Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  Orsino made up his mind that he would ask for Tebaldo a quarter of an hour before the time named by the latter, and get over the disagreeable interview before making an attempt to have a word with Vittoria alone.

  CHAPTER XVI

  ORSINO REACHED THE Corleone’s house before three o’clock on that afternoon. They lived on the second floor of a large new building in the Via Venti Settembre, ‘Twentieth of September Street,’ as it would be in English, so named to commemorate the taking of Rome on that day in 1870.

  A porter in livery asked Orsino whom he wished to see, rang an electric bell, spoke through a speaking-tube, took off his cocked hat in order to listen for the answer, and finally told Orsino that he would be received. There is always something mysterious to the looker-on about any such means of communication at a distance, when he does not hear the voice speaking from the other end.

  It would not have surprised Orsino, if he had heard, as the porter did, that the answer came back in Tebaldo Pagliuca’s voice; but he would then not have been so much surprised, either, at being admitted so readily. Tebaldo, in fact, had told the porter to send the visitor up, for he had been waiting for the porter’s bell; but he then told his servant that a gentleman was coming upstairs to see him, who was to be shown into the drawing-room at once, whither Tebaldo himself would presently come.

  Tebaldo had been quite sure that his mother and sister would be at home at that hour, since the former was not yet well enough to go out; he had been equally sure that his mother would refuse to receive Orsino; he had, therefore, so arranged matters that Orsino should be ushered into her presence unexpectedly, and to accomplish this he had lain in wait in the neighbourhood of the speaking-tube, which came up into the hall of his apartment just inside the door opening upon the stairs.

  So far the explanation of what happened is quite simple. It would be a different thing to unravel the complicated and passionate workings of Tebaldo’s intricate thoughts. In the first place, in spite of his behaviour in public, he hated Orsino with all his heart for having unwittingly killed his brother, and, important as the advantages would be if Vittoria married the heir of the great house, they by no means outweighed his desire for revenge.

  Tebaldo was not an inhuman monster, though a specialist might have said that he had a strong tendency to criminality. He was capable of affection in a certain degree, apart from mere passion. He was unscrupulous, treacherous, tortuous in his reasonings; but he was above all tenacious, and he was endowed with much boldness and daring, of the kind which cast a romantic glamour over crimes of violence.

  It had been one thing to threaten Ferdinando with the law, if he refused to sign the deed by which Camaldoli was to be sold. It was quite another matter to give his sister to the man who had shot Ferdinando like a wild animal. There the man’s humanity had revolted, though Orsino had not guessed it, when they had met and talked together at the party on the previous evening.

  On the other hand, his cunning bade him not to put himself in the position of refusing Orsino’s request, seeing that he denied his own relationship with his dead brother. It was easy enough for him to bring Orsino and his mother unexpectedly face to face, and to let the young man hear from her lips what she thought of such a union, if indeed the interview should ever get so far as that. Tebaldo could then calmly intrench himself behind his mother’s refusal, and yet maintain outward relations with Orsino, while waiting for an opportunity to avenge his brother, which was sure to present itself sooner or later.

  Orsino mounted the stairs resolutely, squaring himself to meet Tebaldo and tell him of Sant’ Ilario’s refusal as briefly and courteously as he could. At the same time he was half painfully and half happily conscious of Vittoria’s presence in the house. The pain and the pleasure were intermittent and uncertain.

  A servant was waiting and holding the door ajar.

  ‘Don Tebaldo said that he would see me,’ said Orsino, mechanically.

  The man bowed in silence, shut the door upon the landing, and then led the way through the little hall and the antechamber beyond, opened a door, and stood aside to let Orsino pass.

  As the door closed behind him, he heard a short and sharp cry in the room, like the warning note of certain fierce wild animals. It was followed instantly by an exclamation of terror in another voice. At the same instant he was aware that there were two women in the room, — Maria Carolina d’Oriani and her daughter.

  The mother had been lying on a couch, and on seeing him had started up, supporting herself on her hand. The room was half darkened by the partly closed blinds.

