Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  “Decidedly so, I should say,” assented Ghisleri. “You are all descended from him, I suppose.”

  “Yes, he took care that we should be, by killing all the other branches of the family. Those hollows in the stone are supposed to have been made by his footsteps. Think what a walk! It lasted eighteen years. But it is an airy place and not damp. Those windows were there then, they say. Do you see that deep channel in the wall? It leads straight up through the castle to the floor of the little passage between the old guard-room and one of the towers. There used to be a trap-door — it was still there when I was a little girl, but my father has had a slab of stone put down instead. They used to entice their dearest and most familiar enemies up there, and just as the man set foot on the board a soldier in the tower pulled a bolt in the wall and the trap-door fell. It is two hundred feet, they say. It was so cleverly managed! They say that the last person who came to grief there was a Monsignor Boccapaduli in the year sixteen hundred and something, but no one ever knew what had become of him until the next generation.”

  Familiar from her childhood with every corner of the vast building, she led Ghisleri through one portion after another, telling such of the tales of horror as she remembered. Little by little they worked their way to the upper regions. In the guard-room, a vast hall which would have made a good-sized church, she showed him the great slab of stone the Prince had substituted for the wooden trap-door of former days, and which had merely been placed over the yawning chasm without plaster or cement, its own weight being enough to keep it in position. They passed over it and ascended the stairs in the tower, emerging at last into the bright sunshine upon one of the highest battlements. They sat down side by side on a stone bench.

  “It is pleasanter here,” said Adele. “There is a sort of attraction about those dreadful old places down below, because one never quite realises all the things that happened there, and it is rather like an old-fashioned novel, all full of murder and sudden death. But the sunshine is much nicer, is it not? Shall we stay up here till it is time for breakfast?”

  “By all means. It is a delightful place for a good talk.” Ghisleri was tired, and glad to sit down.

  “Then you must talk to me,” continued his companion. “Between the stairs and playing guide, I have no voice left. What will you talk about? Tell me all about your own castle. They say it is very interesting. I wish I could see it!”

  “After Gerano it would seem very tame to you. It is mostly in ruins, and what there is left of it is very much the worse for wear. I would not advise you to take the trouble to stop, even if you should ever pass near it.”

  “That is a way you have of depreciating everything connected with yourself,” said Adele. “Why do you do it?”

  “Do I?” asked Ghisleri, carelessly. “I suppose I have the idea that it is better to let people be agreeably surprised, if there is to be any surprise at all. When you have heard that a man is insufferable, if he turns out barely tolerable you think him nice.”

  “Then it is mere pose on your part, with the deliberate intention of producing an effect?”

  “Probably — mere pose.” Ghisleri laughed; he looked at the woman at his side and wondered whether he could ever find out the truth about Arden’s death, and the connexion with it which, as he believed, she must have had.

  She, on her part, did not even guess that he suspected her. The thought had crossed her mind on the previous afternoon, but she had very soon dismissed it. She found relief and change from the monotonous suffering of the past days in talking to him, and she tried to enjoy what she could without allowing her mind to wander back to its chief preoccupation. Ghisleri was very careful not to rouse her suspicion by any accidental reference to what filled his thoughts as much as it did her own, and they spent more than half an hour in aimless and more or less amusing conversation.

  Gerano did not offer any very great variety of amusement. After breakfast, there was the usual interval for smoking and coffee, and after that the usual drive of two or three hours in the hills. Then, tea and small talk, the dressing hour, the arrival of the post with the morning papers from Rome, dinner, more smoking, and more conversation, and bed-time was reached. It was not gay, and when he retired for the night Ghisleri was beginning to wonder how long he could endure the ordeal with equanimity. He was not generally a man very easily bored, and the reasons which had brought him to Gerano were strong enough in themselves to make him ready to sacrifice a good deal, but he realised that he was not making any advance in the direction of discovering the secret. He had learned more in the first few hours of his stay than he had learned since, and so far as he could see, he was not likely to find out anything more. He had noticed, too, the improvement in Adele’s appearance on that day. It was possible that she had already acted upon the general advice he had given her, and that she had insured the silence of the person she dreaded, if any such person existed. But it was equally possible that no one knew what she had done, and that she had not meant anything by the question.

  The third day passed like the second, and the fourth began without promising any change. Adele appeared as usual at eleven o’clock and spent an hour with Ghisleri. They were becoming more intimate by this time than they had ever been before during their long acquaintance, and Adele flattered herself that she had made an impression. Ghisleri would not forget the hospitality she had offered him, and next year would be more often seen in the circle of her admirers. She even imagined that he might fall into a sort of mild and harmless flirtation, if she knew how to manage him.

  A little before the hour for breakfast she went to her room. Lucia was there, as usual, waiting in case she should be needed. As she retouched Adele’s hair, and gave a final twist with the curling tongs to the ringlets at the back of her mistress’s neck, she began to speak in a low voice and in a somewhat hurried manner.

