Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 369
BONELLI.”
IX
Roma went home full of uncertainty, and wrote in a nervous and straggling hand a hasty letter to Rossi.
“My dearest,” she said, “your letter reached me safely last evening, and though I cannot answer it properly at the present moment, I must send a brief reply by mid-day’s mail, because there are two or three things it is imperative I should say immediately.
“The first is that I wrote you a very important letter to London twelve days ago, and it is clear that you have not yet received it. The contents were of the greatest seriousness and also of the greatest secrecy, and I should die if any other eye than yours were to read them; therefore do not lose a moment until you ask for the letter to be sent after you to Paris. Write to London by the first post, and when the letter has come to your hand, do telegraph to me saying so. ‘Received,’ that will be sufficient, but if you can add one other little word expressing your feeling on reading what I wrote— ‘Forgiven,’ for instance — my feeling will not be happiness, it will be delirium.
“The next thing I have to say, dearest, is about your letters. You know they are more precious to me than my heart’s blood, and there is not a word or a line of them I would sacrifice for a queen’s crown. But they are so full of perilous opinions and of hints of programmes for dangerous enterprises, that for your sake I am afraid. It is so good of you to tell me what you are thinking and doing, and I am so proud to be the woman who has the confidence as well as the love of the most-talked-of man in Europe, that it cuts at my heart to ask you to tell me no more about your political plans. Nevertheless, I must. Think what would happen if the police took it into their heads to make a domiciliary visitation in this house. And then think of what a fearful weapon it puts into the hands of your enemies, if, hearing that I know so much, they put pressure upon me that I cannot withstand! Of course, that is impossible. I would die first. But still....
“My last point, dearest....”
Her pen stopped. How was she to put what she wished to say next? David Rossi was in danger — a double danger — danger from within as well as danger from without. His last letter showed plainly that he was engaged in an enterprise which his adversaries would call a plot. Roma remembered her father, doomed to a life-long exile and a lonely death, and asked herself if it was not always the case that the reformer partly reformed his age, and was partly corrupted by it.
If she could only draw David Rossi away from associations that were always reeking of revolution, if she could bring him back to Rome before he was too far involved in plots and with plotters! But how could she do it? To tell him the plain truth that he was going headlong to domicilio coatto was useless. She must resort to artifice. A light shot through her brain, her eyes gleamed, and she began again:
“My last point, dearest, is that I am growing jealous. Yes, indeed, jealous! I know you love me, but knowing it doesn’t help me to forget that you are always meeting women who must admire and love you. I tremble to think you may be happy with them. I want you to be happy, yet I feel as if it would be treason for you to be happy without me. What an illogical thing love is! But where Love reigns jealousy is always the Prime Minister, and in order to banish my jealousy you must come back immediately....”
Her pen stopped again. The artifice was too trivial, too palpable, and he would certainly see through it. She tore up the sheet and began afresh.
“My last point, dearest, is that I fear you are forgetting me in your work. While thinking of the revolution you are making in Europe, you forget the revolution you have already made in this poor little heart. Of course I love your glory more than I love myself, yet I am afraid it is taking you away from me, and will end by leading you up, up, up, out of a woman’s reach. Why didn’t I give you my portrait to put in your watch-case when you went away? Don’t let this folly disgust you, dearest. A woman is a foolish thing, isn’t she? But if you don’t want me to make a torment of everything you will hasten back in time to....”
She threw down the pen and began to cry. Hadn’t she promised him that, come what would, her love for him should never stand in his way? In the midst of her tears a little stab at her heart made her think of something else, and she took up the pen again.
“My last point, dearest, is that I am ill, and very, very anxious to see you soon. My health has been failing ever since you left Rome. Perhaps the anxieties I have gone through have been partly the cause of this, but I am sure that your absence is chiefly responsible, and that no doctor and no medicine would be so good for me as one rush into your arms. Therefore come and give me back all my health and happiness. Come, I beg of you. Leave it to others to do your work abroad. Come at once before things have gone too far; come, come, come!”
She hesitated, wanting to say, “Not that I am very ill....” And then, “You mustn’t come if there is any risk to yourself....” And again, “I would never forgive myself if....” But she crushed down her qualms, sealed her letter, and sent the Garibaldian to post it.
Then she gathered up the entire body of David Rossi’s letters, and putting some light firewood into the stove she sat on the ground to burn them. It was necessary to remove all evidence that could be used against him in the event of a domiciliary visitation. One by one as the letters, were passed into the fire she read parts of them, and some of the passages seemed to stand out afresh in the flames. “Your friend must be a true woman, and it was very sweet of you to be so tender with her.” ... “There is always a little twinge when I read between the lines of your letters. Are you not dissimulating?... to keep up my spirits?” ... “You shall smile and recover all your girlish spirits.... I shall hear your silvery laugh again as I did on that glorious day in the Campagna.” ... “It shows how rightly I judged the moral elevation of your soul, your impeccability, your spirit of fire and your heart of gold.”
