CHARLES HOLLAND’S SAD FEELINGS.—THE PORTRAIT.—THE OCCURRENCE OF THE
NIGHT AT THE HALL.
Charles Holland wished to be alone, if ever any human being had wished
fervently to be so. His thoughts were most fearfully oppressive. The
communication that had been made to him by Henry Bannerworth, had about
it too many strange, confirmatory circumstances to enable him to treat
it, in his own mind, with the disrespect that some mere freak of a
distracted and weak imagination would, most probably, have received
from him.
He had found Flora in a state of excitement which could arise only from
some such terrible cause as had been mentioned by her brother, and then
he was, from an occurrence which certainly never could have entered
into his calculations, asked to forego the bright dream of happiness
which he had held so long and so rapturously to his heart.
How truly he found that the course of true love ran not smooth; and yet
how little would any one have suspected that from such a cause as that
which now oppressed his mind, any obstruction would arise.
Flora might have been fickle and false; he might have seen some other
fairer face, which might have enchained his fancy, and woven for him
a new heart’s chain; death might have stepped between him and the
realization of his fondest hopes; loss of fortune might have made
the love cruel which would have yoked to its distresses a young and
beautiful girl, reared in the lap of luxury, and who was not, even by
those who loved her, suffered to feel, even in later years, any of the
pinching necessities of the family.
All these things were possible—some of them were probable; and yet none
of them had occurred. She loved him still; and he, although he had
looked on many a fair face, and basked in the sunny smiles of beauty,
had never for a moment forgotten her faith, or lost his devotion to his
own dear English girl.
Fortune he had enough for both; death had not even threatened to rob
him of the prize of such a noble and faithful heart which he had won.
But a horrible superstition had arisen, which seemed to place at once
an impassable abyss between them, and to say to him, in a voice of
thundering denunciation,——
“Charles Holland, will you have a vampyre for your bride?”
The thought was terrific. He paced the gloomy chamber to and fro with
rapid strides, until the idea came across his mind that by so doing he
might not only be proclaiming to his kind entertainers how much he was
mentally distracted, but he likewise might be seriously distracting
them.
The moment this occurred to him he sat down, and was profoundly still
for some time. He then glanced at the light which had been given to
him, and he found himself almost unconsciously engaged in a mental
calculation as to how long it would last him in the night.
Half ashamed, then, of such terrors, as such a consideration would seem
to indicate, he was on the point of hastily extinguishing it, when he
happened to cast his eyes on the now mysterious and highly interesting
portrait in the panel.
The picture, as a picture, was well done, whether it was a correct
likeness or not of the party whom it represented. It was one of those
kind of portraits that seem so life-like, that, as you look at them,
they seem to return your gaze fully, and even to follow you with their
eyes from place to place.
By candle-light such an effect is more likely to become striking and
remarkable than by daylight; and now, as Charles Holland shaded his own
eyes from the light, so as to cast its full radiance upon the portrait,
he felt wonderfully interested in its life-like appearance.
“Here is true skill,” he said; “such as I have not before seen. How
strangely this likeness of a man whom I never saw seems to gaze upon
me.”
Unconsciously, too, he aided the effect, which he justly enough called
life-like, by a slight movement of the candle, such as any one not
blessed with nerves of iron would be sure to make, and such a movement
made the face look as if it was inspired with vitality.
Charles remained looking at the portrait for a considerable period of
time. He found a kind of fascination in it which prevented him from
drawing his eyes away from it. It was not fear which induced him to
continue gazing on it, but the circumstance that it was a likeness of
the man who, after death, was supposed to have borrowed so new and so
hideous an existence, combined with its artistic merits, chained him to
the spot.
“I shall now,” he said, “know that face again, let me see it where I
may, or under what circumstances I may. Each feature is now indelibly
fixed upon my memory—I never can mistake it.”
He turned aside as he uttered these words, and as he did so his eyes
fell upon a part of the ornamental frame which composed the edge of the
panel, and which seemed to him to be of a different colour from the
surrounding portion.
Curiosity and increased interest prompted him at once to make a closer
inquiry into the matter; and, by a careful and diligent scrutiny, he
was almost induced to come to the positive opinion, that at no very
distant period in time past, the portrait had been removed from the
place it occupied.
When once this idea, even vague and indistinct as it was, in
consequence of the slight grounds he formed it on, had got possession
of his mind, he felt most anxious to prove its verification or its
fallacy.
He held the candle in a variety of situations, so that its light fell
in different ways on the picture; and the more he examined it, the more
he felt convinced that it must have been moved lately.
