University of Virginia Library

120. CHAPTER CXX.

THE HUNT FOR THE VAMPYRE IN THE SUBTERRANEAN PASSAGE.

The information that had been given to Mrs. Willams respecting her daughter and James Anderson having together left the great hall of Anderbury House, was perfectly correct.

The voice of Anderson, whispering words of affection in the ear of Helen, was sufficient to arouse her from the state of syncope into which she had fallen; and when she recovered and looked in his face, the expression of joy which her countenance wore, at once dispelled all his doubts.

"Helen, dear Helen!" he whispered; "are you, indeed, still, in heart, mine?"

"Still, as ever," she replied.

"Come with me; I have much to tell you; and we need not heed the thoughts and feelings of the throng that is here. If you can walk, place your arm in mine, and lean upon me, and we will get out of all this trouble and confusion."

Helen was but too glad to avail herself of such an offer, and she accordingly at once did so; and leaning for support upon that arm, which, of all others, she most loved to bear upon, they together passed out of the great hall, through one of the numerous doorways leading from it.

Being both of them quite ignorant of what may be called the topography of Anderbury House, they went on till they came to a small but very elegant apartment, in which a table was laid with wines, and some costly refreshments, which, from the fact of an extremely clerical-looking shovel hat being upon one of the chairs, there was no great difficulty in coming to the conclusion that this had been a reception-room, got up purposely for the reverend gentleman who was to perform the ceremony of marriage between the baron and Miss Williams, and in which he had refreshed himself prior to the performance of that dreadfully arduous task, for which, no doubt, as all persons are, he was so very insufficiently paid.

A glass of wine, which James Anderson poured out for Helen, tended much to recover her; and then he said to her in accents of the greatest affection, —

"Helen—Helen! is it possible that you really so far forgot me, as to promise your hand to another?"

She burst into tears as she clung to his arm, saying, —

"I know you cannot, you ought not to forgive me. I did promise; but I did not forget you; and if you know the cruel persecution to which I have been subjected, you would pity, perhaps, as much as you condemn me."

"You did not know that some days since I wrote you a note."

"Me a note? Oh, heavens! no—no. What became of it? To whom did you entrust it? Oh! James, had I but thought you were near me, do you think that for one moment I would have yielded, even to the representations which were made to me?"

"I see it all," he said. "Your mother has carried on this matter with more tact than candour and honesty of purpose. I do not condemn you, dear Helen; and no one shall ever disturb you in your possession of a heart which is wholly yours."

"And can you forget—"

"All but that I love you I can and will forget, Helen."

"I do not deserve this noble generosity, for I ought not to have yielded, James. I feel that I ought to have clung to the remembrance of your affection, and found in that an abundant consolation, as well as abundant strength, to resist the whole world."

"Say no more, dearest, upon that head; but let us, to the full, enjoy the happiness of this meeting, without the drawback of a single doubt."

"We will never part again."

"Never—never."

"But, James, what was the meaning of that sudden exclamation, from one of the guests, as regarded the baron?"

"You allude to Admiral Bell proclaiming him to be a vampyre; and, I must say, it fills me with quite as much astonishment as it can you. I did hear a strange story of that sort from a sailor a short time ago, but I looked upon it as a mere superstition and paid no attention to it. You know what it means, I presume, and that a vampyre is supposed to be a half-supernatural creature who supports a spurious and horrible existence, by feeding upon the blood of any one whom he can make his victim."

"If this horrible superstition," said Helen, with a shudder, "be true, what a dreadful fate have I escaped!"

"It surely must be some error of judgement; but still, dear one, you have escaped a dreadful fate, a fate worse than any vampyre would have inflicted upon you—the fate of being united to one whom you cannot love."

"Yes," said Helen; "that is, indeed, an escape; but how came you, of all persons in the world, a guest here?"

"I came, Helen, under cover of a general invitation, with a most worthy family, to whose kindness I feel myself much indebted, and which empowered them to bring with them whom they pleased. My wish and object was to take one last look at the face I had loved so well before I left you for ever."

