He rode up, and, as usual, the bride sat behind him, tall, slender, and nobly fashioned, and bashfully retiring as the graceful gazelle. I was about to speak, when a passing gust of wind blew aside her veil, and there I beheld Helen! ay, Helen Vere, my first, my only love, and my all but pledged bride. What misery, and despair, and rage, were concentrated in that little moment! All my hopes, all the wanderings, and toils, and privations, became but as empty wind by that look. I seemed in a moment to live over fifteen long years of my life. My first feelings of love—my parting kiss—my dreams of her when far away, danced wildly in my brain. She was another’s bride! The sudden shock was too much for feeble frail reason to sustain. I forgot where I was—what I was doing. I rushed forward; I threw out my arms, like one battling with some tempest-vexed sea. I screamed, I laughed, I shouted ha, ha, ha! till the rocks echoed as with the howling of a thousand wolves. My blood felt like liquid fire; my eyes seemed starting from their burning sockets; my veins were swollen to agony, and my heart seemed glowing and crackling, as if the infernal fire of a whole eternity were concentrated in its narrow limits. ‘Welcome, my love! welcome, my lady bride!’ I shouted, ‘you have kept your troth bravely—we shall have a merry bridal—ha, ha, ha,! But who laughs?’ I exclaimed, startled at the hideous sound of my own maniac voice—‘who dares laugh at us—ha! she rides with a demon—’tis death, death himself—see you not the fleshless limbs through the bravery of his crimson robes—down, down fiend!—down, in God’s name or the devil’s, to your native hell!’ And, possessed with the wild fantasy which my whirling brain had conjured up, I rushed at my brother to pull him from his seat. I had the nerve of a giant—I was blind with the fury of raging madness: the horse with its riders were near the edge of the rock—I sprung forward at the imaginary enemy, and oh, horror! horror! horror! over they went, horse and riders, over the naked craggy precipice. All I have described passed in a moment of time—the pair, thank God! never, on this earth at least, knew their murderer.
The moment they fell, my reason returned like a flash of light—I was fascinated, rooted to the spot, gazing into the abyss of death and horror. I saw, I marked every thing; I saw the steed with its burden dash from point to point; I even noted the sparks which the hoofs of the agonised brute struck from the flinty side of the ravine, and I distinctly heard a low but terribly clear shriek of mortal agony mingling with the sullen crash which told they had reached their grave at the bottom.
The frenzy again came upon me; I lost all thought, all fear: regardless of the tremendous height, I swung myself down by bush and stone, getting footing and holding which in no other circumstances I could have found or availed myself of. I heard a confused murmur of voices above me, the gradual diminishment of which was the only index to my progress; and at length, bruised and breathless, but strong with fever and madness, I reached the bottom.
At first I could discern nothing; my eye was bloodshot and dim—I was dizzy too, and sick and faint; for the first excitation had begun to wear away. At last I saw something dark mingled with white; it grew plainer and plainer, like the phantasmagorical scene of a magic lantern; my sight gradually regained its wonted power—my reason and consciousness returned, and I saw what will haunt me till the spirit hath parted with the flesh—even longer, it may be.
It was very terrible to be sitting there in that wild fastness beside the dead, who but minutes—moments ay, had been rioting in life, and health, and joy—and I had caused the change; but for me, they still had been tenants of this glad and sunny earth, had still felt the blessed freshness of the western breeze which now whirled the withered oak leaves around their unconscious forms. The solitude was awful. I have been in the wild battle, where death held his bloodiest carnival,—I have been at sea when the masts were sprung, and the breakers a-head were already baptising the bows of the devoted ship,—and I have been in a city whose walls were crumbling, and whose palaces were sinking under the tornado and earthquake;—at that moment I would have rushed into the whole of these united, if that could be, as a blessed refuge from the calm, still quiet of death and desolation which that lonely gulf now presented.
