When Adele had read Padre Bonaventura's letter twice over and had
realised its meaning, she behaved like a person stunned by an actual
blow. She sank into the nearest chair, utterly overcome. She had barely
the presence of mind to tear up the sheet of paper into minute shreds,
which she gathered all in one hand, until she could find strength to
scatter them out of the window. The position was a terrible one indeed,
and for a long time she was unable to think connectedly about it, or of
anything else. But for the two nights of sound sleep she had got by
taking the chloral, she must inevitably have broken down. As it was, her
strong constitution had asserted itself so soon as she had been able to
rest, and she was better able to meet this new and real trouble than she
had been to face the imaginary horror of Herbert Arden's presence in her
dressing-room. But even so, half an hour elapsed before she was able to
rise from her seat. She tossed the scraps of paper out of the window and
watched them as the wind chased them in all directions, upwards and
downwards, upon the castle wall. Then, all at once, she began to think,
and her brain seemed to act with an accuracy and directness it had never
had before.
Either the letter had been opened in the house or at the post-office. It
could not have been opened in Rome, or at least, the probabilities were
enormously against such an hypothesis. It was scarcely more like that
the man at the Gerano post-office should have ventured to tamper with a
sealed envelope coming from the castle, and for which he had given a
receipt before taking charge of it. He could not have the smallest
interest in reading Donna Adele's correspondence, and he had everything
to lose if he were caught. He would certainly not have supposed that she
or her husband, having but lately left the city, were sending back a sum
of money in notes large enough to make it worth his while to incur such
a risk. In other words, the theft had been committed in the house, and
no one but Lucia could have been the thief. Lucia had been summarily
dismissed; Lucia was the only servant in the establishment who had
serious cause for discontent; Lucia had guessed from the address that
the letter contained something at least of the nature of a confession,
and had resolved to hold her mistress in her power. Moreover, it was
possible--barely possible--that Lucia knew something else. In any case,
she had read every word Adele had written with her own hand, and Adele
knew very well why the woman had not returned the sheets to the envelope
after mastering their contents. She was utterly, hopelessly, and
entirely in Lucia's power. The maid would go from her to a new
situation, and wherever she might be would always be able to control
Donna Adele's life by merely threatening to betray what she knew to the
person or persons concerned.
Adele felt that her courage was almost failing her in this extremity, at
a time when she needed more than she had ever possessed. And yet it was
necessary to act promptly, for the maid might even now be engaging
herself with some one else. Come what might, she must never leave Casa
Savelli, if it cost Adele all the money she could beg of her husband or
borrow of her father to keep the woman with her. First of all, however,
she must regain some sort of composure, lest Lucia should suspect that
the post had brought her news of the loss of the document. She looked at
herself in the glass and scrutinised every feature attentively. She was
very pale, but otherwise was looking better than two days earlier. Any
kind of stimulant, as she knew, sent the blood to her face in a few
minutes, and she saw that what she needed was a little colour. A
teaspoonful of Benedictine cordial, of which she had a small flask in
her dressing-case, was enough to produce the desired effect. The doctor
had formerly recommended her to take it before going to sleep, but she
did not like such things, and the flask was almost full. She saw in the
mirror that the result was perfectly satisfactory, and when she at last
met her husband he remarked that her appearance was very much improved.
"I feel so much better!" she exclaimed, knowing that she was speaking
the first words of a comedy which would in all probability have to be
played during the rest of her life. "I always said that if they would
only give me something to make me sleep I should get well at once."
She walked again on that day, and by an almost superhuman effort kept
up appearances until bedtime, even succeeding in eating a moderately
abundant dinner. That night she told Lucia that, on the whole, she would
prefer to keep her, that she had always been more than satisfied with
her services, and that if she had suddenly felt an aversion to her, it
was the result of the extreme nervousness she had suffered of late. Now
that she could sleep, she realised how unkind she had been. Lucia humbly
thanked her, and said that she hoped to live and die in the service of
the most excellent Casa Savelli. Thereupon Adele thanked her too, said
very sweetly that she was a good girl and would some day be rewarded by
finding a good husband, and ended by giving her five francs. She
reflected that to give her more might look like the beginning of a
course of bribery, and that to give nothing might be construed as
proceeding from the fear of seeming to bribe.
The second day could not be harder than the first, she said to herself,
as she swallowed her chloral and laid her head upon the pillow, to be
read to sleep by the nurse. She slept, indeed, that night, but not so
well as before, and she awoke twice, each time with a start, and with
the impression that Lucia was reciting the contents of the lost letter
to Laura Arden and a whole roomful of the latter's friends.
