The Complete Northanger Horrid Novel Collection (9 Books of Gothic Romance and Horror)

by Eliza Parsons

  The Count attempted to throw himself out of bed, he uttered some words I do not now recollect, and called upon his servant. I advanced furiously towards him: You call in vain for help, I am master of your destiny. I ordered Peter to throw himself upon him, and hold him down. In vain he struggled, for the efforts being too much for his strength, he was the more easily overpowered. With the pistol to his breast, whilst Peter secured his arms, I obliged Arnulph to cut the cords from the bed, and in spite of every resistance securely confined the Count, who now condescended to implore mercy for Eugenia; his first execrations were changed into supplications, and I enjoyed them.

  Arnulph had been endeavouring to restore to life the deceitful Eugenia; her child was crying over her, and by its lamentations brought in Agnes. On seeing us, her first intention seemed to be flight, for she screamed and run to the door; but looking at her mistress she flew back to assist her, as she appeared returning to life; she besought me to spare her Lady.

  "You have no cause for apprehension," I replied, exquisitely gratified at seeing them all in my power: "I swear to you that I will not destroy your Lady, or your Lord, I do not mean to murder them."

  "What then is your intention?" asked the Count. "Why break in upon us like a midnight robber?"

  "I have no leisure to answer questions," said I, interrupting him, 'therefore you may as well be silent; for you, ungrateful, perjured creature," added I, addressing Eugenia, who by this time was restored to a sense of her situation, and hid her face in the arms of Agnes, both violently agitated, "you, who at the altar gave me your hand and faith, and now live as an adulteress with the man you swore never to be joined with without your father's consent; know you are still my wife, and I will prove my right by my power of punishing you."

  She uttered not a word, terror had deprived her of speech. I ordered the two men to carry her into the next apartment. She made no resistance: I drove Agnes and the child after her; there I had recourse to the same means, cut the cords from the bed, and bound both mistress and maid, telling Arnulph aside I would release his wife the following morning: I saw by his countenance that he repented of his confidence, and was much moved by the situation of the women, and the cries of the child, which I silenced by threats that drove her to the feet of her mother. I was convinced it would be necessary to get rid of him speedily; having therefore secured my prisoners, and locked them in separate rooms, I bid Arnulph conduct me over the Castle. I followed him through the apartments, and found one wing of it had been neglected, and was more out of repair than the rest, looking only towards a thick wood from the tower.

  I examined carefully, and at the end of a gallery went down a stair-case, which had a vaulted passage. Opening one of the apartments, which received a glimmering light from the top of a broken window shutter, I bid the man see if he could pull it down.—He tremblingly obeyed me, and as he was making the trial I stabbed him in the back: He fell; I repeated the stroke in his heart; he ceased to live, and I hastened from the place. The ferocity that had taken possession of my soul precluded every sense of fear, and drove every humane feeling from my heart for ever: I could now revenge my injuries, and I felt a gloomy triumph that inspired more pleasing sensations than I had for four years enjoyed.

  Leaving the wretched victim, I explored the passage until I came into two horrible dungeons, and by the staples in the walls, and chains hanging from them, was convinced those dungeons had been formerly used as prisons by the owners of the Castle. This place answered my purpose exactly. I returned to the Count's apartment, told Peter Arnulph was employed at the other part of the house, and bid him assist me in carrying the Count to a place I had provided for him. He obeyed, incapable of resistance he submitted in silence.

  When we descended into the dungeon I observed Peter trembled, and threw a melancholy glance on the prisoner; he was obliged, however, to help me in fastening the chain in a secure manner round the Count's legs and arms: I then unbound him.

  "Use me as you please (said he) but spare the unfortunate Eugenia, and an innocent child."—His voice faltered.

  "I mean not to divide you (I replied.)—You shall have your family party here to share your felicity." Ordering Peter to accompany me, I went back to the women, and obliged him to drag Agnes to the same vault. Eugenia made not the least resistance, when told she was to have her child and the Count with her.

