VARNEY, THE VAMPYRE;
                                    OR,
                             THE FEAST OF BLOOD.

                               Chapter XII.

CHARLES HOLLAND'S SAD FEELINGS. -- THE PORTRAIT. -- THE OCCURRENCE OF THE
NIGHT AT THE HALL.


     Charles Holland wished to be alone, if ever any human being had wished
fervently to be so.  His thoughts were most fearfully oppressive.  The
communication that had been made to him by Henry Bannerworth, had about it too
many strange, confirmatory circumstances to enable him to treat it, in his own
mind, with the disrespect that some mere freak of a distracted and weak
imagination would, most probably, received from him.

     He had found Flora in a state of excitement which could arise only from
some such terrible cause as had been mentioned by her brother, and then he
was, from an occurrence which certainly never could have entered into his
calculations, asked to forego the bright dream of happiness which he had held
so long and so rapturously to his heart.

     How truly he found that the course of true love ran not smooth; and yet
how little would any one have suspected that from such a cause as that which
now oppressed his mind, any obstruction would arise.

     Flora might have been fickle and false; he might have seen some other
fairer face, which might have enchained his fancy, and woven for him a new
heart's chain; death might have stepped between him and the realization of his
fondest hopes; loss of fortune might have made love cruel which would have
yoked to its distresses a young and beautiful girl, reared in the lap of
luxury, and who was not, even by those who loved her, suffered to feel, even
in later years, any of the pinching necessities of the family.

     All these things were possible -- some of them were probable; and yet
none of them had occurred.  She loved him still; and he, although he had
looked on many a fair face, and basked in the sunny smile of beauty, had never
for a moment forgotten her faith, or lost his devotion to his own dear English
girl.

     Fortune he had enough for both; death had not even threatened to rob him
of the prize of such a noble and faithful heart which he had won.  But a
horrible superstition had arisen, which seemed to place at once an impassable
abyss between them, and to say to him, in a voice of thundering denunciation,
--

     "Charles Holland, will you have a vampyre for your bride?"

     The thought was terrific.  He paced the gloomy chamber to and fro with
rapid strides, until the idea came across his mind that by so doing he might
not only be proclaiming to his kind entertainers how much he was mentally
distracted, but he likewise might be seriously distracting them.

     The moment this occurred to him he sat down, and was profoundly still for
some time.  He then glanced at the light which had been given to him, and he
found himself almost unconsciously engaged in a mental calculation as to how
long it would last him in the night.

     Half ashamed, then, of such terrors, as such a consideration would seem
to indicate, he was on the point of hastily extinguishing it, when he happened
to cast his eyes on the now mysterious and highly interesting portrait in the
panel.

     The picture, as a picture, was well done, whether it was a correct
likeness or not of the party whom it represented.  It was one of those kind of
portraits that seem so lifelike, that, as you look at them, they seem to
return your gaze fully, and even to follow you with their eyes from place to
place.

     By candle-light such an effect is more likely to become striking and
remarkable than by daylight; and now, as Charles Holland shaded his eyes from
the light, so as to cast its full radiance upon the portrait, he felt
wonderfully interested in its life-like appearance.

     "Here is true skill," he said; "such as I have not before seen.  How
strangely this likeness of a man whom I never saw seems to gaze upon me."

     Unconsciously, too, he aided the effect, which he justly enough called
life-like, by a slight movement of the candle, such as any one not blessed
with nerves of iron would be sure to make, and such a movement made the face
look as if it was inspired with vitality.

     Charles remained looking at the portrait for a considerable period of
time.  He found a kind of fascination in it which prevented him from drawing
his eyes away from it.  It was not fear which induced him to continue gazing
on it, but the circumstance that it was a likeness of the man who, after
death, was supposed to have borrowed so new and so hideous an existence,
combined with its artistic merits, chained him to the spot.

     "I shall now," he said, "know that face again, let me see it where I may,
or under what circumstances I may.  Each feature is now indelibly fixed upon
my memory -- I can never mistake it."

