Dracula’s Brethren

by Richard Dalby

  Margaret, in much perturbation and a beating heart, gained the way to the cave; but the interior was so dark that she was obliged to grope on her hands and knees to the magic well, and cast in the accustomed charm. The thunder rolled, and the storm commenced, but with not one quarter of the violence as on her preceding visit. The music followed in an harmonious strain, and the spirits of the storm and air soon stood before her. The beauty, the innocence, of the noble maid, her virtues and her benevolence, had interested these mystical beings in her behalf – yes, even the stern and oft obdurate Una felt for Margaret, and wished to save her. They could not alter the decree of fate, nor had they power over the vampires; the only thing that remained was to warn the enquirer, if possible, of her danger. For this purpose, they unfolded the curtain, and presented to her view, the real Ruthven on the field of battle, bleeding and a corpse. She heard his last sigh, saw his last convulsive motion – a grisly fleshless skeleton stood by his side, and at that moment entered his corpse, which sprung up reanimated! Margaret knew well the traditional tales of the vampires, and shuddered as she beheld one before her; for what could be more plain? No further vision was shown her – she was warned from the cave, and the fair one returned to the castle, dejected and spiritless. What did this mean? Ruthven, her adored Ruthven, could be no vampire – impossible – so accomplished, so clever, superior in most things to others of his rank. She passed the intervening hours in a very restless state, till they met at their morning repast in the small saloon. The vampire handed her to a chair; she remembered the scene in the cave, and shrank back with a feeling of disgust; but this was not lasting; the labours of the spirit of the storm and the air had not their intended effect; like advice given to young maidens that accords not with the inclination, it sank before the fascination of the object beloved, and she regarded what had been shown her as wayward spite in Una and Ariel; so ready are we to twist circumstances to act in conformity with our own inclination.

  The dews of night, the chilling breeze, the damp of the magic cave of Fingal, joined to the fatigue and agitation of the noble maiden, caused a fever which confined her to her chamber several days, and again delayed the marriage. The vampire grew impatient, and before the Lady Margaret was scarce convalescent, he began to press for the nuptial ceremony, with what the good baron thought indecorous haste, though he made all possible allowance for repeated disappointments and youthful passions.

  Robert, much better read than the warrior, his master, in the traditional tales of his country, and its popular superstitions, had not yet got the better of his shock at the reappearance of Ruthven in his native valley, when he felt convinced that Marsden’s earl died of his wounds on the field of battle at Flanders. ‘Aye, by the holy rood, he did,’ would the youth often mutter to himself. ‘May I never live to be married to my gentle Effie, and it wants but three days and three nights to that happy morn, if I did not see Ruthven’s eye-strings crack, and his heart’s veins burst assunder: this is a vampire, and this is the moon when those foul fiends pay their tribute, and now he is all impatience to wed my young mistress, forsooth – Yes, yes, ’tis plain enough: but what is the use of saying anything about it, my father and all the servants laugh at me; even my intended turns into ridicule, anything I advance on the subject, and calls me Robert, the vampire hunter: but I will not be deterred from doing my duty like an honest servant, let them jeer as they will. I am resolved to tell the baron all that I know, that is, all I think of his guest, and then he may please himself, and come what will, my conscience will be clear.’

  Robert had courage to face a cannon, and never turned his back on the bravest foe, but he felt daunted at the disclosure he meant to make to Lord Ronald; the subject was awkward, and the vampire (if vampire he was) might take a summary revenge on him for his interference. Yet his resolution was not shaken, and seeking the cellar-man he procured a glass of cordial and a horn of ale to revive his spirits, and then, finding himself what he called his own man again, he sought the baron, whom he happened to find alone and taking his evening walk in the grounds, while Margaret and her lover were sitting at their music.

  Robert told his tale with much hesitation and faltering, but the baron heard him with more patience than he expected, and made him recount every particular of his suspicions. ‘’Tis strange! ’tis marvellous strange!’ replied the good Lord Ronald; ‘for I have seen many persons from Flanders, and yet they never heard of the Earl of Marsden being saved by the peasants: one would have thought such news would have spread like wildfire.’

