Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22)

by Marie Corelli

  Gherardi looked him over with superb indifference.

  “My interview with the Comtesse Hermenstein was a private one” — he said,— “And if a spy was present, he must prove himself a spy. And we of the Church do not accept a spy’s testimony!”

  White with indignation Aubrey sprang forward, — but Cyrillon Vergniaud restrained him. “Patience!” he said in a low tone— “Let him have his way for the moment — it will then be my turn!”

  “My word is law in Rome!” — went on Gherardi— “Whatsoever I choose to say will be confirmed and ratified by the greatest authority in the world — the Pope! I am ready to swear that Florian Varillo painted that picture, — and the Pope is ready to believe it! Who will admit such a masterpiece to be a woman’s work? No one! Each member of the house of Sovrani can bear witness to the fact that no one ever saw Angela Sovrani painting it! But I know the whole story — I was the last to see Florian Varillo before his death — and he confessed the truth — that he had worked for his betrothed wife in order to give her the greater fame! So that he was not, and could not have been her assassin—”

  “Then her assassin must be found!” said Prince Pietro suddenly. “And the owner of this sheath — the sheath of the dagger with which she was stabbed — must claim his property!” And holding up the sheath in question before Gherardi he continued —

  “This I found! This I traced! Varillo’s servant admitted it to be his master’s — Varillo’s mistress recognised it as her lover’s — a slight thing, Monsignor! — but an uncomfortable witness! And if you dare to promulgate your lie against my daughter and her work, I will accuse you in the public courts of complicity in an attempted murder! And I doubt whether the Pope will judge it politic, or a part of national diplomacy, to support you then!”

  For a moment Gherardi was baffled. His dark brows met in a frown of menace and his lips tightened with his repressed fury. Then, — still managing to speak with the utmost composure, he said,

  “You will permit me to look at this dagger-sheath — this proof on which you place so much reliance?”

  In the certainty of his triumph, old Sovrani was ready to place it in the priest’s extended hand, when young Vergniaud interposed and prevented him.

  “No! You can admire it from a distance, Monsignor! You are capable in your present humour of tearing it to atoms and so destroying evidence! As the ‘servant’ of Prince Sovrani, it is my business to defend him from this possibility!”

  Gherardi raised his dark eyes and fixed them, full of bitterest scorn, on the speaker.

  “So YOU are Gys Grandit!” he said in accents which thrilled with an intensity of hatred. “You are the busy Socialist, the self-advertising atheist, who, like a yelping cur, barks impotently under the wheels of Rome! You — Vergniaud’s bastard—”

  “Give that name to your children at Frascati!” cried Cyrillon passionately. “And own them as yours publicly, as my father owned me before he died!”

  With a violent start, Gherardi reeled back as though he had been dealt a sudden blow, and over his face came a terrible change, like the grey pallor of creeping paralysis. White to the lips, he struggled for breath . . . he essayed to speak, — then failing, made a gesture with his hands as though pushing away some invisible foe. Slowly his head drooped on his breast, and he shivered like a man struck suddenly with ague. Startled and awed, everyone watched him in fascinated silence. Presently words came slowly and with difficulty between his dry lips.

  “You have disgraced me!” he said hoarsely— “Are you satisfied?” He took a step or two close up to the young man. “I ask you — are you satisfied? Or — do you mean to go on — do you want to ruin me?—” Here, moved by uncontrollable passion he threw up his hands with a gesture of despair. “God! That it should come to this! That I should have to ask you — you, the enemy of the Church I serve, for mercy! Let it be enough I say! — and I — I also will be silent!”

  Cyrillon looked at him straightly.

  “Will you cease to persecute Cardinal Bonpre?” he demanded. “Will you admit Varillo’s murderous treachery?”

  Gherardi bent his head.

  “I will!” he answered slowly, “because I must! Otherwise—” He clenched his fist and his eyes flashed fire-then he went on— “But beware of Lorenzo Moretti! He will depose the Cardinal from office, and separate him from that boy who has affronted the Pope. He is even now soliciting the Holy Father to intervene and stop the marriage of the Comtesse Sylvie Hermenstein with Aubrey Leigh, — and — they are married! No more — no more! — I cannot speak — let me go — let me go — you have won your way! — I give you my promise!”

  “What is your promise worth?” said Vergniaud with disdain.

  “Nothing!” replied Gherardi bitterly. “Only in this one special instance it is worth all my life! — all my position! You — even you, the accursed Gys Grandit! — you have me in your power!”

  He raised his head as he said this, — his face expressed mingled agony and fury; but meeting Cyrillon’s eyes he shrank again as if he were suddenly whipped by a lash, and with one quick stride, reached the door, and disappeared.

  There was a moment’s silence after his departure. Then Aubrey Leigh spoke.

  “My dear Grandit! You are a marvellous man! How came you to know Gherardi’s secrets?”

  “Through a section of the Christian-Democratic party here” — replied Cyrillon— “You must not forget that I, like you, have my disciples! They keep me informed of all that goes on in Rome, and they have watched Domenico Gherardi for years. We all know much — but we have little chance to speak! If England knew of Rome what France knows, what Spain knows, — what Italy knows, she would pray to be given a second Cromwell! For the time is coming when she will need him!”

