Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  His eyes were sadder than usual just now, as he tended the fire in the silence that was broken only by the low roar of the flames within the brick furnace, and the irregular sound of the master’s wooden instrument as he crushed and stirred the materials together. Zorzi had longed to see Contarini as soon as he had heard his name; and having unexpectedly obtained the certainty of seeing him that very night, he wished that the moment could be put off, he felt cold and hot, he wondered how he should behave, and whether after all he might not be tempted to do his enemy some bodily harm.

  For in a few minutes the aspect of his world had changed, and Contarini’s unknown figure filled the future. Until to-day, he had never seriously thought of Marietta’s marriage, nor of what would happen to him afterwards; but now, he was to be one of the instruments for bringing the marriage about. He knew well enough what the appointment in Saint Mark’s meant: Marietta was to have an opportunity of seeing Contarini before accepting him. Even that was something of a concession in those times, but Beroviero fancied that he loved his child too much to marry her against her will. This was probably a great match for the glass-worker’s daughter, however, and she would not refuse it. Contarini had never seen her either; he might have heard that she was a pretty girl, but there were famous beauties in Venice, and if he wanted Marietta Beroviero it could only be for her dowry. The marriage was therefore a mere bargain between the two men, in which a name was bartered for a fortune and a fortune for a name. Zorzi saw how absurd it was to suppose that Marietta could care for a man whom she had never even seen; and worse than that, he guessed in a flash of loving intuition how wretchedly unhappy she might be with him, and he hated and despised the errand he was to perform. The future seemed to reveal itself to him with the long martyrdom of the woman he loved, and he felt an almost irresistible desire to go to her and implore her to refuse to be sold.

  Nine-tenths of the marriages he had ever heard of in Murano or Venice had been made in this way, and in a moment’s reflection he realised the folly of appealing even to the girl herself, who doubtless looked upon the whole proceeding as perfectly natural. She had of course expected such an event ever since she had been a child, she was prepared to accept it, and she only hoped that her husband might turn out to be young, handsome and noble, since she did not want money. A moment later, Zorzi included all marriageable young women in one sweeping condemnation: they were all hard-hearted, mercenary, vain, deceitful — anything that suggested itself to his headlong resentment. Art was the only thing worth living and dying for; the world was full of women, and they were all alike, old, young, ugly, handsome — all a pack of heartless jades; but art was one, beautiful, true, deathless and unchanging.

  He looked up from the furnace door, and he felt the blood rush to his face. Marietta was standing near and watching him with her strangely veiled eyes.

  “Poor Zorzi!” she exclaimed in a soft voice. “How hot you look!”

  He did not remember that he had ever cared a straw whether any one noticed that he was hot or not, until that moment; but for some complicated reason connected with his own thoughts the remark stung him like an insult, and fully confirmed his recent verdict concerning women in general and their total lack of all human kindness where men were concerned. He rose to his feet suddenly and turned away without a word.

  “Come out into the garden,” said Marietta. “Do you need Zorzi just now?” she asked, turning to her father, who only shook his head by way of answer, for he was very busy.

  “But I assure you that I am not too hot,” answered Zorzi. “Why should I go out?”

  “Because I want you to fasten up one of the branches of the red rose. It catches in my skirt every time I pass. You will need a hammer and a little nail.”

  She had not been thinking of his comfort after all, thought Zorzi as he got the hammer. She had only wanted something done for herself. He might have known it. But for the rose that caught in her skirt, he might have roasted alive at the furnace before she would have noticed that he was hot. He followed her out. She led him to the end of the walk farthest from the door of the laboratory; the sun was low and all the little garden was in deep shade. A branch of the rose-bush lay across the path, and Zorzi thought it looked very much as if it had been pulled down on purpose. She pointed to it, and as he carefully lifted it from the ground she spoke quickly, in a low tone.

  “What was my father saying to you a while ago?” she asked.

  Zorzi held up the branch in his hand, ready to fasten it against the wall, and looked at her. He saw at a glance that she had brought him out to ask the question.

  “The master was giving me certain orders,” he said.

  “He rarely makes such long speeches when he gives orders,” observed the girl.

  “His instructions were very particular.”

  “Will you not tell me what they were?”

  Zorzi turned slowly from her and let the long branch rest on the bush while he began to drive a nail into the wall. Marietta watched him.

  “Why do you not answer me?” she asked.

  “Because I cannot,” he said briefly.

  “Because you will not, you mean.”

  “As you choose.” Zorzi went on striking the nail.

  “I am sorry,” answered the young girl. “I really wish to know very much. Besides, if you will tell me, I will give you something.”

  Zorzi turned upon her suddenly with angry eyes.

  “If money could buy your father’s secrets from me, I should be a rich man by this time.”

  “I think I know as much of my father’s secrets as you do,” answered Marietta more coldly, “and I did not mean to offer you money.”

  “What then?” But as he asked the question Zorzi turned away again and began to fasten the branch.

  Marietta did not answer at once, but she idly picked a rose from the bush and put it to her lips to breathe in its freshness.

