Varney the Vampire by Thomas Preskett Prest

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"Very good. You believe these letters forgeries?"

"I do."

"And that the disappearance of Charles Holland is enforced, and not of
his own free will?"

"I do."

"Then you may rely upon my unremitting exertions night and day to find
him and any suggestion you can make, which is likely to aid in the
search, shall, I pledge myself, be fully carried out."

"I thank you, Mr. Marchdale."

"My dear," said the mother, "rely on Mr. Marchdale."

"I will rely on any one who believe Charles Holland innocent of writing
those odious letters, mother--I rely upon the admiral. He will aid me
heart and hand."

"And so will Mr. Marchdale."

"I am glad to hear it."

"And yet doubt it, Flora," said Marchdale, dejectedly. "I am very sorry
that such should be the case; I will not, however, trouble you any
further, nor, give me leave to assure you, will I relax in my honest
endeavours to clear up this mystery."

So saying, Mr. Marchdale bowed, and left the room, apparently more vexed
than he cared to express at the misconstruction which had been put upon
his conduct and motives. He at once sought Henry and the admiral, to
whom he expressed his most earnest desire to aid in attempting to
unravel the mysterious circumstances which had occurred.

"This strongly-expressed opinion of Flora," he remarked, "is of course
amply sufficient to induce us to pause before we say one word more that
shall in any way sound like a condemnation of Mr. Holland. Heaven forbid
that I should."

"No," said the admiral; "don't."

"I do not intend."

"I would not advise anybody."

"Sir, if you use that as a threat--"

"A threat?"

"Yes; I must say, it sounded marvellously like one."

"Oh, dear, no--quite a mistake. I consider that every man has a fair
right to the enjoyment of his opinion. All I have to remark is, that I
shall, after what has occurred, feel myself called upon to fight anybody
who says those letters were written by my nephew."

"Indeed, sir!"

"Ah, indeed."

"You will permit me to say such is a strange mode of allowing every one
the free enjoyment of his opinion."

"Not at all."

"Whatever pains and penalties may be the result, Admiral Bell, of
differing with so infallible authority as yourself, I shall do so
whenever my judgment induces me."

"You will?"

"Indeed I will."

"Very good. You know the consequences."

"As to fighting you, I should refuse to do so."

"Refuse?"

"Yes; most certainly."

"Upon what ground?"

"Upon the ground that you were a madman."

"Come," now interposed Henry, "let me hope that, for my sake as well as
for Flora's, this dispute will proceed no further."

"I have not courted it," said Marchdale. "I have much temper, but I am
not a stick or a stone."

"D----e, if I don't think," said the admiral, "you are a bit of both."

"Mr. Henry Bannerworth," said Marchdale, "I am your guest, and but for
the duty I feel in assisting in the search for Mr. Charles Holland, I
should at once leave your house."

"You need not trouble yourself on my account," said the admiral; "if I
find no clue to him in the neighbourhood for two or three days, I shall
be off myself."

"I am going," said Henry, rising, "to search the garden and adjoining
meadows; if you two gentlemen choose to come with me, I shall of course
be happy of your company; if, however, you prefer remaining here to
wrangle, you can do so."

This had the effect, at all events, of putting a stop to the dispute for
the present, and both the admiral and Mr. Marchdale accompanied Henry on
his search. That search was commenced immediately under the balcony of
Charles Holland's window, from which the admiral had seen him emerge.

There was nothing particular found there, or in the garden. Admiral Bell
pointed out accurately the route he had seen Charles take across the
grass plot just before he himself left his chamber to seek Henry.

Accordingly, this route was now taken, and it led to a low part of the
garden wall, which any one of ordinary vigour could easily have
surmounted.

"My impression is," said the admiral, "that he got over here."

"The ivy appears to be disturbed," remarked Henry.

"Suppose we mark the spot, and then go round to it on the outer side?"
suggested George.

This was agreed to; for, although the young man might have chosen rather
to clamber over the wall than go round, it was doubtful if the old
admiral could accomplish such a feat.

The distance round, however, was not great, and as they had cast over
the wall a handful of flowers from the garden to mark the precise spot,
it was easily discoverable.

The moment they reached it, they were panic-stricken by the appearances
which it presented. The grass was for some yards round about completely
trodden up, and converted into mud. There were deep indentations of
feet-marks in all directions, and such abundance of evidence that some
most desperate struggle had recently taken place there, that the most
sceptical person in the world could not have entertained any doubt upon
the subject.

