The Vampyre and Other Tales of the Macabre

by John Polidori

  ‘At length the time was accomplished, and Madame Lanoue brought forth a son. Her father eagerly desired that it might be named “Anselme,” after her husband, and Lanoue stood eagerly waiting in the hope that Lucile would second the request. But amid all her exhaustion and debility, the young mother found strength to implore that her father, who was to be its Christian sponsor, would bestow his own name on the infant; and that name happened, unluckily, to be no other than “Clement!” From that moment it was a fearful sight to watch the glances cast by Lanoue upon his unwelcome offspring.

  ‘Not long, however, did Lucile find courage to encounter the concentrated wrath of the now desperate man; and exactly five weeks after her confinement, she disappeared from St Etienne. One evening, on returning from the foundry, Anselme found his little home abandoned—the cradle empty—the nurse dismissed—while a few lines, in the hand-writing of Lucile, acquainted him that he would see her face no more, and that his little daughter was deposited with her former nurse, at a village two leagues distance from Lyons;—for that child, at least, was his own.

  ‘By this fatal announcement the miserable truth became manifest to all the world. Anselme was pardoned his former mistrust, his previous jealousy, when it was seen that Madame Lanoue had eloped with the object of her early attachment, and embarked for Martinique—that her father’s name and her husband’s roof were dishonoured—that Lucile was an adultress!

  ‘Poor old Moronval!—he had not long to support his load of obloquy, or the consciousness that his daughter’s former declarations of attachment to another ought to have prevented him from interposing his parental authority to complete her union with Anselme Lanoue. He died repentant and self-accusing, driven to despair by the accusations of his indignant son-in-law. And thus, freed from all engagements, and bereft of almost every tie to life, Anselme grew weary of his former haunts, his former avocations, and resolved at once to dispose of the foundry, and seek happiness in some province where his name and misfortunes did not serve to point him out to public notice. It was expected that his child would bear him company, but having visited the little girl shortly after the disappearance of his wife, the unhappy man discerned or fancied he discerned some resemblance to her kinsman Manoury in the countenance of the infant Lucile, and thenceforward resolved to exclude it from his home. A liberal annuity was accordingly settled upon the nurse;—it was arranged that Lucile should be reared as her own; and Lanoue became a Cain and a wanderer!

  ‘From that period all trace of the once thriving engineer was lost at St Etienne. Rumours prevailed that he had entered into the ecclesiastical state, that he was even a member of the confraternity of La Trappe; and one fellow-townsman, who happened to have business in the West Indies, protested that he had seen Anselme Lanoue fulfilling the duties of a missionary in the island of Martinique. The lapse of a dozen years, however, tended to obliterate all curiosity respecting him or his movements—his very name came to be forgotten at St Etienne; and little Lucile, reared in all the simplicity of a Lyonnese farmer’s daughter began to think of her unknown father as numbered with the dead.

  ‘Scarcely, however, had she attained her fifteenth year, when there arrived at the village a priest of severe but venerable aspect, who proceeded to exhibit to Nanette and her husband the necessary proofs empowering him to claim the guardianship of Lucile Lanoue. For many hours was the stranger closetted with the afflicted couple; who, at the close of the conference, announced him to their charge as her uncle and future protector. Lucile, who had been hitherto taught to consider her father an only son, and her mother an only daughter, could by no means reconcile herself to this unlooked-for tie of consanguinity. But Nanette soon satisfied her beloved nurseling that so it was and was to be;—that her only chance of happiness lay in unlimited submission to the will of her new uncle, with whom she was to reside in Paris, where he enjoyed a small benefice under the metropolitan see; and who, although a stern man and reserved, regarded her with the tenderest affection. Nothing remained but to submit; and Lucile, still bewildered by the sudden transition in her destinies, bade adieu to her native province, and accompanied her uncle to his gloomy abode in the Parvis Nôtre Dame.

