"He never saw her again?"
"Never, but he worshipped her very name and she was a tower of strength
to him. 'Mothers!' he used to say, 'if you only knew your power! God be
merciful to the wayward one who has no mother!'"
Roma's throat was throbbing. "He ... he was married?"
"Yes. His wife was an Englishwoman, almost as friendless as himself."
"Eyes the other way, at the window--thank you!... Did she know who he
was?"
"Nobody knew. He was only a poor Italian doctor to all of us in Soho."
"They ... they were ... happy?"
"As happy as love and friendship could make them. And even when poverty
came...."
"He became poor--very poor?"
"Very! It got known that Doctor Roselli was a revolutionary, and then
his English patients began to be afraid. The house in Soho Square had to
be given up at last, and we went into a side street. Only two rooms now,
one to the front, the other to the back, and four of us to live in them,
but the misery of that woman's outward circumstances never dimmed the
radiance of her sunny soul."
Roma's bosom was heaving and her voice was growing thick. "She ...
died?"
David Rossi bent his head and spoke in short, jerky sentences. "Her
death came at the bitterest moment of want. It was Christmas time. Very
cold and raw. We hadn't too much at home to keep us warm. She caught a
cold and it settled on her chest. Pneumonia! Only three or four days
altogether. She lay in the back room; it was quieter. The doctor nursed
her constantly. How she fought for life! She was thinking of her little
daughter. Just six years of age at that time, and playing with her doll
on the floor."
His voice had enough to do to control itself.
"When it was all over we went into the front room and made our beds on a
blanket spread out on the bare boards. Only three of us now--the child
with her father, weeping for the mother lying cold the other side of the
wall."
His eyes were still looking out at the window. In Roma's eyes the tears
were gathering.
"We were nearly penniless, but our good angel was buried somehow. Oh,
the poor are the richest people in the world! I love them! I love them!"
Roma could not look at him any longer.
"It was in the cemetery of Kensal Green. There was a London fog and the
grave-diggers worked by torches, which smoked in the thick air. But the
doctor stood all the time with his head uncovered. The child was there
too, and driving home she looked out of the window and sometimes laughed
at the sights in the streets. Only six--and she had never been in a
coach before!"