Taquisara

by F. Marion Crawford

Gianluca was silently happy, perfectly satisfied to hear Veronica's voice, to watch the face he loved, and to feel that between her and him there was something which no one knew. When they spoke, there was a little constraint on both sides; but when they were silent, the bond was instantly renewed. In silence and in imagination, they were writing to each other the impressions of which they would not speak. Gianluca was telling her how grateful he was to her for insisting that Taquisara should stay, after all, and was pointing out to her that his friend was bravely bearing the burden of a conversation which kept his father and mother from prosing about the necessity of a companion for Veronica. Veronica was replying that Taquisara was more agreeable than she had expected, but that if he had been as silent as the Sphinx, or as noisy as Alexander the Coppersmith, she would have pressed him to stay because he was her friend's friend. There was a good deal about Taquisara in their imaginary correspondence.

But both felt a little more constraint, when they talked, than they had ever felt before, for both knew that on the morrow, or on the next day, at the latest, they were sure to be alone together,—quite alone,—for the first time; and they wondered whether the curious duality of their acquaintance and intimacy by word and by letter could be maintained hereafter, or whether it would suddenly resolve itself into a unity in the shape of a friendship in which they should speak to each other as they wrote.

They knew that something of the sort must happen. The Duca and his wife would certainly not stand sentry from morning till night over the young people, when they themselves so ardently desired the marriage; and Taquisara was not the man to be in the way when he was not wanted. It would be in Veronica's power to put off the meeting, if she chose to do so; but she knew, and Gianluca guessed, that she would not. Whatever society might say about it, she had assumed the position and the independence of a married woman, and had gone further than married women of her age would generally have the courage to go. To hesitate now, and to draw back from the possibility of being left alone with any one of her guests, would be absurd. She would not seek the interview, nor she would not do anything to avoid it. But she did not wish to be forced into the necessity of talking alone with Taquisara, if it could be helped. She was sure, though she had forgiven him, and liked him better than before, that she should certainly quarrel with him, though she did not know why there should be any further disagreement between them.

Possibly she recognized in him a will less despotic than her own, but quite as unbending when he chose to exercise it. The certainty of strong opposition, which is fear in cowards, becomes combativeness in brave people, and the fighting instinct takes the place of the inclination to run away. But Veronica had no further reason for quarrelling with Taquisara; and because she liked him, she determined to avoid him as much as possible, lest at the very first point of difference in conversation there should be war between them about some insignificant matter perfectly indifferent to both.

Her guests went to bed early. While Gianluca was before her, Veronica had not retained the impression she had received from Taquisara, that her friend was a doomed man. Her own vitality lent the sure certainty of life, in her imagination, to those about her. He was faint and tired from the journey, of course, but he was by no means the utterly helpless invalid she had expected to see, and she had not believed, so long as she could watch him, that he was in mortal danger. But when she was in her own room, his face came back to her, a pale shade out of dark shadow, and she saw the hollows about his deep blue eyes, his thin, bluish temples, his transparent features, and his emaciated throat, that seemed to have fallen away under his white ears. She was so suddenly and violently disturbed by the recollection that she spoke to Elettra of him. The woman had seen him go by when the party had arrived.

"Do you think that Don Gianluca looks very ill?" Veronica asked.

"Excellency—" the maid hesitated. "I wish that all may live—but he seems a dead man."

Veronica said nothing, but it was long before she got to sleep that night, and the vision of his face came again and again to her, pale, haggard, haunting, distressing her exceedingly. She rose even earlier than usual.

She did not mean that the presence of her guests should interfere with what had now become a connected work, to interrupt which would be an injury to the whole and an injustice to the people who had learned to expect it of her, looking for more, as she gave them more, and turning to her in every difficulty. But for the arrival of the party on the previous afternoon she would have gone down to an outlying farm in the valley, where the farmhouse needed repairs and there was a question of cutting down a number of olive trees so old that they hardly bore any fruit. She had ordered her mare at half-past seven in the morning, and she rode down the long, winding road, saw, judged, and gave orders, galloped most of the way up, and exchanged her riding-habit for her morning frock before the clock struck ten.

One after another, her guests appeared, and everything happened as she had foreseen. The old couple said that they were accustomed to take a little walk before the midday meal, for the sake of their appetite; Taquisara disappeared when he had helped Gianluca to a big chair in a balcony, in the shade, outside the drawing-room, and Gianluca was left alone with her, as she had expected. She established herself opposite to him, for the balcony was so narrow that two chairs could not be placed upon it side by side.