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The Eternal City, a novel by Hall Caine |
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Part 9. The People - Chapter 9 |
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_ PART NINE. THE PEOPLE CHAPTER IX It was ten days later. Rossi had surrendered to Parliament, but Parliament had declined to order his arrest. Then he had called for the liberation of Roma, but Roma had neither been liberated nor removed. "It will not be necessary," was the report of the doctor at the Castle to the officers of the Prefetura. The great liberator and remover was on his way. At Rossi's request Dr. Fedi had been called in, and he had diagnosed the case exactly. Roma was suffering from an internal disease, which was probably hereditary, but certainly incurable. Strain and anxiety had developed it earlier in life than usual, but in any case it must have come. At first Rossi rebelled with all his soul and strength. To go through this long and fierce fight with life, and to come out victorious, and then, when all seemed to promise peace and a kind of tempered happiness, to be met by Death--the unconquerable, the inevitable--it was terrible, it was awful! He called in specialists; talked of a change of air; even brought himself, when he was far enough away from Roma, to the length of suggesting an operation. The doctors shook their heads. At last he bowed his own head. His bride-wife must leave him. He must live on without her. Meantime Roma was cheerful, and at moments even gay. Her gaiety was heart-breaking. Blinding bouts of headache were her besetting trouble, but only by the moist red eyes did any one know anything about that. When people asked her how she felt, she told them whatever she thought they wished to hear. It brought a look of relief to their faces, and that made her very happy. With Rossi, during these ten days, she had carried on the fiction that she was getting better. This was to break the news to him, and he on his part, to break the news to her, had pretended to believe the story. They made Elena help the little artifice, and even engaged the doctors in their mutual deception. "And how is my darling to-day?" "Splendid! There's really nothing to do with me. It's true I have suffered. That's why I look so pale. But I'm better now. Elena will tell you how well I slept last night. Didn't I sleep well, Elena? Elena.... Poor Elena is going a little deaf and doesn't always speak when she is spoken to. But I'm all right, David. In fact, I'll feel no pain at all before long, and then I shall be well." "Yes, dear, you'll feel no pain at all before long, and then you'll be well." It was pitiful. All their words seemed to be laden with double meanings. They could find none that were not. But the time had come when Roma resolved she must speak plainly. Rossi had lifted her into the loggia. He did so every day, carrying her, not on his arm as a woman carries a child, but against his breast, as a man carries his wife when he loves her. She always put her arms around his neck, pretending it was necessary for her safety, and when he had laid her gently in the bed-chair she pulled down his head and kissed him. The two little journeys were the delight of the day to Roma, but to Rossi they were a deepening trouble. It was the sweetest day of the sweet Roman spring, and Roma wore a light tea-gown with a coil of white silk about her head such as is seen in the portraits of Beatrice Cenci. The golden complexion was quite gone, there was a hard line along the cheek, a deep shadow under the chin, the nostrils were pinched and the mouth was drawn. But the large eyes, though heavy with pain, were full of joy. They did not weep any more, for all their tears were shed, and the light of another world was reflected in their depths. Rossi sat by her side, and she took one of his hands and held it on her lap between both her own. Sometimes she looked at him and then she smiled. She, who had lost him for a little while, had got him back at last. It was only just in time. A little break, and they would continue this--there. Ah, she was very happy! Rossi's free hand was supporting his head, and he was trying to look another way. Do what he would to conquer it, the spirit of rebellion was rising in his heart again. "O God, is this just? Is this right?" They were alone on the loggia. Above was the cloudless blue sky, below was the city, hardly seen or heard. "David," she began, in a faint voice. "Dearest?" "I have been so happy in having you with me again that there is something I have forgotten to tell you." "What is it, dear?" "Promise me you will not be shocked or startled." "What is it, dearest?" he repeated, although he knew too well. "It is nothing.... Yes, hold my hands tight. So!... Really it's nothing. And yet it is everything. It is ... it is death." "Roma!" Her eyelids trembled, but she tried to laugh. "Yes, dear. True! Not immediately. Oh, no! not immediately. But signed and sealed, you know, and not to be put aside that anybody may be happy much longer." She was laughing almost gaily. But all the same she was watching him closely, and now that her word was spoken she suddenly became conscious of a secret desire which she had not suspected. She wanted him to contradict her, to tell her she was quite wrong, to convince and defeat her. "Poor little me! Pity, isn't it? It would have been so sweet to go on a little longer--especially after this reconciliation. And when one has kept one's heart under bolt and bar so long...." Her sad gaiety was breaking down. "But it's better so, isn't it?" He did not reply. "Ah, yes, it's better so when you come to think of it." "It's terrible!" said Rossi. "Don't say that. It's a thing of every day. Here, there, everywhere. God wouldn't allow it to go on if it were terrible." "It's bitterly cruel for all that." "Not so cruel as life. Not nearly. For instance, if I lived you would have to put me away, and that would be harder to bear than death--far harder." "My darling! What are you saying?" "It's true, dear. You know it's true. God can forgive a woman even if she's a sinner, but the world can't if she's only a victim of sin. It's part of the cruelty of things, but there's no use repining." "Roma," said Rossi, "I take God to witness that if that were all that stood between us nothing and nobody should separate you and me. I should tell the world that you had every virtue and every heroism, and without you I could do nothing." Her eyes filled with a fresh joy. "You set me too high still, dear. Yet you know that I was far too small and weak for your great work. That was why I failed you at the end. It wasn't my fault that I betrayed you..." "Don't speak of my betrayal. I thank God for it, and see now that it was the best that could have happened." She closed her eyes. "Is it your own voice, dearest? Really yours? Hush! I shall wake and the dream will pass." A little jet from his heart of flame burst out in spite of his warning brain, and he was carried away for the moment. "My poor darling, you must get well for my sake. You must think of nothing but getting well. Then we'll go away somewhere--to Switzerland, as you said in your letter. Or perhaps to England, where you were born, and where your father lived his years of exile. Dear old England! Motherland of liberty! I'll show you all the places." She was dizzy with the beautiful vision. "Oh, if I could only go on like this for ever! But I mustn't listen to you, dearest. It's no use, you know. Now, is it?" The spirit which had exalted him for a moment took flight, and his heart rose into his throat. "Now, is it?" she repeated. He did not answer, and she dropped back with a sigh. Ah, it was cruel fencing. Every word was a sword, and it was cutting a hundred ways. At that moment a band of music passed down the street. Roma, who loved bands of music, asked Rossi to lift her up that she might look at it. A little drummer boy was marching at the head of a procession, gaily rolling his rataplan. "He reminds me of little Joseph," she said, and she laughed heartily. Strange mystery of life that robs death of all its terrors! He put his arm about her to support her as they stood by the parapet, and this brought a new tremor of affection, as well as a little of the old physical thrill and a world of fond and tender memories. She looked into his eyes, he looked into hers; they both looked across to Trinita de' Monti, and in the eye-asking between them she said plainly, "Do you remember--over there?" Roma was assisted back to the bed-chair, and then, conversation being impossible, Rossi began to read. Every day he had read something. Roma had made the selections. They were always about the great lovers--Francesca and Paolo, Dante and Beatrice, even Alfred de Musset and poor John Keats, with the skull cap which burnt his brain. To-day it was Roma's favourite poem:
"Roma!" She opened her eyes and smiled. "Not yet, dear--soon," she said. [THE END] _ |
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