  "Conduct me where you will (said she) with the dear objects of my heart, and I shall not complain:" But when she entered the dismal abode, and saw him chained, she sent forth a piercing shriek, and then descended to implore mercy and supplicate forgiveness. I felt a sensation of pity at the moment, but I had gone too far to recede. Agnes and the child uttered loud and dismal cries; Peter's tears ran down his cheeks, but I shut my ears and my eyes against being moved by their distress. We carried Eugenia into the inner dungeon, and chained her in a similar manner with the Count. Having thus secured them, I demanded of the faithless woman by what means she had escaped from me, who assisted her, and where she had been concealed?

  "Those are particulars you shall never know (said she;) I have nothing now to fear, for death would be a relief; your savage nature may be gratified by my miseries, but never shall you learn from me the names of those who were my friends and deliverers."

  "It is well (cried I, enraged at her perverseness) here is one however," seizing Agnes, "who has been an accomplice, and whom I will oblige to speak: Say, wretch, where didst thou hide that infamous perjured woman? Who were thy assistants? Instantly confess the whole, or certain death attends thee."

  "I had no assistants (answered she, firmly) nor do I fear to die; be assured, my Lord, that whilst I am confined in this horrid place, whilst those unfortunate——." I interrupted her, with my poignard at her breast, and at her peril bid her conceal any thing from me.

  "I will follow the example of my beloved mistress (said she;) from me you will learn nothing."

  "Die then, audacious wretch," I exclaimed, and plunged the poignard into her breast!

  "Hold! O hold! (cried Eugenia) and I will tell you all:" But seeing the woman fall expiring on the ground:—"Inhuman monster! (added she) to murder the innocent and helpless, well dost thou justify the aversion my soul conceived against thee, stern, cruel barbarian! O, my father! my dear father! thy peace and happiness sacrificed to gratitude, and thy daughter a miserable victim to an unjust prejudice! Fatal, fatal prepossessions!" "'Tis you, unjust and cruel woman, 'tis you (cried I) who are the cause of all those murders, of that ferocity and cruelty thou upbraidest; 'tis love, 'tis hatred, that teaches me revenge; one passion shall at least be gratified."

  I turned from her, heedless of her lamentations, or the cries of her child. On entering the other dungeon I saw the Count trembling, and speechless from the violence of his emotions, I left him with the triumphant satisfaction that he was now as wretched as myself. On my return to the habitable part of the house, I examined the looks of Peter, pale and agitated, I saw he was but half a villain, and enjoyed not the glorious revenge of his master. He asked for Arnulph, in a tone of voice that conveyed his suspicion that he also was no more.—Plunged so far into guilt, murder was familiar to my thoughts, and to secure myself, it was necessary I should permit no witnesses to exist against me.

  Could I have confided in his secrecy, he would have been most useful to me, but I dared not risk the hazard; therefore, after a moment's recollection, I bid him follow me, and he would see what Arnulph was employed about. With a doubtful look and a trembling step, he descended with me to the offices below, and passing the kitchens at the end of a long colonnade, I opened a door which led into a room that appeared to have been a laundry, and being detached some way from the other offices (the thing I sought for) was designed to rid me of all apprehensions from Peter.—"Arnulph is not here," said he, in a tremulous voice. Seeing that I stopped:—"No, but you are," and in a moment I buried the poignard in his bosom.—He fell dead without uttering a word, only one dismal groan, which made me start.
—Looking round, and then on the bleeding object before me, whose services had ever been faithful, and who I had sacrificed to fear only, a transitory remorse smote me to the heart: I flew hastily from the dreadful scene without recovering my weapon. I regained the chamber where I found the Count, and throwing myself upon the bed which lay on the floor, gave way to the most terrible reflections I had ever experienced; the horrors in which I spent that night will ever live in my remembrance.

