Vintage Vampire Stories (31 page)

On the evening of the day of the funeral, she was even more reposeful than usual, in a dreamy mood in which I had seen her before more than once, and in which she seemed hardly conscious of—or rather inattentive to—what passed around her. This mood of hers the cripple had recalled to me when describing the scene in the Oxford walk.

It may have been that the events and scenes of the last few days, with all their appeals to the emotions, had predisposed us both to tenderness. Certainly from the time of my entry when our greeting had been only a hand-clasp, with hardly an audible word on either side, we had spoken constrainedly, in undertones and on personal topics. Though more than once I strove desperately to be matter-of-fact, my voice in spite of myself would sink, and wherever the conversation started from, it ended in herself.

At last some chance word of hers made me broach a subject which I had never approached before, and which she rarely alluded to—her late husband. Before I was conscious of what I was doing, I had said:

“It is not, by any means, I know, your first contact with death. You have told me very little of Mr. Tierce.”

“No,” she said dreamily, “there is little to tell. We were only married a few weeks.”

And then:

“And is it not possible that you might marry again? Could you not?” and I crossed from my chair to take a seat on the sofa by her side, “could you not—is there any hope for me?”

Instead of replying, she sat silent and inattentive, her large swimming eyes looking far into either the past or the future—I wondered which.

“Tell me,” I urged, laying my hand on one of hers, as it rested in her lap, “tell me, is there any hope?”

She did not move, did not answer me. Again I implored her, and at last she spoke, but with seeming irrelevance.

“Did you ever hear of the Court of Love?” she asked, “the court over which the Countess Ermengarde presided in the tenth or eleventh century?”

No, I knew nothing of the Court of Love or the Countess Ermengarde, though I have since looked them up.

“The Court decided, and the decision was affirmed by a later Court composed of half the queens and duchesses of Europe, that true love could not exist between married persons.”

“But you do not believe it? That was nice centuries ago; and how should queens and duchesses know anything of love?”

“I do not know whether I believe it or not,” she murmured, and turned her head as it lay on the cushions of the sofa, to look at me with eyes that still seemed strangely dreamy and far away.

“But you do know,” I urged impulsively, leaning forward till my face was dangerously close to hers. “You know that you do not believe it. You know that I should always love you—that I must always love you. And if I may love you as my wife—”

She smiled faintly, charmingly, but did not answer me.

“My darling,” I whispered, “say something! Am I to be utterly happy?”

And still she did not answer; but leaned back with the faint half-smile on her lips, and her great inscrutable eyes looking into and through mine. Then in the silence and suspense, the cripple's story came into my mind. No wonder that he should believe that he had been fascinated in some mysterious way—spell-bound, benumbed—by those eyes! No wonder! And still I looked into them; and still they looked through mine. I forgot the nearness of her lips; forgot that I held her hand. I thought only of, saw only, those eyes. And still I thought only of the cripple and vaguely pitied him.

But somehow—when it began I knew not—I found that the expression of the eyes had changed. They were no longer dreamy and far away, but intensely earnest, with a passion in them that was almost hunger.

“Yes,” I thought to myself (and I must have smiled in thinking it), “this is what he described. No wonder that they seemed to him to flame. They are not looking at my eyes now, but through, into my brain, into me. My eyes are no more than two pieces of glass in the path of her vision.” And I felt a curious, half-gratified recognition of the accuracy of the other's description. And still the eyes seemed to expand until they were many times larger than my own; till I could see nothing but them.

Have you ever, in a half-darkened room, set your face close against a mirror and looked into your own eyes and seen what terrible things they are; how the view of everything else is shut out and all your sense is drawn into the pupils confronting you? So I felt my whole being concentrating itself in—merging itself into—drowning in—her eyes. A strange feeling of intoxication possessed me; of ecstacy. I could have laughed aloud, but that it seemed as if to do it I would somehow have to summon my faculties from too far away.

