HENRY’S AGREEMENT WITH SIR FRANCIS VARNEY.—THE SUDDEN ARRIVAL AT THE
HALL.—FLORA’S ALARM.
On the tray which the servant brought into the room, were refreshments
of different kinds, including wine, and after waving his hand for the
domestic to retire, Sir Francis Varney said,—
“You will be better, Mr. Bannerworth, for a glass of wine after your
walk, and you too, sir. I am ashamed to say, I have quite forgotten
your name.”
“Marchdale.”
“Mr. Marchdale. Ay, Marchdale. Pray, sir, help yourself.”
[Illustration: Sir Varney offers refreshments to the gentlemen.]
“You take nothing yourself?” said Henry.
“I am under a strict regimen,” replied Varney. “The simplest diet alone
does for me, and I have accustomed myself to long abstinence.”
“He will not eat or drink,” muttered Henry, abstractedly.
“Will you sell me the Hall?” said Sir Francis Varney.
Henry looked in his face again, from which he had only momentarily
withdrawn his eyes, and he was then more struck than ever with the
resemblance between him and the portrait on the panel of what had been
Flora’s chamber. What made that resemblance, too, one about which there
could scarcely be two opinions, was the mark or cicatrix of a wound in
the forehead, which the painter had slightly indented in the portrait,
but which was much more plainly visible on the forehead of Sir Francis
Varney. Now that Henry observed this distinctive mark, which he had not
done before, he could feel no doubt, and a sickening sensation came
over him at the thought that he was actually now in the presence of one
of those terrible creatures, vampyres.
“You do not drink,” said Varney. “Most young men are not so modest with
a decanter of unimpeachable wine before them. I pray you help yourself.”
“I cannot.”
Henry rose as he spoke, and turning to Marchdale, he said, in addition,—
“Will you come away?”
“If you please,” said Marchdale, rising.
“But you have not, my dear sir,” said Varney, “given me yet any answer
about the Hall?”
“I cannot yet,” answered Henry, “I will think. My present impression
is, to let you have it on whatever terms you may yourself propose,
always provided you consent to one of mine.”
“Name it.”
“That you never show yourself in my family.”
“How very unkind. I understand you have a charming sister, young,
beautiful, and accomplished. Shall I confess, now, that I had hopes of
making myself agreeable to her?”
“You make yourself agreeable to her? The sight of you would blast her
for ever, and drive her to madness.”
“Am I so hideous?”
“No, but—you are——”
“What am I?”
“Hush, Henry, hush,” cried Marchdale. “Remember you are in this
gentleman’s house.”
“True, true. Why does he tempt me to say these dreadful things? I do
not want to say them.”
“Come away, then—come away at once. Sir Francis Varney, my friend, Mr.
Bannerworth, will think over your offer, and let you know. I think you
may consider that your wish to become the purchaser of the Hall will be
complied with.”
“I wish to have it,” said Varney, “and I can only say, that if I am
master of it, I shall be very happy to see any of the family on a visit
at any time.”
“A visit!” said Henry, with a shudder. “A visit to the tomb were far
more desirable. Farewell, sir.”
“Adieu,” said Sir Francis Varney, and he made one of the most elegant
bows in the world, while there came over his face a peculiarity of
expression that was strange, if not painful, to contemplate. In another
minute Henry and Marchdale were clear of the house, and with feelings
of bewilderment and horror, which beggar all description, poor Henry
allowed himself to be led by the arm by Marchdale to some distance,
without uttering a word. When he did speak, he said,—
“Marchdale, it would be charity of some one to kill me.”
“To kill you!”
“Yes, for I am certain otherwise that I must go mad.”
“Nay, nay; rouse yourself.”
“This man, Varney, is a vampyre.”
“Hush! hush!”
“I tell you, Marchdale,” cried Henry, in a wild, excited manner, “he
is a vampyre. He is the dreadful being who visited Flora at the still
hour of midnight, and drained the life-blood from her veins. He is a
vampyre. There are such things. I cannot doubt now. Oh, God, I wish now
that your lightnings would blast me, as here I stand, for ever into
annihilation, for I am going mad to be compelled to feel that such
horrors can really have existence.”
“Henry—Henry.”
