CHAPTER FORTY SIX.
BY A STREET LAMP.
That evening, when it was dark and threatening rain, Romola, returningwith Maso and the lantern by her side, from the hospital of San Matteo,which she had visited after vespers, encountered her husband justissuing from the monastery of San Marco. Tito, who had gone out againshortly after his arrival in the Via de' Bardi, and had seen little ofRomola during the day, immediately proposed to accompany her home,dismissing Maso, whose short steps annoyed him. It was only usual forhim to pay her such an official attention when it was obviously demandedfrom him. Tito and Romola never jarred, never remonstrated with eachother. They were too hopelessly alienated in their inner life ever tohave that contest which is an effort towards agreement. They talked ofall affairs, public and private, with careful adherence to an adoptedcourse. If Tito wanted a supper prepared in the old library, nowpleasantly furnished as a banqueting-room, Romola assented, and saw thateverything needful was done: and Tito, on his side, left her entirelyuncontrolled in her daily habits, accepting the help she offered him intranscribing or making digests, and in return meeting her conjecturedwant of supplies for her charities. Yet he constantly, as on this verymorning, avoided exchanging glances with her; affected to believe thatshe was out of the house, in order to avoid seeking her in her own room;and playfully attributed to her a perpetual preference of solitude tohis society.
In the first ardour of her self-conquest, after she had renounced herresolution of flight, Romola had made many timid efforts towards thereturn of a frank relation between them. But to her such a relationcould only come by open speech about their differences, and the attemptto arrive at a moral understanding; while Tito could only be saved fromalienation from her by such a recovery of her effusive tenderness aswould have presupposed oblivion of their differences. He cared for noexplanation between them; he felt any thorough explanation impossible:he would have cared to have Romola fond again, and to her, fondness wasimpossible. She could be submissive and gentle, she could repress anysign of repulsion; but tenderness was not to be feigned. She washelplessly conscious of the result: her husband was alienated from her.
It was an additional reason why she should be carefully kept outside ofsecrets which he would in no case have chosen to communicate to her.With regard to his political action he sought to convince her that heconsidered the cause of the Medici hopeless; and that on that practicalground, as well as in theory, he heartily served the popular government,in which she had now a warm interest. But impressions subtle as odoursmade her uneasy about his relations with San Marco. She was painfullydivided between the dread of seeing any evidence to arouse hersuspicions, and the impulse to watch lest any harm should come that shemight have arrested.
As they walked together this evening, Tito said--"The business of theday is not yet quite ended for me. I shall conduct you to our door, myRomola, and then I must fulfil another commission, which will take me anhour, perhaps, before I can return and rest, as I very much need to do."
And then he talked amusingly of what he had seen at Pisa, until theywere close upon a loggia, near which there hung a lamp before a pictureof the Virgin. The street was a quiet one, and hitherto they had passedfew people; but now there was a sound of many approaching footsteps andconfused voices.
"We shall not get home without a wetting, unless we take shelter underthis convenient loggia," Tito said, hastily, hurrying Romola, with aslightly startled movement, up the step of the loggia.
"Surely it is useless to wait for this small drizzling rain," saidRomola, in surprise.
"No: I felt it becoming heavier. Let us wait a little." With thatwakefulness to the faintest indication which belongs to a mindhabitually in a state of caution, Tito had detected by the glimmer ofthe lamp that the leader of the advancing group wore a red feather and aglittering sword-hilt--in fact, was almost the last person in the worldhe would have chosen to meet at this hour with Romola by his side. Hehad already during the day had one momentous interview with Dolfo Spini,and the business he had spoken of to Romola as yet to be done was asecond interview with that personage, a sequence of the visit he hadpaid at San Marco. Tito, by a long-preconcerted plan, had been thebearer of letters to Savonarola--carefully-forged letters; one of them,by a stratagem, bearing the very signature and seal of the Cardinal ofNaples, who of all the Sacred College had most exerted his influence atRome in favour of the Frate. The purport of the letters was to statethat the Cardinal was on his progress from Pisa, and, unwilling forstrong reasons to enter Florence, yet desirous of taking counsel withSavonarola at this difficult juncture, intended to pause this very dayat San Casciano, about ten miles from the city, whence he would ride outthe next morning in the plain garb of a priest, and meet Savonarola, asif casually, five miles on the Florence road, two hours after sunrise.The plot, of which these forged letters were the initial step, was thatDolfo Spini with a band of his Compagnacci was to be posted in ambush onthe road, at a lonely spot about five miles from the gates; that he wasto seize Savonarola with the Dominican brother who would accompany himaccording to rule, and deliver him over to a small detachment ofMilanese horse in readiness near San Casciano, by whom he was to becarried into the Roman territory.
There was a strong chance that the penetrating Frate would suspect atrap, and decline to incur the risk, which he had for some time avoided,of going beyond the city walls. Even when he preached, his friends heldit necessary that he should be attended by an armed guard; and here hewas called on to commit himself to a solitary road, with no otherattendant than a fellow-monk. On this ground the minimum of time hadbeen given him for decision, and the chance in favour of his acting onthe letters was, that the eagerness with which his mind was set on thecombining of interests within and without the Church towards theprocuring of a General Council, and also the expectation of immediateservice from the Cardinal in the actual juncture of his contest with thePope, would triumph over his shrewdness and caution in the brief spaceallowed for deliberation.