  “Why should you think that I meant to insult you?” she asked gently.

  “I am only a servant, after all,” answered Zorzi, with unnecessary bitterness. “Why should you not insult your servants, if you please? It would be quite natural.”

  “Would it? Even if you were really a servant?”

  “It seems quite natural to you that I should betray your father’s confidence. I do not see much difference between taking it for granted that a man is a traitor and offering him money to act as one.”

  “No,” said Marietta, smelling the rose from time to time as she spoke, “there is not much difference. But I did not mean to hurt your feelings.”

  “You did not realise that I could have any, I fancy,” retorted Zorzi, still angry.

  “Perhaps I did not understand that you would consider what my father was telling you in the same light as a secret of the art,” said Marietta slowly, “nor that you would look upon what I meant to offer you as a bribe. The matter concerned me, did it not?”

  “Your name was not spoken. I have fastened the branch. Is there anything else for me to do?”

  “Have you no curiosity to know what I would have given you?” asked Marietta.

  “I should be ashamed to want anything at such a price,” returned Zorzi proudly.

  “You hold your honour high, even in trifles.”

  “It is all I have — my honour and my art.”

  “You care for nothing else? Nothing else in the whole world?”

  “Nothing,” said Zorzi.

  “You must be very lonely in your thoughts,” she said, and turned away.

  As she went slowly along the path her hand hung by her side, and the rose she held fell from her fingers. Following her at a short distance, on his way back to the laboratory, Zorzi stooped and picked up the flower, not thinking that she would turn her head. But at that moment she had reached the door, and she looked back and saw what he had done. She stood still and held out her hand, expecting him to come up with her.

  “My rose!” she exclaimed, as if surprised. “Give it back to
me.”

  Zorzi gave it to her, and the colour came to his face a second time. She fastened it in her bodice, looking down at it as she did so.

  “I am so fond of roses,” she said, smiling a little. “Are you?”

  “I planted all those you have here,” he answered.

  “Yes — I know.”

  She looked up as she spoke, and met his eyes, and all at once she laughed, not unkindly, nor as if at him, nor at what he had said, but quietly and happily, as women do when they have got what they want. Zorzi did not understand.

  “You are gay,” he said coldly.

  “Do you wonder?” she asked. “If you knew what I know, you would understand.”

  “But I do not.”

  Zorzi went back to his furnace, Marietta exchanged a few words with her father and left the room again to go home.

  In the garden she paused a moment by the rose-bush, where she had talked with Zorzi, but there was not even the shadow of a smile in her face now. She went down the dark corridor and called the porter, who roused himself, opened the door and hailed the house opposite. A woman looked out in the evening light, nodded and disappeared. A few seconds later she came out of the house, a quiet little middle-aged creature in brown, with intelligent eyes, and she crossed the shaky wooden bridge over the canal to come and bring Marietta home. It would have been a scandalous thing if the daughter of Angelo Beroviero had been seen by the neighbours to walk a score of paces in the street without an attendant. She had thrown a hood of dark green cloth over her head, and the folds hung below her shoulders, half hiding her graceful figure. Her step was smooth and deliberate, while the little brown serving-woman trotted beside her across the wooden bridge.

  The house of Angelo Beroviero hung over the paved way, above the edge of the water, the upper story being supported by six stone columns and massive wooden beams, forming a sort of portico which was at the same time a public thoroughfare; but as the house was not far from the end of the canal of San Piero which opens towards Venice, few people passed that way.

  Marietta paused a moment while the woman held the door open for her. The sun had just set and the salt freshness that comes with the rising tide was already in the air.

  “I wish I were in Venice this evening,” she said, almost to herself.

  The serving-woman looked at her suspiciously.

  CHAPTER II

  THE JUNE NIGHT was dark and warm as Zorzi pushed off from the steps before his master’s house and guided his skiff through the canal, scarcely moving the single oar, as the rising tide took his boat silently along. It was not until he had passed the last of the glass-houses on his right, and was already in the lagoon that separates Murano from Venice, that he began to row, gently at first, for fear of being heard by some one ashore, and then more quickly, swinging his oar in the curved crutch with that skilful, serpentine stroke which is neither rowing nor sculling, but which has all the advantages of both, for it is swift and silent, and needs scarcely to be slackened even in a channel so narrow that the boat itself can barely pass.

  Now that he was away from the houses, the stars came out and he felt the pleasant land breeze in his face, meeting the rising tide. Not a boat was out upon the shallow lagoon but his own, not a sound came from the town behind him; but as the flat bow of the skiff gently slapped the water, it plashed and purled with every stroke of the oar, and a faint murmur of voices in song was borne to him on the wind from the still waking city.

  He stood upright on the high stern of the shadowy craft, himself but a moving shadow in the starlight, thrown forward now, and now once more erect, in changing motion; and as he moved the same thought came back and back again in a sort of halting and painful rhythm. He was out that night on a bad errand, it said, helping to sell the life of the woman he loved, and what he was doing could never be undone. Again and again the words said themselves, the far-off voices said them, the lapping water took them up and repeated them, the breeze whispered them quickly as it passed, the oar pronounced them as it creaked softly in the crutch rowlock, the stars spelled out the sentences in the sky, the lights of Venice wrote them in the water in broken reflections. He was not alone any more, for everything in heaven and earth was crying to him to go back.

