What Manner of Man: Chapter 10 🦇

We interrupt your regularly scheduled Gothic novel for an interlude of mixed gay-lesbian swashbuckling.

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• There had better not be three slightly asymmetrical bats below me!

JOURNAL ENTRY (CONTINUED)

Dated April 14, 1950.

For a moment I stood dazed at Danny’s sudden, almost miraculous appearance. What angel of mercy was this? Had the Lord sent her to me, Isaac-like, in my hour of need? She carried a blade and some other items connected with fencing under one arm.

“How’s he been treating you, Father?” Though her tone was casual, the gaze she turned upon me was searching. “You’re looking well, and hardly at all dead! Sylvia will be pleased.”

I just stared, still too surprised to speak. It seemed impossible she should be here, yet her appearance was almost comically natural. Belatedly, then, I realized that she must have come up from the harbour below the manor. She was a sailor, after all — evidently she had taken the sea-route around the island.

Lord Vane took a step forward. “To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?” There was a hard, unwonted edge to Lord Vane’s formal, urbane delivery.

“Fencing practice, of course. Don’t tell me you forgot!”

“I do not recall having requested your services today. In fact, I believe I told you that I should no longer require them at all.”

“Afraid you’ll lose in front of your guest?” Danny scoffed, “Oh, well. I suppose if you’re out of practice, I can’t say I blame you.”

Lord Vane responded with a derisive laugh. “You flatter yourself. Forgive me if I decline to rise to such cheap provocation.”

“Oh, but you must!” I pleaded, just about managing to sound genuine in my eagerness. I was desperate to keep him from returning to the subject of our earlier conversation. “When shall I have another opportunity to see you fence?”

He paused, considering a moment.

“I suppose, if it would amuse you,” he sighed. “You might, if you wish, run and fetch my weapon for me.” He made a gesture in the direction of the manor. “You’ll find the things in a chest in the main hall, not far to the left of the stairs that lead down to the passages below the manor. I’d like to speak to Danny for a moment.”

I found the items just where he’d said they would be and shortly returned with them in hand. I could see they were still in conversation, though speaking too low for me to hear. I had never seen Lord Vane side-by-side with another person before and, as I crossed the lawn, I was struck by the contrast; how utterly unlike all other people Lord Vane looked. I had been with him for so long that I had almost grown accustomed to it.

Lord Vane took the slender blade from my hand with a wink and a disarming smile, then gestured for me to remove myself to a safe distance. He stripped off his dark coat, draping it neatly over a nearby stone bench, then undid his cuffs one at a time and rolled his sleeves mid-way up his arms before assuming the correct position, weapon at the ready.

The fight that succeeded was, I must admit, a fascinating spectacle. The two of them contorted like dancers, their fluidity and grace reminding me of nothing so much as the one occasion on which I have been to the ballet. Danny held her own, but it was apparent that Lord Vane was the superior swordsman — his motions as light and graceful as a bird in flight. The play of his muscles beneath the fine material of his shirt had an almost mesmeric effect upon me. Though an intellectual man, he has the trim body of an athlete.

For a time the two seemed nearly equally matched. Light flashed off the naked steel blades as the sun began to slip towards the horizon, burning all-the-more brilliantly in the dying of the day. For a moment, the reflected glitter of it on the surface of the ocean became blinding and Lord Vane’s blow slipped as he squinted, dazzled by it, falling back. Danny held her position, allowing him a moment to recover. As she did so, however, he lunged nimbly forward and, with a strike both powerful and expertly controlled, sent her weapon flying.

They sprung apart. Bent and gasping for breath, Danny seemed exhausted by the combat; meanwhile Lord Vane looked as if he had hardly so much as broken a sweat. With one hand he smoothed his hair back into something close to its usual order.

Looking down the length of his blade, he said, “You should never do your opponent any courtesy they would not also extend to you.”

Danny sneered at him. “That’s only because you’re a ghoulish old coward always looking for an opportunity to stab people in the back.”

“The move was perfectly legal — you let down your guard.” Lord Vane sheathed his blade with a soft click. “Perhaps next time you will listen when I tell you that I will not require your services.”

