set is of little consequence to me.” He nodded at the vampire and looked around the library with interest.
Dimity continued her explanation-meets-character-assassination-of-her-brother with glee. “As you can see, he is impossibly glum and dour, so I believe you two will get along famously. And this is his friend and colleague, Professor Fausse-Maigre. And now, I really must leave you. I have to make certain Cook is ready in the kitchen. She should open the port now, I think, to let it breathe. And I was thinking perhaps whiskey as well? Isn’t whiskey a terribly important thing for authors?”
“It is in my circles,” said Pillover with a grunt of approval.
Dimity rolled her eyes at him and dashed off.
“Your sister is—” She heard Professor Fausse-Maigre start to say.
Pillover interrupted before his friend could finish the thought. “Yes, I know.”
Cris drifted through the house and the party preparations and tried to be of use wherever he might. He ran into Dimity only once, as she bustled enthusiastically about. Her hazel eyes were practically incandescent with delight. She was clearly having a fantastic time of it – ordering everyone around.
She asked if he might consider an interpretive dance as part of the evening’s entertainment. In the background? During Professor Fausse-Maigre’s presentation on higher common sense?
Cris said he wasn’t sure they had the space, and really, how did one balletically represent higher common sense?
Dimity merely hustled him into the library to talk to said professor on the matter and then trotted off again, leaving him surrounded by lilting academics who’d apparently started in on the whiskey early. Cris was reminded of one of Bertie’s sayings: Never leave an open bottle near a clergyman, a writer, or an academic. Not if you want it back again.
Professor Fausse-Maigre explained he usually had a slate board and chalk for this speech, but lacking a visual assist, a man in a bathing costume cavorting on a small stage behind him could only add to the greater intellectual acumen of the assembly.
This sounded nonsensical to Cris, but since he wished to make the evening as much a success as possible, he allowed himself to be convinced to change into his dancing attire. He put on the gray costume, not the striped one, because he remembered what Dimity had said about half the stripes being see-through. And really, no one needed that much common sense thrust upon them.
Lord Finbar was puttering about, morose yet happy, Rosie at his elbow, helping to fetch and carry and generally making herself useful. Dimity’s brother appeared from some corner of the library where he’d been distracted by obscure Latin of interest. He didn’t introduce himself, simply gave Cris the raised eyebrow. Still, Dimity had said he was coming and despite differences in coloration, he resembled his sister enough for recognition and was almost as pretty. He was something important down at Oxford and had been responsible for bringing along the professor and his common sense. Cris understood that Pillover himself was also going to perform a reading of Catullus. Cris hoped it was one of the less scandalous poems. But since Pillover looked to be a dour, retiring fellow, Cris figured it would be something banal.
He decided he would leave the matter of his own interest in Dimity and any formal introduction as a prospective husband for another time.
However, Professor Pillover Plumleigh-Teignmott had more mettle than expected. For Dimity’s brother tracked Cris down, a little later, when Cris was stretching alone in the drawing room before the ravenous brain-hordes arrived.
“See here, you’re actually Sir Crispin, are you not?”
“Hush up. I’m Mr Carefull at the moment. We’re still keeping up appearances. Otherwise, why would I be practicing for a bloody ballet?”
“Fair jigs. It’s only that my sister talks about you all the time. I mean to say, all the time.” The young man slouched into a small chair as if exhausted by Dimity’s enthusiasm.
“That’s nice to know.”
“Is it? Nice for you, maybe. Put yourself in my position. All the time, sir, all the time!”
“Yes, it must be very trying. Now, may I help you with something, or will you leave me to do my développés in peace?”
Pillover stood and mooched about for a bit, picking up knick-knacks and putting them down again. Cris resumed warming up.
“You’re very muscled, aren’t you?” the professor said eventually.
“I try.” Cris did not stop what he was doing.
“You’re successful, no trying needed. She’s very fond of your muscles, my sister is. As I have learned, at length.” He mooched some more.
Cris kept up his steps, shifting from slower, measured movements to something a little faster, getting the blood pulsing.
“I say, would you pause for just a moment? That’s awfully distracting.”
Cris stopped and stood, staring down at the man, hands on hips. “So you’ve figured it out, have you?”
“What?” Pillover looked genuinely confused.
“Whatever it is you need to say to me?” Cris rose on the balls of his feet, then down again.
“Would you please be still?”
Cris sighed and relaxed, forcing himself into perfect posture and activated stillness, as if he were holding a pose.
