Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  Pasquale looked at the house opposite. Everything was quiet, and the shutters were drawn together, but not quite closed. The flowers outside Marietta’s window waved in the light breeze.

  “Nella!” cried Pasquale, just as he was accustomed to call the maid when Marietta wanted her.

  At the sound of his voice the little boy, who was about to deal effectually with his temptation by yielding to it at once, took to his heels and ran away. But no one looked out from the house. Pasquale called again, somewhat louder. The shutters of Marietta’s window were slowly opened inward and Marietta herself appeared, all in white and pale, looking over the flowers.

  “What is it?” she asked. “Why do you want Nella?”

  The canal was narrow, so that one could talk across it almost in an ordinary tone.

  “Your pardon, lady,” answered Pasquale. “I did not mean to disturb you. There has been a little accident here, saving your grace.”

  This he added to avert possible ill fortune. Marietta instantly thought of Zorzi. She leaned forward upon the window-sill above the flowers and spoke anxiously.

  “What has happened? Tell me quickly!”

  “A man has had his foot badly burned — it must be dressed at once.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Zorzi.”

  Pasquale saw that Marietta started a little and drew back. Then she leaned forward again.

  “Wait there a minute,” she said, and disappeared quickly.

  The porter heard her calling Nella from an inner room, and then he heard Nella’s voice indistinctly. He waited before the open door.

  Nella was a born chatterer, but she had her good qualities, and in an emergency she was silent and skilful.

  “Leave it to me,” she said. “He will need no surgeon.”

  In her room she had a small store of simple remedies, sweet oil, a pot of balsam, old linen carefully rolled up in little bundles, a precious ointment made from the fat of vipers, which was a marvellous cure for rheumatism in the joints, some syrup of poppies in a stumpy phial, a box of powdered iris root, and another of saffron. She took the sweet oil, the balsam, and some linen. She also took a small pair of scissors which were among her most precious possessions. She threw her large black kerchief over her head and pinned it together under her chin.

  When she came back to Marietta’s room, her mistress was wrapped in a dark mantle that covered hear thin white dress entirely, and one corner of it was drawn up over her head so as to hide her hair and almost all her face. She was waiting by the door.

  “I am going with you,” she said, and her voice was not very steady.

  “But you will be seen—” began Nella.

  “By the porter.”

  “Your brother may see you—”

  “He is welcome. Come, we are losing time.” She opened the door and went out quickly.

  “I shall certainly be sent away for letting you come!” protested Nella, hurrying after her.

  Marietta did not even answer this, which Nella thought very unkind of her. From the main staircase Marietta turned off at the first landing, and went down a short corridor to the back stairs of the house, which led to the narrow lane beside the building. Nella snorted softly in approval, for she had feared that her mistress would boldly pass through the hall where there were always one or two idle men-servants in waiting. The front door was closed against the heat, they had met no one and they reached the door of the glass-house without being seen.

  Pasquale looked at Marietta but said nothing until all three were inside. Then he took hold of Marietta’s mantle at her elbow, and held her back. She turned and looked at him in amazement.

  “You must not go in, lady,” he said. “It is an ugly wound to see.”

  Marietta pushed him aside quietly, and led the way. Nella followed her as fast as she could, and Pasquale came last. He knew that the two women would need help.

  Zorzi lay quite still where he had fallen, with one hand on the billet of beech wood, the other arm doubled under him, his cheek on the dusty stone. With a sharp cry Marietta ran forward and knelt beside his head, dropping her long mantle as she crossed the room. Pasquale uttered an uncompromising exclamation of surprise.

  “O, most holy Mary!” cried Nella, holding up her hands with the things she carried.

  Marietta believed that Zorzi was dead, for he was very white and he lay quite still. At first she opened her eyes wide in horror, but in a moment she sank down, covering her face. Pasquale knelt opposite her on one knee, and began to turn Zorzi on his back. Nella was at his feet, and she helped, with great gentleness.

  “Do not be frightened, lady,” said Pasquale reassuringly. “He has only fainted. I left him on the bench, but you see he must have tried to get up to feed the fire.”

  While he spoke he was lifting Zorzi as well as he could. Marietta dropped her hands and slowly opened her eyes, and she knew that Zorzi was alive when she saw his face, though it was ghastly and smeared with grey ashes. But in those few moments she had felt what she could never forget. It had been as if a vast sword-stroke had severed her body at the waist, and yet left her heart alive.

  “Can you help a little?” asked Pasquale. “If I could get him into my arms, I could carry him alone.”

  Marietta sprang to her feet, all her energy and strength returning in a moment. The three carried the unconscious man easily enough to the bench and laid him down, as he had lain before, with his head on the leathern cushion. Then Nella set to work quickly and skilfully, for she hoped to dress the wound while he was still insensible. Marietta helped her, instinctively doing what was right. It was a hideous wound.

  “It will heal more quickly than you think,” said Nella, confidently. “The burning has cauterised it.”

  Marietta, delicately reared and unused to such sights, would have felt faint if the man had not been Zorzi. As it was she only felt sharp pain, each time that Nella touched the foot. Pasquale looked on, helpless but approving.

