‘We will have supper together,’ he said in a cheerful tone, settling himself in his big chair, and rubbing his hands, like a man who has finished his day’s work and looks forward to something pleasant.
As a matter of fact he had done nothing in particular, and had set himself a rather disagreeable task; for he did not wish Messer Sebastian to know that Zoë or any other woman was in the house, and he was reduced to the necessity of telling the girl not to show herself. She was legally his chattel, and if he chose he might lock her up in a room on the other side of the house for a few hours, or in the cellar. He told himself this; and for the hundredth time he recalled her own story of her birth and bringing up, which was logical and clear, and explained both her gentle breeding and the careful education she had evidently received. But logic is often least convincing when it is most unanswerable, and Zeno remained in the belief that the most important part of Zoë’s story was still a secret.
She said nothing now in answer to his announcement, but she beckoned to Yulia to bring supper, and the maid disappeared. Being out of temper with him at that moment, she was asking herself how she could possibly be jealous of Giustina Polo; she mentally added that she would no more think of sitting at the window to see her go by, than of looking at her through a keyhole. Also, she wished Zeno would sit where he was for an hour or two, and not utter a word, so that she might show him how utterly indifferent she was to his presence, and that she could be just as silent as he; and women much older than Zoë have felt just as she did then.
But Zeno, who was uncomfortable, was also resolved to be cheerful and at his ease.
‘It has been a beautiful day,’ he observed. ‘I hope you had a pleasant morning on the water.’
‘Thanks,’ Zoë answered, and said no more.
This was not encouraging, but Zeno was not easily put off.
After a few moments he tried again.
‘I fear you do not find my secretary very amusing,’ he said.
Zoë was on the point of asking him whether he himself considered Omobono a diverting person, but she checked herself with a little snort of indignation which might have passed for a laugh without a smile. Zeno glanced at her profile, raised his eyebrows, and said nothing more till the slave-girls came with the supper. While they brought the small table and set it between the two, he leaned back in his carved chair, crossed one shapely leg over the other, and drummed a noiseless tattoo with the end of his fingers on his knee, the picture of unconcern. Zoë half sat and half lay on her divan, apparently scrutinising the nail of one little finger, pushing it and rubbing it gently with the thumb of the same hand, and then looking at it again as if she expected to observe a change in its appearance after being touched.
The maids placed the dishes on the table and poured out wine, and Zoë began to eat in silence, without paying any attention to Zeno. That is one way of showing indifference, and both men and women use it, yet it still remains surprisingly effective.
‘What is the matter with you?’ Zeno asked, suddenly.
Zoë pretended to be surprised and then smiled coldly.
‘Oh! you mean, because I am hungry, I suppose. I have been in the open air. It must be that.’
She at once took another mouthful, and went on eating.
‘No,’ answered Zeno, watching her. ‘I did not mean that.’
She raised her beautiful eyebrows, just as he had raised his a few minutes earlier, but she said nothing and seemed very busy with the fish. Carlo took another piece, swallowed some of it deliberately, and drank a little before he leaned back in his chair and spoke again.
‘Something has happened,’ he said at last with great conviction.
‘Really?’ Zoë pretended surprised interest. ‘What?’ she asked with affected eagerness.
‘You understand me perfectly,’ he replied with a shade of sternness, for he was growing tired of her mood.
She glanced at him sideways, as a woman does when she hears a man’s tone change suddenly, and she is not sure what he may do or say next.
‘You do not make it easy to understand you, my lord,’ she said after an instant’s hesitation.
‘The matter is simple enough. I find you in a bad humour — —’
‘Oh no! I assure you!’ Zoë broke in, with a woman’s diabolical facility in interrupting a man just at the right moment for her own advantage. ‘I was never in a better temper in my life!’
To prove this, she took a bird and some salad, and smiled sweetly at her plate, leaving him to prove his assertion, but he did not fall into the trap.
‘Then you are not easy to live with,’ he observed bluntly. ‘I am glad it is over.’
