Oscar Wilde and the Nest of Vipers (17 page)

38
From the journal of Arthur Conan Doyle

I travelled out to Mortlake with Bram Stoker (Irving’s man of business) and Robert Sherard.

South of the river, our cabman lost his bearings. Twice, he had to stop to ask the way: first at a public house in Barnes, and then, half a mile further on, at a deserted crossroads, where, at midnight, by moonlight, we came upon a curious scene: a man (heavily cloaked) and a stable lad, standing by the roadside, grooming a fine white stallion. (If I had a fancy for such things, I would have said it was a ghostly vision.) When our cabman called out to them, neither answered, but the cloaked man pointed west and our cabman drove on.

It was long past twelve when, eventually, beyond Mortlake village itself, down an overgrown and lonely track, we reached the churchyard of St Mary Magdalen. I had expected to find there a handful of hooded figures lurking between the graves. Instead, it was like a bankside party on Boat Race night.

There were upward of fifty souls in attendance: men of all ages and every class: young bucks in
evening dress, clerks and tradesmen in overcoats and waterproofs, ruffians in little more than rags. They stood in small clusters, illuminated by lanterns and torchlight; some holding pint pots and uncorked bottles of wine, carousing; some engaged in loud and earnest conversation; a few, in the shadows, away from the rest, silent, seemingly wrapped in one another’s arms.

‘All manner of men come here,’ said Stoker, as he led us through the throng.

‘What brings them?’ I asked. ‘Do they all claim to be vampires?’

Stoker laughed. ‘Far from it. This is a club without rules, open to all. Only one or two will call themselves vampires. Rather more will be like me – students of the subject. Most, however, will confess to coming mainly for amusement’s sake, for the company, out of curiosity –’ he glanced towards the figures in the shadows – ‘or for reasons of concupiscence and carnality.’

‘And the police make no objection?’

‘The club secretary is the deputy commissioner for the metropolis.’ He laughed once more. ‘We are a long way from Southsea, Dr Doyle.’

Purposefully, he led us up the narrow pathway towards the porch of the church.

‘You must meet tonight’s presiding officer,’ he said. ‘He’s a good man. From County Cork. He’ll be giving the address.’

‘He’s a priest,’ I murmured in astonishment.

‘He is indeed,’ answered Stoker. ‘It’s his church, his graveyard. We are his guests this evening.’

Beaming broadly, the priest, a stooped, elderly, white-haired man, dressed in a black cope and all the vestments appropriate to a funeral, stepped eagerly towards us with outstretched arms. Though his back was bent, his spirit was lively. He exuded bonhomie and smelt of whiskey and burnt incense. He embraced Bram Stoker as he might a brother, then shook Sherard and me warmly by the hand. His face was deeply lined, but his fingers were soft and delicate.

‘Welcome, gentlemen,’ he said in booming tones. ‘Bram sent a note to tell me you’d be coming. I know all about you. Oscar is already here with his young friend. They’ve gone in search of wine. Welcome. You are among friends. We don’t stand on ceremony. In a graveyard, all are equal. It’s the democracy of death.’

We stood with the priest – Father John Callaghan is his name – as the whisper went round that the formal proceedings were about to begin. From all corners of the churchyard, the members of the Vampire Club and their guests moved slowly towards the church porch.

‘It’s a fine turnout tonight,’ said the priest, with satisfaction. ‘They look like carol-singers gathering around the tree on Christmas Eve, don’t they? If you didn’t know it, you’d not believe they were a band of brothers come to raise the undead.’

‘Is that your purpose,’ I asked, ‘to raise the undead?’

Father Callaghan chuckled and laid his hand on my shoulder reassuringly. ‘Don’t worry, Dr Doyle.
I’m a good Catholic. I have my rosary and my crucifix about me. You’ll be quite safe.’

I stood alongside him on the porch step as the men began to settle in a broad semi-circle before us. Beneath the yellow and orange light of the lanterns and wax candles, their faces glowed with expectation. As I sensed the priest was about to speak, I made to distance myself a little, but he put out a hand to restrain me.

‘Stay,’ he said. ‘Don’t go. You’re young and strong. I may need you.’

He turned his head towards the interior of the porch and, with a brief nod, indicated a pair of gravedigger’s spades resting against the doorway. I stood where I was, filled with foreboding.

I felt a hand touch my elbow. It was Oscar, holding an open bottle of wine to his lips and raising it to me. His face was shining; his eyes sparkled in the torchlight. Rex LaSalle stood at his side, impassively. I looked at the motley crowd ranged before us, then glanced back at the gravedigger’s shovels resting in the doorway.

I leant towards Oscar and whispered into his ear: ‘Is this wise? Is this sensible?’

Oscar laughed gently. ‘I do hope not,’ he murmured. ‘Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense and discover when it is too late that the only things in life one never regrets are one’s mistakes.’

