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The Eternal City, a novel by Hall Caine |
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Part 6. The Roman Of Rome - Chapter 5 |
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_ PART SIX. THE ROMAN OF ROME CHAPTER V Early next morning Roma received a visit from the lawyer who conducted the business of her landlord. He was a middle-aged man in pepper-and-salt tweeds, and his manner was brusque and aggressive. "Sorry to say, Excellency, that I've had a letter from Count Mario at Paris saying that he will require this apartment for his own use. He regrets to be compelled to disturb you, but having frequently apprised you of his intention to live here himself...." "When does he want to come?" said Roma. "At Easter." "That will do. My aunt is ill, but if she is fit to be moved...." "Thanks! And may I perhaps present...." A paper in the shape of a bill came from the breast-pocket of the pepper-and-salt tweeds. Roma took it, and, without looking at it, replied: "You will receive your rent in a day or two." "Thanks again. I trust I may rely on that. And meantime...." "Well?" "As I am personally responsible to the Count for all moneys due to him, may I ask your Excellency to promise me that nothing shall be removed from this apartment until my arrears of rent have been paid?" "I promise that you shall receive what is due from me in two days. Is not that enough?" The pepper-and-salt tweeds bowed meekly before Roma's flashing eyes. "Good-morning, sir." "Good-morning, Excellency." The man was hardly out of the house when a woman was shown in. It was Madame Sella, the fashionable modiste. "So unlucky, my dear! I'm driven to my wits' end for money. The people I deal with in Paris are perfect demons, and are threatening all sorts of pains and penalties if I don't send them a great sum straight away. Of course if I could get my own money in, it wouldn't matter. But the dear ladies of society are so slow, and naturally I don't like to go to their gentlemen, although really I've waited so long for their debts that if...." "Can you wait one day longer for mine?" "Donna Roma! And we've always been such friends, too!" "You'll excuse me this morning, won't you?" said Roma, rising. "Certainly. I'm busy, too. So good of you to see me. Trust I've not been _de trop_. And if it hadn't been for those stupid bills of mine...." Roma sat down and wrote a letter to one of the _strozzini_ (stranglers), who lend money to ladies on the security of their jewels. "I wish to sell my jewellery," she wrote, "and if you have any desire to buy it, I shall be glad if you can come to see me for this purpose at four o'clock to-morrow." "Roma!" cried a fretful voice. She was sitting in the boudoir, and her aunt was calling to her from the adjoining room. The old lady, who had just finished her toilet, and was redolent of perfume and scented soap, was propped up on pillows between the mirror and her Madonna, with her cat purring on the cushion at the foot of her bed. "Ah, you do come to me sometimes, don't you?" she said, with her embroidered handkerchief at her lips. "What is this I hear about the carriage and horses? Sold them! It is incredible. I will not believe it unless you tell me so yourself." "It is quite true, Aunt Betsy. I wanted money for various purposes, and among others to pay my debts," said Roma. "Goodness! It's true! Give me my salts. There they are--on the card-table beside you.... So it's true! It's really true! You've done some extraordinary things already, miss, but this ... Mercy me! Selling her horses! And she isn't ashamed of it!... I suppose you'll sell your clothes next, or perhaps your jewels." "That's just what I want to do, Aunt Betsy." "Holy Virgin! What are you saying, girl? Have you lost all sense of decency? Sell your jewels! Goodness! Your ancestral jewels! You must have grown utterly heartless as well as indifferent to propriety, or you wouldn't dream of selling the treasures that have come down to you from your own mother's breast, as one might say." "My mother never set eyes on any of them, auntie, and if some of them belonged to my grandmother, she must have been a good woman because she was the mother of my father, and she would rather see me sell them all than live in debt and disgrace." "Go on! Go on with your English talk! Or perhaps it's American, is it? You want to kill me, that's what it is! You will, too, and sooner than you expect, and then you'll be sorry and ashamed ... Go away! Why do you come to worry me? Isn't it enough ... Natalina! Nat-a-_lina_!" Late that night Roma resumed her letter to David Rossi:
"You want to know all that is happening, and here goes again. The tyrannies of military rule increase daily, and some of its enormities are past belief. Military court sat all day yesterday and polished off eighty-five poor victims. Ten of them got ten years, twenty got five years, and about fifty got periods of one month to twelve. "Lawyer Napoleon F. was here this afternoon to say that he had seen Bruno and begun work in his defence. Strangely enough he finds a difficulty in a quarter from which it might least be expected. Bruno himself is holding off in some unaccountable way which gives Napoleon F. an idea that the poor soul is being got at. Apparently--you will hardly credit it--he is talking doubtfully about you, and asking incredible questions about his wife. Lawyer Napoleon actually inquired if there was 'anything in it,' and the thing struck me as so silly that I laughed out in his face. It was very wrong of me not to be jealous, wasn't it? Being a woman, I suppose I ought to have leapt at the idea, according to all the natural laws of love. I didn't, and my heart is still tranquil. But poor Bruno was more human, and Napoleon has an idea that something is going on inside the prison. He is to go there again to-morrow and to let me know. "Such doings at home too! I've been two years in debt to my landlord, and at the end of every quarter I've always prayed like a modest woman to be allowed to pass by unnoticed. Celebrity has fallen on me at last, though, and I'm to go at Easter. Madame de Trop, too, has put the screw on, and everybody else is following suit. Yesterday, for example, I had the honour of a call from every one in the world to whom I owed twopence. Remembering how hard it used to be to get a bill out of these people, I find their sudden business ardour humorous. They do not deceive me nevertheless. I see the die is cast, the fact is known. I have fallen from my high estate of general debtor to everybody and become merely an honest woman. "Do I suffer from these slings of fortune? Not an atom. When I was rich, or seemed to be so, I was often the most miserable woman in the world, and now I'm happy, happy, happy! "There is only one thing makes me a little unhappy. Shall I tell you what it is? Yes, I _will_ tell you because your heart is so true, and like all brave men you are so tender to all women. It is a girl friend of mine--a very close and dear friend, and she is in trouble. A little while ago she was married to a good man, and they love each other dearer than life, and there ought to be nothing between them. But there is, and it is a very serious thing too, although nobody knows about it but herself and me. How shall I tell you? Dearest, you are to think my head is on your breast and you cannot see my face while I tell you my poor friend's secret. Long ago--it seems long--she was the victim of another man. That is really the only word for it, because she did not consent. But all the same she feels that she has sinned and that nothing on earth can wash away the stain. The worst fact is that her husband knows nothing about it. This fills her with measureless regret and undying remorse. She feels that she ought to have told him, and so her heart is full of tears, and she doesn't know what it is her duty to. "I thought I would ask you to tell me, dearest. You are kind, but you mustn't spare her. I didn't. She wanted to draw a veil over her frailty, but I wouldn't let her. I think she would like to confess to her husband, to pour out her heart to him, and begin again with a clean page, but she is afraid. Of course she hasn't really been faithless, and I could swear on my life she loves her husband only. And then her sorrow is so great, and she is beginning to look worn with lying awake at nights, though some people still think she is beautiful. I dare say you will say, serve her right for deceiving a good man. So do I sometimes, but I feel strangely inconsistent about my poor friend, and a woman has a right to be inconsistent, hasn't she? Tell me what I am to say to her, and please don't spare her because she is a friend of mine."
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