XII

The Liblab deputation had returned to England: but Jerry Sant and Mrs. Crowe hung on at a decent little hotel in Two Shambles Street, which was convenient to the English quarter. Their idea was to wait for an opportunity to push their scheme of blackmail. Most of each day, Mrs. Crowe was in the Square of St. Peter’s, looking up at the Vatican, hoping for the apparition of Hadrian at His window. In the evenings, she saw Him walking to and fro on the steps of the basilica. There always was something of a crowd there. The poorest of the poor, by the common consent of the most courteous of nations, were placed in front; and she used to see the Pope giving words and gold to persons whom she deemed disreputable. She would have sacrificed her new wig for one of those coins. Once, she pushed into the front row and kneeled with the riffraff. She heard a blind boy tell his miserable tale: she heard the Apostle’s gentle words and saw the munificent careless gift. It was her turn. She felt the distant inflexible eyes on her bent head: “God bless you, daughter; go in peace” dropped on her; and Hadrian passed on. The poor girl on her left bitterly wept⁠—the police-doctor had refused her certificate⁠—her occupation was gone.⁠—Hadrian’s kind of charity did not appeal to Mrs. Crowe: she called it “disgusting” and “highly improper” to the table d’hôte. There were several quaint visitors at the Hotel Nike. They chiefly were English; and they listened in silence, with shy strange eyes, when she vented her views. Afterwards, though, she used to find herself the recipient of the confidence of weird old-maids and worn-out matrons, who drew her into corners of the garden away from the cabin where Sant smoked, and nervously whispered, “My dear, I’m sure you’ll excuse me addressing you, but I feel bound to say I think I’m right in saying that I owe everything to Him Whom you’re speaking about. I hope you don’t mind me saying this but I feel sure you wouldn’t wish to do anyone an injustice. You see I used to know Him years ago and, I hardly know how to put it, but a certain sum was named between us which would make me safe for life; and just now, since last April you see, that very sum, a regular income all my days, my dear, has come to me through the Bank of England; and I feel sure it’s Him, for there isn’t another soul in the world able to do such a thing: and, my dear, although of course I can’t approve of the indiscriminate charity you’ve named, I thought I’d just mention this to you because the fact is I’ve come here to try and see Him and let him know how thankful I am.”

Tired wan clean men, with corns on their right-middle-fingers and jackets bulging along their lower edges, addressed her as “Madam” and mentioned similar experiences; and, when two straight-limbed straight-eyed boys of sixteen, twins, orphans, were fierce with the same story, she began to feel uncomfortable, envious. That He should do these things for these scarecrows and nothing for her! People avoided her; and she was lonely. Sant, and the cosmopolitan bagmen with whom he fraternized, were no companions for her. She expected something a little more select in the way of society. She conceived the notion that she would stand a better chance of coming into contact with the Pope by means of some of the English in Rome. And⁠—would it not be as well if she became a Catholic? The hotel-people told her that very few English were in Rome: they began to come in October and to go away in June: July, August, September, saw no English except at the colleges and a few residents. She found her way to St. Andrea delle Fratte, where she had heard of some Englishwoman’s tomb; and saw no one who looked like an Englishman. She had the same experience at the church by the G.P.O. Then she discerned a little English affair in Little Sebastian Street, a convent of sorts; and she made herself conspicuous to the sisters. Those good creatures were only too happy to discover a chatty Englishwoman; and, when Mrs. Crowe quite accidentally let out that she had known George Arthur Rose, they precipitately produced candied fruit and orangeade. Mrs. Crowe gossiped with discretion. She won hearts by listening attentively to monasterial rhapsodies. When she was permitted to slip in a word edgeways, she took care that it was a telling word. In all their lives the sisters never had heard anything so edifying as her description of the Holy Father’s former predilection for white flannel shirts, white knitted socks and nightcaps. They thought it heavenly of Him to have refused to wear any colours but white or black while He was living in the world; and the details of a black corduroy shooting-suit filled them with ecstatic rapture. In the course of these improving conversations it came out that Mrs. Crowe herself was an agnostic⁠—an unwilling agnostic, she whined⁠—oh, if only she could believe what her audience believed, it would be such a comfort to her! Naturally the sisters gladly would help her to that kind of comfort. They gave her an aluminium medal; and promised prayers. She turned-up regularly at mass and benediction; and they had great hopes of her. She thanked them so much. Now, wouldn’t she just like to have a little talk with Father Dawkins⁠—such a holy man? She would like nothing better. She had a little talk with Father Dawkins: that is to say that (frequently during the next few weeks) His Reverency exhorted for three-quarters of an hour on end in the convent parlour; and she punctuated his discourses with “Ah yes,” “How true,” “Why did I never hear this before,” etc. The sisters lent her “Thresholds,” and other violently cerulean books. She pronounced them quite convincing. And then she asked to be received into the Church.

