by Oscar Wilde
It was a great grief to the Bannerworth family to hear these tidings, not that they were in any way, except as victims, accessory to creating the disturbance about the vampire, but it seemed to promise a kind of notoriety which they might well shrink from, and which they were just the people to view with dislike.
View the matter how we like, however, it is not to be considered as at all probable that the Bannerworth family would remain long in ignorance of what a great sensation they had created unwittingly in the neighbourhood.
The very reasons which had induced their servants to leave their establishment, and prefer throwing themselves completely out of place, rather than remain in so ill-omened a house, were sure to be bruited abroad far and wide.
And that, perhaps, when they came to consider of it, would suffice to form another good and substantial reason for leaving the Hall, and seeking a refuge in obscurity from the extremely troublesome sort of popularity incidental to their peculiar situation.
Mr. Chillingworth felt uncommonly chary of telling them all that had taken place; although he was well aware that the proceedings of the riotous mob had not terminated with the little disappointment at the old ruin, to which they had so effectually chased Varney the vampire, but to lose him so singularly when he got there.
No doubt he possessed the admiral with the uproar that was going on in the town, for the latter did hint a little of it to Henry Bannerworth.
“Hilloa!” he said to Henry, as he saw him walking in the garden; “it strikes me if you and your ship’s crew continue in these latitudes, you’ll get as notorious as the Flying Dutchman in the southern ocean.”
“How do you mean?” said Henry.
“Why, it’s a sure going proverb to say, that a nod’s as good as a wink; but, the fact is, it’s getting rather too well known to be pleasant, that a vampire has struck up rather a close acquaintance with your family. I understand there’s a precious row in the town.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes; bother the particulars, for I don’t know them; but, hark ye, by tomorrow I’ll have found a place for you to go to, so pack up the sticks, get all your stores ready to clear out, and make yourself scarce from this place.”
“I understand you,” said Henry; “We have become the subject of popular rumour; I’ve only to beg of you, admiral, that you’ll say nothing of this to Flora; she has already suffered enough, Heaven knows; do not let her have the additional infliction of thinking that her name is made familiar in every pothouse in the town.”
“Leave me alone for that,” said the admiral. “Do you think I’m an ass?”
“Ay, ay,” said Jack Pringle, who came in at that moment, and thought the question was addressed to him.
“Who spoke to you, you bad-looking horse-marine?”
“Me a horse-marine! didn’t you ask a plain question of a fellow, and get a plain answer?”
“Why, you son of a bad looking gun, what do you mean by that? I tell you what it is, Jack; I’ve let you come sneaking too often on the quarter-deck, and now you come poking your fun at your officers, you rascal!”
“I poking fun!” said Jack; “couldn’t think of such a thing. I should just as soon think of you making a joke as me.”
“Now, I tell you what it is, I shall just strike you off the ship’s books, and you shall just go and cruise by yourself; I’ve done with you.”
“Go and tell that to the marines, if you like,” said Jack. “I ain’t done with you yet, for a jolly long watch. Why, what do you suppose would become of you, you great babby, without me? Ain’t I always a conveying you from place to place, and steering you through all sorts of difficulties?”
“Damn your impudence!”
“Well, then, damn yours.”
“Shiver my timbers!”
“Ay, you may do what you like with your own timbers.”
“And you won’t leave me?”
“Sartingly not.”
“Come here, then?”
Jack might have expected a gratuity, for he advanced with alacrity.
“There,” said the admiral, as he laid his stick across his shoulders; “that’s your last month’s wages; don’t spend it all at once.”
“Well, I’m damned!” said Jack; “who’d have thought of that?—he’s a turning rumgumtious, and no mistake. Howsomdever, I must turn it over in my mind, and be even with him, somehow—I owes him one for that. I say, admiral.”
“What now, you lubber?”
“Nothing; turn that over in your mind;” and away Jack walked, not quite satisfied, but feeling, at least, that he had made a demonstration of attack.
As for the admiral, he considered that the thump he had given Jack with the stick, and it was no gentle one, was a decided balancing of accounts up to that period, and as he remained likewise master of the field, he was upon the whole very well satisfied.
These last few words which had been spoken to Henry by Admiral Bell, more than any others, induced him to hasten his departure from Bannerworth Hall; he had walked away when the altercation between Jack Pringle and the admiral began, for he had seen sufficient of those wordy conflicts between those originals to be quite satisfied that neither of them meant what he said of a discouraging character towards the other, and that far from there being any unfriendly feeling contingent upon those little affairs, they were only a species of friendly sparring, which both parties enjoyed extremely.
He went direct to Flora, and he said to her—
“Since we are all agreed upon the necessity, or, at all events, upon the expediency of a departure from the Hall, I think, sister, the sooner we carry out that determination the better and the pleasanter for us all it will be. Do you think you could remove so hastily as tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow! That is soon indeed.”
“I grant you that it is so; but Admiral Bell assures me that he will have everything in readiness, and a place provided for us to go to by then.”
“Would it be possible to remove from a house like this so very quickly?”
