Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 363
“It is terrible. How can I tell you and not die of shame? Now you know how much I deceived you, and the infamy of my purpose makes me afraid to ask for pardon. To think that I was no better than a
Delilah when I met you first! But Heaven stepped in and saved you.
How you worked upon me! First, you re-created my father for me, and I saw him as he really was, and not as I had been taught to think of him. Then you gave me my soul, and I saw myself. Darling, do not hate me. Your great heart could not be capable of a cruelty like that if you knew what I suffered.
“Last of all love came, and I wanted to hold on to it. Oh, how I wanted to hold on to it! That was how it came about that I went on and on without telling you. It was a sort of gambling, a kind of delirium. Everything that happened I took as a penance. Come poverty, shame, neglect, what matter? It was only wiping out a sinful past, and bringing me nearer to you. But when at last he who had injured me threatened to injure you through me, I was in despair. You could never imagine what mad notions came to me then.
I even thought of killing myself, to end and cover up everything.
But no, I could not break your heart like that. Besides, the very act would have told you something, and it was terrible to think that when I was dead you might find out all this pitiful story.
“Now you know everything, dearest. I have kept nothing back. As you see, I am not only my poor friend, but some one worse — myself.
Can you forgive me? I dare not ask it. But put me out of suspense.
Write. Or better still, telegraph. One word — only one. It will be enough.
“I would love to send you my love, but to-night I dare not. I have loved you from the first, and I can never do anything but love you, whatever happens. I think you would forgive me if you could realise that I am in the world only to love you, and that the worst of my offences comes of loving you more than reason or honour itself. Whatever you do, I am yours, and I can only consecrate my life to you.
“It is daybreak, and the cross of St. Peter’s is hanging spectral white above the mists of morning. Is it a symbol of hope, I wonder? The dawn is coming up from the south-east. It would travel quicker to the north-west if it loved you as much as I do. I have been writing this letter over and over again all night long. Do you remember the letter you made me burn, the one containing all your secrets? Here is a letter containing mine — but how much meaner and more perilous! Your poor unhappy girl,
ROMA.”
XIV
Next day Roma removed into her new quarters. A few trunks containing her personal belongings, the picture of her father and Elena’s Madonna, were all she took with her. A broker glanced at the rest of her goods and gave a price for the lot. Most of the plaster casts in the studio were broken up and carted away. The fountain, being of marble, had to be put in a dark cellar under the lodge of the old Garibaldian. Only one part of it was carried upstairs. This was the mould for the bust of Rossi and the block of stone for the head of Christ.
Except for her dog, Roma went alone to the Piazza Navona, Felice having returned to the Baron and Natalina being dismissed. The old woman was to clean and cook for her and Roma was to shop for herself. It didn’t take the neighbours long to sum up the situation. She was Rossi’s wife. They began to call her Signora.
Coming to live in Rossi’s home was a sweet experience. The room seemed to be full of his presence. The sitting-room with its piano, its phonograph, and its portraits brought back the very tones of his voice. The bedroom was at first a sanctuary, and she could not bring herself to occupy it until she had set upon the little Madonna. Then it became a bower, and to sleep in it brought a tingling sense which she had never felt before.
Living in the midst of Rossi’s surroundings, she felt as if she were discovering something new about him every minute. His squirrels on the roof made her think of him as a boy, and his birds, which were nesting, and therefore singing from their little swelling throats the whole day long, made her thrill and think of both of them. His presents from other women were a source of almost feverish interest. Some came from England and America, and were sent by women who had never even seen his face. They made her happy, they made her proud, they made her jealous.
It was Rossi, Rossi, always Rossi! Every night on going to bed in her poor quarters her last thought was a love-prayer in the darkness, very simple and foolish and childlike, that he would love her always, whatever she was, and whatever the world might say or evil men might do.
This mood lasted for a week and then it began to break. At the back of her happiness there lay anxiety about her letter. She counted up the hours since she posted it, and reckoned the time it would take to receive a reply. If Rossi telegraphed she might hear from him in three days. She did not hear.
“He thinks it better to write,” she told herself. Of course he would write immediately, and in five days she would receive his reply. On the fifth day she called on the porter at the convent. He had nothing for “Sister Angelica.”
“There must be snow on the Alps, and therefore the mails are delayed,” she thought, and she went down to Piale’s, where they post up telegrams. There was snow in Switzerland. It was just as she imagined, and her letter would be delivered in the morning. It was not delivered in the morning.
“How stupid of me! It would be Sunday when my letter reached London.” She had not counted on the postal arrangements of the English Sabbath. One day more, only one, and she would hear from Rossi and be happy.
But one day went by, then another and another, and still no letter came. Her big heart began to fail and the rainbow in the sky of her life to pale away. The singing of the birds on the roof pained her now. How could they crack their little throats like that? It was raining and the sky was dark.
Then the Garibaldian and his old wife came upstairs with scared looks and with papers in their hands. They were summoned to give evidence at Bruno’s trial. It was to take place in three days.
