THE PLOT DISCOVERED.—THE LETTER LEFT AT THE HOTEL BY THE VAMPYRE.
The further pursuit of the vampyre was very soon given up by those who
had commenced it with, as they had vainly imagined such an assurance of
success.
Probably with the exception of Mr. Lake himself none were really very
eager in it at all, and they were not sorry for a good excuse to drop
it.
There sat upon the countenance of Mr. Lake an appearance of great
anger, and when they got back to the hotel, he said to the landlord,
“This is a very disagreeable affair, and I cannot think of remaining
here over to-morrow.”
“But sir, the vampyre has gone now!”
“Yes, and may come again, for all I know.”
“Oh, dear me, surely not now, sir. After what has happened, I should be
inclined to say that you will find this the quietest hotel in London.”
Mr. Lake would not be moved from his determination, however, and
briefly again announced that he would on the morrow remove.
“How very vexatious,” thought the landlord, but he could do nothing in
the matter. His only hope, and that was a very slight one indeed, was,
by the morning the exasperated feelings of Mr. Lake would be somewhat
assuaged, and therefore, he thought it would be, at all events, a
prudent thing to say no more to him just then, when he was in such a
mood.
When Mr. Lake retired to his own apartment he was in anything but a
pleasant frame of mind, for he found that things were not exactly
turning out as he wished, and he much feared that all his schemes would
turn out abortive, in which case they would recoil upon his own head in
their consequences.
It was quite by accident, that happening to cast his eyes upon the
dressing-table, he saw a sealed letter lying there, and upon looking at
the superscription he was surprised to find that Annetta was the person
for whom it was intended.
It was not, as the reader may suppose from what he knows of Mr. Lake,
from any honourable scruples that he hesitated at once to open this
letter addressed to his niece, but he was for a time considering
whether he might not, by doing so, be getting himself into some scrape
from which he might find it very difficult to extricate himself.
“Who the deuce can it come from?” he said.
He turned the epistle about in all directions, but such an inquiry did
not assist him, and finally he made up his mind that come what might,
he would break the seal and look at the contents.
He soon, after coming to the determination, carried it into effect,
and to his surprise he found that the letter contained the following
statement:
To the lady Annetta Lake.
Fear nothing, lady. He who disturbed your repose will disturb
it no longer. Be happy, and do not let the dread of such
another visitation ever disturb your pure imaginings. Your
father will rescue you from your present unhappy circumstances,
and you will, likewise, soon see one who ere this would have
been with you, had he known of your being in London.
This comes from,
+Varney the Vampyre+.
“If Mr. Lake, your bad uncle, upon whose dressing table this
note is placed, delivers it not to you, woe be to him, for
I will make his nights hideous with realities, and his days
horrible with recollection and anticipation.”
Mr. Lake was superstitious. Are not the unprincipled always so?
He read the postscript to the note with a shudder; and he felt that
he could no more muster courage enough to destroy the letter, than he
could to lay violent hands upon himself. There he was with an epistle
that he would fain have kept from Annetta, and yet he dared not do so.
“Confound my unlucky destiny,” he said, “for bringing me to this hotel.
Perhaps if I had gone elsewhere, all this would not have happened. Oh,
if I could but have suspected what this Mr. Black really was, I would
have tried some means for his extermination.”
He paced his chamber in an agitated manner until Mrs. Lake made her
appearance from the chamber of the lady Annetta, where she had been
staying, and to her then he at once communicated the letter that gave
him so much uneasiness.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said, “or what to think.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes, indeed. Perhaps you can suggest something?”
“And can you allow yourself to be made a slave of such fears. There
is but one course to pursue, and that is, to-morrow to put the affair
altogether in a different shape, by overwhelming Annetta with the
seeming evidence that she is the daughter of an attorney’s clerk,
instead of her real father, Lord Lake. I know of no other way; and then
when she finds such, as she will think, to be the case, it’s my opinion
that she will no longer hesitate to marry our son.”
“You think so?”
“Indeed do I, The girl is not an absolute fool surely.”
“Well, of course, I should be very glad if that darling project could
be, after all, brought about, but what is to be done with this letter?”
“Can you ask?”
“I do, when I consider the threat that is in it. That threat,
recollect, is to me, and you can afford to think lightly of it.”
“I will take the consequences. It is hardly likely that you will be
punished for what you can’t help. I will take good care that this
letter never reaches Annetta, and as you have it not, why of course you
cannot deliver it, and so cannot be blamed.”
“But I might have it.”
“No such thing,” said the lady snatching it up. “You know me rather
too well, I should think, to hope that I would give it up to you, and
as for your taking it by force, I should think you knew me too well
likewise to make such a ridiculous attempt.”
“Well, then I wash my hands of it.”
“Ah! you may as well. I don’t know what has come over you of late, you
are as mean spirited as you can be, and formerly you used to be able to
cope with anything.”
“We never played for such a stake as we have now upon the board, and I
confess that I am rather nervous for the consequences.”
“Pshaw! I see that I must guide you, or all will be lost. To-morrow
let the whole affair be settled. Let this attorney Miller, as you call
him, come here, and bring with him the person who is to claim Annetta
as his own daughter. Let him have all the evidence that you tell me he
has been so ingenious in getting up, ready, in order that he may be in
a position to answer any questions.”
“Yes, yes.”
“And then, when all is settled, our son must come forward, and make a
speech, saying, he don’t care a bit, who or what she is, that he loves
her and will make her his wife, although she has not a penny piece in
the world.”
“I see, I see.”
“I think, from what I know of her, that such a course of proceeding
will have a great effect upon her.”
“Well, I hope so.”
“You hope so! How despondingly you talk.”
“Why the honest truth—”
“Good God! what do you mean by making use of such words, I never told
the honest truth in all my life; you may depend that won’t do in this
world, on any consideration. Never let me hear you say such a thing
again, I beg of you.”
“I was merely going to remark that this vampyre’s business had really
so completely unsettled my whole nervous system, that I could not act
with all the tact and the determination that used to characterise my
proceedings, and for which you were ever disposed to give me so much
credit.”
“Really.”
“Yes. But I cannot regret such a state of things so much as I should
otherwise do, because I see that you are unmoved and as energetic as
ever.”
“Well, well, say no more.”
“I am done.”
“I will prepare our boy for the part he is to act to-morrow; and mind,
I shall rely upon you to see your associates and get all the affair
in train. Let it be all over by twelve in the morning, so that if you
like you can send to Lord Lake where he is staying, at Florence still I
presume, an account of the matter by post that same night; only let me
see the letter before you send it.”
“I will, I will; you are my guardian angel.”
“Pho, pho; you are getting quite romantic and foolish; we have both
made up our minds to get money, and we have likewise known so much the
want of it, in abundance that is to say, that we have resolved to get
it in any way we can.”
“Yes, that I rather think is our principle of action.”
“And has it not succeeded hitherto. Have we not lived well without
troubling ourselves to earn the means by which we have done so. Earn,
indeed! I leave that to a parcel of sleepy drones of people who have
not the wit to live upon others as we have; so now go to bed and sleep
off some of the unmanly fears that seem of late to be continually
pressing upon you. It is well you have me to look after you as I do.”