  Maria Carolina was dressed in a loose black gown with wide sleeves that showed her thin, bare arms, for the weather was warm. Her white face was thin and ghastly, and her dark eyes gleamed as they caught a little of the light from the window. Orsino stood still two paces from the door.

  ‘Assassin!’

  The one word — a word of the people, hissed from her dry lips with such horror and hatred as Orsino had never heard. There was silence then. Vittoria, as white as her mother, and in an agony of terror, had risen, shrinking and convulsed, grasping with one hand the heavy inner curtain of the window.

  Slowly the lean, dark woman left her seat, raising one thin arm, and pointing straight at Orsino’s face, her head thrown back, her parched lips parted and showing her teeth.

  ‘Murderer!’ she cried. ‘You dare to show me your face — you dare to show me the hands that killed my son! You dare to stand there before God and me — to hear God’s curse on you and mine — to answer for blood—’

  Her lips and throat were dry, so that she could not speak, but choked, and swallowed convulsively, and her eyes grew visibly red. Orsino was riveted to the spot and speechless. For a moment he did not even think of Vittoria, cowering back against the curtain. The woman’s worn face was changed in her immense wrath, and he could not take his eyes from her. She found her voice again, painfully, fighting against the fiery dryness that choked her.

  ‘With his innocent blood on your hands, you come here — you come to face his very mother in her sacred grief — to see my tears, to tear out the last shreds of my heart, to revile my mother’s soul — to poison the air that breathes sorrow! But you think that I am weak, that I am only a woman. You think, perhaps, that I shall lose my senses and faint. It would be no shame, but I am not of such women.’

  Her voice gathered fulness but sank in tone as she went on. Still Orsino said nothing, for it was impossible to interrupt her. She must say her say, and curse her curse out, and he must listen, for he would not turn and go.

  ‘You have come,’ she said, speaking quickly and with still rising fury. ‘I am here to meet you. I am here to demand blood of you for blood. I am here to curse you, and your name, and your race, your soul and their souls, dead and living, in the name of God, who made my son, of Christ, who died for him, of the Holy Saints, who could not save him from the devil you are — in the name of God, and of man, and of the whole world, I curse you! May your life be a century of cruel deaths, and when you die at last with a hundred years of agony in you, may your immortal soul be damned everlastingly a thousand-fold! May you pray and not be heard, may you repent and not be forgiven, may you receive the Holy Sacraments to your damnation and the last Unction with fire in hell! May every living creature that bears your name come to an evil before your eyes, your father — your mother — the men and women of your house, and your unborn children! Blood — I would have blood! May your blood pay for mine, and your soul for my son’s soul, who died unconfessed in his sins! Go, assassin! go, murderer of the innocent! go out into the world with my mother’s curse on you, and may every evil thing in earth and hell be everlastingly with you and yours, living and dead! Blood! — blood! — blood!’

  Her voice was suddenly and horribly extinguished in the last word, as an instrument that is strained too far cracks in a last discordant note and is silent. She stood one moment more, with outstretched hand and fingers that would still make the sign
of one more unspoken curse, and then, without warning, she fell back in a heap towards the couch.

  Simultaneously, Vittoria and Orsino sprang forward to catch her, but even before Vittoria could reach her she lay motionless on the floor, her head on the edge of the sofa, her hands stretched out on each side of her, her thin fingers twitching desperately at the carpet. A moment later, they were still too, and she was unconscious, as the two began to lift her up.

  For an instant neither looked at the other, but as Orsino laid the fainting woman upon the couch, he raised his eyes to Vittoria’s. The girl was still overcome with fear at the whole situation, and trembling with horror at her mother’s frightful outbreak of rage and hate. She shook her head in a frightened, hopeless way, as she bent down again and arranged a cushion for Maria Carolina.

  ‘Why did you come — why did you come?’ she almost moaned. ‘I told you—’

  Orsino saw that if there was to be any explanation, he must seize the opportunity at once.