"Oh, Heavens!" said Helen, "and I was so near being sacrificed while you were by. Even now I shudder at the dreadful chasm; I feel that you ought not to forgive me."

"Say no more—say no more; all that, Helen, is now past and forgotten, and I can well imagine how your mother would torture you with supplications, because she believed this man to be rich, and consequently the sort of person, above all others, as most desirable for her to have as a son-in-law. We will only consider that a great anxiety and a great danger has passed away, and we will not stop to ask ourselves what it was."

"Ever good, and ever generous," resumed Helen, as her head reposed upon her lover's breast.

"Oh," said Jack Pringle, as he popped his head in at the door; "I beg your pardon, you are better engaged; but we are going to have a grand vampyre hunt through the house, and I thought you would like to join in it, perhaps."

"Stay a moment, stay," cried Anderson. "Do you mean to tell me, really, that this is the person who gave your friends, the Bannerworths, so much trouble and inconvenience?"

"Yes, I do," said Jack; "lor bless you, he is quite an old acquaintance of ours, is old Varney; sometimes he hunts us, sometimes we hunt him. He is rather a troublesome acquaintance, notwithstanding, and I think there are a good many people in the world, a jolly right worse vampyres than Varney."

"I have no cause to hunt him," said Anderson, "and so, therefore, I feel certainly more inclined to decline, than otherwise, engaging in such a transaction."

"Don't mention it," said Jack; "you are a deuced deal better engaged, and there needs no excuses."

Jack was quite correct as regarded the projected hunt for the unfortunate Varney in Anderbury House; for the liberal offer of reward which the admiral had made to any one who would secure him, was calculated to stimulate every possible exertion that people could make upon the occasion; so much so, indeed, that the Bannerworths, after a brief consultation among themselves, thought that for the protection of Varney it would be much better that they should find him, than now leave him with the character that had been given him as such a dangerous member of society.

The servants, and some of the guests, even, had gone very systematically to work for the purpose of taking Varney prisoner; for, in the first instance, they had secured all the outlets from the house, so that, as the footman with the yellow plush continuations remarked, he must jump over the cliff if he wanted to get away.

The admiral and Henry agreed with each other that they would be foremost in the search, in order to protect Varney from any violence; for although this conduct of his might be considered as very bad, and an outrage upon society in passing himself off as a baron, and endeavouring to effect an alliance with a young and innocent girl, yet they, the Bannerworths, had nothing to complain of in the transaction whatever.

Consequently was it that they felt an inclination to defend Varney from personal violence.

And this was, to a certain extent, to be dreaded, because Anderbury being so short a distance from Bannerworth, it was not to be supposed but that some news of the mysterious appearance of the vampyre had reached the ears of almost every one who happened to be present at the baron's wedding.

And although these persons might be supposed to belong to a class of society not likely to commit acts of violence, yet there was no knowing what, in the excitement of the moment, might be done.

While the search went on, Flora was introduced to Helen Williams, and remained with her, commencing a friendship which lasted afterwards, to the great advantage of Helen, for many a year.

The Bannerworths would have been pleased and interested at going over Anderbury House, under any other circumstances than the present one, for truly the baron had made it a most magnificent abode.

By judicious additions to the antique furniture which had belonged to it when he took it, he had made some of the apartments look gorgeous in the extreme; and while he had not disturbed the character of the decorations, he had certainly shown a very fine taste in adding to them.

But their minds were by far too much occupied with considerations connected with Varney to pay much attention to his house; and, as they traversed room after room in search of him without finding him, they began to think that, with his usual good fortune, he had contrived entirely to escape.

The servants, who knew the place well, perhaps better than Varney did himself, searched for him in almost impossible places, until it began to be the general opinion that he must have escaped.

They were standing by a large bay window, which commanded a view of the gardens, when one of the servants suddenly exclaimed, —

"I see him—I see him; there he goes," and pointed into the garden, where, for one instant, Henry Bannerworth, as well as the admiral, saw Varney, in his rich suit of wedding apparel, dart from among the bushes, towards a summer-house that was in the garden near at hand.

