While Roma climbed the last flight of stairs to David Rossi's apartment,
with the slippery-sloppery footsteps of the old Garibaldian going before
her, Bruno's thunderous voice was rocking through the rooms above.
"Look at him, Mr. Rossi! Republican, democrat, socialist, and rebel!
Upsets the government of this house once a day regularly--dethrones the
King and defies the Queen! Catch the piggy-wiggy, Uncle David! Here goes
for it--one, two, three, and away!"
Then shrieks and squeals of childish laughter, mingled with another
man's gentler tones, and a woman's frightened remonstrance. And then
sudden silence and the voice of the Garibaldian in a panting whisper,
saying, "She's here again, sir!"
"Donna Roma?"
"Yes."
"Come in," cried David Rossi, and from the threshold of the open hall
she saw him, in the middle of the floor, with a little boy pitching and
heaving like a young sea-lion in his arms.
He slipped the boy to his feet and said, "Run to the lady and kiss her
hand, Joseph." But the boy stood off shyly, and, stepping into the room,
Roma knelt to the child and put her arms about him.
"What a big little man, to be sure! His name is Joseph, is it? And
what's his age? Six! Think of that! Have I seen him before, Mrs. Rocco?
Yes? Perhaps he was here the day I called before? Was he? So? How stupid
of me to forget! Ah, of course, now I remember, he was in his
nightdress and asleep, and Mr. Rossi was carrying him to bed."
The mother's heart was captured in a moment. "Do you love children,
Donna Roma?"
"Indeed, I do!"
During this passage between the women Bruno had grunted his way out of
the room, and was now sidling down the staircase, being suddenly smitten
by his conscience with the memory of a message he had omitted to
deliver.
"Come, Joseph," said Elena. But Joseph, who had recovered from his
bashfulness, was in no hurry to be off, and Roma said:
"No, no! I've only called for a moment. It is to say," turning to David
Rossi, "that there's a meet of the foxhounds on the Campagna to-morrow,
and to tell you from Don Camillo that if you ride and would care to
go...."
"_You_ are going?"
"With the Princess, yes! But there will be no necessity to follow the
hounds all day long, and perhaps coming home...."
"I will be there."
"How charming! That's all I came to say, and so...."
She made a pretence of turning to go, but he said:
"Wait! Now that you are here I have something to show to you."
"To me?"
"Come in," he cried, and, blowing a kiss to the boy, Roma followed Rossi
into the sitting-room.
"One moment," he said, and he left her to go into the bedroom.
When he came back he had a small parcel in his hands wrapped in a lace
handkerchief.
"We have talked so much of my old friend Roselli that I thought you
might like to see his portrait."
"His portrait? Have you really got his portrait?"
"Here it is," and he put into her hands the English photograph which
used to hang by his bed.
She took it eagerly and looked at it steadfastly, while her lips
trembled and her eyes grew moist. There was silence for a moment, and
then she said, in a voice that struggled to control itself: "So this was
the father of little Roma?"
"Yes."
"Is it very like him?"
"Very."
"What a beautiful face! What a reverend head! Did he look like that on
the day ... the day he was at Kensal Green?"
"Exactly."
The excitement she laboured under could no longer be controlled, and she
lifted the picture to her lips and kissed it. Then catching her breath,
and looking up at him with swimming eyes, she laughed through her tears
and said:
"That is because he was your friend, and because ... because he loved my
little namesake."
David Rossi did not reply, and the silence was too audible, so she said
with another nervous laugh:
"Not that I think she deserved such a father. He must have been the best
father a girl ever had, but she...."
"She was a child," said David Rossi.
"Still, if she had been worthy of a father like that...."
"She was only seven, remember."
"Even so, but if she had not been a little selfish ... wasn't she a
little selfish?"
"You mustn't abuse my friend Roma."
Her eyes beamed, her cheeks burned, her nerves tingled. It would be a
sweet delight to egg him on, but she dare not go any farther.
"I beg your pardon," she said in a soft voice. "Of course you know best.
And perhaps years afterward when she came to think of what her father
had been to her ... that is to say if she lived..."
Their eyes met again, and now hers fell in confusion.
