Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  Don Teodoro was a long time alone with Gianluca. Whatever reasons he had of his own for not wishing to comply with Taquisara’s request, he overcame them and faithfully carried out the mission imposed upon him. In itself it was no very hard one. Gianluca was a religious man, as Taquisara had said that he was, and he knew that he was very ill, though he did not believe himself to be dying. With his character and in his condition, he was glad to talk seriously with such a man as Don Teodoro, and then to lay before him the account of his few shortcomings according to the practice of his belief.

  The old priest came out at last, grave and bent, and, going through the rooms, he came upon Veronica standing alone where Taquisara had left her. She did not know how long she had stood there, waiting for him. He paused before her, and her eyes questioned him.

  “He wishes to see you,” he said simply.

  “How is he?” He had not understood her unspoken question. “How is he?” she repeated, as he hesitated a moment.

  “To me he seems no worse. He says that he feels better to-day. But there is something, some change — something, I cannot tell what it is, since I last saw him.”

  “Stay here — please stay in the house!” said Veronica. “He may need you.”

  While she was speaking she had gone to the door, and she went out without looking back. A moment later, she was by Gianluca’s side. She saw that what Don Teodoro had said was true. There was an undefinable change in his features since the previous day, and at the first sight of it her heart stood still an instant and the blood left her face, so that she felt very cold. She kept her back to the light, that he might not see that she was disturbed, and while she asked him how he was, her hands touched, and displaced, and replaced the little objects on the small table beside him, — the book, the glass, the flowers in the silver cup, the silver cigarette case, the things which, being quite helpless, he liked to have within his reach.

  “I really feel better to-day,” he said, watching her lovingly, as he answered her question. “I wish I could go out.”

  “You can be carried out upon the balcony in a little while,” she said. “It is too cool, yet. It was a cold night, for we are getting near the end of August.”

  “And in Naples they are sweltering in the heat,” he answered, smiling. “It is beautiful here. I can see the mountains through the open window, and the flowers tell me what the hillsides are like, in the sunshine. Taquisara says that your maid brings them every morning. Thank you — of course it is one of your endless kind doings.”

  “No,” replied Veronica, frankly. “It is her way of showing her devotion, poor thing! Everybody loves you in the house — even the people who have hardly ever seen you. The women, speak of you as ‘that angel’!” She tried to laugh cheerfully.

  “I am glad they like me, though I have done nothing to be liked by them.

  Please thank your maid for me. It is very kind of her.”

  There was a little disappointment in his voice; for he had been happy in believing that Veronica sent the flowers herself, not because he needed coin of kindness to prove her wealth of friendship, but because whatever small thing came from her hand had so much more value for him than the greatest and most that any one else could give.

  She sat down beside him, and endeavoured to talk as though she were quite unconcerned. She tried not to look at his face, upon which it seemed to her that death was already fixing the last mask of life’s comedy. It was the more terrible, because he was so quiet and so sure of life that morning, so convinced that he was better, so almost certain that he should get well.

  It seemed an awful thing to sit there, talking against death; but she did her best not to think, and only to talk and talk on, and make him believe that she was cheerful, while, in a kind way, she kept him from coming back to within a phrase’s length of his love for her. It was hard for him, too, to make any effort. The doctor had said so. And all the time, she fancied that his features became by degrees less mobile, and that the transparent pallor so long familiar to her was turning to another hue, grey and stony, which she had never seen.

  Suddenly, while she was speaking of some indifferent thing, his eyelids closed and twitched, and his hand went out towards hers, almost spasmodically. She caught it and held it, bending far forward, and again her heart stood still till she missed its beating.

  “What is it?” she asked, staring into his face, and already half wild with fear.

  He could shake his head feebly, but for a moment he could not speak. With one of her hands she still held his, and with the other she pressed his brow. He smiled, as in a spasm, and then his face was a little distorted. She felt his life slipping from her, under her very touch, as though it were her fault because she would not hold it and keep it for him.

  “Gianluca!” she cried, repeating his name in an agonized tone.

  “Gianluca! You must not die! I am here—”

  He opened his eyes, and the faint smile came back, but without a spasm this time.

  “It was a little pain,” he said. “I am sorry — it frightened you.”

  “Thank God!” she exclaimed, still bending over him. “Oh — I thought you were gone!”

  “Your voice — would bring me back — Veronica,” he said, with many little efforts, word by word, but with life in his face.

  She moved, and held the glass to his lips. Bravely he lifted his hand, and tried to hold it himself. He drank a little of the stimulant, and then his pale head sank back, with the short, fair hair about his forehead, like a glory.

  “Ah yes!” he said, speaking more easily, a moment later. “Death could never be so near but that you might stand between him and me — if you would,” he added, so softly that the three words just reached her ears, as the far echo of sad music, full of beseeching tenderness.

