Complete works of hall c.., p.341
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 341
“You surely cannot mean....”
The Princess put the tip of her fan to his lips and laughed.
Roma was conscious of a strange conflict of feelings. The triumph she had promised herself by David Rossi’s presence with her in public — the triumph over the envious ones who would have rejoiced in her downfall — brought her no pleasure.
The third act dealt with the allurements of Delilah, and was received with a good deal of laughter.
“Ah, these sweet, round, soft things — they can do anything they like with the giants,” said Don Camillo.
The Baron, who had dined with the King, came round at the end of the next act, wearing a sash diagonally across his breast, with crosses, stars, and other decorations. He bowed to David Rossi with ceremonious politeness, greeted Don Camillo familiarly, kissed the hand of the Princess, and offered his arm to Roma to take her into the corridor to cool — she was flushed and overheated.
“I see you are getting on, my child! Excellent idea to bring him here! Everybody is saying you cannot be the person he intended, so his trumpet has brayed to no purpose.”
“You received my letters?” she said in a faltering voice.
“Yes, but don’t be uneasy. I’m neither the prophet nor the son of a prophet if we are not on the right track. What a fortunate thought about the man Minghelli! An inspiration! You asked what his fault was in London — forgery, my dear!”
“That’s serious enough, isn’t it?”
“In a Secretary of Legation, yes, but in a police agent....”
He laughed significantly, and she felt her skin creep.
“Has he found out anything?” she asked.
“Not yet, but he is clearly on the track of great things. It is nearly certain that your King David is a person wanted by the law.”
Her hand twitched at his arm, but they were turning at the end of the corridor and she pretended to trip over her train.
“Some clues missing still, however, and to find them we are sending Minghelli to London.”
“London? Anything connected with my father?”
“Possibly! We shall see. But there’s the orchestra and here’s your box! You’re wonderful, my dear! Already you’ve undone the mischief he did you, and one half of your task is accomplished. Diplomatists! Pshaw! We’ll all have to go to school to a girl. Adieu!”
All through the next act Roma seemed to feel a sting on her arm where the Baron had touched it, and she was conscious of colouring up when the Princess said:
“Everybody is looking this way, my dear! See what it is to be the most talked-of girl in Rome!”
And then she felt David Rossi’s hand on the back of her chair, and heard his soft voice saying:
“The light is in your eyes, Donna Roma. Let me change places with you for a while.”
After that everything passed in a kind of confusion. She heard somebody say:
“He’s putting a good deal of heart into it, poor thing!”
And somebody answered, “Yes, of broken heart apparently.”
Then there was a crash and the opera was over, and she was going out in a crowd on David Rossi’s arm, and feeling as if she would fall if she dropped it.
The magnificent English carriage drew up under the portico and all four of them got into it.
“Grand Hotel!” cried Don Camillo. Then dropping back to his place he laughed and chanted:
“And the dead he slew at his death were more than he slew in his life ... and he judged Israel twenty years.”
V
A marshy air from the Campagna shrouded the city as with a fog, and pierced through the closed windows of the carriage, but there was warmth and glow in the Grand Hotel.
One woman after another came in clothed in diamonds under the fur cloak which hung over her bare arms and shoulders, until the room was a dazzling blaze of jewels.
People caught each other’s eyes through lorgnettes and eye-glasses, and there were constant salutations. The men chattered, the women laughed, and there was an affectation of baby-talk at nearly every table. Then supper was served, glasses were held up as signals, and bright eyes began to play about the room, until the atmosphere was tingling with electric currents and heated by human passion.
Roma sat facing the Princess. She was still confused and preoccupied, but when rallied upon her silence she brightened up for a moment and tried to look buoyant and happy. David Rossi, who was on her left, was still quiet and collected, but bore the same air as before, of a man going through a penance.
This was observed by Don Camillo, who sat on the right of the Princess, and led to various little scenes.
“Very good company here, Mr. Rossi. Always sure of seeing some beautiful young women,” said Don Camillo.
“And beautiful young men, apparently,” said David Rossi.
The beautiful young man called Lu-lu was there, and reaching over to Don Camillo, and speaking in a whisper between the puff of a cigarette and a sip of coffee, he said:
“Why doesn’t the Minister buy the man up? Easy enough to buy the press these days.”
“He’s doing better than that,” said Don Camillo. “He’s drawing him from opposition by the allurements of....”
“Office?”
“No, the lady,” whispered Don Camillo, but Roma heard him.
She was ashamed. The innuendoes which belittled David Rossi were belittling herself as well, and she wanted to get up and fly.
Rossi himself seemed to be unconscious of anything hurtful. Although silent, he was calm and cheerful, and his manner was natural and polite. The wife of one of the royal aides-de-camp sat next to him, and talked constantly of the King.
Roma found herself listening to every word that was said to David Rossi, but she also heard a conversation that was going on at the other end of the table.
“Wants to be another Cola di Rienzi, doesn’t he?” said Lu-lu.
