CHAPTER CLXXV.
[Chapter 193]
THE VAMPYRE'S VISIT TO THE BARRACKS AT KINGSTON. —THE YOUNG OFFICER.
We do not wish altogether to lose sight of Varney in these proceedings,
and it so happens that he is sufficiently mixed up in what further occurred to
make it desirable that we should now again refer to him.
It was not the least singular fact in the character of that mysterious
being, to notice how he always endeavoured to make some sort of amends or
reparation to those whom he had so much terrified by his visitations.
We have seen in the case of the family of the Bannerworths how eventually
he was most anxious to do them a service, as a recompense for the really
serious injury he had inflicted upon them, and how it was really and
eventually through him that they emerged from the circumstances of difficulty
and danger in which they had been pecuniarily engaged.
We shall now see if Varney, who really in his way is a very respectable
sort of a personage, is about good or evil.
We left him on the river, after promising in his usual liberal spirit, a
handsome reward to the waterman whom he employed to row the boat in which he
embarked.
After going some distance, the waterman, finding his fare was silent,
thought it would be as well again to ask him where he was going.
Accordingly, with a preparatory hem, he began by saying,
"About as nice a tide, sir, as we could have for going up the stream."
"Very likely," was the brief reply.
"Do you land near hand, sir?"
"I want to go to Kingston; take me to some Quay on the river as near as
you can, for the purpose of my walking there."
"Kingston?" said the waterman, with a look rather of surprise. "Its
a long pull to Kingston, and if your honour could get a conveyance, your best
way would be to get out at Putney."
"Wherefore?"
"Why after that, the river takes such a plaguy lot of windings and
turnings that you have to go treble the actual distance before you reach
Teddington.'
"I said Kingston."
"Well that's close by Teddington; but I'll row your honour if you like,
only it will take us some hours to get there that's all."
"Go on."
"Very good, pull away, pull a—way."
Having now, as he knew, a long job before him, the waterman husbanded his
strength, he did not row near so fast, but to a low kind of tune he muttered
to himself he worked away at his sculls, slowly and surely, and got through
the water at a moderate easy rate, while rather a quick jerking one would soon
have exhausted him.
The boat went slowly onward, and many an interesting sight was passed
upon the banks of the river, but none appeared in the least to attract the
attention of the man who sat in the boat, apparently deeply absorbed in his
own meditations.
The boatman began much to wonder who he had got a a fare, and to think
that it would be but a dull and wearisome job to row all the way to Teddington
without any amusing gossip by the way, so he made yet another attempt to break
the stillness that reigned around.
"The river up this way, sir," he said, "is quiet enough at night; it's
different below bridge though, for there there is always some bustle going
on."
"Ah!" said Varney.
"But here, somehow, it is dull to my mind."
"Ah!"
"Though the gentry and those as is book-learned find a deal of pleasure
in looking at the old places on the banks, where things have been done and
said by folks many a long year since, whose heads don't ache now, sir."
"Ah!"
There was no getting on at this rate, so, after two or three more remarks
and getting nothing by "Ah!" as a reply, the waterman gave it up as a bad job
altogether, and pulled away, chaunting in a low tone his song again, without
making another attempt to disturb the taciturnity of his fare, who sat as
still as a statue in the boat, and looking as if he did not breathe, so rigid
and strange were his attitude, and the lifeless-like appearance he had.
The waterman was really a little alarmed by the time they reached
Teddington, for he thought that it might be possible his fare was dead, and
the horrid idea that he had stiffened in that attitude as he sat, began to
find a place in the boatman's imagination.
When, however, he boat's keel grated on the landing-place, he cried, —
"Here we are, your honour."
The vampyre rose and stepped on shore. He held out his hand and dropped
a guinea into the extended palm of the waterman, and then stalked off.
After he had walked some distance he spoke to a watchman whom he met,
saying, —
"Are there not military barracks somewhere hereabout?"
"Oh, yes."
"Thank you. Can you direct me?"
"Certainly. You have only to go on, and take the second turning to your
left, and you will see the gate; it's horse soldiers that's there now—the
4th Light Dragoons."
By keeping to the directions which the watchman had given, Varney soon
reached the gate of the barracks, and then it was three o'clock in the
morning. A sentinel was pacing to and fro at the gate. To him Varney at
once went, and with a lofty kind of courtesy, that made the man at once
respectful to him, he said, —
"Is Lieutenant Rankin in barracks?"
"Yes, sir, —on duty."
"Indeed! Is he on guard to-night?"
"Yes, sir, to four o'clock. He will be relieved then."
"That's fortunate, I want to see him. It is on business of the very
first importance, or of course I would not trouble him or myself. You must
send to him somehow."
The sentinel hesitated.
"I hardly know," he said, "how the lieutenant will take it—he is on
duty."
"But I suppose he is human for all that, and is liable to all the
accidents and alternations of human affairs, which may make it absolutely
necessary he should be communicated with, even at such an hour as this. I
will hold you harmless."
This was so reasonable, and there was such an air of quiet gentlemanly
authority about Varney, that the soldier began to think he should run less
risk of offending somebody of importance if he consented to disturb the
lieutenant than if he refused. Accordingly he stepped a pace or two within
the gate and called out.
"Guard!"
A soldier from the guard-room answered the summons.
"Ay," he said, "what is it? —a strange cat I suppose."
"No, none of your nonsense. Here is a gentleman, I think a general
officer, by Jove, wants to see Lieutenant Rankin. Go and tell him."
"And give him this," said Varney, as he handed the soldier a card, on
which was written, —
"A friend to a friend of Lieutenant Ranking, whose initials are A. L."
"I know that this young soldier loves the Lady Annetta," muttered the
vampyre to himself, "and he shall be given the opportunity of flying to her
rescue from her villanous relations. So far, I will make reparation to her."
In less than three minutes, Lieutenant Rankin came hurriedly to the
gate.
"Where is the gentleman?" he said.
"Here sir," said Varney, "step aside with me."
The young officer did so, and then Varney said to him, —
"It matters not how I became acquainted with the fact, but I know that
you love the Lady Annetta Lake, and that you are far from being indifferently
regarded by her. She is in London at the London Hotel. A vile plot is formed
to marry her to her cousin, the gist of which is to make her both her and her
father believe that she is a changeling and not the daughter of Lord Lake.
You love her, young man. Go and rescue her."
"Annetta in London!"
"Yes, what I tell you you may rely upon, as if it were a voice from
heaven that spoke to you. Go and snatch her whom you love from the base hands
of those who, under the mask of pretended friendship, would betray her."
"And you," cried the young soldier; "who are you, and how can I repay you
for bringing me this intelligence of her whom I [—"]
"Enough," said the vampyre. "I have performed my mission. It is for
you, young sir, to take a due advantage of that which I have told to you."
In another moment he was gone.
—