At what point this strange calmness gave way to conscious fear, I do not know. I saw the pupils of her eyes expanding and contracting, as if with the regular beats of a passionate pulse behind them. I saw, or rather I was aware, that the colour flushed into her cheeks and died again, that her breath, which was warm on my face, came short and gasping. Her lips closed and parted, moist and glistening, suggesting to me somehow the craving of some animal in the presence of food which it could not reach. Her nostrils dilated, quivering, and her whole being strained with a passion which seemed carnivorous.

“It was as if she preyed upon my very life,” he had said, and I understood him now. But the memory of the cripple was fading from me. I was conscious only of myself and of her; of the terror of her fierce hunger and my own helplessness. The power of motion was gone from me; even volition seemed slipping away. The burning of her eyes was in my brain which was as if laid open before her; as a hollow dish set open to the scorching sun. I was utterly at her mercy, without power of resistance; and as her breath grew yet more rapid and more heavy, I knew that she was in some way inhaling my very life.

Suddenly a flash of fear passed across her face—a spasm of agonised disappointment. For a moment it was as if she would, in one long, indrawn breath, draw the last of my strength from me; and then a man's voice sounded in my ear.

“I hope I am in time!”

She had fallen reclining against the cushions of the sofa. I looked up dazedly, and the cripple stood in the centre of the room, his hat in his hand.

“You had better let me take you away,” he said, and I heard it half consciously. Turning to look at her, I saw her lie panting and exhausted. I cannot tell the horror of her appearance. Her eyes still sought mine hungrily as before. Her hands, lying in her lap, fumbled each other, her fingers knotting and intertwining. Her lips moved, and all her body quivered with passion. It was a dreadful fancy, but I could liken her to nothing but some bloodsucking thing; some human leech or vampire, torn from its prey, quivering dumbly with its unsated appetite.

At the time I only half understood what passed around me. I knew that the danger was over and what escape lay before me. I saw the cripple waiting for me to rise and was conscious of the horror with which she inspired me. But I was bewildered. My brain seemed numb, and when I endeavoured to stand up my limbs refused their office. Seeing my powerlessness the cripple moved forward and with his healthy arm assisted me. It was with difficulty I stood, for there was no sensation in my feet or legs and it was only by leaning on my companion that I made my way laboriously to the door.

No word had been spoken beyond the two sentences which the cripple had uttered. Reaching the door of the room I turned to look at her once more, supporting myself against the door-post. She had not moved. Under the influence of the passion that was upon her she evidently had no thought or emotion. There was no sign of shame or confusion on her face; nothing but the blind craving for the prey that was being taken from her. Even there, across the full width of the room, her eyes sought mine with the same despairing longing. But she only made me shudder now. The cripple still supporting me, we passed together from the house.

Of the remainder of that evening my memory is confused and faint. I know that I was helping to my chambers and that there, with the assistance of the cripple and some third person, though who, or whence he joined us, I know not, I was put to bed. That night was one long, half-waking swoon, and far into the next afternoon I lay motionless upon my back without speaking or wishing to speak, save only to tell the woman who took care of my rooms that I needed no help or food. As the twilight fell the same good woman came again, and yet again late at night. But I was scarcely conscious, and had no wishes. Even speech was an effort.

For seven days, all through the Christmas holidays, I lay in this state, taking little nourishment; hardly speaking, hardly thinking clearly. At last, on the day after Christmas, I found courage and strength to attack the mail which had been accumulating on my sick-room table. I had expected to find her handwriting on one at least of the envelopes. In this I was disappointed. But some instinct led me to open first one envelope the address of which was written in a hand that was strange to me. It contained nothing but a newspaper clipping:

“A sad accident occurred last night at 19 Grasmere Crescent, W. The house was inhabited by Mrs. Walter Tierce, the widow of the late Walter Tierce, Esq. Last evening Mrs. Tierce, who was twenty-six years of age, retired to rest as usual. This morning she failed to answer the knock of the servant at the door, and on the maid entering the room she noticed a strong and peculiar odour. She was frightened and went out and fetched another servant. The two entered the room and found Mrs. Tierce dead, and an overturned bottle of chloroform by the pillow. It was evidently an accident, and no inquest will be held. A curious coincidence in connection with the sad affair is that this is the second death in the same house within a week. On Monday last, a maid in the service of Mrs. Tierce died suddenly of heart disease. Her funeral occurred yesterday afternoon, when Mrs. Tierce attended it.”

