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Varney the Vampire by Thomas Preskett Prest

T >> Thomas Preskett Prest >> Varney the Vampire




This can only be accounted for by a piece of cowardice in the human
race, which induces them when alone, and acting with the full
responsibility of their actions, to shrink from what it is quite evident
they have a full inclination to do, and will do when, having partially
lost their individuality in a crowd, they fancy, that to a certain
extent they can do so with impunity.

The burning of Sir Francis Varney's house, although it was one of those
proceedings which would not bear the test of patient examination, was
yet, when we take all the circumstances into consideration, an act
really justifiable and natural in comparison with the one which was now
meditated.

Bannerworth Hall had never been the residence even of anyone who had
done the people any injury or given them any offence, so that to let it
become a prey to the flames was but a gratuitous act of mischief.

It was, however, or seemed to be, doomed, for all who have had any
experience in mobs, must know how extremely difficult it is to withdraw
them from any impulse once given, especially when that impulse, as in
the present instance, is of a violent character.

"Down with Bannerworth Hall!" was the cry. "Burn it--burn it," and
augmented by fresh numbers each minute, the ignorant, and, in many
respects, ruffianly assemblage, soon arrived within sight of what had
been for so many years the bane of the Bannerworths, and whatever may
have been the fault of some of that race, those faults had been of a
domestic character, and not at all such as would interfere with the
public weal.

The astonished, and almost worn-out authorities, hastily, now, after
having disposed of their prisoners, collected together what troops they
could, and by the time the misguided, or rather the not guided at all
populace, had got halfway to Bannerworth Hall, they were being
outflanked by some of the dragoons, who, by taking a more direct route,
hoped to reach Bannerworth Hall first, and so perhaps, by letting the
mob see that it was defended, induce them to give up the idea of its
destruction on account of the danger attendant upon the proceeding by
far exceeding any of the anticipated delight of the disturbance.

[Illustration]




CHAPTER LXXI.

THE STRANGE MEETING AT THE HALL BETWEEN MR. CHILLINGWORTH AND THE
MYSTERIOUS FRIEND OF VARNEY.


[Illustration]

When we praise our friend Mr. Chillingworth for not telling his wife
where he was going, in pursuance of a caution and a discrimination so
highly creditable to him, we are quite certain that he has no such
excuse as regards the reader. Therefore we say at once that he had his
own reasons now for taking up his abode at Bannerworth Hall for a time.
These reasons seemed to be all dependant upon the fact of having met the
mysterious man at Sir Francis Varney's; and although we perhaps would
have hoped that the doctor might have communicated to Henry Bannerworth
all that he knew and all that he surmised, yet have we no doubt that
what he keeps to himself he has good reasons for so keeping, and that
his actions as regards it are founded upon some very just conclusions.

He has then made a determination to take possession of, and remain in,
Bannerworth Hall according to the full and free leave which the admiral
had given him so to do. What results he anticipated from so lonely and
so secret a watch we cannot say, but probably they will soon exhibit
themselves. It needed no sort of extraordinary discrimination for any
one to feel it once that not the least good, in the way of an ambuscade,
was likely to be effected by such persons as Admiral Bell or Jack
Pringle. They were all very well when fighting should actually ensue,
but they both were certainly remarkably and completely deficient in
diplomatic skill, or in that sort of patience which should enable them
at all to compete with the cunning, the skill, and the nice
discrimination of such a man as Sir Francis Varney.

If anything were to be done in that way it was unquestionably to be done
by some one alone, who, like the doctor, would, and could, remain
profoundly quiet and await the issue of events, be they what they might,
and probably remain a spy and attempt no overt act which should be of a
hostile character. This unquestionably was the mode, and perhaps we
should not be going too far when we say it was the only mode which could
be with anything like safety relied upon as one likely to lead really to
a discovery of Sir Francis Varney's motives in making such determined
exertions to get possession of Bannerworth Hall.

