Chapter 29

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_ CHAPTER XXIX

Don Teodoro wrote a few words to Taquisara, embodying what Don. Matteo had advised him to say. He added also that matters had not turned out as he had expected and that he should return to Muro as usual on the twentieth of the month. The Sicilian, read the letter twice and then burned it carefully. He was neither surprised nor disappointed by its contents, though he had expected that there would be much more difficulty in undoing what had been done. There was clearly nothing more to be said, as there was most certainly nothing more to hope. Don Teodoro had undoubtedly consulted the archbishop of Naples, thought Taquisara, and such a decision was final and authoritative.

He had succeeded in forcing himself into a sort of mechanical regularity of life which helped him through the day. Gianluca needed him still, though less than formerly, and as long as he could be of use, and could control his face and voice, he would stay in Muro. Since Veronica had fixed the first of January as a limit, he could hardly find an excuse for going away during the last three weeks of the time, when he could still be of infinite service to his friend on the journey to Naples.

On the whole, he considered himself very little. It was easier to do his utmost, and to invent more than his utmost to be done, than it would be to live an idle life anywhere else.

Again, as in the early days, he avoided Veronica when he could do so, without attracting Gianluca's attention, and Veronica herself kept out of his way as much as she could. Without words they had a tacit understanding that they would never be left alone together, even for an instant.

One day, by chance, going in opposite directions through the house, they opened opposite doors of the same room and faced each other unexpectedly. For a single instant both paused, and then came forward to pass each other. Veronica held her head high and looked straight before her, for they had met already on that day, and there was no reason why she should speak to him. But Taquisara could not help looking into her face, and he saw how hard it tried to be and yet how, in spite of herself, it softened almost before she had passed him. He turned and glanced at her retreating figure, and her head was bent low, and her right hand, hanging by her side, opened and shut twice convulsively, in his sight.

He had not dared to suggest to himself until then that she might possibly love him, but in the flash of that quick passing he almost knew it. Then, before he had closed the door behind him and entered the next room, the knowledge was gone, and he cursed himself for the thought, as though it had been an insult to her. If he should have to pass her alone again, he would rather cut off his right hand than turn and look at her. But that one moment, past and gone, had life in it to torment him night and day.

Gianluca was no better, and no worse. He wheeled himself about the great rooms, and on fine mornings Veronica took him to drive. She read to him, played besique with him, fenced with Taquisara to amuse him; she devoted herself to him in every way; but as day followed day, she invented all sorts of occupations and games which should take the place of conversation. Anything was better than talking with him, now; anything was better than to hear him say that he loved her, expecting her to pronounce the words.

He himself lost heart suddenly.

"I shall never walk again," he said, one afternoon, as they sat together in the big room.

The days were very short, for it was mid-December, and the lamps had been brought. They had been out in the carriage, and when Taquisara had lifted him from his seat, he had made a desperate attempt to move his legs, a sudden effort into which he had thrown all the concentrated hope and will that were still in him. But there had been neither motion nor sensation, and all at once he had felt that it was all over, forever.

Veronica looked at him quickly, and he was watching her face. He saw no contradiction there of what he had said, but only a little surprise that he should have said it.

"You may not be able to walk as soon as we thought," she answered gently. "But that is no reason why you should never walk at all."

"I am afraid it is," he said.

She stroked his hand, as she often did, and her eyes wandered from his face to the other side of the room, and back again.

"I have been trying very hard to get well," he continued presently. "Harder than any one knows."

"I know," Veronica answered. "You are so brave!"

"Brave? No. I am desperate. Do you think I do not know what it must be to you, to be tied to a hopeless cripple like me?"

"Tied? I?" She spoke bravely, for it would have been a deadly cruelty not to contradict him. "It is for you," she went on. "You must not think of me as tied to you, dear, as you call it! I did it gladly, of my own free will, and I knew what I was doing."

"Ah no!" he answered sadly. "You could not have known what you were doing, then. Your whole life has only saved half of mine."

A chill of fear shot through Veronica's heart.

"Dear," she said anxiously and nervously. "Have I done anything to make you talk like this?"

"Yes, love, you have done much," he answered, with a tender, regretful look. "No--do not start! I am sorry that you did not understand. It is because you do so much, because you give your whole life for my wretched existence, because I know what my hours of happiness cost you now and will cost you hereafter. That is why I say these things. It would have been so much easier and simpler if I had died with my hand in yours, that day, when Don Teodoro married us. Veronica--tell me--did he say all the words? I fainted, I think."

