THE HUNT FOR THE VAMPYRE IN THE SUBTERRANEAN PASSAGE.
The information that had been given to Mrs. Williams respecting her
daughter and James Anderson having together left the great hall of
Anderbury House, was perfectly correct.
The voice of Anderson, whispering words of affection in the ear of
Helen, was sufficient to arouse her from the state of syncope into
which she had fallen; and when she recovered and looked in his face,
the expression of joy which her countenance wore, at once dispelled all
his doubts.
“Helen, dear Helen!” he whispered; “are you, indeed, still, in heart,
mine?”
“Still, as ever,” she replied.
“Come with me; I have much to tell you; and we need not heed the
thoughts and feelings of the throng that is here. If you can walk,
place your arm in mine, and lean upon me, and we will get out of all
this trouble and confusion.”
Helen was but too glad to avail herself of such an offer, and she
accordingly at once did so; and leaning for support upon that arm,
which, of all others, she most loved to bear upon, they together passed
out of the great hall, through one of the numerous doorways leading
from it.
Being both of them quite ignorant of what may be called the topography
of Anderbury House, they went on till they came to a small but
very elegant apartment, in which a table was laid with wines, and
some costly refreshments, which, from the fact of an extremely
clerical-looking shovel hat being upon one of the chairs, there was
no great difficulty in coming to the conclusion that this had been a
reception-room, got up purposely for the reverend gentleman who was to
perform the ceremony of marriage between the baron and Miss Williams,
and in which he had refreshed himself prior to the performance of that
dreadfully arduous task, for which, no doubt, as all persons are, he
was so very insufficiently paid.
A glass of wine, which James Anderson poured out for Helen, tended much
to recover her; and then he said to her in accents of the greatest
affection,—
“Helen—Helen! is it possible that you really so far forgot me, as to
promise your hand to another?”
She burst into tears as she clung to his arm, saying,—
“I know you cannot, you ought not to forgive me. I did promise; but I
did not forget you; and if you know the cruel persecution to which I
have been subjected, you would pity, perhaps, as much as you condemn
me.”
“You did not know that some days since I wrote you a note.”
“Me a note? Oh, heavens! no—no. What became of it? To whom did you
entrust it? Oh! James, had I but thought you were near me, do you think
that for one moment I would have yielded, even to the representations
which were made to me?”
“I see it all,” he said. “Your mother has carried on this matter with
more tact than candour and honesty of purpose. I do not condemn you,
dear Helen; and no one shall ever disturb you in your possession of a
heart which is wholly yours.”
“And can you forget——”
“All but that I love you I can and will forget, Helen.”
“I do not deserve this noble generosity, for I ought not to have
yielded, James. I feel that I ought to have clung to the remembrance of
your affection, and found in that an abundant consolation, as well as
abundant strength, to resist the whole world.”
“Say no more, dearest, upon that head; but let us, to the full, enjoy
the happiness of this meeting, without the drawback of a single doubt.”
“We will never part again.”
“Never—never.”
“But, James, what was the meaning of that sudden exclamation, from one
of the guests, as regarded the baron?”
“You allude to Admiral Bell proclaiming him to be a vampyre; and, I
must say, it fills me with quite as much astonishment as it can you. I
did hear a strange story of that sort from a sailor a short time ago,
but I looked upon it as a mere superstition and paid no attention to
it. You know what it means, I presume, and that a vampyre is supposed
to be a half-supernatural creature who supports a spurious and horrible
existence, by feeding upon the blood of any one whom he can make his
victim.”
“If this horrible superstition,” said Helen, with a shudder, “be true,
what a dreadful fate have I escaped!”
“It surely must be some error of judgement; but still, dear one, you
have escaped a dreadful fate, a fate worse than any vampyre would have
inflicted upon you—the fate of being united to one whom you cannot
love.”
“Yes,” said Helen; “that is, indeed, an escape; but how came you, of
all persons in the world, a guest here?”
“I came, Helen, under cover of a general invitation, with a most worthy
family, to whose kindness I feel myself much indebted, and which
empowered them to bring with them whom they pleased. My wish and object
was to take one last look at the face I had loved so well before I left
you for ever.”
“Oh, Heavens!” said Helen, “and I was so near being sacrificed while
you were by. Even now I shudder at the dreadful chasm; I feel that you
ought not to forgive me.”
