Chapter 15

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_ CHAPTER XV

The Maltese cat died before six o'clock. The poor creature suffered horribly, and Elettra carried it off to her room that Veronica might not see its agony. But Veronica followed her maid. Elettra had laid the beast upon a folded rug on the floor and knelt beside it. It seemed half paralyzed already, but when Veronica knelt down, too, and tried to caress it, the cat sprang from them both in sudden terror. It stood still an instant, wagging its head while its shoulders contracted violently. Then it glided under the chest of drawers to die alone, if possible, after the manner of animals of prey. The girl and her maid heard its rattling breathing and its convulsions: its body thumped against the lower drawer. Then, while Veronica listened and Elettra bent, candle in hand, till her face touched the floor, to see it and get it out, all at once it was quiet.

"Get up," said Veronica, nervously, for she was fond of the creature. "Help me to move the chest of drawers out. Then we can get it out."

"It is dead," answered Elettra, still on the floor, and thrusting her long, thin arm under the piece of furniture. "But I cannot pull him out," she added. "He is so big!"

She got upon her feet, and together, without much difficulty, the two dragged the chest of drawers away from the wall, and then bent down behind it, with the candle, to look at the dead animal.

"It is quite dead," said Elettra. "Poor beast! What can have happened to it?" Veronica was really sorry, but of the two the maid had been the more fond of the cat. "It must have eaten something."

Elettra looked up, suspiciously, and Veronica drew back a step, half straightening herself. Her foot touched something close to the wall. She stooped again and picked up the package of rat-poison which Matilda had hidden under the chest of drawers on the previous night. She looked at it closely. It had evidently not lain long where she had found it, for there was no dust on it, and the coarse paper had an unmistakably fresh look. The indication of the contents was written upon it in ink, in illiterate characters.

"It is rat-poison!" exclaimed Veronica. "The cat must have eaten some of it! How did it come here?"

She looked at her maid curiously.

"The cat could not have wrapped it up and folded in the ends of the paper," observed Elettra.

"That is true."

They looked at each other, in considerable astonishment. Then they talked about it. Veronica asked whether Elettra had complained that there were mice in her room, and whether some stupid servant, having a package of rat-poison at hand, had not stuck it under the chest of drawers, not even thinking of opening the paper. Elettra was suspicious.

"At all events, Excellency," she said, "remember that you found it, and that it was carefully closed."

Suddenly, as they were speaking together, Veronica's face changed, and she grasped the corner of the piece of furniture convulsively. Though she had taken the poisoned lump from her cup in time to save her life, enough had been dissolved already to make her very ill.

Again there was dire confusion and fear in the Palazzo Macomer, by night. It was a wholesale poisoning. Veronica, Matilde, and Gregorio were all seized nearly at the same time.

Several of the servants left the house within half an hour after it was known that their masters were all poisoned. Within a fortnight, Bosio Macomer had killed himself and there had been two poisonings. Matilde's maid and a housemaid, the cook, and the butler went quietly to their several rooms, took the most valuable of their own possessions, and slipped out. They felt that the house was doomed, with every one in it. But some one had gone for the doctor, and he arrived in a short time. Matilde, to whom all the proper antidotes had been given on the previous day, might have taken them at once, but in the first place, weak and still suffering the consequence of the first dangerous experiment, she was almost unconscious with pain, and secondly, if she had taken an antidote herself, it would have seemed strange that she should not administer it to Veronica, or at least send some one to the young girl to do so. Gregorio lay howling with pain in his room. But Matilde had warned him that it would come, after they had left Veronica's room together, and he knew that everything depended on his not hinting at the truth.

The doctor came to Matilde first. Far away, at the other end of the house, Elettra was with Veronica. She had known what they had done for the countess on the preceding evening, and while the servants were screaming and running hither and thither through the apartments, like scared sheep, the woman had quietly got oil and warm water, and was giving both to her mistress. She knew that a footman had gone for the doctor. When Veronica had first been seized with pain, Elettra had thrust the package of poison into her own pocket, and it was still there.

By the time the antidote began to act, Elettra believed that the doctor must be in the house. Not wishing to leave Veronica even for a moment, she rang the bell. But no one came. The woman suspected that the doctor had gone first to Matilde, and she decided in a moment that it was better to leave her mistress alone for two or three minutes than not to have the physician's assistance at once. She hastened to Matilde's room. As she passed a half-open door the package of poison in her pocket struck against the door-post and reminded her of its presence, if she needed reminding.

