Across the Grand Canal the windows of the Rezzonico Palace blazed, the sounds of a harpsichord and violins and a woman’s voice poured out in melody. It was a warm, clear night of spring and it seemed as though all the gondolas in Venice were gathered about the landing stage of that massive and beautiful house. Julian could hear his name uttered with a gleeful anticipation as his gondoliers pushed their way to the lighted torches on each side of the great porch.
“It is Marelli! We shall hear him.”
“Out here! In the dark! It will break my heart with pleasure,” cried a woman.
As he got out, Julian said:
“I shall be late, Giuseppe. For I shall sing three times.”
“And an encore for each time,” Giuseppe said. “We shall be here when the Signor is ready to go.”
It seemed to Julian that Giuseppe had it in his mind to say something more, but other gondolas with guests were pressing up each moment, and Rocca’s lackeys ordered him away. A servant took his cloak and hat at the foot of the great staircase on which so many hoops of satin and silk swirled and rustled, so many coats of velvet gleamed that it had the look of a field of flowers in a gale. Julian added his periwinkle to the field and heard the cries from the gondolas repeated in subdued and charming whispers.
“It is Marelli. See, in front of you! See, behind you!” At the head of the stairs Count Rocca was greeting his guests just within the door-way of the great ball-room.
“I can leave my post now.” he said politely as he received Julian.
At the end of the room, opposite to the balcony and the great windows, a dais had been built for the musicians and singers, and behind it a smaller apartment had been reserved for their use.
“There is a buffet supper with little tables beyond the ball-room and there and here you will find many friends.”
So loud a clatter of shrill voices and clinking ornaments filled the air that Julian wondered whether any more than a stray bar or two would ever be heard at all. But when he stepped forward to the front of the platform, a gasp of astonishment at the splendour and beauty of his appearance died away to a flattering silence.
He sang first “Sento nel Cor,” a delicious aria by Alessandro Scarlatti, and followed it with the song made famous by Farinelli, who had sung it every night for twenty years at Aranjuez to conjure the melancholy of the King of Spain. “Son qual nave,” from Porpora’s opera of Eumene, was to Julian, as it had been to Farinelli, for it called for a sweetness, a high clear note and a prolonged power which the young soprano had especially at his command. The height of the ceiling with the Tiepolo painting made the acoustics admirable, so that his voice now held his audience in a delighted suspense, now moved them like the sight of tears, now soared and dropped upon their senses like the soothing fragrance of a magnolia bloom. So complete was the boy’s triumph that when he had finished the great room was still possessed by silence. It had been transformed by the magic wand of a voice into the very home and citadel of melody. And no one moved or spoke, lest a harsh whisper or the beat of a foot should drive that fugitive spirit away. Julian, indeed, had bowed and was descending the steps of the platform when the applause broke out; and it did not stop until Count Rocca, mounting the steps, announced that Signor Marelli would sing again later in the evening.
Julian was surrounded with dilettanti and fine ladies, complimented and flattered. Orpheus was a faded night-jar in comparison. Eurydice would never have looked back, had Marelli led her through the corridors of Hell. All were convinced of that and fluttered their fans or took pinches of snuff according to their sex; but no one asked him to sit down. Nor did he dream of doing it. Here was all patrician Venice assembled with such high personages as the visitors’ list included. They sat or stood as they willed, but in their presence, singers, actors, artists of all kinds only stood. So Julian stood. He saw across the room his old friend “The Right Honourable, my Lord, Sir James Elliot, Bart.,” holding quite a Court all to himself, and enjoying the experience. Julian was amused and pleased. He knew quite well that his denial of all knowledge of their old friendship had hurt the Baronet. But he hoped that Elliot had understood his need to keep the lovely life at Grest quite apart from this irremediable transmutation which he had undergone. He was grateful to the older man for his reticence and now enjoyed his admirable performance of a grand seigneur as much as Sir James was obviously enjoying it himself. For a second or two Julian had recalled the great processions of his father through Italy with a pang of grief. But there was no jealousy in the grief, and with a smile he looked away, lest unavoidably their eyes should meet. But if there was nothing but pleasure for him in the airs and condescensions of Sir James, there was surprise and discomfort in the behaviour of another of that company. Of all the men from whom Julian expected a word of greeting, the Count Onocuto Vigano was the first, so warm and friendly had their meeting been in the palace by the Rialto.