“It’s only...” Pillover got a particular glint in his eye. It was disconcertingly similar to his sister’s take-no-prisoners glint. “Look here, don’t break her heart, all right? I know your kind from school – nothing but cricket and hunting and such. No finer feelings at all.”
“I was rather afraid she might break mine.”
“Good. Much better that way.”
Cris laughed. “She wants to marry me.”
Pillover looked glum. “I know. I heard about it, at length, remember?”
“And I want to marry her.”
“You don’t say? Bally odd, that. Still, I suppose that’s all right then. Peculiar of you, of course. I mean to say, she’s my sister and she’s absolutely ghastly. All that chattering, and the fluffy-fluffy hair, and the bright clothing, and that garish jewelry all the time, and then more chatter. And bustling about and always trying to tidy a chap and – oh dear God! – please don’t let me put you off!”
Cris laughed and clapped the young man on one shoulder. He did it a bit too hard, because of the dig about the cricket. Pillover stumbled slightly and then straightened and shoved his spectacles up his nose.
“A large part of the appeal, I assure you. Especially the hair.”
“Oh, go on with you! Really? I suppose it takes all sorts.”
“So I have your permission?” He was Dimity’s brother, after all.
“Oh, is that the sort of thing you need? For goodness sake, what have I got to do with it? My opinion has never mattered to Dimity before. Please don’t let it start now.”
“True, but I should still like it.”
“I don’t know you at all, Sir Crispin, but your physique is nothing to complain about, and you seem a decent enough chap, for an athletic sportsman type. I’m not sure about your choice of attire.”
“Dimity’s choice, I assure you.”
“Oh, well then, that explains that. Got you dancing to her tune already, has she?”
“Literally.” Cris did a small spin for emphasis.
Pillover nodded. “Proceed, then.”
“I shall.”
Dimity could not have been more in her element. All the guests arrived. Better still, all of them were dressed appropriately. The port had been served. Small cut-glass bowls of ice cream were taken around, because Dimity didn’t do anything by halves and a good impression was mandatory.
Lord Maccon was looming in a nook, pretending interest in the history of plumbing as chronicled in six volumes. He sipped a glass of whiskey and spoke to no one. Lord Finbar and Lord Kirby both gave him a wide berth, noses wrinkled in disgust, but otherwise the werewolf was treated with every courtesy. In fact, if anything, he seemed uncomfortable with the banality of it all. Dimity didn’t know what he’d expected, but a pleasant assembly in beautiful accommodations clearly wasn’t it. She saw him interview a few of the staff, and watch all vampire interactions with evident surprise. They seemed to be making a good impression. She made sure to attend to him regularly herself, as well.
Beyond Lord Maccon, the conversation flowed as freely as the port. Gantry and his parents mingled happily. In his evening attire, Gantry gave a remarkably good impression of a stuffed goose. His father looked exactly as Gantry would in a few years’ time, only less outdoorsy. Mrs Ogdon-Loppes seemed recalcitrant at first, but was quickly won over by Budgy Hall, its library, and the comestibles.
Lord Finbar was having a depressingly fantastic time, discussing the various books of poetry on prominent display in the library with an editor from London. Lord Kirby was also doing well, playing the gallant host and ushering the guests to their seats. Trudge was faithfully by his side, greeting all new arrivals with a big, friendly doggie smile. At least someone in the hive knew how to smile.
Eventually, Justice made her grand entrance in a frilly pink gown with maximum ruffles that floated about her as she descended the stairs. Lord Maccon’s expression became one of confused awe.
Gantry went to her and swept her up in his manly arms, but their embrace was blessedly chaste and the purple prose kept to a minimum. He escorted her over to meet his parents, who were wearing expressions of mixed confusion, shock, and delight. Pillover looked relaxed and prepared, Professor Fausse-Maigre equally so. They were both comfortable with the academic lecture circuit or she wouldn’t have invited them, but it no doubt helped that they were also deep into the whiskey. Cris was skulking behind the curtains, inside the bay window, keeping limber for his part of the evening’s entertainment. Occasionally, he would peek out at Dimity, giving her very arch looks.
Then, just as Lord Finbar took the stage to begin introducing the evening’s presenters, Rosie sidled up to Dimity, her face a picture of distress and her cap askew.
Dimity quickly ushered her from the library and away from the guests into the sitting room.
“What is it, my dear?”
“It’s Betsy, Mrs Carefull. She was meant to be down feeding the baroness over an hour ago. Mr Theris was going to take her, you being so busy with the event and all.”
