She had gone to confession again and again, for she had been brought up to be very devout. Her confessor told her each time that she must avoid the man she loved and pray to forget him. She answered that her husband liked him and constantly asked him to the house; that she could not beg Montalto to change his attitude towards a friend without giving a good reason; and that the only reason she had was that she loved Baldassare with all her heart, though she was told it was wrong now that she was married, and she prayed that she might forget him and love her husband. Her confessor, having ascertained by further questions that she and Castiglione had avowed their love for each other in bygone days, long before her marriage, bade her appeal to the young man’s generosity, and beg him to refuse Montalto’s constant invitations and to see her as little as possible. But the confessor did not know the man. Maria followed the priest’s advice, but Baldassare utterly refused to do what she asked, and became more and more unmanageable from that day. Surely that was not her fault. It was not with this that she reproached herself. She had been afraid to tell Montalto, that was true; there had been one day, at last, when she should have confessed to him, instead of to the priest; she should have thrown herself upon his mercy and implored him to take her away. But thenshe had lacked courage. She had told herself that her husband loved her devotedly in his silent, respectful way, and that to tell him the truth would be the ruin of his happiness. She felt so sure that his honour was safe! And meanwhile Castiglione grew more passionate every day, more reckless and more uncontrollable; and she loved him the more, and he knew it, though she would not tell him so. She accused herself of that. She should have gone to her husband for protection, for his happiness was far less to him then than his honour. Some women would have invented an untruth as a means justified by the end. Maria might have told Montalto that she was suffering a persecution odious to her; she would have saved her husband’s honour and happiness together, and would even have raised her higher in his esteem. But she could not do it. It would be base, treacherous, and faithless. So she waited and prayed against her heart, and hoped against Castiglione’s nature. Then came the evil hour and it was too late; too late even to lie. She accused herself of having put off too long the one act that could have saved her. But still, and to the end, she had told herself that she had been strong, that she had resisted her own passion as well as the ruthless man who loved her. She had been innocent, she repeated; and she had told her confessor nothing more until she believed that she had changed, and that she hated the man she had loved so well. Then the priest, who was not worldly wise, warned her gently against anything so un-Christian as hatred, and counselled her to forget and to growindifferent and to devote herself to her husband’s happiness. That sounded very easy to the poor priest.
After that she had altogether given up asking advice of him, and she had let herself be guided by her own sense of honour. Besides, the day soon came when Montalto accused her; and he would not have believed her if she had thrown the whole blame on her lover, for she could not lie and say she had never loved him. So she had not defended herself, and the great wave had gone over her head, and her husband, broken-hearted, had left her for ever; but he had done it in such a way that there had been no open scandal. He had gone to Spain and had come back again, and had gone away again and had stayed longer; he had spoken to his friends of his mother’s wretched health; she could not live in Italy, and Maria could not live in Spain, and he could not be in both places at once. The separation, so far as the world saw it, came by degrees, till it was permanent. Montalto and his wife were not the first couple that had separated quietly, without quarrelling in public, simply because they did not like each other. People did not always know where Maria spent her summers with her child, and the good-natured ones used to say that she saw her husband then; and she lived in such a way in Rome that the blame was all laid on Montalto, and Teresa Crescenzi’s story was believed. Montalto was a brute, who had often struck his wife when he was in one of his fits of anger, and she was little less than a saint.
Castiglione sat waiting for his answer. Would shetell him that he might come back and live near her? Or would she grow hard and cold once more, and bid him go away again, and for ever?
After a long time she raised her head and looked at him quietly.
‘I cannot answer you at once,’ she said; ‘but I promise that I will. You said yesterday that you had a fortnight’s leave. When I have made up my mind what to do I shall let you know, and you must come and see me again.’
Castiglione shook his head gravely and said nothing.
‘What is the matter?’ asked Maria.
‘I suppose you are going to ask advice of your confessor,’ he answered very sadly, and not at all in contempt.
But Maria lifted her head proudly.
‘No,’ she said, ‘I am going to ask myself what is right. And in my thoughts my child shall be the man I hope to make him, and I will ask him what is honourable.’
‘Will you not trust me for that?’ Castiglione asked, and his face lightened.
‘That I even consent to ask myself shows that I trust you more than I did when you surprised me here not half an hour ago. And now please leave me, for I want to be alone. Perhaps I shall send for you to-morrow, or perhaps not for a week. If we chance to meet anywhere, come and speak to me, for people will think it strange if we avoid each other. But I shall ask you to come here for the answer to your question.’
‘Thank you,’ he answered gratefully.
Their hands touched each other for a moment, but neither spoke again, and he went quietly out.
Maria did not send for Castiglione the next day, nor during a number of days afterwards, and Giuliana Parenzo saw that she was very much preoccupied and was not looking well. The elder woman was far too good a friend to ask questions, and when the two were together she did her best to amuse Maria by her talk. The Marchesa was not particularly witty, but she sometimes told a story with little touches of humour that were quite her own. Very good women are rarely witty, but they often have a happy faculty of seeing the funny side of things. Wit wounds, but humour disarms.
Giuliana saw, too, that Maria did not like to be alone, even with Leone. The truth was that she slept little and was very nervous. Something had come back from the past to haunt her; often a nameless horror came near her, not at night only, for it was not the fear of an overwrought imagination, but in broad daylight too, when she was alone and chanced to be doing nothing. It was the more dreadful because she could not define it; she could not say that it was caused by the question Castiglione had asked her, and which she had promised to answer, but when she thought of that her mind refused to be reasonable, and the horror came upon her,and she felt that utter ruin was close at hand, lying in wait for her. She remembered the sensation well in the old days; she had sometimes fancied then that she was going mad, and had made great efforts to control herself, but she had never thought of asking a doctor what it was, for she had believed, and believed now, that it was a state of mind rather than the mere effect of anxiety and mental fatigue on her body. So she suffered much, and quite uselessly; but that was a small matter compared with the fact that she had promised Castiglione an answer before his fortnight’s leave was over, and that after several days she was no nearer to finding one than when he had left her.
