Soon after day-break we reached a market-town, and I now hoped to find shelter and repose in a small inn. We went under the gate-way, hoping at this early hour to pass unremarked, except by the people that belonged to it, to whom Mr Auberry thought he could account for my extraordinary appearance.
Ah! think what became of me when, standing at the stable door in the inn-yard, just ready to mount his horse, I saw Mr Grimshaw himself!
He uttered a furious oath, sprang forward, and caught me by the arm. I became instantly senseless, and only knew, by what I have heard since, that he loudly accused me of being an adultress; and as Mr Auberry did not deny that I was his (Grimshaw’s) wife, nobody chose to listen to any thing he had to say, as reasons why I had left his house; but rather assisted, than tried to prevent, Mr Grimshaw, when he put me, senseless and fainting as I was, into the first carriage he could find, and conveyed me back to this den of wickedness and murder, his house. When I returned – (would I had never returned!) to my senses, I found myself in total darkness. Every thing that had passed seemed like a dream, and I tried to recollect distinctly the strange images confusedly impressed on my mind. As day dawned through my shutters, I found I was in the very same room from whence I had been liberated (if I had not really been dreaming) by supernatural means. Soon afterwards, however, I was too well convinced that the miseries of my fate were aggravated. My jailoress, and the inhuman wretch, her employer, soon appeared, and began, with the most barbarous insults, to insist on my telling them how I escaped from the room, where Mrs Pegham protested she had locked me in. I was desperate; and without trying to soften any part of what I had to relate, I told it all, and repeated all the horrors Mr Auberry had heard, in addition to those I had seen. I accused them of a double murder, and added, that I had nothing to desire of them, but that they would destroy me at once, as they had done the unfortunate young officer, and not let me linger like the miserable victim, whose fate I was convinced would sooner or later be mine.
Never was seen surely such malignant guilt, mingled with horror, as the countenance of Grimshaw exhibited; while that of his associate expressed the triumph of daring and confirmed cruelty over every other sensation. I was now confined for some time on bread and water in a sort of cellar, which I had reason to believe was the place where the poor young lady, my predecessor, had ended her miserable days; but I feared neither darkness nor confinement, nor want, equal to the presence of my cruel persecutor. Mrs Pegham found me tranquil, I complained not, I did not ask for liberty. Nothing moved me but the apprehension of seeing Mr Grimshaw, or the fear of what might have become of poor Auberry, who, I supposed, must have been murdered, or else, that he would have informed my friends of my situation, who would, I thought, have made some enquiry after me.
When this wretched imprisonment was found to make no impression upon me, I was dragged back to the fatal room stained with blood, and the scene of former murders; and there I was shewn a shirt-buckle and lock of hair, which Mrs Pegham told me insultingly was sent by my paramour, as his last gift, for that he had been tried I know not what crime, of associating with the rebels, and was to be executed. At another time I was informed that my father was a bankrupt, and my mother gone into an alms-house. Every device was used, during many months, to weaken and depress my mind, which gradually sunk under such treatment. I was at the same time exposed to hunger from having only disgusting food, and my clothes were often insufficient to save me from the rigours of winter, or the intolerable distress of squalid dirt, which was indeed the severest of my sufferings, except only when Mr Grimshaw himself approached me: then the only sensation I was conscious of was something like joy, that my appearance was so wretched, that I must be an object of abhorrence to him, instead of his finding any attraction in the frame or face which had been the cause of his hateful liking.
I was sometimes neglected, and without food for two days, and I have reason to believe Mrs Pegham and her master were at these times out; I tried once or twice to make my escape, but in vain. On her return, these attempts were always discovered, and then the cruel woman used to beat and drag me about the room, asking me why I did not get the ghost to come again and let me out? Of the ghost I was now no longer afraid. Rendered almost callous by unexampled hardships, I sometimes was nearly unconscious of what passed, and I believe I have, more than once, lain for days on my bed in a state of insensibility; then, as if my persecutors were afraid of losing their victim, they gave me more nourishing food, and relaxed in some degree their barbarity.