“Nay, talk not to me. What can I do? Shall I kill him? Is it not a
sacred duty to destroy such a thing? Oh, horror—horror. He must be
killed—destroyed—burnt, and the very dust to which he is consumed must
be scattered to the winds of Heaven. It would be a deed well done,
Marchdale.”
“Hush! hush! These words are dangerous.”
“I care not.”
“What if they were overheard now by unfriendly ears? What might not be
the uncomfortable results? I pray you be more cautious what you say of
this strange man.”
“I must destroy him.”
“And wherefore?”
“Can you ask? Is he not a vampyre?”
“Yes; but reflect, Henry, for a moment upon the length to which you
might carry out so dangerous an argument. It is said that vampyres
are made by vampyres sucking the blood of those who, but for that
circumstance, would have died and gone to decay in the tomb along with
ordinary mortals; but that being so attacked during life by a vampyre,
they themselves, after death, become such.”
“Well—well, what is that to me?”
“Have you forgotten Flora?”
A cry of despair came from poor Henry’s lips, and in a moment he seemed
completely, mentally and physically, prostrated.
“God of Heaven!” he moaned, “I had forgotten her!”
“I thought you had.”
“Oh, if the sacrifice of my own life would suffice to put an end to
all this accumulating horror, how gladly would I lay it down. Ay, in
any way—in any way. No mode of death should appall me. No amount of
pain make me shrink. I could smile then upon the destroyer, and say,
‘welcome—welcome—most welcome.’”
“Rather, Henry, seek to live for those whom you love than die for them.
Your death would leave them desolate. In life you may ward off many a
blow of fate from them.”
“I may endeavour so to do.”
“Consider that Flora may be wholly dependent upon such kindness as you
may be able to bestow upon her.”
“Charles clings to her.”
“Humph!”
“You do not doubt him?”
“My dear friend, Henry Bannerworth, although I am not an old man, yet I
am so much older than you that I have seen a great deal of the world,
and am, perhaps, far better able to come to accurate judgments with
regard to individuals.”
“No doubt—no doubt; but yet——”
“Nay, hear me out. Such judgments, founded upon experience, when
uttered have all the character of prophecy about them. I, therefore,
now prophecy to you that Charles Holland will yet be so stung with
horror at the circumstance of a vampyre visiting Flora, that he will
never make her his wife.”
“Marchdale, I differ from you most completely,” said Henry. “I know
that Charles Holland is the very soul of honour.”
“I cannot argue the matter with you. It has not become a thing of fact.
I have only sincerely to hope that I am wrong.”
“You are, you may depend, entirely wrong. I cannot be deceived in
Charles. From you such words produce no effect but one of regret that
you should so much err in your estimate of any one. From any one but
yourself they would have produced in me a feeling of anger I might have
found it difficult to smother.”
“It has often been my misfortune through life,” said Mr. Marchdale,
sadly, “to give the greatest offence where I feel the truest
friendship, because it is in such quarters that I am always tempted to
speak too freely.”
“Nay, no offence,” said Henry. “I am distracted, and scarcely know what
I say. Marchdale, I know you are my sincere friend; but, as I tell you,
I am nearly mad.”
“My dear Henry, be calmer. Consider upon what is to be said concerning
this interview at home.”
“Ay; that is a consideration.”
“I should not think it advisable to mention the disagreeable fact, that
in your neighbour you think you have found out the nocturnal disturber
of your family.”
“No—no.”
“I would say nothing of it. It is not at all probable that, after what
you have said to him, this Sir Francis Varney, or whatever his real
name may be, will obtrude himself upon you.”
“If he should he surely dies.”
“He will, perhaps, consider that such a step would be dangerous to him.”
“It would be fatal, so help me, Heaven, and then would I take especial
care that no power of resuscitation should ever enable that man again
to walk the earth.”
“They say that only way of destroying a vampyre is to fix him to the
earth with a stake, so that he cannot move, and then, of course,
decomposition will take its course, as in ordinary cases.”
“Fire would consume him, and be a quicker process,” said Henry. “But
these are fearful reflections, and, for the present, we will not pursue
them. Now to play the hypocrite, and endeavour to look composed and
serene to my mother, and to Flora, while my heart is breaking.”
The two friends had by this time reached the hall, and leaving his
friend Marchdale, Henry Bannerworth, with feelings of the most
unenviable description, slowly made his way to the apartment occupied
by his mother and sister.