"Yes," answered Veronica, still pale. "He said all the words."

"And did he give us the benediction?"

"Yes, he gave us the benediction."

Gianluca sighed.

"Then it cannot be undone, dear," he said softly. "You must forgive me."

"I would not have it undone, Gianluca."

And before that great unselfishness, Veronica bowed her head down, until her lips kissed his hands. But as she touched them, she heard the door open, and instantly she was erect again, and trying to smile. Taquisara came in.

Veronica rose, for she felt that she could not sit still by Gianluca's side, with his words in her ear, her own scarcely cold upon her lips, and the man for whom she would have given her soul's salvation, who would have died ten deaths for her, standing quietly there, looking on. She walked nervously up and down the room.

"Should you like to fence?" asked Taquisara. "We have not touched a foil to-day."

Anything seemed good which could pass the time without talking. But to her it seemed heartless just then.

"No," she answered, almost curtly. "It seems to me that we are always fencing."

But Gianluca understood why she refused. And to him, perhaps, anything was better than thinking.

"Please do!" he said. "I enjoy it so much!"

Mechanically and without a word, she went to the corner where the foils and other things were kept in a great carved chest.

Taquisara moved a large table out of the way, pushing it slowly before him.

"Do you think you can see? Or shall we have more lamps?" asked Veronica.

"I can see very well--as well as one can, by lamp-light," answered Taquisara, as he placed the lamps together upon the table, so that the light should fall sideways upon them when they fenced.

Veronica was glad to slip her mask over her face, just then. She was conscious of the fact when she had done it, though she hardly knew what she was doing as she took a foil from the long chest and stepped out into the room to meet Taquisara. Then, as he raised his arm to engage and she still held her foil down, her habitual interest in the amusement momentarily asserted itself.

"Shall we try that feint of yours that you were doing the other day?" she asked. "You know, you touched me with it. I think I can meet it now, for I have been thinking about it."

"Yes, try it!" said Gianluca, from his chair.

"Certainly," answered Taquisara.

Instantly, both fell into position and engaged. Barely crossing foils, Taquisara executed the feint in question at once, and lunged his fullest length. But Veronica had thought out the right parry and answer, and was quicker than he.

His weapon ran past her head without touching her, and as he recovered himself, hers shot out after him. He uttered an exclamation as it ran under his arm, with a little soft resistance.

"Touched!" cried Veronica, at the same instant.

He said nothing. Then, a second later, she uttered a sharp cry of horror, dropped her foil upon the floor and raising her mask stared at him with wild, white face. Not heeding what she did, she had taken the sharp foil by mistake. It was dark in the corner where the chest stood.

"It is nothing," he said. "It is nothing, I assure you."

"What is the matter?" asked Gianluca, in astonishment, for he could not see that the foil had no button.

But Veronica did not answer him. She was close to Taquisara now, clutching his arm with both hands and staring at the wire mask which covered his face.

"You are hurt! I know you are hurt!" she said, in a voice faint with fear.

"Oh no!" he answered, with a short laugh. "I was a little surprised. Take another foil. It is nothing, I assure you."

"I know you are hurt," she repeated. "Oh God! I might have killed you--"

She felt dizzy, and sick with horror, and she clung to his arm, now, for support.

"Do you mean to say that you had the sharp foil?" asked Gianluca, beginning to understand.

"It is nothing at all," said Taquisara. "It ran through my jacket, just under the arm. It did not touch me."

"It might have run through you," said Gianluca, gravely. "It might have killed you."

"Oh--please--please--" cried Veronica, still clinging to Taquisara's arm and turning her pale face to Gianluca.

He looked on, and his face changed. There was something in her attitude, just for a few seconds, in her ghastly pallor, in the tones of her voice, that went through Gianluca like a knife. The dreadful instinctive certainty that she loved the man she had so nearly killed, took possession of him in a dark prevision of terror. Veronica was strong and brave, but it would have been strange indeed if she had shown nothing of what she felt.

It did not last long, and perhaps she knew what she had shown, for she dropped Taquisara's arm, and the colour rushed to her face as she stooped and picked up the foil with the green hilt. The hilts of the others were blue, like those of many Neapolitan foils, and in the lamp-light she could hardly distinguish the difference.

With sudden anger Veronica set her foot upon the steel and bent it up, trying to break it. She could not, for it was of soft temper, but she bent it out of all shape, so as to be useless.