No interference, either natural or supernatural, now seemed likely to save me. When I ventured to look forward, nothing appeared but a course of the most deplorable sufferings terminating in the grave. If I looked backwards, the memory of former times overwhelmed me with vain and fruitless regret. I thought of the manner of my life in my father’s house, where, though there was always a great disposition to sacrifice too much to the accumulation of wealth, I enjoyed the decencies of life; yet I had sometimes thought myself unhappy, and shed childish tears over imaginary miseries.’ – ‘How little,’ said Mrs Blandford to Azemia, as she read this part of the narrative! ‘how little, my sweet love, do we know in early youth the happiness we enjoy, merely from ignorance of evil! – How few are there, who, if they could see what this subsequent life promises, would wish for maturity, for middle life – for old age! – But go on, my dear Azemia, my reflections will only make us more melancholy than the narrative we are reading.’ – Azemia proceeded.
‘Winter now again approached, and to other distresses were added those of gloom and cold – I had been long since removed into the room of blood, because of that I seemed to have the greatest terror, and I had often heard the low murmuring, as of a wretch confined in pain, in the closet, and behind the wainscot of the room; but I dreaded the dead so much less than the living, that I considered this poor unquiet spirit as my friend; and such was the deep and steady despair of my mind, that I wished to converse with this spectre, and to escape, as the form it once inhabited had escaped from the unsupportable evil of being in the power of Grimshaw.
Such was the state of my mind, when late in the month of October I was one night awakened from disturbed sleep by some noise in my room. I listened; but then every thing was so still about the house, that I distinctly heard the clock, which was at a considerable distance from my room, strike twelve. After a few moments, the hollow undescribable noise that had startled me was repeated: it came from the fatal closet. I looked towards the door – a figure with a bleeding wound in its breast glided to the feet of the bed, and stood immoveable: it did not resemble that which I had seen before. I endeavoured, but in vain, to speak: the spectre pointed to the place from whence it had appeared. I again looked thither, and saw a shade insensibly form, as it were, from a thin vapour into the same figure of a woman that I had before seen, holding an infant in her arms. This too was soon visible at the foot of my bed: its stony and ghastly eyes were mournfully fixed upon me, who trembling with a sensation I cannot define, but which was not fear, at length, cried – “Tell me what you are! tell me, if I can do any thing for your repose?”
A low sepulchral voice answered, “I am Gertrude! The wretch destroyed me, with the baby you see here – the wretch murdered my brother in that closet – at this hour three years since, he murdered him. – I survived him twenty days and nights – so long you will see me – try to escape my fate!”
A dead cold pause ensued, I remained with my eyes fixed on these fearful shapes: they slowly, slowly melted into air!
Gradually the palpitations of my heart, the tremor of my spirits subsided. I slept; and when I awoke in the morning, I asked myself whether I had not dreamed all that seemed to have passed; but the circumstances that had before occurred left me no doubt as to the reality of what I had seen. I remembered that for twenty days the image of the murdered Gertrude was to present itself. Good God! if formerly I had been toldthat I should be haunted by a spectre, and fear it less than the sight of some existi
ng beings around me, how should I have shrunk from a destiny which it would have appeared impossible to sustain!
I did, however, endure it; the next night, the next, and for many succeeding nights, the perturbed spirit of the murdered Gertrude, regularly at the hour of twelve, presented itself at the foot of my bed; but, instead of repeating all it had at first said, it only uttered in a moaning and hollow voice,
“Escape from a fate like mine!”
