The Contessa's Vendetta (48 page)

Slowly, slowly,
his eyes looked past me to the stairway beyond.

“
It is locked,” I reminded him. “There is no escape.”

He
shouted out for help several times.

O
nly the sullen echoes of the vault and the wild whistle of the wind as it surged through the cemetary’s trees answered him.

He
bellowed out a yell, and then turned his eyes upon me, confronting me, the blood now burning wrathfully in his face, and transforming it back to something of its old handsomeness.

“
Untie me and unlock that door!” he shouted with a furious attempt to loosen his ties. “
Troia
! Bitch! I hate you! I have always hated you! Untie me and unlock the damned the door! Now! You dare not do this! This is murder! You have no right to do this!”

I looked at
him coldly; the torrent of his words was suddenly checked when something in my expression daunted him. He shuddered and stopped his thrashing.

“
No right!” I said, mockingly. “I disagree. A woman once married has responsibility over her husband, but a woman twice married to the same man has surely gained a double duty. And as for ‘dare not’ there is nothing I ‘dare not’ do tonight.” And with that I rose and approached him. A torrent of  indignation boiled in my veins. I gripped him by the shoulders.

“
You dare talk of murder!” I muttered, fiercely. “You! You who have remorselessly murdered two women and our child! Their blood is on your hands. You are covered with it. Their blood be on your head! Even though I am alive, I am nothing more than the moving corpse of the woman I once was. Hope, faith, happiness, peace, all things good and great in me have been slain by you. And as for Beatrice—”

He
interrupted me with a wild yell. “She loved me! Beatrice loved me!”

“
Si
, she loved you, oh, that devil in the shape of a woman. She loved you!” In a fury I could not restrain I pointed to one corner of the vault, where the torchlight scarcely illuminated the darkness, and there I pointed upward. “Above our very heads; to the left of where we are, the beautiful young body of your lover lies, festering slowly in the wet mould, thanks to you. The fair, lovely woman, now marred by slithering worms. The thick curls of her hair combed through by the crawling feet of vile insects. The poor frail body dead by—”

“
You killed her! You, you are to blame,” he bellowed, striving to turn his face away from me.

“
I killed her? No, no, not I, but you! She died when she learned of your treachery, when she knew you were false to her for the sake of wedding a wealthy stranger. My poison put her out of torment. You! You were glad of her death, as glad as you were with mine. You talk of murder! You, the vilest of men. If I could murder you twenty times over, what then? Your sins outweigh all possible punishment!” I spat the words at him with contempt and loathing.

This time my words struck h
ard. He cowered before me in horror. His cloak was loosened and scarcely protected him. The richness of his costume was fully displayed, and the gold ship necklace around his neck heaved restlessly up and down as he panted with rage and fear.

“
I do not understand why you should blame me. I am no worse than other men!”

“
No worse! No worse!” I shrieked. “Shame on you. You are an outrage to your sex. Learn for once what women think of unfaithful husbands, for it is obvious you are ignorant of it. You may believe that infidelity is no sin; merely a little social error easily condoned, or set right by the divorce court.
Si
! Books and the theatre may teach you so: in them the world is turned upside down so that vice looks like virtue. But, there is no meaner, no more loathsome object, so utterly repulsive to a faithful woman than a faithless husband. The cowardly murderer who lies in wait for his victim behind some dark door, and stabs him in the back as he passes unarmed deserves to be pardoned more than the man who blatantly disregards a wife’s honor, position, and reputation, to be promiscuous. Infidelity is a crime; a low, brutal crime, as bad if not worse than murder, and deserves as stern a sentence!”

A sudden spirit of defiant insolence possessed
him. He pulled himself erect and joined his brows into a dark frown. “Sentence! How dare you judge me! What harm have I done? If I am handsome, is that my fault? If women are fools, can I help it? You loved me, Beatrice loved me; could I prevent it? I cared nothing for her, and even less for you!”

“
I know,” I said, bitterly. “Love was never part of your nature! Our lives were but cups of wine for your false lips to drain; the flavor once pleased you, but now, don’t you think the dregs taste somewhat bitter?”

He shrunk in my glare, his head drooped.

“And what of poor Chiara? No heart, no conscience, no memory!” I cried. “That a despicable creature like you should live and call itself a man. The lowest beast of the field has more compassion for its kind. Before Beatrice died she knew me. Even my child, neglected by you, in her last agony knew me, her own mother. She being innocent, passed away in peace; but imagine if you can, the wrenching torture in which she died, knowing me, knowing everything! How her spirit must now curse you, her own father!”

He
raised his head. There was a starving, hunted, almost furious look in his eyes, but he fixed them steadily on me.

“
See, here is the proof that I tell the truth. These things were buried with me.” I threw the medallion and chain, the card-case and purse he himself had given me at his feet. “You will no doubt recognize them.” I showed him the monk’s crucifix. “This was laid on my breast in the coffin. It may be useful to you. You can pray to it very soon!”

He
interrupted me with a gesture of his head. He spoke as though in a dream. “You escaped from this vault?” he said, in a low tone, looking from right to left searching eagerly. “Tell me how—and—where?”

I laughed scornfully, guessing
his thoughts. “You must think I am stupid, but it doesn’t matter,” I replied. “The passage I discovered is now cemented closed. I have seen to that myself. No living creature left here can escape as I did. Escape is impossible.”

