Complete works of hall c.., p.351
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 351
The Baron leaned against the stove, and spoke in a calm voice, while Roma in her agitation continued to walk about the room.
“Being a Deputy, and Parliament being in session, David Rossi can only be arrested by the authorisation of the Chamber. In order to obtain that authorisation, it is necessary that the Attorney-General should draw up a statement of the case. The statement must be presented by the Attorney-General to the Government, by the Government to the President, by the President to a Committee, and by the Committee to Parliament. Towards this statement the police have already obtained important testimony, and a complete chain of circumstantial evidence has been prepared. But they lack one link of positive proof, and until that link is obtained the Attorney-General is unable to proceed. It is the keystone of the arch, the central fact, without which all other facts fall to pieces — the testimony of somebody who can swear, if need be, that she knew both David Leone and David Rossi, and can identify the one with the other.”
“Well?”
The Baron, who had stopped, continued in a calm voice: “My dear Roma, need I go on? Dead as a Minister is to all sensibility, I had hoped to spare you. There is only one person known to me who can supply that link. That person is yourself.”
Roma’s eyes were red with anger and terror, but she tried to laugh over her fear.
“How simple you are, after all!” she said. “It was Roma Roselli who knew David Leone, wasn’t it? Well, Roma Roselli is dead and buried. Oh, I know all the story. You did that yourself, and now it cuts the ground from under you.”
“My dear Roma,” said the Baron, with a hard and angry face, “if I did anything in that matter, it was done for your welfare, but whatever it was, it need not disturb me now. Roma Roselli is not dead, and it would be easy to bring people from England to say so.”
“You daren’t! You know you daren’t! It would expose them to persecution for perpetrating a crime.”
“In England, not in Italy.”
Roma’s red eyes fell, and the Baron began to speak in a caressing voice:
“My child, don’t fence with me. It is so painful to silence you.... It is perhaps natural that you should sympathise with the weaker side. That is the sweet and tender if illogical way of all women. But you must not imagine that when David Rossi has been arrested he will be walked off to his death. As a matter of fact, he must go through a new trial, he must be defended, his sentence would in any case be reduced to imprisonment, and it may even be wiped out altogether. That’s all.”
“All? And you ask me to help you to do that?”
“Certainly.”
“I won’t!”
“Then you could if you would?”
“I can’t!”
“Your first word was the better one, my child.”
“Very well, I won’t! I won’t! Aren’t you ashamed to ask me to do such a thing? According to your own story, David Leone was my father’s friend, yet you wish me to give him up to the law that he may be imprisoned, perhaps for life, and at least turned out of Parliament. Do you suppose I am capable of treachery like that? Do you judge of everybody by yourself?... Ah, I know that story too! For shame! For shame!”
The Baron was silent for a moment, and then said in an impassive voice:
“I will not discuss that subject with you now, my child — you are excited, and don’t quite know what you are saying. I will only point out to you that even if David Leone was your father’s friend, David Rossi was your own enemy.”
“What of that? It’s my own affair, isn’t it? If I choose to forgive him, what matter is it to anybody else? I do forgive him! Now, whose business is it except my own?”
“My dear Roma, I might tell you that it’s mine also, and that the insult that went through you was aimed at me. But I will not speak of myself.... That you should change your plans so entirely, and setting out a month ago to ... to ... shall I say betray ... this man Rossi, you are now striving to save him, is a problem which admits of only one explanation, and that is that ... that you....”
“That I love him — yes, that’s the truth,” said Roma boldly, but flushing up to the eyes and trembling with fear.
There was a death-like pause in the duel. Both dropped their heads, and the silent face in the bust seemed to be looking down on them. Then the Baron’s icy cheeks quivered visibly, and he said in a low, hoarse voice:
“I’m sorry! Very sorry! For in that case I may be compelled to justify your conclusion that a Minister has no humanity and no pity. If David Rossi cannot be arrested by the authorisation of Parliament, he must be arrested when Parliament is not in session, and then his identity will have to be established in a public tribunal. In that event you will be forced to appear, and having refused to make a private statement in the secrecy of a magistrate’s office, you will be compelled to testify in the Court of Assize.”
“Ah, but you can’t make me do that!” cried Roma excitedly, as if seized by a sudden thought.
“Why not?”
“Never mind why not. You can’t do it, I tell you,” she cried excitedly.
He looked at her as if trying to penetrate her meaning, and then said:
“We shall see.”
At that moment the fretful voice of the Countess was heard calling to the Baron from the adjoining room.
II
Roma went to her bedroom when the Baron left her, and remained there until late in the afternoon. In spite of the bold front she had put on, she was quaking with terror and tortured by remorse. Never before had she realised David Rossi’s peril with such awful vividness, and seen her own position in relation to him in its hideous nakedness.
Was it her duty to confess to David Rossi that at the beginning of their friendship she had set out to betray him? Only so could she be secure, only so could she be honest, only so could she be true to the love he gave her and the trust he reposed in her.
Yet why should she confess? The abominable impulse was gone. Something sweet and tender had taken its place. To confess to him now would be cruel. It would wound his beautiful faith in her.
