The Penny Dreadfuls MEGAPACK™

by Oscar Wilde

  “I know you was—a damned old fool I thought you.”

  “Come, come. Hilloa, there!”

  “Well, then, what do you call me no seaman for?”

  “Why, Jack, you bear malice like a marine.”

  “There you go again. Goodbye. Do you remember when we were yard arm to yard arm with those two Yankee frigates, and took ’em both! You didn’t call me a marine then, when the scuppers were running with blood. Was I a seaman then?”

  “You were, Jack—you were; and you saved my life.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “You did.”

  “I say I didn’t—it was a marlin-spike.”

  “But I say you did, you rascally scoundrel.—I say you did, and I won’t be contradicted in my own ship.”

  “Call this your ship?”

  “No, damn it—I—”

  “Mr. Crinkles,” said the landlord, flinging the door wide open, and so at once putting an end to the discussion which always apparently had a tendency to wax exceedingly warm.

  “The shark, by God!” said Jack.

  A little, neatly dressed man made his appearance, and advanced rather timidly into the room. Perhaps he had heard from the landlord that the parties who had sent for him were of rather a violent sort.

  “So you are Crinkles, are you?” cried the admiral. “Sit down, though you are a lawyer.”

  “Thank you, sir. I am an attorney, certainly, and my name as certainly is Crinkles.”

  “Look at that.”

  The admiral placed the letter in the little lawyer’s hands, who said—

  “Am I to read it?”

  “Yes, to be sure.”

  “Aloud?”

  “Read it to the devil, if you like, in a pig’s whisper, or a West India hurricane.”

  “Oh, very good, sir. I—I am willing to be agreeable, so I’ll read it aloud, if it’s all the same to you.”

  He then opened the letter, and read as follows:—

  “To Admiral Bell.

  “Admiral—

  “Being, from various circumstances, aware that you take a warm and a praiseworthy interest in your nephew, Charles Holland, I venture to write to you concerning a matter in which your immediate and active co-operation with others may rescue him from a condition which will prove, if allowed to continue, very much to his detriment, and ultimate unhappiness.

  “You are, then, hereby informed, that he, Charles Holland, has, much earlier than he ought to have done, returned to England, and that the object of his return is to contract a marriage into a family in every way objectionable, and with a girl who is highly objectionable.

  “You, admiral, are his nearest and almost his only relative in the world; you are the guardian of his property, and, therefore, it becomes a duty on your part to interfere to save him from the ruinous consequences of a marriage, which is sure to bring ruin and distress upon himself and all who take an interest in his welfare.

  “The family he wishes to marry into is named Bannerworth, and the young lady’s name is Flora Bannerworth. When, however, I inform you that a vampire is in that family, and that if he marries into it, he marries a vampire, and will have vampires for children, I trust I have said enough to warn you upon the subject, and to induce you to lose no time in repairing to the spot.

  “If you stop at the Nelson’s Arms at Uxotter, you will hear of me. I can be sent for, when I will tell you more.

  “Yours, very obediently and humbly,

  “JOSIAH CRINKLES.”

  “P.S. I enclose you Dr. Johnson’s definition of a vampire, which is as follows:

  “VAMPIRE (a German blood-sucker)—by which you perceive how many vampires, from time immemorial, must have been well entertained at the expense of John Bull, at the court of St. James, where no thing hardly is to be met with but German blood-suckers.”

  * * * *

  The lawyer ceased to read, and the amazed look with which he glanced at the face of Admiral Bell would, under any other circumstances, have much amused him. His mind, however, was by far too much engrossed with a consideration of the danger of Charles Holland, his nephew, to be amused at anything; so, when he found that the little lawyer said nothing, he bellowed out—

  “Well, sir?”

  “We—we—well,” said the attorney.

  “I’ve sent for you, and here you are, and here I am, and here’s Jack Pringle. What have you got to say?”

  “Just this much,” said Mr. Crinkles, recovering himself a little, “just this much, sir, that I never saw that letter before in all my life.”

