by Oscar Wilde
The old admiral’s eyes sparkled, and he looked comically in the face of Charles, as he said—
“I know now where you are steering.”
“What would you do, uncle?”
“Fight him!”
“I knew you would say so, and that’s just what I want to do as regards Sir Francis Varney.”
“Well, my boy, I don’t know that you can do better. He must be a thundering rascal, whether he is a vampire or not; so if you feel that he has insulted you, fight him by all means, Charles.”
“I am much pleased, uncle, to find that you take my view of the subject,” said Charles. “I knew that if I mentioned such a thing to the Bannerworths, they would endeavour all in their power to pursuade me against it.”
“Yes, no doubt; because they are all impressed with a strange fear of this fellow’s vampire powers. Besides, if a man is going to fight, the fewer people he mentions it to most decidedly the better, Charles.”
“I believe that is the fact, uncle. Should I overcome Varney, there will most likely be at once an end to the numerous and uncomfortable perplexities of the Bannerworths as regards him; and if he overcome me, why, then, at all events, I shall have made an effort to rescue Flora from the dread of this man.”
“And then he shall fight me,” added the admiral, “so he shall have two chances, at all events, Charles.”
“Nay, uncle, that would, you know, scarcely be fair. Besides, if I should fall, I solemnly bequeath Flora Bannerworth to your good offices. I much fear that the pecuniary affairs of poor Henry—from no fault of his, Heaven knows—are in a very bad state, and that Flora may yet live to want some kind and able friend.”
“Never fear, Charles. The young creature shall never want while the old admiral has got a shot in the locker.”
“Thank you, uncle, thank you. I have ample cause to know, and to be able to rely upon your kind and generous nature. And now about the challenge?”
“You write it, boy, and I’ll take it.”
“Will you second me, uncle?”
“To be sure I will. I wouldn’t trust anybody else to do so on any account. You leave all the arrangements with me, and I’ll second you as you ought to be seconded.”
“Then I will write it at once, for I have received injuries at the hands of that man, or devil, be he what he may, that I cannot put up with. His visit to the chamber of her whom I love would alone constitute ample ground of action.”
“I should say it rather would, my boy.”
“And after this corroborative story of the wound, I cannot for a moment doubt that Sir Francis Varney is the vampire, or the personifier of the vampire.”
“That’s clear enough, Charles. Come, just you write your challenge, my boy, at once, and let me have it.”
“I will, uncle.”
Charles was a little astonished, although pleased, at his uncle’s ready acquiescence in his fighting a vampire, but that circumstance he ascribed to the old man’s habits of life, which made him so familiar with strife and personal contentions of all sorts, that he did not ascribe to it that amount of importance which more peaceable people did. Had he, while he was writing the note to Sir Francis Varney, seen the old admiral’s face, and the exceedingly cunning look it wore, he might have suspected that the acquiescence in the duel was but a seeming acquiescence. This, however, escaped him, and in a few moments he read to his uncle the following note:—
“To SIR FRANCIS VARNEY.
“Sir—
“The expressions made use of towards me by you, as well as general circumstances, which I need not further allude to here, induce me to demand of you that satisfaction due from one gentleman to another. My uncle, Admiral Bell, is the bearer of this note, and will arrange preliminaries with any friend you may choose to appoint to act in your behalf. I am, sir, yours, &c.
“CHARLES HOLLAND.”
“Will that do?” said Charles.
“Capital!” said the admiral.
“I am glad you like it.”
“Oh, I could not help liking it. The least said and the most to the purpose, always pleases me best; and this explains nothing, and demands all you want—which is a fight; so it’s all right, you see, and nothing can be possibly better.”
Charles did glance in his uncle’s face, for he suspected, from the manner in which these words were uttered, that the old man was amusing himself a little at his expense. The admiral, however, looked so supernaturally serious that Charles was foiled.
“I repeat, it’s a capital letter,” he said.
“Yes, you said so.”
“Well, what are you staring at?”
“Oh, nothing.”
“Do you doubt my word?”
“Not at all, uncle; only I thought there was a degree of irony in the manner in which you spoke.”
“None at all, my boy. I never was more serious in all my life.”
“Very good. Then you will remember that I leave my honour in this affair completely in your hands.”
“Depend upon me, my boy.”
“I will, and do.”
“I’ll be off and see the fellow at once.”
The admiral bustled out of the room, and in a few moments Charles heard him calling loudly—
“Jack—Jack Pringle, you lubber, where are you?—Jack Pringle, I say.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” said Jack, emerging from the kitchen, where he had been making himself generally useful in assisting Mrs. Bannerworth, there being no servant in the house, to cook some dinner for the family.
“Come on, you rascal, we are going for a walk.”
“The rations will be served out soon,” growled Jack.