Henry was the first to break the silence with which they each regarded
the broken ground.

"This is conclusive to my mind," he said, with a deep sigh. "Here has
poor Charles been attacked."

"God keep him!" exclaimed Marchdale, "and pardon me my doubts--I am now
convinced."

The old admiral gazed about him like one distracted. Suddenly he cried--

"They have murdered him. Some fiends in the shape of men have murdered
him, and Heaven only knows for what."

"It seems but too probable," said Henry. "Let us endeavour to trace the
footsteps. Oh! Flora, Flora, what terrible news this will be to you."

"A horrible supposition comes across my mind," said George. "What if he
met the vampyre?"

"It may have been so," said Marchdale, with a shudder. "It is a point
which we should endeavour to ascertain, and I think we may do so."

"How!"

"By some inquiry as to whether Sir Francis Varney was from home at
midnight last night."

"True; that might be done."

"The question, suddenly put to one of his servants, would, most
probably, be answered as a thing of course."

"It would."

"Then that shall be decided upon. And now, my friends, since you have
some of you thought me luke-warm in this business, I pledge myself that,
should it be ascertained that Varney was from home at midnight last
evening, I will defy him personally, and meet him hand to hand."

"Nay, nay," said Henry, "leave that course to younger hands."

"Why so?"

"It more befits me to be his challenger."

"No, Henry. You are differently situated to what I am."

"How so?"

"Remember, that I am in the world a lone man; without ties or
connexions. If I lose my life, I compromise no one by my death; but you
have a mother and a bereaved sister to look to who will deserve your
care."

"Hilloa," cried the admiral, "what's this?"

"What?" cried each, eagerly, and they pressed forward to where the
admiral was stooping to the ground to pick up something which was nearly
completely trodden into the grass.

He with some difficulty raised it. It was a small slip of paper, on
which was some writing, but it was so much covered with mud as not to be
legible.

"If this be washed," said Henry, "I think we shall be able to read it
clearly."

"We can soon try that experiment," said George. "And as the footsteps,
by some mysterious means, show themselves nowhere else but in this one
particular spot, any further pursuit of inquiry about here appears
useless."

"Then we will return to the house," said Henry, "and wash the mud from
this paper."

"There is one important point," remarked Marchdale, "which it appears to
me we have all overlooked."

"Indeed!"

"Yes."

"What may that be?"

"It is this. Is any one here sufficiently acquainted with the
handwriting of Mr. Charles Holland to come to an opinion upon the
letters?"

"I have some letters from him," said Henry, "which we received while on
the continent, and I dare say Flora has likewise."

"Then they should be compared with the alleged forgeries."

"I know his handwriting well," said the admiral. "The letters bear so
strong a resemblance to it that they would deceive anybody."

"Then you may depend," remarked Henry, "some most deep-laid and
desperate plot is going on."

"I begin," added Marchdale, "to dread that such must be the case. What
say you to claiming the assistance of the authorities, as well as
offering a large reward for any information regarding Mr. Charles
Holland?"

"No plan shall be left untried, you may depend."

They had now reached the house, and Henry having procured some clean
water, carefully washed the paper which had been found among the trodden
grass. When freed from the mixture of clay and mud which had obscured
it, they made out the following words,--

"--it be so well. At the next full moon seek a convenient spot, and it
can be done. The signature is, to my apprehension, perfect. The money
which I hold, in my opinion, is much more in amount than you imagine,
must be ours; and as for--"

Here the paper was torn across, and no further words were visible upon
it.

Mystery seemed now to be accumulating upon mystery; each one, as it
showed itself darkly, seeming to bear some remote relation to what
preceded it; and yet only confusing it the more.

That this apparent scrap of a letter had dropped from some one's pocket
during the fearful struggle, of which there were such ample evidences,
was extremely probable; but what it related to, by whom it was written,
or by whom dropped, were unfathomable mysteries.

In fact, no one could give an opinion upon these matters at all; and
after a further series of conjectures, it could only be decided, that
unimportant as the scrap of paper appeared now to be, it should be
preserved, in case it should, as there was a dim possibility that it
might become a connecting link in some chain of evidence at another
time.

"And here we are," said Henry, "completely at fault, and knowing not
what to do."

