Clara Vaughan, Volume 3 (of 3)
Page 7
CHAPTER XVI.
The next day I was a different man. All my energy had returned, and allmy reasoning power; but not, thank God, the rigour of my mind, the pettycontempt of my fellow-men. Nothing is more hard to strip than that coatof flinty closeness formed upon Deucalion's offcast in the petrifyingwell of self. Though I have done my utmost, and prayed of late for helpin doing it, never have I quite scaled off this accursed deposit. Thisit was that so estranged your warm nature, Clara; a nature essentiallylike your father's, but never allowed free scope. You could not tellthe reason, children never can; but somehow it made you shiver to be incontact with me.
Petro and Marcantonia would have been astonished at my sudden change,but they had lately dosed me with some narcotic herb, procured, by aspecial expedition, from the Monte Rotondo, and esteemed a perfectStregomastix; so of course the worthy pair expected my recovery. Nolonger did they attempt to conceal from me the truth as to my poorinfants, who had been carried off on the day of my return. What Ilearned of the great calamity, which then befell me, was this.
Towards sunset, my dear wife, with her usual fondness, went forth tolook for the little yacht returning from the gulf of Porto. Our darlingHarry, then in his third year, was with her, and the young nurse fromMuro. Lily sat upon the cliff, watching a sail far in the offing,probably our vessel. Then as she turned towards the tower, a man fromthe shrubbery stood before her, and called her by her maiden name. Sheknew her cousin Lepardo, and supposed that he was come to kill her.Nevertheless she asked him proudly how he dared to insult her so, in thepresence of her child and servant. He answered that it was her name,and she was entitled to no other. Then he promised not to harm her, ifshe would send the maid away, for he had important things to speak of.And thereupon he laid before her documents and letters.
Meanwhile the tower was surrounded by his comrades; but they durst notenter, for the trusty fusileer kept the one approach up the steephillside; and his grandson, a brave boy, stood at the loop-hole withhim. The maid, however, with her little charge, was allowed to pass, andshe joined the two other women in weak preparations for defence. Theperiod of attack had been chosen skilfully. So simple and patriarchalis the Corsican mode of life, that very few servants are kept, even bymen of the highest station; and those few are not servants in our senseof the word. It happened this night that the only two men employed uponthe premises, beside the old fusileer, had been sent into the town forthings wherewith to welcome me.
However, the faithful gunner, with his eye along the barrels, kept thefoe at bay, and seemed likely to keep them there, until the return ofthe men; while his sturdy grandson split his red cheeks at the warder'sconch. But they little knew their enemy. Lepardo Della Croce was notto be baulked by an old man and a boy. At the narrow entrance a lady'sdress came fluttering in the brisk north wind. Poor Lily totteredacross the line of fire, her life she never thought of; what use to liveafter all that she had heard? Close behind her, and in the duskinvisible past her wind-tossed drapery, stole her scoundrel cousin;whom, like trees set in a row, or feather-edged boards seen lengthwise,a score of lithe and active sailors followed. No chance for themarksman; like tiles they overlapped one another, and poor Lily, uprightin her outraged pride, covered the stooping graduated file. French andEnglish, Moorish and Maltese, a motley band as ever swore, they burstinto a hearty laugh at the old gunner's predicament, the moment they hadpassed his range. All within was at their mercy. True he kept the maingate still, and all the doors were barred; but gates and doors werelubber's holes for seamen such as they. Up the ivy they clambered,along the chesnut branches, or the mere coignes of the granite, and intothe house they poured at every loop-hole and window. One thing must besaid in their favour--they did very little mischief. They were keptthoroughly under command, and a wave of their captain's hand drove themanywhither. All he wanted was possession of my children, and of somevaluable property which he claimed in right of his father.
Having secured both objects, he ordered his men to depart, allowing themonly to carry what wine and provisions they found. But the threedomestics, and the ancient sentinel and his boy, were bound hand andfoot, and concealed in a cave on the beach, to prevent any stir in theneighbouring hamlet. Poor Lily was left where she fell, to recover ornot, as might be. My own darling was not insulted or touched; the menwere afraid, and Lepardo too proud to outrage one of his kin. Moreover,his word was pledged; and they say that he always keeps it. Soon afterdark the robbers set sail, and slipped away down the coast, before thatstrong north wind which had so baffled me. But for me a letter wasleft, full of triumph and contumely. It was addressed to "ValentineVaughan, the Englishman;" "Signor Valentine" was the title conferred onme by the fusileer, and adopted by the neighbourhood. To my surprisethat letter was written in English, and English as good as a foreignerever indites: I can repeat it word for word:--
"SIR,--I am reluctant to obtrude good counsel, but with the obtusenessof your nation you are prone to the undervaluing of others. It is myprivilege to amend this error, while meekly I revindicate my ownneglected rights. From me you have stolen my bride and my goodinheritance, and in a manner which the persons unversed in human naturewould be inclined to characterise as dastardly and dissolute.Furthermore, you have rendered the heiress of the noblest house inCorsica a common Englishman's adulteress. If I had heard this on theday of your mocking marriage, not the poor victim but you, you, wouldhave been my direction. Now I will punish you more gradually, andlonger, as you deserve. Your unhappy adulteress knows the perfidy ofyour treachery, and your two poor bastards shall take refuge with me.The inquiry with respect to my drowning them to-night is dependent uponthe stars. But if I shall spare them, as I may, because they cannotcome between me and my property, I will teach them, when they are oldenough, to despise and loathe your name. They shall know that in thestead of a father's love they have only had a vagabond's lust, and theyshall know how you seduced and then slew their mother; for death, in myhumble opinion, appears in her face to-night. Although she has betrayedme, I am regretful for her: but to you who have disgraced my name andplundered me, as a man of liberal and exalted views I grant acontemptuous forbearance; so long, that is to say, as you remainunhappy, which the wicked ought to be. Of one thing, however, I bid youto take admonishment. If I hear that you ever forget this episode ofdebauchery, and return to your English wife and property, no house, nocastle that ever was edified, shall protect you from my dagger.Remember the one thing, as your proverb tells, I am slow and sure.
LEPARDO DELLA CROCE."