Chapter 20

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_ CHAPTER XX

Veronica was awake early in the May morning, and looked out again upon the great valley she had seen at sunset. It was all mist and light, without distinct outline. A fresh breeze blew into her face as she stood at the open window, and the sun was yet on the southeast wall, so that she stood in the clear, bluish shadow which high buildings cast only in the morning.

She had slept soundly without dreams, and she wondered how she could have ever glanced last night towards the place in the corner where the trap-door was hidden under her toilet table, or how she could have felt herself lonely and not quite safe, in her own castle, with a dozen of her own people, when she had never been afraid in the Palazzo Macomer. She pushed back her brown hair, a little impatiently, and laughed as she turned to Elettra.

"We are well here, Excellency," said the maid, with a smile of satisfaction.

She rarely spoke unless Veronica addressed her, and was never a woman of many words.

"And you saw no ghosts?" Veronica laughed.

"I am afraid of ghosts that wear felt slippers," answered Elettra.

An hour later Veronica sent for Don Teodoro, and they went over the castle together. He led her first to the high dungeon on the north side. The natural rock sprang up at that end, and some of the steps were cut in it. At the top, the tower was round, with a high parapet, and an extension on one side, all filled with earth and planted with cabbages and other green things.

"The under-steward had a little vegetable garden here," said Don Teodoro. "I suppose that you will plant flowers. Will you look over the parapet on that side?"

Veronica trod the soft earth daintily and reached the wall. She glanced over it, and then drew a deep breath of surprise. Below her was a sheer fall of a thousand feet, to the bottom of a desolate ravine that ran up to northward in an incredibly steep ascent.

Then they went into the ancient prison, which was a round, vaulted chamber, shaped like the inside of the sharp end of an eggshell, with one small grated window, three times a man's height from the stone floor. The little iron door had huge bolts and locks, and might have been four or five hundred years old. On the stone walls, men who had been imprisoned there had chipped out little crosses, and made initials, and rough dates in the fruitless attempts to commemorate their obscure suffering.

Veronica and Don Teodoro descended again, and he led her through many strange places, dimly lighted by small windows piercing ten feet of masonry, and through the enormous hall which had been the guard-room or barrack in old days, and had served as a granary since then, and up and down dark stairs, through narrow ways, out upon jutting bastions, down and up, backwards and forwards, as it seemed to her, till she could only guess at the direction in which she was going, by the glimpses of distant mountain and valley as she passed the irregularly placed windows. Several of her people followed her, and one went before with a huge bunch of ancient keys, opening and shutting all manner of big and little doors before her and after her. Now and then one of the men in green coats lighted a lantern and showed her where steep black steps led down into dark cellars, and vaults, and underground places.

She saw it all, but she was glad to get back to the room she already loved best, from which the balcony outside the windows looked down upon the valley.

And there she began at once to install herself, causing her books to be unpacked and arranged, as well as the few objects familiar to her eyes, which she had brought with her. Among these was the photograph of Bosio Macomer. Those of Gregorio and Matilde had disappeared. She hesitated, as she held the picture in her hand, as to whether she should keep it in her bedroom, or in the sitting-room, in which she meant chiefly to live, and she looked at it with sad eyes. She decided that it should be in the sitting-room. Where everything was hers, she had a right to show what had been all but quite hers at the last. The six brass candlesticks were taken away, and Bosio's photograph was set upon the long, low mantelpiece. His death had after all been more a surprise, a horror, a disappointment, than the wound it might have been if she had really loved him, and it is only the wound that leaves a scar. The momentary shock is presently forgotten when the young nerves are rested and the vision of a great moment fades to the half-tone of the general past. Between her present, too, and the night of Bosio's death, had come the attempt upon her own life, and all the sudden change that had followed the catastrophe. She was too brave to realize, even now, that she might have died at Matilde's hands. She had to go over the facts to make herself believe that she had been almost killed. But the whole affair had brought a revolution into her life, since Bosio had been gone.

Another companionship had taken the place of his, so that she hardly missed him now. She would miss Gianluca's letters far more than Bosio, if they should suddenly stop, and the mere thought that the correspondence might be broken off gave her a sharp little pain. The idea crossed her mind while she was arranging her writing-table near her favourite window, for all writing seemed to be connected with Gianluca, so that she could not imagine passing more than a day or two without setting down something on paper which he was to read, and to answer. To lose that close intimacy of thought would be to lose much.