And yet the seeds she had sown were beginning to fructify. They might spring up anywhere at any moment, and choke the life that was dearer to her than her own. Thank God, it was still impossible to injure him except by her will and assistance. But her will might be broken and her assistance might be forced, unless the law could be invoked to protect her against itself. It could and it should be invoked! When she was married to David Rossi no law in Italy would compel her to witness against him.
But if Rossi hesitated from any cause, if he delayed their marriage, if he replied unfavourably to the letter in which she had put aside all modesty and asked him to marry her soon — what then? How was she to explain his danger? How was she to tell him that he must marry her before Parliament rose, or she might be the means of expelling him from the Chamber, and perhaps casting him into prison for life? How was she to say: “I was Delilah; I set out to betray you, and unless you marry me the wicked work is done!”
The afternoon was far spent; she had eaten nothing since morning, and was lying face down on the bed, when a knock came to the door.
“The person in the studio to see you,” said Felice.
It was Bruno in Sunday attire, with little Joseph in top-boots, and more than ever like the cub of a young lion.
“A letter from him,” said Bruno.
It was from Rossi. She took it without a word of greeting, and went back to her bedroom. But when she returned a moment afterwards her face was transformed. The clouds had gone from it and the old radiance had returned. All the brightness and gaiety of her usual expression were there as she came swinging into the drawing-room and filling the air with the glow of health and happiness.
“That’s all right,” she said. “Tell Mr. Rossi I shall expect to see him soon ... or no, don’t say that ... say that as he is over head and ears in work this week, he is not to think it necessary.... Oh, say anything you like,” she said, and the pearly teeth and lovely eyes broke into an aurora of smiles.
Bruno, whose bushy face and shaggy head had never once been raised since he came into the room, said:
“He’s busy enough, anyway — what with this big meeting coming off on Wednesday, and the stairs to his room as full of people as the Santa Scala.”
“So you’ve brought little Joseph to see me at last?” said Roma.
“He has bothered my life out to bring him ever since you said he was to be your porter some day.”
“And why not? Gentlemen ought to call on the ladies, oughtn’t they, Joseph?”
And Joseph, whose curly poll had been hiding behind the leg of his father’s trousers, showed half of a face that was shining all over.
“See! See here — do you know who this is? This gentleman in the bust?”
“Uncle David,” said the boy.
“What a clever boy you are, Joseph!”
“Doesn’t want much cleverness to know that, though,” said Bruno. “It’s wonderful! it’s magnificent! And it will shut up all their damned ... excuse me, miss, excuse me.”
“And Joseph still intends to be a porter?”
“Dead set on it, and says he wouldn’t change his profession to be a king.”
“Quite right, too! And now let us look at something a little birdie brought me the other day. Come along, Joseph. Here it is. Down on your knees, gentleman, and help me to drag it out. One — two — and away!”
From the knee-hole of the desk came a large cardboard box, and Joseph’s eyes glistened like big black beads.
“Now, what do you think is in this box, Joseph? Can’t guess? Give it up? Sure? Well, listen! Are you listening? Which do you think you would like best — a porter’s cocked hat, or a porter’s long coat, or a porter’s mace with a gilt hat and a tassel?”
Joseph’s face, which had gleamed at every item, clouded and cleared, cleared and clouded at the cruel difficulty of choice, and finally looked over at Bruno for help.
“Choose now — which?”
But Joseph only sidled over to his father, and whispered something which Roma could not hear.
“What does he say?”
“He says it is his birthday on Wednesday,” said Bruno.
“Bless him! He shall have them all, then,” said Roma, and Joseph’s legs as well as his eyes began to dance.
The cords were cut, the box was opened, the wonderful hat and coat and mace were taken out, and Joseph was duly invested. In the midst of this ceremony Roma’s black poodle came bounding into the room, and when Joseph strutted out of the boudoir into the drawing-room the dog went leaping and barking beside him.
“Dear little soul!” said Roma, looking after the child; but Bruno, who was sitting with his head down, only answered with a groan.
“What is the matter, Bruno?” she asked.
Bruno brushed his coat-sleeve across his eyes, set his teeth, and said with a savage fierceness:
“What’s the matter? Treason’s the matter, telling tales and taking away a good woman’s character — that’s what is the matter! A man who has been eating your bread for years has been lying about you, and he is a rascal and a sneak and a damned scoundrel, and I would like to kick him out of the house.”
“And who has been doing all this, Bruno?”
“Myself! It was I who told Mr. Rossi the lies that made him speak against you on the day of the Pope’s Jubilee, and when you asked him to come here, I warned him against you, and said you were only going to pay him back and ruin him.”
“So you said that, did you?”
“Yes, I did.”
“And what did Mr. Rossi say to you?”
“Say to me? ‘She’s a good woman,’ says he, ‘and if I have ever said otherwise, I take it all back, and am ashamed.’”
