Books: The Master Christian

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"By whose order?"

"Surely by your own Master's will," said Aubrey with deep
earnestness. "For he would not have you be a victim to treachery!"

"Treachery!" And the Cardinal smiled. "My son, traitors harm
themselves more than those they would betray. Treachery cannot touch
me!"

Aubrey came a step nearer.

"Monsignor, if you do not care for yourself you will care for the
boy," he said in a lower tone, with a glance at Manuel, who had
withdrawn, and was now standing at one of the windows, the light of
the sunset appearing to brighten itself in his fair hair. "He will
be separated from you!"

At this the Cardinal rose up, his whole form instinct with
resolution and dignity.

"They cannot separate us against the boy's will or mine," he said.
"Manuel!"

Manuel came to his call, and the Cardinal placed one hand on his
shoulder.

"Child," he said softly, "they threaten to part me from you, if we
stay longer here. Therefore we must leave Rome!"

Manuel looked up with a bright flashing glance of tenderness.

"Yes, dear friend, we must leave Rome!" he said. "Rome is no place
for you--or for me!"

There was a moment's silence. Something in the attitude of the old
man and the young boy standing side by side, moved Aubrey deeply; a
sense of awe as well as love overwhelmed him at the sight of these
two beings, so pure in mind, so gentle of heart, and so widely
removed in years and in life,--the one a priest of the Church, the
other a waif of the streets, yet drawn together as it seemed, by the
simple spirit of Christ's teaching, in an almost supernatural bond
of union. Recovering himself presently he said,

"To-night then, Monsignor?"

The Cardinal looked at Manuel, who answered for him.

"Yes, to-night! We will be ready! For the days are close upon the
time when the birth of Christ was announced to a world that does not
yet believe in Him! It will be well to leave Rome before then! For
the riches of the Pope's palace have nothing to do with the poor
babe born in a manger,--and the curse of the Vatican would be a
discord in the angels' singing--'Glory to God in the highest, and on
earth PEACE, GOODWILL TOWARDS MEN'!"

His young voice rang out, silver clear and sweet, and Aubrey gazed
at him in wondering silence.

"To-night!" repeated Manuel, smiling and stretching out his hand
with a gentle authoritative gesture. "To-night the Cardinal will
leave Rome, and _I_ will leave it too--perchance for ever!"

XXXV.

During these various changes in the lives of those with whom he had
been more or less connected, Florian Varillo lay between life and
death in the shelter of a Trappist monastery on the Campagna. When
he had been seized by the delirium and fever which had flung him,
first convulsed and quivering, and then totally insensible, at the
foot of the grim, world-forgotten men who passed the midnight hours
in digging their own graves, he had been judged by them as dying or
dead, and had been carried into a sort of mortuary chapel, cold and
bare, and lit only by the silver moonbeams and the flicker of a
torch one of the monks carried. Waking in this ghastly place, too
weak to struggle, he fell a-moaning like a tortured child, and was,
on showing this sign of life, straight-way removed to one of the
cells. Here, after hours of horrible suffering, of visions more
hideous than Dante's Hell, of stupors and struggles, of fits of
strong shrieking, followed by weak tears, he woke one afternoon calm
and coherent,--to find himself lying on a straight pallet bed in a
narrow stone chamber, dimly lighted by a small slit of window,
through which a beam of the sun fell aslant, illumining the blood-
stained features of a ghastly Christ stretched on a black crucifix
directly opposite him. He shuddered as he saw this, and half-closed
his eyes with a deep sigh.

"Tired--tired!" said a thin clear voice beside him. "Always tired!
It is only God who is never weary!"

Varillo opened his eyes again languidly, and turned them on a monk
sitting beside him,--a monk whose face was neither old nor young,
but which presented a singular combination of both qualities. His
high forehead, white as marble, had no furrows to mar its
smoothness, and from under deep brows a pair of wondering wistful
brown eyes peered like the eyes of a lost and starving child. The
cheeks were gaunt and livid, the flesh hanging in loose hollows from
the high and prominent bones, yet the mouth was that of a youth,
firm, well-outlined and sweet in expression, and when he smiled as
he did now, he showed an even row of small pearly teeth which might
have been envied by many a fair woman.

"Only God who is never weary!" he said, nodding his head slowly,
"but we--you and I--we are soon tired!"

Varillo looked at him dubiously; and a moment's thought decided him
to assume a certain amount of meekness and docility with this
evident brother of some religious order, so that he might obtain
both sympathy and confidence from him, and from all whom he might be
bound to serve. Ill and weak as he was, the natural tendency of his
brain to scheme for his own advantage, was not as yet impaired.

