The White Sister Part 3

'Absolutely, Excellency,' the legal adviser answered. 'Otherwise the children of the marriage are not legitimate.'

'What does that mean?' asked Angela in a frightened tone.

'It means,' explained the Princess, 'that in the eyes of the law you do not exist----'

Angela tried to laugh.

'But I do exist! Here I am, Angela Chiaromonte, to say that I am alive!'

'Angela, but not Chiaromonte,' corrected the Princess, hardly able to hide her satisfaction. 'I am sorry to say that your dear father would not even submit to the regulation which requires all parents alike to declare the birth of children, and he paid a heavy fine for his refusal. The consequence is that when your birth was entered at the Munic.i.p.ality, you were put down as a foundling child whose parents refused to declare themselves.'

'A foundling! I, a foundling!' Angela half rose in amazed indignation, but almost instantly sat down again, with an incredulous smile.

'Either you are quite mad,' she said, 'or you are trying to frighten me for some reason I do not understand.'

The Princess raised her sandy eyebrows and looked at the lawyer, evidently meaning him to speak for her.

'That is your position, Signorina,' he said calmly. 'You have, unhappily, no legal status, no legal name, and no claim whatever on the estate of His Excellency Prince Chiaromonte, who was not married to your mother in the eyes of the law, and refused even to acknowledge you as his child by registering your birth at the mayoralty. Every inquiry has been made on your behalf, and I have here the certified copy of the register as it stands, declaring you to be a foundling. It was still in your father's power to make a will in your favour, Signorina, and as the laws of entail no longer exist, His Excellency may have left you his whole estate, real and personal, though his t.i.tles and dignities will in any case pa.s.s to his brother. I must warn you, however, that such a will might not prove valid in law, since His Excellency did not even legally acknowledge you as his child. So far, no trace of a will has been found with his late Excellency's notary, nor with his lawyer, nor deposited with his securities at his banker's. It is barely possible that some paper may exist in the rooms which are still closed, but I think it my duty to tell you that I do not expect to find anything of the kind when we break the seals to-morrow, in the presence of the heirs and witnesses.'

He ceased speaking and looked at the Princess as if asking whether he should say more, for Angela had bent her head and quietly covered her eyes with one hand, and in this att.i.tude she sat quite motionless in her place. The lawyer thought she was going to burst into tears, for he did not know her.

'That will do, Calvi,' said the Princess calmly. 'You have made it all very clear, and you may retire for the present. The young lady is naturally overcome by the bad news, and would rather be alone with me for a little while, I daresay.'

Signor Calvi rose, made a profound obeisance to the Princess, scarcely bent his head to Angela, and retired, apparently bowing to the family chairs as he pa.s.sed each. The young girl dropped her hand and looked after him with a sort of dull curiosity; she was the last person in the world to take offence or to suppose that any one meant to be rude to her, but it was impossible not to notice the lawyer's behaviour. In his opinion she was suddenly n.o.body, and deserved no more notice than a shop-girl. She understood enough of human nature to be sure that he counted on the Princess's approval.

The elder woman was watching her with a satisfaction she hardly tried to conceal. Her small hands were encased in marvellously fitting black gloves, though black gloves rarely fit so well as others, and were crossed on her knee over the little leather bag she always carried.

She was leaning back in the great arm-chair, and the mourning she wore made her faultless complexion look even more brilliant than it was. No one knew how near forty the Princess might be, for she appeared in the _Almanach de Gotha_ without a birthday, and only the date of her marriage was given; but the year was 1884, and people said it was impossible that she should have been less than seventeen when her parents had brought her to Rome and had tried to marry her to the elder of the Chiaromonte family; as twenty years had pa.s.sed since they had succeeded in capturing the second son for their daughter, it was clear that she could not be under thirty-seven. But her complexion was extraordinary, and though she was a tall woman she had preserved the figure and grace of a young girl.

Angela did not look directly at her enemy for some seconds after the lawyer had left the room, closing the door behind him, not loudly but quite audibly; but she was the first to speak when she was sure that he was out of hearing.

'You hate me,' she said at last. 'What have I done to you?'

