Complete works of hall c.., p.342
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 342
She could hear the breath in her nostrils.
“They told me she had been missing for a week, and then ... her body had been found in the river.”
She felt like one struck dumb.
“The man took me to the grave. It was the grave of her mother in Kensal Green, and under her mother’s name I read her own inscription— ‘Sacred also to the memory of Roma Roselli, found drowned in the Thames, aged twelve years.’”
The warm blood which had tingled through her veins was suddenly frozen with horror.
“Not to-day,” she thought, and at that moment a faint sound of the band on the Pincio came floating in by the open window.
“I must go,” said David Rossi, rising.
Then she recovered herself and began to talk on other subjects. When would he come again? He could not say. The parliamentary session opened soon. He would be very busy.
When David Rossi was gone Roma went upstairs, and Natalina met her carrying two letters. One of them was going to the post — it was from the Countess to the Baron. The other was from the Baron to herself.
“MY DEAREST ROMA, — A thousand thanks for the valuable clue about the Grand Hotel. Already we have followed up your lead, and we find that the only David Rossi who was ever a waiter there gave as reference the name of an Italian baker in Soho. Minghelli has gone to London, and I am sending him this further information. Already he is fishing in strange waters, and I am sure you are dying to know if he has caught anything. So am I, but we must possess our souls in patience.
“But, my dearest Roma, what is happening to your handwriting? It is so shaky nowadays that I can scarcely decipher some of it. — With love.
“B.”
VII
“DEAR GUARDIAN, — But I’m not — I’m not! I’m not in the least anxious to hear of what Mr. Minghelli is doing in London, because
I know he is doing nothing, and whatever he says, either through his own mouth or the mouth of his Italian baker in Soho, I shall never believe a word he utters. As to Mr. Rossi, I am now perfectly sure that he does not identify me at all. He believes my father’s daughter is dead, and he has just been telling me a shocking story of how the body of a young girl was picked out of the Thames (about the time you took me away from London) and buried in the name of Roma Roselli. He actually saw the grave and the tombstone! Some scoundrel has been at work somewhere. Who is it, I wonder? — Yours,
“R. V.”
Having written this letter in the heat and haste of the first moment after David Rossi’s departure, she gave it to Bruno to post immediately.
“Just so!” said Bruno to himself, as he glanced at the superscription.
Next morning she dressed carefully, as if expecting David Rossi as usual, but when he did not come she told herself she was glad of it. Things had happened too hurriedly; she wanted time to breathe and to think.
All day long she worked on the bust. It was a new delight to model by memory, to remember an expression and then try to reproduce it. The greatest difficulty lay in the limitation of her beautiful art. There were so many memories, so many expressions, and the clay would take but one of them.
The next day after that she dressed herself as carefully as before, but still David Rossi did not come. No matter! It would give her time to think of all he had said, to go over his words and stories.
Did he know her? Certainly he knew her! He must have known from the first that she was her father’s daughter, or he would never have put himself in her power. His belief in her was such a sweet thing. It was delicious.
Next day also David Rossi did not come, and she began to torture herself with misgivings. Was he indifferent? Had all her day-dreams been delusions? Little as she wished to speak to Bruno, she was compelled to do so.
Bruno hardly lifted his eyes from his chisel and soft iron hammer. “Parliament is to meet soon,” he said, “and when a man is leader of a party he has enough to do, you know.”
“Ask him to come to-morrow. Say I wish for one more sitting — only one.”
“I’ll tell him,” said Bruno, with a bob of his head over the block of marble.
But David Rossi did not come the next day either, and Bruno had no better explanation.
“Busy with his new ‘Republic’ now, and no time to waste, I can tell you.”
“He will never come again,” she thought, and then everything around and within her grew dark and chill.
She was sleeping badly, and to tire herself at night she went out to walk in the moonlight along the path under the convent wall. She walked as far as the Pincio gates, where the path broadens to a circular space under a table of clipped ilexes, beneath which there is a fountain and a path going down to the Piazza di Spagna. The night was soft and very quiet, and standing under the deep shadows of the trees, with only the cruel stars shining through, and no sound in the air save the sobbing of the fountain, she heard a man’s footstep on the gravel coming up from below.
It was David Rossi. He passed within a few yards, yet he did not see her. She wanted to call to him, but she could not do so. For a moment he stood by the deep wall that overlooks the city, and then turned down the path which she had come by. A trembling thought that was afraid to take shape held her back and kept her silent, but the stars beat kindly in an instant and the blood in her veins ran warm. She watched him from where she stood, and then with a light foot she followed him at a distance.
It was true! He stopped at the parapet before the church, and looked up at her windows. There was a light in one of them, and his eyes seemed to be steadfastly fixed on it. Then he turned to go down the steps. He went down slowly, sometimes stopping and looking up, then going on again. Once more she tried to call to him. “Mr. Rossi.” But her voice seemed to die in her throat. After a moment he was gone, the houses had hidden him, and the church clock was striking twelve.
When she returned to her bedroom and looked at herself in the glass, her face was flushed and her eyes were sparkling. She did not want to sleep at all that night, for the beating of her heart was like music, and the moon and stars were singing a song.
