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Casa Braccio, a novel by F. Marion Crawford |
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Part 3. Donna Francesca Campodonico - Chapter 46 |
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_ PART III. DONNA FRANCESCA CAMPODONICO CHAPTER XLVI LORD REDIN lifted the heavy leathern curtain of the door on the right of the main entrance to the basilica, and went into the church. For some reason or other, the majority of people go in by that door rather than the other. It may be that the reason is a very simple one, after all. Most people are right handed, and of any two doors side by side leading into the same place, will instinctively take the one on the right. The practice of passing to the left in the street, in almost all old countries, was for the sake of safety, in order that a man might have his sword hand towards any one he met. The air of the church was warm, and had a faint odour of incense in it. The temperature of the vast building varies but little with the seasons; going into it in winter, it seems warm, in summer it is very cold. On that day there were not many people in the nave, though a soft sound of unceasing footsteps broke the stillness. Very far away an occasional strain of music floated on the air from the Chapel of the Choir, the last on the left before the transept is reached. Lord Redin walked leisurely in the direction of the sound. The chapel was full, and the canons were intoning the psalms of the office. At the conclusion of each one the choir sang the 'Gloria' from the great organ loft on the right. It chanced that there were a number of foreigners on that day, and they had filled all the available space within the gate, and there was a small crowd outside, pressing as close as possible in order to hear the voices more distinctly. Lord Redin was taller than most men, and looking over the heads of the others he saw Francesca Campodonico's pale profile in the thick of the press. She evidently wished to extricate herself, and she seemed to be suffering from the closeness, for she pressed her handkerchief nervously to her lips, and her eyes were half closed. Lord Redin forced his way to her without much consideration for the people who hindered him. A few minutes later he brought her out on the side towards the transept. "Thank you," said Francesca. "I should like to sit down. I had almost fainted--there was a woman next to me who had musk about her." They went round the pillar of the dome to the south transept where there are almost always a number of benches set along the edges of a huge green baize carpet. They sat down together on the end of one of the seats. "We can go back, by and bye, and hear the music, if you like," said Francesca. "The psalms will last some time longer." "I would rather sit here and talk, since I have had the good luck to meet you," answered Lord Redin, resting his elbows on his knees, and idly poking the green carpet with the end of his stick. "I went to your house, and they told me that you would very probably be here." "Yes. I often come. But you know that, for we have met here before. I only stay at home on Sundays when it rains." "Oh! Is that the rule?" "Yes, if you call it a rule," answered Francesca. "I like to know about the things you do, and how you spend your life," said the Scotchman, thoughtfully. "Do you? Why? There is nothing very interesting about my existence, it seems to me." "It interests me. It makes me feel less lonely to know about some one else--some one I like very much." Francesca looked at her companion with an expression of pity. She was lonely, too, but in a different way. The little drama of her life had run sadly and smoothly. She was willing to give the man her friendship if it could help him, rather because he seemed to ask for it in a mute fashion than because she desired his. "Lord Redin," she said, after a little pause, "do you always mean to live in this way?" "Alone? Yes. It is the only way I can live, at my age." "At your age--would it make any difference if you were younger?" asked Francesca. She dropped her voice to a low key. "You would never marry again, even if you were much younger." "Marry!" His shoulders moved with a sort of little start. "You do not know what you are saying!" he added, almost under his breath, though she heard the words distinctly. She looked at him again, in silence, during several seconds, and she saw how the colour sank away from his face, till the skin was like old parchment. The hand that held the heavy stick tightened round it and grew yellow at the knuckles. "Forgive me," she said gently. "I am very thoughtless--it is the second time." He did not speak for some moments, but she understood his silence and waited. The air was very quiet, and the enormous pillar of the dome almost completely shut off the echo of the distant music. The low afternoon sun streamed levelly through the great windows of the apse, for the basilica is built towards the west. There were very few people in the church that day. The sun made visible beams across the high shadows overhead. Suddenly Lord Redin spoke again. There was something weak and tremulous in the tone of his rough voice. "I am very much attached to you, for two reasons," he said. "We have known each other long, but not intimately." "That is true. Not very intimately." Francesca did not know exactly what to say. But for his manner and for his behaviour a few moments earlier, she might have fancied that he was about to offer himself to her, but such an idea was very far from her thoughts. Her woman's instinct told her that he was going to tell her something in the nature of a confidence. "Precisely," he continued. "We have never been intimate. The reason why we have not been intimate is one of the reasons why I am more attached to you than you have ever guessed." "That is complicated," said Francesca, with a smile. "Perhaps the other reason may be simpler." "It is very simple, very simple indeed, though it will not seem natural to you. You are the only very good woman I ever knew, who made me feel that she was good instead of making me see it. Perhaps you think it unnatural that I should be attracted by goodness at all. But I am not very bad, as men go." "No. I do not believe you are. And I am not so good as you think." She sighed softly. "You are much better than I once thought," answered Lord Redin. "Once upon a time--well, I should only offend you, and I know better now. Forgive me for thinking of it. I wish to tell you something else." "If it is something which has been your secret, it is better not told," said Francesca, quietly. "One rarely makes a confidence that one does not regret it." "You are a wise woman." He looked at her thoughtfully. "And yet you must be very young." "No. But though I have had my own life apart, I have lived outwardly very much in the world, although I am still young. Most of the secrets which have been told me have been repeated to me by the people in whom others had confided." "All