The doctor was bending over Matilde, who seemed very weak. As Elettra entered, she saw that there was no one else in the room. A drawer in a piece of furniture stood open as Matilde had left it, and as Elettra passed, she dropped the package in, and with a movement of her hand covered it with some folded handkerchiefs, from a little heap, shutting the drawer with a quick push. Neither Matilde nor the doctor saw her do it. As Elettra spoke to the doctor, the countess started at the sound of her voice. She thought the maid had come to say that Veronica was dead. Almost violently the woman dragged the physician away with her, and Matilde smiled in the midst of her sufferings.

It would be useless to chronicle the details of the night and of the following morning. The three poisoned persons were almost recovered within twelve hours. Of the servants who had fled, Matilde's maid was the first to come back when she learned that no one was dead.

As the night wore on towards dawn, and the countess learned that Veronica was alive and not at all likely to die, she silently turned her face to the wall and tore her pocket-handkerchief slowly with her teeth. In the morning, when the doctor was there, the maid was alone in the room, arranging things as quickly as she could, and hoping that in the confusion of the previous night, her absence might not have been observed. In the drawer, amongst the handkerchiefs and other things, she came upon the package, looked at it in surprise, turned it round and round, and read the words written on it. Then, thinking that she had discovered the clue to the attempted wholesale murder, and that she might obtain pardon for her defection, she came to the bedside and held it up to the doctor. He, too, looked at it, and read the words. Matilde's heavy eyes opened, and then stared as she recognized the package. She thought that of course it had been found in Elettra's room, and was sure of the answer, when she put the question to her maid.

"Where did you find it?" she asked faintly.

"In the drawer, here, Excellency."

"In the drawer!" cried Matilde, starting up, and leaning on her elbow, as though electrified. "In the drawer? Here, in my room? Why--it was--"

Her head sank back, and her eyes closed. She had nearly betrayed herself, for she was very weak.

"It was not there yesterday--I am sure of it," she said feebly.

"Give it to me," said the doctor, sternly, and he put it into his pocket.

All that day Matilde lay in her room. Gregorio had recovered. He came to her, and when they were alone, he reproached her bitterly and upbraided her in unmeasured language for her failure. Veronica was alive, and his terror of the ruin before him grew stronger with the physical weakness. He was a coward always, but he was now half mad with fear. He laughed hideously, and his face twitched. He sawed the air with extraordinary gestures while he walked up and down in his wife's room, speaking excitedly in a low tone. Matilde turned to the wall and answered nothing. For she could not have found anything to say.

From time to time, during the day, she had news of Veronica. Elettra never left her mistress but once, shortly before twelve o'clock. She went out for a quarter of an hour, and came back bringing fresh eggs, bread, and wine, which she had bought herself.

"It is poor fare, Excellency," she said, as she boiled the eggs in the tea-urn, "but it is safe. If you are strong enough this afternoon, we will go away. This is not a good house. I do not understand what was done; but it was done to kill you and not to hurt them."

"I think it was," said Veronica. "I am not frightened, but I do not think that I am safe here."

After she had eaten a little and drunk some wine, she felt stronger and wrote a line to the Princess Corleone, asking the latter to receive her for a few days, as she was in trouble. In an hour she had an answer. Bianca, of course, was ready for her whenever she might come. Elettra quickly began to pack such things as her mistress might need immediately.

Veronica lay still, listening to Elettra's movements in the next room. In a flash she had guessed half the truth, and reflexion now brought her most of the rest. She remembered Don Teodoro's earnest face and the quiet eyes that had looked at her through the silver spectacles while he had been speaking. There had been conviction in them, and even then she had felt that he believed the truth of what he said, however mistaken he might be. And now she felt that it was not he who had spoken, but Bosio, through him, that the warning came from beyond the grave, and that she had risked her life in disregarding it. She believed that Bosio had been a truthful man, and each detail of what had happened fitted itself to the next, to make up the whole story which the priest had told her. All but Bosio's love for Matilde, and in that Don Teodoro had misunderstood him. He might have loved her in the past. That was possible, and to the young girl's mind, in comparison with all that had recently happened, the wrong of that love dwindled to an insignificant detail. She had not been near enough to loving the man herself to be jealous of his past. And she was glad that he had not told Don Teodoro of his love for herself.

The rest all grew to distinctness and to the coincidence of the fact with the warning. She was brave enough to face danger as well as a man, but there was no reason why she should stay where she was, waiting to be murdered. She had a right to save herself without despising herself as a coward. She therefore said nothing to stop Elettra in her preparations, and the maid silently went on with her work in the other room.

