THE MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE.
One may form some sort of judgment of the astonishment with which Sir
George Crofton heard this statement. He looked indeed a few moments at
Mr. Bevan, as if he had a strong suspicion that he could not possibly
have heard aright, so that the good clergyman was induced to repeat his
statement, which he did, by saying,—
“Sir George, I assure you, however remarkable such a circumstance may
be, and however much you may feel yourself surprised at it, that in the
extreme bitterness of spirit, and feeling all the compunction that you
could possibly wish him to feel, Varney the Vampyre is now an inmate of
this house.”
Had a bomb-shell fallen at his feet, Sir George Crofton could not have
felt more surprised, and he exhibited that surprise by several times
repeating to himself,—
“Varney the Vampyre an inmate of this house! Varney the Vampyre here!”
“Yes,” said Mr. Bevan, “here, an inmate of this house. He is within
a few paces of you, slumbering in the next apartment, and from his
own lips you shall have the assurance that never again will you have
any trouble on his account, and that he most bitterly and most deeply
regrets the suffering he has brought upon you and yours.”
“Will that regret,” said Sir George, excitedly, “restore the dead? Will
that regret give me my child again? Will it open the portals of the
grave, and restore her to me who was the life and joy of my existence?
Tell me, will it do that? If not, what is his regret to me?”
“No, Sir George, no, his regret will not do that. There is such
power, but it is not upon earth. Heaven delegates not such fearful
responsibilities to any of its creatures, and the only reason which has
induced me to make this confidence was to take from you the fearful
anxiety of fancying yourself followed by that dreadful being.”
“Vengeance,” replied Sir George Crofton, “vengeance shall be mine. In
the name of my lost child, I cry for vengeance. Shall he not perish who
has made her whom I love perish? Make way, Mr. Bevan, make way.”
“No, Sir George, no, this is my house. I, as a Christian minister,
offered the hospitality of its roof to Varney the Vampyre, and I cannot
violate my word.”
“You speak, sir, to a desperate man,” cried Sir George; “no roof to me
is sanctified, beneath which the murderer of my child finds a shelter.
Mr. Bevan, the respect that one man has for another, or ever has had
for another, cannot exceed the respect I have for you; but with all
that, sir, I cannot forget my own personal wrongs; the shade of my
murdered Clara beckons me.”
“Fly, Varney, fly,” cried Mr. Bevan, “fly.”
“Is it so?” said Sir George; “do you then side with my direst foe?”
“No—no, I side with Sir George Crofton against his own furious
unbridled passions.”
Neither from profession nor practice was Mr. Bevan one who was likely
to force to resist Sir George, and at the moment the baronet was about
to lay hands upon him to hurl him from his path, he slipped aside.
“Rash man,” he said, “the time will come when you will repent this
deed.”
The door of the study was still fast, but to the infuriated Sir George,
that opposed but a very frail obstacle, and with the effort of a moment
he forced it open, and rushed into the apartment.
“Varney, monster,” he cried, “prepare to meet your doom. Your career is
at an end.”
Mr. Bevan was after him, and in the room with him in a moment, fully
expecting that some very dreadful scene would ensue, as a consequence
of the unbridled passion of Sir George Crofton.
Sir George Crofton was standing in the centre of the apartment with
Varney’s large brown cloak in his grasp, which he had dragged from the
sofa, but the vampyre himself was not to be seen.
[Illustration: The discovery of the vampyre’s flight.]
“Escaped!” he cried, “escaped!”
“Thank Heaven, then,” said Mr. Bevan, “that this roof has not been
desecrated by an act of violence. Oh, Sir George, it is a mercy that
time has been given to think he has escaped.”
“I’ll follow him, were it to perdition.”
Sir George was about to open the window and rush into the garden,
thinking, of course, it was by that means by which the vampyre escaped,
but Mr. Bevan laid his hand upon the smooth gravel path that was
immediately below the casement.
