Books: The Master Christian

M >> Marie Corelli >> The Master Christian

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"He is a liar!" cried Sylvie passionately. "Let him prove his lie!"

"He shall have every chance to prove it!" answered Gherardi calmly.
"I will give him every chance! I will support what you call his lie!
_I_ SAY IT IS A TRUTH! No woman could have painted that picture! And
mark you well--the mere discussion will be sufficient to kill the
Sovrani's fame!"

Heedless of his ecclesiastical dignity--reckless of everything
concerning herself-Sylvie rushed up to him and laid one hand on his
arm.

"What! Are you a servant of Christ," she said half-whisperingly, "or
a slave of the devil?"

"Both," he answered, looking down upon her fair beauty with a wicked
light shining in his eyes. "Both!" and he grasped the little soft
hand that lay on his arm and held it as in a vice. "You are not
wanting in courage, Contessa, to come so close to me!--to let me
hold your hand! How pale you look! If you were like other women you
would scream--or summon your servants, and create a scandal! You
know better! You know that no scandal would ever be believed of a
priest attached to the Court of Rome! Stay there--where you are--I
will not hurt you! No--by all the raging fire of love for you in my
heart, I will not touch more than this hand of yours! Good!--Now you
are quite still--I say again, you have courage! Your eyes do not
flinch--they look straight into mine--what brave eyes! You would
search the very core of my intentions? You shall! Do you not think
it enough for me--who am human though priest--to give you up to the
possession of a man I hate!--A man who has insulted me! Is it not
enough, I say, to immolate my own passion thus, without having to
confront the possibility of your deserting that Church for whose
sake I thus resign you? For had this Aubrey Leigh never met you, I
would have MADE you mine! Still silent?--and your little hand still
quiet in mine?--I envy you your nerve! You stand torture well, but I
will not keep you on the rack too long! You shall know the worst at
once--then you shall yourself judge the position. You shall prove
for yourself the power of Rome! To escape that power you would have,
as the Scripture says, to 'take the wings of the morning and fly
into the uttermost parts of the sea.' Think well!--the fame and
reputation of Angela Sovrani can be ruined at my command,--and
equally, the sanctity and position of her uncle, Cardinal Bonpre!"

With a sudden movement Sylvie wrenched her hand away from his, and
stood at bay, her eyes flashing, her cheeks crimsoning.

"Cardinal Bonpre!" she cried. "What evil have you in your mind
against him? Are you so lost to every sense of common justice as to
attempt to injure one who is greater than many of the Church's
canonized saints in virtue and honesty? What has he done to you?"

Gherardi smiled.

"You excite yourself needlessly, Contessa," he said. "He has done
nothing to me personally,--he is simply in my way. That is his sole
offence! And whatever is in my way, I remove! Nothing is easier than
to remove Cardinal Bonpre, for he has, by his very simplicity,
fallen into a trap from which extrication will be difficult. He
should have stopped in his career with the performance of his
miracle at Rouen,--then all would have been well; he should not have
gone on to Paris, there to condone the crime of the Abbe Vergniaud,
and THEN come on to Rome. To come to Rome under such circumstances,
was like putting his head in the wolf's mouth! But the most
unfortunate thing he has done on his ill-fated journey, is to have
played protector to that boy he has with him."

"Why?" demanded Sylvie, growing pale as before she had been flushed.

"Do not ask why!" said Gherardi. "For a true answer would only anger
you. Suffice it for you to know that whatever is in the way of Rome
must be removed,--SHALL be removed at all costs! Cardinal Bonpre, as
I said before, is in the way--and unless he can account fully and
frankly for his strange companionship with a mere child-wanderer
picked out of the streets, he will lose his diocese. If he persists
in denying all knowledge of the boy's origin he will lose his
Cardinal's hat. There is nothing more to be said! But--there is one
remedy for all this mischief--and it rests with YOU!"

"With me?" Sylvie trembled,--her heart beat violently. She looked as
though she were about to swoon, and Gherardi put out his arm to
support her. She pushed him away indignantly.

"Do not touch me!" she said, her sweet voice shaken with something
like the weakness of tears. "You tempt me to kill you,--to kill you
and rid the world of a human fiend!"

His eyes flashed, and narrowed at the corners in the strange snake-
like way habitual to them.