     He turned aside as he uttered these words, and as he did so his eyes fell
upon a part of the ornamental frame which composed the edge of the panel, and
which seemed to him to be of a different colour from the surrounding portion.

     Curiosity and increased interest prompted him at once to make a closer
inquiry into the matter; and by a careful and diligent scrutiny, he was almost
induced to come to the positive opinion, that at no very distant period in
time past, the portrait had been removed from the place it occupied.

     When once this idea, even vague and indistinct as it was, in consequence
of the slight grounds he had formed it on, had got possession of his mind, he
felt most anxious to prove its verification or its fallacy.

     He held the candle in a variety of situations, so that its light fell in
different ways on the picture; and the more he examined it, the more he felt
convinced that it must have been moved lately.

     It would appear as if, in its removal, a piece of the old oaken carved
framework of the panel had been accidentally broken off, which caused the new
look of the fracture, and that this accident, from the nature of the broken
bit of framing, could have occurred in any other way than from an actual or
attempted removal of the picture, he felt was extremely unlikely.

     He set down the candle on a chair near at hand, and tried if the panel
was fast in its place.  Upon the very first touch, he felt convinced it was
not so, and that it was easily moved.  How to get it out, though, presented a
difficulty, and to get it out was tempting.

     "Who knows," he said to himself, "what may be behind it?  This is an old
baronial sort of hall, and the greater portion of it was, no doubt, built at a
time when the construction of such places as hidden chambers and intricate
staircases were, in all buildings of importance, considered desiderata."

     That he should make some discovery behind the portrait, now became an
idea that possessed him strongly, although he certainly had no definite
grounds for really supposing that he should do so.

     Perhaps the wish was more father to the thought than he, in the partial
state of excitement he was in, really imagined; but so it was.  He felt
convinced that he should not be satisfied until he had removed that panel from
the wall, and seen what was immediately behind it.

     After the panel containing the picture had been placed where it was, it
appeared that pieces of moulding had been inserted all around, which had had
the effect of keeping it in its place, and it was a fracture of one of these
pieces which had first called Charles Holland's attention to the probability
of the picture having been removed.  That he should have to get two, at least,
of the pieces of moulding away, before he could hope to remove the picture,
was to him quite apparent, and he was considering how he should accomplish
such a result, when he was suddenly startled by a knock at his chamber door.

     Until that sudden demand for admission at his door came, he scarcely knew
to what a nervous state he had worked himself up.  It was an odd sort of tap
-- one only - a single tap, as if some one demanded admittance, and wished to
awaken his attention with the least possible chance of disturbing any one
else.

     "Come in," said Charles, for he knew he had not fastened his door; "come
in."

     There was no reply, but after a moment's pause, the same sort of low tap
came again.

     Again he cried "come in," but, whoever it was, seemed determined that the
door should be opened for him, and no movement was made from the outside.  A
third time the tap came, and Charles was very close to the door when he heard
it, for with a noiseless step he had approached it intending to open it.  The
instant this third mysterious demand for admission came, he did open it wide. 
There was no one there!  In an instant he crossed the threshold into the
corridor, which ran right and left.  A window at one end of it now sent in the
moon's rays, so that it was tolerably light, but he could see no one.  Indeed,
to look for any one, he felt sure was needless, for he had opened his
chamber-door almost simultaneously with the last knock for admission.

     "It is strange," he said, as he lingered on the threshold of his room
door for some moments; "my imagination could not so completely deceive me. 
There was most certainly a demand for admission."

     Slowly, then, he returned to his room again, and closed the door behind
him.

     "One thing is evident," he said, "that if I am in this apartment and to
be subjected to these annoyances, I shall get no rest, which will soon exhaust
me."

     This thought was a very provoking one, and the more he thought that he
should ultimately find a necessity for giving up that chamber he had himself
asked as a special favour to be allowed to occupy, the more vexed he became to
think what construction might be put upon his conduct for so doing.

