THE COMMUNICATION OF THE SERVANTS RESPECTING THE LAKE FAMILY.
The coachman and groom, evidently listened with great interest to what
Slop had to relate. For a wonder, they were completely silent while
he spoke; and when he had concluded, they looked at each other, and
nodded, as much to say,—Ah! we can draw some conclusion from all that,
that you Mr. Slop, really know nothing at all about.
“Is that all?” said George.
“Yes,” said the waiter, “and sufficient I think.”
“More, a good deal,” remarked Francis. “But howsomdever, as you seem a
proper sort of fellow, we don’t mind telling you what we think of the
matter.”
“No, no,” interposed George, “not exactly that.”
“And why not?”
“Because you see, Francis, we have never known yet, my boy, what to
think about it.”
“Well there’s some truth in that at all events. But we will tell Mr.
Slop what happened once before, that wasn’t much unlike what has taken
place at the London Hotel.”
“Well, but tell him first who she is,” said George. “Then he’ll
understand all the rest better, as well as taking more interest in it.”
“Very good. Then listen, Mr. Slop.”
“With all my ears,” said Slop.
At this moment a bell rung sharply, and Slop on the impulse of the
moment, sprung up,—
“Coming—coming—coming.”
Both George and Francis burst into a great laugh, and Slop was quite
disconcerted.
“Really, gentlemen,” he said, “I’m sorry, very sorry, but I’m so used
to cry, coming, when a bell rings, that, for the moment, I forgot there
was no sort of occasion to do so here. I begs you won’t think no more
of it, but tell me all as you have got to tell.”
“Don’t mention it,” said Francis, and then after taking another draught
of the something strong, and settling himself in his seat, commenced.
“Lord Lake, you know, is our master, and a very good sort of a man he
is, only he’s a—a—a; what did the doctor call him George?”
“Oh, I know, a—a—a, what was it Frank?”
“Well, I asked you. It was a _wallytoddyhairyhun_, I think.”
“Something like it. Odd wasn’t it?”
“Wery.”
“I beg your pardon, gentlemen,” said a gentlemanly looking man who
was seated in an obscure corner of the room, and who was desperately
ugly—at least so much as could be seen of his face, for it was much
muffled up. “I beg your pardon, but the word you mean I suppose is
valetudinarian.”
“That’s it, that’s it! I knows it when I hears it. That’s it; well they
say that in consequence of being that ere he was rather cross-grained
a little when there wasn’t no sort of occasion for it, and barring
that, which, poor man, I suppose he could not help, he was about as
decent a master as ever stepped in shoe leather, wasn’t he, George?”
“I believe you, my boy.”
“Well, the Countess of Bhackbighte was his mother-in-law, you see, a
wicious old woman as ever lived, and when Lady Lake died it was she as
brought the news to Lord Lake that his wife was dead, and the wirtuous
baby as she had just brought into the world was dead too, wasn’t that
it, George?”
“I believe you my boy, rather.”
“Well, Lord Lake was _inconsolotable_ as they says, for ever so long,
and he made friends with his brother who would come next into the
property; they all went abroad together.”
“All who?” said Slop.
“Wery good, I’ll tell you, Lord Lake, his brother, his brother’s wife
and son. Them as is now at the London Hotel. Now you knows, don’t you?”
“Go on, I knows.”
“Well they hadn’t been there above a matter o’ fourteen years when the
old Countess of Bhackbighte dies, and then there comes a letter to my
lord as says that the precious baby as his wife had brought into the
world just afore she went out of it herself, wasn’t dead at all, but
had been smuggled away by the old Countess, nobody knows what for, and
that she was alive and kicking then, and ready to come to her papa
whenever he said the word, and so come she did, you see, and that’s our
young lady Annetta, you see as is at the London Hotel.”
“Well, but I don’t understand,” said Slop.
“Of course you don’t.”
“Oh.”