"How beautiful you are!" he said indulgently, "There are some people
in the world who do not admire slight little creatures like you, all
fire and spirit enclosed in sweetness--and in their ignorance they
escape much danger! For when a man stoops to pick up a small flower
half hidden in the long grass, he does not expect it to half-madden
him with its sweetness--or half-murder him by its sting! That is why
you are irresistible to me, and to many. Yes--no doubt you would
like to kill me, bella Contessa!--and many a man would like to be
killed by you! If I were not Domenico Gherardi, servant of Mother-
Church, I would willingly submit to death at your hands. But being
what I am, I must live! And living, I must work--to fulfil the
commands of the Church. And so faithful am I in the work of our
Lord's vineyard, that I care not how many grapes I press in the
making of His wine! I tell you plainly that it rests with you to
save your friend Angela Sovrani, and the saintly Cardinal likewise.
Keep to the vows you have sworn to Holy Church,--vows sworn for you
in infancy at baptism, and renewed by yourself at your confirmation
and first Communion,--bring your husband to Us! And Florian
Varillo's mouth shall be closed--the Sovrani's reputation shall
shine like the sun at noonday; even the rank heresy of her picture
shall be forgiven, and the Cardinal and his waif shall go free!"

Sylvie clasped her hands passionately together and raised them in an
attitude of entreaty.

"Oh, why are you so cruel!" she cried. "Why do you demand from me
what you know to be impossible?"

"It is not impossible," answered Gherardi, watching her closely as
he spoke. "The Church is lenient,--she demands nothing in haste--
nothing unreasonable! I do not even ask you to bring about Aubrey
Leigh's conversion before your marriage. You are free to wed him in
your own way and in his,--provided that one ceremonial of the
marriage takes place according to our Catholic rites. But after you
are thus wedded, you must promise to bring him to Us!--you must
further promise that any children born of your union be baptized in
the Catholic faith. With such a pledge from you, in writing, I will
be satisfied;--and out of all the entanglements and confusion at
present existing, your friends shall escape unharmed. I swear it!"

He raised his hand with a lofty gesture, as though he were asserting
the truth and grandeur of some specially noble cause. Sylvie,
letting her clasped hands drop asunder with a movement of despair,
stood gazing at him in fascinated horror.

"The Church!" he went on, warming with his own inward fervour. "The
Rock, on which our Lord builds the real fabric of the Universe!" And
his tall form dilated with the utterance of his blasphemy. "The
learning, the science, the theoretical discussions of men, shall
pass as dust blown by the breath of a storm-wind--but the Church
shall remain, the same, yesterday, to-day and forever! It shall
crush down kings, governments and nations in its unmoving Majesty!
The fluctuating wisdom of authors and reformers--the struggle of
conflicting creeds--all these shall sink and die under the silent
inflexibility of its authority! The whole world hurled against it
shall not prevail, and were all its enemies to perish by the sword,
by poison, by disease, by imprisonment, by stripes and torture, this
would be but even justice! 'For many are called--but few are
chosen.'"

He turned his eyes, flashing with a sort of fierce ecstasy, upon the
slight half-shrinking figure of Sylvie opposite to him. "Yes, bella
Contessa! What the Church ordains, must be; what the Church desires,
that same the Church will have! There is no room in the hearts or
minds of its servants for love, for pity, for pardon, for anything
human merely,--its authority is Divine!--and 'God will not be
mocked'! Humanity is the mere food and wine of sacrifice to the
Church's doctrine,--nations may starve, but the Church must be fed.
What are nations to the Church? Naught but children,--docile or
rebellious;--children to be whipped, and coerced, and FORCED to
obey! Thus for you, one unit out of the whole mass, to oppose
yourself to the mighty force of Rome, is as though one daisy out of
the millions in the grass should protest against the sweep of the
mower's scythe! You do not know me yet! There is nothing I would
hesitate to do in the service of the Church. I would consent to ruin
even YOU, to prove the fire of my zeal, as well as the fire of my
love!"

He made a step towards her,--she drew herself to the utmost reach of
her elfin height, and looked at him straightly. Pale, but with her
dark blue eyes flashing like jewels, she in one sweeping glance,
measured him with a scorn so intense that it seemed to radiate from
her entire person, and pierce him with a thousand arrowy shafts of
flame.

"You have stated your intentions," she said. "Will you hear my
answer?"

He bent his head gravely, with a kind of ironical tolerance in his
manner.