"Ah, yes!" he sighed, "I am very tired!--very ill! I do not know
what has happened to me--nor even where I am. What place is this?"

"It is a place where the dead come!" responded the monk. "The dead
in heart! the dead in soul--the dead in sin! They come to bury
themselves, lest God should find them and crush them into dust
before they have time to say a prayer! Like Adam and his wife, they
hide themselves 'from the presence of the Lord among the trees of
the garden.'"

Varillo raised himself on one elbow, and stared at the pale face and
smiling mouth of the speaker in fear and wonder.

"'A place where the dead come!'" he echoed. "But you are alive--and
so am I!"

"You may be--I am not," said the monk quietly. "I died long ago!
People who are alive say we are men, though we know ourselves to be
ghosts merely. This place is called by the world a Trappist
monastery,--you will go out of it if indeed you are alive--you must
prove that first! But we shall never come out, because we are dead.
One never comes out of the grave!"

With an effort Varillo tried to control the tremor of his nerves,
and to understand and reason out these enigmatical sentences of his
companion. He began to think--and then to remember,--and by and by
was able to conjure up the picture of himself as he had last been
conscious of existence,--himself standing outside the gates of a
great building on the Campagna, and shaking the iron bars to and
fro. It was a Trappist monastery then?--and he was being taken
charge of by the Trappist Order? This fact might possibly be turned
to his account if he were careful. He lay down once more on his
pillow and closed his eyes, and under this pretence of sleep,
pondered his position. What were they saying of him in Rome? Was
Angela buried? And her great picture? What had become of it?

"How long have I been here?" he asked suddenly.

The monk gave a curious deprecatory gesture with his hands.

"Since you died! So long have you been dead!"

Varillo surveyed him with a touch of scorn.

"You talk in parables--like your Master!" he said with a feeble
attempt at a laugh. "I am not strong enough to understand you! And
if you are a Trappist monk, why do you talk at all? I thought one of
your rules was perpetual silence?"

"Silence? Yes--everyone is silent but me!" said the monk--"I may
talk--because I am only Ambrosio,--mad Ambrosio!--something wrong
here!" And he touched his forehead. "A little teasing demon lives
always behind my eyes, piercing my brain with darts of fire. And he
obliges me to talk; he makes me say things I should not--and for all
the mischief he works upon me I wear this--see!"--And springing up
suddenly he threw aside the folds of his garment, and displayed his
bare chest, over which a coarse rope was crossed and knotted so
tightly, that the blood was oozing from the broken flesh on either
side of it. "For every word I say, I bleed!"

Varillo gave a nervous cry and covered his eyes.

"Do not be afraid!" said Ambrosio, drawing his robe together again,
"It is only flesh--not spirit--that is wounded! Flesh is our great
snare,--it persuades us to eat, to sleep, to laugh, to love--the
spirit commands none of these things. The spirit is of God--it wants
neither food nor rest,--it is pure and calm,--it would escape to
Heaven if the flesh did not cramp its wings!"

Varillo took his hand from his eyes and tossed himself back on his
pillow with a petulant moan.

"Can they do nothing better for me than this?" he ejaculated. "To
place me here in this wretched cell alone with a madman!"

Ambrosio stood by the pallet bed looking down upon him with a sort
of child-like curiosity.

"No better than this?" he echoed. "Would you have anything better?
Safe--safe from the world,--no one can find you or follow you--no
one can discover your sin--"

"Sin! What sin!" demanded Varillo fiercely. "You talk like a fool--
as you own yourself to be! I have committed no sin!"

"Good--good!" said Ambrosio. "Then you must be canonized with all
the rest of the saints! And St. Peter's shall be illuminated, and
the Pope shall be carried in to see you and to lay his hands upon
you, and they shall shout to him, 'Tu es Petrus!' and no one will
remember what kind of a bruised, bleeding, tortured, broken-down
Head of the Church stood before the multitude when Pilate cried
'Ecce homo!'"

Varillo stared at him in unwilling fascination. He seemed carried
beyond himself,--it was as though some other force spoke through
him, and though he scarcely raised his voice, its tone was so clear,
musical, and penetrative that it seemed to give light and warmth to
the cold dullness of the cell.

"You must not mind me!" he went on softly, "My thoughts have all
gone wrong, they tell me,--so have my words. I was young once--and
in that time I used to study hard and try to understand what it was
that God wished me to do with my life. But there were so many
things--so much confusion--so much difficulty--and the end is--
here!" He smiled. "Well! It is a quiet end,--they say the devil
knocks at the gate of the monastery often at midnight, but he never
enters in,--never--unless perchance you are he!"

