r***@aol.com
2008-03-02 23:20:30 UTC
The Vampire as Metaphor...Book III of the (Semi) Complete Works of
William Soames Walthrop...
PG-13
Summary: A lost work of one William Soames Walthrop (...aka Spike) as
it was delivered at one of Cicely Addams' house parties, shortly
before Will's demise. See the reference to it in "Drusilla"...
Disclaimer: All BTVS characters remain the property of Josh Whedon,
Mutant Enemy, and all other owner/creators of the Buffy the Vampire
Slayer series...
Contributions to the recovery of the lost works of England's third
worst poet are always welcomed...
***
London, March 1880, a rainy evening...We find ourselves at the social
center of London, the downstairs rooms of the well-appointed Addams
family townhouse...
A rather mixed group in attendance...Young gentlemen of the finest
families, in their finest, several with their elegant
ladies...Mingling with various young, and some few older, artists,
writers, thinkers...Some well-known, many not...Along with a few
prominent politicians and businessmen, some with their ladies, some
not...Even, suggestive of the Bohemian nature of the gathering, a few
unattached ladies, not all of the high social standing one might
expect at the home of the famous and prominent politician/
entrepreneur, Sir Richard Addams...
And at the center of the swirling mix, just having resumed her perch
on her favorite settee after again making the rounds to check on the
less comfortable of her many guests, surrounded by a newly regrouped
cloud of anxious, even in several cases, rather desperate young
gentlemen...The current Queen of London society, Miss Cicely Anne
Addams...
But while several talkative, some even genuinely charming, eminently
eligible young men chatter at her side...Her eyes are fixed on one
moving object...A rather shy, brown-haired moving object...In a
borrowed suit...Her own cousin's borrowed suit...And when that figure
halts, staring about, a bit lost in the crowd...Stared at with cool
eyes by several of the elite...
"William!..." she calls out, beaming to him...Much to the general
discomfiture of the cloud around her...And specifically to two in that
cloud of men and one standing off to the side...
The two in the group of worshipful bachelors holding diametrically
opposed views of that William, William Soames Walthrop in full name,
whom she'd just called to...Though both views resulting in the same
conclusion...
One, an old friend of Cicely's, the good-hearted, loyal, and rising
young barrister, Jonathan Levinson...Viewing Walthrop as an admirable
fellow, stout of heart and spirit, who'd fought his way through great
obstacles to claim a place based on his merit and courage...A story,
considering Levinson's own encounters with various ridiculous
obstacles placed in his own way by Society throughout his life to
date, he rather understandably sympathized with...
The other, the well-known sportsman and champion of holding the line
of society...John "Good man Jack" Henderson...Whose views on the young
upstart-gutter-trash-pulled-out-of-the-sewer-for-God-knows-what-insane-
soft-headed-reason-by-a-well- meaning-but-foolish-Cicely-and-her-weak-
kneed -cousin-Henry-Foxcroft, William when not unprintable were
generally negative...Having culminated the previous week in his
bequeathing of a title on the (rival?...God, no...) little
upstart...That of...
"Bloody Awful Poet..."
Yet both share the same final conclusion, however differing their
views on William...
Cicely was fond of that fellow...And dangerously close to being to
lost to them...Forever...
As for the third, standing apart from the crowd...Sir Richard,
Cicely's paternally proud but rather distant and quite domineering
father, would most likely have not found her choice of any in the
group satisfactory...But to see that the warnings passed to him by his
obsequious and ever-present step-footmen, Smike and Squears, were
quite justified regarding this nobody from nowhere...And knowing he
could not, for the moment, in the middle of his own crowded house,
take his usual course of decisive action with the
little...Discomfiture was hardly the word...
But none of that feeling, discomfiture or worse...Which she was all
too well aware of...Fond as she was of Mr. Levinson and respectful as
she was of dear Papa...Matters to her...As she eagerly waves the
slight young man over...Rising to greet him...
"William..." she takes his nervous hands in hers... "I am so glad you
were able to come..."
"Yes...Thank you, Cicely...Miss Addams..." he pauses...Looking
round...
Henry here?...
