The Penny Dreadfuls MEGAPACK™ (159 page)

“I am unaccustomed to dissemble, and, therefore I will say at once that I have a guess.”

“In which way does it tend?”—

“Against Sir Francis Varney, called the vampire.”

“Does it not strike you that this may be a dangerous candour?”

“It may, or it may not be; I cannot help it. I know I am at the mercy of my foes, and I do not believe that anything I can say or do will make my situation worse or better.”

“You are much mistaken there. In other hands than mine, it might make it much worse; but it happens to be one of my weaknesses, that I am charged with candour, and that I admire boldness of disposition.”

“Indeed! and yet can behave in the manner you have done towards me.”

“Yes. There are more things in heaven and on earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. I am the more encouraged to set you free, because, if I procure from you a promise, which I intend to attempt, I am inclined to believe that you will keep it.”

“I shall assuredly keep whatever promise I may make. Propound your conditions, and if they be such as honour and honesty will permit me to accede to, I will do so willingly and at once. Heaven knows I am weary enough of this miserable imprisonment.”

“Will you promise me then, if I set you free, not to mention your suspicions that it is to Sir Francis Varney you owe this ill turn, and not to attempt any act of vengeance against him as a retaliation for it.”

“I cannot promise so much as that. Freedom, indeed, would be a poor boon, if I were not permitted freely to converse of some of the circumstances connected with my captivity.”

“You object?”

“I do to the former of your propositions, but not to the latter. I will promise not to go at all out of my way to execute any vengeance upon you; but I will not promise that I will not communicate the circumstances of my forced absence from them, to those friends whose opinion I so much value, and to return to whom is almost as dear to me as liberty itself.”

Sir Francis Varney was silent for a few moments, and then he said, in a tone of deep solemnity—

“There are ninety-nine persons out of a hundred who would take your life for the independence of your tongue; but I am as the hundredth one, who looks with a benevolent eye at your proceedings. Will you promise me, if I remove the fetters which now bind your limbs, that you will make no personal attack upon me; for I am weary of personal contention, and I have no disposition to endure it. Will you make me this promise?”

“I promise?”

“I will.”

Without another word, but trusting implicitly to the promise which had been given to him, Sir Francis Varney produced a small key from his pocket, and unlocked with it a padlock which confined the chains about the prisoner.

With ease, Charles Holland was then enabled to shake them off, and then, for the first time, for some weeks, he rose to his feet, and felt all the exquisite relief of being comparatively free from bondage.

“This is delightful, indeed,” he said.

“It is,” said Sir Francis Varney—“it is but a foretaste of the happiness you will enjoy when you are entirely free. You see that I have trusted you.”

“You have trusted me as you might trust me, and you perceive that I have kept my word.”

“You have; and since you decline to make me the promise which I would fain have from you, to the effect that you would not mention me as one of the authors of your calamity, I must trust to your honour not to attempt revenge for what you have suffered.”

“That I will promise. There can be but little difficulty to any generous mind in giving up such a feeling. In consequence of your sparing me what you might still further have inflicted, I will let the past rest, and as if it had never happened really to me; and speak of it to others, but as a circumstance which I wish not to revert to, but prefer should be buried in oblivion.”

“It is well; and now I have a request to make of you, which, perhaps, you will consider the hardest of all.”

“Name it. I feel myself bound to a considerable extent to comply with whatever you may demand of me, that is not contrary to honourable principle.”

“Then it is this, that, comparatively free as you are, and in a condition, as you are, to assert your own freedom, you will not do so hastily, or for a considerable period; in fact, I wish and expect that you should wait yet awhile, until it shall suit me to say that it is my pleasure that you shall be free.”

“That is, indeed, a hard condition to man who feels, as you yourself remark, that he can assert his freedom. It is one which I have still a hope you will not persevere in.

“Nay, young man, I think that I have treated you with generosity, to make you feel that I am not the worst of foes you could have had. All I require of you is, that you should wait here for about an hour. It is now nearly one o’clock; will you wait until you hear it strike two before you actually make a movement to leave this place?”

