Authors: George W. M. Reynolds,James Malcolm Rymer
"There
is reason in that, and I give in at once. Be it so, Henry. I will wait on him,
and if I cannot induce him to change his determination, and allow me to tell
some other as well as Flora, I must give in, and take the thing as a secret,
although I shall not abandon a hope, even after he has told me all he has to
tell, that I may induce him to permit me to make a general confidence, instead
of the partial one he has empowered me to do."
"It
may be so; and, at all events, we must not reject a proffered good because it
is not quite so complete as it might be."
"You
are right; I will keep my appointment with him, entertaining the most sanguine
hope that our troubles and disasters—I say our, because I consider myself quite
associated in thought, interest, and feelings with your family—may soon be
over."
"Heaven
grant it may be so, for your's and Flora's sake; but I feel that Bannerworth
Hall will never again be the place it was to us. I should prefer that we sought
for new associations, which I have no doubt we may find, and that among us we
get up some other home that would be happier, because not associated with so
many sad scenes in our history."
"Be
it so; and I am sure that the admiral would gladly give way to such an
arrangement. He has often intimated that he thought Bannerworth Hall a dull
place; consequently, although he pretends to have purchased it of you, I think
he will be very glad to leave it."
"Be
it so, then. If it should really happen that we are upon the eve of any
circumstances that will really tend to relieve us from our misery and
embarrassments, we will seek for some pleasanter abode than the Hall, which you
may well imagine, since it became the scene of that dreadful tragedy that left
us fatherless, has borne but a distasteful appearance to all our eyes."
"I
don't wonder at that, and am only surprised that, after such a thing had
happened any of you liked to inhabit the place."
"We
did not like, but our poverty forced us. You have no notion of the difficulties
through which we have struggled; and the fact that we had a home rent free was
one of so much importance to us, that had it been surrounded by a thousand more
disagreeables than it was, we must have put up with it; but now that we owe so
much to the generosity of your uncle, I suppose we can afford to talk of what
we like and of what we don't like."
"You
can, Henry, and it shall not be my fault if you do not always afford to do so;
and now, as the time is drawing on, I think I will proceed at once to Varney,
for it is better to be soon than late, and get from him the remainder of his
story."
There
were active influences at work, to prevent Sir Francis Varney from so quickly
as he had arranged to do, carrying out his intention of making Charles Holland
acquainted with the history of the eventful period of his life, which had been
associated with Marmaduke Bannerworth.
One
would have scarcely thought it possible that anything now would have prevented
Varney from concluding his strange narrative; but that he was prevented, will
appear.
The
boy who had been promised such liberal payment by the Hungarian nobleman, for
betraying the place of Varney's concealment, we have already stated, felt
bitterly the disappointment of not being met, according to promise, at the
corner of the lane, by that individual.
It
not only deprived him of the half-crowns, which already in imagination he had
laid out, but it was a great blow to his own importance, for after his
discovery of the residence of the vampyre, he looked upon himself as quite a
public character, and expected great applause for his cleverness.
But
when the Hungarian nobleman came not, all these dreams began to vanish into
thin air, and, like the unsubstantial fabric of a vision, to leave no trace behind
them.
He
got dreadfully aggravated, and his first thought was to go to Varney, and see
what he could get from him, by betraying the fact that some one was actively in
search of him.
That
seemed, however, a doubtful good, and perhaps there was some personal dread of
the vampyre mixed up with the rejection of this proposition. But reject it he
did, and then he walked moodily into the town without any fixed resolution of
what he should do.
All
that he thought of was a general idea that he should like to create some
mischief, if possible—what it was he cared not, so long as it made a
disturbance.
Now,
he knew well that the most troublesome and fidgetty man in the town was Tobias
Philpots, a saddler, who was always full of everybody's business but his own, and
ever ready to hear any scandal of his neighbours.
"I
have a good mind," said the boy, "to go to old Philpots, and tell him
all about it, that I have."
The
good mind soon strengthened itself into a fixed resolution, and full of disdain
and indignation at the supposed want of faith of the Hungarian nobleman, he
paused opposite the saddler's door.
Could
he but for a moment have suspected the real reason why the appointment had not
been kept with him, all his curiosity would have been doubly aroused, and he would
have followed the landlord of the inn and his associate upon the track of the
second vampyre that had visited the town.
But
of this he knew nothing, for that proceeding had been conducted with amazing
quietness; and the fact of the Hungarian nobleman, when he found that he was
followed, taking a contrary course to that in which Varney was concealed,
prevented the boy from knowing anything of his movements.
Hence
the thing looked to him like a piece of sheer neglect and contemptuous
indifference, which he felt bound to resent.
He
did not pause long at the door of the saddler's, but, after a few moments, he
walked boldly in, and said,—
"Master
Philpots, I have got something extraordinary to tell you, and you may give me
what you like for telling you."
"Go
on, then," said the saddler, "that's just the price I always likes to
pay for everything."
"Will
you keep it secret?" said the boy.
"Of
course I will. When did you ever hear of me telling anything to a single
individual?"
"Never
to a single individual, but I have heard you tell things to the whole
town."
"Confound
your impudence. Get out of my shop directly."
"Oh!
very good. I can go and tell old Mitchell, the pork-butcher."
"No,
I say—stop; don't tell him. If anybody is to know, let it be me, and I'll promise
you I'll keep it secret."
"Very
good," said the boy, returning, "you shall know it; and, mind, you
have promised me to keep it secret, so that if it gets known, you know it
cannot be any fault of mine."
