Marietta: A Maid of Venice by F. Marion Crawford (novels to read for beginners .txt) 📕

examining them carefully, one by one. The workmanship was marvellous, and he could not help admiring it, but it was the glass itself that disturbed him. It was like his own, but it was better, and the knowledge of its composition and treatment was a fortune. Then, too, the secret of dropping a piece of copper into a certain mixture in order to produce a particularly beautiful red colour was in the book, and the colour could not be mistaken and was not the one which Beroviero had been trying to produce. He shook his head sadly as he went out and locked the door behind him, convinced against his will that he had been betrayed by the man whom he had most trusted in the world.

Pasquale watched the two, father and son, as they got into the gondola. Old Beroviero had not even looked at him as he came out, and it was not the porter's business to volunteer information, nor the gondolier's either. But when the latter was ordered to row to the Governor's house as fast as possible, he turned his head and looked at Pasquale, who slowly nodded his ugly head before going in again.

On reaching their destination they were received at once, and the Governor told them what had happened, in as few words as possible. Nothing could exceed old Beroviero's consternation, and his son's disappointment. Zorzi had been rescued at the corner of San Piero's church by men who had knocked senseless the officer and the six archers. No one knew who these men were, nor their numbers, but they were clearly friends of Zorzi's who had known that he was to be arrested.

"Accomplices," suggested Giovanni. "He has stolen a valuable book of my father's, containing secrets for making the finest glass. By this time he is on his way to Milan, or Florence."

"I daresay," said the Governor. "These foreigners are capable of anything."

"I had trusted him so confidently," said Beroviero, too much overcome to be angry.

"Exactly," answered the Governor. "You trusted him too much."

"I always thought so," put in Giovanni wisely.

"There is nothing to be said," resumed Beroviero. "I do not wish to believe it of him, but I cannot deny the evidence of my own senses."

"I have already sent a report to the Council of Ten," said the Governor. "The most careful search will be made in Venice for Zorzi and his companions, and if they are found, they will suffer for what they have done."

"I hope so!" replied Giovanni heartily.

"I remember that you recommended me to send a strong force," observed the Governor. "Perhaps you knew that a rescue was intended. Or you were aware that the fellow had daring accomplices."

"I only suspected it," Giovanni answered. "I knew nothing. He was always alone."

"He has hardly been out of my sight for five years," said old Beroviero sadly.

He and his son took their leave, the Governor promising to keep them informed as to the progress of the search. At present nothing more could be done, for Zorzi has disappeared altogether, and old Beroviero was much inclined to share his son's opinion that the fugitive was already on his way to Milan, or Florence, where the possession of the secrets would insure him a large fortune, very greatly to the injury of Beroviero and all the glass-workers of Murano. The two men returned to the house in silence, for the elder was too much absorbed by his own thoughts to speak, and Giovanni was too wise to interrupt reflections which undoubtedly tended to Zorzi's destruction.

Marietta was awaiting her father's return with much anxiety, for every one knew that the master had gone first to the laboratory and then to the Governor's palace, with Giovanni, so that the two must have been talking together a long time. Marietta waited with her sister-in-law in the lower hall, slowly walking up and down.

When her father came up the low steps at last, she went forward to meet him, and a glance told her that he was in the most extreme anxiety. She took his hand and kissed it, in the customary manner, and he bent a little and touched her forehead with his lips. Then, to her surprise, he put one hand under her chin, and laid the other on the top of her head, and with gentle force made her look at him. Giovanni's wife was there, and most of the servants were standing near the foot of the staircase to welcome their master.

Beroviero said nothing as he gazed into his daughter's eyes. They met his own fearlessly enough, and she opened them wide, as she rarely did, as if to show that she had nothing to conceal; but while he looked at her the blood rose blushing in her cheeks, telling that there was something to hide after all, and as she would not turn her eyes from his, they sparkled a little with vexation. Beroviero did not speak, but he let her go and went on towards the stairs, bending his head graciously to the other persons who were assembled to greet him.

He was a man of strong character and of much natural dignity, far too proud to break down under a great loss or a bitter disappointment, and at dinner he sat at the head of the table and spoke affably of the journey he had made, explaining his unexpectedly early return by the fact that the Lord of Rimini had at once approved his designs and accepted his terms. Occasionally Giovanni asked a respectful question, but neither his wife nor Marietta said much during the meal. Zorzi was not mentioned.

"You are welcome at my house, my son," Beroviero said, when they had finished, "but I suppose that you will go back to your own this evening."

This was of course a command, and Marietta thought it a good omen. She had felt sure, when her father made her look at him, that Giovanni had spoken to him of the mantle, but in what way she could not tell. Perhaps, though it seemed incredible, he would not make such a serious case of it as she had expected.

