AT SALVANETRA.
Terence Devlin, who had charge of the Batistelli grounds, was an early
riser, as all conscientious gardeners should be. Smoking his pipe, with
his spade resting upon his shoulder, he stood regarding an old withered
tree.
“Not wan drap av rain finds its way to the roots av this ould giant
tree. I do believe it’s full nine hundred years ould.”
“Terence!”
The gardener turned when he heard his name called, and saw his wife,
Snodine, running towards him; if the movement of a woman weighing nearly
three hundred pounds could be called running.
“What the divil’s the matter?” was the husband-like salutation which
greeted her when she met him.
As soon as she could speak, Snodine said: “I’ve been up to the castle,
an’ sure it’s bad off they be up there. Young Master Julien is as dead
as was Father Francis when they took him out of the river where he’d
been slapin’ for a wake, and the Blessed Virgin prasarve us, it’s now
goin’ on two days since the poor mad craythur was taken away. Pray
Heaven the docthors may cure her, for a swater lady niver walked the
earth.”
“Ah, Snodine, it’s a broken heart she has--and whin they tell her the
Count is dead----”
“An’ do ye think they’ll tell her that same? Sure, they’d not be such a
pack o’ fools.”
“‘Twas hard enough to lose the brother, poor lad! But the swateheart,
Snodine; and they to be marrit so soon, too. Oh, Lord help the poor mad
lady! She loved the Count dearly, they tell me. An’ whin is the wake to
be for the poor lad, Snodine?”
“To-morrow night. He’ll have been dead two days thin.”
“It’s hard for the livin’ brother. An’ how does he bear it, Snodine?”
“As he does everything else. Divil a tear, Clarine tould me.”
“Well, it’s hard to understand the loikes of him.”
“It’s right ye are,” said Snodine. “Niver a tear for the poor mad
sister, nor even a wan for the dead brother have he shed yet.”
“Just you wait, me darlint, ’til the kayner strikes up the mournin’.
It’s many a dry eye I’ve seen over the dead ’til the kayners opened the
heart, and thin, faith, the tears came fast enough.”
“It’s a hard world, indade--a botherin’ world,” said Snodine, wiping her
eyes, sympathetically, with the back of her hand, although there were no
tears in them.
“I’m thinkin’ that now,” said Terence. “Now yer go back, and mind the
childer and don’t be afther botherin’ me whin it’s workin’ I am.”
With these lover-like words Terence again shouldered his spade and
walked off towards the maple grove, while Snodine made her way homeward
to extend her motherly care to her family of nine, which, when stood in
a row according to age, made one think of a flight of stairs.
* * * * *
And what of the mad lady?
Vivienne was borne from the castle in a deep swoon. The events of the
evening had been too much for her frail, nervous organisation, and she
had succumbed. She was placed in a close carriage, and Dr. Procida took
a seat beside her. They were driven rapidly to Salvanetra. The doctor
wet Vivienne’s lips with brandy, which, together with the cool evening
air, that blew in through the open carriage window, soon revived her;
but she did not speak. When they reached the doctor’s house she was too
much exhausted to walk. He called two of his attendants, and she was
borne into the house and placed upon a bed in one of the rooms. A nurse
was sent to attend her, but she refused her ministrations and was
finally left alone. A single candle upon the table gave a flickering
light, and filled the room with strange shadows. She heard the bolt slip
into place and knew that she was not only a patient but a prisoner.
She passed the most terrible night in her young life. Picture after
picture came before her eyes, though she shut them tightly, hoping to
escape the phantoms. One by one they followed each other--her friends,
with a wreath of roses emblematic of her age--then the music, and
singing, and dancing--next, the arrival of Victor and the pleasant
conversation they had had at the supper table. So far all was joy and
gladness. Then came visions of gloom and misery; the attack upon
Victor--his valiant defence--the death of the Count and her brother
Julien--the discovery that Victor was Vandemar, the son of the man who
had murdered her father--Vandemar in the dungeon chamber, where he must
die from starvation unless she could escape and rescue him--her own
terrible position, shut off from communication with her friends, on the
supposition that she was mad. Could she live through it and not grow mad
in reality?
She arose from her bed, took up the sputtering candle, which had burned
low, and made a tour of the room--floor and walls of stone, impregnable
to any strength which she could exert--windows small, high from ground,
and guarded by heavy iron bars--the door of oaken timber, thickly
studded with bosses of iron. From such a prison there could be no
escape. Strong men might attempt it, but there was no hope for one so
physically weak as she. Vandemar in his dungeon chamber was not more
completely isolated from the world. She threw herself upon the bed, and
the nurse found her there the next morning, sleeping the sleep which
kindly comes to save the worn-out mind and body when their limit of
resistance has been reached.
* * * * *
The body of Count Mont d’Oro had been taken to his mother’s house and,
on the second day after the double tragedy, the remains of Julien
Batistelli were placed in the crypt beneath the castle, and those of
Count Mont d’Oro, followed by his mother, Miss Renville, and a few
friends, were deposited beside the body of his father in the little
burying-ground used by the gentry of Alfieri and vicinity.
The night after the funeral, Bertha Renville wrote a long letter to
Jennie Glynne. She recounted, in detail, the terrible scenes through
which she had passed, and expressed the hope that something would occur
to take her away from the terrible place.
“I know that my guardian and Jack,” she had written, “both came to
Corsica, but I have not seen them. Perhaps they have met and, in the
heat of passion, have fought. It may be that either Jack or Mr. Glynne
is dead, and sometimes the horrible thought comes to me that their last
meeting ended in the death of both. I am filled with a dread which I
cannot express. The Countess is kind to me, but we two weak women are
virtually defenceless. Oh, my dear, good friend, will this terrible
uncertainty ever end? Has the future any happiness in store for me?”