It would appear as if, in its removal, a piece of the old oaken carved
framework of the panel had been accidentally broken off, which caused
the new look of the fracture, and that this accident, from the nature
of the broken bit of framing, could have occurred in any other way
than from an actual or attempted removal of the picture, he felt was
extremely unlikely.
He set down the candle on a chair near at hand, and tried if the panel
was fast in its place. Upon the very first touch, he felt convinced
it was not so, and that it easily moved. How to get it out, though,
presented a difficulty, and to get it out was tempting.
“Who knows,” he said to himself, “what may be behind it? This is an
old baronial sort of hall, and the greater portion of it was, no
doubt, built at a time when the construction of such places as hidden
chambers and intricate staircases were, in all buildings of importance,
considered a disiderata.”
That he should make some discovery behind the portrait, now became an
idea that possessed him strongly, although he certainly had no definite
grounds for really supposing that he should do so.
Perhaps the wish was more father to the thought than he, in the partial
state of excitement he was in, really imagined; but so it was. He felt
convinced that he should not be satisfied until he had removed that
panel from the wall, and seen what was immediately behind it.
After the panel containing the picture had been placed where it was, it
appeared that pieces of moulding had been inserted all around, which
had had the effect of keeping it in its place, and it was a fracture of
one of these pieces which had first called Charles Holland’s attention
to the probability of the picture having been removed. That he should
have to get two, at least, of the pieces of moulding away, before he
could hope to remove the picture, was to him quite apparent, and he
was considering how he should accomplish such a result, when he was
suddenly startled by a knock at his chamber door.
Until that sudden demand for admission at his door came, he scarcely
knew to what a nervous state he had worked himself up. It was an odd
sort of tap—one only—a single tap, as if some one demanded admittance,
and wished to awaken his attention with the least possible chance of
disturbing any one else.
“Come in,” said Charles, for he knew he had not fastened his door;
“come in.”
There was no reply, but after a moment’s pause, the same sort of low
tap came again.
Again he cried “come in,” but, whoever it was, seemed determined that
the door should be opened for him, and no movement was made from the
outside. A third time the tap came, and Charles was very close to the
door when he heard it, for with a noiseless step he had approached it
intending to open it. The instant this third mysterious demand for
admission came, he did open it wide. There was no one there! In an
instant he crossed the threshold into the corridor, which ran right and
left. A window at one end of it now sent in the moon’s rays, so that
it was tolerably light, but he could see no one. Indeed, to look for
any one, he felt sure was needless, for he had opened his chamber-door
almost simultaneously with the last knock for admission.
“It is strange,” he said, as he lingered on the threshold of his room
door for some moments; “my imagination could not so completely deceive
me. There was most certainly a demand for admission.”
Slowly, then, he returned to his room again, and closed the door behind
him.
“One thing is evident,” he said, “that if I am in this apartment to be
subjected to these annoyances, I shall get no rest, which will soon
exhaust me.”
This thought was a very provoking one, and the more he thought that
he should ultimately find a necessity for giving up that chamber he
had himself asked as a special favour to be allowed to occupy, the
more vexed he became to think what construction might be put upon his
conduct for so doing.
“They will all fancy me a coward,” he thought, “and that I dare not
sleep here. They may not, of course, say so, but they will think that
my appearing so bold was one of those acts of bravado which I have not
courage to carry fairly out.”
Taking this view of the matter was just the way to enlist a young man’s
pride in staying, under all circumstances, where he was, and, with a
slight accession of colour, which, even although he was alone, would
visit his cheeks, Charles Holland said aloud,—
“I will remain the occupant of this room come what may, happen what
may. No terrors, real or unsubstantial, shall drive me from it; I will
brave them all, and remain here to brave them.”
Tap came the knock at the door again, and now, with more an air of
vexation than fear, Charles turned again towards it, and listened. Tap
in another minute again succeeded, and much annoyed, he walked close
to the door, and laid his hand upon the lock, ready to open it at the
precise moment of another demand for admission being made.
He had not to wait long. In about half a minute it came again, and,
simultaneously with the sound, the door flew open. There was no one to
be seen; but, as he opened the door, he heard a strange sound in the
corridor—a sound which scarcely could be called a groan, and scarcely
a sigh, but seemed a compound of both, having the agony of the one
combined with the sadness of the other. From what direction it came he
could not at the moment decide, but he called out,—
“Who’s there? who’s there?”
The echo of his own voice alone answered him for a few moments, and
then he heard a door open, and a voice, which he knew to be Henry’s,
cried,—
“What is it? who speaks?”
“Henry,” said Charles.
“Yes—yes—yes.”
“I fear I have disturbed you.”