“Oh bother, I forgot!” She hadn’t, of course. This was part of the plan.
“Well, they must never have gone, because the baroness is screaming loud enough to wake the dead and I can’t find either of them anywhere. It’s all coming up from the scullery and into the kitchen. It’s scaring the staff, it is.”
Dimity hid a smile – excellent. The baroness was likely annoyed that her routine had been disrupted, but also, hopefully, curious as to why. And if Dimity went in, all full of excitement for the party, what woman could resist the temptation to see what she was on about? Especially since it was, technically, the baroness’s own party.
Lord Finbar would be starting his oration soon. Dimity had no intention of stopping him now – he’d lose faith in everything, and all her efforts would crumble into ruin. Which sounded like a line from one of his poems, but was perfectly true.
“I shall have to do it myself,” she said for Rosie’s benefit. “Good thing I’m wearing this particular dress.” Dimity was in one of her more mature evening gowns. It was a lovely ruby red, with a low square neckline, and she’d paired it with one of her more powerful ruby necklaces. The really big one, with the washed gold plating. A kind of battle armor.
“Rosie, go up to my room, please, and fetch the teal brocade that’s hanging at the back of my wardrobe. It has all the foundation garments with it, including a funny cage thing that looks like it’s meant for birds. Bring it all.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Rosie scuttled off.
Dimity peeked into the library.
“I stand alone at the edge of the abyss,” intoned Lord Finbar. Good, he’d started.
She caught Crispin’s eye. She nodded at him to let him know she had everything under control. Then, because she’d promised to trust him and was trying to be more honest about life, she pointed at her neck.
He looked confused.
She made two fingers curl at it with one hand and made a stabby-stabby motion with them.
Cris blanched.
“All is winter in my heart.” Lord Finbar clasped a fist to the breast of his emerald satin smoking jacket and cast his eyes to the heavens.
Dimity put a quick finger to her lips and shook her head at Crispin.
Then she mouthed, The show must go on!
Cris shook his head at her violently. This momentarily distracted from Lord Finbar’s performance in front of the curtains.
“The angels are dead,” cried Lord Finbar, lifting both hands to the ceiling.
Dimity made shooing motions at Cris, urging him back behind the curtain.
She turned away – no more time. Rosie had returned holding the teal gown and its bustle, which Dimity had had shipped all the way from Paris.
“Let’s get to it, shall we?” Dimity led the way to the trap door, where Rosie helped her pile the dress into her own arms and climb down the stairs.
Dimity didn’t let the girl come any further. “You go back, Rosie. Distract Mr Theris if you can find him. I have a feeling he might suddenly show up and try to save the day by coming to the baroness’s rescue and we can’t have that. I’m expecting a claviger from the Sheffield Pack. He’s to be directed to Mr Theris and no other. Also, you need to be there for Lord Finbar, so he can see you clapping as he finishes his poem.”
“Yes, ma’am. Of course, ma’am.” Rosie scampered off.
Dimity trotted as fast as she could (while holding that much dress) down the long limestone tunnel. All the while, she could hear the angry yelling and near hysterically shrill cries of the hive queen echoing against the stone.
“Where is my dear Betsy? After what was done to me! After what I have suffered. Why does she not come to me? Why must they all leave? Why must I always endure such heartache?”
Dimity reached the door and knocked, loudly. She extracted her key, prepared as always for an infiltration.
“Betsy, is that you?”
“No, Baroness, it’s me, Mrs Carefull. I believe we ought to introduce ourselves now, don’t you?”
Silence.
She fit the key into the lock and turned. The tumblers gave with a thump.
The door creaked open.
Dimity held up the teal dress before her as if it were a shield. “Isn’t this absolutely lovely, Baroness Ermondy? All the way from Paris. And look here, a bustle, the very latest thing.”
Baroness Octavine Ermondy was a stunning woman, rail thin and quite tall, with high cheekbones, big blue eyes, a thin-lipped mouth over four prominent fangs, and a mass of gorgeous red hair. She looked profoundly aristocratic and pinched by decades of suspicion.
“Well, yes, that is very nice material. But who are you, child?”
“Oh, you know who I am.” If vampires did nothing else, they gossiped, even the crazy ones. She had no doubt Mr Theris (in his biased way) and then Betsy had been keeping the queen well informed on the doings above ground.
“Where’s Betsy?” There was a slight tremor in the baroness’s voice.