  ‘For many months the gay-hearted and bright-eyed girl found little in her new home to replace the simple occupations and affectionate tending of her childhood. Waited upon by a decrepit mulatto servant, who seemed to regard her as an intruder, immured from the sunshine and the free range of nature, she became weary of life, even unto the utmost heart-sickness of weariness. But in course of time, the studies to which her uncle began to claim her attention acquired interest in her eyes; she was taught new languages,—sciences hitherto undreamed of;—the page of history unrolled its wonders to her eyes,—the mysteries of nature unfolded their miracles to her comprehension. The gentle mind of Lucile became fascinated by her uncle’s lessons of wisdom; she had long listened with reverence to his exhortations from the pulpit; she now began to admit the extent of his attractions as a companion, the value of his regard as a friend and monitor.

  ‘There was but one point on which his lessons were distasteful. It struck her that the stern ascetic insisted too often and too strongly on the virtue of chastity, and the pure mind of Lucile revolted from the frequency of a charge she deemed superfluous. Père Anselme persisted in warning her against unclean thoughts, when her soul was spotless as that of a nun; and inveighed against the attraction of temptations, which to her were foul and offensive. He seemed, in fact, to invest the whole force of female excellence in a virtue which to Lucile appeared a necessary and spontaneous obligation; for the white rose in its first expansion of purity, was not more spotless than Lucile Lanoue!

  ‘At length she revolted against these iterations of his daily sermon.—“You talk to me, dear uncle,” said she, “of crimes that enter not into my apprehension. What pleasure can you suppose me to find in seeking after books, images, ideas, expressions of an immodest nature? What sense of enjoyment can possibly attach itself to things which bring a blush to the cheek, and confusion to the heart?”

  ‘“Nevertheless, beware!” rejoined the stern pastor; “circumstances may arise to invest with unknown charms these very accessories of evil. And remember, Lucile,—remember, my niece,—remember, my beloved child, that sooner than see thee yield to the backslidings by which so many of thy sex sink into the gulf of perdition, I would tear thee limb from limb,—behold thee perish inch by inch, and minute by minute. The soul of woman is the brightest emanation of the eternal fountain of light and life; but the smallest blemish upon its spotlessness, and corruption and utter darkness ensue. Either thou must be as the angels of Heaven, secure from the influence of every grosser passion, or fall under the domination of the worst, and become a thing for men to trample on and fiends to scoff at. Half the mischiefs, half the crimes of this world of woe, are produced by the levity of woman. And though I love thee, Lucile,—love thee with a yearning spirit of tenderness, greater than can be dreamed of by the imagining of thy young experience,—know, that should a day of contamination come, thou must look to find in me a ruthless judge,—a stone-hearted executioner. There would be no mercy in my soul for an offence of thine.”

  ‘Harsh as were these denunciations, they sounded more like the ravings of fanaticism, than the remonstrances of a spiritual teacher, in the ears of Lucile. She had no power to attach them to a foregone conclusion, or to the shadowing forth of ideal evil. Even when, about a year after the first outpouring of the strenuous exhortations of Père Anselme, she became acquainted with the brilliant aide-de-camp of the King of France, who was charged to command a solemn service of Te Deum at the metropolitan cathedral, on occasion of the birth of a Dauphin, and the young and handsome Count de Valençay contrived shortly afterwards to entangle her in a secret correspondence and clandestine meetings, Lucile saw no occasion to connect the honourable expressions of attachment of her impassioned admirer with the prohibitions of her uncle! Valençay beheld in the bright cynosure of the Par
vis Nôtre Dame the nominal niece of a hypocritical abbé, and far too fair a creature to be consigned to so ignoble and degrading a destiny; while Lucile beheld in Valençay her future husband, and the noblest and most captivating of mankind. They stood relatively in a false position. Mademoiselle Lanoue was too much afraid of the harsh interpretation of her uncle to infringe her lover’s injunctions by acquainting the old man with the secret of their engagement. She dared not even involve in her confidence the old mulatto servant, Christophe, lest at any time he might be induced to betray them to the animadversions of Père Anselme.