‘Do take some of this salad!’ suggested Zoë. ‘It is really delicious!’
‘To-morrow,’ Zeno said, without paying any attention to her recommendation, ‘I shall have a few guests at dinner.’
‘I should advise you to give them a salad exactly like this,’ answered Zoë. ‘It could not be better!’
‘I am glad you like it. I leave the fare to Omobono. It is about another matter that I have to speak.’
‘You need not!’ Zoë laughed carelessly. ‘I know what you are going to say. Shall I save you the trouble?’
‘I do not see how you can guess what it is — —’
‘Oh, easily! You do not wish your friends to see me and you are going to order me not to look out of the window when they come. Is that it?’
‘Yes — more or less — —’ Zeno was surprised.
‘Yes, that is it,’ laughed Zoë. ‘But it is quite useless, sir. I shall most certainly look out of the window, unless you lock me up in another room; and as for your doing that, I will yield only to force!’
She laughed again, much amused at the dilemma in which she was placing him. And indeed, he did not at first know how to answer her declaration of independence.
‘I cannot imagine why you should be so anxious to show yourself to people you do not know,’ he said. ‘Or perhaps you fancy they may be friends — you think that if they recognise you — but that is absurd. I have told you that if you have friends in the world you may go to them, and you say you have none.’
Zoë’s tone changed again and became girlishly petulant.
‘It is nothing but curiosity, of course!’ she answered. ‘I want to see the people you like. Is that so unnatural? In a whole month I have never seen one of your friends—’
‘I have not many. But such as I have, I value, and I do not care to let them get a mistaken impression of me, or of the way I live.’
‘Especially not the women amongst them,’ Zoë added, half interrogatively.
‘There are none,’ said Zeno, as if to cut short the suggestion.
‘I see. You do not want your men friends to know that there are women living in your house, do you? They are doubtless all grave and elderly persons, who would be much shocked and grieved to learn that you have bought a pretty Greek slave. After all, you came near being a priest, did you not? They naturally associate you in their minds with the clergy, and for some reason or other you think it just as well for you, or your affairs, that they should! I have always heard that the Venetians are good men of business!’
‘You are probably the only person alive who would risk saying that to me,’ said Zeno, looking at her.
‘What do I risk, my lord?’ asked Zoë, with a sort of submissive gravity.
‘My anger,’ Zeno answered curtly.
‘Yes sir, I understand. Your anger — but pray, my lord, how will it show itself? Shall I be beaten, or put in chains and starved, or turned out of your house and sold at auction? Those are the usual punishments for disobedient slaves, are they not?’
‘I am not a Greek,’ said Zeno, annoyed.
‘If you were,’ answered Zoë, turning her face from him to hide her smile, ‘you would probably wish to tear out my tongue!’
‘Perhaps.’
‘It might be a wise precaution!’ she laughed.
Z
eno looked at her sharply now, for the words sounded like a threat that was only half-playful. She knew enough to compass his destruction at the hands of Andronicus if she betrayed him, but he did not believe she would do that, and he wondered what she was driving at, for his experience of women’s ways was small.
‘Listen,’ he said, dropping his voice a little. ‘I shall not beat you, I shall not starve you, and I shall not sell you. But if you try to betray me, I will kill you.’
She raised her head proudly and met his eyes without fear.
‘I would spare you the trouble — if I ever betrayed you or any one.’
‘It is one thing to talk of death, it is another to die!’ Zeno laughed rather incredulously, as he quoted the old Italian proverb.
‘I have seen death,’ Zoë answered, in a different tone. ‘I know what it is.’
He wondered what she meant, but he knew it was useless to question her, and for a few moments there was silence. The lamps burned steadily in the quiet air, for the evenings were still and cool, and the windows were shut and curtained; through the curtains and the shutters the song of a passing waterman was heard in the stillness, a long-drawn, plaintive melody in the Lydian Mode, familiar to Zoë’s ears since she had been a child.
