Read Online Jonathan Barrett Gentleman Vampire by P.N. Elrod - Free Book Online Page A

how to sing and play?” It was not a question so much as a statement of contempt.
    “Yes.”
    “On the other hand, being able to reason and think would place me at a severe disadvantage?”
    “In her view, yes.”
    Elizabeth rose and threw her arms around him. “Then, thank you, Father!”
    He laughed at the embrace. “There now. I may not have done you any favors, girl.”
    “I don’t care.” She loosened her grip. “But what about Jonathan going away to England?”
    His laugh settled into a sigh. “It is her money that runs this place, puts clothes on your backs, and food in your mouths, and because of that she feels entitled to choose where you are to be educated. She appears to have made up her mind, but I will talk with her. There are other reasons for you to go to Harvard than the fact that it is closer than England.”
    “And if she doesn’t listen?” I asked glumly.
    “That possibility exists. You may have to face it.”
    “But after tonight . . . Mother isn’t . . . well.”
    “You need not mince your words, Jonathan. We all know she wasn’t in her right mind. Her father was the same. He’d work himself into a ferocious temper until you’d think his brain would burst, then the fit would pass and like as not he’d have forgotten what angered him, even deny he’d been angry. Whatever poisons lurked in his blood are in your mother as well.”
    “And us?” Elizabeth’s eyebrows rose.
    Father shrugged. “It’s in God’s hands, girl, but I’ve tried to raise you two with the love old Fonteyn was incapable of giving. I think it has made all the difference.”
    “We’re nothing like her,” she said thankfully.
    He touched her chin lightly with one finger and glanced at me. “Perhaps a little, on the outside. I wish you could have known her in those days.” He indicated the portrait. “Everything was so different then, but over the years the poisons began to leech out. She changed, bit by bit. She began to expect things of me that I chose not to provide. She wanted me to advance on to the bench, but I never had the inclination to become a judge. She became fixed on that as hard and fast as her father was fixed upon his money I could have done as she wanted, but it would not have been what I wanted. Eventually, I could see myself turning into her own little dancing puppet. I would not have been my own man, but rather something tied to her and, in turn, tied to her dead father. In her lucid moments, she knew this, but could never hold on to it for long.”
    “Is that why she moved away?” I asked.
    “In part. In the years after you were born, she got worse. Nothing to do with you, laddie. You were as sweet a child as anyone could ask for, but her nerves were bad. She no longer loved me by then and I . . . Well, there are few things in life so miserable as a marriage gone wrong. I hope you two will make a better job of it than I did. She had some distant cousins in Philadelphia, so off she went. I think she found some happiness there with such friends as she’s gathered ’round. I know I have been happy here.”
    One of the logs popped noisily. Happiness. I’d taken it for granted until now. Looking at Father, I began to see the heaviness of the burden he’d carried without complaint, all these years. He hadn’t told us everything, I could sense that, but I wasn’t going to pursue further for more. What we’d just learned was sufficient. Because of it I suddenly knew I was not yet a man and able to carry such a weight, but still a frightened boy of seventeen.

    * * *

    I slept poorly for what remained of the night and was up to watch the dawn long before its advent. The house was quiet, and I imagined it to be waiting, wondering what was to happen once Mother woke from her laudanum-soaked slumber. I dressed warmly and crept outside to the stables to saddle two horses. Elizabeth and I had not changed our plan to spend time with Rapelji. Father knew and had encouraged it. He would have