Again and again she thought of telling Giuliana all her trouble and asking her advice, but she was always deterred by an inward conviction that her friend would not understand. She was mistaken in this, but she could not believe that she was. Giuliana knew something, of course; all Rome believed Teresa Crescenzi’s story, of which the starting-point was that she had loved Baldassare del Castiglione innocently, and it was Giuliana who had repeated the tale to her. Maria had shaken her head, and had answered that there was not much truth in it, but that people might as well believe it as invent any other story, since she would never tell any one, not even Giuliana, exactly what had happened.
‘It does not concern me only,’ she had said gravely.
Giuliana had asked no questions, and Maria had been sure that there would never be any need of referring to her secret again.
But now the past had come back to ask a question which she could not answer. She had been in earnest when she had told Baldassare proudly that she did not mean to go to a priest for advice. He disliked all priests out of prejudice, as she knew. There might be good and bad soldiers, lawyers, writers, artists, or workmen, but in his estimation there could be very few good priests. Yet it was not to please him that she had said she would not go to her confessor; it was simply because she was quite sure that she could trust her own conscience and her own sense of honour to show her the right way; and perhaps she might have trusted both if her nerves had not failed her at the critical moment and left her apparently helpless. She was in great need of help and advice, and did not know where to go for either.
Meanwhile she had not met Castiglione again. The season was over, and even at its height she did not go out much. Society is always dull when one has no object in joining in its inane revels—love, ambition, stupid vanity, or a daughter to marry—unless, indeed, one possesses the temperament of a butterfly combined with the intelligence of an oyster. So it had been quite natural that Maria should not have met Castiglione during those days, and she had not chanced to meet him in the street. On his side, he had kept away from the part of the city in which she lived, but he had gone to every friend’s house and public place where he thought there was a possibility of meeting her.
After a week they met by what seemed an accidentto them both. Maria was almost ill, and could no longer bear her trouble without some help. There was in Rome a good priest of her own class—a man in ten thousand, a man of heart, a man of courage, a man of the highest honour and of the purest life. If she had not always disliked the idea of meeting her confessor in the world, she would have chosen this man for hers long ago. If he had been in Rome in the darkest months of her life she would certainly have gone to him for advice; but he had then been working as a parish priest in a remote and fever-stricken part of the Maremma, and it was because his health had broken down that he had been obliged to give up his labours and come back to Rome. He was now a Canon of Saint Peter’s, and was employed as Secretary to the Cardinal Vicar, but found time to occupy himself with matters nearer to his heart. His name was Monsignor Ippolito Saracinesca; he was the second son of Don Giovanni, the head of the great family, and he was about forty years old.
To him Maria Montalto determined to go in her extremity. She was not quite sure how she should tell him her story, but for the sake of what she had said to Castiglione she would not put it in the form of a confession. She would not need to tell so much of it but that she could lay it before him as an imaginary case—which is a foolish device when it is meant to hide a secret, but is useful as a means of communicating one that is hard to tell.
Monsignor Saracinesca was generally at Saint Peter’s at about eleven o’clock, and Maria made sure of finding him there by telephoning to the Saracinesca palace, in which he had a small apartment of his own. At half-past ten she left her house alone, took a cab and drove across Rome to the Basilica. She got out at the front and went up the steps, for she had never before been to see any one in the Sacristy, and was not quite sure of what would happen if she went directly to it at the back of the church.
She entered on the right-hand side, by force of habit. There is a very heavy wadded leathern curtain there, and she had to pull it aside for herself, which was not easy. Just as she was doing this, and using all her strength, some one pushed the curtain up easily from within, and she found herself face to face with Baldassare del Castiglione, and very near him. She started violently, for she was even more nervous than usual. He himself was so much surprised that he drew his head back quickly; then he bent it silently and stood aside, holding up the curtain for her to pass, as if not expecting that she would stop to speak to him.
‘Thank you,’ she said, going in.
She tried to smile a little, just as much as one might with a word of thanks; but the effort was so great, and her face was so pale and disturbed, that it made a painful impression on him, and he watched her anxiously till she had gone a few steps forward into the church, for he was really afraid that she might faint and fall, and perhaps hurt herself, and there was no one near the door just then to help her.
But she walked straight enough, and he had just begun to lower the heavy curtain, turning his head as he passed under it, when he heard her call him sharply.
‘Balduccio!’
It was very long since she had called him familiarly by his first name, and his heart stood still at the sound of her voice. A moment later he was within the church, and met her as she was coming back to the door.
‘You called me?’
‘Yes.’
They turned to the right into the north aisle, and walked slowly forwards, side by side. There were not many people in the Basilica at that hour, for it was a week-day, and the season of the tourists was almost over. At some distance before them, two or three people were kneeling before the closed gate of the Julian Chapel. Maria and Castiglione were as much alone as if they had been in the country, and as free to talk, for no conversation, even in an ordinary tone, can be heard far in the great cathedral. Nevertheless Maria did not speak.
‘You are ill,’ Castiglione said, breaking the silence at last. ‘Let me take you to your carriage.’
‘No. I came here for a good purpose, and I cannot go home without doing what I mean to do.’
‘I wish with all my heart that I had not come back to Rome to disturb your peace! It is my fault that you are suffering.’
‘No. It is not your fault.’ She spoke gently.‘It is a consequence, that’s all. You had a right to ask me that question, and you have a right to an answer. But I cannot find one. That is what is troubling me.’
‘You are kind to me,’ said Castiglione. ‘Too kind,’ he added, and she knew by his tone how much he was moved.
She turned in her walk before she answered, for they were already near the Julian Chapel.
‘No,’ she said after a minute, and she bent her head. ‘Not too kind—if you knew all.’
He looked quickly at her face, but she did not turn to him. His heart beat hard and his throat felt suddenly dry.
‘Don’t misunderstand me,’ she said, still looking steadily down at the pavement. ‘I meant, if you knew how much I wish to be just—to myself as well as to you, Balduccio.’
‘I do not want justice,’ he answered sadly. ‘I ask for forgiveness.’
‘Yes. I know.’
She said no more, and they walked slowly on. At the little gate of Leo the Twelfth’s Chapel she stopped, and she took hold of the bars with both hands and looked in, leaving room for him to stand beside her.