  I had committed three murders: The fury that had possessed me on my first entrance, now subsided into gloomy retrospections, and unsettled designs. If I destroyed the Count and Eugenia I had nothing to fear; but my revenge in that case would be incomplete; I wished to see them miserable, to endure a living death. Some times different ideas struck me, which my still violent passion suggested as a greater triumph over Eugenia, to assert my claim as a husband, and force her to submit to me even in preference of the object she had preferred to me. In short, the morning dawned before I had resolved on any plan, or without having rested a single hour.

  When the day-light advanced I descended to the kitchens, there I found bread, butter and cheese, with a cold fowl; a wine cellar well stored, and a yard full of poultry; plenty of wood, and an outhouse full of old hay and stray, that was musty from age. I opened the windows to give it air; and going from thence to the gardens, saw one part was well cultivated with vegetables, and another with flowers and fruits.—"It will not be difficult to live here," I exclaimed, and from that moment determined on my plan, and from which I have never varied in the treatment of my prisoners: Every day to carry to them a certain portion of bread and water; once a week a half pint of wine, and once a month clean straw to rest upon. I resolved to preserve their lives that I might prolong their sufferings, and the gratification of my revenge was a much superior pleasure to any that I could promise myself from society, or an acquaintance with a world I had long since been disgusted with; for altho" the bequests of Count Zimchaw had done away my first objections, by enabling me to appear with more consequence, and more suitable to my rank, yet habit had so accustomed me to retirement, that I felt no inclination to mix with mankind, and to retaliate my wrongs upon an ungrateful woman, and a successful rival, afforded me the most pleasing contemplation, and a supreme delight.

  CHAPTER III

  I passed the morning in examining every part of the Castle, which was a good deal out of repair, except in the wing where they had taken up their residence. About noon I visited my prisoners, and carried to them the portion I had allotted for them.—They appeared to be differently affected, the Count was very weak, his pride, his spirits seemed subdued by the consideration of the distress his child and Eugenia had suffered. He condescended to supplicate for them; the child screamed on my approach, and flew to her mother, who with a look, and in a tone of mingled grief and haughtiness, thus addressed me:

  "Whatever evils you have resolved to overwhelm me with, I can bear. You think I have deserved to suffer; but who, Sir, made you a judge in your own cause? I never deceived you, I told you I had no heart to give; you persisted, ungenerously laid a tax on the gratitude my dear father felt, and insisted that the hand of his daughter should be your reward for services, which common humanity would have dictated to the poorest peasant, had his power been equal to your's. Your claims, added to an unhappy, and I will say unjust, prejudice my father had conceived against the man I loved, proved destruction to my peace and happiness; commands which I had never disputed, and the impending horrors of a parent's curse drew from me an equivocal promise that I would give you my hand. Heaven has punished me for a duplicity I could not, according to my own feelings, avoid or evade. At the altar, neither my heart nor lips ratified the gift of my hand, for my vows were given to another. The consequence you know.

  "You now, Sir, usurp an unjust power over us; but do not deceive yourself, neither peace nor pleasure can follow such unjustifiable, such cruel deeds; murder has many tongues, and your own conscience will avenge our wrongs."

  Here she ceased; I had listened to her with pain and impatience; the music of her voice thrilled to my very soul, but her words drove every soft idea from my heart as instantly as they were conceived.—"There is bread and water (exclaimed I, my passions roused to a degree of frenzy) that, and a bed of straw is what you may expect from me." I returned to the offices, I brought two small tables and benches; I fixed a faint and glimmering lamp against the wall, which served only to throw a gloomy light, and additional horror, on the dismal dungeons. A small opening was between them, and the length of their chains permitted their approach near to each other; I fetched straw and a blanket for each; they observed all these preparations in sullen silence, I was as little disposed to talk. When I had completed the business, and was about to leave them, "You now see that I am in earnest (said I;) once a day I shall visit you, and gratify my feelings by a view of your miseries."

  "O, my child! my dear child!" exclaimed Eugenia, passionately.—I made no reply, but a look of scornful exultation, and returned to the apartments I had fixed on for my residence.