Attached to this clipping with a pin was the date line of the evening newspaper from which it was taken—“Friday, December 19th.” That was the day after that terrible evening, and a week ago now. The funeral must have already taken place.

Though, as I have said, the handwriting on the envelope was unfamiliar to me, I had my conjecture as to whom the message was from, and after keeping the envelope for all these years, the clue has come which shows that the conjecture was correct. Six weeks ago I received information that I had been appointed executor of the estate of the late James Livingston, of Hereford. James Livingston ? The name was unknown to me. Thinking that there might be some mistake, I called at the solicitor's office from which the intimation came. No, there was no mistake, the solicitor informed me; he had drawn up the will, and Mr. Livingston had given him special instructions how to communicate with me.

“And you say you never knew him at all?” he asked musingly, “that is certainly curious for he seemed to know you. But you could not well have forgotten him. He was a cripple—almost entire paralysed in his right side.”

Robert Murray Gilchrist (1867–1917) is an anomaly. He wrote several novels about rural life in the Peakland District of Derbyshire, but he is remembered today for his decadent fiction; including his contributions to Aubrey Beardsley's
The Yellow Book
—which published his vampire tale “The Crimson Weaver” in July of 1895.

His first collection,
The Stone Dragon and Other Tragic Romances
(London: Methuen, 1894) is treasured for its contents and is extremely rare. Charon Press published a facsimile edition of
The Stone Dragon
in 1998, while Ash Tree Press collected all of Gilchrist's horror stories in a limited edition titled
The Basilisk: And Other Tales of Dread
in 2003.

“The Lover's Ordeal” first appeared in
The London Magazine
(June 1905), which often carried supernatural stories by the likes of Richard Marsh and H. G. Wells.

M
ary Padley stood near the leaden statue of Diana on the terrace at Calton Dovecote, gazing towards the stone-arched gate that barred the avenues of limes—sweet scented, with their newly opened bloom—from the dusty high-road.

She wore white—a mantua of thin silk, a stiff petticoat spread over a great hoop, and a quaint stomacher, lilac in colour, and embroidered with silver beads.

Her hair was cushioned and powdered, Madam Padley, her grandmother and guardian, insisting that, since she would probably soon change her estate, she must cease playing the hoyden, and devote herself to a careful study of such fashions as leaked from town to the Peak Country.

It may be stated, however, that the dame, in calling her a hoyden, spoke tenderly enough, since she knew that her sole living descendent had sterling and admirable qualities, combined with a physical loveliness that promised to make her a reigning toast after her union with Mr Endymion Eyre, heir-presumptive to my Lord Newburgh.

Madam, herself being high-spirited, doted upon—though she outwardly condemned—the maid's too fervent love of the romantic and uncommon.

But, at the present moment, Madam Padley had very kindly fallen asleep beside her embroidery-frame, and Mary had stolen from the house to watch for Mr Eyre's coming.

She held in her right hand a folded sheet. A ray of the westering sun touched the words:‘The Spectator, No. 557.Wednesday, June 23, 1714.'

The minutes dragged. She opened the first page, and began to peruse, for the twentieth time, a letter which her lover, who was gifted with some literary power, had addressed to Addison, partly for the sake of eliciting one of that master's wise disquisitions.

‘Mr Spectator,' she read softly—‘Since the decline of chivalry, a man has no opportunity of proving his devotion to the lady of his choice. Why not permit her to name some ordeal through which he must pass, and by whose performance he might win her from the fullest trust and faith, without which a true marriage is impossible—‘

She read no more, for she heard the sound of his mare's hoofs in the distance.A bright smile lighted her face; her colour rose faintly. ‘Here comes my author,' she said, ‘speeding to hear my yea or nay. Heigho! I wish my heart would not beat so wildly! For all the world ‘tis as if I'd stolen a fledgling and prisoned it in my bosom!'