"Well, it is a hard case," said the admiral, "that, with all the will in
the world to be up and doing something, we are lying here like a fleet
of ships in a calm, as idle as possible."

"You perceive we have no evidence to connect Sir Francis Varney with
this affair, either nearly or remotely," said Marchdale.

"Certainly not," replied Henry.

"But yet, I hope you will not lose sight of the suggestion I proposed,
to the effect of ascertaining if he were from home last night."

"But how is that to be carried out?"

"Boldly."

"How boldly?"

"By going at once, I should advise, to his house, and asking the first
one of his domestics you may happen to see."

"I will go over," cried George; "on such occasions as these one cannot
act upon ceremony."

He seized his hat, and without waiting for a word from any one approving
or condemning his going, off he went.

"If," said Henry, "we find that Varney has nothing to do with the
matter, we are completely at fault."

"Completely," echoed Marchdale.

"In that case, admiral, I think we ought to defer to your feelings upon
the subject, and do whatever you suggest should be done."

"I shall offer a hundred pounds reward to any one who can and will bring
any news of Charles."

"A hundred pounds is too much," said Marchdale.

"Not at all; and while I am about it, since the amount is made a subject
of discussion, I shall make it two hundred, and that may benefit some
rascal who is not so well paid for keeping the secret as I will pay him
for disclosing it."

"Perhaps you are right," said Marchdale.

"I know I am, as I always am."

Marchdale could not forbear a smile at the opinionated old man, who
thought no one's opinion upon any subject at all equal to his own; but
he made no remark, and only waited, as did Henry, with evident anxiety
for the return of George.

The distance was not great, and George certainly performed his errand
quickly, for he was back in less time than they had thought he could
return in. The moment he came into the room, he said, without waiting
for any inquiry to be made of him,--

"We are at fault again. I am assured that Sir Francis Varney never
stirred from home after eight o'clock last evening."

"D--n it, then," said the admiral, "let us give the devil his due. He
could not have had any hand in this business."

"Certainly not."

"From whom, George, did you get your information?" asked Henry, in a
desponding tone.

"From, first of all, one of his servants, whom I met away from the
house, and then from one whom I saw at the house."

"There can be no mistake, then?"

"Certainly none. The servants answered me at once, and so frankly that I
cannot doubt it."

The door of the room was slowly opened, and Flora came in. She looked
almost the shadow of what she had been but a few weeks before. She was
beautiful, but she almost realised the poet's description of one who had
suffered much, and was sinking into an early grave, the victim of a
broken heart:--

"She was more beautiful than death,
And yet as sad to look upon."

Her face was of a marble paleness, and as she clasped her hands, and
glanced from face to face, to see if she could gather hope and
consolation from the expression of any one, she might have been taken
for some exquisite statue of despair.

"Have you found him?" she said. Have you found Charles?"

"Flora, Flora," said Henry, as he approached her.

"Nay, answer me; have you found him? You went to seek him. Dead or
alive, have you found him?"

"We have not, Flora."

"Then I must seek him myself. None will search for him as I will search;
I must myself seek him. 'Tis true affection that can alone be successful
in such a search."

"Believe me, dear Flora, that all has been done which the shortness of
the time that has elapsed would permit. Further measures will now
immediately be taken. Rest assured, dear sister, that all will be done
that the utmost zeal can suggest."

"They have killed him! they have killed him!" she said, mournfully. "Oh,
God, they have killed him! I am not now mad, but the time will come when
I must surely be maddened. The vampyre has killed Charles Holland--the
dreadful vampyre!"

"Nay, now, Flora, this is frenzy."

"Because he loved me has he been destroyed. I know it, I know it. The
vampyre has doomed me to destruction. I am lost, and all who loved me
will be involved in one common ruin on my account. Leave me all of you
to perish. If, for iniquities done in our family, some one must suffer
to appease the divine vengeance, let that one be me, and only me."

"Hush, sister, hush!" cried Henry. "I expected not this from you. The
expressions you use are not your expressions. I know you better. There
is abundance of divine mercy, but no divine vengeance. Be calm, I pray
you."

"Calm! calm!"

"Yes. Make an exertion of that intellect we all know you to possess. It
is too common a thing with human nature, when misfortune overtakes it,
to imagine that such a state of things is specially arranged. We quarrel
with Providence because it does not interfere with some special miracle
in our favour; forgetting that, being denizens of this earth, and
members of a great social system; We must be subject occasionally to the
accidents which will disturb its efficient working."