Under the circumstances, she behaved with a courage and determination
admirable in themselves. Few women could have borne the constant strain
upon the faculties at all, still fewer after such illness as she had
suffered. But she was really very strong, though everything which
affected her feelings and thoughts reacted upon her physical nature as
such things never can in less nervously organised constitutions. She
bore the excruciating anxiety about the lost confession better than the
shadowy fear of the supernatural which still haunted her in the hours of
the night. On the third day she begged her husband to increase the dose
of chloral by a very small quantity, saying that if only she could sleep
well for a whole week she would then be so much better as to be able to
give it up altogether. Savelli hesitated, and at last consented. Since
she had seemed so much more quiet he dreaded a return of her former
state, for he was a man who loved his ease and hated everything which
disturbed it.
The doctor had particularly cautioned him to keep the chloral put away
in a safe place, warning Francesco that the majority of persons who took
it soon began to feel a craving for it in larger quantities, which must
be checked to avoid the risk of considerable damage to the health in the
event of its becoming a habit. It was, after all, only a palliative, he
said, and could never be expected to work a cure on the nerves except as
an indirect means to a good result. Francesco kept the bottle in his
dressing-bag, which remained in his own room and was fitted with a
patent lock. He yielded to Adele's request on the first occasion, and
she went with him as he took the glass back to strengthen the dose. "Why
do you keep it locked up?" she said. "Do you suppose I would go and take
it without consulting you?"
"The doctor told me to be careful of it," he answered. "The servants
might try a dose of it out of curiosity." He took what he considered
necessary and locked the bag again, returning the key to his pocket.
Two or three days passed in this way. Adele began to feel that she
longed for the night and the soothing influence of the chloral, as she
had formerly longed for daylight to end the misery of the dark hours.
The days were now made almost intolerable for her by the certainty that
her maid knew her secret, and by the necessity for treating the woman
with consideration. Yet she could do nothing, and she knew that she
never could do anything to lessen her own anxiety, as long as she lived.
She was much alone, too, during the day. She walked or drove with her
husband during two or three hours in the afternoon, but the rest of the
time hung idly on her hands. It is true that his society was not very
congenial, and under ordinary conditions she would rather have been
left alone than have been obliged to talk with him. At present, however,
she thought less when she was with him, and that was a gain not to be
despised. She had quite forgotten that she had asked Ghisleri to come
out and spend a day or two, when his note came, reminding her of the
invitation, and asking if he still might accept it. Francesco liked him,
as most men did, and was glad that any one should appear to vary the
monotony of the dull country life with a little city talk. He bade her
write to Pietro to come and stay as long as he pleased, if she herself
cared to have him. She concealed her satisfaction well enough to make
Francesco suppose that she wished the guest to come for his sake rather
than her own.
Ghisleri started early, taking his servant with him, and reached Gerano
in time for the midday breakfast. Francesco Savelli received him with
considerable enthusiasm, and Adele's habitually rather forced smile
became more natural. Both felt in different ways that the presence of a
third person was a relief, and would have been delighted to receive a
far less agreeable man than their present guest. They overwhelmed him
with questions about Rome and their friends.
"Of course you have seen everybody and heard everything, now that you
are so much better," said Adele, as they sat down to breakfast in the
vaulted dining-room. "You must tell us everything you know. We are
buried alive out here, and only know a little of what happens through
the papers. How are they all? Have you seen Laura again, and how is the
baby? My step-mother writes that she is going to spend the summer with
them in some place or places unknown. I never thought of her as a
grandmother when my own children were born--of course she is not my
mother, but it used to seem just the same. What is Bompierre doing? And
Maria Boccapaduli? I am dying to hear all about it."
Ghisleri laughed at the multitude of questions which followed each other
almost without a breathing-space between them.
"Donna Maria would have sent you her love if she had known that I was
coming to Gerano," he answered. "As for Bompierre, he is an inscrutable
mixture of devotion and fickleness. He attaches himself to the new
without detaching himself from the old. He worships both the earthly and
the Olympian Venus. He is a good fellow, little Bompierre, and I like
him, but it is impossible for any man to adore women at the rate of six
at a time. I begin to think that he must be a very deep character."
"That is the last thing I should say of him," observed Savelli, who was
deficient in the sense of humour.