  That was folly, and he knew it. The master who had trusted him would drive him out of his house, and out of Venetian land and water, too, if he chose, and he should never see Marietta again; and she would be married to Contarini just as if Zorzi had taken the message. Besides, it was the custom of the world everywhere, so far as he knew, that marriage and money should be spoken of in the same breath, and there was no reason why his master should make an exception and be different from other men.

  He could put some hindrance in the way, of course, if he chose to interfere, for he could deliver the message wrong, and Contarini would go to the church in the afternoon instead of in the morning. He smiled grimly in the dark as he thought of the young nobleman waiting for an hour or two beside the pillar, to be looked at by some one who never came, then catching sight at last of some ugly old maid of forty, protected by her servant, ogling him, while she said her prayers and filling him with horror at the thought that she must be Marietta Beroviero. All that might happen, but it must inevitably be found out, the misunderstanding would be cleared away and the marriage would be arranged after all.

  He had rested on his oar to think, and now he struck it deep into the black water and the skiff shot ahead. He would have a far better chance of serving Marietta in the future if he obeyed his master and delivered his message exactly; for he should see Contarini himself and judge of him, in the first place, and that alone was worth much, and afterwards there would be time enough for desperate resolutions. He hastened his stroke, and when he ran under the shadow of the overhanging houses his mood changed and he grew hopeful, as many young men do, out of sheer curiosity as to what was before him, and out of the wish to meet something or somebody that should put his own strength to the test.

  It was not far now. With infinite caution he threaded the dark canals, thanking fortune for the faint starlight that showed him the turnings. Here and there a small oil lamp burned before the image of a saint; from a narrow lane on one side, the light streamed across the water, and with it came sounds of ringing glasses, and the tinkling of a lute, and laughing voices; then it was dark again as his skiff shot by, and he made haste, for he wished not to be seen.

  Presently, and somewhat to his surprise, he saw a gondola before him in a narrow place, rowed slowly by a man who seemed to be in black like himself. He did not try to pass it, but kept a little astern, trying not to attract attention and hoping that it would turn aside into another canal. But it went steadily on before him, turning wherever he must turn, till it stopped where he was to stop, at the water-gate of the house of the Agnus Dei. Instantly he brought to in the shadow, with the instinctive caution of every one who is used to the water. Gondolas were few in those days and belonged only to the rich, who had just begun to use them as a means of getting about quickly, much more convenient than horses or mules; for when riding a man often had to go far out of his way to reach a bridge, and there were many canals that had no bridle path at all and where the wooden houses were built straight down into the water as the stone ones are to-day. Zorzi peered through the darkness and listened. The occupant of the gondola might be Contarini himself, coming home. Whoever it was tapped softly upon the door, which was instantly opened, but to Zorzi’s surprise no light shone from the entrance. All the house above was still and dark, and he could barely make out by the starlight the piece of white marble bearing the sculptured Agnus Dei whence the house takes its name. He knew that above the high balcony there were graceful columns bearing pointed stone arches, between which are the symbols of the four Evangelists; but he could see nothing of them. Only on the balcony, he fancied he saw something less dark than the wall or the sky, and which might be a woman’s dress.

  Some one got out of the gondola and went in after spea
king a few words in a low tone, and the door was then shut without noise. The gondola glided on, under the Baker’s Bridge, but Zorzi could not see whether it went further or not; he thought he heard the sound of the oar, as if it were going away. Coming alongside the step, he knocked gently as the last comer had done, and the door opened again. He had already made his skiff fast to the step.

  “Your business here?” asked a muffled voice out of the dark.

  Zorzi felt that a number of persons were in the hall immediately behind the speaker.

  “For the Lord Jacopo Contarini,” he answered. “I have a message and a token to deliver.”

  “From whom?”

  “I will tell that to his lordship,” replied Zorzi.

  “I am Contarini,” replied the voice, and the speaker felt for Zorzi’s face in the darkness, and brought it near his ear.

  “From Angelo,” whispered Zorzi, so softly that Contarini only heard the last word.

  The door was now shut as noiselessly as before, but not by Contarini himself. He still kept his hold on Zorzi’s arm.

  “The token,” he whispered impatiently.

  Zorzi pulled the little leathern bag out of his doublet, slipped the string over his head and thrust the token into Contarini’s hand. The latter uttered a low exclamation of surprise.

  “What is this?” he asked.

  “The token,” answered Zorzi.

  He had scarcely spoken when he felt Contarini’s arms round him, holding him fast. He was wise enough to make no attempt to escape from them.

  “Friends,” said Contarini quickly, “the man who just came in is a spy. I am holding him. Help me!”

  It seemed to Zorzi that a hundred hands seized him in the dark; by the arms, by the legs, by the body, by the head. He knew that resistance was worse than useless. There were hands at his throat, too.