‘Justice,’ she cried in a low voice, ‘justice, justice! To you, to me, to my husband! God help us all three!’
He did not understand, but he felt that a change had come over her since he had seen her a week earlier, and that it was in his favour rather than against him.
‘Justice!’ he repeated after her, but in a very different tone.‘It would have been justice if I had put a bullet through my head when I went home that night!’
Maria’s hands left the bars of the gate and grasped Castiglione’s arm above the elbow and shook it a little.
‘Never say that again!’ she cried in a stifled voice. ‘Promise me that you will never think it again! Promise!’
He was amazed at her energy and earnestness, and he understood less and less what was passing in her heart.
‘I can only promise you that I will never do it,’ he answered gravely.
‘Yes,’ she cried in the same tone, ‘promise me that! It is what I mean. Give me your sacred word of honour! Take oath to me before the Cross—there—do you see?’ she pointed with one hand through the bars to the Crucifix in the stained window, still holding him with the other. ‘Swear solemnly that you will never kill yourself, whatever happens!’
He could well have asked if she loved him still, and she could not have denied it then; but he would not, for he was in earnest too. He had not meant to trouble her life so deeply when he had come to ask her forgiveness; far less had he dreamt that the old love had survived all. A great wave of pure devotion to the woman he had wronged swept him to her feet.
It was long since he had knelt in any church; but now he was kneeling beside her as she stood, and he was looking up to the sacred figure, and his hands were joined together.
‘You have my word and promise,’ he said in deep emotion. ‘Let the God you trust be witness between you and me.’
He heard a soft sound, and she was kneeling beside him, close to the bars. Then her ungloved hand, cold and trembling, went out and rested lightly on his own for a moment.
‘Is it forgiveness?’ he asked, very low.
‘It is forgiveness,’ she said.
He pressed his forehead against his folded hands that rested upon the bars. Then he understood that she was praying, and he rose very quietly and drew back a step, as from something he held in great reverence, but in which he had no part.
She did not heed him and remained kneeling a little while, a slight and rarely graceful figure in dark grey against the rich shadows within the chapel. If any one passed near, neither he nor she was aware of it, and there was nothing in the attitude of either to excite surprise in such a place, except that it is unusual to see any one praying just there.
Maria rose at last, stood a few seconds longer before the gate, and then turned to Baldassare. Her face had changed since he had last seen it clearly; it was still pale and full of suffering, but there was light in it now. She stood beside him and looked at him quietly when she spoke.
‘I have not given you all my answer yet,’ she said.‘I will tell you why I came here, because I wish to be quite frank in all there is to be between us. I told you the other day that I would not go to my confessor for advice. At least, that is what I meant to say. Did I?’
‘Yes. That was what you said.’
‘I shall keep my word. But I am going for help to a friend who is a priest, because I have broken down. I thought I could trust my own conscience and my own sense of honour; I thought I could fancy my boy a man, and in imagination ask him what his mother should do. But I cannot. I am very tired, and my thoughts are all confused and blurred. Do you understand?’
‘Yes,’ said Castiglione; but in spite of himself his face betrayed his displeasure at the thought that an ecclesiastic should come between them.
‘I am going to see a priest whom I trust as a man,’ she went on. ‘I am going to Monsignor Saracinesca.’
‘Don Ippolito?’ Castiglione’s brow cleared, and he almost smiled.
‘Yes. Do you know him?’
‘I know him well. You could not go to a better man.’
‘I am glad to hear you say that. I may not follow his advice, after all, but I am sure he will help me to find myself again.’
‘Perhaps.’ Castiglione spoke thoughtfully, not doubtfully. Then his face hardened, but not unkindly, and the manly features set themselves in a look of brave resolution. ‘Before you go let me say something,’ he went on, after the short pause.‘You have given me more to-day than I ever hoped to have from you, Maria. I will ask nothing else, since the mere thought of seeing me often has troubled you so much. I will leave Rome to-day, and I will not come back—never, unless you send for me. Put all the rest out of your mind and be yourself again, and remember only that you have forgiven me the worst deed of my life. I can live on that till the end. Good-bye. God bless you!’
She had been looking down, but now she raised her eyes to his, and there were tears in them that did not overflow. He held out his hand, but she would not take it.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You are brave and kind, but I will not have it so. I may ask you to go away when your leave is over, but not to stay always, and after a time we shall meet again. Before going you must come and see me. I will write you a line to-night or to-morrow. Good-bye now, but only for to-day.’
She smiled faintly, bent her head a little, and turned from him to cross the nave on her way to the Sacristy. He stood by the pillar and watched her, sure that she would not look back. She moved lightly, but not fast, over the vast pavement. When she was opposite the Julian Chapel, which is the Chapel of the Sacrament, she turned towards it and bent her knee, but she rose again instantly and went on till she disappeared behind the great pilaster of the dome, at the corner of the south transept.
Then Castiglione went slowly and thoughtfully away, happier than he had been for a long time.
But Maria went on, and glanced at her watch, and hastened her steps. She left the church and traversedthe long marble corridors, where all kinds of people come and go on all sorts of business whenever the Basilica is open. In the great central hall of the Sacristy, which is as big as an ordinary church, she asked the first acolyte she met for Monsignor Saracinesca.
He was close at hand, in the Chapter-House. ‘Would the lady give her revered name?’ ‘The Countess of Montalto.’ The young man in the violet cassock bowed low. ‘Monsignor Saracinesca would certainly see her Excellency.’ ‘Her Excellency’ thanked the young man and stood aside to wait, out of the way of the many canons and other ecclesiastics, and choirmen, and singing boys, and other acolytes who were all moving hither and thither as if they were very busy about doing nothing in a hurry. In less than half a minute Ippolito Saracinesca joined her.
The churchman was a man of forty or near that, but was already very grey, and thin almost to emaciation. He had the wan complexion of those who have lived long in feverish parts of Italy, and there were many lines of suffering in his refined features, which seemed to be modelled in wax. In his youth he had been said to be like his mother’s mother, and a resemblance to her portrait was still traceable, especially in his clear brown eyes. The chief characteristics of the man’s physical nature were an unconquerable and devoted energy that could defy sickness and pain, and a very markedly ascetic temperament. Spiritually, what was strongest in him was a charity that was active, unselfish, wise and just, and that was, aboveall, of that sort which inspires hope in those whom it helps, and helps all whom it finds in need.
