Masquerade

Chapter Twenty-three

When Schuyler arrived home from school, Lawrence still had not returned. She asked Julius to bring her grandfather's luggage up to Cordelia's room. It looked forlorn and lonesome in the entryway. Hattie had prepared supper, and Schuyler took a tray up to her room, eating her meat loaf and mashed potatoes in front of her computer. Cordelia would never have allowed such a thing. Her grandmother had been vigilant that Schuyler eat dinner properly at the table every night. But then, Cordelia wasn't around to enforce her rules anymore.
Schuyler fed Beauty scraps from her plate as she checked her e-mail and made a halfhearted attempt to finish her homework.
Afterward, she brought her tray down to the kitchen and helped Hattie load the dishwasher. It was after nine o'clock. Her grandfather had been gone for more than twelve hours already. How long could the meeting have lasted?
Finally, at a little past midnight, Lawrence's key turned in the lock. He looked exhausted. The lines on his face were haggard. Schuyler thought he looked as if he had aged several decades.
"What happened?" she asked, alarmed at his condition. She flew up from the window seat where she had been dozing. The living room, removed of its heavy drapes and covers, was a surprisingly comfortable place. Hattie had lit a fire in the hearth, and Schuyler couldn't get enough of the river view. Lawrence set his crushed fedora on the rack and sank into one of the antique couches across from the fire. Dust flew as he shifted in his seat. "I do think Cordelia could have put some money into keeping this place a little cleaner," he grumbled. "I left her with quite a nest egg."
Cordelia had always given Schuyler the impression that they had run out of money, and what little they had went to financing the bare necessities: Duchesne tuition, food, shelter, the skeletal staff. Anything aside from that--new clothes, money for movies or restaurants was grudgingly parceled out dollar by dollar.
"Grandmother always said we were broke," Schuyler said.
"In contrast to how we lived once, surely. But we Van Alens are far from bankrupt. I checked the accounts today. Cordelia invested wisely. The interest has been collecting interest. We should be able to bring this house back to where it should be."
"You went to the bank?" Schuyler asked, a little startled.
"I had to run a number of errands, yes. It's been a long time since I was in the city. Marvelous how the world has changed. One forgets that in Venice. Ran into several friends. Cushing Carondolet insisted I dine with him at the old club. I'm sorry, I would have come back earlier, but I had to find out what Charles has been up to in my absence."
"But what happened with The Committee?" Lawrence took a cigar out of his pocket and carefully lit it. "Oh, at the hearing?"
"Yes," Schuyler said impatiently, mystified by Lawrence's casual attitude.
"Well, they brought me into the Repository," Lawrence said. "I had to speak in front of the Conclave--the coven's highest leadership. Wardens, Elders. Enmortals like me." Enmortals were vampires who kept the same physical shell over the centuries, who had been given permission to be exempt from the cycle of sleeping and waking, otherwise known as reincarnation.
"Never seen such a sorry bunch," Lawrence said, pursing his lips in distaste. "Forsyth Llewellyn is a senator--did you know that? Back in Plymouth he was just Michael's lackey. It's a disgrace. And completely against the Code. It wasn't always so, you know. We have ruled before. But after the disaster in Rome, we agreed that taking positions of power in the human sphere was forever out of the question."
Schuyler nodded. Cordelia had told her as much.
"And they've kicked out the Carondolets from the Conclave, Cushing told me all about it. Because he had proposed a Candidus Suffragium."
"What is that?"
"The White Vote. For the leadership of the coven," Lawrence said, kicking off his banker's cap-toes and waving his stockinged feet in front of the fire.
"But I thought Michael--Charles--was Regis. Forever."
"Not quite," Lawrence said, flicking his ashes into an ashtray he had removed from his jacket pocket.
"No?"
"No. The coven is not a democracy. But it is not a monarchy either. We had agreed that leadership can be questioned if the coven feels the Regis has not led us properly. So the White Vote is called."
"Has there ever been a White Vote?"
"Yes." Lawrence sunk so low into the chair that only the smoke from his cigar was visible. "Once, in Plymouth."
"What happened?"
"I lost." Lawrence shrugged. "They banished Cordelia and me from the Conclave. Since then, we have held no power on the council. We bowed to their rule, and later on, around the time of the Gilded Age, we decided we had to separate."
"Why?" Schuyler asked.