“We shall be back in time, you cormorant, never fear. You are always thinking of eating and drinking, you are, Jack; and I’ll be hanged if I think you ever think of anything else. Come on, will you; I’m going on rather a particular cruise just now, so mind what you are about.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said the tar, and these two originals, who so perfectly understood each other, walked away, conversing as they went, and their different voices coming upon the ear of Charles, until distance obliterated all impression of the sound.
Charles paced to and fro in the room where he had held this brief and conclusive conversation with his uncle. He was thoughtful, as any one might well be who knew not but that the next four-and-twenty hours would be the limit of his sojourn in this world.
“Oh, Flora—Flora!” he at length said, “how happy we might to have been together—how happy we might have been! but all is past now, and there seems nothing left us but to endure. There it but one chance, and that is in my killing this fearful man who is invested with so dreadful an existence. And if I do kill him in fair and in open fight, I will take care that his mortal frame has no power again to revisit the glimpses of the moon.”
It was strange to imagine that such was the force of many concurrent circumstances, that a young man like Charles Holland, of first-rate abilities and education, should find it necessary to give in so far to a belief which was repugnant to all his best feelings and habits of thought, as to be reasoning with himself upon the best means of preventing the resuscitation of the corpse of a vampire. But so it was. His imagination had yielded to a succession of events which very few persons indeed could have held out against.
“I have heard and read,” he said, as he continued his agitated and uneasy walk, “of how these dreadful beings are to be in their graves. I have heard of stakes being driven through the body so as to pin it to the earth until the gradual progress of decay has rendered its revivification a thing of utter and total impossibility. Then, again,” he added, after a slight pause, “I have heard of their being burned, and the ashes gathered to the winds of Heaven to prevent them from ever again uniting or assuming human form.”
These were disagreeable and
strange fancies, and he shuddered while he indulged in them. He felt a kind of trembling horror come over him even at the thought of engaging in conflict with a being, who perhaps, had lived more than a hundred years.
“That portrait,” he thought, “on the panel, is the portrait of a man in the prime of life. If it be the portrait of Sir Francis Varney, by the date which the family ascribe to it he must be nearly one hundred and fifty years of age now.”
This was a supposition which carried the imagination to a vast amount of strange conjectures.
“What changes he must have witnessed about him in that time,” thought Charles. “How he must have seen kingdoms totter and fall, and how many changes of habits, of manners, and of customs must he have become a spectator of. Renewing too, ever and anon, his fearful existence by such fearful means.”
This was a wide field of conjecture for a fertile imagination, and now that he was on the eve of engaging with such a being in mortal combat, on behalf of her he loved, the thoughts it gave rise to came more strongly and thickly upon him than ever they had done before.
“But I will fight him,” he suddenly said, “for Flora’s sake, were he a hundred times more hideous a being than so many evidences tend to prove him. I will fight with him, and it may be my fate to rid the world of such a monster in human form.”
Charles worked himself up to a kind of enthusiasm by which he almost succeeded in convincing himself that, in attempting the destruction of Sir Francis Varney, he was the champion of human nature.
It would be aside from the object of these pages, which is to record facts as they occurred, to enter into the metaphysical course of reasoning which came across Charles’s mind; suffice it to say that he felt nothing shaken as regarded his resolve to meet Varney the Vampire, and that he made up his mind the conflict should be one of life or death.
“It must be so,” he said. “It must be so. Either he or I must fall in the fight which shall surely be.”
He now sought Flora, for how soon might he now be torn from her for ever by the irresistible hand of death. He felt that, during the few brief hours which now would only elapse previous to his meeting with Sir Francis Varney, he could not enjoy too much of the society of her who reigned supreme in his heart, and held in her own keeping his best affections.
But while Charles is thus employed, let us follow his uncle and Jack Pringle to the residence of Varney, which, as the reader is aware, was so near at hand that it required not many minutes’ sharp walking to reach it.
The admiral knew well he could trust Jack with any secret, for long habits of discipline and deference to the orders of superiors takes off the propensity to blabbing which, among civilians who are not accustomed to discipline, is so very prevalent. The old man therefore explained to Jack what he meant to do, and it received Jack’s full approval; but as in the enforced detail of other matters it must come out, we will not here prematurely enter into the admiral’s plans.
When they reached the residence of Sir Francis Varney, they were received courteously enough, and the admiral desired Jack to wait for him in the handsome hall of the house, while he was shewn up stairs to the private room of the vampire.
“Confound the fellow!” muttered the old admiral, “he is well lodged at all events. I should say he was not one of those sort of vampires who have nowhere to go to but their own coffins when the evening comes.”
The room into which the admiral was shewn had green blinds to it, and they were all drawn down. It is true that the sun was shining brightly outside, although transiently, but still a strange green tinge was thrown over everything in the room, and more particularly did it appear to fall upon the face of Varney, converting his usually sallow countenance into a still more hideous and strange colour. He was sitting upon a couch, and, when the admiral came in, he rose, and said, in a deep-toned voice, extremely different to that he usually spoke in—
“My humble home is much honoured, sir, by your presence in it.”
