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Varney the Vampire by Thomas Preskett Prest

T >> Thomas Preskett Prest >> Varney the Vampire




The day had now fairly commenced, so that there was abundance of light,
although, even for the country, it was an early hour, and probably Mr.
Nash had been not a little surprised to have a call from one whose
appearance bespoke no necessity for rising with the lark at such an
hour.

All these considerations, however, sank into insignificance in Charles's
mind, compared with the object he had in view, namely, the unravelling
the many mysteries that hung around that man. He ascended to the landing
of the first story, and then, as he could have no choice, he opened the
first door that his eyes fell upon, and entered a tolerably large
apartment. It was quite destitute of furniture, and at the moment
Charles was about to pronounce it empty; but then his eyes fell upon a
large black-looking bundle of something, that seemed to be lying jammed
up under the window on the floor--that being the place of all others in
the room which was enveloped in the most shadow.

He started back involuntarily at the moment, for the appearance was one
so shapeless, that there was no such thing as defining, from even that
distance, what it really was.

Then he slowly and cautiously approached it, as we always approach that
of the character of which we are ignorant, and concerning the powers of
which to do injury we can consequently have no defined idea.

That it was a human form there, was the first tangible opinion he had
about it; and from its profound stillness, and the manner in which it
seemed to be laid close under the window, he thought that he was surely
upon the point of finding out that some deed of blood had been
committed, the unfortunate victim of which was now lying before him.

Upon a nearer examination, he found that the whole body, including the
greater part of the head and face, was wrapped in a large cloak; and
there, as he gazed, he soon found cause to correct his first opinion at
to the form belonging to the dead, for he could distinctly hear the
regular breathing, as of some one in a sound and dreamless sleep.

Closer he went, and closer still. Then, as he clasped his hands, he
said, in a voice scarcely above a whisper,--

"It is--it is the vampyre."

Yes, there could be no doubt of the fact. It was Sir Francis Varney who
lay there, enveloped in the huge horseman's cloak, in which, on two or
three occasions during the progress of this narrative, he had figured.
There he lay, at the mercy completely of any arm that might be raised
against him, apparently so overcome by fatigue that no ordinary noise
would have awakened him.

Well might Charles Holland gaze at him with mingled feelings. There lay
the being who had done almost enough to drive the beautiful Flora
Bannerworth distracted--the being who had compelled the Bannerworth
family to leave their ancient house, to which they had been bound by
every description of association. The same mysterious existence, too,
who, the better to carry on his plots and plans, had, by dint of
violence, immured him, Charles, in a dungeon, and loaded him with
chains. There he lay sleeping, and at his mercy.

"Shall I awaken him," said Charles, "or let him sleep off the fatigue,
which, no doubt, is weighing down his limbs, and setting heavily on his
eyelids. No, my business with him is too urgent."

He then raised his voice, and cried,--

"Varney, Varney, awake!"

The sound disturbed, without altogether breaking up, the deep slumber of
the vampyre, and he uttered a low moan, and moved one hand restlessly.
Then, as if that disturbance of the calm and deep repose which had sat
upon him, had given at once the reins to fancy, he begin to mutter
strange words in his sleep, some of which could be heard by Charles
distinctly, while others were too incoherently uttered to be clearly
understood.

"Where is it?" he said; "where--where hidden?--Pull the house
down!--Murder! No, no, no! no murder!--I will not, I dare not. Blood
enough is upon my hands.--The money!--the money! Down, villains! down!
down! down!"

What these incoherent words alluded to specifically, Charles, of course,
could not have the least idea, but he listened attentively, with a hope
that something might fall from his lips that would afford a key to some
of the mysterious circumstances with which he was so intimately
connected.

Now, however, there was a longer silence than before, only broken
occasionally by low moans; but suddenly, as Charles was thinking of
again speaking, he uttered some more disjointed sentences.

"No harm," he said, "no harm,--Marchdale is a villain!--Not a hair of
his head injured--no, no. Set him free--yes, I will set him free.
Beware! beware, Marchdale! and you Mortimer. The scaffold! ay, the
scaffold! but where is the bright gold? The memory of the deed of blood
will not cling to it. Where is it hidden? The gold! the gold! the gold!
It is not in the grave--it cannot be there--no, no, no!--not there, not
there! Load the pistols. There, there! Down, villain, down!--down,
down!"

