Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 368
“Perfectly.”
“Then lose no time, Senator.... One moment.”
The Prefect had risen and reached the door.
“If you can double the King’s guard and change the company every day until the festival is over....”
“Easily, your Excellency. But wait; the Vatican Chief of Police has asked for help on Holy Thursday.”
“Give it him. Let the timid old man of the Sacred College have no excuse for saying we take more care of the King than of the Pope.”
The Minister of Justice was the next of the Baron’s visitors. He was a short man with a smiling and rubicund face, and he wore yellow kid gloves.
“All goes well and wisdom is justified of her children,” said the Baron, rising again and promenading the hearthrug. “The national sentiment, dear colleague, is a sword, and either we must use it on behalf of the Government and the King, or stand by and see it used by the hostile factions.”
“Men like Rossi are not slow to use it, sir,” said the little Minister.
“Tut! It’s not Rossi I’m thinking of now. It’s the Church, the clergy, rich in money and in the faith of the populace. That’s why I wanted to do something as set-off against those mourning demonstrations which the Pope has appointed.”
“Yes, the old gentleman of the Vatican knows the instincts and cravings of our people, doesn’t he, sir? He knows they like a show, and the seasoning of their pleasures with a little religion.”
“It’s the rustiest old weapon in the Pope’s arsenal, dear colleague, but it may serve unless we do something. If the people can be persuaded that the Pope is their one friend in adversity, there couldn’t be a better feather in the Papal cap. Happily our people love to sing and to dance as well as to weep and to pray. So we needn’t throw up the sponge yet.”
Both laughed, and the little Minister said, “Besides, it is so easy to change religious processions into political ones. And then the Vatican is always intriguing with the powers of rebellion and preaching obedience to the Pope alone.”
The creaking of the Baron’s patent-leather boots stopped, and he drew up before his colleague.
“Watch that sharply,” he said, “and if you see any sign on the part of the Vatican of intriguing with men like Rossi, any complicity with conspiracy, or any knowledge of plots pointing to revolution and regicide, let the Council hear of it immediately.”
The Baron’s face had suddenly whitened with passion, and his little colleague looked at him in alarm. A secretary entered the room and handed the Baron a card. The Baron fixed his eye-glasses and read: “MONSIGNOR MARIO, Cameriere Segreto Partecipante di Sua Santità Pio X. Vaticano.”
“St. Anthony! Talk of the angels....” muttered the little Minister.
“Will you perhaps....”
“Certainly,” said the Minister, and he left the room.
“Show the Monsignor in,” said the Baron.
VII
The Monsignor was young, tall, slight, almost fragile, and had thin black hair and large spiritual eyes. As he entered in the long black overcoat, which covered his cassock, he bowed and looked slowly round the room. His subdued expression was that of a sheep going through a gate where the dogs may be, and his manner suggested that he would fly at the first alarm.
The Baron looked over his eye-glasses and measured his man in a moment. “Pray sit,” he said, and at the next moment the young Monsignor and the Baron were seated at opposite sides of the table.
“I am sent to you by a venerable and illustrious personage....”
“Let us say the Pope,” said the Baron.
The young Monsignor bowed and continued, “to offer on his behalf a word of counsel and of warning.”
“It is an unusual and distinguished honour,” said the Baron.
“I am instructed to inform you that the Holy Father has reason to believe a further and more serious insurrection is preparing, and to warn you to take the necessary steps to secure public order and to prevent bloodshed.”
The Baron did not move a muscle. “If the Holy Father has special knowledge of a plot that is impending....”
“Not special, only general, but sufficient to enable him to tell you to hold yourself in readiness.”
“How long has the Holy Father been aware of this?”
“Not long. In fact, only since yesterday morning,” said the Monsignor, and fearing he had said too much he added, “I only mention this to show you that the Holy Father has lost no time.”
“But if the Holy Father knows that a conspiracy is afoot, he can no doubt help us to further information.”
The Monsignor shook his head.
“You mean that he will not do so?”
“No.”
“Am I, then, to understand that the information with which his Holiness honours me came to him secretly?”
“Yes, sir, secretly, and it is, therefore, not open to further explanation.”
“So it reached him by the medium of the confessional?”
The Monsignor rose from his seat. “Your Excellency cannot be in earnest.”
“You mean that it did not reach him by the medium of the confessional?”
“Certainly not.”
“Then he is able to tell me everything, if he will?”
The Monsignor became agitated. “The Holy Father’s information came through a channel that is assimilated to the confessional, and is almost as sacred and inviolate.”
“But obedience to the Pope obliterates from all other responsibility. His Holiness has only to say ‘Speak,’ and his faithful child must obey.”
The Monsignor became confused. “His informant is not even a Catholic, and he has, therefore, no right to command her.”
“So it is a woman,” said the Baron, and the young ecclesiastic dropped his head.
“It is a woman and a non-Catholic, and she visited the Holy Father at the Vatican yesterday morning; is that so?”