Tito had had an audience of Savonarola, having declined to put theletters into any hands but his, and with consummate art had admittedthat incidentally, and by inference, he was able so far to conjecturetheir purport as to believe they referred to a rendezvous outside thegates, in which case he urged that the Frate should seek an armed guardfrom the Signoria, and offered his services in carrying the request withthe utmost privacy. Savonarola had replied briefly that this wasimpossible: an armed guard was incompatible with privacy. He spoke witha flashing eye, and Tito felt convinced that he meant to incur the risk.
Tito himself did not much care for the result. He managed his affairsso cleverly, that all results, he considered, must turn to hisadvantage. Whichever party came uppermost, he was secure of favour andmoney. That is an indecorously naked statement; the fact, clothed asTito habitually clothed it, was that his acute mind, discerning theequal hollowness of all parties, took the only rational course in makingthem subservient to his own interest.
If Savonarola fell into the snare, there were diamonds in question andpapal patronage; if not, Tito's adroit agency had strengthened hisposition with Savonarola and with Spini, while any confidences heobtained from them made him the more valuable as an agent of theMediceans.
But Spini was an inconvenient colleague. He had cunning enough todelight in plots, but not the ability or self-command necessary to socomplex an effect as secrecy. He frequently got excited with drinking,for even sober Florence had its "Beoni," or topers, both lay andclerical, who became loud at taverns and private banquets; and in spiteof the agreement between him and Tito, that their public recognition ofeach other should invariably be of the coolest sort, there was alwaysthe possibility that on an evening encounter he would be suddenlyblurting and affectionate. The delicate sign of casting the becchettoover the left shoulder was understood in the morning, but the strongesthint short of a threat might not suffice to keep off a fraternal graspof the shoulder in the evening.
Tito's chie
f hope now was that Dolfo Spini had not caught sight of him,and the hope would have been well founded if Spini had had no clearerview of him than he had caught of Spini. But, himself in shadow, he hadseen Tito illuminated for an instant by the direct rays of the lamp, andTito in his way was as strongly marked a personage as the captain of theCompagnacci. Romola's black-shrouded figure had escaped notice, and shenow stood behind her husband's shoulder in the corner of the loggia.Tito was not left to hope long.
"Ha! my carrier-pigeon!" grated Spini's harsh voice, in what he meant tobe an undertone, while his hand grasped Tito's shoulder; "what did yourun into hiding for? You didn't know it was comrades who were coming.It's well I caught sight of you; it saves time. What of the chaseto-morrow morning? Will the bald-headed game rise? Are the falcons tobe got ready?"
If it had been in Tito's nature to feel an access of rage, he would havefelt it against this bull-faced accomplice, unfit either for a leader ora tool. His lips turned white, but his excitement came from thepressing difficulty of choosing a safe device. If he attempted to hushSpini, that would only deepen Romola's suspicion, and he knew her wellenough to know that if some strong alarm were roused in her, she wasneither to be silenced nor hoodwinked: on the other hand, if he repelledSpini angrily the wine-breathing Compagnaccio might become savage, beingmore ready at resentment than at the divination of motives. He adopteda third course, which proved that Romola retained one sort of power overhim--the power of dread.
He pressed her hand, as if intending a hint to her, and said in agood-humoured tone of comradeship--
"Yes, my Dolfo, you may prepare in all security. But take no trumpetswith you."
"Don't be afraid," said Spini, a little piqued. "No need to play SerSaccente with me. I know where the devil keeps his tail as well as youdo. What! he swallowed the bait whole? The prophetic nose didn't scentthe hook at all?" he went on, lowering his tone a little, with ablundering sense of secrecy.
"The brute will not be satisfied till he has emptied the bag," thoughtTito: but aloud he said,--"Swallowed all as easily as you swallow a cupof Trebbiano. Ha! I see torches: there must be a dead body coming.The pestilence has been spreading, I hear."
"Santiddio! I hate the sight of those biers. Good-night," said Spini,hastily moving off.
The torches were really coming, but they preceded a church dignitary whowas returning homeward; the suggestion of the dead body and thepestilence was Tito's device for getting rid of Spini without tellinghim to go. The moment he had moved away, Tito turned to Romola, andsaid, quietly--
"Do not be alarmed by anything that _bestia_ has said, my Romola. Wewill go on now: I think the rain has not increased."
She was quivering with indignant resolution; it was of no use for Titoto speak in that unconcerned way. She distrusted every word he couldutter.
"I will not go on," she said. "I will not move nearer home until I havesome security against this treachery being perpetrated."
"Wait, at least, until these torches have passed," said Tito, withperfect self-command, but with a new rising of dislike to a wife whothis time, he foresaw, might have the power of thwarting him in spite ofthe husband's predominance.