“Another Christ,” said Don Camillo. “He’ll be asking for a crown of thorns by-and-by, and calling on the world to immolate him for the sake of humanity. Look! He’s talking to the little Baroness, but he is fifteen thousand miles above the clouds at this moment.”
“Where does he come from, I wonder?” said Lu-lu, and then the two hands of Don Camillo played the invisible accordion.
“Madame de Trop says his father was Master of the House to Prince Petrolium — vice-prince, you know, and brought up in the little palace,” said the Princess.
“Don’t believe a word of it,” said Don Camillo, “and I’ll wager he never supped at a decent hotel before.”
“I’ll ask him! Listen now! Some fun,” said the Princess. “Honourable Rossi!”
“Yes, Princess,” said David Rossi.
The eyes of the little Princess swept the table with a sparkling light.
“Beautiful room, isn’t it?”
“Beautiful.”
“Never been here before, I suppose?”
David Rossi looked steadfastly into her eyes and answered, “Oh yes, Princess. When I first returned to Italy eight years ago I was a waiter in this house for a month.”
The sparkling face of the little Princess broke up like a snowball in the sun, and the two other men dropped their heads.
Roma hardly knew what her own feelings were. Humiliation, shame, confusion, but above all, pride — pride in David Rossi’s courage and strength.
The white mist from the Campagna pierced to the bone as they came out by the glass-covered hall, and an old woman with an earthenware scaldino, crouching by the marble pillars in the street, held out a chill, damp hand and cried:
“A penny for God’s sake! May I die unconfessed if I’ve eaten anything since yesterday!... God bless you, my daughter! and the Holy Virgin and all the saints!”
At the door of her house Roma parted from the Princess, and said to Rossi, as the carriage drove away, “Come early to-morrow. I’ve not yet been able to work properly somehow.”
She was restless and feverish, and she would have gone to bed immediately, but crossing the drawing-room she heard the fretful voice of her aunt saying, “Is that you, Roma?” and she had no choice but to go into the Countess’s bedroom.
A red lamp burned before the shrine, and the old lady was in an embroidered nightdress, but she was wide awake, and her eyes flashed and her lips trembled.
“Ah, it’s you at last! Sit down! I want to speak to you. Natalina!” cried the Countess. “Oh, dear me, the girl has gone to bed. Give me the cognac. There it is — on the dressing-table.”
She sipped the brandy, fidgeted with her cambric handkerchief, and said:
“Roma, I’m surprised at you! You hadn’t used to be so stupid! How? Don’t you see what that woman is doing? What woman? The Princess, of course. Inviting you to share her box at the opera so that you may be seen in public with that man. She hates him like poison, but she would swallow anything to throw you and this Rossi together. Do you expect the Baron to approve of that? His enemy, and you on such terms with the man? Here, take back this cognac. I feel as if I would choke — Natalina....”
“You’re quite mistaken, Aunt Betsy,” said Roma. “The Baron was at the opera and came into the box himself, and he approved of everything.”
“Tut! Don’t tell me! Because he has some respect for himself and keeps his own counsel you are simple enough to think he will not be offended.”
The old lady’s voice was dying down to a choking whisper, but she went on without a pause.
“If you’ve no thought for yourself, you might have some for me. You are young, and anything may come to you, but I’m old and I’m tied down to this mattress, and what is to happen if the Baron takes offence? The income he allows us from your father’s estates is under his own control still. He can cut it off at any moment, and if he does, what is to become of me?”
Roma’s bosom was swelling under her heavy breathing, her heart was beating violently and her head was dizzy. All the bitterness of the evening was boiling in her throat, and it burst out at length in a flood.
“So that is all your moral protestations come to, is it?” she said. “Because the Baron is necessary to you and you cannot exist without him, you expect me to buy and sell myself according to your necessities.”
“Roma! What are you saying? Aren’t you ashamed....”
“Aren’t you ashamed? You’ve been trying to throw me into the arms of the Baron, and you haven’t cared what would happen so long as I kept up appearances.”
“Oh, dear! I see what it is. You want to be the death of me! You will, too, before you’ve done. Natalina! Where is....”
“More than that, you’ve poisoned my mind against my father, and because I couldn’t remember him, you’ve brought me up to think of him as selfish and vain and indifferent to his own daughter. But my father wasn’t that kind of man at all.”
“Who told you that, miss?”
“Never mind who told me. My father was a saint and a martyr, and a great man, and he loved me with all his heart and soul.”
“Oh, my head! My poor head!... A martyr indeed! A socialist, a republican, a rebel, an anarchist, you mean!”
“Never mind what his politics were. He was my father — that is enough — and you had no right to make me think ill of him, whatever the world might do.”
Roma was superb at that moment, with her head thrown back, her eyes flaming, and her magnificent figure swelling and heaving under her clinging gown.
“You’ll kill me, I tell you. The cognac ... Natalina....” cried the Countess, but Roma was gone.
Before going to bed Roma wrote to the Baron:
“Certain you are wrong. Why waste time sending Charles Minghelli to London? Why? Why? Why? The forger will find out nothing, and if he does, it will only be by exercise of his Israelitish art of making bricks without straw. Stop him at once if you wish to save public money and spare yourself personal disappointment. Stop him!