"How literal you are, Francesco," laughed his wife. "And yourself,
Ghisleri--tell us about yourself. Are you quite well again? You still
look dreadfully thin, but you look better than when I saw you last. What
does your doctor say?"
"He says that if I do not happen to catch cold, or have a choking fit,
or a cough, or any of fifty things he names, and if I do not chance to
get shot in the same place again, in the course of a year or two I may
be as good a man as ever. It appears that I have a good constitution. I
always supposed so, because I never had anything the matter with me, so
far as I knew."
"No one will ever forgive Gianforte!" exclaimed Adele. "If you had died,
he would have had to go away for ever. Everybody says he was utterly in
the wrong."
"The matter is settled," said Ghisleri, "and I do not think either of us
need have anything to say about the other's conduct in the affair. I
suppose you have heard that the ministry has fallen," he continued,
turning to Savelli. "Yesterday afternoon--the old story, of
course--finance."
"For Heaven's sake do not begin to talk politics at this hour,"
protested Adele. "To-night, when I am asleep, you can smoke all the
cigars in the house, and reconstitute a dozen ministries if you like. I
want to hear all about my friends. You have not told me half enough
yet."
"Where shall I begin? Ah, by the bye, there is an engagement, I hear. I
have not left cards because it is not official. Pietrasanta and Donna
Guendalina Frangipani--rather an odd match, is it not?"
"Pietrasanta!" exclaimed Adele. "Who would have thought that! And
Guendalina, of all people! But they will starve, my dear Ghisleri; they
will positively not have twenty thousand francs a year between them."
"No," said Savelli, "you are quite right, my
dear--twelve--seventeen--eighteen thousand five hundred, almost
exactly."
Savelli was intimately acquainted with the affairs of his friends, and
both parties were related to him in the present case. He prided himself
upon his extreme exactness about all questions of money.
So they talked and gossiped throughout the meal. Ghisleri knew just what
sort of news most amused his hostess, and as usual he succeeded in
telling her the truth about things and people without saying anything
spiteful of any one. He had resolved, too, that he would make himself
especially agreeable to the couple in their voluntary exile. He had come
with a set purpose, and he meant to execute it if possible. As he was
evidently not yet strong, Savelli proposed that they should drive
instead of walking. Ghisleri acceded readily, though he would have
preferred to stay at home after having travelled nearly thirty miles in
a jolting carriage during the morning. The sensation of physical fatigue
which he constantly experienced since he had been wounded was new to him
and not at all pleasant.
Nothing of any importance occurred during the afternoon. The
conversation continued in much the same way as it had begun at
breakfast, interspersed with remarks about agriculture and the
probabilities of crops. Savelli understood the financial side of farming
better than Ghisleri, but the latter had a much more practical
acquaintance with the capabilities of different sorts of land.
After they had returned to the castle, Francesco left Ghisleri with his
wife in the drawing-room, and went off to his own quarters to talk with
the steward of the estate. Tea was brought, but Pietro noticed that
Adele did not take any.
"I suppose you are afraid that it would keep you awake at night," he
remarked. "How is your insomnia? Do you sleep at all?"
"I am getting quite well again," Adele answered. "You know I always told
you that I needed something really strong to make me sleep. The doctor
has given me chloral, and I never wake up before eight or nine o'clock.
It is a wonderful medicine."
"Insomnia is one of the most unaccountable things," said Ghisleri, in a
meditative tone. "I knew a man in Constantinople who told me that at one
time he never slept at all. For three months he literally could not lose
consciousness for a moment. I believe he suffered horribly. But then, he
had something on his mind at the time which accounted for it to a
certain extent."
"I suppose he had lost money or something of that kind," conjectured
Adele, stirring two lumps of sugar in a glass of water.
"No, it was much worse than that. He had accidentally killed his most
intimate friend on a shooting expedition in the Belgrad forest."
Ghisleri heard the spoon rattle sharply against the glass, as Adele's
hand shook, and he saw that she bent down her head quickly, pretending
to watch the lumps of sugar as they slowly dissolved.
"How terrible!" she exclaimed, in a low voice.
"Yes," answered Ghisleri, in the same indifferent tone. "But if you will
believe it, he had the courage to refuse chloral, or any sort of
sleeping-draught, though he often sat up reading all night. He had been
told, you see, that the habit of such things was much more dangerous
than insomnia itself, and he was ultimately cured by taking a great deal
of exercise. He had an extraordinary force of will. I believe he has
never felt any bad effect from what he endured. You know one can get
used to anything. Look at the people who starve in public for forty days
and do not die."
