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The Eternal City, a novel by Hall Caine |
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Part 7. The Pope - Chapter 3 |
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_ PART SEVEN. THE POPE CHAPTER III The Pope, dressed wholly in white, was seated in a simple chair by a little table in a homely room, surrounded by bookcases and some busts of former pontiffs. There were little domesticities of intimate life about him, an empty soup-dish, a cruet-stand, a plate and a spoon. He had a face of great sweetness and spirituality, and as Roma approached he bent his head and smiled a fatherly smile. She knelt and kissed his ring, and continued to kneel by his chair, putting one hand on the arm. He placed his own mittened hand over hers and patted it tenderly, while he looked into her face. The little nervous perturbation with which Roma had entered the room began to leave her, and in the awful wearer of the threefold crown she saw nothing but a simple, loving human being. A feminine sense crept over her, a sense of nursing, almost of motherhood, and at that first moment she felt as if she wanted to do something for the gentle old man. Then he began to speak. His voice had that tone which comes to the voice of a man who has the sense of sex strong in him, when a woman is with him and his accents soften perceptibly. "My daughter," he said, "Father Pifferi has spoken about you, and by your permission, as I understand it, he has repeated the story you told him. You have suffered, and you have my sympathy. And though you are not among the number of my children, I sent for you, that, as an old man to a young woman, by God's grace I might strengthen you and support you." She kissed his ring again and continued to kneel by the arm of his chair. "Long ago, my child, I knew one who was in something like the same position, and perhaps it is the memory of what befell that poor soul which impels me to speak to you.... But she is dead, her story is dead too; let time and nature cover them." His voice had a slight tremor. She looked up. There was a hush, a momentary thrill. Then he smiled again and patted her hand once more. "You must not let the world weaken you, my child, or cause you to doubt the validity of your marriage. Whether it is a good marriage, in effect as well as intention (one of you being still unbaptized), it is for the Church, not the world, to decide." Again Roma kissed the ring of the Pope, and again he patted the hand that lay under his. "Nevertheless, there is something I wish you to do, my daughter," he said, in the same low tones. "I wish you to tell your husband." "Holy Father," said Roma, "I have already told him. I had done so before I spoke to Father Pifferi, but only under the disguise of another woman's story." "And what did your husband say?" "He said what your Holiness says. He was very charitable and noble; so I took heart and told him everything." "And what did he say then?" A cloud crossed her face. "Holy Father, he has not yet said anything." "Not anything?" "He is away; he has not replied to my letter." "Has there been time?" "More than time, your Holiness, but still I hear nothing." "And what is your conclusion?" "That my letter has awakened some pity, but now that he knows _I_ am the wife I spoke about and _he_ is the husband intended, he cannot forgive me as he said the husband would forgive, and his generous soul is in distress." "My daughter, could you wish me to speak to him?" The cloud fled from her face. "It is more than I deserve, far more, but if the Holy Father would do that...." "Then I must know the names--you must tell me everything." "Yes, yes!" "Who is your father, my child?" "My father died in banishment. He was a Liberal--he was Prince Prospero Volonna." "As I thought. Who was the other man?" "He was a distant kinsman of my father's, and I have lately discovered that he was the principal instrument in my father's deportation. He was my guardian, a Minister and a great man in Italy. It is the Baron Bonelli, your Holiness." "Just so, just so!" said the Pope, tapping his foot in obvious heat. "But go on, my child. Who is your husband?" "My husband is a different kind of man altogether." "Ah!" "He has done everything for me, Holy Father--everything. Heaven knows what I should have been now without him." "God bless him! God bless both of you!" "I came to know him by the strangest accident. He is a Liberal too, and a Deputy, and thinking of the corruptions of the Government, he pointed to me as the mistress of the Minister. It was not true, but I was degraded, and ... and I set out to destroy him." "A terrible vengeance, my child. Only the Minister could have thought of it." "Then I found that my enemy was one of my father's friends, and a true and noble man. Holy Father, I had begun in hate, but I could not hate him. The darkness faded away from my soul, and something bright and beautiful came in its place. I loved him, and he loved me. With all our hearts we loved each other." "And then?" "Then _he_ came back to me. I knew all the secrets I had set out to learn, but I could not give them up, and when I refused he threatened me." "And what did you do?" "I married my husband and withstood every temptation. It wasn't so very hard, for I cared nothing for wealth and luxury now. I only wanted to be good. God Himself should see how good I could be." The Pope's eyes were moist. He was patting the young woman's trembling hand. "My blessing rest on you, my daughter, and may the man you have married be worthy of your love and trust." "Indeed, indeed he is," said Roma. "He was your father's friend, you