“Unavoidably delayed. Won’t I do?” Dimity didn’t believe any of it. She knew artifice when it was trembling before her. There was absolutely nothing wrong with this woman, reclusive vampire with threatening Gothic overtones or not!
Dimity gestured at her own throat. It was still adorned with the large necklace, but nicely displayed by her low-cut gown.
“You do have a lovely neck.” The queen’s eyes were full of avarice all of a sudden, and her voice lost its hesitancy.
Dimity tilted her head to one side and then the other, pretending to look at the limestone ceiling. “And I come bearing bustle...”
“Yes, I read about those – the new decade brings with it new, ground-breaking fashions for the posterior.”
“Superior and flattering ones, don’t you feel? Especially for one with a willowy, elegant frame, such as yourself.” Dimity moved one step into the room.
“Oh, do you think so? After what was done to me...” The tremble was back. Really, she ought to have gone to Finishing School. There were much better ways to curry sympathy.
“What was done to you, Baroness?” Dimity pushed, just a little.
“Well, I shouldn’t...”
Dimity waved the dress at her seductively. “I’m sure I should love to hear all about it. And this dress won’t fit me, you know?”
“Come in, dear, do, and let me tell you all about it.”
Dimity went in, closing the door firmly behind her.
She missed the fact that Cris was already at the end of the tunnel, trying desperately to chase after her.
Lord Kirby followed Cris when he ran from the library. Cris had managed to evade him all the way down and into the limestone tunnel, not because Cris was faster or more nimble than a vampire, but because until he threw back the cellar door and swung himself to drop down (bypassing the steps), the vampire didn’t understand where he was going.
Lord Kirby swung after him easily. “No one but a drone and a meal are meant to be down here! My queen left strict orders!” At the bottom of the stairs, he grabbed Crispin as if he were a scamp of a schoolboy, and not a man desperate with worry for his beloved. The strength in him was frightening, Crispin was no sapling, but the pudgy vampire handled him as if he were no more than a toasting fork.
Now Lord Kirby held him hard and tight at the mouth of the tunnel beneath the hive house. Lord Kirby, who wanted to be praetoriani, who intended to always protect his queen. Lord Kirby, who might look like pudding shaped into a man in a robe, but who was still a vampire. And any vampire was stronger and faster than any human, even Sir Crispin.
Justice, having followed them as well, climbed down after and pressed her hands firmly over Sir Crispin’s mouth to keep him from calling out. “We aren’t supposed to be down here, Kirby! She banished us from following her here, remember? So we would not see her shame.”
“Oh, I remember, but this one is obviously worried about something going on. Let us wait a minute or two more.” Lord Kirby shook Crispin a little.
“You’re in defiance!” Justice gasped, placing her free hand to her lips in shock.
The two vampires continued to bicker softly.
Cris had never been so frightened in his life. He’d caught Sparkles shutting the door behind her, locking herself in a cave with a crazed vampire queen. Dimity had carried some fluffy garment in with her but no apparent weapons, and she was wearing a red gown with a very low neckline. Anyone who knew her as Crispin did could only surmise that she had intended this all along. Red to hide the blood.
But how would she do it without fainting?
And how could he trust that this lovely young woman who had made beauty out of darkness, who had transformed a whole hive with her artistic skill, would not be too tempting a prospect for a vampire queen? What if the baroness decided to keep her? What if the baroness wanted to drain her? Horrific visions danced through his head.
Cris struggled in vain against the iron hold of Lord Kirby. He bit hard at the hand of Justice. But the two vampires were like steel around and against him. They had not seen her enter the sanctuary, so they did not know Dimity was in with the queen. And he knew that, though they might like Sparkles, if forced to choose between rescuing his lady and defending theirs, they would always do as ordered by their queen. It was the way of a hive. Neglect notwithstanding, hive-bound vampires never disobeyed their maker.
He had forgotten they were monsters.
How could he have forgotten that?
Above and behind them, having assumed the mad leap of a dancer from behind the curtains merely a mark of a brief intermission between speakers, the guests clapped politely for Lord Finbar and settled back to listen to Pillover recite Catullus. Pillover, who had no idea what his sister was up to.
So the vampires held Cris tight as may be. And tears of frustration leaked down his face while he stared at the locked cave door and, for the first time in his life, was perfectly still.
“So, you see, it’s all Countess Nadasdy’s fault. That fanged viper! She’s so very womanly in shape and form and she guided fashion down in London, and thus everywhere else, further and further into those huge crinolines and hoops and wide sleeves and sloped shoulders and they look awful on me!” The hive queen’s voice was a whine of deeply felt injustice.
