A Lady of Rome

by F. Marion Crawford

‘Yes.’ Maria was recovering her senses. Telephone for the doctor at once. Tell him what has happened. I will stay here.’

The man went out, still much more frightened than she was, for there is nothing, not death itself, which the Italians of the lower classes dread so much as apoplexy.

Maria smoothed the unconscious and paralysed man’s pillow, and drew the bed-clothes up under his pointed grey beard, for the room was cold. That was all she could do, and when she had done it she stood upright, with folded hands, looking steadily at the dark and congested face.

Little as she knew of such things, she had heard that apoplexy was often brought on by violent fits of anger and other great emotions, and the long habit of self-accusation made her ask her conscience whether the terrible catastrophe had not come through her fault. In some way it must be so, she was sure, with all that was to follow. People often recovered, even from a bad stroke, far enough to drag on a wretched existence for years, half paralysed, half speechless, or altogether both, but fully conscious. She would take care of him faithfully; better that than—she checked the mere thought. It was worse to be freed thus, by the suffering he was to bear, than to fear the sound of his step, to dread his touch, to feel her flesh creep at his caress. It must be worse. She must make herself understand that it was. What was all her expiation worth if she was so inhumanly cruel as to think of her own bodily freedom now? She had prayed for strength to bear, not for liberation from the terrible bond of wifehood. Was this God’s answer? Never! This was fate, sudden, awful, leaping into her life to make her think evil against her will, to cut short the punishment she should have borne patiently for many years to come. She had not suffered enough yet, not half enough!

With some confused thought of imposing a duty on herself, she bent down and kissed her husband’s forehead. At the same moment the servant came back, and when she stood up again he was beside her. The doctor would come at once, he said, but he would have to walk, as no carriage was safe in the streets.

For a few moments she had forgotten Leone, out in the city, somewhere, with his tutor, and at the thought, with her eyes fixed on her husband’s senseless form, she felt that she might go mad. Could she leave him now, without a doctor, without a nurse? Might he not wake, suddenly conscious for an instant, to die calling for her? She knew nothing definite about such things, but she vaguely remembered hearing that dying people sometimes revived for a few moments before the end.

Yet, if she did not leave him, who would find Leone? For she was sure she could find her boy, and she only, somewhere in Rome, and protect him and bring him home. Of all she had suffered in her suffering life those moments were the worst. She spoke to the servant in sheer desperation, to hear her own voice.

‘Can we do nothing till the doctor comes?’ she asked. ‘Do you know of anything that ought to be done?’

But the man was at a loss. He spoke confusedly of leeches, ice, and mustard plasters. Then he remembered that there was a chemist’s shop at the corner of the square; there might be a doctor there, or some one who knew what to do. When people were hurt or had a sunstroke in the street they were always carried to the chemist’s, unless there were a regular ambulance-station near.

Maria grasped at the idea and sent him instantly, and she was again alone by the bedside. But she could not think now; since fear for the child had taken possession of her, there was not room for anything else. She stood motionless for more than five minutes, not even noticing the sound of low voices at the outer door of the next room; for the servant had told the footman in the hall what had happened as he hurried out on his errand, and the whole household had soon gathered in the passage.