Clara Vaughan, Volume 1 (of 3) Read online

  CHAPTER VII.

  The spring of the year 1849 was remarkable, throughout the westerncounties, for long drought. I know not how it may be in the east ofEngland, but I have observed that in the west long droughts occur onlyin the spring and early summer. In the autumn we have sometimes as muchas six weeks without rain, and in the summer a month at most, but allthe real droughts (so far as my experience goes) commence in February orMarch; these are, however, so rare, and April has won such poetic famefor showers, and July for heat and dryness, that what I state is atvariance with the popular impression.

  Be that as it may, about Valentine's-day, 1849, and after a length ofvery changeable weather, the wind fixed its home in the east, and thesky for a week was grey and monotonous. Brilliant weather ensued; whitefrost at night, and strong sun by day. The frost became less biting asthe year went on, and the sun more powerful; there were two or threeovercast days, and people hoped for rain. But no rain fell, except onepoor drizzle, more like dew than rain.

  With habits now so ingrained as to become true pleasures, I marked theeffects of the drought on all the scene around me. The meadows took thecolour of Russian leather, the cornlands that of a knife-board. Theyoung leaves of the wood hung pinched and crisp, unable to shake offtheir tunics, and more like catkins than leaves. The pools went low anddark and thick with a coppery scum (in autumn it would have been green),and little bubbles came up and popped where the earth cracked round thesides. The tap-rooted plants looked comely and brave in the morning,after their drink of dew, but flagged and flopped in the afternoon, as aclubbed cabbage does. As for those which had only the surface to suck,they dried by the acre, and powdered away like the base of a bonfire.

  The ground was hard as horn, and fissured in stars, and angles, andjagged gaping cracks, like a dissecting map or a badly-plastered wall.It amused me sometimes to see a beetle suddenly cut off from his home bythat which to him was an earthquake. How he would run to and fro, lookdoubtfully into the dark abyss, then, rising to the occasion, bridge hisroad with a straw. The snails shrunk close in their shells, andresigned themselves to a spongy distance of slime. The birds might beseen in the morning, hopping over the hollows of the shrunken ponds,prying for worms, which had shut themselves up like caddises deep in thethirsty ground. Our lake, which was very deep at the lower end, becamea refuge for all the widgeons and coots and moorhens of theneighbourhood, and the quick-diving grebe, and even the summer snipe,with his wild and lonely "cheep." The brink of the water was feathered,and dabbled with countless impressions of feet of all sorts--dibbers,and waders, and wagtails, and weasels, and otters, and foxes, and thebores of a thousand bills, and muscles laid high and dry.

  For my own pet robins I used to fill pans with water along the edge ofthe grass, for I knew their dislike of the mineral spring (which neverwent dry), and to these they would fly down and drink, and perk up theirimpudent heads, and sluice their poor little dusty wings; and then, asthey could not sing now, they would give me a chirp of gratitude.

  When the drought had lasted about three months, the east wind, whichtill then had been cold and creeping, became suddenly parching hot.Arid and heavy, and choking, it panted along the glades, like a dog on adusty road. It came down the water-meadows, where the crowsfoot grew,and wild celery, and it licked up the dregs of the stream, and powderedthe flood-gates, all skeletons now, with grey dust. It came through thecopse, and the young leaves shrunk before it, like a child from the hissof a snake. The blast pushed the doors of our house, and its drywrinkled hand was laid on the walls and the staircase and woodwork; ahot grime tracked its steps, and a taint fell on all that was fresh. Asit folded its baleful wings, and lay down like a desert dragon,vegetation, so long a time sick, gave way at last to despair, andflagged off flabbed and dead. The clammy grey dust, like hot sandthrown from ramparts, ate to the core of everything, choking theshrivelled pores and stifling the languid breath. Old gaffers weretalking of murrain in cattle, and famine and plague among men, andfarmers were too badly off to grumble.

  But the change even now was at hand. The sky which had long presented ahard and cloudless blue, but trailing a light haze round its rim in themorning, was bedimmed more every day with a white scudding vapour acrossit. The sun grew larger and paler, and leaned more on the heavens,which soon became ribbed with white skeleton-clouds; and these in theirturn grew softer and deeper, then furry and ravelled and wisped. Onenight the hot east wind dropped, and, next morning (though the vane hadnot changed), the clouds drove heavily from the south-west. But thesesigns of rain grew for several days before a single drop fell; as isalways the case after discontinuance, it was hard to begin again.Indeed, the sky was amassed with black clouds, and the dust wentswirling like a mat beaten over the trees, and the air became cold, andthe wind moaned three days and three nights, and yet no rain fell. Asold Whitehead, the man at the lodge, well observed, it had "forgottenthe way to rain." Then it suddenly cleared one morning (the 28th ofMay), and the west was streaked with red clouds, that came up to crow atthe sun, and the wind for the time was lulled, and the hills lookedclose to my hand. So I went to my father's grave without the littlegreen watering-pot or a trowel to fill the chinks, for I knew it wouldrain that very day.

