Complete Works of a E W Mason

by A. E. W. Mason

  “Let us stop!” said Williams, and he gave an order.

  The two gondoliers stopped and the gondola remained hidden in the shadow of a great palace whilst this cavalcade of the lagoons swept by. Elliot and his friend waited until the voices and the music had dwindled into such silver melodies as the naiads might have sung and then gave the order to proceed.

  “You saw who led the procession?” Williams asked.

  “Marelli,” answered Elliot.

  “Yes. Onocuto Vigano lives just this side of the Rialto. It was to his palace no doubt that Marelli went after the Opera?”

  It was a question which Williams put, but Elliot did not answer it directly.

  “It might well be since Vigano directs the Opera,” he said.

  “And he was being escorted homewards with a serenade,” said Williams. “Deidamia will shed some more tears when she hears of it.”

  His voice, however, had none of the lightness of his words. Elliot could not but put it side by side in his thoughts with Columba Tadino’s warning. But he refused to accept it. Jealousies were as much part of a theatre as the painted scenery. The actors or singers put them on and off with their dresses. Maria Baretti might weep a few tears, she might even make a scene. Cuzzoni over in London at the Queen’s Theatre in the Haymarket had made a hundred. And who cared except the gossip-writers?

  The gondola stopped at the landing stage by the steps to Elliot’s apartment.

  “They’ll take you on to your house,” said Elliot as he stepped out. “I am very grateful to you for all the trouble you have taken to make my visit pleasant.” Mr. Williams waved the gratitude aside.

  “I have something to tell you,” he said, speaking very carefully, “and I should choose another moment if I were not quite sure that these gondoliers do not understand one word of English. You are wrong if you think that the Venetian nobles have any power in this city either to protect or hurt. They do not meddle with affairs. You will not find one inside the doors of the English or any other Embassy. They dare not be seen there lest they should be thought to meddle. They have their toys to play with — the Opera, the casinos, women, cards. Onocuto Vigano — a charming fellow, a dilettante with a nice taste in the arts, but a wisp of straw if you leaned upon him.”

  “You have more to tell me than that,” said Elliot standing very still and grave upon the steps.

  “Very well,” returned Charles Williams. “I do not want to interfere with what does not concern me. But it seemed to me that you were monstrously interested in the Opera to-night. You were surprised by this boy from the sea. You were a little troubled. You sent a note round to him and received an answer denying you. You were hurt by it—”

  “You seem to have watched me closely,” Elliot growled discontentedly.

  “I hope not,” said Williams, “and,” he repeated, “I don’t want to interfere. But if you were by any chance interested in his future, I think that I should listen to Columba Tadino. She is a good creature.

  And I don’t like Deidamia’s tears of rage. And I don’t like this serenade. In Milan, Turin, Florence, Naples — yes, all very gracious. But here?” and once more he talked with his hands.

  Sir James stooped swiftly down.

  “Who was the man in the third box opposite?”

  “Names, my dear fellow, at this time of the night?” said Williams reproachfully. “Besides, names like throats can perhaps be too delicate for common use in Venice. Good night;” and the gondola bore him away.

  Sir James climbed the long flight of stone steps to his high balcony. He was not seriously distressed by Williams’ or Columba Tadino’s warnings. Columba Tadino was of the theatre — the most exclusive and enveloping of all the callings. For her a quarrel behind the scenes blackened all the sky. Williams, too, had lived so long in this small state that every tiny disturbance of its serenity would seem of earth-quaking importance. Sir James prided himself on his citizenship of the world. What did it matter whether Deidamia wept tears of rage and Achilles was paddled home with madrigals? That Deidamia had a lover of importance was clear — for all he knew, one of the famous Council of Ten. But the Council of Ten had other work than drying the angry tears of one of its member’s mistresses.