Varillo turned himself about pettishly.

"If I were he, I should not trouble you long," he said. "Even the
devil might be glad to make exit from such a hole as this! Who is
your Superior?"

"We have only one Superior,--God!" replied Ambrosio. "He who never
slumbers or sleeps--He who troubles Himself to look into everything,
from the cup of a flower to the heart of a man! Who shall escape the
lightning of His glance, or think to cover up a hidden vileness from
the discovery of the Most High?"

"I did not ask you for pious jargon," said Varillo, beginning to
lose temper, yet too physically weak to contend with the wordy
vagaries of this singular personage who had evidently been told off
to attend upon him. "I asked you who is the Head or Ruler of this
community? Who gives you the daily rule of conduct which you all
obey?"

Ambrosio's brown eyes grew puzzled, and he shook his head.

"I obey no one," he said. "I am mad Ambrosio!--I walk about in my
grave, and speak, and sing, while others remain silent. I would tell
you if I knew of anyone greater than God,--but I do not!"

Varillo uttered an impatient groan. It was no good asking this
creature anything,--his answers were all wide of the mark.

"God," went on Ambrosio, turning his head towards the light that
came streaming in through the narrow window of the cell, "is in that
sunbeam! He can enter where He will, and we never know when we shall
meet Him face to face! He may possess with His spirit the chaste
body of a woman, as in our Blessed Lady,--or He may come to us in
the form of a child, speaking to the doctors in the temple and
arguing with them on the questions of life and death. He is in all
things; and the very beggar at our gates who makes trial of our
charity, may for all we know, be our Lord disguised! Shall I tell
you a strange story?"

Varillo gave a weary sign of assent, half closing his eyes. It was
better this crazed fool should talk, he thought, than that he should
lie there and listen, as it were, to the deadly silence which in the
pauses of the conversation could be felt, like the brooding
heaviness of a thick cloud hanging over the monastery walls.

"It happened long ago," said Ambrosio. "There was a powerful prince
who thought that to be rich and strong was sufficient to make all
the world his own. But the world belongs to God,--and He does not
always give it over to the robber and spoiler. This prince I tell
you of, had been the lover of a noble lady, but he was false-
hearted; and the false soon grow weary of love! And so, tiring of
her beauty and her goodness, he stabbed her mortally to death, and
thought no one had seen him do the deed. For the only witness to it
was a ray of moonlight falling through the window--just as the
sunlight falls now!--see!" And he pointed to the narrow aperture
which lit the cell, while Florian Varillo, shuddering in spite of
himself, lay motionless. "But when the victim was dead, this very
ray of moonlight turned to the shape of a great angel, and the angel
wore the semblance of our Lord,--and the glory and the wonder of
that vision was as the lightning to slay and utterly destroy! And
from that hour for many years, the murderer was followed by a ray of
light, which never left him; all day he saw it flickering in his
path,--all night it flashed across his bed, driving sleep from his
eyes and rest from his brain!--till at last maddened by remorse he
confessed his crime to a priest, and was taken into a grave like
this, a monastery,--where he died, so they say, penitent. But
whether he was forgiven, the story does not say!"

"It is a stupid story!" said Varillo, opening his eyes, and smiling
in the clear, candid way he always assumed when he had anything to
hide. "It has neither point nor meaning."

"You think not?" said Ambrosio. "But perhaps you are not conscious
of God. If you were, that sunbeam we see now should make you
careful, lest an angel should be in it!"

"Careful? Why should I be careful?" Varillo half raised himself on
the bed. "I have nothing to hide!"

At this Ambrosio began to laugh.

"Oh, you are happy--happy!" he exclaimed. "You are the first I ever
heard say that! Nothing to hide! Oh, fortunate, fortunate man! Then
indeed you should not be here--for we all have something to hide,
and we are afraid even of the light,--that is why we make such
narrow holes for it; we are always praying God not to look at our
sins,--not to uncover them and show us what vile souls we are--we
men who could be as gods in life, if we did not choose to be devils-
-"

Here he suddenly broke off, and a curious grey rigidity stole over
his features, as if some invisible hand were turning him into stone.
His eyes sparkled feverishly, but otherwise his face was the lace of
the dead. The horrible fixity of his aspect at that moment, so
terrified Varillo that he gave a loud cry, and almost before he knew
he had uttered it, another monk entered the cell. Varillo gazed at
him affrightedly, and pointed to Ambrosio. The monk said nothing,
but merely took the rigid figure by its arm and shook it violently.
Then, as suddenly as he had lost speech and motion, Ambrosio
recovered both, and went on talking evenly, taking up the sentence
he had broken off--"If we did not choose to be as devils, we might
be as gods!" Then looking around him with a smile, he added, "Now
you are here, Filippo, you will explain!"

