Complete Works of Bram Stoker

by Bram Stoker

  “So I should imagine,” replied Mr. Chillingworth.

  “You, doctor,” added Henry, “who know much of my family, need not be told what sort of man my father was.”

  “No, indeed.”

  “But you, Admiral Bell, who do not know, must be told, and, however grievous it may be to me to have to say so, I must inform you that he was not a man who would have merited your esteem.”

  “Well,” said the admiral, “you know, my boy, that can make no difference as regards you in anybody’s mind, who has got the brains of an owl. Every man’s credit, character, and honour, to my thinking, is in his own most special keeping, and let your father be what he might, or who he might, I do not see that any conduct of his ought to raise upon your cheek the flush of shame, or cost you more uneasiness than ordinary good feeling dictates to the errors and feelings of a fellow creature.”

  “If all the world,” said Henry, “would take such liberal and comprehensive views as you do, admiral, it would be much happier than it is; but such is not the case, and people are but too apt to blame one person for the evil that another has done.”

  “Ah, but,” said Mr. Chillingworth, “it so happens that those are the people whose opinions are of the very least consequence.”

  “There is some truth in that,” said Henry, sadly; “but, however, let me proceed; since I have to tell the tale, I could wish it over. My father, then, Admiral Bell, although a man not tainted in early life with vices, became, by the force of bad associates, and a sort of want of congeniality and sentiment that sprang up between him and my mother, plunged into all the excesses of his age.”

  “These excesses were all of that character which the most readily lay hold strongly of an unreflecting mind, because they all presented themselves in the garb of sociality.

  “The wine cup is drained in the name of good fellowship; money which is wanted for legitimate purposes is squandered under the mask of a noble and free generosity, and all that the small imaginations of a number of persons of perverted intellects could enable them to do, has been done from time to time, to impart a kind of lustre to intemperance and all its dreadful and criminal consequences.

  “My father, having once got into the company of what he considered wits and men of spirit, soon became thoroughly vitiated. He was almost the only one of the set among whom he passed what he considered his highly convivial existence, who was really worth anything, pecuniarily speaking. There were some among them who might have been respectable men, and perchance carved their way to fortune, as well as some others who had started in life with good patrimonies; but he, my father, at the time he became associated with them, was the only one, as I say, who, to use a phrase I have heard myself from his lips concerning them, had got a feather to fly with.

  “The consequence of this was, that his society, merely for the sake of the animal gratification of drinking at his expense was courted, and he was much flattered, all of which he laid to the score of his own merits, which had been found out, and duly appreciated by these bon vivants, while he considered that the grave admonitions of his real friends proceeded from nothing in the world but downright envy and malice.

  “Such a state of things as this could not last very long. The associates of my father wanted money as well as wine, so they introduced him to the gaming-table, and he became fascinated with the fearful vice to an extent which predicted his own destruction and the ruin of every one who was in any way dependent upon him.

  “He could not absolutely sell Bannerworth Hall, unless I had given my consent, which I refused; but he accumulated debt upon debt, and from time to time stripped the mansion of all its most costly contents.

  “With various mutations of fortune, he continued this horrible and baneful career for a long time, until, at last, he found himself utterly and irretrievably ruined, and he came home in an agony of despair, being so weak, and utterly ruined in constitution, that he kept his bed for many days.

  “It appeared, however, that something occurred at this juncture which gave him actually, or all events awakened a hope that he should possess some money, and be again in a position to try his fortune at the gaming-table.

  “He rose, and, fortifying himself once more with the strong stimulant of wine and spirits, he left his home, and was absent for about two months.

  “What occurred to him during that time we none of us ever knew, but late one night he came home, apparently much flurried in manner, and seeming as if something had happened to drive him half mad.

  “He would not speak to any one, but he shut himself up the whole of the night in the chamber where hangs the portrait that bears so strong a resemblance to Sir Francis Varney, and there he remained till the morning, when he emerged, and said briefly that he intended to leave the country.

  “He was in a most fearful state of nervousness, and my mother tells me that he shook like one in an ague, and started at every little sound that occurred in the house, and glared about him so wildly that it was horrible to see him, or to sit in the same apartment with him.

  “She says that the whole morning passed on in this way till a letter came to him, the contents of which appeared to throw him into a perfect convulsion of terror, and he retired again to the room with the portrait, where he remained some hours, and then he emerged, looking like a ghost, so dreadfully pale and haggard was he.

  “He walked into the garden here, and was seen to sit down in this summer-house, and fix his eyes upon the window of that apartment.”

  Henry paused for a few moments, and then he added, —

  “You will excuse me from entering upon any details of what next ensued in the melancholy history. My father here committed suicide. He was found dying, and all I he words he spoke were, ‘The money is hidden!’ Death claimed his victim, and, with a convulsive spasm, he resigned his spirit, leaving what he had intended to say hidden in the oblivion of the grave.”

  “That was an odd affair,” said the admiral.

