Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  Giovanni was too full of his plan for Zorzi’s destruction to resist the temptation of laying the whole case before Contarini, who was so soon to be a member of the family, and as Jacopo, who was himself going out, accompanied his guest downstairs, Giovanni continued to talk of the matter earnestly, and Contarini answered him by occasional monosyllables and short sentences, much interested by the whole affair, but wishing that Giovanni would go away, now that he had told all. He was in constant fear lest Zorzi should say something which might betray the meetings at the house of the Agnus Dei, and had often regretted that he had not been put quietly out of the way, instead of being admitted to the society. Now after hearing what Giovanni had to say, he had not the slightest doubt but that Zorzi had really broken the laws, and it seemed an admirable solution of the whole affair that the Dalmatian should be exiled from the Republic for life. That being settled, he wished to get rid of his visitor, as Arisa was waiting for him.

  “I assure you,” Giovanni said, “that this miserable Zorzi is a liar, a thief and an assassin.”

  “Yes,” assented Contarini carelessly, “I have no doubt of it.”

  “The best thing is to arrest him at once, this very night, if possible, and have him brought before the Council.”

  “Yes.”

  Contarini had agreed with Giovanni on this point already, and made a movement to descend, but Giovanni loved to stand still in order to talk, and he would not move. Contarini waited for him.

  “It is important that some member of the Council should be informed of the truth beforehand,” he continued. “Will you speak to your father about it, Messer Jacopo?”

  “Yes,” answered Contarini, and he spoke the word intentionally with great emphasis, in the hope that Giovanni would be finally satisfied and go away.

  “You will be conferring a benefit on the city of Murano,” said Giovanni in a tone of gratitude, and this time he began to come down the steps.

  The gondolier had heard every word that had been said, as well as the servants in the lower hall; but to them the conversation had no especial meaning, as they knew nothing of Zorzi. To the gondolier, on the other hand, who was devoted to his master and detested his master’s son, it meant much, though his stolid, face did not betray the slightest intelligence.

  Giovanni took leave of Contarini with much ceremony, a little too much, Jacopo thought.

  “To the Grand Canal,” said Giovanni as the gondolier helped him to get in, and he backed under the ‘felse.’ “Try and find the Governor of Murano, and if you see him, take me alongside his gondola.”

  The sun was now low, and as the light craft shot out at last upon the Grand Canal, the breeze came up from the land, cool and refreshing. Scores of gondolas were moving up and down, some with the black ‘felse,’ some without, and in the latter there were beautiful women, whose sun-dyed hair shone resplendent under the thin embroidered veils that loosely covered it. They wore silk and satin of rich hues, and jewels, and some were clad in well-fitting bodices that were nets of thin gold cord drawn close over velvet, with lawn sleeves gathered to the fore-arm and the upper-arm by netting of seed pearls. Beside some of them sat their husbands or their fathers, in robes and mantles of satin and silk, or in wide coats of rich stuff, open at the neck; bearded men, straight-featured, and often very pale, wearing great puffed caps set far back on their smooth hair, their white hands playing with their gloves, their dark eyes searching out from afar the faces of famous beauties, or, if they were grey-haired men, fixed thoughtfully before them.

  Overall the evening light descended like a mist of gold, reflected from the sculptured walls of palaces, where marble columns and light traceries of stone were dyed red and orange and almost purple by the setting sun, and nestling among the carved beams and far-projecting balconies of wooden houses that overhung the canal, gilding the water itself where the broad-bladed oars struck deep and churned it, and swept aft, and steered with a poising, feathering backstroke, or where tiny waves were dashed up by a gondola’s bright iron stem. Slowly the water turned to wine below, the clear outlines of the palaces stood out less sharply against the paling sky, the golden cloudlets, floating behind the great tower of Saint Mark’s presently faded to wreaths of delicate mist. The bells rung out from church and monastery, far and near, till the air was filled with a deep music, telling all Venice that the day was done.

  Then the many voices that had echoed in greeting and in laughter, from boat to boat, were hushed a moment, and almost every man took off his hat or cap, the robed Councillor and the gondolier behind him; and also a good number of the great ladies made the sign of the cross and were silent a while. It was the hour when Venice puts forth her stealing charm, when the terrible distinctness of her splendour grows gentle and almost human, and the little mystery of each young life rises from the heart to hold converse with the sweet, mysterious all. Through the long day the palaces look down consciously at themselves, mirrored in the calm water where they stand, and each seems to say “I am finer than you,” or “My master is still richer than yours,” or “You are going to ruin faster than I am,” or “I was built by a Lombardo,” or “I by Sansovino,” and the violent light is ever there to bear witness of the truth of what each says. Within, without, in hall and church and gallery, there is perpetual brightness and perpetual silence. But at the evening hour, now, as in old times, a spirit takes Venice and folds it in loving arms, whispering words that are not even guessed by day.

