Vathek and Other Stories

by William Beckford

  Some time about the year 1715 it was given out that the young lady he had married two or three years before was dead; and to all appearance she was buried in the same vault where his mother had been laid some eighteen or twenty months before, and no more questions were asked about her.

  The ’Squire went away soon afterwards, and staid some months. It was always a joyous time for the people who had any dealings with him when he was absent; for he was of such a hard and cruel nature, that his dependents trembled before him.

  .After being absent eighteen or twenty months he came home with a lady, quite a young creature, whom he had married in London; and then it was given out that he intended to live more sociable among his neighbours, and that his lady would keep such company as the country afforded. But the man himself was so hated and disliked, that none of the better sort of people round would go to see him.1 The Rector dined with him twice, and saw the young lady, his new-married wife. She was a very pretty and agreeable person; but seemed so low-spirited and dejected, that it made his heart ache to see her. She looked, while she sat at the head of the table, like one who was suffering without daring to complain; and every now and then her husband seemed to fix his fierce and angry eyes on her, as if he was not willing her sorrowfulness should be remarked by the stranger.

  The Rector liking the ways of Grimshaw less and less, went no more; and the same gloomy silence and seclusion reigned about the house as was seen there before. Hardly any body ever appeared in the family but the favourite housekeeper, who still governed every thing; and whenever the ‘Squire was seen, it was only in some act of tyranny, or in a storm of passion and fury, and he seemed to grow worse and worse every day; so that his house was looked upon like the den of a wild beast, which all people were afraid to enter.

  In 1715 was the rebellion,2 and it was said that the ’Squire was gone out to join one of the associations that were made: there was not a soul in the neighbourhood for twenty miles about, but what would have been glad to have heard that he had met the rebels, and that they had knocked him on the head. As to the poor lady, his wife, she appeared no more; and there were people who scrupled not to say, that she was unfairly dealt by, or spirited away as the other unhappy young gentlewoman had been before.

  One dark night, towards the end of November, Mr Jackson, rector, who was going on a journey the next day, went to the window of his room at the rectory to look at the weather, when he thought he saw something white move among the trees in the orchard: – he opened the casement and spoke: nobody answered: he spoke louder, saying, ‘Who is there?’ A low murmuring voice was heard, as of a person endeavouring in vain to utter the complaints that pain or terror would have extorted. Mr Jackson held the candle out of the window, and, looking earnestly down thought he saw a female kneeling on the ground, with lifted hands in the attitude of imploring succour. He spoke again, and the effort to answer was repeated by the person beneath him.

  Mr Jackson was a timid and retired man, an invalid for many years: he had another living in a pleasanter part of the country, near Lincoln, and never resided here longer than he was compelled to do, by the ill-natured attempts made by some of his parishioners to deprive him of his benefice for non-residence…. His feeble spirits were strangely alarmed by the general appearance of the figure on which the light fell, but the features he could not discern. He trembled, he hesitated, and then he heard again a sort of stifled sound of moaning; and not having courage to open his door, though he hardly knew of what he was afraid, he rang the bell at the head of his bed, and at the same time knocked loudly against the wainscot1 with a stick. His only servants, a woman who had long had the care of his house, and her husband who worked in the garden and took care of the horse, were presently roused and came to the door, demanding to know what was the matter? Their master, having let them in, directed them to look from the window, where they both saw the same figure; but now, instead of its former attitude of supplication, it seemed to have fallen against the wall of the house, where motionless it lay half stretched on the ground.

  ‘Tis a woman!’ said James Walling, the labourer, ‘and, to my thinking, she is dead!’

  ‘Some traveller, I warrant,’ cried his wife: ‘there a been two or three to our door to-day.’

