THE OCCURRENCES OF THE NIGHT AT THE HALL.—THE SECOND APPEARANCE OF THE
VAMPYRE, AND THE PISTOL-SHOT.
Despite the full and free consent which Flora had given to her brothers
to entrust her solely to the care of her mother and her own courage at
the hall, she felt greater fear creep over her after they were gone
than she chose to acknowledge.
A sort of presentiment appeared to come over her that some evil was
about to occur, and more than once she caught herself almost in the act
of saying,—
“I wish they had not gone.”
Mrs. Bannerworth, too, could not be supposed to be entirely destitute
of uncomfortable feelings, when she came to consider how poor a guard
she was over her beautiful child, and how much terror might even
deprive of the little power she had, should the dreadful visitor again
make his appearance.
“But it is but for two hours,” thought Flora, “and two hours will soon
pass away.”
There was, too, another feeling which gave her some degree of
confidence, although it arose from a bad source, inasmuch as it was
one which showed powerfully how much her mind was dwelling on the
particulars of the horrible belief in the class of supernatural beings,
one of whom she believed had visited her.
That consideration was this. The two hours of absence from the hall
of its male inhabitants, would be from nine o’clock until eleven, and
those were not the two hours during which she felt that she would be
most timid on account of the vampyre.
“It was after midnight before,” she thought, “when it came, and perhaps
it may not be able to come earlier. It may not have the power, until
that time, to make its hideous visits, and, therefore, I will believe
myself safe.”
She had made up her mind not to go to bed until the return of her
brothers, and she and her mother sat in a small room that was used as a
breakfast-room, and which had a latticed window that opened on to the
lawn.
This window had in the inside strong oaken shutters, which had been
fastened as securely as their construction would admit of some time
before the departure of the brothers and Mr. Marchdale on that
melancholy expedition, the object of which, if it had been known to
her, would have added so much to the terrors of poor Flora.
It was not even guessed at, however remotely, so that she had not the
additional affliction of thinking, that while she was sitting there, a
prey to all sorts of imaginative terrors, they were perhaps gathering
fresh evidence, as, indeed, they were, of the dreadful reality of the
appearance which, but for the collateral circumstances attendant upon
its coming and its going, she would fain have persuaded herself was but
the vision of a dream.
It was before nine that the brothers started, but in her own mind Flora
gave them to eleven, and when she heard ten o’clock sound from a clock
which stood in the hall, she felt pleased to think that in another hour
they would surely be at home.
“My dear,” said her mother, “you look more like yourself, now.”
“Do, I, mother?”
“Yes, you are well again.”
“Ah, if I could forget——”
“Time, my dear Flora, will enable you to do so, and all the fear of
what made you so unwell will pass away. You will soon forget it all.”
“I will hope to do so.”
“Be assured that, some day or another, something will occur, as Henry
says, to explain all that has happened, in some way consistent with
reason and the ordinary nature of things, my dear Flora.”
“Oh, I will cling to such a belief; I will get Henry, upon whose
judgment I know I can rely, to tell me so, and each time that I hear
such words from his lips, I will contrive to dismiss some portion of
the terror which now, I cannot but confess, clings to my heart.”
Flora laid her hand upon her mother’s arm, and in a low, anxious tone
of voice, said,—“Listen, mother.”
Mrs. Bannerworth turned pale, as she said,—“Listen to what, dear?”
“Within these last ten minutes,” said Flora, “I have thought three or
four times that I heard a slight noise without. Nay, mother, do not
tremble—it may be only fancy.”
Flora herself trembled, and was of a death-like paleness; once or twice
she passed her hand across her brow, and altogether she presented a
picture of much mental suffering.
They now conversed in anxious whispers, and almost all they said
consisted in anxious wishes for the return of the brothers and Mr.
Marchdale.
“You will be happier and more assured, my dear, with some company,”
said Mrs. Bannerworth. “Shall I ring for the servants, and let them
remain in the room with us, until they who are our best safeguards next
to Heaven return?”
“Hush—hush—hush, mother!”
“What do you hear?”
“I thought—I heard a faint sound.”
“I heard nothing, dear.”
“Listen again, mother. Surely I could not be deceived so often. I have
now, at least, six times heard a sound as if some one was outside by
the windows.”
“No, no, my darling, do not think; your imagination is active and in a
state of excitement.”
“It is, and yet——”
“Believe me, it deceives you.”
