Carmilla: revisited

III

We Compare Notes

If it hadn’t been for Carmilla's continued presence, it would have felt as if the entire affair was a fever dream. The aforementioned stirred. I’ll never forget the sounds of her honeyed, whining voice. 

“Where have they gone?”

Dear Madame Pomfrey took it upon herself to reply. 

“What is this place, anyhow? Where am I?”

My response was already forming in my throat, but Ms. Trelawney held me back with a bony hand, saying that a person in her state had better see only one person at a time - especially an unfamiliar sort of person, and I was obliged to leave her in the care of Madame Pomfrey. But that did not prevent me from scheming to meet her in her room after she had been settled in. Already nigh an hour had passed and I had yet to get a look at the young woman’s face, between the darkness and the other members of our party. 

The visitor grew fatigued as she tried to cross the heavily-ironed bridge separating the estate from the main road, and had to be helped across by my father and the nurse. But she seemed to grow stronger after that, and needed only my father’s arm to cross the lawn. As they walked she leaned towards him and took up a faint dialogue, to which he seemed to respond quite warmly. I could tell that my father was quite taken with the whole affair, and having a charming young woman on his arm was certainly not the least of his joys. 

When we reached the castle, the servants received her and took her immediately to the bed which had been made up for her, and I was able to catch a fleeting glimpse of raven hair and a thin, pale figure. She looked as if she may have been a dancer, and moved with natural grace up the stairs despite her evident exhaustion. 

The rest of us retired to the drawing room overlooking the front lawn to discuss the night’s excitements. My father and I sat in large oak chairs finished with red velvet, while the two women sat together on the sofa across from us. We drank cups of English black leaf and I asked the nurse about the stranger. 

“So what do you make of our guest? Do please tell me about her.”

“She might be the prettiest creature I’ve ever seen. About your age, and clearly of genteel birth. She’s a very impressive specimen.”

“Indeed, her appearance alone marks her as exceptional - if not her coming on such a night as this already set her apart as being a person of importance,”

Ms. Trelawney could not but add her two cents. 

“And that voice! It’s nigh otherworldly; draws you in as a moth to the flame.”

“But what a dubious-looking group of footmen, their presence bore ill-omen.”

Just so,” my father joined in. “They seemed wholly unconcerned with the entire affair. And awfully quick at righting that caleche, it was the work of a mere minute.”

“I’m sure they’re all exhausted from the journey,” Mme Pomfrey said reasonably, but Ms. Trelawney disagreed. 

“There was an unusual appearance between them, gaunt and skeletal, with a sinister air. But surely the young lady will be able to shed some light on her erstwhile companions in the morning.”

“It could be so. But the brief dialogue I had with her mother leads me to believe she will be unwilling or unable to tell us too much about their family particulars - I get the impression that a matter of great importance and no less urgency is underway. It might even put us in harm’s way to learn more than we ought. I hope I haven’t put us all in the crosshairs by taking her in - but then, who could have done otherwise?”

I did not have a single thought to spare for concern. My only desire was to meet her and speak with her, and to look upon this beauty so fervidly admired by all those who had seen her. You may laugh at me, but when there are years between your acquaintances, the prospect of a peer is a matter of the utmost importance. 

I stayed awake for half the night waiting for the doctor, first to arrive, and then to return with his diagnosis. The report was highly favorable, in more ways than one. 

“The girl is in excellent health, generally speaking,” he reported. “She has sustained no lasting injuries and the shock is subsiding. She is a very charming sort of girl indeed.”

This was the last thing I needed to hear.Anon I sent a message to her quarters asking if she would receive me that very night. I waited on tenterhooks for the servant to return with her reply. 

The servant returned immediately to say that she desired nothing more.

You may be sure I was not long in availing myself of this permission.

The room they had made for her was on the stately side: full of ornate gold carvings and a tapestry of Cleopatra feeding the asps. My eyes trailed over the room’s decorations and onto the bed where the visitor lay. 

I was struck by two revelations at exactly the same moment: that it was, indeed, the most beautiful face I had ever seen, and that I had seen that face before! The same face that had first been a joy, and then become a terror, on that strange night twelve years earlier. I gazed on her in abject wonderment, as her expression turned quickly from wistful to something more controlled. 

“D’you know, it’s the strangest thing: I’ve dreamed about you before.”