  The man of peace and charity felt for a moment that it was his duty, as a clergyman and a christian, to shelter and relieve her whatever she might be; but fears, of he knew not what, among which some apprehensions of expence failed not to mingle themselves, half deterred him. The servant man had more bowels and fewer scruples; and though his wife muttered some half sentence against it, he went down unbidden, and, approaching the unhappy object on the ground, while Mr Jackson and the woman looked at him from the open window, he cried out to them, that it was no traveller nor beggar, but looked somewhat like a lady, but she was quite cold and senseless, and he believed dead. However, without staying for orders, which Mr Jackson seemed still but half disposed to give, he took her up in his arms and carried her into the kitchen, where he placed her before the covered embers, on the hearth. His master and the woman now descended, the care of the first was immediately directed to the door, which he carefully fastened within side, while James said to his wife, ‘Why don’t you look at the poor young gentlewoman, and see what help you can give her if she isn’t quite dead? How can you have such a heart? I think I have seen this poor woman before, I don’t know where but be that how ’twill, don’t let her die without help.’

  This awakened something like humanity; and indeed, what little could ever be produced in the half-petrified bosom of the woman, could not but be engaged on contemplating the piteous object before her. She now began to rub the palms of her hands, and, taking some brandy from a cupboard, chafed her temples and applied it to her nose.

  After a while the young person opened her eyes; and the first use she made of her speech was to conjure Mr Jackson, in a feeble voice, not to let her be carried back to Barton-Marsh House. It proved to be the poor young lady, wife to ’Squire Grimshaw, who, in a dying condition, had escaped from the den of her merciless tyrant, and entreated Mr Jackson to afford her his protection; as the horrors she underwent at the manor house (not only from his cruelty and her extreme detestation of him, and from the insolence and inhumanity of the woman set over her, but from an apparition that continually disturbed her and prevented her ever sleeping, when her barbarous persecutors left her any repose), were so great, her misery became such, that it was impossible to endure it any longer. Mr Jackson, timid and cautious in his nature, was, from habits of interested compliance, abjectly afraid of offending any rich or powerful man; he therefore hesitated whether he should receive and protect the unhappy young creature who had thus thrown herself upon his mercy: yet he could not look upon her, nor listen to the plaintive and trembling voice in which she attempted incoherently to relate her wretched condition, without feeling it to be his duty, as a christian and a man, to defend her. His natural cowardice, however, and the extreme fear that Grimshaw inspired in the neighbourhood, would have prevented the good effects of these feelings, if his servant, who had more spirit and humanity than himself, and by whom he was very much governed, had not declared, that ‘while he had a drop of blood left the poor gentlewoman should not be forced back by no such hard-hearted tyrant as the ’Squire.’ His wife praised his resolution; and their master considering that he was to go away in the morning, and of course might escape being any party in the business if Grimshaw should be troublesome, consented to let the poor young woman be led by the female servant to a bed, where he left her without farther enquiry, and at day-break set forward as he had intended on his journey.

  The woman, though of a harsh, cold, and covetous disposition, was moved by the wretched situation of the unfortunate young person; and her interest came in aid of her compassion, when she earned that the family of Mrs Grimshaw were rich tradesmen in London; and that though she had been sacrificed to her wicked and cruel husband, in order to leave more money at the dispo
sal of her father for a favourite son; yet, her father being as she believed dead, her mother and an uncle, as well as that brother himself to whose advantage her father had made her a victim, would now, she was sure, not only receive and protect her, but handsomely reward the humane people who should be the means of her preservation.

  She wrote a few lines to her mother as soon as she had strength to hold a pen; but from long disuse and great feebleness in her hands she could hardly make what she wrote legible. Walling set out with the letter, and put it himself into the post at the next market town, giving his wife a strict caution not to say a word to any of their few neighbours, as to their having a stranger in their house; for he observed, that though the ’Squire was gone from the Marsh House, yet Madam Hannah, as she was called, would soon set out after her mistress, and try to be sure to hinder her from telling tales – perhapsby killing her for good and all. ‘I know well enough,’ said the honest clown, ‘that there have been desperate bad doings in that there house, and I warrant they wou’d not stick at nothing. This poor young gentlewoman is much to be pitied, and if I can help it she shall not be delivered no more into such wicked hands, for to be certain it is well known that t’other pretty young creature did not come fairly by her end, and I warrant the lady here knows that by more tokens than one.’