  “You—never—saw—it?”

  “Never.”

  “Didn’t you write it?”

  “On my solemn word of honour, sir, I did not.”

  Jack Pringle whistled, and the admiral looked puzzled. Like the admiral in the song, too, he “grew paler,” and then Mr. Crinkles added—

  “Who has forged my name to a letter such as this, I cannot imagine. As for writing to you, sir, I never heard of your existence, except publicly, as one of those gallant officers who have spent a long life in nobly fighting their country’s battles, and who are entitled to the admiration and the applause of every Englishman.”

  Jack and the admiral looked at each other in amazement, and then the latter exclaimed—

  “What! This from a lawyer?”

  “A lawyer, sir,” said Crinkles, “may know how to appreciate the deeds of gallant men, although he may not be able to imitate them. That letter, sir, is a forgery, and I now leave you, only much gratified at the incident which has procured me the honour of an interview with a gentleman, whose name will live in the history of his country. Good day, sir! Good day!”

  “No! I’m damned if you go like that,” said Jack, as he sprang to the door, and put his back against it. “You shall take a glass with me in honour of the wooden walls of Old England, damn me, if you was twenty lawyers.”

  “That’s right, Jack,” said the admiral. “Come, Mr. Crinkles, I’ll think, for your sake, there may be two decent lawyers in the world, and you one of them. We must have a bottle of the best wine the ship—I mean the house—can afford together.”

  “If it is your command, admiral, I obey with pleasure,” said the attorney; “and although I assure you, on my honour, I did not write that letter, yet some of the matters mentioned in it are so generally notorious here, that I can afford you information concerning them.”

  “Can you?”

  “I regret to say I can, for I respect the parties.”

  “Sit down, then—sit down. Jack, run to the steward’s room and get the wine. We will go into it now starboard and larboard. Who the deuce could have written that letter?”

  “I have not the least idea, sir.”

  “Well—well, never mind; it has brought me here, that’s something, so I won’t grumble much at it. I didn’t know my nephew was in England, and I dare say he didn’t know I was; but here we both are, and I won’t rest till I’ve seen him, and ascertained how the what’s-its-name—”

  “The vampire.”

  “Ah! the vampire.”

  “Shiver my timbers!” said Jack Pringle, who now brought in some wine much against the remonstrances of the waiters of the establishment, who considered that he was treading upon their vested interests by so doing.—“Shiver my timbers, if I knows what a wamphigher is, unless he’s some distant relation to Davy Jones!”

  “Hold your ignorant tongue,” said the admiral; “nobody wants you to make a remark, you great lubber!”

  “Very good,” said Jack, and he sat down the wine on the table, and then retired to the other end of the room, remarking to himself that he was not called a great lubber on a certain occasion, when bullets were scuttling their nobs, and they were yard arm and yard arm with God knows who.

  “Now, mister
lawyer,” said Admiral Bell, who had about him a large share of the habits of a rough sailor. “Now, mister lawyer, here is a glass first to our better acquaintance, for damn me, if I don’t like you!”

  “You are very good, sir.”

  “Not at all. There was a time, when I’d just as soon have thought of asking a young shark to supper with me in my own cabin as a lawyer, but I begin to see that there may be such a thing as a decent, good sort of a fellow seen in the law; so here’s good luck to you, and you shall never want a friend or a bottle while Admiral Bell has a shot in the locker.”

  “Gammon,” said Jack.

  “Damn you, what do you mean by that?” roared the admiral, in a furious tone.

  “I wasn’t speaking to you,” shouted Jack, about two octaves higher. “It’s two boys in the street as is pretending they’re a going to fight, and I know damned well they won’t.”

  “Hold your noise.”

  “I’m going. I wasn’t told to hold my noise, when our nobs were being scuttled off Beyrout.”

  “Never mind him, mister lawyer,” added the admiral. “He don’t know what he’s talking about. Never mind him. You go on and tell me all you know about the—the—”

  “The vampire!”