  Still she held his hand, and gazed down into his face. They had told her long ago that he was dying of love for her. In that moment she believed it true. He seemed to tell her so, to be telling it with his last breath. And each breath might be the last. Science could not save him. Physicians disagreed — the great authority himself could not say whether he was to live or die. He fainted, fell back, seemed dead already, and her voice and touch brought him to life, happy for an instant, hoping still and living only by the beating of hope’s wings. And with all that, though she did not love him, he was to her the dearest of all living beings. Holding his hand still, she looked upward, as though to be alone with herself for one breathing space. But as she stood there, she pressed his fingers little by little more tightly, not knowing what she did, so that he wondered.

  Then she bent down again, and steadily gazed into the upturned blue eyes, and once more smoothed away the fair hair from the pallid brow.

  “Do you wish it very much?” she asked simply.

  Half paralyzed though he was, he started, and the light that came suddenly to his face, wavered and sank and rose once more. She seemed to hear his words again, saying that she could stand between death and him, were death ever so near.

  “You?” he faltered. “Wish for you? Ah God! Veronica—” his face grew dead again. “No — no — I did not understand—”

  “But I mean it!” she said, in desperate, low tones, for she thought he was sinking back. “I will marry you, Gianluca! I will, dear — I will — I am in earnest!”

  Slowly his eyes opened again and looked at her, wide, startled, and half blind with joy. So the leader looks who, stunned to death between the door-posts of the hard-won gate, wakes unhurt to life in the tide of the victory he led, and hears the strong music of triumph, and the huge shout of brave men whose bursting throats cry out his name for very glory’s sake, their own and his.

  Gianluca’s eyes opened, and with sudden pressure he grasped the hand that had so long held his, believing because he held it and felt the flesh and blood and the warmth in his own shadowy hold.

  “Veronica — love!” She would not have thought that he could press her fingers so hard, weak as he was.<
br />
  The word smote her, even then, with a small icy chill, and though she smiled, there was a shadow in her face. Again he doubted.

  “Veronica — for the love of God — you are not deceiving me, to save my life?” The vision of despair rose in his eyes.

  “Deceive you? I?” she cried, with sudden energy. “Indeed, indeed, I mean it, as I said it.”

  “Yes — but — but if, to-morrow—” Again his voice was failing, and she was hand to hand with death, for him.

  “No! There shall be no to-morrow for that — it shall be now!”

  “Now? To-day? Now?”

  He seemed to rise and sink, and sink and rise again, on the low-surging waves of his life’s ebbing tide.

  “Yes — now!” she answered. “This moment Don Teodoro is in the house — I will call him — let me go for a moment — only one moment!”

  “No — no! Do not leave me!” He clung frantically to her hand. “But — yes — call him — call him! And Taquisara. He is my friend — Oh! It kills me to let you go!”

  It was indeed the very supreme moment. The great burst of happiness had almost killed him, and he was like a child, not knowing what he wanted. Still he clutched her hand. A quick thought crossed her mind. She had gone to the window for a moment, to fasten it back, and had seen Taquisara walking under the vines. He might be there.

  “Let me go to the window,” she said, regaining her self-possession.

  “Taquisara may be on the bastion — I saw him there. He will call Don

  Teodoro, and I shall not have to leave you.”

  Any reasoning which kept her by his side was divinely good. Her words calmed him a little, and his hands gradually loosened themselves. But as she turned quickly, he uttered a very low cry, and tried to catch her skirt. She did not hear him. She was already speaking from the window; for the Sicilian was still there, walking up and down, as he had done for more than an hour. She called to him. He started, and looked up through the broad leaves.

  “Get Don Teodoro at once, and bring him,” she cried. “He is in the house — somewhere.”

  Taquisara thought that Gianluca was dying, and neither paused nor answered, as he disappeared within.

  Veronica came back instantly. She had not been gone thirty seconds, but already the sick man’s face was grey again, though his eyes were wide and staring. His head had fallen to one side, on the brown silk cushion, in his last attempt to reach her. With both hands, she raised him a little, so that he lay straight again.

  “They are coming — they are coming, dear one!” she repeated. “Live, live!

  Gianluca — live, for me!”

  In her agony of fighting for his life, she pushed his hair back, and pressed her lips in one long kiss upon his forehead. A shiver ran through him, and the sense came back to his eyes. But though she held his hand, there was no more strength in it to grasp hers. He sighed the words she heard.

  “Love — is it you? Veronica — love — life! Ah, Christ!”

  And his lids closed again. The door opened, and was shut, and Veronica half turned her head to see, but she brought her face tenderly nearer to his, as though to let him know that it was for his sake she looked away. Don Teodoro and Taquisara were both in the room. Even before she spoke, she had changed her hold upon Gianluca’s fingers, and held his right hand in hers, as those hold hands who are to be wedded.

  “Bless us!” she said to the priest. “This is our marriage! Say the words — quickly!”

  Taquisara’s face was livid, for he had as much of instant death in him as the dying man, though he could not die. But he did not fail. He came and knelt on the other side of the couch, away from Veronica. The priest stood at the foot, in pale hesitation. Veronica’s eyes commanded.