"Henry is delayed...But he'll be by..." she smiles at him...Several
suitors attempting to pass through or round him, ignoring his
existence...Stopped by a brief, but devastating glare from the object
of their desire...
Even "Good Man Jack" himself is confounded by the hard stare she gives
him quickly as he moves up to eject the little poet from the favored
spot...Suddenly finding the conversation going on just next to him as
he moves by to be by far the most fascinating thing he's heard in
ages...
"I have a confession to make, Mr. Walthrop..." she
continues...Ignoring the dozen or so suitors hovering around
her...Excepting Jonathan, to whom she flashes a hasty smile...Mr.
Levinson is here, she interrupts herself to note to Walthrop, who nods
at him...A bit uncertain as to Jonathan's status with her, but
absolutely certain that he, Walthrop, is nothing more than a minor
curiosity and pet project to her...
"Confession...Cic...Miss Addams?..." he eyes her...The shyness fading
as he stares deep into her...With a sudden, kindly smile...
"You could never have anything to confess, I'm sure..." he told her
with a certainty that made her feel somehow, immediately, heartily
sick and tired of the nonsense in her life...Of trying to be the vain
silly fool so many of those around her seemed to need and want her to
be...
No nonsense with this earnest young man...He had no time for it...Oh,
he could laugh...And even play when he wished to...She'd seen it...
And...She'd never met anyone with a more truly romantic
soul...But...No nonsense...No polite evasions or putting off of
unpleasant feelings...
Odd that this shy little man made her feel as if she'd been
judged...And perhaps, found wanting...
So much so that she often found herself furious with him...Arguing
with him over issues of politics, philosophy, social justice, and
moral right, picking away at his views while always hoping he'd say
something, anything to exclude her from those of her social class who
insisted on fitting his view of them so perfectly...Arguing with his
spirit when he was away, telling him, in her mind, everything about
herself, in desperate hopes of improving her standing...
"Well..." she sighs...Several suitors at her side quickly rummaging
through their minds for appropriately brilliant words of comfort and
denial...
"I'm afraid I do..." she eyes him...
"I've gone and done a terrible thing...Without your permission..."
He blinks at her...
"Henry assisted me..." she continues, nervously... "Though the blame
is mine..."
She leads him over to a small table...On which sat a
portfolio...Hmmn...Walthrop looks at it...As the cloud of suitors
following tries desperately to find positions about her...
The stuff I gave Henry the other day...he realizes...
She hands the portfolio to him...Oh...
"You've read my work...?" he eyes her...
Ummn...Yes...But...Worse...she looks away...
Then pulls out a small printed volume...Handing it to him...
"I had this one printed up...The ones I most enjoyed...I hope you
don't mind..." she hastily adds...
"They're good, Will..." she beams at him...He staring...
A collection of a few of his short stories...With two of his better
poems...
"Miss Addams..." He holds the book in hand...Looking a bit...
She opens it gently for him...Thumbing through...
The suitors eye each other...
Does not look good...
Christ...Henderson sighs to himself...Defeat looming for "Good man
Jack..."...By all right and any common sense the legitimate victor in
the match...
She stops at a page...One that fascinated her...And perhaps,
frightened her as well...
A kind of foreboding in that he should choose such a theme...And
title...
Coincidence?...Perhaps...But considering her secret career...And her
budding hopes for him...and her...
A bit too...she pauses on it, meaning to move on...Choose something
less...
Henderson however sees a chance to pull something out of the
wreckage...Inflict some kind of minor humiliation...
Clearly dear Cicely was letting her ridiculous sympathy for the lower
orders affect her judgment and taste...All that was needed was to let
the fool expose himself...Yet again...For the buffoon and ass he
was...
He comes over and hastily pulls the book away...Cicely looking up in a
rage that nearly paralyzed him for a second...But she calms...This is
neither the place nor the time to demonstrate her abilities...
Still...No need to reach for something wooden...Her tongue was quite
sharp enough for this jackass...
But to her pleasure, William had already taken the field...
"Sir...I would like that back...Now, please..." he glares at
Henderson...Moving up to him...Cicely following...
Now, now...William...Henderson, recovering from Cicely's killer glare,
can't quite manage his usual patronizing sneer but manages to convey a
degree of contempt...