She forced herself to take another, and they fenced again for a few minutes. Gianluca watched them at first, but soon his head fell back, and he stared at the ceiling. Death had entered into his soul. He had guessed half the truth. But in the state in which he was on that evening, and after what had passed between him and Veronica, the suspicion alone would have been enough. Nothing could have saved him from it, since it was indeed the truth. Such passionate, strong love could only hide itself so long as it lived in the even, unchanging light of monotonous days. In the flash of a danger, a terror, a violent chance, its shape stood out for an instant and was not to be mistaken.

Gianluca scarcely spoke again on that evening. The next morning, before he left his own room, Taquisara was with him, walking up and down and smoking while Gianluca drank his coffee. They had been discussing the accident of the previous evening, and Taquisara had laughed over it. But Gianluca was sad and grave.

"I wish to ask you a question," he said, after a short silence. "When I fainted, that day--did Don Teodoro pronounce all the proper words? You must have heard him. Was it a real marriage, without any defect of form?"

Taquisara stopped in his walk and hesitated. After all, since Don Teodoro had written to him that the marriage must be performed again, it was much better that Gianluca should be prepared for it, since he himself had put the question.

"Since you ask me," answered Taquisara, after a moment's thought, "I may as well tell you what I know. After it was done, both Don Teodoro and I had doubts as to whether the marriage were perfectly valid, and he determined to consult a bishop. I suppose that he has done so, for he has written to me about it. He says that the ecclesiastical authority before whom the matter was laid declares that there were informalities, and that you must be married again. You see, in the first place, there were no banns published in church, and there was no permission from the bishop to omit publishing them. But, of course, that might be set aside. I fancy that the real trouble may have been that you were unconscious. At all events, it is a very simple matter to be married again."

"In other words, it is no marriage at all. I thought so--I thought so." Gianluca repeated the words slowly and sadly.

"What does it matter?" asked Taquisara, turning away and walking again. "It is a question of five minutes. I should think that you would be glad--"

"Yes--perhaps I am glad," said Gianluca, so low that the words were scarcely an interruption.

"Because you can be married in your full senses," continued Taquisara, bravely, "with your father and mother beside you, and all the rest of it."

Gianluca said nothing to this, and again there was a short silence. Just as Taquisara came to the table in his walk, Gianluca spoke again.

"Stop a moment," he said. "Look at me, Taquisara. If you were in my place, what would you do?"

Their eyes met, and Gianluca saw the quick effort of the other's features, controlling themselves, as though he had been struck unawares.

"I?" exclaimed Taquisara, taken entirely off his guard. "If I were in your place? Why--" he recovered himself--"I should get married again, as soon as possible, of course. What else should any one do?"

But the bold eyes for once looked down a little, their steadiness broken.

"You would do nothing of the sort," said Gianluca.

"What do you mean?" Again Taquisara started almost imperceptibly, and his brows contracted as he looked up sharply.

"If you were in my place," said Gianluca, "you would cut your throat rather than ruin the life of the woman you loved, by tying your misery to her for life, a load for her to carry."

"Do not say such things!" exclaimed the Sicilian, turning suddenly from the table and resuming his walk. "You are mad!"

"No--not mad. But not cowardly either. There is not much left of me, but what there is shall not be afraid. I am not truly married to her. I will not be. I will not die with that on my soul."

"Gianluca--for God's sake do not say such things!" Taquisara turned upon him, staring.

He sat in his deep chair, his fair angel head thrown back, the dark blue eyes bright, brave, and daring--all the rest, dead.

"I say them, and I mean them," he answered. "I love her very much. I love her enough for that. I love her more than you do."

"Than I?" Taquisara's voice almost broke, as the blow struck him, but there was no fear in his eyes either. He drew a breath then, and spoke strong words. "Now may Christ forget me in the hour of death, if I have not been true to you!"

"And me and mine if I blast your life and hers," came back the unflinching answer.

A deep silence fell upon them both. At last Gianluca spoke again, and his voice sank to another tone.

"She loves you, too," he said.

"Loves me?" cried Taquisara, his brows suddenly close bent. "Oh no! Unsay that, or--no--Gianluca--how dare you even dream the right to say that of your wife?"

It was beyond his strength to bear.

"She is not my wife," said Gianluca. "You have told me so--she is not my wife. She has done what no other living woman could have done, to be my wife and to love me. But she is not my wife, and what I say is true, and right as well, your right and hers.

"No--not that--not hers." Taquisara turned half round, against the table, where he stood, and his voice was low and broken.