  “Ah! I always forget the names of strange fish. I suppose, after all, it’s something of the mermaid order?”

  “That I cannot say, sir; but certainly the story, in all its painful particulars, has made a great sensation all over the country.”

  “Indeed!”

  “Yes, sir. You shall hear how it occurred. It appears that one night Miss Flora Bannersworth, a young lady of great beauty, and respected and admired by all who knew her was visited by a strange being who came in at the window.”

  “My eye,” said Jack, “it waren’t me, I wish it had a been.”

  “So petrified by fear was she, that she had only time to creep half out of the bed, and to utter one cry of alarm, when the strange visitor seized her in his grasp.”

  “Damn my pig tail,” said Jack, “what a squall there must have been, to be sure.”

  “Do you see this bottle?” roared the admiral.

  “To be sure, I does; I think as it’s time I seed another.”

  “You scoundrel, I’ll make you feel it against that damned stupid head of yours, if you interrupt this gentleman again.”

  “Don’t be violent.”

  “Well, as I was saying,” continued the attorney, “she did, by great good fortune, manage to scream, which had the effect of alarming the whole house. The door of her chamber, which was fast, was broken open.”

  “Yes, yes—”

  “Ah,” cried Jack.

  “You may imagine the horror and the consternation of those who entered the room to find her in the grasp of a fiend-like figure, whose teeth were fastened on her neck, and who was actually draining her veins of blood.”

  “The devil!”

  “Before any one could lay hands sufficiently upon the figure to detain it, it had fled precipitately from its dreadful repast. Shots were fired after it in vain.”

  “And they let it go?”

  “They followed it, I understand, as well as they were able, and saw it scale the garden wall of the premises; there it escaped, leaving, as you may well imagine, on all their minds, a sensation of horror difficult to describe.”

  “Well, I never did hear anything the equal of that. Jack, what do you think of it?”

  “I haven’t begun to think, yet,” said Jack.

  “But what about my nephew, Charles?” added the admiral.

  “Of him I know nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Not a word, admiral. I was not aware you had a nephew, or that any gentleman bearing that, or any other relationship to you, had any sort of connexion with these mysterious and most unaccountable circumstances. I tell you all I have gathered from common report about this vampire business. Further I know not, I assure you.”

  “Well, a man can’t tell what he don’t know. It puzzles me to think who could possibly have written me this letter.”

  “That I am completely at a loss to imagine,” said Crinkles. “I assure you, my gallant sir, that I am much hurt at the circumstance of any one using my name in such a way. But, nevertheless, as you are here, permit me to say, that it will be my pride, my pleasure, and the boast of the remainder of my existence, to be of some service to so gallant a defender of my country, and one whose name, along with the memory of his deeds, is engraved upon the heart of every Briton.”

  “Quite ekal to a book, he talks,” said Jack. “I never could read one myself, on account o’ not knowing how, but I’ve heard ’em read, and that’s just the sort o’ incomprehensible gammon.”

  “We don’t want any of your ignorant remarks,” said the admiral, “so you be quiet.”

  “Ay, ay, sir.”

  “Now, Mister Lawyer, you are an honest fellow, and an honest fellow is generally a sensible fellow.”

  “Sir, I thank you.”

  “If so be as what this letter says is true, my nephew Charles has got a liking for this girl, who has had her neck bitten by a vampire, you see.”

  “I perceive, sir.”

  “Now what would you do?”

  “One of the most difficult, as well, perhaps, as one of the most ungracious of tasks,” said the attorney, “is to interfere with family affairs. The cold and steady eye of reason generally sees things in such very different lights to what they appear to those whose feelings and whose affections are much compromised in their results.”

  “Very true. Go on.”

  “Taking, my dear sir, what in my humble judgment appears to be a reasonable view of this subject, I should say it would be a dreadful thing for your nephew to marry into a family any member of which was liable to the visitations of a vampire.”

  “It wouldn’t be pleasant.”

  “The young lady might have children.”

  “Oh, lots,” cried Jack.

