Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 366
The Capuchin crossed his knees, and one of his bare feet in its sandal showed from under the edge of his habit.
“We had baptized the boy by a name which the mother had written on a paper attached to his wrist, and the identity of that name with the name of the Noble Guard led to my revelation. Nature is a mighty thing, and on hearing what I told him the young brother became restless and unhappy. The instincts of the man began to fight with the feelings of the religious, and at last he left the friary in order to fulfil the duty which he thought he owed to his child.”
“He did not find him?”
“He was too late. According to custom, the boy had been put out to nurse on the Campagna, by means of the little dower that was all his inheritance from the State. His foster parents passed him over to other hands, and thus by the abuse of a good practice the child was already lost.”
Roma tried to speak, but she could not utter a word.
“What happened then is a long story. The old Baron was now dead and the young friar had inherited his princely fortune. Dispensations got over canonical difficulties, and in due course he took holy orders. His first work was to establish in Rome an asylum for friendless orphans. He went out into the streets to look for them, and brought them in with his own hands. His fame for charity grew rapidly, and he knew well what he was doing. He was looking for the little fatherless one who owned his own blood and bore his name.”
Roma was now sitting with drooping head, and her tears were falling on her hands.
“Five years passed, and at length he came upon a trace of the boy and heard that he had been sent to England. The unhappy father obtained permission and removed to London. There he set up the same work as before and spent in the same way his great wealth. He passed five years more in a fruitless search, looking for his lost one day and night, winter and summer, in cold and heat, among the little foreign boys who play organs and accordions in the streets. Then he gave up hope and returned to Rome. His head was white and his heart was humble, but in spite of himself he rose from dignity to dignity until at length the old Baron’s perverted ambitions were fulfilled. For his great and abounding charity, and still greater piety, he was promoted to be Bishop; seven years afterwards he was created Cardinal; and now he is Pope Pius the Tenth, the saint, the saviour of his people, once the storm-tossed, sorrowing, stricken man....”
“David Leone?”
The Capuchin bowed. “That was the Holy Father’s name. He committed no sin and has nothing to reproach himself with, but nevertheless he has known what it is to fall and to rise again, to suffer and be strong. Tell me, my daughter, is there anything you would be afraid to confide to him?”
“Nothing! Nothing whatever!” said Roma, with tears choking her voice and streaming down her cheeks.
The door to the throne room opened again and a line of Cardinals came out and passed down the secret corridor, talking together as they walked, old men in violet, most of them very feeble and looking very tired. At the next moment the chaplain came in for Roma.
“The Holy Father will be ready to receive you presently,” he said in a hushed and reverent whisper, and she rose to follow him.
A moment later Roma was at the door of the grand throne room. A chamberlain took charge of her there, and passed her to a secret chamberlain at the door of an anteroom adjoining. This secret chamberlain handed her on to a Monsignor in a violet cassock, and the Monsignor accompanied her to the door of the room in which the Pope was sitting.
“As you approach,” he said in a low tone, “you will make three genuflexions — one at the door, another midway across the floor, the third at the Holy Father’s feet. You feel well?”
“Yes,” she faltered.
The door was opened, the Monsignor stepped one pace into the room, and then knelt and said —
“Donna Roma Volonna, your Holiness.”
Roma was on her knees at the threshold; a soft, full, kindly voice, which she could have believed she had heard before, called on her to approach; she rose and stepped forward, the Monsignor stepped back, and the door behind her was closed.
She was in the Presence.
III
The Pope, dressed wholly in white, was seated in a simple chair by a little table in a homely room, surrounded by bookcases and some busts of former pontiffs. There were little domesticities of intimate life about him, an empty soup-dish, a cruet-stand, a plate and a spoon. He had a face of great sweetness and spirituality, and as Roma approached he bent his head and smiled a fatherly smile. She knelt and kissed his ring, and continued to kneel by his chair, putting one hand on the arm. He placed his own mittened hand over hers and patted it tenderly, while he looked into her face.
The little nervous perturbation with which Roma had entered the room began to leave her, and in the awful wearer of the threefold crown she saw nothing but a simple, loving human being. A feminine sense crept over her, a sense of nursing, almost of motherhood, and at that first moment she felt as if she wanted to do something for the gentle old man. Then he began to speak. His voice had that tone which comes to the voice of a man who has the sense of sex strong in him, when a woman is with him and his accents soften perceptibly.
“My daughter,” he said, “Father Pifferi has spoken about you, and by your permission, as I understand it, he has repeated the story you told him. You have suffered, and you have my sympathy. And though you are not among the number of my children, I sent for you, that, as an old man to a young woman, by God’s grace I might strengthen you and support you.”
She kissed his ring again and continued to kneel by the arm of his chair.
“Long ago, my child, I knew one who was in something like the same position, and perhaps it is the memory of what befell that poor soul which impels me to speak to you.... But she is dead, her story is dead too; let time and nature cover them.”