“Well isn’t that peculiar - I’ve dreamt about you, too.” 

“It’s been twelve years since I’ve seen your face, and yet it looks exactly the same as it did - well, at first, anyhow - but it’s haunted me ever since.”

“My face has haunted you?” She said, with some little vexation. 

“Well, it has remained with me, anyhow. I could not forget your face.”

She softened at that, and her expression became a lovely, clever thing. It was all the reassurance I needed, and I sat down beside her on the bed to welcome her (rather effusively, I fear) into our home, and tell her how happy it made us all - but especially me - to have her there. 

As I spoke, I found her hand and took it in my own. It was cool to the touch, and gratifying in a tingling sort of way which made it hard to look her in the eye as I held it. She lifted my chin so that our eyes met, and hers glowed as she smiled and I felt my cheeks blush. 

“Let me tell you about how we met before – at least to my mind. When I was younger I suffered frequently from disquieting dreams… I awoke once from  such a nightmare to find myself in a nursery that was not my own. At first I fancied myself alone in that place, and set to looking about the room in curiosity and some trepidation. I found a candlestick which I clung to, both because it provided warmth and light to my situation, however little, and because I appreciated its strange appearance. 

At that point, I was startled by a noise and slid beneath the nearest bed. As I crept out from under it some moments later, I  realized that the sound had been a cry, coming from the very same bed I had chosen as my refuge. Looking upon it from my place in the corner, I saw you – not a younger version of yourself, but you just as you are now, beautiful, with bronze in your hair and gamboge in your eyes, and your lips, rosy… everything about you, just as you are tonight.

I was completely taken in by your appearance; drawn like a moth to a flame. I clambered in beside you and wrapped my arms around you without a second thought. Quite soon I was asleep. 

Once again, I awoke startled; this time by your scream. I fell from the bed towards the floor but before I landed I lost consciousness, and when I awoke once again it was in my own nursery. But as you said, your face remained with me after the rest had long since passed.”

All throughout her story I had tried to stay calm and collected – especially when she spoke of being drawn to me. With wonder I explained to her my corresponding version of events, unable to keep the surprise out of my voice the way she had done. 

“I wonder which of us should be more afraid of the other,” she said with a wry smile. “If you were less beautiful I might be more afraid – although perhaps it should be the opposite. Terrible creatures can weave beautiful webs.”

Here she paused, for so long that I thought perhaps our discourse was coming to a close. But then she continued, in a more chipper tone, “But seeing as we have known each other for over a decade, and from our adolescence, no less, I feel that we are friends already. In fact, it would make you my first one. I wonder whether you feel as drawn to me as I do to you?” Her final words were spoken in a plaintive manner, and there was passion in her eyes and in her tone that made me feel distinctly hot under the collar. 

To be perfectly frank, I was awestruck by this exquisite stranger. I found her both alluring and somewhat daunting. Having been always drawn to the unusual, this ambiguity of emotion only increased my fascination. She had won me over like all the rest,  and to a rather greater extent than even the raptures of my father and the servant women had professed. 

It was just before dawn, however, and I could sense our guest growing weary. 

“You must get some rest now, it is long overdue.”

She acceded that such was very true. 

“The doctor suggests also that you not sleep alone. Madame Pomfrey would be very happy to sit with you if you like; and the soul of discretion. Or,” I added without having intended to, “I could stay with you, if you like.”

I read in her eyes the answer I had hoped for, but her lips spoke instead: “You’re very thoughtful, but I cannot sleep except alone. In fact, I am terrified of intruders – When I was a child my home was broken into by a rather savage band of characters – and since that day I find I can only rest when I am alone behind a locked door. Do forgive me this isolating tendency, it is not one that I asked for.”

As I moved to go, trying not to feel abashed about my invitation, she gripped the hand we had still been holding and drew me into her petite frame. I gasped lightly in surprise (or something like it) as she whispered in my ear,

    “I would I were thy bird… 

yet I should kill thee with such cherishing.

Goodnight, goodnight, parting is such sweet sorrow, 

That I should say goodnight til it be morrow.”

And with that, she sank back onto her pillow with a sigh, and her eyelids began to droop. I made my way to the door as if in a trance, trying to parse through the peculiar sensations that her presence had awakened in me.