  Zorzi groaned, then opened his eyes and moved one hand. Nella had almost finished.

  “If only he can be kept quiet a few moments longer,” she said, “it will be well done.”

  Zorzi writhed in pain, only half conscious yet. Marietta left Nella to put on the last bandages, and came and looked down into his face, taking one of his hands in hers. He recognised her, and stared in wild surprise.

  “You must try and not move,” she said softly. “Nella has almost finished.”

  He forgot what he suffered, and the agonised contraction of his brows and mouth relaxed. Marietta wiped away the ashes from his forehead and cheeks, and smoothed back his thick hair. No woman’s hand had touched him thus since his mother’s when he had been a little child. He was too weak to question what was happening to him, but a soft light came into his eyes, and he unconsciously pressed Marietta’s hand.

  She blushed at the pressure, without knowing why, and first the maiden instinct was to draw away her hand, but then she pitied him and let it stay. She thought, too, that her touch helped to keep him quiet, and indeed it did.

  “How did you know?” he asked at length, for in his half consciousness it had seemed natural that she should have come to him when she heard that he was hurt.

  “Pasquale called Nella,” she answered simply, “and I came too. Is the pain still very great?”

  “It is much less. How can I thank you?”

  She looked into his eyes and smiled as he had seen her smile once or twice before in his life. His memory all came back now. He knew that she ought not to have been there, since her father was away. His expression changed suddenly.

  “What is the matter?” asked Marietta. “Does it hurt very much?”

  “No,” he said. “I was thinking—” He checked himself, and glanced at the porter.

  A distant knocking was heard at the outer door, Pasquale shuffled off to see who was there.

  “I will wager that it is the surgeon!” he grumbled. “Evil befall his soul! We do not want him.�
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  “What were you going to say?” asked Marietta, bending down. “There is only Nella here now.”

  “Nella should not have let you come,” said Zorzi. “If it is known, your father will be very angry.”

  “Ah, do you see?” cried Nella, rising, for she had finished. “Did I not tell you so, my pretty lady? And if your brother finds out that you have been here he will go into a fury like a wild beast! I told you so! And as for your help, indeed, I could have brought another woman, and there was Pasquale, too. I suppose he has hands. Oh, there will be a beautiful revolution in the house when this is known!”

  But Marietta did not mean to acknowledge that she had done anything but what was perfectly right and natural under the circumstances; to admit that would have been to confess that she had not come merely out of pity and human kindness.

  “It is absurd,” she said with a little indignation. “I shall tell my brother myself that Zorzi was hurt, and that I helped you to dress his wound. And what is more, Nella, you will have to come; again, and I shall come with you as often as I please. All Murano may know it for anything I care.”

  “And Venice too?” asked Nella, shaking her head in disapproval. “What will they say in Casa Contarini when they hear that you have actually gone out of the house to help a wounded young man in your father’s glass-house?”

  “If they are human, they will say that I was quite right,” answered Marietta promptly. “If they are not, why should I care what they say?”

  Zorzi smiled. At that moment Pasquale passed the window, and then came in by the open door, growling. His ugly face was transfigured by rage, until it had a sort of grotesque grandeur, and he clenched his fist as he began to speak.

  “Animals! Beasts! Brutes! Worse than savages! He was almost incoherent.

  “Well? What has happened now?” asked. Nella. “You talk like a mad dog. Remember the young lady!”

  “It would make a leaden statue speak!” answered Pasquale. “The Signor Giovanni sends a boy to say that the Surgeon was not at home, because he had gone to shave the arch-priest of San Piero!”

  In spite of the great pain he still suffered, Zorzi laughed, a little.

  “You said that you would throw, him into the canal if he came at all,” he said.

  “Yes, and so I meant to do!” cried Pasquale. “But that is no reason why the inhuman monster should be shaving the arch-priest when a man might be dying for need of him! Oh, let him come here! Oh, I advise him to come! The miserable, cowardly, bloodletting, soap-sudding, shaving little beast of a barber!”

  Pasquale drew a long breath after this, and unclenched his fist, but his lips still moved, as he said things to himself which would have shocked Marietta if she could have had the least idea of what they meant.

  “You cannot stay here,” she said, turning to Zorzi again. “You cannot lie on this bench all day.”

  “I shall soon be able to stand,” answered Zorzi confidently. “I am much better.”

  “You will not stand on that foot for many a day,” said Nella, shaking her head.

  “Then Pasquale must get me a pair of crutches,” replied Zorzi. “I cannot lie on my back because I have hurt one foot. I must tend the furnace, I must go on with my work, I must make the tests, I must—”

  He stopped short and bit his lip, turning white again as a spasm of excruciating pain shot along his right side, from his foot upwards. Marietta bent over him, full of anxiety.

  “You are suffering!” she said tenderly. “You must not try to move.”

  “It is nothing,” he answered through his closed teeth. “It will pass, I daresay.”

  “It will not pass to-day,” said Nella. “But I will bring you some syrup of poppies. That will make you sleep.”