  “It was, indeed. We have all pondered deeply, and the result was, that, upon the whole, we were inclined to come to an opinion that the words he so uttered were but the result of the mental disturbance that at such a moment might well be supposed to be ensuing in the mind, and that they related really to no foregone fact any more than some incoherent words uttered by a man in a dream might be supposed to do.”

  “It may be so.”

  “I do not mean,” remarked Mr. Chillingworth, “for one moment to attempt to dispute, Henry, the rationality of such an opinion as you have just given utterance to; but you forget that another circumstance occurred, which gave a colour to the words used by your father.”

  “Yes; I know to what you allude.”

  “Be so good as to state it to the admiral.”

  “I will. On the evening of that same day there came a man here, who, in seeming ignorance of what had occurred, although by that time it was well known to all the neighbourhood, asked to see my father.

  “Upon being told that he was dead, he started back, either with well acted or with real surprise, and seemed to be immensely chagrined. He then demanded to know if he had left any disposition of his property; but he got no information, and departed muttering the most diabolical oaths and curses that can be imagined. He mounted his horse, for he had ridden to the Hall and his last words were, as I am told —

  “‘Where, in the name of all that’s damnable, can he have put the money!’”

  “And did you never find out who this man was?” asked the admiral.

  “Never.”

  “It is an odd affair.”

  “It is,” said Mr. Chillingworth, “and full of mystery. The public mind was much taken up at the time with some other matters, or it would have made the death of Mr. Bannerworth the subject of more prolific comment than it did. As it was, however, a great deal was said upon the subject, and the whole comity was in a state of commotion for weeks afterwards.”

  “Yes,” said Henry; “it so happened that about that very t
ime a murder was committed in the neighbourhood of London, which baffled all the exertions of the authorities to discover the perpetrators of. It was the murder of Lord Lorne.”

  “Oh! I remember,” said the admiral; “the newspapers were full of it for a long time.”

  “They were; and so, as Mr. Chillingworth says, the more exciting interest which that affair created drew off public attention, in a great measure, from my father’s suicide, and we did not suffer so much from public remark and from impertinent curiosity as might have been expected.”

  “And, in addition,” said Mr. Chillingworth, and he changed colour a little as he spoke, “there was an execution shortly afterwards.”

  “Yes,” said Henry, “there was.”

  “The execution of a man named Angerstein,” added Mr. Chillingworth, “for a highway robbery, attended with the most brutal violence.”

  “True; all the affairs of that period of time are strongly impressed upon my mind,” said Henry; “but you do not seem well, Mr. Chillingworth.”

  “Oh, yes; I am quite well — you are mistaken.”

  Both the admiral and Henry looked scrutinisingly at the doctor, who certainly appeared to them to be labouring under some great mental excitement, which he found it almost beyond his power to repress.

  “I tell you what it is, doctor,” said the admiral; “I don’t pretend, and never did, to see further through a tar-barrel than my neighbours; but I can see far enough to feel convinced that you have got something on your mind, and that it somehow concerns this affair.”

  “Is it so?” said Henry.

  “I cannot if I would,” said Mr. Chillingworth; “and I may with truth add, that I would not, if I could, hide from you that I have something on my mind connected with this affair; but let me assure you it would be premature of me to tell you of it.”

  “Premature be d — — d!” said the admiral; “out with it.”

  “Nay, nay, dear sir; I am not now in a position to say what is passing through my mind.”

  “Alter your position, then, and be blowed!” cried Jack Pringle, suddenly stepping forward, and giving the doctor such a push, that he nearly went through one of the sides of the summer-house.

  “Why, you scoundrel!” cried the admiral, “how came you here?”

  “On my legs,” said Jack. “Do you think nobody wants to know nothing but yourself? I’m as fond of a yarn as anybody.”

  “But if you are,” said Mr. Chillingworth, “you had no occasion to come against me as if you wanted to move a house.”

  “You said as you wasn’t in a position to say something as I wanted to hear, so I thought I’d alter it for you.”

  “Is this fellow,” said the doctor, shaking his head, as he accosted the admiral, “the most artful or stupid?”

  “A little of both,” said Admiral Bell — ”a little of both, doctor. He’s a great fool and a great scamp.”

  “The same to you,” said Jack; “you’re another. I shall hate you presently, if you go on making yourself so ridiculous. Now, mind, I’ll only give you a trial of another week or so, and if you don’t be more purlite in your d — n language, I’ll leave you.”

  Away strolled Jack, with his hands in his pockets, towards the house, while the admiral was half choked with rage, and could only glare after him, without the ability to say a word.

  Under any other circumstances than the present one of trouble, and difficulty; and deep anxiety, Henry Bannerworth must have laughed at these singular little episodes between Jack and the admiral; but his mind was now by far too much harassed to permit him to do so.

  “Let him go, let him go, my dear sir,” said Mr. Chillingworth to the admiral, who showed some signs of an intention to pursue Jack; “he no doubt has been drinking again.”

  “I’ll turn him off the first moment I catch him sober enough to understand me,” said the admiral.