“If I could only be quite, quite sure!” she thought, and next morning she tackled Bruno.
Bruno was no match for her now, but he put down his shaggy head, like a bull facing a stone fence.
“Tell you the honest truth, Donna Roma,” he said, “Mr. Rossi is one of those who think that when a man has taken up a work for the world it is best if he has no ties of family.”
“Really? Is that so?” she answered. “But I don’t understand. He can’t help having father and mother, can he?”
“He can help having a wife, though,” said Bruno, “and Mr. Rossi thinks a public man should be like a priest, giving up home and love and so forth, that others may have them more abundantly.”
“So for that reason....”
“For that reason he doesn’t throw himself in the way of temptation.”
“And you think that’s why....”
“I think that’s why he keeps out of the way of women.”
“Perhaps he doesn’t care for them — some men don’t, you know.”
“Care for them! Mr. Rossi is one of the men who think pearls and diamonds of women, and if he had to be cast on a desert island with anybody, he would rather have one woman than a hundred thousand men.”
“Ah, yes, but perhaps there’s no ‘one woman’ in the world for him yet, Bruno.”
“Perhaps there is, perhaps there isn’t,” said Bruno, and his hammer fell on the chisel and the white sparks began to fly.
“You would soon see if there were, wouldn’t you, Bruno?”
“Perhaps I would, perhaps I wouldn’t,” said Bruno, and then he wagged his wise head and growled, “In the battle of love he wins who flies.”
“Does he say that, Bruno?”
“He does. One day our old woman was trying to lead him on a bit. ‘A heart to share your joys and sorrows is something in this world,’ says she.”
“And what did Mr. Rossi say?”
“‘A woman’s love is the sweetest thing in the world,’ he said; ‘but if I found myself caring too much for anybody I should run away.’”
“Did Mr. Rossi really say that, Bruno?”
“He did — upon my life he did!”
Bruno had the air of a man who had achieved a moral victory, and Roma, whose eyes were dancing with delight, wanted to fall on his stupid, sulky face and kiss and kiss it.
During the afternoon of the day following, the Princess Bellini came in with Don Camillo. “Here’s Gi-gi!” she cried. “He comes to say there’s to be a meet of the foxhounds on the Campagna to-morrow. If you’d like to come I’ll take you, and if you think Mr. Rossi will come too....”
“If he rides and has time to spare,” said Roma.
“Precisely,” said Don Camillo. “The worst of being a prophet is that it gives one so much trouble to agree with one’s self, you know. Rumour says that our illustrious Deputy has been a little out of odour with his own people lately, and is now calling a meeting to tell the world what his ‘Creed and Charter’ doesn’t mean. Still a flight into the country might do no harm even to the stormy petrel of politics, and if any one could prevail with him....”
“Leave that to Roma, and see to everything else yourself,” said the Princess. “On the way to that tiresome tea-room in the Corso, my dear. ‘Charity and Work,’ you know. Committee for the protection of poor girls, or something. But we must see the old aunt first, I suppose. Come in, Gi-gi!”
Three minutes afterwards Roma was dressed for the street, and her dog was leaping and barking beside her.
“Carriage, Eccellenza?”
“Not to-day, thank you! Down, Black, down! Keep the dog from following me, Felice.”
As she passed the lodge the porter handed her an envelope bearing the seal of the Minister, but she did not stop to open it. With a light step she tripped along the street, hailed a coupé, cried “Piazza Navona,” and then composed herself to read her letter.
When the Princess and Don Camillo came out of the Countess’s room Roma was gone, and the dog was scratching at the inside of the outer door.
“Now where can she have gone to so suddenly, I wonder? And there’s her poor dog trying to follow her!”
“Is that the dog that goes to the Deputy’s apartment?”
“Certainly it is! His name is Black. I’ll hold him while you open the door, Felice. There! Good dog! Good Black! Oh, the brute, he has broken away from me.”
“Black! Black! Black!”
“No use, Felice. He’ll he half way through the streets by this time.”
And going down the stairs the little Princess whispered to her companion: “Now, if Black comes home with his mistress this evening it will be easy to see where she has been.”
Meantime Roma in her coupé was reading her letter —
“DEAREST, — Been away from Rome for a few days, and hence the delay in answering your charming message. Don’t trouble a moment about the dead-and-buried nightmare. If the story is true, so much the better. R. R. is dead, thank God, and her unhappy wraith will haunt your path no more. But if Dr. Roselli knew nothing about
David Rossi, how comes it that David Rossi knows so much about Dr.
Roselli? It looks like another clue. Thanks again. A thousand thanks!
“Still no news from London, but though I pretend neither to knowledge nor foreknowledge, I am still satisfied that we are on the right track.
“Dinner-party to-night, dearest, and I shall be obliged to you if
I may borrow Felice. Your Princess Potiphar, your Don Saint
Joseph, your Count Signorina, your Senator Tom-tit, and — will you believe it? — your Madame de Trop! I can deny you nothing, you see, but I am cruelly out of luck that my dark house must lack the light of all drawing-rooms, the sunshine of all Rome!
“How clever of you to throw dust in the eyes of your aunt herself!