  The Ave Maria had not ceased ringing when Giovanni’s gondolier came up with the Governor of Murano. He was alone, and at his invitation Giovanni left his own craft and sat down beside the patrician, whose gondola was uncovered for coolness. Giovanni talked earnestly in low tones, holding his sealed letter in his hand, while his own oarsman watched him closely in the advancing dusk, but was too wise to try to overhear what was said. He knew well enough now what Giovanni wanted of the Governor, and what he obtained.

  “Not to-night,” the Governor said audibly, as Giovanni returned to his own gondola. “To-morrow.”

  Giovanni turned before getting under the ‘felse,’ bowed low as he stood up and said a few words of thanks, which the Governor could hardly have heard as his boat shot ahead, though he made one more gracious gesture with his hand. The shadows descended quickly now, and everywhere the little lights came out, from latticed balconies and palace windows left open to let in the cool air, and from the silently gliding gondolas that each carried a small lamp; and here and there between tall houses the young summer moon fell across the black water, rippling under the freshening breeze, and it was like a shower of silver falling into a widow’s lap.

  But Giovanni saw none of these things, and if he had looked out of the small windows of the ‘felse,’ he would not have cared to see them, for beauty did not appeal to him in nature any more than in art, except that in the latter it was a cause of value in things. Besides, as he suffered from the heat all day, he was afraid of being chilled at evening; so he sat inside the ‘felse,’ gloating over the success of his trip. The Governor, who knew nothing of Zorzi but was well aware of Giovanni’s importance in Murano, had readily consented to arrest the poor Dalmatian who was represented as such a dangerous person, besides being a liar and other things, and Giovanni had particularly requested that the force sent should be sufficient to overpower the “raging devil” at once and without scandal. He judged that ten men would suffice for this, he said. The fact was that he feared some resistance on the part of Pasquale, whom he knew to be a friend to Zorzi. He had carefully abstained from alluding to Zorzi’s lameness, lest the mere mention of it should excite some compassion in his hearer. He had in fact done everything to assure the success of his scheme, except the one thing which was the most necessary of all. He had allowed himself to speak of it in the hearing of the gondolier who hated him, and who lost no time in making use of the information.

  It was nearly supper-time when he deposited Giovanni at the steps of the house and took the gondola round t
o the narrow canal in which the boats lay, and which was under Nella’s window. The shutters were wide open, and there was a light within. He called the serving-woman by name, and she looked out, and asked what he wanted. Then, as now, gondoliers worked indoors like the servants when not busy with the boats, and slept in the house. The man was on friendly terms with Nella, who liked him because he thought her mistress the most perfect creature in the world.

  “I have ripped the arm of my doublet,” he said. “Can you mend it for me this evening?”

  “Bring it up to me now,” answered Nella. “There is time before supper. You can wait outside my room while I do it. My mistress is already gone downstairs.”

  “You are an angel,” observed the gondolier from below. “The only thing you need is a husband.”

  “You have guessed wrong,” answered Nella with a little laugh. “That is the only thing I do not need.”

  She disappeared, and the gondolier went round by the back of the house to the side door, in order to go upstairs. In a quarter of an hour, while she stood in her doorway, and he in the passage without, he had told her all he knew of Giovanni’s evil intentions against Zorzi, including the few words which the Governor had spoken audibly. The torn sleeve was an invention.

  Giovanni was visibly elated at supper, a circumstance which pleased his wife but inspired Marietta with some distrust. She had never felt any sympathy for the brother who was so much older than herself, and who took a view of things which seemed to her sordid, and she did not like to see him sitting in her father’s place, often talking of the house as if it were already his, and dictating to her upon matters of conduct as well as upon questions of taste. Everything he said jarred on her, but as yet she had no idea that he had any plans against Zorzi, and being of a reserved character she often took no trouble to answer what he said, except to bend her head a little to acknowledge that he had said it. When she was alone with her father, she loved to sit with him after supper in the big room, working by the clear light of the olive oil lamp, while he sat in his great chair and talked to her of his work. He had told her far more than he realised of his secret processes as well as of his experiments, and she had remembered it, for she alone of his children had inherited his true love and understanding of the noble art of glass-making.

  But now that he was away, Giovanni generally spent the evening in instructing his wife how to save money, and she listened meekly enough to what he told her, for she was a modest little woman, of colourless character, brought up to have no great opinion of herself, though her father was a rich merchant; and she looked upon her husband as belonging to a superior class. Marietta found the conversation intolerable and she generally left the couple together a quarter of an hour after supper was over and went to her own room, where she worked a little and listened to Nella’s prattle, and sometimes answered her. She was living in a state of half-suspended thought, and was glad to let the time pass as it would, provided it passed at all.

  This evening, as usual, she bade her brother and his wife good night, and went upstairs. Nella had learned to expect her and was waiting for her. To her surprise, Nella shut the window as soon as she entered.

  “Leave it open,” she said. “It is hot this evening. Why did you shut it? You never do.”

  “A window is an ear,” answered Nella mysteriously. “The nights are still and voices carry far.”