She still felt ill and terribly shaken, but she rose softly, to try her strength, and she found that after the first moment's dizziness she could stand and walk alone. She looked at her hands, and she thought that they had shrunk and were thinner than ever. Then she lay down again and called Elettra, and bade her prepare her own belongings and then come and dress her, when she should have finished.

"Yes, Excellency."

That was almost all that the woman had said, since she had boiled the eggs for her mistress's luncheon, and Veronica herself did not speak except to give an order about some detail of the packing. It would have been impossible to talk of what had happened without speaking clearly about Matilde, and Veronica did not wish to do that, though Elettra was of her own people and devotedly attached to her.

Elettra had been careful that no one in the household should learn her mistress's intention of leaving the palace. Veronica intended to go away in a cab, and it would be the question of a moment only to call one. When all was ready, Elettra went out for that purpose herself, and Veronica went without hesitation to Matilde's room. When she entered, the countess was alone, propped with pillows on a low couch near the fire. Her large white hands lay listlessly upon the dark shawl that was drawn over her, and she had thrown a piece of thick black lace over her head. It was nearly four o'clock, and the light was already waning, so that, as she lay with her back to the window, Veronica could hardly see her face. She raised her head slowly and wearily as the young girl entered, and then started visibly, as she recognized her.

"It is I," said Veronica, when she had closed the door.

She came and stood beside the couch on which her aunt lay, and she looked down at the reclining woman. Matilde's listless hands suddenly clasped each other.

"Yes," she answered, with an effort. "Are you going out? Are you well enough to go out?" she asked, adding the last question quickly.

"I should go if I were much more ill than I have been," Veronica replied. "I am not coming back."

"Not coming back?" Surprise brought energy into Matilde's voice.

"No. I am not coming back. Do not be astonished. I understand what has happened, and I am going to a safer place."

"What? How? I do not understand." Matilde spoke rapidly and unsteadily. "You must stay here--Gregorio is going to send for the chief of police--there will be an inquiry, and you must answer questions--we suspect one of the servants, who has a grudge against your uncle, and who has tried to murder us all in revenge--"

"Yes," said Veronica, calmly. "It was well arranged, I am sure. If I had not found the rat-poison under the chest of drawers in Elettra's room, you might have thrown suspicion upon her, because her husband was murdered at Muro. If I had not found my tea too sweet, I should not have taken out the second piece and given it to the cat. The taste I had of it almost killed me--you have explained the rest to me now. But I knew all that I needed to know."

Matilde put her feet to the ground and slowly rose to her feet while Veronica was speaking. Then she laid her two hands upon the girl's shoulders and stared into her face.

"Do you dare to accuse me of trying to poison you?" she asked in a low, fierce voice.

"Take your hands from me!" cried Veronica, thrusting her back. "Call your husband. I will accuse you both--you and him."

They were women of the same race and name, and both brave. But the elder and stronger felt her nerves growing weak in her when she heard the other's voice. Perhaps courageous people recognize courage and conviction in others more easily than cowards can. Matilde hesitated.

"Call him!" repeated Veronica, in a tone of command. "I insist upon it. He shall hear what I have to say."

"I will call him, that he may see for himself that you are quite mad," answered Matilde. "That is," she added, "if he is well enough to come here from his room." And she moved slowly towards the door.

"If I am alive, he is well enough to hear me speak," said the young girl.

Matilde stopped, turned, and faced her a moment, as though about to speak angrily. Then she went on. It was best, on the whole, to call her husband, she thought, though her reasoning was confused and uncertain. In her view of matters, the burden of the crime she had tried to commit all fell upon him, and she was willing that he should face Veronica, and realize what he had done. At the same time she believed herself so safe as still to be able to throw the suspicion entirely upon Elettra, though Veronica would protect her. Moreover, though she would not have admitted the fact, her strength was momentarily so broken that she felt it easier to obey the young girl than to visit her and fight out the interview alone.

Veronica did not move while she was gone, but stood quite still, watching the door. She was very pale, with illness and rising anger, but she was not weak, as Matilde was. She had not gone through half so much. Presently Matilde returned, followed by Macomer, wrapped in a dark velvet dressing-gown, his face white and twitching, his usually smooth grey beard unbrushed, and his grey hair in disorder. With drawn lids he looked at Veronica, and in his terror he tried to smile, but there was something at once cowardly and insolent in the expression--there was something else, too, which the young girl did not understand, a sort of vacancy of the brow and unnatural weakness of the mouth.

"I am glad that you have come," she said, when the door was shut. "I have not much to say, and I wish you to hear it."

