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The Eternal City, a novel by Hall Caine |
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Part 5. The Prime Minister - Chapter 7 |
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_ PART FIVE. THE PRIME MINISTER CHAPTER VII Roma reached home in a glow of joy. She told herself that Rossi would come to her in obedience to her command. He must dine with her to-night. Seven was now striking on all the clocks outside, and to give him time to arrive she put back the dinner until eight. Her aunt would dine in her own room, so they would be quite alone. The conventions of life had fallen absolutely away, and she considered them no more. Meantime she must dress and perhaps take a bath. A certain sense of soiling which she could not conquer had followed her up from that glorious meeting. She felt a little ashamed of it, but it was there, and though she told herself "They were _his_ people, poor things," she was glad to take off the clothes she had worn at the Coliseum. She combed out the curls of her glossy black hair, put herself into a loose tea gown and red slippers, took one backward glance at herself in the glass, and then going into the drawing-room, she stood by the window to dream and wait. The snow still fell in thin flakes, but the city was humming on, and the piazza down below was full of people. After a while the electric bell of the outer door was rung, and her heart beat against her breast. "It's he," she thought, and in the exquisite tumult of the moment she lifted her arms and turned to meet him. But when the door was opened it was the Baron Bonelli who was shown into the room. He was in evening dress, with black tie and studs which had a chilling effect, and his manner was as cold and calm as usual. "I regret," he said, "that we must enter on a painful interview." "As you please," she answered, and sitting on a stool by the fire she rested her elbows on her knees, and looked straight before her. "Your letter of last night, my dear, produced the result you desired. I sent for Commendatore Angelelli, invented some plausible excuses, and reversed my orders. I also sent for Minghelli and told him to take care of you on your reckless errand. The matter has thus far ended as you wished, and I trust you are satisfied." She nodded her head without turning round, and bore herself with a certain air of defiance. "But it is necessary that we should come to an understanding," he continued. "You have driven me hard, my child. With all the tenderness and sympathy possible, I am compelled to speak plainly. I wished to spare your feelings. You will not permit me to do so." The incisiveness of his speech cut the air like ice dropping from a glacier, and Roma felt herself turning pale with a sense of something fearful whirling around her. "According to your own plans, Rossi is to marry you within a week, although a month ago he spoke of you in public as an unworthy woman. Will you be good enough to tell me how this miracle has come to pass?" She laughed, and tried to carry herself bravely. "If it is a miracle, how can I explain it?" she said. "Then permit me to do so. He is going to marry you because he no longer thinks as he thought a month ago; because he believes he was wrong in what he said, and would like to wipe it out entirely." "He is going to marry me because he loves me," she answered hotly; "that's why he is going to marry me." At the next moment a faintness came over her, and a misty vapour flashed before her sight. In her anger she had torn open a secret place in her own heart, and something in the past of her life seemed to escape as from a tomb. "Then you have not told him?" said the Baron in so low a voice that he could scarcely be heard. "Told him what?" she said. "The truth--the fact." She caught her breath and was silent. "My child, you are doing wrong. There is a secret between you already. That is a bad basis to begin life upon, and the love that is raised on it will be a house built on the sand." Her heart was beating violently, but she turned on him with a burning glance. "What do you mean?" she said, while the colour increased in her cheeks and forehead. "I am a good woman. You know I am." "To me, yes! The best woman in the world." She had risen to her feet, and was standing by the chimney-piece. "Understand me, my child," he said affectionately. "When I say you are doing wrong, it is only in keeping a secret from the man you intend to marry. Between you and me ... there is no secret." She looked at him with haggard eyes. "For me you are everything that is sweet and good, but for another who knows? When a man is about to marry a woman, there is one thing he can never forgive. Need I say what that is?" The glow that had suffused her face changed to the pallor of marble, and she turned to the Baron and stood over him with the majesty of a statue. "Is it you that tell me this?" she said. "You--you? Can a woman never be allowed to forget? Must the fault of another follow her all her life? Oh, it is cruel! It is merciless.... But no matter!" she said in another voice; and turning away from him she added, as if speaking to herself: "He believes everything I tell him. Why should I trouble?" The Baron followed her with a look that pierced to the depths of her soul. "Then you have told him a falsehood?" he said. She pressed her lips together and made no answer. "That was foolish. By-and-by somebody may come along who will tell him the truth." "What can any one tell him that he has not heard already? He has heard everything, and put it all behind his back." "Could nobody bring conviction to his mind? Nobody whatever? Not even one who