She became seen at parties at the English pensions; and duly was slavered. She met cardinals and prelates at receptions. She was the excitement of the moment. Her pose of the interesting widow, fond mother of the dearest little girl and boy, clever writer of vers de société in The Maid and Matron, was much commended: but it was as the woman whose dear departed had been the Holy Father’s most intimate friend that she chiefly scored. For His Holiness she always had had the highest admiration. He had been a peculiar man, certainly, but never anything but most distinguished. She remembered Him in poverty, going in the shabbiest of garbs: but His gait and carriage always had been the gait and carriage of nobility of soul. At all times, she herself had predicted some extraordinary fate for Him. She told the most adorable little stories of His wit, His humour, His pathos, and His dumbbells. She dilated on a boil which had afflicted the back of His neck. She had heard that He slept in glycerined gloves for the softening of His chapped hands. Yes, He had been quite a friend of theirs. He was so earnest, so brilliant, so learned, that she never had been able to understand why a man of His ability should be a Catholic. Of course that was when she herself had been in outer darkness. Now that she was in the inner light, she perfectly could see why. Mrs. Crowe was voted to be a very charming person; and became a great success.

Sant approved of her procedure. Neither he nor she could see their way to another direct approach to Hadrian. They must bide a wee. Meanwhile, no harm was done and much good might be done by cultivating the English quarter. And, perhaps it would be as well to keep socialism in the background for the present. Jerry would stay where he was; and she had better set up for herself elsewhere: they occasionally could meet to compare notes; and, if anything particular happed, why they could write. So Mrs. Crowe took a little flat on Baboon Street, and displayed herself at the Spain Square teashop and the English sisterhood.

At the back of her brain there was a well-defined desire. She kept it there to gloat over in private and at intervals: for she was far too clever a woman to let her passion master her at this stage. It was the mainspring of her acts, the goal of her thoughts, the ultimate of her existence: but she kept it well concealed and controlled. Now and then, in the lonely depth of night, it surged to her oppression: but dawn and the respectability of her temper, brought it within bounds. She played a careful game, adding to her counters as opportunity occurred. She had the Liblabs and their four pounds a week to support her: she had (what she called) the secret history of the Pope in her possession: she was capturing the pious English. And then, one evening she acquired quite a priceless item of scandal which, sooner or later, she would use for the procuration of her Georgie.

She had been wandering about alone in some of those new streets on the Viminal Hill, which Modern Rome built in imitation of the suburban residences of British merchants: streets where comfortable redbrick detached mansions stand each in a railed garden. As she was passing one of these fine but homely residences, the electric light sprang up in the drawing-room; and she was aware of three figures seated in the bay-window. An afternoon-tea-table was between them. They were two gorgeous white women with fair hair, evidently mother and daughter. Those she did not know: but the third was George Arthur Rose. She peered between the gilded bronze bars of the gate. It was dusk. No one but herself was in the street. And there, not twenty yards away, behind a pane of glass, was the man she worshipped. She gave up herself to her emotions during one minute. Then he and the women retired to the back of the room; and a decorous black-coated lackey closed the curtains. For a moment, she felt like battering at the gate. Her heart violently palpitated. The connotation of the experience suddenly struck her. What was the Pope doing here? She knew that He went about everywhere: but they said that He never ate or drank in company; and she had seen Him finish a cup of tea. How dainty the elevation of that left little finger was! Ah! Why was He not dressed in white as usual? Disguised⁠—taking tea in a private house⁠—with two nameless women! Ah, why indeed! She focused her fury. The number on the gate⁠—yes. She ran to the end of the street and read “Via Morino.” She crossed the road and returned; and found a niche where she could hide in the shadow of a pillared wall. Here, she watched and waited as a terrier waits on and watches a kitten demure in a tree⁠—yapping and yelping almost inaudibly, well-nigh bursting with suppressed impulse to pounce. Perhaps she waited half-an-hour. Then a couple of lackeys came-down to the gate: opened it; and obsequiously bowed to an ecclesiastic who passed out into the street flinging the right fold of his cloak over his left shoulder. He swiftly walked towards Via Nationale; and she followed him. As he came into the more brilliant light, he drew the fold of his cloak closer across his mouth. That act decided her. She knew that her Georgie abhorred from every kind of muffling. That he should muffle now was natural enough. He did not wish to be recognized. He was incognito, for an evil purpose. That he should have chosen openly to walk through the biggest street in Rome, when he might have sneaked down byways, or might have taken a cab, only added to the evidence. Her Georgie was the most frantically daring of men, she knew. Precaution on the one hand, nullified by extreme audacity on the other, she had noted in him before. She nearly lost him as he made his way by the Austrian Embassy and the Gesù into Corso Vittorio Emanuele. At the Oratory he crossed and went by the little Piazza into Banchi, where he left a card with the porter of the Palazzo Attendolo. Again, he muffled his face and went on, crossing the temporary bridge, and going by Borgo Vecchio straight to the gate of the Vatican. Here, he was admitted; and Mrs. Crowe was left alone in agony and in hilarity. She turned-out of the Colonnade into the square cursing herself for not speaking to him, writhing because she had caught her loved one secretly visiting another woman. Then she laughed at the thought that she had found His Holiness the Pope engaged in vulgar intrigue. The barb of the one emotion lacerated her. The barb of the other she would save to dilacerate Him.