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

by Sims, Michael

  “Let us go,” whispered Franziska, as she strove to raise herself. “But what is this? My shoulder is wet, my throat, my hand—”

  “It is probably the evening dew on the grass,” said Woislaw gently.

  “No; it is blood!” she cried, springing up with horror in her tone. “See, my hand is full of blood!”

  “Oh, you are mistaken—surely mistaken,” said Woislaw, stammering. “Or perhaps the wound on your neck may have opened! Pray, feel whether this is the case.” He seized her hand and directed it to the spot.

  “I do not perceive anything; I feel no pain,” she said at length, somewhat angrily.

  “Then, perhaps, when you fainted you may have struck a corner of the coffin, or have torn yourself with the point of one of the nails,” suggested Woislaw.

  “Oh, of what do you remind me!” cried Franziska shuddering. “Let us away—away! I entreat you, come! I will not remain a moment longer near this dreadful, dreadful place.”

  They descended the path much quicker than they came. Woislaw placed his companion on her horse, and they were soon on their way home.

  When they approached the castle, Franziska began to inundate her protector with questions about the preceding adventure; but he declared that her present state of excitement must make him defer all explanations till the morning, when her curiosity should be satisfied. On their arrival, he conducted her at once to her room, and told the knight his daughter was too much fatigued with her ride to appear at the supper table. On the following morning, Franziska rose earlier than she had done for a long time. She assured her friend it was the first time since her illness commenced that she had been really refreshed by her sleep, and, what was still more remarkable, she had not been troubled by her old terrible dream. Her improved looks were not only remarked by Bertha, but by Franz and the knight; and with Woislaw’s permission, she related the adventures of the previous evening. No sooner had she concluded, than Woislaw was completely stormed with questions about such a strange occurrence.

  “Have you,” said the latter, turning towards his host, “ever heard of Vampires?”

  “Often,” replied he; “but I have never believed in them.”

  “Nor did I,” said Woislaw; “but I have been assured of their existence by experience.”

  “Oh, tell us what occurred,” cried Bertha eagerly, as a light seemed to dawn on her.

  “It was during my first campaign in Hungary,” began Woislaw, “when I was rendered helpless for some time by this sword-cut of a janizary across my face, and another on my shoulder. I had been taken into the house of a respectable family in a small town. It consisted of the father and mother, and a daughter about twenty years of age. They obtained their living by selling the very good wine of the country, and the taproom was always full of visitors. Although the family were well-to-do in the world, there seemed to brood over them a continual melancholy, caused by the constant illness of the only daughter, a very pretty and excellent girl. She had always bloomed like a rose, but for some months she had been getting so thin and wasted, and that without any satisfactory reason: they tried every means to restore her, but in vain. As the army had encamped quite in the neighbourhood, of course a number of people of all countries assembled in the tavern. Amongst these there was one man who came every evening, when the moon shone, who struck everybody by the peculiarity of his manners and appearance; he looked dried up and deathlike, and hardly spoke at all; but what he did say was bitter and sarcastic. Most attention was excited towards him by the circumstance, that although he always ordered a cup of the best wine, and now and then raised it to his lips, the cup was always as full after his departure as at first.”

  “This all agrees wonderfully with the appearance of Azzo,” said Bertha, deeply interested.

  “The daughter of the house,” continued Woislaw, “became daily worse, despite the aid not only of Christian doctors, but of many amongst the heathen prisoners, who were consulted in the hope that they might have some magical remedy to propose. It was singular that the girl always complained of a dream, in which the unknown guest worried and plagued her.”

  “Just the same as your dream, Franziska,” cried Bertha.