The
fact was, the boy was anxious it should be known, only that in case some
consequences might arise, he thought he would quiet his own conscience, by
getting a promise of secrecy from Tobias Philpots, which he well knew that
individual would not think of keeping.
He
then related to him the interview he had had with the Hungarian nobleman at the
inn, how he had promised a number of half-crowns, but a very small instalment
of which he had received.
All
this Master Philpots cared very little for, but the information that the
dreaded Varney, the vampyre, was concealed so close to the town was a matter of
great and abounding interest, and at that part of the story he suddenly pricked
up his ears amazingly.
"Why,
you don't mean to say that?" he exclaimed. "Are you sure it was
he?"
"Yes,
I am quite certain. I have seen I him more than once. It was Sir Francis
Varney, without any mistake."
"Why,
then you may depend he's only waiting until it's very dark, and then he will
walk into somebody, and suck his blood. Here's a horrid discovery! I thought we
had had enough of Master Varney, and that he would hardly show himself here
again, and now you tell me he is not ten minutes' walk off."
"It's
a fact," said the boy. "I saw him go in, and he looks thinner and
more horrid than ever. I am sure he wants a dollop of blood from
somebody."
"I
shouldn't wonder."
"Now
there is Mrs. Philpots, you know, sir; she's rather big, and seems most ready
to burst always; I shouldn't wonder if the vampyre came to her to-night."
"Wouldn't
you?" said Mrs. Philpots, who had walked into the shop, and overheard the
whole conversation; "wouldn't you, really? I'll vampyre you, and teach you
to make these remarks about respectable married women. You young wretch, take
that, will you!"
She
gave the boy such a box on the ears, that the place seemed to spin round with
him. As soon as he recovered sufficiently to be enabled to walk, he made his
way from the shop with abundance of precipitation, much regretting that he had
troubled himself to make a confidant of Master Philpots.
But,
however, he could not but tell himself that if his object was to make a general
disturbance through the whole place, he had certainly succeeded in doing so.
He
slunk home perhaps with a feeling that he might be called upon to take part in
something that might ensue, and at all events be compelled to become a guide to
the place of Sir Francis Varney's retreat, in which case, for all he knew, the
vampyre might, by some more than mortal means, discover what a hand he had had
in the matter, and punish him accordingly.
The
moment he hid left the saddler's Mrs. Philpots, after using some bitter
reproaches to her husband for not at once sacrificing the boy upon the spot for
the disrespectful manner in which he had spoken of her, hastily put on her
bonnet and shawl, and the saddler, although it was a full hour before the usual
time, began putting up the shutters of his shop.
"Why,
my dear," he said to Mrs. Philpots, when she came down stairs equipped for
the streets, "why, my dear, where are you going?"
"And
pray, sir, what are you shutting up the shop for at this time of the
evening!"
"Oh!
why, the fact is, I thought I'd just go to the Rose and Crown, and mention that
the vampyre was so near at hand."
"Well,
Mr. Philpots, and in that case there can be no harm in my calling upon some of
my acquaintance and mentioning it likewise."
"Why,
I don't suppose there would be much harm; only remember, Mrs. Philpots,
remember if you please—-"
"Remember
what?"
"To
tell everybody to keep it secret."
"Oh,
of course I will; and mind you do it likewise."
"Most
decidedly."
The
shop was closed, Mr. Philpots ran off to the Rose and Crown, and Mrs, Philpots,
with as much expedition as she could, purposed making the grand tour of all her
female acquaintance in the town, just to tell them, as a great secret, that the
vampyre, Sir Francis Varney, as he called himself, had taken refuge at the
house that was to let down the lane leading to Higgs's farm.
"But
by no means," she said, "let it go no further, because it is a very
wrong thing to make any disturbance, and you will understand that it's quite a
secret."
She
was listened to with breathless attention, as may well be supposed, and it was
a singular circumstance that at every house she left some other lady put on her
bonnet and shawl, and ran out to make the circle of her acquaintance, with
precisely the same story, and precisely the same injunctions to secrecy.
And,
as Mr. Philpots pursued an extremely similar course, we are not surprised that
in the short space of one hour the news should have spread through all the
town, and that there was scarcely a child old enough to understand what was
being talked about, who was ignorant of the fact, that Sir Francis Varney was
to be found at the empty house down the lane.
It
was an unlucky time, too, for the night was creeping on, a period at which
people's apprehension of the supernatural becomes each moment stronger and more
vivid—a period at which a number of idlers are let loose for different
employments, and when anything in the shape of a row or a riot presents itself
in pleasant colours to those who have nothing to lose and who expect, under the
cover of darkness, to be able to commit outrages they would be afraid to think
of in the daytime, when recognition would be more easy.
Thus
was it that Sir Francis Varney's position, although he knew it not, became
momentarily one of extreme peril, and the danger he was about to run, was
certainly greater than any he had as yet experienced. Had Charles Holland but
known what was going on, he would undoubtedly have done something to preserve
the supposed vampyre from the mischief that threatened him, but the time had
not arrived when he had promised to pay him a second visit, so he had no idea
of anything serious having occurred.
Perhaps,
too, Mr. and Mrs. Philpots scarcely anticipated creating so much confusion, but
when they found that the whole place was in an uproar, and that a tumultuous
assemblage of persons called aloud for vengeance upon Varney, the vampyre, they
made their way home again in no small fright.