“Yet he’s avoiding me,” Julian realised. “If I pass near him, he is at once deep in conversation with his neighbour. If my eyes turn towards him, he shows me the bag of his wig. Why?”
And the question was disturbing. Fear of the authorities, of the Council of Ten and the three Inquisitors? Julian could find no other answer. One of the Inquisitors, by the way, was present, Ascanio Cavaletti. From time to time Julian saw that tall and arid figure stalking, generally alone, about the rooms.
Someone touched Julian upon the arm. He turned and Columba Tadino, with a laugh between mockery and tenderness, said to him: —
“It is our turn next, molto amato, squisito, gagliardo elegante.”
“You are already in the mood for our comedy. Let us go,” answered Julian, and they moved together towards the door.
A genuine affection had sprung up between these two during the season. She had found him thoughtful for his fellow-singers, gentle to her and with more than a touch of deprecation for his triumphs. She liked and was disturbed by the loneliness which hung about him like a cloak. Moreover, he had often gone out of his way to insist that she should share his success at an important accademia, like this one of Count Rocca. He, on the other hand, met with a friend of much insight and no jealousy, of a lively spirit and a deep tenderness.
They sang to-night a sequence of duets from La Serva Padrona, the comic opera by Pergolesi. The music was light, the melodies had a lilting gaiety and infected these two, so accustomed to the sighs and passions of tragedy, with their own zest and sparkle. The audience was swept off its feet. There was an amusement in seeing these artists of the high emotions disporting themselves, with the enjoyment of children on a holiday, on the easier ground of farce, and so warm and delighted was the applause, it seemed that Rocca’s guests would never let them go; and whilst they slipped at last from the platform, Rocca was surrounded and submerged in congratulations.
They were undeserved. Rocca had protested. Arias which called for a couple of octaves, songs which were ornamented with shakes and flourishes and crescendos and diminuendos, these were what an accademia of importance required. Julian, however, had insisted and Count Rocca had shrugged his shoulders. These sopranos were kittle-cattle who must be indulged, if you needed them to fill your reception rooms for you. And now that the experiment had been acclaimed, he was taking the credit of it to himself.
“Yes, I had that idea. The native comedy of Italy and the great voices to subdue themselves to it. The result, I think, delicious. You agree?”
Wise people might perhaps have foreseen in this revolt against the turgid declamations and dead themes of the conventional operas the lovely compromise which was soon to be struck by the exquisite music of Mozart. But Count Rocca was no forerunner.
“Marelli will sing again. Meanwhile there is a concerto for violins, hautbois, flutes and harpsichords; and there is supper. Pickled sturgeon and lark pâtés, and a turkey, I think, with chopped mushrooms and a few green onions. You will see the buffet in the next room.”
Meanwhile in the artists’ retiring room b
ehind the dais, since in the next item no voices were required, Columba Tadino and Julian stood alone.
“I am your servant, my sweet friend,” he said, giving her his hand. “One day perhaps we shall sing together again.”
“Molto amato, with all my heart,” she began in jest, and something deeper took her, an intense pity, a conviction that there were secret fires burning and torturing that young heart of which she knew nothing. She sank in a low curtsey in front of him and taking his hand in hers kissed it. When she stood up again, Julian saw that her eyes were drowned in tears.
“But not in Venice,” she added, and even in this room her eyes sought the corners lest they should hide someone to overhear them.
“Where you will, Columba.”
“You depart to-morrow night? Yes? At once, when the curtain falls?” she asked eagerly. “Write to me from Borgo. It’s the first little town beyond the Frontier.”
“I will.”
“Promise!”
“See! I cross my finger.”
“But you are laughing.”
“With a heart very full of gratitude.”