  Sir James might perhaps have given more value to these hints and reticences, but he had a picture never to be quite erased from his mind which at once distressed and angered him. It was the picture of the boy going home, masked and in his fine, gay clothes to an eternity of loneliness and disappointments and nullity. The very music which recorded his triumph must have been bitter to him as dust and ashes in the mouth. And he himself could do nothing except respect that solitude. Sir James Elliot made up his mind not to intrude himself upon Marelli, since that was his friend Julian Linchcombe’s wish, not even to visit the Opera House of San Benedetto when Marelli was singing; and it so happened that by this real act of sacrifice, he did Julian Linchcombe the greatest service within his power.

  XIII. A VISITOR FROM LONDON

  MARELLI — TO give him his real name, Julian Linchcombe — occupied an apartment on the second floor of a house next to the Palazzo Fini. His windows looked across a narrow side canal to a small open square and were near to the Opera House of San Benedetto. His gondoliers wore a black and inconspicuous livery.

  “I must be at the fencing school at eleven to-morrow,” said Julian as he disembarked. “It is behind the Mocenigo Palace.”

  “At half past ten then, Excellency,” said the chief of the pair. “We would like to say that we are deeply honoured to serve you during your stay in Venice — may it be long! We were both in the gallery of the theatre to-night and wept one moment and called down God’s blessings upon you the next. We are at your orders night and day.”

  Julian thanked them with a pleasant gravity for their courtesy. His door was opened, as he spoke, by a servant whom he had brought with him from Florence. Sandro Ricci had been in the pit and as he helped Julian to take off his embroidered coat and his sword and put on a dressing-gown, he too bubbled over with enthusiasm. He had seen Farinelli with his giant strides and his ugly movements as Achilles when he was a boy. If only the Signor would think less of the sense and make a few more flourishes and shakes. It was not a fault that he suggested — but people expected tricks and surprises.

  Julian nodded good-humouredly.

  “So my old music-master, the Cavalier Durante told me. Yet Sandro, the audience liked it without them.”

  “Oh! for that,” cried Sandro, lifting his hands. “A riot! A delirium!”

  “Well, one night just to please you, Sandro, I’ll shake and flourish till the theatre falls and from the débris of the auditorium you shall send a message to the Cavalier, ‘He has done it.’”

  “I shall bring some hot coffee and cakes to the parlour,” said Sandro.

  “Thank you. I shall want nothing more to-night. You can go to bed.”

  But Sandro did not go to bed. He brought the pot of coffee and the cup and the sugar and the spoon and arranged them with care on an occasional mahogany table at Julian’s elbow. Then he said:

  “There is an English gentleman waiting to see you.”

  “What?”

  “It is as I say. An English gentleman is waiting to see you.”

  “So?”

  Julian Linchcombe’s face darkened.

  “He comes too late. I will not see him.”

  “He came at once from the theatre. I told him, Signor, that he could not hope to see you to-night. He protested that it was of the utmost importance. He had come straight from England.”

  So James Elliot had written. He had come straight from England.

  “But I denied him,” Julian cried. “He wished to see me, but I denied him.”

  “He explained to me that he got your address from the manager of the theatre,” said Sandro. “I told him to come back to-morrow, but, Signor, he was so urgent that it was for your good — he persuaded me to let him stay.”

  Julian had n
o difficulty in understanding the sort of persuasion which this Englishman had employed. Oh the other hand he was puzzled and distressed by Sir James Elliot’s use of that persuasion. He had shown clearly that he did not wish a renewal of his friendship; and Sir James, as he remembered, was a considerate, reticent man who responded but did not intrude. Yet he was here, apparently determined to wait until the morning broke in order that he might talk with him. Why? For curiosity’s sake? To see the monster? To learn how on the night of San Januarius the boy had been rapt away and the monster made? No!

  Julian, looking back on a ride in the woods and on the uplands of Grest and on a moment of conspiracy when he had put a finger to his lips and Mr. as he was then — Mr. Elliot had winked his encouragement, shook his head and repeated, “No!”

  Why then? To offer his sympathy and commiseration? Julian’s face hardened and his eyes grew sombre. He would rather curiosity than commiseration. One did not cry over irreparable wrongs. One avenged them in one’s own good time when all the plans were laid — and Sandro saw so dark and bitter a look transform the delicate flower of a face which had been his master’s into something so grim and satanic that he drew back a step or two, afraid.

