The Young Wife.
While Tito was hastening across the bridge with the new-bought armour
under his mantle, Romola was pacing up and down the old library,
thinking of him and longing for his return.
It was but a few fair faces that had not looked forth from windows that
day to see the entrance of the French king and his nobles. One of the
few was Romola’s. She had been present at no festivities since her
father had died—died quite suddenly in his chair, three months before.
“Is not Tito coming to write?” he had said, when the bell had long ago
sounded the usual hour in the evening. He had not asked before, from
dread of a negative; but Romola had seen by his listening face and
restless movements that nothing else was in his mind.
“No, father, he had to go to a supper at the cardinal’s: you know he is
wanted so much by every one,” she answered, in a tone of gentle excuse.
“Ah! then perhaps he will bring some positive word about the library;
the cardinal promised last week,” said Bardo, apparently pacified by
this hope.
He was silent a little while; then, suddenly flushing, he said—
“I must go on without him, Romola. Get the pen. He has brought me no
new text to comment on; but I must say what I want to say about the New
Platonists. I shall die and nothing will have been done. Make haste, my
Romola.”
“I am ready, father,” she said, the next minute, holding the pen in her
hand.
But there was silence. Romola took no note of this for a little while,
accustomed to pauses in dictation; and when at last she looked round
inquiringly, there was no change of attitude.
“I am quite ready, father!”
Still Bardo was silent, and his silence was never again broken.
Romola looked back on that hour with some indignation against herself,
because even with the first outburst of her sorrow there had mingled
the irrepressible thought, “Perhaps my life with Tito will be more
perfect now.”
For the dream of a triple life with an undivided sum of happiness had
not been quite fulfilled. The rainbow-tinted shower of sweets, to have
been perfectly typical, should have had some invisible seeds of
bitterness mingled with them; the crowned Ariadne, under the snowing
roses, had felt more and more the presence of unexpected thorns. It was
not Tito’s fault, Romola had continually assured herself. He was still
all gentleness to her, and to her father also. But it was in the nature
of things—she saw it clearly now—it was in the nature of things that no
one but herself could go on month after month, and year after year,
fulfilling patiently all her father’s monotonous exacting demands. Even
she, whose sympathy with her father had made all the passion and
religion of her young years, had not always been patient, had been
inwardly very rebellious. It was true that before their marriage, and
even for some time after, Tito had seemed more unwearying than herself;
but then, of course, the effort had the ease of novelty. We assume a
load with confident readiness, and up to a certain point the growing
irksomeness of pressure is tolerable; but at last the desire for relief
can no longer be resisted. Romola said to herself that she had been
very foolish and ignorant in her girlish time: she was wiser now, and
would make no unfair demands on the man to whom she had given her best
woman’s love and worship. The breath of sadness that still cleaved to
her lot while she saw her father month after month sink from elation
into new disappointment as Tito gave him less and less of his time, and
made bland excuses for not continuing his own share of the joint
work—that sadness was no fault of Tito’s, she said, but rather of their
inevitable destiny. If he stayed less and less with her, why, that was
because they could hardly ever be alone. His caresses were no less
tender: if she pleaded timidly on any one evening that he should stay
with her father instead of going to another engagement which was not
peremptory, he excused himself with such charming gaiety, he seemed to
linger about her with such fond playfulness before he could quit her,
that she could only feel a little heartache in the midst of her love,
and then go to her father and try to soften his vexation and
disappointment. But all the while inwardly her imagination was busy
trying to see how Tito could be as good as she had thought he was, and
yet find it impossible to sacrifice those pleasures of society which
were necessarily more vivid to a bright creature like him than to the
common run of men. She herself would have liked more gaiety, more
admiration: it was true, she gave it up willingly for her father’s
sake—she would have given up much more than that for the sake even of a
slight wish on Tito’s part. It was clear that their natures differed
widely; but perhaps it was no more than the inherent difference between
man and woman, that made her affections more absorbing. If there were
any other difference she tried to persuade herself that the inferiority
was on her side. Tito was really kinder than she was, better tempered,
less proud and resentful; he had no angry retorts, he met all
complaints with perfect sweetness; he only escaped as quietly as he
could from things that were unpleasant.