“Molto amato!” she repeated softly. “I shall not come to the theatre to-morrow. I do not sing in Achilles in Scyros and... I dare not.” She drew him towards her and kissed him. “But I shall not sleep until a letter — oh! only one line in your hand — comes from Borgo. However, I shall hear you again to-night. I shall be in the corner far away by the window on the left hand. Sing to me, boy that came out of the sea.”
“As I have never sung before,” said Julian.
But he was wrong. He was to sing a fourth time that night and under such a stress of contained emotion as he had never had occasion to know.
He returned to the great reception room. In the doorway stood Rocca and his enemy, Ascanio Cavaletti.
“Ah!” cried the Count, and he pulled at Cavaletti’s sleeve. “You see, Signor, you see!” He turned to Julian with a joyous relief. “The Signor Cavaletti would have it that you had gone. But I assured him that you were to sing again.”
“That was agreed and I keep my agreements,” said Julian politely.
But he had a little trouble to keep his voice quite steady. Why, he was thinking uneasily, should Cavaletti fear that he would seize this favourable moment between two performances to disappear? He was in no danger to-night. But he had been living for so many days now on the edge of panic that the least shadow of a new threat made his heart turn over within him. Rocca, however, was in too exuberant a mood to observe the expressions upon faces.
“Aha!” he exclaimed, nodding his head. “La
Sew a Padrona! What did I say, my young friend?” He had forgotten altogether his fight against so homely an item in the programme. “A triumph! I had no doubts. A novelty, human and charming. My compliments, my dear Marelli. You must sing in Vienna. I shall see to it,” and he fluttered away.
Julian found himself face to face with his enemy in a curious isolation. Cavaletti was smiling, his thin lips parted, his white teeth shining between them.
“Yes, a great evening for Count Rocca and a consoling memory for Signor Marelli,” he said slowly.
Julian went forward to meet the attack.
“I think men look for their consolations to the future,” he said, with a curious smile upon his face.
“Men? Yes, no doubt,” Cavaletti returned drily, and saw the blood mount into the boy’s face and his eyes darken with pain. Cavaletti’s tongue tip appeared between his lips, moistening them. He was smiling now. There was a gleam of enjoyment in his eyes. Julian had never seen cruelty so perfect, the slow approach, so that not one flavour of it should be lost. The words dropped one by one in the smoothest courtesy.
“Metastasio, Signor Marelli, is no doubt a great poet. The world tells me so. But though he writes without verse or rhyme, I have a preference for Plato.”
“Indeed?” said Julian politely.
“You, with your days and nights filled with music and songs and the glamour of applause, will have had no leisure for the dialogues of Plato.”
“No, Sir,” and a recollection of his old tutor hunting him vainly through the corridors of Grest and up into the lumber room under the roof burnt for a second incongruously in his memory. “I was brought up to admire rather the sobriety of the Latins,” he replied.
Cavaletti’s face was suddenly black with anger. This boy was answering him and with spirit. An impertinence! But the black look passed. Twelve years under the lead roof of the Ducal Palace would write paid to a good many impertinences.
“You are nineteen years old, I think,” he said, and laughed.
“I am in my twentieth year,” Julian answered boyishly and haughtily.
Cavaletti laughed again and again, his tongue flickered across his lips. He looked Julian slowly over from his shoe-buckles to the delicate lace of his ruffles, the little blue monkeys with the gold umbrellas embroidered on his waistcoat, the big bow at his throat. And in spite of his efforts, Julian felt his feet trembling, his hands shaking, and knew that Cavaletti saw them too and was ravished with the sight.
“It is fortunate that Plato did not live in this state, at this time,” Cavaletti continued, “or Venice would have lost a good many hours of pleasure.”
“He is coming at last to the unpleasant message he has for me,” thought Julian, “but I’ll be hanged if I help him to deliver it.” So he merely bowed and Cavaletti was disappointed; and in the pause he noticed a little confusion at one point in the room. From that confusion, one of farewells and compliments, Elliot with Rocca upon his heels emerged. They passed close by Julian and out of the room. In a moment Julian heard his host’s voice bawling from the top of the stairs.