That night was doomed to be a very eventful one, indeed; for on it had
Charles Holland been, by a sort of wild impulsive generosity of Sir
Francis Varney, rescued from the miserable dungeon in which he had been
confined, and on that night, too, he, whom we cannot otherwise describe
than as the villain Marchdale, had been, in consequence of the evil that
he himself meditated, and the crime with which he was quite willing to
stain his soul, been condemned to occupy Charles's position.

On that night, too, had the infuriated mob determined upon the
destruction of Bannerworth Hall, and on that night was Mr. Chillingworth
waiting with what patience he could exert, at the Hall, for whatever in
the chapter of accidents might turn up of an advantageous character to
that family in whose welfare and fortunes he felt so friendly and so
deep an interest.

Let us look, then, at the worthy doctor as he keeps his solitary watch.

He did not, as had been the case when the admiral shared the place with
him in the hope of catching Varney on that memorable occasion when he
caught only his boot, sit in a room with a light and the means and
appliances for making the night pass pleasantly away; but, on the
contrary, he abandoned the house altogether, and took up a station in
that summer-house which has been before mentioned as the scene of a
remarkable interview between Flora Bannerworth and Varney the vampyre.

Alone and in the dark, so that he could not be probably seen, he watched
that one window of the chamber where the first appearance of the hideous
vampyre had taken place, and which seemed ever since to be the special
object of his attack.

By remaining from twilight, and getting accustomed to the gradually
increasing darkness of the place, no doubt the doctor was able to see
well enough without the aid of any artificial light whether any one was
in the place besides himself.

"Night after night," he said, "will I watch here until I have succeeded
in unravelling this mystery; for that there is some fearful and undreamt
of mystery at the bottom of all these proceedings I am well convinced."

When he made such a determination as this, Dr. Chillingworth was not at
all a likely man to break it, so there, looking like a modern statue in
the arbour, he sat with his eyes fixed upon the balcony and the window
of what used to be called Flora's room for some hours.

The doctor was a contemplative man, and therefore he did not so acutely
feel the loneliness of his position as many persons would have done;
moreover, he was decidedly not of a superstitious turn of mind, although
certainly we cannot deny an imagination to him. However, if he really
had harboured some strange fears and terrors they would have been
excusable, when we consider how many circumstances had combined to make
it almost a matter of demonstration that Sir Francis Varney was
something more than mortal.

What quantities of subjects the doctor thought over during his vigil in
that garden it is hard to say, but never in his whole life, probably,
had he such a glorious opportunity for the most undisturbed
contemplation of subjects requiring deep thought to analyze, than as he
had then. At least he felt that since his marriage he had never been so
thoroughly quiet, and left so completely to himself.

It is to be hoped that he succeeded in settling any medical points of a
knotty character that might be hovering in his brain, and certain it is
that he had become quite absorbed in an abstruse matter connected with
physiology, when his ears were startled, and he was at once aroused to a
full consciousness of where he was, and why he had come there, by the
distant sound of a man's footstep.

It was a footstep which seemed to be that of a person who scarcely
thought it at all necessary to use any caution, and the doctor's heart
leaped within him as in the lowest possible whisper he said to
himself,--

"I am successful--I am successful. It is believed now that the Hall is
deserted, and no doubt that is Sir Francis Varney come with confidence,
to carry out his object in so sedulously attacking it, be that object
what it may."

Elated with this idea, the doctor listened intently to the advancing
footstep, which each moment sounded more clearly upon his ears.

It was evidently approaching from the garden entrance towards the house,
and he thought, by the occasional deadened sound of the person's feet,
be he whom he might, that he could not see his way very well, and,
consequently, frequently strayed from the path, on to some of the
numerous flower-beds which were in the way.

"Yes," said the doctor, exultingly, "it must be Varney; and now I have
but to watch him, and not to resist him; for what good on earth is it to
stop him in what he wishes to do, and, by such means, never wrest his
secret from him. The only way is to let him go on, and that will I do,
most certainly."