Dimity listened, nodding sympathetically, while she helped the baroness out of her dressing robe and into the bustle and underthings. “I can see how they might, but now fashions are shifting at last.”
“Are you certain? I don’t understand how Nadasdy could lose her grip on popular taste so thoroughly.”
“Well,” said Dimity, “let me tell you. London is overrun with werewolves these days. You heard about Lord Maccon? That always affects fashion. And those French hives are not to be discounted, simply because they are in hiding. I mean, not when silhouettes are at stake. Honestly, no one likes a crinoline, not really, not as big as they’ve become. Ridiculous impractical things, they get caught on just about everything, and they take up so much space. A bustle is so much nicer. There, you see?”
She twirled the hive queen about and stood on a step stool to drop the teal skirt over the vampire’s head, fluffing it and fastening it to fall properly over the bustle at the back.
“Only see how this complements your figure? Oh, I should so love to be as tall as you. This sort of dress is beyond flattering when you have the height to carry it off. Shall we try the bodice? Now, please go on, tell me of your troubles... what happened next?”
“Well then, my lovely Lord Rashwallop, my oldest and dearest friend, went all funny. And BUR put him down, like an animal! And he only killed, you know, half a dozen or so people. Really, BUR might have been nicer about it. And after that, well, I had this lovely young drone and she left me. Left me! For a career as an opera singer. Said Nottingham was too provincial. At that juncture I took to my bed, it was all too much.” Her face pinched and her eyes snapped, more in anger than sorrow. As if she were annoyed to have been left.
“Who wouldn’t?” murmured Dimity, sympathetically.
“Then one of my dear drones, he asked if he might try for the bite. Then I would not be so lonely, with my dear Lord Rashwallop gone, if I had another hive member. And so I did bite him, and he died in the attempted metamorphosis. I could withstand no more trials. So I retired here, to my cave and my grief. And the other drones all left me too, and only Mr Theris remained. And he wouldn’t let me bite him.”
Aha, thought Dimity, so that was his ploy. Deny the queen until she was desperate for him and him alone, and thus wholly dependent upon him. It wasn’t a bad plan, actually, if one wanted control of a hive in such a way. And didn’t know the dangers of isolating a queen and driving her to Goth.
Dimity guided the baroness around to stand and admire herself in a mirror. “But the fashion papers I sent you, these gave you hope?”
“Oh yes, and then lovely, lovely Betsy, such a very sweet girl. I’ve always had a terrible weakness for milkmaids.”
“Well upstairs, Betsy has gone missing, dear Baroness, and not willingly. Frankly, you’re desperately needed now. Everyone misses you so very much and we need your help to find her. Besides, you should be seen in a dress as fine as this. You look wonderful!”
The baroness admired herself in the massive gilt mirror against the wall. “I do, don’t I?”
“And, of course, if you require a bit of a nibble before we go up, to restore yourself, I’m willing to provide. Although, I am bound to warn you, I shall probably faint. I’m not very good with blood.”
“Oh, that is a tragedy. You aren’t a new drone candidate, then? Because that would never work. If you were lucky enough to survive the bite, what kind of vampire queen would that make you, who faints at blood?”
The queen flashed her double set of fangs at Dimity, displaying the second, maker set, sharp and wicked large.
Dimity shuddered. “Oh no, you are correct in that assumption. I’m not interested at all in being a vampire. Never was. I’m only here to redecorate. I mean, at first I thought I might, and then I saw your lovely house and I thought what it really needed was some color and then maybe you would love it again. “
“Capital,” said the queen. “It was getting rather run-down. I forgot to care, you see, about appearances. I should like to see what you’ve done with the place. It was awfully shabby. Betsy has reminded me there is more to live for than simply fashion.”
“And your vampires?”
“I have missed them too. My darlings. I’m sure they have been well enough, no?”
“Oh no, Baroness, they could not function at all without your guidance and attention.”
“You didn’t step in to fill the breach? You seem a flashy, capable girl.”
“Only in matters decorative. They pined for you. They never stopped pining.”
“Pined, you say? Isn’t that sweet? They are dears, of course. I should be up there with them. But I was so lost to my melancholy, you understand? I forgot about such things, lost to the depths of despair for a while. Until Betsy. And this dress.”
“Are you feeling better now, Baroness? Shall we go up, then, and find Betsy? Reunite you with your pining vampires?” Dimity thought now might be the perfect time.
“Yes, dear, let’s do that.”
As it turned out, it was.
