BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH
Many hours had passed. Enrica lay still unconscious upon her bed, her
face framed in her golden hair, her blue eyes open, her limbs stiff,
her body cold. Sometimes her lips parted, and a smile rippled over her
face; then she shuddered, and drew herself, as it were, together. All
this time Nobili's letter was within her hand; her fingers tightened
over it with a convulsive grasp.
Pipa and the cavaliere were with her. They had done all they could
to revive her, but without effect. Trenta, sitting there, his hands
crossed upon his knees, his eyes fixed upon Enrica, looked suddenly
aged. How all this had come about he could not even guess. He had
heard Pipa's screams, and so had the marchesa, and he had come, and he
and Pipa together had raised her up and placed her on her bed; and the
marchesa had charged him to watch her, and let her know when she came
to her senses. Neither the cavaliere nor Pipa knew that Enrica had had
a letter from Nobili. Pipa noticed a paper in her hand, but did not
know what it was. The signorina had been struck down in a fit, was
Pipa's explanation. It was very terrible, but God or the devil--she
could not tell which--did send fits. They must be borne. An end would
come. She had done all she could. Seeing no present change, Trenta
rose to go to the marchesa. His joints were so stiff he could not move
at all without his stick, and the furrows which had deepened upon his
face were moistened with tears.
"Is Enrica no better?" the marchesa asked him, in a voice she tried to
steady, but could not. She trembled all over.
"Enrica is no better," he answered.
"Will she die?" the marchesa asked again.
"Who can tell? She is in the hands of God."
As he spoke, Trenta shot an angry scowl at his friend--he knew her
so well. If Enrica died the Guinigi race was doomed--that made her
tremble, not affection for Enrica. A word more from the marchesa, and
Trenta would have told her this to her face.
"We are all in the hands of God," the marchesa repeated, solemnly, and
crossed herself. "I believe little in doctors."
"Still," said Trenta, "if there is no change, it is our duty to send
for one. Is there any doctor at Corellia?"
"None nearer than Lucca," she replied. "Send for Fra Pacifico. If he
thinks it of any use, a man shall be dispatched to Lucca immediately."
"Surely you will let Count Nobili know the danger Enrica is in?"
"No, no!" cried the marchesa, fiercely. "Count Nobili comes back here
to marry Enrica or not at all. I will not have him on any other terms.
If the child dies, he will not come. That at least will be a gain."
Even on the brink of death and ruin she could think of this!
"Enrica will not die! she will not die!" sobbed the poor old
cavaliere, breaking down all at once. He sank upon a chair and covered
his face.
The marchesa rose and placed her hand upon his shoulder. Her heart was
bleeding, too, but from another cause. She bore her wounds in silence.
To complain was not in the marchesa's nature. It would have increased
her suffering rather than have relieved it. Still she pitied her old
friend, although no word expressed it; nothing but the pressure of her
hand resting upon his shoulder. Trenta's sobs were the only sound that
broke the silence.
"This is losing time," she said. "Send at once for Fra Pacifico. Until
he comes, we know nothing."
When Fra Pacifico's rugged, mountainous figure entered Enrica's room,
he seemed to fill it. First, he blessed the sweet girl lying before
him with such a terrible mockery of life in her widely-opened eyes.
His deep voice shook and his grave face twitched as he pronounced the
"Beatus." Leaning over the bed, Fra Pacifico proceeded to examine her
in silence. He uncovered her feet, and felt her heart, her hands,
her forehead, lifting up the shining curls as he did so with a tender
touch, and laying them out upon the pillow, as reverently as he would
replace a relic.
Cavaliere Trenta stood beside him in breathless silence. Was it life
or death? Looking into Fra Pacifico's motionless face, none could
tell. Pipa was kneeling in a corner, running her rosary between her
fingers; she was listening also, with mouth and eyes wide open.
"Her pulse still beats," Fra Pacifico said at last, betraying no
outward emotion. "It beats, but very feebly. There is a little warmth
about her heart."
