Pietro Ghisleri slept soundly that night. Of late, indeed, he had become
less restless than he had formerly been, and he attributed the change to
the weakness which was the consequence of his wound. There were probably
other causes at work at that time of which he was hardly conscious
himself, but which ultimately produced a change in him, and in his way
of looking at the world.
He stood at his open window early in the morning, and gazed out at the
fresh, bright country. The delicate hand of spring had already touched
the world with colour, and the breath of the coming warmth had waked the
life in all those things which die yearly, and are yearly raised again.
Ghisleri felt the morning sun upon his thin, pale face, and he realised
that he also had been very near to death during the dark months, and he
remembered how he had wished that he might be not near only to dying,
but dead altogether, never to take up again the play that had grown so
wearisome and empty in his eyes.
But now a change had come. For the first time in years, he knew that if
the choice were suddenly offered him at the present moment he would
choose to live out all the days allotted to him, and would wish that
they might be many rather than few. There was, indeed, a dark spot on
the page last turned, of which he could never efface the memory, nor, in
his own estimation, outlive the shame. In his day-dreams Maddalena dell'
Armi's coldly perfect face was often before him with an expression upon
it which he feared to see, knowing too well why it was there--and out of
a deeper depth of memory dead Bianca Corleone's eyes looked at him with
reproach and sometimes with scorn. There was much pain in store for him
yet, of the kind at which the world never guessed, nor ever could. But
he would not try to escape from it. He would not again so act or think
as to call himself coward in his own heart's tribunal.
He looked out at the distant hills, and down at the broad battlements
and massive outworks of the ancient fortress, and fell to thinking
rather idly about the people who had lived, and fought, and quarrelled,
and slain each other, within and around those enormous walls, and then
he thought all at once of Adele Savelli, and of his suspicions regarding
her. He was in a particularly charitable frame of mind on that morning,
and he suddenly felt that what he had almost believed on the previous
night was utterly beyond the bounds of probability. It seemed to him
that he had no manner of right to accuse any one of the crime he had
imputed to her, on the most shadowy grounds, and absolutely without
proof, unless the coincidence of her uneasy behaviour, with certain
vague remarks of his own, could be taken as evidence. He sat down to
think it all over, drinking his coffee by the open window, and enjoying
the sunshine and the sweet morning air. The whole world looked so good
and innocent and fresh as he gazed out upon it, that the possibilities
of evil seemed to shrink away into nothing.
But as he systematically reviewed the events of the past months, his
suspicion returned almost with the force of conviction. The coincidences
were too numerous to be attributed to chance alone. Adele's distress of
mind was too evident to be denied. Altogether there was no escaping from
the conclusion that willingly or unwillingly she had been consciously
instrumental in bringing about Arden's illness and death. Her questions
about the wisest course to pursue in cases of blackmail, pointed to the
probability if not the certainty that some third person was acquainted
with what had happened, and this person was in all likelihood the maid
Lucia. So far his reasoning took him quickly and plausibly enough, but
no further. How the scarlet fever had been communicated from Lucia to
Herbert Arden was more than Ghisleri could guess, but if Adele was
really in the serving woman's power, it must have been done in such a
way as to make what had happened quite clear to the latter. After
thinking over all the possibilities, and vainly attempting to solve the
hard problem, Ghisleri found himself as much at sea as ever, and was
driven to acknowledge that he must trust to chance for obtaining any
further evidence in the matter.
Meanwhile Adele had determined to follow his advice. Her anxiety was
becoming unbearable, and she felt that she could not endure such
suspense much longer. To accuse Lucia directly of having opened the
letter and committed the theft would be rash and dangerous. There was a
bare possibility that some one else might have done the deed. She must
in any case be cautious.
"Lucia," she said that morning, while the woman was doing her hair, "do
you remember that some days ago I gave you a letter to be registered,
and that you brought back the receipt for it from the post-office?"
"Yes, Excellency, I remember very well." Lucia had been expecting for a
long time that her mistress would question her and she was quite
prepared. She had good nerves, and the certainty that the great lady was
altogether in her power made her cool and collected.
"A very extraordinary thing happened to that letter," said Adele,
looking up at her own face in the glass, to give herself courage. "It
was rather important. I had written to Padre Bonaventura, asking
spiritual guidance, and I particularly desired an answer. But he wrote
to me by return of post, saying that when he opened the envelope he
found only four sheets of blank paper without a word written on them.
You see somebody must have thought there was money in the letter."
"They are such thieves at the post-office!" exclaimed Lucia. "But this
is a terrible affair, Excellency! What is to be done? The post-master
must be sent to the galleys immediately!"
In Lucia's conception of the law such a summary course seemed quite
practicable.