"We shall see Pietrasanta and his wife doing that for the next forty
years," said Adele, with a tolerably natural laugh. "They ought to go
into training as soon as possible if they mean to be happy. They say
nothing spoils the temper like hunger. Were you ever near being starved
to death on any of your travels, Ghisleri?"
"No; I never got further than being obliged to live on nothing but beans
and bad water for nine days. That was quite far enough, though. I got
thin, and I have never eaten beans since."
"I do not wonder. Fancy eating beans for nearly a fortnight. I should
have died. And where was it? Were you imprisoned for a spy in South
America? One never knows what may or may not have happened to you--you
are such an unaccountable man!"
"That never happened to me. It was at sea. I took it into my head to go
to Sardinia in a small vessel that was sailing from Amalfi with a cargo
of beans to bring back Sardinian wine. We were becalmed, and got short
of provisions, so that we fell back on the beans. They kept us alive,
but I would rather not try it again."
"What endless adventures you have had! How tame this society life of
ours must seem to you after what you have been accustomed to! How can
you endure it?"
"It is never very hard to put up with what one likes," answered
Ghisleri, "nor even to endure what one dislikes for the sake of somebody
to whom one is attached."
"If any one else said that, it would sound like a platitude. But with
you, it is quite different. One feels that you mean all you say."
Adele was evidently determined to be complimentary, and even more than
complimentary, to-day. She was never cold or at all unfriendly with
Ghisleri, whom she liked and admired, and whom she always hoped to see
ultimately established as a permanent member of her own immediate
circle, but he did not remember that she had ever talked exactly as she
was talking now, and he attributed her manner to her nervousness. He
laughed carelessly at her last remark.
"I am not used to such good treatment," he said, "though I never can
understand why people take the trouble to doubt one's word. It is so
much easier to believe everything--so much less trouble."
"I should not have thought that you were a very credulous person,"
answered Adele. "You have had too much experience for that."
"Experience does not always mean disillusionment. One may find out that
there are honest people as well as dishonest in the world."
If Laura Arden had been present she would have been more than ever
inclined to distrust Ghisleri just then. She would have wondered what
possessed him to make him say things so very different from those he
generally said to her. As a matter of fact, he wished Adele to trust
him, for especial reasons, and he knew her well enough to judge how his
speeches would affect her. She had betrayed herself to him a few minutes
earlier and he desired to efface the impression in her mind before
leading her into another trap.
"Do you think the world is such a very good place?" she asked. "Have you
found it so?"
"It is often very unjustly abused by those who live in it--as they are
themselves by their friends. Belief on the one side must mean disbelief
on the other."
This time Adele gave no sign of being touched by the thrust. She was too
much accustomed to whatever sensations she experienced when accidental
or intentional reference was made to her astonishing talent for gossip.
"As for that," she said quite naturally, "every one talks about every
one else, and some things are true just as some are not. If we did not
talk of people how should we make conversation? It would be quite
impossible, I am sure!"
"Oh, of course. But if there is to be that sort of conversation, it can
always take the form of a discussion, and one can put oneself on the
right side from the beginning just as easily as not. It saves so much
trouble afterwards. The person who is always on the wrong side is
generally the one about whom the others are talking. If we could hear a
tenth of what is said about ourselves I fancy we should be very
uncomfortable."
"Yes, indeed. Even our servants--think how they must abuse us!"
"No doubt. But they have a practical advantage over us in that way. When
they really know anything particularly scandalous about us they can
convert it into ready money."
Ghisleri had not the least intention of conveying any hidden meaning by
his words, for he was of course completely ignorant of the occurrence
which had disturbed Adele's whole life more than any other hitherto. But
he noticed that she again bent over her glass and looked into it, though
the sugar was by this time quite dissolved. Her hand shook a little as
she moved the spoon about in the sweetened water. Then she drank a
little, and drew a long breath.
"That is always a most disagreeable position," she said boldly. "We were
talking about it the other day. I wish you had been there. Gouache was
telling a foreigner--Prince Durakoff, I think it was--the old story of
how Prince Montevarchi was murdered by his own librarian because he
would not pay the man a sum of money in the way of blackmail. You know
it, of course. The two families, the Montevarchi and the Saracinesca,
kept it very quiet and no one ever knew all the details. Some people say
that San Giacinto killed the librarian, and some say that the librarian
killed himself. That is no matter. What would you have done? That is the
question. Would you have paid the money in the hope of silencing the
man? Or would you have refused as the old Prince did? Gouache said that
it was always a mistake to yield, and that Montevarchi did quite
right."