They were all standing. Gregorio steadied himself by the head of the couch, and was as erect as ever.

"I will tell you something which you do not know," said Veronica, fixing her eyes on him. "Before Bosio died he told the whole truth to Don Teodoro Maresca, his friend. And the day after his death, Don Teodoro came and told it all to me."

"Bosio!" exclaimed Gregorio, his knees shaking. "Bosio told--"

"What did Bosio tell?" asked Matilde, interrupting her husband in a loud voice to cover any mistake he might be about to make.

But Veronica had seen Macomer's face and had heard his tone of dread. Whatever doubts she still had, disappeared for the last time.

"He told his friend the whole truth about your management of my fortune," she answered steadily. "He told how you had lost your own in speculation and had taken everything of mine upon which you could lay hands--all my income and much more, so long as you were still my guardian--you and Lamberto Squarci, helping each other. And I understand now why you would not give me that money the other day. You had not got it to give me. My aunt must have borrowed it. And Bosio told Don Teodoro, that unless he was married to me, you meant to kill me, because I had signed a will leaving you everything. There was nothing that Bosio did not tell, and Don Teodoro repeated every word of it to me. I thought him mad. But now I know that he was not. I have been saved by a miracle, but you shall not try to murder me again--so I am going away."

Macomer had listened to the end, his face working horribly and his hands grasping the head of the couch. When Veronica paused, his head fell forward as he stood. Even Matilde could not speak, for a moment. The revelation that Bosio had told all before he died, and that Veronica knew it, fell upon her like a blow, with stunning force. The first words came from Gregorio.

"Bosio!" he exclaimed in a loud voice. "The devil take his soul!"

"God will have mercy upon the soul that was lost through your deeds," said the young girl, solemnly. "Amongst you, you drove him to madness--it was not his fault. But for his soul you shall answer, as well as for your deeds--and that is much to answer for, to Heaven and to me. You neither of you have the strength to deny one word of what Bosio said--"

"He was mad!" Matilde broke in. "You are mad, too--"

"Oh no!" interrupted Veronica, with contempt. "You cannot fasten that upon me. I am not mad at all, and I will show you what it is to be sane, for I know that every word of what Bosio told Don Teodoro was true. I was foolish not to believe it at once--it almost cost my life to believe you better than you are."

"He was quite insane," muttered Gregorio, in almost imbecile repetition of what his wife had said.

Matilde made another great effort to impose her remaining strength upon the young girl.

"Whether you are mad or not, you shall not stand there accusing me of monstrous crimes!" she cried, moving a step towards Veronica, and raising her hand with a menacing gesture.

"Shall not?" repeated Veronica, proudly, and instead of retreating she advanced calmly to meet her aunt.

"Would you not rather that I accused you here, and proved you guilty and let you go free, than that I should do as much in a court of justice? You know what the end of that would be--penal servitude for you both--and unless--" she paused, for she was growing hot and she wished to speak with coolness.

"Unless?" Matilde uttered the one word scornfully, still facing her.

"Unless you will confess the truth, here, before I leave the house, I will do what I can to have you both convicted," said Veronica. "That is your only chance. That or the galleys. Choose. You are thieves and murderers. Choose."

She spoke like a man to those who would have murdered her and had failed, but who had robbed her with impunity for years. Gregorio Macomer's face was all distorted. All at once his maniac laugh broke out. But it stopped suddenly and unexpectedly, and it changed to another sort of laughter--low and not unpleasant to hear, but a little vacant. Matilde turned her head slowly and gazed at him. He was bending now and resting his elbows on the head of the couch, instead of his hands, and he held his hands themselves opposite to each other, crooking first one finger and then another, and making one finger bow to the other, as children sometimes do, and laughing vacantly to himself, with a queer little chuckle of enjoyment. Veronica stared. Matilde held her breath. Still he laughed softly.

"Marionettes," he said, looking up at his wife, his little eyes wide open. "Do you see the marionettes? This is Pulcinella. This is his wife. Do you see how they quarrel? Is it not pretty? I always like to see the marionettes in the streets. Ha! ha! ha! see them!"

And he played with his fingers and made them bob and bow, like little dolls.

"He is ill," said Matilde, in a low, uneasy voice. "Pay no attention to him."

He had always intended to save himself by pretending to go mad, but even Matilde was amazed at his power of acting.