     "They will fancy me a coward," he thought, "and that I dare not sleep
here.  They may not, of course, say so, but they will think that my appearing
so bold was one of those acts of bravado which I have not courage to carry
fairly out."

     Taking this view of the matter was just the way to enlist a young man's
pride in staying, under all circumstances, where he was, and, with a slight
accession of colour, which, even although he was alone, would visit his
cheeks, Charles Holland said aloud, --

     "I will remain the occupant of this room come what may, happen what may. 
No terrors, real or unsubstantial, shall drive me from it:  I will brave them
all, and remain here to brave them."

     Tap came the knock at the door again, and now, with more an air of
vexation than fear, Charles turned again towards it, and listened.  Tap in
another minute again succeeded, and most annoyed, he walked close to the door,
and laid his hand upon the lock, ready to open it at the precise moment of
another demand for admission being made.

     He had not to wait long.  In about half a minute it came again, and,
simultaneously with the sound, the door flew open.  There was no one to be
seen; but, as he opened the door, he heard  a strange sound in the corridor --
a sound which scarcely could be called a groan, and scarcely a sigh, but
seemed a compound of both, having the agony of the one combined with the
sadness of the other.  From what direction it came he could not at the moment
decide, but he called out, --

     "Who's there? who's there?"

     The echo of his own voice alone answered him for a few moments, and then
he heard a door open, and a voice, which he knew to be Henry's, cried, --

     "What is it? who speaks?"

     "Henry," said Charles.

     "Yes -- yes -- yes."

     "I fear I have disturbed you."

     "You have been disturbed yourself, or you would not have done so.  I
shall be with you in a moment."

     Henry closed his door before Charles Holland could tell him not to come
to him, as he intended to do, for he felt ashamed to have, in a manner of
speaking, summoned assistance for so trifling a cause of alarm as that to
which he had been subjected.  However, he could not go to Henry's chamber to
forbid him from coming to his, and, more vexed than before, he retired to his
room again to await his coming.

     He left the door open now, so that Henry Bannerworth, when he had got on
some articles of dress, walked in at once, saying, --

     "What has happened, Charles?"

     "A mere trifle, Henry, concerning which I am ashamed you should have been
at all disturbed."

     "Never mind that, I was wakeful."

     "Did you hear me open my door?"

     "I heard a door open, which kept me listening, but I could not decide
which door it was till I heard your voice in the corridor."

     "Well, it was this door; and I opened it twice in consequence of the
repeated taps for admission that came to it; some one had been knocking at it,
and, when I go to it, lo! I can see nobody."

     "Indeed!"

     "Such is the case."

     "You surprise me."

     "I am very sorry to have disturbed you, because, upon such a ground, I do
not feel that I ought to have done so; and, when I called out in the corridor,
I assure you it was with no such intention."

     "Do not regret it for a moment," said Henry; "you were quite justified in
making an alarm on such an occasion."

     "It's strange enough, but still it may arise from some accidental cause;
admitting, if we did but know it, of some ready enough explanation."

     "It may, certainly, but, after what has happened already, we may well
suppose a mysterious connexion between any unusual sight or sound, and the
fearful ones we have already seen."

     "Certainly we may."

     "How earnestly that strange portrait seems to look upon us, Charles."

     "It does, and I have been examining it carefully. It seems to have been
removed lately."

     "Removed!"

     "Yes, I think as far as I can judge, that it has been taken from its
frame; I mean, that the panel on which it is painted has been taken out."

     "Indeed!"

     "If you touch it you will find it loose, and, upon a close examination,
you will perceive that a piece of the moulding which holds it in its place has
been chipped off, which is done in such a place what I think it could only
have arisen during the removal of the picture."

     "You must be mistaken."

     "I cannot, of course, take upon myself, Henry, to say precisely such is
the case," said Charles.

     "But there is no one here to do so."