While the letters were burning she felt herself to be under the influence of a kind of delirium. It was almost as though she were committing murder.
X
The Pope had begun the day with the long task of administering the sacrament to the lay members of his household, yet at eight o’clock he was back in his library in the midst of his morning receptions surrounded by a bevy of camerieri, monsignori, and messengers. First came a Cardinal Prefect of Propaganda to report the doings of his congregation; then an ambassador from Spain to tell of the suppression of religious orders; and finally the majordomo to recite the official programme for the public ceremonies which the Pope had ordered for Holy Thursday.
It was now ten o’clock, and Cortis, the valet, brought the usual plate of soup. Then came a large man with bold features and dark complexion, wearing a purple robe edged with red and a red biretta. It was the Cardinal Secretary of State.
“What news this morning, your Eminence?” said the Pope.
“The Government,” said the Cardinal Secretary, “has just published a proclamation announcing a jubilee in honour of the King’s accession. It is to begin on Monday next, and there are to be great feasts and rejoicings.”
“A jubilee at a time like this! What a wild mockery of the people’s woes! How many poor women and children must go hungry before this royal orgy has been paid for! God be with us! Such injustice and tyranny in the Satanic guise of clemency and indulgence is almost enough to explain the homicidal theories of the demagogues and to justify men like Rossi.... Any further news of him?”
“Yes. He is at present in Paris, in close intercourse with the leaders of every abominable sect.”
“You have seen this man Rossi, your Eminence?”
“Once. I saw him on the morning of the jubilee of your Holiness, when he attempted to present a petition.”
“What is he like to look upon — the typical demagogue; no?”
“No. I am bound to say no, your Holiness. And his conversation, though it is full of the jargon of modern Liberalism, has none of the obscenities of Voltaire.”
“Some one said ... who was it, I wonder?... some one said he resembled the Holy Father.”
“Now that you mention it, your Holiness, there is perhaps a remote resemblance.”
“Ah! who knows what service for God and humanity even such a man might have done if in early life his lines had been cast in better places.”
“They say he was an orphan from his infancy, your Holiness.”
“Then he never knew a father’s care and guidance! Unhappy son! Unhappy father!”
“Monsignor Mario,” said the low voice of a chamberlain, and at the next moment the Pope’s messenger to the Prime Minister was kneeling in the middle of the floor.
In nervous tones and broken sentences the Monsignor told his story. The Pope listened intently, the vertical lines on his forehead deepening and darkening every moment, until at length he burst out impatiently:
“But, my son, you do not say that you said all this in addition to your message?”
“I was drawn into doing so in defence of your Holiness.”
“You told the Minister that my information came through the channel of a simple confidence?”
“He insinuated that the Holy Father was perhaps breaking the seal of the confessional....”
“That my informant was a non-Catholic and a woman?”
“He implied that your Holiness had only to command her to reveal the conspiracy to the civil authorities, and therefore....”
“And you said she was here on Saturday morning?”
“He hinted that the Holy Father was an accomplice of criminals if he had known this without revealing it before, and that was why....”
“And she came in at that moment, you say?”
“At that very moment, your Holiness, and said she had met me on Saturday morning.”
“Man, man, what have you done?” cried the Pope, rising from his seat and pacing the room.
The chamberlain continued to kneel in utter humility, until the Pope, recovering his composure, put both hands on his shoulders and raised him to his feet.
“Forgive me, my son. I was more to blame than you were. It was wrong to trust any one with a verbal message in the cabinet of a fox. The Holy Father should have no intercourse with such persons. But this is God’s hand. Let us leave everything to the Holy Spirit.”
At that moment the Papal Majordomo returned with a letter. It was the Baron’s letter to the Pope. After the Pope had read it he stepped into a little adjoining room which contained nothing but a lounge and an easy-chair. There he lay on the lounge and turned his face to the wall.
XI
At four o’clock in the afternoon the Pope and Father Pifferi were again walking in the garden. The groves of Judas trees were shedding their crimson blossoms and the path had a covering of bloom; the atmosphere was full of the odour of honey-suckle and violet, and through the sunlit air the swallows were darting with shrill cries and the glitter of wings.
“And what does your Holiness intend to do?” asked the Capuchin.
“Providence will direct us,” said the Pope with a sigh.
“But your Holiness will refuse the request of the Government?”
“How can I do so without exposing myself to misunderstanding? Suppose the King is assassinated, what then? The Government will tell the world that the Pope knew all and did nothing.”
“Let them. It will not be an incident without parallel in the history of the Church. And the world will only honour your Holiness the more for standing firm on your sanctity of the human soul.”
“Yes, if the confessional were in question. The world knows that the seal of the confessional is sacred, and must be observed at all costs. But this is not a case of the confessional.”
“Didn’t your Holiness say you would observe it as such?”
“And I shall. But what about the public? Accident has told the Government that this is not a case of the confessional, and the Government will tell the world. What follows? If I refuse to do anything the enemies of the Church will give it out that the Holy Father is an accomplice of a regicide, ready and willing to intrigue with the agents of rebellion to regain the temporal power.”