  ‘Neither does he go to mass or prayer,’ observed Robert, ‘as a Christian warrior ought to do; nor does he take salt on his trencher.fn1 And All-Hallow E’en is fast approaching,’ continued Robert: ‘this is the fatal moon, and my young mistress—’

  ‘Shall never be his,’ exclaimed the baron, ‘’till the moon sets, and the night, so tragic and pregnant of evil to many a spotless maid, is gone by; then if Ruthven is Marsden’s true earl, he may have my Margaret. She shall then be his, and I will turn all my fish ponds into bowls for whisky punch, and the great fountain in the forecourt shall flow with ale till not a Scot around can stand upon his legs, or he is no well-wisher to me or mine; but if he is an infernal vampire, his reign will be over. Faith, by St Andrew, I know not what to think, but I have had fearful dreams, portentous of evil to my ancient house.’

  The baron dismissed Robert with a present, and many encomiums on his fidelity and zeal for him and the Lady Margaret. ‘My father,’ said the honest fellow, ‘has lived with you from youth to age: I was born within these walls, and my deceased mother suckled your amiable heiress; treachery in me would be double guilt: no, I would die to serve the house of Ronald!’

  When the baron entered his daughter’s apartment, a group met his eyes, very ill calculated to give him pleasure in his present frame of mind full of supernatural ideas, and teeming with dread suspicions; Margaret had changed her robes of plaid silk for virgin white, her neck chain, bracelets and other ornaments of filigree silver, most exquisitely wrought. Ruthven was also dressed with elegance. The fair one’s attendants were also in their best. The steward and the physician of the household were present, and the chaplain stood with the sacred book in his hand.

  ‘We were waiting for you, my dear Lord Baron,’ said the vampire, Ruthven; ‘I have persuaded my lovely betrothed to be mine this very evening. We have been so very unfortunate, that I dread further delay, and think every hour teeming with evil till she is mine irrevocably.’

  ‘You have no rival,’ answered the baron, much alarmed and piqued: ‘you are secure in Margaret’s love and my consent. My friends and tenants will ill brook such privacy; they have been accustomed to see the daughters of the Lord of the Isles wedded in public pomp and magnificence, and to share in the festive and abundant hospitalities. No, by the shades of my ancestors, I will have no such doings.’

  Ruthven pleaded hard, but the baron heeded not his arguments or eloquence, for the more he seemed bent on espousing Margaret then, the old lord thought more on Robert’s report and his own suspicions. Margaret, infatuated by the spell that cast an illusion over her senses, seemed to forget her proper dignity and the delicate decorum of her sex, and joined in the solicitations of her lover. ‘My dear father,’ said the beauteous maiden, ‘Ruthven and myself are in unison with each other’s sentiments; we seek not in pomp and glare for happiness; we place our prospects of future bliss in elegant retirement and domestic pleasures. Allow us to be now united, I entreat you, and you can afterwards treat your neighbours, retainers, and servants, as plenteously as you like, but I shrink from the idea of a public marriage.’

  Ruthven took the hand of his betrothed, which she presented to him with the most endearing smiles, while her eyes modestly bent down and her cheeks covered with roseate blushes, and never did Lady Margaret look so irresistibly captivating as at that moment.

  The baron, while she was speaking, trembled with emotion – Not for a single hour, said he, mentally,
would I defer their happiness on account of bridal pomp, if I thought all was right; but I will not risk the sacrificing of so much loveliness, and that my only child, the image of my lost Cassandra, to a vampire; but he did not like to disclose the suspicions he had imbibed, for if they were founded in error, how grossly ridiculous would he appear, and he resolved to delay the nuptials, and stay the test of the moon. He therefore said, ‘It is my pleasure to give a full month to splendid preparation, ’tis but a short delay, and let me have the satisfaction to have the nuptials as I would wish them to be, in honour of Marsden’s earl and Ronald’s daughter.’