I now hardly ever slept before the shape appeared, expectation of it kept me awake. After it had faded away, I continued to attempt arguing myself into a resolution again to speak; and if I at any time obtained repose, it was broken and interrupted. I started at every noise of the wind, as it howled or sighed through the old casements of my room, and, at length, hardly obtained, in the four-and-twenty hours, one quarter of an hour’s forgetfulness. Want of sleep disturbed my head and stomach. Of the food that was brought me every day, I scarce ate half an ounce in the course of it. I became emaciated, my eyes were sometimes heavy, sometimes wild, and I believe my was reason not unfrequently wandering. In these intervals I reproached the wretched Pegham; I told her of her crimes, and of her master’s; I tore up with supernatural force the tapestry on the floor – pointed to the blood, and shriekingly proclaimed that I knew who had shed that blood, and to whom it belonged. Such conduct gave Mrs Pegham a good excuse to treat me as a lunatic; but in these fits of raving and desperation I spoke so much that she knew to be true. I asserted so much that was already suspected, that she dared not suffer even her most confidential servant to approach me; and began, no doubt, to hope that I should soon be out of the way of betraying the horrors of this den of infarny.
Gertrude every night at the same hour returned, and always repeated once in a Sepulchral and tremulous tone:
“Escape from a fate like mine!”
Eighteen of the twenty days on which I expected these nocturnal visits had now passed, when, without knowing why I again felt courage to speak to the apparition, I could only say:
How escape?
When the shade, waving its hand, pointed to the door I started instinctively and hastened to the door of my room; it slowly opened before me, though I heard Mrs Pegham carefully lock and bar it without1 every night. The spectre glided before me. I followed. It led me down to a sort of vault adjoining to that where I had been confined. I saw the earth rise a little above the surface, as if there had there been a human body buried. The pale funereal light, emanating from the silvery and mist-like shade of my dis-embodied conductress, shewed me this: then the form becoming more indistinct, seemed to creep, wavering before me, till I beheld myself, as I had done before, in the open air. I found the great gate of the wood-yard open. I passed it, and was at length out of the detested habitation; but so weak, and in such dread lest I should meet either of the wretches I had fled from, that when I had got about half way through the lane leading to the fields beyond the village, I could go no farther, but sat down on a small hillock, and tried to recover my breath and recollection. I knew nobody in the country likely to receive or protect me; yet suddenly I remembered the rector of the parish, whose house I had happened to remark the only time I had ever walked out, because it was somewhat superior to the surrounding cottages. The road was so flat and straight, that I thought I could hardly miss it, and I acquired courage to venture. How I obtained strength I know not. The night was wet and stormy, and at intervals very dark; but as the gusts of wind drove away the clouds, I saw the stars. I felt something like hope. I trusted in Providence, and at length I reached the asylum I sought; but when I was at length under the window in the orchard of the good clergyman I was so exhausted, that I despaired of making myself heard. What followed after I was received into his house is already known.’
It is hardly necessary to say, that the old-fashioned language of this narrative has been considerably modernised and cleared for the press.
It may be agreeable to some readers to hear that Eleanor was restored to her family; and after her first husband destroyed himself, (as he did in Lincoln jail to escape being hanged for murder, of which he was convicted with his associate), she was married to Mr Auberry, who having been, on her union with Grimshaw, dismissed by her father, because he suspected his attachment to her, was afterwards taken into his business. Eleanor always retained a dejected cast of mind, and her constitution was much injured; but in the tenderness of the husband of her choice, and the affectionate regret of her family, she endeavoured to lose the deep impression made on her mind by these melancholy and supernatural adventures.
[Vol. I, pp, 151–254]
ODE, PANEGYRICAL AND LYRICAL
TO THE TUNE OF HOSIER’S GHOST
Ye, who places hold, or pensions,
And as much as ye can get,
Come, and hear the praising mention
I shall make of Mister Pitt.
All he does is grand and daring,
All he says is right and fit;
Never let us then be sparing
In the praise of Mister Pitt.
Who, like him, can prate down reason,
Who so well on taxes hit?
Who detect a plot of treason
Half so well as Mister Pitt?
He’s the man to make these nations
Own their millions of debit –
Well incurr’d, as prove orations
Duly made by Mister Pitt.