It was said in the precincts of the Vatican that Monsignor Saracinesca was likely to be made a cardinal at an early age. But the poor people in the Maremma said he was a saint who would not long be allowed to suffer earthly ills, and whose soul was probably already in paradise while his body was left to do good in this world till it should wear itself out and melt away like a shadow.
Ippolito Saracinesca had known only one great temptation in his life. Unlike most people who accomplish much in this world, he was a good musician, and was often tempted to bestow upon a perfectly selfish pleasure some of that precious time which he truly believed had been given him only that he might use it for others. More than once he had bound himself not to touch an instrument nor go to a concert for a whole month, because he felt that the gift was absorbing him too much.
This was the friend to whom Maria Montalto had come for advice and help, and of whom Castiglione had said that she could not have chosen a better man.
‘There is no one in the Chapter-House,’ he said, after the first friendly greeting. ‘Will you come in and sit down? I was trying to decide about the placing of another picture which we have discovered amongst our possessions.’
He led the way and Maria followed, and sat downbeside the table on one of the big chairs which were symmetrically ranged against the walls.
‘Please tell me how I can serve you,’ said Don Ippolito.
‘It is not easy to tell you,’ Maria answered. ‘I am in great perplexity and I need advice—the advice of a good man—of a friend—of some one who knows the world.’
‘Yes,’ said Monsignor Saracinesca, folding his transparent hands and looking at one of Melozzo da Forlì’s inspired angels on the opposite wall. ‘So far as you care to trust me as a friend and one who knows something of the world, I will do my best. But let us understand each other before you say anything more. This is not in any way a confession, I suppose. You wish to ask my advice in confidence. Is that it?’
‘Yes, yes! That is what it is!’
‘And you come to me as to a friend, rather than as to a priest?’
‘Oh, yes! Much more.’
‘And you trust me, merely as you would trust a friend, and without the intention of putting me under a sacred obligation of silence, by which the life and welfare of any one might hereafter be endangered. Is that what you mean?’
‘Yes, distinctly. But that will never happen. I mean that no one’s life could ever be in danger by your not telling. At least, I cannot see how.’
‘Strange things happen,’ said Don Ippolito, still looking at the angel.‘And now that we understand each other about that, I am ready. What is the difficulty?’
Maria rested her elbow on the corner of the big table and shaded her eyes with her hand for a moment. It was not easy to tell such a story as hers.
‘Do you know anything about my past life?’ she began timidly, and glancing sideways at him.
He turned his brown eyes full to hers.
‘Yes,’ he said, without hesitation. ‘I do know something, and more than a little.’
She was surprised, and looked at him with an expression of inquiry.
‘I have always known your husband very well,’ he said. ‘He wrote to me for advice when there was trouble between you. I was in the Maremma then.’
‘And it was you who advised him to leave me! Ah, I did not know!’
Maria drew back a little proudly, expecting him to admit the imputation.
‘No,’ answered Don Ippolito. ‘I did not, but he thought it wiser not to take the advice I gave him.’
Maria’s expression changed again.
‘Do you know who was—who—was the cause of his going away?’
‘Yes. I am afraid every one knows that. It was Baldassare del Castiglione, and he is in Rome again.’
‘Yes,’ Maria replied, repeating his words, ‘he is in Rome again.’
He thought he had made it easy for her to say more, if she wished to tell all, but she was silent. He hadheard Montalto’s story from beginning to end, and upon that he judged her, of course, as she had allowed herself to be judged by her husband, without the least suggestion of defence. After all, how could either of the two men judge her otherwise? How could she tell now what she had once called the truth? How near the truth was it? She would put her question as best she could.
‘My excuse is that we loved each other very, very much,’ she said in a low and timid voice. ‘It was long before I married,’ she added, a little more firmly, for she was not ashamed of that. ‘But we parted’—her voice sank to a whisper—‘we parted when it was too late. And we have never met, nor ever written one word to each other since.’
As she pronounced the last sentence she raised her head again, for she knew what that separation had cost, in spite of all—in spite of what she had called the truth.
‘That was right,’ Don Ippolito said. ‘That was your duty; but it was brave of you both to do it.’ She felt encouraged.
‘And now he is in Rome again,’ she went on. ‘He has come on leave for a few days. He came on purpose to ask my forgiveness, after all these years, because there was something to forgive—at least—he thought there was——’
She broke off, quite unable to go on.
‘You were very young,’ suggested Don Ippolito, helping her.‘You had no experience of the world. Such a man would have a very great advantage over a very young woman who had been attached to him when a girl and was unhappily married.’
But Maria had clasped her hands desperately tight together before her on the edge of the table, and she bent down now and pressed her forehead upon them. She spoke in broken words.
‘No, no! I know it now! It was not—not what I thought—oh, I can’t tell you! I can’t, I can’t!’
She was breaking down, for she was worn-out and fearfully overwrought. Then Monsignor Saracinesca spoke quietly, but in a tone of absolute authority.
‘Tell me nothing more,’ he said. ‘This is not a confession, and I cannot allow you to go on. Try to get control of yourself so that you may go home quietly.’
He rose as he spoke, but she stretched her hand out across the table to stop him.
‘No—please don’t go away! I have said I forgive him—if there is anything to forgive—may I say that he is to come back? May I see him sometimes? We are so sure of ourselves, he and I, after all these years——’
Monsignor Saracinesca’s brows bent with a little severity.
‘Montalto is living,’ he said,‘and he is a broken-hearted man. Since you and he parted you have borne his name as honourably as you could, you have done what was in your power to atone for your fault by not seeing your lover. I am frank, you see. Montalto knows how you have lived and is not unjust nor ungrateful. But for his mother, I think a reconciliation would be possible.’
Maria started at the words, and turned even paler than before.
‘A reconciliation!’ she cried in a low and frightened voice.