“I hope to Heaven it does!”
There was a pause of some minutes’ duration, and then Mrs. Bannerworth
again urged slightly the calling of some of the servants, for she
thought that their presence might have the effect of giving a different
direction to her child’s thoughts; but Flora saw her place her hand
upon the bell, and she said,—
“No, mother, no—not yet, not yet. Perhaps I am deceived.”
Mrs. Bannerworth upon this sat down, but no sooner had she done so than
she heartily regretted she had not rung the bell, for, before another
word could be spoken, there came too perceptibly upon their ears for
there to be any mistake at all about it, a strange scratching noise
upon the window outside.
A faint cry came from Flora’s lips, as she exclaimed, in a voice of
great agony,—
“Oh, God!—oh, God! It has come again!”
Mrs. Bannerworth became faint, and unable to move or speak at all; she
could only sit like one paralysed, and unable to do more than listen to
and see what was going on.
The scratching noise continued for a few seconds, and then altogether
ceased. Perhaps, under ordinary circumstances, such a sound outside the
window would have scarcely afforded food for comment at all, or, if it
had, it would have been attributed to some natural effect, or to the
exertions of some bird or animal to obtain admittance to the house.
But there had occurred now enough in that family to make any little
sound of wonderful importance, and these things which before would have
passed completely unheeded, at all events without creating much alarm,
were now invested with a fearful interest.
When the scratching noise ceased, Flora spoke in a low, anxious
whisper, as she said,—
“Mother, you heard it then?”
Mrs. Bannerworth tried to speak, but she could not; and then suddenly,
with a loud clash, the bar, which on the inside appeared to fasten
the shutters strongly, fell as if by some invisible agency, and the
shutters now, but for the intervention of the window, could be easily
pushed open from without.
Mrs. Bannerworth covered her face with her hands, and, after rocking to
and fro for a moment, she fell off her chair, having fainted with the
excess of terror that came over her.
For about the space of time in which a fast speaker could count twelve,
Flora thought her reason was leaving her, but it did not. She found
herself recovering; and there she sat, with her eyes fixed upon the
window, looking more like some exquisitely-chiselled statue of despair
than a being of flesh and blood, expecting each moment to have its eyes
blasted by some horrible appearance, such as might be supposed to drive
her to madness.
And now again came the strange knocking or scratching against the glass
of the window.
This continued for some minutes, during which it appeared likewise to
Flora that some confusion was going on at another part of the house,
for she fancied she heard voices and the banging of doors.
It seemed to her as if she must have sat looking at the shutters of
that window a long time before she saw them shake, and then one wide
hinged portion of them slowly opened.
Once again horror appeared to be on the point of producing madness in
her brain, and then, as before, a feeling of calmness rapidly ensued.
She was able to see plainly that something was by the window, but what
it was she could not plainly discern, in consequence of the lights
she had in the room. A few moments, however, sufficed to settle that
mystery, for the window was opened and a figure stood before her.
One glance, one terrified glance, in which her whole soul was
concentrated, sufficed to shew her who and what the figure was. There
was the tall, gaunt form—there was the faded ancient apparel—the
lustrous metallic-looking eyes—its half-opened mouth, exhibiting the
tusk-like teeth! It was—yes, it was—_the vampyre!_
[Illustration: The vampyre approaches Flora.]
It stood for a moment gazing at her, and then in the hideous way it
had attempted before to speak, it apparently endeavoured to utter some
words which it could not make articulate to human ears. The pistols
lay before Flora. Mechanically she raised one, and pointed it at the
figure. It advanced a step, and then she pulled the trigger.
A stunning report followed. There was a loud cry of pain, and the
vampyre fled. The smoke and the confusion that was incidental to the
spot prevented her from seeing if the figure walked or ran away. She
thought she heard a crashing sound among the plants outside the window,
as if it had fallen, but she did not feel quite sure.
It was no effort of any reflection, but a purely mechanical movement,
that made her raise the other pistol, and discharge that likewise in
the direction the vampyre had taken. Then casting the weapon away, she
rose, and made a frantic rush from the room. She opened the door, and
was dashing out, when she found herself caught in the circling arms of
some one who either had been there waiting, or who had just at that
moment got there.
The thought that it was the vampyre, who by some mysterious means
had got there, and was about to make her his prey, now overcame her
completely, and she sunk into a state of utter insensibility on the
moment.