“Yes, sister. If you look around you, you will see that a great portion of the comforts you enjoy in this mansion belong to it as a part of its very structure, and are not removable at pleasure; what we really have to take away is very little. The urgent want of money during our father’s lifetime induced him, as you may recollect even, at various times to part with much that was ornamental, as well as useful, which was in the Hall. You will recollect that we seldom returned from those little continental tours which to us were so delightful, without finding some old familiar objects gone, which, upon inquiry, we found had been turned into money, to meet some more than usually pressing demand.”
“That is true, brother; I recollect well.”
“So that, upon the whole, sister, there is little to remove.”
“Well, well, be it so. I will prepare our mother for this sudden step. Believe me, my heart goes with it; and as a force of vengeful circumstances have induced us to remove from this home, which was once so full of pleasant recollections, it is certainly better, as you say, that the act should be at once consummated, than left hanging in terror over our minds.”
“Then I’ll consider that as settled,” said Henry.
CHAPTER XLVII.
THE REMOVAL FROM THE HALL.—THE NIGHT WATCH, AND THE ALARM.
Mrs. Bannerworth’s consent having been already given to the removal, she said at once, when appealed to, that she was quite ready to go at any time her children thought expedient.
Upon this, Henry sought the admiral, and told him as much, at the same time adding—
“My sister feared that we should have considerable trouble in the removal, but I have convinced her that such will not be the case, as we are by no means overburdened with cumbrous property.”
“Cumbrous property,” said the admiral, “why, what do you mean? I beg
leave to say, that when I took the house, I took the table and chairs with it. Damn it, what good do you suppose an empty house is to me?”
“The tables and chairs!”
“Yes. I took the house just as it stands. Don’t try and bamboozle me out of it. I tell you, you’ve nothing to move but yourselves and immediate personal effects.”
“I was not aware, admiral, that that was your plan.”
“Well, then, now you are, listen to me. I’ve circumvented the enemy too often not to know how to get up a plot. Jack and I have managed it all. Tomorrow evening, after dark, and before the moon’s got high enough to throw any light, you and your brother, and Miss Flora and your mother, will come out of the house, and Jack and I will lead you where you’re to go to. There’s plenty of furniture where you’re a-going, and so you will get off free, without anybody knowing anything about it.”
“Well, admiral, I’ve said it before, and it is the unanimous opinion of us all, that everything should be left to you. You have proved yourself too good a friend to us for us to hesitate at all in obeying your commands. Arrange everything, I pray you, according to your wishes and feelings, and you will find there shall be no cavilling on our parts.”
“That’s right; there’s nothing like giving a command to some one person. There’s no good done without. Now I’ll manage it all. Mind you, seven o’clock tomorrow evening everything is to be ready, and you will all be prepared to leave the Hall.”
“It shall be so.”
“Who’s that giving such a thundering ring at the gate?”
“Nay, I know not. We have few visitors and no servants, so I must e’en be my own gate porter.”
Henry walked to the gate, and having opened it, a servant in a handsome livery stepped a pace or two into the garden.
“Well,” said Henry.
“Is Mr. Henry Bannerworth within, or Admiral Bell?”
“Both,” cried the admiral. “I’m Admiral Bell, and this is Mr. Henry Bannerworth. What do you want with us, you damned gingerbread-looking flunkey?”
“Sir, my master desires his compliments—his very best compliments—and he wants to know how you are after your flurry.”
“What?”
“After your—a—a—flurry and excitement.”
“Who is your master?” said Henry.
“Sir Francis Varney.”
“The devil!” said the admiral; “if that don’t beat all the impudence I ever came near. Our flurry! Ah! I like that fellow. Just go and tell him—”
“No, no,” said Henry, interposing, “send back no message. Say to your master, fellow, that Mr. Henry Bannerworth feels that not only has he no claim to Sir Francis Varney’s courtesy, but that he would rather be without it.”
“Oh, ha!” said the footman, adjusting his collar; “very good. This seems a damned, old-fashioned, outlandish place of yours. Any ale?”
“Now, shiver my hulks!” said the admiral.
“Hush! hush!” said Henry; “who knows but there may be a design in this? We have no ale.”
“Oh, ah! dem!—dry as dust, by God! What does the old commodore say? Any message, my ancient Greek?”
“No, thank you,” said the admiral; “bless you, nothing. What did you give for that waistcoat, damn you? Ha! ha! you’re a clever fellow.”
“Ah! the old gentleman’s ill. However, I’ll take back his compliments, and that he’s much obliged at Sir Francis’s condescension. At the same time, I suppose may place in my eye what I may get out of either of you, without hindering me seeing my way back. Ha! ha! Adieu—adieu.”
“Bravo!” said the admiral; “that’s it—go it—now for it. Damn it, it is a do!”
The admiral’s calmness during the latter part of the dialogue arose from the fact that over the flunkey’s shoulder, and at some little distance off, he saw Jack Pringle taking off his jacket, and rolling up his sleeves in that deliberate sort of way that seemed to imply a determination of setting about some species of work that combined the pleasant with the useful.
