Mr. Vaughan's Heir. A novel

Front matter

LONDON: PRINTED BV BDWARD 3. FRANCIS, TOOK's COURT, CHANCERY LANS, E.C. a gow. BY FRANK LEE BENEDICT, AUTHOR OF 'MISS DOROTHY'S CHARGE,' &c. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. Hoirton : SAMUEL TINSLEY, 10, SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND. 1874. [AU rights reserved.] Deration. To J. T. HART. Dear Friend, I dedicate to you this book, written in Florence during the past autumn made so pleasant to me by your companionship. It will reach you at the time when the work to which you have devoted ten years, approaches completion. The art-lovers and art-students of our day have already pronounced their verdict thereupon, so that I only repeat what has been said and written scores of times when I express the certainty that, once chiselled into marble perfection, it will be acknowledged not only by our own generation, but by all time to come, that the sculptor has equalled the genius as well as the patience of the old Greek masters.

Frank Lee Benedict. St. Dalmas di Tenda, Italy, August, 1874. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. CHAP. PAGE' I. La Maladeyre 1 II. A California Court-Room . . . .19 III. After the Trial . . . . . .41 IV. In the Gallery 70 V. Monsieur's Return . . . . .103 VI. An Unexpected Delay . . . .123 VII. "La CHAUDERON " . . -. . . .147 VIII. Face to Face 171 IX. Nathalie's Hero 192 X. Milady's Cell 216 XI. Outwitted . . . . . . .243 XIL A Neav Experience 263 XIII. The Stone Fight MR. VAUGHAN'S HEIR

Chapter I. La Maladeyre

T Avas a gorgeous September afternoon The steamboat neared Lausanne, on its way up from GeneA'a to Villeneuve, and at length the far-famed lake began to redeem the promise held out by its reputation. Elizabeth Crauford sat on the deck, talked with her father, watched the people, and kept to herself a certain sense of disap pointment which had been growing from GeneA'a to Ouchy. But once beyond the pretty little Avatering - place, Avith gloomy Lausanne frowningon the height above, the whole scene changed. The hills towered into mountains ; in the far distance Mont Blanc VOL. I. B me. vaughan's heir. showed like a pinnacle of yellow flame. Here the real beauty of the lake commences, increas ing constantly, till, with the sight of Vevay and Clarens, its full perfection is reached, deserving to be raved over and to have poetry written about it even in this scoffing, materialistic age.

The sun was setting as they gained Vevay. Behind stretched a lofty mountain range, glorious with rainbow tints. In front rose the mighty Dent-du-Midi, Avithits eternal crown of snow, the Jamin peak and lesser crags guarding the head of the lake like giant sentinels. Another landing — a village which is in reality a bourg of VeA'ay, though taking a name from some picturesque ruins near the Avater. " Perhaps it would have been better to leaA'e the boat here," Mr. Crauford said ; then, with characteristic vacillation, added immediately, ' ' But Ave may as well go on to Clarens ; La Maladeyre is nearer there, in fact." Elizabeth was too well accustomed to un expected propositions and their Avithdrawal on the part of her father, AA'hether in regard to journeys or other matters, to pay much attention.

She was gazing up and down the lake — Avatching the magic light — taking in every feature of the beautiful panorama. But she did not forget to ansAver. Mr. Crauford ahvays waited for a reply to his suggestions. As a rule, the response, whatever it might be, did not exactly please him ; but one of some sort must be given. So now Elizabeth said dutifully, — "Yes, papa." Mr. Crauford neither noticed nor heard. He leaned over the railing, and looked earnestly out toward the left bank, close to which the boat ran. He had not seen the spot since he and his wife came here during their wedding journey. Mrs. Crauford had been dead many a day, and her Avidowed spouse was past fifty ; still he liked to indulge in romance of a lachrymose and uncomfortable nature. He had determined to bring his daughter to visit the place in which he had been so happy, or thought he had, though he and his bride had quarrelled a good deal on the banks of the famous Lake Leman, after the habit of newly married people, wherever they may chance to wander.