The Princess was not timid, nor very easily surprised, but the question was so direct that she drew further back into her chair with a quick movement, and her bright eye sparkled angrily as she raised her sandy eyebrows.

'In this world,' she said, 'the truth is always surprising and generally unpleasant. In consideration of what I have been obliged to tell you about yourself, I can easily excuse your foolish speech.'

'You are very kind,' Angela answered quietly enough, but in a tone that the Princess did not like. 'I was not asking your indulgence, but an explanation, no matter how disagreeable the rest of the truth may be. What have I done that you should hate me?'

The Princess laughed contemptuously.

'The expression is too strong,' she retorted. 'Hatred would imply an interest in you and your possible doings, which I am far from feeling, I a.s.sure you! Since it turns out that you are not even one of the family----'

She laughed again and raised her eyebrows still higher, instead of ending the speech.

'From what you say,' Angela answered with a good deal of dignity, 'I can only understand that if you followed your own inclination you would turn me out into the street.'

'The law will do so without my intervention,' answered the elder woman. 'If my brother-in-law had even taken the trouble to acknowledge you as his child, without legitimising you, you would have been ent.i.tled to a small allowance, perhaps two or three hundred francs a month, to keep you from starving. But as he has left no legal proof that you are his daughter, and since he was not properly married to your mother, you can claim nothing, not even a name! You are, in fact, a dest.i.tute foundling, as Calvi just said!'

'It only remains for you to offer me your charity,' Angela said.

'That was not my intention,' returned the Princess with a savage sneer. 'I have talked it over with my husband, and we do not see why he should be expected to support his brother's--natural child!'

Angela rose from her seat without a word and went quietly towards the door; but before she could reach it the Princess had followed her with a rush and a dramatic sweep of her black cloth skirt and plentiful c.r.a.pe, and had caught her by the wrist to bring her back to the middle of the great room.

'I shall not keep you long!' cried the angry woman. 'You ask me what you have done that I should hate you, and I answer, nothing, since you are n.o.body! But I hated your mother, because she robbed me of the man I wanted, of the only man I ever loved--your father--and when I married his brother I swore that she should pay me for that, and she has! If she can see you as you are to-day, all heaven cannot dry her tears, for all heaven itself cannot give you a name, since the one on her own tombstone is not hers by any right. I hope she sees you! Oh, I hope it was not for nothing that she fasted till she fainted, and prayed till she was hoa.r.s.e, and knelt in damp churches till she died of it! I hope she has starved and whined her way to paradise and is looking down at this very moment and can see her daughter turned out of my house, a pauper foundling, to beg her bread! I hope you are in a state of grace, as she is, and that the communion of saints brings you near enough together for her to see you!'

'You are mad,' Angela said when the Princess paused for breath. 'You do not know what you are saying. Let go of my wrist and try to get back to your senses!'

Whether the Princess was really out of her mind, as seemed at least possible, or was only in one of her frequent fits of rage, the words had an instantaneous effect. She dropped Angela's wrist, drew herself up, and recovered her self-control in a few seconds. But there was still a dangerous glare in her cat-like eyes as she turned towards the window and faced the dull yellowish light of the late afternoon.

'You will soon find out that I have not exaggerated,' she said, dropping from her late tone of fury to a note of icy coldness. 'The seals will be removed to-morrow at noon, and I suppose no one can prevent you from being present if you choose. After that you will make such arrangements for your own future as you see fit. I should recommend you to apply to one of the two convents on which my brother-in-law lavished nearly three millions of francs during his life. One or the other of them will certainly take you in without a dowry, and you will have at least a decent roof over your head.'

With this practical advice the Princess Chiaromonte swept from the room and Angela was left alone to ask herself whether such a sudden calamity as hers had ever before overtaken an innocent girl in her Roman world. She went back very slowly to the sofa and sat down again under the great Vand.y.k.e portrait; her eyes wandered from one object to another, as if she wished to make an inventory of the things that had seemed to be hers because they had been her father's, but she was far too completely dazed by what had happened to think very connectedly.

