Dracula's Guest: A Connoisseur's Collection of Victorian Vampire Stories (29 page)

“How?” cried the knight, Franziska, and Bertha simultaneously, in a voice of horror. “So this Azzo was—”

“Nothing less. He also was a Vampire!” replied Woislaw. “But at all events
his
hellish thirst is quenched for ever; he will never return. But I have not finished. As in my country Vampires had never been heard of, I questioned the Selavonian minutely. He said that in Hungary, Croatia, Dalmatia, and Bosnia, these hellish guests were not uncommon. They were deceased persons, who had either once served as nourishment to Vampires, or who had died in deadly sin, or under excommunication; and that whenever the moon shone, they rose from their graves, and sucked the blood of the living.”

“Horrible!” cried Franziska. “If you had told me all this beforehand, I should never have accomplished the work.”

“So I thought; and yet it must be executed by the sufferers themselves, while someone else performs the devotions,” replied Woislaw. “The Selavonian,” he continued after a short pause, “added many other facts with regard to these unearthly visitants. He said that whilst their victim wasted, they themselves improved in appearance, and that a Vampire possessed enormous strength—”

“Now I can understand the change your false hand produced on Azzo,” interrupted Franz.

“Yes, that was it,” replied Woislaw. “Azzo, as well as the other Vampire, mistook its great power for that of a natural one, and concluded I was one of his own species. You may now imagine, dear lady,” he continued, turning to Franziska, “how alarmed I was at your appearance when I arrived: all you and Bertha told me increased my anxiety; and when I saw Azzo, I could doubt no longer that he was a Vampire. As I learned from your account that a grave with the name Ezzelin von Klatka lay in the neighbourhood, I had no doubt that you might be saved if I could only induce you to assist me. It did not appear to me advisable to impart the whole facts of the case, for your bodily powers were so impaired, that an idea of the horrors before you might have quite unfitted you for the exertion; for this reason, I arranged everything in the manner in which it has taken place.”

“You did wisely,” replied Franziska shuddering. “I can never be grateful enough to you. Had I known what was required of me, I never could have undertaken the deed.”

“That was what I feared,” said Woislaw; “but fortune has favored us all through.”

“And what became of the unfortunate girl in Hungary?” inquired Bertha.

“I know not,” replied Woislaw. “That very evening there was an alarm of Turks, and we were ordered off. I never heard anything more of her.”

The conversation upon these strange occurrences continued for some time longer. The knight determined to have the vault at Klatka walled up for ever. This took place on the following day; the knight alleging as a reason that he did not wish the dead to be disturbed by irreverent hands.

Franziska recovered gradually. Her health had been so severely shaken, that it was long ere her strength was so much restored as to allow of her being considered out of danger. The young lady’s character underwent a great change in the interval. Its former strength was, perhaps, in some degree diminished, but in place of that, she had acquired a benevolent softness, which brought out all her best qualities. Franz continued his attentions to his cousin; but, perhaps owing to a hint from Bertha, he was less assiduous in his exhibition of them. His inclinations did not lead him to the battle, the camp, or the attainment of honours; his great aim was to increase the good condition and happiness of his tenants, and to this he contributed the whole energy of his mind. Franziska could not withstand the unobtrusive signs of the young man’s continued attachment; and it was not long ere the credit she was obliged to yield to his noble efforts for the welfare of his fellow-creatures, changed into a liking, which went on increasing, until at length it assumed the character of love. As Woislaw insisted on making Bertha his wife before he returned to Silesia, it was arranged that the marriage should take place at their present abode. How joyful was the surprise of the Knight of Fahnenberg, when his daughter and Franz likewise entreated his blessing, and expressed their desire of being united on the same day! That day soon came round, and it saw the bright looks of two happy couples.

Anne Crawford

(1846–?)

A
NNE
C
RAWFORD CAME FROM
an American family distinguished in the arts. Her father was the sculptor Thomas Crawford, whose public works include the robed and plumed bronze figure atop the dome of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Her aunt was the poet Julia Ward Howe, author of the rousing abolitionist anthem “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” The artistic Crawford family produced a trio of writers—F. Marion, who wrote memorable horror stories such as “For the Blood Is the Life”; Mary, who, under her married name, Mrs. Hugh Fraser, wrote novels and memoirs and travel books; and Anne, who became Baroness Von Rabe and wrote under the pseudonym Von Degen. Both Marion and Mary were more prolific and successful writers than Anne, but neither wrote a better ghost story than “A Mystery of the Campagna.” Although there is also a small Italian town called Campagna, Crawford’s title refers to a populous region in southern Italy now usually spelled Campania. On the peninsula south of Rome, it is an area rich in history that dates well before the Roman Empire.