  The baron observed the lover give a start at the words ‘a full month’, and his eyes shot forth a most malicious glance. He still held Margaret’s hand. ‘Nonsense! my good friend,’ said he, ‘this is not fair, from one warrior to another – Chaplain, begin the ceremony.’

  The enraged baron flung off his guard, snatched the book from the hands of the priest, and bade Margaret retire with her maidens to another room, accusing Ruthven of being a vampire.

  This was strongly resented by the accused, and, indeed, every one took his part, and laughed at the suggestion. This raised the baron’s passion so high that he was declared by the physician to be insane, and they coercively conveyed him to his chamber, and barred him in, where he was on the point of becoming frantic indeed, from the thoughts of his injunctions, for he was more convinced than ever of Ruthven being a supernatural imposter, or he would never have acted so uncourteous to a knight in his own castle.

  Robert having heard from his father, the old steward, of the interruption of the marriage through the baron’s mania, in thinking the Earl of Marsden a vampire, and his lord’s confinement in the western turret, observed that he supposed the nuptials then were all off. His parent answered no, that the young people were not forced to obey such whims; that Lady Margaret was retired for an hour to regain her composure, and the chaplain would then perform the ceremony. ‘And who is to be the bride’s father?’ said Robert. – ‘I am to have that honour,’ replied the steward. – ‘And much good may it do you,’ said the son: ‘but if I was you, I’d cater better for the noble Lady Margaret than to give her to an evil spirit.’ – ‘Go to, for an ungracious bird,’ exclaimed Alexander; ‘you are as mad as your master; poor Effie will have but a crazy husband at the best of it.’ – ‘Better a crazy one, than a bloodthirsty vampire, father,’ observed Robert, who quitted the room, vexed at the loud peal of laughter, which was now set up against him.

  Robert went out into the park, but returned privately into the castle by a bypath and a private door, of which he had a key, having procured it some time before he went to the wars, for he was then a rakish youth, and loved to steal out to the village dance or festival, after he was supposed to retire to rest for the night; but now he was contracted to the languishing blue-eyed Effie he was reformed, and voluntarily relinquished all such stolen delights. The key was now regarded by him as a treasure. ‘It helped me,’ said he to himself, ‘to sow my wild oats; it shall now aid me to perform a more laudable purpose. Little did I think to see the good Baron of the Isles a captive in his own castle; and for what, but that he is in too much possession of his senses to sacrifice his lovely virgin daughter to a vampire, for such, by the holy rood, is this fine Earl of Marsden. Why his face is the image of death itself, and his eyes glare; yet my Lady Margaret forsooth! thinks him very handsome, now she is under the influence of the wicked spell; the real Ruthven looked not so when he came to woo the noble fair one; but he says ’tis through his wounds in battle: I think by St Cuthbert, he has had time enough to get his complexion again, and he eats and drinks voraciously, it makes me sick to see him as I stand in waiting, and no salt – faugh!’

  This long soliloquy, brought the faithful youth to the door of the baron’s prison; he drew the bolts and entered; his lord was pacing the chamber with unmeasured strides, and beating his forehead, while heavy sighs burst from his aged bosom. He started and stood still on Robert’s entrance.

  ‘Friend or foe?’ said he. – ‘Friend,’ replied Robert, ‘and when I prove otherwise to my most noble master and commander, may I be seized by the foul fiend and made food for vulture.’

  ‘I am not mad,’ said the good old veteran, ‘but I think I may say, I am distracted with grief.’

  ‘You are no more mad than I, my lord; I do not join in that absurd tale; but hasten and arm yourself. The marriage is to take place almost immediately – let us hasten and prevent it, ere it is too late.’