Helen’s face, by some chance, was untouched; unmutilated; her head resting on the side of the horse, she seemed as if peacefully gazing at me, as she was wont in bygone years, when reposing with me on the sunny side of some green gowan-decked hill. I could not believe that what had happened was real—I spoke to her—I grasped her hand yet warm with recent life—I laughed, I upbraided her for her cold apathy and neglect. ‘What! not one word, Helen, after our long absence? Is this kind? ’Tis but to try, my love—speak, Helen, speak but one word to say that you are still my own little black-haired laughing Helen.’ My eye glanced on the fearfully mutilated form of my brother—the damning reality at once pressed upon my brain—for an instant I felt torments to which the severest bodily agony would be pleasure and ease—but madness, blessed madness, came to my relief; and I awoke, as after a long and troubled sleep, in the very room where I had slept when a child.
A strange fancy struck me: I thought for a moment that I was still a boy, that my residence in India, the fearful crag, and the lapse of fifteen long years, were but the visionary creations of the erratic dream of a single night; and I almost expected to hear the laughing voice of Helen Vere outside my chamber-door, chiding me for lying so long a-bed, when the sun had risen two hours before, and the tame stock-doves would be wearying for their accustomed food.
Two old withered hags, sick-nurses I presume, sat on each side of my couch in earnest converse, and I gently raised myself on my elbow to listen. ‘In truth,’ said one, ‘ ’tis an awful story; ’tis lucky the old man died before he knew it was his son.’ ‘What strange fancies he had, to be sure,’ quoth the other; ‘because the bride was timersome, and did not like riding a-horseback, he must needs have the bridemaid to take her place: well, well, old folks will have their fancies; the laird was ever particular in keeping up the freaks of the family.’ I could hear no more—‘She was true then!’ I yelled, and sunk back stunned and senseless, like one stricken by a million thunderbolts.
I found myself naked and chained in a dungeon of a madhouse; it was cold, piercing cold; the night was wild and stormy, a high hoarse-voiced wind shook the dark tall trees which grew around the window, and their shadows, reflected by the bright moonlight, danced and flickered on the roof and walls of my cell like demons laughing at me, and mocking my distress; a great moping screech-owl was perched outside the gratings of the window; and as the neighbouring church-clock chimed the hour of one, it slowly and sluggishly raised its head for a moment, opened its heavy dull eye, and then slumbered as before: the clanking of chains was sullenly heard at intervals; and above, and below, and from every side, came fearful demoniac-like gusts of screaming and laughter, and shrieks of insensate agony, and wild dark blasphemies and execrations.
Thanks be to God, I am again in my sound mind—the fierce remembrance of the above fearful passages has softened down into a settled permanent melancholy. I cannot bear society—I see no one but the old clergyman of the village, whose pious communings have tended in no small degree to make me bear my lot with patience. But when I look at the desolation which pervades my paternal mansion and lawns, when I look at my worn-out frame, and my hair prematurely gray with sorrow and watching, and think that with me one of the oldest families in the land will cease to exist, a feeling of unspeakable loneliness will ever and anon steal upon me; and I think with chastened wonder upon the ways of that God which are past finding out, and which baffle and put to fault the wisest imaginings of our poor, erring, short-sighted race.
LIFE IN DEATH
Anonymous
‘Who shall deny the mighty secrets hid
In Time and Nature?’
‘BUT can you not learn where he sups?’ asked the dying man, for at least the twentieth time; while the servants again repeated the same monotonous answer—‘Lord, sir, we never know where our young master goes.’
None was at hand; when one of the assembled group exclaimed—‘Fetch that in Mr Francis’s room.’
It was a small French clock, of exquisite workmanship, and a golden Cupid swung to and fro,—fitting emblem for the light and vain hours of its youthful proprietor, but a strange mockery beside a death-bed! Yet the patient watched it with a strange expression of satisfaction, mingled, too, with anxiety, as the glittering hands pursued their appointed round. As the minutes passed on, an ejaculation of dismay burst from Mr Saville’s lips: he strove to raise his left hand with a gesture of impatience; he found it powerless too; the palsy, which had smitten his right side, had now attacked the left. ‘A thousand curses upon my evil destiny—I am lost!’