  “He had news of importance, Signor,” he babbled.

  What news and of how much importance to him — Marelli? The new toy of the Opera-going public? Julian laughed sharply. He remained silent. Since Elliot persisted, perhaps Julian had better see him and get it over. He was Marelli, a stranger, he would put on the graces and insolence of a Caffarelli or a Senesino, he would soon rout the kindly Sir James Elliot — although — although — he longed for the grasp of his friendly hand.

  “Very well, Sandro.... I’ll see him, late though it be.... Wait! A few moments and then let him in!”

  Left alone, Julian covered his face with his hands. Memories of Grest rushed back on him, old pleasures of the English countryside, old dreams of what he would do with his life, the lovely house — his. The gates which he had set up and barred with bolts stronger than steel against the time when he would unlock them himself were burst open as though they were lathes and in trooped, laughing, dancing, heartbreaking, a procession of days, sparkling with morning dew, ripe with the sunlight on the corn and grey in the cool of twilight.

  When he took his hands from his face and raised his eyes, it was a stranger who stood before him, a burly, roundabout sort of man, dressed in a respectable new suit of brown cloth and a bob-wig. He had a broad face with a small snub nose like a thumb in the middle of it and a pair of lively grey eyes which seemed to have been stolen from someone of a sharper intelligence.

  “Signor Marelli,” said the man in a pleasant voice, as round as himself, and he bowed with a jerk like a toy on a spring.

  The relief — he thought of it as a reprieve — so startled Julian that he could only stare at the visitor with his wits all afield.

  “I make all the excuses on my knees for the unseemly hour of my intrusion,” said the visitor in excellent Italian.

  “It might be thought a trifle unceremonious,” Julian answered drily.

  “Yet when you have heard what I have to say....”

  “Shall we take the prologue for granted?” Julian suggested.

  The stranger bowed again.

  “My name is Sawl with a w. Paul Sawl. I fancy my parents had a distressing sense of humour.”

  “It certainly looks like that.”

  “I am by profession a merchant. I deal much with Italy.”

  Julian with difficulty suppressed a yawn.

  “My dear Sir, why waste your time with me? I have no money wherewith to buy, and I have only a few crotchets and quavers to sell.”

  “I have come from London to buy them.”

  The fatigue vanished from Linchcombe’s face. He was no longer a very tired boy wanting his bed. He leaned forward eagerly.

  “On the part of whom?”

  “Count Heidegger.”

  So it had come! The summons to London! Hoped for, worked for through the years at the St. Onofrio Institute, the months at the Opera House, but never expected so soon. Heidegger! Which was his Theatre? The King’s or the Queen’s? On the left hand or the right hand of the Haymarket? What did it matter? Heidegger was at the top of his fame as an impresario — the ugliest man in Europe, abused and praised. Factions quarrelled over him, but if he opened his stage-door to a singer in Italy — well, the singer could travel to London, could live handsomely for a season in London, could make his plans at his ease.

  “You have Count Heidegger’s authority?”

  “I am the chief of his partners. I will arrange everything with you to-morrow. Then we will find a lawyer. In two days all will be settled.”

  Julian nodded his head.

  “And when?” he asked.

  “Towards the end of the year.”

  Mr. Sawl tried to conceal an anxiety. It was clear to his auditor that Heidegger wanted new blood. A bad season perhaps had sent his partner scouring the towns of the Continent. He relieved Mr. Sawl’s anxiety with a smile.

  “I can manage it. I am in Venice until the spring. Later on I must return to Naples.” A curious smile sent a sudden chill down the worthy merchant’s back. It was so secret, so full of a cruel enjoyment.

  “Italians!” said Mr. Paul Sawl to himself in alarm. He had a vivid picture in his mind of a beautiful fair-haired Borgia youth anticipating murder as his guests arrived to supper.

  “I have business in Naples. In the early autumn I return for a few weeks to sing in Florence. Thereafter I shall be at your service.”

