by Bram Stoker
“You seem, Flora, to have hurt your neck — there is a wound.”
“A wound!” said the mother, and she brought a light close to the bed, where all saw on the side of Flora’s neck a small punctured wound; or, rather two, for there was one a little distance from the other.
It was from these wounds the blood had come which was observable upon her night clothing.
“How came these wounds?” said Henry.
“I do not know,” she replied. “I feel very faint and weak, as if I had almost bled to death.”
“You cannot have done so, dear Flora, for there are not above half-a-dozen spots of blood to be seen at all.”
Mr. Marchdale leaned against the carved head of the bed for support, and he uttered a deep groan. All eyes were turned upon him, and Henry said, in a voice of the most anxious inquiry, —
“You have something to say, Mr. Marchdale, which will throw some light upon this affair.”
“No, no, no, nothing!” cried Mr. Marchdale, rousing himself at once from the appearance of depression that had come over him. “I have nothing to say, but that I think Flora had better get some sleep if she can.”
“No sleep-no sleep for me,” again screamed Flora. “Dare I be alone to sleep?”
“But you shall not be alone, dear Flora,” said Henry. “I will sit by your bedside and watch you.”
She took his hand in both hers, and while the tears chased each other down her cheeks, she said, —
“Promise me, Henry, by all your hopes of Heaven, you will not leave me.”
“I promise!”
She gently laid herself down, with a deep sigh, and closed her eyes.
“She is weak, and will sleep long,” said Mr. Marchdale.
“You sigh,” said Henry. “Some fearful thoughts, I feel certain, oppress your heart.”
“Hush-hush!” said Mr. Marchdale, as he pointed to Flora. “Hush! not here — not here.”
“I understand,” said Henry.
“Let her sleep.”
There was a silence of some few minutes duration. Flora had dropped into a deep slumber. That silence was first broken by George, who said, —
“Mr. Marchdale, look at that portrait.”
He pointed to the portrait in the frame to which we have alluded, and the moment Marchdale looked at it he sunk into a chair as he exclaimed, —
“Gracious Heaven, how like!”
“It is — it is,” said Henry. “Those eyes — ”
“And see the contour of the countenance, and the strange shape of the mouth.”
“Exact — exact.”
“That picture shall be moved from here. The sight of it is at once sufficient to awaken all her former terrors in poor Flora’s brain if she should chance to awaken and cast her eyes suddenly upon it.”
“And is it so like him who came here?” said the mother.
“It is the very man himself,” said Mr. Marchdale. “I have not been in this house long enough to ask any of you whose portrait that may be?”
“It is,” said Henry, “the portrait of Sir Runnagate Bannerworth, an ancestor of ours, who first, by his vices, gave the great blow to the family prosperity.”
“Indeed. How long ago?”
“About ninety years.”
“Ninety years. ‘Tis a long while — ninety years.”
“You muse upon it.”
“No, no. I do wish, and yet I dread — ”
“What?”
“To say something to you all. But not here — not here. We will hold a consultation on this matter to-morrow. Not now — not now.”
“The daylight is coming quickly on,” said Henry; “I shall keep my sacred promise of not moving from this room until Flora awakens; but there can be no occasion for the detention of any of you. One is sufficient here. Go all of you, and endeavour to procure what rest you can.”
“I will fetch you my powder-flask and bullets,” said Mr. Marchdale; “and you can, if you please, reload the pistols. In about two hours more it will be broad daylight.”
This arrangement was adopted. Henry did reload the pistols, and placed them on a table by the side of the bed, ready for immediate action, and then, as Flora was sleeping soundly, all left the room but himself.
Mrs. Bannerworth was the last to do so. She would have remained, but for the earnest solicitation of Henry, that she would endeavour to get some sleep to make up for her broken night’s repose, and she was indeed so broken down by her alarm on Flora’s account, that she had not power to resist, but with tears flowing from her eyes, she sought her own chamber.
And now the calmness of the night resumed its sway in that evil-fated mansion; and although no one really slept but Flora, all were still. Busy thought kept every one else wakeful. It was a mockery to lie down at all, and Henry, full of strange and painful feelings as he was, preferred his present position to the anxiety and apprehension on Flora’s account which he knew he should feel if she were not within the sphere of his own observation, and she slept as soundly as some gentle infant tired of its playmates and its sports.
CHAPTER IV.
THE MORNING. — THE CONSULTATION. — THE FEARFUL SUGGESTION.
What wonderfully different impressions and feelings, with regard to the same circumstances, come across the mind in the broad, clear, and beautiful light of day to what haunt the imagination, and often render the judgment almost incapable of action, when the heavy shadow of night is upon all things.
There must be a downright physical reason for this effect — it is so remarkable and so universal. It seems that the sun’s rays so completely alter and modify the constitution of the atmosphere, that it produces, as we inhale it, a wonderfully different effect upon the nerves of the human subject.
We can account for this phenomenon in no other way. Perhaps never in his life had he, Henry Bannerworth, felt so strongly this transition of feeling as he now felt it, when the beautiful daylight gradually dawned upon him, as he kept his lonely watch by the bedside of his slumbering sister.