Charles Holland hesitated for some moments, and then he said—

“Do not fancy that I am not one who appreciates the singular trust you have reposed in me; and, however repugnant to me it may be to remain here, a voluntary prisoner, I am inclined to do so, if it be but to convince you that the trust you have reposed in me is not in vain, and that I can behave with equal generosity to you as you can to me.”

“Be it so,” said Sir Francis Varney; “I shall leave you with a full reliance that you will keep your word; and now, farewell. When you think of me, fancy me rather one unfortunate than criminal, and tell yourself that even Varney the vampire had some traits in his character, which, although they might not raise your esteem, at all events did not loudly call for your reprobation.”

“I shall do so. Oh! Flora, Flora, I shall look upon you once again, after believing and thinking that I had bidden you a long and last adieu. My own beautiful Flora, it is joy indeed to think that I shall look upon that face again, which, to my perception, is full of all the majesty of loveliness.”

Sir Francis Varney looked coldly on while Charles uttered this enthusiastic speech.

“Remember,” he said, “till two o’clock;” and he walked towards the door of the dungeon. “You will have no difficulty in finding your way out from this place. Doubtless you already perceive the entrance by which I gained admission.”

“Had I been free,” said Charles, “and had the use of my limbs, I should, long ere this, have worked my way to life and liberty.”

“’Tis well. Goodnight.”

Varney walked from the place, and just closed the door behind him. With a slow and stately step he left the ruins, and Charles Holland found himself once more alone, but in a much more enviable condition than for many weeks he could have called his.

CHAPTER LXVI.

FLORA BANNERWORTH’S APPARENT INCONSISTENCY.—THE ADMIRAL’S CIRCUMSTANCES AND ADVICE.—MR. CHILLINGWORTH’S MYSTERIOUS ABSENCE.

For a
brief space let us return to Flora Bannerworth, who had suffered so much on account of her affections, as well as on account of the mysterious attack that had been made upon her by the reputed vampire.

After leaving Bannerworth Hall for a short time, she seemed to recover her spirits; but this was a state of things which did not last, and only showed how fallacious it was to expect that, after the grievous things that had happened, she would rapidly recover her equanimity.

It is said, by learned physiologists, that two bodily pains cannot endure at the same space of time in the system; and, whether it be so or not, is a question concerning which it would be foreign to the nature of our work, to enter into anything like an elaborate disquisition.

Certainly, however, so far as Flora Bannerworth was concerned, she seemed inclined to show that, mentally, the observation was a true one, for that, now she became released from a continued dread of the visits of the vampire, her mind would, with more painful interest than ever, recur to the melancholy condition, probably, of Charles Holland, if he were alive, and to soul-harrowing reflections concerning him, if he were dead.

She could not, and she did not, believe, for one moment, that his desertion of her had been of a voluntary character. She knew, or fancied she knew, him by far too well for that; and she more than once expressed her opinion, to the effect that she was perfectly convinced his disappearance was a part and parcel of all that train of circumstances which had so recently occurred, and produced such a world of unhappiness to her, as well as to the whole of the Bannerworth family.

“If he had never loved me,” she said to her brother Henry, “he would have been alive and well; but he has fallen a victim to the truth of a passion, and to the constancy of an affection which, to my dying day, I will believe in.”

Now that Mr. Marchdale had left the place there was no one to dispute this proposition with Flora, for all, as well as she, were fully inclined to think well of Charles Holland.

It was on the very morning which preceded that evening when Sir Francis Varney called upon Charles Holland in the manner we have related, with the gratifying news that, upon certain conditions, he might be released, that Flora Bannerworth, when the admiral came to see them, spoke to him of Charles Holland, saying—

“Now, sir, that I am away from Bannerworth Hall, I do not, and cannot feel satisfied; for the thought that Charles may eventually come back, and seek us there, still haunts me. Fancy him, sir, doing so, and seeing the place completely deserted.”

“Well, there’s something in that,” said the admiral; “but, however, he’s hardly such a goose, if it were so to happen, to give up the chase—he’d find us out somehow.”

“You think he would, sir? or, do you not think that despair would seize upon him, and that, fancying we had all left the spot for ever, he might likewise do so; so that we should lose him more effectually than we have done at present?”

