Thus far, I have written in sore haste, to tell, as plainly and as
briefly as possible, that which has darkened all my life. Though it
never leaves my waking thoughts, to dwell upon it before others is agony
to me. Henceforth my tale will flow perhaps more easily, until I fall
again into a grief almost as dark, and am struck by storms of passion
which childhood's stature does not reach.
When the shock of the household, and the wonder of the county, and the
hopes of constables (raised by a thousand pounds' reward) had subsided
gradually, my mother continued to live in the old mansion, perhaps
because none of her friends came forward to remove her. Under my
father's will she was the sole executrix; but all the estates (including
house and park) were left to my father's nearest relative, as trustee
for myself, with a large annuity to my mother charged upon them. There
were many other provisions and powers in the will, which are of no
consequence to my story. The chief estate was large and rich, extending
three or four miles from the house, which stood in a beautiful part of
Gloucestershire. The entire rental was about 12,000*l.* a year. My
father (whose name was Henry Valentine Vaughan), being a very active man
in the prime of life, had employed no steward, but managed everything
himself. The park, and two or three hundred acres round it, had always
been kept in hand; the rest was let to thriving tenants, who loved (as
they expressed it) "every hair on the head of a Vaughan." There was
also a small farm near the sea, in a lonely part of Devonshire; but this
was my mother's, having been left to her by her father, a clergyman in
that neighbourhood.
My father's nearest relative was his half-brother, Edgar Vaughan, who
had been educated for the Bar, and at one time seemed likely to become
eminent; then suddenly he gave up his practice, and resided (or rather
roved) abroad, during several years. Sinister rumours about him reached
our neighbourhood, not long before my father's death. To these,
however, the latter paid no attention, but always treated his brother
Edgar with much cordiality and affection. But all admitted that Edgar
Vaughan had far outrun his income as a younger son, which amounted to
about 600*l.* a year. Of course, therefore, my father had often helped
him.
On the third day after that night, my guardian came to Vaughan Park. He
was said to have hurried from London, upon learning there what had
happened.
The servants and others had vainly and foolishly tried to keep from me
the nature of my loss. Soon I found out all they knew, and when the
first tit and horror left me, I passed my whole time, light or dark, in
roving from passage to passage, from room to room, from closet to
closet, searching every chink and cranny for the murderer of my father.
Though heretofore a timid child, while so engaged I knew not such a
thing as fear; but peered, and groped, and listened, feeling every inch
of wall and wainscot, crawling lest I should alarm my prey, spying
through the slit of every door, and shaking every empty garment.
Certain boards there were near the east window which sounded hollow; at
these I scooped until I broke my nails. In vain nurse Maples locked me
in her room, held me at her side, or even bound me to the bed. My
ravings forced her soon to yield, and I would not allow her, or any one
else, to follow me. The Gloucester physician said that since the
disease of my mind had taken that shape, it would be more dangerous to
thwart than to indulge it.
It was the evening of the third day, and weary with but never _of_ my
search, I was groping down the great oak-staircase in the dusk, hand
after hand, and foot by foot, when suddenly the main door-bell rang.
The snow was falling heavily, and had deadened the sound of wheels. At
once I slid (as my father had taught me to do) down the broad
balustrade, ran across the entrance-hall, and with my whole strength
drew back the bolt of the lock. There I stood in the porch,
unfrightened, but with a new kind of excitement on me. A tall dark man
came up the steps, and shook the snow from his boots. The carriage-lamp
shone in my face. I would not let him cross the threshold, but stood
there and confronted him. He pretended to take me for some servant's
child, and handed me a parcel covered with snow. I flung it down, and
said, looking him full in the face, "I am Clara Vaughan, and you are the
man who killed my father." "Carry her in, John," he said to the
servant--"carry her in, or the poor little thing will die. What eyes!"
and he used some foreign oath--"what wonderful eyes she has!"
That burst of passion was the last conscious act of the young and
over-laboured brain. For three months I wandered outside the gates of
sorrow. My guardian, as they told me, was most attentive throughout the
whole course of the fever, and even in the press of business visited me
three times every day. Meanwhile, my mother was slowly shaking off the
stupor which lay upon her, and the new fear of losing me came through
that thick heaviness, like the wind through a fog. Doubtless it helped
to restore her senses, and awoke her to the work of life. Then, as time
went on, her former beauty and gentleness came back, and her reason too,
as regarded other subjects. But as to that which all so longed to know,
not a spark of evidence could be had from her. The faintest allusion to
that crime, the name of her loved husband, the mere word "murder"
uttered in her presence--and the consciousness would leave her eyes,
like a loan withdrawn. Upright she sat and rigid as when she was found
that night, with the lines of her face as calm and cold as moonlight.
Only two means there were by which her senses could be restored: one was
low sweet music, the other profound sleep. She was never thrown into
this cataleptic state by her own thoughts or words, nor even by those of
others when in strict sequence upon her own. But any attempt to lead
her to that one subject, no matter how craftily veiled, was sure to end
in this. The skilful physician, who had known her many years, judged,
after special study of this disease, in which he felt deep interest,
that it was always present in her brain, but waited for external aid to
master her. I need not say that she was now unfit for any stranger's
converse, and even her most careful friends must touch sometimes the
motive string.
As I recovered slowly from long illness, the loss of my best friend and
the search for my worst enemy revived and reigned within me. Sometimes
my guardian would deign to reason with me upon what he called "my
monomania." When he did so, I would fix my eyes upon him, but never
tried to answer. Now and then, those eyes seemed to cause him some
uneasiness; at other times he would laugh and compare them pleasantly to
the blue fire-damp in a coal-mine. His dislike of their scrutiny was
well known to me, and incited me the more to urge it. But in spite of
all, he was ever kind and gentle to me, and even tried some grimly
playful overtures to my love, which fled from him with loathing, albeit
a slow conviction formed that I had wronged him by suspicion.
Edgar Malins Vaughan, then about thirty-seven years old, was (I suppose)
a very handsome man, and perhaps of a more striking presence than my
dearest father. His face, when he was pleased, reminded me strongly of
the glance and smile I had lost, but never could it convey that soft
sweet look, which still came through the clouds to me, now and then in
dreams. The outlines of my guardian's face were keener too and
stronger, and his complexion far more swarthy. His eyes were of a hard
steel-blue, and never seemed to change. A slight lameness, perceptible
only at times, did not impair his activity, but served him as a pretext
for declining all field-sports, for which (unlike my father) he had no
real taste.
His enjoyments, if he had any--and I suppose all men have some--seemed
to consist in the management of the estate (which he took entirely upon
himself), in satiric literature and the news of the day, or in lonely
rides and sails upon the lake. It was hinted too, by Thomas Kenwood,
who disliked and feared him strangely, that he drank spirits or foreign
cordials in his own room, late at night. There was nothing to confirm
this charge; he was always up betimes, his hand was never tremulous, nor
did his colour change.