  Marietta seemed to feel the pain herself. She smoothed the leathern cushion under his head as well as she could, and softly touched his forehead. It was hot and dry now.

  “He is feverish,” she said to Nella anxiously.

  “I will bring him barley water with the syrup of poppies. What do you expect? Do you think that such a wound and such a burn are cooling to the blood, and refreshing to the brain? The man is badly hurt. Of course he is feverish. He ought to be in his bed, like a decent Christian.”

  “Some one must help me with the work,” said Zorzi faintly.

  “There is no one but me,” answered Marietta after a moment’s pause.

  “You?” cried Nella, greatly scandalised.

  Even Pasquale stared at Marietta in silent astonishment.

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “There is no one else who knows enough about my father’s work.”

  “That is true,” said Zorzi. “But you cannot come here and work with me.”

  Marietta turned away and walked to the window. In her thin dress she stood there a few minutes, like a slender lily, all white and gold in the summer light.

  “It is out of the question!” protested Nella. “Her brother will never allow her to come. He will lock her up in her own room for safety, till the master comes home.”

  “I think I shall always do just what I think right,” said Marietta quietly, as if to herself.

  “Lord!” cried Nella. “The young lady is going mad!”

  Nella was gathering together the remains of the things she had brought. Exhausted by the pain he had suffered, and by the efforts he had made to hide it, Zorzi lay on his back, looking with half-closed eyes at the graceful outline of the girl’s figure, and vaguely wishing that she would never move, and that he might be allowed to die while quietly gazing at her.

  “Lady,” said Pasquale at last, and rather timidly, “I will take good care of him. I will get him crutches to-morrow. I will come in the daytime and keep the fire burning for him.”

  “It would be far better to let it go out,” observed Nella, with much sense.

  “But the experiments!” cried Zorzi, suddenly coming back from his dream. “I have promised the master to carry them out.”

  “You see what comes of your glass-working,” retorted Nella, pointing to his bandaged foot.

  “How did it happen?” asked Marietta suddenly. “How did you do it?”

  “It was done for him,” said Pasquale, “and may the Last Judgment come a hundred times over for him who did it!”

  His intention was clearer than his words.

  “Do you mean that it was done on purpose, out of spite?” asked Marietta, looking from Pasquale to Zorzi.

  “It was an accident,” said the latter. “I was in the main furnace room with your brother. The blow-pipe with the hot glass slipped from a man’s hand. Your brother saw it — he will tell you.”

  “I have been porter here for five-and-twenty years,” retorted Pasquale, “and there have been several accidents in that time. But I never heard of one like that.”

  “It was nothing else,” said Zorzi.

  His voice was weak. Nella had finished collecting her belongings. Marietta saw that she could not stay any longer at present, and she went once more to Zorzi’s side.

  “Let Pasquale take care of you to-day,” she said. “I will come and see how you are to-morrow morning.”

  “I thank you,” he answered. “I thank you with all my heart. I have no words to tell you how much.”

  “You need none,” said she quietly. “I have done nothing. It is Nella who has helped you.”

  “Nella knows that I am very grateful.”

  “Of course, of course!” answered the woman kindly. “You have made him talk too much,” she added, speaking to Marietta. “Let us go away. I must prepare the barley water. It takes a long time.”

  “Is he to have nothing but barley water?” asked Pasquale.

  “I will send him what he is to have,” answered Nella, with an air of superiority.

  Marietta looked back at Zorzi from the door, and his eyes were following her. She bent her head gravely and went out, followed by the others, and he was alone again. But it was very different now. The spasms of pain came
back now and then, but there was rest between them, for there was a potent anodyne in the balsam with which Nella had soaked the first dressing. Of all possible hurts, the pain from burning is the most acute and lasting, and the wise little woman, who sometimes seemed so foolish, had done all that science could have done for Zorzi, even at a much later day. He could think connectedly now, he had been able to talk; had it been possible for him to stand, he might even have gone on for a time with the preparations for the next experiment. Yet he felt an instinctive certainty that he was to be lame for life.

  He was not thinking of the experiments just then; he could think of nothing but Marietta. Four or five days had passed since he had talked with her in the garden, and she was now formally promised to Jacopo Contarini. He wondered why she had come with Nella, and he remembered her earnest offer of friendship. She meant to show him that she was still in earnest, he supposed. It had been perfect happiness to feel her cool young hand on his forehead, to press it in his own. No one could take that from him, as long as he lived. He remembered it through the horrible pain it had soothed, and it was better than the touch of an angel, for it was the touch of a loving woman. But he did not know that, and be fancied that if she had ever guessed that he loved her, she would not have come to him now. She would feel that the mere thought in his heart was an offence. And besides, she was to marry Contarini, and she was not of the kind that would promise to marry one man and yet encourage love in another. It was well, thought Zorzi, that she had never suspected the truth.

  When Marietta reached her room again she listened patiently to Nella’s scolding and warning, for she did not hear a word the good woman said to her. Nella brushed the dust from the silk mantle and from Marietta’s white skirt very industriously, lest it should betray the secret to Giovanni or any other member of the household. For they had escaped being seen, even when they came back.