Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  His first disappointment turned to redoubled hatred of the man who had caused it, and whom it was safer to hate now than formerly, since he was in the clutches of the law; moreover, the defeat of Giovanni’s hopes was by no means final, after the first shock was over. He could make an excuse for having the garden dug over, on pretence of improving it during his father’s absence; the more easily, as he had learned that the garden had always been under Zorzi’s care, and must now be cultivated by some one else. Giovanni did not believe it possible that the precious box had been taken away altogether. It was therefore near, and he could find it, and there would be plenty of time before his father’s return. Nevertheless, he looked about the laboratory and went into the small room where Zorzi had slept. There was water there, and Spanish soap, and he washed his hands carefully, and brushed the dust from his coat and from the knees of his fine black hose. He knew that his patient wife would be waiting for him when he went back to the house.

  He searched Zorzi’s room carefully, but could find nothing. An earthen jar containing broken white glass stood in one corner. The narrow truckle-bed, with its single thin mattress and flattened pillow, all neat and trim, could not have hidden anything. On a line stretched across from wall to wall a few clothes were hanging — a pair of disconsolate brown hose, the waistband on the one side of the line hanging down to meet the feet on the other, two clean shirts, and a Sunday doublet. On the wall a cap with a black eagle’s feather hung by a nail. Here and there on the white plaster, Zorzi had roughly sketched with a bit of charcoal some pieces of glass which he had thought of making. That was all. The floor was paved with bricks, and a short examination showed that none of them had been moved.

  Giovanni turned back into the laboratory, stood a moment looking disconsolately at the big stone which it had cost him so much fruitless labour to move, and then passed round by the other side of the furnace, along the wall against which the bench and the easy chair were placed. His eye fell on Marietta’s silk mantle, which lay as when it had slipped down from her shoulders, the skirts of it trailing on the floor. His brows contracted suddenly. He came nearer, felt the stuff, and was sure that he recognised it. Then he looked at it, as it lay. It had the unmistakable appearance of having been left, as it had been, by the person who had last sat in the chair.

  Two explanations of the presence of the mantle in the laboratory suggested themselves to him at once, but the idea that Marietta could herself have been seated in the chair not long ago was so absurd that he at once adopted the other. Zorzi had stolen the mantle, and used it for himself in the evening, confident that no one would see him. To-night he had been surprised and had left it in the chair, another and perhaps a crowning proof of his atrocious crimes. Was he not a thief, as well as a liar and an assassin? Giovanni knew well enough that the law would distinguish between stealing the art of glass-making, which was merely a civil offence, though a grave one, and stealing a mantle of silk which he estimated to be worth at least two or three pieces of gold. That was theft, and it was criminal, and it was one of many crimes which Zorzi had undoubtedly committed. The hangman would twist the rest out of him with the rack and the iron boot, thought Giovanni gleefully. The Governor should see the mantle with his own eyes.

  Before he went away, he was careful to fasten the window securely inside, and he locked the door after him, taking the key. He carried the brass lamp with him, for the corridor was very dark and the night was quite still.

  Pasquale was seated on the edge of his box-bed in his little lodge when Giovanni came to the door. He was more like a big and very ugly watch-dog crouching in his kennel than anything else.

  “Let no one try to go into the laboratory,” said Giovanni, setting down the lamp. “I have locked it myself.”

  Pasquale snarled something incomprehensible, by way of reply, and rose to let Giovanni out. He noticed that the latter had brought nothing but the lamp with him. When the door was open Pasquale looked across at the house, and saw that although there was still light in some of the other windows, Marietta’s window was now dark. She was safe in bed, for Giovanni’s search had occupied more than an hour.

  Marietta might have breathed somewhat more freely if she had known that her brother did not even suspect her of having been to the laboratory, but the knowledge would have been more than balanced by a still greater anxiety if she had been told that Zorzi could be accused of a common theft.

  She sat up in the dark and pressed her throbbing temples with her hands. She thought, if she thought at all, of getting up again and going back to the glass-house. Pasquale would let her in, of course, and she could get the mantle back. But there was Nella, in the next room, and Nella seemed to be always awake, and would hear her stirring and come in to know if she wanted anything. Besides, she was in the dark. The night light burned always in Nella’s room, a tiny wick supported by a bit of split cork in an earthen cup of oil, most carefully tended, for if it went out, it could only be lighted by going down to the hall where a large lamp burned all night.

  Marietta laid her head upon the pillow and tried to sleep, repeating over and over again to herself that Zorzi was safe. But for a long time the thought of the mantle haunted her. Giovanni had found it, of course, and had brought it back with him. In the morning he would send for her and demand an explanation, and she would have none to give. She would have to admit that she had been in the laboratory — it mattered little when — and that she had forgotten her mantle there. It would be useless to deny it.