‘Yes,’ answered Don Ippolito, who had resumed his seat. ‘He loves you still. It is my firm belief that he has never bestowed a thought on any other woman since he first wished to marry you. I know beyond all doubt that since he left you he has led a life such as few men of the world ever lead. No doubt he has his defects, as a man of the world. I daresay he is not one of those men with whom it is easy to live, and he is a melancholy and depressing person. But so far as the rest is concerned——’
He stopped, feeling that he was perhaps defending his friend too warmly. Maria had bent her head again, and sat with her hands lying dejectedly on her knees.
‘You know more,’ she said sadly. ‘He has written you that he is coming back!’
‘No. I only think it possible. But if he did, could you refuse to live under his roof? Has he wronged you?’
‘He meant to be just! But if he should come back—oh, no, no, no! For God’s sake, not that!’
She bent her head lower still, and spoke scarcely above a whisper.
‘Remember that he has the right, that it lies with him to forgive, not with you. If he should do that, and should come, would you not be glad to feel that after all you had done your best? That so far as you could help it you had not seen your lover, nor encouraged him, nor given him the slightest cause to think you would? You could at least receive your husband’s forgiveness with a clear conscience. At least you could say that you had not failed again!’
Don Ippolito waited a moment, but Maria could not speak, or had no answer ready for him. He went on, quietly and kindly.
‘But if you allow Castiglione to come back and live here, and to see you, even rarely, it will all be different. Think only of what the world will say; and what the world says will be repeated to your husband. You have broken his heart, and all but ruined his life; remember that he loves you as much as your lover ever did; think what he has felt, what he has suffered! And then consider, too, that if anything has softened the bitterness of his pain, it has been the faultless life you have led since. Before God it is enough to do right, but before the world it is not. Men do not accept the truth unless it is outwardly proved to them. That is a part of the social contract by which our outward lives are bound. Allow Castiglione to come to Rome, to be seen with you and at your house, even now and then, and the world will have no mercy. It will say that you are tired of your loneliness, and have taken him back to be to you what he was. Then people will laugh at Teresa Crescenzi’s clever story instead of believing it. You came to me as to a friend, and as what you call a man of the world, and I give you what I think will be the world’s view. Am I right, or not?’
There was a long pause. Then Maria tried to meet the good man’s earnest eyes, but her own wandered to one of the angels on the wall.
‘You are right,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Yes, you are right. I see it now.’
Her gaze was fixed upon the lovely frescoed head, with its glory of golden hair and its look of heavenly innocence. But she did not see it; she was thinking that if she did right she must tell Castiglione never to come back, and that the aching, lonely life that had seemed once more so full for a brief space was to begin again to-morrow, and was to last until she died. And she was thinking that her husband might come back.
Monsignor Saracinesca waited quietly after she had spoken, for since she admitted the truth of what he urged he felt that there was nothing more to say. After a little while Maria collected her strength for the effort and rose from her seat, still resting one hand on the great table.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You have been very kind. All you have told me is true. I shall try to follow your advice.’
‘I hope you will,’ answered the Churchman. ‘You will not find it so hard as you think.’
She smiled faintly, as gentle people do sometimes when they are in great pain and well-disposed persons tell them that suffering is all a matter of imagination.
‘Oh, no!’ she answered.‘I shall find it very, very hard.’
The grey-haired man sighed and smiled at her so sadly and kindly that she felt herself drawn to him even more than before. She was standing close to him now, and looked up trustfully to his spiritual face and deeply thoughtful eyes.
‘I did not know I loved him so much till he came back,’ she said simply. ‘How could I? I did not guess that I had forgiven him long ago!’
‘Poor child! God help you!’
‘I need help.’ She was silent for a moment, and then looked down. ‘Do you write to my husband?’ she asked timidly.
‘Sometimes. I have little time for writing letters. Should you like to send him any message?’
‘Oh, no!’ she cried in a startled tone. ‘But oh, if you write to him, don’t urge him to come back! Don’t make him think it is his duty. It cannot be his duty to make any one so unhappy as I should be!’
‘I shall not give him any advice whatever unless he asks for it,’ replied Don Ippolito, ‘and if he does, I shall answer that I think he should write to you directly, for I would rather not try to act as his adviser. I told you that he did not take my advice the first time.’
‘Yes—but—you have been so kind! Would you tell me what you wished him to do then?’
The priest thought a moment.
‘I cannot tell you that,’ he said presently.
Maria looked surprised, and shrank back a little, suspecting that he had suggested some course which might have offended or hurt her. He understood intuitively.
‘It would be a betrayal of confidence to Montalto,’ he added, ‘to tell you what I advised him, and what he did not do. But I still think it would have been better for both of you if he had done it.’
Maria looked puzzled.
‘I am sorry,’ he said, in a tone from which there was no appeal, ‘but I cannot tell you.’
She looked at him a little hardly at first; then she remembered what every one in Rome knew, that the delicate, shadow-like man with the clear brown eyes had risked being tried for murder when he was a young priest rather than betray a confession which had been anything but formal. Her tired face softened as she thought of that.
‘I am sorry I asked you,’ she said. ‘I did not mean to be inquisitive.’
‘It was natural that you should ask the question,’ he answered, ‘but it would not have been quite honourable in me to answer it.’
‘I trust you all the more because you refused me,’ she said. ‘And now I must be going, for I have kept you a long time.’
‘Scarcely a quarter of an hour.’ He smiled as he glanced at the hideous modern clock on the table.
She left him after thanking him and pressing his thin, kindly hand, and she made her way back to the church, feeling a little faint.
When she was gone Monsignor Saracinesca returned to the question of the picture which was to be hung, but for a while he could not give it all the attentionthat a beautiful Hans Memling deserved. He was thinking of what he had said to Maria, and not only of that, but of what he had said to Baldassare del Castiglione a quarter of an hour earlier.
For that was the coincidence which had brought the two together that morning at the door of the church. Castiglione had taken it into his head to see Don Ippolito on the same day; like Maria, he had telephoned to the palace and had learned that his old acquaintance was usually to be found in the Sacristy about eleven; being a soldier, he had gone punctually at the hour, whereas Maria had not arrived till fifteen or twenty minutes later, and it was therefore almost a certainty that they should meet.
