Part 30 (1/2)
”You are contented then, Madonna Orgogliosa?” said Bernardo, smiling, as he moved to the door.
”a.s.suredly.”
Poor Romola! There was one thing that would have made the pang of disappointment in her husband harder to bear; it was, that any one should know he gave her cause for disappointment. This might be a woman's weakness, but it is closely allied to a woman's n.o.bleness. She who willingly lifts up the veil of her married life has profaned it from a sanctuary into a vulgar place.
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.
A REVELATION.
The next day Romola, like every other Florentine, was excited about the departure of the French. Besides her other reasons for gladness, she had a dim hope, which she was conscious was half superst.i.tious, that those new anxieties about t.i.to, having come with the burdensome guests, might perhaps vanish with them. The French had been in Florence hardly eleven days, but in that s.p.a.ce she had felt more acute unhappiness than she had known in her life before. t.i.to had adopted the hateful armour on the day of their arrival, and though she could frame no distinct notion why their departure should remove the cause of his fear--though, when she thought of that cause, the image of the prisoner grasping him, as she had seen it in Piero's sketch, urged itself before her and excluded every other--still, when the French were gone, she would be rid of something that was strongly a.s.sociated with her pain.
Wrapped in her mantle she waited under the loggia at the top of the house, and watched for the glimpses of the troops and the royal retinue pa.s.sing the bridges on their way to the Porta San Piero, that looks towards Siena and Rome. She even returned to her station when the gates had been closed, that she might feel herself vibrating with the great peal of the bells. It was dusk then, and when at last she descended into the library, she lit her lamp with the resolution that she would overcome the agitation which had made her idle all day, and sit down to work at her copying of the catalogue. t.i.to had left home early in the morning, and she did not expect him yet. Before he came she intended to leave the library, and sit in the pretty saloon, with the dancing nymphs and the birds. She had done so every evening since he had objected to the library as chill and gloomy.
To her great surprise, she had not been at work long before t.i.to entered. Her first thought was, how cheerless he would feel in the wide darkness of this great room, with one little oil-lamp burning at the further end, and the fire nearly out. She almost ran towards him.
”t.i.to, dearest, I did not know you would come so soon,” she said, nervously, putting up her white arms to unwind his becchetto.
”I am not welcome then?” he said, with one of his brightest smiles, clasping her, but playfully holding his head back from her.
”t.i.to!” She uttered the word in a tone of pretty, loving reproach, and then he kissed her fondly, stroked her hair, as his manner was, and seemed not to mind about taking off his mantle yet. Romola quivered with delight. All the emotions of the day had been preparing in her a keener sensitiveness to the return of this habitual manner. ”It will come back,” she was saying to herself, ”the old happiness will perhaps come back. He is like himself again.”
t.i.to was taking great pains to be like himself; his heart was palpitating with anxiety.
”If I had expected you so soon,” said Romola, as she at last helped him to take off his wrappings, ”I would have had a little festival prepared to this joyful ringing of the bells. I did not mean to be here in the library when you came home.”
”Never mind, sweet,” he said, carelessly. ”Do not think about the fire.
Come--come and sit down.”
There was a low stool against t.i.to's chair, and that was Romola's habitual seat when they were talking together. She rested her arm on his knee, as she used to do on her father's, and looked up at him while he spoke. He had never yet noticed the presence of the portrait, and she had not mentioned it--thinking of it all the more.
”I have been enjoying the clang of the bells for the first time, t.i.to,”
she began. ”I liked being shaken and deafened by them: I fancied I was something like a Bacchante possessed by a divine rage. Are not the people looking very joyful to-night?”
”Joyful after a sour and pious fas.h.i.+on,” said t.i.to, with a shrug. ”But, in truth, those who are left behind in Florence have little cause to be joyful: it seems to me, the most reasonable ground of gladness would be to have got out of Florence.”
t.i.to had sounded the desired key-note without any trouble, or appearance of premeditation. He spoke with no emphasis, but he looked grave enough to make Romola ask rather anxiously--
”Why, t.i.to? Are there fresh troubles?”
”No need of fresh ones, my Romola. There are three strong parties in the city, all ready to fly at each other's throats. And if the Frate's party is strong enough to frighten the other two into silence, as seems most likely, life will be as pleasant and amusing as a funeral. They have the plan of a Great Council simmering already; and if they get it, the man who sings sacred Lauds the loudest will be the most eligible for office. And besides that, the city will be so drained by the payment of this great subsidy to the French king, and by the war to get back Pisa, that the prospect would be dismal enough without the rule of fanatics.
On the whole, Florence will be a delightful place for those worthies who entertain themselves in the evening by going into crypts and las.h.i.+ng themselves; but for everything else, the exiles have the best of it.
For my own part, I have been thinking seriously that we should be wise to quit Florence, my Romola.”
She started. ”t.i.to, how could we leave Florence? Surely you do not think I could leave it--at least, not yet--not for a long while.” She had turned cold and trembling, and did not find it quite easy to speak.
t.i.to must know the reasons she had in her mind.
”That is all a fabric of your own imagination, my sweet one. Your secluded life has made you lay such false stress on a few things. You know I used to tell you, before we were married, that I wished we were somewhere else than in Florence. If you had seen more places and more people, you would know what I mean when I say that there is something in the Florentines that reminds me of their cutting spring winds. I like people who take life less eagerly; and it would be good for my Romola, too, to see a new life. I should like to dip her a little in the soft waters of forgetfulness.”
He leaned forward and kissed her brow, and laid his hand on her fair hair again; but she felt his caress no more than if he had kissed a mask. She was too much agitated by the sense of the distance between their minds to be conscious that his lips touched her.