“Well, I’m deaf, praise the saints! and they can’t make much of me,” said the old woman.
Roma put on her simple black straw hat with a quill through it and set off for the office of the lawyer, Napoleon Fuselli.
“Just writing to you, dear lady,” said the great man, dropping back in his chair. “Sorry to say my labour has been in vain. It is useless to go further. Our man has confessed.”
“Confessed?” Roma clutched at the lapel of her coat.
“Confessed, and denounced his accomplices.”
“His accomplices?”
“Rossi in particular, whom he has implicated in a serious conspiracy.”
“What conspiracy?”
“That is not yet disclosed. We shall hear all about it the day after to-morrow.”
“But why? With what object?”
“Pardon! Apparently they have promised the clemency of the court, and hence in one sense our object is achieved. It is hardly necessary to defend the man. The authorities will see to that for us.”
“What will be the result?”
“Probably a trial in contumacy. As soon as Parliament rises for Easter Rossi will be summoned to present himself within ten days. But you will be the first to know all about it, you know.”
“How so?”
“The summons will be posted upon the door of the house he lived in, and on the door of any other house he is known to have frequented.”
“But if he never hears of it, or if he takes no heed?”
“He will be tried all the same, and when he is a condemned man his sentence will be printed in black and posted up in the same places.”
“And then?”
“Then Rossi’s life in Rome will be at an end. He will be interdicted from all public offices and expelled from Parliament.”
“And Bruno?”
“He will be a free man the following morning.”
Roma went home dazed and dejected. A letter was waiting for her. It was from the Director of the Roman prisons. Although the regulations stipulated that only relations should visit prisoners, except under special conditions, the Director had no objection to Bruno Rocco’s former employer seeing him at the ordinary bi-monthly hour for visitors to-morrow, Sunday afternoon.
At two o’clock next day Roma set off for Regina C[oe]li.
XV
The visiting-room of Regina C[oe]li is constructed on the principle of a rat-trap. It is an oblong room divided into three compartments longitudinally, the partition walls being composed of wire and resembling cages. The middle compartment is occupied by the armed warder in charge who walks up and down; the compartment on the prison side is divided into many narrow boxes each occupied by a prisoner, and the compartment on the world side is similarly divided into sections each occupied by a visitor.
When Roma entered this room she was deafened by a roar of voices. Thirty prisoners and as many of their friends were trying to talk at the same time across the compartment in the middle, in which the warder was walking. Each batch of friends and prisoners had fifteen minutes for their interview, and everybody was shouting so as to be heard above the rest.
A feeling of moral and physical nausea took possession of Roma when she was shown into this place. After some minutes of the hellish tumult she had asked to see the Director. The message was taken upstairs, and the Director came down to speak to her.
“Do you expect me to speak to my friend in this place and under these conditions?” she asked.
“It is the usual place, and these are the usual conditions,” he answered.
“If you are unable to allow me to speak to him in some other place under some other conditions, I must go to the Minister of the Interior.”
The Director bowed. “That will be unnecessary,” he said. “There is a room reserved for special circumstances,” and, calling a warder, he gave the necessary instructions. He was a good man in the toils of a vicious system.
A few minutes afterwards Roma was alone in a small bare room with Bruno, except for two warders who stood in the door. She was shocked at the change in him. His cheeks, which used to be full and almost florid, were shrunken and pale; a short grizzly beard had grown over his chin, and his eyes, which had been frank and humorous, were fierce and evasive. Six weeks in prison had made a different man of him, and, like a dog which has been changed by sickness and neglect, he knew it and growled.
“What do you want with me?” he said angrily, as Roma looked at him without speaking.
She flushed and begged his pardon, and at that his jaw trembled and he turned his head away.
“I trust you received the note I sent in to you, Bruno?”
“When? What note?”
“On the day after your arrest, saying your dear ones should be cared for and comforted.”
“And were they?”
“Yes. Then you didn’t receive it?”
“I was under punishment from the first.”
“I also paid for a separate cell with food and light. Did you get that?”
“No, I was nearly all the time on bread and water.”
His sulkiness was breaking down and he was showing some agitation. She lifted her large dark eyes on him and said in a soft voice:
“Poor Bruno! No wonder they have made you say things.”
His jaw trembled more than ever. “No use talking of that,” he said.
“Mr. Rossi will be the first to feel for you.”
He turned his head and looked at her with a look of pity. “She doesn’t know,” he thought. “Why should I tell her? After all, she’s in the same case as myself. What hurts me will hurt her. She has been good to me. Why should I make her suffer?”
“If they’ve told you falsehoods, Bruno, in order to play on your jealousy and inspire revenge....” “Where’s Rossi?” he said sharply.
“In England.”
“And where’s Elena?”
“I don’t know.”
He wagged his poor head with a wag of wisdom, and for a moment his clouded and stupefied brain was proud of itself.
“It was wrong of Elena to go away without saying where she was going to, and Mr. Rossi is in despair about her.”