A stifled
groan broke from him. He heedlessly kicked away the things I had tossed at his feet. “Carlotta! Please, take me out to the light, the air!” he pleased. “Let me live! Drag me through Vicenza. Let the world see see me dishonored, brand me with the worst of names, make me an outcast of society, only let me out of here. I will do anything, say anything, be anything, only let me live!” He shuddered. “I am so young! Am I truly so vile? There are men who count their lovers by the score, and yet they are not blamed; why should I suffer more than they?”

“
Why? Why?” I echoed, fiercely. “Because for once a woman takes the law into her own hands. For once, a wronged woman insists on justice. For once she dares to punish the treachery that blackened her good name and humiliated her to the world. Were there more like me, there would be fewer like you! A score of lovers! It’s not your fault that you had only one! I have something else to say which concerns you. Not content with betraying two women, you tried again on a third. Ay, you wince at that! While you thought I was Contessa Corona, while you were betrothed to me in that character, you wrote to Beatrice Cardano in Rome. Very charming letters! Here they are,” and I flung them down to him. “I have no further use for them. I have read them all!”

The letters lay where they
fell. His struggles to free himself had loosened his cloak so far that it hung back from his shoulders, showing a broach formed in the Mancini crest that flashed on chest neck like a point of living light.

I
yanked it from him. “This is mine!” I cried, “As much as this ring I wear, which was your love-gift to Beatrice Cardano, and which you afterward returned to me, its rightful owner.” I glanced down at his bracelet. “The rest of the jewels that adorn you were my father’s. How dared you wear them? The ship pendant and the rest that I gave you are your only fitting ornaments—they are stolen goods, filched by the blood-stained hands of the blackest brigand in the country! I promised you more like them; behold them!”

And
I threw open the coffin containing what remained of Cesare Negri’s spoils. It occupied a conspicuous position near where I stood, and I had myself arranged near it so that the gold and precious stones inside would be the first things to meet his eyes. “This is where Contessa Corona’s wealth came from. I found this treasure hidden here on the night of my burial. Little did I think then what dire need I would have for its use. It has served me well. It is not yet exhausted. All that remains is for you!”

At these words he
looked at the brigand’s coffin, a faint light of hope as well as curiosity in his haggard face. I watched him in vague wonderment. He had grown old so suddenly. The youthful flush of his flesh had disappeared. His skin appeared drawn and dry as though parched from the sun and heat. His hair was mussed and disordered. Only his eyes showed his youth. A sudden wave of compassion swept over my soul.

“
You are my husband and I loved you; my husband who I would have died for. Why did you betray me? I thought you were honest and a man of honor. If you had waited for the day after my death to take Beatrice as your lover, I might have forgiven you. Though risen from the grave, I would have left and told no one I was alive to allow you to be together.
Si
, if only you had waited, if only you had grieved for me even a little. But when you confessed your crime with your own lips, when I knew that within three months of the day we married, you had already cheated on me, when I learned that my love, my name, my position, were used to hide your affair with the woman I called my friend—God! Who could forgive such a betrayal? I am no different than anyone else, but I loved you, and in proportion to my love, so is the greatness of the wrongs you have done me!”

He listened and a
faint smile dawned on his pallid lips. “Carlotta!” he whispered. “Carlotta!”

I looked at
him. Unconsciously my voice dropped into a tender sadness.

“
Yes, my name is Carlotta, and I am not a ghost. Does saying my name seem strange to you, Dario, my husband whom I loved as few women love a man? You who gave me no love at all? You who broke my heart and made me what I am?” A hard, heavy sob rose in my throat and choked my utterance. I was young, and the cruel waste and destruction of my life seemed more than I could bear.

He heard
me, and a smile brightened his countenance. “Carlotta,” he murmured. “Forgive me! I spoke in haste. I do not hate you. I will make amends for all the suffering I caused you. I love you and will be true to you. I will be yours and yours alone.” His eyes searched my face for the reply to his words.

I gazed down
at him with grief-stricken sternness. “Forgiveness? You ask too late! A wrong like mine can never be forgiven.”

A strange silence followed.
His eyes roved over me as if he was searching for some lost thing. The wind tore furiously among the branches of the cypresses outside, and screamed through the small holes and crannies of the stone-work, rattling the iron gate at the summit of the stairway with a clanking sound, as though the famous brigand, Negri, had escaped with all his chains upon him, and was clamoring for admittance to recover his buried property.

Suddenly
Dario’s face lightened with an expression of cunning intensity, and before I could understand what he was about to do, he tripped me with swift agility. The stiletto I carried fell loose.

Before I could react, he gripped it with his feet and raised
them to his bound hands. With the stiletto now in his grip, he began through the silk as if it were water. “Too late!” he cried, with a wild laugh as he flung himself free of the ties and rose to his feet. “Now it’s you who will die, bitch!”

For one second the bright steel flashed in the wavering light as
he poised it to strike. I dodged him. He turned toward me, the stiletto raised in his murderous hand. He held it with a desperate grip as he stepped closer.

A memory of that
ravenous owl, that unclean bird I had fiercely fought off on the night of my living burial returned. My anger surged to new heights. It seemed I was possessed of intense strength, abundant courage. I raised my knee and kicked him hard in the groin. The knife fell from his grip. As he tumbled to the ground, his head struck a stone coffin. His glazed eyes looked up at me as I brandished the stiletto above him. Blood dripped from his head.