The monk addressed as Filippo remained silent, still holding him by
the arm, and presently quietly guiding him, led him out of the cell.
When the two brethren had disappeared, Varillo fell back on his
pillows exhausted.

"What am I to do now?" he thought. "I must have been here many
days!--all Rome must know of Angela's death--all Rome must wonder at
my absence--all Rome perhaps suspects me of being her murderer! And
yet--this illness may be turned to some account. I can say that it
was caused by grief at hearing the sudden news of her death--that I
was stricken down by my despair--but then--I must not forget--I was
to have been in Naples. Yes--the thing looks suspicious--I shall be
tracked!--I must leave Italy. But how?"

Bathed in cold perspiration he lay, wondering, scheming, devising
all sorts of means of escape from his present surroundings, when he
became suddenly aware of a tall dark figure in the cell,--a figure
muffled nearly to its eyes, which had entered with such stealthy
softness and silence as to give almost the impression of some
supernatural visitant. He uttered a faint exclamation--the figure
raised one hand menacingly.

"Be silent!" These words were uttered in a harsh whisper. "If you
value your life, hold your peace till I have said what I come to
say!"

Moving to the door of the cell, the mysterious visitor bolted it
across and locked it--then dropped the disguising folds of his heavy
mantle and monk's cowl, and disclosed the face and form of Domenico
Gherardi. Paralysed with fear Varillo stared at him,--every drop of
blood seemed to rush from his heart to his brain, turning him sick
and giddy, for in the dark yet fiery eyes of the priest, there was a
look that would have made the boldest tremble.

"I knew that you were here," he said, his thin lips widening at the
corners in a slight disdainful smile. "I saw you at the inn on the
road to Frascati, and watched you shrink and tremble as I spoke of
the murder of Angela Sovrani! You screened your face behind a paper
you were reading,--that was not necessary, for your hand shook,--and
so betrayed itself as the hand of the assassin!"

With a faint moan, Varillo shudderingly turned away and buried his
head in his pillow.

"Why do you now wish to hide yourself?" pursued Gherardi. "Now when
you are an honest man at last, and have shown yourself in your true
colors? You were a liar hitherto, but now you have discovered
yourself to be exactly as the devil made you, why you can look at me
without fear--we understand each other!"

Still Varillo hid his eyes and moaned, and Gherardi thereupon laid a
rough hand on his shoulder.

"Come, man! You are not a sick child to lie cowering there as though
seized by the plague! What ails you? You have done no harm! You
tried to kill something that stood in your way,--I admire you for
that! I would do the same myself at any moment!"

Slowly Varillo lifted himself and looked up at the dark strong face
above him.

"A pity you did not succeed!" went on Gherardi, "for the world would
have been well rid of at least one feminine would-be 'genius,' whose
skill puts that of man to shame! But perhaps it may comfort you to
know that your blow was not strong enough or deep enough, and that
your betrothed wife yet lives to wed you--if she will!"

"Lives!" cried Florian. "Angela lives!"

"Ay, Angela lives!" replied Gherardi coldly. "Does that give you
joy? Does your lover's heart beat with ecstasy to know that she--
twenty times more gifted than you, a hundred times more famous than
you, a thousand times more beloved by the world than you--lives, to
be crowned with an immortal fame, while you are relegated to scorn
and oblivion! Does that content you?"

A dull red flush crept over Varillo's cheeks,--his hand flenched the
coverlet of his bed convulsively.

"Lives!" He muttered. "She lives! Then it must be by a miracle! For
I drove the steel deep . . . deep home!"

Gherardi looked at him curiously, with the air of a scientist
watching some animal writhing under vivisection.

"Perhaps Cardinal Felix prayed for her!" he said mockingly, "and
even as he healed the crippled child in Rouen he may have raised his
niece from the dead! But miracle or no miracle, she lives. That is
why I am here!"

"Why--you--are--here?" repeated Varillo mechanically.

"How dull you are!" said Gherardi tauntingly. "A man like you with a
dozen secret intrigues in Rome, should surely be able to grasp a
situation better! Angela Sovrani lives, I tell you,--I am here to
help you to kill her more surely! Your first attempt was clumsy,--
and dangerous to yourself, but--murder her reputation, amico, murder
her reputation!--and so build up your own!"