Despairing, now, of obtaining anything like tangible information from
these ravings, which, even if they did, by accident, so connect
themselves together as to seem to mean something, Charles again cried
aloud,--

"Varney, awake, awake!"

But, as before, the sleeping man was sufficiently deaf to the cry to
remain, with his eyes closed, still in a disturbed slumber, but yet a
slumber which might last for a considerable time.

"I have heard," said Charles, "that there are many persons whom no noise
will awaken, while the slightest touch rouses them in an instant. I will
try that upon this slumbering being."

As he spoke, he advanced close to Sir Francis Varney, and touched him
slightly with the toe of his boot.

The effect was as startling as it was instantaneous. The vampyre sprang
to his feet, as he had been suddenly impelled up by some powerful
machinery; and, casting his cloak away from his arms, so as to have them
at liberty, he sprang upon Charles Holland, and hurled him to the
ground, where he held him with a giant's gripe, as he cried,--

"Rash fool! be you whom you may. Why have you troubled me to rid the
world of your intrusive existence?"

The attack was so sudden and so terrific, that resistance to it, even if
Charles had had the power, was out of the question. All he could say,
was,--

"Varney, Varney! do you not know me? I am Charles Holland. Will you now,
in your mad rage, take the life you might more easily have taken when I
lay in the dungeon from which you released me?"

The sound of his voice at once convinced Sir Francis Varney of his
identity; and it was with a voice that had some tones of regret in it,
that he replied,--

"And wherefore have you thought proper, when you were once free and
unscathed, to cast yourself into such a position of danger as to follow
me to my haunt?"

"I contemplated no danger," said Charles, "because I contemplated no
evil. I do not know why you should kill me."

"You came here, and yet you say you do not know why I should kill you.
Young man, have you a dozen lives that you can afford to tamper with
them thus? I have, at much chance of imminence to myself, already once
saved you, when another, with a sterner feeling, would have gladly taken
your life; but now, as if you were determined to goad me to an act which
I have shunned committing, you will not let me close my eyes in peace."

"Take your hand from off my throat, Varney, and I will then tell you
what brought me here."

Sir Francis Varney did so.

"Rise," he said--"rise; I have seen blood enough to be sickened at the
prospect of more; but you should not have come here and tempted me."

"Nay, believe me, I came here for good and not for evil. Sir Francis
Varney, hear me out, and then judge for yourself whether you can blame
the perseverance which enabled me to find out this secret place of
refuge; but let me first say that now it is as good a place of
concealment to you as before it was, for I shall not betray you."

"Go on, go on. What is it you desire?"

"During the long and weary hours of my captivity, I thought deeply, and
painfully too, as may be well imagined, of all the circumstances
connected with your appearance at Bannerworth Hall, and your subsequent
conduct. Then I felt convinced that there was something far more than
met the eye, in the whole affair, and, from what I have been informed of
since, I am the more convinced that some secret, some mystery, which it
is in your power only perhaps to explain, lurks at the bottom of all
your conduct."

"Well, proceed," said Varney.

"Have I not said enough now to enable you to divine the object of my
visit? It is that you should shake off the trammels of mystery in which
you have shrouded yourself, and declare what it is you want, what it is
you desire, that has induced you to set yourself up as such a determined
foe of the Bannerworth family."

"And that, you say, is the modest request that brings you here?"

"You speak as it you thought it was idle curiosity that prompts me, but
you know it is not. Your language and manner are those of a man of too
much sagacity not to see that I have higher notions."

"Name them."

"You have yourself, in more than one instance, behaved with a strange
sort of romantic generosity, as if, but for some great object which you
felt impelled to seek by any means, and at any sacrifice, you would be a
something in character and conduct very different from what you are. One
of my objects, then, is to awaken that better nature which is slumbering
within you, only now and then rousing itself to do some deed which
should be the character of all your actions--for your own sake I have
come."

"But not wholly?"

"Not wholly, as you say. There is another than whom, the whole world is
not so dear to me. That other one was serene as she was beautiful.
Happiness danced in her eyes, and she ought--for not more lovely is the
mind that she possesses than the glorious form that enshrines it--to be
happy. Her life should have passed like one long summer's day of beauty,
sunshine, and pure heavenly enjoyment. You have poisoned the cup of joy
that the great God of nature had permitted her to place to her lips and
taste of mistrustingly. Why have you done this? I ask you--why have you
done this?"

