“Now, boy, if we are to find your way out of this bad trouble, I have got to have your story. What brought you to my door last night?”
Julian at once began with the opening of his season at the Benedetto Theatre; and Elliot listened to the first sentences with a relief which he recognized as cowardly. The episode of Venice stood apart then. It was not linked with that story of irremediable wrong which Elliot shrank from hearing the more he loved its victim. He wanted Julian as he remembered him, as from time to time in some flashing moment he met him again, a boy of a quiet gaiety, full of spirit, full of ambition and yet ready with a laugh at his own extravagance. He wanted him unusual only by reason of his charm and the freshness of his mind, not because he was crippled for life by the most dastardly of crimes.
But as he listened, this episode of Venice, with a jealousy of the theatre deepening into hatred and a thirst for an abominable revenge, took hold of him. The license of an Inquisitor to use for his own ends his silent and unquestioned power horrified him.
“I have to get you away and at once,” he cried when Julian had finished. “Maria Baretti! Who would imagine a woman so cruel?” and a short, bitter laugh from the youth at his side suggested that more than one example could be cited. “The man in the third box. Cavaletti, of course. I was warned, too, on your behalf....” Suddenly Sir James Elliot broke off.
What was the use of blaming himself for his indifference to that warning? The danger was too immediate. Messer-Grande might not come knocking at his door, but he might set a watch upon it; and here perhaps was a hope of finding a safe way out. He turned quickly towards Julian.
“There’s a man here at the British Embassy — Charles Williams. He has spent his life in Venice. He was in my box that night when you played Achilles. It was he who warned me of your peril.”
Elliot felt rather than saw Julian draw away.
“You want to call him in?”
“Yes. He is my very good friend. He will help.”
“You told him — who I was?”
“Not a word. Not even that I knew you.”
Elliot heard a sigh of relief, imagined a smile and once more saw the young Achilles with the hard, blue eyes threatening doom to more than Troy. Well, since Achilles wanted his secret kept, he would help him to keep it.
“Let us see, Julian, what we can tell Charles Williams!”
The reply came at once, rather sullen, very obstinate. “I am Giovanni Ferrer, known as Marelli.”
Sir James accepted the premiss.
“We build our story up on that. Agreed. But I knew you before you came to Venice.”
“You did?”
Julian was startled.
“To be sure.” Sir James recalled the details of the opening night at the Benedetto Theatre. “I sent a note to you during the interval. Charles Williams was at my elbow when your answer was brought to me. I fancy — no, I am certain, that he thought that I was hurt by it — as indeed I was.”
A hand timidly rested on his arm.
“You’ll forgive me?”
“Since it was to me that you turned for help,” said Sir James. “So then I already knew you. How? When? Where?”
Julian found the answers to those questions quickly.
“You came to visit the school of St. Onofrio at Naples. The Cavalier Durante, the Maestro di Capella brought you.”
“That might be,” Elliot agreed. “And I was struck by your singing.”
“You were kind enough to think well of it. You used your acquaintanceship with the British Minister to secure for me an audition at the Villa Angelica.”
“Did I have enough influence?”
“You, Sir? The Right Honourable, my Lord...”
“I thought that I had hinted that not all jokes bore repetition,” Sir James interrupted with a grin. This story was working out very well — plausible in every detail. Sir James began to feel more comfortable.
“But I left Naples before you made your début at the San Carlo Opera House. Is that right?”
“Quite.”
“And I didn’t know that you had taken the stage name of Marelli?”
“So my appearance at the Benedetto was a complete surprise to you.”
“But I was not sufficiently interested in you to do more than send round to your dressing-room a cold word of congratulation,” said Elliot. “Really, this is an excellent story.”
“To which,” replied Julian, “I seem to have returned an insolent rejoinder; and how, if you please, Sir, do we go on from there?”
“Quite easily.”
Sir James was once more imperturbable.