The torches passed, with the Vicario dell' Arcivescovo, and duereverence was done by Tito, but Romola saw nothing outward. If for thedefeat of this treachery, in which she believed with all the force oflong presentiment, it had been necessary at that moment for her tospring on her husband and hurl herself with him down a precipice, shefelt as if she could have done it. Union with this man! At that momentthe self-quelling discipline of two years seemed to be nullified: shefelt nothing but that they were divided.
They were nearly in darkness again, and could only see each other'sfaces dimly.
"Tell me the truth, Tito--this time tell me the truth," said Romola, ina low quivering voice. "It will be safer for you."
"Why should I desire to tell you anything else, my angry saint?" saidTito, with a slight touch of contempt, which was the vent of hisannoyance; "since the truth is precisely that over which you have mostreason to rejoice--namely, that my knowing a plot of Spini's enables meto secure the Frate from falling a victim to it."
"What is the plot?"
"That I decline to tell," said Tito. "It is enough that the Frate'ssafety will be secured."
"It is a plot for drawing him outside the gates that Spini may murderhim."
"There has been no intention of murder. It is simply a plot forcompelling him to obey the Pope's summons to Rome. But as I serve thepopular government, and think the Frate's presence here is a necessarymeans of maintaining it at present, I choose to prevent his departure.You may go to sleep with entire ease of mind to-night."
For a moment Romola was silent. Then she said, in a voice of anguish,"Tito, it is of no use: I have no belief in you."
She could just discern his action as he shrugged his shoulders, andspread out his palms in silence. That cold dislike which is the angerof unimpassioned beings was hardening within him.
"If the Frate leaves the city--if any harm happens to him," said Romola,after a slight pause, in a new tone of indignant resolution,--"I willdeclare what I have heard to the Signoria, and you will be disgraced.What if I am your wife?" she went on, impetuously; "I will be disgracedwith you. If we are united, I am that part of you that will save youfrom crime. Others shall not be betrayed."
"I am quite aware of what you would be likely to do, _anima mia_," saidTito, in the coolest of his liquid tones; "therefore if you have a smallamount of reasoning at your disposal just now, consider that if youbelieve me in nothing else, you may believe me when I say I will takecare of myself, and not put it in your power to ruin me."
"Then you assure me that the Frate is warned--he will not go beyond thegates?"
"He shall not go beyond the gates."
There was a moment's pause, but distrust was not to be expelled.
"I will go back to San Marco now and find out," Romola said, making amovement forward.
"You shall not!" said Tito, in a bitter whisper, seizing her wrists withall his masculine force. "I am master of you. You shall not setyourself in opposition to me."
There were passers-by approaching. Tito had heard them, and that waswhy he spoke in a whisper. Romola was too conscious of being masteredto have struggled, even if she had remained unconscious that witnesseswere at hand. But she was aware now of footsteps and voices, and herhabitual sense of personal dignity made her at once yield to Tito'smovement towards leading her from the loggia.
They walked on in silence for some time, under the small drizzling rain.The first rush of indignation and alarm in Romola had begun to give wayto more complicated feelings, which rendered speech and actiondifficult. In that simpler state of vehemence, open opposition to thehusband from whom she felt her soul revolting had had the aspect oftemptation for her; it seemed the easiest of all courses. But now,habits of self-questioning, memories of impulse subdued, and that proudreserve which all discipline had left unmodified, began to emerge fromthe flood of passion. The grasp of her wrists, which asserted herhusband's physical predominance, instead of arousing a new fierceness inher, as it might have done if her impetuosity had been of a more vulgarkind, had given her a momentary shuddering horror at this form ofcontest with him. It was the first time they had been in declaredhostility to each other since her flight and return, and the check givento her ardent resolution then, retained the power to arrest her now. Inthis altered condition her mind began to dwell on the probabilities thatwould save her from any desperate course: Tito would not risk betrayalby her; whatever had been his original intention, he must be determinednow by the fact that she knew of the plot. She was not bound now to doanything else than to hang over him that certainty, that if he deceivedher, her lips would not, be closed. And then, it was possible--yes, shemust cling to that possibility till it was disproved--that Tito hadnever meant to aid in the betrayal of the Frate.
Tito, on his side, was bus
y with thoughts, and did not speak again tillthey were near home. Then he said--
"Well, Romola, have you now had time to recover calmness? If so, youcan supply your want of belief in me by a little rational inference: youcan see, I presume, that if I had had any intention of furtheringSpini's plot, I should now be aware that the possession of a fairPiagnone for my wife, who knows the secret of the plot, would be aserious obstacle in my way."
Tito assumed the tone which was just then the easiest to him,conjecturing that in Romola's present mood persuasive deprecation wouldbe lost upon her.
"Yes, Tito," she said, in a low voice, "I think you believe that I wouldguard the Republic from further treachery. You are right to believe it:if the Frate is betrayed, I will denounce you." She paused a moment,and then said, with an effort, "But it was not so. I have perhapsspoken too hastily--you never meant it. Only, why will you seem to bethat man's comrade?"
"Such relations are inevitable to practical men, my Romola," said Tito,gratified by discerning the struggle within her. "You fair creatureslive in the clouds. Pray go to rest with an easy heart," he added,opening the door for her.