"Lets see...Ah..." he smiles...
Hmmn..."The Vampire...As Metaphor..."...
"Mr. Henderson, please return that..." Cicely fixes him with a
slightly less murderous glare...
"Sir...I would prefer no trouble...But...If you would care to go
outside..." William eyes him...
Henderson looks back...Then at the furious Cicely...And gives a shit-
eating grin...
"No harm intended my friend...Only wanted to see what you had here...A
rather fascinating title, eh..." he hands the book to Cicely...Who
grabbed it...
"Come, read it for us...I'm sure it's even superior to your work of
the previous evening..." Henderson smiles...
Cicely gives him a narrow stare...
"Go ahead, Will...Read it, please..." she turns to Walthrop who now is
a bit nervous...
Ummn...
"Smike!..." she calls... "Bring my bookstand..." she points over to a
corner of the large room...Smike, on duty...More or less...in a
corner, slouches over...
A space round her and Walthrop is cleared...He looks for the door with
a view to escape but Cicely is firm and committed by his side...
The suitors and other guests cluster round a bit...Henderson in among
them, somewhat hopeful...As are most of the other suitors...Levinson,
in their midst, is however a bit concerned for the poor fellow...
Looks like a lamb headed for slaughter...he thinks, but gives Will an
encouraging smile...
Cicely squeezes his hand...Go on, William...And guides him gently to
the stand...
He clears his throat...Ahem...
"The Vampire As Metaphor..."
Part I...
London...A lecture hall, spring 1880...
The scholar eyed his audience...Young gentlemen and ladies, most
attentive, a number looking somewhat bored, clearly dragged in by
their partners to this, the first in a series of public lectures...
Well...At least the choice of topic had fired some interest...he
smiled out over his podium at them...
Bit more intriguing than the standard literary lecture...
"Gentlemen...And Ladies..." he gave a slight nod to the crowd...
"The Vampire As Metaphor...Images of the vampire and occult in popular
and serious literature..."
"Consider...My friends...The mythical Vampire...Foul half-human
creature of the night, with the instinctual nature of a predatory
animal...Granted a hideous kind of Immortality, yet forced forever
from the company of mankind and the light of the blessed sun...Often
in folklore, cursed to its horrible condition by some fault or
weakness in its former human soul..."
Yet such a creature...So ready at hand as a object to be despised and
at best, perhaps, pitied...Is all too frequently an object of
fascination...
"Consider, if you will...The ongoing popularity of the tale of
"Varney...The Vampyre..." a penny dreadful of the 1840's centering on
one Sir Francis Varney, undead vampire who returns to his ancient
family estate to drink the blood of a beautiful female descendant,
seeking to make her his own...Performed to this day as a very
successful stage play..."
Hmmn...A large, tall seated man, attempting with some success to keep
from easy recognition, snapped to out of his near-comatose state next
to his keenly attentive, sweetly attractive wife...The words "very
successful stage play"...Immediately registering with London's most
popular playwright...
"Willie?..." his wife eyed him, nudging... "Be still..."
Hmmn...Vampires...Ancient family estates...Beautiful female
descendants...Must note that for my next meeting with Sullivan...He
was looking for something new, after all...
[In the Addams parlor, seated next to Cicely as William continued,
Henry gave a quick grin at the author...Hmmn...Have to get Will to
give me a copy and see if old Gilbert would take a gander...He'd be
sure to appreciate that little accolade...]
A titter through the crowd...Though the man went rather happily
unrecognized by most...
The scholar went on through the ancient and medieval history of the
folklore and myth...The vampire in history and its relationship to the
ancient pagan gods...The relating of the vampire to Satan and
personification of evil in the Christian era...And its more modern
role in our Scientific, Rational Age...
Especially...Regards women...
An attractive, blonde young woman, of bold aspect, rises with a
somewhat disturbingly eager question...
"So that you would hold, sir, that the image of the vampire represents
that which...In a woman..."
The crowd now held fast by the hint of a forbidden topic...Listens in
full attention...The hall practically silent...
"The procreative drive, yes..."
Sir!...A gentleman, in late thirties by his appearance, rises to his
feet in shocked protest...