His voice had a slight tremor. She looked up. There was a hush, a momentary thrill. Then he smiled again and patted her hand once more.
“You must not let the world weaken you, my child, or cause you to doubt the validity of your marriage. Whether it is a good marriage, in effect as well as intention (one of you being still unbaptized), it is for the Church, not the world, to decide.”
Again Roma kissed the ring of the Pope, and again he patted the hand that lay under his.
“Nevertheless, there is something I wish you to do, my daughter,” he said, in the same low tones. “I wish you to tell your husband.”
“Holy Father,” said Roma, “I have already told him. I had done so before I spoke to Father Pifferi, but only under the disguise of another woman’s story.”
“And what did your husband say?”
“He said what your Holiness says. He was very charitable and noble; so I took heart and told him everything.”
“And what did he say then?”
A cloud crossed her face. “Holy Father, he has not yet said anything.”
“Not anything?”
“He is away; he has not replied to my letter.”
“Has there been time?”
“More than time, your Holiness, but still I hear nothing.”
“And what is your conclusion?”
“That my letter has awakened some pity, but now that he knows I am the wife I spoke about and he is the husband intended, he cannot forgive me as he said the husband would forgive, and his generous soul is in distress.”
“My daughter, could you wish me to speak to him?”
The cloud fled from her face. “It is more than I deserve, far more, but if the Holy Father would do that....”
“Then I must know the names — you must tell me everything.”
“Yes, yes!”
“Who is your father, my child?”
“My father died in banishment. He was a Liberal — he was Prince Prospero Volonna.”
“As I thought. Who was the other man?”
“He was a distant kinsman of my father’s, and I have lately discovered that he was the principal instrument in my father’s deportation. He was my guardian, a Minister and a great man in Italy. It is the Baron Bonelli, your Holiness.”
“Just so, just so!” said the Pope, tapping his foot in obvious heat. “But go on, my child. Who is your husband?”
“My husband is a different kind of man altogether.”
“Ah!”
“He has done everything for me, Holy Father — everything. Heaven knows what I should have been now without him.”
“God bless him! God bless both of you!”
“I came to know him by the strangest accident. He is a Liberal too, and a Deputy, and thinking of the corruptions of the Government, he pointed to me as the mistress of the Minister. It was not true, but I was degraded, and ... and I set out to destroy him.”
“A terrible vengeance, my child. Only the Minister could have thought of it.”
“Then I found that my enemy was one of my father’s friends, and a true and noble man. Holy Father, I had begun in hate, but I could not hate him. The darkness faded away from my soul, and something bright and beautiful came in its place. I loved him, and he loved me. With all our hearts we loved each other.”
“And then?”
“Then he came back to me. I knew all the secrets I had set out to learn, but I could not give them up, and when I refused he threatened me.”
“And what did you do?”
“I married my husband and withstood every temptation. It wasn’t so very hard, for I cared nothing for wealth and luxury now. I only wanted to be good. God Himself should see how good I could be.”
The Pope’s eyes were moist. He was patting the young woman’s trembling hand.
“My blessing rest on you, my daughter, and may the man you have married be worthy of your love and trust.”
“Indeed, indeed he is,” said Roma.
“He was your father’s friend, you tell me?”
“Yes, your Holiness, and although we met again so recently, I had known him in England when I was a child.”
“A Liberal, you say?”
“Yes, your Holiness.”
“The enmity of the Minister was the fruit of political warfare?”
“Nothing but that at first, though now....”
“I see, I see. And the secrets you speak of are only....”
“Only the doings of twenty years ago, which are dead and done with.”
“Then your husband is older than you are?”
The young woman broke into a sunny smile, which set the Pope smiling.
“Only ten years older, your Holiness. He is thirty-four.”
“Where does he come from, and what was his father?”
“He was born in Rome, but he does not know who his father was.”
“What is he like to look upon?”
“He is like ... I have never seen any one so like ... will your Holiness forgive me?”
The colour had mounted to her eyes, her two rows of pearly teeth seemed to be smiling, and the sunny old face of the Pope was smiling too.
“Say what you please, my daughter.”
“I have never seen any one so like the Holy Father,” she said softly.
Her head was held down and there was a little nervous tremor at her heart. The Pope patted her hand affectionately.
“Have I asked you his name, my child?”
“His name is David Rossi.”
The Pope rose suddenly from his seat, and for the first time his face looked dark and troubled.
“David Rossi?” he repeated in a husky voice.
Roma began to tremble. “Yes,” she faltered.
“David Rossi, the Revolutionary?”
“Indeed no, your Holiness, he is not that.”
“But, my child, my child, he is the founder of a revolutionary society which this very day the Holy Father has condemned.”
He walked across the room and she rose to her feet and looked after him.
“One of the men who are conspiring against the peace of the Church — banded together to fight the Church and its head.”
“Don’t say that, your Holiness. He is religious, deeply religious, and far more an enemy of the Government and the King.”