He dismounted at the foot of a mossy staircase.A groom came forward to take the bridle. Mary curtsied her prettiest, then gave him her hand to lift to his lips.

‘This evening,' he said laughingly, ‘this evening you promised to tell me whether you'd marry me or no. Of course, the asking's but a formality, for I'm fully resolved to make you.'

‘Alack,' she cried, ‘you've a pretty fashion of showing me that I've met my master! Well, good Mr Eyre, you have courted me for a full year, and I've known you all my life, and, as you are aware, I've no aversion for your person. Yes—yes, I'll marry you—on one condition.'

‘And that—' he began.

‘You've set my heart upon making you pass through an ordeal. Don't suspect for a moment that I'm ignorant as to who wrote this.' She held her Spectator aloft. ‘You've asked to be tested—‘

‘The deuce upon my scribblings!' he exclaimed. ‘Well, mistress, whatever you wish I'll do with the utmost expedition, on one condition—that being that it does not take me long from you. Tell me the ordeal, sweet. I'm eager to pass through it—to have you swear that I'm a worthy man.'

Their eyes met fondly.

‘I ne'er doubted that,' she said; ‘but all girls have their whimsies. Come down into the park. ‘Tis a night made for lovers.'

Then she gave him her hand again; and they went together through the narrow walk of the rosary, where the beautiful flowers were all wet with dew, to a knoll about half a mile from Dovecote, whence one could see almost forty miles of rough moorland and wood passing upwards towards the North Country.

A crescent moon hung overhead.There was no sound save the sighing of the wind and the churring of the moth-hawks.

Mary paused when they reached the summit, and pointed to another hill about three miles away—a strange conical place covered with great trees, from whose tops rose several stacks of twisted chimneys.

‘You wish, then, to pass through the ordeal?' she said. ‘You are no coward, and that which I set you to do needs a brave spirit. ‘Tis—‘tis to spend a night at Calton Hall, where no living creature has been after dark since my folk left it eighty years ago. The place is haunted—or so ‘tis said—and ‘twill require all your courage to pass the midnight hours in those deserted suites.'

He interrupted her by taking her into his arms, quite in an informal fashion, and silencing her lips by the pressure of his own.

‘May it be done tonight?' he asked. ‘Let me perform this valorous deed at once, and so become a hero in your eyes.'

‘Ay,' responded Mary. ‘I have the key of the door—I took it unseen from my grandmother's basket. If I had asked for it, be sure she'd not have consented. There's none has a keener belief than she in the mystery that haunts the place o' nights. So, since you sup with us, I'd have you say naught concerning the ordeal, or she'd at once forbid it.'

They returned to the house now. Madam Padley, who had awakened some minutes before, met them in the hall.

She was a stately old woman, still comely despite her seventy years. In youth she had been a lady-in-waiting to the Duchess of York; and her manner still suggested the atmosphere of a Court. As she possessed both fine wit and intuition, she read aright the radiance of the lovers' faces.

‘I offer my profound congratulations,' she said. ‘Mr Eyre, I'm vastly proud that you're to enter our family. In short, there's no gentleman I've e'er met whom I'd liefer receive as grandson. But, putting the blind god aside, supper is already served; and I am amazingly hungry. Your arm, Endymion. Young miss shall walk behind.'

Throughout the elaborate meal she talked incessantly, preaching a dainty homily on the duties of married folk.

Afterwards Mary and Endymion confessed to each other that they remembered nothing of what she had said, their own thoughts being engaged in rosy pictures of the future.

When the meal was over, they passed to the withdrawing-room, where Mary sat to the new harpsichord and played sweet songs from Purcell's operas.

At ten o'clock Madam Padley rose from her chair and signified courteously that ‘twas time for the gentleman to retire, but cordially invited him to spend the following evening in the same fashion.

Mary accompanied him to the courtyard, where a groom waited with his mare. Now that he was starting for the ordeal, the girl's heart failed of a sudden; and she begged him to forget her words. He laughed merrily, and shook his head.

