A Story of a Magician and a Vampire.
The pleasant autumn sun touched the steep roofs and mullioned windows of
Marlowe Manor pleasantly that morning, turning the thinning foliage of
its noble timber into gold, and bringing all the slopes and undulations
of its grounds into relief in its subdued glory. The influence of the
weather was felt by the guests assembled in the spacious
breakfast-parlour, and gay and animated was the conversation.
Lady Jane Lennox, that "superbly handsome creature," as old Doocey used
to term her, had relapsed very much into her old ways. Beatrix had been
pleased when, even in her impetuous and uncertain way, that proud spirit
had seemed to be drawn toward her again. But that was past, and that
unruly nature had broken away once more upon her own solitary and
wayward courses. She cared no more for Beatrix, or, if at all, it was
plainly not kindly.
In Lady Jane's bold and mournful isolation there was something that
interested Beatrix, ungracious as her ways often were, and she felt sore
at the unjust repulse she had experienced. But Beatrix was proud, and
so, though wounded, she did not show her pain--not that pain, nor
another far deeper.
Between her and Guy Strangways had come a coldness unintelligible to
her, an estrangement which she would have felt like an insult, had it
not been for his melancholy looks and evident loss of spirits.
There is a very pretty room at Marlowe; it is called (_why_, I forget)
Lady Mary's boudoir; its door opens from the first landing on the great
stair. An oak floor, partly covered with a Turkey carpet, one tall
window with stone shafts, a high old-fashioned stone chimneypiece, and
furniture perhaps a little incongruous, but pleasant in its incongruity.
Tapestry in the Teniers style--Dutch village festivals, with no end of
figures, about half life-size, dancing, drinking, making music; old
boors, and young and fair-haired maidens, and wrinkled vraus, and here
and there gentlemen in doublets and plumed hats, and ladies, smiling and
bare-headed, and fair and plump, in great stomachers. These pleasant
subjects, so lifelike, with children, cocks and hens, and dogs
interspersed, helped, with a Louis Quatorze suit of pale green, and gold
chairs cushioned with Utrecht velvet, to give to this room its character
so mixed, of gaiety and solemnity, something very quaint and cheery.
This room had old Lady Alice Redcliffe selected for her sitting-room,
when she found herself unequal to the exertion of meeting the other
ladies in the drawing-room, and hither she had been wont to invite Guy
Strangways, who would occasionally pass an hour here wonderfully
pleasantly and happily--in fact, as many hours as the old lady would
have permitted, so long as Beatrix had been her companion.
But with those self-denying resolutions we have mentioned came a
change. When Beatrix was there the young gentleman was grave and rather
silent, and generally had other engagements which at least shortened his
visit. This was retorted by Beatrix, who, a few minutes after the
arrival of the visitor whom old Lady Alice had begun to call her
secretary, would, on one pretence or another, disappear, and leave the
old princess and her secretary to the uninterrupted enjoyment of each
other's society.
Now since the night on which Varbarriere in talking with Lady Alice had,
as we have heard, suddenly arrested his speech respecting her
son--leaving her in uncertainty how it was to have been finished--an
uncertainty on which her morbid brain reflected a thousand horrid and
impossible shapes, the old lady had once more conceived something of her
early dread of Guy Strangways. It was now again subsiding, although last
night, under the influence of laudanum, in her medicated sleep her son
had been sitting at her bedside, talking incessantly, she could not
remember what.
Guy Strangways had just returned from the Park for his fishing-rod and
angler's gear, when he was met in the hall by the grave and courteous
butler, who presented a tiny pencilled note from Lady Alice, begging him
to spare her half an hour in Lady Mary's boudoir.
Perhaps it was a bore. But habitual courtesy is something more than
"mouth honour, breath." Language and thought react upon one another
marvellously. To restrain its expression is in part to restrain the
feeling; and thus a well-bred man is not only in words and demeanour,
but inwardly and sincerely, more gracious and noble than others.
How oddly things happen sometimes!
Exactly as Guy Strangways arrived on the lobby, a little gloved hand--it
was Beatrix's--was on the door-handle of Lady Mary's boudoir. It was
withdrawn, and she stood looking for a second or two at the young
gentleman, who had evidently been going in the same direction. He, too,
paused; then, with a very low bow, advanced to open the door for Miss
Marlowe.
"No, thank you--I--I think I had better postpone my visit to grandmamma
till I return. I'm going to the garden, and should like to bring her
some flowers."
"I'm afraid I have arrived unluckily--she would, I know, have been so
glad to see you," said Guy Strangways.
"Oh, I've seen her twice before to-day. You were going to make her a
little visit now."
"I--if you wish it, Miss Marlowe, I'll defer it."
"She would be very little obliged to me, I'm sure; but I must really
go," said Beatrix, recollecting on a sudden that there was no need of so
long a parley.
"It would very much relieve the poor secretary's labours, and make his
little period of duty so much happier," said Guy, forgetting his wise
resolutions strangely.
"I am sure grandmamma would prefer seeing her visitors singly--it makes
a great deal more of them, you know."
And with a little smile and such a pretty glow in her cheeks, she passed
him by. He bowed and smiled faintly too, and for a moment stood gazing
after her into the now vacant shadow of the old oak wainscoting, as
young Numa might after his vanished Egeria, with an unspoken, burning
grief and a longing at his heart.
"I'm sure she can't like me--I'm sure she _dis_likes me. So much the
better--Heaven knows I'm glad of it."
And with an aching heart he knocked, turned the handle, and entered the
pretty apartment in which Lady Alice, her thin shoulders curved, as she
held her hands over the fire, was sitting alone.
She looked at him over her shoulder strangely from her hollow eyes,
without moving or speaking for a time. He bowed gravely, and said--
"I have this moment received your little note, Lady Alice, and have
hastened to obey."
She sat up straight and sighed.
"Thanks--I have not been very well--so nervous--so very nervous," she
repeated, without removing her sad and clouded gaze from his face.
"We all heard with regret that you had not been so well," said he.
"Well, we'll not talk of it--you're very good--I'm glad you've
come--very nervous, and almost wishing myself back at Wardlock--where
indeed I should have returned, only that I should have been wishing
myself back again before an hour--miserably nervous."
And Lady Alice sniffed at her smelling-salts, and added--
"And Monsieur Varbarriere gone away on business for some days--is not
he?"
"Yes--quite uncertain--possibly for two, or perhaps three, he said,"
answered Guy.
"And he's very--he knows--he knows a great deal--I forget what I was
going to say--I'm half asleep to-day--no sleep--a very bad night."
And old Lady Alice yawned drearily into the fire.
"Beatrix said she'd look in; but everyone forgets--you young people are
so selfish."
"Mademoiselle Marlowe was at the door as I came in, and said she would
go on instead to the garden first, and gather some flowers for you."
"Oh! h'm!--very good--well, I can't talk to-day; suppose you choose a
book, Mr. Strangways, and read a few pages--that is, if you are quite at
leisure?"
"Perfectly--that is, for an hour--unfortunately I have then an
appointment. What kind of book shall I take?" he asked, approaching one
of the two tall bookstands that flanked an oval mirror opposite the
fireplace.
"Anything, provided it is old."
Nearly half an hour passed in discussing what to read--the old lady not
being in the mood that day to pursue the verse readings which had
employed Guy Strangways hitherto.
"This seems a curious old book," he said, after a few minutes. "Very
old French--I think upon witchcraft, and full of odd narratives."
"That will do very well."
"I had better try to translate it--the language is so antiquated."
He leaned the folio on the edge of the chimneypiece, and his elbow
beside it, supporting his head on his hand, and so read aloud to the
_exigeante_ old lady, who liked to see people employed about her, even
though little of comfort, amusement, or edification resulted from it.
The narrative which Lady Alice had selected was entitled thus:--
"CONCERNING A REMARKABLE REVENGE AFTER SEPULTURE.
"In the Province of Normandy, in the year of grace 1405, there lived
a young gentleman of Styrian descent, possessing estates in Hungary,
but a still more opulent fortune in France. His park abutted on that
of the Chevalier de St. Aubrache, who was a man also young, of
ancient lineage, proud to excess, and though wealthy, by no means so
wealthy as his Styrian neighbour.
"This disparity in riches excited the wrath of the jealous nobleman,
who having once admitted the passions of envy and hatred to his
heart, omitted no opportunity to injure him.
"The Chevalier de St. Aubrache, in fact, succeeded so well--"
Just at this point in the tale, Beatrix, with her flowers, not
expecting to find Guy Strangways still in attendance, entered the
room.
"You need not go; come in, dear--you've brought me some
flowers--come in, I say; thank you, Beatrix, dear--they are very
pretty, and very sweet too. Here is Mr. Strangways--sit by me,
dear--reading a curious old tale of witchcraft. Tell her the
beginning, pray."
So Strangways told the story over again in his best way, and then
proceeded to read as follows:--
"The Chevalier de St. Aubrache, in fact, succeeded so well, that on
a point of law, aided by a corrupt judge in the Parliament of Rouen,
he took from him a considerable portion of his estate, and
subsequently so managed matters without committing himself, that he
lost his life unfairly in a duel, which the Chevalier secretly
contrived.
"Now there was in the household of the gentleman so made away with,
a certain Hungarian, older than he, a grave and politic man, and
reputed to have studied the art of magic deeply. By this man was the
corpse of the deceased gentleman duly coffined, had away to Styria,
and, it is said, there buried according to certain conditions, with
which the Hungarian magician, who had vowed a terrible revenge, was
well acquainted.
"In the meantime the Chevalier de St. Aubrache had espoused a very
beautiful demoiselle of the noble family of D'Ayenterre, by whom he
had one daughter, so beautiful that she was the subject of universal
admiration, which increased in the heart of her proud father that
affection which it was only natural that he should cherish for her.
"It was about the time of Candlemas, a full score of years after the
death of his master, that the Hungarian magician returned to
Normandy, accompanied by a young gentleman, very pale indeed, but
otherwise so exactly like the gentleman now so long dead, that no
one who had been familiar with his features could avoid being
struck, and indeed, affrighted with the likeness.
"The Chevalier de St. Aubrache was at first filled with horror, like
the rest; but well knowing that the young man whom he, the stranger,
so resembled, had been actually killed as aforesaid, in combat, and
having never heard of vampires, which are among the most malignant
and awful of the manifestations of the Evil One, and not recognising
at all the Hungarian magician, who had been careful to disguise
himself effectually; and, above all, relying on letters from the
King of Hungary, with which, under a feigned name, as well as with
others from the Archbishop of Toledo in Spain, he had come provided,
he received him into his house; when the grave magician, who
resembled a doctor of a university, and the fair-seeming vampire,
being established in the house of their enemy, began to practise, by
stealth, their infernal arts."
The old lady saw that in the reader's countenance, as he read this odd
story, which riveted her gaze. Perhaps conscious of her steady and
uncomfortable stare, as well as of a real parallel, he grew obviously
disconcerted, and at last, as it seemed, even agitated as he proceeded.
"Young man, for Heaven's sake, will you tell me who you are?" said Lady
Alice, her dark old eyes fixed fearfully on his face, as she rose
unconsciously from her chair.
The young man, very pale, turned a despairing and almost savage look
from her to Beatrix, and back to her again.
"You are not a Strangways," she continued.
He looked steadily at her, as if he were going to speak, then dropped
his glance suddenly and remained silent.
"I say, I know your name is not Strangways," said the old lady, in
increasing agitation.
"I can tell you nothing about myself," said he again, fixing his great
dark eyes, that looked almost wild in his pallid face, full upon her,
with a strange expression of anguish.
"In the Almighty's name, are you Guy Deverell?" she screamed, lifting up
her thin hands between him and her in her terror.
The young man returned her gaze oddly, with, she fancied, a look of
baffled horror in his face. It seemed to her like an evil spirit
detected.
He recovered, however, for a few seconds, something of his usual manner.
Instead of speaking, he bowed twice very low, and, on the point of
leaving the room, he suddenly arrested his departure, turning about
with a stamp on the floor; and walking back to her, he said, very
gently--
"Yes, yes, why should I deny it? My name _is_ Guy Deverell."
And was gone.