"There is nothing I desire more!" he replied, "for I am sure that in
the unselfish sweetness of your nature you will do all you can to
serve--and save--your friends!"

"You are right!" she said, controlling the quickness of her
breathing, and forcing herself to speak calmly. "I will! But not in
your way! Not at your command! You have enlightened me on many
points of which I was hitherto ignorant--and for this I thank you!
You have taught me that the Church, instead of being a brotherhood
united in the Divine service of Christ, who was God-in-Man, is a
mere secular system of avarice and tyranny! You pretend to save
souls for God! What do you care for MY soul! You would have me wed a
man with fraud in my heart,--with the secret intent to push upon him
the claims of a Church he abhors,--and this after he has made me his
wife! You would have me tell lies to him before the Eternal! And you
call that the way to salvation? No, Monsignor! It is the wealth of
the Hermensteins you desire!--not the immortal rescue or heavenly
benefit of the last of their children! You will support the murderer
Varillo in his lie to ruin an innocent woman's reputation! You would
destroy the honour and peace of an old man's life for the sake of
furthering your own private interests and grudges! And you call
yourself a servant of Christ! Monsignor, if you are a servant of
Christ, then the Church you serve must be the shadow of a future
hell!--not the promise of a future heaven! I denounce it,--I deny
it!--I swear by the Holy Name of our Redeemer that I am a
Christian!--not a slave of the Church of Rome!"

Such passion thrilled her, such high exaltation, that she looked
like an inspired angel in her beauty and courage, and Gherardi,
smothering a fierce oath, made one stride towards her and seized her
hands.

"You defy me!" he said in a hoarse whisper. "You dare me to my
worst?"

She looked up at his dark cruel face, his glittering eyes, and
shuddered as with icy cold,--but the spirit in that delicate little
body of hers was strong as steel, and tempered to the grandest
issues.

"I dare you to do your worst!" she said, half-sobbingly,--half-
closing her eyes in the nervous terror she could not altogether
control. "You can but kill me--I shall die true!"

With a sort of savage cry, Gherardi snatched her round the waist,
but scarcely had he done so when he was flung aside with a force
that made him reel back heavily against the wall, and Aubrey Leigh
confronted him.

"Aubrey!" cried Sylvie. "Oh, Aubrey!"

He caught her as she sprang to him, and held her fast,--and with
perfect self-possession he eyed the priest disdainfully up and down.

"So this," he said coldly, "is the way the followers of Saint Peter
fulfil the commands of Christ! Or shall we say this is the way in
which they go on denying their Master? It is a strange way of
retaining disciples,--a still stranger way of making converts! A
brave way too, to intimidate a woman!"

Gherardi, recovering from the shock of Aubrey's blow, drew himself
up haughtily.

"I serve the Church, Mr. Leigh!" he said proudly. "And in that high
service all means are permitted to us for a righteous end!"

"Ah!--the old Jesuitical hypocrisy!" And Aubrey smiled bitterly.
"Lies are permitted in the Cause of Truth! One word, Monsignor! I
have no wish to play at any game of double-dealing with you. I have
heard the whole of your interview with this lady. It is the first
time I have ever played the eavesdropper--but my duty was to protect
my promised wife, if she needed protection--and I thought it was
possible she might need it--from YOU!"

Gherardi turned a livid paleness, and drew a quick breath.

"I know your moves," went on Aubrey quietly, "and it will be my
business as well as my pleasure to frustrate them. Moreover, I shall
give your plot into the care of the public press--"

"You will not dare!" cried Gherardi fiercely. "But--after all, what
matter if you do!--no one will believe you!"

"Not in Rome, perhaps," returned Aubrey coolly. "But in England,--in
America,--things are different. There are many honest men who
dislike to contemplate even a distant vision of the talons of Rome
hovering over us--we look upon such mischief as a sign of decay,--
for only where the carcasses of nations lie, does the vulture hover!
We are not dead yet! And now, Monsignor,--as your interview with the
Countess is ended--an interview to which I have been a witness--may
I suggest the removal of your presence? You have made a proposition-
-she has rejected it--the matter is ended!"

Civilly calm and cold he stood, holding Sylvie close to him with one
embracing arm, and Gherardi, looking at the two together thus,
impotently wished that the heavy sculptured and painted ceiling
above them might fall and crush them into a pulp before him. No
shame, no sense of compunction moved him,--if anything, he raised
his head more haughtily than before.

