Produced by Al Haines.
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CLARA VAUGHAN
_A NOVEL_
IN THREE VOLUMES VOL III.
R. D. Blackmore
London and Cambridge: MACMILLAN AND CO. 1864.
_The Right of Translation and Reproduction is reserved._
LONDON: R. CLAY, SON, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, BREAD STREET HILL.
CLARA VAUGHAN
BOOK IV. (_continued_).
CHAPTER X.
STORY OF EDGAR VAUGHAN.
Child Clara, for your own dear sake, as well as mine and my sweetlove's, I will not dwell on that tempestuous time. If you cannotcomprehend it without words, no words will enable you. If you can, andI fear you do, no more words are wanted; and, as an old man weary of theworld, I know not whether to envy or to pity you.
Hither and thither I was flung, to the zenith star of ecstasy or thenadir gulf of agony, according as my idol pet chose to smile or frown.Though she was no silly child, but a girl of mind and feeling, she had astore, I must confess, of clouds as well as dazzling sunlight in theempyrean of her eyes. Her nature, like my love, was full of Southernpassion. It is like the air they breathe, the beauty they behold. Oneminute of such love compresses in a thunder flood all the slow emotionsstealing through the drought-scrimped channel, where we dredge for golddeposits, through ten years of Saxon courtship. Instead of Lily-bloom,she should have been called the Passion-flower.
My life, my soul--how weak our English words are--she loved me from thefirst, I can take my oath she did, although her glory was too great forher to own it yet, though now and then her marvellous eyes provedtraitors. Sometimes when she was racking me most, feigning even, withthose eyes cast down, her pellucid fingers point to point, and herlittle foot tapping the orchid bloom, feigning, I say, in cold blood, toreckon her noble lovers--long names all and horribly hateful tome--suddenly, while I trembled, and scowled like a true-born Briton,suddenly up would leap the silky drooping lashes, and a spring of softelectric light would flutter through them to the very core of my heart.
As for me, I abandoned myself. I made no pretence of waiting a moment.I flung my heart wide open to her, and if she would not come in, desertit should be for ever.
She did come. That life-blood of my soul came in, and would and couldlive nowhere else for ever.
It was done like this. One August evening, when the sun was sinking,and the air was full of warmth and wooing sounds, the cicale waking fromhis early nap, the muffro leaping for the first dew-drop, the love-birdswhispering in the tamarind leaves, Fiordalisa sat with me, under a giantcork-tree on the western slope. The tower was still in Vendetta siege,and the grave and reverend Signor knew better than to come out, when theSbirri were gone to the town. Lily-bloom was sitting by me in a mass offlowers; her light mandile was laid by, that her glorious hair mightcatch the first waft of the evening breeze. All down her snow-whiteshoulders fell the labyrinth of tresses, twined by me with red Tacsonia,and two pale carnations. Her form was pillowed in rich fern, thatfeathered round her waist; of all the fronds and plumes and stems, notone so taper, light, and rich as that. The bloom upon her cheeks wasdeepened by my playing with her hair, and her soft large eyes werebeaming with delicious wonder.
We knew, as well as He who made us, that we loved one another. None whodid not love for ever could interchange such looks. Suddenly, andwithout a word, in an ecstasy of admiration, I passed my left arm roundher little waist, drew her close to me--she was very near before--andlooking full into her wondrous eyes, found no protest but a thrill oflight; then tried her lips and met her whole heart there. Darling, howshe kissed me! No English girl can do it. And then the terror of hermaiden thoughts. The recollection of her high-born pride, and higherbecause God-born innocence. How she wept, and blushed, and trembled;trembled, blushed, and wept again; and then vouchsafed one moreentrancing kiss, to atone for the unwitting treason. Even thus I wouldnot be content. I wanted words as well.
"Do you love me, my own Lily, with every atom of your heart?"
"I have not left one drop of blood for all the world besides."
And it was true. And so it was with me. I told her father that samenight. And now in the heaven of gladness and wild pleasure, beyond alldreams of earth, opened the hell of my wickedness and crime; which butfor mercy and long repentance would sever me from my Lily in the worldto come. To some the crime may seem a light one, to me it is a mostatrocious sin, enhanced tenfold by its awful consequences.
By my crime, I do not mean my sinful adoration, as cold men may call it,of a fellow mortal. Nature has no time to waste, and unless she meantmy Lily to be worshipped, she would not have lavished all her skill inmaking her so divine. No, I mean my black deceit, in passing for mybrother. Oh, Clara, don't go from me.