That watch had been a perfectly undisturbed one. Not the least sight or sound of any intrusion had reached his senses. All had been as still as the very grave.
And yet while the night lasted, and he was more indebted to the rays of the candle, which he had placed upon a shelf, for the power to distinguish objects than to the light of the morning, a thousand uneasy and strange sensations had found a home in his agitated bosom.
He looked so many times at the portrait which was in the panel that at length he felt an undefined sensation of terror creep over him whenever he took his eyes off it.
He tried to keep himself from looking at it, but he found it vain, so he adopted what, perhaps, was certainly the wisest, best plan, namely, to look at it continually.
He shifted his chair so that he could gaze upon it without any effort, and he placed the candle so that a faint light was thrown upon it, and there he sat, a prey to many conflicting and uncomfortable feelings, until the daylight began to make the candle flame look dull and sickly.
Solution for the events of the night he could find none. He racked his imagination in vain to find some means, however vague, of endeavouring to account for what occurred, and still he was at fault. All was to him wrapped in the gloom of the most profound mystery.
And how strangely, too, the eyes of that portrait appeared to look upon him — as if instinct with life, and as if the head to which they belonged was busy in endeavouring to find out the secret communings of his soul. It was wonderfully well executed that portrait; so life-like, that the very features seemed to move as you gazed upon them.
“It shall be removed,” said Henry. “I would remove it now, but that it seems absolutely painted on the panel, and I should awake Flora in any attempt to do so.”
He arose and ascertained that such was the case, and that it would require a workman, with proper tools adapted to the job, to remove the portrait.
“True,” he said, “I might now destroy it, but i
t is a pity to obscure a work of such rare art as this is; I should blame myself if I were. It shall be removed to some other room of the house, however.”
Then, all of a sudden, it struck Henry how foolish it would be to remove the portrait from the wall of a room which, in all likelihood, after that night, would be uninhabited; for it was not probable that Flora would choose again to inhabit a chamber in which she had gone through so much terror.
“It can be left where it is,” he said, “and we can fasten up, if we please, even the very door of this room, so that no one need trouble themselves any further about it.”
The morning was now coming fast, and just as Henry thought he would partially draw a blind across the window, in order to shield from the direct rays of the sun the eyes of Flora, she awoke.
“Help — help!” she cried, and Henry was by her side in a moment.
“You are safe, Flora — you are safe,” he said.
“Where is it now?” she said.
“What — what, dear Flora?”
“The dreadful apparition. Oh, what have I done to be made thus perpetually miserable?”
“Think no more of it, Flora.”
“I must think. My brain is on fire! A million of strange eyes seem gazing on me.”
“Great Heaven! she raves,” said Henry.
“Hark — hark — hark! He comes on the wings of the storm. Oh, it is most horrible — horrible!”
Henry rang the bell, but not sufficiently loudly to create any alarm. The sound reached the waking ear of the mother, who in a few moments was in the room.
“She has awakened,” said Henry, “and has spoken, but she seems to me to wander in her discourse. For God’s sake, soothe her, and try to bring her mind round to its usual state.”
“I will, Henry — I will.”
“And I think, mother, if you were to get her out of this room, and into some other chamber as far removed from this one as possible, it would tend to withdraw her mind from what has occurred.”
“Yes; it shall be done. Oh, Henry, what was it — what do you think it was?”
“I am lost in a sea of wild conjecture. I can form no conclusion; where is Mr. Marchdale?”
“I believe in his chamber.”
“Then I will go and consult with him.”
Henry proceeded at once to the chamber, which was, as he knew, occupied by Mr. Marchdale; and as he crossed the corridor, he could not but pause a moment to glance from a window at the face of nature.
As is often the case, the terrific storm of the preceding evening had cleared the air, and rendered it deliciously invigorating and lifelike. The weather had been dull, and there had been for some days a certain heaviness in the atmosphere, which was now entirely removed.
The morning sun was shining with uncommon brilliancy, birds were singing in every tree and on every bush; so pleasant, so spirit-stirring, health-giving a morning, seldom had he seen. And the effect upon his spirits was great, although not altogether what it might have been, had all gone on as it usually was in the habit of doing at that house. The ordinary little casualties of evil fortune had certainly from time to time, in the shape of illness, and one thing or another, attacked the family of the Bannerworths in common with every other family, but here suddenly had arisen a something at once terrible and inexplicable.
He found Mr. Marchdale up and dressed, and apparently in deep and anxious thought. The moment he saw Henry, he said, —
“Flora is awake, I presume.”
“Yes, but her mind appears to be much disturbed.”
“From bodily weakness, I dare say.”
“But why should she be bodily weak? she was strong and well, ay, as well as she could ever be in all her life. The glow of youth and health was on her cheeks. Is it possible that, in the course of one night, she should become bodily weak to such an extent?”
“Henry,” said Mr. Marchdale, sadly, “sit down. I am not, as you know, a superstitious man.”
“You certainly are not.”
“And yet, I never in all my life was so absolutely staggered as I have been by the occurrences of to-night.”
“Say on.”