"He will recover," answered Veronica, coldly. "You can still understand me, at all events, even if he cannot. You have your choice. If you tell me the truth, I will not allow any inquiry. I will take over my fortune, if you have left me any, and for the sake of my father's name, I will not bring you to justice, even if you have ruined me. But I warn you--and it is the last time, for I am going--if you still try to deny what I know to be the truth, the prosecution shall begin to-morrow. You will not be able to murder me, for I shall be protected, and with all your abominable courage you are not brave enough to try and kill me here, before I leave this room. No--you are not. I am not afraid of you. But you have reason to be afraid. You will be convicted. Nothing can save you. Though people do not know me as they knew my father,--though I am only a girl and came to you, straight from the convent,--I know that I have power, and I shall use it. I am not poor Elettra, whom you intended to accuse. I am the Princess of Acireale; I have been your ward; you and your husband have robbed me, and you have tried to murder me. Though I am only a girl, justice will move more quickly for me than it would for you, even if you could call it to help you. Now choose, and waste no time."

While she had been speaking, Macomer had stared at her with an expression of genuine childish amusement.

"Poor Pulcinella!" he exclaimed softly. "How your wife can talk, when she is angry! Poor fellow!"

The tone was so natural that Matilde again looked at him uneasily, and moved nearer to him, not answering Veronica.

"Come, Gregorio," she said, "you are ill. Come to your room--you must not stay here."

"I am sorry you do not like the marionettes," he said gravely. "They always amuse me. Stay a little longer."

Veronica supposed that he was ill from the effects of the poisoning and that he was in some sort of delirium. But she did not pity him, and was relentless. She moved nearer to her aunt.

"Answer me!" she said sternly. "This is the last time. If you deny the truth now, I will go to the chief of police at once."

"Oh! poor old Pulcinella!" cried Macomer, laughing gently. "How she gives it to him!"

Matilde was almost distracted.

"You will be arrested at once," said Veronica, pitilessly.

"Never mind, Pulcinella!" exclaimed Macomer. "Courage, my friend! You know you always get away from the policeman! Ha! ha! ha!"

Matilde saw Veronica moving to go to the door. She straightened herself and pointed to her husband.

"Yes," she said. "He did it--and he is mad."

Her voice was firm and clear, for the die was cast. When she had spoken, she turned from them both towards the fireplace, and hid her face in her hands. If he could act his madness out, she, at least, would still be free and alive. Veronica stood still a moment longer, looking back.

"That is the other piece," said Macomer, thoughtfully. "Pulcinella does not go mad in this one. The man has forgotten the parts. It is a pity--it was so amusing."

There was silence for a moment. Matilde did not look round.

"I think he will recover," said Veronica. "But I am glad you have told the truth. I promise that you shall be safe."

In a moment she was gone.

"Just so," said Macomer, speaking to himself. "He forgot the words of the piece, and so he made it end rather abruptly. Let us go home, Matilde, since it is over."

"It is of no use to go on acting insanity before me," answered Matilde, with a bitter sigh, as she raised her face from her hands and moved away from the fireplace, not looking at him.

"That is the reason why Pulcinella's wife disappeared so suddenly," he replied. "You see, there are two pieces which the marionettes act. In the one which begins with the quarrel--"

"I tell you it is of no use to do that!" cried Matilde, angrily, and beginning to walk up and down the room, still keeping her eyes from the face she hated.

"How nervous you are!" he exclaimed, with irritation. "I was only trying to explain--"

"Oh, I know! I know! Keep this acting for the doctors! You will drive me really mad!"

"The doctors?" He stared at her and smiled childishly. "Oh no!" he exclaimed. "The doctor is in the other piece--I was going to explain--"

She turned with a fierce exclamation upon him and grasped his arm, shaking him savagely, as though to rouse him. To her horror, he burst into tears.

"You hurt!" he whined. "You hurt me! Oh, poor little Gregorio!"

He was really mad, and there was no more acting for him, as the tears streamed down his vacant face, which no longer twitched at all.

His mind had broken down under Veronica's relentless accusation and threat of vengeance.

The miserable woman's strength was all but gone, when she sat down, alone in the room with her mad husband, and once more buried her face in her hands.

He whined and cried a little while to himself, and rubbed his arm where she had taken hold so roughly; but presently his tears dried again, and he leaned over the end of the couch on his elbow, and above her bowed, veiled head he crooked his fingers at each other, and made his hands nod and bob to each other, like little dolls, laughing gently, with a chuckle now and then, at the funny things he heard Pulcinella saying to his wife.

That was the end of the attempt to murder Veronica Serra, and that was the end of the old life at the Palazzo Macomer. _

Read next: Chapter 16

Read previous: Chapter 14

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