  “Hold your noise, Jack.”

  “Ay, ay, sir.”

  “And she might herself actually, when after death she became a vampire, come and feed on her own children.”

  “Become a vampire! What, is she going to be a vampire too?”

  “My dear sir, don’t you know that it is a remarkable fact, as regards the physiology of vampires, that whoever is bitten by one of those dreadful beings, becomes a vampire?”

  “The devil!”

  “It is a fact, sir.”

  “Whew!” whistled Jack; “she might bite us all, and we should be a whole ship’s crew o’ wamphighers. There would be a confounded go!”

  “It’s not pleasant,” said the admiral, as he rose from his chair, and paced to and fro in the room, “it’s not pleasant. Hang me up at my own yard-arm if it is.”

  “Who said it was?” cried Jack.

  “Who asked you, you brute?”

  “Well, sir,” added Mr. Crinkles, “I have given you all the information I can; and I can only repeat what I before had the honour of saying more at large, namely, that I am your humble servant to command, and that I shall be happy to attend upon you at any time.”

  “Thank ye—thank ye, Mr.—a—a—”

  “Crinkles.”

  “Ah, Crinkles. You shall hear from me again, sir, shortly. Now that I am down here, I will see to the very bottom of this affair, were it deeper than fathom ever sounded. Charles Holland was my poor sister’s son; he’s the only relative I have in the wide world, and his happiness is dearer to my heart than my own.”

  Crinkles turned aside, and, by the twinkle of his eyes, one might premise that the honest little lawyer was much affected.

  “God bless you, sir,” he said; “farewell.”

  “Good day to you.”

  “Good-bye, lawyer,�
�� cried Jack. “Mind how you go. Damn me, if you don’t seem a decent sort of fellow, and, after all, you may give the devil a clear berth, and get into heaven’s straits with a flowing sheet, provided as you don’t, towards the end of the voyage, make any lubberly blunders.”

  The old admiral threw himself into a chair with a deep sigh.

  “Jack,” said he.

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  “What’s to be done now?”

  Jack opened the window to discharge the superfluous moisture from an enormous quid he had indulged himself with while the lawyer was telling about the vampire, and then again turning his face towards his master, he said—

  “Do! What shall we do? Why, go at once and find out Charles, our nevy, and ask him all about it, and see the young lady, too, and lay hold o’ the wamphigher if we can, as well, and go at the whole affair broadside to broadside, till we make a prize of all the particulars, after which we can turn it over in our minds agin, and see what’s to be done.”

  “Jack, you are right. Come along.”

  “I knows I am. Do you know now which way to steer?”

  “Of course not. I never was in this latitude before, and the channel looks intricate. We will hail a pilot, Jack, and then we shall be all right, and if we strike it will be his fault.”

  “Which is a mighty great consolation,” said Jack. “Come along.”

  CHAPTER XVI.

  THE MEETING OF THE LOVERS IN THE GARDEN.—AN AFFECTING SCENE.—THE SUDDEN APPEARANCE OF SIR FRANCIS VARNEY.

  Our readers will recollect that Flora Bannerworth had made an appointment with Charles Holland in the garden of the hall. This meeting was looked forward to by the young man with a variety of conflicting feelings, and he passed the intermediate time in a most painful state of doubt as to what would be its result.

  The thought that he should be much urged by Flora to give up all thoughts of making her his, was a most bitter one to him, who loved her with so much truth and constancy, and that she would say all she could to induce such a resolution in his mind he felt certain. But to him the idea of now abandoning her presented itself in the worst of aspects.

  “Shall I,” he said, “sink so low in my own estimation, as well as in hers, and in that of all honourable-minded persons, as to desert her now in the hour of affliction? Dare I be so base as actually or virtually to say to her, ‘Flora, when your beauty was undimmed by sorrow—when all around you seemed life and joy, I loved you selfishly for the increased happiness which you might bestow upon me; but now the hand of misfortune presses heavily upon you—you are not what you were, and I desert you? Never—never—never!”