It was a dark and gloomy room, with three high, narrow windows. Cora
departed hastily, frightened at what she had done. In a recess at the
farther end, before a chest of black bog-oak, sat the man I sought. The
crowning moment of my life was come. All rehearsals went for nothing:
the strongest feeling of my heart was scorn, cold, unfathomable scorn.
To show myself well, I took off my hat, and advanced in my haughtiest
manner.
As he turned his head, I saw that his mood was blacker than the oak
before him. Some dark memorials perhaps were there; hastily and heavily
he flung down the lid, as I walked with even steps towards him.
"Ah! Miss Valence! The young lady that paints. I feared that you were
lost to London; for now-a-days the pursuit of the fine arts requires
either genius, or fashion, at any rate the latter most, to be at all
remunerative. May I show you the way to the drawing-room? I have not
often the honour of receiving visitors here. But I think you know how
entirely I am the slave of young ladies, Miss Valence." And he held out
his delicate hand.
"Lepardo Della Croce, my name is not Valence. I am Clara Vaughan, the
only child of him whom in his sleep you murdered."
He turned not pale, but livid. His jaunty nonsense was gone in a
moment. He quailed from my dark eyes, and fell upon a chair. For one
minute there he crouched, and dared not meet my gaze; every fibre of his
flesh was quivering. It was not shame that cowed him, but the
prostration of amazement.
Suddenly he leaped upright, and met me eye to eye. Then I saw that his
pupils turned towards each other, as my uncle had described. I neither
spoke, nor allowed my gaze to falter. Every nerve and cord of my frame
was tense, and rigid, and rooted. To him I must have seemed the
embodiment of revenge.
At last he spoke, very slowly, and in words that trembled.
"You have no right to judge me by your English notions. You do not
understand me."
"I judge you not at all. God shall judge and smite you. In cold blood
you murdered a man who never wronged you."
"What!" he burst forth in a blaze of triumph, "no wrong to steal my
lovely bride, and my noble inheritance, to debauch the purest blood of
Corsica by a prostitute wedding; no wrong to strike me senseless! Even
your nation of policemen would call this rather initiative."
"The man you stole upon in his sleep had never seen or heard of you, had
never been in Corsica."
"What?" His teeth struck together like fire-tongs badly jointed, and he
could not part them.
"It is true. I regret to inform you that you must go to hell for
nothing. You could not even murder the right man."
"Tell me."
"Like a coward as you are, you crawled, and lurked, and lied; you spent
what little mind you have in securing a baby's blow, you crouched among
old clothes and bed-ticks, and behind the housemaid's flask; and you
went away exulting in your bloody soul, over what? the wrong man's
murder."
"Can it be?"
"Not only this, but you enriched and brought into high position the man
you meant to kill. He became the lord of his half-brother's lands, and
now is wealthy and happy, and the children you stole will help him to
laugh at your Vendetta."
"Wait a little."
"Cats and small dogs you can carve alive, when a woman has strapped them
down for you, and the poor things are trying to lick you. But as for
midnight murder, however sound your victims sleep, you have not nerve
enough. You quake and quiver so that you know not a dark man from a
fair. Clever, don't you think? Particularly for a Professor."
I saw that my contempt was curling round him like a knout; so I gave him
a little more of it.
"Of course we could not expect you to meet your foe like a man. Even
were you a worthy sample of your sneaking race, you never could do that.
Too wholesome memory of the English blow between your quailing eyes. I
am pleased to see you fumbling clumsily for your dagger. Who knows but
what you are fool enough even to have some self-respect?"
A black tint darted beneath his skin, as if his heart were a
cuttle-fish. Had I taken my eyes from him, he would have stabbed me.
He fell back against the oak chest. My madness grew with my triumph.
"No. You dare not do it, because I am not asleep. Come, I will give you
every chance, Lepardo Della Croce. If you are brave enough to shoot a
white-haired man at dinner, surely you have the courage to stab a young
girl on the sofa. Here I lie. I will not move. And I defy you to do
it."
Quietly I lay and watched him; but as if he were scarcely worth it. He
could not take his eyes from mine. He was like a rat before a snake.
And all the while, his hand was working on the cross haft of a poniard.
"What more can I do to encourage you? Would you like the curtain to
skulk behind?"
And I threw the window-hangings over the foot of the sofa, but so that I
held him still in view. Calm as I was, I must have been mad to play
with my life so contemptuously. Presently I rose, put back my hair and
turned away, as in weariness.
"I fear your appetite is cloyed with the writhings of cats and dogs. Or
has murder no relish for you, unless it be in cold blood? But there, I
am tired of you: you have so little variety. We will send you back to
Corsica, and write 'Rimbecco' on you."
He sprang at me madly, gnashing his teeth, and whirling his stiletto. I
faced him just in time, with both hands by my side. Had I raised them,
or shown the least sign of fear, my life would have followed my father's
then and there.
"Yes," I said, while he paused, with the weapon not a yard from me, "a
spirited attempt, considering what you are. But waste of time and
trouble. However, I have hit the word which seems to suit your views.
Allow me to repeat the agreeable term, 'Rimbecco.'"
I saw in his eyes the flash which shows the momentum given, but his arm
fell powerless. He looked even humbly at me.
"Clara Vaughan--"
"Be kind enough to address me properly."