"Oh, brother, brother!" she exclaimed, as she dropped into a seat, "you
have never loved."

"Indeed!"

"No; you have never felt what it was to hold your being upon the breath
of another. You can reason calmly, because you cannot know the extent of
feeling you are vainly endeavouring to combat."

"Flora, you do me less than justice. All I wish to impress upon your
mind is, that you are not in any way picked out by Providence to be
specially unhappy--that there is no perversion of nature on your
account."

"Call you that hideous vampyre form that haunts me no perversion of
ordinary nature?"

"What is is natural," said Marchdale.

"Cold reasoning to one who suffers as I suffer. I cannot argue with you;
I can only know that I am most unhappy--most miserable."

"But that will pass away, sister, and the sun of your happiness may
smile again."

"Oh, if I could but hope!"

"And wherefore should you deprive yourself of that poorest privilege of
the most unhappy?"

"Because my heart tells me to despair."

"Tell it you won't, then," cried Admiral Bell. "If you had been at sea
as long as I have, Miss Bannerworth, you would never despair of anything
at all."

"Providence guarded you," said Marchdale.

"Yes, that's true enough, I dare say, I was in a storm once off Cape
Ushant, and it was only through Providence, and cutting away the
mainmast myself, that we succeeded in getting into port."

"You have one hope," said Marchdale to Flora, as he looked in her wan
face.

"One hope?"

"Yes. Recollect you have one hope."

"What is that?"

"You think that, by removing from this place, you may find that peace
which is here denied you."

"No, no, no."

"Indeed. I thought that such was your firm conviction."

"It was; but circumstances have altered."

"How?"

"Charles Holland has disappeared here, and here must I remain to seek
for him."

"True he may have disappeared here," remarked Marchdale; "and yet that
may be no argument for supposing him still here."

"Where, then, is he?"

"God knows how rejoiced I should be if I were able to answer your
question. I must seek him, dead or alive! I must see him yet before I
bid adieu to this world, which has now lost all its charms for me."

"Do not despair," said Henry; "I will go to the town now at once, to
make known our suspicions that he has met with some foul play. I will
set every means in operation that I possibly can to discover him. Mr.
Chillingworth will aid me, too; and I hope that not many days will
elapse, Flora, before some intelligence of a most satisfactory nature
shall be brought to you on Charles Holland's account."

"Go, go, brother; go at once."

"I go now at once."

"Shall I accompany you?" said Marchdale.

"No. Remain here to keep watch over Flora's safety while I am gone; I
can alone do all that can be done."

"And don't forget to offer the two hundred pounds reward," said the
admiral, "to any one who can bring us news of Charles, on which we can
rely."

"I will not."

"Surely--surely something must result from that," said Flora, as she
looked in the admiral's face, as if to gather encouragement in her
dawning hopes from its expression.

"Of course it will, my dear," he said. "Don't you be downhearted; you
and I are of one mind in this affair, and of one mind we will keep. We
won't give up our opinions for anybody."

"Our opinions," she said, "of the honour and honesty of Charles Holland.
That is what we will adhere to."

"Of course we will."

"Ah, sir, it joys me, even in the midst of this, my affliction, to find
one at least who is determined to do him full justice. We cannot find
such contradictions in nature as that a mind, full of noble impulses,
should stoop to such a sudden act of selfishness as those letters would
attribute to Charles Holland. It cannot--cannot be."

"You are right, my dear. And now, Master Henry, you be off, will you, if
you please."

"I am off now. Farewell, Flora, for a brief space."

"Farewell, brother; and Heaven speed you on your errand."

"Amen to that," cried the admiral; "and now, my dear, if you have got
half an hour to spare, just tuck your arm under mine, and take a walk
with me in the garden, for I want to say something to you."

"Most willingly," said Flora.

"I would not advise you to stray far from the house, Miss Bannerworth,"
said Marchdale.

"Nobody asked you for advice," said the admiral. "D----e, do you want to
make out that I ain't capable of taking care of her?"

"No, no; but--"

"Oh, nonsense! Come along, my dear; and if all the vampyres and odd fish
that were ever created were to come across our path, we would settle
them somehow or another. Come along, and don't listen to anybody's
croaking."

CHAPTER XXIX.

A PEEP THROUGH AN IRON GRATING.--THE LONELY PRISONER IN HIS
DUNGEON.--THE MYSTERY.