But Zeno saw how intensely she listened to the words. She clasped her hands tightly over her knee, and bent forwards to catch each note and syllable.
The waters are blue as the eyes of the Emperor’s daughter,
In the crystal pools of her eyes there are salt tears.
The water is both salt and fresh.
Over the water to my love, this night, over the water —
The voice died away, and Zoë no longer heard the words distinctly; presently she could not hear the voice at all, yet she strained her ears for a few seconds longer. The boat must have passed, on its way down to the Bosphorus.
For a whole month she had sat in the same room at that hour, and many times already she had heard men singing in their boats, sometimes to that same ancient Lydian Mode, but never once had they pronounced those meaning words. Often and often again she had passed within sight of the Amena tower, but not until to-day had she seen a solitary fisherman sitting at the pier’s edge below it, and he had waved his rod thrice over the water when she passed by. And now in a flash of intuition she guessed that the singer was the fisherman and none other, and that the song was for her, and for no one else; and it was a signal which she could understand and should answer if she could; and there was but one way of answering, and that was to show some light.
‘It is hot,’ she said, beckoning to Yulia. ‘Open the large window wide for a few minutes and let in the fresh air.’
Yulia obeyed quickly. The night was very dark.
‘Besides,’ Zoë continued carelessly, as Zeno looked at her, ‘that fellow has a fine voice, and we shall still hear him.’
And indeed, as the window was opened, the song was heard again, at some distance —
Over the water to my love, she is awake to-night, I see her eyes amongst the stars.
Love, I am here in the dark, but to-morrow I shall see the day in your face,
I shall see the noon in your eyes, I shall look upon the sun in your hair.
Over the water, the blue water, the water both salt and fresh ——
Once more the voice died away and the faint plash of oars told Zoë that the message was all delivered, and that Gorlias was gone, on his way downstream.
Zeno, whose maternal tongue was not Greek, could not be supposed to understand much of the song, for unfamiliar words sung to such ancient melodies can only be caught by native-born ears, and sharp ones at that. At a signal from Zoë, the maid shut the window again, and drew the curtains.
‘Could you understand the fellow?’ Zeno asked, glad in reality that the conversation had been interrupted.
‘Yes,’ Zoë answered lightly, ‘as you would understand an Italian fisherman, I suppose. The man gave you a message, my lord. Shall I interpret what he said?’
‘Can you?’ He laughed a little.
‘He tells you that if you will not try to force Arethusa to keep away from the window to-morrow, she will probably do as you wish — probably!’
‘Your friend must have good ears!’ Zeno smiled. ‘But then he only said “probably.” That is not a promise.’
‘Why should you trust the promise of a poor slave, sir? You would not believe a lady of Constantinople in the same case if she took oath on the four Gospels! Imagine any woman missing a chance of looking at another about whom she is curious!’
‘Who is the other?’ asked Zeno, not much pleased.
‘She is young, and as fresh as spring. Her hair is like that of all the Venetian ladies — —’
‘Since you have seen her, why are you so anxious to see her again?’
‘Ah! You see! It is she! I knew it! She is coming to-morrow with her father.’
‘Well? If she is, what of it?’ asked Zeno, impatiently.
‘Nothing. Since you admit that it is she, I do not care to see her at all. I will be good and you need not lock me up.’
Thereupon she bent towards the table and began to eat again, daintily, but as if she were still hungry. Zeno watched her in silence for some time, conscious that of all women he had ever seen none had so easily touched him, none had played upon his moods as she did, making him impatient, uneasy, angry, and forgiving by turns, within a quarter of an hour. A few minutes ago he had been so exasperated that he had rudely longed to box her little ears; and now he felt much more inclined to kiss her, and did not care to think how very easy and wholly lawful it was for him to do so. That was one of his many dilemmas; if he spoke to her as his equal she told him she was a slave, but when he treated her ever so little as if she were one, her proud little head went up, and she looked like an empress.