Stop him! Stop him!
“P.S. — To show you how far astray your man has gone, D. R. mentioned to-night that he was once a waiter at the Grand Hotel!”
VI
Next morning David Rossi arrived early.
“Now we must get to work in earnest,” said Roma. “I think I see my way at last.”
It was not John the beloved disciple, John who lay in the bosom of his Lord. It was Peter, the devoted, stalwart, brave individual, human, erring but glorious Peter. “Thou art Peter, and on this rock I build my church.”
“Same position as before. Eyes the other way. Thank you!... Afraid you didn’t enjoy yourself last night — no?”
“At the theatre? I was interested. But the human spectacle was perhaps more to me than the artistic one. I am no artist, you see.... How did you become a sculptor?”
“Oh, I studied a little in the studios of Paris, where I went to school, you see.”
“But you were born in London?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you come to Rome?”
“Rome was the home of my people, you know. And then there was my name — Roma!”
“I knew a Roma long ago.”
“Really? Another Roma?”
There was a tremor in her voice.
“It was the little daughter of the friend I’ve spoken about.”
“How interest ... No, at the window, please — that will do.”
Roma was choking with a sense of duplicity, but save for a turn of the head David Rossi gave no sign.
“She was only seven when I saw her last.”
“That was long ago, you say?”
“Seventeen years ago.”
“Then she will be the same age as....”
“The first time I saw her she was only three, and she was in her nightdress ready for bed.”
Roma laughed a little, but she knew that every note in her voice was confused and false.
“She said her prayers with a little lisp at that time. ‘Our Fader oo art in heben, alud be dy name.’”
He laughed a little now, as he mimicked the baby voice. They laughed together, then they looked at each other, and then with serious eyes they turned away.
“You’ll think it strange, but I date my first conscious and definite aspiration to the memory of that hour.”
“Really?”
“Ten years afterward, when I was in America, the words of that prayer came back to me in Roma’s little lisp. ‘Dy kingum tum. Dy will be done on eard as it is in heben.’”
For some time after that Roma worked on without speaking, feeling feverish and restless. But just as the silence was becoming painful, and she could bear it no longer, Felice came to announce lunch.
“You’ll stay? I want so much to work on while I’m in the mood,” she said.
“With pleasure,” he replied.
She ate hardly at all, for she was troubled by many misgivings. Did he know her? He did; he must; every word, every tone seemed to tell her that. Then why did he not speak out plainly? Because, having revealed himself to her, he was waiting for her to reveal herself to him. And why had she not done so? Because she was enmeshed in the nets of the society she lived in; because she was ashamed of the errand that had brought them together; and most of all because she had not dared to lay bare that secret of his life which, like an escaped convict, dragged behind it the broken chain of the prison-house.
David Leone is dead! To uncover, even to their own eyes only, the fact that lay hidden behind those words was like personating the priest and listening at the grating of the confessional!
No matter! She must do it! She must reveal herself as her heart and instinct might direct. She must claim the parentage of the noblest soul that ever died for liberty, and David Rossi must trust his secret to the bond of blood which would make it impossible for her to betray the foster-son of her own father.
Having come to this conclusion, the light seemed to break in her heavy sky, but the clouds were charged with electricity. As they returned to the studio she was excited and a little hysterical, for she thought the time was near. At that moment a regiment of soldiers passed along under the ilex trees to the Pincio, with their band of music playing as they marched.
“Ah, the dear old days!” said David Rossi. “Everything reminds me of them! I remember that when she was six....”
“Roma?”
“Yes — a regiment of troops returned from a glorious campaign, and the doctor took us to see the illuminations and rejoicings. We came to a great piazza almost as large as the piazza of St. Peter’s, with fountains and a tall column in the middle of it.”
“I know — Trafalgar Square!”
“Dense crowds covered the square, but we found a place on the steps of a church.”
“I remember — St. Martin’s Church. You see, I know London.”
“The soldiers came in by the big railway station close by....”
“Charing Cross, isn’t it.”
“And they marched to the tune of the ‘British Grenadiers’ and the thunder of fifty thousand throats. And as their general rode past, a beacon of electric lights in the centre of the square blazed out like an aureole about the statue of a great Englishman who had died long ago for the cause which had then conquered.”
“Gordon!” she cried — she was losing herself every moment.
“‘Look, darling!’ said the doctor to little Roma. And Roma said, ‘Papa, is it God?’ I was a tall boy then, and stood beside him. ‘She’ll never forget that, David,’ he said.”
“And she didn’t ... she couldn’t ... I mean.... Have you ever told me what became of her?”
She would reveal herself in a moment — only a moment — after all, it was delicious to play with this sweet duplicity.
“Have you?” she said in a tremulous voice.
His head was down. “Dead!” he answered, and the tool dropped out of her hand on to the floor.
“I was five years in America after the police expelled me from London, and when I returned to England I went back to the little shop in Soho.”
She was staring at him and holding her breath. He was looking out of the window.
“The same people were there, and their own daughter was a grown-up girl, but Roma was gone.”
