Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 359
Having despatched this challenge by Felice, not only to the Mayor, but also to herself, her pride, her poverty, and to the great world generally, she put on her cloak and hat and drove down to the Castle of St. Angelo.
When she returned, an hour afterwards, there was a dry glitter in her eyes, which increased to a look of fever when she opened the drawing-room door and saw who was waiting there. It was the Mayor himself. The little oily man in patent-leather boots, holding upright his glossy silk hat, was clearly nervous and confused. He complimented her on her appearance, looked out of the window, extolled the view, and finally, with his back to his hostess, began on his business.
“It is about your letter, you know,” he said awkwardly. “There seems to be a little misunderstanding on your part. About the fountain, I mean.”
“None whatever, Senator. You ordered it. I have executed it. Surely the matter is quite simple.”
“Impossible, my dear. I may have encouraged you to an experimental trial. We all do that. Rome is eager to discover genius. But a simple member of a corporate body cannot undertake ... that is to say, on his own responsibility, you know....”
Roma’s breath began to come quickly. “Do you mean that you didn’t commission my fountain?”
“How could I, my child? Such matters must go through a regular form. The proper committee must sanction and resolve....”
“But everybody has known of this, and it has been generally understood from the first.”
“Ah, understood! Possibly! Rumour and report perhaps.”
“But I could bring witnesses — high witnesses — the very highest if needs be....”
The little man smiled benevolently.
“Surely there is no witness of any standing in the State who would go into a witness-box and say that, without a contract, and with only a few encouraging words....”
The dry glitter in Roma’s eyes shot into a look of anger. “Do you call your letters to me a few encouraging words only?” she said.
“My letters?” the glossy hat was getting ruffled.
“Your letters alluding to this matter, and enumerating the favours you wished me to ask of the Prime Minister.”
“My dear,” said the Mayor after a moment, “I’m sorry if I have led you to build up hopes, and though I have no authority ... if it will end matters amicably ... I think I can promise ... I might perhaps promise a little money for your loss of time.”
“Do you suppose I want charity?”
“Charity, my dear?”
“What else would it be? If I have no right to everything I will have nothing. I will take none of your money. You can leave me.”
The little man shuffled his feet, and bowed himself out of the room, with many apologies and praises which Roma did not hear. For all her brave words her heart was breaking, and she was holding her breath to repress a sob. The great bulwark she had built up for herself lay wrecked at her feet. She had deceived herself into believing that she could be somebody for herself. Going down to the studio, she covered up the fountain. It had lost every quality which she had seen in it before. Art was gone from her. She was nobody. It was very, very cruel.
But that glorious telegram rustled in her breast like a captive song-bird, and before going to bed she wrote to David Rossi again.
“Your message arrived before I was up this morning, and not being entirely back from the world of dreams, I fancied that it was an angel’s whisper. This is silly, but I wouldn’t change it for the greatest wisdom, if, in order to be the most wise and wonderful among women, I had to love you less.
“Business first and other things afterwards. Most of the newspapers have been published to-day, and some of them are blowing themselves out of breath in abuse of you, and howling louder than the wolves of the Capitol before rain. The military courts began this morning, and they have already polished off fifty victims. Rewards for denunciations have now deepened to threats of imprisonment for non-denunciation. General Morra, Minister of War, has sent in his resignation, and there is bracing weather in the neighbourhood of the Palazzo Braschi. An editor has been arrested, many journals and societies have been suppressed, and twenty thousand of the contadini who came to Rome for the meeting in the Coliseum have been despatched to their own communes. Finally, the Royal Commissioner has written to the Pope, calling on him to assist in the work of pacifying the people, and it is rumoured that the Holy Office is to be petitioned by certain of the Bishops to denounce the ‘Republic of Man’ as a secret society (like the Freemasons) coming within the ban of the Pontifical constitutions.
“So much for general news, and now for more personal intelligence. I went down to the Castle of St. Angelo this morning, and was permitted to speak to the Royal Commissioner. Recognised him instantly as a regular old-timer at the heels of the Baron, and tackled him on our ancient terms. The wretch — he squints, and he smoked a cigarette all through the interview — couldn’t allow me to see Bruno during the private preparation of the case against him, and when I asked if the instruction would take long he said, ‘Probably, as it is complicated by the case of some one else who is not yet in custody.’ Then I asked if I might employ separate counsel for the defence, and he shuffled and said it was unnecessary. This decided me, and I walked straight to the office of the great lawyer Napoleon Fuselli, promised him five hundred francs by to-morrow morning, and told him to go ahead without delay.
“But heigh-ho, nonny! Coming home I felt like the witches in ‘Macbeth.’ ‘By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.’ It was Senator Tom-tit, the little fat Mayor of Rome. His great ambition is to wear the green ribbon of St. Maurice and Lazarus, as none know better than myself. Wanting money on my fountain, I had written to the old wretch, but the moment we met I could see what was coming, so I braved it out, bustled about and made a noise. It was a mistake! There had been no commission at all! But if a little money would repay me for a loss of time....
