CHAPTER I.
At this time and place, I, Clara Vaughan, leap from the pillion of myUncle's pensive mule, and am upon the curb-stone of my own strange lifeagain. How I wandered with him through the olive groves of Corsica, howI wept for his loving Lily, that ancient Signor, and the stolen babes;and how, beyond the vomito of words, I loathed that fiend who hadinjured whom or what most I know not, unless it were his own soul, if hehad any, and for God's sake I hope he had--all this, though I am tooweak of language, will, perhaps, be understood.
To myself I would hardly confess the interest I could not discard in thepure and constant love of that impassioned pair; for what had I anylonger to do with Pyramus and Thisbe? No more of love for me. You willnot see me droop, and fret, and turn to a mossy green. No nonsense ofthat sort for me: I have a loop at either side entitled self-respect,which will keep my skirt from draggling. Neither will I rush into theopposite extreme, pronounce all love a bubble because my own has burst,take to low-necked dresses, and admire cats more than babies. No; I amonly eighteen, not yet eighteen and a half; I have loved with all myheart, and a free true heart it is, albeit a hot and haughty one; if itbe despised, outraged, and made nothing of, though I can never transfer,I will not turn it sour. The world is every whit as fair, children arequite as pretty, flowers have as rich a scent, and goodness as pure acharm, as if that silly maiden Clara had not leaped before she looked.And yet how I wish that I could only think so.
Before I go on with my tale, I must recur to one or two little matters,that everything may be as clear as it lies in my power to make it. Foralthough I am but a "female," as Inspector Cutting observed, I am doingmy best to make everything as clear as if told by a male.
In the first place then, when my Uncle had recovered from the exertionof telling his tale, I acquainted him with my discovery of the lettersupon the bed-hangings. They confirmed his account of the fearfulVendetta usages, and explained the point which had been to him mostmysterious.
Secondly, as to the anonymous letter which had led me first to London;like the detective policeman, he now attached but little importance toit. He had done his best, at the time, to trace the writer and followthe clue, if there were any. But he had met with no success. Hisreason for passing it on to me, was that he hoped to create somediversion of my thought, some break in the clouds of my sorrow.
Next, to show the full meaning of Mrs. Daldy's manoeuvres. Through herconnexion--which she had carefully cultivated, when it began to seemworth her while--with her husband's kindred near Genoa, she had learnedsome portions of my poor Uncle's history; for, as he himself observed,the islanders are much addicted to gossip, as indeed all islanders are,and continentals too for that matter, especially in hot climates. Nowthere is no lack of intercourse between the Balagna and Genoa. Ofcourse our chastened hypocrite made the most of her knowledge in ahundred ways, and by her sham sympathy and pretended aid--for up to thetime of his illness the desolate father still sought and sought--sheeven secured some little influence over her brother-in-law. How oftenis it so: though we know people to be false, we do not believe, when ourhearts are concerned, that they are so false to us. Moreover, when shefound him shattered in body and mind by paralysis, she commenced anactive bombardment, pulling out the tompions from every gun of mockreligion. But, as in her treatment of me, she displayed, in spite ofall her experience and trials, a sad ignorance of unregenerate humannature. My Uncle was not the man, palsied or no, to be terrified by aCalvinist: and he knew too much of her early days, and certain doings atBaden, to identify her at present with the angel that stands in the sun.And this prison-eyed mole made another mistake. Not content with onegood gallery, she must needs work two runs, side by side, in a verymealy soil. The result was of course that they ran into one, and shehad to dig her way out. If she had worked, heart and soul, for myUncle's money only, which he rightly regarded as his own, and at his owndisposal, I believe she might have got most of it. At any rate, underthe will which I caught her carrying off, she was to take half of thelarge sum which he had laid by; I mean if his children did not come tolight, and prove their legitimacy. But twenty-five thousand poundswould be nothing to her dear son, who had inherited his father'sextravagance, or to herself, who loved high play. Therefore, believingme out of the field, she began to plot for the Vaughan estate as well,and furthermore for the magnificent property in Corsica. Of the Vaughanestates she had no chance--albeit she had the impudence to propose acompromise with me--of Veduta tower she had some prospect, if the rightheirs, the poor children, should never appear, or establish their claim,and if she could procure the outlawry of Lepardo.
Believing my Uncle to be dying by inches, she made a bold stroke forpossession of the most important documents; and, but for Giudice and me,no doubt she would have succeeded. But she had dashed far out of herdepth, and had little chance now of reaching the coveted land. I hopeshe felt that everything was ordered for her good.
Another point which seems to require some explanation, is the discoveryby the assassin of the secret entrance, an access quite unknown to thefamily, the servants, or any other person, except, at a later time, Mrs.Daldy. The house, as I said before, was built upon the site and partlyembodied the fabric of a still more ancient structure. Probably thesenarrow stairs, now enclosed in the basement of the eastern wall, hadsaved many a ripe priest from reeling, in the time of the Plantagenets.They led, I think, from the ancient chapel, long since destroyed, to thechaplain's room, and perhaps had been reopened secretly during the greatrebellion, when the Vaughans were in hot trouble. Beatrice Vaughan, thecavalier's child, who was now supposed to begin her ghost walk at theeastern window, glided probably down this staircase, when, as the legendrelates, she escaped mysteriously from the house, in her father'sabsence, roused the tenants, and surprised the Roundhead garrison intheir beds. The house was soon retaken, and Beatrice, in her youthfulbeauty, given up to the brutal soldiers. She snapped a pistol at thePuritan officer, and flew like a bird along this corridor. At the end,while trying perhaps to draw the old oak slide--though nothing was saidof this--she was caught by the gloating fanatics, and stabbed herself onthe spot rather than yield to dishonour. The poor maiden's tomb is inthe church, not far from the chancel arch, with some lines of quaintLatin upon it. Her lover, Sir William Desborough, slit that Puritanofficer's nose and cut off both his ears. I wonder that he let him offso lightly; but perhaps it was all he was worth. Major Cecil Vaughanmarried again, and the direct line was re-established.