"San Ricardo be thanked!" ejaculated Trenta, clasping his hands.
With the mention of his ancestral saint, the cavaliere's thoughts ran
on to the Trenta chapel in the church of San Frediano, where they had
all stood so lately together, Enrica blooming in health and beauty at
his side. His sobs choked his voice.
"Shall I send to Lucca for a doctor?" Trenta asked, as soon as he
could compose himself.
"As you please. Her condition is very precarious; nothing can be done,
however, but to keep her warm. That I see has been attended to. She
could swallow nothing, therefore no doctor could help her. With such
a pulse, to bleed her would be madness. Her youth may save her. It
is plain to me some shock or horror must have struck her down and
paralyzed the vital powers. How could this have been?"
The priest stood over her, lost in thought, his bushy eyebrows knit;
then he turned to Pipa.
"Has any thing happened, Pipa," he asked, "to account for this?"
"Nothing your reverence," she answered. "I saw the signorina,
and spoke to her, not ten minutes before I found her lying in the
doorway."
"Had any one seen her?"
"No one."
"I sent a letter to her from Count Nobili. Did you see the messenger
arrive?"
"No; I was cleaning in the upper story. He might have come and gone,
and I not seen him."
"I heard of no letter," put in the bewildered Trenta. "What letter? No
one mentioned a letter."
"Possibly," answered Fra Pacifico, in his quiet, impassible way, "but
there was a letter." He turned again to interrogate Pipa. "Then the
signorina must have taken the letter herself." Slightly raising his
eyebrows, a sudden light came into his eyes. "That letter has done
this. What can Nobili have said to her? Did you see any letter beside
her, Pipa, when she fell?"
Pipa rose up from the corner where she had been kneeling, raised the
sheet, and pointed to a paper clasped in Enrica's hand. As she did so,
Pipa pressed her warm lips upon the colorless little hand. She would
have covered the hand again to keep it warm, but Fra Pacifico stopped
her.
"We must see that letter; it is absolutely needful--I her confessor,
and you, cavaliere, Enrica's best friend; indeed, her only friend."
At a touch of his strong hand the letter fell from Enrica's fingers,
though they clung to it convulsively.
"Of course we must see the letter," the cavaliere responded with
emphasis, waking up from the apathy of grief into which he had been
plunged.
Fra Pacifico, casting a look of unutterable pity on Enrica, whose
secret it seemed sacrilege to violate while she lay helpless before
them, unfolded the letter. He and the cavaliere, standing on tiptoe
at his side, his head hardly reaching the priest's elbow, read it
together. When Trenta had finished, an expression of horror and rage
came into his face. He threw his arms wildly above his head.
"The villain!" he exclaimed, "'Gone forever!'--'You have betrayed
me!'--'Cannot marry you!'--'Marescotti!'"
Here Trenta stopped, remembering suddenly what had passed between
himself and Count Marescotti at their interview, which he justly
considered as confidential. Trenta's first feeling was one of
amazement how Nobili had come to know it. Then he remembered what he
had said to Baldassare in the street, to quiet him, that "it was all
right, and that Enrica would consent to her aunt's commands, and to
his wishes."
"Beast!" he muttered, "this is what I get by associating with one who
is no gentleman. I'll punish him!"
A blank terror took possession of the cavaliere. He glanced at Enrica,
so life-like with her fixed, open eyes, and asked himself, if she
recovered, would she ever forgive him?
"I did it for the best!" he murmured, shaking his white head. "God
knows I did it for the best!--the dear, blessed one!--to give her
a home, and a husband to protect her. I knew nothing about Count
Nobili.--Why did you not tell me, my sweetest?" he said, leaning over
the bed, and addressing Enrica in his bewilderment.
Alas! the glassy blue eyes stared at him fixedly, the white lips were
motionless.