It belongs to every large nature, when it is not under the immediate
power of some strong unquestioning emotion, to suspect itself, and
doubt the truth of its own impressions, conscious of possibilities
beyond its own horizon. And Romola was urged to doubt herself the more
by the necessity of interpreting her disappointment in her life with
Tito so as to satisfy at once her love and her pride. Disappointment?
Yes, there was no other milder word that would tell the truth. Perhaps
all women had to suffer the disappointment of ignorant hopes, if she
only knew their experience. Still, there had been something peculiar in
her lot: her relation to her father had claimed unusual sacrifices from
her husband. Tito had once thought that his love would make those
sacrifices easy; his love had not been great enough for that. She was
not justified in resenting a self-delusion. No! resentment must not
rise: all endurance seemed easy to Romola rather than a state of mind
in which she would admit to herself that Tito acted unworthily. If she
had felt a new heartache in the solitary hours with her father through
the last months of his life, it had been by no inexcusable fault of her
husband’s; and now—it was a hope that would make its presence felt even
in the first moments when her father’s place was empty—there was no
longer any importunate claim to divide her from Tito; their young lives
would flow in one current, and their true marriage would begin.
But the sense of something like guilt towards her father in a hope that
grew out of his death, gave all the more force to the anxiety with
which she dwelt on the means of fulfilling his supreme wish. That piety
towards his memory was all the atonement she could make now for a
thought that seemed akin to joy at his loss. The laborious simple life,
pure from vulgar corrupting ambitions, embittered by the frustration of
the dearest hopes, imprisoned at last in total darkness—a long
seed-time without a harvest—was at an end now, and all that remained of
it besides the tablet in Sante Croce and the unfinished commentary on
Tito’s text, was the collection of manuscripts and antiquities, the
fruit of half a century’s toil and frugality. The fulfilment of her
father’s lifelong ambition about this library was a sacramental
obligation for Romola.
The precious relic was safe from creditors, for when the deficit
towards their payment had been ascertained, Bernardo del Nero, though
he was far from being among the wealthiest Florentines, had advanced
the necessary sum of about a thousand florins—a large sum in those
days—accepting a lien on the collection as a security.
“The State will repay me,” he had said to Romola, making light of the
service, which had really cost him some inconvenience. “If the cardinal
finds a building, as he seems to say he will, our Signoria may consent
to do the rest. I have no children, I can afford the risk.”
But within the last ten days all hopes in the Medici had come to an
end: and the famous Medicean collections in the Via Larga were
themselves in danger of dispersion. French agents had already begun to
see that such very fine antique gems as Lorenzo had collected belonged
by right to the first nation in Europe; and the Florentine State, which
had got possession of the Medicean library, was likely to be glad of a
customer for it. With a war to recover Pisa hanging over it, and with
the certainty of having to pay large subsidies to the French king, the
State was likely to prefer money to manuscripts.
To Romola these grave political changes had gathered their chief
interest from their bearing on the fulfilment of her father’s wish. She
had been brought up in learned seclusion from the interests of actual
life, and had been accustomed to think of heroic deeds and great
principles as something antithetic to the vulgar present, of the Pnyx
and the Forum as something more worthy of attention than the councils
of living Florentine men. And now the expulsion of the Medici meant
little more for her than the extinction of her best hope about her
father’s library. The times, she knew, were unpleasant for friends of
the Medici, like her godfather and Tito: superstitious shopkeepers and
the stupid rabble were full of suspicions; but her new keen interest in
public events, in the outbreak of war, in the issue of the French
king’s visit, in the changes that were likely to happen in the State,
was kindled solely by the sense of love and duty to her father’s
memory. All Romola’s ardour had been concentrated in her affections.
