Complete works of hall c.., p.376
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 376
The King laughed, the senators cheered, the ladies waved their handkerchiefs, and again the Baron remembered Roma.
The procession to the Quirinal was a prolonged triumph. Every house was hung with flags, every window with red and yellow damask. The clubs in the Corso were crowded with princes, nobles, diplomats, and distinguished foreigners. Civil guards by hundreds in their purple plumes lined the streets, and the pavements were packed with loyal people. It was a glorious pageant, such as Roma loved.
The mayors of the province, followed by citizens under their appointed leaders and flags, came up to the Quirinal as the Baron had appointed, and called the King on to the balcony. The King accepted the call and made a sign of thanks.
Returning to the house the King ordered that papers should be prepared immediately creating the Baron Bonelli by royal decree Dictator of Italy for a period of six months from that date. “If Roma were here now,” thought the Baron.
Then night came, and the state dinner at the royal palace was a moving scene of enchantment. One princess came after another, apparently clothed in diamonds. The Baron wore the Collar of the Annunziata, and the foreign ambassadors, who as representatives of their sovereigns were entitled to precedence, gave place to him, and he sat on the right of the Queen.
After dinner he led the Queen to an embroidered throne under a velvet baldachino in a gorgeous chamber which had been the chapel of the Popes. Then the ball began. What torrents of light! What a dazzling blaze of diamonds! What lovely faces and pure white skins! What soft bosoms and full round forms! What gleams of life and love in a hundred pairs of beautiful eyes! But there was a lovelier face and form in the mind of the Baron than any his eyes could see, and excusing himself to the King on the ground of Rossi’s expected arrival, he left the palace.
Fireflies in the dark garden of the Quirinal were emitting drops of light as the Baron passed through the echoing courts, and the big square in front, bright with electric light, was silent save for the footfall of the sentries at the gate.
The Baron walked in the direction of the Piazza Navona. His self-reproach was becoming poignant. He remembered the threats he had made, and told himself he had never intended to carry them out. They were only meant to impress the imagination of the person played upon, as might happen in any ordinary affair of public life.
The Baron’s memory went back to the last state ball before this one, and he felt some pangs of shame. But the disaster of that night had not been due to the cold calculation to which he had attributed it. The cause was simpler and more human — love of a beautiful woman who was slipping away from him, the girding sense of being bound body and soul to a wife that was no wife, and the mad intoxication of a moment.
No matter! Roma should not lose by what had happened. He would make it up to her. Considering her unconventional conduct, it was no little thing he intended to do, but he would do it, and she would see that others were capable of sacrifice.
The people were on the Pincio and the streets were quiet. When the Baron reached the Piazza Navona there was hardly anybody about, and he had difficulty in finding the house. No one saw him enter, and he met with nobody on the stairs. So much the better. He was half ashamed.
After he had knocked twice a voice which he did not recognise told him to come in. When he pushed the door open Roma, in hat and veil, stood before him, with her back to a bureau. He thought she looked frightened and ill.
V
“My dear Roma,” said the Baron, “I bring you good news. Everything has turned out well. Nothing could have been managed better, and I come to congratulate you.”
He was visibly excited, and spoke rapidly and even loudly.
“The man was arrested on the frontier — you must have heard of that. He was coming by the night train on Saturday, and to prevent a possible disturbance they kept him in Milan until this morning.”
Roma continued to stand with her back to the bureau.
“The news was in all the journals yesterday, my dear, and it had a splendid effect on the opening of the Jubilee. When the King went to Mass this morning the plot had received its death-blow, and our anxiety was at an end. To-night the man will arrive in Rome, and within an hour from now he will be safely locked up in prison.”
Every nerve in Roma’s body was palpitating, but she did not attempt to speak.
“It is all your doing, my child — yours, not mine. Your clever brain has brought it all to pass. ‘Leave the man to me,’ you said. I left him to you, and you have accomplished everything.”
Roma drew her lips together and tried to control herself.
“But what things you have gone through in order to achieve your purpose! Slights, slurs, insults! No wonder the man was taken in by it. Society itself was taken in. And I — yes, I myself — was almost deceived.”
“Shall it be now?” thought Roma. The Baron was on the hearthrug directly facing her.
“But you knew what you were doing, my dear. It was all a part of your scheme. You drew the man on. In due time he delivered himself up to you. He surrendered every secret of his soul. And when your great hour came you were ready. You met it as you had always intended. ‘At the top of his hopes he shall fall,’ you said.”
Roma’s heart was beating as if it would burst its bounds.
“He has fallen. Thanks to you, this enemy of civil society, this slanderer of women, is down. Then the Pope too! And the confession to the Reverend Father! Who but a woman could have thought of a thing like that? — making your denunciation so defensible, so pardonable, so plausible, so inevitable! What skill! What patience! What diplomacy! And what will and nerve too! Who shall say now that women are incapable of great things?”
The Baron had thrown open his overcoat, revealing the broad expanse of his shirt-front, crossed by the glittering collar of the Annunziata, and was promenading the hearthrug without a thought of his peril.