"This is hardly a matter for public discussion...!"
A seated lady faints...Not so much from the natural feeling of shock
and horror as might be expected as from the simple excitement of being
at a discussion where that forbidden word... "procreative"... is
mentioned...
"Hardly, you say sir..." the lecturer nods...And yet...Clearly one
which attracts us even as it repels...
"Yes...The vampire has the unique ability to stand in for those secret
drives, particularly repressed in the polite young woman of our time,
which cannot be expressed in the open light of day..."
And public discussion...he smiles...
"And so it has offered a unique platform, as yet not fully utilized by
our best artists, for allowing the darkest drives of Humanity to be
realized and, perhaps, dealt with...In a far more open and useful
manner than our policy of polite and rigid repression..."
Titters, gasps...
"But..." Notes the scholar... "There are cases in which the metaphor
and the reality may become intertwined..."
"Reality, sir...?" A young man rose...
"Surely you can't be saying that there is some basis in reality to the
fabulous tales of the vampire...?"
Ah...The scholar smiled gently...
"Whether the vampire truly may exist...I must leave to your decision
and to the work of Science...However, there are strange cases...Cases
in which as Hamlet once said to Horatio... "There are more things in
Heaven and Earth...Than are dreamt of...In your philosophy..."
And in studying those cases, we may also be able to shed light upon
the metaphoric use of the vampire image as well...
"Let us consider one strange incident I am rather well acquainted
with..."
***
1869...New York City, United States of America...A nation just
recovering from the horrors of bloody civil war...
The New York docks...A young, anxious looking short blonde woman,
dressed in quiet brown with just a trace of somewhat more bold green
in ribbons and shawl in the fashion of a respectable lower middle
class young lady scans the area, clearly seeking one or more of the
passengers just disembarking from any of several newly arrived
vessels, carefully...Occasionally consulting a scrap of paper, slowly
disintegrating in her moist clutch...
A mixed group pours past her...Stately-looking gentlemen and their
rather nervous ladies from the first-class staterooms of the great
trans-Atlantic ships, clutching at any valuables or personal items,
clearly having been prewarned to beware pickpurses and the like,
desperate to clear the foul-smelling and worse-looking docks and reach
the safety of their carriages...Similarly those from the second class
cabins...If anything looking somewhat more fearful...
Swarthy immigrants from the steerage sections, some bold and cocky,
shoving all and sundry aside, arrogantly staring at the new sights and
strangers, others humble, downcast, even terrified as they made their
careful way...Frequently hooted at by onlookers, including hooligan
boys...And a few girls...Hanging about the docks, watching...Some with
business clearly on their minds...Of both honest and dishonest
nature...
A young, bespectacled, light-brown haired, somewhat short young man
emerges from the bowels of one large ship, not of the high caliber of
the great passenger vessels, but one reserved for those travelers of
somewhat more modest, yet respectable means...
Looking through a sheaf of papers as he walked, large, rather battered
trunk in hand, to the ramp leading down to the dock where he would at
last set foot upon this new land of promise and opportunity...
A more anxious, eager, or perhaps simply impatient fellow shoves
rudely past him, knocking him aside against the ship's rail...His
sheaf of papers falling to the dock below as the young woman passed...
"Hey there!...Easy!..." the young man called out...Clutching
desperately at his luggage and his remaining papers...
"Hey!..." the young lady called up at the ship, spying the young man
as he leaned out over the rail...
Hmmn...She stared up at the young man...He looks the part...
She thumbed hastily through her letters and notes...
"Excuse me! Miss!..." he called down...Pointed at the papers fallen
around her...
"Could you grab those please?!...They're quite
important!...Please!...I'll be down in just a bit!..."
She looked down at her feet...Oh...And back up...
"Sure!..."
Hmmn...She pulled up several...Nothing official...No seals or
anything...
Just some letters...Hmmn...Addressed from London, England...And
some...What's it...Poetry...?
Hmmn...
But then the one she was hoping to make contact with here would hardly
be carrying official documents identifying him as a scholar of the
occult dedicated to the destruction of demonic creatures of Evil...
[Blonde?...Cicely thought, looking a tad downcast...Perhaps even,
Levinson noted as he caught sight of her slightly stricken face as she
stared at William...