  I was now alone, condemned to solitude without a friend, or even an attendant: I regretted the loss of Peter; he had served me some years with fidelity, why then did I distrust him? Why suffer my cowardly apprehensions to deprive me of a companion so necessary? These were my reflections as I looked round on the gloomy woods which appeared from every window, and heard the hollow winds whistling through the trees.—Surely, thought I again, this Castle was built for deeds of darkness; murder has been familiar within these walls, and the Count's ancestors, perhaps, were not less criminal than myself.

  A violent storm of hail and thunder confined me to the apartment for the remainder of the day. I employed myself in arranging matters for my own accommodation, when towards the evening, as I was musing over the recent events, it darted into my mind that the poor boy whom I had confined in the lodge, if not dead, might be useful to me; the situation of this boy had never occurred to me till that moment: I hastened to the place, and found him in a most pitiable state, almost without life. I released and assisted him into the house; I told him, the Count and his family had been obliged to fly to avoid being imprisoned by the Emperor, whose orders had been issued for that purpose; that being related to the Count's Lady, I remained in the Castle, at their request, to keep possession for them, and would be kind to him if he behaved well.

  Young, extremely ignorant, and overjoyed to escape from the apprehensions of death, he implicitly believed every thing I asserted, and when, by a little bread and wine being cautiously administered, I had brought him to a small return of strength and courage, he bestowed a thousand blessings on me for preserving his life; so strangely had the sudden fright and terror overcome his senses when he was seized upon, that he described five or six great tall men armed breaking into the Castle, and swearing to murder every one in it. He rejoiced to hear that his master and Lady escaped from them, and never once expressed any surprise at my being there, or asked by what means I came to know of his confinement. From that day he served me faithfully; I was obliged to trust him once into the village for necessaries, but after that time I engaged a farmer to come himself once or twice a week, and as I paid him handsomely, he never expressed any curiosity, or a wish to penetrate into my motives for this recluse way of life, and having slightly hinted the same tale I had fabricated to the boy, he as readily believed it.

  Three months passed away without the least alteration in the plan I had laid down and regularly pursued, only that I visited my prisoners at night, after the boy was retired to rest, and had nailed up the doors of those rooms where the wretches lay whom I had sacrificed to my own safety. I am apt to believe the Count and Eugenia sometimes flattered themselves that time would subdue my resentment, or that I should grow tired of living in that solitary mansion; but if such ideas occurred to them, they were mistaken; solitude nursed the ferocity of my disposition, and the patience and resignation they evinced in their horrid situation only inc
reased my desire of continuing their punishment till despair and sorrow should more completely gratify my revenge. 'Tis true, I sometimes looked back with regret on the few weeks I had spent with the Count and his daughter at my own mansion, far the happiest days of my life, and for which I have dearly paid by subsequent miseries!

  I some times felt a degree of envy rise in my bosom when I read of the pleasures enjoyed by a social converse with our fellow creatures; and there were moments when I was tormented with the idea, that even my prisoners experienced some satisfaction in being able to communicate their feelings to each other. It is certain that had there been a possibility of placing them separately I should have done it, but I was incapable of making a new arrangement myself, and dared not confide in the boy. A circumstance, however, soon took place, which rendered them as completely wretched as my vindictive heart could desire.

  On one of my nocturnal visits, I found the Count overwhelmed with an unusual gloom, and the mother supporting her child on her bed of straw, almost drowned in tears.—When I approached her, "See, barbarian! (cried she) the work of thy cruel hands;—behold this dear innocent victim devoured by a fever occasioned by the damps of the dungeon, and want of proper food. O, if thy heart is not more callous than the fiercest beasts of prey, compassionate my child, save, oh! save its life, or be merciful and destroy us all at once!"

  My heart fluttered at this address, and a something like pity rose for a moment to my soul; but instantly recollecting that she had pledged her vows to me at the altar with an intention to deceive, that the child was the offspring of a detested rival, and that now was my turn to triumph; those ideas in a moment chased the weakness from my heart, and gave place to very different sensations. Before I could reply, the Count addressed me, in a tremulous voice: