The Penny Dreadfuls MEGAPACK™

by Oscar Wilde

  The day wore on, evening came, and then deepened into night. It turned out to be a cloudy night, and therefore the moon’s brilliance was nothing near equal to what it had been on the preceding night Still, however, it had sufficient power over the vapours that frequently covered it for many minutes together, to produce a considerable light effect upon the face of nature, and the night was consequently very far, indeed, from what might be called a dark one.

  George, Henry, and Marchdale, met in one of the lower rooms of the house, previous to starting upon their expedition; and after satisfying themselves that they had with them all the tools that were necessary, inclusive of the same small, but well-tempered iron crow-bar with which Marchdale had, on the night of the visit of the vampire, forced open the door of Flora’s chamber, they left the hall, and proceeded at a rapid pace towards the church.

  “And Flora does not seem much alarmed,” said Marchdale, “at being left alone?”

  “No,” replied Henry, “she has made up her mind with a strong natural courage which I knew was in her disposition to resist as much as possible the depressing effects of the awful visitation she has endured.”

  “It would have driven some really mad.”

  “It would, indeed; and her own reason tottered on its throne, but, thank Heaven, she has recovered.”

  “And I fervently hope that, through her life,” added Marchdale, “she may never have such another trial.”

  “We will not for a moment believe that such a thing can occur twice.”

  “She is one among a thousand. Most young girls would never at all have recovered the fearful shock to the nerves.”

  “Not only has she recovered,” said Henry, “but a spirit, which I am rejoiced to see, because it is one which will uphold her, of resistance now possesses her.”

  “Yes, she actually—I forgot to tell you before—but she actually asked me for arms to resist any second visitation.”

  “You much surprise me.”

  “Yes, I was surprised, as well as pleased, myself.”

  “I would have left her one of my pistols had I been aware of her having made such a request. Do you know if she can use fire-arms?”

  “Oh, yes; well.”

  “What a pity. I have them both with me.”

  “Oh, she is provided.”

  “Provided?”

  “Yes; I found some pistols which I used to take with me on the continent, and she has them both well loaded, so that if the vampire makes his appearance, he is likely to meet with rather a warm reception.”

  “Good God! was it not dangerous?”

  “Not at all, I think.”

  “Well, you know best, certainly, of course. I hope the vampire may come, and that we may have the pleasure, when we return, of finding him dead. By-the-bye, I—I—. Bless me, I have forgot to get the materials for lights, which I pledged myself to do.”

  “How unfortunate.”

  “Walk on slowly, while I run back and get them.”

  “Oh, we are too far—”

  “Hilloa!” cried a man at this moment, some distance in front of them.

  “It is Mr. Chillingworth,” said Henry.

  “Hilloa,” cried the worthy doctor again. “Is that you, my friend, Henry Bannerworth?”

  “It is,” cried Henry.

  Mr. Chillingworth now came up to them and said—

  “I was before my time, so rather than wait at the church porch, which would have exposed me to observation perhaps, I thought it better to walk on, and chance meeting with you.”

  “You guessed we should come this way?’

  “Yes, and so it turns out, really. It is unquestionably your most direct route to the church.”

  “I think I will go back,” said Mr Marchdale.

  “Back!” exclaimed the doctor; “what for?”

  “I forgot the means of getting lights. We have candles, but no means of lighting them.”

  “Make yourselves easy on that score,” said Mr. Chillingworth. “I am never without some chemical matches of my own manufacture, so that as you have the candles, that can be no bar to our going on a once.”

  “That is fortunate,” said Henry.

  “Very,” added Marchdale; “for it seems a mile’s hard walking for me, or at least half a mile from the hall. Let us now push on.”

  They did push on, all four walking at a brisk pace. The church, although it belonged to the village, was not in it. On the contrary, it was situated at the end of a long lane, which was a mile nearly from the village, in the direction of the hall, therefore, in going to it from the hall, that amount of distance was saved, although it was always called and considered the village church.

  It stood alone, with the exception of a glebe house and two cottages, that were occupied by persons who held situations about the sacred edifice, and who were supposed, being on the spot, to keep watch and ward over it.

  It was an ancient building of the early English style of architecture, or rather Norman, with one of those antique, square, short towers, built of flint stones firmly embedded in cement, which, from time, had acquired almost the consistency of stone itself. There were numerous arched windows, partaking something of the more florid gothic style, although scarcely ornamental enough to be called such. The edifice stood in the centre of a grave-yard, which extended over a space of about half an acre, and altogether it was one of the prettiest and most rural old churches within many miles of the spot.

  Many a lover of the antique and of the picturesque, for it was both, went out of his way while travelling in the neighbourhood to look at it, and it had an extensive and well-deserved reputation as a fine specimen of its class and style of building.