  Mrs Walling had an old grudge against the ’Squire for having destroyed a whole litter of her pigs with his hounds in mere wantonness as he returned from hunting, for which he had refused to make the least reparation: she assented, therefore, to all her husband said, and promised to conceal from all her neighbours that Mrs Grimshaw had taken refuge in their house.

  To this unhappy young lady she now set about administering such relief as was in her power but so great had been her sufferings, her small and feeble frame was so emaciated from the effects of terror, famine, and want of rest, that she appeared unlikely ever to recover, or even to live till her friends could come to her. Honest Walling now began to hope, that, since three days were passed, her persecutors were afraid of making any enquiries after her; and as she seemed to him, as well as to his wife, to be in a dying condition, he determined not to wait for news from London, but to apply to some of the the nearest gentlemen for their advice, and to fetch an apothecary from the next town. Regardless, therefore, of the cautious fears of his wife, who recurred now and then to her former apprehensions of their getting into trouble, he once more set forth on his benevolent purpose of procuring relief for the sick lady.

  The first gentleman to whom he applied, and who lived at the distance of eleven miles, was even more the enemy of Mr Grimshaw than the other magistrates and people of fortune in the county; for he was quite of another party, and a great sportsman, in both of which characters the politics and pursuits of Grimshaw grievously interfered with him. He listened eagerly, therefore, to the melancholy tale told him by Walling; and delighted with the occasion, which he thought presented itself, of crushing a man he hated, he promised Walling all the assistance that could be given to the lady but, with more prudence than he generally possessed, advised, that another gentleman who lived nine or ten miles the other way, and who was remarkable for his benevolence, as well as knowledge of the law, might be applied to also. Walling again set forth, and obtained not only an hearing from this worthy man, but an assurance of the most immediate and effectual steps being taken towards the relief of the poor lady, for Mrs Bargrove, the lady of this gentleman, proposed setting out herself, and bringing the unfortunate Mrs Grimshaw to her house; while Mr Bargrove himself took measures for a proper enquiry into the ill-treatment she had received, to which he imputed the strange conversation she had told; imagining, as was indeed very probable, that weakness and terror had alienated her reason.