As the church clock struck one, Father Callaghan raised his arms and addressed his congregation.

‘In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, peace be among us.’

With his right hand held high for all to see, he made a sign of the cross.

‘“I am the resurrection and the life,” saith the Lord; “he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though this body of mine be corrupted and destroyed – ashes to ashes and dust to dust – yet shall I see God.’ He paused. ‘That is God’s promise. That is all that we have. We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’

The Irish priest turned out to be a powerful orator. He spoke, without notes and without pause, for nigh on half an hour and held his auditors throughout. He talked of life and death and the life hereafter – of the joy of life, of the gift of death, of the certainty of the life hereafter. He spoke of St Mary Magdalen and reminded us that it was she who first saw Christ on the day of His resurrection. He talked of the day of judgement and told tales of his travels around the cemeteries of Europe. He recounted how he was recently returned from Vienna where he found that the gravestones of unmarried women all featured the word
Fräulein
, meaning ‘Miss’, before the name of the departed. This, he explained, is because, at the
sounding of the last trump, virgins will take precedence and it will be so much easier for Our Lord to gather them to him if their graves are clearly marked. He spoke with humour and heart and authority.

In the first half of his address Father Callaghan made no mention of vampires whatsoever. Then, quite suddenly, as the full moon appeared from behind the clouds and, in my ear, Oscar whispered a low ‘At last!’, the priest declared: ‘I have spoken of the quick and the dead and the life everlasting. Let me now speak of the undead and let us pray for those who cannot rest in peace.’

He spoke of the undead as ‘souls in torment’, pitiful creatures trapped in limbo between this life and the next, destined to roam the world under cover of darkness, for all eternity, driven by bile and envy, and sustained only by the blood of innocents. He told us of our Christian duty to unearth the undead, to challenge and destroy them – for their sake as much as for our own.

He talked in wonderfully practical terms of how to set about this: of ways of identifying graves, of means of breaking into tombs and vaults and mausolea, of the craft of digging up coffins by gas lamp and candlelight, of the art of piercing and pinioning a vampire with a sword, a sickle or a scythe. He spoke of the uncorrupted bodies of the undead, of their open, wild and staring eyes, of their bloated features and their blood-soaked lips.

Finally, he told us that, on his travels in Europe, he had visited Albania where he had come across
the most ancient and, he averred, the most reliable of all the rituals used to identify the graves of the undead. The method had the advantages of simplicity and beauty. It involved merely leading a virgin boy through a graveyard on a virgin stallion. With the youth on his bare back, instinctively the horse would baulk and rise up if he stepped over earth in which a vampire was buried.

‘Will he show us, I wonder?’ whispered Oscar at my side.

The priest turned to Oscar and smiled: ‘I will.’ He looked at me and enquired, ‘What is the time, Dr Doyle?’

I checked my half-hunter. ‘Half past one,’ I said.

‘Gentlemen,’ announced the priest, stretching his hands out before him once more. ‘Would you turn due north, towards the river, towards the track along which you travelled here tonight. Turn, gentlemen, and watch closely. Turn now, but make no noise.’

There was a brief murmuring as the men turned away from the church to gaze across the graveyard to the deserted track that led from the village. Silence fell. We waited. The wind blew gently in the trees. Somewhere in the undergrowth a fox or weasel stirred. Nothing happened.

‘Wait!’ said the priest. ‘Be patient.’

The church clock struck the half-hour and then, from a distance, we heard the sound of a horse’s hooves approaching. Out of the darkness it came, slowly, steadily, gently tossing its magnificent head from side to side. It was the pure white stallion we
had seen at the crossroads an hour before. The horse was led towards us by the man in the cloak. His hat was pulled forward over his eyes, but as he approached, in the light of the lanterns, I recognised him – though I will not record his name here. On the horse’s bare back sat the stable lad, a youth of no more than fifteen or sixteen years of age. Though the night was cold, the boy was naked.

‘His skin is very white,’ said Oscar.

39
From the notebooks of Robert Sherard

W
hat happened? Nothing happened. The drama was all in the moment of revelation.

When the horse and the boy came out of the darkness there were gasps and cheers – and then complete silence. As the priest stepped down from the church porch to greet them, the crowd parted to let him through. When the priest reached the horse, the animal appeared to genuflect before him. More gasps, more cheers. The priest bowed towards the horse’s cloaked minder – who, removing his hat with a flourish, returned the bow.

It was young Prince Eddy, the club’s royal patron. More gasps, applause and loud hurrahs. The priest reached up to stroke the stallion’s forelock. He blessed the animal with a sign of the cross and then, holding it by the mane, helped lead it through the graveyard. The men in the crowd fell back to create pathways along which the horse, the priest and the prince could pass. At three or four of the graves, the creature paused to graze a moment or sniff the air. At no point did it baulk or rear up – or even throw back its head and whinny.