“Then you will receive the Prime Minister?”
“No! Or if so, only in the company of his superior.”
“The King?”
“Yes.”
The Capuchin removed his skull-cap with an uneasy hand, and walked some paces without speaking.
“Will he come, your Holiness?”
“If he thinks I hold the secret on which his life depends, assuredly he will come.”
“But you are sovereign as well as Pope — is it possible for you to receive him?”
“I will receive him as the King of Sardinia, the King of Italy, if you will, but not as the King of Rome.”
The Capuchin took his coloured handkerchief from his sleeve and rolled it in his palms, which were hot and perspiring.
“But, Holy Father,” he said, “what will be the good? Say that all difficulties of etiquette can be removed, and you can meet as man to man, as David Leone and Albert Charles — why will the King come? Only to ask you to put pressure upon your informant to give more information.”
The Pope drew himself up on the gravel path and smote his breast with indignation. “Never! It would be an insult to the Church,” he said. “It is one thing to expect the Holy Father to do his duty as a Christian even to his enemy, it is another thing to ask him to invade the sanctity of a private confidence.”
The Capuchin did not reply, and the two old men walked on in silence. As the light softened the swallows increased their clamour, and song-birds began to call from neighbouring trees. Suddenly a startled cry burst from the foliage, and, turning quickly, the Pope lifted up the cat which, as usual, was picking its way at his heels.
“Ah, Meesh, Meesh! I’ve got you safely this time.... It was the poor mother-bird again, I suppose. Where is her nest, I wonder?”
They found it in the old sarcophagus, which was now almost lost in leaves. The eggs had been hatched, and the fledglings, with eyes not yet opened, stretched their featherless necks and opened their beaks when the Pope put down his hand to touch them.
“Monsignor,” said the Pope over his shoulder, “remind me to-morrow to ask the gardener for some worms.”
The cat, from his prison under the Pope’s arm, was watching the squirming nest with hungry eyes.
“Naughty Meesh! Naughty!” said the Pope, shaking one finger in the cat’s face. “But Meesh is only following the ways of his kind, and perhaps I was wrong to let him see the quarry.”
The Pope and the Capuchin walked back to the Vatican for joy of the sweet spring evening with its scent of flowers and song of birds.
“You are sad to-day, Father Pifferi,” said the Pope.
“I’m still thinking of that poor lady,” said the Capuchin.
At the first hour of night the Pope attended the recitation of the rosary in his private chapel, and then returning to his private study, a room furnished with a table and two chairs, he took a light supper, served by Cortis in the evening dress of a civilian. His only other company was the cat, which sat on a chair on the opposite side of the table. After supper he wrote a letter. It ran:
“SIRE, — Your Minister informs us that through official channels he has received warning of a plot against your life, and believing that we can give information that will help him to defeat so vile a conspiracy, he asks us for a special audience. It is not within our power to promise more assistance than we have already given; but this is to say that if your Majesty yourself should wish to see us, we shall be pleased to receive you, with or without your
Minister, if you will come in private and otherwise unattended, at the hour of 21-1/2 on Holy Thursday, to the door of the Canons’
House of St. Peter’s, where the bearer of this message will be waiting to conduct you to the Sacristy.
“Nil timendum nisi a Deo.
Pius P.P.X.”
XII
The ceremonies in St. Peter’s on Maundy Thursday exceeded in pomp and magnificence anything that could be remembered in Rome.
It was a great triumph for the Church. In the face of the anti-religious Governments of Europe she had proved that the mightiest sentiment of the people was the sentiment of religion.
The Papal Court was proud of itself. Some of its members made no effort to conceal their delight at the blow they had struck at the ruling classes. But there was one man in Rome who felt no joy in his triumph. It was the Pope.
At nine o’clock at night he visited the “urn” called the “Sepulchre.” Borne amid the light of torches on his sedia with his flabelli waving on either hand, under a white canopy upheld by prelates, he passed through the glittering rooms of his own palace, along the dark corridors of the Vatican and down the marble stairs, accompanied by his guards in helmets and preceded by the papal cross covered with a violet veil, into the great Basilica, lit only by large candles in iron stands, and looking plain and barn-like and full of shadows in the gloom and the smoky air. But after he had visited the Sepulchre, gorgeously illuminated, while the cantors sang the Verbum Caro, after he had knelt in silence and had risen, and the torches of his procession had been put out, and he had returned to his chair to be borne into the Sacristy, and the poor people, lifted to a height of emotion not often reached by the human soul, had broken again into a last delirious shout of affection, he dropped his head and wept.
At that moment the Sacristy was empty save for the custodian in black cassock and biretta, who was warming his hands over a large bronze scaldino; but in the Archpriest’s room adjoining, with its gilt arm-chair and stools of red plush, Father Pifferi in his ordinary brown habit was waiting for the Pope. The bearers put down the chair, knelt and kissed the Pope’s feet in spite of his protest, backed themselves out with deep obeisance, and left the two old men together.