At this moment the time-piece struck four, and began to play one of the popular airs of that day; while the cord on which the Cupid was balanced moved, modulated by the fairy-like music. ‘He comes!’ almost shrieked the palsied wretch, making a vain effort to rise on his pillow. As if the loss of every other sense had quickened that of hearing seven-fold, he heard the distant tramp of horses, and the ring of wheels, on the hard and frosty road. The carriage stopped; a young man, wrapped in furs, sprang out, opened the door with his own key, and ran up the stairs, gaily singing,
‘They may rail at this earth: from the hour I began it,
I have found it a world full of sunshine and bliss;
And till I can find out some happier planet,
More social and bright, I’ll content me with this.’*
‘Good God, sir, don’t sing—your father’s dying!’ exclaimed the servant who ran to meet him. The youth was silenced in a moment; and, pale and breathless, sprang towards the chamber. The dying man had no longer power to move a limb: the hand which his son took was useless as that of the new-born infant; yet all the anxiety and eagerness of life was in his features.
‘I have much to say, Francis; see that we are alone.’
‘I hope my master does not call this dying like a Christian,’ muttered the housekeeper as she withdrew. ‘I hope Mr Francis will make him send for a priest, or at least a doctor. People have no right to go out of the world in any such heathen manner.’
The door slammed heavily, and father and son were left alone.
‘Reach me that casket,’ said Mr Saville, pointing to a curiously carved Indian box of ebony. Francis obeyed the command, and resumed his kneeling position by the bed.
‘By the third hand of that many-armed image of Vishnu is a spring, press it forcibly.’
The youth obeyed and the lid flew up, within was a very small glass phial containing a liquid of delicate rose colour. The white and distorted countenance of the sufferer lighted up with a wild unnatural joy.
‘Oh youth, glad beautiful youth, art thou mine again, shall I once more rejoice in the smile of woman, in the light of the red wine cup, shall I delight in the dance, and in the sound of music?’
‘For heaven’s sake compose yourself,’ said his son, who thought that his parent was seized with sudden insanity. ‘In truth I am mad to waste breath so precious!—Listen to me, boy! A whole existence is contained in that little bottle; from my earliest youth I have ever felt a nameless horror of death, death yet more loathsome than terrible: you have seen me engrossed by lonely and mysterious studies, you knew not that they were devoted to perpetual struggle with the mighty conqueror—and I have succeeded. That phial contains a liquid which rubbed over my body, when the breath has left it seemingly for ever, will stop the progress of corruption, and restore all its pristine bloom and energy. Yes, Francis, I shall rise up before you like your brother. My glorious secret! how could I ever deem life wasted in the search? Sometimes when I have heard the distant chimes tell the hour of midnight, the hour of others’ revelry or rest, I have asked, is not the present too mighty a sacrifice to the future; had I not better enjoy the pleasures within my grasp? but one engrossing hope led me on; it is now fulfilled. I return to this world with the knowledge of experience, and the freshness of youth; I will not again give myself up to feverish studies and eternal experiments. I have wealth unbounded, we will spend it together, earth holds no luxury which it shall deny us.’
The dying man paused, for he observed that his son was not attending to his words, but stared as if his gaze was spellbound by the phial which he held.
‘Francis,’ gasped his father.
‘There is very little,’ muttered the son, still eying the crimson fluid.
The dews rose in large cold drops on Saville’s forehead—with a last effort he raised his head, and looked into the face of his child—there was no hope there; cold, fixed, and cruel, the gentleness of youth seemed suddenly to have passed away, and left the stern features rigid as stone; his words died gurgling in the throat, his head sank back on the pillow, in the last agony of disappointment, despair, and death. A wild howl filled the chamber, and Francis started in terror from his knee; it was only the little black terrier which had been his father’s favourite. Hastily he concealed the casket, for he heard the hurrying steps of the domestics, and rushing past them, sought his own room, and locked the door. All were struck by his altered and ghastly looks.
‘Poor child,’ said the housekeeper, ‘I do not wonder he takes his father’s death so to heart, for the old man doated on the very ground he trod upon. Now the holy saints have mercy upon us,’ exclaimed she, making the sign of the cross, as she caught sight of the horrible and distorted face of the deceased.