  “One evening,” resumed Woislaw, “an old Selavonian—who had made many voyages to Turkey and Greece, and had even seen the New World—and I were sitting over our wine, when the stranger entered, and sat down at the table. The bottle passed quickly between my friend and me, whilst we talked of all manner of things, of our adventures, and of passages in our lives, both horrible and amusing. We went on chatting thus for about an hour, and drank a tolerable quantity of wine. The unknown had remained perfectly silent the whole time, only smiling contemptuously every now and then. He now paid his money, and was going away. All this had quietly worried me—perhaps the wine had gotten a little into my head—so I said to the stranger: ‘Hold, you stony stranger; you have hitherto done nothing but listen, and have not even emptied your cup. Now you shall take your turn in telling us something amusing, and if you do not drink up your wine, it shall produce a quarrel between us.’ ‘Yes,’ said the Selavonian, ‘you must remain; you shall chat and drink, too’; and he grasped—for although no longer young, he was big and very strong—the stranger by the shoulder, to pull him down to his seat again: the latter, however, although as thin as a skeleton, with one movement of his hand flung the Selavonian to the middle of the room, and half stunned him for a moment. I now approached to hold the stranger back. I caught him by the arm; and although the springs of my iron hand were less powerful than those I have at present, I must have gripped him rather hard in my anger, for after looking grimly at me for a moment, he bent towards me and whispered in my ear: ‘Let me go: from the grip of your fist, I see you are my brother, therefore do not hinder me from seeking my bloody nourishment. I am hungry!’ Surprised by such words, I let him loose, and almost before I was aware of it, he had left the room. As soon as I had in some degree recovered from my astonishment, I told the Selavonian what I had heard. He started, evidently alarmed. I asked him to tell me the cause of his fears, and pressed him for an explanation of those extraordinary words. On our way to his lodging, he complied with my request. ‘The stranger,’ said he, ‘is a Vampire!’”

  “How?” cried the knight, Franziska, and Bertha simultaneously, in a voice of horror. “So this Azzo was—”

  “Nothing less. He also was a Vampire!” replied Woislaw. “But at all events his hellish thirst is quenched for ever; he will never return. But I have not finished. As in my country Vampires had never been heard of, I questioned the Selavonian minutely. He said that in Hungary, Croatia, Dalmatia, and Bosnia, these hellish guests were not uncommon. They were deceased persons, who had either once served as nourishment to Vampires, or who had died in deadly sin, or under excommunication; and that whenever the moon shone, they rose from their graves, and sucked the blood of the living.”

  “Horrible!” cried Franziska. “If you had told me all this beforehand, I should never have accomplished the work.”

  “So I thought; and yet it must be executed by the sufferers themselves, while someone else performs the devotions,” replied Woislaw. “The Selavonian,” he continued after a short pause, “added many other facts with regard to these unearthly visitants. He said that whilst their victim wasted, they themselves improved in appearance, and that a Vampire possessed enormous strength—”

  “Now I can understand the change your false hand produced on Azzo,” interrupted Franz.

  “Yes, that was it,” replied Woislaw. “Azzo, as well as the other Vampire, mistook its great power for that of a natural one, and concluded I was one of his own species. You may now imagine, dear lady,” he continued, turning to Franziska, “how alarmed I was at your appearance when I arrived: all you and Bertha told me increased my anxiety; and when I saw Azzo, I could doubt no longer that he was a Vampire. As I learned from your account that a grave with the name Ezzelin von Klatka lay in the neighbourhood, I had no doubt that yo
u might be saved if I could only induce you to assist me. It did not appear to me advisable to impart the whole facts of the case, for your bodily powers were so impaired, that an idea of the horrors before you might have quite unfitted you for the exertion; for this reason, I arranged everything in the manner in which it has taken place.”

  “You did wisely,” replied Franziska shuddering. “I can never be grateful enough to you. Had I known what was required of me, I never could have undertaken the deed.”

  “That was what I feared,” said Woislaw; “but fortune has favored us all through.”

  “And what became of the unfortunate girl in Hungary?” inquired Bertha.

  “I know not,” replied Woislaw. “That very evening there was an alarm of Turks, and we were ordered off. I never heard anything more of her.”

  The conversation upon these strange occurrences continued for some time longer. The knight determined to have the vault at Klatka walled up for ever. This took place on the following day; the knight alleging as a reason that he did not wish the dead to be disturbed by irreverent hands.