Crispin’s knees trembled and he nearly collapsed at the remarkable sight of two women emerging from the limestone cave. First came a tall redhead wearing a teal evening gown of extremely flattering and rather modern proportions. Dimity followed directly after her.
Lord Finbar and Justice instantly let go of Cris.
Cris stumbled forwards.
“Bow, you fool!” hissed Lord Kirby.
Cris bowed, eyes still desperately on Dimity, searching for any sign of injury. Sparkles was walking demurely down the tunnel, a little behind and to the side of the other woman, who could only be the hive queen. Dimity’s neck was white and smooth and entirely unblemished.
“Oh, my dearest Lord Kirby, how fine you look tonight. And is that my little Justice? In a pretty pink dress? You look divine, darling, absolutely divine. It’s so nice to see you both again, it’s been too long. Now come into my arms, my hive, my little loves.”
Justice and Lord Kirby rushed to the stately woman and she embraced them, petting them and kissing their cheeks.
“And who is this strapping young specimen of humanity?”
“My husband,” Cris heard Dimity say quickly, “Mr Carefull.”
“Husband, is he?”
“My husband, your ladyship. Mine.” Dimity sounded very firm on the matter.
The baroness laughed. “Understood, little bird. Now let us find Betsy.”
“Betsy is missing?” Cris straightened, weak with relief, almost shaking, he was so happy to see Dimity whole and unsullied.
Dimity paused to stare at him, her face a picture of concern. “I’ve never seen you so white.”
“I thought you were going to feed her. I thought you might die!”
“I was intending the first if necessary, but never the second. And if she took too much, I was prepared to defend myself.” She obviously wasn’t worried about the vampires overhearing her, no doubt assuming they would think her a silly chit to imagine she could defend herself against any vampire, let alone a queen.
The vampires disappeared up the limestone steps, Justice and Lord Kirby solicitous and worshipful of their hive queen’s resurrection.
Dimity shifted aside, using Crispin’s body to shield her from their view. She reached up to the enormous, ornate ruby necklace she wore about her neck. Cris had grown so accustomed to her ostentatious taste, he’d not even really noticed it.
She pressed the largest jewel and with a quiet snap, a sharp wooden spike ejected from behind the necklace, pointing downwards.
“I had it designed specially,” said Dimity, proudly. “When have you ever known me to be unprepared, my dearest tuppenny knight?”
“Are all your sparkles deadly?”
“Every fabulous one of them.”
“I love you.”
“As you very well should, considering I feel the same. I’m delighted my jewelry has forced a confession at last.”
“What else would do it?”
She twinkled at him, hazel eyes squinted in pleasure. “So, husband mine, one last performance before Mr and Mrs Carefull retire for good?”
“And we have to find Betsy,” he reminded her.
Betsy, as it turned out, had been locked in the silver cabinet. A room to which, mind you, since the departure of the butler, only Mr Theris had the key. Given the queen’s caterwauling, no one had heard her on the other side of the scullery. They let her out, gave her a small fortifying glass of port, and saw her set to rights.
Mr Theris was outside in the back gardens, being seduced by a werewolf claviger from Sheffield who’d come down especially to do nothing more than exactly that. When confronted about his ill conduct, and informed that the queen had emerged, he declared himself thoroughly disappointed in the whole lot of them. And that they could hang for all he cared – he was going to Sheffield. Dimity said she had very little doubt about the hive’s eagerness to release him from his drone contract. And she intended to make that a truth as soon as could be.
Dimity and Crispin returned to the house to find the baroness graciously holding court in the library. Lord Maccon still watched with interest from his lurking book nook, only he was now eating ice cream and looking moderately more relaxed. Meanwhile, an adoring crowd of interested intellectuals hung on Baroness Ermondy’s every word. They seemed to think she was one of the speakers for the evening.
“How wonderfully existential,” Dimity heard one gentleman say to another.
“Oh, Mrs Carefull,” the hive queen said, when Dimity walked in, “so very kind of you to arrange this little gathering to welcome me back above ground. And what you’ve done to Budgy Hall, quite exceptional. I shall recommend your talents in the matter of furnishings and wallpaper to all of my friends.”
A round of introductions was required then. Justice had to present Gantry to the queen, while carefully not calling her a queen or a vampire, the implication being that Justice was the baroness’s ward and Gantry her prospective suitor. The baroness thought Gantry nicely robust and meaty (which the watchers took to mean he would be an excellent father to healthy heirs), and said that of course he could come live with them if it made Justice happy (which the watchers thought a little odd, but then the very wealthy were often quite eccentric in matters of marriage). Dimity understood this to mean that he would soon become an official drone, which would make Justice very happy.
