Dracula's Guest: A Connoisseur's Collection of Victorian Vampire Stories

by Sims, Michael

  Mr. Wraxall noted the finely-worked and massive steel padlocks—three in number—which secured the sarcophagus. One of them, he saw, was detached, and lay on the pavement. And then, unwilling to delay the deacon longer or to waste his own working-time, he made his way onward to the manor-house.

  “It is curious,” he notes, “how on retracing a familiar path one’s thoughts engross one to the absolute exclusion of surrounding objects. To-night, for the second time, I had entirely failed to notice where I was going (I had planned a private visit to the tomb-house to copy the epitaphs), when I suddenly, as it were, awoke to consciousness, and found myself (as before) turning in at the churchyard gate, and, I believe, singing or chanting some such words as, ‘Are you awake, Count Magnus? Are you asleep, Count Magnus?’ and then something more which I have failed to recollect. It seemed to me that I must have been behaving in this nonsensical way for some time.”

  He found the key of the mausoleum where he had expected to find it, and copied the greater part of what he wanted; in fact, he stayed until the light began to fail him.

  “I must have been wrong,” he writes, “in saying that one of the padlocks of my Count’s sarcophagus was unfastened; I see to-night that two are loose. I picked both up, and laid them carefully on the window-ledge, after trying unsuccessfully to close them. The remaining one is still firm, and, though I take it to be a spring lock, I cannot guess how it is opened. Had I succeeded in undoing it, I am almost afraid I should have taken the liberty of opening the sarcophagus. It is strange, the interest I feel in the personality of this, I fear, somewhat ferocious and grim old noble.”

  The day following was, as it turned out, the last of Mr. Wraxall’s stay at Råbäck. He received letters connected with certain investments which made it desirable that he should return to England; his work among the papers was practically done, and travelling was slow. He decided, therefore, to make his farewells, put some finishing touches to his notes, and be off.

  These finishing touches and farewells, as it turned out, took more time than he had expected. The hospitable family insisted on his staying to dine with them—they dined at three—and it was verging on half-past six before he was outside the iron gates of Råbäck. He dwelt on every step of his walk by the lake, determined to saturate himself, now that he trod it for the last time, in the sentiment of the place and hour. And when he reached the summit of the churchyard knoll, he lingered for many minutes, gazing at the limitless prospect of woods near and distant, all dark beneath a sky of liquid green. When at last he turned to go, the thought struck him that surely he must bid farewell to Count Magnus as well as the rest of the de la Gardies. The church was but twenty yards away, and he knew where the key of the mausoleum hung. It was not long before he was standing over the great copper coffin, and, as usual, talking to himself aloud. “You may have been a bit of a rascal in your time, Magnus,” he was saying, “but for all that I should like to see you, or, rather—”

  “Just at that instant,” he says, “I felt a blow on my foot. Hastily enough I drew it back, and something fell on the pavement with a clash. It was the third, the last of the three padlocks which had fastened the sarcophagus. I stooped to pick it up, and—Heaven is my witness that I am writing only the bare truth—before I had raised myself there was a sound of metal hinges creaking, and I distinctly saw the lid shifting upwards. I may have behaved like a coward, but I could not for my life stay for one moment. I was outside that dreadful building in less time than I can write—almost as quickly as I could have said—the words; and what frightens me yet more, I could not turn the key in the lock. As I sit here in my room noting these facts, I ask myself (it was not twenty minutes ago) whether that noise of creaking metal continued, and I cannot tell whether it did or not. I only know that there was something more than I have written that alarmed me, but whether it was sound or sight I am not able to remember. What is this that I have done?”

