Varney the Vampyre 179The Communication of the Servants Respecting the Lake Family
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Literature · Horror
Varney the Vampyre 179
The Communication of the Servants Respecting the Lake Family
RymerEnglish
The coachman and groom, evidently listened with great interest to what Slop had to relate. For a wonder, they were completely silent while he spoke; and when he had concluded, they looked at each other, and nodded, as much to say,—Ah! we can draw some conclusion from all that, that you Mr. Slop, really know nothing at all about.
“Is that all?” said George.
“Yes,” said the waiter, “and sufficient I think.”
“More, a good deal,” remarked Francis. “But howsomdever, as you seem a proper sort of fellow, we don’t mind telling you what we think of the matter.”
“No, no,” interposed George, “not exactly that.”
“And why not?”
“Because you see, Francis, we have never known yet, my boy, what to think about it.”
“Well there’s some truth in that at all events. But we will tell Mr. Slop what happened once before, that wasn’t much unlike what has taken place at the London Hotel.”
“Well, but tell him first who she is,” said George. “Then he’ll understand all the rest better, as well as taking more interest in it.”
“Very good. Then listen, Mr. Slop.”
“With all my ears,” said Slop.
At this moment a bell rung sharply, and Slop on the impulse of the moment, sprung up,—
“Coming—coming—coming.”
Both George and Francis burst into a great laugh, and Slop was quite disconcerted.
“Really, gentlemen,” he said, “I’m sorry, very sorry, but I’m so used to cry, coming, when a bell rings, that, for the moment, I forgot there was no sort of occasion to do so here. I begs you won’t think no more of it, but tell me all as you have got to tell.”
“Don’t mention it,” said Francis, and then after taking another draught of the something strong, and settling himself in his seat, commenced.
“Lord Lake, you know, is our master, and a very good sort of a man he is, only he’s a—a—a; what did the doctor call him George?”
“Oh, I know, a—a—a, what was it Frank?”
“Well, I asked you. It was a wallytoddyhairyhun, I think.”
“Something like it. Odd wasn’t it?”
“Wery.”
“I beg your pardon, gentlemen,” said a gentlemanly looking man who was seated in an obscure corner of the room, and who was desperately ugly—at least so much as could be seen of his face, for it was much muffled up. “I beg your pardon, but the word you mean I suppose is valetudinarian.”
“That’s it, that’s it! I knows it when I hears it. That’s it; well they say that in consequence of being that ere he was rather cross-grained a little when there wasn’t no sort of occasion for it, and barring that, which, poor man, I suppose he could not help, he was about as decent a master as ever stepped in shoe leather, wasn’t he, George?”
“I believe you, my boy.”
“Well, the Countess of Bhackbighte was his mother-in-law, you see, a wicious old woman as ever lived, and when Lady Lake died it was she as brought the news to Lord Lake that his wife was dead, and the wirtuous baby as she had just brought into the world was dead too, wasn’t that it, George?”
“I believe you my boy, rather.”
“Well, Lord Lake was inconsolotable as they says, for ever so long, and he made friends with his brother who would come next into the property; they all went abroad together.”
“All who?” said Slop.
“Wery good, I’ll tell you, Lord Lake, his brother, his brother’s wife and son. Them as is now at the London Hotel. Now you knows, don’t you?”
“Go on, I knows.”
“Well they hadn’t been there above a matter o’ fourteen years when the old Countess of Bhackbighte dies, and then there comes a letter to my lord as says that the precious baby as his wife had brought into the world just afore she went out of it herself, wasn’t dead at all, but had been smuggled away by the old Countess, nobody knows what for, and that she was alive and kicking then, and ready to come to her papa whenever he said the word, and so come she did, you see, and that’s our young lady Annetta, you see as is at the London Hotel.”
“Well, but I don’t understand,” said Slop.
“Of course you don’t.”
“Oh.”
“But you will if you goes on a listening; you can’t expect to understand all at once you know. Just attend to the remainder and you’ll soon know all about it; but George is the man to tell you, that he is.”
“Oh, no, no,” said George.
“Why, you heard it, and told it to me. Come, don’t be foolish, but tell it at once, old fellow.”
“Well, if I must, I must,” said George, “so here goes; though when I has to tell anything, I always feels as if I was being druv with a curb half-a-dozen links too tight. But here goes.”
“I am very much amused,” said Slop, “and should certainly like to hear it all. Pray go on?”
“Well, you must know we was at an old tumble down place in Italy, as they call’s Rome. Horridly out o’ repair, but that’s neither here nor there. In course we had stables and riding out; and there was a nice sort o’ terrace where Lord Lake used to walk sometimes, as well as his brother, while the carriage was being got out, so that I could hear what they said if I chose to do so.
“Well, one day the brother, Mr. Lake, or the Honourable Dick Lake as he was sometimes called, was walking there alone, and I seed as he was all of a tremble like, you understand! but I could not have any idea of what it was about. Once or twice I heard him say,—‘It will do—and it will do.’”
“Presently, then out comes Lord Lake, and he says, giving the other a letter, ‘Good God, read that!’ Give us a trifle more sugar?”
“What?”
“Why, what do you mean,” said Francis. “Is that the way to tell a story, to run into what people says what you happens to want yourself? Here’s the sugar, and now go on.”
“Well, the brother reads it, and then he says; ‘Gracious Providence,’ says he ‘this here says as the Lady Annetta, ain’t your daughter, but a himposter.’
“‘Yes,’ says Lord Lake, ‘oh, what will become of me now?’
“‘Calm yourself,’ says the brother, ‘and leave this affair to me. Let her go with me to England, and we will clear up the mystery. I love her as I would a child of my own; but still this here letter’ says he, ‘seems to contain such a statement’ says he——”
“Well? Well?”
“That’s all! After that, they walked off the terrace and I didn’t hear no more at all. After that, in a day or two Lord Lakes comes to me; and says, ‘George, my brother and his family, with Lady Annetta, are going to England. I wish you and Francis to accompany them and to attend upon them, just the same as you would on myself,’ says he, and in course I didn’t like to say anything; so we came, but as our idea of the brother is that he’s a humbug, we wouldn’t have no more to do with him, after we got to London, you see; and so off we went as you heard.”
“Well, but,” said Slop; “there was a something else you was to tell me;”
“So there was,” said Francis “and this was it. While we were staying at a place called Florence, and sleeping all of us in an old palace, there was an alarm in the middle of the night, and we found it came from the chamber of the Lady Annetta; who said that a man had got in by the window, and she just woke in time to see him; and when she screamed out away he went again, but nothing could be seen of him; the oddest thing was that the window was so high from the ground, that it seemed to be quite out of the question that he could have got at it without a ladder; yet the deuce of a ladder was there to be seen.”
“And who was it?”
“Nobody ever knew, but the night after it was said that a vampire had visited a cottage near at hand, and fastened on the throat of a little girl of about seven, and sucked half the blood out of her, so that she was lying at the point of death; and the description the child gave of him was so like what the Lady Annetta said of the man that had got in at the window of her bedroom, that my lord got very uneasy about it, and moved away from Florence as quick as he could, and no wonder, either, you will say.”
“It was odd.”
“It was, and what you have told me of last night, put me in mind of it, you see.”
“No doubt; Lord, I’m all of a twitter myself.”
“Why, what need you care? those who know about vampires say that there are two sorts, one sort always attacks its own relations as was, and nobody else, and the other always selects the most charming young girls, and nobody else, and if they can’t get either, they starve to death, waste away and die, for they take no food or drink of any sort, unless they are downright forced.”