Now he heard the indistinct muttering of the voice of some one, so low
that he could not catch what words were uttered; but he fancied that, in
the deep tones, he recognised, without any doubt, the voice of Sir
Francis Varney.

"It must be he," he said, "it surely must be he. Who else would come
here to disturb the solitude of an empty house? He comes! he comes!"

Now the doctor could see a figure emerge from behind some thick beeches,
which had before obstructed his vision, and he looked scrutinisingly
about, while some doubts stole slowly over his mind now as to whether it
was the vampyre or not. The height was in favour of the supposition that
it was none other than Varney; but the figure looked so much stouter,
that Mr. Chillingworth felt a little staggered upon the subject, and
unable wholly to make up his mind upon it.

The pausing of this visitor, too, opposite that window where Sir Francis
Varney had made his attempts, was another strong reason why the doctor
was inclined to believe it must be him, and yet he could not quite make
up his mind upon the subject, so as to speak with certainty.

A very short time, however, indeed, must have sufficed to set such a
question as that at rest; and patience seemed the only quality of mind
necessary under those circumstances for Mr. Chillingworth to exert.

The visitor continued gazing either at that window, or at the whole
front of the house, for several minutes, and then he turned away from a
contemplation of it, and walked slowly along, parallel with the windows
of that dining-room, one of which had been broken so completely on the
occasion of the admiral's attempt to take the vampyre prisoner.

The moment the stranger altered his position, from looking at the
window, and commenced walking away from it, Mr. Chillingworth's mind was
made up. It was not Varney--of that he felt now most positively assured,
and could have no doubt whatever upon the subject.

The gait, the general air, the walk, all were different; and then arose
the anxious question of who could it be that had intruded upon that
lonely place, and what could be the object of any one else but Varney
the vampyre to do so.

The stranger looked a powerful man, and walked with a firm tread, and,
altogether he was an opponent that, had the doctor been ever so
belligerently inclined, it would have been the height of indiscretion
for him to attempt to cope with.

It was a very vexatious thing, too, for any one to come there at such a
juncture, perhaps only from motives of curiosity, or possibly just to
endeavour to commit some petty depredations upon the deserted building,
if possible; and most heartily did the doctor wish that, in some way, he
could scare away the intruder.

The man walked along very slowly, indeed, and seemed to be quite taking
his time in making his observations of the building; and this was the
more provoking, as it was getting late, and if having projected a visit
at all, it would surely soon be made, and then, when he found any one
there, of course, he would go.

Amazed beyond expression, the doctor felt about on the ground at his
feet, until he found a tolerably large stone, which he threw at the
stranger with so good an aim, that it hit him a smart blow on the back,
which must have been anything but a pleasant surprise.

That it was a surprise, and that, too, a most complete one, was evident
from the start which the man gave, and then he uttered a furious oath,
and rubbed his back, as he glanced about him to endeavour to ascertain
from whence the missile had come.

"I'll try him again with that," thought the doctor; "it may succeed in
scaring him away;" and he stooped to watch for another stone.

It was well that he did so at that precise moment; for, before he rose
again, he heard the sharp report of a pistol, and a crashing sound among
some of the old wood work of which the summer-house was composed, told
him that a shot had there taken effect. Affairs were now getting much
too serious; and, accordingly, Dr. Chillingworth thought that, rather
than stay there to be made a target of, he would face the intruder.

"Hold--hold!" he cried. "Who are you, and what do you mean by
that?"--"Oh! somebody is there," cried the man, as he advanced. "My
friend, whoever you are, you were very foolish to throw a stone at me."

"And, my friend, whoever you are," responded the doctor, "you were very
spiteful to fire a pistol bullet at me in consequence."--

"Not at all."

"But I say yes; for, probably, I can prove a right to be here, which you
cannot."--"Ah!" said the stranger, "that voice--why--you are Dr.
Chillingworth?"

