Part 35 (1/2)
”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 eggsh.e.l.l, 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 pa.s.sed 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 bra.s.s 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 companions.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.sing 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 munic.i.p.ality, 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 munic.i.p.ality 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 princ.i.p.al 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 G.o.d, who has ever thought of these things? It needed this angel from Paradise.”