[Illustration]

Without forestalling the interest of our story, or recording a fact in
its wrong place, we now call our readers' attention to a circumstance
which may, at all events, afford some food for conjecture.

Some distance from the Hall, which, from time immemorial, had been the
home and the property of the Bannerworth family, was an ancient ruin
known by the name of the Monks' Hall.

It was conjectured that this ruin was the remains of some one of those
half monastic, half military buildings which, during the middle ages,
were so common in almost every commanding situation in every county of
England.

At a period of history when the church arrogated to itself an amount of
political power which the intelligence of the spirit of the age now
denies to it, and when its members were quite ready to assert at any
time the truth of their doctrines by the strong arm of power, such
buildings as the one, the old grey ruins of which were situated near to
Bannerworth Hall, were erected.

Ostensibly for religious purposes, but really as a stronghold for
defence, as well as for aggression, this Monks' Hall, as it was called,
partook quite as much of the character of a fortress, as of an
ecclesiastical building.

The ruins covered a considerable extent, of ground, but the only part
which seemed successfully to have resisted the encroaches of time, at
least to a considerable extent, was a long, hall in which the jolly
monks no doubt feasted and caroused.

Adjoining to this hall, were the walls of other parts of the building,
and at several places there were small, low, mysterious-looking doors
that led, heaven knows where, into some intricacies and labyrinths
beneath the building, which no one had, within the memory of man, been
content to run the risk of losing himself in.

[Illustration]

It was related that among these subterranean passages and arches there
were pitfalls and pools of water; and whether such a statement was true
or not, it certainly acted as a considerable damper upon the vigour of
curiosity.

This ruin was so well known in the neighbourhood, and had become from
earliest childhood so familiar to the inhabitants of Bannerworth Hall,
that one would as soon expect an old inhabitant of Ludgate-hill to make
some remark about St. Paul's, as any of them to allude to the ruins of
Monks' Hall.

They never now thought of going near to it, for in infancy they had
spoiled among its ruins, and it had become one of those familiar objects
which, almost, from that very familiarity, cease to hold a place in the
memories of those who know it so well.

It is, however, to this ruin we would now conduct our readers, premising
that what we have to say concerning it now, is not precisely in the form
of a connected portion of our narrative.

* * * * *

It is evening--the evening of that first day of heart loneliness to poor
Flora Bannerworth. The lingering rays of the setting sun are gilding the
old ruins with a wondrous beauty. The edges of the decayed stones seem
now to be tipped with gold, and as the rich golden refulgence of light
gleams upon the painted glass which still adorned a large window of the
hall, a flood of many-coloured beautiful light was cast within, making
the old flag-stones, with which the interior was paved, look more like
some rich tapestry, laid down to do honour to a monarch.

So picturesque and so beautiful an aspect did the ancient ruin wear,
that to one with a soul to appreciate the romantic and the beautiful, it
would have amply repaid the fatigue of a long journey now to see it.

And as the sun sank to rest, the gorgeous colours that it cast upon the
mouldering wall, deepened from an appearance of burnished gold to a
crimson hue, and from that again the colour changed to a shifting
purple, mingling with the shadows of the evening, and so gradually
fading away into absolute darkness.

The place is as silent as the tomb--a silence far more solemn than could
have existed, had there been no remains of a human habitation; because
even these time-worn walls were suggestive of what once had been; and
the wrapt stillness which now pervaded them brought with them a
melancholy feeling for the past.

There was not even the low hum of insect life to break the stillness of
these ancient ruins.

And now the last rays of the sun are gradually fading away. In a short
time all will be darkness. A low gentle wind is getting up, and
beginning slightly to stir the tall blades of grass that have shot up
between some of the old stones. The silence is broken, awfully broken,
by a sudden cry of despair; such a cry as might come from some
imprisoned spirit, doomed to waste an age of horror in a tomb.

And yet it was scarcely to be called a scream, and not all a groan. It
might have come from some one on the moment of some dreadful sacrifice,
when the judgment had not sufficient time to call courage to its aid,
but involuntarily had induced that sound which might not be repeated.

A few startled birds flew from odd holes and corners about the ruins, to
seek some other place of rest. The owl hooted from a corner of what had
once been a belfry, and a dreamy-looking bat flew out from a cranny and
struck itself headlong against a projection.