Jealous?...]
****
William Soames Walthrop...
PG-13
Summary: A lost work of one William Soames Walthrop (...aka Spike) as
it was delivered at one of Cicely Addams' house parties, shortly
before Will's demise. See the reference to it in "Drusilla"...
Disclaimer: All BTVS characters remain the property of Josh Whedon,
Mutant Enemy, and all other owner/creators of the Buffy the Vampire
Slayer series...
Contributions to the recovery of the lost works of England's third
worst poet are always welcomed...
***
London, March 1880, a rainy evening...We find ourselves at the social
center of London, the downstairs rooms of the well-appointed Addams
family townhouse...
A rather mixed group in attendance...Young gentlemen of the finest
families, in their finest, several with their elegant
ladies...Mingling with various young, and some few older, artists,
writers, thinkers...Some well-known, many not...Along with a few
prominent politicians and businessmen, some with their ladies, some
not...Even, suggestive of the Bohemian nature of the gathering, a few
unattached ladies, not all of the high social standing one might
expect at the home of the famous and prominent politician/
entrepreneur, Sir Richard Addams...
And at the center of the swirling mix, just having resumed her perch
on her favorite settee after again making the rounds to check on the
less comfortable of her many guests, surrounded by a newly regrouped
cloud of anxious, even in several cases, rather desperate young
gentlemen...The current Queen of London society, Miss Cicely Anne
Addams...
But while several talkative, some even genuinely charming, eminently
eligible young men chatter at her side...Her eyes are fixed on one
moving object...A rather shy, brown-haired moving object...In a
borrowed suit...Her own cousin's borrowed suit...And when that figure
halts, staring about, a bit lost in the crowd...Stared at with cool
eyes by several of the elite...
"William!..." she calls out, beaming to him...Much to the general
discomfiture of the cloud around her...And specifically to two in that
cloud of men and one standing off to the side...
The two in the group of worshipful bachelors holding diametrically
opposed views of that William, William Soames Walthrop in full name,
whom she'd just called to...Though both views resulting in the same
conclusion...
One, an old friend of Cicely's, the good-hearted, loyal, and rising
young barrister, Jonathan Levinson...Viewing Walthrop as an admirable
fellow, stout of heart and spirit, who'd fought his way through great
obstacles to claim a place based on his merit and courage...A story,
considering Levinson's own encounters with various ridiculous
obstacles placed in his own way by Society throughout his life to
date, he rather understandably sympathized with...
The other, the well-known sportsman and champion of holding the line
of society...John "Good man Jack" Henderson...Whose views on the young
upstart-gutter-trash-pulled-out-of-the-sewer-for-God-knows-what-insane-
soft-headed-reason-by-a-well- meaning-but-foolish-Cicely-and-her-weak-
kneed -cousin-Henry-Foxcroft, William when not unprintable were
generally negative...Having culminated the previous week in his
bequeathing of a title on the (rival?...God, no...) little
upstart...That of...
"Bloody Awful Poet..."
Yet both share the same final conclusion, however differing their
views on William...
Cicely was fond of that fellow...And dangerously close to being to
lost to them...Forever...
As for the third, standing apart from the crowd...Sir Richard,
Cicely's paternally proud but rather distant and quite domineering
father, would most likely have not found her choice of any in the
group satisfactory...But to see that the warnings passed to him by his
obsequious and ever-present step-footmen, Smike and Squears, were
quite justified regarding this nobody from nowhere...And knowing he
could not, for the moment, in the middle of his own crowded house,
take his usual course of decisive action with the
little...Discomfiture was hardly the word...
But none of that feeling, discomfiture or worse...Which she was all
too well aware of...Fond as she was of Mr. Levinson and respectful as
she was of dear Papa...Matters to her...As she eagerly waves the
slight young man over...Rising to greet him...
"William..." she takes his nervous hands in hers... "I am so glad you
were able to come..."
"Yes...Thank you, Cicely...Miss Addams..." he pauses...Looking
round...
Henry here?...
"Henry is delayed...But he'll be by..." she smiles at him...Several
suitors attempting to pass through or round him, ignoring his
existence...Stopped by a brief, but devastating glare from the object
of their desire...