The visiting intellectuals sat in enthralled fascination. They murmured questions to one another, discussing the allegorical nature of this particular piece. Were the performative introductions meant to symbolize man’s frail relationship to his own conception of social constructs within the context of a broader society?
Then the queen commented that Lord Finbar looked very handsome in green, and wasn’t Rosie a lovely little creature, and of course she could be official too. After all, she herself intended Betsy for permanence, and the more the merrier.
Dimity knew both young ladies were soon to be drones as well, but one audience member explained to his friend that he thought it “a commentary on the transformative nature of the aristocracy.”
“Yes, yes, but would you look at her dress! It’s too modern for the aristocracy. Surely it’s a statement on the conflicts inherent in a class-driven system?” objected his companion.
Then the hive’s new Corgi had to be introduced as well. He looked up at his new mistress all big eyes and huge ears, madly wagging a tail he didn’t have. Baroness Ermondy was charmed into complete submission.
She stood and produced from some secret stash about her person a collection of blank Valentine’s cards. These she cast out in a wild flutter into the crowd. “I shall not need them anymore,” she proclaimed.
The charmed crowd applauded politely.
“Very existential,” reiterated the gentleman to his friend.
“Yes, but what does it mean?” lamented the other.
“Meaning is not important. That is the entire point – the search for meaning is what matters, you see? What are we but questions? Who are we really, what is there but the search itself? Hence, the casting of the blank cards.”
“I didn’t get that at all. Really, Arlington, why must you insist on attending these bloody things?”
“Hush now, there’s one more coming. And I insist on attending because everyone should broaden his mind, Quattermud, even you. Do try to keep up.”
The baroness ceded the limelight, taking a seat in the front row next to Lord Finbar. She expressed regret at having missed the first two orations, and thanked him for his thoughtfulness in reserving her a seat.
Dimity grinned. What more did a vampire want in afterlife, after emerging from six months of seclusion in a cave, than a presentation on the higher nature of common sense while a man interpreted it balletically? That was, after all, what was up next.
The crowd quieted once more, most of them apparently under the impression that they had just witnessed an allegory so brilliant, it eluded even their intellects. Dimity had no doubt that more than one paper would be written on this evening’s events in the months to come.
Lord Kirby sat on the other side of Baroness Ermondy. She had not yet been told of his wish to increase rank in the hive, and of Lord Finbar’s to be reduced, but Dimity had no doubt of their success. The dog lay at their feet. Rosie sat beside Lord Finbar while on Lord Kirby’s other side, Justice cuddled next to Gantry, Betsy at the end of the row. Mr Theris was (presumably) still in the garden being seduced to the furry side.
Dimity was very, very pleased with herself. She sat near the back, where she could keep an eye on everything.
The final performance of the evening began.
Professor Fausse-Maigre droned on in typical academic style as to the nature of truth and the importance of scientific inquiry. He talked about reason and ethical grounding and the profundity of logic. But meanwhile, ah, meanwhile, Sir Crispin, behind him, pranced about performing an impressive arabesque every time the word higher was used, small leaps at the word truth, and those double knee-bend things whenever the man spoke of logic or reason.
It was certainly something to behold.
Something.
Dimity enjoyed the play of muscles on Sir Crispin’s arms and back, the line of his long legs, and the way he pointed his toes just so.
And when Professor Fausse-Maigre ended with a flourish and a bow, Crispin whipped into a perfect pirouette. The assembled company surged to their feet and erupted into resounding applause.
Certainly, they had just witnessed greatness.
Certainly, they had witnessed remarkably innovative and deeply moving originality.
Certainly, they would never again witness anything like it in their lifetimes.
Especially if Sir Crispin had anything to say about it.
Dimity turned up the gas, brightening the room, and bustled out to the kitchen encouraging the newly hired staff to serve the whiskey now, and some sugared fruit.
The rest of the night was a veritable triumph.
The hive queen mingled with her new friends, her gown received endless compliments, the death of the crinoline heralded by most ladies present with profound relief.
“Just think, it will make these gatherings much easier to manage. Not to be crashing and bashing about so! I have nearly upended three tables and a chair already,” lamented one elderly matron.
Dimity glided amongst the intellectuals. Her brother was trapped in a corner, surrounded by several young ladies of marriageable age, which always happened to him at parties. Poor old sod. He was telling them, in excruciating detail, about his current research into the grammatical construction of Roman political speeches.