She had never been so much like one as to-night, he thought, though there was nothing very imperial in the action of eating a very sticky strawberry, drawn up out of thick syrup with a forked silver pin. She did it with grace, no doubt, twisting the pin dexterously, so that the big drop of syrup spread all round the berry just at the right moment, and it never dripped. Zeno had often seen the wife of the Emperor Charles eating stewed prunes with her fingers, which was not neat or pleasant to see, though it might be imperial, since she was a genuine empress. But it was neither Zoë’s grace nor her delicate ways that pleased him and puzzled him most; the mystery lay rather in the fearless tone of her voice and the proud carriage of her head when she was offended, in the flashing answer of her brave eyes and the noble curve of her tender mouth; for these are things given, not learnt, and if they could be taught at all, thought Zeno, they would not be taught to a slave.
He let his head rest against the back of his chair and wished many things, rather incoherently. For once in his life he felt inclined for anything rather than action or danger, or any sudden change; and in the detestable natural contradiction of duty and inclination it chanced that on that night, of all nights, he could not stay where he was to idle away two or three hours in careless talk, till it should be time to go downstairs and sleep. The habit of spending his evenings in that way had grown upon him during the past month more than he realised; but to-night he knew that he must break through it, and perhaps to-morrow, too, and for long afterwards, if not for ever. That was one reason why it had annoyed him to find Zoë out of temper.
He rose with an effort, and with something like a sigh.
‘I must be going,’ he said, standing beside the divan. ‘Good-night.’
Zoë had looked up in surprise when he left his seat, and now her face fell.
‘Already? Must you go already?’ she asked.
‘Yes. I have to keep an appointment. Good-night.’
‘Good-night, Messer Carlo,’ answered Zoë softly and a little sadly.
She had never before addressed him in that way, as an equal and a Venetian would have done, and the expression, with the tone in which it was ut
tered, arrested his attention and stopped him when he was in the act of turning away. He said nothing, but there was a question in his look.
‘I am sorry that I made you angry,’ she said, and she turned her face up to him with one of those half-pathetic, hesitating little smiles that ask forgiveness of a man and invariably get it, unless he is a brute.
‘I am sorry that I let you see I was annoyed,’ he answered simply.
‘If I had not been so foolish, you would not go away so early!’
Her tone was contrite and regretfully thoughtful, as if the explanation were irrefutable but humiliating. Eve was, on the whole, a good woman, and is believed to be in Paradise; yet with the slight previous training of a few minutes’ conversation with the serpent she was an accomplished temptress, and her rustic taste for apples has sent untold millions down into unquenchable fire. It was a mere coincidence that Eve should have been always called Zoë in the early Greek translations of Genesis, and that Zoë Rhangabé should have inherited a dangerous resemblance to the first beautiful — and enterprising — mother of men.
‘I would stay if I could,’ Zeno said. ‘But indeed I have an appointment, and I must go.’
‘Is it very important, very — very?’
Zeno smiled at her now, but did not answer at once. Instead, he walked to the window, opened the shutters again, and looked out. The night was very dark. Here and there little lights twinkled in the houses of Pera, and those that were near the water’s edge made tiny paths over the black stream. After his eyes had grown used to the gloom Zeno could make out that there was a boat near the marble steps, and a very soft sound of oars moving in the water told him that the boatman was paddling gently to keep his position against the slow current. Zeno shut the window again and turned back to Zoë.
‘Yes,’ he said, answering her last speech after the interval, ‘it is very important. If it were not, I would not go out to-night.’
He was going out of the house, then. She knew that he rarely did so after dark, and she could not help connecting his going with the invitation he had given to Polo and his daughter for the next day. Zoë’s imagination instantly spun a thread across the chasms of improbability, and ran along the fairy bridge to the regions of the impossible beyond. He was to be betrothed to Giustina to-morrow, he was going now to settle some urgent matter of business connected with the marriage-contract; or he was betrothed already; yes, and he was to be married in the morning and would bring his bride home; Zoë, in her lonely room upstairs, would hear the noisy feasting of the wedding-guests below ——
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 1175