“Behold,” he said, “one of the first results of an autumnal night. That
this coating of fleecy sleet, you see, is undisturbed; it fell about
midnight; nine hours have since elapsed, and you perceive there is no
foot mark upon it, and in what direction would you chase Varney the
Vampyre while he has such a start of you?”
Infuriated with passion, as was Sir George Crofton, the reasonableness
of this statement struck him forcibly, and he became silent. A
revulsion of feeling took place; he staggered to a seat, and wept.
“Yes, he is gone,” he said. “Yes, the murderer of my child is gone;
vengeance is delayed, but perhaps not altogether stopped. Oh, Mr.
Bevan, Mr. Bevan, why did you tell me he was here?”
“I do now regret having done so, but I believed him to be here, and his
departure is as mysterious to me as it can be to you.”
Mr. Bevan cast his eyes upon the table, and there he saw a large packet
addressed to himself. Sir George saw it too, at the same moment, and
pointing to it, said,—
“Is that the vampyre’s legacy to his new friend?”
“Sir George,” said Mr. Bevan, “let it suffice that the packet is
addressed to me.”
All the good breeding of the gentleman returned, and Sir George Crofton
bowed as he left the room, closely followed by the clergyman, who was
as much bewildered by the disappearance of Varney as even Sir George
could possibly be. He had a most intense desire to examine the packet,
with the hope that there he should find some explanation or solution of
the mystery; but not being aware, of course, of what it contained, he
could not tell if it would be prudent to trust Sir George at that time
with its contents.
As may be well supposed, there was a sort of restraint in the manner of
both of them after what had happened, and they did what was very rare
with them both, parted without making any appointment for the future.
But whatever might be the feelings of Sir George Crofton then, a little
reflection would be quite sure to bring him back again to a proper
estimation of what was due to such a friend as Mr. Bevan, and we
cannot anticipate any serious interruption to their general friendly
intercourse.
The moment the clergyman found himself alone, he with eager steps went
into his study, and eagerly seized upon the packet that was left to him
by the vampyre, the outside of which merely bore the superscription
of—“These to the Rev. Mr. Bevan, and strictly private.”
With eagerness he tore open the envelope, and the first thing that
attracted his attention was a long, narrow slip of paper, on which were
written the following words:—
“It was not my intention to trespass largely upon your
hospitality; it would have been unjust—almost approaching
to criminality so to do. I could only think of taking a
brief refuge in your house, so brief as should just enable
me to avail myself of the shadows of night to escape from a
neighbourhood where I knew I should be hunted.
The few hours which I have quietly remained beneath your roof
have been sufficient to accomplish that object, and the papers
that I leave you accompanying this, contain the personal
information concerning me you asked. They had been previously
prepared, and are at your service.
“To attempt to follow me would be futile, for I have as ample
means of making a rapid journey as you could possibly call to
your aid, and I have the advantage of many hours’ start; under
these circumstances I have no hesitation in telling you that
my destination is Naples, and that perhaps the next you hear
of me will be, that some stranger in a fit of madness has cast
himself into the crater of a burning mountain, which would at
once consume him and all his sorrows.
“+Varney the Vampyre+.”
One may imagine the feelings with which Mr. Bevan read this most
strange and characteristic epistle—feelings that for some moments kept
him a prisoner to the most painful thoughts.
All that he had hoped to accomplish by the introduction of Varney
to his house was lost now. He had but in fact given him a better
opportunity of carrying out a terrible design—a design which now there
really did not appear to be any means of averting the consummation of.
“Alas! alas!” he said, “this is most grievous, and what can I do now,
to avert the mischief—nothing, absolutely nothing. If it be true that
he has, as he says he has, the means of hastening on his journey, all
pursuit would be utterly useless.”
This was taking a decidedly correct view of the matter. Varney was not
the sort of man, if he really intended to reach Naples quickly, to
linger on his route, and then there was another view of the subject
which could not but occur to Mr. Bevan, and that was, that his
mentioned destination might be but a blind to turn off pursuit.