"Tis he, indeed," said Henry. "Let us get down instantly, or he may yet effect his escape."

"No, no," cried one of the servants, "he cannot do that; the garden wall is too high, and the men are stationed at the gate. It's quite clear to me what he is about. Look at him; he is going towards the old passage that leads to the sea shore."

"Then he will escape, of course," said Henry, "for no one can hope to overtake him."

"Don't you be afraid of that, sir," cried the servant; "one of my mates has gone round to the beach to watch, and he won't let the door be opened that leads out on to the sands, so he cannot get away by that mode."

"In that case, then, we have him completely entrapped, and, as you say, he cannot escape. It must be the madness of positive desperation that induces him to go to that place."

"Let us be off at once after him," said the admiral; "that is our only plan. Come on at once. The sooner we get hold of him the better, for his own sake as well as for ours."

Thus urged, they all proceeded towards the garden, in which was the mysterious, well-like entrance to the subterraneous passage, which formed so great a feature in the estate of Anderbury, on the moment, and which, at the time that Varney had taken the mansion, had evidently formed to him one of its principal attractions.

To the admiral and his party, as well as to several of the guests, who joined from motives of curiosity in the pursuit for Varney, this place was perfectly new, and it certainly, to look down it, did not present by any means an inviting prospect; for although it sloped sufficiently to take off the absolute appearance of being a downright hole in the earth, yet, beyond a few feet in depth, the gloom had something positively terrific about it.

"Well," said the admiral, "I've been into the hold of many a ship, but never one that looked half so gloomy as this, I can say. What do you say to it, Jack?"

"It's no use saying anything to such places," said Jack. "The only way, if we want to catch old Varney, which I suppose we do, is to pop down it at once and done with it; so come along, I won't flinch if it was ten times worse. Come on, admiral, let's go down after the enemy."

"I cannot say it's exactly the kind of place I admire," said the admiral; "but, howsomedever, if one must go down it, who shall say that Admiral Bell flinched from it? Come on, all of you. Let all who will follow."

The passage did not look a very inviting one; and it was found that the courage of the guests began to cool down wonderfully when, instead of rushing from apartment to apartment, in search of Varney, the vampyre, they found that they had to encounter the gloom and darkness of that underground abode.

Out of the positive throng which had been pursuing Varney, only four, in addition to the admiral and the male portion of his party, ventured to descend into that black-looking place.

"What!" cried Jack, "have we got such a lot of skulkers whenever we come to close quarters with the enemy? Well, shiver my timbers, if I didn't expect as much from a lot of land lubbers, who don't know what they are about any more than a marine in a squall. But who cares? Come along, admiral; and, if we do have all the fighting, we shall, at all events, have all the glory."

"I hope there will be nothing of the one, at all events," said Henry; "for my intention is rather to save Varney from injury than to injure him.

"We must have lights," said the admiral. "I don't mind going down into a queer place to look for Varney, but I must have the means of seeing what I am about when I get there."

"They will be here, sir, directly," said the big footman, who from the first had made himself conspicuous in the pursuit of Varney; that is to say, ever since the reward of £100 had been offered by the admiral to any one who would take him prisoner.

And in a few moments, some of the links, which were always kept in the kitchen of Anderbury House, for the express purpose of descending into the subterraneous passages with, were produced and lighted. By this time, too, the four guests had decreased to three, and two of those seemed to hang back rather a little; while one of them seemed disposed to make up as much as possible for any deficiency of courage on the part of the others, by declaring his intention of ferretting out Varney, let him be hidden where he might.

"I am with you, sir," he said to the admiral, "let this place lead where it may; for I have heard so much about vampyres, and really am so curious to know more about them."

"You don't believe in them, do you?"

"I cannot say that I do, sir. But, at the same time, when we hear such well authenticated cases brought forward about them, it is very difficult, indeed, to say at once, that one has no belief in such things."

"Well, you are right enough there; and if you knew as much about Varney, the vampyre, as we do, I think you would be a little puzzled to know what to say about him; for I'll be hanged if he don't puzzle me above a bit, and I don't know now what to think of him."

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