He wanted to spend a month in the very house in which he and his lost angel had dwelt, and, writing to secure it, found himself obliged to pay a high price for the indulgence of his fancy. It was probable that he would be wretched, and Avould render his daughter, his faithful Gervais, and everybody about him, as miserable as he well could. There is no companion more to be dreaded on a journey than a man doing romance, unless it be one who means to write poetry about the marvellous scenes ; they both invariably scold and find fault from morning to night. Presently the boat passed a point of land jutting out into the lake, covered with trees, two great weepingwillows and three tall poplars conspicuous among them. Mr. Crauford pointed to the roof of a house A'isible amid the greenery,. and spoke for the first time in many minutes.

" That is La Maladeyre, my dear." Elizabeth looked and tried to feel senti mental, and to fancy her father and mother there in their youth ; but the fitting poetic sadness refused to make itself felt ; it never will when one tries to call it up. Somehow, her vagrant fancy would only picture her living parent in a hideous red and yellow dressing gown, which he donned in the seclusion of his chamber, and her mother taking physic out of a large spoon. She had enough pleasanter recollections of that dead mother, but they refused to keep her company now. The Clarens landing was reached ; beyond lay Verney, Terretet, and the Castle of Chillon; a little further sweep of water, then the vast mountains closed in the scene. It was almost dusk, but Elizabeth could perceive that Clarens was as unlike the Clarens of Rousseau as could well be imagined.

" It is not far down," Mr. Crauford said, as he and his daughter stood comfortably watch ing Gervais and Margot struggle with porters over the luggage. "We might walk, but we can easily get a carriage," he added, before she could agree to his first proposition. Gervais learned that the road along the lake was undergoing repairs ; it would be Avise to take another AA'hich wound among the hills from Montreux to Vevay. Six times Mr. Crauford changed his mind, but Gervais ordered the coachman to go on to the upper road. He had not wavered in his determination, " though he let his master talk," as he expressed himself later to Margot. It was a pretty route, among trees and sheltered farm-houses, a spick-and span new castle standing where the bosquet de Julie used to wave. From thence a rapid descent betAveen the chestnut trees, a sharp turn, an arch under the railway to traverse, then the lake road and the pretty campagne Mr. Crau ford had pointed out to his daughter.

The carriage passed through the iron gates, just within Avhich stood a picturesque chalet, rolled on a short distance, and drew up before the entrance to the villa. A square, rather gloomy house, much older than it looked, but pleasant and comfortable within, though, after the fashion of Swiss dwellings, the best room in it was taken up by the kitchen. There was a pretty salon, a library beyond, both looking toward the chalet; on the other side of the hall a dining-room, with a view of the lake and the Dent-du-Midi. Above stairs a sleeping chamber and dressing-room for Elizabeth ; next that a large apartment for her father, and a glorious out-look from the windows. They had dined early at Geneva. Mr. Crauford met one of his numerous and sudden neuralgic headaches at the house-door (they were always lying in wait for him in the most unexpected places), so he retired at once to his chamber, thinking himself sad dened by memories of the past ; in reality, very cross and fretful, scolding Gervais as long as that patient adherent Avould stay to listen.

Elizabeth escaped from the house, and the hospitable propositions of its good-natured mistress, promising to have some tea later, and went out to survey the spot which Avas to be her home for a few weeks. In front, a narrow lawn, thick with chestnut and pinetrees; to the right the chalet; at the left a tangle of shrubbery, a little vineyard, and an espalier, where the great Duchess pears grew rich and golden, clumps of rose-bushes and laurustinus, two vine-covered arbours, then a winding j^ath to the back of the dwelling. A broad sweep of greensAvard, clotted Avith noble trees, sloped down to the massive stone Avail, against which the waves beat and moaned Avith a force that made one feel as if upon the sea-shore. In one place the land jutted out in a point ; the basin thus formed made a harbour for a sail-boat, and had a bit of outer wall to protect it.