‘Too late,' he said. ‘I go now to Calton. Not for the world would I renounce the adventure. When I see you again, I shall have wonderful stories of ghosts for your ear alone. If they be harmless things, why, you and I'll go together afterwards to pay ‘em a visit of ceremony! Now, adieu, mistress. Sleep well, and dream pretty dreams.'

He turned thrice in his saddle, and waved his hand. She stood watching until he was out of sight. Then she went back very sadly to the house, and, finding that her grandmother had already retired, sought her own chamber, where, instead of undressing, she sat in a deep window-recess, peering through an open casement at the moonlit chimneys of the distant house.

Meanwhile, Eyre rode on leisurely over moor and through copse until he reached the neglected pleasance, where the undergrowth had matted together until there was scarce space to reach the stairs leading to the colonnade.

He left the mare in a small courtyard, where dock and nettles had covered the stones with a thick carpet; then, making his way to the front, opened the door and entered the musty hall.

There he took out his tinder-box, and struck a light, finding, much to his relief, a tall wax candle standing in a sconce near the mantel. This he lighted, and, holding it high above his head, made his way up the oaken stairs, and through a long gallery, at whose further end stood an open doorway that led to the suite of state-rooms. These were hung with moth-eaten tapestry. In places the decayed canvases of ancient portraits trailed from their frames to the floor. The movement of the light brought around him clouds of evil-smelling bats; two owls on the sill of a broken oriel hooted loudly, then fluttered out into the night.

On and on, through countless chambers whose antique magnificence was veiled with dust and cobwebs, until he came to another and greater door, which stood slightly ajar. And as he pressed the panel with his palm he saw that the place beyond was lighted with a curious radiance—greenish, cold—not unlike the moonlight on a frosty evening.

The door fell back easily. He found himself in a great chamber, the walls adorned with coloured bas-reliefs; the ceiling, still bright and vivid, covered with a gorgeous fresco wherein one saw the gods at play. On the two hearths fires burned—inaudible fires with greedy, lambent flames whose tongues licked the mantel stone.

‘By the Lord!' he exclaimed, ‘there are folk living here! This is no place for ghosts! As handsome a—'

His voice died, for something had moved at the further end—something hidden in the shadow of a canopy of velvet embroidered with gold thread.

The muscles of his heart tightened. He moved forward, almost unsteadily, holding the candle at arm's length, until he came to the lowest step of a low platform, whereon, in a lacquered chair, rested a form shrouded in a veil of black gauze. And, as he paused there, this veil stirred again, disclosing the figure of a young woman, whose long, white hands moved slowly from her face.

Her eyes opened. They were large and luminous, gleaming as if a steady fire burned behind the pupils. She was wondrously beautiful; her loveliness was greater than that of any woman he had ever dreamed of—greater even than that of the maiden to whom he had given his heart. She was strangely pale, the only colour—a vivid scarlet—being in the plump, curved lips.

‘I bid you welcome, signor,' she said. ‘The long, long sleep has not been wasted since you are the awakener.Your hand! Weariness is still in my body. I'd fain rise and walk.'

Her voice was exquisitely soft, exquisitely glad. ‘Twas not the voice of an Englishwoman. There was a quaint accent, as if she had come from a Southern country. And the hand Endymion took was cold and damp at first—as cold and damp as the hand of one prepared for burial; but, as it lay lightly in his own, it became warm, and the fingers closed tenderly upon his own.

‘Your name, signor of whom I have dreamed?' she said.

The blood began to run quickly through his veins.

‘Endymion, madam, at your service,' he replied.

‘And mine shall be Diana,' she said. ‘Diana, who kissed Endymion in the night. Prythee, now, your arm. I'll lean upon you, being but a weak creature. Ah me, but your country's sad! I'd give all for the warm skies of Tuscany—for the vineyards under the hot sun! I like not the moonlight.'

Something impelled him to talk foolishly.

‘'Tis not the warmth of skies or the sight of vineyards that makes for perfect happiness,' he said. ‘There's a rarer warmth—the warmth of love.'