She began to talk wildly, almost aimlessly, trying to defend Rossi at all costs.
“Holy Father,” she said, “shall I tell you a secret? There is nobody else in the world to whom I could tell it, but I can tell it to you. My husband is now in England organising a great scheme among the exiles and refugees of Italy. What it is I don’t know, but he has told me that it will lead to the conquest of the country and the downfall of the throne. Whether it is to be a conspiracy in the ordinary sense, or a constitutional plan of campaign, he has not said, but everything tells me that it is directed against the politics of Rome, and not against its religion, and is intended to overthrow the King, and not the Pope.”
The Pope, who had been standing with his back to Roma, turned round to her with a look of fright. His eyebrows had met over the vertical lines on his forehead, and this further reminder of another face threw Roma into still greater confusion.
“‘When I come back, it will be with such a force behind me as will make the prisons open their doors and the thrones of tyrants tremble.’ That’s what he said, your Holiness. The movement will come soon, too, I am sure it will, and then your Holiness will see that, instead of being irreligious men, the leaders of the people....”
The Pope held up his hand. “Stop!” he cried. “Say no more, my child. God knows what I must do with what you have said already.”
Then Roma saw what she had done in the wild gust of her emotion, and in her terror she tried to take it back.
“Holy Father, you must not think from what I say that David Rossi is for revolution and regicide....”
“Don’t speak, my child. You cannot know what an earthquake you have opened at my feet. Let me think!”
There was silence for a moment, and then Roma gulped down the great lumps in her throat and said: “I am only an ignorant woman, Holy Father, and perhaps I have said too much, and do not understand. But what I have told your Holiness was told me in love and confidence. And the Holy Father is wise and good, and whatever he does will be for the best.”
The Pope returned to his chair with a bewildered look, and did not seem to hear. Roma sank to her knees by his side and said in a low, pleading tone:
“My husband’s faith in me is so beautiful, your Holiness. Oh, so beautiful. I am the only one in the world to whom he has told all his secrets, and if any of them should ever come back to him....”
“Don’t be afraid, my daughter. What you said in simple confidence shall be as sacred as if it had been spoken under the seal of the confessional.”
“If I could tell your Holiness more about him — who he is and where he comes from — a place so lowly and humble, your Holiness....”
“Tell me no more, my child. It is better I should not know. Pity ought to have no place in what duty tells me to do. But I can love David Rossi for all that. I do love him. I love him as a lost and wayward son, whose hand is raised against his Father, though he knows it not.”
There was a bell button on the Pope’s chair. He pressed it, and the Participante returned to the room without knocking. The Pope rose and took Roma’s hand.
“Go in peace and with my blessing, my child. I bless you! May my fatherly blessing keep you pure in heart, may it strengthen you in all temptations, comfort you in all trials, avert from you every evil omen, and bring you into the fold of Christ’s children at the last.”
The Participante stepped forward and signed to Roma to withdraw. She rose and left the presence chamber, stepping backward and too much moved to speak. Not until the door had been closed did she realise that she was crossing the throne room, and that the Bussolante was walking beside her.
IV
When the Pope walked in his garden that afternoon as usual, the old Capuchin was with him. From the door of the Vatican they drove in the Pope’s landau with two of the Noble Guard riding beside the carriage, and one of the chamberlains walking behind it, through lanes enshrouded in laurel and ilex, until they reached the summer-house on the top of the hill. There the old men stepped down, the Pope in his white cassock, white overcoat and red hat, the Capuchin in his brown habit, skull-cap and sandals. The Pope’s cat, a creature of reddish coat, which followed him into the garden as a dog follows his master, leapt out of the carriage after them.
The Pope was more than usually grave and silent. Once or twice the Capuchin said, “And how did you find my young penitent this morning?”
“Bene, bene!” the Pope replied.
But at length the Pope, scraping the gravel at his feet with the ferrule of his walking-stick, began to speak on his own initiative.
“Father!”
“Your Holiness?”
“The inscrutable decree of God which made me your Pontiff has not altered our relations to each other as men?”
The Capuchin took snuff and answered, “Your Holiness is always so good as to say so.”
“You are my master now just as you were thirty years ago, and there is something I wish to ask of you.”
“What is it, your Holiness?”
“You have been a confessor many years, Father?”
“Forty years, your Holiness.”
“In that time you have had many difficult cases?”
“Very many.”
“Father, has it ever happened that a penitent, has revealed to you a conspiracy to commit a crime?”
“More than once it has happened.”
“And what have you done?”
“Persuaded him to reveal it to the civil authorities, or else tell it to me outside the confessional.”
“Has the penitent ever refused to do so?”
“Never.”
“But if ... if the case were such as made it difficult for the penitent to reveal the conspiracy to the civil authorities, having regard to the penalties the revelation would bring with it ... if by reason of ties of blood and affection such revelation were humanly impossible, and it would even be cruel to ask for it, what would you do then?”