"I am afraid that would be very unjust, and could do no good at all,"
said Adele. "I am quite sure that the post-master would not have dared
to open a letter already registered, and for which he had given a
receipt. As for any one in the house having done it, I cannot believe it
either. I gave it into your hands myself and you brought me back the
stamped bit of paper--it is there in my jewel case. I only wish you to
find out for me, very quietly and without exciting suspicion, who took
that letter to the post. If I could get it back I would give the person
who brought it to me a handsome reward. You understand, Lucia, how
disagreeable it is to feel that a letter concerning one's most sacred
feelings is lost, and has perhaps been read by more than one person."
"I cannot imagine anything more dreadful! But be easy, Excellency. I
will do all I can, and none of the servants shall suspect that I am
questioning them."
"I shall be very much obliged to you, Lucia," said Adele. "Very much
obliged," she repeated, with some emphasis.
"It is only my duty to serve your Excellency, who has always been so
good to me," answered Lucia, humbly.
Adele knew that there was nothing more to be said for the present, and
she congratulated herself on having been diplomatic in her way of
offering the bribe. Lucia would now in all likelihood take some time to
decide, but for the present she would certainly not part with the
precious document. Adele felt sure that it had neither been destroyed
nor sent out of the castle. Lucia probably kept it concealed in a safe
corner of her own room, under lock and key, and to attempt to get
possession of it by force would be out of the question. As in most
Italian houses, the servants all locked their own rooms and carried the
keys about with them. Lucia, of course, did like the rest.
But Lucia, on her side, distrusted her mistress. Knowing what she now
knew of Adele, she believed her capable of almost anything, including
the picking of a lock and the skilful abstraction of the letter from its
secret hiding-place. As soon as she was at liberty she went and got the
paper and concealed it in her bosom, intending to keep it there until
she could select some safe spot in a remote part of the castle, where
she might put it away in greater safety. To carry it about with her
until Adele took her back to Rome would be rash, she thought. Adele
might suspect where it was at any moment, and force her to give it up.
Or it might be lost, which would be even worse.
Adele herself felt singularly relieved. She had very little doubt but
that Lucia would come to terms. She might, indeed, ask a very large sum,
and it might be very inconvenient to be obliged to find it at short
notice. But the sole heiress to an enormous estate would certainly be
able to get money in some way or other. In the meantime Lucia would not
offer it to any one else, since of all people her mistress would be
willing to make the greatest sacrifice to obtain possession of it. On
the whole, therefore, Adele's anxiety diminished on that day, and she
seemed better when she met her husband and Ghisleri in the great
court-yard where they were sunning themselves and continuing their talk
about politics.
"I promised that I would show you the castle," she said to Pietro.
"Would it amuse you to go with me now? Francesco does not care to come,
of course, and he always has his business with the steward to attend to
before breakfast."
Pietro expressed his readiness to follow her from the deepest dungeon to
the topmost turret of the castle.
"Have you slept well?" he asked, as they moved away together. "You are
looking much better this morning."
"Yes. I feel better," she answered. "Do you know I think your coming has
had something to do with it. You have cheered us with your talk and your
news. We were fast falling into the vegetable stage, Francesco and I."
Ghisleri smiled, partly out of politeness and partly at his own
thoughts.
"I am glad to have been of any use," he said. "I will do my best to be
amusing as long as you will have me."
"You need not take it as such an enormous compliment," Adele laughed.
"Of course, you are very agreeable,--at least, you can be when you
choose,--but the great thing is to have somebody, anybody one knows and
likes a little, in this dreary place. Shall we begin at the top or the
bottom? The prisons or the towers? Which shall it be?"
"If there is a choice, let us begin in the lower regions," answered
Ghisleri. "Do you like me a little, Donna Adele?" he asked, as she led
the way along the curved and smoothly paved descent which led downwards
to the subterranean part of the fortress.
She laughed lightly, and glanced at him. She had always wished to make a
conquest of Pietro Ghisleri, but she had found few opportunities of
being alone with him, for he had never been among the assiduous at her
shrine. She knew also how much he admired Laura Arden, and she suspected
him of being incipiently in love. It would be delightful to detach him
from that allegiance.
"Yes," she said, "I like you a little. Did you expect me to like you
very much? You have never done anything to deserve it."
"I wish I could," answered Ghisleri, with complete insincerity. "But I
am afraid I should never get so far as that."
"Why not?"
"When a woman loves her husband--" He did not finish the sentence, for
it seemed unnecessary.
"I do not want you to make love to me," Adele answered, "though I
believe you know how to do it to perfection. It is often a very long way
from liking very much to loving a very little. This is the place where
old Gianluca kept his brother Paolo in prison for eighteen years. Then
Gianluca died suddenly one fine morning, and Paolo was let out by the
soldiers and immediately threw Gianluca's wife out of the window of the
east tower, and cut off the heads of his two sons on the same afternoon.
I will show you where that was done when we go up stairs. Paolo was an
extremely energetic person."
"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.