“Good morning,” said the admiral. “I have come to speak to you, sir, rather seriously.”
“However abrupt this announcement may sound to me,” said Varney, “I am quite sure I shall always hear, with the most profound respect, whatever Admiral Bell may have to say.”
“There is no respect required,” said the admiral, “but only a little attention.”
Sir Francis bowed in a stately manner, saying—
“I shall be quite unhappy if you will not be seated, Admiral Bell.”
“Oh, never mind that, Sir Francis Varney, if you be Sir Francis Varney; for you may be the devil himself, for all I know. My nephew, Charles Holland, considers that, one way and another, he has a very tolerable quarrel with you.”
“I much grieve to hear it.”
“Do you?”
“Believe me, I do. I am most scrupulous in what I say; and an assertion that I am grieved, you may thoroughly and entirely depend upon.”
“Well, well, never mind that; Charles Holland is a young man just entering into life. He loves a girl who is, I think, every way worthy of him.”
“Oh, what a felicitous prospect!”
“Just hear me out, if you please.”
“With pleasure, sir—with pleasure.”
“Well, then, when a young, hot-headed fellow thinks he has a good ground of quarrel with anybody, you will not be surprised at his wanting to fight it out.”
“Not at all.”
“Well, then, to come to the point, my nephew, Charles Holland, has a fancy for fighting with you.”
“Ah!”
“You take it damned easy.”
“My dear sir, why should I be uneasy? He is not my nephew, you know. I shall have no particular cause, beyond those feelings of common compassion which I hope inhabit my breast as well as every one else’s.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, he is a young man just, as you say, entering into life, and I cannot help thinking it would be a pity to cut him off like a flower in the bud, so very soon.”
“Oh, you make quite sure, then, of settling him, do you?”
“My dear sir, only consider; he might be very troublesome, indeed; you know young men are hot-headed and troublesome. Even if I were only to maim him, he might be a continual and never-ceasing annoyance to me. I think I should be absolutely, in a manner of speaking, compelled to cut him off.”
“The devil you do!”
“As you say, sir.”
“Damn your assurance, Mr. Vampire, or whatever odd fish you may be.”
“Admiral Bell, I never called upon you and received a courteous reception, and then insulted you.”
“Then why do you talk of cutting off a better man than yourself? damn it, what would you say to him cutting you off?”
“Oh, as for me, my good sir, that’s quite another thing. Cutting me off is very doubtful.”
Sir Francis Varney gave a strange smile as he spoke, and shook his head, as if some most extraordinary and extravagant proposition had been mooted, which it was scarcely worth the while of anybody possessed of common sense to set about expecting.
Admiral Bell felt strongly inclined to get into a rage, but he repressed the idea as much as he could, although, but for the curious faint green light that came through the blinds, his heightened colour would have sufficiently proclaimed what state of mind he was in.
“Mr. Varney,” he said, “all this is quite beside the question; but, at all events, if it have any weight at all, it ought to have a considerable influence in deciding you to accept of what terms I propose.”
“What are they, sir?”
“Why, that you permit me to espouse my nephew Charles’s quarrel, and meet you instead of him.”
“You meet me?”
“Yes; I’ve met a better man more than once before. It can make no difference to you.”
&nb
sp; “I don’t know that, Admiral Bell. One generally likes, in a duel, to face him with whom one has had the misunderstanding, be it on what grounds it may.”
“There’s some reason, I know, in what you say; but, surely, if I am willing, you need not object.”
“And is your nephew willing thus to shift the danger and the job of resenting his own quarrels on to your shoulders?”
“No; he knows nothing about it. He has written you a challenge, of which I am the bearer, but I voluntarily, and of my own accord, wish to meet you instead.”
“This is a strange mode of proceeding.”
“If you will not accede to it, and fight him first, and any harm comes to him, you shall fight me afterwards.”
“Indeed.”
“Yes, indeed you shall, however surprised you may look.”
“As this appears to be quite a family affair, then,” said Sir Francis Varney, “it certainly does appear immaterial which of you I fight with first.”
“Quite so; now you take a sensible view of the question. Will you meet me?”
“I have no particular objection. Have you settled all your affairs, and made your will?”
“What’s that to you?”
“Oh, I only asked, because there is generally so much food for litigation if a man dies intestate, and is worth any money.”
“You make devilish sure,” said the admiral, “of being the victor. Have you made your will?”
“Oh, my will,” smiled Sir Francis; “that, my good sir, is quite an indifferent affair.”
“Well, make it or not, as you like. I am old, I know, but I can pull a trigger as well as any one.”
“Do what?”
“Pull a trigger.”
“Why, you don’t suppose I resort to any such barbarous modes of fighting?”
“Barbarous! Why, how do you fight then?”