Even "Good Man Jack" himself is confounded by the hard stare she gives
him quickly as he moves up to eject the little poet from the favored
spot...Suddenly finding the conversation going on just next to him as
he moves by to be by far the most fascinating thing he's heard in
ages...
"I have a confession to make, Mr. Walthrop..." she
continues...Ignoring the dozen or so suitors hovering around
her...Excepting Jonathan, to whom she flashes a hasty smile...Mr.
Levinson is here, she interrupts herself to note to Walthrop, who nods
at him...A bit uncertain as to Jonathan's status with her, but
absolutely certain that he, Walthrop, is nothing more than a minor
curiosity and pet project to her...
"Confession...Cic...Miss Addams?..." he eyes her...The shyness fading
as he stares deep into her...With a sudden, kindly smile...
"You could never have anything to confess, I'm sure..." he told her
with a certainty that made her feel somehow, immediately, heartily
sick and tired of the nonsense in her life...Of trying to be the vain
silly fool so many of those around her seemed to need and want her to
be...
No nonsense with this earnest young man...He had no time for it...Oh,
he could laugh...And even play when he wished to...She'd seen it...
And...She'd never met anyone with a more truly romantic
soul...But...No nonsense...No polite evasions or putting off of
unpleasant feelings...
Odd that this shy little man made her feel as if she'd been
judged...And perhaps, found wanting...
So much so that she often found herself furious with him...Arguing
with him over issues of politics, philosophy, social justice, and
moral right, picking away at his views while always hoping he'd say
something, anything to exclude her from those of her social class who
insisted on fitting his view of them so perfectly...Arguing with his
spirit when he was away, telling him, in her mind, everything about
herself, in desperate hopes of improving her standing...
"Well..." she sighs...Several suitors at her side quickly rummaging
through their minds for appropriately brilliant words of comfort and
denial...
"I'm afraid I do..." she eyes him...
"I've gone and done a terrible thing...Without your permission..."
He blinks at her...
"Henry assisted me..." she continues, nervously... "Though the blame
is mine..."
She leads him over to a small table...On which sat a
portfolio...Hmmn...Walthrop looks at it...As the cloud of suitors
following tries desperately to find positions about her...
The stuff I gave Henry the other day...he realizes...
She hands the portfolio to him...Oh...
"You've read my work...?" he eyes her...
Ummn...Yes...But...Worse...she looks away...
Then pulls out a small printed volume...Handing it to him...
"I had this one printed up...The ones I most enjoyed...I hope you
don't mind..." she hastily adds...
"They're good, Will..." she beams at him...He staring...
A collection of a few of his short stories...With two of his better
poems...
"Miss Addams..." He holds the book in hand...Looking a bit...
She opens it gently for him...Thumbing through...
The suitors eye each other...
Does not look good...
Christ...Henderson sighs to himself...Defeat looming for "Good man
Jack..."...By all right and any common sense the legitimate victor in
the match...
She stops at a page...One that fascinated her...And perhaps,
frightened her as well...
A kind of foreboding in that he should choose such a theme...And
title...
Coincidence?...Perhaps...But considering her secret career...And her
budding hopes for him...and her...
A bit too...she pauses on it, meaning to move on...Choose something
less...
Henderson however sees a chance to pull something out of the
wreckage...Inflict some kind of minor humiliation...
Clearly dear Cicely was letting her ridiculous sympathy for the lower
orders affect her judgment and taste...All that was needed was to let
the fool expose himself...Yet again...For the buffoon and ass he
was...
He comes over and hastily pulls the book away...Cicely looking up in a
rage that nearly paralyzed him for a second...But she calms...This is
neither the place nor the time to demonstrate her abilities...
Still...No need to reach for something wooden...Her tongue was quite
sharp enough for this jackass...
But to her pleasure, William had already taken the field...
"Sir...I would like that back...Now, please..." he glares at
Henderson...Moving up to him...Cicely following...
Now, now...William...Henderson, recovering from Cicely's killer glare,
can't quite manage his usual patronizing sneer but manages to convey a
degree of contempt...
"Lets see...Ah..." he smiles...