“I do not assert it, sir, and I do not deny it.”
The Baron did not speak for a moment, but he looked steadily over his eye-glasses at the flushed young face before him. Then he said in a quiet tone:
“Monsignor, the relations of the Pope and the Government are delicate, and if anything occurred to carry the disagreement further it might result in a serious fratricidal struggle.”
The Monsignor was trying to regain his self-possession, and he remained silent.
“But whatever those relations, it cannot be the wish of the Holy Father to cover with his mantle the upsetters of order who are cutting at the roots of the Church as well as the State.”
“Therefore I am here now, sir, thus early and thus openly,” said the Monsignor.
“Monsignor,” said the Baron, “if anything should occur to — for example — the person of the King, it cannot be the wish of his Holiness that anybody — myself, for instance — should be in a position to say to Parliament and to the Governments of Europe, ‘The Pope knew everything beforehand, and therefore, not having revealed the particulars of the plot, the venerable Father of the Vatican is an accomplice of murderers.’”
The young ecclesiastic lost himself utterly. “The Pope,” he said, “knows nothing more than I have told you.”
“Yes, Monsignor, the Pope knows one thing more. He knows who was his informant and authority. It is necessary that the Government should know that also, in order that it may judge for itself of the nature of the conspiracy and the source from which it may be expected.”
The Monsignor was quivering like a limed bird. “I have delivered my message, and have only to add that in sending me here his Holiness desired to prevent crime, not to help you to apprehend criminals.”
The Baron’s eye-glasses dropped from his nose, and he spoke sharply and incisively. “The Government must at least know who the lady was who visited his Holiness at the Vatican yesterday morning, and led him to believe that a serious insurrection was impending.”
“That your Excellency never will, or can, or shall know.”
The Monsignor was bowing himself out of the room when the Baron’s secretary opened the door and announced another visitor.
“Donna Roma, your Excellency.”
The Monsignor betrayed fresh agitation, and tried to go.
“Bring her in,” said the Baron. “One moment, Monsignor.”
“I have said all I am authorised to say, sir, and I feel warned that I must say no more.”
“Don’t say that, Monsignor.... Ah, Donna Roma!”
Roma, who had entered the room, replied with reserve and dignity.
“Allow me, Donna Roma, to present Monsignor Mario of the Vatican,” said the Baron.
“It is unnecessary,” said Roma. “I met the Monsignor yesterday morning.”
The young ecclesiastic was overwhelmed with confusion.
“My respectful reverence to his Holiness,” said the Baron, smiling, “and pray tell him that the Government will do its duty to the country and to the civilised world, and count on the support of the Pope.”
Monsignor Mario left the room without a word.
VIII
The Baron pushed out an easy-chair for Roma and twisted his own to face it.
“How are you, my child?”
“One lives,” said Roma, with a sigh.
“What is the matter, my dear? You are ill and unhappy.”
She eluded the question and said, “You sent for me — what do you wish to say?”
He told her the printer of certain seditious proclamations had been arrested, and in the judicial inquiry preparatory to his trial he had mentioned the name of the person who had employed and paid him.
“You cannot but be aware, my dear, that you have rendered yourself liable to prosecution, and that nothing — nothing whatever — could have saved you from public exposure but the good offices of a powerful friend.”
Roma drew her lips tightly together and made no answer.
“But what a situation for a Minister! To find himself ruled by his feelings for a friend, and thus weakened in the eyes of his servants, who ought to have no possible hold on him.”
Roma’s gloomy face began to be compressed with scorn.
“You have perhaps not realised the full measure of the indignity that might have befallen you. For instance — a cruel necessity — the police would have been making a domiciliary visitation in your apartment at this moment.”
Roma made a faint, involuntary cry, and half rose from her seat.
“Your letters and most secret papers would by this time be exposed to the eyes of the police.... No, no, my child; calm yourself, be seated; thanks to my intervention, this will not occur.”
Roma looked at him, and found him more repulsive to her at that moment than he had ever been before. Even his daintiness repelled her — the modified perfume about his clothes, his waxed moustache, his rounded finger-nails, and all the other refinements of the man who loves himself and sets out to please the senses of women.
“You will allow, my dear, that I have had sufficient to humiliate me without this further experience. A ward who persistently disregards the laws of propriety and exposes herself to criticism in the most ordinary acts of life was surely a sufficient trial. But that was not enough. Almost as soon as you have passed out of my legal control you join with those who are talking and conspiring against me.”
Roma continued to sit with a gloomy and defiant face.
“How am I to defend myself against the humiliations you put upon me in your own mind? You give me no chance to defend myself. I cannot know what others have told you. I know no more than you repeat to me, and that is nothing at all.”
Roma was biting her compressed lips and breathing audibly.
“How am I to defend myself against the humiliations I suffer in the minds of the public? There is only one way, and that is to allow it to be believed that, in spite of all appearances, you are still playing a part, that you are going to all lengths to punish the enemy who traduced you and publicly degraded you.”