Beyond the landing-steps rose one of the grand old willows ; at the extremity of the point towered a poplar, its trunk encircled by a bench. The moon was coming up, tinging the snow crown of the Dent-du-Midi, and casting a broad line of golden radiance across the Avaters. Away stretched the beautiful lake ; far in the distance streaks of daylight yet lingered ; great masses of white clouds sailed sloAvly up the sky ; the air was soft and warm, as if the sheltered valley had been deep in Italy. Then Elizabeth walked back to look at the chalet — a long building, standing upon a declivity which brought the ground-floor of the ME. VAUGHAN'S HEIR. front part on a level with the upper story of the back. A wide gallery ran along tlie side, roofed by the overhanging eaves ; at the back was a flight of stairs.

A home beneath the building (of course) for the cows, and a paved space between the chalet and villa, with a fountain sending its jet into a huge stone basin, Avhich served as a drinking-place for the cattle, and a convenience for the wife of the fermier — established in some rooms next the cow-house — to wash her clothes, Swiss fashion, in cold water. There were lights in the upper room of the chalet ; a young girl was pacing up and down the long gallery, humming snatches of French songs. Elizabeth stopped under the shadow of the trees to look at her, but it was too dark to distinguish more than a tall, slight figure wrapped in a loose white mantle. Presently, through one of the open windows, came a peevish voice, calling in French, — "It is that thou art resolved to take cold, I suppose !

Come in, I entreat thee, my child." "It is not cold in the least," replied the clear young tones ; " and I do not wish to come in. Thou art disagreeable, mamma, and Monsieur La Tour is disagreeable HkeAvise. I prefer the gallery and my own society." Expostulations from the peevish voice, en treaties from elderly masculine tones, but the girl turned impatiently and resumed her march. Elizabeth walked away, smiling at the brief dialogue, and entered the house. While she drank her tea, Madame Bocher informed her that the apartment in the chalet was occupied by a lady and her daughter. Their name was L'Estrange. The mother was an invalid — here for her health. She Avould not be here or anywhere long. Well, we must all die ! Mademoiselle Nathalie was to marry Monsieur La Tour. He Avas a little elderly man with a wig, and Mademoiselle laughed at him a great deal.

She was a blithe young thing, was Mademoiselle. Madame was devote, bigote even — natural enough, since she must die soon. But she was odd, very odd ! However, Madame Bocher was not one to gossip, and the lady paid her bills regularly, and Monsieur le Cure came several times a Aveek from Vevay to visit her. Of course, under other circumstances, Madame might wish to be rid of her lodger — nothing hurt a house like having a death happen in it — but Madame's lease of villa and chalet would expire in the spring, and who could be cruel enough to turn out the poor invalid Avhen she had a fancy to stay ? " I hear a carriage," Elizabeth said at last, more to interrupt Madame's torrent of talk than because there was anything extraordinary in the sounds she mentioned. " It is Monsieur La Tour driving away: he stops at the Hotel du Lac, the grand hotel by the landing near Vevay," Madame explained.

Elizabeth went into the salon ; from its windows she could look into a couple of rooms in the front part of the chalet. She saw the young girl who had been walking in the gallery. She had her window open ; the moon lighted her face — a pretty, girlish face. A window of the salon was open too. At some noise Elizabeth made, she looked up, and waved her hand gaily. "Good evening," she said in English, with scarcely a trace of foreign accent. " We are neighbours, you see ; I have been expecting you all day. del, how could you bear to come to this aAA'ful place? Mamma will be in bed in a few minutes; then I am going doAvn to the lake ; don't you Avant to come ? Your papa is in his room with a headache, Madame Bocher told me. She tells more in less time than anybody that ever lived, except me. But I 've not heard your voice yet ; to be sure, I've given you no chance!

Don't speak; meet me under the great Avillow. I want to hear your voice suddenly ; then I shall know if we are to be friends or enemies — do one another good or harm." She was gone, and Elizabeth stood quite confused by this sudden and rapid outburst of talk, delivered half in English, half in French. But it did not weary her as Madame Bocher's monologue had done. There was something bright and piquant, more in the way the words were spoken than in any merit they themselves possessed, which caused Elizabeth hastily to decide that the stranger would prove a pleasant companion. She went dutifully up-stairs to inquire after her father, but neuralgia and memory had been too much for him. He could only kiss her drowsily, grumble a little about Gervais, and turn his head on his pillow. So there was nothing to prevent Elizabeth's accepting the French girl's tryst by the lake.