This elegant tale first appeared in late 1886, in
The Witching Time: Tales for the Year’s End
, a compilation edited by Sir Henry Norman and published around Christmas as
Unwin’s Annual for 1887.
The volume also included her brother Marion’s story “By the Waters of Paradise,” as well as “The Hidden Door,” by a great writer of supernatural stories, Vernon Lee (the pseudonym of another important woman in the field, Violet Paget).
Unwin’s Annual
was a noble venue. The year before, it had included Marion’s now famous horror story “The Upper Berth,” as well as “Markheim,” by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Unwin’s
was published by the firm of T. Fisher Unwin, who in 1891 reprinted the following story and one other by Crawford in a double volume entitled
A Mystery of the Campagna and A Shadow on the Wave.
It was the nephew of this Unwin who founded the famous twentieth-century British publisher Allen and Unwin, who published such books as Tolkien’s
Lord of the Rings.

A Mystery of the Campagna

I

Martin Detaille’s Account
of What Happened at the Vigna Marziali

M
ARCELLO’S VOICE IS PLEADING
with me now, perhaps because after years of separation I have met an old acquaintance who had a part in his strange story. I have a longing to tell it, and have asked Monsieur Sutton to help me. He noted down the circumstances at the time, and he is willing to join his share to mine, that Marcello may be remembered.

One day, it was in spring, he appeared in my little studio amongst the laurels and green alleys of the Villa Medici. “Come,
mon enfant
,” he said, “put up your paints”; and he unceremoniously took my palette out of my hand. “I have a cab waiting outside, and we are going in search of a hermitage.” He was already washing my brushes as he spoke, and this softened my heart, for I hate to do it myself. Then he pulled off my velvet jacket and took down my respectable coat from a nail on the wall. I let him dress me like a child. We always did his will, and he knew it, and in a moment we were sitting in the cab, driving through the Via Sistina on our way to the Porta San Giovanni, whither he had directed the coachman to go.

I
MUST TELL MY
story as I can, for though I have been told by my comrades, who cannot know very well, that I can speak good English, writing it is another thing. Monsieur Sutton has asked me to use his tongue, because he has so far forgotten mine that he will not trust himself in it, though he has promised to correct my mistakes, that what I have to tell you may not seem ridiculous, and make people laugh when they read of Marcello. I tell him I wish to write this for my countrymen, not his; but he reminds me that Marcello had many English friends who still live, and that the English do not forget as we do. It is of no use to reason with him, for neither do they yield as we do, and so I have consented to his wish. I think he has a reason which he does not tell me, but let it go. I will translate it all into my own language for my own people. Your English phrases seem to me to be always walking sideways, or trying to look around the corner or stand upon their heads, and they have as many little tails as a kite. I will try not to have recourse to my own language, but he must pardon me if I forget myself. He may be sure I do not do it to offend him. Now that I have explained so much, let me go on.

When we had passed out of the Porta San Giovanni, the coachman drove as slowly as possible; but Marcello was never practical. How could he be, I ask you, with an Opera in his head? So we crawled along, and he gazed dreamily before him. At last, when we had reached the part where the little villas and vineyards begin, he began to look about him.

You all know how it is out there; iron gates with rusty names or initials over them, and beyond them straight walks bordered with roses and lavender leading up to a forlorn little casino, with trees and a wilderness behind it sloping down to the Campagna, lonely enough to be murdered in and no one to hear you cry. We stopped at several of these gates and Marcello stood looking in, but none of the places were to his taste. He seemed not to doubt that he might have whatever pleased him, but nothing did so. He would jump out and run to the gate, and return saying, “The shape of those windows would disturb my inspiration,” or, “That yellow paint would make me fail my duet in the second Act”; and once he liked the air of the house well enough, but there were marigolds growing in the walk, and he hated them. So we drove on and on, until I thought we should find nothing more to reject. At last we came to one which suited him, though it was terribly lonely, and I should have fancied it very
agaçant
to live so far away from the world with nothing but those melancholy olives and green oaks—ilexes, you call them—for company.

“I shall live here and become famous!” he said, decidedly, as he pulled the iron rod which rang a great bell inside. We waited, and then he rang again very impatiently and stamped his foot.

“No one lives here,
mon vieux
! Come, it is getting late, and it is so damp out here, and you know that the damp for a tenor voice—” He stamped his foot again and interrupted me angrily.