“There is a frightful, a hideous solution of them; one which every consideration will tend to add strength to, one which I tremble to name now, although, yesterday, at this hour, I should have laughed it to scorn.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes, it is so. Tell no one that which I am about to say to you. Let the dreadful suggestion remain with ourselves alone, Henry Bannerworth.”
“I — I am lost in wonder.”
“You promise me?”
“What — what?”
“That you will not repeat my opinion to any one.”
“I do.”
“On your honour.”
“On my honour, I promise.”
Mr. Marchdale rose, and proceeding to the door, he looked out to see that there were no listeners near. Having ascertained then that they were quite alone, he returned, and drawing a chair close to that on which Henry sat, he said, —
“Henry, have you never heard of a strange and dreadful superstition which, in some countries, is extremely rife, by which it is supposed that there are beings who never die.”
“Never die!”
“Never. In a word, Henry, have you never heard of — of — I dread to pronounce the word.”
“Speak it. God of Heaven! let me hear it.”
“A vampyre!”
Henry sprung to his feet. His whole frame quivered with emotion; the drops of perspiration stood upon his brow, as, in, a strange, hoarse voice, he repeated the words, —
“A vampyre!”
“Even so; one who has to renew a dreadful existence by human blood — one who lives on for ever, and must keep up such a fearful existence upon human gore — one who eats not and drinks not as other men — a vampyre.”
Henry dropped into his scat, and uttered a deep groan of the most exquisite anguish.
“I could echo that groan,” said Marchdale, “but that I am so thoroughly bewildered I know not what to think.”
“Good God — good God!”
“Do not too readily yield belief in so dreadful a supposition, I pray you.”
“Yield belief!” exclaimed Henry, as he rose, and lifted up one of his hands above his head. “No; by Heaven, and the great God of all, who there rules, I will not easily believe aught so awful and so monstrous.”
“I applaud your sentiment, Henry; not willingly would I deliver up myself to so frightful a belief — it is too horrible. I merely have told you of that which you saw was on my mind. You have surely before heard of such things.”
“I have — I have.”
“I much marvel, then, that the supposition did not occur to you, Henry.”
“It did not — it did not, Marchdale. It — it was too dreadful, I suppose, to find a home in my heart. Oh! Flora, Flora, if this horrible idea should once occur to you, reason cannot, I am quite sure, uphold you against it.”
“Let no one presume to insinuate it to her, Henry. I would not have it mentioned to her for worlds.”
“Nor I — nor I. Good God! I shudder at the very thought — the mere possibility; but there is no possibility, there can be none. I will not believe it.”
“Nor I.”
“No; by Heaven’s justice, goodness, grace, and mercy, I will not believe it.”
“Tis well sworn, Henry; and now, discarding the supposition that Flora has been visited by a vampyre, let us seriously set about endeavouring, if we can, to account for what has happened in this house.”
“I — I cannot now.”
“Nay, let us examine the matter; if we can find any natural explanation, let us cling to it, Henry, as the sheet-anchor of our very souls.”
“Do you think. You are fertile in expedients. Do you think, Marchdale; and, for Heaven’s sake, and for the sake of our own peace, find out some other way of accounting for what has happened, than the hideous one you hav
e suggested.”
“And yet my pistol bullets hurt him not; he has left the tokens of his presence on the neck of Flora.”
“Peace, oh! peace. Do not, I pray you, accumulate reasons why I should receive such a dismal, awful superstition. Oh, do not, Marchdale, as you love me!”
“You know that my attachment to you,” said Marchdale, “is sincere; and yet, Heaven help us!”
His voice was broken by grief as he spoke, and he turned aside his head to hide the bursting tears that would, despite all his efforts, show themselves in his eyes.
“Marchdale,” added Henry, after a pause of some moments’ duration, “I will sit up to-night with my sister.”
“Do — do!”
“Think you there is a chance it may come again?”
“I cannot — I dare not speculate upon the coming of so dreadful a visitor, Henry; but I will hold watch with you most willingly.”
“You will, Marchdale?”
“My hand upon it. Come what dangers may, I will share them with you, Henry.”
“A thousand thanks. Say nothing, then, to George of what we have been talking about. He is of a highly susceptible nature, and the very idea of such a thing would kill him.”
“I will; be mute. Remove your sister to some other chamber, let me beg of you, Henry; the one she now inhabits will always be suggestive of horrible thoughts.”
“I will; and that dreadful-looking portrait, with its perfect likeness to him who came last night.”
“Perfect indeed. Do you intend to remove it?”
“I do not. I thought of doing so; but it is actually on the panel in the wall, and I would not willingly destroy it, and it may as well remain where it is in that chamber, which I can readily now believe will become henceforward a deserted one in this house.”
“It may well become such.”
“Who comes here? I hear a step.”
There was a tip at the door at this moment, and George made his appearance in answer to the summons to come in. He looked pale and ill; his face betrayed how much he had mentally suffered during that night, and almost directly he got into the bed-chamber he said, —
I shall, I am sure, be censured by you both for what I am going to say; but I cannot help saying it, nevertheless, for to keep it to myself would destroy me.”