     "That I cannot say.  Will you permit me and assist me to remove it?  I
have a great curiosity to know what is behind it."

     "If you have, I certainly will do so.  We thought of taking it away
altogether, but when Flora left this room the idea was given up as useless. 
Remain here a few moments, and I will endeavour to find something which shall
assist us in its removal."

     Henry left the mysterious chamber in order to search in his own for some
means of removing the frame-work of the picture, so that the panel would slip
easily out, and while he was gone, Charles Holland continued gazing upon it
with greater interest, if possible, than before.

     In a few minutes Henry returned, and although what he had succeeded in
finding were very inefficient implements for the purpose, yet with this aid
the two young men set about the task.

     It is said, and said truly enough, that "where there is a will there is a
way," and although the young men had no tools at all adapted for the purpose,
they did succeed in removing the moulding from the sides of the panel, and
then by a little tapping at one end of it, and using a knife as a lever at the
other end of the panel, they got it fairly out.

     Disappointment was all they got for their pains. On the other side there
was nothing but a rough wooded wall, against which the finer and more nicely
finished oak panelling of the chamber rested.

     "There is no mystery here," said Henry.

     "None whatever," said Charles, as he tapped the wall with his knuckles,
and found all hard and sound. "We are foiled."

     "We are indeed."

     "I had a strange presentiment, now," added Charles, "that we should make
some discovery that would repay us for our trouble.  It appears, however, that
such is not to be the case; for you see nothing presents itself to us but the
most ordinary appearances."

     "I perceive as much; and the panel itself, although of more than ordinary
thickness, is, after all, but a bit of planed oak, and apparently fashioned
for no other object than to paint the portrait on."

     "True.  Shall we replace it?"

     Charles reluctantly assented, and the picture was replaced in its
original position.  We say Charles reluctantly assented, because, although he
had now had ocular demonstration that there was really nothing behind the
panel but the ordinary woodwork which might have been expected from the
construction of the old house, but he could not, even with such a fact staring
him in the face, get rid entirely of the feeling that had come across him, to
the effect that the picture had some mystery or another.

     "You are not yet satisfied," said Henry, as he observed the doubtful look
of Charles Holland's face.

     "My dear friend," said Charles, "I will not deceive you.  I am much
disappointed that we have made no discovery behind that picture."

     "Heaven knows we have mysteries enough in our family," said Henry.

     Even as he spoke they were both startled by a strange clattering noise at
the window, which was accompanied by a shrill, odd kind of shriek, which
sounded fearful and preternatural on the night air.

     "What is that?" said Charles.

     "God only knows," said Henry.

     The two young men naturally turned their earnest gaze in the direction of
the window, which we have before remarked was one unprovided with shutters,
and there, to their intense surprise, they saw, slowly rising up from the
lower part of it, what appeared to be a human form.  Henry would have dashed
forward, but Charles restrained him, and drawing quickly from its case a large
holster pistol, he levelled it carefully at the figure, saying in a whisper,
--

     "Henry, if I don't hit it, I will consent to forfeit my head."

     He pulled the trigger -- a loud report followed -- the room was filled
with smoke, and then all was still. A circumstance, however, had occurred, as
a consequence of the concussion of the air produced by the discharge of the
pistol, which neither of the young men had for the moment calculated upon, and
that was the putting out of the only light they there had.

     In spite of this circumstance, Charles, the moment he had discharged the
pistol, dropped it and sprung forward to the window.  But here he was
perplexed, for he could not find the old fashioned, intricate fastening which
held it shut, and he had to call to Henry, --

     "Henry!  For God's sake open the window for me, Henry!  The fastening of
the window is known to you, but not to me.  Open it for me."

