CHAPTER FIFTY SIX.
THE OTHER WIFE.
The morning warmth was already beginning to be rather oppressive toRomola, when, after a walk along by the walls on her way from San Marco,she turned towards the intersecting streets again at the gate of SantaCroce.
The Borgo La Croce was so still, that she listened to her own footstepson the pavement in the sunny silence, until, on approaching a bend inthe street, she saw, a few yards before her, a little child not morethan three years old, with no other clothing than his white shirt, pausefrom a waddling run and look around him. In the first moment of comingnearer she could only see his back--a boy's back, square and sturdy,with a cloud of reddish-brown curls above it; but in the next he turnedtowards her, and she could see his dark eyes wide with tears, and hislower lip pushed up and trembling, while his fat brown fists clutchedhis shirt helplessly. The glimpse of a tall black figure sending ashadow over him brought his bewildered fear to a climax, and a loudcrying sob sent the big tears rolling.
Romola, with the ready maternal instinct which was one hidden source ofher passionate tenderness, instantly uncovered her head, and, stoopingdown on the pavement, put her arms round him, and her cheeks againsthis, while she spoke to him in caressing tones. At first his sobs wereonly the louder, but he made no effort to get away, and presently theoutburst ceased with that strange abruptness which belongs to childishjoys and griefs: his face lost its distortion, and was fixed in anopen-mouthed gaze at Romola.
"You have lost yourself, little one," she said, kissing him. "Nevermind! we will find the house again. Perhaps mamma will meet us."
She divined that he had made his escape at a moment when the mother'seyes were turned away from him, and thought it likely that he would soonbe followed.
"Oh, what a heavy, heavy boy!" she said, trying to lift him. "I cannotcarry you. Come, then, you must toddle back by my side."
The parted lips remained motionless in awed silence, and one brown fiststill clutched the shirt with as much tenacity as ever; but the otheryielded itself quite willingly to the wonderful white hand, strong butsoft.
"You _have_ a mamma?" said Romola, as they set out, looking down at theboy with a certain yearning. But he was mute. A girl under thosecircumstances might perhaps have chirped abundantly; not so thissquare-shouldered little man with the big cloud of curls.
He was awake to the first sign of his whereabout, however. At theturning by the front of San Ambrogio he dragged Romola towards it,looking up at her.
"Ah, that is the way home, is it?" she said, smiling at him. He onlythrust his head forward and pulled, as an admonition that they should gofaster.
There was still another turning that he had a decided opinion about, andthen Romola found herself in a short street leading to open gardenground. It was in front of a house at the end of this street that thelittle fellow paused, pulling her towards some stone stairs. He hadevidently no wish for her to loose his hand, and she would not have beenwilling to leave him without being sure that she was delivering him tohis friends. They mounted the stairs, seeing but dimly in that suddenwithdrawal from the sunlight, till, at the final landing-place, an extrastream of light came from an open doorway. Passing through a smalllobby, they came to another open door, and there Romola paused. Herapproach had not been heard.
On a low chair at the farther end of the room, opposite the light, satTessa, with one hand on the edge of the cradle, and her head hanging alittle on one side, fast asleep. Near one of the windows, with her backturned towards the door, sat Monna Lisa at her work of preparing salad,in deaf unconsciousness. There was only an instant for Romola's eyes totake in that still scene; for Lillo snatched his hand away from her andran up to his mother's side, not making any direct effort to wake her,but only leaning his head back against her arm, and surveying Romolaseriously from that distance.
As Lillo pushed against her, Tessa opened her eyes, and looked up inbewilderment; but her glance had no sooner rested on the figure at theopposite doorway than she started up, blushed deeply, and began totremble a little, neither speaking nor moving forward.
"Ah! we have seen each other before," said Romola, smiling, and comingforward. "I am glad it was _your_ little boy. He was crying in thestreet; I suppose he had run away. So we walked together a little way,and then he knew where he was, and brought me here. But you had notmissed him? That is well, else you would have been frightened."
The shock of finding that Lillo had run away overcame every otherfeeling in Tessa for the moment. Her colour went again, and, seizingLillo's arm, she ran with him to Monna Lisa, saying, with a half sob,loud in the old woman's ear--
"Oh, Lisa, you are wicked! Why will you stand with your back to thedoor? Lillo ran away ever so far into the street."
"Holy Mother!" said Monna Lisa, in her meek, thick tone, letting thespoon fall from her hands. "Where were _you_, then? I thought you werethere, and had your eye on him."