  Then all at once she looked the future in the face, and she saw a little light. She would refuse to answer Giovanni’s questions, and when her father came back she would tell him everything. She would tell him bravely that nothing could make her marry Contarini, that she loved Zorzi and would marry him, or no one. The mantle would probably be forgotten in the angry discussion that would follow. She hoped so, for even her father would never forgive her for having gone alone at night to find Zorzi. If he ever found it out, he would make her spend the rest of her life in a convent, and it would break his heart that she should have thus cast all shame to the winds and brought disgrace on his old age. It never occurred to her that he could look upon it in any other way.

  She dreaded to think of the weeks that might pass before he returned. He had spoken of making a long journey and she knew that he had gone southward to Rimini to please the great Sigismondo Malatesta, who had heard of Beroviero’s stained glass windows and mosaics in Florence and Naples, and would not be outdone in the possession of beautiful things. But no one knew more than that. She was only sure that he would come back some time before her intended marriage, and there would still be time to break it off. The thought gave her some comfort, and toward morning she fell into an uneasy sleep. Of all who had played a part in that eventful night she slept the least, for she had the most at stake; her fair name, Zorzi’s safety, her whole future life were in the balance, and she was sure that Giovanni would send for her in the morning.

  She awoke weary and unrefreshed when the sun was already high. She scarcely had energy to clap her hands for Nella, and after the window was open she still lay listlessly on her pillow. The little woman looked at her rather anxiously but said nothing at first, setting the big dish with fruit and water on the table as usual, and busying herself with her mistress’s clothes. She opened the great carved wardrobe, and she hung up some things and took out others, in a methodical way.

  “Where is your silk mantle?” she asked suddenly, as she missed the garment from its accustomed place.

  “I do not know,” answered Marietta quite naturally, for she had expected the question.

  Her reply was literally true, since she had every reason for believing that Giovanni had brought it back with him in the night, but could have no idea as to where he had put it. Nella began to search anxiously, turning over everything in the wardrobe and the few things that hung over the chairs.

  “You could not have put it into the chest, could you?” she asked, pausing
at the foot of the bed and looking at Marietta.

  “No. I am sure I did not,” answered the girl. “I never do.”

  “Then it has been stolen,” said Nella, and her face darkened wrathfully.

  “How is such a thing possible?” asked Marietta carelessly. “It must be somewhere.”

  This appeared to be certain, but Nella denied it with energy, her eyes fixed on Marietta almost as angrily as if she suspected her of having stolen her own mantle from herself.

  “I tell you it is not,” she replied. “I have looked everywhere. It has been stolen.”

  “Have you looked in your own room?” inquired Marietta indifferently, and turning her head on her pillow, as if she were tired of meeting Nella’s eyes, as indeed she was.

  “My own room indeed!” cried the maid indignantly. “As if I did not know what is in my own room! As if your new silk mantle could hide itself amongst my four rags!”

  Why Nella and her kind, to this day, use the number four in contempt, rather than three or five, is a mystery of what one might call the psychical side of the Italian language. Marietta did not answer.

  “It has been stolen,” Nella repeated, with gloomy emphasis. “I trust no one in this house, since your brother and his wife have been here, with their servants.”

  “My sister-in-law was obliged to bring one of her women,” objected Marietta.

  “She need not have brought that sour-faced shrew, who walks about the house all day repeating the rosary and poking her long nose into what does not belong to her. But I am not afraid of the Signor Giovanni. I will tell the housekeeper that your mantle has been stolen, and all the women’s belongings shall be searched before dinner, and we shall find the mantle in that evil person’s box.”

  “You must do nothing of the sort,” answered Marietta in a tone of authority.

  She sat up in bed at last, and threw the thick braid of hair behind her, as every woman does when her hair is down, if she means to assert herself.

  “Ah,” cried Nella mockingly, “I see that you are content to lose your best things without looking for them! Then let us throw everything out of the window at once! We shall make a fine figure!”

  “I will speak to my brother about it myself,” said Marietta.

  Indeed she thought it extremely likely that Giovanni would oblige her to speak of it within an hour.

  “You will only make trouble among the servants,” she added.

  “Oh, as you please!” snorted Nella discontentedly. “I only tell you that I know who took it. That is all. Please to remember that I said so, when it is too late. And as for trouble, there is not one of us in the house who would not like to be searched for the sake of sending your sister-in-law’s maid to prison, where she belongs!”

  “Nella,” said Marietta, “I do not care a straw about the mantle. I want you to do something very important. I am sure that Zorzi has been arrested unjustly, and I do not believe that the Governor will keep him in prison. Can you not get your friend the gondolier to go to the Governor’s palace before mid-day, and ask whether Zorzi is to be let out?”

  “Of course I can. By and by I will call him. He is busy cleaning the gondola now.”

  Marietta had spoken quite quietly, though she had expected that her voice would shake, and she had been almost sure that she was going to blush. But nothing so dreadful happened, though she had prepared for it by turning her back on Nella. She sat on the edge of the bed, slowly feeling her way into her little yellow leathern slippers. It was a relief to know that even now she could speak of Zorzi without giving any outward sign of emotion, and she felt a little encouraged, as she began the dreaded day.

