Authors: George W. M. Reynolds,James Malcolm Rymer
"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."
A PEEP THROUGH AN IRON GRATING.—THE LONELY PRISONER IN HIS
DUNGEON.—THE MYSTERY.
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.
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.
Then
all was still again. Silence resumed its reign, and if there had been a mortal ear
to drink in that sudden sound, the mind might well have doubted if fancy had
not more to do with the matter than reality.
From
out a portion of the ruins that was enveloped in the deepest gloom, there now
glides a figure. It is of gigantic height, and it moves along with a slow and
measured tread. An ample mantle envelopes the form, which might well have been
taken for the spirit of one of the monks who, centuries since, had made that
place their home.
It
walked the whole length of the ample hall we have alluded to, and then, at the
window from which had streamed the long flood of many coloured light, it
paused.
For
more than ten minutes this mysterious looking figure there stood.
At
length there passed something on the outside of the window, that looked like
the shadow of a human form.
Then
the tall, mysterious, apparition-looking man turned, and sought a side entrance
to the hall.
Then
he paused, and, in about a minute, he was joined by another who must have been
he who had so recently passed the stained glass window on the outer side.
There
was a friendly salutation between these two beings, and they walked to the
centre of the hall, where they remained for some time in animated conversation.
From
the gestures they used, it was evident that the subject of their discourse was
one of deep and absorbing interest to both. It was one, too, upon which, after
a time, they seemed a little to differ, and more than once they each assumed
attitudes of mutual defiance.
This
continued until the sun had so completely sunk, that twilight was beginning
sensibly to wane, and then gradually the two men appeared to have come to a
better understanding, and whatever might be the subject of their discourse,
there was some positive result evidently arrived at now.
They
spoke in lower tones. They used less animated gestures than before; and, after
a time, they both walked slowly down the hull towards the dark spot from whence
the first tall figure had so mysteriously emerged.
There
it a dungeon—damp and full of the most unwholesome exhalations—deep under
ground it seems, and, in its excavations, it would appear as if some small land
springs had been liberated, for the earthen floor was one continued extent of
moisture.
From
the roof, too, came perpetually the dripping of water, which fell with sullen,
startling splashes in the pool below.
At
one end, and near to the roof,—so near that to reach it, without the most
efficient means from the inside, was a matter of positive impossibility—is a
small iron grating, and not much larger than might be entirely obscured by any
human face that might be close to it from the outside of the dungeon.
That
dreadful abode is tenanted. In one corner, on a heap of straw, which appears
freshly to have been cast into the place, lies a hopeless prisoner.
It is
no great stretch of fancy to suppose, that it is from his lips came the sound
of terror and of woe that had disturbed the repose of that lonely spot.
The
prisoner is lying on his back; a rude bandage round his head, on which were
numerous spots of blood, would seem to indicate that he had suffered personal
injury in some recent struggle. His eyes were open. They were fixed
desparingly, perhaps unconsciously, upon that small grating which looked into
the upper world.
That
grating slants upwards, and looks to the west, so that any one confined in that
dreary dungeon might be tantalized, on a sweet summer's day, by seeing the
sweet blue sky, and occasionally the white clouds flitting by in that freedom
which he cannot hope for.
The
carol of a bird, too, might reach him there. Alas! sad remembrance of life, and
joy, and liberty.
But
now all is deepening gloom. The prisoner sees nothing—hears nothing; and the
sky is not quite dark. That small grating looks like a strange light-patch in
the dungeon wall.
Hark!
some footstep sounds upon his ear. The creaking of a door follows—a gleam of
light shines into the dungeon, and the tall mysterious-looking figure in the
cloak stands before the occupant of that wretched place.
Then
comes in the other man, and he carries in his hand writing materials. He stoops
to the stone couch on which the prisoner lies, and offers him a pen, as he
raises him partially from the miserable damp pallet.
But
there is no speculation in the eyes of that oppressed man. In vain the pen is
repeatedly placed in his grasp, and a document of some length, written on
parchment, spread out before him to sign. In vain is he held up now by both the
men, who have thus mysteriously sought him in his dungeon; he has not power to
do as they would wish him. The pen falls from his nerveless grasp, and, with a
deep sigh, when they cease to hold him up, he falls heavily back upon the stone
couch.
Then
the two men looked at each other for about a minute silently; after which he
who was the shorter of the two raised one hand, and, in a voice of such
concentrated hatred and passion as was horrible to hear, he said,—
"D—n!"
The
reply of the other was a laugh; and then he took the light from the floor, and
motioned the one who seemed so little able to control his feelings of
bitterness and disappointment to leave the place with him.
With
a haste and vehemence, then, which showed how much angered he was, the shorter
man of the two now rolled up the parchment, and placed it in a breast-pocket of
his coat.
He
cast a withering look of intense hatred on the form of the nearly-unconscious
prisoner, and then prepared to follow the other.
But
when they reached the door of the dungeon, the taller man of the two paused,
and appeared for a moment or two to be in deep thought; after which he handed
the lamp he carried to his companion, and approached the pallet of the
prisoner.
He
took from his pocket a small bottle, and, raising the head of the feeble and
wounded man, he poured some portion of the contents into his mouth, and watched
him swallow it.
The
other looked on in silence, and then they both slowly left the dreary dungeon.
The
wind rose, and the night had deepened into the utmost darkness. The blackness
of a night, unillumined by the moon, which would not now rise for some hours,
was upon the ancient ruins. All was calm and still, and no one would have
supposed that aught human was within those ancient, dreary looking walls.
Time
will show who it was who lay in that unwholesome dungeon, as well as who were
they who visited him so mysteriously, and retired again with feelings of such
evident disappointment with the document it seemed of such importance, at least
to one of them, to get that unconscious man to sign.