  In Kent, to the present day, are some fine specimens of the old Roman style of church, building; and, although they are as rapidly pulled down as the abuse of modern architects, and the cupidity of speculators, and the vanity of clergymen can possibly encourage, in older to erect flimsy, Italianised structures in their stead, yet sufficient of them remain dotted over England to interest the traveller. At Walesden there is a church of this description which will well repay a visit. This, then, was the kind of building into which it was the intention of our four friends to penetrate, not on an unholy, or an unjustifiable errand, but on one which, proceeding from good and proper motives, it was highly desirable to conduct in as secret a manner as possible.

  The moon was more densely covered by clouds than it had yet been that evening, when they reached the little wicket-gate which led into the churchyard, through which was a regularly used thoroughfare.

  “We have a favourable night,” remarked Henry, “for we are not so likely to be disturbed.”

  “And now, the question is, how are we to get in?” said Mr. Chillingworth, as he paused, and glanced up at the ancient building.

  “The doors,” said George, “would effectually resist us.”

  “How can it be done, then?”

  “The only way I can think of,” said Henry, “is to get out one of the small diamond-shaped panes of glass from one of the low windows, and then we can one of us put in our hands, and undo the fastening, which is very simple, when the window opens like a door, and it is but a step into the church.”

  “A good way,” said Marchdale. “We will lose no time.”

  They walked round the church till they came to a very low window indeed, near to an angle of the wall, where a huge abutment struck far out into the burial-ground.

  “Will you do it, Henry?” said George.

  “Yes. I have often noticed the fastenings. Just give me a slight hoist up, and all will be right.”

  George did so, and Henry with his knife easily bent back some of the leadwork which held in one of the panes of glass, and then got it out whole. He handed it down to George, saying—

  “Take this, George. We can e
asily replace it when we leave, so that there can be no signs left of any one having been here at all.”

  George took the piece of thick, dim-coloured glass, and in another moment Henry had succeeded in opening the window, and the mode of ingress to the old church was fair and easy before them all, had there been ever so many.

  “I wonder,” said Marchdale, “that a place so inefficiently protected has never been robbed.”

  “No wonder at all,” remarked Mr. Chillingworth. “There is nothing to take that I am aware of that would repay anybody the trouble of taking.”

  “Indeed!”

  “Not an article. The pulpit, to be sure, is covered with faded velvet; but beyond that, and an old box, in which I believe nothing is left but some books, I think there is no temptation.”

  “And that, Heaven knows, is little enough, then.”

  “Come on,” said Henry. “Be careful; there is nothing beneath the window, and the depth is about two feet.”

  Thus guided, they all got fairly into the sacred edifice, and then Henry closed the window, and fastened it on the inside as he said—

  “We have nothing to do now but to set to work opening a way into the vault, and I trust that Heaven will pardon me for thus desecrating the tomb of my ancestors, from a consideration of the object I have in view by so doing.”

  “It does seem wrong thus to tamper with the secrets of the tomb,” remarked Mr. Marchdale.

  “The secrets of a fiddlestick!” said the doctor. “What secrets has the tomb I wonder?”

  “Well, but, my dear sir—”

  “Nay, my dear sir, it is high time that death, which is, then, the inevitable fate of us all, should be regarded with more philosophic eyes than it is. There are no secrets in the tomb but such as may well be endeavoured to be kept secret.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There is one which very probably we shall find unpleasantly revealed.”

  “Which is that?”

  “The not over pleasant odour of decomposed animal remains—beyond that I know of nothing of a secret nature that the tomb can show us.”

  “Ah, your profession hardens you to such matters.”

  “And a very good thing that it does, or else, if all men were to look upon a dead body as something almost too dreadful to look upon, and by far too horrible to touch, surgery would lose its value, and crime, in many instances of the most obnoxious character, would go unpunished.”

  “If we have a light here,” said Henry, “we shall run the greatest chance in the world of being seen, for the church has many windows.”

  “Do not have one, then, by any means,” said Mr. Chillingworth. “A match held low down in the pew may enable us to open the vault.”

  “That will be the only plan.”

  Henry led them to the pew which belonged to his family, and in the floor of which was the trap door.

  “When was it last opened?” inquired Marchdale.

  “When my father died,” said Henry; “some ten months ago now, I should think.”

  “The screws, then, have had ample time to fix themselves with fresh rust.”

  “Here is one of my chemical matches,” said Mr. Chillingworth, as he suddenly irradiated the pew with a clear and beautiful flame, that lasted about a minute.

  The heads of the screws were easily discernible, and the short time that the light lasted had enabled Henry to turn the key he had brought with him in the lock.

  “I think that without a light now,” he said, “I can turn the screws well.”

  “Can you?”

  “Yes; there are but four.”

  “Try it, then.”

  Henry did so, and from the screws having very large heads, and being made purposely, for the convenience of removal when required, with deep indentations to receive the screw-driver, he found no difficulty in feeling for the proper places, and extracting the screws without any more light than was afforded to him from the general whitish aspect of the heavens.

  “Now, Mr. Chillingworth,” he said “another of your matches, if you please. I have all the screws so loose that I can pick them up with my fingers.”

