‘But there is! The answer is that I will free you from the slavery to which you have sold your soul! The answer is, I love you, and it is yourself I love, the woman you are now, not the memory of your shadow from long ago, but you, you, your very self!’
Half out of his mind, he tried to seize her by the arm, to draw her to him; but he only caught her sleeve, and dropped it as she sprang back with a lightness and maiden grace that almost drove him mad. She drew herself up, offended and hurt.
‘Remember what I am, and where you are!’
Giovanni’s manner changed so suddenly that she would have been suspicious, if she had not been too much disturbed to reason. She fancied that she still controlled him.
‘You are right,’ he said; ‘I beg your pardon. Only tell me when I may see you again.’
‘Not for a long time — not till you can give me your word that you will control yourself. Till then, we must say good-bye.’
He was so quiet, all at once, that it was easier to say the word than she had expected.
‘No,’ he answered, ‘not good-bye, for even if you will not see me, I shall be near you.’
‘Near? Where?’
‘I am living in my brother’s rooms at the Magazine. I am in charge till he gets well. I asked permission to take his place on the day I arrived, from the Minister himself.’
‘You have taken his place!’ She could not keep her anxiety out of her voice.
‘Yes, and I hope to get a shot at the fellow who wounded Ugo. But the post suits me, for the upper part of this house is in sight of my windows. If you look out towards the river, you can see where I live.’
He spoke so gently that she lingered instead of leaving him at once, as she had meant to do.
‘And besides,’ he went on, in the same tone, ‘I shall come here every day until my brother can go home. I may meet you at any moment, in going to his room. You will not refuse to speak to me, will you?’
He smiled. He seemed quite changed within a few moments. But she shook her head.
‘You will not see me here again,’ she answered, ‘for my week’s turn as supervising nurse will be over this evening and I am going to a private case.’
‘To-night?’ Giovanni asked, with a little surprise.
‘Yes, to-night.’
‘Do you mean to say that you do not even have a day’s rest after being on duty a whole week? What a life! But they must give you a few hours, surely! What time do you go off duty, and at what time do you go to your new patient? I suppose they send for you?’
‘Yes, at about eight o’clock. That is the usual time, but I never know long beforehand. Arrangements of that sort are all made by the Mother Superior.’
It did not seem unnatural that he should ask questions about her occupation, now that he was calmer, nor could she think it wrong to answer them. Any one might have listened to what they were saying.
‘I daresay you do not even know where you are going this evening?’ Giovanni said.
She thought that he was talking only to keep her with him a little longer. Overstrained as she had been, it was a relief to exchange a few words quietly before parting from him.
‘It is true,’ she answered, after a moment’s thought. ‘I daresay the Mother Superior mentioned the name of the family, but if she did I have forgotten it. I shall get my instructions before I leave the house, as usual. I only know that it is a new case.’
‘Yes,’ Giovanni said, as if it did not interest him further. ‘All the same, it is a shame that you should be made to work so hard! Before I go, tell me that you have forgiven me for losing my head just now. I think you have, but I want to hear you say so. Will you?’
It seemed little enough to forgive. Sister Giovanna felt so much relieved by his change of manner that she was even able to smile faintly. If he would always be as gentle, she could perhaps ask leave to see him again in six months. Now that the storm was over, it was a pure and innocent happiness to be with him.
‘You will not do it again,’ she said simply. ‘Of course I forgive you.’
‘Thank you. It is all I can expect, since you have told me that I was asking the impossible. You see Madame Bernard sometimes, do you not?’
‘Yes. Almost every week.’
‘She will give me news of you. I suppose I must not send you a message by her. That would be against the rules!’
‘The message might be!’ Sister Giovanna actually smiled again. ‘But if it is not, there is no reason why she should not bring me a greeting from you.’
‘But not a letter?’
‘No. I would not take it from her. It would have to be given to the Mother Superior. If she were willing to receive it at all, it would be her duty to read it, and she would judge whether it should be given to me or not.’
‘Is that the rule?’ Giovanni asked, more indifferently than she had expected.
‘Yes. It is the rule in our order. If it were not, who could prevent any one from writing to a nun?’
‘I was not finding fault with it. I must not keep you standing here any longer. If you will not sit down and talk a little more, I had better be going.’
‘Yes. You have been here long enough, I think.’
He did not press her. He was so submissive that if he had begged permission to stay a few minutes more she would have consented, and she wished he would, when she saw him holding out his hand to say good-bye; but she was too well pleased at having dominated his wild temper to make a suggestion which might betray weakness in herself.
She took his hand and was a little surprised to find it as cold as hers had been when he came; but his face was not pale — she forgot that five years of Africa had bronzed it too much for paleness — and he was very quiet and collected. She went to the door of the hall with him and opened it before he could do so for himself.
They parted almost like mere acquaintances, he bowing on the step, she bending her head. The Mother Superior and Monsignor Saracinesca had been sitting by the table, talking, but both had risen and come forward as soon as the pair appeared outside the glass door. It all passed off very satisfactorily, and the Mother Superior gave a little sigh of relief when the churchman and the soldier went away together, leaving her and Sister Giovanna standing in the hall. She felt that Monsignor Saracinesca had been right, after all, in approving the meeting, and that she had been mistaken in thinking that it must endanger the nun’s peace.