“You have been disturbed yourself, or you would not have done so. I
shall be with you in a moment.”
Henry closed his door before Charles Holland could tell him not to come
to him, as he intended to do, for he felt ashamed to have, in a manner
of speaking, summoned assistance for so trifling a cause of alarm
as that to which he had been subjected. However, he could not go to
Henry’s chamber to forbid him from coming to his, and, more vexed than
before, he retired to his room again to await his coming.
He left the door open now, so that Henry Bannerworth, when he had got
on some articles of dress, walked in at once, saying,—
“What has happened, Charles?”
“A mere trifle, Henry, concerning which I am ashamed you should have
been at all disturbed.”
“Never mind that, I was wakeful.”
“Did you hear me open my door?”
“I heard a door open, which kept me listening, but I could not decide
which door it was till I heard your voice in the corridor.”
“Well, it was this door; and I opened it twice in consequence of the
repeated taps for admission that came to it; some one has been knocking
at it, and, when I go to it, lo! I can see nobody.”
“Indeed!”
“Such is the case.”
“You surprise me.”
“I am very sorry to have disturbed you, because, upon such a ground, I
do not feel that I ought to have done so; and, when I called out in the
corridor, I assure you it was with no such intention.”
“Do not regret it for a moment,” said Henry; “you were quite justified
in making an alarm on such an occasion.”
“It’s strange enough, but still it may arise from some accidental
cause; admitting, if we did but know it, of some ready enough
explanation.”
“It may, certainly, but, after what has happened already, we may well
suppose a mysterious connexion between any unusual sight or sound, and
the fearful ones we have already seen.”
“Certainly we may.”
“How earnestly that strange portrait seems to look upon us, Charles.”
“It does, and I have been examining it carefully. It seems to have been
removed lately.”
“Removed!”
“Yes, I think, as far as I can judge, that it has been taken from its
frame; I mean, that the panel on which it is painted has been taken
out.”
“Indeed!”
“If you touch it you will find it loose, and, upon a close examination,
you will perceive that a piece of the moulding which holds it in its
place has been chipped off, which is done in such a place that I think
it could only have arisen during the removal of the picture.”
“You must be mistaken.”
“I cannot, of course, take upon myself, Henry, to say precisely such is
the case,” said Charles.
“But there is no one here to do so.”
“That I cannot say. Will you permit me and assist me to remove it? I
have a great curiosity to know what is behind it.”
“If you have, I certainly will do so. We thought of taking it away
altogether, but when Flora left this room the idea was given up as
useless. Remain here a few moments, and I will endeavour to find
something which shall assist us in its removal.”
Henry left the mysterious chamber in order to search in his own for
some means of removing the frame-work of the picture, so that the panel
would slip easily out, and while he was gone, Charles Holland continued
gazing upon it with greater interest, if possible, than before.
In a few minutes Henry returned, and although what he had succeeded in
finding were very inefficient implements for the purpose, yet with this
aid the two young men set about the task.
It is said, and said truly enough, that “where there is a will there is
a way,” and although the young men had no tools at all adapted for the
purpose, they did succeed in removing the moulding from the sides of
the panel, and then by a little tapping at one end of it, and using a
knife as a lever at the other end of the panel, they got it fairly out.
[Illustration: The men remove the picture from the wall.]
Disappointment was all they got for their pains. On the other side
there was nothing but a rough wooden wall, against which the finer and
more nicely finished oak panelling of the chamber rested.
“There is no mystery here,” said Henry.
“None whatever,” said Charles, as he tapped the wall with his knuckles,
and found it all hard and sound. “We are foiled.”
“We are indeed.”
“I had a strange presentiment, now,” added Charles, “that we should
make some discovery that would repay us for our trouble. It appears,
however, that such is not to be the case; for you see nothing presents
itself to us but the most ordinary appearances.”
“I perceive as much; and the panel itself, although of more than
ordinary thickness, is, after all, but a bit of planed oak, and
apparently fashioned for no other object than to paint the portrait on.”
“True. Shall we replace it?”
Charles reluctantly assented, and the picture was replaced in its
original position. We say Charles reluctantly assented, because,
although he had now had ocular demonstration that there was really
nothing behind the panel but the ordinary wood-work which might have
been expected from the construction of the old house, yet he could not,
even with such a fact staring him in the face, get rid entirely of the
feeling that had come across him, to the effect that the picture had
some mystery or another.
“You are not yet satisfied,” said Henry, as he observed the doubtful
look of Charles Holland’s face.
“My dear friend,” said Charles, “I will not deceive you. I am much
disappointed that we have made no discovery behind that picture.”