“The journals of half Europe will have accounts of the failure of the ‘Great Plot.’ There was another plot, my dear, which did not fail. Europe will hear of that also, and by to-morrow morning the world will know what a woman may do to punish the man who traduces and degrades her!”
“Why don’t I do it?” thought Roma. She was fingering the revolver on the bureau behind her, and breathing fast and audibly.
“You shall have everything back, my dear. Carriages, jewellery, apartments, exactly as you parted with them. I have kept all under my own control, and in a single day you can be reinstated.”
Roma’s palpitating heart was hurting her.
“But won’t you sit down, my child? I have something to tell you. It is important news. The Baroness is dead. Yes, she died on Saturday, poor soul. Should I play the hypocrite and weep? Why should I? For fifteen years a cruel law, which I dare not attempt to repeal by divorce in a Catholic country, has tied me to a living corpse. Shall I pretend to mourn because my burden has fallen away?... Roma, sit down, my dear; don’t continue to stand there.... Roma, I am free, and we can now carry out our marriage, as we always hoped and intended.”
“Now!” thought Roma, moving a little forward.
“Ah, don’t be afraid of anything. I am not afraid, and you needn’t be afraid either. Certainly rumour has coupled our names already. But what matter about that? No one shall insult you, whatever has occurred. Wherever I go you shall go too. If they cannot do without me they shall not do without you, and in spite of everything you shall be received everywhere.”
“Is that all you had to say?” said Roma.
“Not all. There is something else, and I couldn’t wait for the newspapers to tell you. The King has appointed me Dictator for six months. That means that you will be more courted than the Queen. What a revenge! The women who have been turning their backs upon you will bend their backs before you. You will break down every barrier. You will....”
“Wait,” said Roma.
The Baron had been approaching her, and she lifted her hand.
“You expect me to acquiesce in this lie?”
“What lie, my child?”
“That I denounced David Rossi in order to destroy him. It is true that I did denounce him — unhappy woman that I am — but you know perfectly why I did it. I did it because I was forced to do it. You forced me.”
At the sound of her own voice, her eyes had begun to fill.
“And now you ask me to pretend that it was all done from an evil motive, and you offer me the rewards of guilt. Do you think I’m a murderer that you can offer me the price of blood? Have you any shame? You come here to ask me to marry you, knowing that I am married already — here of all places, in the house of my husband.”
Her eyes were blinded with tears, but her voice thickened with anger.
“My child,” said the Baron, “if I have asked you to acquiesce in the idea that what you did was from a certain motive it was only to spare you pain. I thought it would be easier for you to do so now, things being as they are. It was only going back to your original purpose, forgetting all that has intervened.”
His voice softened, and he said in a low tone: “If I am so much to blame for what has been done, perhaps it was because you were first of all at fault! At the beginning my one offence consisted in agreeing to your proposal. It was the statesman who committed that error, and the man has suffered for it ever since. You know nothing of jealousy, my child — how can you? — but its pains are as the pains of hell.”
He tried to approach her once more.
“Come, dear, try to be yourself again. Forget this moment of fascination, and rise afresh to your old strength and wisdom. I am willing to forget ... whatever has happened — I don’t ask what. I am ready to wipe it all away, just as if it had never been.”
In spite of his soft words and gentle tones, Roma was gazing at him with an aversion she had never felt before for any human being.
“Have no qualms about your marriage, my child. I assure you it is no marriage at all. In the eye of the civil law it is frankly invalid, and the Church could annul it at any moment, being no sacrament, because you are unbaptized and therefore not in her sense a Christian.”
He took another step towards her and said:
“But if you have lost one husband another is waiting for you — a more devoted and more faithful husband — one who can give you everything in the place of one who can give you nothing.... And then that man has gone out of your life for good. Whatever happens now, it is impossible that you and he can ever come together again. But I am here still.... Don’t answer hastily, Roma. Isn’t it something that I am ready to face the opprobrium that will surely come of marrying the most criticised woman in Rome?”
Roma felt herself to be suffocating with indignation and shame.
“You see I am suing to you, Roma — I who have never sued to any human being. Even when I was a child I would not sue to my own mother. Since then I have done something in life — I have justified myself, I have given my country a place among the nations, I stand for it in the eye of the world — and yet—”
“And yet I despise you,” said Roma.
There was a moment of silence, and then, recovering himself, the Baron tried to laugh.
“As you will. I must needs accept the only possible interpretation of your words. I thought my devotion in spite of every provocation might burn away your bitterness. But if....” (he was getting excited) “if you have no respect for the past, you may have some regard for the future.”
She looked at him with a new fear.
“Naturally, I have no desire to humiliate myself further by suing to a woman who despises me. It will be sufficient to punish the man who is responsible for my loss of esteem in the eyes of one who has so many reasons to respect me.”
“You mean that you will persuade the King to break his promise?”
“The King need not be persuaded after he has appointed his Dictator.”