The effect of all this on Fra Pacifico had been very different. Under
the strongest excitement, the long habit of his office had taught him
a certain outward composure. He was ignorant of much which was known
to the cavaliere. Fra Pacifico watched his excessive agitation with
grave curiosity.
"What does this mean about Count Marescotti?" he asked, somewhat
sternly. "What has Count Marescotti to do with her?"
As he asked this question he stretched his arm authoritatively over
Enrica. Protection to the weak was the first thought of the strong
man. His great bodily strength had been given him for that purpose,
Fra Pacifico always said.
"I offered her in marriage to Count Marescotti," answered the
cavaliere, lifting up his aged head, and meeting the priest's
suspicious glance with a look of gentle reproach. "What do you think I
could have done but this?"
"And Count Marescotti refused her?"
"Yes, he refused her because he was a communist. Nothing passed
between them, nothing. They never met but twice, both times in my
presence."
Fra Pacifico was satisfied.
"God be praised!" he muttered to himself.
Still holding the letter in his hand, the priest turned toward
Enrica. Again he felt her pulse, and passed his broad hand across her
forehead.
"No change!" he said, sadly--"no change! Poor child, how she must
have suffered! And alone, too! There is some mistake--obviously some
mistake."
"No mistake about the wretch having forsaken her," interrupted Trenta,
firing up at what he considered Fra Pacifico's ill-placed leniency.
"Domine Dio! No mistake about that."
"Yes, but there must be," insisted the other. "I have known Nobili
from a boy. He is incapable of such villainy. I tell you, cavaliere,
Nobili is utterly incapable of it. He has been deceived. By-and-by he
will bitterly repent this," and Fra Pacifico held up the letter.
"Yes," answered Trenta, bitterly--"yes, if she lives. If he has killed
her, what will his repentance matter?"
"Better wait, however, until we know more. Nobili may be hot-headed,
vain, and credulous, but he is generous to a fault. If he cannot
justify himself, why, then"--the priest's voice changed, his swarthy
face flushed with a dark glow--"I am willing to give him the benefit
of the doubt--charity demands this--but if Nobili cannot justify
himself"--(the cavaliere made an indignant gesture)--"leave him to
me. You shall be satisfied, cavaliere. God deals with men's souls
hereafter, but he permits bodily punishment in this world. Nobili
shall have his, I promise you!"
Fra Pacifico clinched his huge fist menacingly, and dealt a blow in
the air that would have felled a giant.
Having given vent to his feelings, to the unmitigated delight of
the cavaliere, who nodded and smiled--for an instant forgetting his
sorrow, and Enrica lying there--Fra Pacifico composed himself.
"The marchesa must see that letter," he said, in his usual manner.
"Take it to her, cavaliere. Hear what she says."
The cavaliere took the letter in silence. Then he shrugged his
shoulders despairingly.
"I must go now to Corellia. I will return soon. That Enrica still
lives is full of hope." Fra Pacifico said this, turning toward the
little bed with its modest shroud of white linen curtains. "But I can
do nothing. The feeble spark of life that still lingers in her frame
would fly forever if tormented by remedies. I have hope in God only."
And he gave a heavy sigh.
Before Fra Pacifico departed, he took some holy water from a little
vessel near the bed, and sprinkled it upon Enrica. He ordered Pipa to
keep her very warm, and to watch every breath she drew. Then he glided
from the room with the light step of one well used to sickness.
Cavaliere Trenta followed him slowly. He paused motionless in the
open doorway, his eyes, from which the tears were streaming, fixed on
Enrica--the fatal letter in his hand. At length he tore himself away,
closed the door, and, crossing the sala, knocked at the door of the
marchesa's apartment.
* * * * *
In the gray of the early morning of the second day, just as the sun
rose and cast a few straggling gleams into the room, Enrica called
faintly to Pipa. She knew Pipa when she came. It seemed as if
Enrica had waked out of a long, deep sleep. She felt no pain, but an
excessive weakness. She touched her forehead and her hair. She handled
the sheets--then extended both her hands to Pipa, as if she had been
buried and asked to be raised up again. She tried to sit up, but--she
fell back upon her pillow. Pipa's arms were round her in an instant.
