Part 53 (2/2)
Romola's face lost its dubious expression; she asked eagerly--
”And when is it to be made?”
”It has not yet been granted; but it _may_ be granted. The Special Council is to meet again on the twenty-first to deliberate whether the Appeal shall be allowed or not. In the meantime there is an interval of three days, in which chances may occur in favour of the prisoners--in which interest may be used on their behalf.”
Romola started from her seat. The colour had risen to her face like a visible thought, and her hands trembled. In that moment her feeling towards t.i.to was forgotten.
”Possibly,” said t.i.to, also rising, ”your own intention may have antic.i.p.ated what I was going to say. You are thinking of the Frate.”
”I am,” said Romola, looking at him with surprise. ”Has he done anything? Is there anything to tell me?”
”Only this. It was Messer Francesco Valori's bitterness and violence which chiefly determined the course of things in the council to-day.
Half the men who gave in their opinion against the prisoners were frightened into it, and there are numerous friends of Fra Girolamo both in this Special Council and out of it who are strongly opposed to the sentence of death--Piero Guicciardini, for example, who is one member of the Signoria that made the stoutest resistance; and there is Giovan Battista Ridolfi, who, Piagnone as he is, will not lightly forgive the death of his brother Niccolo.”
”But how can the Appeal be denied,” said Romola, indignantly, ”when it is the law--when it was one of the chief glories of the popular government to have pa.s.sed the law?”
”They call this an exceptional case. Of course there are ingenious arguments, but there is much more of loud bl.u.s.ter about the danger of the Republic. But, you see, no opposition could prevent the a.s.sembly from being prorogued, and a certain powerful influence rightly applied during the next three days might determine the wavering courage of those who desire that the Appeal should be granted, and might even give a check to the headlong enmity of Francesco Valori. It happens to have come to my knowledge that the Frate has so far interfered as to send a message to him in favour of Lorenzo Tornabuoni. I know you can sometimes have access to the Frate: it might at all events be worth while to use your privilege now.”
”It is true,” said Romola, with an air of abstraction. ”I cannot believe that the Frate would approve denying the Appeal.”
”I heard it said by more than one person in the court of the Palazzo, before I came away, that it would be to the everlasting discredit of Fra Girolamo if he allowed a government which is almost entirely made up of his party, to deny the Appeal, without entering his protest, when he has been boasting in his books and sermons that it was he who got the law pa.s.sed. [Note 1.] But between ourselves, with all respect for your Frate's ability, my Romola, he has got into the practice of preaching that form of human sacrifices called killing tyrants and wicked malcontents, which some of his followers are likely to think inconsistent with lenity in the present case.”
”I know, I know,” said Romola, with a look and tone of pain. ”But he is driven into those excesses of speech. It used to be different. I _will_ ask for an interview. I cannot rest without it. I trust in the greatness of his heart.”
She was not looking at t.i.to; her eyes were bent with a vague gaze towards the ground, and she had no distinct consciousness that the words she heard came from her husband.
”Better lose no time, then,” said t.i.to, with unmixed suavity, moving his cap round in his hands as if he were about to put it on and depart.
”And now, Romola, you will perhaps be able to see, in spite of prejudice, that my wishes go with yours in this matter. You will not regard the misfortune of my safety as an offence.”
Something like an electric shock pa.s.sed through Romola: it was the full consciousness of her husband's presence returning to her. She looked at him without speaking.
”At least,” he added, in a slightly harder tone, ”you will endeavour to base our intercourse on some other reasonings than that because an evil deed is possible, _I_ have done it. Am I alone to be beyond the pale of your extensive charity?”
The feeling which had been driven back from Romola's lips a fortnight before rose again with the gathered force of a tidal wave. She spoke with a decision which told him that she was careless of consequences.
”It is too late, t.i.to. There is no killing the suspicion that deceit has once begotten. And now I know everything. I know who that old man was: he was your father, to whom you owe everything--to whom you owe more than if you had been his own child. By the side of that, it is a small thing that you broke my trust and my father's. As long as you deny the truth about that old man, there is a horror rising between us: the law that should make us one can never be obeyed. I too am a human being. I have a soul of my own that abhors your actions. Our union is a pretence--as if a perpetual lie could be a sacred marriage.”
t.i.to did not answer immediately. When he did speak it was with a calculated caution, that was stimulated by alarm.
”And you mean to carry out that independence by quitting me, I presume?”
”I desire to quit you,” said Romola, impetuously.
”And supposing I do not submit to part with what the law gives me some security for retaining? You will then, of course, proclaim your reasons in the ear of all Florence. You will bring forward your mad a.s.sa.s.sin, who is doubtless ready to obey your call, and you will tell the world that you believe his testimony because he is so rational as to desire to a.s.sa.s.sinate me. You will first inform the Signoria that I am a Medicean conspirator, and then you will inform the Mediceans that I have betrayed them, and in both cases you will offer the excellent proof that you believe me capable in general of everything bad. It will certainly be a striking position for a wife to adopt. And if, on such evidence, you succeed in holding me up to infamy, you will have surpa.s.sed all the heroines of the Greek drama.”
He paused a moment, but she stood mute. He went on with the sense of mastery.
”I believe you have no other grievance against me--except that I have failed in fulfilling some lofty indefinite conditions on which you gave me your wifely affection, so that, by withdrawing it, you have gradually reduced me to the careful supply of your wants as a fair Piagnone of high condition and liberal charities. I think your success in gibbeting me is not certain. But doubtless you would begin by winning the ear of Messer Bernardo del Nero?”
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