Varney the Vampire; Or, the Feast of Blood

by Thomas Preskett Prest

  CHAPTER LXXVII.

  VARNEY IN THE GARDEN.--THE COMMUNICATION OF DR. CHILLINGWORTH TO THEADMIRAL AND HENRY.

  Kind reader, it was indeed Varney who had clambered over the gardenwall, and thus made his way into the garden of Bannerworth Hall; andwhat filled those who looked at him with the most surprise was, that hedid not seem in any particular way to make a secret of his presence, butwalked on with an air of boldness which either arose from a feeling ofabsolute impunity, from his thinking there was no one there, or from anaudacity which none but he could have compassed.

  As for the little party that was there assembled, and who looked uponhim, they seemed thunderstricken by his presence; and Henry, probably,as well as the admiral, would have burst out into some suddenexclamation, had they not been restrained by Dr. Chillingworth, who,suspecting that they might in some way give an alarm, hastened to speakfirst, saying in a whisper,--

  "For Heaven's sake, be still, fortune, you see, favours us moststrangely. Leave Varney alone. You have no other mode whatever ofdiscovering what he really wants at Bannerworth Hall."

  "I am glad you have spoken," said Henry, as he drew a long breath. "Ifyou had not, I feel convinced that in another moment I should haverushed forward and confronted this man who has been the very bane of mylife."

  "And so should I," said the admiral; "although I protest against anyharm being done to him, on account of some sort of good feeling that hehas displayed, after all, in releasing Charles from that dungeon inwhich Marchdale has perished."

  "At the moment," said Henry, "I had forgotten that; but I will own thathis conduct has been tinctured by a strange and wild kind of generosityat times, which would seem to bespeak, at the bottom of his heart, somegood feelings, the impulses of which were only quenched bycircumstances."

  "That is my firm impression of him, I can assure you," said Dr.Chillingworth.

  They watched Varney now from the leafy covert in which they weresituated, and, indeed, had they been less effectually concealed, it didnot seem likely that the much dreaded vampyre would have perceived them;for not only did he make no effort at concealment himself, but he tookno pains to see if any one was watching him in his progress to thehouse.

  His footsteps were more rapid than they usually were, and there wasaltogether an air and manner about him, as if he were moved to somepurpose which of itself was sufficiently important to submerge in itsconsequences all ordinary risks and all ordinary cautions.

  He tried several windows of the house along that terrace of which wehave more than once had occasion to speak, before he found one thatopened; but at length he did succeed, and stepped at once into the Hall,leaving those, who now for some moments in silence had regarded hismovements, to lose themselves in a fearful sea of conjecture as to whatcould possibly be his object.

  "At all events," said the admiral, "I'm glad we are here. If the vampyreshould have a fight with that other fellow, that we heard doing such alot of carpentering work in the house, we ought, I think, to see fairplay."

  "I, for one," said the doctor, "would not like to stand by and see thevampyre murdered; but I am inclined to think he is a good match for anymortal opponent."

  "You may depend he is," said Henry.

  "But how long, doctor, do you purpose that we should wait here in such astate of suspense as to what is going on within the house?"

  "I hope not long; but that something will occur to make us have food foraction. Hark! what is that?"

  There was a loud crash within the building, as of broken glass. Itsounded as if some window had been completely dashed in; but althoughthey looked carefully over the front of the building, they could see noevidences of such a thing having happened, and were compelled,consequently, to come to the opinion that Varney and the other man musthave met in one of the back rooms, and that the crash of glass hadarisen from some personal conflict in which they had engaged.

  "I cannot stand this," said Henry.

  "Nay, nay," said the doctor; "be still, and I will tell you something,than which there can be no more fitting time than this to reveal it."

  "Refers it to the vampyre?"

  "It does--it does."

  "Be brief, then; I am in an agony of impatience."

  "It is a circumstance concerning which I can be brief; for, horrible asit is, I have no wish to dress it in any adventitious colours. SirFrancis Varney, although under another name, is an old acquaintance ofmine."

  "Acquaintance!" said Henry.

  "Why, you don't mean to say you are a vampyre?" said the admiral; "orthat he has ever visited you?"