Roma, who had turned to the window, heaved a sigh and said: “It has all come out right in the end, Bruno. If you hadn’t spoken against me to Mr. Rossi, he wouldn’t have spoken against me in the piazza, and then he and I should never have met and known each other and been friends. All’s well that ends well, you know.”
“Perhaps so, but the miracle doesn’t make the saint, and you oughtn’t to keep me any longer.”
“Do you mean that I ought to dismiss you?”
“Yes.”
“Bruno,” said Roma, “I am in trouble just now, and I may be in worse trouble by-and-by. I don’t know how long I may be able to keep you as a servant, but I may want you as a friend, and if you leave me now....”
“Oh, put it like that, miss, and I’ll never leave you, and as for your enemies....”
Bruno was doubling up the sleeve of his right arm, when Joseph and the poodle came back to the room. Roma received them with a merry cry, and there was much noise and laughter. At length the gorgeous garments were taken off, the cardboard box was corded, and Bruno and the boy prepared to go.
“You’ll come again, won’t you, Joseph?” said Roma, and the boy’s face beamed.
“I suppose this little man means a good deal to his mother, Bruno?”
“Everything! I do believe she’d die, or disappear, or drown herself if anything happened to that boy.”
“And Mr. Rossi?”
“He’s been a second father to the boy ever since the young monkey was born.”
“Well, Joseph must come here sometimes, and let me try and be a second mother to him too.... What is he saying now?”
Joseph had dragged down his father’s head to whisper something in his ear.
“He says he’s frightened of your big porter downstairs.”
“Frightened of him! He is only a man, my precious! Tell him you are a little Roman boy, and he’ll have to let you up. Will you remember? You will? That’s right! By-bye!”
Before going to sleep that night, Roma switched on the light that hung above her head and read her letter again. She had been hoarding it up for that secret hour, and now she was alone with it, and all the world was still.
“Saturday Night.
“MY DEAR ONE, — Your sweet letter brought me the intoxication of delight, and the momentous matter you speak of is under way. It is my turn to be ashamed of all the great to-do I made about the obstacles to our union when I see how courageous you can be. Oh, how brave women are — every woman who ever marries a man! To take her heart into her hands, and face the unknown in the fate of another being, to trust her life into his keeping, knowing that if he falls she falls too, and will never be the same again! What man could do it? Not one who was ever born into the world. Yet some woman does it every day, promising some man that she will — let me finish your quotation —
“‘Meet, if thou require it, Both demands, Laying flesh and spirit In thy hands.’
“Don’t think I am too much troubled about the Minghelli matter, and yet it is pitiful to think how merciless the world can be even in the matter of a man’s name. A name is only a word, but it is everything to the man who bears it — honour or dishonour, poverty or wealth, a blessing or a curse. If it is a good name, everybody tries to take it away from him, but if it’s a bad name and he has attempted to drop it, everybody tries to fix it on him afresh.
“The name I was compelled to leave behind me when I returned to
Italy was a bad name in nothing except that it was the name of my father, and if the spies and ferrets of authority ever fix it upon me God only knows what mischief they may do. But one thing I know — that if they do fix my father’s name upon me, and bring me to the penalties which the law has imposed on it, it will not be by help of my darling, my beloved, my brave, brave girl with the heart of gold.
“Dearest, I wrote to the Capitol immediately on receiving your letter, and to-morrow morning I will go down myself to see that everything is in train. I don’t yet know how many days are necessary to the preparations, but earlier than Thursday it would not be wise to fix the event, seeing that Wednesday is the day of the great mass meeting in the Coliseum, and, although the police have proclaimed it, I have told the people they are to come. There is some risk at the outset, which it would be reckless to run, and in any case the time is short.
“Good-night! I can’t take my pen off the paper. Writing to you is like talking to you, and every now and then I stop and shut my eyes, and hear your voice replying. Only it is myself who make the answers, and they are not half so sweet as they would be in reality. Ah, dear heart, if you only knew how my life was full of silence until you came into it, and now it is full of music!
Good-night, again!
“D. R.
“Sunday Morning.
“Just returned from the Capitol. The legal notice for the celebration of a marriage is longer than I expected. It seems that the ordinary term must be twelve days at least, covering two successive Sundays (on which the act of publication is posted on the board outside the office) and three days over. Only twelve days more, my dear one, and you will be mine, mine, mine, and all the world will know!”
It took Roma a good three-quarters of an hour to read this letter, for nearly every word seemed to be written out of a lover’s lexicon, which bore secret meanings of delicious import, and imperiously demanded their physical response from the reader’s lips. At length she put it between the pillow and her cheek, to help the sweet delusion that she was cheek to cheek with some one and had his strong, protecting arms about her. Then she lay a long time, with eyes open and shining in the darkness, trying in vain to piece together the features of his face. But in the first dream of her first sleep she saw him plainly, and then she ran, she raced, she rushed to his embrace.
Next day brought a message from the Baron:
“DEAR ROMA, — Come to the Palazzo Braschi to-morrow (Tuesday) morning at eleven o’clock. Don’t refuse, and don’t hesitate. If you do not come, you will regret it as long as you live, and reproach yourself for ever afterwards. — Yours,