Ghisleri considered the matter a few moments before he gave an answer.
He was almost sure by this time that she actually found herself in some
such position as she described, and that she really needed advice. It
was characteristic of the man who had been trying to make her betray
herself and had succeeded beyond his expectation, that he was unwilling
to give her such counsel as might lead to her own destruction. In his
complicated code, that would have savoured of treachery. He suddenly
withdrew into himself as it were, and tried to look at the matter
objectively, as an outsider.
"It is a most difficult question to answer," he said at last. "I have
often heard it discussed. If you care for my own personal opinion, I
will give it to you. It seems to me that in such cases one should be
guided by circumstances as they arise, but that one can follow very
safely a sort of general rule. If the blackmailer, as I call the person
in possession of the secret, has any positive proof, such as a written
document, or any other object of the kind, without which he or she could
not prove the accusation, and if the accusation is really of a serious
nature, then I think it would be wiser to buy the thing, whatever it is,
at any price, and destroy it at once. But if, as in most of such
affairs, the secret is merely one of words which the blackmailers may
speak or not at will, and at any time, I believe it is a mistake to
bribe him or her, because the demand for hush-money can be renewed
indefinitely so long as the person concerned lives, or has any money
left with which to pay."
Adele had listened with the greatest attention throughout, and the
direct good sense of his answer disarmed any suspicion she might have
entertained in regard to the remark which had led to her asking his
advice. She reasoned naturally enough that if he knew anything of her
position, and had come to Gerano to gather information, he would have
suggested some course of action which would throw the advantage into his
own hands. But she did not know the man. Moreover, in her extreme fear
of discovery, she had for a moment been willing to admit that he might
know far more than was in any way possible, if he knew anything at all;
whereas in truth he was but making the most vague guesses at the actual
facts. It was startling to realise how nearly she had taken him for an
enemy, after inviting him as a friend, and in perfectly good faith, but
as she thought over the conversation she saw how naturally the remarks
which had frightened her had presented themselves. There was her own
insomnia--he had an instance of a man who had suffered in the same way.
A remark about unjust abuse of other people--that was quite natural, and
meant nothing. Blackmail extorted by servants--she had herself led
directly to it, by speculating upon what servants said of their masters.
It was all very natural. She made up her mind that she had been wrong in
mistrusting his sincerity. Besides, she liked him, and her judgment
instinctively inclined to favour him.
"I think you are quite right," she said, after a few moments' thought.
"I never heard it put so directly before, and your view seems to be the
only sensible one. If the secret can be kept by buying an object and
destroying it, then buy it. If not, deny it boldly, and refuse to pay.
Yes, that is the wisest solution I have ever heard offered."
Ghisleri saw that he had produced a good effect and was well-satisfied.
He turned back to a former point in order to change the subject of the
conversation.
"That old story of the Montevarchi has interested me," he said. "I wish
I knew it all. Without being at all of an historical genius, I am fond
of all sorts of family histories. Lady Herbert was saying yesterday that
there are many strange legends and stories connected with this old
place, and that your father knows them all. You must know a great deal
about Gerano yourself, I should think."
"Oh, of course I do," answered Adele, with alacrity. "I will show you
all over the castle to-morrow morning. It is an enormous building, and
bigger than you would ever suppose from the outside. I will show you
where they used to cut off heads--it is delightful! The head fell
through a hole in the floor into a heap of sawdust, they say. And then
there is another place, where they threw criminals out of the window,
with four seats in it, two for the executioners, one for the confessor,
and one in the middle for the condemned man. They did those things so
coolly and systematically in those good old days. You shall see it all;
there are the dungeons, and the trap-doors through which people were
made to tumble into them; there is every sort of appliance--belonging to
family life in the middle ages."
"I shall be very glad to see it all if you will be my guide," said
Ghisleri.
They continued to talk upon indifferent subjects. At dinner Pietro took
much pains to be agreeable, and succeeded admirably, for he was well
able to converse pleasantly when he chose. Though extremely tired, he
sat up till nearly midnight talking politics with Savelli, as Adele had
foreseen, and when he was at last shown to his distant room by
Bonifazio, who had spent most of his day in studying the topography of
the castle, he was very nearly exhausted.