But Gianluca had written on the morning of her departure, and before Veronica had half finished what she was doing, one of her women brought her his letter, for the post came in at about midday. It came alone, for Bianca had not written yet, and Veronica's correspondence was not large. She had not even thought of ordering a newspaper to be sent to her. Her work and occupation were to be in Muro, and she cared very little about what might happen anywhere else. She broke the seal and read the letter eagerly.

It was like most of his letters at first, being full of matters about which he had talked with her, and written in the graceful way which was especially his and which had so much charm for her. But towards the end his courage must have failed him a little, for there were sad words and one or two phrases that had in them something touching and tender to which she was not accustomed. He did not tell her that he was ill and that he feared lest he might never see her again, for he was far too careful as yet of hinting at the truth she would not understand. They were very little things that told her of his sadness--an unfinished sentence ending in a dash, the fall of half a dozen harmonious words that were like a beautiful verse and vaguely reminded her of Leopardi's poetry--small touches here and there which had either never slipped from his pen before, or which she had never noticed.

They pleased her. She would not have been a human woman if she had not been a little glad to be missed for herself, even though the writing was to continue. She read the last part of the letter over three times, the rest only twice, and then she laid it in an empty drawer of her table, rather tenderly, to be the first of many. That should be Gianluca's especial place.

Amidst her first arrangements for her own comfort, she did not forget what she looked upon as her chief work, and before that day was over she had begun what was to be a systematic improvement of Muro. Direct and practical, with a sense beyond her years, she did not hesitate. The first step was to clean the little town and pave the streets. The next to visit and examine the dwellings.

"The place shall be clean," said Veronica to the steward, who stood before her table, receiving her orders.

"But, Excellency, how can it be clean when there are pigs everywhere?" inquired the man, astonished at her audacity.

"There shall be no more pigs in Muro," answered the young princess. "The people shall choose as many trustworthy old men and boys as are necessary to look after the creatures. They shall be kept at night in some barn or old building a mile or two from here, and they shall be fed there, or pastured there. I will pay what it costs."

"Excellency, it is impossible! There will be a revolution!" The steward held up his hands in amazement.

"Very well, then. Let us have a revolution. But do not tell me that what I order is impossible. I will have no impossibilities. The town belongs to me, and it shall be inhabited by human beings, and not by pigs. If you make difficulties, you may go. I can find people to carry out my orders. Begin and clean the streets to-day. Take as many hands as you need and pay them full labourer's wages, but see that they work. Make a list of the pigs and their owners. Decide where you will keep them. Hire the swineherds. If I find one pig in Muro a week from to-day, and if, in fine weather, I cannot walk dry shod where I please, I will take another steward. I intend to remit a quarter of all the rents this year. You may tell the people so. You may go and see about these things at once, but let me hear no more of impossibilities. Only children say that things are impossible."

The man understood that the old order had departed and that Veronica Serra meant to be obeyed without question, and he never again raised his voice to suggest that there might be what he called a revolution if her orders were carried out.

As for the people of Muro, they were dumb with astonishment. They had a municipality, of course, a syndic, and a secretary, and certain head men, to whose authority they were accustomed to appeal in everything--generally against the extortion of the stewards who had obeyed Gregorio Macomer. But before Veronica had been in Muro ten days, the municipality was nothing more than the shadow of a name. The syndic was her tenant, and bowed down to her, and the rest of the illiterate officials followed his lead. It was natural enough; for they all benefited by the lowering of the rents, and they were quick to see that she meant to spend money in the place, which would be to the advantage of every one before long.

It was she who made the revolution, and not they. Before the first week was out the pigs were gone, and she walked dry shod over the stones from the castle to the entrance of the village. In less than a month the principal way was levelled and half paved, and masons were everywhere at work repairing those of the houses which were in most immediate need of improvement.

"You are Christians," she said to a little crowd that gathered round her one day, while she was watching the setting-up of a new door. "You shall live like Christians. When you have been clean for a month, you will never wish to be dirty again."

"That is true," answered an old man, shaking his head thoughtfully. "But, in the name of God, who has ever thought of these things? It needed this angel from Paradise."

Veronica laughed. They were docile people, and they soon found out that the young princess was as absolute a despot in character as ever terrorized Rome or ruled the Russias. At the merest suggestion of opposition, the small aquiline nose seemed to quiver, the little head was thrown back, the brown eyes gleamed, the delicate gloved hand either closed upon itself quickly or went out in a gesture of command.