She said nothing, but she was quietly pleased, and a rare, sweet smile softened her marble features. She asked no questions about what had passed, being quite sure that all was well, and that if there had ever been anything to fear, it was gone.
The prelate and Giovanni walked along the quiet street in silence for some distance; then Severi stopped suddenly, as many Italians do when they are going to say something important.
‘You will help me, I am sure,’ he said, speaking impetuously from the first. ‘Though I never knew you well in old times, I always felt that you were friendly. You will not allow her to ruin both our lives, will you?’
‘What sort of help do you want from me?’ asked the tall churchman, bending his eyes to the energetic young face.
‘The simplest thing in the world!’ Giovanni answered. ‘We were engaged to be married when I left with that ill-fated expedition. She thought me dead. She must be released from her vows at once! That is all.’
‘It is out of the question,’ answered Monsignor Saracinesca, with supernal calm.
‘Out of the question?’ Giovanni frowned angrily. ‘Do you mean that it cannot be done? But it is only common justice! She is as much my wife as if you had married us and I had left her at the altar to go to Africa! You cannot be in earnest!’
‘I am. In the first place, there is no ground for granting a dispensation.’
‘No ground?’ cried Severi indignantly. ‘We loved each other, we meant to marry! Is that no reason?’
‘No. You were not even formally betrothed, either before your parish priest or the
mayor. Without a solemn promise in the proper form and before witnesses, there is no binding engagement to marry. That is not only canonical law, but Italian common law, too.’
‘We had told each other,’ Giovanni objected. ‘That was enough.’
‘You are wrong,’ answered Monsignor Saracinesca gently. ‘The Church will do nothing that the law would not do, and the law would not release Sister Giovanna, or any one else, from a legal obligation taken under the same circumstances as the religious one she has assumed.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘This. If, instead of becoming a nun, Angela had married another man after you were lost, Italian law would not annul the marriage in order that she might become your wife.’
‘Of course not!’
‘Then why should the Church annul an obligation which is quite as solemn as marriage?’
Giovanni thought he had caught the churchman in a fallacy.
‘I beg your pardon,’ he replied. ‘I was taught as a boy that marriage is a sacrament, but I never heard that taking the veil was one!’
‘Quite right, in principle. In reality, it is considered, for women, the equivalent of ordination, and therefore as being of the nature of a sacrament.’
‘I am not a theologian, to discuss equivalents,’ retorted Giovanni roughly.
‘Very true, but a man who knows nothing of mathematics may safely accept the statement of a mathematician about a simple problem. That is not the point, however. If you remember, I said that “under the same circumstances” the Church would not do what the law would not. The Church considers a nun’s final vows to be as binding under its regulations as the law considers that any civil contract is. The “circumstances” are therefore exactly similar.’
Giovanni was no match for his cool antagonist in an argument. He cut the discussion short by a direct question.
‘Is it in the Pope’s power to release Sister Giovanna from her vows, or not?’
‘Yes. It is — in principle.’
‘Then put your principles into practice and make him do it!’ cried the soldier rudely.
Monsignor Saracinesca was unmoved by this attack, which he answered with calm dignity.
‘My dear Captain,’ he said, ‘in the first place, no one can “make” the Pope do things. That is not a respectful way of speaking.’
Giovanni was naturally courteous and he felt that he had gone too far.
‘I beg your pardon,’ he answered. ‘I mean no disrespect to the Pope, though I tell you frankly that I do not believe in much, and not at all in his authority. What I ask is common justice and your help as a friend. I ask you to go to him and lay the case before him fairly, as before a just man, which I heartily believe him to be. You will see that he will do what you admit is in his power and give Sister Giovanna her dispensation.’
‘If you and she had been married before your disappearance,’ argued the churchman, ‘His Holiness would assuredly not refuse. If you had been solemnly betrothed before your parish priest as well as legally promised in marriage at the Capitol, he might make an exception, though a civil betrothal is valid only for six months, under Italian law. But there was no marriage and no such engagement.’
Giovanni found himself led into argument again.
‘We had intended to bind ourselves formally,’ he objected. ‘I have heard it said by priests that everything depends on the intention and that without it the most solemn sacrament is an empty show! Will you doubt our intention if I give you my word that it was mine, and if Sister Giovanna assures you that it was hers?’
‘Certainly not! The Pope would not doubt you either, I am sure.’
‘Then, in the name of all that is just and right, what is the obstacle? If you admit that the intention is the one important point, and that it existed, what ground have you left?’
‘That is begging the question, Captain. It is true that without the intention a sacrament is an empty show, but the intention without the sacrament is of no more value than intention without performance would be in law. Less, perhaps. There is another point, however, which you have quite overlooked. If a request for a dispensation were even to be considered, it ought to come from Sister Giovanna herself.’
‘And you will never allow her to ask for her freedom!’ cried Giovanni angrily. ‘That settles it, I suppose! Oh, the tyranny of the Church!’