Like many another ruinous sin, it was committed without thought, orrather without deliberation. No scheme was laid, not even the leastintention cherished; but the moment brought it, and the temptation wastoo great. Who could have that loving pet gazing at him so, and notsell his soul almost to win her to his arms?
Laurence Daldy was a lazy ass. I do not want to shift my blame to him,but merely state a fact. If he had not been a lazy ass, your fatherwould be living now--ay, and my Fiordalisa. When he chose, he couldwrite very good Italian, and a clear, round hand, and oh, rareaccomplishment for an officer, he could even spell. But his letter toSignor Dezio, scrawled betwixt two games of pool, was a perfect magpie'snest of careless zigzag, wattles, and sand slap-dash. In those days ahasty writer used to flick his work with sand, which stanched but didnot dry the ink. The result was often a grimy dabble, like a child'sface blotched with blackberries.
Lily and I had quite arranged how we should present ourselves. Like twochildren we rehearsed it under the twilight trees. "And then, youknow," my sweet love whispered, "I shall give you a regular kiss beneaththe dear father's beard, and you will see what an effect it will have.Thence he will learn, oh sweetest mine, that there is no help for it;because we Corsican girls are so chary of our lips."
"Are you indeed, my beautiful Lily? I must teach you liberality, to me,and to me alone."
"Sweetest mine," she always called me from the moment she confessed herlove; and so, no doubt, she is calling me now in heaven.
The curtain hung in heavy folds across the narrow doorway of the longdark room. The hospitable board was gay with wine and dainty fruit,melons, figs, and peaches, plums of golden and purple hue, pomegranates,pomi d'oro, green almonds, apricots, and muscatels from the ladders ofCape Corso. Through them and upon them played the mellow light from asingle lamp, with dancing lustres round it. All the rest of the roomwas dark. At the head of the table sat Signor Dezio Della Croce,waiting for his guest and daughter. Posted high at the end window on aledge of rough-hewn board, stood the ancient warder, who had lived forfifty years among them, and whose great fusil commanded the onlyapproach to the castle.
As we entered timidly, the maiden's right hand on my neck, my left armround her ductile waist, our other hands clasped firmly, I glancedtoward that noxious sentinel.
"Never mind him, sweetest mine. Don't believe that he is there.Grandpapa, I call him, and he knows all my secrets."
Signor Dezio looked amazed, as we glided towards him. His life had beenone series of crushing blow
s from heaven. Three brave sons had beenbarbarously murdered in Vendetta, and his graceful loving wife hadbroken her heart and died. The sole hope of his house, his petlingFiordalisa, though she called herself a woman and was full sixteen, helooked upon her still in his trouble-torn chronology, as only ripeenough to be dandled on his lap. Still he called her his "Ninnina," andsang nannas to her, as he had been obliged to do after her mother'sdeath.
As he sat there, too astonished to smile, or frown, or say a word, Lilydropped upon her knees before him, as a Grecian maiden would. WeEnglish are not supple-jointed; but for Lily's sake, I could not standbeside her. Then she placed her soft right hand in the centre of myhard palm, flung the other arm round my neck, and with her eyes upon herfather's, gave me a long affectionate kiss. This done, she drew herfather's head down, and kissed his snow-white beard. Now, she told me,after this, any father who is obdurate, must according to institutionblame himself and no one else, if harm befall the maiden.
All this time, I spoke not, and thought of nothing except to screen myLily. Signor Dezio kept a stately silence, but the tears were in hiseyes, and the long white beard was quivering. Lily bent her head, andwaited for his words.
"Mother of God! My little child, what are you thinking of?"
"Only thinking of being married, father."
"And set another Vendetta afoot, and be killed yourself!Signor"--turning haughtily to me--"this lady is betrothed, from herearly infancy, to her cousin Lepardo Della Croce."
"Oh, I hate him," cried Fiordalisa, clasping her hands piteously. "Ah,Madonna, I hate him so; and thank our Lady, no one has seen him for sixyears. He is dead no doubt in some Cannibal Island. Saints of mercy,keep him. I saw it in the Spalla, in the Shepherd's Spalla, and I sawmy own love there, the eve before he came."
"Grace of Holy Mary! Who read the Spalla for you?"
"The hoary goatherd from Ghidazzo." And up sprang Fiordalisa, flew toan inner room, and fetched from the dark niche in the wall the box ofholy relics. With these she knelt before her father, and placed herright hand on the box.