Her share in her father’s learned pursuits had been for her little more
than a toil which was borne for his sake; and Tito’s airy brilliant
faculty had no attraction for her that was not merged in the deeper
sympathies that belong to young love and trust. Romola had had contact
with no mind that could stir the larger possibilities of her nature;
they lay folded and crushed like embryonic wings, making no element in
her consciousness beyond an occasional vague uneasiness.
But this new personal interest of hers in public affairs had made her
care at last to understand precisely what influence Fra Girolamo’s
preaching was likely to have on the turn of events. Changes in the form
of the State were talked of, and all she could learn from Tito, whose
secretaryship and serviceable talents carried him into the heart of
public business, made her only the more eager to fill out her lonely
day by going to hear for herself what it was that was just now leading
all Florence by the ears. This morning, for the first time, she had
been to hear one of the Advent sermons in the Duomo. When Tito had left
her, she had formed a sudden resolution, and after visiting the spot
where her father was buried in Santa Croce, had walked on to the Duomo.
The memory of that last scene with Dino was still vivid within her
whenever she recalled it, but it had receded behind the experience and
anxieties of her married life. The new sensibilities and questions
which it had half awakened in her were quieted again by that subjection
to her husband’s mind which is felt by every wife who loves her husband
with passionate devotedness and full reliance. She remembered the
effect of Fra Girolamo’s voice and presence on her as a ground for
expecting that his sermon might move her in spite of his being a
narrow-minded monk. But the sermon did no more than slightly deepen her
previous impression, that this fanatical preacher of tribulations was
after all a man towards whom it might be possible for her to feel
personal regard and reverence. The denunciations and exhortations
simply arrested her attention. She felt no terror, no pangs of
conscience: it was the roll of distant thunder, that seemed grand, but
could not shake her. But when she heard Savonarola invoke martyrdom,
she sobbed with the rest: she felt herself penetrated with a new
sensation—a strange sympathy with something apart from all the
definable interests of her life. It was not altogether unlike the
thrill which had accompanied certain rare heroic touches in history and
poetry; but the resemblance was as that between the memory of music,
and the sense of being possessed by actual vibrating harmonies.
But that transient emotion, strong as it was, seemed to lie quite
outside the inner chamber and sanctuary of her life. She was not
thinking of Fra Girolamo now; she was listening anxiously for the step
of her husband. During these three months of their double solitude she
had thought of each day as an epoch in which their union might begin to
be more perfect. She was conscious of being sometimes a little too sad
or too urgent about what concerned her father’s memory—a little too
critical or coldly silent when Tito narrated the things that were said
and done in the world he frequented—a little too hasty in suggesting
that by living quite simply as her father had done, they might become
rich enough to pay Bernardo del Nero, and reduce the difficulties about
the library. It was not possible that Tito could feel so strongly on
this last point as she did, and it was asking a great deal from him to
give up luxuries for which he really laboured. The next time Tito came
home she would be careful to suppress all those promptings that seemed
to isolate her from him. Romola was labouring, as a loving woman must,
to subdue her nature to her husband’s. The great need of her heart
compelled her to strangle, with desperate resolution, every rising
impulse of suspicion, pride, and resentment; she felt equal to any
self-infliction that would save her from ceasing to love. That would
have been like the hideous nightmare in which the world had seemed to
break away all round her, and leave her feet overhanging the darkness.
Romola had never distinctly imagined such a future for herself; she was
only beginning to feel the presence of effort in that clinging trust
which had once been mere repose.
She waited and listened long, for Tito had not come straight home after
leaving Niccolò Caparra, and it was more than two hours after the time
when he was crossing the Ponte Rubaconte that Romola heard the great
door of the court turning on its hinges, and hastened to the head of
the stone steps. There was a lamp hanging over the stairs, and they
could see each other distinctly as he ascended. The eighteen months had
produced a more definable change in Romola’s face than in Tito’s; the
expression was more subdued, less cold, and more beseeching, and, as
the pink flush overspread her face now, in her joy that the long
waiting was at an end, she was much lovelier than on the day when Tito
had first seen her. On that day, any on-looker would have said that
Romola’s nature was made to command, and Tito’s to bend; yet now
Romola’s mouth was quivering a little, and there was some timidity in
her glance.