Hmmn..."The Vampire...As Metaphor..."...
"Mr. Henderson, please return that..." Cicely fixes him with a
slightly less murderous glare...
"Sir...I would prefer no trouble...But...If you would care to go
outside..." William eyes him...
Henderson looks back...Then at the furious Cicely...And gives a shit-
eating grin...
"No harm intended my friend...Only wanted to see what you had here...A
rather fascinating title, eh..." he hands the book to Cicely...Who
grabbed it...
"Come, read it for us...I'm sure it's even superior to your work of
the previous evening..." Henderson smiles...
Cicely gives him a narrow stare...
"Go ahead, Will...Read it, please..." she turns to Walthrop who now is
a bit nervous...
Ummn...
"Smike!..." she calls... "Bring my bookstand..." she points over to a
corner of the large room...Smike, on duty...More or less...in a
corner, slouches over...
A space round her and Walthrop is cleared...He looks for the door with
a view to escape but Cicely is firm and committed by his side...
The suitors and other guests cluster round a bit...Henderson in among
them, somewhat hopeful...As are most of the other suitors...Levinson,
in their midst, is however a bit concerned for the poor fellow...
Looks like a lamb headed for slaughter...he thinks, but gives Will an
encouraging smile...
Cicely squeezes his hand...Go on, William...And guides him gently to
the stand...
He clears his throat...Ahem...
"The Vampire As Metaphor..."
Part I...
London...A lecture hall, spring 1880...
The scholar eyed his audience...Young gentlemen and ladies, most
attentive, a number looking somewhat bored, clearly dragged in by
their partners to this, the first in a series of public lectures...
Well...At least the choice of topic had fired some interest...he
smiled out over his podium at them...
Bit more intriguing than the standard literary lecture...
"Gentlemen...And Ladies..." he gave a slight nod to the crowd...
"The Vampire As Metaphor...Images of the vampire and occult in popular
and serious literature..."
"Consider...My friends...The mythical Vampire...Foul half-human
creature of the night, with the instinctual nature of a predatory
animal...Granted a hideous kind of Immortality, yet forced forever
from the company of mankind and the light of the blessed sun...Often
in folklore, cursed to its horrible condition by some fault or
weakness in its former human soul..."
Yet such a creature...So ready at hand as a object to be despised and
at best, perhaps, pitied...Is all too frequently an object of
fascination...
"Consider, if you will...The ongoing popularity of the tale of
"Varney...The Vampyre..." a penny dreadful of the 1840's centering on
one Sir Francis Varney, undead vampire who returns to his ancient
family estate to drink the blood of a beautiful female descendant,
seeking to make her his own...Performed to this day as a very
successful stage play..."
Hmmn...A large, tall seated man, attempting with some success to keep
from easy recognition, snapped to out of his near-comatose state next
to his keenly attentive, sweetly attractive wife...The words "very
successful stage play"...Immediately registering with London's most
popular playwright...
"Willie?..." his wife eyed him, nudging... "Be still..."
Hmmn...Vampires...Ancient family estates...Beautiful female
descendants...Must note that for my next meeting with Sullivan...He
was looking for something new, after all...
[In the Addams parlor, seated next to Cicely as William continued,
Henry gave a quick grin at the author...Hmmn...Have to get Will to
give me a copy and see if old Gilbert would take a gander...He'd be
sure to appreciate that little accolade...]
A titter through the crowd...Though the man went rather happily
unrecognized by most...
The scholar went on through the ancient and medieval history of the
folklore and myth...The vampire in history and its relationship to the
ancient pagan gods...The relating of the vampire to Satan and
personification of evil in the Christian era...And its more modern
role in our Scientific, Rational Age...
Especially...Regards women...
An attractive, blonde young woman, of bold aspect, rises with a
somewhat disturbingly eager question...
"So that you would hold, sir, that the image of the vampire represents
that which...In a woman..."
The crowd now held fast by the hint of a forbidden topic...Listens in
full attention...The hall practically silent...
"The procreative drive, yes..."
Sir!...A gentleman, in late thirties by his appearance, rises to his
feet in shocked protest...
"This is hardly a matter for public discussion...!"
