A Lady of Rome

by F. Marion Crawford

Maria did not hesitate, though she felt as if her heart must break with every throbbing beat. Whether Giuliana Parenzo was just or not in telling her that she had not a very delicate conscience, she had at least a strong will and a lasting determination to do what she thought right, which more than made up for the absence of that sensitiveness on which her happier friend laid so much stress.

Until Leone asked her what was the matter, her thoughts whirled in a chaos of pain and darkness, but there was little or no hesitation in her answer to his question. She wished with all her heart that she had put him off until there had been nothing in her face to betray her, and that he might never have connected her too evident distress with the news she had just received. But she had spoken because her mind was made up in that moment, and her determination found words at once; and the child at once hated the man who was coming back.

She was going to accept the proffered reconciliation outright, if it killed her, and she really believed that it might. Her dream of light and peace ended then; she had atoned, perhaps, but that was not enough. Atonement means reconciling, and such a reconciling meant to Maria an expiation more dreadful than she had dreamed of. She remembered only too vividly the material repulsion for Montalto that had grown upon her quickly in the first months of their life together, and she knew that it would be stronger now than it had been then. Yet she must live through it and hide it. To her it seemed inconceivable that he should wish to come back to her at all. The nobler sort of women can never understand that men they dislike can love them, and to be given in marriage to one of them is a torment and feels like an outrage.

Maria meant to bear it all as well as she could. A woman able to dream of such a lofty and spiritual love as had appeared possible to her in a short and unforgettable vision was not one to hesitate at a sacrifice, much less if justice demanded it. In old Jerusalem would she not have been stoned to death? Yet that would have been the quick end of all suffering, whereas Montalto’s return was only the beginning of something much worse.

It is often easier to forgive than to accept forgiveness. After Maria had read her husband’s letter there were times when she wished that all his love for her could be turned into hatred. He might come back then, to show the world a comedy of a reconciliation, though he might frankly detest the sight of her; he might come back and behave to her as he had after she had admitted her guilt, and never speak to her except from necessity, while treating her always with that same formal courtesy he had learned from his Spanish mother. It would have been easy to bear that; it would have been far easier then to live without seeing the man of her heart. But to be taken back to be loved, to be cherished and caressed, to be the instrument of happiness in the life of the husband she had dishonoured, and whose mere presence and slightest touch made her writhe—that was going to be hard indeed. Yet she meant to bear it. In her simple faith she prayed only that it might be counted to her hereafter as a part of her purgatory.

Castiglione received her letter telling him all the truth and bidding him stay where he was, if he could, or at least not try to see her if he were obliged to come to Rome. His first impulse was to ask for leave again, if only for three days, and to go to her at once to implore her to refuse Montalto’s offer, to risk anything rather than let her accept an existence which he knew would be one of misery. He felt and believed that it would kill her.

In some ways the thought of it was even more revolting to him than to her. He had been faithful for years to the memory of the love which he believed he had destroyed in her; but now that all was changed, now that he knew how she loved him, she was his, his very own, far more than she had ever been. He felt, too, that she had really raised him above his old self; that he could really live near her, see her, talk with her, and touch her hand, and love her as he had promised, with no shame, or thought of shame, to her or to himself. Long years of clean living had already made him different from his comrades, and his unchanging will made a law for himself which he had never transgressed. Does the world think that beyond the pale of holy orders, of whatsoever persuasion, there are no men who live as he did, faithful and true to one dear memory to the very end? Sometimes what we call the world seems to know more of its patent evil than of its own hidden good. And where the good is strong and rules a man’s secret life, it may lead him far.

But Castiglione was only human, and his jealousy of Montalto was cruel when it woke again. It had been great in old days, but it was ten times more dangerous now, for it had been long asleep in security and it awoke in anger. Maria had not been his own, but throughout that time no other man had called her his, and now Montalto claimed her, under his right to forgive an injury if he chose, and she was going to submit and surrender herself.

He wrote her a passionate letter, imploring her not to ruin both their lives by giving herself back to her husband, and beseeching her to see him at once that he might tell her all he could not write. If he could not get leave again so soon he would come without, if it cost him a long arrest. Maria was to telegraph her answer, and if no message came within two days he would start, whatever happened. As for declining the exchange he had asked, he could not do that; he would be ordered to join his old regiment in Rome during the next ten days at the latest, and it was impossible that he should not meet her sometimes.

For a moment Maria hesitated, for she felt that he was desperate, and she herself was not far from despair. But something human on which she had never counted helped her a little. If Castiglione came suddenly to Rome, it would be known, and it would surely be said that he had come to see her; if no one else knew it, Teresa Crescenzi surely would, and would tell every one. She thought of Montalto’s letter, telling her that he had known of her quiet life, and that the dignity she had shown had appealed to him. He should not come back now to be told that he had been deceived, and that Castiglione made long journeys expressly to see her. Her pride would not suffer that.