"Aubrey Leigh," he said, "Socialist, reformer, revolutionist--
whatever you choose to call yourself!--you have all the insolence of
your race and class,--and it is beneath my dignity to argue with
you. But you will rue the day you ever crossed my path! Not one
thing have I threatened, that shall not be performed! This unhappy
lady whose mind has been perverted from Holy Church by your
heretical teachings, shall be excommunicated. Henceforth we look
upon her as a child of sin, and we shall publicly declare her
marriage with you illegal. The rest can be left with confidence, to-
-Society!"

And with a dark smile which made his face look like that of some
malignant demon, he turned, and preserving his proud inflexibility
of demeanour, without another look or gesture, left the apartment.

Then Aubrey, alone with his love, drew her closer, and lifted her
fair face to his own, looking at it with passionate tenderness and
admiration.

"You brave soul!" he said. "You true woman! You angel of the
covenant of love! How shall I ever tell you how I worship you--how I
revere you--for your truth and courage!"

She trembled under the ardour of his utterance, and her eyes filled
with tears.

"I was not afraid!" she said. "I should have called Katrine,--only I
knew that if I once did so, she also would be involved, and he would
be unscrupulous enough to ruin my name with a few words in order to
defend himself from all suspicion. But you, Aubrey?--how did it
happen that you were here?"

"I was here from the first!" he replied triumphantly. "I followed on
Gherardi's very heels. Your Arab boy admitted me--he was in my
secret. He showed me into the anteroom just outside, where by
leaving a corner of the door ajar I could see and hear everything.
And I listened to your every word! I saw every bright flash of the
strong soul in your brave eyes! And now those eyes question me,
sweetheart,--almost reproachfully they seem to ask me why I did not
interfere between you and Gherardi before? Ah, but you must forgive
me for the delay! I wanted to drink all my cup of nectar to the
dregs--I could not lose one drop of such sweetness! To see you,
slight fragile blossom of a woman, matching your truth and courage
against the treachery and malice of the most unscrupulous priestly
tool ever employed by the Vatican, was a sight to make me strong for
all my days!" He kissed her passionately. "My love! My wife! How can
I ever thank you!"

She raised her sweet eyes wonderingly.

"Did you doubt me, Aubrey?" "No! I never doubted you. But I wondered
whether your force would hold out, whether you might not be
intimidated, whether you might not temporize, which would have been
natural enough--whether you might not have used some little social
art or grace to cover up and disguise the absoluteness of your
resolve--but no! You were a heroine in the fight, and you gave your
blows straight from the hilt, without flinching. You have made me
twice a man, Sylvie! With you beside me I shall win all I might
otherwise have lost, and I thank God for you, dear!--I thank God for
you!"

He drew her close again into his arms, pressing her to his heart
which beat tumultously with its deep rejoicing,--no fear now that
they two would ever cease to be one! No danger now of those
miserable so-called "religious" disputes between husband and wife,
which are so eminently anti-Christian, and which make many a home a
hell upon earth,--disputes which young children sometimes have to
witness from their earliest years, when the mother talks "at" the
father for not going to Church, or the father sneers at the mother
for being "a rank Papist"! Nothing now, but absolute union in spirit
and thought, in soul and intention--the rarest union that can be
consummated between man and woman, and yet the only one that can
engender perfect peace and unchanging happiness.

And presently the lovers' trance of joy gave way to thought for
others; to a realization of the dangers hovering over the good
Cardinal, and the already ill-fated Angela Sovrani, and Aubrey,
raising the golden head that nestled against his breast, kissed the
sweet lips once more and said--

"Now, my Sylvie, we must take the law into our own hands! We must do
all we can to save our friends. The Cardinal must be thought of
first. If we are not quick to the rescue he will be sent 'into
retreat,' which can be translated as forced detention, otherwise
imprisonment. He must leave Rome to-night. Now listen!"

And sitting down beside her, still holding her hand, he gave her an
account of his meeting with Cyrillon Vergniaud, otherwise "Gys
Grandit," and told her of the sudden passion for Angela that had
fired the soul of that fiery writer of the fiercest polemics against
priestcraft that had as yet startled France.

"Knowing now all the intended machinations of Gherardi," continued
Aubrey, "what I suggest is this,--that you, my Sylvie, should
confide in the Princesse D'Agramont, who is fortunately for us, an
enemy of the Vatican. Arrange with her that she persuades Angela to
return under her escort at once to Paris. Angela is well enough to
travel if great care be taken of her, and the Princesse will not
spare that. Cyrillon can go with them--I should think that might be
managed?"