A seated lady faints...Not so much from the natural feeling of shock
and horror as might be expected as from the simple excitement of being
at a discussion where that forbidden word... "procreative"... is
mentioned...
"Hardly, you say sir..." the lecturer nods...And yet...Clearly one
which attracts us even as it repels...
"Yes...The vampire has the unique ability to stand in for those secret
drives, particularly repressed in the polite young woman of our time,
which cannot be expressed in the open light of day..."
And public discussion...he smiles...
"And so it has offered a unique platform, as yet not fully utilized by
our best artists, for allowing the darkest drives of Humanity to be
realized and, perhaps, dealt with...In a far more open and useful
manner than our policy of polite and rigid repression..."
Titters, gasps...
"But..." Notes the scholar... "There are cases in which the metaphor
and the reality may become intertwined..."
"Reality, sir...?" A young man rose...
"Surely you can't be saying that there is some basis in reality to the
fabulous tales of the vampire...?"
Ah...The scholar smiled gently...
"Whether the vampire truly may exist...I must leave to your decision
and to the work of Science...However, there are strange cases...Cases
in which as Hamlet once said to Horatio... "There are more things in
Heaven and Earth...Than are dreamt of...In your philosophy..."
And in studying those cases, we may also be able to shed light upon
the metaphoric use of the vampire image as well...
"Let us consider one strange incident I am rather well acquainted
with..."
***
1869...New York City, United States of America...A nation just
recovering from the horrors of bloody civil war...
The New York docks...A young, anxious looking short blonde woman,
dressed in quiet brown with just a trace of somewhat more bold green
in ribbons and shawl in the fashion of a respectable lower middle
class young lady scans the area, clearly seeking one or more of the
passengers just disembarking from any of several newly arrived
vessels, carefully...Occasionally consulting a scrap of paper, slowly
disintegrating in her moist clutch...
A mixed group pours past her...Stately-looking gentlemen and their
rather nervous ladies from the first-class staterooms of the great
trans-Atlantic ships, clutching at any valuables or personal items,
clearly having been prewarned to beware pickpurses and the like,
desperate to clear the foul-smelling and worse-looking docks and reach
the safety of their carriages...Similarly those from the second class
cabins...If anything looking somewhat more fearful...
Swarthy immigrants from the steerage sections, some bold and cocky,
shoving all and sundry aside, arrogantly staring at the new sights and
strangers, others humble, downcast, even terrified as they made their
careful way...Frequently hooted at by onlookers, including hooligan
boys...And a few girls...Hanging about the docks, watching...Some with
business clearly on their minds...Of both honest and dishonest
nature...
A young, bespectacled, light-brown haired, somewhat short young man
emerges from the bowels of one large ship, not of the high caliber of
the great passenger vessels, but one reserved for those travelers of
somewhat more modest, yet respectable means...
Looking through a sheaf of papers as he walked, large, rather battered
trunk in hand, to the ramp leading down to the dock where he would at
last set foot upon this new land of promise and opportunity...
A more anxious, eager, or perhaps simply impatient fellow shoves
rudely past him, knocking him aside against the ship's rail...His
sheaf of papers falling to the dock below as the young woman passed...
"Hey there!...Easy!..." the young man called out...Clutching
desperately at his luggage and his remaining papers...
"Hey!..." the young lady called up at the ship, spying the young man
as he leaned out over the rail...
Hmmn...She stared up at the young man...He looks the part...
She thumbed hastily through her letters and notes...
"Excuse me! Miss!..." he called down...Pointed at the papers fallen
around her...
"Could you grab those please?!...They're quite
important!...Please!...I'll be down in just a bit!..."
She looked down at her feet...Oh...And back up...
"Sure!..."
Hmmn...She pulled up several...Nothing official...No seals or
anything...
Just some letters...Hmmn...Addressed from London, England...And
some...What's it...Poetry...?
Hmmn...
But then the one she was hoping to make contact with here would hardly
be carrying official documents identifying him as a scholar of the
occult dedicated to the destruction of demonic creatures of Evil...
[Blonde?...Cicely thought, looking a tad downcast...Perhaps even,
Levinson noted as he caught sight of her slightly stricken face as she
stared at William...
Jealous?...]
****