He made an effort to smile, as she said—
“My Tito, you are tired; it has been a fatiguing day: is it not true?”
Maso was there, and no more was said until they had crossed the
ante-chamber and closed the door of the library behind them. The wood
was burning brightly on the great dogs; that was one welcome for Tito,
late as he was, and Romola’s gentle voice was another.
He just turned and kissed her when she took off his mantle; then he
went towards a high-backed chair placed for him near the fire, threw
himself into it, and flung away his cap, saying, not peevishly, but in
a fatigued tone of remonstrance, as he gave a slight shudder—
“Romola, I wish you would give up sitting in this library. Surely our
own rooms are pleasanter in this chill weather.”
Romola felt hurt. She had never seen Tito so indifferent in his manner;
he was usually full of lively solicitous attention. And she had thought
so much of his return to her after the long day’s absence! He must be
very weary.
“I wonder you have forgotten, Tito,” she answered, looking at him
anxiously, as if she wanted to read an excuse for him in the signs of
bodily fatigue. “You know I am making the catalogue on the new plan
that my father wished for; you have not time to help me, so I must work
at it closely.”
Tito, instead of meeting Romola’s glance, closed his eyes and rubbed
his hands over his face and hair. He felt he was behaving unlike
himself, but he would make amends to-morrow. The terrible resurrection
of secret fears, which, if Romola had known them, would have alienated
her from him for ever, caused him to feel an alienation already begun
between them—caused him to feel a certain repulsion towards a woman
from whose mind he was in danger. The feeling had taken hold of him
unawares, and he was vexed with himself for behaving in this new cold
way to her. He could not suddenly command any affectionate looks or
words; he could only exert himself to say what might serve as an
excuse.
“I am not well, Romola; you must not be surprised if I am peevish.”
“Ah, you have had so much to tire you to-day,” said Romola, kneeling
down close to him, and laying her arm on his chest while she put his
hair back caressingly.
Suddenly she drew her arm away with a start, and a gaze of alarmed
inquiry.
“What have you got under your tunic, Tito? Something as hard as iron.”
“It _is_ iron—it is chain-armour,” he said at once. He was prepared for
the surprise and the question, and he spoke quietly, as of something
that he was not hurried to explain.
“There was some unexpected danger to-day, then?” said Romola, in a tone
of conjecture. “You had it lent to you for the procession?”
“No; it is my own. I shall be obliged to wear it constantly, for some
time.”
“What is it that threatens you, my Tito?” said Romola, looking
terrified, and clinging to him again.
“Every one is threatened in these times, who is not a rabid enemy of
the Medici. Don’t look distressed, my Romola—this armour will make me
safe against covert attacks.”
Tito put his hand on her neck and smiled. This little dialogue about
the armour had broken through the new crust, and made a channel for the
sweet habit of kindness.
“But my godfather, then,” said Romola; “is not he, too, in danger? And
he takes no precautions—ought he not? since he must surely be in more
danger than you, who have so little influence compared with him.”
“It is just because I am less important that I am in more danger,” said
Tito, readily. “I am suspected constantly of being an envoy. And men
like Messer Bernardo are protected by their position and their
extensive family connections, which spread among all parties, while I
am a Greek that nobody would avenge.”
“But, Tito, is it a fear of some particular person, or only a vague
sense of danger, that has made you think of wearing this?” Romola was
unable to repel the idea of a degrading fear in Tito, which mingled
itself with her anxiety.
“I have had special threats,” said Tito, “but I must beg you to be
silent on the subject, my Romola. I shall consider that you have broken
my confidence, if you mention it to your godfather.”