that is true," he answered. "Nevertheless--" He paused. "I am desperate!" he exclaimed, with sudden energy. "I cannot bear this any longer--I am alone, always, always. Sometimes I think I shall go mad! You do not know what a life I lead. I have not even a vice to comfort me!" He laughed low and savagely. "I tried to drink, but I am sick of it--it does no good! A man who has not even a vice is a very lonely man." Francesca's clear eyes opened wide with a startled look, and gazed towards his averted face, trying to catch his glance. She felt that she was close to something very strong and dreadful which she could not understand. "Do not speak like that!" she said. "No one is lonely who believes in God." "God!" he exclaimed bitterly. "God has forgotten me, and the devil will not have me!" He looked at her at last, and saw her face. "Do not be shocked," he said, with a sorrowful smile. "If I were as bad as I seem to you just now, I should have cut my throat twenty years ago." "Hush! Hush!" Francesca did not know what to say. His manner changed a little, and he spoke more calmly. "I am not eloquent," he said, looking into her eyes. "You may not understand. But I have suffered a great deal." "Yes. I know that. I am very sorry for you." "I think you are," he answered. "That is why I want to be honest and tell you the truth about myself. For that reason, and because I cannot bear it any longer. I cannot, I cannot!" he repeated in a low, despairing tone. "If it will help you to tell me, then tell me," said Francesca, kindly. "But I do not ask you to. I do not see why we should not be the best of friends without my knowing this thing which weighs on your mind." "You will understand when I have told you," answered Lord Redin. "Then you can judge whether you will have me for a friend or not. It will seem very bad to you. Perhaps it is. I never thought so. But you are a Roman Catholic, and that makes a difference." "Not in a question of right and wrong." "It makes the question what it is. You shall hear." He paused a moment, and the lines and furrows deepened in his face. The sun was sinking fast, and the long beams had faded away out of the shadows. There was no one in sight now, but the music of the benediction service echoed faintly in the distance. Francesca felt her heart beating with a sort of excitement she could not understand, and though she did not look at her companion, her ears were strained to catch the first word he spoke. "I married a nun," he said simply. Francesca started. "A Sister of Charity?" she asked, after a moment's dead silence. "They do not take vows--" "No. A nun from the Carmelite Convent of Subiaco." His words were very distinct. There was no mistaking what he said. Francesca shrank from him instinctively, and uttered a low exclamation of repugnance and horror. "That is not all," continued Lord Redin, with a calm that seemed supernatural. "She was your kinswoman. She was Maria Braccio, whom every one believed was burned to death in her cell." "But her body--they found it! It is impossible!" She thought he must be mad. "No. They found another body. I put it into the bed and set fire to the mattress. It was burned beyond recognition, and they thought it was Maria. But it was the body of old Stefanone's daughter. I lived in his house. The girl poisoned herself with some of my chemicals--I was a young doctor in those days. Maria and I were married on board an English man-of-war, and we lived in Scotland after that. Gloria was the daughter of Maria Braccio, the Carmelite nun--your kinswoman." Francesca pressed her handkerchief to her lips. She felt as though she were losing her senses. Minute after minute passed, and she could say nothing. From time to time, Lord Redin glanced sideways at her. He breathed hard once or twice, and his hands strained upon his stick as though they would break it in two. "Then she died," he said. When he had spoken the three words, he shivered from head to foot, and was silent. Still Francesca could not speak. The sacrilege of the deed was horrible in itself. To her, who had grown up to look upon Maria Braccio as a holy woman, cut off in her youth by a frightful death, the truth was overwhelmingly awful. She strove within herself to find something upon which she could throw the merest shadow of an extenuation, but she could find nothing. "You understand now why, as an honourable man, I wished to tell you the truth about myself," he said, speaking almost coldly in the effort he was making at self-control. "I could not ask for your friendship until I had told you." Francesca turned her white face slowly towards him in the dusk, and her lips moved, but she did not speak. She could not in that first moment find the words she wanted. She felt that she shrank from him, that she never wished to touch his hand again. Doubtless, in time, she might get over the first impression. She wished that he would leave her to think about it. "Can you ever be my friend now?" he asked gravely. "Your friend--" she stopped, and shook her head sadly. "I--I am afraid--" she could not go on. Lord Redin rose slowly to his feet. "No. I am afraid not," he said. He waited a moment, but there was no reply. "May I take you to your carriage?" he asked gently. "No, thank you. No--that is--I am going home in a cab. I would rather be alone--please." "Then good-bye." The lonely man went away and left her there. His head was bent, and she thought that he walked unsteadily, as she watched him. Suddenly a great wave of pity filled her heart. He looked so very lonely. What right had she to judge him? Was she perfect, because he called her good? She called him before he turned the great pillar of the dome. "Lord Redin! Lord Redin!" But her voice was weak, and in the vast, dim place it did not reach him. He went on alone, past the high altar, round the pillar, down the nave. The benediction service was not quite over yet, but every one who was not listening to the music had left the church. He went towards the door by which he had entered. Before going out he paused, and looked towards the little chapel on the right of the entrance. He hesitated, and then went to it and stood leaning with his hands upon the heavy marble balustrade, that was low for his great height as he stood on the step. A single silver lamp sent a faint light upwards that lingered upon the Pieta above the altar, upon the marble limbs of the dead Christ, upon the features of the Blessed Virgin, the Addolorata--the sorrowing mother. Bending a little, as though very weary, the friendless, wifeless, childless man raised his furrowed face and looked up. There was no hope any more, and his despair was heavy upon him whose young love had blasted the lives of many. His teeth were set--he could have bitten through iron. He trembled a little, and as he looked upward, two dreadful tears--the tears of the strong that are as blood--welled from his eyes and trickled down upon his cheeks. "Maria Addolorata!" he whispered. _ |
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