“No; hardly,” said the admiral; “he couldn’t be such a goose as that. Why, when I was of his age, if I had secured the affections of a young girl like you, I’d have gone over all the world, but I’d have found out where she was; and what I mean to say is, if he’s half such a goose as you think him, he deserves to lose you.”

“Did you not tell me something, sir, of Mr. Chillingworth talking of taking possession of the Hall for a brief space of time?”

“Why, yes, I did; and I expect he is there now; in fact, I’m sure he’s there, for he said he would be.”

“No, he ain’t,” said Jack Pringle, at that moment entering the room; “you’re wrong again, as you always are, somehow or other.”

“What, you vagabond, are you here, you mutinous rascal?”

“Ay, ay, sir; go on; don’t mind me. I wonder what you’d do, sir, if you hadn’t somebody like me to go on talking about”

“Why, you infernal rascal, I wonder what you’d do if you had not an indulgent commander, who puts up even with real mutiny, and says nothing about it. But where have you been? Did you go as I directed you, and take some provisions to Bannerworth Hall?”

“Yes, I did; but I brought them back again; there’s nobody there, and don’t seem likely to be, except a dead body.”

“A dead body! Whose body can that be!”

“Tom somebody; for I’m damned if it ain’t a great he cat.”

“You scoundrel, how dare you alarm me in such a way? But do you mean to tell me that you did not see Dr. Chillingworth at the Hall?”

“How could I see him, if he wasn’t there?”

“But he was there; he said he would be there.”

“Then he’s gone again, for there’s nobody there that I know of in the shape of a doctor. I went through every part of the ship—I mean the house—and the deuce a soul could I find; so as it was rather lonely and uncomfortable, I came away again. ‘Who knows,’ thought I, ‘but some blessed vampire or another may come across me.’”

“This won’t do,” said the old admiral, buttoning up his coat to the chin; “Bannerworth Hall must not be deserted in this way. It is quite clear that Sir Francis Varney and his associates have some particular object in view in getting possession of the place. Here, you Jack.”

“Ay, ay, sir.”

“Just go back again, and stay at the Hall till somebody comes to you. Even such a stupid hound as you will be something to scare away unwelcome visitors. Go back to the Hall, I say. What are you staring at?”

“Back to Bannerworth Hall!” said Jack. “What! just where I’ve come from; all that way off, and nothing to eat, and, what’s worse, nothing to drink. I’ll see you damned first.”

The admiral caught up a table-fork, and made a rush at Jack; but Henry Bannerworth interfered.

“No, no,” he said, “admiral; no, no—not that. You must recollect that you yourself have given this, no doubt, faithful fellow of your’s liberty to do and say a great many things which don’t look like good service; but I have no doubt, from what I have seen of his disposition, that he would risk his life rather than, that you should come to any harm.”

“Ay, ay,” said Jack; “he quite forgets when the bullets were scuttling our nobs off Cape Ushant, when that big Frenchman had hold of him by the
skirf
of his neck, and began pummelling his head, and the lee scuppers were running with blood, and a bit of Joe Wiggins’s brains had come slap in my eye, while some of Jack Marling’s guts was hanging round my neck like a nosegay, all in consequence of grape-shot—then he didn’t say as I was a swab, when I came up, and bored a hole in the Frenchman’s back with a pike. Ay, it’s all very well now, when there’s peace, and no danger, to call Jack Pringle a lubberly rascal, and mutinous. I’m blessed if it ain’t enough to make an old pair of shoes faint away.”

“Why, you infernal scoundrel,” said the admiral, “nothing of the sort ever happened, and you know it. Jack, you’re no seaman.”

“Werry good,” said Jack; “then, if I ain’t no seaman, you are what shore-going people calls a jolly fat old humbug.”

“Jack, hold your tongue,” said Henry Bannerworth; “you carry these things too far. You know very well that your master esteems you, and you should not presume too much upon that fact.”

“My master!” said Jack; “don’t call him my master. I never had a master, and don’t intend. He’s my admiral, if you like; but an English sailor don’t like a master.”