“Sir James Elliot’s gondola! Look to it, rascals!” Julian was seized with a wild impulse to break away from his prosy tormentor, bolt down the stairs and leap into Sir James’ gondola at the same time when the stately Baronet stepped magnificently into it. But Cavaletti held him, gloating over him as some dainty morsel reserved to complete the feast.
“No, Plato had no place in his community for pretty fellows like singers and actors and artists. As they approached they were to be received with roses and fair words, but they, were to be escorted at once out of sight — quite out of sight into another land, as people disturbing the order of the State.”
On just such a plea the State Inquisitors could act to-day in Venice. Was that what Cavaletti had taken all this time to say? Was that all? Julian wondered and doubted and shifted from one foot on to the other.
“But I must not keep you,” said Cavaletti. “I am already suffering a great many black looks from the ladies for keeping so modish and famous a young gentleman from their company. Besides, you have still to sing your farewell to Venice.”
Julian stood still, as still as though he had been frozen to the ground. “My farewell?” he repeated.
“Yes! It will be something we shall remember with infinite regret.”
“I sing it to-morrow.”
“And where?”
Cavaletti was eager to hear it to-morrow. He stepped forward, so eager he was, his eyes aflame with the pleasure of anticipation.
“At the Benedetto.”
“But, my young friend....” Cavaletti was puzzled.
“In Achilles in Scyros. It is announced.”
Cavaletti was in despair.
“But have you not heard?” He looked round the great room. “No! You were singing, your ears shut to everything but your work.”
“What should I have heard had my ears been open?”
“That there has been a fire at the Benedetto.”
“A fire?” Julian stammered.
His knees as well as his feet, as well as his voice, were shaking now. It was to this climax that Cavaletti had been working; Marelli was not to know of the disaster until his knowledge was too late to save him. It was for this reason that Cavaletti had held him so long with his talk of Plato.
“It is not so d
isastrous apparently as was feared,” Cavaletti continued. “There was water close at hand. But the orchestra and the dressing-rooms have been flooded. There will, alas! be no performance at the Benedetto to-morrow night. The news has already been cried in the streets.”
Cavaletti once more looked Julian over from his shoe buckles to his ruffles, the monkeys with the gold parasols on his embroidered waitscoat, his cravat and his powdered hair. He made no effort to dissimulate his pleasure now.
“And so, I beg, the prettiest of adieux to-night,” he said with a wave of a hand towards the platform, and he turned on his heel and went away.
So that was the story which had been put about. No wonder Vigano had refused to meet his eyes. Vigano had his orders. He must keep quiet and not interfere. The flight to Mestre and Borgo beyond the frontier had been foreseen.
There was a touch upon Julian Linchcombe’s arm. “What? Already?” he asked. “Here? In this room?” He remembered some troubled words of Onocuto Vigano. Only the houses of the born patricians of Venice were safe from the irruptions of Messer-Grande and his sbirri. Julian turned, but it was only Count Rocca who stood at his elbow.
“It is half past two of the morning,” said Rocca, “and they will not let you go too easily. Perhaps when this concerto which is coming to its end has finished.... What do you say?”
“I am your servant,” said Julian.
Were all his fine plans in the dust? The fragrance of musk and amber to fade in the prison under the leads? Heidegger in the Haymarket to wait in vain for his new recruit, and Marelli to sing his last aria in the Rezzonico Palace? Well, it should be worth hearing. Julian set back his shoulders and holding his head high, walked down the corridor towards the platform steps.
XVII. THE CONCERT AT THE REZZONICO PALACE DISASTER AND RECOVERY
JULIAN HAD A hope that he would find Columba Tadino in the makeshift green-room. He could send through her a message to his waiting gondoliers. But she was not to be seen. Julian gathered up the copies of his songs. Columba Tadino was waiting, no doubt, but in the place she had appointed, the corner by the great window and the balcony. He walked up the steps to the rostrum to much clapping of hands and cries of “Marelli!” and flutterings of programmes and handkerchiefs. As he bowed, he looked with a smile towards Columba’s corner, and the smile took an edge of bitterness. For Columba was not there.
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 740