  POOR MR. WRAXALL! HE set out on his journey to England on the next day, as he had planned, and he reached England in safety; and yet, as I gather from his changed hand and inconsequent jottings, a broken man. One of several small notebooks that have come to me with his papers gives, not a key to, but a kind of inkling of, his experiences. Much of his journey was made by canal-boat, and I find not less than six painful attempts to enumerate and describe his fellow-passengers. The entries are of this kind:

  24. Pastor of village in Skåne. Usual black coat and soft black hat.

  25. Commercial traveller from Stockholm going to Trollhättan. Black coat, brown hat.

  26. Man in long black cloak, broad-leafed hat, very old-fashioned.

  This entry is lined out, and a note added: “Perhaps identical with No. 13. Have not yet seen his face.” On referring to No. 13, I find that he is a Roman priest in a cassock.

  The net result of the reckoning is always the same. Twenty-eight people appear in the enumeration, one being always a man in a long black cloak and broad hat, and the other a “short figure in dark cloak and hood.” On the other hand, it is always noted that only twenty-six passengers appear at meals, and that the man in the cloak is perhaps absent, and the short figure is certainly absent.

  ON REACHING ENGLAND, IT appears that Mr. Wraxall landed at Harwich, and that he resolved at once to put himself out of the reach of some person or persons whom he never specifies, but whom he had evidently come to regard as his pursuers. Accordingly he took a vehicle—it was a closed fly—not trusting the railway, and drove across country to the village of Belchamp St. Paul. It was about nine o’clock on a moonlight August night when he neared the place. He was sitting forward, and looking out of the window at the fields and thickets—there was little else to be seen—racing past him. Suddenly he came to a cross-road. At the corner two figures were standing motionless; both were in dark cloaks; the taller one wore a hat, the shorter a hood. He had no time to see their faces, nor did they make any motion that he could discern. Yet the horse shied violently and broke into a gallop, and Mr. Wraxall sank back into his seat in something like desperation. He had seen them before.

  Arrived at Belchamp St. Paul, he was fortunate enough to find a decent furnished lodging, and for the next twenty-four hours he lived, comparatively speaking, in peace. His last notes were written on this day. They are too disjointed and ejaculatory to be given here in full, but the substance of them is clear enough. He is expecting a visit from his pursuers—how or when he knows not—and his constant cry is “What has he done?” and “Is there no hope?” Doctors, he knows, would call him mad, policemen would laugh at him. The parson is away. What can he do but lock his door and cry to God?

  PEOPLE STILL REMEMBERED LAST year at Belchamp St. Paul how a strange gentleman came one evening in August years back; and how the next morning but one he was found dead, and there was an inquest; and the jury that viewed the body fainted, seven of ’em did, and none of ’em wouldn’t speak to what they see, and the verdict was visitation of God; and how the people as kep’ the ’ouse moved out that same week, and went away from that part. But they do not, I think, know that any glimmer of light has ever been thrown, or could be thrown, on the mystery. It so happened that last year the little house came into my hands as part of a legacy. It had stood empty since 1863, and there seemed no prospect of letting it; so I had it pulled down, and the papers of which I have given you an abstract were found in a forgotten cupboard under the window in the best bedroom.

  Alice and Claude Askew

  (Jane de Courcy, 1874–1917, and Arthur Cary, 1866–1917)

  THIS NOW FORGOTTEN HUSBAND-AND-WIFE team of collaborators wrote many novels and story cycles. Their one series about the supernatural featured an investigator of the occult named Aylmer Vance. The brisk and rather lightweight stories are narrated by Vance’s admiring dogsbody and chronicler, Mr. Dexter, in a Holmes and Watson sort of way. Vance himself, in his attention to the vast gray area beyond the purview of Holmes, is reminiscent of two earlier detectives in this vein, William H
ope Hodgson’s Carnacki the Ghost Finder and Algernon Blackwood’s John Silence. Vance is not quite up to the level of these two characters, but the stories are fun, as he investigates various apparitions and hauntings, as well as once pursuing a memorable vampire.

  The series appeared in The Weekly Tale-Teller during 1914, with “Aylmer Vance and the Vampire” published in the August 1 issue. Later the same year, all eight Vance stories were gathered into Aylmer Vance, Ghost Seer. Both authors died when their ship was torpedoed by a submarine during World War I.