"Yes, hers. You will know it soon--when I have taken my love to my grave, and left her yours on earth."

"Gianluca!"

Taquisara could not speak, beyond that, but he laid his hand upon his friend's arm and clutched it, as though to hold him back. His dark eyes darkened, and in them were the terrible tears that strong men shed once in life, and sometimes once again, but very seldom more.

Gianluca's thin fingers folded upon the hand that held him.

"You have been very true to me," he said. "She will be quite safe with you."

For a long time they were both silent. It began to rain, and the big drops beat against the windows, melancholy as the muffled drum of a funeral march, and the grey morning light grew still more dim.

"I will not go into the other room just yet," said Gianluca, quietly. "I would rather be alone for a little while."

Their eyes met once more, and Taquisara went away without a word.

That had been almost the last act of the strange tragedy of love and death which had been lived out in slow scenes during those many weeks. It was needful that it should come, and inevitable, soon or late. It began when Gianluca made that one last desperate effort to move, in sudden certainty of hope that ended in the instant foreknowledge of what was to be. A little thing swayed him then--such a little thing as the accident of a sharp foil, a rent in a jacket, the woman's blinding fear for the man she loved. There are many arrows in fate's quiver, and the little ones are as keen as the long shafts, and quicker to find the tender mark.

The man was born to suffer, but he had in him that something divine by which martyrs made death the witness of life and turned despair of earth to sure hope of heaven.

He had ever been a man tender and gentle. His nature did not fail him now. With exquisite devotion and thought for Veronica's happiness, and with a love for her that penetrated the short future of near death, he would not say to her what he had said to Taquisara. He would not let one breath of doubt disturb her only satisfaction while he still lived, nor trouble her with the least fear lest she had not done all her fullest to give him happiness while she could. In the end, it was his love that cut short his living, and no one knew what hours and days and nights of pain he bore, till the end came. He made of his love and his death a way for her life. She had given him all she had. He gave it back to her a hundred-fold, but she should not know, while he lived, that her great gift had not been to him more than she could make it, all that she wished it might be, all that she knew it was not.

He had not far to carry his burden; but except his friend, no one should know the heaviness of his heart, neither his father nor his mother, and least of all, Veronica. He could not hide that he was dying, but he could hide the cost of it, and its bitterness. After that day, his life went from him, as the strength falls away from a ship's sails when the breeze is softly dying on a summer's evening. In fear Veronica watched him, and in fear she met Taquisara's eyes. In the long nights, when it rained and there was no moon, the darkness of death's wings was in the air, and she held her breath, alone in her dim room.

They all knew it, and none said it, though shadow answered shadow in one another's faces when they met. It was as though another element than air had descended amongst them, dull, unresonant, hushing word and tread.

For each life we love is a sun, in our lives that would be dark if there were no love in them, and when it goes down to its setting in our hearts, the last light of love's day is very deep and tender, as no other is after it, and the passionate, sad twilight of regret deepens to a darkness of great loneliness over all, until our tears are wept, and our souls take of our mortal selves memories of love undying.

The end came soon, in the night, for it was his will to live that had kept him with them so long. Taquisara was with him. One by one the others came, hastily muffled and wrapped in dark robes, for the night was cold and damp even within doors. One after another they came, and they stood and knelt beside him on the right and left. He spoke to them all,--to his father and his mother first, for he felt the tide ebbing. With streaming eyes Veronica bent down and looked for the fading light in his, through her fast-falling tears. And close to her his mother stretched out weak hands that trembled with every breaking sob. His father knelt there, burying his face against the pillow, shaking all over, his arms hanging down loose and helpless by his sides, bent, bowed, crushed, as a weak old lion, stricken in age and cruelly wounded to death. And above them all, Taquisara's sad, deep-chiselled face looked down, as the face of a bronze statue beside a grave. Without, the winter's rain beat a low dead-march on the great windows, and the southwest wind sighed out its vast breath along the castle walls.

It was long since he had spoken, and they thought that they should never hear his voice again. But still the last light lingered in his eyes. Very little was left for him to do.

He moved Veronica's right hand, that was in his, drawing it a little, and she let it move; and his other held Taquisara's, and he drew it also, they yielding, till the two touched, and at his dying will clasped one another. Then he smiled faintly, his last smile on earth. And as it faded forever, there came back to them from beyond all pain the words of his blessing upon their two strong young lives.

"Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus--" and the angels heard the rest.

Thus died Gianluca della Spina.

 

[THE END]
[F Marion Crawford's Novel: Taquisara] _


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