“Heaven knows we have mysteries enough in our family,” said Henry.
Even as he spoke they were both startled by a strange clattering noise
at the window, which was accompanied by a shrill, odd kind of shriek,
which sounded fearful and preternatural on the night air.
“What is that?” said Charles.
“God only knows,” said Henry.
The two young men naturally turned their earnest gaze in the direction
of the window, which we have before remarked was one unprovided with
shutters, and there, to their intense surprise, they saw, slowly rising
up from the lower part of it, what appeared to be a human form. Henry
would have dashed forward, but Charles restrained him, and drawing
quickly from its case a large holster pistol, he levelled it carefully
at the figure, saying in a whisper,—
“Henry, if I don’t hit it, I will consent to forfeit my head.”
He pulled the trigger—a loud report followed—the room was filled with
smoke, and then all was still. A circumstance, however, had occurred,
as a consequence of the concussion of air produced by the discharge
of the pistol, which neither of the young men had for the moment
calculated upon, and that was the putting out of the only light they
there had.
[Illustration: Charles fires the pistol at the window.]
In spite of this circumstance, Charles, the moment he had discharged
the pistol, dropped it and sprung forward to the window. But here he
was perplexed, for he could not find the old fashioned, intricate
fastening which held it shut, and he had to call to Henry,—
“Henry! For God’s sake open the window for me, Henry! The fastening of
the window is known to you, but not to me. Open it for me.”
Thus called upon, Henry sprung forward, and by this time the report of
the pistol had effectually alarmed the whole household. The flashing
of lights from the corridor came into the room, and in another minute,
just as Henry succeeded in getting the window wide open, and Charles
Holland had made his way on to the balcony, both George Bannerworth and
Mr. Marchdale entered the chamber, eager to know what had occurred. To
their eager questions Henry replied,—
“Ask me not now;” and then calling to Charles, he said,—“Remain where
you are, Charles, while I run down to the garden immediately beneath
the balcony.”
“Yes—yes,” said Charles.
Henry made prodigious haste, and was in the garden immediately below
the bay window in a wonderfully short space of time. He spoke to
Charles, saying,—
“Will you now descend? I can see nothing here; but we will both make a
search.”
George and Mr. Marchdale were both now in the balcony, and they would
have descended likewise, but Henry said,—
“Do not all leave the house. God only knows, now, situated as we are,
what might happen.”
“I will remain, then,” said George. “I have been sitting up to-night as
the guard, and, therefore, may as well continue to do so.”
Marchdale and Charles Holland clambered over the balcony, and easily,
from its insignificant height, dropped into the garden. The night
was beautiful, and profoundly still. There was not a breath of air
sufficient to stir a leaf on a tree, and the very flame of the candle
which Charles had left burning in the balcony burnt clearly and
steadily, being perfectly unruffled by any wind.
It cast a sufficient light close to the window to make everything very
plainly visible, and it was evident at a glance that no object was
there, although had that figure, which Charles shot at, and no doubt
hit, been flesh and blood, it must have dropped immediately below.
As they looked up for a moment after a cursory examination of the
ground, Charles exclaimed,—
“Look at the window! As the light is now situated, you can see the hole
made in one of the panes of glass by the passage of the bullet from my
pistol.”
They did look, and there the clear, round hole, without any starring,
which a bullet discharged close to a pane of glass will make in it, was
clearly and plainly discernible.
“You must have hit him,” said Henry.
“One would think so,” said Charles; “for that was the exact place where
the figure was.”
“And there is nothing here,” added Marchdale. “What can we think of
these events—what resource has the mind against the most dreadful
suppositions concerning them?”
Charles and Henry were both silent; in truth, they knew not what to
think, and the words uttered by Marchdale were too strikingly true to
dispute for a moment. They were lost in wonder.
“Human means against such an appearance as we saw to-night,” said
Charles, “are evidently useless.”
“My dear young friend,” said Marchdale, with much emotion, as he
grasped Henry Bannerworth’s hand, and the tears stood in his eyes as
he did so,—“my dear young friend, these constant alarms will kill you.
They will drive you, and all whose happiness you hold dear, distracted.
You must control these dreadful feelings, and there is but one chance
that I can see of getting now the better of these.”
“What is that?”
“By leaving this place for ever.”
“Alas! am I to be driven from the home of my ancestors from such a
cause as this? And whither am I to fly? Where are we to find a refuge?
To leave here will be at once to break up the establishment which is
now held together, certainly upon the sufferance of creditors, but
still to their advantage, inasmuch as I am doing what no one else would
do, namely, paying away to within the scantiest pittance the whole
proceeds of the estate that spreads around me.”