  “Well, well; do as you please; but now let me ask a favour of both of you.”

  “What is it?”

  “That you will leave Bannerworth Hall to me for a week.”

  “What for?”

  “I hope to make some discoveries connected with it which shall well reward you for the trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble,” said Henry; “and for myself, I have amply sufficient faith, both in your judgment and in your friendship, doctor, to accede to any request which you may make to me.”

  “And I,” said the admiral. “Be it so — be it so. For one week, you say?”

  “Yes — for one week. I hope, by the end of that time, to have achieved something worth the telling you of; and I promise you that, if I am at all disappointed in my expectation, that I will frankly and freely communicate to you all I know and all I suspect.”

  “Then that’s a bargain.”

  “It is.”

  “And what’s to be done at once?”

  “Why, nothing, but to take the greatest possible care that Bannerworth Hall is not left another hour without some one in it; and in order that such should be the case, I have to request that you two will remain here until I go to the town, and make preparations for taking quiet possession of it myself, which I will do in the course of two hours, at most.”

  “Don’t be longer,” said the admiral, for I am so desperately hungry, that I shall certainly begin to eat somebody, if you are.”

  “Depend upon me.”

  “Very well,” said Henry; “you may depend we will wait here until you come back.”

  The doctor at once hurried from the garden, leaving Henry and the admiral to amuse themselves as best they might, with conjectures as to what he was really about, until his return.

  CHAPTER LXII.

  THE MYSTERIOUS MEETING IN THE RUIN AGAIN. — THE VAMPYRE’S ATTACK UPON THE CONSTABLE.

  It is now necessary that we return once more to that mysterious ruin, in the intricacies of which Varney, when pursued by the mob, had succeeded in finding a refuge which defied all the exertions which were made for his discovery. Our readers must be well aware, that, connected with that ruin, are some secrets of great importance to our story; and we will now, at the solemn hour of midnight, take another glance at what is doing within its recesses.

  At that solemn hour it is not probable that any one would seek that gloomy place from choice. Some lover of the picturesque certainly might visit it; but such was not the inciting cause of the pilgrimage with those who were soon to stand within its gloomy precincts.

  Other motives dictated their presence in that spot — motives of rapine; peradventure of murder itself.

  As the neighbouring clocks sounded the hour of twelve, and the faint strokes were borne gently on the wind to that isolated ruin, there might have been seen a tall man standing by the porch of what had once been a large doorway to some portion of the ruin.

  His form was enveloped in a large cloak, which was of such ample material that he seemed well able to wrap it several times around him, and then leave a considerable portion of it floating idly in the gentle wind.

  He stood as still, as calm, and as motionless as a statue, for a considerable time, before any degree of impatience began to show itself.

  Then he took from his pocket a large antique watch, the white face of which just enabled him to see what the time was, and, in a voice which had in it some amount of petulance and anger, he said, —

  “Not come yet, and nearly half an hour beyond the time! What can have detained him? This is, indeed, trifling with the most important moments of a man’s existence.”

  Even as he spoke, he heard, from some distance off, the sound of a short, quick footstep. He bent forwards to listen, and then, in a tone of satisfaction, he said, —

  “He comes — he comes!”

  But he who thus waited for some confederate among these dim and old grey ruins, advanced not a step to meet him. On the contrary, such seemed the amount of cold-blooded caution which he possessed, that the nearer the man — who was evidently advancing — got to the place, the further
back did he who had preceded him shrink into the shadow of the dim and crumbling walls, which had, for some years now past, seemed to bend to the passing blast, and to be on the point of yielding to the destroying hand of time.

  And yet, surely he needed not have been so cautious. Who was likely, at such an hour as that, to come to the ruins, but one who sought it by appointment?

  And, moreover, the manner of the advancing man should have been quite sufficient to convince him who waited, that so much caution was unnecessary; but it was a part and parcel of his nature.

  About three minutes more sufficed to bring the second man to the ruin, and he, at once, and fearlessly, plunged into its recesses.

  “Who comes?” said the first man, in a deep, hollow voice.

  “He whom you expect,” was the reply.

  “Good,” he said, and at once he now emerged from his hiding-place, and they stood together in the nearly total darkness with which the place was enshrouded; for the night was a cloudy one, and there appeared not a star in the heavens, to shed its faint light upon the scene below.

  For a few moments they were both silent, for he who had last arrived had evidently made great exertions to reach the spot, and was breathing laboriously, while he who was there first appeared, from some natural taciturnity of character, to decline opening the conversation.

  At length the second comer spoke, saying, —

  “I have made some exertion to get here to my time, and yet I am beyond it, as you are no doubt aware.”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “Well, such would not have been the case; but yet, I stayed to bring you some news of importance.”

  “Indeed!”

  “It is so. This place, which we have, now for some time had as a quiet and perfectly eligible one of meeting, is about to be invaded by one of those restless, troublesome spirits, who are never happy but when they are contriving something to the annoyance of others who do not interfere with them.”