"I am; but I don't know you," said the doctor, as he emerged now from
the summer-house, and confronted the stranger who was within a few paces
of the entrance to it. Then he started, as he added,--

"Yes, I do know you, though. How, in the name of Heaven, came you here,
and what purpose have you in so coming?"

"What purpose have you? Since we met at Varney's, I have been making
some inquiries about this neighbourhood, and learn strange
things."--"That you may very easily do here; and, what is more
extraordinary, the strange things are, for the most part, I can assure
you, quite true."

The reader will, from what has been said, now readily recognise this man
as Sir Francis Varney's mysterious visitor, to whom he gave, from some
hidden cause or another, so large a sum of money, and between whom and
Dr. Chillingworth a mutual recognition had taken place, on the occasion
when Sir Francis Varney had, with such cool assurance, invited the
admiral to breakfast with him at his new abode.

"You, however," said the man, "I have no doubt, are fully qualified to
tell me of more than I have been able to learn from other people; and,
first of all, let me ask you why you are here?"--"Before I answer you
that question, or any other," said the doctor, "let me beg of you to
tell me truly, is Sir Francis Varney--"

The doctor whispered in the ear of the stranger some name, as if he
feared, even there, in the silence of that garden, where everything
conspired to convince him that he could not be overheard, to pronounce
it in an audible tone.

"He is," said the other.--"You have no manner of doubt of it?"

"Doubt?--certainly not. What doubt can I have? I know it for a positive
certainty, and he knows, of course, that I do know it, and has purchased
my silence pretty handsomely, although I must confess that nothing but
my positive necessities would have induced me to make the large demands
upon him that I have, and I hope soon to be able to release him
altogether from them."

The doctor shook his head repeatedly, as he said,--

"I suspected it; I suspected it, do you know, from the first moment that
I saw you there in his house. His face haunted me ever since--awfully
haunted me; and yet, although I felt certain that I had once seen it
under strange circumstances, I could not identify it with--but no
matter, no matter. I am waiting here for him."

"Indeed!"--"Ay, that I am; and I flung a stone at you, not knowing you,
with hope that you would be, by such means, perhaps, scared away, and so
leave the coast clear for him."

"Then you have an appointment with him?"--"By no means; but he has made
such repeated and determined attacks upon this house that the family who
inhabited it were compelled to leave it, and I am here to watch him, and
ascertain what can possibly be his object."

"It is as I suspected, then," muttered this man. "Confound him! Now can
I read, as if in a book, most clearly, the game that he is playing!"

"Can you?" cried the doctor, energetically--"can you? What is it? Tell
me, for that is the very thing I want to discover."--"You don't say so?"

"It is, indeed; and I assure you that it concerns the peace of a whole
family to know it. You say you have made inquiries about this
neighbourhood, and, if you have done so, you have discovered how the
family of the Bannerworths have been persecuted by Varney, and how, in
particular, Flora Bannerworth, a beautiful and intelligent girl, has
been most cruelly made to suffer."

"I have heard all that, and I dare say with many exaggerations."--"It
would be difficult for any one really to exaggerate the horrors that
have taken place in this house, so that any information which you can
give respecting the motives of Varney will tend, probably, to restore
peace to those who have been so cruelly persecuted, and be an act of
kindness which I think not altogether inconsistent with your nature."

"You think so, and yet know who I am."--"I do, indeed."

"And what I am. Why, if I were to go into the market-place of yon town,
and proclaim myself, would not all shun me--ay, even the very lowest and
vilest; and yet you talk of an act of kindness not being altogether
inconsistent with my nature!"--"I do, because I know something more of
you than many."

There was a silence of some moments' duration, and then the stranger
spoke in a tone of voice which looked as it he were struggling with some
emotion.

"Sir, you do know more of me than many. You know what I have been, and
you know how I left an occupation which would have made me loathed. But
you--even you--do not know what made me take to so terrible a
trade."--"I do not."

