THE HOTEL.—THE FASHIONABLE ARRIVAL.—THE YOUNG HEIRESS.
Can it be true, and if so, how horribly strange, that a being half
belonging to a world of spirits, should thus wander beneath the cold
moon and the earth, bringing dismay to the hearts of all upon whom his
strange malign influence is cast!
How frightful an existence is that of Varney the Vampyre!
There were some good points about the—man, we were going to say—and
yet we can hardly feel justified in bestowing upon him that
title,—considering the strange gift of renewable existence which was
his. If it were, as, indeed, it seemed to be the case, that bodily
decay in him was not the result of death, and that the rays “of the
cold chaste moon” were sufficient to revivify him, who shall say when
that process is to end? and who shall say that, walking the streets
of giant London at this day, there may not be some such existences?
Horrible thought that, perhaps seduced by the polished exterior of one
who seems a citizen of the world in the most extended signification of
the words, we should bring into our domestic circle a vampyre!
But yet it might be so. We have seen, however, that Varney was a man
of dignified courtesy and polished manners; that he had the rare and
beautiful gift of eloquence; and that, probably, gathering such vast
experience from his long intercourse with society—an intercourse which
had extended over so many years, he was able to adapt himself to the
tastes and the feelings of all persons, and so exercise over them that
charm of mind which caused him to have so dangerous a power.
At times, too, it would seem as if he regretted that fatal gift of
immortality, as if he would gladly have been more human, and lived
and died as those lived and died whom he saw around him. But being
compelled to fulfil the order of his being, he never had the courage
absolutely to take measures for his own destruction, a destruction
which should be final in consequence of depriving himself of all
opportunity of resuscitation.
Certainly the ingenuity of such a man might have devised some means of
putting such an end to his life, that, in the perishable fragments of
his body there should linger not one spark of that vitality which had
been so often again and again fanned into existence.
Probably some effort of that kind may yet be his end, and we shall see
that Varney the Vampyre will not, like the common run of the world’s
inhabitants, be changed into that dust of which is all humanity, but
will undergo some violent disruption, and be for ever blotted out from
the muster-roll of the living creatures that inhabit the great world.
But to cease speculating on such things, and to come to actual facts,
we will now turn over another leaf in the strange eventful history of
Varney the Vampyre.
• • • • •
One stormy, inclement evening in November, a travelling carriage,
draggled with mud, and dripping with moisture, was driven up to
the door of the London Hotel, which was an establishment not of
the very first fashion, but of great respectability, situated then
in Burlington-street, close to Old Bond-street, then the parade of
fashion, and, as some thought, elegance; although we of the present
day would look with risibility upon the costumes that were the vogue,
although the period were but fifty years ago; but fifty years effect
strange mutations and revolutions in dress, manners, and even in modes
of thought.
The equipage, if not of the most dashing character, was still of
sufficiently aristocratic pretensions to produce a considerable
bustle in the hotel; and the landlord, after seeing that there was a
coronet upon of the panels of the carriage door, thought it worth his
while personally to welcome the guests who had done him the honour of
selecting his house.
These guests consisted of an oldish man and woman, a young man of
frivolous and foppish exterior, of about twenty-two years of age, and
a young lady, who was so covered up in a multitude of shawls, that but
little of her face could be seen; but that little was sufficient to
stamp her at once as most beautiful.
The whole party evidently paid great court to this young lady, but
whether they did so from affection, or from some more interested
motive, it would not be proper just now to say, as those facts will
come out before we have proceeded far in this little episode.
“Mind how you step, Annette,” said the old gentleman, as the young lady
descended the carriage. “Mind how you step, my dear.”
“Oh! yes, yes,” said the old lady, who was not so very old either,
although entering upon the shady side of fifty. “Yes. Oh! mind my dear,
how you get out.”
The young lady made no reply to all these kind injunctions, but pushing
aside the proffered arm of the younger gentleman, she tripped into the
hotel unaided.
The old lady instantly followed her.
“Now, Francis,” said the old gentleman to the servant, who got down
from the rumble of the travelling carriage. “Now, Francis, you
perfectly recollect, I hope, what my brother, Lord Lake, said to you?”
“Yes, sir,” said Francis, but there was not the most respectful
intonation in the world in the voice with which he returned the
affirmative.
“You remember,” continued the old gentleman; “you remember, Francis,
that my brother told you, you were to wait upon us just the same as
upon himself, with the carriage.”
“Oh, yes.”