  “I have found out who took the letter, Excellency,” she said. “It is in a safe place and no one else has seen it. The person will give it to me at once if the reward is large enough.”

  Adele’s eyes sparkled, and a little colour rose in her cheeks. Lucia watched the reflection of her face in the mirror.

  “How much does she ask?” she inquired, without hesitation, and with a certain business-like sharpness in her tone.

  There was a moment’s pause, as Lucia withdrew the tongs from the little curl.

  “She asks five thousand francs,” she said, in some trepidation, for she had hardly ever in her life even spoken of so large a sum.

  “That is a great deal,” answered Adele, pretending to be surprised, while doing her best to conceal her satisfaction. “I have not so much money out here; indeed, Don Francesco has not either. She must wait until we go to Rome.”

  “A year, if your Excellency pleases,” said the maid, blowing scent upon a transparent handkerchief from an atomizer.

  “In the meanwhile I should like to have the letter. I suppose she would accept my promise — written, if she requires it?”

  “Of course she would, and she would give me the papers at once — or instead of a promise, I have no doubt she would be perfectly satisfied with a bit of jewelry as a pledge.”

  “That would be simpler,” said Adele, coldly. She could not but be astonished at the woman’s cool effrontery, though it was impossible to refuse anything she asked. “I will give you a diamond for her to keep as a pledge,” she added, “but I want the letter this afternoon.”

  “Yes, Excellency.”

  During the midday meal Adele was by turns absent and then very gay. She seemed restless and uneasy during the coffee and cigarette stage of the afternoon. Ghisleri watched her with curiosity. Fully half an hour earlier than usual she went to her room to get ready for the regulation drive.

  Lucia was waiting for her, pale as death and evidently in a state of the greatest agitation. Without a word Adele unlocked her jewel case, took out a little morocco covered box, opened it, and glanced at a pair of diamond ear-rings it contained, shut
it again and held it out to Lucia. To her surprise the woman drew back, clearly in great terror, and trying to get behind the long toilet table as though in fear of bodily harm.

  “What is the matter?” asked Adele, in surprise. “Where is the letter? Why do you not give it to me?”

  “A great misfortune has happened,” gasped Lucia, hardly able to speak. “I cannot get it from the person.”

  “What!” Adele’s voice rang through the room. “Do you want more money now? What is this comedy?”

  “The letter is not there — I — she does not know where it is. It is lost — Excellency—”

  “Lost? Where did you hide it?”

  Lucia was almost too frightened by this time to tell connectedly what had happened, but Adele understood before long that the maid had looked about for a safe place in which to hide the precious document, and had at last decided to slip it under the great slab of stone which has been already mentioned as covering the opening of the oubliette between the guard-room and the tower. Lucia had found that on one side, owing to the irregularity of the old pavement, there was room to lay the folded papers, and that she could just slip her hand in so as to withdraw them again. She was, of course, quite ignorant that the stone covered a well of which the shaft penetrated to the lowest foundation of the castle, and that one touch of her hand, or a gust of wind, was enough to send the light sheets over the edge close to which she had unwittingly placed them. Adele still pretended to be angry, but she drew a long breath of relief. She knew the exact spot at which to look for what she wanted. She locked up her diamonds again, scolding Lucia for her carelessness all the time, and doing her best to be very severe. Lucia bore all that was said to her very meekly, for she had expected far worse. In her opinion some one had accidentally discovered the letter, and taken it, and would make capital out of it as she had meant to do. Her disappointment was as great, as the sum of five thousand francs had seemed to her enormous, but her fear soon vanished when she saw that Adele had no intention of doing her any bodily injury, nor, apparently, of dismissing her again. That the papers were really gone from the place of concealment she knew beyond a doubt. She had lit a taper in her effort to find them, and had thrust it under the slab, bending low and looking into the crevice. Nothing white of any sort had been visible.

  Adele dressed herself for going out and left the room. But instead of joining her husband and Ghisleri at once, she turned out of the main passage by the cross corridor which led to the court-yard, went out and walked quickly down the inclined road by which she had led Ghisleri to Paolo Braccio’s dungeon. There, where the shaft of the oubliette came down, she was quite sure of finding the little package of sheets which meant so much to her and which had almost meant a fortune to Lucia. She crossed the worn pavement rapidly. There was plenty of light from the grated windows high up under the vault, and she could have seen the paper almost as soon as she entered the place. She stopped short as she reached the foot of the channel in the wall. There was nothing there. She stared up into the blackness above in the hope of seeing a white thing caught and sticking to the stones, but she could not distinguish the faintest reflection of anything. Yet she was convinced that the thing must have fallen all the way. The shaft, as she well knew, was quite perpendicular and the masonry compact and well finished. The object of those who had built it had been precisely to prevent the possibility of the victim catching on a projection of any sort while falling.