     Thus called upon, Henry sprung forward, and by this time the report of
the pistol had effectually alarmed the whole household.  The flashing of
lights from the corridor came into the room, and in another minute, just as
Henry succeeded in getting the window wide open, and Charles Holland had made
his way on to the balcony, both George Bannerworth and Mr. Marchdale entered
the chamber, eager to know what had occurred. To their eager questions Henry
replied, --

     "Ask me not now;" and then calling to Charles, he said, -- "Remain where
you are, Charles, while I run down to the garden immediately beneath the
balcony."

     "Yes -- yes," said Charles.

     Henry made prodigious haste, and was in the garden immediately below the
bay window in a wonderfully short space of time.  He spoke to Charles, saying,
--

     "Will you now descend?  I can see nothing here; but we will both make a
search."

     George and Mr. Marchdale were both now in the balcony, and they would
have descended likewise, but Henry said, --

     "Do not all leave the house.  God only knows, now, situated as we are,
what might happen."

     "I will remain, then," said George.  "I have been sitting up to-night as
the guard, and, therefore, may as well continue to do so."

     Marchdale and Charles Holland clambered over the balcony, and easily,
from its insignificant height, dropped into the garden.  The night was
beautiful, and profoundly still.  There was not a breath of air sufficient to
stir a leaf on a tree, and the very flame of the candle which Charles had left
burning in the balcony burnt clearly and steadily, being perfectly unruffled
by any wind.

     It cast a sufficient light close to the window to make everything very
plainly visible, and it was evident at a glance that no object was there,
although had that figure, which Charles had shot at, and no doubt hit, been
flesh and blood, it must have dropped immediately below.

     As they looked up for a moment after a cursory examination of the ground,
Charles exclaimed, --

     "Look at the window!  As the light is now situated, you can see the hole
made in one of the panes of glass by the passage of the bullet from my
pistol."

     They did look, and there the clear, round hole, without any starring,
which a bullet discharged close to a pane of glass will make in it, was
clearly and plainly discernible.

     "You must have hit him," said Henry.

     "One would think so," said Charles; "for that was the exact place where
the figure was."

     "And there is nothing here," added Marchdale. "What can we think of these
events -- what resource has the mind against the most dreadful suppositions
concerning them?"

     Charles and Henry both were silent; in truth, they knew not what to think
and the words uttered by Marchdale were too strikingly true to dispute for a
moment.  They were lost in wonder.

     "Human means against such an appearance as we saw to-night," said
Charles, "are evidently useless."

     "My dear young friend," said Marchdale, with much emotion, as he grasped
Henry Bannerworth's hand, and the tears stood in his eyes as he did so, -- "my
dear young friend, these constant alarms will kill you. They will drive you,
and all whose happiness you hold dear, distracted.  You must control these
dreadful feelings, and there is but one chance that I can see of getting the
better of these."

     "What is that?"

     "By leaving this place for ever."

     "Alas! am I to be driven from the home of my ancestors from such a cause
as this?  And whither am I to fly?  Where are we to find a refuge?  To leave
here will be at once to break up the establishment which is now held together,
certainly upon the sufferance of creditors, but still to their advantage,
inasmuch as I am doing what no one else would do, namely, paying away to
within the scantiest pittance the whole proceeds of the estate which spreads
around me."

     "Heed nothing but an escape from such horrors as seem to be accumulating
now around you."

     "If I were sure that such a removal would bring with it such a
corresponding advantage, I might, indeed, be induced to risk all to accomplish
it."

     "As regards poor dear Flora," said Mr. Marchdale, "I know not what to
say, or what to think; she has been attacked by a vampyre, and after this
mortal life shall have ended, it is dreadful to think there may be a
possibility that she, with all her beauty, all her excellence and purity of
mind, and all those virtues and qualities which should make her the beloved of
all, and which do, indeed, attach all hearts towards her, should become one of
that dreadful tribe of beings who cling to existence by feeding, in the most
dreadful manner, upon the life blood of others -- oh, it is dreadful to
contemplate!  Too horrible -- too horrible!"

