by Oscar Wilde
“I have promised to keep them secret, and I deeply regret the promise that I have made. There cannot be anything to my mind more essentially disagreeable than to have one’s tongue tied in one’s interview with friends. I hate to hear anything that I may not repeat to those whom I take into my own confidence.”
“I can understand the feeling; but here comes the worthy doctor.”
“Show him the memorandum.”
“I will.”
As Dr. Chillingworth entered the apartments Henry handed him the memorandum that had been found in the old pocket-book, saying as he did so—
“Look at that, doctor, and give us your candid opinion upon it.”
Dr. Chillingworth fitted on his spectacles, and read the paper carefully. At its conclusion, he screwed up his mouth into an extremely small compass, and doubling up the paper, he put it into his capacious waistcoat pocket, saying as he did so—
“Oh! oh! oh! oh! hum!”
“Well, doctor,” said Henry; “we are waiting for your opinion.”
“My opinion! Well, then, my dear boy, I must say, my opinion, to the best of my belief is, that I really don’t know anything about it.”
“Then, perhaps, you’ll surrender us the memorandum,” said Charles; “because, if you don’t know anything, we may as well make a little inquiry.”
“Ha!” said the worthy doctor; “we can’t put old heads upon young shoulders, that’s quite clear. Now, my good young men, be patient and quiet; recollect, that what you know you’re acquainted with, and that that which is hidden from you, you cannot very well come to any very correct conclusion upon. There’s a right side and a wrong one you may depend, to every question; and he who walks heedlessly in the dark, is very apt to run his head against a post. Good evening, my boys—good evening.”
Away bustled the doctor.
“Well,” said Charles, “what do you think of that, Mr. Henry?”
“I think he knows what he’s about.”
“That may be; but I’ll be hanged if anybody else does. The doctor is by no means favourable to the march of popular information; and I really think he might have given us some food for reflection, instead of leaving us so utterly and entirely at fault as he has; and you know he’s taken away your memorandum even.”
“Let him have it, Charles—let him have it; it is safe with him. The old man may be, and I believe is, a little whimsical and crotchety; but he means abundantly well, and he’s just one of those sort of persons, and always was, who will do good his own way, or not at all; so we must take the good with the bad in those cases, and let Dr. Chillingworth do as he pleases.”
“I cannot say it is nothing to me, although those words were rising to my lips, because you know, Henry, that everything which concerns you or yours is something to me; and therefore it is that I feel extremely anxious for the solution of all this mystery. Before I hear the sequel of that which Varney, the vampire, has so strongly made me a confidant of, I will, at all events, make an effort to procure his permission to communicate it to all those who are in any way beneficially interested in the circumstances. Should he refuse me that permission, I am almost inclined myself to beg him to withhold his confidence.”
“Nay, do not do so, Charles—do not do that, I implore you. Recollect, although you cannot make us joint recipients with you in your knowledge, you can make use of it, probably, to our advantage, in saving us, perchance, from the different consequences, so that you can make what you know in some way beneficial to us, although not in every way.”
“There is reason in that, and I give in at once. Be it so, Henry. I will wait on him, and if I cannot induce him to change his determination, and allow me to tell some other as well as Flora, I must give in, and take the thing as a secret, although I shall not abandon a hope, even after he has told me all he has to tell, that I may induce him to permit me to make a general confidence, instead of the partial one he has empowered me to do.”
“It may be so; and, at all events, we must not reject a proffered good because it is not quite so complete as it might be.”
“You are right; I will keep my appointment with him, entertaining the most sanguine hope that our troubles and disasters—I say our, because I consider myself quite associated in thought, interest, and feelings with your family—may soon be over.”
“Heaven grant it may be so, for your’s and Flora’s sake; but I feel that Bannerworth Hall will never again be the place it was to us. I should prefer that we sought for new associations, which I have no doubt we may find, and that among us we get up some other home that would be happier, because not associated with so many sad scenes in our history.”
“Be it so; and I am sure that the admiral would gladly give way to such an arrangement. He has often intimated that he thought Bannerworth Hall a dull place; consequently, although he pretends to have purchased it of you, I think he will be very glad to leave it.”
“Be it so, then. If it should really happen that we are upon the eve of any circumstances that will really tend to relieve us from our misery and embarrassments, we will seek for some pleasanter abode than the Hall, which you may well imagine, since it became the scene of that dreadful tragedy that left us fatherless, has borne but a distasteful appearance to all our eyes.”
“I don’t wonder at that, and am only surprised that, after such a thing had happened any of you liked to inhabit the place.”
“We did not like, but our poverty forced us. You have no notion of the difficulties through which we have struggled; and the fact that we had a home rent free was one of so much importance to us, that had it been surrounded by a thousand more disagreeables than it was, we must have put up with it; but now that we owe so much to the generosity of your uncle, I suppose we can afford to talk of what we like and of what we don’t like.”
“You can, Henry, and it shall not be my fault if you do not always afford to do so; and now, as the time is drawing on, I think I will proceed at once to Varney, for it is better to be soon than late, and get from him the remainder of his story.”