She put back the long hair that fell upon Enrica's face, and poured
into her mouth a few drops of a cordial Fra Pacifico had left for her.
Pipa dared not speak--Pipa dared not breathe--so great was her joy. At
length she ventured to take one of Enrica's hands in hers, pressed it
gently and said to her in a low voice:
"You must be very quiet. We are all here."
Enrica looked up at Pipa, surprised and frightened; then her eyes
wandered round in search of something. She was evidently dwelling
upon some idea she could not express. She raised her hand, opened it
slowly, and gazed at it. Her hand was empty.
"Where is--?" Enrica asked, in a voice like a sigh--then she stopped,
and gazed up again distressfully into Pipa's face. Pipa knew that
Count Nobili's letter had been taken by Fra Pacifico. Now she bent
over Enrica in an agony of fear lest, when her reason came and she
missed that letter, she should sink back again and die.
With the sound of her own voice all came back to Enrica in an instant.
She closed her eyes, and longed never to open them again! "Gone! gone!
forever!" sounded in her ears like a rushing of great waters. Then she
lay for a long time quite still. She could not bear to speak to Pipa.
His name--Nobili's name--was sacred. If Pipa knew what Nobili had
done, she might speak ill of him. That Enrica could not bear. Yet she
should like to know who had taken his letter.
Her brain was very weak, yet it worked incessantly. She asked herself
all manner of questions in a helpless way; but as her fluttering
pulses settled, and the blood returned to its accustomed
channels, faintly coloring her cheek, the truth came to her.
Insulted!--abandoned!--forgotten! She thought it all over bit by bit.
Each thought as it rose in her mind seemed to freeze the returning
warmth within her. That letter--oh, if she could only find that
letter! She tried to recall every phrase and put a sense to it. How
had she deceived him? What could Nobili mean? What had she done to
be talked of in Lucca? Marescotti--who was he? At first she was
so stunned she forgot his name; then it came to her. Yes, the
poet--Marescotti--Trenta's friend--who had raved on the Guinigi Tower.
What was he to her? Marry Marescotti! Oh! who could have said it?
Gradually, as Enrica's mind became clearer, lying there so still with
no sound but Pipa's measured breathing, she felt to its full extent
how Nobili had wronged her. Why had he not come himself and asked her
if all this were true? To leave her thus forever! Without even asking
her--oh, how cruel! She believed in him, why did he not believe in
her? No one had ever yet told her a lie; within herself she felt
no power of deceit. She could not understand it in others, nor the
falseness of the world. Now she must learn it! Then a great longing
and tenderness came over her. She loved Nobili still. Even though
he had smitten her so sorely, she loved him--she loved him, and she
forgave him! But stronger and stronger grew the thought, even while
these longings swept over her like great waves, that Nobili was
unworthy of her. Should she love him less for that? Oh, no! He was
unworthy of her--yet she yearned after him. He had left her--but in
her heart Nobili should forever sit enthroned--and she would worship
him!
And they had been so happy, so more than happy--from the first moment
they had met--and he had shattered it! Oh, his love for her was dead
and buried out of sight! What was life to her without Nobili? Oh,
those forebodings that had clung about her from the very moment he
had left Corellia! Now she could understand them. Never to see him
again!--was it possible? A great pity came upon her for herself. No
one, she was sure, could ever have suffered like her--no one--no one.
This thought for some time pursued her closely. There was a terrible
comfort in it. Alas! all her life would be suffering now!
As Enrica lay there, her face turned toward the wall, and her eyes
closed (Pipa watching her, thinking she had dozed), suddenly her bosom
heaved. She gave a wild cry. The pent-up tears came pouring down her
cheeks, and sob after sob shook her from head to foot.
This burst of grief saved her--Fra Pacifico said so when he came down
later. "Death had passed very near her," he said, "but now she would
recover."