Margot met her in the hall, and insisted on wrapping a shawl about her. Elizabeth submitted, because that was the quickest Avay to get her liberty. As she passed the great tree which spread its branches out over the lake, and sighed softly to the whispers of the waves, she caught sight of a white-cloaked figure on the bench by the poplar beyond. She remembered the French girl's odd words. Like most young people, Elizabeth Avas fond now and then of yielding to superstitious follies. "Here I am — is it for good or evil?" she called suddenly. The girl sprang to her feet with a sharp cry — started back as if with some wild intention of running aAvay — then niOA'ed forward a few steps, looked full in Elizabeth's face, cried out again, tried to laugh, and ended, to Elizabeth's great discomfiture, by bursting into a flood of hysterical weeping.

" I frightened you ; I beg your pardon! I oughtn't to have come up so quietly," she said in French. " No, no, it is not that ; it is not that ! I was waiting for you ; but it is for no good ! I shall clo you mischief; I knoAV I shall do you mischief." Elizabeth began to laugh. "We Avill not allow the old Breton supersti tion so much weight," said she. "I dare say you are tired to-night." "Yes, mamma was so Avearisome, and Mon sieur La Tour was worse," returned the other, beginning to laugh also. "What a goose I am ! You see it rained yesterday, and I could not get £ut ; and to-day mamma was suffering, and needed me, or thought she did !" " Stopping in the house has made you nervous and excitable," added Elizabeth, kindly. " Yes, that is it," returned the other; but she still gazed earnestly at her new acquaintance, and shivered as if the air had grown chill.

"Why, there is nobody to introduce us," she continued merrily. " Well, I am Nathalie L'Estrange." " And I am Elizabeth Crauford." ' ' Yes, I knoAv ; Madame has told me ; your papa was here long ago." She laughed again. "I beg your pardon, but it seems so droll I Now, I am sure that twenty years hence I shall not go hunting up the places where Monsieur La Tour and I spend our honeymoon. I am to marry Monsieur La Tour ; of course Madame has told you?" " Oh, yes," said Elizabeth, not knowing quite what to say, and wondering if she ought to add some sort of good wish or other polite nothing. "Very soon, too," continued Nathalie, "and he wears a wig ! Mon Dieu ! in the coirvent I always said I would die before I would clo that; but, after all, it is not worth Avhile to die for such a trifle — noAv is it ?"

Elizabeth agreed that it was not^ all the same, the idea of the wig made her shudder. "lam just nineteen," said Nathalie. " How old are you?" " About tAventy." " You are an American. So was my papa, for all he had a French name ; but I never saw him. You must not speak of him to mamma. I have lived all my life in a convent. I only came out to be married. Are you going to marry?'' " I don't knoAv what may happen to me in the future," replied Elizabeth, smiling at the other's childishness; "but I entertain no such intentions at present." " They say American girls choose their OAvn husbands," pursued Nathalie. " Well, I am sure I would not have chosen Monsieur La Tour. But I dare say he will do tolerably well; and I have no dot, so mamma thinks I am very fortunate. The corbeille will come next week ; she says there will be lovely things in it.

But how haA'e you lived and where ?" "We were in Europe a good while when I was little. I was born here," Elizabeth said. " At last we went back to America and lived in the country. When papa and I were left alone, he grew weary of that and we crossed the ocean again. This time avc have been here four years — sometimes in England, but mostly in Italy." "And I only know that horrid convent," sighed Nathalie. " Mamma sent me there when I was a tiny thing. It 's in Paris — the Rue Picpus — where the grave of La Fayette is, in the cemetery back, down beyond the alley of lindens." " Oh, I know it," rejoined Miss Crauford. " Such a still, pretty place !" "A horrible place," said Nathalie; "Avhat the English girls call a beast of a place. But I used to rave over La Fayette, because I was half American, and put on great airs."