  Once more Mr. Sawl jerked his body backwards and forwards as Julian rose from his chair.

  “I shall then have the honour to call upon you at eleven to-morrow.”

  “Eleven?” and again the secret smile glimmered on the youth’s face. “Eleven, I am afraid, is a sacred hour for me.”

  “Mass,” thought Mr. Sawl. Or even worse, High Mass — whatever that might be.

  “Shall we say half past twelve? I have no rehearsal to-morrow. It would be more convenient.”

  Mr. Sawl was agreeable that they should meet at half past twelve. He brought his heels together. He had a little speech to make.

  “I arrived weary and disordered at Venice yesterday evening. I had just the time to repair my dress and rush to the Opera House. Signor, in a minute, my fatigue was forgotten. We English are supposed to be a dull, phlegmatic people, but I venture to assure you that your début at the King’s Theatre”—” Ah, it’s the King’s Theatre,” said Julian to himself—” will be acclaimed with no less spirit and delight than it was last night at the San Benedetto.”

  “That is a very charming sentiment,” said Julian with a laugh that was just a boy’s frank laugh, without any hint of dark things behind it.

  Mr. Sawl took his leave. Julian went back into his room and threw the casements wide; and in the still night air his nostrils were once more filled with the scent of musk and amber; as they had been long ago on the hillside above Naples Bay. But the scent was more fragrant and stronger now.

  XIV. JEALOUSY AND YET ANOTHER DEVIL

  MARIA BARETTI WAS Venetian by birth and had learned her music at the Conservatory of the Mendicanti. Against these advantages she had to set the fickleness of her countrymen. The Count Onocuto Vigano put the case frankly to the young Marelli one day after a tempestuous rehearsal of Dido Abandoned, when Maria had stormed, wept and cursed the theatre, the management, the orchestra and Marelli and had rushed from the stage to fling herself into the lagoon. “She will come back to-morrow, damp,” said the Maestro philosophically, “but only with her tears.” Vigano carried off Columba Tadino and Marelli to dine with him at his casino in St. Mark’s Square.

  “Venetians,” he said, “are allowed no voice in their state affairs. They must show no concern or interest in them. Even I, a patrician, dare not say to you the little that I have said, if the waiter were in the room. There was never such a despot as our Republic and we w
alk, surrounded by spies, in search of some new glittering charm to keep our eyes away from serious things. You, my young friend,” he continued, turning to Julian, “are the gem of this season. Maria Baretti has, of course, her friends. There will be quips and satires and, no doubt, a few scurrilities for you to put up with. But if you continue as wisely as now and hold aloof from all these squabbles, they will die down.”

  And so indeed it proved. Whenever the boy sang, the Opera House was crowded and no accademia was complete unless he had been persuaded to contribute an aria. The men liked his modesty and his reticence; the women sighed with regret and listened with rapture; and Maria Baretti learned to hide the bitterness of her jealousy behind a smiling face, whilst she planned a shattering revenge.

  She planned it secretly. For it was not until the last week of the season began that a breath of it reached Julian’s ears. He had played that night in Jommelli’s opera, Demophoon, for the first time and received during the course of it a message that his gondola would be waiting for him not at its usual station on the Rio dell ‘Albero, but on a small canal at the back of the Opera House. Julian was a little puzzled for his two gondoliers had enjoyed pushing their way in their smart black liveries through a crowd of boats, with a good many jests and almost as much abuse, to take up the idol of the moment at the principal steps and carry him away with a procession of idolaters following behind. But his thoughts were on his part of Timanthes and he forgot his puzzle until he was changing his dress at the end of the performance. He had no engagement upon that night and, wrapping his cloak about him, he went out at the back of the theatre. He had fallen into the Venetian habit of wearing a mask for the privacy which it gave to him, and so quite unrecognised he walked the few steps to the canal. As a rule a lantern burned on the long prow, but to-night it was unlit. As a rule there were two gondoliers, to-night there was only one behind the little cabin, the second of the two men, and he wore a brown suit of velveteen with a red sash about his waist, like nine out of ten of the gondoliers plying for hire.