But then, they sometimes saw another look in her face, though not often, and perhaps it was less natural to her though not less true to her nature. They had seen the brown eyes soften wonderfully and the small hands do very tender things, now and then, for poor children and suffering women when, no one else was at hand to give aid. Yet, at most times, she was quiet, cheerful, natural, for it happened more and more rarely that any one opposed her will.

She became to them the very incarnation of power on earth. She would have been thought rich in any country; to their utter wretchedness her wealth was fabulous beyond bounds of fairy tale. Most persons would have admitted that she was wonderfully practical and showed a great deal of common sense in what she did; to her own people she seemed preternaturally wise, only to be compared with Providence for her foresight, and much more occupied with their especial welfare than Providence could be expected to be, considering the extent of the world. She was endlessly charitable to women and children and old men, but to those who could work she was inexorable. She paid well, but she insisted that the work should be done honestly. Some of the younger ones murmured at her hardness when they had tried to deceive her.

"Would you take false money from me?" she asked. "Why should I take false work from you? You have good work to sell, and I have good money to give you for it. I do not cheat you. Do not try to cheat me."

They laughed shamefacedly and worked better the next time, for they were not without common sense, either. Doubtless, she attempted and expected more than was possible at first, but she had Don Teodoro at her elbow, and he was able to direct her energy, though he could not have moderated it. He found it hard, indeed, to keep pace with her swift advances towards the civilization of Muro, and he was quite incapable of entering into the boldness of some of her generalizations, which, to tell the truth, were youthful enough when she first expressed her ideas to him. But while one of his two great passions was learning, the other was charity, in that simple form which gives all it has to any one who seems to be in trouble--the charity that is universal, and easily imposed upon, and that exists spontaneously and, as it were, for its own sake, in certain warm-hearted people--an indiscriminate love of giving to the poor, the overflow of a heart so full of kindness that it would be kind to a withering flower or a half-dead tree, rather than not expend itself at all. And so, seeing the great things that were done by Veronica in Muro, and secretly giving of his very little where she gave very much, Don Teodoro grew daily to be more and more happy in the satisfaction of his strongest instinct; and little by little he, also, came to look upon his princess as the incarnation of a good power come to illuminate his darkness and to lift his people out of degradation to human estate.

Veronica was happy too. There is a sort of exhilaration and daily surprise in the first use of real power in any degree, and she enjoyed her own sensations to the fullest extent. When she was alone, she wrote about them to Gianluca, giving him what was almost a daily chronicle of her new life, and waiting anxiously for the answers to her letters which came with almost perfect regularity for some time after her own arrival at Muro.

They pleased her, too, though the note of sadness was more accentuated in them, as time went on and spring ran into summer. He had hoped, perhaps, that she might tire of her solitude and come down to Naples, if only for a few days; or at least, that something might happen to break what promised to be a long separation. He longed for a sight of her, and said so now and then, for letter-writing could not fill up the aching emptiness she had left in his already empty life. He had not her occupations and interests to absorb his days and make each hour seem too short, and, moreover, he loved her, whereas she was not at all in love with him.

Then, a little later, there was a tone of complaint in what he wrote, which suddenly irritated her. He told her that his life was dreary and tiresome, and that the people about him did not understand him. She answered that he should occupy himself, that he should find something to do and do it, and that she herself never had time enough in the day for all she undertook. It was the sort of letter which a very young woman will sometimes write to a man whose existence she does not understand, a little patronizing in tone and superior with the self-assurance of successful and unfeeling youth. She even pointed out to him that there were several things which he did not know, but which he might learn if he chose, all of which was undoubtedly true, though it was not at all what he wanted. For him, however, the whole letter was redeemed by a chance phrase at the end of it. She carelessly wrote that she wished he were at Muro to see what she had done in a short time. He knew that the words meant nothing, but he lived on them for a time, because she had written them to him. His next letter was more cheerful. He repeated her own words, as though wishing her to see how much he valued them, saying that he wished indeed that he were at Muro, to see what she had accomplished. To some extent, he added, the fulfilment of the wish only depended on herself, for in the following week he was going with his father and mother and all the family to spend a month in a place they had not far from Avellino, and that, as she knew, was not at an impossible distance from Muro. But of course he could not intrude alone upon her solitude.