Jack executed many nods to and winks at the livery-servant, and jerked his thumb likewise in the direction of a pump near at hand, in a manner that spoke as plainly as possible, that John was to be pumped upon.
And now the conference was ended, and Sir Francis’s messenger turned to go; but Jack Pringle bothered him completely, for he danced round him in such a singular manner, that, turn which way he would, there stood Jack Pringle, in some grotesque attitude, intercepting him; and so he edged him on, till he got him to the pump.
“Jack,” said the admiral.
“Ay, ay, sir.”
“Don’t pump on that fellow now.”
“Ay, ay, sir; give us a hand.”
Jack laid hold of him by the two ears, and holding him under the pump, kicked his shins until he completely gathered himself beneath the spout. It was in vain that he shouted “Murder! help! fire! thieves!” Jack was inexorable, and the admiral pumped.
Jack turned the fellow’s head about in a very scientific manner, so as to give him a fair dose of hydropathic treatment, and in a few minutes, never was human being more thoroughly saturated with moisture than was Sir Francis Varney’s servant. He had left off hallooing for aid, for he found that whenever he did so, Jack held his mouth under the spout, which was decidedly unpleasant; so, with a patience that looked like heroic fortitude, he was compelled to wait until the admiral was tired of pumping.
“Very good,” at length he said. “Now, Jack, for fear this fellow catcher cold, be so good as to get a horsewhip, and see him off the premises with it.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” said Jack. “And I say, old fellow, you can take back all our blessed compliments now, and say you’ve been flurried a little yourself; and if so be as you came here as dry as dust, damn me, you go back as wet as a mop. Won’t it do to kick him out, sir?”
“Very well—as you please, Jack.”
“Then here goes;” and Jack proceeded to kick the shivering animal from the garden with a vehemence that soon convinced him of the necessity of getting out of it as quickly as possible.
How it was that Sir Francis Varney, after the fearful race he had had, got home again across the fields, free from all danger, and back to his own house, from whence he sent so cool and insolent a message, they could not conceive.
But such must certainly be the fact; somehow or another, he had escaped all danger, and, with a calm insolence peculiar to the man, he had no doubt adopted the present mode of signifying as much to the Bannerworths.
The insolence of his servant was, no doubt, a matter of pre-arrangement with that individual, however he might have set about it con amore. As for the termination of the adventure, that, of course, had not been at all calculated upon; but, like most tools of other people’s insolence or ambition, the insolence of the underling had received both his own punishment and his master’s.
We know quite enough of Sir Francis Varney to feel assured that he would rather consider it as a good jest than otherwise of his footman, so that with the suffering he endured at the Bannerworths’, and the want of sympathy he was likely to find at home, that individual had certainly nothing to congratulate himself upon but the melancholy reminiscence of his own cleverness.
But were the mob satisfied with what had occurred in the churchyard? They were not, and that night was to witness the perpetration of a melancholy outrage, such as the history of the time presents no parallel to.
The finding of a brick in the coffin of the butcher, instead of the body of that individual, soon spread as a piece of startling intelligence all over the place; and the obvious deduction that was drawn from the circumstance, seemed to be that the deceased butcher was unquestionably a vampire, and out upon some expedition at the time when his coffin was searched.
How he had originally got out of that receptacle for the dead was certainly a my
stery; but the story was none the worse for that. Indeed, an ingenious individual found a solution for that part of the business, for, as he said, nothing was more natural, when anybody died who was capable of becoming a vampire, than for other vampires who knew it to dig him up, and lay him out in the cold beams of the moonlight, until he acquired the same sort of vitality they themselves possessed, and joined their horrible fraternity.
In lieu of a better explanation—and, after all, it was no bad one—this theory was generally received, and, with a shuddering horror, people asked themselves, if the whole of the churchyard were excavated, how many coffins would be found tenantless by the dead which had been supposed, by simple-minded people, to inhabit them.
The presence, however, of a body of dragoons, towards evening, effectually prevented any renewed attack upon the sacred precincts of the churchyard, and it was a strange and startling thing to see that country town under military surveillance, and sentinels posted at its principal buildings.
This measure smothered the vengeance of the crowd, and insured, for a time, the safety of Sir Francis Varney; for no considerable body of persons could assemble for the purpose of attacking his house again, without being followed; so such a step was not attempted.
It had so happened, however, that on that very day, the funeral of a young man was to have taken place, who had put up for a time at that same inn where Admiral Bell was first introduced to the reader. He had become seriously ill, and, after a few days of indisposition, which had puzzled the country practitioners, breathed his last.
He was to have been buried in the village churchyard on the very day of the riot and confusion incidental to the exhumation of the coffin of the butcher, and probably from that circumstance we may deduce the presence of the clergyman in canonicals at the period of the riot.
When it was found that so disorderly a mob possessed the churchyard, the idea of burying the stranger on that day was abandoned; but still all would have gone on quietly as regarded him, had it not been for the folly of one of the chamber-maids at the tavern.