To put myself more on a level with fraud, and stealth, and mystery, I
did a thing for which I felt guilty to myself and my mother. I changed
my name. But, in spite of Inspector Cutting, I did not travel out of
the family. My father’s second name was "Valentine," taken from his
mother. This name I assumed in a shorter form, becoming "Clara
Valence;" it saved change of initials and a world of trouble, and I felt
warmer in it, because it seemed to have been my father’s. In the
neighbourhood I knew no one except Mrs. Elton, to whom (as I grew
intimate with her) I partly explained my reasons. As for Mrs. Shelfer,
she was delighted at the change. She said that her Uncle John had
christened me, that it sounded much prettier, and would always remind
her of Valentines. Nevertheless I longed for the day when I might call
myself "Clara Vaughan" once more.
By the time I was able to go about freely again and use my hand as of
old, it was the middle of November. The first use I made of my pencil
was to copy most carefully all that Inspector Cutting required. He
promised to keep these drawings, and indeed the whole matter, most
jealously to himself; by which term he meant, as I afterwards found,
Inspector Cutting and those to whom he was bound to report.
What I now wanted was money, to send an adroit inquirer throughout the
North of Italy, and other parts where my guardian’s shifting abode had
been. I knew that he dwelt awhile at Pisa, Genoa, and Milan, also at an
obscure little village named "Calva," which I could not find in the
maps. All I had learned of his rovings was from the lessons my father
would give me sometimes, when he used to say, "Now, Tooty, put your
finger on Uncle Edgar." To every one, but myself, it seemed a strange
thing that after so many wanderings, Mr. Edgar Vaughan had brought no
valet, major domo, or courier, no dependant or retainer of any kind, and
not even a foreign friend to England, or at any rate to Vaughan Park.
But now for the needful resources--the only chance of procuring them lay
in my young and partly self-tutored art. I braced myself with the
remembrance, that while none of my family ever laid claim to genius, the
limner’s faculty had never been wanting among them. Inferior gifts are
often as heirlooms in the blood, though high original power follows no
vein except its own. The latter none of us ever possessed; but taste
and the knack of adaptation had seldom been alienated. Observation too,
in a small way, and the love of nature seemed inborn in us all. My
father’s drawings were perfect, but for the one thing wanted; and in
sketches from outdoor nature that want was less perceived. My
grandfather had been known among the few amateurs of the day as a
skilful colourist. As to habits of observation, a little tale handed
down in our family will show that they had existed in one of its members
seven generations ago.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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