Professor Fausse-Maigre, who proved to be rather shy and retiring when he was not speaking on matters well rehearsed, had found his way to the piano in the drawing room and was plonking at it with some skill. The ladies in the corner eventually dragged Pillover, Justice, Gantry, and a few others off to that room to dance.
Mrs Ogdon-Loppes summoned Dimity over with an autocratic finger. She and her husband, having consumed six glasses of whiskey between them, were sitting rather floppily together on one of more plush leather sofas.
“Mrshh Carefull. You lovely thing, you! Gantry tells us thissh is all your fault.”
Dimity went over to them with alacrity. “Oh, I assure you it is not so, madam. I am a mere instrument of aesthetic order.”
“Well, whatever you did, it fixed my son’s instrument right up, now, didn’t it,” blustered Mr Ogdon-Loppes, a little too loudly.
Mrs Ogdon-Loppes guffawed. “Oh, Henry, you’re too droll!” She tried to lower her voice to a whisper, but it more closely resembled a hissing roar. Dimity didn’t mind.
“We thought he’d formed an inappropriate connection to a young local lad – you know how it goesh, dear. A right ruffian, we thought. They kept meeting in woods, if you would believe it. Woods! So muddy. Gantry always did have an obsession with Robin Hood. We suspected something quite low indeed, a highwayman, or perhashpss even flywaymen.” Mrs Ogdon-Loppes nodded so hard she drifted forwards and began to slide off the couch.
Dimity steadied her, smiling at them both.
Mr Ogdon-Loppes picked up the story. “And here we find instead such a lovely, respectable young thing, all proper, and a girl besides! Never expected a girl. Not of Gantry. Blasted brilliant, that is!”
Mrs Ogdon-Loppes recovered her tongue, if not her head, which kept nodding, only now from side to side. “It’s really quite extraordsh... Extraordinarish... great! And we understand the family is well connected. Titled. Little Justice isn’t, erm, the heir, is she?”
“I’m afraid not. But she is very well set up. Your Gantry will never want for anything.”
“Oh, of courshh, of courshh not.” Mrs Ogdon-Loppes went serious, still nodding.
Mr Ogdon-Loppes started nodding along with his wife. “Too much to ask, that. Still, it seems like an excellent match for a third son. It’s enough to know the family likes our Gantry. We never expected him to amount to much, quite honestly. All that larking about on horseback and riding after foxes.”
“You’re pleased, then, with the match?” Dimity was having rather too much fun with the nodding Ogdon-Loppeses. Someday soon they’d likely need to be told their son was taking drone status with a vampire hive, not actually marrying into a family of extremely esoteric aristocrats. But that would require a more private audience with the baroness. Dimity had no doubt that a satisfactory blood dowry could be arrived at, and the couple seemed progressive enough to accept this alternate outcome with grace and discretion. At least, Dimity hoped so.
“Profundently. Couldn’t have worked out better, really.”
Dimity arched her brows. “I couldn’t agree more.”
Cris was next to her then, having gone and changed and come back down looking perfectly respectable and completely handsome in a pristine evening suit.
Together they approached Lord Maccon, who, having apparently finished all of the ice cream and most of the whiskey, was looking twitchy and eager to leave.
“You two, pirouettes indeed,” he growled at them, not really angry. He seemed to be rather a growly person. Dimity knew the type – her friend Sidheag was very like him. Not unsurprising, actually, since the two were distantly related.
“Is everything all right, sir?” asked Dimity.
“Could use something raw to eat,” grumbled the werewolf.
“No, sir, is everything all right?” She pressed the advantage afforded her by the success of the evening.
He coughed. “Aye. Aye. Bloody waste of my time, coming here. Place seems bally well in order. Not sure what the fuss was about. Bah. I’m off. Might I make use of your cloakroom for the night? I hear there’s good rabbit hunting ’round these parts.”
Dimity took that to mean he wished to strip, change shape, hunt, and then return later.
“I’m sure that would be fine, Lord Maccon,” she said, feeling very gracious in her victory.
He nodded at them both. “I bid you good evening. Sir. Madam.”
They waved the werewolf off.
“All done, then, Sparkles?”
“Yes, my tuppenny knight, I made it all quite pretty in the end. Look at how happy they all are. And it’s lovely and tidy.”
“Very good, my love.”
“And you even ended on a pirouette.”
“Only the very best for my Sparkles.”