It had not been easy for Don Ippolito, taken by surprise as he was. But Castiglione had put his case as one man of honour may to another, and had told as much of the truth as he might without casting the least slur on Maria’s good name. He had loved her before her marriage, he had said; he loved her still. After she had been married he had left her no peace, and Montalto had made him the reason for leaving her. She had bidden him, Castiglione, to go away and never see her again. He had so far obeyed as to stay away several years. He had come back at last to ask her forgiveness; he was not sure of obtaining it—he had not yet met her in the church—but he came to Don Ippolito as a friend. His love for Maria was great, he said, but even if she forgave him, he would never see her again rather than be the cause of any further troubleor anxiety to her. What did Don Ippolito think? Don Ippolito considered the matter for a few minutes, and then said that in his opinion any renewal of friendly intercourse between Castiglione and the Countess would surely bring trouble and would inevitably cause her anxiety. If Castiglione loved her in the way he believed he did, he would think more of her welfare than of the pleasure he would have in seeing her. If he was sure that his thoughts of her were what he represented them to be, he could write to her, and she might write to him if she thought fit. The prelate refused to say more than that, but the opinion was delivered in such manly and direct words that Castiglione was much impressed by it; and when, in the church, he had generously offered to leave Rome at once, because he saw in Maria’s face all the trouble and anxiety he feared for her, he had spoken with Ippolito Saracinesca’s honourable words still ringing in his ears. It was no wonder if he told Maria that she could not have chosen a better man of whom to ask help and advice; and though he knew what that advice would be, and felt sorrowfully sure that she would try to follow it, he almost smiled at the coincidence as he watched her cross the nave in the direction of the Sacristy.
And now, when she came back into the Basilica, she retraced her steps towards the tomb of Leo Twelfth. Again she stopped a moment and almost knelt as she passed before the Julian Chapel and went on to the north aisle; but when the small gate before which she had knelt with Castiglione was in sight she paused inthe shadow of the pillar and leant against the marble, as if she were very tired.
Till then she had not dared to ask herself what she meant to do, but when she saw the place where she had so lately touched Castiglione’s hand in forgiveness of the past, the truth rushed back upon her, as the winter’s tide turns from the ebb to storm upon the beaten shore.
It was upon her, and she felt that it would sweep her from her feet and drown her; and it was not the imaged truth she had taught herself to believe those many years. She gazed at the closed gate, and she knew why she had forgiven her lover at last. It was because she wished to forgive herself, and she had found it easy, shamefully easy. The hour of evil came back to her memory with frightful vividness, and now her pale cheek burned with shame and she pressed it hard against the icy marble; and she forced her eyes to stay wide open, lest if she shut them for an instant, she should see what she remembered so horribly well.
She would not go to the gate again, now; the words she had said there had been false and untrue, the prayer she had breathed there had been a blasphemy and nothing else. For years and years she had lived in the mortal sin of those brief moments; unconfessing and unpardoned of God, she had gone to Communion month after month, telling herself that she was an innocent, suffering woman, doing her best to atone for another’s crime; yet she had always felt in the dark hiding-places of her heart the knowledge that it was all untrue, that she had been less sinned against than herself sinning,and that if she would die in the faith in which she had been brought up, and in the hope of life hereafter, she must some day humble herself and her pride to the earth, and ask of God and man the pardon she had granted just now as if it were hers to give.
It was too much; it was more than she could bear. In her anger and hatred of herself she found strength to turn from the pillar and to go on straight and quickly to the door. Two or three soldiers who had wandered in were just leaving the Basilica; they lifted the heavy curtain for her and she thanked them mechanically and passed out, holding her head high.
Maria hardly knew how she had come home. She had no distinct recollection of having taken a cab, nor of having driven through the city, nor of having paid a cabman when she reached the Via San Martino. There are times when unconscious cerebration is quite enough for the ordinary needs of life. Maria neither fainted nor behaved in any unusual way during the half-hour that elapsed between her leaving the pillar against which she had leant in the church and the moment when she entered her own room. Even then she hardly knew that she gave her maid her hat and gloves and smoothed her hair before she went to her sitting-room to be alone.
But when she was there, in her favourite seat with her little table full of books beside her, her footstool at her feet and her head resting at last against a small silk cushion on the back of the chair—then the one thought that had taken possession of her pronounced itself aloud in the quiet room.
‘I have been a very wicked woman.’
That was all, and she said it aloud only once; but the words went on repeating themselves again and again in her brain, while she leaned back and stared steadily at the blank of the tinted ceiling; and for a time she turnedher head wearily from side to side on the cushion, as people do who have little hope, and fear that the very worst is close at hand.
For many years she had sustained a part which her pride had invented to quiet her conscience. If it were not so, if she had really been the outraged victim of a moment’s madness, knowing herself quite innocent, why had she not gone to her husband, as an honest woman should, to ask for protection and to demand justice? Because she loved Castiglione still, perhaps; because she was willing to sacrifice everything rather than accuse him; because she would rather be dishonoured in her husband’s eyes than see her lover disgraced before the world. But that was not true; that was impossible. If Baldassare del Castiglione had been the wretch she had the courage to tell him he was when she bade him leave her for ever, Maria Montalto would not have hesitated an instant. He should have gone where justice sends such men, and she would have asked her husband to let her end her days out of the sight of the world she had known.
Her memory brought back the words she had spoken to Castiglione long ago under the ilex-trees in the Villa Borghese. She remembered the intonations of her own voice, she remembered how she had quivered with pain and anger while she spoke, how she had turned and left him there, leaning against a tree, very pale; for she had made him believe all she said, and that was the worst a woman can say. She had called him a coward and a brute, the basest of mankind; and he hadobeyed her, and had left Rome that night because she had made him believe her.
But later, many months later, when Montalto solemnly accused her of having betrayed him, she had bent her head, and not one word of self-defence had risen to her lips; so her husband had turned away and left her, as she had turned and left her lover. He had been under the same roof with her after that, at more and more distant intervals till he had left Rome altogether; but never again, when they had been alone together, had he spoken one word to her except for necessity. Yet he had loved her then, and he loved her still; she had seen in his face that he was broken-hearted, and Monsignor Saracinesca had told her now that the deep hurt would not heal. She had played her comedy of innocence to her lover and to herself, but she had not dared to play it to her husband, lest some act of frightful injustice should be done to Baldassare del Castiglione.