He said nothing, when he withdrew to rest during the hot hours of the afternoon, and she went to her own room as every one did at that time. Little as she had slept that night, she felt that it would be intolerable to lie down; so she took her little basket of beads and tried to work. Nella was dozing in the next room. From time to time the young girl leaned back in her chair with half-closed eyes, and a look of pain came over her face; then with an effort she took her needle once more, and picked out the beads, threading them one by one in a regular succession of colours.

She was sure that if Zorzi were near he would have already found some means of informing her that he was really in safety. He must have friends of whom she knew nothing, and who had rescued him at great risk. He would surely trust one of them to take a message, or to make a signal which she could understand. She sat near the window, and the shutters were half closed so as to leave a space through which she could look out. From time to time she glanced at the white line of the footway opposite, over which the shadow of the glass-house was beginning to creep as the sun moved westward. But no one appeared. When it was cool Pasquale would probably come out and look three times up and down the canal as he always did. Giovanni would not go to the laboratory again. Perhaps her father would go, when, he was rested. Then, if she chose, she could take Nella and join him, and since there was to be an explanation with him, she would rather have it in the laboratory, where they would be quite alone.

She had fully made up her mind to tell him at the very first interview that she would not marry Jacopo Contarini under any circumstances, but she had not decided whether she would add that she loved Zorzi. She hated anything like cowardice, and it would be cowardly to put off telling the truth any longer; but what concerned Zorzi was her secret, and she had a right to choose the most favourable moment for making a revelation on which her whole life, and Zorzi's also, must immediately depend. She felt weak and tired, for she had eaten little and hardly slept at all, but her determination was strong and she would act upon it.

Occasionally she rose and moved wearily about the room, looked out between the shutters and then sat down again. She was in one of those moments of life in which all existence seems drawn out to an endless quivering thread, a single throbbing nerve stretched to its utmost point of strain.

The silence was broken by a man's footstep in the passage, coming towards her door. A moment later she heard her father's voice, asking if he might come in. Almost at the same time she opened and Beroviero stood on the threshold. Nella had heard him speaking, too, and she started up, wide awake in an instant, and came in, to see if she were needed.

"Will you go with me to the laboratory, my dear?" asked the old man quietly.

She answered gravely that she would. There was no gladness in her tone, but no reluctance. She was facing the most difficult situation she had ever known, and perhaps the most dangerous.

"Very well," said her father. "Let Nella give you your silk mantle and we will go at once."

Before Marietta could have answered, even if she had known what to say, Nella had begun her tale of woe. The mantle was stolen, the sour-faced shrew of a maid who belonged to the Signor Giovanni's wife had stolen it, the house ought to be searched at once, and so much more to the same effect that Nella was obliged to pause for breath.

"When did you miss it?" asked Beroviero, looking hard at the serving-woman.

"This morning, sir. It was here last night, I am quite sure."

The truthful little brown eyes did not waver.

"And it cannot have been any one else," continued Nella. "This is a very evil person, sir, and she sometimes comes here with a message, or making believe that she is helping me. As if I needed help, indeed!"

"Do not accuse people of stealing when you have no evidence against them," answered Beroviero somewhat sternly. "Give your mistress something else to throw over her."

"Give me the green silk cloak," said Marietta, who was anxious not to be questioned about the mantle.

"It has a spot in one corner," Nella answered discontentedly, as she went to the wardrobe.

The spot turned out to be no bigger than the head of a pin. A moment later Marietta and her father were going downstairs. At the door of the glass-house Pasquale eyed them with approbation, and Marietta smiled and said a word to him as she passed. It seemed strange that she should have trusted the ugly old man with a secret which she dared not tell her own father.

Beroviero did not speak as she followed him down the path and stood waiting while he unlocked the door. Then they both entered, and he laid his cap upon the table.

"There is your mantle, my dear," he said quietly, and he pointed to it, neatly folded and lying on the bench.

Marietta started, for she was taken unawares. While in her own room, her father had spoken so naturally as to make it seem quite possible that Giovanni had said nothing about it to him, yet he had known exactly where it was. He was facing her now, as he spoke.

"It was found here last night, after Zorzi had been arrested," said Beroviero. "Do you understand?"

"Yes," Marietta answered, gathering all her courage. "We will talk about it by and by. First, I have something to say to you which is much more important than anything concerning the mantle. Will you sit down, father, and hear me as patiently as you can?"

"I am learning patience to-day," said Beroviero, sitting down in his chair. "I am learning also the meaning of such words as ingratitude, betrayal and treachery, which were never before spoken in my house."

He sighed and leaned back, looking at the wall. Marietta dropped her cloak beside the mantle on the bench and began to walk up and down before him, trying to begin her speech. But she could not find any words.

"Speak, child," said her father. "What has happened? It seems to me that I could bear almost anything now."

She stood still a moment before him, still hesitating. She now saw that he had suffered more than she had suspected, doubtless owing to