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The Eternal City, a novel by Hall Caine |
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Part 3. Roma - Chapter 6 |
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_ PART THREE. ROMA CHAPTER VI Next morning David Rossi arrived early. "Now we must get to work in earnest," said Roma. "I think I see my way at last." It was not John the beloved disciple, John who lay in the bosom of his Lord. It was Peter, the devoted, stalwart, brave individual, human, erring but glorious Peter. "Thou art Peter, and on this rock I build my church." "Same position as before. Eyes the other way. Thank you!... Afraid you didn't enjoy yourself last night--no?" "At the theatre? I was interested. But the human spectacle was perhaps more to me than the artistic one. I am no artist, you see.... How did _you_ become a sculptor?" "Oh, I studied a little in the studios of Paris, where I went to school, you see." "But you were born in London?" "Yes." "Why did you come to Rome?" "Rome was the home of my people, you know. And then there was my name--Roma!" "I knew a Roma long ago." "Really? Another Roma?" There was a tremor in her voice. "It was the little daughter of the friend I've spoken about." "How interest ... No, at the window, please--that will do." Roma was choking with a sense of duplicity, but save for a turn of the head David Rossi gave no sign. "She was only seven when I saw her last." "That was long ago, you say?" "Seventeen years ago." "Then she will be the same age as...." "The first time I saw her she was only three, and she was in her nightdress ready for bed." Roma laughed a little, but she knew that every note in her voice was confused and false. "She said her prayers with a little lisp at that time. 'Our Fader oo art in heben, alud be dy name.'" He laughed a little now, as he mimicked the baby voice. They laughed together, then they looked at each other, and then with serious eyes they turned away. "You'll think it strange, but I date my first conscious and definite aspiration to the memory of that hour." "Really?" "Ten years afterward, when I was in America, the words of that prayer came back to me in Roma's little lisp. 'Dy kingum tum. Dy will be done on eard as it is in heben.'" For some time after that Roma worked on without speaking, feeling feverish and restless. But just as the silence was becoming painful, and she could bear it no longer, Felice came to announce lunch. "You'll stay? I want so much to work on while I'm in the mood," she said. "With pleasure," he replied. She ate hardly at all, for she was troubled by many misgivings. Did he know her? He did; he must; every word, every tone seemed to tell her that. Then why did he not speak out plainly? Because, having revealed himself to her, he was waiting for her to reveal herself to him. And why had she not done so? Because she was enmeshed in the nets of the society she lived in; because she was ashamed of the errand that had brought them together; and most of all because she had not dared to lay bare that secret of his life which, like an escaped convict, dragged behind it the broken chain of the prison-house. _David Leone is dead!_ To uncover, even to their own eyes only, the fact that lay hidden behind those words was like personating the priest and listening at the grating of the confessional! No matter! She must do it! She must reveal herself as her heart and instinct might direct. She must claim the parentage of the noblest soul that ever died for liberty, and David Rossi must trust his secret to the bond of blood which would make it impossible for her to betray the foster-son of her own father. Having come to this conclusion, the light seemed to break in her heavy sky, but the clouds were charged with electricity. As they returned to the studio she was excited and a little hysterical, for she thought the time was near. At that moment a regiment of soldiers passed along under the ilex trees to the Pincio, with their band of music playing as they marched. "Ah, the dear old days!" said David Rossi. "Everything reminds me of them! I remember that when she was six...." "Roma?" "Yes--a regiment of troops returned from a glorious campaign, and the doctor took us to see the illuminations and rejoicings. We came to a great piazza almost as large as the piazza of St. Peter's, with fountains and a tall column in the middle of it." "I know--Trafalgar Square!" "Dense crowds covered the square, but we found a place on the steps of a church." "I remember--St. Martin's Church. You see, I know London." "The soldiers came in by the big railway station close by...." "Charing Cross, isn't it." "And they marched to the tune of the 'British Grenadiers' and the thunder of fifty thousand throats. And as their general rode past, a beacon of electric lights in the centre of the square blazed out like an aureole about the statue of a great Englishman who had died long ago for the cause which had then conquered." "Gordon!" she cried--she was losing herself every moment. "'Look, darling!' said the doctor to little Roma. And Roma said, 'Papa, is it God?' I was a tall boy then, and stood beside him. 'She'll never forget that, David,' he said." "And she didn't ... she couldn't ... I mean.... Have you ever told me what became of her?" She would reveal herself in a moment--only a moment--after all, it was delicious to play with this sweet duplicity. "Have you?" she said in a tremulous voice. His head was down. "Dead!" he answered, and the tool dropped out of her hand on to the floor. "I was five years in America after the police expelled me from London, and when I returned to England I went back to the little shop in Soho." She was staring at him and holding her breath. He was looking out of the window. "The same people were there, and their own daughter was a grown-up girl, but Roma was gone." 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.
"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. |
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