  She took a long time in dressing, for she expected at every moment that her sister-in-law’s maid would knock at the door with a message from Giovanni, bidding her come to him before he went out. But no one came, though it was already past the hour at which he usually left the house. All at once she heard his unmistakable voice through the open window, and on looking out through the flowers she saw him standing at the open door of the glass-house, talking with the porter, or rather, giving instructions about the garden which Pasquale received in surly silence.

  Marietta listened in surprise. It seemed impossible that Giovanni should not take her to task at once if he had found the mantle. He was not the kind of man to put off accusing any one when he had proof of guilt and was sure that the law was on his side, and Marietta felt sure that the evidence against her was overwhelming, for she had yet to learn what amazing things can be done with impunity by people who have the reputation of perfect innocence.

  Giovanni was telling Pasquale, in a tone which every one might hear, that he had sent for a gardener, who would soon come with a lad to help him, that the two must be admitted at once, and that he himself would be within to receive them; but that no one else was to be allowed to go in, as he should be extremely busy all the morning. Having said these things three or four times over, in order to impress them on Pasquale’s mind, he went in. The porter looked up at Marietta’s window a moment, and then followed him and shut the door. It was clear that Giovanni had no intention of speaking to his sister before the mid-day meal. She breathed more freely, since she was to have a respite of several hours.

  When she was dressed, Nella called the gondolier from her own window, and met him in the passage when he came up. He at once promised to make inquiries about Zorzi and went off to the palace to find his friend and crony, the Governor’s head boatman. The latter, it is needless to say, knew every detail of the supernatural rescue from the archers, who could talk of nothing else in spite of the Governor’s prohibition. They sat in a row on the stone bench within the main entrance, a rueful crew, their heads bound up with a pleasing variety of bandages. In an hour the gondolier returned, laden with the wonderful story which Nella was the first, but not the last, to hear from him. Her brown eyes seemed to be starting from her head when she came back to tell it to her mistress.

  Marietta listened with a beating heart, though Nella began at once by saying that Zorzi had mysteriously disappeared, and was certainly not in prison. When all was told, she drew a long breath, and wished that she could be alone to think over what she had heard; but Nella’s imagination was roused, and she was prepared to discuss the affair all the morning. The details of it had become more and more numerous and circumstantial, as the men with the bandaged heads recalled what they had seen and heard. The devils that had delivered Zorzi all had blue noses, brass teeth and fiery tails. A peculiarity of theirs was that they had six fingers with six iron claws on each hand, and that all their hoofs were red-hot. As to their numbers, they might be roughly estimated at a thousand or so, and their roaring was like the howling of the south wind and the breaking of the sea on the Lido in a winter storm. It was horrible to hear, and would alone have put all the armies of the Republic to ignominious flight. Nella thought these things very interesting. She wished that she might talk with one of the men who had seen a real devil.

  “I do not believe a word of all that nonsense,” said Marietta. “The most important thing is that Zorzi got away from them and is not in prison.”

  “If he escaped by selling his soul to the fiends,” said Nella, shaking her head, “it is a very evil thing.”

  Her mistress’s disbelief in the blue noses and fiery tails was disconcerting, and had a chilling effect on Nella’s talkative mood. The gondolier had crossed the bridge, to tell his story to Pasquale, whose view of the case seemed to differ from Nella’s. He listened with approving interest, but without comment, until the gondolier had finished.

  “I could tell you many such stories,” he said. “Things of this kind often happen at sea.”

  “Really!” exclaimed the gondolier, who was only a boatman and regarded real sailors with a sort of professional reverence.

  “Yes,” answered Pasquale. “Especially on Sundays. You must know that when the priests are all saying mass, and the people are all praying, the devils cannot bear it, and ar
e driven out to sea for the day. Very strange things happen then, I assure you. Some day I will tell you how the boatswain of a ship I once sailed in rove the end of the devil’s tail through a link of the chain, made a Flemish knot at the end to stop it, and let go the anchor. So the devil went to the bottom by the run. We unshackled the chain and wore the ship to the wind, and after that we had fair weather to the end of the voyage. It happened on a Sunday.”

  “Marvellous!” cried the gondolier. “I should like to hear the whole story! But if you will allow me, I will go in and tell the Signor Giovanni what has happened, for he does not know yet.”

  Pasquale grinned as he stood in the doorway.

  “He has given strict orders that no one is to be admitted this morning, as he is very busy.”

  “But this is a very important matter,” argued the gondolier, who wished to have the pleasure of telling the tale.

  “I cannot help it,” answered Pasquale. “Those are his orders, and I must obey them. You know what his temper is, when he is not pleased.”

  Just then a skiff came up the canal at a great rate, so that the quick strokes of the oar attracted the men’s attention. They saw that the boat was one of those that could be hired everywhere in Venice. The oarsman backed water with a strong stroke and brought to at the steps before the glass-house.