had no interest in slandering you?" "You don't mean that you...." "Why not? He has come between us. What could be more natural than that I should tell him so?" A look of dismay came over her face, and it was followed by an expression of terror. "But you wouldn't do that," she stammered. "You couldn't do it. It is impossible. You are only trying me." His face remained perfectly passive, and she seized him by the arm. "Think! Only think! You would do no good for yourself. You might stop the marriage--yes! But you wouldn't carry out your political purpose. You couldn't! And while you would do no good for yourself, think of the harm you would do for me. He loves me, and you would hurt his beautiful faith in me, and I should die of grief and shame." "You are cruel, my child," said the Baron, speaking with dignity. "You think _I_ am hard and unrelenting, but _you_ are selfish and cruel. You are so concerned about your own feelings that you don't even suspect that perhaps you are wounding mine." "Ah, yes, it is too bad," she said, dropping to her knees at his feet. "After all, you have been very good to me thus far, and it was partly my own fault if matters ended as they did. Yes, I confess it. I was vain and proud. I wanted all the world. And when you gave me everything, being so tied yourself, I thought I might forgive you.... But I was wrong--I was to blame--nothing in the world could excuse you--I saw that the moment afterwards. I really hadn't thought at all until then--but then my soul awoke. And then...." She turned her head aside that he might not see her face. "And then love came, and I was like a woman who had married a man thirty years older than herself--married without love--just for the sake of her pride and vanity. But love, real love, drove all that away. It is gone now; I only wish to lead a good life, however simple and humble it may be. Let me do so!... Do not take him away from me! Do not...." She stammered and stopped, with a sudden consciousness of what she was doing. "What a fool I am!" she said, leaping to her feet. "What fresh story can you tell him that he is likely to believe?" "I can tell him that, according to the law of nature and of reason, you belong to me," said the Baron. "Very well! It will be your word against mine, will it not? Tell him, and he will fling your insult in your face." The Baron rose and began to walk about the room, and there were some moments in which nothing could be heard but the slight creaking of his patent-leather boots. Then he said: "In that case I should be compelled to challenge him." "Challenge him!" She repeated the words with scorn. "Is it likely? Do you forget that duelling is a crime, that you are a Minister, that you would have to resign, and expose yourself to penalties?" "If a man insults me grievously in my affections and my honour, I will challenge him," said the Baron. "But he will not fight--it would be contrary to his principles," said Roma. "In that event he will never be able to lift his head in Italy again. But make no mistake on that point, my child. The man who is told that the woman he is going to marry is secretly the wife of another must either believe it or he must not. If he believes it, he casts her off for ever. If he does not believe it, he fights for her name and his own honour. If he does neither, he is not a man." Roma had returned to the stool, and was resting her elbows on her knees and gazing into the fire. "Have you thought of that?" said the Baron. "If the man fights a duel, it will be in defence of what you have told him. In the blindness of his belief in your word he will be ready to risk his life for it. Are you going to stand by and see him fight for a lie?" Roma hid her face in her hands. "Say he is wounded--it will be for a lie! Say he wounds his adversary--that will be for a lie too! Say that David Rossi kills me--what then? He must fly from Italy, and his career is at an end. If he is alone, he is a miserable exile who has earned what he may not enjoy. If you are with him, you are both miserable, for a lie stands between you. Every hour of your life is poisoned by the secret you cannot share with him. You are afraid of blurting it out in your sleep. At last you go to him and confess everything. What then? The idol he worshipped has turned to clay. What he thought an act of retribution is a crime. The dead man had told the truth, and he committed murder on the word of a woman who was a deceiver--a drab." Roma raised her hands to her head as if to avert a blow. "Stop! stop!" she cried in a choking voice, and lifting her face, distorted with suffering, tears rose in her eyes. To see Roma cry touched the only tenderness of which his iron nature was capable. He patted the beautiful head at his feet, and said in a caressing tone: "Why will you make me seem so hard, my child? There is really no need to talk of these things. They will not occur. How can I have any desire to degrade you since I must degrade myself at the same time? I have no wish to tell any one the secret which belongs only to you and me. In that matter you were not to blame either. It was all my doing. I was sweltering under the shameful law which tied me to a dead body, and I tried to attach you to me. And then your beauty--your loveliness...." At that moment Felice announced Commendatore Angelelli. Roma walked over to the window and leaned her face against the glass. Snow was still falling, and there were some rumblings of thunder. Sheets of light shone here and there in the darkness, but the world outside was dark and drear. Would David Rossi come to-night? She almost hoped he would not. _ |
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