"But you _know_ I go to sleep when I am rocking," said Tessa, in pettishremonstrance.
"Well, well, we must keep the outer door shut, or else tie him up," saidMonna Lisa, "for he'll be as cunning as Satan before long, and that'sthe holy truth. But how came he back, then?"
This question recalled Tessa to the consciousness of Romola's presence.Without answering, she turned towards her, blushing and timid again, andMonna Lisa's eyes followed her movement. The old woman made a lowreverence, and said--
"Doubtless the most noble lady brought him back." Then, advancing alittle nearer to Romola, she added, "It's my shame for him to have beenfound with only his shirt on; but he kicked, and wouldn't have his otherclothes on this morning, and the mother, poor thing, will never hear ofhis being beaten. But what's an old woman to do without a stick whenthe lad's legs get so strong? Let your nobleness look at his legs."
Lillo, conscious that his legs were in question, pulled his shirt up alittle higher, and looked down at their olive roundness with adispassionate and curious air. Romola laughed, and stooped to give hima caressing shake and a kiss, and this action helped the reassurancethat Tessa had already gathered from Monna Lisa's address to Romola.For when Naldo had been told about the adventure at the Carnival, andTessa had asked him who the heavenly lady that had come just when shewas wanted, and had vanished so soon, was likely to be--whether shecould be the Holy Madonna herself?--he had answered, "Not exactly, myTessa; only one of the saints," and had not chosen to say more. So thatin the dreamlike combination of small experience which made up Tessa'sthought, Romola had remained confusedly associated with the pictures inthe churches, and when she reappeared, the grateful remembrance of herprotection was slightly tinctured with religious awe--not deeply, forTessa's dread was chiefly of ugly and evil beings. It seemed unlikelythat good beings would be angry and punish her, as it was the nature ofNofri and the devil to do. And now that Monna Lisa had spoken freelyabout Lillo's legs and Romola had laughed, Tessa was more at her ease.
"Ninna's in the cradle," she said. "_She's_ pretty too."
Romola went to look at the sleeping Ninna, and Monna Lisa, one of theexceptionally meek deaf, who never expect to be spoken to, returned toher salad.
"Ah! she is waking: she has opened her blue eyes," said Romola. "Youmust take her up, and I will sit down in this chair--may I?--and nurseLillo. Come, Lillo!"
She sat down in Tito's chair, and put out her arms towards the lad,whose eyes had followed her. He hesitated: and, pointing his smallfingers at her with a half-puzzled, half-angry feeling, said, "That'sBabbo's chair," not seeing his way out of the difficulty if Babbo cameand found Romola in his place.
"But Babbo is not here, and I shall go soon. Come, let me nurse you ashe does," said Romola, wondering to herself for the first time what sortof Babbo he was whose wife was dressed in contadina fashion, but had acertain daintiness about her person that indicated idleness and plenty.Lillo consented to be lifted up, and, finding the lap exceedinglycomfortable, began to explore her dress and hands, to
see if there wereany ornaments beside the rosary.
Tessa, who had hitherto been occupied in coaxing Ninna out of her wakingpeevishness, now sat down in her low chair, near Romola's knee,arranging Ninna's tiny person to advantage, jealous that the strangelady too seemed to notice the boy most, as Naldo did.
"Lillo was going to be angry with me, because I sat in Babbo's chair,"said Romola, as she bent forward to kiss Ninna's little foot. "Will hecome soon and want it?"
"Ah, no!" said Tessa, "you can sit in it a long while. I shall be sorrywhen you go. When you first came to take care of me at the Carnival, Ithought it was wonderful; you came and went away again so fast. AndNaldo said, perhaps you were a saint, and that made me tremble a little,though the saints are very good, I know; and you were good to me, andnow you have taken care of Lillo. Perhaps you will always come and takecare of me. That was how Naldo did a long while ago; he came and tookcare of me when I was frightened, one San Giovanni. I couldn't thinkwhere he came from--he was so beautiful and good. And so are you,"ended Tessa, looking up at Romola with devout admiration.
"Naldo is your husband. His eyes are like Lillo's," said Romola,looking at the boy's darkly-pencilled eyebrows, unusual at his age. Shedid not speak interrogatively, but with a quiet certainty of inferencewhich was necessarily mysterious to Tessa.
