Taquisara

by F. Marion Crawford

Matilde read the short letter many times over, and her hands trembled when she at last folded it and returned it to its envelope. A sensation of curiosity and of ghastly horror ran through her hair, more than once, like a cool breeze, and with it came the infinite desire for some one word of truth out of the black beyond, from the one being whom she had loved so fiercely.

But in such things she was sceptical, and she sought to make some theory which should explain the writer of the letter into a common impostor. She could find none. She remembered the act and the words that had gone with it. Only she and Bosio had known, and he was dead—he had died four-and-twenty hours after she had touched his hair and had said: 'It is to save me.' And she knew him well. He was not, under any circumstances, a man to speak of such things to a third person. Then, how did this Giuditta Astarita know what Matilde had said and done? It was not natural, and not natural meant supernatural—supernatural meant the possibility of communication, and she had loved the dead man with all her big, sinful soul.

It would be long before the time came for the deed, in the late afternoon, and the terrible day must be disposed of in some way or other. She was not afraid of going mad, nor of losing her nerve, nor of making a mistake at the last moment, but even to her courage and strength the hours before her were hours of fear.

She planned her day. The doctor would come, in the first place, at about ten o'clock. He would recommend her to be quiet, to take a little broth for luncheon, and a little more broth for dinner. She smiled grimly, as she thought of his probable instructions, and she knew what she could do and bear at pinch of pressing need. He would also tell her that the powder contained only just the right quantity of medicine, and that she must have been poisoned in some other way. She knew that.

Afterwards, Gregorio would need his instructions. He was to be at home in the afternoon, and to come and drink his tea in Veronica's room when Matilde sent for him. Just when Matilde was pouring out the tea, he was to distract Veronica's attention from the tea-table for a moment. She would not tell him that she intended to half poison him, too, for he was a coward, and at the last minute, dreading pain, he would not drink from his cup. She knew that well enough. She would tell him when he began to suffer the effects, and assure him that he was not going to die. Again she smiled grimly, and chancing to be just then before the mirror, she saw that her face had all at once grown old since yesterday. And in spite of her strength of body and will, she felt weak and exhausted, and hated the hours that were to be between.

But when she had spoken to Gregorio, she would go out alone, on foot. And she knew that she should find the address given on Giuditta Astarita's card, and enter the house and see the woman who had written to her, and hear the message that was promised. If she left her own house, her feet must take her that way, whether she would or not.

And so it all happened just as she foresaw. But she had not known that in threading the intricate, dark streets she would almost forget what she was to do that day, in the mad hope of the one more word from beyond. She had not known that at the thought her eyes would brighten eagerly, the colour would come back to her cheeks, and the strength to her limbs as she walked. After all, the strongest thing that had ever been in her, or ever could be, was that passionate, dominating, despotic devotion to one being; and the merest suggestion that he might not be gone quite beyond the reach of spiritual touch had power to veil the awful future of the day, when her hand was already uplifted to kill. She was not a woman to hesitate at the last moment, unstrung and womanishly trembling because the victim was young, and smiled, and had innocent eyes. And yet, perhaps, had she not gone that day to answer the spirit-seer's summons and to catch at the straw thrown to her from beyond the grave, she might have seen a reason for changing her mind, and all might have happened very differently. But Fate does not sleep, though she seems sometimes to nod and forget to kill.

Matilde came to the house as the clock struck eleven, and entered by the dark, arched door, and went up the damp, stone steps, as Bosio had done a fortnight earlier. She was admitted by the decent woman whose one eye was of a china blue, and she waited for Giuditta in the same small sitting-room, of which the one heavily curtained window looked out upon an inner court. She did not know that Bosio had ever been there, but in her thoughts of him she felt his presence, and turned, with a shiver under her hair, to look behind her as she stood waiting before the window, just where he had stood. The day was dark, and the room was all dim and cold, with its stiff, ugly furniture and its bare, tiled floor. The corners were shadowy, and her eyes searched in them uneasily, and she would not turn her back upon them again and look out of the windows. Then the door opened noiselessly, and Giuditta Astarita entered, in her loose black silk gown, with her little bunch of charms against the evil eye, hanging by a chain from a button hole.

The china blue eyes looked steadily at Matilde, out of the unhealthy face, but the woman gave no sign to show that she knew who her visitor was. Her hoarse voice pronounced the usual words: "You wish to consult me?"

"You wrote to me. I am the Countess Macomer," answered Matilde, lifting her veil, which was a thick one.