  ‘Time passed. It is needless, and would be painful to relate how often, during her uncle’s discharge of his official duties, Lucile managed to escape from her gloomy home, and accompany her noble admirer on expeditions to the heights of Romainville, or the unfrequented banks of the Marne; to evening promenades in the Royal Gardens, to obscure spots and secret resorts, even she scarcely knew where. It was in vain she implored Valençay’s permission to acquaint her legal guardian with their engagements, and at length with the union they had secretly contracted. The Count pleaded the opposition of his family—the resentment of the King;—and Lucile felt too happy in the homage, the tender affection of the man she deemed her husband, to examine with caution into his arguments, or investigate the motives of his evasions.

  ‘It chanced that, while these mysteries were proceeding unsuspected in the quiet household of the canon of Nôtre Dame, Père Anselme was requested by one of the ministrants of the church of St Sulpice to undertake for a few days the clerical charge for which he was incapacitated by sudden and severe indisposition. The active priest, rejoicing in an opportunity of augmenting the sum of those duties which he had adopted as a sort of expiation—a species of mysterious atonement—readily complied: and thus, for several days, Lucile was left more than ever at liberty to pursue her favourite avocations, and cement her rash connections, little apprehending the consequences of her uncle’s ex-official occupation. Nay, little indeed did Père Anselme himself anticipate, when he entered the confessional of his unaccustomed church, to how painful an exercise of his priestly functions he was about to be submitted.

  ‘For behold! there came to his judgment seat a young noble of the court of the Trianon, the associate of the Lauzuns and Polignacs,* who, engaged in a duel of deadly provocation, had chosen to address himself to a strange confessor for a remission of his mortal sins. Count Valençay admitted himself to be every way an offender;—intemperate, debauched, a gambler, a seducer of innocence; and among other crimes which he charged against himself, was a pretended marriage with a pretended niece of a canon of Nôtre Dame; for whom he admitted the utmost violence of a criminal attachment.—“Lucile is about to become a mother,” said he, in the unreservedness of confession; “and her child will become fatherless, and herself a castaway, should I fall to-morrow. Am I to be forgiven?”

  ‘Père Anselme wrung his hands and sobbed aloud at this declaration; while Valençay, attributing the good man’s despair to the unction of his zeal, implored his intercessions with Heaven for the more than widow who was about to be left to the evil-dealing of a cruel world. He demanded also absolution, and Père Anselme trembled while he pronounced the words of grace; he had not, indeed, so trembled since the day when he first learned the elopement of his wife with Clement Manoury, of Martinique!

  ‘That night, on his return home, Christophe the mulatto received orders from his master to light the fire of a small furnace erected at one end of the little garden attached to the Canon’s house, where, during the winter days, he was wont to amuse himself by the exercise of his skill in smithery, such as the manufacture of curious locks and safety-bolts, which he often caused to be sold for the benefit of the poor. During the summer, he usually devoted his leisure to other pursuits; and what might be the cause of his selecting a fine midsummer night for the renewal of his occupation no one could guess. Till morning, however, the bellows of the forge were heard in operation, and then, instead of retiring to rest after his unaccountable exertions, Père Anselme went forth to his daily duties, having charged his servants with certain household services to be performed during his absence, and taken with him the key of the house-door, in order to enforce the commands he had already issued, that none should pass the threshold during his absence. He desired also that the morning and evening meal of Lucile might be served to her as usual; nor did he return at night till his daughter had retired to rest. But there was nothing in all this to occasion surprise to Lucile; her thoughts indeed were otherwise engrossed, and had they been free for cogitation, she knew that the time of the Canon was just then doubly engaged with the duties of his brother Curé.

  ‘She was wrapt in sleep when, at midnight, he re-entered the house, and a sleep so heavy, that she observed not an unusual sound in an uninhabited chamber on the opposite side of the corridor from her own, the walls of which abutted against those of a public hospital. Heavy, ay, heavy indeed must those slumbers have been, that heard not stones displaced and replaced—the blows of the heavy mallet—the smart strokes of the sledge hammer, which so strangely disturbed the rest of the old mulatto.