"Ah! you know him!" she said, pausing a little in wonder. "Perhaps youknow Nofri and Peretola, and our house on the hill, and everything.Yes, like Lillo's; but not his hair. His hair is dark and long--" shewent on, getting rather excited. "Ah! if you know it, ecco!"
She had put her hand to a thin red silk cord that hung round her neck,and drew from her bosom the tiny old parchment _Breve_, the horn of redcoral, and a long dark curl carefully tied at one end and suspended withthose mystic treasures. She held them towards Romola, away from Ninna'ssnatching hand.
"It is a fresh one. I cut it lately. See how bright it is!" she said,laying it against the white background of Romola's fingers. "They getdim, and then he lets me cut another when his hair is grown; and I putit with the Breve, because sometimes he is away a long while, and then Ithink it helps to take care of me."
A slight shiver passed through Romola as the curl was laid across herfingers. At Tessa's first mention of her husband as having comemysteriously she knew not whence, a possibility had risen before Romolathat made her heart beat faster; for to one who is anxiously in searchof a certain object the faintest suggestions have a peculiarsignificance. And when the curl was held towards her, it seemed for aninstant like a mocking phantasm of the lock she herself had cut to windwith one of her own five years ago. But she preserved her outwardcalmness, bent not only on knowing the truth, but also on coming to thatknowledge in a way that would not pain this poor, trusting, ignorantthing, with the child's mind in the woman's body. "Foolish andhelpless:" yes; so far she corresponded to Baldassarre's account.
"It is a beautiful curl," she said, resisting the impulse to withdrawher hand. "Lillo's curls will be like it, perhaps, for _his_ cheek,too, is dark. And you never know where your husband goes to when heleaves you?"
"No," said Tessa, putting back her treasures out of the children's way."But I know Messer San Michele takes care of him, for he gave him abeautiful coat, all made of little chains; and if he puts that on,nobody can kill him. And perhaps, if--"
Tessa hesitated a little, under a recurrence of that original dreamywonder about Romola which had been expelled by chatting contact--"if you_were_ a saint, you would take care of him, too, because you have takencare of me and Lillo."
An agitated flush came over Romola's face in the first moment ofcertainty, but she had bent her cheek against Lillo's head. The feelingthat leaped out in that flush was something like exultation at thethought that the wife's burden might be about to slip from her overladenshoulders; that this little ignorant creature might prove to be Tito'slawful wife. A strange exultation for a proud and high-born woman tohave been brought to! But it seemed to Romola as if that were the onlyissue that would make duty anything else for her than an insolubleproblem. Yet she was not deaf to Tessa's last appealing words; sheraised her head, and said, in her clearest tones--
"I will always take care of you if I see you need me. But thatbeautiful coat? your husband did not wear it when you were firstmarried? Perhaps he used not to be so long away from you then?"
"Ah, yes! he was. Much--much longer. So long, I thought he would nevercome back. I used to cry. Oh me! I was beaten then; a long, longwhile ago at Peretola, where we had the goats and mules."
"And how long had you been married before your husband had thatchain-coat?" said Romola, her heart beating faster and faster.
Tessa looked meditative, and began to count on her fingers, and Romolawatched the fingers as if they would tell the secret of her destiny.
"The chestnuts were ripe when we were married," said Tessa, marking offher thumb and fingers again as she spoke; "and then again they were ripeat Peretola before he came back, and then again, after that, on thehill. And soon the soldiers came, and we heard the trumpets, and thenNaldo had the coat."
"You had been married more than two years. In which church were youmarried?" said Romola, too entirely absorbed by one thought to put anyquestion that was less direct. Perhaps before the next, morning shemight go to her godfather and say that she was not Tito Melema's lawfulwife--that the vows which had bound her to strive after an impossibleunion had been made void beforehand.
Tessa gave a slight start at Romola's new tone of inquiry, and looked upat her with a hesitating expression. Hitherto she had prattled onwithout consciousness that she was making revelations, any more thanwhen she said old things over and over again to Monna Lisa.
"Naldo said I was never to tell about that," she said, doubtfully. "Doyou think he would not be angry if I told you?"
"It is right that you should tell me. Tell me everything," said Romola,looking at her with mild authority.
If the impression from Naldo's command had been much more recent than itwas, the constraining effect of Romola's mysterious authority would haveovercome it. But the sense that she was telling what she had never toldbefore made her begin with a lowered voice.