"My child, it is not needful. I believe you without an oath. Never yethave you passed the boundary of truth."
The old chief bowed his head in thought. He had lost his last survivingson by neglecting the Spalla's decree. The Spalla is the shoulder bladeof a goat, polished, and used for divination; upon it had been readSampiero's death, and the destiny of Napoleon. The old man who hadforecast the latter was still alive, and of immense renown, andtraversed the island now like an ancient prophet. He was the hoarygoatherd of Ghidazzo.
Lily saw that she was conquering; she leaped upon her father's knee andhugged him; and her triumph was complete. While she wept upon hisbreast, and told him all her little tale, and whispered in his ear, andwhile he kissed, and comforted her, and thought of her dear mother, Irushed out and leaped the Vinea, and wept beneath the olive-trees.
At last the old man rose and called me, he durst not venture from thedoor; but he did what was far better, he sent my own love after me. Atlength when we returned, and we found cause not to hurry,--
"Signor Vogheno," he began, "I have observed you well. I am a man ofvery keen observation"--Lily's eyes gave me a twinkle full of fun--"or Ishould not be alive this moment. I have observed you, sir, and Iapprove your character. I cannot say as much, sir, of all theEnglishmen I have been privileged to meet. There is about them very muchof the nature of a dog. Forgive me, sir; pray interrupt me not. I onlyjudge by what I have seen. God forbid that I should say so to you,while you were my guest. Now you are one of my family, and entitled tothe result of my observations. Of the little island itself I knownothing at all, though I am informed that its institutions are of abarbarous character."
"Vendetta for instance," was on my lips, but Lily's glance just savedit. And I thought of his three brave sons.
"But, Signor beloved, you are different from them; indeed you have thenobility of the Corsican nature. And what is most of all, my littlechild has fixed her heart upon you. But she is very young, sir, quite achild you see." I saw nothing of the sort, but a blooming maidenfigure, growing lovelier every day. Poor Lily dropped her longeyelashes, and smiled through a glowing blush. So blushed Lavinia underthe eyes of Turnus.
"This darling child is now the heiress to these lands of mine. And ifher cousin Lepardo, whose death she has seen on the Spalla, be indeedremoved from us, she is the very last of all the Della Croce. I cannoteasily read the billet of your brother. He does not write good Corsicanof our side of the mountains, but some outlandish Tuscan. There issomething first which I cannot well decipher, and then I see your nameSignor Valentine Vogheno, and that you are the lord of very largeestates, in some district called Gloisterio?" He looked at meinquiringly.
Instead of explaining that I was only the brother of the great SignorValentino, I bowed, alas I bowed with a hot flush on my cheeks. Whatcould it matter, and why should I interrupt him, if he chose to deceivehimself? Lily charmed away all hesitation, by clapping her littlehands, and crying, "Sweetest mine, I am so glad."
"Then, upon two conditions I will give you my daughter. The first, thatyou leave this island, and do not see our Lily, write to, or even hearfrom her, for a period of six months. If she has not outgrown her love,she will then be almost old enough to wed. I mean, of course, ifLepardo does not appear. The other condition is that you shall promiseon the holy relics, and you as well, my flower, never to part with theseold estates, but keep them for Lily while she lives, and transmit themto her second child."
A load of terror was off my heart--I thought he was going to bind me tothe accursed Vendetta. Even for my Lily, I could hardly have taken thatpledge. So I assented readily to the last stipulation, though it wasbased upon a virtual lie of mine. But with Lily's eyes upon me,brimming as they were with tears at the first condition, and her roundarms trembling to enfold me, could I stick at anything short ofdownright murder? The first proviso I fought against in vain. Even Lilycoaxed and cried, without any good effect.
When at last we yielded to the stern decree, the venerable father, as weknelt before him, joined our hands together, and poured a blessing onus, which I did not lack. He had given me my blessing.
After this we sat down to supper, and the trusty musketeer, who hadwatched the whole scene grimly, and without hearing all, knew what theresult was, he, I say, upon his perch began to improvise, or haply toadapt, and sing to a childish air, some little verses upon the gladoccasion. Having exhausted his stock, down he leaped withoutpermission, and drank our health in a bumper of Luri wine.
Lily was now in due course of promotion. No longer was she thehandmaid, whose eyes created and rejoiced in countless mistakes of mine.Now she was sitting by my side, as she had good right to be, and waslost in pretty raptures at my gallant attentions. They were very nice,she owned, but thoroughly un-Corsican. How I wished her father and theold fusileer away!