“In your predicament you sought a refuge in the house of a patron of importance.”
“And he being the most generous of men....”
“He being that lowest of all God’s creatures, a dilettante — did you speak, Julian?”
“Sir, my good manners forbade me either to contradict or interrupt.”
“For such good manners boys were horsed in my young days,” said Sir James, and both of them broke into a laugh. Then Sir James jumped up from his chair.
“So the plot’s laid. Once more we are in a conspiracy. I shall send for Charles Williams to-morrow morning, and meanwhile we ought to prepare ourselves for a sound long sleep....”
“By a jug of ratafia,” cried Julian.
Sir James went back into the dining-room to find it, but whilst he stirred it up in its big glass demijohn, so that the cinnamon and the apricots and the kernels and the sugar and the brandy might all blend in one delectable drink, he discovered a flaw in the conspiracy. He had taken Charles Williams and his help for granted. But had he the right to do so? It was clear from Julian’s story that the Count Onocuto Vigano had abandoned his friend, the singer, from fear. It was true that Vigano was a Venetian and Charles Williams an Englishman on the Embassy staff. He could not be secretly imprisoned, but his recall might be demanded, and Charles Williams dismissed from Venice would hardly be alive. He might refuse, therefore, to move a finger to save Marelli from the claws of Maria Baretti.
“But I am not going to allow it,” said Sir James as he shook and stirred the ratafia. He was John Bull in an instant. If there had been a bottle of beer handy for them, he might have poured the ratafia down the sink with a curse upon all foreigners. “No, I won’t. But I must warn Julian.”
He carried his tray into the parlour. Julian was still upon the terrace. Sir James put the tray down upon a table and found Julian leaning over the parapet and staring down towards the water.
“What is it, Julian?”
Julian turned round, and the light of the window fell upon a very troubled and anxious face.
“I have been wondering what has happened to Columba Tadino?” he explained. “She saved me last night. I can’t let her suffer for me.”
“By Gad! I never knew a boy invent so many miseries and hug them to his breast,” cried Elliot in exasperation. “I saw Columba Tadino in the Piazza at five o’clock this afternoon with Charles Williams, and she was in the highest spirits.”
Julian’s face was changed in an instant.
“Good news, Sir James. Thank you!”
He followed Elliot into the parlour and stood smiling eagerly whilst Elliot filled the two glasses. But as he raised his to his lips, Elliot planted himself squarely in front of him.
“I want to tell you something.”
And at once there were two antagonists in the room instead of two friends, Sir James, bluff, portly, with an out-thrust jaw and a red face, Julian, wary, erect, with his blue eyes as hard as pebbles.
“Yes, Sir?” said Julian. “I am listening.”
“I ask no questions,” Elliot continued. “I probe no secrets. But I know you, my Lord of Linchcombe,” and he made a stiff correct bow, “and I am not going to leave you, however things go, to sweat and freeze under the leads of the Ducal Palace. I shall go back to England and scream from every house top the real name and title of Giovanni Ferrer, know
n as Marelli.”
“You will have no proofs,” said Julian.
“Admitted,” replied Elliot. “But — and I dare you to laugh — the Right Honourable, my Lord, Sir James Elliot, Bart., can make a stink. And, believe me, I’ll make so foul a stink that they’ll smell it in Venice, and open the Ducal doors wide enough for you to saunter out between them with your congé in your pocket. That is«what is going to happen unless Charles Williams helps us,” and he uttered every word as if he were a man with a hammer driving a great nail into a stubborn beam. “Then, my Lord,” and again the formal bow followed on the words, “I take my cue from you. For your sake, and for your father’s sake, I am at your elbow when you call.”
For a few moments, the blue pebbles, hard, unrevealing, imperious, met his. Then they softened until they were — what were the words in the song which Julian sang at Grest and again at Naples?—” deeper and kinder than sapphires.”