“Say no more—say no more; all that, Helen, is now past and
forgotten, and I can well imagine how your mother would torture you
with supplications, because she believed this man to be rich, and
consequently the sort of person, above all others, as most desirable
for her to have as a son-in-law. We will only consider that a great
anxiety and a great danger has passed away, and we will not stop to ask
ourselves what it was.”
“Ever good, and ever generous,” resumed Helen, as her head reposed upon
her lover’s breast.
“Oh,” said Jack Pringle, as he popped his head in at the door; “I beg
your pardon, you are better engaged; but we are going to have a grand
vampyre hunt through the house, and I thought you would like to join in
it, perhaps.”
“Stay a moment, stay,” cried Anderson. “Do you mean to tell me, really,
that this is the person who gave your friends, the Bannerworths, so
much trouble and inconvenience?”
“Yes, I do,” said Jack; “lor bless you, he is quite an old acquaintance
of ours, is old Varney; sometimes he hunts us, sometimes we hunt him.
He is rather a troublesome acquaintance, notwithstanding, and I think
there are a good many people in the world, a jolly right worse vampyres
than Varney.”
“I have no cause to hunt him,” said Anderson, “and so, therefore, I
feel certainly more inclined to decline, than otherwise, engaging in
such a transaction.”
“Don’t mention it,” said Jack; “you are a deuced deal better engaged,
and there needs no excuses.”
Jack was quite correct as regarded the projected hunt for the
unfortunate Varney in Anderbury House; for the liberal offer of reward
which the admiral had made to any one who would secure him, was
calculated to stimulate every possible exertion that people could make
upon the occasion; so much so, indeed, that the Bannerworths, after a
brief consultation among themselves, thought that for the protection
of Varney it would be much better that they should find him, than
now leave him with the character that had been given him as such a
dangerous member of society.
The servants, and some of the guests, even, had gone very
systematically to work for the purpose of taking Varney prisoner; for,
in the first instance, they had secured all the outlets from the house,
so that, as the footman with the yellow plush continuations remarked,
he must jump over the cliff if he wanted to get away.
The admiral and Henry agreed with each other that they would be
foremost in the search, in order to protect Varney from any violence;
for although this conduct of his might be considered as very bad,
and an outrage upon society in passing himself off as a baron, and
endeavouring to effect an alliance with a young and innocent girl, yet
they, the Bannerworths, had nothing to complain of in the transaction
whatever.
Consequently was it that they felt an inclination to defend Varney from
personal violence.
And this was, to a certain extent, to be dreaded, because Anderbury
being so short a distance from Bannerworth, it was not to be supposed
but that some news of the mysterious appearance of the vampyre had
reached the ears of almost every one who happened to be present at the
baron’s wedding.
And although these persons might be supposed to belong to a class
of society not likely to commit acts of violence, yet there was no
knowing what, in the excitement of the moment, might be done.
While the search went on, Flora was introduced to Helen Williams, and
remained with her, commencing a friendship which lasted afterwards, to
the great advantage of Helen, for many a year.
The Bannerworths would have been pleased and interested at going over
Anderbury House, under any other circumstances than the present one,
for truly the baron had made it a most magnificent abode.
By judicious additions to the antique furniture which had belonged to
it when he took it, he had made some of the apartments look gorgeous
in the extreme; and while he had not disturbed the character of the
decorations, he had certainly shown a very fine taste in adding to them.
But their minds were by far too much occupied with considerations
connected with Varney to pay much attention to his house; and, as they
traversed room after room in search of him without finding him, they
began to think that, with his usual good fortune, he had contrived
entirely to escape.
The servants, who knew the place well, perhaps better than Varney did
himself, searched for him in almost impossible places, until it began
to be the general opinion that he must have escaped.
They were standing by a large bay-window, which commanded a view of the
gardens, when one of the servants suddenly exclaimed,
“I see him—I see him; there he goes,” and pointed into the garden,
where, for one instant, Henry Bannerworth, as well as the admiral,
saw Varney, in his rich suit of wedding apparel, dart from among the
bushes, towards a summer-house that was in the garden near at hand.
“’Tis he, indeed,” said Henry. “Let us get down instantly, or he may
yet effect his escape.”