  "No; but I knew him. From the first moment that I looked upon him inthis neighbourhood, I thought I knew him; but the circumstance whichinduced me to think so was of so terrific a character, that I made someefforts to chase it from my mind. It has, however, grown upon me day byday, and, lately, I have had proof sufficient to convince me of hisidentity with one whom I first saw under most singular circumstances ofromance."

  "Say on,--you are agitated."

  "I am, indeed. This revelation has several times, within the last fewdays, trembled on my lips, but now you shall have it; because you oughtto know all that it is possible for me to tell you of him who has causedyou so serious an amount of disturbance."

  "You awaken, doctor," said Henry, "all my interest."

  "And mine, too," remarked the admiral. "What can it be all about? andwhere, doctor, did you first see this Varney the vampyre?"

  "In his coffin."

  Both the admiral and Henry gave starts of surprise as, with one accord,they exclaimed,--

  "Did you say coffin?"

  "Yes: I tell you, on my word of honour, that the first time in my life Isaw ever Sir Francis Varney, was in his coffin."

  "Then he is a vampyre, and there can be no mistake," said the admiral.

  "Go on, I pray you, doctor, go on," said Henry, anxiously.

  "I will. The reason why he became the inhabitant of a coffin was simplythis:--he had been hanged,--executed at the Old Bailey, in London,before ever I set eyes upon that strange countenance of his. You knowthat I was practising surgery at the London schools some years ago, andthat, consequently, as I commenced the profession rather late in life, Iwas extremely anxious to do the most I could in a very short space oftime."

  "Yes--yes."

  "Arrived, then, with plenty of resources, which I did not, as the youngmen who affected to be studying in the same classes as myself, spend inthe pursuit of what they considered life in London, I wasindefatigable in my professional labours, and there was nothingconnected with them which I did not try to accomplish.

  "At that period, the difficulty of getting a subject for anatomizationwas very great, and all sorts of schemes had to be put into requisitionto accomplish so desirable, and, indeed, absolutely necessary a purpose.

  "I became acquainted with the man who, I have told you, is in the Hall,at present, and who then filled the unenviable post of publicexecutioner. It so happened, too, that I had read a learned treatise, bya Frenchman, who had made a vast number of experiments with galvanic andother apparatus, upon persons who had come to death in different ways,and, in one case, he asserted that he had actually recovered a man whohad been hanged, and he had lived five weeks afterwards.

  "Young as I then was, in comparison to what I am now, in my profession,this inflamed my imagination, and nothing seemed to me so desirable asgetting hold of some one who had only recently been put to death, forthe purpose of trying what I could do in the way of attempting aresuscitation of the subject. It was precisely for this reason that Isought out the public executioner, and made his acquaintance, whom everyone else shunned, because I thought he might assist me by handing overto me the body of some condemned and executed man, upon whom I could trymy skill.

  "I broached the subject to him, and found him not averse. He said, thatif I would come forward and claim, as next of kin and allow the body tobe removed to his house, the body of the criminal who was to be executedthe first time, fr
om that period, that he could give me a hint that Ishould have no real next of kin opponents, he would throw every facilityin my way.

  "This was just what I wanted; and, I believe, I waited with impatiencefor some poor wretch to be hurried to his last account by the hands ofmy friend, the public executioner.

  "At length a circumstance occurred which favoured my designs mosteffectually,--A man was apprehended for a highway robbery of a mostaggravated character. He was tried, and the evidence against him was soconclusive, that the defence which was attempted by his counsel, becamea mere matter of form.

  "He was convicted, and sentenced. The judge told him not to flatterhimself with the least notion that mercy would be extended to him. Thecrime of which he had been found guilty was on the increase it washighly necessary to make some great public example, to show evil doersthat they could not, with impunity, thus trample upon the liberty of thesubject, and had suddenly, just as it were, in the very nick of time,committed the very crime, attended with all the aggravated circumstanceswhich made it easy and desirable to hang him out of hand.

  "He heard his sentence, they tell me unmoved. I did not see him, but hewas represented to me as a man of a strong, and well-knit frame, withrather a strange, but what some would have considered a handsomeexpression of countenance, inasmuch as that there was an expression ofmuch haughty resolution depicted on it.