"Would it suit you for me now to tell you?"--"Will you first promise me
that you will do all you can for this persecuted family of the
Bannerworths, in whom I take so strange an interest?"

"I will. I promise you that freely. Of my own knowledge, of course, I
can say but little concerning them, but, upon that warranting, I well
believe they deserve abundant sympathy, and from me they shall have it."

"A thousand thanks! With your assistance, I have little doubt of being
able to extricate them from the tangled web of dreadful incidents which
has turned them from their home; and now, whatever you may choose to
tell me of the cause which drove you to be what you became, I shall
listen to with abundant interest. Only let me beseech you to come into
this summer-house, and to talk low."

"I will, and you can pursue your watch at the same time, while I beguile
its weariness."--"Be it so."

"You knew me years ago, when I had all the chances in the world of
becoming respectable and respected. I did, indeed; and you may,
therefore, judge of my surprise when, some years since, being in the
metropolis, I met you, and you shunned my company."--"Yes; but, at last,
you found out why it was that I shunned your company."

"I did. You yourself told me once that I met you, and would not leave
you, but insisted upon your dining with me. Then you told me, when you
found that I would take no other course whatever, that you were no other
than the--the----"--

"Out with it! I can bear to hear it now better than I could then! I told
you that I was the common hangman of London!"

"You did, I must confess, to my most intense surprise."

"Yes, and yet you kept to me; and, but that I respected you too much to
allow you to do so, you would, from old associations, have countenanced
me; but I could not, and I would not, let you do so. I told you then
that, although I held the terrible office, that I had not been yet
called upon to perform its loathsome functions. Soon--soon--come the
first effort--it was the last!"

"Indeed! You left the dreadful trade?"

"I did--I did. But what I want to tell you, for I could not then, was
why I went ever to it. The wounds my heart had received were then too
fresh to allow me to speak of them, but I will tell you now. The story
is a brief one, Mr. Chillingworth. I pray you be seated."




CHAPTER LXXII.

THE STRANGE STORY.--THE ARRIVAL OF THE MOB AT THE HALL, AND THEIR
DISPERSION.


[Illustration]

"You will find that the time which elapsed since I last saw you in
London, to have been spent in an eventful, varied manner."--"You were in
good circumstances then," said Mr. Chillingworth.--"I was, but many
events happened after that which altered the prospect; made it even more
gloomy than you can well imagine: but I will tell you all candidly, and
you can keep watch upon Bannerworth Hall at the same time. You are well
aware that I was well to do, and had ample funds, and inclination to
spend them."--"I recollect: but you were married then, surely?"--"I
was," said the stranger, sadly, "I was married then."--"And now?"--"I am
a widower." The stranger seemed much moved, but, after a moment or so,
he resumed--"I am a widower now; but how that event came about is partly
my purpose to tell you. I had not married long--that is very long--for I
have but one child, and she is not old, or of an age to know much more
than what she may be taught; she is still in the course of education. I
was early addicted to gamble; the dice had its charms, as all those who
have ever engaged in play but too well know; it is perfectly
fascinating."--"So I have heard," said Mr. Chillingworth; "though, for
myself, I found a wife and professional pursuits quite incompatible with
any pleasure that took either time or resources."--

"It is so. I would I had never entered one of those houses where men are
deprived of their money and their own free will, for at the
gambling-table you have no liberty, save that in gliding down the stream
in company with others. How few have ever escaped destruction--none, I
believe--men are perfectly fascinated; it is ruin alone that enables a
man to see how he has been hurried onwards without thought or
reflection; and how fallacious were all the hopes he ever entertained!
Yes, ruin, and ruin alone, can do this; but, alas! 'tis then too
late--the evil is done. Soon after my marriage I fell in with a
Chevalier St. John. He was a man of the world in every sense of the
word, and one that was well versed in all the ways of society. I never
met with any man who was so perfectly master of himself, and of perfect
ease and self-confidence as he was. He was never at a loss, and, come
what would, never betrayed surprise or vexation--two qualities, he
thought, never ought to be shown by any man who moved in society."--