  “Here,” said the doctor.

  In another moment the pew was as light as day, and Henry succeeded in taking out the few screws, which he placed in his pocket for their greater security, since, of course, the intention was to replace everything exactly as it was found, in order that not the least surmise should arise in the mind of any person that the vault had been opened, and visited for any purpose whatever, secretly or otherwise.”

  “Let us descend,” said Henry. “There is no further obstacle, my friends. Let us descend.”

  “If any one,” remarked George, in a whisper, as they slowly descended the stairs which conducted into the vault—“if any one had told me that I should be descending into a vault for the purpose of ascertaining if a dead body, which had been nearly a century there, was removed or not, and had become a vampire, I should have denounced the idea as one of the most absurd that ever entered the brain of a human being.”

  “We are the very slaves of circumstances,” said Marchdale, “and we never know what we may do, or what we may not. What appears to us so improbable as to border even upon the impossible at one time, is at another the only course of action which appears feasibly open to us to attempt to pursue.”

  They had now reached the vault, the floor of which was composed of flat red tiles, laid in tolerable order the one beside the other. As Henry had stated, the vault was by no means of large extent. Indeed, several of the apartments for the living, at the hall, were much larger than was that one destined for the dead.

  The atmosphere was dump and noisome, but not by any means so bad as might have been expected, considering the number of months which had elapsed since last the vault was opened to receive one of its ghastly and still visitants.

  “Now for one of your lights. Mr. Chillingworth. You say you have the candles, I think, Marchdale, although you forgot the matches.”

  “I have. They are here.”

  Marchdale took from his pocket a parcel which contained several wax candles, and when it was opened, a smaller packet fell to the ground.

  “Why, these are instantaneous matches,” said Mr. Chillingworth, as he lifted the small packet up.

  “They are; and what a fruitless journey I should have had back to the hall,” said Mr. Marchdale, “if you had not been so well provided as you are with the means of getting a light. These matches, which I thought I had not with me, have been, in the hurry of departure, enclosed, you see, with the candles. Truly, I should have hunted for them at home in vain.”

  Mr. Chillingworth lit the wax candle which was now handed to him by Marchdale, and in another moment the vault from one end of it to the other was quite clearly discernible.

  CHAPTER VIII.

  THE COFFIN.—THE ABSENCE OF THE DEAD.—THE MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCE, AND THE CONSTERNATION OF GEORGE.

  They were all silent for a few moments as they looked around them with natural feelings of curiosity. Two of that party had of course never been in that vault at all, and the brothers, although they had descended into it upon the occasion, nearly a year before, of their father being placed in it, still looked upon it with almost as curious eyes as they who now had their first sight of it.

  If a man be at all of a thoughtful or imaginative cast of mind, some curious sensations are sure to come over him, upon standing in such a place, where he knows around him lie, in the calmness of death, those in whose veins have flowed kindred blood to him—who bore the same name, and who preceded him in the brief drama of his existence, influencing his destiny and his position in life probably largely by their actions compounded of their virtues and their vices.

  Henry Bannerworth and his brother George were just the kind of persons to feel strongly such sensations. B
oth were reflective, imaginative, educated young men, and, as the light from the wax candle flashed upon their faces, it was evident how deeply they felt the situation in which they were placed.

  Mr. Chillingworth and Marchdale were silent. They both knew what was passing in the minds of the brothers, and they had too much delicacy to interrupt a train of thought which, although from having no affinity with the dead who lay around, they could not share in, yet they respected. Henry at length, with a sudden start, seemed to recover himself from his reverie.

  “This is a time for action, George,” he said, “and not for romantic thought. Let us proceed.”

  “Yes, yes,” said George, and he advanced a step towards the centre of the vault.

  “Can you find out among all these coffins, for there seem to be nearly twenty,” said Mr. Chillingworth, “which is the one we seek?”

  “I think we may,” replied Henry. “Some of the earlier coffins of our race, I know, were made of marble, and others of metal, both of which materials, I expect, would withstand the encroaches of time for a hundred years, at least.”

  “Let us examine,” said George.

  There were shelves or niches built into the walls all round, on which the coffins were placed, so that there could not be much difficulty in a minute examination of them all, the one after the other.

  When, however, they came to look, they found that “decay’s offensive fingers” had been more busy than they could have imagined, and that whatever they touched of the earlier coffins crumbled into dust before their very fingers.

  In some cases the inscriptions were quite illegible, and, in others, the plates that had borne them had fallen on to the floor of the vault, so that it was impossible to say to which coffin they belonged.

  Of course, the more recent and fresh-looking coffins they did not examine, because they could not have anything to do with the object of that melancholy visit.

  “We shall arrive at no conclusion,” said George. “All seems to have rotted away among those coffins where we might expect to find the one belonging to Marmaduke Bannerworth, our ancestor.”

  “Here is a coffin plate,” said Marchdale, taking one from the floor.