* * * *
There were active influences at work, to prevent Sir Francis Varney from so quickly as he had arranged to do, carrying out his intention of making Charles Holland acquainted with the history of the eventful period of his life, which had been associated with Marmaduke Bannerworth.
One would have scarcely thought it possible that anything now would have prevented Varney from concluding his strange narrative; but that he was prevented, will appear.
The boy who had been promised such liberal payment by the Hungarian nobleman, for betraying the place of Varney’s concealment, we have already stated, felt bitterly the disappointment of not being met, according to promise, at the corner of the lane, by that individual.
It not only deprived him of the half-crowns, which already in imagination he had laid out, but it was a great blow to his own importance, for after his discovery of the residence of the vampire, he looked upon himself as quite a public character, and expected great applause for his cleverness.
But when the Hungarian nobleman came not, all these dreams began to vanish into thin air, and, like the unsubstantial fabric of a vision, to leave no trace behind them.
He got dreadfully aggravated, and his first thought was to go to Varney, and see what he could get from him, by betraying the fact that some one was actively in search of him.
That seemed, however, a doubtful good, and perhaps there was some personal dread of the vampire mixed up with the rejection of this proposition. But reject it he did, and then he walked moodily into the own without any fixed resolution of what he should do.
All that he thought of was a general idea that he should like to create some mischief, if possible—what it was he cared not, so long as it made a disturbance.
Now, he knew well that the most troublesome and fidgetty man in the town was Tobias Philpots,
a saddler, who was always full of everybody’s business but his own, and ever ready to hear any scandal of his neighbours.
“I have a good mind,” said the boy, “to go to old Philpots, and tell him all about it, that I have.”
The good mind soon strengthened itself into a fixed resolution, and full of disdain and indignation at the supposed want of faith of the Hungarian nobleman, he paused opposite the saddler’s door.
Could he but for a moment have suspected the real reason why the appointment had not been kept with him, all his curiosity would have been doubly aroused, and he would have followed the landlord of the inn and his associate upon the track of the second vampire that had visited the town.
But of this he knew nothing, for that proceeding had been conducted with amazing quietness; and the fact of the Hungarian nobleman, when he found that he was followed, taking a contrary course to that in which Varney was concealed, prevented the boy from knowing anything of his movements.
Hence the thing looked to him like a piece of sheer neglect and contemptuous indifference, which he felt bound to resent.
He did not pause long at the door of the saddler’s, but, after a few moments, he walked boldly in, and said—
“Master Philpots, I have got something extraordinary to tell you, and you may give me what you like for telling you.”
“Go on, then,” said the saddler, “that’s just the price I always likes to pay for everything.”
“Will you keep it secret?” said the boy.
“Of course I will. When did you ever hear of me telling anything to a single individual?”
“Never to a single individual, but I have heard you tell things to the whole town.”
“Confound your impudence. Get out of my shop directly.”
“Oh! very good. I can go and tell old Mitchell, the pork-butcher.”
“No, I say—stop; don’t tell him. If anybody is to know, let it be me, and I’ll promise you I’ll keep it secret.”
“Very good,” said the boy, returning, “you shall know it; and, mind, you have promised me to keep it secret, so that if it gets known, you know it cannot be any fault of mine.”
The fact was, the boy was anxious it should be known, only that in case some consequences might arise, he thought he would quiet his own conscience, by getting a promise of secrecy from Tobias Philpots, which he well knew that individual would not think of keeping.
He then related to him the interview he had had with the Hungarian nobleman at the inn, how he had promised a number of half-crowns, but a very small instalment of which he had received.
All this Master Philpots cared very little for, but the information that the dreaded Varney, the vampire, was concealed so close to the town was a matter of great and abounding interest, and at that part of the story he suddenly pricked up his ears amazingly.
“Why, you don’t mean to say that?” he exclaimed. “Are you sure it was he?”
“Yes, I am quite certain. I have seen I him more than once. It was Sir Francis Varney, without any mistake.”
“Why, then you may depend he’s only waiting until it’s very dark, and then he will walk into somebody, and suck his blood. Here’s a horrid discovery! I thought we had had enough of Master Varney, and that he would hardly show himself here again, and now you tell me he is not ten minutes’ walk off.”
“It’s a fact,” said the boy. “I saw him go in, and he looks thinner and more horrid than ever. I am sure he wants a dollop of blood from somebody.”
“I shouldn’t wonder.”
“Now there is Mrs. Philpots, you know, sir; she’s rather big, and seems most ready to burst always; I shouldn’t wonder if the vampire came to her tonight.”
“Wouldn’t you?” said Mrs. Philpots, who had walked into the shop, and overheard the whole conversation; “wouldn’t you, really? I’ll vampire you, and teach you to make these remarks about respectable married women. You young wretch, take that, will you!”
She gave the boy such a box on the ears, that the place seemed to spin round with him. As soon as he recovered sufficiently to be enabled to walk, he made his way from the shop with abundance of precipitation, much regretting that he had troubled himself to make a confidant of Master Philpots.
But, however, he could not but tell himself that if his object was to make a general disturbance through the whole place, he had certainly succeeded in doing so.