Slowly Varillo turned his eyes upon him. Gherardi met them
unflinchingly, and in that one glance the two were united in the
spirit of their evil intention.

"You are a man," went on Gherardi, watching him closely. "Will you
permit yourself to be baffled and beaten in the race for fame by a
woman? Shame on you if you do! Listen! I am prepared to swear that
you are innocent of having attempted the murder of your affianced
wife, and I will also assert that the greater part of her picture
was painted by you, though you were, out of generosity and love for
her, willing to let her take the credit of the whole conception!"

Varillo started upright.

"God!" he cried. "Is it possible! Will you do this for me?"

"Not for you--No," said Gherardi contemptuously. "I will do nothing
for you! If I saw you lying in the road at my feet dying for want of
a drop of water, I would not give it to you! What I do, I do for
myself--and the Church!"

By this time Varillo had recovered his equanimity. A smile came
readily to his lips as he said--

"Ah, the Church! Excellent institution! Like charity, it covers a
multitude of sins!"

"It exists for that object," answered Gherardi with a touch of
ironical humor. "Its own sins it covers,--and shows up the
villainies of those who sin outside its jurisdiction. Angela Sovrani
is one of these,--her uncle the Cardinal is another,--Sylvie
Hermenstein--"

"What of her?" cried Varillo, his eyes sparkling. "Is her marriage
broken off?"

"Broken off!" Gherardi gave a fierce gesture. "Would that it were!
No! She renounces the Church for the sake of Aubrey Leigh--she
leaves the faith of her fathers--"

"And takes the wealth of her fathers with her!" finished Varillo,
maliciously. "I see! I understand! The Church has reason for anger!"

"It has reason!" echoed Gherardi. "And we of the Church choose you
as the tool wherewith to work our vengeance. And why? Because you
are a born liar!--because you can look straight in the eyes of man
or woman, and swear to a falsehood without flinching!--because you
are an egotist, and will do anything to serve yourself--because you
have neither heart nor conscience--nor soul nor feeling,--because
you are an animal in desires and appetite,-because of this, I say,
we yoke you to our chariot wheels, knowing you may be trusted to
drive over and trample down the creatures that might be valuable to
you if they did not stand in your way!"

Such bitterness, such scorn, such loathing were in his accents, that
even the callous being he addressed was stung, and made a feeble
gesture of protest.

"You judge me harshly," he began--

Gherardi laughed.

"Judge you! Not I! No judgment is wanted. I read you like a book
through and through,--a book that should be set on Nature's Index
Expurgatorius, as unfit to meet the eyes of the faithful! You are a
low creature, Florian Varillo,--and unscrupulous as I am myself, I
despise you for meanness greater than even I am capable of! But you
are a convenient tool, ready to hand, and I use you for the Church's
service! If you were to refuse to do as I bid you, I would brand you
through the world as the murderer you are! So realize to the full
how thoroughly I have you in my power. Now understand me,--you must
leave this place to-morrow. I will send my carriage for you, and you
shall come at once to me, to me in Rome as my guest,--my HONOURED
guest!" And he emphasized the word sarcastically. "You are weak and
ill yet, they tell me here,--so much the better for you. It will
make you all the more interesting! You will find it easier to play
the part of injured innocence! Do you understand?"

"I understand," answered Varillo with a faint shudder, for the
strong and relentless personality of Gherardi overpowered him with a
sense of terror which he could not wholly control.

"Good! Then we will say no more. Brief words are best on such
burning matters. To-morrow at six in the afternoon I will send for
you. Be ready! Till then--try to rest--try to sleep without dreaming
of a scaffold!"

He folded his mantle around him again and prepared to depart.

"Sleep," he repeated. "Sleep with a cold heart and quiet mind! Think
that it is only a woman's name--a woman's work--a woman's honour,
that stand in your way,--and congratulate yourself with the
knowledge that the Church and her Divine authority will help you to
remove all three! Farewell!"

He turned, and unlocked the door of the cell. As he threw it open,
he was confronted by the monk Ambrosio, who was outside on the very
threshold.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded suspiciously. "I had a permit
from the Superior to speak to your charge alone."

"And were you not alone?" returned Ambrosio smiling. "I was not with
you! I was here as sentinel, to prevent anyone disturbing you. Poor
Ambrosio--mad Ambrosio! He is no good at all except to guard the
dead!"