He smiled as he put this question. Sylvie smiled in answer and
replied demurely--

"I should think so!"

"But the Cardinal," resumed Aubrey, "and--and Manuel--must go to-
night. I will see Prince Sovrani and arrange it. And Sylvie--will
you marry me to-morrow morning?"

Her eyes opened wide and she laughed.

"Why yes, if you wish it!" she said. "But--so soon?"

"Darling, the sooner the better! I mean to take every possible
method of making our marriage binding in the sight of the world,
before the Vatican has time to launch its thunders. If you are
willing, we can be married at the American Consulate to-morrow
morning. You must remember that though born of British parents, I do
not resign my American citizenship, and would not forego being of
the New World for all the old worlds ever made! The American Consul
knows me well, and he will begin to make things legal for us to-
morrow if you are ready."

"BEGIN to make things legal?" echoed Sylvie smiling. "Will he do no
more than begin?"

"My sweetheart, he cannot. He will make you mine according to
American law. In England, you will again be made mine according to
English law. And then afterwards we will have our religious
ceremony!"

Sylvie looked at him perplexedly, then gave a pretty gesture of
playful resignation.

"Let everything be as you wish and decide, Aubrey," she said." I
give my life and love to you, and have no other will but yours!"

He kissed her.

"I accept the submission, only to put myself more thoroughly at your
command," he said tenderly,--"You are my queen,--but with powerful
enemies against us, I must see that you are rightfully enthroned!"

A few minutes' more conversation,--then a hurried consultation with
Madame Bozier, and Sylvie, changing her lace gown for a simple
travelling dress, walked out of the Casa D'Angeli with the faithful
Katrine, and taking the first carriage she could find, was driven to
the Palazzo where the Princesse D'Agramont had her apartments.
Allowing from ten to fifteen minutes to elapse after her departure,
Aubrey Leigh himself went out, and standing on the steps of the
house, looked up and down carelessly, drawing on his gloves and
humming a tune. His quick glance soon espied what he had been almost
certain he should see, namely, the straight black-garmented figure
of a priest, walking slowly along the street on the opposite side,
his hands clasped behind his back, and his whole aspect indicative
of devout meditation.

"I thought so!" said Aubrey to himself. "A spy set on already! No
time to lose--Cardinal Bonpre must leave Rome at nightfall."

Leisurely he crossed the road, and walking with as slow a step as
the priest he had noticed, came opposite to him face to face. With
impenetrable solemnity the holy man meekly moved aside,--with
equally impenetrable coolness, Aubrey eyed him up and down, then the
two passed each other, and Aubrey walked with the same unhasting
pace, to the end of the street,--then turned--to see that the priest
had paused in his holy musings to crane his neck after him and watch
him with the most eager scrutiny. He did not therefore take a
carriage at the moment he intended, but walked on into the Corso,--
there he sprang into a fiacre and drove straight to the Sovrani
Palace. The first figure he saw there, strolling about in the front
of the building, was another priest, absorbed in apparently profound
thoughts on the sublimity of the sunset, which was just then casting
its red glow over the Eternal City. And with the appearance of this
second emissary of the Vatican police, he realised the full
significance of the existing position of affairs.

Without a moment's loss of time he was ushered into the presence of
the Cardinal, and there for a moment stood silent on the threshold
of the apartment, overcome by the noble aspect of the venerable
prelate, who, seated in his great oaken chair, was listening to a
part of the Gospel of Saint Luke, read aloud in clear sweet accents
by Manuel.

"A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth
that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his
heart bringeth forth that which is evil; for of the abundance of the
heart his mouth speaketh.

"And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?

"Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I
will show you to whom he is like:

"He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid
the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat
vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was
founded upon a rock.

"But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a
foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream
did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; AND THE RUIN OF THAT
HOUSE WAS GREAT."

And emphasizing the last line, Manuel closed the book; then at a
kindly beckoning gesture from the Cardinal, Aubrey advanced into the
room, bowing with deep reverence and honour over the worn old hand
the prelate extended.

"My lord Cardinal," he said without further preface, "you must leave
Rome to-night!"

The Cardinal raised his gentle blue eyes in wondering protest.