03 - Mystery of the Campagna by Anne Crawford

In the enchanting backdrop of Rome, a group of artists is immersed in their creative pursuits. But when one of them retreats to a secluded villa for solitude, his friends are drawn to visit. What they discover is unsettling‚a mere ‚òshadowy likeness‚ of Marcello, who has inexplicably taken up sleepwalking. As they delve deeper into the mystery, a strange woman emerges from the shadows of the grounds each night. Who is she, and what secrets does she hold? - Summary by Newgatenovelist

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Section three of A Mystery of the Compania by Anne Crawford.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Part two
Robert Sutton's account of what happened at the Vigna Marziali,
Segment A. I am attached to Detire and was very

(00:23):
glad to be of use to him. But I never
fully shared his admiration for Marcelo Sulvestre, though I appreciated
his good points. He was certainly very promising, I must
say that, but he was an odd, flighty sort of fellow,
not of the kind which we English care to take

(00:43):
the trouble to understand. It is my business to write stories,
but not having need of such characters, I have never
particularly studied them. As I say, I was glad to
be of use to Detire, who is a thoroughly good fellow,
and I willingly gave up my work to go and
sit by his bedside. Manya knew that I was a

(01:06):
friend of his, and very properly came to me when
he found that Dattaya's illness was a serious one and
likely to last for a long time. I found him
perfectly delirious and raving about Marcello. Tell me what the
motif is? I know it is a marsha feu nebra.

(01:26):
And here he would sing a peculiar melody, which, as
I have a knack at music, I noted down it,
being like nothing I had heard before. The sister of
charity looked at me with severe eyes. But how could
she know that all is grist for our mill, and
that observation becomes with us a mechanical habit. Poor Dattayah

(01:50):
kept repeating this curious melody over and over, and then
would stop and seemed to be looking at his picture,
crying that it was fading away. Marcello, Marcello, you are
fading too. Let me come to you. He was as
weak as a baby and could not have moved from

(02:12):
his bed unless in the strength of delirium. I cannot come,
he went on, They have tied me down. And here
he made as though he were trying to gnaw through
a rope at his wrists, and then burst into tears.
Will no one go for me and bring me a
word from you, Ah? If I could know that you

(02:35):
are alive. Mania looked at me. I knew what he
was thinking. He would not leave his comrade. But I
must go, I don't mind acknowledging that I did not
undertake this unwillingly. To sit by De Taia's bedside and
listen to his ravings enovated me, and what Manya wanted

(02:59):
struck me as trublesome but not uninteresting to one of
my craft, so I agreed to go. I had heard
all about Marcello's strange seclusion from Manya and Attaya himself,
who lamented over it openly in his simple way as
supper at the academy, where I was a frequent guest.

(03:22):
I knew that it would be useless to ring at
the gate of the Vigna Marziali. Not only should I
not be admitted, but I should arouse Marcello's anger and suspicion,
for I did not, for a moment believe that he
was not alive, though I thought it very possible that
he was becoming a little crazy, as his countrymen are

(03:45):
so easily put off their balance. Now, odd people are
oddest late in the day and at evening time. Their
nerves lose the power of resistance then, and the real
man gets the best of them. So I determined to
try to discover something at night, reflecting also that I

(04:06):
should be safer from detection. Then I knew his liking
for wandering about when he ought to be in his bed,
and I did not doubt that I should get a
glimpse of him, and that was really all I needed.
My first step was to take a long walk out
of the Porta san Giovanni, and this I did in

(04:27):
the early morning, tramping along steadily until I came to
an iron gate on the right of the road, with
Vigna Marziali over it, and then I walked straight on,
never stopping until I had reached a little bushy lane
running down toward the Campagna to the right. It was

(04:48):
pebbly and quite shut in by luxuriant ivy and elder bushes,
and it bore deep traces of the last heavy rains.
These had evidently been effaced by no footprints, so I
concluded that it was little used. Down this path, I
made my way cautiously, looking behind and before me from

(05:09):
a habit contracted in my lonely wanderings in the Abruzzi.
I had a capital revolver with me, an old friend,
and I feared no man. But I began to feel
a dramatic interest in my undertaking and determined that it
should not be crossed by any disagreeable surprises. The lane

(05:31):
led me further down the plain than I had reckoned upon,
for the bushy edge shut out the view. And when
I had got to the bottom and faced round the
Vigna Marziali was lying quite far to my left. I
sow at a glance that behind the gray casino an
alley of alexes ended in a laurel grove. Then there

(05:52):
were plantations of kitchen stuff, with a sort of thatched
cabin in their midst, probably that of the gardener. I
looked about for a kennel, but saw none, so there
was no watch dog. At the end of this primitive
kitchen garden was a broad patch of grass bounded by

(06:12):
a fence, which I could take at a spring. Now
I knew my way, but I could not resist tracing
it out a little farther. It was well that I
did so, for I found just within the fence a
sunken stream, rather full at the time in consequence of
the reins, too deep to wade and too broad to jump.

(06:37):
It struck me that it would be easy enough to
take a board from the fence and lay it over
for a bridge. I measured the breadth with my eye
and decided that the board would span it. Then I
went back as I had come, and returned to find
a dettire still raving as he could understand nothing. It

(06:59):
seemed to me rather a fool's errand to go off
in such of comfort for him. But a conscious moment
might come. And moreover, I began to be interested in
my undertaking, and so I agreed with Manya that I
should go and take some food and rest, and return

(07:19):
to the Vignya. That night. I told my landlady that
I was going into the country and should return the
next day. And I went to Natsari's and laid in
a stock of sandwiches and filled my flask with something
they called sherry, for though I was no great wine drinker,
I feared the night chill. It was about seven o'clock

(07:44):
when I started, and I retraced my morning steps. Exactly
as I reached the lane, it occurred to me that
it was still too light for me to pass unobserved
over the stream, and I made a place for myself
under the hedge, lay down, quite screened by the thick
curtain of tangled overhanging Ivy end of Section three,