“But you will if you goes on a listening; you can’t expect to
understand all at once you know. Just attend to the remainder and
you’ll soon know all about it; but George is the man to tell you, that
he is.”
“Oh, no, no,” said George.
“Why, you heard it, and told it to me. Come, don’t be foolish, but tell
it at once, old fellow.”
“Well, if I must, I must,” said George, “so here goes; though when I
has to tell anything, I always feels as if I was being _druv_ with a
curb half-a-dozen links too tight. But here goes.”
“I am very much amused,” said Slop, “and should certainly like to hear
it all. Pray go on?”
“Well, you must know we was at an old tumble down place in Italy, as
they call’s Rome. Horridly out o’ repair, but that’s neither here nor
there. In course we had stables and riding out; and there was a nice
sort o’ terrace where Lord Lake used to walk sometimes, as well as his
brother, while the carriage was being got out, so that I could hear
what they said if I chose to do so.
“Well, one day the brother, Mr. Lake, or the Honourable Dick Lake as
he was sometimes called, was walking there alone, and I seed as he was
all of a tremble like, you understand! but I could not have any idea of
what it was about. Once or twice I heard him say,—‘It will do—and it
will do.’”
“Presently, then out comes Lord Lake, and he says, giving the other a
letter, ‘Good God, read that!’ Give us a trifle more sugar?”
“What?”
“Why, what do you mean,” said Francis. “Is that the way to tell a
story, to run into what people says what you happens to want yourself?
Here’s the sugar, and now go on.”
“Well, the brother reads it, and then he says; ‘Gracious Providence,’
says he ‘this here says as the Lady Annetta, ain’t your daughter, but a
_himposter_.’
“‘Yes,’ says Lord Lake, ‘oh, what will become of me now?’
“‘Calm yourself,’ says the brother, ‘and leave this affair to me. Let
her go with me to England, and we will clear up the mystery. I love
her as I would a child of my own; but still this here letter’ says he,
‘seems to contain such a statement’ says he——”
“Well? Well?”
“That’s all! After that, they walked off the terrace and I didn’t hear
no more at all. After that, in a day or two Lord Lakes comes to me; and
says, ‘George, my brother and his family, with Lady Annetta, are going
to England. I wish you and Francis to accompany them and to attend upon
them, just the same as you would on myself,’ says he, and in course I
didn’t like to say anything; so we came, but as our idea of the brother
is that he’s a humbug, we wouldn’t have no more to do with him, after
we got to London, you see; and so off we went as you heard.”
“Well, but,” said Slop; “there was a something else you was to tell me;”
“So there was,” said Francis “and this was it. While we were staying
at a place called Florence, and sleeping all of us in an old palace,
there was an alarm in the middle of the night, and we found it came
from the chamber of the Lady Annetta; who said that a man had got in by
the window, and she just woke in time to see him; and when she screamed
out away he went again, but nothing could be seen of him; the oddest
thing was that the window was so high from the ground, that it seemed
to be quite out of the question that he could have got at it without a
ladder; yet the deuce of a ladder was there to be seen.”
“And who was it?”
“Nobody ever knew, but the night after it was said that a vampire had
visited a cottage near at hand, and fastened on the throat of a little
girl of about seven, and sucked half the blood out of her, so that she
was lying at the point of death; and the description the child gave
of him was so like what the Lady Annetta said of the man that had got
in at the window of her bedroom, that my lord got very uneasy about
it, and moved away from Florence as quick as he could, and no wonder,
either, you will say.”
“It was odd.”
“It was, and what you have told me of last night, put me in mind of it,
you see.”
“No doubt; Lord, I’m all of a twitter myself.”
“Why, what need you care? those who know about vampires say that there
are two sorts, one sort always attacks its own relations as was, and
nobody else, and the other always selects the most charming young
girls, and nobody else, and if they can’t get either, they starve to
death, waste away and die, for they take no food or drink of any sort,
unless they are downright forced.”
“But who told you?”
“Oh, an old Italian priest, who spoke English.”