“So the King’s promise to pardon Mr. Rossi will be set aside by his successor?”
“If I leave this room without a better answer ... yes.”
Roma drew from behind the revolver she had held in her hand.
“Then you will never leave this room,” she said.
The Baron stood perfectly still, and there was a moment of deadly silence.
Then came the rattle of carriage wheels on the stones of the piazza, followed immediately by a hurried footstep on the stairs.
Roma heard it. She was trembling all over.
A moment afterwards there was a knock at the door. Then another knock, and another. It was imperative, irregular knocking.
Roma, who had forgotten all about the Baron, was rooted to the spot on which she stood. The Baron, who had understood everything, was also transfixed.
Then came a thick, vibrating voice, “Roma!”
Roma made a faint cry, and dropped the revolver out of her graspless hand. The Baron picked it up instantly. He was the first to recover himself.
“Hush!” he said in a whisper. “Let him come in. I will go into this room. I mean no harm to any one; but if he should follow me — if you should reveal my presence — remember what I said before about a challenge. And if I challenge him his shrift will have to be swift and sure.”
The Baron stepped into the bedroom. Then the voice came again, “Roma! Roma!”
Roma staggered to the door and opened it.
VI
Flying from the railway station in the coupé, down the Via Nazionale and the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, Rossi had seen by the electric light the remains of the day’s festoons, triumphal arches, banners, embroideries, emblems, and flowers. These things had passed before his eyes like a flash, yet they had deepened the bitterness of his desire to meet with Roma that he might thrust the evidence of her treachery into her face.
But when he came to his own house and Roma opened the door to him, and he saw her, looking so ill, her cheeks so pale, her beautiful eyes so large and timid, and her whole face expressing such acute suffering, his anger began to ebb away, and he wanted to take her into his arms in spite of all.
Roma knew she was opening the door to Rossi, whatever the strange chance which had brought him there, and when she saw him she made a faint cry and a helpless little run toward him, and then stopped and looked frightened. The momentary sensation of joy and relief had instantly died away. She looked at his world-worn face, so disfigured by pain and humiliation, and the arms she had outstretched to meet him she raised above her head as if to ward off a blow.
He saw under the veil she wore the terror which had seized her at sight of him, and by that alone he knew the depths of the abyss between them. But this only increased the measureless pity he felt for her. And he could not look at her without feeling that whatever she had done he loved her, and must continue to love her to the last.
Tears rose to his throat and choked him. He opened his mouth to speak, but at first he could not utter a word. At length he fumbled at his breast, tore at his shirt front, so that his loose neckerchief became untied, and finally drew from an inner pocket a crumpled paper.
“Look!” he said with a kind of gasp.
She saw at a glance what the paper was, and dared not look at it a second time. It was the warrant. She dropped into a chair with bowed head and humble attitude, as if trying to sink out of sight.
“Tell me you know nothing about it, Roma.”
She covered her face with both hands and was silent.
“Tell me.”
She had expected that he would flame out at her, but his voice was breaking. She lifted her head and tried to look at him. His eyes were fixed on her with an expression she had never seen before. She wanted to speak, and could not do so. Her lip trembled, and she hung her head and covered her face again, unable to say a word.
By this time he knew full well that she was guilty, but he tried to persuade himself that she was innocent, to make excuses for her, and to find her a way out.
“The newspapers say that the warrant was made at your instruction, Roma — that you were the informer who denounced me. It cannot be true. Tell me it is not true.”
She did not speak.
“Look at the name on it — David Leone. There was only one person in the world who knew me by that name — only one.”
She began to cry beneath her hands.
“I told you everything myself, Roma. It was in this very room, you remember, the night you came here first. You asked me if I wasn’t afraid to tell you, and I answered no. You couldn’t deceive the son of your own father. It wasn’t natural. I was right, wasn’t I?”
She felt him take hold of her hand and draw it down from her face.
“Look at the ring on your hand, dear. And look at this one on mine. You are my wife, Roma. Does a man’s wife betray him?”
His voice cracked at every word.
“When we parted you promised that as long as you lived, wherever you might be, and whatever the world might do with us, you would be faithful to me to the last. You have kept your promise, haven’t you? It isn’t true that you have denounced me to the police.”
He paused, but she did not reply, and he dropped her hand, and it fell like a lifeless thing to her side.
“I know it isn’t true, dear, but I want to hear it from your own lips. One word — only one. Why shouldn’t you speak? Say you know nothing of this warrant. Say that somebody else knew David Leone. It may be so — I cannot remember. Say ... say anything. Don’t you see I will believe you whatever you say, Roma?”
Roma could control herself no longer.
“I know quite well it is impossible for you to forgive me, David.”
“Forgive!”
“But if I could explain....”
“Explain? What can there be to explain? Did you denounce me to the magistrate?”
“If you could only know what happened....”
“Did you denounce me to the magistrate?”
She looked with frightened eyes at the bedroom door, and then dropped to her knees.
“Have pity upon me.”
“Did you denounce me to the magistrate?”