  “Speak quickly!” she said. “I will marry him — I have said it!

  Gianluca — say it — say that you will marry me!”

  Holding his right hand, with her left thrust under his pillow she lifted him so that he sat almost upright. It needed all her strength, and she was very desperate for him.

  “Volo!” The one word floated on the air, breathed, not spoken, and dead silence followed.

  Again Veronica turned to Don Teodoro.

  “Say the words. I command you! I have the right — I am free!”

  The priest’s face was white now. He stretched out his arms, lifting his eyes upwards.

  A worse change was in Gianluca’s face before Don Teodoro had spoken the words he had to say. Taquisara saw it. Both he and Veronica bent over the motionless head. Still Veronica held the cold hand in hers. Taquisara knew that in another instant the priest would speak. Gently, with womanly tenderness, though his soul was on the wheel of anguish, he took Veronica’s right hand and loosed it, and Gianluca’s fell cold and motionless from her fingers.

  “He is gone,” he whispered, close to her ear, and he held her right hand firmly, in his horror at the thought that she might be wedded to a man already dead.

  Veronica made a slight effort of instinct, to loose his hold and to take the hand that had fallen from hers. But it was only instinctive and hardly conscious at all. Her eyes were on Gianluca’s face, and the blackness of a vast grief already darkened her soul.

  There was but an instant. The tall old priest, with eyes lifted heavenwards, neither saw nor heard.

  “Ego conjungo vos—” He said all the words, and then, high in air, he made the great sign of the cross. “Benedictas vos omnipotens Deus—” and he spoke all the benediction.

  He closed his eyes a moment in instant prayer. When he opened them and looked down, his face turned whiter still. On each side, before him, knelt the living, Veronica and Taquisara, their hands clasped and wedded, as they had been when he had spoken the high sacramental words, and between them, white, motionless, the halo of his fair hair about his marble brow, lay Gianluca della Spina, like an angel dead on earth.

  “Merciful Lord! What have I done!” cried the priest.

  At the sound of his voice Taquisara turned quickly. But Veronica did not hear. The Sicilian saw where Don Teodoro’s starting eyes were fixed, and he understood, and his own blood shrieked in his ears, for he was married to Veronica Serra. Married — half married, wholly married, married truly or falsely, by the sudden leap of violent chance — but a marriage it was, of some sort. Both he and the priest knew that, and that it must be a voice of more authority than Don Teodoro’s which could say that it was no marriage. For the Church’s forms of office, that are necessary, are few and very simple, but they mean much, and what is done by them is not easily undone. But Veronica neither saw nor heard.

  CHAPTER XXVI.

  “I think — I assure you that nobody knows anything — but I think that Don

  Gianluca will improve rapidly after this crisis.”

  That was the opinion of the great doctor, when he had seen the patient on the afternoon of that memorable day. For Veronica, Taquisara, and Don Teodoro had all three been mistaken when they had thought that Gianluca was dead. As the doctor said, there had been a crisis, an inward convulsion of the nerves, a fainting which had been almost a catalepsy, and, several hours later, a return to consciousness with a greatly increased chance of life, though with extreme momentary exhaustion.

  It was Taquisara who went to find the doctor, leaving Veronica on her knees, while Don Teodoro stood motionless at the foot of the couch, his hands gripping each other till his nails cut the flesh, his grotesque face invested for the moment with an almost sublime horror of what he had unwittingly done.

  And then had come the physician’s systematic and painful search for life, his doubts, his hopes, his suspicions, his increasing hope again, his certainty at last that all was not over — and then the necessity for instantly carrying out his orders, the getting of all things needed for the sick man snatched out of death, and all the confusion that rises when the whole being of a great household must exert its utmost strength in one direction, to save one life.

  Amidst it all, too,
the helpless father and mother ran about tearful, incoherent, wringing their hands, believing no one and yet believing the impossible, praying, crying, talking, hindering everything in their supreme parents’ right to be in the way and nearest to what they loved best — hysterical with joy, both of them, at the end, when the physician said that Gianluca was to live, and was not dead as they had thought him, and wildly, pathetically, insanely grateful to Veronica.

  “I saw that he was dying,” she told them simply, when he was out of danger. “I sent for Don Teodoro, and we were married.”

  They fell upon her neck, the old man and the prematurely old woman, kissing her, pressing her in their arms, crying over her, not knowing what they did.

  When he saw that she was telling them, Taquisara went away from them to his own room and stayed there some time. And Don Teodoro also went home, and for the second time on that day he bolted his battered door and made sure that he was alone. But he did not sit at his table playing with his spectacles, as in the morning. He knelt in a corner, against one of his rough bookcases, bowed to the ground as though a mountain had come upon him unawares, and now and then he beat his forehead against the parchment bindings of his favourite folio Muratori, as certain wild beasts crouch on their knees and with a swinging of slow despair strike their heads against the bars of their cage many times in succession.