Danny’s eyes flashed dangerously at this. “Don’t need my services, huh? And yet you seem to need him!” She swept an agitated arm in my direction. “You’ve no right to keep him here. Do you suppose I don’t know how you’re using this poor, misguided little man?”

Lord Vane was ice. “Yes, in fact, I’m quite sure you don’t.”

It was at this point that I could take no more, and found myself red-faced, shouting, “How dare you! You must think him utterly heartless and me hopelessly naïve. By what right do you you presume to know what’s best for me? You don’t have the first idea what I’m doing here! I know that Lord Vane is a good man, whatever you or anyone else may think.”

I shut my mouth, having shocked even myself. Both Danny and Lord Vane stared at me, stunned — their faces identical masks of almost-comical surprise. I looked from one to the other and then I turned heel and fled.

It causes me acute pain each time I recollect the incident. What can have come over me? When I think of Danny and Sylvia; of the kindness I received at their hands —

Even now I hardly recall anything about how I passed the hour which followed; the fog of humiliation shrouding my every action. I believe I may have attempted to read, though I cannot recall so much as the book’s title, let alone its contents.

EDITOR’S NOTE: A paragraph of text has been blotted out at this point, only some of which I was able to decipher. It reads: “With time to reflect on all that has passed, I began dimly to guess at certain things [...] memories of St Silvan’s Head […] which I am only now beginning to see the significance of. Could it be that Danny and Sylvia, with their knowledge of the island and its history [...] this demon whose legacy seems to extend back through unguessed generations of Lord Vane’s family? Even if so, it is no matter to me now — I require no assistance. I’m confident that I stand on the precipice of accomplishing my mission here.”

Lord Vane had not gone far when I returned to find him. He was sitting on a low wall a few steps from the spot where the duel had taken place, but the man I now saw bore no resemblance to that sublime creature who had wielded the shining blade. Rarely have I seen so forlorn a man.

“You might have gone with her, you know,” he said, not turning to look at me, “Perhaps she’s right — perhaps it is selfish of me to keep you here.”

The worn stone was uneven but I managed to find a space next to him. “Don’t say such things. You poor, dear man — do you suppose that I would still be here if I didn’t want to be?”

He said no more. Amid the cracked stone pillars of the crumbling cathedral remains, small bats wheeled and dipped low above us; their soft clicks faintly audible over the hushed night sounds of the garden and the calm sea on the cliffs below. The warm spring twilight had, by imperceptible degrees, transitioned to cool, blue night and, as a sea breeze passed over us, I could not repress a shiver. Lord Vane still held his dark overcoat on one arm, not having donned it again since the duel; to my surprise, he reached around me then and laid it across my shoulders.

We stayed that way for some time, watching the moon rise.

P.S. FROM 2024:

Hello! 👋 What you’re reading is a draft version of What Manner of Man. The reworking of this scene deviates in quite a few ways from the previously published version. (For instance, it’s better!) The changes include some new dialogue and an entirely different, more poignant ending. (This chapter also includes a detail that I’m terribly excited about, but which, alas, is too big a secret even to hint at.)

Following that, there is another new chapter between this one and the next, written especially for those readers who wished What Manner of Man had a little more Classic Vampire Stuff (™️) in it — Lord Vane gets a little bit bestial, Father Ardelian does his best impression of a woman on the cover of a vintage gothic romance paperback, everyone has a good time.

(You can get the complete, edited and expanded novel DRM-free on Itch.io or at the retailer of your choice.)

Are you enjoying What Manner of Man? Are you curious about what things Lord Vane and Father Ardelian might be getting up to that our priest isn’t bothering to write down? How about what Sylvia and Danny think of all this?

Patreon supporters of Accomplice tier and upward get exclusive access to an occasional series of short, post-chapter vignettes — fluffy, spicy, or funny moments that don’t quite fit anywhere in the text. Each will be unedited and under 1000 words (probably.)

Hoping you all had an excellent 4/20! 🍃

-St John

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