Varney the Vampire; Or, the Feast of Blood, Prest and Rymer [a book to read txt] 📗

garden-gate bell, and Henry exclaimed,—

"That's Mr. Chillingworth, and I am glad he has come in time to join our conference. His advice is always valuable; and, moreover, I rather think he will bring us some news worth the hearing."

The one servant who they had to wait upon them looked into the room, and said,—"If you please, here is Mrs. Chillingworth."

"Mistress? you mean Mr."

"No; it is Mrs. Chillingworth and her baby."

"The devil!" said the admiral; "what can she want?"

"I'll come and let you know," said Mrs. Chillingworth, "what I want;" and she darted into the room past the servant. "I'll soon let you know, you great sea crab. I want my husband; and what with your vampyre, and one thing and another, I haven't had him at home an hour for the past three weeks. What am I to do? There is all his patients getting well as fast as they can without him; and, when they find that out, do you think they will take any more filthy physic? No, to be sure not; people ain't such fools as to do anything of the sort."

"I'll tell you what we will do, ma'am," said the admiral; "we'll all get ill at once, on purpose to oblige ye; and I'll begin by having the measles."

"You are an old porpoise, and I believe it all owing to you that my husband neglects his wife and family. What's vampyres to him, I should like to know, that he should go troubling about them? I never heard of vampyres taking draughts and pills."

"No, nor any body else that had the sense of a goose," said the admiral; "but if it's your husband you want, ma'am, it's no use your looking for him here, for here he is not."

"Then where is he? He is running after some of your beastly vampyres somewhere, I'll be bound, and you know where to send for him."

"Then you are mistaken; for, indeed, we don't. We want him ourselves, ma'am, and can't find him—that's the fact."

"It's all very well talking, sir, but if you were a married woman, with a family about you, and the last at the breast, you'd feel very different from what you do now."

"I'm d——d if I don't suppose I should," said the admiral; "but as for the last, ma'am, I'd soon settle that. I'd wring its neck, and shove it overboard."

"You would, you brute? It's quite clear to me you never had a child of your own."

"Mrs. Chillingworth," said Henry, "I think you have no right to complain to us of your domestic affairs. Where your husband goes, and what he does, is at his own will and pleasure, and, really, I don't see that we are to be made answerable as to whether he is at home or abroad; to say nothing of the bad taste—and bad taste it most certainly is, of talking of your private affairs to other people."

"Oh, dear!" said Mrs. Chillingworth; "that's your idea, is it, you no-whiskered puppy?"

"Really, madam, I cannot see what my being destitute of whiskers has to do with the affair; and I am inclined to think my opinion is quite as good without them as with them."

"I will speak," said Flora, "to the doctor, when I see him."

"Will you, Miss Doll's-eyes? Oh, dear me! you'll speak to the doctor, will you?"

"What on earth do you want?" said Henry. "For your husband's sake, whom we all respect, we wish to treat you with every imaginable civility; but we tell you, candidly, that he is not here, and, therefore, we cannot conceive what more you can require of us."

"Oh, it's a row," said the admiral; "that's what she wants—woman like. D——d a bit do they care what it's about as long as there's a disturbance. And now, ma'am, will you sit down and have a glass of grog?"

"No, I will not sit down; and all I can say is, that I look upon this place as a den full of snakes and reptiles. That's my opinion; so I'll not stay any longer; but, wishing that great judgments may some day come home to you all, and that you may know what it is to be a mother, with five babies, and one at the breast, I despise you all and leave you."

So saying, Mrs. Chillingworth walked from the place, feeling herself highly hurt and offended at what had ensued; and they were compelled to let her go just as she was, without giving her any information, for they had a vivid recollection of the serious disturbance she had created on a former occasion, when she had actually headed a mob, for the purpose of hunting out Varney, the vampyre, from Bannerworth Hall, and putting an end consequently, as she considered, to that set of circumstances which kept the doctor so much from his house, to the great detriment of a not very extensive practice.

"After all," said Flora, "Mrs. Chillingworth, although she is not the most refined person in the world, is to be pitied."

"What!" cried the admiral; "Miss Doll's-eyes, are you taking her part?"

"Oh, that's nothing. She may call me what she likes."

"I believe she is a good wife to the doctor," said Henry, "notwithstanding his little eccentricities; but suppose we now at once make the proposal we were thinking of to Sir Francis Varney, and so get him to leave England as quickly as possible and put an end to the possibility of his being any more trouble to anybody."

"Agreed—agreed. It's the best thing that can be done, and it will be something gained to get his consent at once."

"I'll run up stairs to him," said Charles, "and call him down at once. I scarcely doubt for a moment his acquiescence in the proposal."

Charles Holland rose, and ran up the little staircase of the cottage to the room which, by the kindness of the Bannerworth family, had been devoted to the use of Varney. He had not been gone above two minutes, when he returned, hastily, with a small scrap of paper in his hand, which he laid before Henry, saying,—

"There, what think you of that?"

Henry, upon taking up the paper, saw written upon it the words,—

"The Farewell of Varney the Vampyre."

"He is gone," said Charles Holland. "The room is vacant. I saw at a glance that he had removed his hat, and cloak, and all that belonged to him. He's off, and at so short a warning, and in so abrupt a manner, that I fear the worst."

"What can you fear?"

"I scarcely know what; but we have a right to fear everything and anything from his most inexplicable being, whose whole conduct has been of that mysterious nature, as to put him past all calculation as regards his motives, his objects, or his actions. I must confess that I would have hailed his departure from England with feelings of satisfaction; but what he means now, by this strange manoeuvre, Heaven, and his own singular intellect, can alone divine."

"I must confess," said Flora, "I should not at all have thought this of Varney. It seems to me as if something new must have occurred to him. Altogether, I do not feel any alarm concerning his actions as regards us. I am convinced of his sincerity, and, therefore, do not view with sensations of uneasiness this new circumstance, which appears at present so inexplicable, but for which we may yet get some explanation that will be satisfactory to us all."

"I cannot conceive," said Henry, "what new circumstances could have occurred to produce this effect upon Varney. Things remain just as they were; and, after all, situated as he is, if any change had taken place in matters out of doors, I do not see how he could become acquainted with them, so that his leaving must have been a matter of mere calculation, or of impulse at the moment—Heaven knows which—but can have nothing to do with actual information, because it is quite evident he could not get it."

"It is rather strange," said Charles Holland, "that just as we were speculating upon the probability of his doing something of this sort, he should suddenly do it, and in this singular manner too."

"Oh," said the old admiral, "I told you I saw his eye, that was enough for me. I knew he would do something, as well as I know a mainmast from a chain cable. He can't help it; it's in the nature of the beast, and that's all you can say about it."

CHAPTER XCII. THE MISADVENTURE OF THE DOCTOR WITH THE PICTURE.