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...
(Note: Continuing this older Buffy tale after a long hiatus but I'm very fond of it, just been distracted and preferred not to work on it till I could pay some attention. RG)
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 grabs 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, in his footman's apparel in standard hulking on duty position…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... A bit of scorn in tone.
"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 still 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?...]