When she next wrote, Veronica made no reference to this hint of his. The man was not the same person to her as the correspondent, and she very much preferred exchanging letters with him to any conversation. She did not forget what he had said, however, and when she supposed that the Della Spina family had gone to the country she addressed her letters to him near Avellino. He had not yet gone, however, and he soon wrote from Naples complaining that he had no news from her.

On the following day Veronica was surprised to receive a letter addressed in a hand she did not know. It was from Taquisara, and she frowned a little angrily as she glanced at the signature before reading the contents. It began in the formal Italian manner,--"Most gentle Princess,"--and it ended with an equally formal assurance of respectful devotion. But the matter of the letter showed little formality.

"I have hesitated long before writing to you"--it said--"both because I offended you at our last meeting and because I have not been sure, until to-day, about the principal matter of which I have to speak. In the first place, I beg you to forgive me for having spoken to you as I did at the Princess Corleone's house. I am not skilful at saying disagreeable things gracefully. I was in earnest, and I meant what I said, but I am sincerely sorry that I should have said it rudely. I earnestly beg you to pardon the form which my intention took.

"Secondly, I wish very much that I might see you. I fear that you would not receive me, and from the ordinary point of view of society you would be acting quite rightly, since you are really living alone. The world, however, is quite sure that you have a companion, an elderly gentlewoman who is a distant relation of yours. It will never be persuaded that this good lady does not exist, because it cannot possibly believe that you would have the audacity to live alone in your own house.

"I wish to see you, because my friend Gianluca cannot live much longer. You may remember that he walked with difficulty, and even used a stick, before you left Naples. He can now hardly walk at all. According to the doctors, he has a mortal disease of the spine and cannot live more than two or three months. Perhaps I am telling you this very roughly, but it cannot pain you as much as it does me, and you ought to know it. He is not the man to let any one tell you of his state, and I have taken it upon myself to write to you without asking his opinion. I told you once what you were to him. All that I told you is ten times more true, now. Between you and life, he would not choose, if he could; but he is losing both. As a Christian woman, in commonest kindness, if you can see him before he dies, do so. And you can, if you will. He was to have been moved to the place near Avellino a few days ago, but he was too ill. They all leave next week, unless he should be worse. You are strong and well, and it would not be much for you to make that short journey, considering Gianluca's condition.

"I shall not tell him that I have written to you, and I leave to you to let him know of my writing, or not, as you think fit."

Here followed the little final phrase and the signature. Veronica let the sheet fall upon her table, and gazed long and steadily at the tapestry on the wall opposite her. Her hands clasped each other suddenly and then fell apart loosely and lay idle before her. Her head sank forward a little, but her eyes still held the point on which they were looking.

In the first shock of knowing that Gianluca was to die, she felt as though she had lost a part of him already, and something she dearly valued seemed to go out of her life. Her instinct was not to go to him and see him while she could, but to look forward to the blankness that would be before her when he should be gone. Something of him was an integral part of her life. But there was something of him for which she felt that she hardly cared at all.

She was probably selfish in the common sense of that ill-used word. It is generally applied to persons who do not love those that love them, but are glad of their existence, as it were, for the sake of something they receive and perhaps return--as Veronica did. But she did not ask herself questions, for she had never had the smallest inclination to analysis or introspection. It was as clear to her as ever that she did not love Gianluca in the least, but that she should find it hard to be happy without him. She had been nearer to loving poor Bosio than Gianluca, though the truth was that she had never loved any one yet.

But she pitied Gianluca with all her heart. That was the most she could do for that part of him which was nothing to her, and her face grew very sad as she thought of what he might be suffering, and of how hard it must be to die so young, with all the world before one. She could not imagine herself as ever dying.

She sat still a long time and tried to think of what she should do. But her thoughts wandered, and presently she found that she was asking herself whether it were her destiny to be fatal to those who loved her. But the mere idea of fatality displeased her as something which could oppose her, and perhaps defy her. After all, Gianluca might not die. She looked over Taquisara's letter again.

He was a man who meant what he said, and he wrote in earnest. There was something in him that appealed to her, as like to like. He had been rude and had spoken almost insolently, and even now he dared to write that he meant what he had said and only regretted the words he had used. For them, indeed, his apology was sufficient--for the rest, she was undecided. She went on to what referred to Gianluca, and her face grew grave and sad again. It must be true.