"Miss Vaughan, you must have some powerful reason for wishing to be rid
of life." He tried to look piercingly at me.
"You are quite mistaken. It is nothing more than contempt of an abject
coward and murderer."
"To you I will make no attempt to justify myself. You could not
understand me. Your ways of thought are wholly different."
"I beg leave to hope so. Don't come near me, if you please."
"If I have injured you in ignorance, I will do my best to make amends.
What course do you propose?"
"To let you go free, in pity for your abject nature and cowardice. We
scorn you too much for anything else."
This seemed to amaze him more than all before. It was plain that he
could not believe me. A long silence ensued. Looking at the wily
wretch, I began unwittingly to compare, or rather to contrast his noble
victim with him. I thought of the deep affliction and misery wrought by
his despicable revenge. I thought of his brutal cruelty to the poor
creatures God has given us; and a rancour like his own began to move in
my troubled heart. It had been there all the while, no doubt, but a
larger pressure had stilled it. Watching me intently, he saw the change
in my countenance, and as cold disdain grew flushed with anger, my power
over him departed. But he did not let me perceive it. I am sure that I
might have gone whither and when I pleased, and he would have feared to
follow me, if I had only regarded him to the end with no other emotion
than scorn.
"Am I to understand," he said at last, "that you intend to do nothing to
me?"
"It is not worth our while to hang you. For such a crime any other
punishment would be an outrage and a jest. You slew a good and a gentle
man; one as brave as you are cowardly. By the same blow you destroyed
his wife, who lingered for a few years, pining till she died. Both of
these were dear to God. He will avenge them in His good time. Only one
thing we shall insist on, that you leave this country immediately, and
under a solemn oath never to return to it. One good point you have, I
am told--fidelity to your word."
"And if I refuse, what then?"
"Then you die a murderer's death. We have evidence you little dream
of."
He had now recovered his presence of mind, and his scoffing manner; and
all his plan was formed.
"What a brave young lady you are to come here all alone, and
entertaining so low an opinion of the poor Professor."
"The very reason why I scorned precautions." A deep gleam shot through
the darkness of his eyes.
"You must indeed despise me, to come here without telling any one!"
"Of course. But I did not mean to come, till my father's spirit led
me."
With a shudder he glanced all round the room. Lily was not mistaken
when she called him superstitious. Then he tried to sneer it off.
"And did the good Papa, dear to God, undertake to escort you back?"
Seeing that I disdained to answer, he continued thus: "You have
displayed much graceful and highly-becoming scorn. I, in turn, will
exhibit some little contempt of you. You were pleased to say, if my
memory serves me, that you had some wonderful evidence. I will furnish
you with more, and perhaps what you little dream of. Approach, and
examine this box."
He raised the lid of the oaken chest, and propped it with a staple.
Quite thrown off my guard for the moment, I began to devour the contents
with my eyes. Not many things were in it; but all of them were
remarkable. To me they looked like theatrical properties, or materials
for disguise. Some of them were faded and tarnished; some were set with
a silver cross. My gaze was rivetted on a pair of boots, fixed in a
ledge with horse-shoe bays; on the sole of one I perceived a cross of
metal inlaid; I drew nearer to see it more closely, when something fell
over my head. All down me, and round me, and twisted behind in a tight
_tourniquet_, before I could guess what it was. I am not weak, for a
girl; but I could no more lift my arms than a swathed mummy can.
Neither could I kick, although as a child I had been famous for that
accomplishment; if I lifted either foot, I must tumble head-foremost
into the box, which was large enough for me to live in. Scream I could,
and did, in spite of all my valour, not only from fright, but from pain,
for my chest was dreadfully tightened; but before I could scream more
than twice, a cloth was passed over my mouth, and knotted behind my
neck. So there I stood, a helpless prisoner, in the recess at the end
of the oaken ark. A low laugh thrilled in my ears, but the hand on my
spine relaxed not; I turned my neck by a violent effort and met the
demon's eyes.
"Very pretty you look, young lady, very pretty indeed. I must have a
kiss before I have done with you, in spite of all indignation. There is
a dress resembling this among the Tartar tribes. Did I hurt your proud,
straight nose? If so, accept most humble apologies. I would not injure
it for the world; it does express so much scorn. Take care, my child,
your eyelashes are coming through the worsted."
Yes. Ignoble confession! I, for whose disdain the world had been too
small, was prisoned and helpless in an "anti-macassar," like a fly in a
paper cage-trap. The sofa, on which I had lain so grandly defying my
enemy, was covered with a stout worsted net, long and very strong: this
he had doubled end to end, and flung over my haughty head. I have not
patience to recount his paltry, bantering jeers. Contempt is a tool I
am used to grasp by the handle only. Be it enough to say that, without
releasing me, he rang the bell for Cora, whose greedy eyes glistened
when she saw my gordit loose from my bosom, and tangled in the net. Her
master allowed her to disengage, and, for the time at least, appropriate
it. In return for this, she was, at his pleasure, to stab me if he
should order it. By his directions, she tied my ankles together, while
he lashed my arms anew, and tightened the muffler over my bleeding lips.
I closed my eyes, and prayed; then I made up my mind to die, as many a
Vaughan had done, at the hands of a brutal enemy. My last thought was
of Conrad, and then my senses forsook me.