“It wasn’t so much that I cared about the loss of the fees, badly as I needed them. It was mainly that I had allowed the summer flies who buzzed about me for the Baron’s sake to flatter me into the notion that I was an artist, when I was really nobody for myself at all.
“This humour lasted all afternoon, and spoiled my digestion for dinner, which was a pity, for there was some delicious wild asparagus. But then I thought of you and your work, and the future when you will come back with all Rome at your feet, and my vexation disappeared and I was content to be nothing and nobody except somebody whom you loved and who loved you, and that was to be everything and everybody in the world.
“I don’t care a rush about the matter now, but what do you think I’ve done? Sold my carriage and horses! Actually! The little job-master, with his tight trousers, close-cropped head, and chamois-leather waistcoat, has just gone off after cheating me abominably. No matter! What do I want with a grand carriage while you are going about as an exile and an outcast? I want nothing you have not got, and all I have I wish you to have too, including my heart and my soul and everything that is in them....”
She stopped. This was the place to reveal her great secret. But she could not find her way to begin. “To-morrow will do,” she thought, and so laid down the pen.
V
Early next morning Roma received a visit from the lawyer who conducted the business of her landlord. He was a middle-aged man in pepper-and-salt tweeds, and his manner was brusque and aggressive.
“Sorry to say, Excellency, that I’ve had a letter from Count Mario at Paris saying that he will require this apartment for his own use. He regrets to be compelled to disturb you, but having frequently apprised you of his intention to live here himself....”
“When does he want to come?” said Roma.
“At Easter.”
“That will do. My aunt is ill, but if she is fit to be moved....”
“Thanks! And may I perhaps present....”
A paper in the shape of a bill came from the breast-pocket of the pepper-and-salt tweeds. Roma took it, and, without looking at it, replied:
“You will receive your rent in a day or two.”
“Thanks again. I trust I may rely on that. And meantime....”
“Well?”
“As I am personally responsible to the Count for all moneys due to him, may I ask your Excellency to promise me that nothing shall be removed from this apartment until my arrears of rent have been paid?”
“I promise that you shall receive what is due from me in two days. Is not that enough?”
The pepper-and-salt tweeds bowed meekly before Roma’s flashing eyes.
“Good-morning, sir.”
“Good-morning, Excellency.”
The man was hardly out of the house when a woman was shown in. It was Madame Sella, the fashionable modiste.
“So unlucky, my dear! I’m driven to my wits’ end for money. The people I deal with in Paris are perfect demons, and are threatening all sorts of pains and penalties if I don’t send them a great sum straight away. Of course if I could get my own money in, it wouldn’t matter. But the dear ladies of society are so slow, and naturally I don’t like to go to their gentlemen, although really I’ve waited so long for their debts that if....”
“Can you wait one day longer for mine?”
“Donna Roma! And we’ve always been such friends, too!”
“You’ll excuse me this morning, won’t you?” said Roma, rising.
“Certainly. I’m busy, too. So good of you to see me. Trust I’ve not been de trop. And if it hadn’t been for those stupid bills of mine....”
Roma sat down and wrote a letter to one of the strozzini (stranglers), who lend money to ladies on the security of their jewels.
“I wish to sell my jewellery,” she wrote, “and if you have any desire to buy it, I shall be glad if you can come to see me for this purpose at four o’clock to-morrow.”
“Roma!” cried a fretful voice.
She was sitting in the boudoir, and her aunt was calling to her from the adjoining room. The old lady, who had just finished her toilet, and was redolent of perfume and scented soap, was propped up on pillows between the mirror and her Madonna, with her cat purring on the cushion at the foot of her bed.
“Ah, you do come to me sometimes, don’t you?” she said, with her embroidered handkerchief at her lips. “What is this I hear about the carriage and horses? Sold them! It is incredible. I will not believe it unless you tell me so yourself.”
“It is quite true, Aunt Betsy. I wanted money for various purposes, and among others to pay my debts,” said Roma.
“Goodness! It’s true! Give me my salts. There they are — on the card-table beside you.... So it’s true! It’s really true! You’ve done some extraordinary things already, miss, but this ... Mercy me! Selling her horses! And she isn’t ashamed of it!... I suppose you’ll sell your clothes next, or perhaps your jewels.”
“That’s just what I want to do, Aunt Betsy.”
“Holy Virgin! What are you saying, girl? Have you lost all sense of decency? Sell your jewels! Goodness! Your ancestral jewels! You must have grown utterly heartless as well as indifferent to propriety, or you wouldn’t dream of selling the treasures that have come down to you from your own mother’s breast, as one might say.”
“My mother never set eyes on any of them, auntie, and if some of them belonged to my grandmother, she must have been a good woman because she was the mother of my father, and she would rather see me sell them all than live in debt and disgrace.”
“Go on! Go on with your English talk! Or perhaps it’s American, is it? You want to kill me, that’s what it is! You will, too, and sooner than you expect, and then you’ll be sorry and ashamed ... Go away! Why do you come to worry me? Isn’t it enough ... Natalina! Nat-a-lina!”
Late that night Roma resumed her letter to David Rossi:
“DEAREST, — You are always the last person I speak to before I go to bed, and if only my words could sail away over Monte Mario in the darkness while I sleep, they would reach you on the wings of the morning.