He slunk home perhaps with a feeling that he might be called upon to take part in something that might ensue, and at all events be compelled to become a guide to the place of Sir Francis Varney’s retreat, in which case, for all he knew, the vampire might, by some more than mortal means, discover what a hand he had had in the matter, and punish him accordingly.
The moment he hid left the saddler’s Mrs. Philpots, after using some bitter reproaches to her husband for not at once sacrificing the boy upon the spot for the disrespectful manner in which he had spoken of her, hastily put on her bonnet and shawl, and the saddler, although it was a full hour before the usual time, began putting up the shutters of his shop.
“Why, my dear,” he said to Mrs. Philpots, when she came down stairs equipped for the streets, “why, my dear, where are you going?”
“And pray, sir, what are you shutting up the shop for at this time of the evening!”
“Oh! why, the fact is, I thought I’d just go to the Rose and Crown, and mention that the vampire was so near at hand.”
“Well, Mr. Philpots, and in that case there can be no harm in my calling upon some of my acquaintance and mentioning it likewise.”
“Why, I don’t suppose there would be much harm; only remember, Mrs. Philpots, remember if you please—”
“Remember what?”
“To tell everybody to keep it secret.”
“Oh, of course I will; and mind you do it likewise.”
“Most decidedly.”
The shop was closed, Mr. Philpots ran off to the Rose and Crown, and Mrs, Philpots, with as much expedition as she could, purposed making the grand tour of all her female acquaintance in the town, just to tell them, as a great secret, that the vampire, Sir Francis Varney, as he called himself, had taken refuge at the house that was to let down the lane leading to Higgs’s farm.
“But by no means,” she said, “let it go no further, because it is a very wrong thing to make any disturbance, and you will understand that it’s quite a secret.”
She was listened to with breathless attention, as may well be supposed, and it was a singular circumstance that at every house she left some other lady put on her bonnet and shawl, and ran out to make the circle of her acquaintance, with precisely the same story, and precisely the same injunctions to secrecy.
And, as Mr. Philpots pursued an extremely similar course, we are not surprised that in the short space of one hour the news should have spread through all the town, and that there was scarcely a child old enough to understand what was being talked about, who was ignorant of the fact, that Sir Francis Varney was to be found at the empty house down the lane.
It was an unlucky time, too, for the night was creeping on, a period at which people’s apprehension of the supernatural becomes each moment stronger and more vivid—a period at which a number of idlers are let loose for different employments, and when anything in the shape of a row or a riot presents itself in pleasant colours to those who have nothing to lose and who expect, under the cover of darkness, to be able to commit outrages they would be afraid to think of in the daytime, when recognition would be more easy.
Thus was it that Sir Francis Varney’s position, although he knew it not, became momentarily one of extreme peril, and the danger he was about to run, was certainly greater than any he had as yet experienced. Had Charles Holland but known what was going on, he would undoubtedly have done something to preserve the supposed vampire from the mischief that threatened him, but t
he time had not arrived when he had promised to pay him a second visit, so he had no idea of anything serious having occurred.
Perhaps, too, Mr. and Mrs. Philpots scarcely anticipated creating so much confusion, but when they found that the whole place was in an uproar, and that a tumultuous assemblage of persons called aloud for vengeance upon Varney, the vampire, they made their way home again in no small fright.
And, now, what was the result of all these proceedings will be best known by our introducing the reader to the interior of the house in which Varney had found a temporary refuge, and following in detail his proceedings as he waited for the arrival of Charles Holland.
CHAPTER LXXXVII.
THE HUNT FOR VARNEY.—THE HOUSE-TOPS. —THE MIRACULOUS ESCAPE.—THE LAST PLACE OF REFUGE.—THE COTTAGE.
On the tree tops the moon shines brightly, and the long shadows are shooting its rays down upon the waters, and the green fields appear clothed in a flood of silver light; the little town was quiet and tranquil—nature seemed at rest.
The old mansion in which Sir Francis Varney had taken refuge, stood empty and solitary; it seemed as though it were not associated with the others by which it was surrounded. It was gloomy, and in the moonlight it reminded one of things long gone by, existences that had once been, but now no longer of this present time—a mere memento of the past.
Sir Francis Varney reclined upon the house-top; he gazed upon the sky, and upon the earth; he saw the calm tranquillity that reigned around, and could not but admire what he saw; he sighed, he seemed to sigh, from a pleasure he felt in the fact of his security; he could repose there without fear, and breathe the balmy air that fanned his cheek.
“Certainly,” he muttered, “things might have been worse, but not much worse; however, they might have been much better; the ignorant are away—the most to be feared, because they have no guide and no control, save what can be exerted over them by their fears and their passions.”
He paused to look again over the scene, and, as far as the eye could reach, and that, moonlight as it was, was many miles, the country was diversified with hill and dale, meadow and ploughed land; the open fields, and the darker woods, and the silvery stream that ran at no great distance, all presented a scene that was well calculated to warm the imagination, and to give the mind that charm which a cultivated understanding is capable of receiving.