Besides, though she did not dare let the thought give her courage, she still had a secret conviction that it was all a mistake and that her father must have left some doc.u.ment which would be found among his papers the next day, and would clear away all this dreadful misunderstanding.

As for the rest of her aunt's story, no one had ever hinted at such a thing in her hearing, but Madame Bernard would know the truth. There was little indeed which the excellent Frenchwoman did not know about the old Roman families, after having lived among them and taught their children French for nearly a quarter of a century. She was very discreet and might not wish to say much, but she certainly knew the truth in this case.

It was not till she was upstairs in her own room, and was trying to repeat to her old governess just what had been said, that Angela began to realise what it meant. Madame Bernard was by turns horrified, righteously angry, and moved to profound pity; at first she could not believe her ears, but when she did she invoked the divine wrath on the inhuman monster who had the presumption to call herself a woman, a mother, and an aunt; finally, she folded Angela in a motherly embrace and burst into tears, promising to protect her at the risk of her own life--a promise she would really have kept if the girl had been in bodily danger.

In her secret heart the little Frenchwoman was also making some reflections on the folly and obstinacy of the late Prince, but out of sheer kindness and tact she kept them to herself for the present.

Meanwhile she said she would go and consult one of the great legal lights, to whose daughters she had lately given lessons and who had always been very kind to her. It was nonsense, she said, to believe that the Prince's brother could turn Angela out of her home without making provision for her, such a liberal provision as would be considered a handsome dowry--four hundred thousand francs would be the very least. The Commendatore was a judge in the Court of Appeals and knew everything. He would not even need to consult his books! His brain was an encyclopaedia of the law! She would go to him at once.

But Angela shook her head as she sat looking at the small wood fire in the old-fashioned red-brick fireplace. Now that she had told her story she saw how very sure the Princess and the lawyer must have been to speak as they had both spoken.

But Madame Bernard put on her hat and went out to see the judge, who was generally at home late in the afternoon; and Angela sat alone in the dusk for a while, poking her little fire with a pair of very rusty wrought-iron tongs, at least three hundred years old, which would have delighted a collector but which were so heavy and clumsy that they hurt her hands.

Her aunt's piece of advice came back to her; she had better ask to be taken in at one of the convents which her father had enriched and where she would be received without a dowry. She knew them both, and both were communities of cloistered nuns; the one was established in a gloomy mediaeval fortress in the heart of the city, built round a little garden that looked as unhealthy as the old Prioress's own muddy-complexioned face and stubbly chin; the other was shut up in a hideous modern building that had no garden at all. She felt nothing but a repugnance that approached horror when she thought of either, though she tried to reprove herself for it because her father had given so much money to the sisters, and had always spoken of them to her as 'holy women.' No doubt they were; doubtless, too, Saint Anthony of Thebes had been a holy man, though it would have been unpleasant to share his cell, or even his meals. Angela felt that if she was to live on bread, water, and salad, she might as well have liberty with her dinner of herbs. It was heartless to think of marrying, no doubt, when her father had not yet been dead a week, but since she was forced to take the future into consideration, she felt sure that Giovanni would marry her without a penny, and that she should be perfectly happy with him. She could well afford to laugh at the Princess's advice so long as Giovanni was alive. He was coming to see her to-morrow, she would tell him everything, and when the year of her mourning expired they would be married.

The question was, what she was to do in the meantime, since it was quite clear that she must soon leave the home in which she had been brought up. Like all people who have never been face to face with want, or any state of life even distinctly resembling poverty, she had a vague idea that something would be provided for her. It was not till she tried to define what that something was to be that she felt a little sinking at her heart; but the cheering belief soon returned, that the whole affair was a mistake, unless it was a pure invention of her aunt's, meant to frighten her into abandoning her rights. In a little while Madame Bernard would come back, beaming with satisfaction, with a message from the learned judge to say that such injustice and robbery were not possible under modern enlightened laws; and Angela smiled to think that she could have been so badly frightened by a mad woman and an obsequious old lawyer.