" I remember the beautiful linden-tree alley so well, and the bee-hives, and the old lame gardener, and the sisters in their white dresses — " But Nathalie cut Miss Crauford's remini scences short. " You make me shudder! I see it all again, and old Sister Ursule, who used to tyrannize over us. Bless me, anything is better than that — even to marry Monsieur La Tour." Love and marriage Avere sacred subjects to Elizabeth — inseparable too — vague, visionary subjects, which looked very far off, very beautiful, verv solemn. It hurt her somehow to - _> hear her companion speak like that. Yet she had lived in the world enough to know that such talk and ideas, as Nathalie evidently cherished Avere not uncommon among her sex. The French girl had turned abruptly away. She sprang on the low Avail that bordered the lawn like a parapet, and walked up and down in silence, while Elizabeth sat and watched her.

A slight, frail creature, almost giving the idea of delicate health, but the form so wonderfully pliant that it appeared more slender than it really was; loA'ely violet eyes, quantities of golden hair, and a mouth whose smiles were at once childlike and coquettish — - sometimes fairly cruel. Of course all these details were not visible to Miss Crauford in the uncertain light, but the description may as Avell be set down here. She seemed a creature whose nature was not yet half awake, Avhich perhaps lacked force ever to develope into real strength, though so capricious that she would appear to have half a-dozen natures as the years went on. A girl who, with a stronger organization, mental and physical, might have grown into something dangerous as a tigress and cruel as death, sparing neither herself nor others in her reckless course.

But the feline instincts would probably never get beyond the kitten-stage. She might do mischief enough, but it would be from caprice and vanity, not hardened wickedness. She darted off the wall as suddenly as she had mounted it, and came back to Miss Crauford. " I shall love you very much," said she. ' ' Haven't you a pet name — a nickname, as you say in English ?" " Papa calls me Queenie," replied Elizabeth, smiling as one would at the forwardness of a spoiled child. " How delightful ! I shall call you so too — may I, Queenie?" " Oh, yes, if you like." " Reine! That is better yet. You look like a real queen — so stately and — . 0, dear, do you believe you are prettier than I ?" "No," said Elizabeth honestly. She greatly undervalued her own pale, grand beauty, and thought Nathalie's piquant face a thousand times more attractive.

" Well, I am glad of it. I might have hated you if you had been ! " "Just for that?" " Of course ! Why, there are only two things to make one Avoman hate another — if she's more beautiful or a man comes between." vol. i. c Miss Crauford looked contemptuous. " Both odd reasons," said she. " Oh, you evidently know nothing about life, though you have lh'ecl in the Avorld," returned Nathalie sagely. " But ah, my presentiment; I had forgotten that ! " " Then let it go," laughed Elizabeth. "So I will! At all events, it is not now I shall hurt you, and we can keep out of each other's way hereafter. Ay de mi ! (What a lovely Spanish girl we had in the convent!) It 's an odd world, anyhow. Hark, there 's old Susanne calling me. She will wake mamma if I don't go in, and then I shall get a dreadful lecture.

Good night, Queenie — good night, ma reine." Away she ran, and Elizabeth followed in her sober, dignified fashion. So their first meeting ended ; but, unimportant as it seemed, the time was to come when Elizabeth Crauford would look back across the lapse of years and shudder to remember Nathalie's childish mirth and frightened warning.

Chapter II

A CALIFORNIA COURT-ROOM. There is a certain excitement apparent in Moystcrville this morning. The town always possesses life and animation enough, but it shoAvs something more now. A croAvd fills the street leading to the Court House ; groups at shop-doors discourse eagerly ; a subdued, fiery indignation is apparent on all faces, causing one to think of days gone by when Moysterville bore a less pretentious name and presented a A'ery different aspect. Those were daj-s when it boded ill for any offender whose crimes or misdemeanours had roused that look of indignant determi nation, and brought a croAvd toward Shippey's " liquoring place " on the confines of the village. Shippey's place had for some reason been elevated to the dignity of serving as Court room, and there stood in convenient proximity — just a little back toward the ravine — an old oak tree, a gnarled, knotted oak AA'hich had suffered from wind and storm in its babyhood, and grown up with humps on its trunk, and its branches, mis-shapen, and many of them dead, stretched down like gigantic hands in search of prey.