  XXXVII.

  A few days later the fashionable world of Europe was startled by the announcement of two things. One was the marriage of Sylvie, Countess Hermenstein, to the “would-be reformer of the clergy,” Aubrey Leigh, coupled with her renunciation of the Church of her fathers. There was no time for that Church to pronounce excommunication, inasmuch as she renounced it herself, of her own free will and choice, and made no secret of having done so. Some of her Hungarian friends were, or appeared to be, scandalized at this action on her part, but the majority of them treated it with considerable leniency, and in some cases with approval, on the ground that a wife’s religion ought to be the same as that of her husband. If love is love at all, it surely means complete union; and one cannot imagine a perfect marriage where there is any possibility of wrangling over different forms of creed. The other piece of news, which created even more sensation than the first, was the purchase of Angela Sovrani’s great picture, “The Coming of Christ,” by the Americans. As soon as this was known, the crowd of visitors to the artist’s studio assumed formidable proportions, and from early morning till late afternoon, the people kept coming and going in hundreds, which gradually swelled to thousands. For by-and-by the history of the picture got about in disjointed morsels of information and gossip which soon formed a consecutive and fairly correct narration. Experts criticized it, — critics “explained” it — and presently nothing was talked of in the art world but “The Coming of Christ” and the artist who painted it, Angela Sovrani. A woman! — only a woman! It seemed incredible — impossible! For why should a woman think? Why should a woman dare to be a genius? It seemed very strange! How much more natural for her to marry some decent man of established position and be content with babies and plain needlework! Here was an abnormal prodigy in the ways of womanhood, — a feminine creature who ventured to give an opinion of her own on something else than dress, — who presumed as it were, to set the world thinking hard on a particular phase of religious history! Then, as one after the other talked and whispered and commented, the story of Angela’s own private suffering began to eke out bit by bit, — how she had been brutally stabbed m her own studio in front of her own picture by no other than her own betrothed husb
and Florian Varillo, who was moved to his murderous act by a sudden impulse of jealousy, — and how that same Varillo had met with his deserts in death by fire in the Trappist monastery on the Campagna. And the excitement over the great picture became more and more intense — especially when it was known that it would soon be taken away from Rome never to be seen there again. Angela herself knew little of her rapidly extending fame, — she was in Paris with the Princesse D’Agramont who had taken her there immediately after Monsignor Gherardi’s visit to her father. She was not told of Florian Varillo’s death till she had been some days in the French capital, and then it was broken to her as gently as possible. But the result was disastrous. The strength she had slowly regained seemed now to leave her altogether, and she was stricken with a mute despair which was terrible to witness. Hour after hour, she lay on a couch, silent and motionless, — her large eyes fixed on vacancy, her little white hands clasped close together as though in a very extremity of bodily and mental anguish, and the Princesse D’Agramont, who watched her and tended her with the utmost devotion, was often afraid that all her care would be of no avail, and that her patient would slip through her hands into the next world before she had time to even attempt to save her. And Cyrillon Vergmaud, unhappy and restless, wandered up and down outside the house, where this life, so secretly dear to him, was poised as it were on the verge of death, not daring to enter, or even enquire for news, lest he should hear the worst.

  One cold dark afternoon however, as he thus paced to and fro, he saw the Princesse D’Agramont at a window beckoning him, and with a sickening terror at his heart, he obeyed the signal.

  “I wish you would come and talk to her!” said the Princesse as she greeted him, with tears in her bright eyes. “She must be roused from this apathy. I can do nothing with her. But I think YOU might do much if you would!”

  “I will do anything — anything in the wide world!” said Cyrillon earnestly. “Surely you know that!”

  “Yes — but you must not be too gentle with her! I do not mean that you should be rough — God forbid! — but if you would speak to her with authority — if you could tell her that she owes her life and her work to the world — to God—”

  She broke off, not trusting herself to say more. Cyrillon raised her hand to his lips.

  “I understand!” he said. “You know I have hesitated — because — I love her! I cannot tell her not to grieve for her dead betrothed, when I myself am longing to take his place!”

  The Princesse smiled through her tears.

  “The position is difficult I admit!” she said, with a returning touch of playfulness— “But the very fact of your love for her should give you the force to command her back to life. Come!”

  She took him into the darkened room where Angela lay — inert, immovable, with always the same wide-open eyes, blank with misery and desolation, and said gently,

  “Angela, will you speak to Gys Grandit?”

  Angela turned her wistful looks upon him, and essayed a poor little ghost of a smile. Very gently Cyrillon advanced and sat down beside her, — and with equal gentleness, the Princesse D’Agramont withdrew. Cyrillon’s heart beat fast; if he could have lifted that frail little form of a woman into his arms and kissed away the sorrow consuming it, he would have been happy, — but his mission was that of a friend, not lover, and his own emotions made it hard for him to begin. At last he spoke

  “When are you going to make up your mind to get well, dear friend?”