  "I flew to my friend the executioner.

  "'Can you,' I said, 'get me that man's body, who is to be hanged for thehighway robbery, on Monday?'

  "'Yes,' he said; 'I see nothing to prevent it. Not one soul has offeredto claim even common companionship with him,--far less kindred. I thinkif you put in your claim as a cousin, who will bear the expense of hisdecent burial, you will have every chance of getting possession of thebody.'

  "I did not hesitate, but, on the morning before the execution, I calledupon one of the sheriffs.

  "I told him that the condemned man, I regretted to say, was related tome; but as I knew nothing could be done to save him on the trial, I hadabstained from coming forward; but that as I did not like the idea ofhis being rudely interred by the authorities, I had come forward to askfor the body, after the execution should have taken place, in order thatI might, at all events, bestow upon it, in some sequestered spot, adecent burial, with all the rites of the church.

  "The sheriff was a man not overburthened with penetration. He applaudedmy pious feelings, and actually gave me, without any inquiry, a writtenorder to receive the body from the hands of the hangman, after it hadhung the hour prescribed by the law.

  "I did not, as you may well suppose, wish to appear more in the businessthan was absolutely necessary; but I gave the executioner the sheriff'sorder for the body, and he promised that he would get a shell ready toplace it in, and four stout men to carry it at once to his house, whenhe should cut it down.

  "'Good!' I said; 'and now as I am not a little anxious for the successof my experiment, do you not think that you can manage so that the fallof the criminal shall not be so sudden as to break his neck?'

  "'I have thought of that,' he said, 'and I believe that I can manage tolet him down gently, so that he shall die of suffocation, instead ofhaving his neck put out of joint. I will do my best."

  "'If you can but succeed in that,' said I, for I was quite in a state ofmania upon the subject, 'I shall be much indebted to you, and willdouble the amount of money which I have already promised.'

  "This was, as I believed it would be, a powerful stimulus to him to doall in his power to meet my wishes, and he took, no doubt, activemeasures to accomplish all that I desired.

  "You can imagine with what intense impatience I waited the result. Heresided in an old ruinous looking house, a short distance on the Surreyside of the river, and there I had arranged all my apparatus for makingexperiments upon the dead man, in an apartment the windows of whichcommanded a view of the entrance."

  "I was completely ready by half-past eight, although a moment'sconsideration of course told me that at least another hour must elapsebefore there could be the least chance of my seeing him arrive, for whomI so anxiously longed.

  "I can safely say so infatuated was I upon the subject, that no fondlover ever looked with more nervous anxiety for the arrival of thechosen object of his heart, than I did for that dead body, upon which Iproposed to exert all the influences of professional skill, to recallback the soul to its earthly dwelling-place.

  "At length I heard the sound of wheels. I found that my friend thehangman had procured a cart, in which he brought the coffin, that beinga much quicker mode of conveyance than by bearers so that about aquarter past nine o'clock the vehicle, with its ghastly content, stoppedat the door of his house.

  "In my impatience I ran down stairs to meet that which ninety-nine menout of a hundred would have gone some distance to avoid the sight of,namely, a corpse, livid and fresh from the gallows. I, however, heraldedit as a great gift, and already, in imagination I saw myself imitatingthe learned Frenchman, who had published such an elaborate treatise onthe mode of restoring life under all sorts of circumstances, to thosewho were already pronounced by unscientific persons to be dead.

  "To be sure, a sort of feeling had come over me at times, knowing as Idid that the French are a nation that do not scruple at all to sacrificetruth on the altar of vanity, that it might be after all a mererhodomontade; but, however, I could only ascertain so much by actuallytrying, so the suspicion that such might, by a possibility, be the endof the adventure, did not deter me.

  "I officiously assisted in having the coffin brought into the room whereI had prepared everything that was necessary in the conduction of mygrand experiment; and then, when no one was there with me but my friendthe executioner, I, with his help, the one of us taking the head and theother the feet, took the body from the coffin and laid it upon a table.