"Have you said all that you came to say?"

"I have spoken the substance of my message. Much could I elaborate upon
such a theme; but it is not one, Varney, which is congenial to my heart;
for your sake, however, and for the sakes of those whom I hold most
dear, let me implore you to act in this matter with a kindly
consideration. Proclaim your motives; you cannot say that they are not
such as we may aid you in."

Varney was silent for several moments; he seemed perceptibly moved by
the manner of the young man, as well as by the matter of his discourse.
In fact, one would suppose that Charles Holland had succeeded in
investing what he said with some sort of charm that won much upon the
fancy of Sir Francis Varney, for when he ceased to speak, the latter
said in a low voice,--

"Go on, go on; you have surely much more to say."

"No, Varney; I have said enough, and not thus much would I have said had
I not been aware, most certainly and truly aware, without the shadow of
a doubt, by your manner, that you were most accessible to human
feeling."

"I accessible to human feeling! know you to whom you speak? Am I not he
before whom all men shudder, whose name has been a terror and a
desolation; and yet you can talk of my human feelings. Nay, if I had had
any, be sure they would have been extinguished by the persecutions I
have endured from those who, you know, with savage ferocity have sought
my life."

"No, Varney; I give you credit for being a subtler reasoner than thus to
argue; you know well that you were the aggressor to those parties who
sought your life; you know well that with the greatest imaginable pains
you held yourself up to them as a thing of great terror."

"I did--I did."

"You cannot, then, turn round upon ignorant persons, and blame them
because your exertions to make yourself seem what you wish were but too
successful."

"You use the word _seem_," said Varney, with a bitterness of aspect, "as
if you would imply a doubt that I am that which thousands, by their
fears, would testify me to be."

"Thousands might," said Charles Holland; "but not among them am I,
Varney; I will not be made the victim of superstition. Were you to enact
before my very eyes some of those feats which, to the senses of others,
would stamp you as the preternatural being you assume to be, I would
doubt the evidence of my own senses ere I permitted such a bugbear to
oppress my brain."

"Go," said Sir Francis Varney, "go: I have no more words for you; I have
nothing to relate to you."

"Nay, you have already listened sufficiently to me to give me a hope
that I had awakened some of the humanity that was in your nature. Do
not, Sir Francis Varney, crush that hope, even as it was budding forth;
not for my own sake do I ask you for revelations; that may,
perhaps--must be painful for you; but for the sake of Flora Bannerworth,
to whom you owe abundance of reparation."

"No, no."

"In the name of all that is great, and good, and just, I call upon you
for justice."

"What have I to do with such an invocation? Utter such a sentiment to
men who, like yourself, are invested with the reality as well as the
outward show of human nature."

"Nay, Sir Francis Varney, now you belie yourself. You have passed
through a long, and, perchance, a stormy life. Can you look back upon
your career, and find no reminiscences of the past that shall convince
you that you are of the great family of man, and have had abundance of
human feelings and of human affections?"

"Peace, peace!"

"Nay, Sir Francis Varney, I will take your word, and if you will lay
your hand upon your heart, and tell me truly that you never felt what it
was to love--to have all feeling, all taste, and all hope of future joy,
concentrated in one individual, I will despair, and leave you. If you
will tell me that never, in your whole life, you have felt for any fair
and glorious creature, as I now feel for Flora Bannerworth, a being for
whom you could have sacrificed not only existence, but all the hopes of
a glorious future that bloom around it--if you will tell me, with the
calm, dispassionate aspect of truth, that you have held yourself aloof
from such human feelings, I will no longer press you to a disclosure
which I shall bring no argument to urge."

The agitation of Sir Francis Varney's countenance was perceptible, and
Charles Holland was about to speak again, when, striking him upon the
breast with his clinched hand, the vampyre checked him, saying--

"Do you wish to drive me mad, that you thus, from memory's hidden cells,
conjure up images of the past?"

"Then there are such images to conjure up--there are such shadows only
sleeping, but which require only, as you did even now, but a touch to
awaken them to life and energy. Oh, Sir Francis Varney, do not tell me
that you are not human."