tell me?" "Yes, your Holiness, and although we met again so recently, I had known him in England when I was a child." "A Liberal, you say?" "Yes, your Holiness." "The enmity of the Minister was the fruit of political warfare?" "Nothing but that at first, though now...." "I see, I see. And the secrets you speak of are only...." "Only the doings of twenty years ago, which are dead and done with." "Then your husband is older than you are?" The young woman broke into a sunny smile, which set the Pope smiling. "Only ten years older, your Holiness. He is thirty-four." "Where does he come from, and what was his father?" "He was born in Rome, but he does not know who his father was." "What is he like to look upon?" "He is like ... I have never seen any one so like ... will your Holiness forgive me?" The colour had mounted to her eyes, her two rows of pearly teeth seemed to be smiling, and the sunny old face of the Pope was smiling too. "Say what you please, my daughter." "I have never seen any one so like the Holy Father," she said softly. Her head was held down and there was a little nervous tremor at her heart. The Pope patted her hand affectionately. "Have I asked you his name, my child?" "His name is David Rossi." The Pope rose suddenly from his seat, and for the first time his face looked dark and troubled. "David Rossi?" he repeated in a husky voice. Roma began to tremble. "Yes," she faltered. "David Rossi, the Revolutionary?" "Indeed no, your Holiness, he is not that." "But, my child, my child, he is the founder of a revolutionary society which this very day the Holy Father has condemned." He walked across the room and she rose to her feet and looked after him. "One of the men who are conspiring against the peace of the Church--banded together to fight the Church and its head." "Don't say that, your Holiness. He is religious, deeply religious, and far more an enemy of the Government and the King." She began to talk wildly, almost aimlessly, trying to defend Rossi at all costs. "Holy Father," she said, "shall I tell you a secret? There is nobody else in the world to whom I could tell it, but I can tell it to you. My husband is now in England organising a great scheme among the exiles and refugees of Italy. What it is I don't know, but he has told me that it will lead to the conquest of the country and the downfall of the throne. Whether it is to be a conspiracy in the ordinary sense, or a constitutional plan of campaign, he has not said, but everything tells me that it is directed against the politics of Rome, and not against its religion, and is intended to overthrow the King, and not the Pope." The Pope, who had been standing with his back to Roma, turned round to her with a look of fright. His eyebrows had met over the vertical lines on his forehead, and this further reminder of another face threw Roma into still greater confusion. "'When I come back, it will be with such a force behind me as will make the prisons open their doors and the thrones of tyrants tremble.' That's what he said, your Holiness. The movement will come soon, too, I am sure it will, and then your Holiness will see that, instead of being irreligious men, the leaders of the people...." The Pope held up his hand. "Stop!" he cried. "Say no more, my child. God knows what I must do with what you have said already." Then Roma saw what she had done in the wild gust of her emotion, and in her terror she tried to take it back. "Holy Father, you must not think from what I say that David Rossi is for revolution and regicide...." "Don't speak, my child. You cannot know what an earthquake you have opened at my feet. Let me think!" There was silence for a moment, and then Roma gulped down the great lumps in her throat and said: "I am only an ignorant woman, Holy Father, and perhaps I have said too much, and do not understand. But what I have told your Holiness was told me in love and confidence. And the Holy Father is wise and good, and whatever he does will be for the best." The Pope returned to his chair with a bewildered look, and did not seem to hear. Roma sank to her knees by his side and said in a low, pleading tone: "My husband's faith in me is so beautiful, your Holiness. Oh, so beautiful. I am the only one in the world to whom he has told all his secrets, and if any of them should ever come back to him...." "Don't be afraid, my daughter. What you said in simple confidence shall be as sacred as if it had been spoken under the seal of the confessional." "If I could tell your Holiness more about him--who he is and where he comes from--a place so lowly and humble, your Holiness...." "Tell me no more, my child. It is better I should not know. Pity ought to have no place in what duty tells me to do. But I can love David Rossi for all that. I do love him. I love him as a lost and wayward son, whose hand is raised against his Father, though he knows it not." There was a bell button on the Pope's chair. He pressed it, and the Participante returned to the room without knocking. The Pope rose and took Roma's hand. "Go in peace and with my blessing, my child. I bless you! May my fatherly blessing keep you pure in heart, may it strengthen you in all temptations, comfort you in all trials, avert from you every evil omen, and bring you into the fold of Christ's children at the last." The Participante stepped forward and signed to Roma to withdraw. She rose and left the presence chamber, stepping backward and too much moved to speak. Not until the door had been closed did she realise that she was crossing the throne room, and that the Bussolante was walking beside her. _ |
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