“Why, then, have you got a tenor? You are stupid! A bass would be more sensible; nothing hurts it. But you have not got one, and you call yourself my friend! Go home without me.” How could I, so far on foot? “Go and sing your lovesick songs to your lean English misses! They will thank you with a cup of abominable tea, and you will be in Paradise! This is
my
Paradise, and I shall stay until the angel comes to open it!”

He was very cross and unreasonable, and those were just the times when one loved him most, so I waited and enveloped my throat in my pocket handkerchief and sang a passage or two just to prevent my voice from becoming stiff in that damp air.

“Be still! silence yourself!” he cried. “I cannot hear if anyone is coming.”

Someone came at last, a rough-looking sort of keeper, or
guardiano
as they are called there, who looked at us as though he thought we were mad. One of us certainly was, but it was not I. Marcello spoke pretty good Italian, with a French accent, it is true, but the man understood him, especially as he held his purse in his hand. I heard him say a great many impetuously persuasive things all in one breath, then he slipped a gold piece into the
guardiano
’s horny hand, and the two turned towards the house, the man shrugging his shoulders in a resigned sort of way, and Marcello called out to me over his shoulder—

“Go home in the cab, or you will be late for your horrible English party! I am going to stay here tonight.”
Ma foi!
I took his permission and left him; for a tenor voice is as tyrannical as a jealous woman. Besides, I was furious, and yet I laughed. His was the artist temperament, and appeared to us by turns absurd, sublime, and intensely irritating; but this last never for long, and we all felt that were we more like him our pictures would be worth more. I had not got as far as the city gate when my temper had cooled, and I began to reproach myself for leaving him in that lonely place with his purse full of money, for he was not poor at all, and tempting the dark
guardiano
to murder him. Nothing could be easier than to kill him in his sleep and bury him away somewhere under the olive trees or in some old vault of a ruined catacomb, so common on the borders of the Campagna. There were sure to be a hundred convenient places. I stopped the coachman and told him to turn back, but he shook his head and said something about having to be in the Piazza of St. Peter at eight o’clock. His horse began to go lame, as though he had understood his master and was his accomplice. What could I do? I said to myself that it was fate, and let him take me back to the Villa Medici, where I had to pay him a pretty sum for our crazy expedition, and then he rattled off, the horse not lame at all, leaving me bewildered at this strange afternoon.

I did not sleep well that night, though my tenor song had been applauded, and the English misses had caressed me much. I tried not to think of Marcello, and he did not trouble me much until I went to bed; but then I could not sleep, as I have told you.

I fancied him already murdered, and being buried in the darkness by the
guardiano.
I saw the man dragging his body, with the beautiful head thumping against the stones, down dark passages, and at last leaving it all bloody and covered with earth under a black arch in a recess, and coming back to count the gold pieces. But then again I fell asleep, and dreamed that Marcello was standing at the gate and stamping his foot; and then I slept no more, but got up as soon as the dawn came, and dressed myself and went to my studio at the end of the laurel walk. I took down my painting jacket, and remembered how he had pulled it off my shoulders. I took up the brushes he had washed for me; they were only half cleaned after all, and stiff with paint and soap. I felt glad to be angry with him, and
sacré’d
a little, for it made me sure that he was yet alive if I could scold at him. Then I pulled out my study of his head for my picture of Mucius Scaevola holding his hand in the flame, and then I forgave him; for who could look upon that face and not love it?

I worked with the fire of friendship in my brush, and did my best to endow the features with the expression of scorn and obstinacy I had seen at the gate. It could not have been more suitable to my subject! Had I seen it for the last time? You will ask me why I did not leave my work and go to see if anything had happened to him, but against this there were several reasons. Our yearly exhibition was not far off and my picture was barely painted in, and my comrades had sworn that it would not be ready. I was expecting a model for the King of the Etruscans; a man who cooked chestnuts in the Piazza Montanara, and who had consented to stoop to sit to me as a great favour; and then, to tell the truth, the morning was beginning to dispel my fancies. I had a good northern light to work by, with nothing sentimental about it, and I was not fanciful by nature; so when I sat down to my easel I told myself that I had been a fool, and that Marcello was perfectly safe: the smell of the paints helping me to feel practical again. Indeed, I thought every moment that he would come in, tired of his caprice already, and even was preparing and practising a little lecture for him. Some one knocked at my door, and I cried
“Entrez!”
thinking it was he at last, but no, it was Pierre Magnin.

“There is a curious man, a man of the country, who wants you,” he said. “He has your address on a dirty piece of paper in Marcello’s handwriting, and a letter for you, but he won’t give it up. He says he must see ‘il Signor Martino.’ He’d make a superb model for a murderer! Come and speak to him, and keep him while I get a sketch of his head.”