‘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 traversed the 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, above all, 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 down beside 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 had heard 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.’
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 1136