She had forgiven Balduccio! She laughed at the thought now in bitter self-contempt. Her soul and her conscience had met face to face in the storm, and the expiation had begun. She must confess her fault to God and man, but first to man, first to that man to whom it would be most hard to tell the truth because she had been the most unjust to him, to Castiglione himself.
That was to be the answer to his question. There was no doubt now; he must go away. She could not allow him to exchange again into another regiment, in order that he might live near her for a time, nor couldshe let him leave the service altogether, to pass an idle life in Rome. Every word that Don Ippolito had spoken was unanswerable, and there was much more that he had not said. She might not be able to trust herself after all; after reconciliation, friendship would come, cool, smiling and self-satisfied, but behind friendship there was a love that neither could hide long, and beyond love there was human passion, strong and wakeful, with burning eyes and restless hands, waiting till the devil opportunity should come suddenly and spread his dusky wings as a tent and a shelter for sin. Maria was still brave enough to fear that, and something told her that fear of herself must be the first step on which to rise above herself.
She left her seat at last and sat down at a table to write to Castiglione; but when she tried to word a note it was not easy. It would not be wise, either, for such words as she wished to send him are better not written down. Maria realised this before she had penned three lines, and she tore the bit of paper to shreds at once. Baldassare was stopping with cousins, and a note might fall into light-fingered hands.
She rang the bell and told Agostino to telephone to the Conte del Castiglione saying that she would be glad to see him the next day at half-past two, if he could come then. In a few moments the servant brought back the answer. The Conte had been at the telephone himself and would do himself the honour of calling on the Signora Contessa on the morrow at half-past two.
The formal reply was so like his messages of old daysthat it sent a little thrill through her. Often and often he had come at that quiet hour, when Montalto was always out of the way, and each time he had found some new way of telling her that he loved her; and she, in turn, had listened and had laughingly scolded him, telling him that she had grown from a silly girl into a grave Roman matron, and would have no more of his boyish love-making; and, moreover, that if he was always going to make love to her she would refuse to receive him the very next time he tried to see her at the hour when she was alone. And yet she listened to his voice, and he saw her lip quiver sometimes and her soft pallor grow warmer; and always, when he sent a message asking to see her at half-past two, the answer had been that she would probably be at home, and that he might try if he liked; and when he came, she was there, and alone, and ready to laugh, and scold, and listen, expecting no danger and not wittingly thinking any evil.
So his message to-day startled her senses, as a little accidental pressure on the scar of an old wound sometimes sends a wave of the forgotten pain through the injured nerve. It was like a warning.
When she was alone she sat down in the deep chair again and leaned back. It was wrong to be so glad that she was to see him the next day, but she could not help it; and besides, it was to be the last time for so long, perhaps for ever. Surely, after all that she had suffered, she might allow herself that little joy before the unending separation began!
She was already far from the bitter self-reproach of a few minutes ago, and the mere thought of his coming had wrought the change. Was it not in order to be just to him at last that she had sent for him? Might there not be a legitimate moral satisfaction in humbling herself before him, and in the thought that she was about to lift a heavy burden from his heart? Moreover, to be for ever gloomily pondering on her past fault, now that she had acknowledged it and was sorry for it, would surely be morbid.
As for the religious side of the matter, she would make her peace with heaven at once. She would put on a brown veil and go to the Capuchin church that very afternoon and confess all to Padre Bonaventura, of whom she had so often heard, but who would never know who she was. He would impose some grave and wearisome penance, no doubt; Capuchin monks are notably more severe in that respect than other confessors. He would perhaps bid her read the seven penitential psalms seven times, which would be a long affair. But he could not refuse her absolution since she was really so sorry; and the next morning she would get up early and go to the little oratory near by and receive the Communion in the spirit of truth at last; and when Castiglione came at half-past two she would have grace and strength to tell what she had to tell, and to bid him good-bye, even for ever. If she did all this she would earn the right to that one last little joy of meeting.
She was not a saint yet; she was not even heroic, andperhaps what she took for a guiding ray of light was anything but that; perhaps it was little better than a will-o’-the-wisp that would lead her into far more dangerous ground than she had traversed yet. But after her resolution was made she felt lighter and happier, and better able to face the world than she had felt during that long week since Castiglione had come back.
Then Leone came in, straight and sturdy and bright-eyed; and he marched across the room to where she sat and threw his arms around her, as he sometimes did. And though he was but a small boy, she felt how strong he was when he squeezed her to him with all his might and kissed her, first on one cheek and then on the other; and in spite of herself she closed her eyes for a second and drew one short breath as she kissed him too. He was very quick to see and notice everything.
‘Did I hurt you, mama?’ he asked almost anxiously.
‘No, dear!’ She smiled. ‘You are not strong enough to hurt me yet, darling.’
He drew back half a step and surveyed his mother critically, with his head a little on one side.
‘I wouldn’t, of course,’ he said condescendingly. ‘But if I twisted your arm and hammered it with my fist I could hurt you. I did it to Mario Campodonico, and he’s nine, and he howled.’
‘Naughty boy!’ Maria could not help laughing. ‘Why did you hurt poor Mario?’
‘Poor Mario!’ cried Leone scornfully.‘He’s twice my size, and he’s learning to ride. Why shouldn’t I hammer him if I can? He tried to take away a roast chestnut I was eating. It was in the Villa Borghese only yesterday. He won’t do it again, though! He howled.’
Thereupon Leone faced about, marched to the window, and climbed upon his favourite chair to look for soldiers in the street. He got up with three quick movements, as if he were going through a gymnastic exercise. He set one knee and both hands on the seat, then put the second knee up and both hands on the top of the chair, then he straightened his back and was in position. Maria watched him, and her eyes settled on the back of his solid little neck that showed above the broad sailor’s collar, and on the short and thick brown hair that was so curly just at that place.