"I want to give you that portrait," he said.
"Me?"
"You would like to have it?"
"More than anything in the world. But you value it yourself?"
"Beyond anything I possess."
"Then how can I take it from you?"
"There is only one person in the world I would give it to. She has it,
and I am contented."
It was impossible to hear the strain any longer without crying out, and
to give physical expression to her feelings she lifted the portrait to
her lips again and kissed and kissed it.
He smiled at her, she smiled back; the silence was hard to break, but
just as they were on the edge of the precipice the big shock-head of the
little boy looked in on them through the chink of the door and cried:
"You needn't ask me to come in, 'cause I won't!"
By the blessed instinct of the motherhood latent in her, Roma understood
the boy in a moment. "If I were a gentleman, I would, though," she said.
"_Would_ you?" said Joseph, and in he came, with a face shining all
over.
"Hurrah! A piano!" said Roma, leaping up and seating herself at the
instrument. "What shall I play for you, Joseph?"
Joseph was indifferent so long as it was a song, and with head aside,
Roma touched the keys and pretended to think. After a moment of sweet
duplicity she struck up the air she had come expressly to play.
It was the "British Grenadiers." She sang a verse of it. She sang in
English and with the broken pronunciation of a child--
"Some talk of Allisander, and some of Hergoles;
Of Hector and Eyesander, and such gate names as these..."
Suddenly she became aware that David Rossi was looking at her through
the glass on the mantel-piece, and to keep herself from crying she began
to laugh, and the song came to an end.
At the same moment the door burst open with a bang, and the dog came
bounding into the room. Behind it came Elena, who said:
"It was scratching at the staircase door, and I thought it must have
followed you."
"Followed Mr. Rossi, you mean. He has stolen my dog's heart away from
me," said Roma.
"That is what I say about my boy's," said Elena.
"But Joseph is going for a soldier, I see."
"It's a porter he wants to be."
"Then so he shall--he shall be my porter some day," said Roma, whereupon
Joseph was frantic with delight, and Elena was saying to herself, "What
wicked lies they tell of her--I wonder they are not ashamed!"
The fire was going down and the twilight was deepening.
"Shall I bring you the lamp, sir?" said Elena.
"Not for me," said Roma. "I am going immediately." But even when mother
and child had gone she did not go. Unconsciously they drew nearer and
nearer to each other in the gathering darkness, and as the daylight died
their voices softened and there were quiet questions and low replies.
The desire to speak out was struggling in the woman's heart with the
delight of silence. But she would reveal herself at last.
"I have been thinking a great deal about the story they told you in
London--of Roma's death and burial, I mean. Had you no reason to think
it might be false?"
"None whatever."
"It never occurred to you that it might be to anybody's advantage to say
that she was dead while she was still alive?"
"How could it? Who was to perpetrate a crime for the sake of the
daughter of a poor doctor in Soho--a poor prisoner in Elba?"
"Then it was not until afterward that you heard that the poor doctor was
a great prince?"
"Not until the night you were here before."
"And you had never heard anything of his daughter in the interval?"
"Once I had! It was on the same day, though. A man came here from London
on an infamous errand..."
"What was his name?"
"Charles Minghelli."
"What did he say?"
"He said Roma Roselli was not dead at all, but worse than dead--that she
had fallen into the hands of an evil man, and turned out badly."
"Did you ... did you believe that story?"
"Not one word of it! I called the man a liar, and flung him out of the
house."
"Then you ... you think ... if she is still living...."
"My Roma is a good woman."
Her face burned up to the roots of her hair. She choked with joy, she
choked with pain. His belief in her purity stifled her. She could not
speak now--she could not reveal herself. There was a moment of silence,
and then in a tremulous voice she said:
"Will you not call _me_ Roma, and try to think I am your little friend?"
When she came to herself after that she was back in her own apartment,
in her aunt's bedroom, and kissing the old lady's angular face. And the
Countess was breaking up the stupefaction of her enchantment with sighs
and tears and words of counsel.
"I only want you to preserve yourself for your proper destiny, Roma. You
are the _fiancée_ of the Baron, as one might say, and the poor maniac
can't last long."