CHAPTER CCXI.
[Chapter 228]
[Chapter 228]
THE FLIGHT OF THE VAMPYRE. —THE MASS.
As was to be expected, in consequence of the sleepless state in which he
had been in the early part of the night, Mr. Bevan did not awaken at his
usually early hour; and as his confidential servant had stolen into his room
upon tip-toe, and seeing that the was sleeping quietly and soundly, she
did not think proper to disturb him.
An autumnal sun was gleaming into his lattice window when he
spontaneously awoke, and the reflection of the sunlight upon a particular
portion of the wall convinced him that it was late.
For a moment or two, he lay in that dreamy state when we are just
conscious of where we are, without having the smallest pretensions to another
idea; and probably he would have dropped to sleep again had it not been that
his servant again opened the door, the lock of which had the infirmity of
giving a peculiar snap every time it was used, and that thoroughly awakened
him.
"Oh, you are awake, sir?" said his old servant, "I never knew you sleep
so long. Breakfast has been ready an hour and a half. It's a cool morning,
sir, and what's worse, I can't get into your study to light you a bit of fire,
which I thought you would want."
The interruption altogether, and the mention of the study, served
completely to arouse Mr. Bevan to a remembrance of the events of the preceding
evening, and he cried, —
"What's the time? What's the time?"
"It's after nine, and as for the study—"
"Never mind the study—never mind the study, I will be down directly."
Scarcely ever had Mr. Bevan dressed himself with such precipitation as he
now did.
"How provoking," he thought, "that upon this particular occasion, when I
should like to have been up and stirring earlier than usual, I am a good hour
and a half later. It can't be helped though, and if my guest of last night is
to be credited, he won't be waiting for his breakfast."
The simple toilet of the kind-hearted clergyman was soon completed, and
then he ran down stairs to the lower part of his house, and finding that his
servant was in the kitchen, he thought he might at once proceed to his study,
to speak to the extraordinary inmate.
He had furnished Varney with the means of locking himself in for the
night, and it would seem that the vampyre had fully availed himself of those
means, for when Mr. Bevan tried the door, he found himself as much at fault as
his servant had been, and could not by any means effect an admittance.
"He said his fatigue was great," remarked Mr. Bevan, "and so it seems it
was, for surely he is yet sleeping. It is a comfort when one oversleeps
oneself that the necessity for one's rising has been put off by the same
means."
Unwilling to disturb Varney, and not hearing from the slightest movement
from within that he had yet done so, Mr. Bevan went to his breakfast, much
better satisfied than he had been a quarter of an hour since, and as the
breakfast room adjoined the study, he had every opportunity if the vampyre
should be stirring, of hearing and attending to him.
Not above ten minutes elapsed in this kind of way, when Mr. Bevan,
although he saw nothing of his guest, heard something of the approach of a
visitor, by the trampling of feet upon the gravel walk, and upon looking
through the window, he saw that it was his friend Sir George Crofton from the
hall.
It was rather an early hour for visitors, but still under the peculiar
circumstances, Sir George might be supposed not to stand upon ceremony in
calling upon the clegyman of his parish and upon his old friend, combining, as
Mr. Bevan did, both these characters in one.
It was rather, though, placing the clergyman in a situation of
difficulty, for while there was nothing he so much hated as mystery and
concealment, he yet could not, upon the spur of the moment, decide whether he
ought to inform Sir George of the presence of Varney or not.
After the frightful manner in which the baronet and his family had
suffered from what might be called the machinations of the vampyre, it could
scarcely be supposed that his feelings were otherwise than in a most
exasperated state, and it might, for all he knew, be actually dangerous for
the personal safety of that guest whom he had pledged his honour to protect,
to allow Sir George Crofton to know at all that he was beneath his roof.
While he was engaged in these considerations, and before he could come to
anything like a conclusion concerning them, Sir George was announced, and
shown as a privileged visitor into the parlour.
We cannot but pause to make a remark upon the stupendous change that had
taken place in the appearance of that unhappy man. When first we presented
him to the reader, he was as good a specimen of the hale hearty English
gentleman, as we could wish to see; good humour and good health beamed forth
on every feature of his face; and well they might do so, for although the past
had not been unchequered by trials, the future wore to him a sunny aspect, and
some of the feelings of his youth were returning to him, in the happiness of
his children.
But what a change was now. Twenty years of ordinary existence, with
extraordinary vicissitudes, would scarcely have produced the effect that the
events of the last fortnight had upon that unhappy father.
He appeared to be absolutely sinking into the grave with grief, and not
only was his countenance strangely altered, but the tones of his voice were
completely changed from what they had been.
Alas! poor Sir George Crofton, never will the light of joy again illumine
your face. There are griefs, inevitable griefs, which time will heal, griefs
which the more we look upon them the more we find our reason array itself
against them. But his sorrows were of a different complexion, and were apt to
grow more gigantic from thought.
"Good morning, Mr. Bevan," he said, "I am an early visitor, sir."
"Not more early than welcome, Sir George. I pray you to be seated."
"You are very good," said the baronet, "but when one comes at an hour
like this, I am of opinion that he ought to come with something like a good
excuse for his intrusion."
"There is none needed, I assure you."
"But I have been thinking upon the advice which you have given me, Mr.
Bevan, to leave this part of the country, and try the endeavour, by the
excitement and changes of foreign travel, to lessen the weight of my
calamities."
"I think your determination is a good one, Sir George."
"Probably it is the best I could adopt, but I must confess that I should
set about it in better spirit, but I am haunted by apprehensions."
"Apprehensions, Sir George! is not the worst passed?"
"It may be, and I hope to Heaven it is, but I have another child, another
daughter, fair and beautiful as my lost Clara; but what security have I that
that dreadful being may not pursue her, and with frightful vindictiveness
drive her to the grave."
Mr. Bevan was silent two or three minutes, and the idea crossed him that
if he could get Sir George in the proper state of mind, it would be, perhaps,
better that he should know that the vampyre was in the house, and in such a
state of mind as not to renew any outrages against him or his family, than
that he should go abroad with the dread clinging to him of being still
followed and persecuted by that dreadful being.
"Sir George," said Mr. Bevan, in an extremely serious voice, "Sir George,
did you ever reason with yourself calmly and seriously, and in a Christian
spirit, about this affair."
"Calmly, Mr. Bevan! how could I reason calmly?"
"I have scarcely put my question as I ought; what I meant to ask was,
what are your personal feelings towards the vampyre? We must recollect that
even he, dreadful existence as he is, was fashioned by the same God that
fashioned us; and who shall say but he may be the victim of a horrible and
stern necessity? Who shall say but he may be tortured by remorse, and that
the circumstances connected with your daughter, of which you so justly
complain, may be to him sources of the bitterest reflection? What if you were
to be assured that never more would that mysterious man cross your path, if
man we can call him? Do you think that you could then forgive him?"
"It is hard to say, but the feeling that my other child was safe would
prompt me much."
"Sir George, I could make a communication to you if I thought you would
listen to it patiently; if you will swear to me to be calm."
"I swear, tell me—oh, tell me!"
"The vampyre is in this house."
—
CHAPTER CCXI.
[Chapter 228]