  Franziska recovered gradually. Her health had been so severely shaken, that it was long ere her strength was so much restored as to allow of her being considered out of danger. The young lady’s character underwent a great change in the interval. Its former strength was, perhaps, in some degree diminished, but in place of that, she had acquired a benevolent softness, which brought out all her best qualities. Franz continued his attentions to his cousin; but, perhaps owing to a hint from Bertha, he was less assiduous in his exhibition of them. His inclinations did not lead him to the battle, the camp, or the attainment of honours; his great aim was to increase the good condition and happiness of his tenants, and to this he contributed the whole energy of his mind. Franziska could not withstand the unobtrusive signs of the young man’s continued attachment; and it was not long ere the credit she was obliged to yield to his noble efforts for the welfare of his fellow-creatures, changed into a liking, which went on increasing, until at length it assumed the character of love. As Woislaw insisted on making Bertha his wife before he returned to Silesia, it was arranged that the marriage should take place at their present abode. How joyful was the surprise of the Knight of Fahnenberg, when his daughter and Franz likewise entreated his blessing, and expressed their desire of being united on the same day! That day soon came round, and it saw the bright looks of two happy couples.

  Anne Crawford

  (1846–?)

  ANNE CRAWFORD CAME FROM an American family distinguished in the arts. Her father was the sculptor Thomas Crawford, whose public works include the robed and plumed bronze figure atop the dome of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Her aunt was the poet Julia Ward Howe, author of the rousing abolitionist anthem “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” The artistic Crawford family produced a trio of writers—F. Marion, who wrote memorable horror stories such as “For the Blood Is the Life”; Mary, who, under her married name, Mrs. Hugh Fraser, wrote novels and memoirs and travel books; and Anne, who became Baroness Von Rabe and wrote under the pseudonym Von Degen. Both Marion and Mary were more prolific and successful writers than Anne, but neither wrote a better ghost story than “A Mystery of the Campagna.” Although there is also a small Italian town called Campagna, Crawford’s title refers to a populous region in southern Italy now usually spelled Campania. On the peninsula south of Rome, it is an area rich in history that dates well before the Roman Empire.

  This elegant tale first appeared in late 1886, in The Witching Time: Tales for the Year’s End, a compilation edited by Sir Henry Norman and published around Christmas as Unwin’s Annual for 1887. The volume also included her brother Marion’s story “By the Waters of Paradise,” as well as “The Hidden Door,” by a great writer of supernatural stories, Vernon Lee (the pseudonym of another important woman in the field, Violet Paget). Unwin’s Annual was a noble venue. The year before, it had included Marion’s now famous horror story “The Upper Berth,” as well as “Markheim,” by Robert Louis Stevenson.

  Unwin’s was published by the firm of T. Fisher Unwin, who in 1891 reprinted the following story and one other by Crawford in a double volume entitled A Mystery of the Campagna and A Shadow on the Wave. It was the nephew of this Unwin who founded the famous twentieth-century British publisher Allen and Unwin, who published such books as Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.

  A Mystery of the Campagna

  I

  Martin Detaille’s Account

  of What Happened at the Vigna Marziali

  MARCELLO’S VOICE IS PLEADING with me now, perhaps because after years of separation I have met an old acquaintance who had a part in his strange story. I have a longing to tell it, and have asked Monsieur Sutton to help me. He noted down the circumstances at the time, and he is willing to join his share to mine, that Marcello may be remembered.

  One day, it was in spring, he appeared in my little studio amongst the laurels and green alleys of the Villa Medici. “Come, mon enfant,” he said, “put up your paints”; and he unceremoniously took my palette out of my hand. “I have a cab waiting outside, and we are going in search of a hermitage.” He was already washing my brushes as he spoke, and this softened my heart, for I hate to do it myself. Then he pulled off my velvet jacket and took down my respectable coat from a nail on the wall. I let him dress me like a child. We always did his will, and he knew it, and in a moment we were sitting in the cab, driving through the Via Sistina on our way to the Porta San Giovanni, whither he had directed the coachman to go.

  I MUST TELL MY story as I can, for though I have been told by my comrades, who cannot know very well, that I can speak good English, writing it is another thing. Monsieur Sutton has asked me to use his tongue, because he has so far forgotten mine that he will not trust himself in it, though he has promised to correct my mistakes, that what I have to tell you may not seem ridiculous, and make people laugh when they read of Marcello. I tell him I wish to write this for my countrymen, not his; but he reminds me that Marcello had many English friends who still live, and that the English do not forget as we do. It is of no use to reason with him, for neither do they yield as we do, and so I have consented to his wish. I think he has a reason which he does not tell me, but let it go. I will translate it all into my own language for my own people. Your English phrases seem to me to be always walking sideways, or trying to look around the corner or stand upon their heads, and they have as many little tails as a kite. I will try not to have recourse to my own language, but he must pardon me if I forget myself. He may be sure I do not do it to offend him. Now that I have explained so much, let me go on.