"It was not in a church--it was at the Nativita, when there was a fair,and all the people went overnight to see the Madonna in the Nunziata,and my mother was ill and couldn't go, and I took the bunch of cocoonsfor her; and then he came to me in the church and I heard him say,`Tessa!' I knew him because he had taken care of me at the SanGiovanni, and then we went into the piazza where the fair was, and I hadsome _berlingozzi_, for I was hungry and he was very good to me; and atthe end of the piazza there was a holy father, and an altar like whatthey have at the processions outside the churches. So he married us,and then Naldo took me back into the church and left me; and I wenthome, and my mother died, and Nofri began to beat me more, and Naldonever came back. And I used to cry, and once at the Carnival I saw himand followed him, and he was angry, and said he would come some time, Imust wait. So I went and waited; but, oh! it was a long while before hecame; but he would have come if he could, for he was good; and then hetook me away, because I cried and said I could not bear to stay withNofri. And, oh! I was so glad, and since then I have been alwayshappy, for I don't mind about the goats and mules, because I have Lilloand Ninna now; and Naldo is never angry, only I think he doesn't loveNinna so well as Lillo, and she _is_ pretty."
Quite forgetting that she had thought her speech rather momentous at thebeginning, Tessa fell to devouring Ninna with kisses, while Romola satin silence with absent eyes. It was inevitable that in this moment sheshould think of the three beings before her chiefly in their relation toher own lot, and she was feeling the chill of disappointment that herdifficulties were not to be solved by external law. She had relaxed herhold of Lillo, and was leaning her cheek against her hand, seeingnothing of the scene around her. Lillo was quick in perceiving a changethat was not agreeable to him; he had not yet made any
return to hercaresses, but he objected to their withdrawal, and putting up both hisbrown arms to pull her head towards him, he said, "Play with me again!"
Romola, roused from her self-absorption, clasped the lad anew, andlooked from him to Tessa, who had now paused from her shower of kisses,and seemed to have returned to the more placid delight of contemplatingthe heavenly lady's face. That face was undergoing a subtle change,like the gradual oncoming of a warmer, softer light. Presently Romolatook her scissors from her scarsella, and cut off one of her long wavylocks, while the three pair of wide eyes followed her movements withkitten-like observation.
"I must go away from you now," she said, "but I will leave this lock ofhair that it may remind you of me, because if you are ever in troubleyou can think that perhaps God will send me to take care of you again.I cannot tell you where to find me, but if I ever know that you want me,I will come to you. Addio!"
She had set down Lillo hurriedly, and held out her hand to Tessa, whokissed it with a mixture of awe and sorrow at this parting. Romola'smind was oppressed with thoughts; she needed to be alone as soon aspossible, but with her habitual care for the least fortunate, she turnedaside to put her hand in a friendly way on Monna Lisa's shoulder andmake her a farewell sign. Before the old woman had finished her deepreverence, Romola had disappeared.
Monna Lisa and Tessa moved towards each other by simultaneous impulses,while the two children stood clinging to their mother's skirts as ifthey, too, felt the atmosphere of awe.
"Do you think she _was_ a saint?" said Tessa, in Lisa's ear, showing herthe lock.
Lisa rejected that notion very decidedly by a backward movement of herfingers, and then stroking the rippled gold, said--
"She's a great and noble lady. I saw such in my youth."
Romola went home and sat alone through the sultry hours of that day withthe heavy certainty that her lot was unchanged. She was thrown backagain on the conflict between the demands of an outward law, which sherecognised as a widely-ramifying obligation, and the demands of innermoral facts which were becoming more and more peremptory. She had drunkin deeply the spirit of that teaching by which Savonarola had urged herto return to her place. She felt that the sanctity attached to allclose relations, and, therefore, pre-eminently to the closest, was butthe expression in outward law of that result towards which all humangoodness and nobleness must spontaneously tend; that the lightabandonment of ties, whether inherited or voluntary, because they hadceased to be pleasant, was the uprooting of social and personal virtue.What else had Tito's crime towards Baldassarre been but that abandonmentworking itself out to the most hideous extreme of falsity andingratitude?