And these red-hot prophets in petticoats, how startled they will soon be! Adieu!
“BONELLI.”
As the coupé turned into the Piazza Navona, Roma was tearing the letter into shreds and casting them out of the window.
VIII
While Roma climbed the last flight of stairs to David Rossi’s apartment, with the slippery-sloppery footsteps of the old Garibaldian going before her, Bruno’s thunderous voice was rocking through the rooms above.
“Look at him, Mr. Rossi! Republican, democrat, socialist, and rebel! Upsets the government of this house once a day regularly — dethrones the King and defies the Queen! Catch the piggy-wiggy, Uncle David! Here goes for it — one, two, three, and away!”
Then shrieks and squeals of childish laughter, mingled with another man’s gentler tones, and a woman’s frightened remonstrance. And then sudden silence and the voice of the Garibaldian in a panting whisper, saying, “She’s here again, sir!”
“Donna Roma?”
“Yes.”
“Come in,” cried David Rossi, and from the threshold of the open hall she saw him, in the middle of the floor, with a little boy pitching and heaving like a young sea-lion in his arms.
He slipped the boy to his feet and said, “Run to the lady and kiss her hand, Joseph.” But the boy stood off shyly, and, stepping into the room, Roma knelt to the child and put her arms about him.
“What a big little man, to be sure! His name is Joseph, is it? And what’s his age? Six! Think of that! Have I seen him before, Mrs. Rocco? Yes? Perhaps he was here the day I called before? Was he? So? How stupid of me to forget! Ah, of course, now I remember, he was in his nightdress and asleep, and Mr. Rossi was carrying him to bed.”
The mother’s heart was captured in a moment. “Do you love children, Donna Roma?”
“Indeed, I do!”
During this passage between the women Bruno had grunted his way out of the room, and was now sidling down the staircase, being suddenly smitten by his conscience with the memory of a message he had omitted to deliver.
“Come, Joseph,” said Elena. But Joseph, who had recovered from his bashfulness, was in no hurry to be off, and Roma said:
“No, no! I’ve only called for a moment. It is to say,” turning to David Rossi, “that there’s a meet of the foxhounds on the Campagna to-morrow, and to tell you from Don Camillo that if you ride and would care to go....”
“You are going?”
“With the Princess, yes! But there will be no necessity to follow the hounds all day long, and perhaps coming home....”
“I will be there.”
“How charming! That’s all I came to say, and so....”
She made a pretence of turning to go, but he said:
“Wait! Now that you are here I have something to show to you.”
“To me?”
“Come in,” he cried, and, blowing a kiss to the boy, Roma followed Rossi into the sitting-room.
“One moment,” he said, and he left her to go into the bedroom.
When he came back he had a small parcel in his hands wrapped in a lace handkerchief.
“We have talked so much of my old friend Roselli that I thought you might like to see his portrait.”
“His portrait? Have you really got his portrait?”
“Here it is,” and he put into her hands the English photograph which used to hang by his bed.
She took it eagerly and looked at it steadfastly, while her lips trembled and her eyes grew moist. There was silence for a moment, and then she said, in a voice that struggled to control itself: “So this was the father of little Roma?”
“Yes.”
“Is it very like him?”
“Very.”
“What a beautiful face! What a reverend head! Did he look like that on the day ... the day he was at Kensal Green?”
“Exactly.”
The excitement she laboured under could no longer be controlled, and she lifted the picture to her lips and kissed it. Then catching her breath, and looking up at him with swimming eyes, she laughed through her tears and said:
“That is because he was your friend, and because ... because he loved my little namesake.”
David Rossi did not reply, and the silence was too audible, so she said with another nervous laugh:
“Not that I think she deserved such a father. He must have been the best father a girl ever had, but she....”
“She was a child,” said David Rossi.
“Still, if she had been worthy of a father like that....”
“She was only seven, remember.”
“Even so, but if she had not been a little selfish ... wasn’t she a little selfish?”
“You mustn’t abuse my friend Roma.”
Her eyes beamed, her cheeks burned, her nerves tingled. It would be a sweet delight to egg him on, but she dare not go any farther.
“I beg your pardon,” she said in a soft voice. “Of course you know best. And perhaps years afterward when she came to think of what her father had been to her ... that is to say if she lived...”
Their eyes met again, and now hers fell in confusion.
“I want to give you that portrait,” he said.
“Me?”
“You would like to have it?”
“More than anything in the world. But you value it yourself?”
“Beyond anything I possess.”
“Then how can I take it from you?”
“There is only one person in the world I would give it to. She has it, and I am contented.”
It was impossible to hear the strain any longer without crying out, and to give physical expression to her feelings she lifted the portrait to her lips again and kissed and kissed it.
He smiled at her, she smiled back; the silence was hard to break, but just as they were on the edge of the precipice the big shock-head of the little boy looked in on them through the chink of the door and cried:
“You needn’t ask me to come in, ‘cause I won’t!”
By the blessed instinct of the motherhood latent in her, Roma understood the boy in a moment. “If I were a gentleman, I would, though,” she said.
“Would you?” said Joseph, and in he came, with a face shining all over.