  "Hastily I placed my hand upon the region of the heart, and to my greatdelight I found it still warm. I drew off the cap that covered the face,and then, for the first time, my eyes rested upon the countenance of himwho now calls himself--Heaven only knows why--Sir Francis Varney."

  "Good God!" said Henry, "are you certain?"

  "Quite."

  "It may have been some other rascal like him," said the admiral.

  "No, I am quite sure now; I have, as I have before mentioned to you,tried to get out of my own conviction upon the subject, but I have beenactually assured that he is the man by the very hangman himself."

  "Go on, go on! Your tale certainly is a strange one, and I do not say iteither to compliment you or to cast a doubt upon you, but, except fromthe lips of an old, and valued friend, such as you yourself are, Ishould not believe it.'

  "I am not surprised to hear you say that," replied the doctor; "norshould I be offended even now if you were to entertain a belief that Imight, after all, be mistaken."

  "No, no; you would not be so positive upon the subject, I well know, ifthere was the slightest possibility of an error."

  "Indeed I should not."

  "Let us have the sequel, then."

  "It is this. I was most anxious to effect an immediate resuscitation, ifit were possible, of the hanged man. A little manipulation soonconvinced me that the neck was not broken, which left me at once everything to hope for. The hangman was more prudent than I was, and before Icommenced my experiments, he said,--

  "'Doctor, have you duly considered what you mean to do with this fellow,in case you should be successful in restoring him to life?'

  "'Not I,' said I.

  "'Well,' he said, 'you can do as you like; but I consider that it isreally worth thinking of.'

  "I was headstrong on the matter, and could think of nothing but thesuccess or the non-success, in a physiological point of view, of my planfor restoring the dead to life; so I set about my experiments withoutany delay, and with a completeness and a vigour that promised the mostcompletely successful results, if success could at all be an ingredientin what sober judgment would doubtless have d
enominated a mad-headed andwild scheme.

  "For more than half an hour I tried in vain, by the assistance of thehangman, who acted under my directions. Not the least symptom ofvitality presented itself; and he had a smile upon his countenance, ashe said in a bantering tone,--

  "'I am afraid, sir, it is much easier to kill than to restore theirpatients with doctors.'

  "Before I could make him any reply, for I felt that his observation hada good amount of truth in it, joined to its sarcasm the hanged manuttered a loud scream, and opened his eyes.

  "I must own I was myself rather startled; but I for some moments longercontinued the same means which had produced such an effect, whensuddenly he sprang up and laid hold of me, at the same timeexclaiming,--

  "'Death, death, where is the treasure?'

  "I had fully succeeded--too fully; and while the executioner looked onwith horror depicted in his countenance, I fled from the room and thehouse, taking my way home as fast as I possibly could.

  "A dread came over me, that the restored man would follow me if heshould find out, to whom it was he was indebted for the ratherquestionable boon of a new life. I packed up what articles I set thegreatest store by, bade adieu to London, and never have I since set footwithin that city."

  "And you never met the man you had so resuscitated?"

  "Not till I saw Varney, the vampyre; and, as I tell you, I am nowcertain that he is the man."

  "That is the strangest yarn that ever I heard," said the admiral.

  "A most singular circumstance," said Henry.

  "You may have noticed about his countenance," said Dr. Chillingworth, "astrange distorted look?"

  "Yes, yes."

  "Well, that has arisen from a spasmodic contraction of the muscles, inconsequence of his having been hanged. He will never lose it, and it hasnot a little contributed to give him the horrible look he has, and toinvest him with some of the seeming outward attributes of the vampyre."

  "And that man who is now in the hall with him, doctor," said Henry, "isthe very hangman who executed him?"

  "The same. He tells me that after I left, he paid attention to therestored man, and completed what I had nearly done. He kept him in hishouse for a time, and then made a bargain with him, for a large sum ofmoney per annum, all of which he has regularly been paid, although hetells me he has no more idea where Varney gets it, than the man in themoon."

  "It is very strange; but, hark! do you not hear the sound of voices inangry altercation?"

  "Yes, yes, they have met. Let us approach the windows now. We may chanceto hear something of what they say to each other."