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 Vandyke 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 document 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 encyclopædia 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 mediæval 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 passing 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.