"Cordelia told you we suspected that a high-ranking member of the Conclave was harboring the Silver Blood. I thought it would be safer for her if I disappeared for a while, so I could continue our investigation without The Committee knowing about it. We thought it was clever of us. But alas, it meant that I was not here when Allegra succumbed to her heartsickness. Or when you were born. And my work so far has been fruitless. I am no closer to confirming my suspicions than I was before."
"But what happened--why did they let you go free? I thought you were exiled."
Lawrence chuckled. "So did they. They had forgotten I went into exile voluntarily. I don't think any of them ever expected me to come back. They didn't really have much of a choice. I haven't broken any rules of the Code. There was no reason to prohibit my return. Still, because I have been gone for so long they demanded that I testify."
"Testify to what?"
"Oh, to promise not to question the Coven's leadership as I had once done. You know, call for another White Vote. They even reinstated my position on the Conclave, as long as I promised not to bring up the Silver Blood menace again. According to Charles, the Croatan threat has been contained, if it ever existed at all."
"Just because no one's died in the last three months," Schuyler said.
"Yes. They are blind as usual. The Silver Bloods are back. It was just as Cordelia and I had warned, so many years ago."
"But everything else is all right, then," Schuyler said hap- pily, not caring about the Croatan threat for the moment. "You're back, and they can't do anything about it."
He studied the fireplace sorrowfully. "Not quite. I have some bad news."
Schuyler's smile faded.
"Charles has informed me he is making plans to adopt you."
"What? Why?" Charles Force--adopt her? What gave him the right? What kind of sick joke was this?
"Unfortunate as it is, he is, nonetheless, your uncle. When Allegra, his sister, revoked their bond and refused to take him as her partner in this cycle, he turned his back on the Van Alen family. Actually, he did everything he could to destroy this family. To destroy your mother. He could never forgive her for marrying your father and giving birth to you. He hardened his heart against her. He even changed his name."
Schuyler thought of the many times she had found Charles Force kneeling by her mother's bedside. He had been her mother's constant visitor, and she had overheard him begging Allegra for her forgiveness.
"Hence, he is your last living blood relative, aside from me, of course. But there is no record of my existence in this cycle in fact, according to the papers, I'm legally dead. I died in 1872. Thank goodness for Swiss banks. Our accounts are merely numerical codes, otherwise I would not have been able to touch them. Charles has decided that I am not fit to raise you. He wants to raise you himself."
Her uncle. Cordelia had intimated as much, and yet Schuyler had refused to acknowledge this fact of her twisted family tree. "But they can't...I mean, he's not...I don't even know him."
"Do not worry, I won't let that happen. Allegra would want nothing more than to keep you away from him," Lawrence said.
"Why does he hate you so much?" Schuyler asked, a glimmer of tears in her bright blue eyes. Lawrence had finally returned, and again the forces or make that, the Forces were conspiring to take him away from her.
Schuyler thought of what adoption might be like: having to live with Mimi and Jack, her cousins. Mimi would love that, she was sure....And Jack, what would he think?
" `They will be pided, father against son, son against father,' Lawrence said, quoting from Scripture. "Alas, I have always been a disappointment to my son."
New York Herald
Archives
SEPTEMBER 30, 1872
DISAPPEARANCE STILL A MYSTERY
Maggie Stanford has given no sign in two years. Father dead of grief, mother demented.
THE MYSTERY SURROUNDING the disappearance of Maggie Stanford, now eighteen years old, who disappeared on the night of the annual Patrician Ball two years ago, has yet to be solved. The police never found a ransom note or any indication of kidnapping or foul play in relation to the case, and have suggested the girl ran away of her own volition. Mrs. Dorothea Stanford, of Newport, has reportedly become mentally unbalanced from the shock of her daughter's disappearance. Mr. Stanford died from grief shortly after Maggie went missing.
Strange hallucinations continue to afflict the mother, who claims that her neighbors and friends are concealing the truth about her daughter's whereabouts and keeping her from coming home. The Herald visited Mrs. Stanford in her home, and from what could be made of Mrs. Stanford's speech, she is still laboring under the impression that someone has her girl in custody and refuses to release her.
The Herald has discovered that Maggie Stanford had been living at the St. Dymphna Asylum in Newport for a year before she went missing, receiving treatment for an unknown condition. Anyone having any information on her disappearance is urged to come forward.