  Adele turned pale and leaned against the wall, breathing hard. If Lucia had acted differently she might have been suspected of having told a falsehood, and of keeping the letter back in order to extort a larger sum for it at some future time. But Lucia had evidently been frightened. Moreover, the woman was undoubtedly ignorant of the existence of the well under the stone, or, she would never have been so foolish as to choose such a place for hiding anything so valuable, and it was clear that she had no idea of the manner in which the package had disappeared. That it must have reached the bottom, Adele was quite sure. In that case some one had been in the dungeon before her and had picked it up, but who the some one might be she had no means of conjecturing.

  She hardly knew how she reached the court-yard again. It cost her a superhuman effort to walk. In the passage she met her husband.

  “What is the matter?” he asked, as soon as he saw her face.

  “I feel very ill — I wanted to breathe the air.” She seemed to be gasping for breath.

  Francesco drew her arm through his and walked with her to her room. She was clearly not in a state in which she could think of going out.

  Savelli went back and explained to Ghisleri, who, if anything, was glad to escape from the monotonous drive. He got a book and shut himself up in his room to read. That evening Savelli told him that Adele was worse, and was in a state of indescribable nervous agitation. It was clearly his duty to go away, if Adele were about to be seriously ill, and he told Bonifazio to pack his things that night. If matters did not improve, he would leave on the following morning.

  Though Francesco was not much affected by his wife’s sufferings, the dinner was anything but brilliant, for he anticipated a renewal of all the annoyance of the first few days. Moreover, if Adele was liable to sudden relapses of this kind at any moment, and without the smallest reason or warning, his life would, before long, be made a burden to him. As the husband of a permanent invalid he could hope for very little liberty or amusement. A wife may go into the world without her husband, because he is supposed to be occupied with more important affairs, but a husband who frequents parties when his wife is constantly suffering, is considered heartless in the extreme. That, at least, is society’s view of the mutual obligation, and if it is not the just one, it is at least founded upon the theory of woman’s convenience, as most of society’s views are.

  Francesco was easily prevailed upon to give Adele an increased dose of chloral, in the hope that she might sleep, and consequently give him less trouble on the next day. But in this conclusion he was mistaken. She awoke in great pain, suffering, she said, from a violent headache, and so nervous that her hand trembled violently and she was hardly able to lift a cup to her lips when the nurse brought her tea. Savelli did not attempt to keep Ghisleri when the latter announced his intention of returning to town, though he pressed him to come out again, as soon as Adele should be better. The man who drove Pietro back was instructed to bring the doctor out to Gerano, with fresh horses, and especially not to forget five hundred cigarettes which Francesco wanted for himself.

  Ghisleri left many messages for Adele, and departed with Bonifazio, very little wiser than when he had arrived, but considerably more curious.

  CHAPTER XX.

  IT WAS A relief to be with Laura Arden again for an hour on the day after his return, as Ghisleri felt when he was installed beside her in the chair which had come to be regarded as his. She received him just as usual, and he saw at once that if she had at all resented his visit to Adele, she was not by any means inclined to let him know it. There was a freshness and purity in the atmosphere that surrounded her which especially appealed to him after his visit to Gerano. Whatever she said she meant, and if she meant anything she took no trouble to hide it. He compared her face with her step-sister’s, and the jaded, prematurely world-worn look of the one threw the calm beauty of the other into strong relief. He felt no pity for Adele. What she was, she had made herself, and if she suffered, it was as the direct and inevitable consequence of the life she had led and of the things she had done. So, at least, it seemed to him, and if he could have known the whole truth at that time, he would have seen how right he was. The ruthless logic of cause and effect had got Adele into its will and was slowly grinding her whole existence to dust.

  “It is strange,” he said to Laura, “that you and your step-sister should be so unlike in every way. It is true that you are not related, but you were brought up in the same house, by the same people, and yet I do not believe you have a single idea in common.”

  �
�No,” answered Laura, “we have not. We do not like the same persons, nor the same things, nor the same thoughts. We were made to be enemies — and I suppose we are.”

  It was the first time she had ever said so much to him, and even now there was no rancour in her tone.

  “If all enemies were like you, at least, this would be a very peaceful world.”

  “You do not know me,” answered Laura, with a smile. “I have a bad temper. I could tell you something about it. I once felt as though I would like to strangle a certain person, and as though I could do it. Do not imagine that I am all saint and no sinner.”

  “I like to imagine all sorts of nice things about you,” said Ghisleri. “But I could never make them nice enough.”

  “That is just it. It would need an enormous imagination.”

  “But I am not sure that I should like to think of you as being on very good terms with Donna Adele, and I am almost glad to hear you admit that you are enemies. There is a satisfaction in knowing that you are human, as well as in believing you to be good.”

  “How is Adele?” Laura asked.

  “The last I heard was that she was much worse. She behaves in the most unaccountable way. She has the look of a woman in some very great mental distress — pursued and haunted by something very painful from which she cannot escape.”

  “I had the same feeling about her the last time I saw her. I know that look very well. I have seen it in your face, sometimes, as well as in hers.”

  “In mine?” Ghisleri looked keenly at her, as though to ascertain whether she meant more than she said, for the first time in his acquaintance with her. “When did I ever show you that I was in trouble?” he asked.