     "Then wherefore speak of it?" said Charles, with some asperity.  "Now, by
the great God of Heaven, who sees all our hearts, I will not give in to such a
horrible doctrine!  I will not believe it; and were death itself my portion
for my want of faith, I would this moment die in my disbelief of anything so
truly fearful!"

     "Oh, my young friend," added Marchdale, "if anything could add to the
pangs which all who love, and admire, and respect Flora Bannerworth must feel
at the unhappy condition in which she is placed, it would be the noble nature
of you, who, under happier auspices, would have been her guide through life,
and the happy partner of her destiny."

     "As I will be still."

     "May Heaven forbid it!  We are now among ourselves, and can talk freely
upon such a subject.  Mr. Charles Holland, if you wed, you would look forward
to being blessed with children -- those sweet ties which bind the sternest
hearts to life with so exquisite a bondage.  Oh, fancy, then, for a moment,
the mother of your babes coming at the still hour of midnight to drain from
their veins the very life blood she gave to them.  To drive you and them mad
with the expected horror of such visitations -- to make your nights hideous --
your days but so many hours of melancholy retrospection.  Oh, you know not the
world of terror, on the awful brink of which you stand, when you talk of
making Flora Bannerworth a wife."

     "Peace! oh, peace!" said Henry.

     "Nay, I know my words are unwelcome," continued Mr. Marchdale.  "It
happens, unfortunately for human nature, that truth and some of our best and
holiest feelings are too often at variance, and hold a sad contest -- "

     "I will hear no more of this," cried Charles Holland, -- "I will hear no
more!"

     "I have done," said Mr. Marchdale.

     "And 'twere well you had not begun."

     "Nay, say not so.  I have but done what I considered a solemn duty."

     "Under that assumption of doing duty -- a solemn duty -- heedless of the
feelings and the opinions of others," said Charles, sarcastically, "more
mischief is produced -- more heart-burnings and anxieties caused, than by any
other two causes of such mischievous results combined.  I wish to hear no more
of this."

     "Do not be angered with Mr. Marchdale, Charles," said Henry.  "He can
have no motive but our welfare in what he said.  We should not condemn a
speaker because his words may not sound pleasant to our ears."

     "By Heaven!" said Charles, with animation, "I meant not to be illiberal;
but I will not, because I cannot see a man's motives for active interference
in the affairs of others, always be ready, merely on account of such
ignorance, to jump to a conclusion that they must be estimable."

     "To-morrow, I leave this house," said Marchdale.

     "Leave us?" exclaimed Henry.

     "Ay, for ever."

     "Nay, now, Mr. Marchdale, is this generous?"

     "Am I treated generously by one who is your own guest, and towards whom I
was willing to hold out the honest right hand of friendship?"

     Henry turned to Charles Holland, saying, --

     "Charles, I know your generous nature.  Say you meant no offence to my
mother's old friend."

     "If to say I meant no offence," said Charles, "is to say I meant no
insult, I say it freely."

     "Enough," cried Marchdale; "I am satisfied."

     "But do not," added Charles, "draw me any more such pictures as the one
you have already presented to my imagination, I beg of you.  From the
storehouse of my own fancy I can find quite enough to make me wretched, if I
choose to be so; but again and again do I say I will not allow this monstrous
superstition to tread me down, like the tread of a giant on a broken reed.  I
will contend against it while I have life to do so."

     "Bravely spoken."

     "And when I desert Flora Bannerworth, may Heaven from that moment, desert
me!"

     "Charles!" cried Henry, with emotion, "dear Charles, my more than friend -
- brother of my heart -- noble Charles!"

     "Nay, Henry, I am not entitled to your praises.  I were base indeed to be
other than that which I purpose to be.  Come weal or woe -- come what may, I
am the affianced husband of your sister, and she, and she only, can break
asunder the tie that binds me to her."

                                     -+-


 Next Time: The Offer for the Hall. -- The Visit to Sir Francis Varney. -- The
 Strange Resemblance. -- A Dreadful Suggestion.

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