The old tree found prey enough at a period when even peaceable, God-fearing citizens were forced to admit that Judge Lynch's was the only law on which they could depend to save their homes and their town from ruin. But those days are long gone. Shippey's is not; the oak is not; Lock-jaw Corner is not. Here is Moysterville now, broad - streeted, gas -lighted, boasting handsome shops, hotels, theatres, and a fashionable quarter. The town no more remembers the time when it bore the ugly appellation I haA'e set down than a butterfly does its -season of being a grub. A fine, flourishing place is Moysterville ; a A'ery old town (for California) and a rich one — small wonder when it stands within the shadow of the mountains whose hearts are gold, Avith a broad river to help its commerce, and rail ways which connect it with San Francisco and Sacramento.

But this morning, Moysterville, as I said, has a certain repressed indignation about it which reminds more than one of Lock-jaw Corner and Shippey's, and the old oak that used to be called " Luck's End." The truth is, of late Moysterville has been very much annoyed by sundry attempts at garroting, not to mention outbreaks at the gambling-houses and rows in the streets. Now, Moysterville has put all these annoyances to the score of a party of "roughs" from San Francisco, though there has been no possibility of fastening the crimes upon them. But only a few nights since, a woman was arrested for stealing some valuable jeAvels from a man stopping at the hotel where she lodged. Moysterville believes that at her trial there will creep out disclosures which may serve to criminate the rest of the band, for it is a foregone conclusion in the mind of Moysterville that the woman was in league with the San Francisco desperadoes.

It chanced that Court week began forty-eight hours after this woman's arrest, and now, on the third day since its opening, she is to have her trial. So there is a throng in the street, and a dense crowd in the Court-room, waiting with what patience it may until several unimportant cases are disposed of, and Milady is brought into public consideration. Everybody knows that name for her, and no other. During several seasons, there was a noted drinking-house in a bad quarter of San Francisco which bore for sign " Milady's," and this woman ruled over the den and the gambling tables up the tortuous back stairs, where the police so often stumbled. Milady disappeared from her familiar haunts one fine day, and nobody thought about her until it became known that she was the person accused of stealing the diamonds, and that she made her entry into Moysterville at the same time as the gamblers and the garroting attempts, and other disturbances'^ the public peace by which the town had been of late afflicted.

There is another cause of interest afforded by the coming trial which affects even the elegant portion of the community who dwell amid the grandeur of the Court end. The principal wit ness against Milady will be Darrell Vaughan, who has just come into possession of a large fortune by his uncle's death. Though Darrell Vaughan is not a resident of Moysterville, and was never here until a short time before his relative's decease, everybody knows about him, and the Court end has a natural interest in his affairs. Moysterville considers it a most fortunate thing that old Mr. Vaughan died here, and that his nephew came to catch his last sigh and inherit his fortune, because it has been through the young man's assistance that Milady was en trapped. Pious people call it a "providential circumstance," and even those who are not pious feel a sense of obligation towards Darrell Vaughan, since they hope that in the course of Milady's trial there may come out damning evidence against those men who have so lightly disregarded Moysterville's power.

The last trifling case ends ; there is a sudden hush in the court. Even judge and jury look with undisguised interest towards the door, through which a brace of constables lead, or rather force, a veiled woman, aa'Iio obstinately hangs back, and is not to be induced to take her proper position by any gentle means. The preliminaries are' gone through ; the woman sits crouched on the bench where she was placed, huddled together in an odd fashion, Avhich somehow suggests a wild animal about to spring. But she neA'er stirs ; does not even move her hands, which lie crossed in her lap — small white hands, too, though disfigured by sundry scratches and red marks, the result of the struggle wherein she indulged when tlie officers arrested her. She is ordered to put up her A'cil, but she pays no attention.