“You want to know all that is happening, and here goes again. The tyrannies of military rule increase daily, and some of its enormities are past belief. Military court sat all day yesterday and polished off eighty-five poor victims. Ten of them got ten years, twenty got five years, and about fifty got periods of one month to twelve.
“Lawyer Napoleon F. was here this afternoon to say that he had seen Bruno and begun work in his defence. Strangely enough he finds a difficulty in a quarter from which it might least be expected. Bruno himself is holding off in some unaccountable way which gives Napoleon F. an idea that the poor soul is being got at. Apparently — you will hardly credit it — he is talking doubtfully about you, and asking incredible questions about his wife. Lawyer Napoleon actually inquired if there was ‘anything in it,’ and the thing struck me as so silly that I laughed out in his face. It was very wrong of me not to be jealous, wasn’t it? Being a woman, I suppose I ought to have leapt at the idea, according to all the natural laws of love. I didn’t, and my heart is still tranquil. But poor Bruno was more human, and Napoleon has an idea that something is going on inside the prison. He is to go there again to-morrow and to let me know.
“Such doings at home too! I’ve been two years in debt to my landlord, and at the end of every quarter I’ve always prayed like a modest woman to be allowed to pass by unnoticed. Celebrity has fallen on me at last, though, and I’m to go at Easter. Madame de
Trop, too, has put the screw on, and everybody else is following suit. Yesterday, for example, I had the honour of a call from every one in the world to whom I owed twopence. Remembering how hard it used to be to get a bill out of these people, I find their sudden business ardour humorous. They do not deceive me nevertheless. I see the die is cast, the fact is known. I have fallen from my high estate of general debtor to everybody and become merely an honest woman.
“Do I suffer from these slings of fortune? Not an atom. When I was rich, or seemed to be so, I was often the most miserable woman in the world, and now I’m happy, happy, happy!
“There is only one thing makes me a little unhappy. Shall I tell you what it is? Yes, I will tell you because your heart is so true, and like all brave men you are so tender to all women. It is a girl friend of mine — a very close and dear friend, and she is in trouble. A little while ago she was married to a good man, and they love each other dearer than life, and there ought to be nothing between them. But there is, and it is a very serious thing too, although nobody knows about it but herself and me. How shall
I tell you? Dearest, you are to think my head is on your breast and you cannot see my face while I tell you my poor friend’s secret. Long ago — it seems long — she was the victim of another man. That is really the only word for it, because she did not consent. But all the same she feels that she has sinned and that nothing on earth can wash away the stain. The worst fact is that her husband knows nothing about it. This fills her with measureless regret and undying remorse. She feels that she ought to have told him, and so her heart is full of tears, and she doesn’t know what it is her duty to.
“I thought I would ask you to tell me, dearest. You are kind, but you mustn’t spare her. I didn’t. She wanted to draw a veil over her frailty, but I wouldn’t let her. I think she would like to confess to her husband, to pour out her heart to him, and begin again with a clean page, but she is afraid. Of course she hasn’t really been faithless, and I could swear on my life she loves her husband only. And then her sorrow is so great, and she is beginning to look worn with lying awake at nights, though some people still think she is beautiful. I dare say you will say, serve her right for deceiving a good man. So do I sometimes, but I feel strangely inconsistent about my poor friend, and a woman has a right to be inconsistent, hasn’t she? Tell me what I am to say to her, and please don’t spare her because she is a friend of mine.”
She lifted her pen from the paper. “He’ll understand,” she thought. “He’ll remember our other letters and read between the lines. Well, so much the better, and God be good to me!”
“Good-night! Good-night! Good-night! I feel like a child — as if the years had gone back with me, or rather as if they had only just begun. You have awakened my soul and all the world is different. Nearly everything that seemed right to me before seems wrong to me now, and vice versa. Life? That wasn’t life. It was only existence. I fancy it must have been some elder sister of mine who went through everything. Think of it! When you were twenty and I was only ten! I’m glad there isn’t as much difference now. I’m catching up to you — metaphorically, I mean. If I could only do so physically! But what nonsense I’m talking! In spite of my poor friend’s trouble I can’t help talking nonsense to-night.”
VI
Two days later Natalina, coming into Roma’s bedroom, threw open the shutters and said:
“Letter with a foreign postmark, Excellency— ‘Sister Angelica, care of the Porter.’ It was delivered at the Convent, and the porter sent it over here.”
“Give it to me,” said Roma eagerly. “It’s quite right. I know whom it is for, and if any more letters come for the same person bring them to me immediately.”
Almost before the maid had left the room Roma had torn the letter open. It was dated from a street in Soho.
“MY DEAR WIFE, — As you see, I have reached London, and now I am thinking of you always, wondering what sufferings are being inflicted upon you for my sake and how you meet and bear them. To think of you there, in the midst of our enemies, is a spur and an inspiration. Only wait! If my absence is cruel to you it is still more hard to me. I will see your lovely eyes again before long, and there will be an end of all our sadness. Meantime continue to love me, and that will work miracles. It will make all the slings and slurs of life seem to be a long way off and of no account.