“Oh, yes! what do you mean by saying ‘oh, yes!’ to me?”
“Do you want me to say, ‘oh, no?’”
“Francis, this won’t do. You are discharged.”
“That for you, and the discharge, too,” said Francis, as he snapped his
fingers in the face of the old gentleman. “I never meant to serve you,
Mister Lake; I’m Lord Lake’s groom, but I ain’t a going to be turned
over to a canting fellow like you, so you have only took the words out
of my mouth, for I meant to discharge myself, and so will George. I
say, George.”
“Yes,” replied the coachman; “what is it?”
“Are we going to be at the beck and call of Jonathan Lake?”
“See him d—-d first,” was the laconic reply of the coachman.
“Now, Mister Lake,” added Francis, “you knows what we thinks of you.
You is a humbug. We only came so far, because we wouldn’t put Miss
Annette, our young lady, to the inconvenience of a postchaise, while
my lord, her father’s carriage here, was so much more comfortable. We
shall take that to the coachmaker’s, where my lord’s other carriages
are standing, till he comes to England, and then you won’t see us no
more.”
“You rascals!”
“Oh, go on. You’re a humbug; ain’t he, George?”
“Oh, a _riglar_ one—a _numbug_ he is,” aid the coachman; “and what’s
more, we don’t believe a word of all what’s been a going on. Lady
Annette is Lady Annette, bless her sweet eyes. Come on, Francis, I’m
wet.”
“And I’m damp,” said Francis, as he shook himself, and made as much
splashing round him as a great Newfoundland dog, who has just had a
bath. “I’m ready now, mister, and you knows our minds, and we ain’t the
sort of folks to alter ’em. We serves our master; but we doesn’t serve
a humbug.”
Some of the waiters at the hotel had come to the door to hear this
rather curious colloquy, and not a little surprised were they at it. At
all events, whatever other effect it had upon them, it did not increase
their respect for the new arrivals, and one of them, named Slop, ran
after the carriage, and called out to Francis,—
“I say—I say!”
“Well, what?”
“I say, young fellow, just tell me where you will be staying, and I’ll
come and see you, and stand a glass.”
Francis leant over the roof of the carriage, and said,—
“George—George!”
“Here ye _air_,” said George.
“Here’s one o’ the waiters at the hotel wants to make an acquaintance.
It won’t be a bad thing to know him, as you see he can tell us all
about Lady Annette, and what the ladies are doing. What do you say to
it, George?”
“A good idea, Francis.”
“Very well. Hilloa! what’s your name, old fellow?”
“Slop—Solomon Slop, they calls me.”
“Well, if you come any evening to the King’s Head, in Welbeck-street,
you’ll find either me or George; and we always likes good company,
and shall be very glad to see you whenever you like. Suppose you say
to-morrow?”
“I will,—I will; to-morrow I can come easily at eight o’clock, so you
may expect me. Good night.”
“Good night, Slop. Pleasant evening, ain’t it? Drive on, George; I
shall be in a ague presently; drive on, good luck to you, and let’s get
a change of things, whatever you do. I never was so wet, I do think, in
all my life.”
“Nor me, nor me,” said George, who it will be perceived was not very
particular about his grammar; but that didn’t matter much. He was paid
for a knowledge of horses, not of moods, tenses, and cases.
Leaving the servants, then, of Lord Lake, as they had announced
themselves to be, let us return to the hotel, where the family party
had by this time got into comfortable enough quarters.
As far as the landlord of that establishment was concerned, Mr. Lake
had won him over completely, by ordering the best rooms, a supper, as
good as the house could afford, regardless of price; the best wines,
and altogether showed a right royal disposition as regarded expenditure.
But the waiters, who had often found by experience that the most
extravagant people were not the most liberal to them, did not forget
what had passed at the door, and many a whispered surmise passed from
one to the other regarding the circumstances that had induced the
coachman and groom to treat the family so very cavalierly, and so
obstinately to decline serving them.
When Slop returned, he got some of his companions round him in the hall.
“I shall know all about it,” he said; “I’m to go and take a glass with
them to-morrow night, at the King’s Head, in Welbeck-street, and you
see if they don’t tell me what it’s all about. I wouldn’t miss knowing
for a trifle.”
“Nor me—nor me.”
“Well, I’ll of course tell you all when I come back. You may depend
upon it it’s something worth knowing. Have you seen the young lady any
of you. I caught just a look of one eye, and the end of her nose, and I
should say she’s a out-and-outer, and no mistake.”