  She looked at him piteously.

  “Make up my mind to get well? I shall never be well again!”

  “You will if you resolve to be,” said Cyrillon. “It rests with you!”

  She was silent.

  “Have you heard the latest news from Rome?” he asked after a pause.

  She made a faint sign in the negative.

  Cyrillon smiled.

  “The Church has with all due solemnity anathematized your picture as an inspiration of the Evil One! But it is better that it should be so anathematized than that it should be reported as not your own work. Between two lies, the emissaries of the Vatican have chosen the one least dangerous to themselves.”

  Angela sighed wearily.

  “You do not care?” queried Cyrillon. “Neither anathema nor lie has any effect on you?”

  She raised her left hand and looked dreamily at the circlet of rubies on it — Florian Varillo’s betrothal ring.

  “I care for nothing,” she said slowly. “Nothing — now he is gone!”

  A bitter pang shot through Cyrillon’s heart. He was quite silent. Presently she turned her eyes wistfully towards him.

  “Please do not think me ungrateful for all your kindness! — but — I cannot forget!”

  “Dear Donna Sovrani, may I speak to you fully and, frankly — as a friend? May I do so without offence?”

  She looked at him and saw how pale he was, how his lips trembled, and the consciousness that he was unhappy moved her to a faint sense of compunction.

  “Of course you may!” she answered gently. “I know you do not hate me.”

  “Hate you!” Cyrillon paused, his eyes softening with a great tenderness as they rested upon her. “Who could hate you?”

  “Florian hated me,” she said. “Not always, — no! He loved me once! Only when he saw my picture, then his love perished. Ah, my Florian! Had I known, I would have destroyed all my work rather than have given him a moment’s pain!”

  “And would that have been right?” asked Cyrillon earnestly. “Would not such an act have been one of selfishness rather than sacrifice?”

  A faint color crept over her pale cheeks.

  “Selfishness?—”

  “Yes! Your love for him was quite a personal matter, — but your work is a message to the world. You would have sacrificed the world for his sake, even though he had murdered you!”

  “I would!” she answered, and her eyes shone like stars as she spoke. “The world is nothing to me; love was everything!”

  “That is your way of argument,” said Cyrillon. “But it is not God’s way!”

  She was silent, but her looks questioned him.

  “Genius like yours,” he went on, “is not given to you for yourself alone. You cannot tamper with it, or play with it, for the sake of securing a little more temporal happiness or peace for yourself. Genius is a crown of thorns, — not a wreath of flowers to be worn at a feast of pleasure! You wished your life to be one of love, — God has chosen to make it one of suffering. You say the world is nothing to you, — then my dear friend, God insists that it shall be something to you! Have you the right — I ask you, have you the right to turn away from all your fellow mortals and say— ‘No — because I have been disappointed in my hope and my love, then I will have nothing to do with life — I will turn away from all who need my help — I will throw back the gifts of God with scorn to the Giver, and do nothing simply because I have lost what I myself specially valued!’”

  Her eyes fell beneath his straight clear regard, and she moved restlessly.

  “Ah you do not know — you do not understand!” she said. “I am not thinking of myself — indeed I am not! But I feel as if my work — my picture — had killed Florian! I hate myself! — I hate everything I have ever done, or could ever possibly do. I see him night and day in those horrible flames! — Oh God! those cruel flames! — he seems to reproach me, — even to curse me for his death!”

  She shuddered and turned her face away. Cyrillon ventured to take her hand.

  “That is not like you, dear friend!” he said, his rich voice trembling with the pity he felt for her. “That is not like your brave spirit! You look only at one aspect of grief — you see the darkness of the cloud, but not its brighter side. If I were to say that he whom you loved so greatly has perhaps been taken to save him from even a worse fate, you would be angry with me. You loved him — yes; and whatever he did or attempted to do, even to your injury, you would have loved him still had he lived! That is t
he angel half of woman’s nature. You would have given him your fame had he asked you for it, — you would have pardoned him a thousand times over had he sought your pardon, — you would have worked for him like a slave and been content to die with your genius unrecognized if that would have pleased him. Yes I know! But God saw your heart — and his — and with God alone rests the balance of justice. You must not set yourself in opposition to the law; you, — such a harmonious note in work and life, — must not become a discord!”

  She did not speak. Her hand lay passively in his, and he went on.

  “Death is not the end of life. It is only the beginning of a new school of experience. Your very grief, — your present inaction, may for all we know, be injuring the soul of the man whose loss you mourn!”

  She sighed.

  “Do you think that possible — ?”

  “I do think it very possible,” he answered. “Natural sorrow is not forbidden to us, — but a persistent dwelling on cureless grief is a trespass against the law. Moreover you have been endowed with a great talent, — it is not your own — it is lent to you to use for others, and you have no right to waste it. The world has taken your work with joy, with gratitude, with thanksgiving; will you say that you do not care for the world? — that you will do nothing more for it? — Because one love — one life, has been taken from you, will you discard all love, all life? Dear friend, that will not be reasonable, — not right, nor just, nor brave!”