  ‘I felt that I must see you before leaving,’ he answered. ‘Last night I told your brother Tebaldo that we were engaged to each other. He asked me to come at three o’clock, and said that your mother would receive me — I sent up word to ask — I was told to come up.’

  ‘We knew nothing of your coming. It must have been the servant’s fault.’ She did not suspect her brother of having purposely brought about the meeting. ‘Now go!’ she added quickly. ‘Go, before she comes to herself. Do not let her see you again. Go — please go!’

  ‘Yes — I had better go,’ he answered. ‘Can I not see you again? Vittoria — I cannot go away like this—’

  As he realised that it might be long before he saw her again, his voice trembled a little, and there was a pleading accent in his words which she had never heard.

  ‘Yes — no — how can I see you?’ she faltered. ‘There is no way — no place — when must you leave?’ Maria Carolina stirred, and seemed about to open her eyes. ‘Go — please go!’ repeated Vittoria, desperately. ‘She will open her eyes and see you, and it will begin again! Oh, for Heaven’s sake—’

  Orsino kissed her suddenly while she was speaking, once, sharply, with all his heart breaking. Then he swiftly left the room without looking back, almost trying not to think of what he was doing.

  He closed the door behind him. As he turned to look for the way out, in his confusion of mind, the door opposite, which was ajar, opened wide, and he was confronted by Tebaldo, who smiled sadly and apologetically. Orsino stared at him.

  ‘I am afraid you have had an unpleasant scene,’ said the Sicilian, quickly. ‘It was a most unfortunate accident — a mistake of the servant, who took you for the doctor. The fact is, my mother seems to be out of her mind, and she will not be persuaded that Ferdinando is alive and well, till she sees him. She was so violent an hour ago that I sent for a doctor — a specialist for insanity. I am afraid I forgot that you were coming, in my anxiety about her. I hope you will forgive me. Of course, you have seen for yourself how she feels towards you at present, and in any case — at such a time—’

  He had spoken so rapidly and plausibly that Orsino had not been able to put in a word. Now he paused as if expecting an answer.

  ‘I regret to have been the cause of further disturbing your mother, who indeed seems to be very ill,’ said Orsino, gravely. ‘I hope that she will soon recover.’

  He moved towards the outer hall, and Tebaldo accompanied him to the door of the apartment.

  ‘You will, of course, understand that at such a time it will be wiser not to broach so serious a matter as my sister’s marriage,’ said Tebaldo. ‘Pray accept again my excuses for having accidentally brought you into so unpleasant a situation.’

  He timed his words so that he uttered the last when he was already holding the door open with one hand and stretching out the other to Orsino, who had no choice but to take it, as he said goodbye. Tebaldo closed the door and stood still a moment in thought before he went back. As he turned to go in, Vittoria came quickly towards him.

  ‘How did it happen that Don Orsino was brought into the drawing-room?’ she asked, still very pale and excited.

  ‘I suppose the servant took him for the doctor,’ said Tebaldo, coolly, for he knew she would not stoop to ask questions of the footman. ‘I am very sorry,’ he added.

  He was going to pass on, but she stopped him.

  ‘Tebaldo — I must speak to you — it will do as well here as anywhere. The nurse is with her,’ she said, looking towards the drawing-room. ‘She fainted. Don Orsino told me in two words, before he went away, that he had spoken to you last night, and that you had told him to come here to-day.’

  ‘That is perfectly exact, my dear. I have no doubt you have found out that your admirer, our brother’s assassin, is a strictly truthful person. He insisted upon seeing you; it was impossible to talk at ease at a party, and I told him to come here, intending to see him myself. I told him to come at three o’clock — I daresay you know that, too?’

  ‘Yes — he said it was to be at three o’clock.’

  Tebaldo took out his watch and looked at it.

  ‘It is now only four minutes to three,’ he observed, ‘and he is already gone. He came a good deal before his time, or I should have been in the antechamber to receive him and take him into my room, out of harm’s way, where I could have explained matters to him. As it is, I was obliged to show him out with some apology for the mistake.’

