Clara Vaughan, Volume 3 (of 3)

by R. D. Blackmore

As the sacks fell over the window-frame, I lost all presence of mind, all honest indignation, everything but a coward horror, and the shrinking of life from death. With all the strength of my chest and throat, I cast forth, as a cannon discharges, one long, volleyed, agonising shriek. As it rang among the skeletons, and rattled their tissue-less joints, a small square grating in the upper panel of the heavy door swung back, and in the opening appeared the face of Lepardo Della Croce. He lifted his hat with a pleasant air, and addressed me with a smile,

"Ah! now, this I call a pity, a great pity, indeed, Miss Vaughan; but that I always fear the imputation of pedantry, I should call it a bathos. You can hardly be aware that since you made that dreadful noise, you have fallen in my opinion from a Porcia, or an Arria, to a common maid Marian. Fie, fie, it is too disappointing. It saps one's candid faith in the nobility of human nature. But, as I can no longer appeal to your courage or spirit, I must, it appears, address myself to your reason; if, as I am fain to hope, your nerves have not impaired it. Be assured, then, once for all, that it is a vulgar error to exert your sweet voice in so high a key. My little dissecting theatre, though not so perfect as I could wish, particularly in ventilation, is nevertheless so secured from erroneous plebeian sympathy, that all the cats in London might squall away their fabulous nine lives without affecting the tea and muffins of the excellent old ladies who live on either side of us. That noble tabby, on the third shelf right, was a household god at No. 39, until he had the honour of attracting my attention. Breathe not a word about him, if you ever come out. Twice a day, I sent to inquire, with my kindest compliments, whether poor Miss Jenkinson had recovered her darling cat. Meanwhile, by inanition scientifically graduated, I succeeded in absorbing his adipose deposit, and found him one of the kindest subjects I have had the pleasure of manipulating. Be not alarmed, Miss Vaughan; I have no intention of starving you; neither, if you behave with courtesy, will I even dissect you. I only mention these little facts to convince you of our pleasing retirement. The ceiling of your room is six feet below the level of the street, the walls are three feet thick and felted, and the bricks set all as headers, which makes a great difference in conducting power. The windows, as perhaps you have already observed, are secluded from vulgar eyes, and command a very partial view of our own little Eden. Moreover, if by exerting your nobly-developed chest, to an extent which for your sake I affectionately deprecate, you even succeeded at last in producing an undulation--do you remember my lecture upon the conflicting theories of sound?--or a vibration in the tympanum of a neighbour, I fear you would be regarded--it shocks me greatly to think of it--as a cat of rare vocal power, unduly agitated by my feeble pursuit of science. Therefore, let me conclude my friendly counsel in the language of all your theatres--ah! you have no drama now in this country, such poverty of invention--but in the words, which I regret to say, appear from six to a dozen times in every British trugody, Miss Vaughan, 'Be calm.'"

Through all this brutal sneering, I stood resolutely with my back turned to him. Perhaps he thought that I would stoop to supplication. I could have bitten my tongue off for that contemptible shriek; it was such a triumph to him.

"Ah! sulky, I fear; young lady sulky with the poor Professor, who tries to develop her mind. Fie, fie, very small and ungrateful, and not half so grand a study as the attitude of contempt. What a pity poor Conrad was not present an hour ago! How he might have enriched his little book of schemata. Several most magnificent poses. But I fear the poor fellow has taken his last chip. A sad thing, was it not? Why, how you start, Miss Vaughan! Oh, you can show your face at last! And how pale! Well, if eyes could only kill--"

"What is it--I mean be good enough just to go away."

"To be sure I will. I have a little matter on hand which must not be delayed; to leave my carte de visite upon the right man, this time. I cannot sufficiently thank you for your invaluable information. Is that snug little entrance practicable still? Very hospitable people they used to be at Vaughan Park. Fare you well, young lady; I will not keep you in any unnecessary suspense. After my return, I shall arrange for your release; if it can be made compatible with my safety. You will have plenty of food, and much time for meditation. Let your thoughts of me be liberal and kindly. I never injure any one, when I can avoid it. I only regret that the air you breathe will impair, for the while, your roses. But what an opportunity of analysing the gases! Carbonic acid predominant. Do you gratify me by bearing in mind a lecture, at which you were very attentive, on Malaria and Miasma?"

Taunting to the last, and sneering even at himself, as men of the blackest dye of wickedness are very apt to do, he closed the grating carefully, and I heard the ring of the metal cross on the rough stone steps. He had the boots of vengeance on; his errand was stealthy and cold-blooded murder; me, who had never harmed him, he was abandoning perhaps to death, certainly to madness--and yet to his own ideas, all he was doing was right.

Frantic at the horrors around me, and still more so at those impending through my own rash folly, I tore and scratched at the solid door, and flung myself against it, till my nails were broken, and my fingers bleeding, and all my body palpitating with impotent mad fury. In weariness at last and shame at this wild outburst, I sat upon the floor, for I could not touch the operator's stool, and tried to collect my thoughts. Was there any possibility of saving my poor Uncle? It must now be nearly four o'clock on the Friday afternoon, or at least I so computed it. The beautiful watch given me by my Uncle had stopped through my reckless violence, and the breaking of the glass. The hands, as I could barely perceive, stood at a quarter to four. The express-train, by which Mrs. Fletcher and I were to have returned, would leave Paddington at five P.M. and reach Gloucester soon after eight. Lepardo Della Croce would catch it easily, and perhaps would accomplish his foul design that night. My only hope of preventing him lay in his own tenacity of usage. From my Uncle's account, I knew, that on their cursed Vendetta enterprises, a certain pilgrimage on foot is, in many families, regarded as a matter of honour. This usage owes its origin perhaps to some faint trace of mercy, some wish to afford the evil passions one more chance of relenting to the milder reflections of weariness, and the influence of the air. Be that as it may, I believed that the custom was hereditary in the Della Croce family; and if so, the enemy would finish his journey on foot, quitting the train some distance on this side of Gloucester. Therefore if I could contrive to escape in the course of the night, I might yet be in time.

All the rest of the daylight, such as it was, I spent in examining, inch by inch, every part of the loathsome chamber, which was now my dungeon. By this time all my patience, habitual more than natural, had returned, and all my really inborn determination and hope. Surely I had been every bit as badly off before, and had struggled through quite as hopeless a difficulty. If arduous courage and tough perseverance were of any avail, those four walls should not hold me, though they might be three feet thick. So stopping both my nostrils with cotton-wool from a specimen (for the smell was most insufferable), and pinning up my dress, I set to work in earnest. First, I examined the windows: there was nothing to hope from them; I could never loosen a bar, and even if I could, I should only escape from one prison to another, for the garden behind the house was surrounded with high dead walls. Fireplace there was none; the door had already baffled me; could I dig through the party wall, and into the adjoining house? Most likely it was all a falsehood and boast about the thickness, intended perhaps to discourage me from attempting the easiest way. And in so damp a place, the mortar probably would be soft.

So, after searching and groping, ever so long, to find, if possible, one loose brick to begin with, I drew from my pocket a knife, of which I was very proud, "because my father had given it me; and I looked at it wistfully in the dusk, because I feared so to break it. Nothing but the thought that life itself was at stake would ever have induced me to use that beloved knife for work so very unsuitable.