  ‘On the morrow, at an early hour, a hired berline* stood at the Canon’s door; and when the lovely but pale and wan Lucile made her appearance at the breakfast-table, the Canon bid her with a grim smile prepare for a holiday. Together they ascended the carriage, but her eager inquiries could obtain no clue to their destination. “Be satisfied,” replied Anselme in a hoarse voice; “you will discover anon. I have secured to you a day of pleasure.”

  ‘At length she perceived that they had passed the barriers of the city, and were ascending the heights of Charonne. In another minute’s space they were following a splendid funeral procession, that took its way towards the cemetery of Mont Louis. The hearse was covered with gorgeous escutcheons—the noblest armorial bearings of ancient France graced the long train of carriages following the dead—and as the cortège stopped at the gates of the cemetery, Lucile perceived that a sword and belt, a coronet and cushion, were placed upon the coffin.

  ‘Involuntarily she gave vent to expressions of interest, as with a pale face she gazed upon the solemn scene—involuntarily evinced her curiosity as to the name of the hero about to be consigned to the dust. She addressed herself to her “uncle,” but Père Anselme was reciting aloud his prayers for the dead, whom the priests, with their crosses and banners, had come forth to welcome to the grave. Their driver now prepared to let down the steps, having received previous orders from the canon.

  ‘“Whose obsequies are these?” inquired Lucile with faltering accents, as she prepared to place her foot on the step.

  ‘“ ’Tis the burial of the young Count Valençay, Aide-de-Camp to his Majesty, who fell yesterday in a duel at Montrouge,” replied the man in a careless tone; “he was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; yet ’tis said that he hazarded his life in a drunken quarrel, for a worthless actress.”

  ‘But he spoke to unheedful ears; Lucile lay senseless at the bottom of the carriage, and when the miserable girl recovered her powers of recollection, she found herself in a strange room, chained by her right hand to a bare wall, a loaf of bread, a vessel of water, and a missal, lying by her side. Even then, she neither heard, nor saw, nor felt distinctly; strange words sounded in her ears—a figure which she deemed to be that of her uncle stalked before her, proclaiming himself her father, and addressing her in opprobrious terms and with fearful denunciations that fell meaningless upon her heart. Yet the accusations were full, too full of truth; and the invectives with which he accosted the dying girl were such as defile the ears of the lowest of her fallen sex.

  ‘“True child of an abandoned mother,” cried he—“of a mother who deserted thy cradle for the arms of a paramour—of a mother whom I abandoned all ties of nature and country to punish as she deserved—thy doom is decreed! I forewarned her, yet she fell! I told her that so surely as she dared to outrage her vows of matron chast
ity, the hand of my vengeance should be heavy on her—that her blood should flow drop by drop in atonement for her sin; and so it did, and I beheld it, and was content. Then returned I to Europe, in the hope that the sorrows of my youth might be compensated by a tranquil old age, passed in the bosom of my child. And thou, too, Lucile, did I forewarn! I ventured not to assume over thee a father’s authority, lest peradventure the babbling of those who surrounded thy childhood should have described him to thee as harsh and intemperate; but as a near kinsman—as a spiritual teacher—my voice was loud in thine ears, with exhortations against the evil promptings of the salt blood of thy mother flowing in thy veins; yet thou hast fallen, and the ruin of my house is accomplished—my last hope withered—my last joy defiled! Out on thee, castaway, out on thee! For thee, even for thee, shall there be no mercy—no ear of pity for thy bewailing—no heart of flesh for thine anguish. My own hand, a father’s hand, forged the snares that hold thee fast; and now will I feast mine eyes on the sufferings of thy penance. Despair and die!”

  ‘To all these outrages Lucile had no other reply than the name of him whom she believed to have been her husband. To die was all indeed that she desired; but despair she could not, for she trusted that death would reunite her to the object of her soul’s affections. Her mind was at times perturbed, at times lucid; but of her peculiar jeopardy she knew and could comprehend nothing. It was all a miserable confusion of suffering—of terror—of darkness—of desperation!