“No, no,” cried one of the servants, “he cannot do that; the garden
wall is too high, and the men are stationed at the gate. It’s quite
clear to me what he is about. Look at him; he is going towards the old
passage that leads to the sea shore.”
“Then he will escape, of course,” said Henry, “for no one can hope to
overtake him.”
“Don’t you be afraid of that, sir,” cried the servant; “one of my mates
has gone round to the beach to watch, and he won’t let the door be
opened that leads out on to the sands, so he cannot get away by that
mode.”
“In that case, then, we have him completely entrapped, and, as you say,
he cannot escape. It must be the madness of positive desperation that
induces him to go to that place.”
“Let us be off at once after him,” said the admiral; “that is our only
plan. Come on at once. The sooner we get hold of him the better, for
his own sake as well as for ours.”
Thus urged, they all proceeded towards the garden, in which was the
mysterious, well-like entrance to the subterraneous passage, which
formed so great a feature in the estate of Anderbury, on the moment,
and which, at the time that Varney had taken the mansion, had evidently
formed to him one of its principal attractions.
To the admiral and his party, as well as to several of the guests, who
joined from motives of curiosity in the pursuit for Varney, this place
was perfectly new, and it certainly, to look down it, did not present
by any means an inviting prospect; for although it sloped sufficiently
to take off the absolute appearance of being a downright hole in
the earth, yet, beyond a few feet in depth, the gloom had something
positively terrific about it.
“Well,” said the admiral, “I’ve been into the hold of many a ship, but
never one that looked half so gloomy as this, I can say. What do you
say to it, Jack?”
“It’s no use saying anything to such places,” said Jack. “The only way,
if we want to catch old Varney, which I suppose we do, is to pop down
it at once and done with it; so come along, I won’t flinch if it was
ten times worse. Come on, admiral, let’s go down after the enemy.”
“I cannot say it’s exactly the kind of place I admire,” said the
admiral; “but, howsomedever, if one must go down it, who shall say that
Admiral Bell flinched from it? Come on, all of you. Let all who will
follow.”
The passage did not look a very inviting one; and it was found that the
courage of the guests began to cool down wonderfully when, instead of
rushing from apartment to apartment, in search of Varney, the vampyre,
they found that they had to encounter the gloom and darkness of that
underground abode.
Out of the positive throng which had been pursuing Varney, only four,
in addition to the admiral and the male portion of his party, ventured
to descend into that black-looking place.
[Illustration: The pursuit of Varney through the subterranean passages.]
“What!” cried Jack, “have we got such a lot of skulkers whenever we
come to close quarters with the enemy? Well, shiver my timbers, if I
didn’t expect as much from a lot of land lubbers, who don’t know what
they are about any more than a marine in a squall. But who cares? Come
along, admiral; and, if we do have all the fighting, we shall, at all
events, have all the glory.”
“I hope there will be nothing of the one, at all events,” said Henry;
“for my intention is rather to save Varney from injury than to injure
him.
“We must have lights,” said the admiral. “I don’t mind going down into
a queer place to look for Varney, but I must have the means of seeing
what I am about when I get there.”
“They will be here, sir, directly,” said the big footman, who from the
first had made himself conspicuous in the pursuit of Varney; that is to
say, ever since the reward of £100 had been offered by the admiral to
any one who would take him prisoner.
And in a few moments, some of the links, which were always kept in the
kitchen of Anderbury House, for the express purpose of descending into
the subterraneous passages with, were produced and lighted. By this
time, too, the four guests had decreased to three, and two of those
seemed to hang back rather a little; while one of them seemed disposed
to make up as much as possible for any deficiency of courage on the
part of the others, by declaring his intention of ferreting out Varney,
let him be hidden where he might.
“I am with you, sir,” he said to the admiral, “let this place lead
where it may; for I have heard so much about vampyres, and really am so
curious to know more about them.”
“You don’t believe in them, do you?”
“I cannot say that I do, sir. But, at the same time, when we hear
such well authenticated cases brought forward about them, it is very
difficult, indeed, to say at once, that one has no belief in such
things.”
“Well, you are right enough there; and if you knew as much about
Varney, the vampyre, as we do, I think you would be a little puzzled to
know what to say about him; for I’ll be hanged if he don’t puzzle me
above a bit, and I don’t know now what to think of him.”