That he’s prov’d a great financier,
‘Tis as true as holy writ;
He’s a rate and duty fancier,
Heaven-born tax-man – Mister Pitt.
Opposition try to hurt him,
Only in his place to fit;
Let us not, my friends, desert him,
Stick ye close to Mr Pitt.
He the multitude is humbling,
Britons that doth well befit;
Swinish crowds, who minds your grumbling?
Bow the knee to Mister Pitt.
Tho’ abroad our men are dying,
Why should he his projects quit?
What are orphans, widows, crying,
To our steady Mister Pitt?
His is fortitude of mind, Sir:
That remark do not omit;
He by Heaven was design’d, Sir,
To humble England – Glorious Pitt!
You ne’er see him love a wench, Sir,
Driving curricle and tit;
He attends the Treasury-bench, Sir,
Sober, honest, Mister Pitt.
What cares he for Fox’s1 raving,
Or for Sherry’s caustic wit?2
Still the nation he keeps shaving,
Pretty close too – Mister Pitt!
Two thirds of that nation starving,
Now of meat ne’er taste a bit;
For his friends he still is carving,
This great statesman – Mister Pitt.
Mister Pitt has elocution
Greater far than John De Witt;
Give up then our Constitution,
As advises Mister Pitt.
He out-herods Opposition,
Heedless he of every skit;
For the state a rare physician,
To bleed and sweat, is Mister Pitt.
Britons once were too victorious,
And they love it too much yet;
Humility is far more glorious,
And ’tis taught by Mister Pitt.
Lo! fresh millions he will raise, Sir,
Tho’ we don’t advance a whit;
Give him then imperial praise, Sir,
Viva viva Mister Pitt!
Praise him, all ye Treasury Genii!
That he’s wrong, Oh! ne’er admit;
Fear not Fox’s honest keen-eye,
While ye stick to Mister Pitt.
Laud him, Bishops, Deans, and Prebends,
All by inspiration lit;
Praise him, blue and crimson ribands,
Knights! bepraise your patron Pitt.
Stretch you
r throats, ye fat Contractors,
He employs your pot and spit;
Laugh at impotent detractors,
Envying you and Mister Pitt.
New-made Lords shall join the song, Sirs,
Nor will Rose or Steele forget
To declaim, or right or wrong, Sirs,
In the praise of Mister Pitt.
Oh! berhyme him, courtly writers!
Nares and Gifford, men of wit;
Pye, and all ye ode-inditers,
Strike your lyres to Mister Pitt!
Learn, each Jacobin Reviewer,
Analytical or Crit.;1
Learn from British Critics, truer,
To appreciate Mister Pitt.
So a chorus shall arise, Sir,
That the welkin’s brows shall hit;
Britons’ joyous grateful cries, Sir,
Shall be heard thro’ earth and skies, Sir,
And the universe surprise, Sir,
In honour of the heaven-born Pitt.
[Vol. II, pp. 12–17]
TRAVEL DIARIES
I
From Dreams, Waking Thoughts and Incidents, London, 1783. Beckford was forced to suppress the book because of family disapproval. All but a small number of the five hundred original copies printed by J. Johnson, the publisher, were des-troyed. In an edited form, Dreams appeared as Volume I of Sketches in 1834.
LETTER I
June 19, 1780.
Shall I tell you my dreams? – To give an account of my time, is doing, I assure you, but little better. Never did there exist a more ideal being. A frequent mist hovers before my eyes, and, through its medium, I see objects so faint and hazy, that both their colours and forms are apt to delude me. This is a rare confession, say the wise, for a traveller to make; pretty accounts will such a one give of outlandish countries: his correspondents must reap great benefit, no doubt, from such purblind observations: – But stop, my good friends; patience a moment! – I really have not the vanity of pretending to make a single remark, during the whole of my journey: if–1be contented with my visionary way of gazing, I am perfectly pleased; and shall write away as freely as Mr A, Mr B, Mr C, and a million others, whose letters are the admiration of the politest circles.
Vathek and Other Stories Page 31