Roma tried to laugh, but the laugh was broken in her throat by a rising sob.
“I have only to whisper that, dear friend, and society, at all events, will credit it. Already it knows the very minute details of your life, and it will believe that when you threw away every shred of propriety and went to live in that man’s apartment, it was only in order to play the old part — shall I say the Scriptural part? — of possessing yourself of the inmost secrets of his soul.”
The clear, sharp whisper in which the Baron spoke his last words cut Roma like a knife. She threw up her head with scorn.
“Let it believe what it likes,” she said. “If society cares to think that I have allowed my life to be turned upside down for the sake of hatred, let it do so.”
The Baron’s secretary interrupted by opening the door.
“Nazzareno, Excellency,” said the secretary.
“Ah! Let him come in,” said the Baron. “You remember Nazzareno, Roma? My steward at Albano?”
An elderly man with a bronzed face and shaggy eyebrows, bringing an odour of the fields and the farmyard, was ushered into the room.
“Come in, Nazzareno! You’ve not forgotten Donna Roma? You planted a rosebush on her first Roman birthday, you remember. It’s a great tree by this time, perhaps.”
“It is, Excellency,” said the steward, bowing and smiling, “and nearly as full of bloom as the Signorina herself.”
“Well, what news from Albano?”
The steward told a long story of operations on the estates — planting birch in the top fields, and eucalyptus in the low meadow, fencing, draining, and sowing.
“And ... and the Baroness?” said the Baron, turning over some papers.
“Ah! her Excellency is worse,” said the old man. “The nurse and the doctor thought you had better be told exactly, and that is the object of my errand.”
“Yes?” The papers rustled in the Baron’s fingers as he shuffled and sorted them.
The steward told another long story. Her Excellency was weaker, or she would be quite ungovernable. And so changed! When he was called in yesterday she was so much altered that he would not have known her. It was a question of days, and all the servants were saying prayers to Mary Magdalene.
“Have some dinner downstairs before you return, Nazzareno,” said the Baron. “And when you see the doctor this evening, say I’ll come out some time this week if I can. Good-morning!”
The repulsion the Baron had inspired in Roma deepened to loathing when he began to speak affectionately the moment the door had closed on the steward.
“Look at this, dearest. It’s from his Majesty.”
She did not look at the letter he put before her, so he told her what it contained. It offered him the Collar of the Annunziata, the highest order in Italy, making him a cousin to the King.
She could not contain herself any longer. “I want to tell you something,” she said, “so that you may know once for all that it is useless to waste further thought on me.”
He looked at her with an indulgent smile.
“I am married to Mr. Rossi,” she said.
“But that is impossible. There was no time.”
“We were married religiously, in the parish church, on the morning he left Rome.”
The indulgent smile gave way to a sarcastic one.
“Then why did he leave you behind? If he thought that was a good marriage, why didn’t he take you with him? But perhaps he had his own reason, and the denunciation of the poor man in prison was not so far amiss.”
“That was an official lie, a cowardly lie,” said Roma, and her eyes burned with anger.
“Was it? Perhaps it was. But I have just heard something else about Mr. Rossi that is undoubtedly true. I have heard from the Prefect of Paris that he is organising a conspiracy for the assassination of the King.”
A look of fear which she could not restrain crossed Roma’s face.
“More than that, and stranger than that, I have just heard also that the Pope has some knowledge of the plot.”
Roma felt terror seizing her, and she said in a constrained voice, “Why? What has the Pope told you?”
“Only that an insurrection is impending. It seems that his informant is a woman.... Who can she be, I wonder?”
The Baron was fixing his eyes on her and she tried to elude his gaze.
“Whoever she is she must know more,” he said in a severe voice, “and whatever it is she must reveal it.”
Roma got up, looking very pale, and feeling very feeble. When she reached the door the Baron was smiling and holding out his hand.
“Will you not shake hands with me?” he said.
“What is the use?” she answered. “When people shake hands it means that they wish each other well. You do not wish me well. You are trying to force me to betray my husband.... But I’ll die first,” she said, and then turned and fled.
When Roma was gone the Baron wrote a letter to the Pope:
“YOUR HOLINESS, — Providential accident, as your chamberlain would tell you, has enabled his Majesty’s Government to judge for itself of that source of your Holiness’s information which your Holiness very properly refused to reveal. At the same time official channels have disclosed to his Majesty’s Government the nature of the conspiracy of which your Holiness so patriotically forewarned them. This conspiracy appears to be no less serious than an attempt to assassinate the King, but as detailed knowledge of so vile a plot is necessary in order to save the life of our august sovereign, his Majesty’s Government asks you to grant the Prime
Minister the honour of an audience with your Holiness in the cause of order and public security. Hoping to hear of your Holiness’s convenience, and trusting that your Holiness will not disappoint the hopes of those who are dreaming even yet of a reconciliation of Church and State, I am, with all reverence, your Holiness’s faithful son and servant,