“Heed nothing but an escape from such horrors as seem to be
accumulating now around you.”
“If I were sure that such a removal would bring with it such a
corresponding advantage, I might, indeed, be induced to risk all to
accomplish it.”
“As regards poor dear Flora,” said Mr. Marchdale, “I know not what to
say, or what to think; she has been attacked by a vampyre, and after
this mortal life shall have ended, it is dreadful to think there may
be a possibility that she, with all her beauty, all her excellence and
purity of mind, and all those virtues and qualities which should make
her the beloved of all, and which do, indeed, attach all hearts towards
her, should become one of that dreadful tribe of beings who cling to
existence by feeding, in the most dreadful manner, upon the life blood
of others—oh, it is too dreadful to contemplate! Too horrible—too
horrible!”
“Then wherefore speak of it?” said Charles, with some asperity. “Now,
by the great God of Heaven, who sees all our hearts, I will not give
in to such a horrible doctrine! I will not believe it; and were death
itself my portion for my want of faith, I would this moment die in my
disbelief of anything so truly fearful!”
“Oh, my young friend,” added Marchdale, “if anything could add to the
pangs which all who love, and admire, and respect Flora Bannerworth
must feel at the unhappy condition in which she is placed, it would be
the noble nature of you, who, under happier auspices, would have been
her guide through life, and the happy partner of her destiny.”
“As I will be still.”
“May Heaven forbid it! We are now among ourselves, and can talk freely
upon such a subject. Mr. Charles Holland, if you wed, you would look
forward to being blessed with children—those sweet ties which bind
the sternest hearts to life with so exquisite a bondage. Oh, fancy,
then, for a moment, the mother of your babes coming at the still hour
of midnight to drain from their veins the very life blood she gave
to them. To drive you and them mad with the expected horror of such
visitations—to make your nights hideous—your days but so many hours
of melancholy retrospection. Oh, you know not the world of terror, on
the awful brink of which you stand, when you talk of making Flora
Bannerworth a wife.”
“Peace! oh, peace!” said Henry.
“Nay, I know my words are unwelcome,” continued Mr. Marchdale. “It
happens, unfortunately for human nature, that truth and some of our
best and holiest feelings are too often at variance, and hold a sad
contest——”
“I will hear no more of this,” cried Charles Holland.—“I will hear no
more.”
“I have done,” said Mr. Marchdale.
“And ’twere well you had not begun.”
“Nay, say not so. I have but done what I considered was a solemn duty.”
“Under that assumption of doing duty—a solemn duty—heedless of the
feelings and the opinions of others,” said Charles, sarcastically,
“more mischief is produced—more heart-burnings and anxieties caused,
than by any other two causes of such mischievous results combined. I
wish to hear no more of this.”
“Do not be angered with Mr. Marchdale, Charles,” said Henry. “He can
have no motive but our welfare in what he says. We should not condemn a
speaker because his words may not sound pleasant to our ears.”
“By Heaven!” said Charles, with animation, “I meant not to be
illiberal; but I will not, because I cannot see a man’s motives for
active interference in the affairs of others, always be ready, merely
on account of such ignorance, to jump to a conclusion that they must be
estimable.”
“To-morrow, I leave this house,” said Marchdale.
“Leave us?” exclaimed Henry.
“Ay, for ever.”
“Nay, now, Mr. Marchdale, is this generous?”
“Am I treated generously by one who is your own guest, and towards whom
I was willing to hold out the honest right hand of friendship?”
Henry turned to Charles Holland, saying,—
“Charles, I know your generous nature. Say you meant no offence to my
mother’s old friend.”
“If to say I meant no offence,” said Charles, “is to say I meant no
insult, I say it freely.”
“Enough,” cried Marchdale; “I am satisfied.”
“But do not,” added Charles, “draw me any more such pictures as the one
you have already presented to my imagination, I beg of you. From the
storehouse of my own fancy I can find quite enough to make me wretched,
if I choose to be so; but again and again do I say I will not allow
this monstrous superstition to tread me down, like the tread of a giant
on a broken reed. I will contend against it while I have life to do so.”
“Bravely spoken.”
“And when I desert Flora Bannerworth, may Heaven, from that moment,
desert me!”
“Charles!” cried Henry, with emotion, “dear Charles, my more than
friend—brother of my heart—noble Charles!”
“Nay, Henry, I am not entitled to your praises. I were base indeed to
be other than that which I purpose to be. Come weal or woe—come what
may, I am the affianced husband of your sister, and she, and she only,
can break asunder the tie that binds me to her.”