  In the eastern shrubbery there was a pond, which my father had takenmuch trouble to make and adorn; it was not fed by the mineral spring,for that was thought likely to injure the fish, but by a larger andpurer stream, called the "Witches' brook," which, however, was now quitedry. This pond had been planted around and through with silver-weed,thrumwort and sun-clew, water-lilies, arrow-head, and the rare doublefrog-bit, and other aquatic plants, some of them brought from a longdistance. At one end there was a grotto, cased with fantastic porousstone, and inside it a small fountain played. But now the fountain wassilent, and the pond shrunk almost to its centre. The silver eels whichonce had abounded here, finding their element likely to fail, made amigration, one dewy night, overland to the lake below. The fish, invain envy of that great enterprise, huddled together in the small wetspace which remained, with their back-fins here and there above water.When any one came near, they dashed away, as I have seen grey mullet doin the shallow sea-side pools. Several times I had water poured in fortheir benefit, but it was gone again directly. The mud round the edgeof the remnant puddle was baked and cracked, and foul with an oozy greensludge, the relic of water-weeds.

  This little lake, once so clear and pretty, and full of bright dimplesand crystal shadows, now looked so forlorn and wasted and old, like abright eye worn dim with years, and the trees stood round it so fadedand wan, the poplar unkempt of its silver and green, the willow withoutwherewithal to weep, and the sprays of the birch laid dead at its feet;altogether it looked so empty and sad and piteous, that I had beendeeply grieved for the sake of him who had loved it.

  So, when the sky clouded up again, in the afternoon of that day, Ihastened thither to mark the first effects of the rain.

  As I reached the white shell-walk, which loosely girt the pond, thelead-coloured sky took a greyer and woollier cast, and overhead becameblurred and pulpy; while round the horizon it lifted in frayed festoons.As I took my seat in the grotto, the big drops began to patter among thedry leaves, and the globules rolled in the dust, like parched peas. Along hissing sound ensued, and a cloud of powder went up, and the treesmoved their boughs with a heavy dull sway. Then broke from the laurelsthe song of the long-silent thrush, and reptiles, and insects, and allthat could move, darted forth to rejoice in the freshness. The earthsent forth that smell of sweet newness, the breath of young natureawaking, which reminds us of milk, and of clover, of balm, and the smileof a child.

  But, most of all, it was in and around the pool that the signs of newlife were stirring. As the circles began to jostle, and the bubblessailed closer together, the water, the slime, and the banks, danced,flickered, and darkened, with a whirl of living creatures. The surfacewas brushed, as green corn is flawed by the w
ind, with the quivering dipof swallows' wings; and the ripples that raced to the land splashed overthe feet of the wagtails.

  Here, as I marked all narrowly, and seemed to rejoice in their gladness,a sudden new wonder befell me. I was watching a monster frog emergefrom his penthouse of ooze, and lift with some pride his brown spots andhis bright golden throat from the matted green cake of dry weed, when aquick gleam shot through the fibres. With a listless curiosity,wondering whether the frog, like his cousin the toad, were a jeweller, Iadvanced to the brim of the pool. The poor frog looked timidly at mewith his large starting eyes; then, shouldering off the green coil, madeone rapid spring, and was safe in the water. But his movement hadfurther disclosed some glittering object below. Determined to know whatit was, despite the rain, I placed some large pebbles for steps, ranlightly, and lifted the weed. Before me lay, as bright as if polishedthat day, with the jewelled hilt towards me, a long narrow dagger. Witha haste too rapid for thought to keep up, I snatched it, and rushed tothe grotto.

  There, in the drought of my long revenge, with eyes on fire, and teethset hard and dry, and every root of my heart cleaving and crying toheaven for blood, I pored on that weapon, whose last sheath hadbeen--how well I knew what. I did not lift it towards God, nor fall onmy knees and make a theatrical vow; for that there was no necessity.But for the moment my life and my soul seemed to pass along that coldblade, just as my father's had done. A treacherous, blue,three-cornered blade, with a point as keen as a viper's fang,sublustrous like ice in the moonlight, sleuth as hate, and tenacious asdeath. To my curdled and fury-struck vision it seemed to writhe in thegleam of the storm which played along it like a corpse-candle. I fanciedhow it had quivered and rung to find itself deep in that heart.

  My passions at length overpowered me, and I lay, how long I know not,utterly insensible. When I came to myself again, the storm had passedover, the calm pool covered my stepping stones, the shrubs and treeswept joy in the moonlight, the nightingales sang in the elms, healingand beauty were in the air, peace and content walked abroad on theearth. The May moon slept on the water before me, and streamed throughthe grotto arch; but there it fell cold and ghost-like upon the tool ofmurder. Over this I hastily flung my scarf; coward, perhaps I was, forI could not handle it then, but fled to the house and dreamed in mylonely bed.

  When I examined the dagger next day, I found it to be of foreign fabric."Ferrati, Bologna," the name and abode of the maker, as I supposed, wasdamascened on the hilt. A cross, like that on the footprint, butsmaller, and made of gold, was inlaid on the blade, just above thehandle. The hilt itself was wreathed with a snake of green enamel,having garnet eyes. From the fine temper of the metal, or some annealingprocess, it showed not a stain of rust, and the blood which remainedafter writing the letters before described had probably been washed offby the water. I laid it most carefully by, along with my other relics,in a box which I always kept locked.

  So God, as I thought, by His sun, and His seasons, and weather, and themind He had so prepared, was holding the clue for me, and shaking itclear from time to time, along my dark and many-winding path.