Monsignor Saracinesca’s calm was not in the least disturbed by this outbreak, and he answered with unruffled dignity.
‘That is easily said, Captain. You have just been speaking with Sister Giovanna and I daresay you talked of this. What was her answer?’
‘She is under the influence of her surroundings, of course! What could I expect?’
But the churchman had a right to a more direct reply.
‘Did she refuse to listen to your suggestion that she should leave her order?’ he asked.
Giovanni did not like to admit the fact, and paused a moment before answering; but he was too truthful to quibble.
‘Yes, she did.’
‘What reason did she give for refusing?’
‘None!’
‘Did she merely say, “No, I will not”?’
‘You are cross-examining me!’ Giovanni fancied that he had a right to be offended.
‘No,’ protested Monsignor Saracinesca, ‘or at least not with the intention of catching you in your own words. You made an unfair assertion; I have a right to ask a fair question. If I were not a priest, but simply Ippolito Saracinesca, and if you accused me or my family of unjust dealings, you would be glad to give me an opportunity of defending my position, as man to man. But because I am a priest you deny me that right. Are you just?’
‘I did not accuse you personally,’ argued the younger man. ‘I meant that the Church would never allow Sister Giovanna to ask for her freedom.’
‘The greater includes the less,’ replied the other. ‘The Church is my family, it includes myself, and I claim the right to defend it against an unjust accusation. Sister Giovanna is as free to ask for a dispensation as you were to resign from the army when you were ordered to join an expedition in which you nearly lost your life.’
‘You say so!’ Severi was incredulous.
‘It is the truth. Sister Giovanna has devoted herself to a cause in which she too may risk her life.’
‘The risk a nurse runs nowadays is not great!’
‘You are mistaken. If she carries out her intention, she will be exposed to a great danger.’
‘What intention?’ asked Giovanni, instantly filled with anxiety.
‘She has asked permission to join the other Sisters of the order who are going out to Rangoon to nurse the lepers there.’
‘Lepers!’ Severi’s features were convulsed with horror. ‘She, nurse lepers! It is not possible! It is certain death.’
‘No, it is not certain death, by any means, but you will admit the risk.’
Giovanni was beside himself in an instant.
‘She shall not go!’ he cried furiously. ‘You shall not make her kill herself, make her commit suicide, for your glorification — that what you call your Church may add another martyr to its death-roll! You shall not, I say! Do you hear me?’ He grasped the prelate’s arm roughly. ‘If you must have martyrs, go yourselves! Risk your own lives for your own glory, instead of sacrificing women on your altars — women who should live to be wives and mothers, an honour to mankind!’
‘You are utterly unjust — —’
‘No, I am human, and I will not tolerate your human sacrifice! I am a man, and I will not let the woman I love be sent to a horrible death, to delight your Moloch of a God!’
‘Captain Severi, you are raving.’
Giovanni’s fiery rage leapt from invective to sarcasm.
‘Raving! That is your answer, that is the sum of your churchman’s argument! A man who will not let you make a martyr of the woman he adores is raving! Do you find that in Saint Thomas Aquinas, or in Saint Augustine, or in Saint Jerome?�
� He dropped his voice and suddenly spoke with cold deliberation. ‘She shall not go. I swear that I will make it impossible.’
Monsignor Saracinesca shook his head.
‘If that is an oath,’ he said, ‘it is a foolish one. If it is a threat, it is unworthy of you.’
‘Take it how you will. It is my last word.’
‘May you never regret it,’ answered the prelate, lifting his three-cornered hat; for Giovanni was saluting, with the evident intention of leaving him at once.
So they parted.
CHAPTER XV
A CARRIAGE CAME early for Sister Giovanna that evening, and the footman sent in a message by the portress. The patient was worse, he said, and the doctor hoped that the nurse would come as soon as she conveniently could. She came down in less than five minutes, in her wide black cloak, carrying her little black bag in her hand. It was raining heavily and she drew the hood up over her head before she left the threshold, though the servant was holding up a large umbrella.
The portress had asked the usual questions of him as soon as he presented himself, but Sister Giovanna repeated them. Was the carriage from the Villino Barini? It was. To take the nurse who was wanted for Baroness Barini? Yes; the Signora Baronessa was worse, and that was why the carriage had come half-an-hour earlier. The door of the brougham was shut with a sharp snap, the footman sprang to the box with more than an average flunkey’s agility, and the nun was driven rapidly away. Knowing that the house she was going to was one of those little modern villas on the slope of the Janiculum which have no arched entrance and often have no particular shelter at the front door, she did not take the trouble to push her hood back, as she would need it again so soon.
In about ten minutes the carriage stopped, the footman jumped down with his open umbrella in his hand, and let her into the house. Before she could ask whether she had better leave her cloak in the hall, the man was leading the way upstairs; it was rather dark, but she felt that the carpet under her feet was thick and soft. She followed lightly, and a moment later she was admitted to a well-lighted room that looked like a man’s library; the footman disappeared and shut the door, and the latch made a noise as if the key were being turned; as she supposed such a thing to be out of the question, however, she was ashamed to go and try the lock.
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 1279