Francis passed the three following days in the alternate stupor and excitement of one to whom crime is new, and who is nevertheless resolved on its commission. On the evening of the fourth he heard a noise in the room where the corpse lay, and again the dog began his loud and doleful howl. He entered the apartment, and the two first men he saw were strangers, dressed in black with faces of set solemnity; they were the undertakers, while a third in a canvass apron, and square paper cap, was beginning to screw down the coffin, and while so doing was carelessly telling them how a grocer’s shop, his next-door neighbour’s, had been entered during the night, and the till robbed.
‘You will leave the coffin unscrewed till to-morrow,’ said the heir. The man bowed, asked the usual English question which suits all occasions, of ‘Something to drink, sir?’ and then left young Saville to his meditations. Strange images of death and pleasures mingled together; now it was a glorious banquet, now the gloomy silence of a church-yard; now bright and beautiful faces seemed to fill the air, then by a sudden transition they became the cadaverous relics of the charnel-house. Some clock in the neighbourhood struck the hour, it was too faint for Francis to hear it distinctly, but it roused him; he turned towards the little time-piece, there the golden cupid sat motionless, the hands stood still, it had not been wound up; the deep silence around told how late it was; the fire was burning dead, the candles were dark with their large unsnuffed wicks, and strange shadows, gigantic in their proportions, flitted round the room.
‘Fool that I am to be thus haunted by a vain phantasy. My father studied overmuch; his last words might be but the insane ravings of a mind overwrought. I will know the truth.’
Again his youthful features hardened into the gladiatorial expression of one grown old in crime and cruelty. Forth he went and returned with the Indian casket; he drew a table towards the coffin, placed two candles upon it, and raised the lid: he started, some one touched him; it was only the little black terrier licking his hand, and gazing up in his face with a look almost human in its affectionate earnestness. Francis put back the shroud, and then turned hastily away, sick and faint at the ghastly sight. The work of corruption had begun, and the yellow and livid streaks awoke even more disgust than horror. But an evil purpose is ever strong; he carefully opened the phial, and with a steady hand, let one drop fall on the eye of the corpse. He closed the bottle, replaced it in the casket, and then, but not till then, looked for its effect. The eye, large, melancholy, and of that d
eep violet blue, which only belongs to early childhood, as if it were too pure and too heavenly for duration on earth, had opened, and full of life and beauty was gazing tenderly upon him. A delicious perfume filled the air; ah, the old man was right! Others had sought the secret of life in the grave, and the charnel-house; he had sought it amid the warm and genial influences of nature; he had watched the invigorating sap bringing back freshness to the forest tree; he had marked the subtile spring wakening the dead root and flower into bloom—the essence of a thousand existences was in that fragile crystal. The eye now turned anxiously towards the casket, then with a mute eloquence towards the son; it gazed upon him so piteously, he saw himself mirrored in the large clear pupil; it seemed to implore, to persuade, and at last, the long soft lash glistened, and tears, warm bright tears, rolled down the livid cheek. Francis sat and watched with a cruel satisfaction; a terrible expression of rage kindled the eye like fire, then it dilated with horror, and then glared terribly with despair. Francis shrank from the fixed and stony gaze. But his very terror was selfish.
‘It must not witness against me,’ rushed into his mind. He seized a fold of the grave clothes, crushed the eye in the socket, and closed the lid of the coffin. A yell of agony rose upon the silent night. Francis was about to smite the howling dog, when he saw that it lay dead at his feet. He hurried with his precious casket from the chamber, which he never entered again.——Years have passed away, and the once gay and handsome Francis Saville is a grey and decrepit man, bowed by premature old age, and with a constitution broken by excess. But the shrewd man has been careful in his calculations; he knew how selfish early indulgence and worldly knowledge had made himself, and he had resolved that so his children should not be corrupted: he had two, a boy and a girl, who had been brought up in the strictest ignorance and seclusion, and in the severest practices of the Catholic faith. He well knew that fear is a stronger bond than love, and his children trembled in the presence of the father, whom their mother’s latest words had yet enjoined them to cherish. Still the feeling of dutiful affection is strong in the youthful heart, though Mr Saville resolved not to tempt it, by one hint of his precious secret.
The Vampyre and Other Tales of the Macabre Page 17