And the inspiring consciousness breathed into her by Savonarola'sinfluence that her lot was vitally united with the general lot hadexalted even the minor details of obligation into religion. She wasmarching with a great army; she was feeling the stress of a common life.If victims were needed, and it was uncertain on whom the lot mightfall, she would stand ready to answer to her name. She had stood long;she had striven hard to fulfil the bond, but she had seen all theconditions which made the fulfilment possible gradually forsaking her.The one effect of her marriage-tie seemed to be the stiflingpredominance over her of a nature that she despised. All her efforts atunion had only made its impossibility more palpable, and the relationhad become for her simply a degrading servitude. The law was sacred.Yes, but rebellion might be sacred too. It flashed upon her mind thatthe problem before her was essentially the same as that which had lainbefore Savonarola--the problem where the sacredness of obedience ended,and where the sacredness of rebellion began. To her, as to him, therehad come one of those moments in life when the soul must dare to act onits own warrant, not only without external law to appeal to, but in theface of a law which is not unarmed with Divine lightnings--lightningsthat may yet fall if the warrant has been false.
Before the sun had gone down she had adopted a resolve. She would askno counsel of her godfather or of Savonarola until she had made onedetermined effort to speak freely with Tito and obtain his consent thatshe should live apart from him. She desired not to leave himclandestinely again, or to forsake Florence. She would tell him that ifhe ever felt a real need of her, she would come back to him. Was notthat the utmost faithfulness to her bond that could be required of her?A shuddering anticipation came over her that he would clothe a refusalin a sneering suggestion that she should enter a convent as the onlymode of quitting him that would not be scandalous. He knew well thather mind revolted from that means of escape, not only because of her ownrepugnance to a narrow rule, but because all the cherished memories ofher father forbade that she should adopt a mode of life which wasassociated with his deepest griefs and his bitterest dislike.
Tito had announced his intention of coming home this evening. She wouldwait for him, and say what she had to say at once, for it was difficultto get his ear during the day. If he had the slightest suspicion thatpersonal words were coming, he slipped away with an appearance ofunpremeditated ease. When she sent for Maso to tell him that she wouldwait for his master, she observed that the old man looked at her andlingered with a mixture of hesitation and wondering anxiety; but findingthat she asked him no question, he slowly turned away. Why should sheask questions? Perhaps Maso only knew or guessed something of what sheknew already.
It was late before Tito came. Romola had been pacing up and down thelong room which had once been the library, with the windows open, and aloose white linen robe on instead of her usual black garment. She wasglad of that change after the long hours of heat and motionlessmeditation; but the coolness and exercise made her more intenselywakeful, and as she went with the lamp in her hand to open the door forTito, he might well have been startled by the vividness of her eyes andthe expression of painful resolution, which was in contrast with herusual self-restrained quiescence before him. But it seemed that thisexcitement was just what he expected.
"Ah! it is you, Romola. Maso is gone to bed," he said, in a grave,quiet tone, interposing to close the door for her. Then, turning round,he said, looking at her more fully than he was wont, "You have heard itall, I see."
Romola quivered. _He_ then was inclined to take the initiative. He hadbeen to Tessa. She led the way through the nearest door, set down herlamp, and turned towards him again.
"You must not think despairingly of the consequences," said Tito, in atone of soothing encouragement, at which Romola stood wondering, untilhe added, "The accused have too many family ties with all parties not toescape; and Messer Bernardo del Nero has other things in his favourbesides his age."
Romola started, and gave a cry as if she had been suddenly stricken by asharp weapon.
"What! you did not know it?" said Tito, putting his hand under her armthat he might lead her to a seat; but she seemed to be unaware of histouch.
"Tell me," she said, hastily--"tell me what it is."
"A man, whose name you may forget--Lamberto dell' Antella--who wasbanished, has been seized within the territory: a letter has been foundon him of very dangerous import to the chief Mediceans, and thescoundrel, who was once a favourite hound of Piero de' Medici, is readynow to swear what any one pleases against him or his friends. Some havemade their escape, but five are now in prison."
"My godfather?" said Romola, scarcely above a whisper, as Tito made aslight pause.
"Yes: I grieve to say it. But along with him there are three, at least,whose names have a commanding interest even among the popular party--Niccolo Ridolfi, Lorenzo Tornabuoni, and Giannozzo Pucci."
The tide of Romola's feelings had been violently turned into a newchannel. In the tumult of that moment there could be no check to thewords which came as the impulsive utterance of her long-accumulatinghorror. When Tito had named the men of whom she felt certain he was theconfederate, she said, with a recoiling gesture and low-tonedbitterness--
"And _you_--you are safe?"
"You are certainly an amiable wife, my Romola," said Tito, with
thecoldest irony. "Yes; I am safe."
They turned away from each other in silence.