  “What great secret are you going to talk of?” inquired Marietta, with a careless smile, as she drew the long pins from her hair and let the heavy braids fall behind her.

  “Bad news, bad news!” Nella repeated. “The young master is doing things which he ought not to do, because they are very unjust and spiteful. I am only a poor serving-woman, but I would bite off my fingers, like this” — and she bit them sharply and shook them— “before I would let them do such things!”

  “What do you mean, Nella?” asked Marietta. “You must not speak of my brother in that way.”

  “Your brother! Eh, your brother!” cried Nella in a low and angry voice, quite unlike her own. “Do you know what your brother has done? He has been to Messer Jacopo Contarini, your betrothed husband, and he has told him that Zorzi is a liar, a thief and an assassin, and that he will have him arrested to-night, if he can, and Messer Jacopo promised that his father, who is of the Council, shall have Zorzi condemned! And your brother has seen the Governor of Murano in Venice, and has given him a great letter, and the Governor said that it should not be to-night, but to-morrow. That is the sort of man your brother is.”

  Marietta was standing. She had turned slowly pale while Nella was speaking, and grasped the back of a chair with both hands. She thought she was going to faint.

  CHAPTER XVI

  MARRIETTA’S HEART STOOD still, as she bent over the back of the chair holding it with both her hands, but feeling that she was falling. She had expected anything but this, when Nella had begun to speak. The blow was sudden and heavy, and she herself had never known how much she could be hurt, until that moment.

  Nella looked at her in astonishment. The serving-woman had changed her mind about Zorzi of late, and had grown fond of him in taking care of him. But her anger against Giovanni was roused rather because what he was about to do was an affront to his father, her master, than out of mere sympathy for the intended victim. She was far from understanding what could have so deeply moved Marietta.

  “You see,” she said triumphantly, “what sort of a brother you have!”

  The sound of her voice recalled the young girl just when she felt that she was losing consciousness. Her first instinct was to go to Zorzi and warn him. He must escape at once. The Governor had said that it should be to-morrow, but he might change his mind and send his men to-night. There was no time to be lost, she must go instantly. As she stood upright she could see the porter’s light shining through the small grated window, for Pasquale was still awake, but in a few minutes the light would go out. She had often been at her own window at that hour, and had watched it, wondering whether Zorzi would work far into the night, and whether he was thinking of her.

  It would be easy to slip out by the side door and run across. No one would know, except Nella and Pasquale, but she would have preferred that only the latter should be in the secret. She was still dressed, though her hair was undone, and the hood of a thin silk mantle would hide that. Her mind reasoned by instantaneous flashes now, and she had full control of herself again. She would tell Nella that she was going downstairs again for a little while, and she would also tell her to make an infusion of lime flowers and to bring it in half an hour and wait for her. Down the main staircase to the landing, down the narrow stairs in the dark, out into the street — it would not take long, and she would tap very softly at the door of the glass-house.

  When she said that she would go down again, Nella suspected nothing. On the contrary she thought her mistress was wise.

  “You will lead on the Signor Giovanni to talk of Zorzi,” she said. “You will learn something.”

  “And make me a drink of lime flowers,” continued Marietta. “The housekeeper has plenty.”

  “I know, I know,” answered Nella. “Shall you come up again soon?”

  “Be here in half an hour with the drink, and wait for me. You had better go for the lime flowers before the housekeeper is asleep. I will twist my hair up again before I go down.”

  Nella nodded and disappeared, for the housekeeper generally went to bed very early. As soon as she was out of the room Marietta took her silk cloak and wrapped herself in it, drawing the end over her head, so as to hide her hair and shade her face. She was pale still, but her lips were tightly closed and her eyelids a little drawn together, as she left the room. She met no one on the stairs. In the dark, when she reached the door, she could feel the oak bar that was set across it at night, and she slipped it back into its hole in the wall, without making much noise. She lifted the latch and went out.

  The night was still and clear, and the young moon was setting. If
any one had been looking out she must have been seen as she crossed the wooden bridge, and she glanced nervously back at the open windows. There were lights in the big room, and she heard Giovanni’s monotonous voice, as he talked to his wife. But there was shadow under the glass-house, and a moment later she was tapping softly at the door. Pasquale looked down from the grating, and was about to say something uncomplimentary when he recognised her, for he could see very well when there was little light, like most sailors. He opened the door at once, and stood aside to let Marietta enter.

  “Shut the door quickly,” she whispered, “and do not open it for anybody, till I come out.”

  Pasquale obeyed in silence. He knew as well as she did that Giovanni was sitting in the big room, with open windows, within easy hearing of ordinary sounds. A feeble light came through the open door of the porter’s lodge.

  “Is Zorzi awake?” Marietta asked in a low tone, when both had gone a few steps down the corridor.

  “Yes. He will sleep little to-night, for the boys have not come, and he must tend the fire himself.”

  Marietta guessed that her brother had given the order, so that Zorzi might be left quite alone.