  On the arrival of Mrs Bargrove at the parsonage house, attended by Walling, whom she had directed to be assisted by the loan of a horse; the woman, Mrs Walling, was found surrounded in the kitchen by all the gossips in the neighbourhood, and four stout clowns, who, till they discovered who the party were, had resisted their admission. They no sooner saw the good and benevolent Mrs Bargrove was come to direct them, than she was surrounded by the rustic group; and while some of the women bustled about to make a fire in the best room, and get the best accommodations ready for Madam, Mrs Walling, who could not resist the pleasure of relating all she knew, began to tell how (almost as soon as her husband was gone) they were alarmed by a visit from Mistress Hannah from the great house; ‘who, first of all, Madam,’ said Mrs Walling, ‘came all at once upon me, as I was a ierning in our kitchen. Lord! when I see her I was in such a way, one mid have a knock’d me down wi a straw!–So up she comes, and says she, “So, Dame Wallings, how do you?” –Says I, but I’m sure I was as white as that there wall, “Pretty well, thank you, Madam Hannah; how be all you?” – “Oh!” said she, “much as one; master ben’t at home. – These are troublesome times, Dame Walling.” –“ Aye, Ma’am,” said I, “the be so indeed – but the worse luck’s ours.” – “So the ’Squire’s at the wars, I suppose.” – “Yes; he’s a Captain now, Dame,” said she, “and gone to fight the Scotch rebuls agin his king and country.”1 So I took no notice, but went on ierning; and I minded that she looked about the room, and about the room, and at last she said, “This here house seems to me to be a better house than I thoft: I should like to see your bed chambers, Dame.” –“There’s nothing to see, Mrs Hannah,” I answered, but I was read to drop, I was in such a fright; “and beside,” said I, “Master have guied2 me orders not to shew nobody them rooms on no account.” – “Never mind,” cried the bold hussey; so she slipped by me, and up she went, and without more ado popped into the room where the poor young lady was lying on the bed, in some poor clothes of mine that I had lent her while her own were washed. O dear! if you had but seen her, poor young thing! she gave a shriek, and then fell back dead on the bed, all one as if she had been shot. So with that I told Madam Hannah that she should not stay there, let what would come of it; and our Sam and Jack Pilcocks at Mill coming in just then, which was lucky enough, I bid um come up; and giving them to understand what was the matter, they turned the impudent woman down stairs, and out of the house; and Pilcocks he was in such a passion wi her, that he swore if she did not tramp off he would roll her in the ditch without more ado: aye, and drag her through the horse-pond – for he knew her, he said, of old. Well! so when we’d got her out of the house, and bolted all the doors, I went up again to the poor lady, who came by little and little out of her fit; but the minnut she opened her eyes she screamed out again–“Oh! save me, save me – Oh! there is Hannah – Oh! cruel, cruel!– ”and so she went on, and have gone on ever since – quite gone and lost as one may say: and every now and then she frights me so that I think I shall be as bad as she; for she cries out, that there’s the spectre of the murder’d somebody and her child; and then she speaks to something she fancies she sees, and says, “No, no, poor Gertrude; I am not gone – Iam coming to you – the monster still holds me; Oh! don’t help him! poor Gertrude!” And so she goes on from time to time; but never has she spoke one word reasonable, as one may say, ever since Hannah’s visit; and I’m certain, that if she was to see her again, or if the ’Squire himself was to attempt for to see her, she would die that very moment upon the spot.’

  From this account, which, though it was very tedious, Mrs Bargrove patiently listened to, she found it would be very difficult to introduce herself, a stranger as she was, to the poor sufferer, without a great risk of making her worse. However, by the help of a skilful apothecary, and the great care and goodness of Mrs Bargrove, who attended her with the utmost care and humanity, she was well enough at the end of three days to be moved to Mr Bargrove’s house; and the same day of her removal her brother came with two friends from London, determined to rescue her at all events from the hands of her wicked husband, whose conduct her surviving friends had always suspected to be bad towards her, though they had no idea how bad it was, nor how much she had suffered. It was not b
efore a considerable time, and only by degrees, that Mrs Bargrove heard the following account of all the terrors she had gone through; which, though she heard it only at intervals, as the poor young lady could relate it, she collected in a narrative:

  ‘I am sure,’ said the poor young woman, who was hardly nineteen, ‘that had my father known three years ago, when he married me to Mr Grimshaw, the wretchedness to which he condemned me, nothing would have induced him to have so sacrificed me.’

  Mrs Bargrove tenderly enquired to what family she belonged

  ‘My father, Madam,’ said Mrs Grimshaw, ‘was a substantial tradesman in London, my mother, the daughter of a wealthy citizen. I was well brought up; and we might all have lived in competence if my father had not thought proper to take up an opinion that his son only must be amply provided for, and that his daughters must do as well as they could. He hoped he said to see his son Lord Mayor;1 his daughters must marry whoever would have them. It was in pursuance of this plan that I was, I believe, sent to the house of the person who had married one of my sisters, when it was known Mr Grimshaw was to be there. He passed for a widower, and a country gentleman of large fortune. Unhappily, he took a liking to me; while I, the moment I saw him, felt myself tremble, and a deadly cold seemed to strike my heart. I shrunk from his civilities with terror and disgust; and when he was gone, my brother-in-law rallying me upon the conquest, as he called it, that I had made, I burst into tears. The next day, however, he came to my father’s house, and again the sight of him made me shudder, and his voice struck cold to my heart.