The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

Tessa herself believed the marriage to be real enough, and he would not mar her delight by undeceiving her. Later, since she was wretched at home with her scolding mother and a brutal step-father, and there were dangers in allowing her to go on waylaying him in streets when too long a period elapsed between his visits to her, he quietly took her away and established her in a small house on the outskirts of the city, with the deaf, discreet old Monna Lisa as her servant and companion.

Neither this nor the darker secret of his treachery to his adoptive father cast any cloud over his habitual cheerfulness. His love for Romola was a higher and deeper passion than anything he felt for the child-like, submissive little Tessa, and when she told him frankly of her brother's warning vision, he set himself to convince her it was the mere nightmare of a diseased imagination, and the perfect love and trust she had for him made the task easy.

For a while after their marriage she was ideally happy; she was not even separated from her father, for Tito came to live with them, and was to Bardo, in his scholastic labours, all that he had wished his own son to be. Then came the first cloud.

On November 17, 1494, more than eighteen months after the marriage of Tito and Romola, the King of France marched his army into Florence on his way to take possession of Naples and impose peace on the warring little states into which Italy was divided. There were those in Florence who were prepared to welcome the invaders, but the majority, the common people in particular, resented their coming.

With the soldiery came three wretched prisoners; they were led in ropes by their captors, and with blows from knotted cords were stimulated to beg. Two, as they passed, held out their hands, crying piteously, "For the love of God and the Holy Madonna, give us something towards our ransom!"

But the third remained obstinately silent. He was old, white-haired, emaciated, with a thick-set figure that seemed to express energy in spite of age; yet there was something fitful in his eyes.

This sight was witnessed by the Florentines with growing exasperation, and presently from jeering at the French soldiers and hustling them, they became bent upon rescuing this third prisoner from his tormentors; one venturesome youth suddenly dashed in, cut the old man's bonds and urged him to run; and the next moment he had plunged into the crowd, which closed behind him and hampered the pursuit.

With one soldier struggling desperately on his track, the fugitive sped towards the Duomo, to seek refuge in that sanctuary, but in mounting the steps his foot slipped, he was precipitated towards a group of signori who stood there with their backs to him, and clutched one to save himself.

It was Tito Melema who felt the clutch. He turned, and saw the face of his adoptive father, Baldassarre Calvo, close to his own. The two men looked at each other silent as death; Tito with cheeks and lips all bloodless, fascinated by terror. The next instant the grasp on his arm relaxed, and Baldassarre disappeared within the church.

IV.--Romola's Ordeal

With Baldassarre lurking in Florence, Tito went in hourly fear. At any moment the story of his baseness might be blown abroad; at any moment, worse still, he might be struck down by the old man, in whose wild eyes he had read only a fierce yearning for vengeance.

As a precaution, Tito took to wearing a coat of fine chain-mail under his doublet, and the discovery of this alarmed Romola for his safety, and shocked her with a suspicion that he was something of a coward.

But by now Tito was deeply involved in Florentine politics, and easily persuaded her that it was against secret political intriguers that he thus shielded himself. He went on to confess that his life was no longer safe in Florence, and he was resolved to leave the city for good. But to this she demurred; her father had died and left his library and his collection as a sacred trust to her and Tito, and until they had carried out his wish and made them over to the city authorities, she felt she could not go.

Tito made light of her scruples. Her father's wish, he said, had been a mere foolish vanity; they had need of money, and he intended to sell both the library and collection, and when, for the first time in her life, she spoke bitterly, in scorn and anger of his faithlessness, he told her flatly it was useless to bandy words for he had sold them already, and they were to be removed that day.

Frantic with grief and resentment, she thought of desperate ways of preventing the accomplishment of his heartless plans, even to borrowing of her godfather and buying back the treasures, so that Tito might keep his ill-gotten gain and her father's last wish still be fulfilled; but he convinced her that all interference was too late, for the things had been purchased by the Count di San Severino and the Seneschal de Beaucaire, who were already on their way with the French king to Sienna.

Latterly, in many ways, Romola had been disappointed in her husband's character; she had found that his handsome face and gay air masked a cowardice, a cunning meanness, a sordid selfishness of disposition that were all at variance with her high ideal of him; but that final unspeakable treachery of the dead man who had trusted him so implicitly shattered her love for Tito utterly.