THE VAMPYRE’S VISIT TO THE BARRACKS AT KINGSTON.—THE YOUNG OFFICER.
We do not wish altogether to lose sight of Varney in these proceedings,
and it so happens that he is sufficiently mixed up in what further
occurred to make it desirable that we should now again refer to him.
It was not the least singular fact in the character of that mysterious
being, to notice how he always endeavoured to make some sort of amends
or reparation to those whom he had so much terrified by his visitations.
We have seen in the case of the family of the Bannerworths how
eventually he was most anxious to do them a service, as a recompense
for the really serious injury he had inflicted upon them, and how
it was really and eventually through him that they emerged from
the circumstances of difficulty and danger in which they had been
pecuniarily engaged.
We shall now see if Varney, who really in his way is a very respectable
sort of a personage, is about good or evil.
We left him on the river, after promising in his usual liberal spirit,
a handsome reward to the waterman whom he employed to row the boat in
which he embarked.
After going some distance, the waterman, finding his fare was silent,
thought it would be as well again to ask him where he was going.
Accordingly, with a preparatory hem, he began by saying,
“About as nice a tide, sir, as we could have for going up the stream.”
“Very likely,” was the brief reply.
“Do you land near hand, sir?”
“I want to go to Kingston; take me to some Quay on the river as near as
you can, for the purpose of my walking there.”
“Kingston?” said the waterman, with a look rather of surprise. “It’s a
long pull to Kingston, and if your honour could get a conveyance, your
best way would be to get out at Putney.”
“Wherefore?”
“Why after that, the river takes such a plaguey lot of windings and
turnings that you have to go treble the actual distance before you
reach Teddington.”
“I said Kingston.”
“Well that’s close by Teddington; but I’ll row your honour if you like,
only it will take us some hours to get there that’s all.”
“Go on.”
“Very good, pull away, pull a—way.”
Having now, as he knew, a long job before him, the waterman husbanded
his strength, he did not row near so fast, but to a low kind of tune he
muttered to himself he worked away at his sculls, slowly and surely,
and got through the water at a moderate easy rate, while rather a quick
jerking one would soon have exhausted him.
The boat went slowly onward, and many an interesting sight was passed
upon the banks of the river, but none appeared in the least to attract
the attention of the man who sat in the boat, apparently deeply
absorbed in his own meditations.
The boatman began much to wonder who he had got as a fare, and to
think that it would be but a dull and wearisome job to row all the way
to Teddington without any amusing gossip by the way, so he made yet
another attempt to break the stillness that reigned around.
“The river up this way, sir,” he said, “is quiet enough at night; it’s
different below bridge though, for there there is always some bustle
going on.”
“Ah!” said Varney.
“But here, somehow, it is dull to my mind.”
“Ah!”
“Though the gentry and those as is book-learned find a deal of pleasure
in looking at the old places on the banks, where things have been done
and said by folks many a long year since, whose heads don’t ache now,
sir.”
“Ah!”
There was no getting on at this rate, so, after two or three more
remarks and getting nothing by “Ah!” as a reply, the waterman gave
it up as a bad job altogether, and pulled away, chaunting in a low
tone his song again, without making another attempt to disturb the
taciturnity of his fare, who sat as still as a statue in the boat,
and looking as if he did not breathe, so rigid and strange were his
attitude, and the lifeless-like appearance he had.
The waterman was really a little alarmed by the time they reached
Teddington, for he thought that it might be possible his fare was dead,
and the horrid idea that he had stiffened in that attitude as he sat,
began to find a place in the boatman’s imagination.
When, however, he boat’s keel grated on the landing-place, he cried,—
“Here we are, your honour.”
The vampyre rose and stepped on shore. He held out his hand and dropped
a guinea into the extended palm of the waterman, and then stalked off.
After he had walked some distance he spoke to a watchman whom he met,
saying,—
“Are there not military barracks somewhere hereabout?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Thank you. Can you direct me?”
“Certainly. You have only to go on, and take the second turning to
your left, and you will see the gate; it’s horse soldiers that’s there
now—the 4th Light Dragoons.”
By keeping to the directions which the watchman had given, Varney soon
reached the gate of the barracks, and then it was three o’clock in the
morning. A sentinel was pacing to and fro at the gate. To him Varney at
once went, and with a lofty kind of courtesy, that made the man at once
respectful to him, he said,—
“Is Lieutenant Rankin in barracks?”
“Yes, sir,—on duty.”
“Indeed! Is he on guard to-night?”
“Yes, sir, to four o’clock. He will be relieved then.”
“That’s fortunate, I want to see him. It is on business of the very
first importance, or of course I would not trouble him or myself. You
must send to him somehow.”
The sentinel hesitated.
“I hardly know,” he said, “how the lieutenant will take it—he is on
duty.”
“But I suppose he is human for all that, and is liable to all the
accidents and alternations of human affairs, which may make it
absolutely necessary he should be communicated with, even at such an
hour as this. I will hold you harmless.”
This was so reasonable, and there was such an air of quiet gentlemanly
authority about Varney, that the soldier began to think he should
run less risk of offending somebody of importance if he consented to
disturb the lieutenant than if he refused. Accordingly he stepped a
pace or two within the gate and called out.
“Guard!”
A soldier from the guard-room answered the summons.
“Ay,” he said, “what is it?—a strange cat I suppose.”
“No, none of your nonsense. Here is a gentleman, I think a general
officer, by Jove, wants to see Lieutenant Rankin. Go and tell him.”
“And give him this,” said Varney, as he handed the soldier a card, on
which was written,—
“A friend to a friend of Lieutenant Ranking, whose initials are A. L.”
“I know that this young soldier loves the Lady Annetta,” muttered the
vampyre to himself, “and he shall be given the opportunity of flying
to her rescue from her villainous relations. So far, I will make
reparation to her.”
In less than three minutes, Lieutenant Rankin came hurriedly to the
gate.
“Where is the gentleman?” he said.
“Here sir,” said Varney, “step aside with me.”
The young officer did so, and then Varney said to him,—
“It matters not how I became acquainted with the fact, but I know
that you love the Lady Annetta Lake, and that you are far from being
indifferently regarded by her. She is in London at the London Hotel. A
vile plot is formed to marry her to her cousin, the gist of which is to
make her both her and her father believe that she is a changeling and
not the daughter of Lord Lake. You love her, young man. Go and rescue
her.”
“Annetta in London!”
“Yes, what I tell you you may rely upon, as if it were a voice from
heaven that spoke to you. Go and snatch her whom you love from the
base hands of those who, under the mask of pretended friendship, would
betray her.”
“And you,” cried the young soldier; “who are you, and how can I repay
you for bringing me this intelligence of her whom I—”
“Enough,” said the vampyre. “I have performed my mission. It is for
you, young sir, to take a due advantage of that which I have told to
you.”
In another moment he was gone.