  When we had passed out of the Porta San Giovanni, the coachman drove as slowly as possible; but Marcello was never practical. How could he be, I ask you, with an Opera in his head? So we crawled along, and he gazed dreamily before him. At last, when we had reached the part where the little villas and vineyards begin, he began to look about him.

  You all know how it is out there; iron gates with rusty names or initials over them, and beyond them straight walks bordered with roses and lavender leading up to a forlorn little casino, with trees and a wilderness behind it sloping down to the Campagna, lonely enough to be murdered in and no one to hear you cry. We stopped at several of these gates and Marcello stood looking in, but none of the places were to his taste. He seemed not to doubt that he might have whatever pleased him, but nothing did so. He would jump out and run to the gate, and return saying, “The shape of those windows would disturb my inspiration,” or, “That yellow paint would make me fail my duet in the second Act”; and once he liked the air of the house well enough, but there were marigolds growing in the walk, and he hated them. So we drove on and on, until I thought we should find nothing more to reject. At last we came to one which suited him, though it was terribly lonely, and I should have fancied it very agaçant to live so far away from the world with nothing but those melancholy olives and green oaks—ilexes, you call them—for company.


  “I shall live here and become famous!” he said, decidedly, as he pulled the iron rod which rang a great bell inside. We waited, and then he rang again very impatiently and stamped his foot.

  “No one lives here, mon vieux! Come, it is getting late, and it is so damp out here, and you know that the damp for a tenor voice—” He stamped his foot again and interrupted me angrily.

  “Why, then, have you got a tenor? You are stupid! A bass would be more sensible; nothing hurts it. But you have not got one, and you call yourself my friend! Go home without me.” How could I, so far on foot? “Go and sing your lovesick songs to your lean English misses! They will thank you with a cup of abominable tea, and you will be in Paradise! This is my Paradise, and I shall stay until the angel comes to open it!”

  He was very cross and unreasonable, and those were just the times when one loved him most, so I waited and enveloped my throat in my pocket handkerchief and sang a passage or two just to prevent my voice from becoming stiff in that damp air.

  “Be still! silence yourself!” he cried. “I cannot hear if anyone is coming.”

  Someone came at last, a rough-looking sort of keeper, or guardiano as they are called there, who looked at us as though he thought we were mad. One of us certainly was, but it was not I. Marcello spoke pretty good Italian, with a French accent, it is true, but the man understood him, especially as he held his purse in his hand. I heard him say a great many impetuously persuasive things all in one breath, then he slipped a gold piece into the guardiano’s horny hand, and the two turned towards the house, the man shrugging his shoulders in a resigned sort of way, and Marcello called out to me over his shoulder—

  “Go home in the cab, or you will be late for your horrible English party! I am going to stay here tonight.” Ma foi! I took his permission and left him; for a tenor voice is as tyrannical as a jealous woman. Besides, I was furious, and yet I laughed. His was the artist temperament, and appeared to us by turns absurd, sublime, and intensely irritating; but this last never for long, and we all felt that were we more like him our pictures would be worth more. I had not got as far as the city gate when my temper had cooled, and I began to reproach myself for leaving him in that lonely place with his purse full of money, for he was not poor at all, and tempting the dark guardiano to murder him. Nothing could be easier than to kill him in his sleep and bury him away somewhere under the olive trees or in some old vault of a ruined catacomb, so common on the borders of the Campagna. There were sure to be a hundred convenient places. I stopped the coachman and told him to turn back, but he shook his head and said something about having to be in the Piazza of St. Peter at eight o’clock. His horse began to go lame, as though he had understood his master and was his accomplice. What could I do? I said to myself that it was fate, and let him take me back to the Villa Medici, where I had to pay him a pretty sum for our crazy expedition, and then he rattled off, the horse not lame at all, leaving me bewildered at this strange afternoon.