  Lord Ronald was doubly shocked – his suspicions of the vampire were increased by this obstinate persisting in the nuptials against his command, and the want of tenderness and filial love testified by his daughter. How changed was Margaret! Did she choose for her bridal hours those of confinement to her sire – had she not supposed him insane, it is not to be thought she would have suffered him to be thus treated; this then was her season for connubial joys – the sudden insanity of her only surviving parent, he who had so ardently strove not only to fulfil his own duties, but to supply the place as far as possible of the late Lady Cassandra, his amiable wife, and he felt there was no sting so keen as a child’s ingratitude. The barbed arrow seemed to touch his very vitals, and for the first time in his life the brave Ronald shed tears.

  ‘Take courage, my lord,’ said Robert, ‘if they dare still to oppose your authority, this trusty falchion, this well-tried steel, shall prove if Ruthven is common flesh and blood or no.’

  ‘Moderation! moderation! Robert,’ replied the baron, as he led the way to Lady Margaret’s apartment, where he did not arrive one minute too soon – the ceremony was on the point of commencing, and ’tis possible a few of the first words had been pronounced by the priest.

  The baron’s entrance caused a universal consternation – the maidens shrieked, and the vampire began to bluster, but Lord Ronald took prompt measures. He solemnly protested that he was in the full use and exercise of his senses, and charged his daughter, on the penalty of incurring his curse, not to enter into wedlock with Marsden’s earl till he sanctioned it. She did not choose to disobey on such an awful threat, but casting a look of anguish and tenderness on her lover, she burst into tears, and leaning on the arms of her sympathising maidens, withdrew to her chamber, where throwing herself on a couch, gave way to a full tide of sorrow. ‘Cruel father!’ she exclaimed. ‘Ridiculous superstition! I feel I never shall be the bride of my truly adored and adoring Ruthven, so many fatal interruptions seem as if the fates forbid our union – spirits of the storm and air, are ye not too in league against me?’

  The vampire now besought the baron’s forgiveness and friendship, attributing his recent behaviour to excess of love, that did not brook delay; he also interceded for the chaplain, whom Lord Ronald was about to dismiss for his presumption, and peace was again restored in the Castle of the Isles.

  Wine was called for, and a repast was spread and the vampire so artfully strove against the suspicions of the baron, that the prejudices of the latter were nearly done away; and Robert blamed for his credulous folly; yet the false earl could not obtain from the old nobleman a promise to allow him to wed before the setting of the moon, for Ronald still adhered to that test, nor would abridge aught of a term that now waxed very short.

  The vampire concealed his chagrin and feigned content; he thought it best to keep a firm footing in the castle, as some chance might still operate in his favour, founding his hopes on the spell he had obtained over Lady Margaret, and the strong affection with which she beheld him, and he scarcely admitted a doubt of success, if he could get the baron and Robert out of the way; for no one else in the castle had the least doubt of his being the real Earl of Marsden.

  The baron, however, watched with great vigilance, and Robert never stirred from a station he had taken that commanded a view of the door of Lady Margaret’s chamber. Time seemed to ride on swift pinions with the vampire – his fears were stronger than his hopes – he had never been so foiled befor
e in his attempts, and he thought it best to provide against the coming danger, and leave the mistress alone for her maid the blue eyed Effie; whom he would lure from her allegiance to Robert, persuade her to wed himself, and then sacrifice her to pay his annual demoniac tribute. This would serve two purposes, renew his vampireship, and be a deadly revenge on the interfering Robert, on whom he longed to wreak his diabolical rage.

  It seemed rather a difficult achievement to gain the affections of a young and certainly most virtuous maiden (who was to be married in a few hours to the object of her first choice) from that object, but the vampire’s case grew desperate, and he resolved to try if the charm would operate.

  While Robert was watching the lady, the vampire resolved to seize on the more ignoble prize, and he assailed Effie with every alluring temptation. He told the poor girl that he was tired of pursuing the match with Lady Margaret, and abhorred the thought of allying himself to such a piece of dotage as the credulous baron, who was grown superannuated, and only fit to sit amongst the old wives a-spinning, and tell legendary tales of hobgoblins, and water sprites. He said Effie’s beauty and innocence had charmed him – that she wanted nothing but dress and rank to be level with her mistress, and that would be hers by marrying Marsden’s earl.