  Aylmer Vance and the Vampire

  AYLMER VANCE HAD ROOMS in Dover Street, Piccadilly, and now that I had decided to follow in his footsteps and to accept him as my instructor in matters psychic, I found it convenient to lodge in the same house. Aylmer and I quickly became close friends, and he showed me how to develop that faculty of clairvoyance which I had possessed without being aware of it. And I may say at once that this particular faculty of mine proved of service on several important occasions.

  At the same time I made myself useful to Vance in other ways, not the least of which was that of acting as recorder of his many strange adventures. For himself, he never cared much about publicity, and it was some time before I could persuade him, in the interests of science, to allow me to give any detailed account of his experiences to the world.

  The incidents which I will now relate occurred very soon after we had taken up our residence together, and while I was still, so to speak, a novice.

  It was about ten o’clock in the morning that a visitor was announced. He sent up a card which bore upon it the name of Paul Davenant.

  The name was familiar to me, and I wondered if this could be the same Mr. Davenant who was so well-known for his polo playing and for his success as an amateur rider, especially over the hurdles? He was a young man of wealth and position, and I recollected that he had married, about a year ago, a girl who was reckoned the greatest beauty of the season. All the illustrated papers had given their portraits at the time, and I remember thinking what a remarkably handsome couple they made.

  Mr. Davenant was ushered in, and at first I was uncertain as to whether this could be the individual whom I had in mind, so wan and pale and ill did he appear. A finely built, upstanding man at the time of his marriage, he had now acquired a languid droop of the shoulders and a shuffling gait, while his face, especially about the lips, was bloodless to an alarming degree.

  And yet it was the same man, for behind all this I could recognize the shadow of the good looks that had once distinguished Paul Davenant.

  He took the chair which Aylmer offered him—after the usual preliminary civilities had been exchanged—and then glanced doubtfully in my direction. “I wish to consult you privately, Mr. Vance,” he said. “The matter is of considerable importance to myself, and, if I may say so, of a somewhat delicate nature.”

  Of course I rose immediately to withdraw from the room, but Vance laid his hand upon my arm.

  “If the matter is connected with research in my particular line, Mr. Davenant,” he said, “if there is any investigation you wish me to take up on your behalf, I shall be glad if you will include Mr. Dexter in your confidence. Mr. Dexter assists me in my work. But, of course—”

  “Oh, no,” interrupted the other, “if that is the case, pray let Mr. Dexter remain. I think,” he added, glancing at me with a friendly smile, “that you are an Oxford man, are you not, Mr. Dexter? It was before my time, but I have heard of your name in connection with the river. You rowed at Henley, unless I am very much mistaken.”

  I admitted the fact, with a pleasurable sensation of pride. I was very keen upon rowing in those days, and a man’s prowess at school and college always remains dear to his heart.

  After this we quickly became on friendly terms, and Paul Davenant proceeded to take Aylmer and myself into his confidence.

  He began by calling attention to his personal appearance. “You would hardly recognise me for the same man I was a year ago,” he said. “I’ve been losing flesh steadily for the last six months. I came up from Scotland about a week ago, to consult a London doctor. I’ve seen two—in fact they’ve held a sort of consultation over me—but the result, I may say, is far from satisfactory. They don’t seem to know what is really the matter with me.”

  “Anaemia—heart,” suggested Vance. He was scrutinising his visitor keenly, and yet without any particular appearance of doing so. “I believe it not infrequently happens that you athletes overdo yourselves—put too much strain upon the heart—”

  “My heart is quite sound,” responded Davenant. “Physically it is in perfect condition. The trouble seems to be that it hasn’t enough blood to pump into my veins. The doctors wanted to know if I had met with an accident involving a great loss of blood—but I haven’t. I’ve had no accident at all, and as for anaemia, well I don’t seem to show the ordinary symptoms of it. The inexplicable thing is that I’ve lost blood without knowing it, and apparently this has been going on for some time, for I’ve been getting steadily worse. It was almost imperceptible at first—not a sudden collapse, you understand, but a gradual failure of health.”

  “I wonder,” remarked Vance slowly, “what induced you to consult me? For you know, of course, the direction in which I pursue my investigations. May I ask if you have reason to consider that your state of health is due to some cause which we may describe as superphysical?”

  A slight colour came to Davenant’s cheeks.

  “There are curious circumstances,” he said, in a low and earnest tone of voice. “I’ve been turning them over in my mind, trying to see light through them. I daresay it’s all the sheerest folly—and I must tell you that I’m not in the least a superstitious sort of man. I don’t mean to say that I’m absolutely incredulous, but I’ve never given thought to such things—I’ve led too active a life. But, as I have said, there are curious circumstances about my case, and that is why I decided upon consulting you.”

  “Will you tell me everything without reserve?” said Vance. I could see that he was interested. He was sitting up in his chair, his feet supported on a stool, his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands—a favourite attitude of his. “Have you,” he suggested slowly, “any mark upon your body, anything that you might associate, however remotely, with your present weakness and ill-health?”

  “It’s a curious thing that you should ask me that question,” returned Davenant, “because I have got a curious mark, a sort of scar, that I can’t account for. But I showed it to the doctors, and they assured me that it could have nothing whatever to do with my condition. In any case, if it had, it was something altogether outside their experience. I think they imagined it to be nothing more than a birthmark, a sort of mole, for they asked me if I’d had it all my life. But that I can swear I haven’t. I only noticed it for the first time about six months ago, when my health began to fail. But you can see for yourself.”

  He loosened his collar and bared his throat. Vance rose and made a careful scrutiny of the suspicious mark. It was situated a very little to the left of the central line, just above the clavicle, and, as Vance pointed out, directly over the big vessels of the throat. My friend called to me so that I might examine it, too. Whatever the opinion of the doctors may have been, Aylmer was obviously deeply interested.

  And yet there was very little to show. The skin was quite intact, and there was no sign of inflammation. There were two red marks, about an inch apart, each of which was inclined to be crescent in shape. They were more visible than they might otherwise have been owing to the peculiar whiteness of Davenant’s skin.

  “It can’t be anything of importance,” said Davenant, with a slightly uneasy laugh. “I’m inclined to think the marks are dying away.”

  “Have you ever noticed them more inflamed than they are at present?” inquired Vance. “If so, was it at any special time?”

  Davenant reflected. “Yes,” he replied slowly, “there have been times, usually, I think perhaps invariably, wh
en I wake up in the morning, that I’ve noticed them larger and more angry looking. And I’ve felt a slight sensation of pain—a tingling—oh, very slight, and I’ve never worried about it. Only now you suggest it to my mind, I believe that those same mornings I have felt particularly tired and done up—a sensation of lassitude absolutely unusual to me. And once, Mr. Vance, I remember quite distinctly that there was a stain of blood close to the mark. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, and just wiped it away.”

  “I see.” Aylmer Vance resumed his seat and invited his visitor to do the same. “And now,” he resumed, “you said, Mr. Davenant, that there are certain peculiar circumstances you wish to acquaint me with. Will you do so?”

  And so Davenant readjusted his collar and proceeded to tell his story. I will tell it as far as I can, without any reference to the occasional interruptions of Vance and myself.

  Paul Davenant, as I have said, was a man of wealth and position, and so, in every sense of the word, he was a suitable husband for Miss Jessica MacThane, the young lady who eventually became his wife. Before coming to the incidents attending his loss of health, he had a great deal to recount about Miss MacThane and her family history.

  She was of Scottish descent, and although she had certain characteristic features of her race, she was not really Scotch in appearance. Hers was the beauty of the far South rather than that of the Highlands from which she had her origin. Names are not always suited to their owners, and Miss MacThane’s was peculiarly inappropriate. She had, in fact, been christened Jessica in a sort of pathetic effort to counteract her obvious departure from normal type. There was a reason for this which we were soon to learn.