She laid the letter in the drawer where she kept Gianluca's, but in a separate corner, by itself. Then she took up her pen to write to Gianluca, intending to take up the daily written conversation at the point where she had last broken off, on the previous evening. With an effort, she wrote a few words, and then stopped short and leaned back in her chair, staring at the tapestry. It was a grim farce to write about her streets and her houses and her charities to a man who was dying--and who loved her. Yet she could not speak of his illness without letting him know that Taquisara had informed her of it. She tried to go on, and stopped again. Poor Gianluca--he was so young! All at once her pity overflowed unexpectedly, and she felt the tears in her eyes and on her cheeks. She brushed them away, and left her letter unfinished.

Half an hour later she was with Don Teodoro, busy about her usual occupations and plans. But she was absent-minded, and matters did not go well. She left him earlier than usual and shut herself up in her own room. She had not been there a quarter of an hour, however, before she felt stifled and oppressed by the close solitude, and she came out again and climbed to the top of the dungeon tower, where the little plot of cabbages had been converted into a tiny flower garden, and the roses were all in bloom.

With the rising of her pity had come the desire to see Gianluca and talk with him. She could not tell why she wished it so much, after having felt so horribly indifferent at first, but the wish was there, and like all her wishes, now, it must be satisfied without delay. She was supremely powerful in her little mountain town, and on the whole she was using her power very wisely. But her dominant character was rapidly growing despotic, and it irritated her strangely to want anything which she could not have. She had almost forgotten that society had any general claims upon people who chance to belong to it, and the sudden recollection that if she went down to Naples, she could not go and see Gianluca, even under his father's and mother's roof, and talk with him if she pleased, was indescribably offensive to her over-grown sense of independence. Nor could she invite herself to Avellino to pay a visit to Gianluca's mother. She understood enough of the customs of the world with which she had really lived so little, to know that such a thing was impossible.

If she could not see him in Naples and could not go to see him at his father's place, he must come to Muro. It flashed upon her that she had a right to ask the whole Della Spina family to spend a week with her if she chose. They might think it extraordinary if they pleased--it would be an invitation, after all, and the worst that could happen would be that the old Duchessa might refuse it. But Veronica never anticipated refusals.

As for Gianluca, if he were well enough to be taken to Avellino, he could be brought to Muro. A journey by carriage was no more tiring than one by railway, and the change and excitement would perhaps do him good. The more she thought of the possibility of her plan as compared with the impracticable nature of any other which suggested itself, the more she looked forward with pleasure to seeing him--and the more clearly it seemed to her an act of kindness to give him an opportunity of seeing her.

And between her reflexions, strengthening her intention and hastening her action, there returned the real and deep sorrow she felt at the thought of losing her best friend, and the genuine pity she now felt for him, apart from the selfish consideration which had come first.

In the singular and anomalous position she had created for herself, there was no one whom she could consult. As for asking Don Teodoro's opinion, it never entered her head, for it would have been impossible to do so without confiding to him the nature of her friendship with Gianluca. She would not do that now. She had first told Bianca Corleone frankly enough of the exchange of letters, but she herself had not then known what that secret friendship was to mean in her life, nor how she and Gianluca would almost conceal it from each other. Besides, she was accustomed now to impose her will upon the old priest as she imposed it upon every one in her surroundings. When she asked his advice, it was about matters of expediency, and that happened every day, but she would not have thought of taking counsel with him about any action which concerned herself. If society chanced to be in opposition to her, society must either give way or make the best of it, or break with her. But it was certainly within the bounds of social tradition and custom that she should ask such of her friends as she chose, to stay with her under her own roof.

One small practical difficulty met her, and it was characteristic of her that it was the only one to which she paid any attention after she had made up her mind. She could have found fifty rooms for guests in the castle, but there were certainly not three which were now sufficiently furnished to be habitable as bedrooms. She had changed the face of the town in three months, but she had not at all improved her own establishment. There were foresters and men occupied upon the estates who came and went as their work required, and there were generally four or five of them in the house; but she was served by women, and there was not a man-servant in the place. She had only five horses in her stable. She glanced at the black frock she wore and smiled, realizing for the first time what Elettra had meant by protesting against her wearing it any longer.

But none of the details were of a nature to check such a woman in anything she really wished. If she chose to be waited on by women and to wear old clothes, that was her affair and concerned no one else. As for a little furniture more or less, she could get all she wanted from Naples in three or four days. _

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