The chapel well, as it was called, dark and overhung with ivy, was aspring of limpid icy crystal, spanned by and forming a deep alcove inthe ancient chapel wall, which, partly for its sake, and partly as abuttress for the east end of the house, had been left still standing.This old well had long time been disused, hiding, as it did, in a wildand neglected corner out of sight from the terrace walk; and thegardeners, who found the pump less troublesome, had condemned the wateras too cold for their plants. The mouth, with its tangled veil of ivyand periwinkle, was also masked by a pile of the chapel ruins, nowdignified with the name of a rockwork. Some steps of jagged stone ledthrough the low black archway to the crouching water, which was so clearthat it seemed to doubt which was itself and which was stone.
This peaceful, cold, unruffled well, formed the antechamber to themurderer's passage. For on the right-hand side, not to be seen in thedarkness, and the sublustrous confusion, by any common eye, was a smallniche and footing-place not a yard above the water. It needed somenerve and vigour to spring from the lowest stepping-stone sideways tothis scarcely visible ledge. None, of the few whose eyes were goodenough to espy it, would be tempted to hazard the leap, unless they knewor suspected that the facing would yield to the foot, that it was infact a small door purposely coloured and jointed like the slimy green ofthe masonry. In this well the murderer must have lurked; and he mighthave done so from one year's end to another. There with the craft ofhis devilish race--my Uncle may
admire them, but not I--and with theirwonderful powers of sight, he must have found this entrance, andrejoiced in his hellish heart.
As for Mrs. Daldy, she found it out at the other end, most likely.Unless my memory fails me, I spoke long ago of some boards which soundedhollow to the ring of my childish knuckles. These were in theskirting--if that be the proper name for it--under the centre of thegreat oriel window. The oak slides, when pressed from below, ran in agroove with but little noise, and without much force being used: but itrequired some strength to move them on the side of the corridor. It wasthe sound of these sliding boards which had first drawn Judy's notice:but as they were in deep shadow, I neither perceived the opening, norgave him the opportunity. That woman would never have dreamed of thething, if she had not surprised me one day when I was prying aboutthere; she must have returned alone, and being, as we have seen, asuperior cabinet-maker, discovered the secret which baffled me. As Idid not want Judy to catch cold by watching there any longer, I had thishorrible passage walled up at either end, and built across in themiddle.
Having thus made good my arrears, I am at liberty to proceed. When myUncle had paused from his many sorrows, which he did with a mellowdignity not yet understood by me; and when I, in the fervour of youth,had offered much comfort kindly received, but far better let alone, Iasked him for one thing only:--the most minute and accurate descriptionhe could give of that Lepardo Della Croce. His answer was as follows:--
"My dear, I have seen him once only, and that more than twenty yearsago, and in an interview of some excitement"--I should think so indeed,when one tried to kill the other--"but I will describe him to the bestof my recollection. He is rather a tall man, at least of about my ownheight, but more lightly built than myself. His hands and feet areremarkably small and elegant. His face is of the true Italian type, akeen oval with a straight nose, and plenty of width between the eyes,which are large and very dark. His forehead is not massive, butwell-formed, and much whiter than the rest of his face. The expressionof his countenance is that of shrewdness and versatility, with aquickness eager to save both you and himself from the trouble ofcompleting your sentence. But all this is common enough. One thing Isaw, or fancied, which is not quite so common. As I dealt him that blowwith my fist, my eyes for one flash met his, and his leaped towards oneanother, as if he had a strong cast in them. Before that, andafterwards too, there was no appearance of any distortion: if there wereany at that moment, it arose from the start of terror or fury jerkingthe muscles awry. His voice is flexible and persuasive, and soft as aserpent-charmer's. I think he must be a most arrogant man; profoundlyconvinced of his own abilities, but seldom caring to vindicate them.Just the man to get on in the world, if he were only what is calledrespectable. Just the man to break a woman's heart, and crush thespirit of a meek and humble child. Ah, I would forgive him his sinsagainst me, though not his wrongs towards you, if I could only learnthat he had been kind to my children."
This description dwelt on my mind for days and days of thinking. It didnot altogether apply to the man whom I had observed so closely at themeeting of the conspirators. That man was of middle height, and thoughhis face was oval, there was scarcely the average width between theeyes. And he did not seem to me like an arrogant man, cold except whenexcited; but rather of a hasty, impassioned nature, sure to do itsutmost in trifles. Could it be that I had watched and hated the wrongman? It might be so; and it was not unlikely that Mr. Cutting himselfknew not which was the guilty one. Like most of the Londonpolicemen--my Uncle had taught me this--he was too proud of his sagacityto be in truth very sagacious. Experience he had, and all that; but hewould not have done in Paris. The real depth, that goes below, and yetallows for the depth of another, must be in the nature, can rarely existin a small one, and in a large one is seldom worked but for theoreticalpurposes. Therefore shallow men overreach in daily life, and fancy theyhave blinded those who know them thoroughly, and know themselves aswell.
So far as my experience goes, large-natured men abhor cunning so much,that they fear to work the depth of their own intelligence, because itseems akin to it. So they are cheated every day, as a strong man yieldsto the push of a child; and the fools who cheat them chuckle in the ideathat they have done it by fine sagacity, and without the victim'sknowledge.
Clara Vaughan, Volume 3 (of 3) Page 10