“I think I am the most graceless beast alive,” Julian said, with a tremor in his voice. “I come to you for help, and for the sake of old memories you give it with both your hands. And I show my gratitude by silence. For one reason. I, the most pitiable of men, cannot bear pity.”
Sir James had no words wherewith to answer him. This youth with his looks, his birth, his wealth, his talents, should have had the world at his feet. Yet he stood there, the most pitiable of men, refusing pity. Silently, solemnly, they raised their glasses and drank to one another.
“I know,” Julian continued, “but I have no proofs. I had no money to go in search of them. I have money now and I shall find them. Then my friend, I shall tell you everything.”
He did not ask Elliot to stand at his elbow when he had his proofs. He just raised his head as though some strange perfume reached his nostrils, of which he could not have enough.
“The musk and amber of revenge,” he said with a grim smile. “I once found that phrase in an old book.”
He drank his glass of ratafia slowly, his eyes smiling upon Elliot.
XX. THE PLAN OF ESCAPE
CHARLES WILLIAMS, WHO throughout the day was at the service of his friends, did not allow the day to begin at the hour suitable for a farmer. He was a townsman. To be asleep after nine he thought slothful; to be abroad before ten ungentlemanly. Sir James Elliot was mindful of these principles and sent his gondola at half past nine to Mr. Williams’ door with a letter asking for his help. Mr. Williams chuckled over the letter and the discretion of its wording. He changed from his old brown cloth coat to his new plum-coloured velvet one, set his hat jauntily on the curls of his wig and was conveyed to the Palazzo San Polo.
Thomas Biggin received him at the top of the stairs, and, showing him into the parlour, closed the door behind him. Sir James was waiting for him alone.
“It was good of you to come so quickly,” said Elliot and was astonished by a sudden contraction of the muscles on the left side of Mr. Williams’ face.
“Of course I came quickly,” replied Williams, and repeated the gymnastic movement of his face. It occurred to the Baronet that his friend was winking. He sniffed the air with a curious archness. He advanced roguishly across the carpet. He poked a finger roguishly into Elliot’s ribs.
“You’re a fox, aren’t you? Cunning’s the word. Oh, you quiet ones!”
“God bless my soul!” said Sir James Elliot.
“Just a peep, eh?” pleaded Mr. Williams. “I’ll be as close as an oyster,” and he tip-toed towards the glass doors to the balcony.
Elliot planted himself firmly in the way.
“What do you expect to see?”
Charles Williams grinned and the grin became a laugh.
“Oh! aren’t you the innocent? What a rascal!” he cried.
Now there was never a man who looked less of a rascal than Sir James Elliot. Rascality and he were at opposite poles. He disliked the epithet even though its application was obviously meant to be humorous. There was a familiarity in the use of it which he found distasteful. He had dropped in the estimate of Charles Williams somehow and his face flushed with indignation. “But I mustn’t lose my temper,” he warned himself. “That would spoil all.”
He took Charles Williams by the arm and led him back to a chair.
“Come! What is all this?” he asked, pleasantly.
“My dear fellow!” Charles Williams expostulated. “Don’t you know that my old servant, Bettina, is the aunt of your two girls?”
“Oh?”
And Sir James, in his turn, sat down. But he sat down rather heavily. Could Thomas, the invaluable Thomas Biggin, have become a gossip?
“And you couldn’t expect two girls who had been locked out of the guest-room and the terrace and told to prepare supper for two not to carry the tale to their own aunt, now could you?”
“Oh!”
Sir James was now alarmed. What tale had the two girls told?
“But you needn’t be disquieted, my dear man!” Yes, it was my dear man now. “Bettina won’t talk and your two girls daren’t. Bettina is a terrifying woman, I can tell you, and she has given her orders. You mustn’t really blame your maids.”
“No?”
“No, indeed. Your man let it out first.”
“What!”
Sir James jumped out of his chair.
“Thomas?”
“If that’s his name.”
“By Gad, I’d never have believed it!”