But presently she turned away and mechanically took a book from the low table beside her. Don Ippolito had said that Montalto might offer her a reconciliation she did not deserve, and might come back to take her and Leone to live in the palace again. The thought chilled her and frightened her, for she could guess at his expression when he should first see what she had seen every hour of the day for years. Yet any father might be proud of such a child—any father! Could such a ‘reconciliation’ be lasting?
That afternoon she took Leone with her and drove out by Porta Furba to the ruins which the people call Roma Vecchia. They drove across the great meadow, and when they could drive no farther they got out and walked, and climbed up till they could sit on one of the big fragments of masonry and look towards the west.Leone had been rather silent, for with the exception of an occasional couple of mounted carabineers on patrol they had hardly met any soldiers at all. And now they sat side by side in the sunshine, for there was a cool breeze blowing from the sea and the air was not warm yet.
Leone took no interest in any pastimes earlier than the age of armour and tournaments; and Maria was glad that he did not ask her questions about the ruins, for she could not have answered him. She knew nothing about the Quintilii and very little about Commodus. She only knew that the great pile was commonly called the ‘Old Rome,’ and that she loved it for its grand loneliness. But Leone looked about him, and thought it was a good place for a castle. Next to soldiers he loved castles and forts.
‘If this belonged to me, I’d build a fortress here,’ he observed gravely, after a long silence. ‘I’d build a great castle like Bracciano.’ He had been taken there on a children’s picnic during the winter. ‘But I’d have lots of guns and a regiment of artillery here if it were mine,’ he added.
‘What for?’ asked Maria, amused.
‘To defend Rome, of course,’ answered Leone.
‘But no one is coming to take Rome, child,’ objected his mother.
‘Oh, yes, they may!’ He seemed quite confident. ‘If there are no other enemies, there are always the French and the priests!’
At this astounding view of Italy’s situation Maria could not help laughing.
‘We are good friends with the French now,’ she said. ‘And who has been telling you that the priests are the enemies of Italy?’
‘Gianluca Trasmondo says so,’ answered Leone. ‘He knows, for his uncle is a cardinal. Besides, no priests are soldiers, are they? So they wouldn’t defend Italy. So they’re Italy’s enemies.’
‘You are wrong, darling,’ answered Maria. ‘The priests have all had to do their military service first.’
‘What? And wear uniforms, and go to drill, and smoke Toscano cigars?’
‘I’m not sure about the smoking,’ laughed Maria; ‘but they have to serve their time in the army, just like other men.’
‘Of course you know,’ said the small boy, who had perfect confidence in his mother’s facts. ‘I didn’t. I’ll tell Gianluca to-morrow. All the same, this would be a good place for a castle. I wonder whose the fields are.’
‘I don’t know, dear. You may run down to the carriage and ask Telemaco if you like, and then come back and tell me. He knows all about the Campagna.’
Telemaco was Maria’s coachman, who had followed her when she had left the Montalto palace—a grey-haired, placid, corpulent man of great weight and overpowering respectability.
Leone jumped up and ran away at a steady trot, with his elbows well in, his fists close to his chest, and his head back, as he had seen soldiers run in drilling. Maria was left alone for a few minutes, for the carriagewas on the other side of the ruins and two hundred yards away. She leaned on one elbow and looked westward at the distant broken aqueduct, far away under the sun. She was thinking of what she should say to the old monk in the Capuchin church later in the afternoon, and the moments passed quickly. Before she had determined upon the opening sentence, the boy came trotting back to her up the little hill. He stopped just before her, his legs apart and his face beaming with pleasure.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘what do you think? Shall I build a castle here or not?’
‘I think not,’ answered his mother, smiling.
‘But I think I shall when I am big. It all belongs to me!’
Maria opened her eyes in surprise.
‘To you, child? What do you mean?’
‘I asked Telemaco whose this land was. He said, “It belongs to your most excellent house.” I said just what you said—“What do you mean?” He said, “It is as I say, Signorino, for the land here belongs to his Excellency your papa, and if you see one of the mounted watchmen in blue about here, he will have the arms of your house on his badge.” That was what Telemaco said. So you see, when I am big I shall build a castle here. Why do you look sorry, mama?’
‘I’m not sorry, darling,’ Maria answered with a faint smile. ‘I was thinking of the time when you will be grown up.’
Leone reflected a little.
‘But why should you look sorry for that, mama? You won’t go away and leave me when I’m grown up, will you, to go and live with papa in Spain?’
‘No, dear. I shall certainly not do that.’
Another pause, longer than the first, during which the small boy watched her face keenly, and she shrank a little before the fearless blue eyes.
‘Why does papa never come back to see us?’ he asked.
She had expected the question a long time, and had made up her mind how to meet it when it came; yet she was taken by surprise.
‘Your father’s mother is a great invalid,’ she said, with a little nervous hesitation. ‘He does not like to leave her.’
‘He might come here for a day sometimes,’ answered Leone, not at all satisfied. ‘He doesn’t like us. That’s the reason. I know it is. He doesn’t want us to live in the palace. That’s why we live where we do.’
‘Hush! You must not say that, my dear. The palace is very gloomy, and I chose to live in a more cheerful part of the city.’
‘I like it better, too,’ said the boy in a tone of reflection. ‘But all other people live in their own palaces, all the same.’
‘Most of our friends are many in a family, dear. But we are only you and I.’
A silence, during which the child’s brain was weighing these matters in the balance.
‘I’m glad papa never comes back,’ he said at last.‘You are, too.’
Without waiting for an answer, and as if to give vent to his feelings, he turned away, picked up a small stone, and threw it as far as he could over the green grass below the ruins—presumably at an imaginary enemy of Italy. He watched it as it fell, and did not seem satisfied with his performance.
‘I suppose David was bigger than I am when he killed the giant with a pebble,’ he observed rather wistfully.
They drove home.
‘Why didn’t you know that the land out there belongs to us, mama?’ asked Leone, after a long silence, when they were near the Porta San Giovanni.
‘I know very little about the property, except that it is large and some of it is in the Campagna.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because no one ever told me about it,’ Maria replied, feeling that she must find an answer. The boy looked at her gravely, but not incredulously, and asked nothing more.