"Indeed!"--"He was a strange man--a very strange man."--

"Did he gamble?"--

"It is difficult to give you a correct and direct answer. I should say
he did, and yet he never lost or won much; but I have often thought he
was more connected with those who did than was believed."--

"Was that a fact?" inquired Mr. Chillingworth.--

"You shall see as we go on, and be able to judge for yourself. I have
thought he was. Well, he first took me to a handsome saloon, where
gambling was carried on. We had been to the opera. As we came out, he
recommended that we should sup at a house where he was well known, and
where he was in the habit of spending his evenings after the opera, and
before he retired. I agreed to this. I saw no reason why I should not.
We went there, and bitterly have I repented of so doing for years since,
and do to this day."--

"Your repentance has been sincere and lasting," said Mr. Chillingworth;
"the one proves the other."--"It does; but I thought not so then. The
place was glittering, and the wine good. It was a kind of earthly
paradise; and when we had taken some wine, the chevalier said to me,--

"'I am desirous of seeing a friend backwards; he is at the hazard-table.
Will you go with me?'--I hesitated. I feared to see the place where a
vice was carried on. I knew myself inclined to prudential motives. I
said to him,--'No, St. John, I'll wait here for you; it may be as
well--the wine is good, and it will content me?'

"'Do so,' he said, smiling; 'but remember I seldom or never play myself,
nor is there any reason why you should.'--'I'll go, but I will not
play.'--'Certainly not; you are free alike to look on, play, or quit the
place at any moment you please, and not be noticed, probably, by a
single soul.'

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Stephen King fan publishes Shining's Jack Torrance's novel
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A Stephen King fan has published an 80-page version of the book which novelist Jack Torrance obsessively writes during King's The Shining, where his descent into madness is revealed when his wife discovers that his work consists of just one phrase, endlessly repeated.

Torrance, played by Jack Nicholson in terrifying form in Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film, is a frustrated writer who goes with his wife and son to spend the winter in the isolated Overlook Hotel in an attempt to get the novel he has always wanted to write started. But the hotel's grisly past and unquiet ghosts have their way with him, and his wife Wendy eventually finds that the manuscript he has been working on actually only contains the phrase "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy", typed over and over again.

Now New York artist Phil Buehler, who describes himself as "a big fan of Stanley Kubrick and Stephen King", has self-published a book credited to Torrance, repeating the phrase throughout but formatting each page differently, using the words to create different shapes from zigzags to spirals.

"The idea has probably been marinating for years, because I loved the movie and the Stephen King book," said Buehler. "I'd just finished my own obsessive art project [and] it was an idea I had over the Christmas holidays."

He said he decided to stick to type and formatting that could have been created on a typewriter, with the first ten pages duplicating shots of Torrance's work from the film. "I thought 'if he continues to get crazier, what would those pages look like?'" he said. "I hit writer's block about 60 pages in, and I had to get to 80 - that went on for about a week." His fiancée, who had neither read the book nor seen the film, became a little concerned about his actions. "I finally showed her the movie, and she realised I wasn't really losing it," said Buehler.

He's included a spoof review from the blog OverThinkingIt.com on the book's back jacket, which compares it to "the best of Beckett" in its "lack of forward momentum", and considers the struggles of the author, "heroically pitting himself against the Sisyphusean sentence". "It's that metatextual struggle of Man vs. Typewriter that gives this book its spellbinding power," the review says. "Some will dismiss it as simplistic; that's like dismissing a Pollack canvas as mere splatters of paint."

So far, Buehler says that around 1,000 people have viewed the book, for sale on Blurb.com for $8.95 in paperback, or $22.95 in hardback, and he's sold "a few" copies, with sales now starting to pick up steam. "A few people have asked me to sign it - they're looking it as a piece of art rather than a funny thing to give to a Kubrick fan," he said. "If you're not a Kubrick or King fan, you might not even get it."

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