“He did,” and again Charles Williams laughed roguishly, and again he winked portentously. “Let me have a peep at her!” he whispered.
Sir James stood and gaped like a fish. So that was the story which Thomas Biggin had invented to appease the curiosity of his servants; and in it was the reason for Mr. Williams’ hilarity. Sir James was vastly relieved.
“Carried her off, did you?” continued Mr. Williams with a chuckle. “It’ll be someone we all know. You wouldn’t take all this trouble to hide a girl from the Erboria, would you now? Took her away from Rocca’s party, eh? Carried the fortifications by storm. Well, well, well, what a hero!” These lush flatteries fell more pleasantly upon the ears of Sir James, now that he knew what error had provoked them. Even the most sedate of Baronets will walk with a sprightlier step if he is thought capable of a place in the storm-troops at a rape of the Sabines. He would certainly have to disabuse Charles Williams of a — well, of a not improbable mistake. And meanwhile a path out of all this trouble began dimly to glimmer in his mind.
“But, my dear man,” — yes, Charles Williams was now my dear man—” I asked you for your help. I hope that, should the case in your mind occur, I should be equal to my own emergencies.”
Sir James was, no doubt, a trifle fatuous, but the worthiest of men have their moments of fatuity. And his hardly lasted for a second. He ceased to simper.
“But this is a very different affair.”
“Oh?”
It was now for Charles Williams to look blank.
“Yes.”
Sir James went out on to the terrace. He returned immediately with Julian.
“Signor Giovanni Ferrer,” he said, and Williams stared with his mouth open and his eyes starting out of his head.
“Marelli!” he cried.
“Not so loud!” said Elliot.
Mr. Charles Williams whistled.
“So you ran to earth here!” said Williams to Julian. “That was a clever trick.” He swung round to Elliot. “Then you did know him,” he exclaimed accusingly.
Elliot was quite at his ease now.
“These young singers!” he said with a shrug of his shoulders. “They forget their patrons in success and remember them in defeat. But they sing.”
“Yes, no doubt,” said Charles Williams with a cynical glance at Julian. “That excuses all. They sing.”
“But Columba Tadino sings too,” Julian exclaimed eagerly. He cared little for Elliot’s reproaches — they were part of the conspiracy. But Columba had helped him in his need and he was still in doubt whether she had suffer
ed because she had helped.
Charles Williams looked at him with a greater friendliness.
“Columba Tadino? You need not be anxious for her, Signor. Columba Tadino is a clever girl. All yesterday she was telling to me, to her friends, at the top of her voice, her amusing story. She was going home by the small canal which runs by the Rezzonico Palace to the Giudecca, when you suddenly dropped into her gondola from the window of the porter’s lodge. You told her that since the fire at the Benedetto theatre had cancelled your last appearance, and since your baggage had already been sent forward to the mainland, you had determined to go there at once. But there was such a crowd in the porch and on the staircase that you wouldn’t get away for an hour. Columba, accordingly, turned her gondola about and took you back to the Grand Canal to find your own. But you were recognized, surrounded, and there was nothing left for you to do except to sing your way down the Grand Canal. An empty gondola was alongside and at the first opportunity you slipped on board of it and got away to the Giudecca and Mestre. What could anyone do to Columba? It wasn’t known that the police wanted you. It isn’t known now.”
No doubt Columba had failed to mention the handcuffs and he would be thought to have slipped them. Such things had happened.
“But,” continued Williams, “they are searching Mestre for you and no doubt Venice too — very quietly, very thoroughly.”
“Do you know that?” asked Elliot.
Williams nodded his head.
“A whisper reached me. Cavaletti doesn’t mean to let you go, Signor Marelli.”
Sir James Elliot crossed his legs and took a pinch of snuff.
“That’s a plaguy nuisance,” said he comfortably. “For I propose to set off on a visit to Ferrara to-morrow.”
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 743