The vampyre made a furious gesture, as if he would have attacked Charles
Holland; but then he sank nearly to the floor, as if soul-stricken by
some recollection that unnerved his arm; he shook with unwonted emotion,
and, from the frightful livid aspect of his countenance, Charles dreaded
some serious accession of indisposition, which might, if nothing else
did, prevent him from making the revelation he so much sought to hear
from his lips.

"Varney," he cried, "Varney, be calm! you will be listened to by one who
will draw no harsh--no hasty conclusions; by one, who, with that
charity, I grieve to say, is rare, will place upon the words you utter
the most favourable construction. Tell me all, I pray you, tell me all."

"This is strange," said the vampyre. "I never thought that aught human
could thus have moved me. Young man, you have touched the chords of
memory; they vibrate throughout my heart, producing cadences and sounds
of years long past. Bear with me awhile."

"And you will speak to me?"

"I will."

"Having your promise, then, I am content, Varney."

"But you must be secret; not even in the wildest waste of nature, where
you can well presume that naught but Heaven can listen to your
whisperings, must you utter one word of that which I shall tell to you."

"Alas!" said Charles, "I dare not take such a confidence; I have said
that it is not for myself; I seek such knowledge of what you are, and
what you have been, but it is for another so dear to me, that all the
charms of life that make up other men's delights, equal not the witchery
of one glance from her, speaking as it does of the glorious light from
that Heaven which is eternal, from whence she sprung."

"And you reject my communication," said Varney, "because I will not give
you leave to expose it to Flora Bannerworth?"

"It must be so."

"And you are most anxious to hear that which I have to relate?"

"Most anxious, indeed--indeed, most anxious."

"Then have I found in that scruple which besets your mind, a better
argument for trusting you, than had ye been loud in protestation. Had
your promises of secrecy been but those which come from the lip, and not
from the heart, my confidence would not have been rejected on such
grounds. I think that I dare trust you."

"With leave to tell to Flora that which you shall communicate."

"You may whisper it to her, but to no one else, without my special leave
and licence."

"I agree to those terms, and will religiously preserve them."

"I do not doubt you for one moment; and now I will tell to you what
never yet has passed my lips to mortal man. Now will I connect together
some matters which you may have heard piecemeal from others."

"What others are they?"

"Dr. Chillingworth, and he who once officiated as a London hangman."

"I have heard something from those quarters."

"Listen then to me, and you shall better understand that which you have
heard. Some years ago, it matters not the number, on a stormy night,
towards the autumn of the year, two men sat alone in poverty, and that
species of distress which beset the haughty, profligate, daring man, who
has been accustomed all his life to its most enticing enjoyments, but
never to that industry which alone ought to produce them, and render
them great and magnificent."

"Two men; and who were they?"

"I was one. Look upon me! I was of those men; and strong and evil
passions were battling in my heart."

"And the other!"

"Was Marmaduke Bannerworth."

"Gracious Heaven! the father of her whom I adore; the suicide."

"Yes, the same; that man stained with a thousand vices--blasted by a
thousand crimes--the father of her who partakes nothing of his nature,
who borrows nothing from his memory but his name--was the man who there
sat with me, plotting and contriving how, by fraud or violence, we were
to lead our usual life of revelry and wild audacious debauch."

"Go on, go on; believe me, I am deeply interested."

"I can see as much. We were not nice in the various schemes which our
prolific fancies engendered. If trickery, and the false dice at the
gaming-table, sufficed not to fill our purses, we were bold enough for
violence. If simple robbery would not succeed, we could take a life."

"Murder?"

"Ay, call it by its proper name, a murder. We sat till the midnight hour
had passed, without arriving at a definite conclusion; we saw no plan of
practicable operation, and so we wandered onwards to one of those deep
dens of iniquity, a gaming-house, wherein we had won and lost thousands.

"We had no money, but we staked largely, in the shape of a wager, upon
the success of one of the players; we knew not, or cared not, for the
consequence, if we had lost; but, as it happened, we were largely
successful, and beggars as we had walked into that place, we might have
left it independent men.