“Assuredly I will not mention it,” said Romola, blushing, “if you wish
it to be a secret. But, dearest Tito,” she added, after a moment’s
pause, in a tone of loving anxiety, “it will make you very wretched.”
“What will make me wretched?” he said, with a scarcely perceptible
movement across his face, as from some darting sensation.
“This fear—this heavy armour. I can’t help shuddering as I feel it
under my arm. I could fancy it a story of enchantment—that some
malignant fiend had changed your sensitive human skin into a hard
shell. It seems so unlike my bright, light-hearted Tito!”
“Then you would rather have your husband exposed to danger, when he
leaves you?” said Tito, smiling. “If you don’t mind my being poniarded
or shot, why need I mind? I will give up the armour—shall I?”
“No, Tito, no. I am fanciful. Do not heed what I have said. But such
crimes are surely not common in Florence? I have always heard my father
and godfather say so. Have they become frequent lately?”
“It is not unlikely they will become frequent, with the bitter hatreds
that are being bred continually.”
Romola was silent a few moments. She shrank from insisting further on
the subject of the armour. She tried to shake it off.
“Tell me what has happened to-day,” she said, in a cheerful tone. “Has
all gone off well?”
“Excellently well. First of all, the rain came and put an end to Luca
Corsini’s oration, which nobody wanted to hear, and a ready-tongued
personage—some say it was Gaddi, some say it was Melema, but really it
was done so quickly no one knows who it was—had the honour of giving
the Cristianissimo the briefest possible welcome in bad French.”
“Tito, it was you, I know,” said Romola, smiling brightly, and kissing
him. “How is it you never care about claiming anything? And after
that?”
“Oh! after that, there was a shower of armour and jewels, and
trappings, such as you saw at the last Florentine _giostra_, only a
great deal more of them. There was strutting, and prancing, and
confusion, and scrambling, and the people shouted, and the
Cristianissimo smiled from ear to ear. And after that there was a great
deal of flattery, and eating, and play. I was at Tornabuoni’s. I will
tell you about it to-morrow.”
“Yes, dearest, never mind now. But is there any more hope that things
will end peaceably for Florence, that the Republic will not get into
fresh troubles?”
Tito gave a shrug. “Florence will have no peace but what it pays well
for; that is clear.”
Romola’s face saddened, but she checked herself, and said, cheerfully,
“You would not guess where I went to-day, Tito. I went to the Duomo, to
hear Fra Girolamo.”
Tito looked startled; he had immediately thought of Baldassarre’s
entrance into the Duomo; but Romola gave his look another meaning.
“You are surprised, are you not? It was a sudden thought. I want to
know all about the public affairs now, and I determined to hear for
myself what the Frate promised the people about this French invasion.”
“Well, and what did you think of the prophet?”
“He certainly has a very mysterious power, that man. A great deal of
his sermon was what I expected; but once I was strangely moved—I sobbed
with the rest.”
“Take care, Romola,” said Tito, playfully, feeling relieved that she
had said nothing about Baldassarre; “you have a touch of fanaticism in
you. I shall have you seeing visions, like your brother.”
“No; it was the same with every one else. He carried them all with him;
unless it were that gross Dolfo Spini, whom I saw there making
grimaces. There was even a wretched-looking man, with a rope round his
neck—an escaped prisoner, I should think, who had run in for shelter—a
very wild-eyed old man: I saw him with great tears rolling down his
cheeks, as he looked and listened quite eagerly.”
There was a slight pause before Tito spoke.
“I saw the man,” he said,—“the prisoner. I was outside the Duomo with
Lorenzo Tornabuoni when he ran in. He had escaped from a French
soldier. Did you see him when you came out?”
“No, he went out with our good old Piero di Cosimo. I saw Piero come in
and cut off his rope, and take him out of the church. But you want
rest, Tito? You feel ill?”
“Yes,” said Tito, rising. The horrible sense that he must live in
continual dread of what Baldassarre had said or done pressed upon him
like a cold weight.