“You believe that?”
“Indeed I do.”
These words staggered him, and he felt mean and small compared to this woman. “If she can believe in them why can’t I?” he thought. But after a moment he smiled a pitiful smile and said largely, “You don’t know, Donna Roma. But I do, and they don’t hoodwink me. A poor fellow here — a convict, he works on the Gazette and hears all the news — he told me everything.”
“What’s his name?” said Roma.
“Number 333, penal part. He used to occupy the next cell.”
“Then you never saw his face?”
“No, but I heard his voice, and I could have sworn I knew it.”
“Was it the voice of Charles Minghelli?”
“Charles Ming....”
“Time’s up,” said one of the warders at the door.
“Bruno,” said Roma, rising, “I know that Charles Minghelli, who is now an agent of the police, has been in this prison in the disguise of a prisoner. I also know that after he was dismissed from the embassy in London he asked Mr. Rossi to assist him to assassinate the Prime Minister.”
“Right about,” cried the warder, and with a bewildered expression the prisoner turned to go. Roma followed him through the open courtyard, and until he reached the iron gate he did not lift his head. Then he faced round with eyes full of tears, but full of fire as well, and raising one arm he cried in a resolute voice:
“All right, sister! Leave it to me, damn me! I’ll see it through.”
The private visiting-room had one disadvantage. Every word that passed was repeated to the Director. Later the same day the Director wrote to the Royal Commissioner:
“Sorry to say the man Rocco has asked for an interview to retract his denunciation. I have refused it, and he has been violent with the chief warder. But inspired by a sentiment of justice I feel it my duty to warn you that I have been misled, that my instructions have been badly interpreted, and that I cannot hold myself responsible for the document I sent you.”
The Commissioner sent this letter on to the Minister of the Interior, who immediately called up the Chief of Police.
“Commendatore,” said the Baron, “what was the offence for which young Charles Minghelli was dismissed from the embassy in London?”
“He was suspected of forgery, your Excellency.”
“The warrant for his arrest was drawn out but never executed?”
“That is so, and we still hold it at the office....”
“Commendatore!”
“Your Excellency?”
“Let the papers that were taken at the domiciliary visitation in the apartments of Deputy Rossi and his man Bruno be gone through again — let Minghelli go through them. You follow me?”
“Perfectly, Excellency.”
“Let your Delegate see if there is not a letter among them from Rossi to Bruno’s wife — you understand?”
“I do.”
“If such a letter can be found let it be sent to the Under Prefect to add to his report for to-morrow’s trial, and let the Public Prosecutor read it to the prisoner.”
“It shall be done, your Excellency.”
XVI
At eight o’clock the next morning Roma was going into the courtyard of the Castle of St. Angelo when she met the carriage of the Prime Minister coming out. The coachman was stopped from inside, and the Baron himself alighted.
“You look tired, my child,” he said.
“I am tired,” she answered.
“Hardly more than a month, yet so many things have happened!”
“Oh, that! That’s nothing — nothing whatever.”
“Why should you pass through these privations? Roma, if I allowed these misfortunes to befall you it was only to let you feel what others could do for you. But I am the same as ever, and you have only to stretch out your hand and I am here to lighten your lot.”
“All that is over now. It is no use speaking as you spoke before. You are talking to another woman.”
“Strange mystery of a woman’s love! That she who set out to destroy her slanderer should become his slave! If he were only worthy of it!”
“He is worthy of it.”
“If you should hear that he is not worthy — that he has even been untrue to you?”
“I should think it is a falsehood, a contemptible falsehood.”
“But if you had proof, substantial proof, the proof of his own pen?”
“Good-morning! I must go.”
“My child, what have I always told you? You will give the man up at last and carry out your first intention.”
With a deep bow and a scarcely perceptible smile the Baron turned to the open door of his carriage. Roma flushed up angrily and went on, but the poisoned arrow had gone home.
The military tribunal had begun its session. A ticket which Roma presented at the door admitted her to the well of the court where the advocates were sitting. The advocate Fuselli made a place for her by his side. It was a quiet moment and her entrance attracted attention. The judges in their red armchairs at the green-covered horse-shoe table looked up from their portfolios, and there was some whispering beyond the wooden bar where the public were huddled together. One other face had followed her, but at first she dared not look at that. It was the face of the prisoner in his prison clothes sitting between two Carabineers.
The secretary read the indictment. Bruno was charged not only with participation in the riot of the 1st of February, but also with being a promoter of associations designed to change violently the constitution of the state. It was a long document, and the secretary read it slowly and not very distinctly.
When the indictment came to an end the Public Prosecutor rose to expound the accusation, and to mention the clauses of the Code under which the prisoner’s crime had to be considered. He was a young captain of cavalry, with restless eyes and a twirled-up moustache. His long cloak hung over his chair, his light gloves lay on the table by his side, and his sword clanked as he made graceful gestures. He was an elegant speaker, much preoccupied about beautiful phrases, and obviously anxious to conciliate the judges.