Decidedly, in spite of her gift for remembering prayers and litanies, the mere thought of a cloistered life repelled her. Like most very religiously brought up girls she had more than once fancied that she was going to have a 'vocation' for the veil; but a sensible confessor had put that out of her head, discerning at once in her mental state those touches of maiden melancholy which change the look of the young life for a day or a week, as the shadow of a pa.s.sing cloud saddens a sunlit landscape. It was characteristic of Angela that the possibility of becoming a nun as a refuge from present and future trouble did not present itself to her seriously, now that trouble was really imminent.

She was too buoyant by nature, her disposition was too even and sensible, and above all, she was too courageous to think of yielding tamely to the fate her aunt wished to impose upon her.

It might have been expected that she should at least break down for a little while that afternoon and have a good cry in her solitude, while Madame Bernard was on her errand to the judge; but she did not, though there was a moment when she felt that tears were not far off. By way of keeping them back she went into her bedroom, lit a candle and knelt down to recite the prayers she had selected to say daily for her father. They were many, some of them were beautiful, and more than half of them were centuries old. Her conviction that the very just man was certainly in heaven already did not make it seem wholly useless to pray for him. No one could be quite sure of what happened in paradise, and in any case, if he was in no need of such intercession himself, she was allowed to hope that grace might overflow and avail to help some poor soul in purgatory, by means of the divine indulgence.

Madame Bernard came back at last, but there was consternation in her kindly face, for the great legal light had confirmed every word the Princess and her lawyer had said to Angela, and had shrugged his shoulders at the suggestion that a will might still be found. He had told the governess plainly that a man married to a woman only by a religious ceremony was not legally her husband, and that his children had neither name nor rights unless he went through the legal form of recognising them before the proper authorities. If the parents died without making a will, the children had no claim whatever on the estate unless they had been properly recognised. If there was a will, however, they might inherit, even if they had not been legitimised, provided that no lawful heirs of the testators were living, ascendants or descendants. The Commendatore had expressed great surprise that the late Prince should not have been warned of his daughter's irregular position by his legal advisers. It only showed, he said, how necessary the law was, since people who disregarded it got into such terrible trouble.

The French teacher instinctively felt that there was something wrong with the final syllogism, but it was only too clear that the Commendatore knew his business, and that unless a legally executed will were found on the morrow Angela had not the smallest chance of getting a penny from the great estate her father had left.

'If they are so inhuman as to turn you out of your home without providing for you,' Madame Bernard said, with tears in her eyes, 'I do not see what you are to do, my dear child. I am ashamed to offer you the little spare room I sometimes let to single foreign ladies--and yet--if you would take it--ah, you would be so welcome! It is not a bad exposure--it has the sun on it all day, though there is only one window. The carpet is getting a little threadbare, but the curtains are new and match the furniture--a pretty flowered chintz, you know.

And I will make little dishes for you, since you have no appet.i.te! A "navarin," my dear, I make it well, and a real "frica.s.see"! We Frenchwomen can all cook! The "navarin" was my poor husband's predilection--when he had eaten one made by me, he used to say that the fleshpots of Egypt were certainly the "navarin" and nothing else. But when I am alone it is not worth while to take so much trouble. An egg, five sous' worth of ham and brawn, and a roll--that suffices me when I am alone! But if you will accept the little room--ah, then I will put on an ap.r.o.n and go into the kitchen, and you shall taste the French cookery of a Frenchwoman!'

Angela was not listening to all this, for she was too much touched by the generous intention to hear half of what Madame Bernard said, and she could only press the little governess's hand again while she tried to edge in a word of thanks between the quick sentences.

'And as for the rest,' Madame Bernard ran on, 'I have chaperoned half the young girls in Roman society to concerts and to the dentist's, and I have a nice little sitting-room, and there is no reason in the world why Count Severi should not come to see us, until you can be married!'

This, at least, did not escape Angela, who squeezed the small plump hand very hard, and at last succeeded in speaking herself.

'You are too good!' she cried. 'Too kind! If it turns out to be true, if I am really to be a beggar, I would rather beg of you than of distant cousins and people I know! Besides, they are all so afraid of my aunt's tongue that not one of them would dare to take me in, even for a week! But I will not come unless you will let me work to help you, in some way--I do not know how--is there nothing I know well enough to teach?'