"But when does the gambler know when to pause in his career? If defeat
awakens all the raging passions of humanity within his bosom, success
but feeds the great vice that has been there engendered. To the dawn of
morn we played; the bright sun shone in, and yet we played--the midday
came, and went--the stimulant of wine supported us, and still we played;
then came the shadows of evening, stealing on in all their beauty. But
what were they to us, amid those mutations of fortune, which, at one
moment, made us princes, and placed palaces at our control, and, at
another, debased us below the veriest beggar, that craves the stinted
alms of charity from door to door.

"And there was one man who, from the first to the last, stayed by us
like a very fiend; more than man, I thought he was not human. We won of
all, but of him. People came and brought their bright red gold, and laid
it down before us, but for us to take it up, and then, by a cruel stroke
of fortune, he took it from us.

"The night came on; we won, and he won of us; the clock struck
twelve--we were beggars. God knows what was he.

"We saw him place his winnings about his person--we saw the smile that
curved the corners of his lips; he was calm, and we were maddened. The
blood flowed temperately through his veins, but in ours it was burning
lava, scorching as it went through every petty artery, and drying up all
human thought--all human feeling.

"The winner left, and we tracked his footsteps. When he reached the open
air, although he had taken much less than we of the intoxicating
beverages that are supplied gratis to those who frequent those haunts of
infamy, it was evident that some sort of inebriation attacked him; his
steps were disordered and unsteady, and, as we followed him, we could
perceive, by the devious track that he took, that he was somewhat
uncertain of his route.

"We had no fixed motive in so pursuing this man. It was but an impulsive
proceeding at the best; but as he still went on and cleared the streets,
getting into the wild and open country, and among the hedge-rows, we
began to whisper together, and to think that what we did not owe to
fortune, we might to our own energy and courage at such a moment.

"I need not hesitate to say so, since, to hide the most important
feature of my revelation from you, would be but to mock you; we resolved
upon robbing him.

"And was that all?"

"It was all that our resolution went to. We were not anxious to spill
blood; but still we were resolved that we would accomplish our purpose,
even if it required murder for its consummation. Have you heard enough?"

"I have not heard enough, although I guess the rest."

"You may well guess it, from its preface. He turned down a lonely
pathway, which, had we chosen it ourselves, could not have been more
suitable for the attack we meditated.

"There were tall trees on either side, and a hedge-row stretching high
up between them. We knew that that lane led to a suburban village,
which, without a doubt, was the object of his destination.

"Then Marmaduke Bannerworth spoke, saying,--

"'What we have to do, must be done now or never. There needs not two in
this adventure. Shall you or I require him to refund what he has won
from us?'

"'I care not,' I said; 'but if we are to accomplish our purpose without
arousing even a shadow of resistance, it is better to show him its
futility by both appearing, and take a share in the adventure.'

"This was agreed upon, and we hastened forward. He heard footsteps
pursuing him and quickened his pace. I was the fleetest runner, and
overtook him. I passed him a pace or two, and then turning, I faced him,
and impeded his progress.

"The lane was narrow, and a glance behind him showed him Marmaduke
Bannerworth; so that he was hemmed in between two enemies, and could
move neither to the right nor to the left, on account of the thick
brushwood that intervened between the trees.

"Then, with an assumed courage, that sat but ill upon him, he demanded
of us what we wanted, and proclaimed his right to pass despite the
obstruction we placed in his way.

"The dialogue was brief. I, being foremost, spoke to him.

"'Your money,' I said; 'your winnings at the gaming-table. We cannot,
and we will not lose it.'

"So suddenly, that he had nearly taken my life, he drew a pistol from
his pocket, and levelling it at my head, he fired upon me.

"Perhaps, had I moved, it might have been my death; but, as it was, the
bullet furrowed my cheek, leaving a scar, the path of which is yet
visible in a white cicatrix.

"I felt a stunning sensation, and thought myself a dead man. I cried
aloud to Marmaduke Bannerworth, and he rushed forward. I knew not that
he was armed, and that he had the power about him to do the deed which
he then accomplished; but there was a groan, a slight struggle, and the
successful gamester fell upon the green sward, bathed in his blood."

"And this is the father of her whom I adore?"

"It is. Are you shocked to think of such a neat relationship between so
much beauty and intelligence and a midnight murderer? Is your philosophy
so poor, that the daughter's beauty suffers from the commission of a
father's crime?"

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