  ‘How false you are!’ exclaimed Vittoria, her nostrils quivering.

  ‘Because I refuse to ruin you, and our own future position here? I think I am wise, not false. Yes, I myself assured him last night that he did not kill our brother, but one of the Pagliuca di Bauso. I took the hand that did it, and shook it — to save your position in Roman society. You seem to forget that poor Ferdinando had turned himself into an outlaw — in plain language, he was a brigand.’

  ‘He was worth a score of his brothers,’ said Vittoria, who was not afraid of him. ‘You talk of saving my position. It is far more in order to save your own chance of marrying the American girl with her fortune.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ answered Tebaldo, with perfect calm. ‘I include that in the general advantages to be got by what I say. I do not see that it is so very false. On the one hand, Ferdinando was my brother. I shall not forget that. On the other, to speak plainly, he was a criminal. You see I am perfectly logical. No one is obliged to acknowledge that he is related to a criminal—’

  ‘No one is obliged to lie publicly, as you do,’ broke in Vittoria, rather irrelevantly. ‘As you make me lie — rather than let people know what kind of men my surviving brothers are.’

  ‘You are not obliged to say anything. You do not go out into the world just now, because you have to stay with our mother. I will wager that you have not once told the lie you think so degrading.’

  ‘No — I have not, so far. No one has forced me to.’

  ‘You need only hold your tongue, and leave the rest to me.’

  ‘You make me act a lie — even in not wearing mourning—’

  ‘Of course, if you make morality and honesty depend upon the colour of your clothes,’ said Tebaldo, scornfully, ‘I have nothing more to say about it. But it is a great pity that you have fallen in love with that black Saracinesca, the assassin. It will be a source of considerable annoyance and even suffering to you, I daresay. It even annoyed me. It would have been hard to refuse so advantageous an offer without accusing him of Ferdinando’s death, which is precisely what I will not do, for the sake of all of us. But you shall certainly not marry him, though you are inhuman enough to love him — a murderer — stained with your own blood.’

  ‘He is not a murderer, for it was an accident — and you know it. I am not ashamed of loving him — though I cared for Ferdinando more than any of you. And if you talk in that way — if you come between us—’ she stopped.

  ‘What will you do?’ he asked contemptuously.

  ‘I will tell the truth
about Ferdinando,’ she said, fixing her eyes upon him.

  ‘To whom, pray?’

  ‘To Miss Slayback and her aunt,’ answered Victoria, her gentle face growing fierce.

  ‘Look here, Vittoria,’ said Tebaldo, more suavely. ‘Do you know that Orsino Saracinesca is going back to Camaldoli? Yes. And you know that Ferdinando had many friends there, and I have some in the neighbourhood. A letter from me may have a good deal to do with his safety or danger, as the case may be. It would be very thoughtless of you to irritate me by interfering with my plans. It might bring your own to a sudden and rather sad conclusion.’

  Vittoria turned pale again, for she believed him. He was playing on her fears for Orsino and on her ignorance of the real state of things at Camaldoli. But for the moment his words had the effect he desired. He instantly followed up his advantage.

  ‘You can never marry him,’ he said. ‘But if you will not interfere with my own prospects of marriage, nothing shall happen to Saracinesca. Otherwise—’ he stopped and waited significantly.

  Exaggerating his power, she believed that it extended to giving warrant of death or safety for Orsino, and her imagination left her little choice. At all events, she would not have dared to risk her lover’s life by crossing Tebaldo’s schemes for himself.

  ‘I am sorry for the American girl,’ she said. ‘I like her for her own sake, and I would gladly save her from being married to such a man as you. But if you threaten to murder Don Orsino if I tell her the truth, you have me in your power on that side.’

  ‘On all sides,’ said Tebaldo, scornfully, as he saw how deep an impression he had made on the girl. ‘I hold his life in my hand, so long as he is at Camaldoli, and while he is there you will obey me. After that, we shall see.’