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

Zorzi's arrest and disappearance, and she knew that what she meant to tell him would hurt him much more.

"Father," she began at last, with a great effort, "I know that what I am going to say will displease you very, very much. I am sorry—I wish it were not—"

Suddenly her set speech broke down. She fell on her knees and took his hands, looking up beseechingly to his face.

"Forgive me!" she cried. "Oh, for God's sake forgive me! I cannot marry Jacopo Contarini!"

Beroviero had not expected that. He sat upright in the chair, in his amazement, and instinctively tried to draw his hands out of hers, but she held them fast, gazing earnestly up to him. His look was not angry, nor cold, nor did he even seem hurt. He was simply astonished beyond all measure by the enormous audacity of what she said. As yet he did not connect it with anything else.

"I think you must be mad!"

That was all he could find to say.

CHAPTER XX

Marietta shook her head. She still knelt at her father's feet, holding his hands.

"I am not mad," she said. "I am in earnest. I cannot marry him. It is impossible."

"You must marry him," answered Beroviero. "You are betrothed to him, and it would be an insult to his family to break off the marriage now. Besides, you have no reason to give, not the shadow of a reason."

Marietta dropped his hands and rose to her feet lightly. She had expected a terrific outburst of anger, which would gradually subside, after which she hoped to find words with which to influence him. But like many hot-tempered men, he was sometimes unexpectedly calm at critical moments, as if he were really able to control his nature when he chose. She now almost wished that he would break out in a rage, as women sometimes hope we may, for they know it is far easier to deal with an angry man than with a determined one.

"I will not marry him," she said at last, with strong emphasis, and almost defiantly.

"My child," Beroviero answered gravely, "you do not know what you are saying."

"I do!" cried Marietta with some indignation. "I have thought of it a long time. I was very wrong not to make up my mind from the beginning, and I ask your forgiveness. In my heart I always knew that I could not do it in the end, and I should have said so at once. It was a great mistake."

"There is no question of your consent," replied Beroviero with conviction. "If girls were consulted as to the men they were to marry, the world would soon come to an end. This is only a passing madness, of which you should be heartily ashamed. Say no more about it. On the appointed day, the wedding will take place."

"It will not," said Marietta firmly; "and you will do better to let it be known at once. It is of no use to take heaven to witness, and to make a solemn oath. I merely say that I will not marry Jacopo Contarini. You may carry me to the church, you may drag me before the altar, but I will resist. I will scream out that I will not, and the priest himself will protect me. That will be a much greater scandal than if you go to the Contarini family and tell them that your daughter is mad—if you really think I am."

"You are undoubtedly beside yourself at the present moment," Beroviero answered. "But it will pass, I hope."

"Not while I am alive, and I shall certainly resist to the end. It would be much wiser of you to send me to a convent at once, than to count on forcing me to go through the marriage ceremony."

Beroviero stared at her, and stroked his beard. He began to believe that she might possibly be in earnest. Since she talked so quietly of going to a convent, a fate which most girls considered the most terrible that could be imagined. He bent his brows in thought, but watched her steadily.

"You have not yet given me a single reason for all this wild talk," he said after a pause. "It is absurd to think that without some good cause you are suddenly filled with repulsion for marriage, or for Jacopo Contarini. I have heard of young women who were betrothed, but who felt a religious vocation, and refused to marry for that reason. It never seemed a very satisfactory one to me, for if there is any condition in which a woman needs religion, it is the marriage state."

He paused in his speech, pleased with his own idea, in spite of all his troubles. Marietta had moved a few steps away from him and stood beside the table, looking down at the things on it, without seeing them.

"But you do not even make religion a pretext," pursued her father. "Have you no reason to give? I do not expect a good one, for none can have any weight. But I should like to hear the best you have."

"It is a very convincing one to me," Marietta replied, still looking down at the table. "But I think I had better not tell it to you to-day," she added. "It would make you angry."

"No," said Beroviero. "One cannot be angry with people who are really out of their senses."

"I am not so mad as you think," answered the girl. "I have told you of my decision, because it was cowardly of me not to tell you what I felt before you went away. But it might be a mistake to tell you more to-day. You have had enough to harass you already, since you came back."

"You are suddenly very considerate."

"No, I have not been considerate. I could not be, without acting a lie to you, by letting you believe that I meant to marry Messer Jacopo, and I will not do that any longer, since I know that it is a lie. But I cannot see the use of saying anything more."

"You had better tell me the whole truth, rather than let me think something that may be much worse," answered Beroviero, changing his attitude.

"There is nothing in the truth of which I am ashamed," said Marietta, holding up her head proudly. "I have done nothing which I did not believe to be right, however strange it may seem to you."

Once more their eyes met and they gazed steadily at each other; and again the blush spread over her cheeks. Beroviero put out his hand and touched the folded mantle.

"Marietta," he said, "Zorzi has stolen my precious book of secrets, and has disappeared with it. They tell me that he also stole this mantle, for it was found here just after he was arrested last night. Is it true, or has he stolen my daughter instead?"

Marietta's face had darkened when he began to accuse the absent man. At the question that followed she started a little, and drew herself up.

"Zorzi is neither a thief nor a traitor," she answered. "If you mean to ask me whether I love him—is that what you mean?" She paused, with flashing eyes.

"Yes," answered her father, and his voice shook.

"Then yes! I love him with all my heart, and I have loved him long. That is why I will not marry Jacopo Contarini. You know my secret now."

Beroviero groaned aloud, and his head sank as he grasped the arms of the chair. His daughter loved the man who had cheated him, betrayed him and robbed him. It was almost too much to bear. He had nothing to say, for no words could tell what he felt then, and he silently bowed his head.

"As for the accusations you bring against him," Marietta said after a moment, "they are false, from first to last, and I can prove to you that every one of them is an abominable lie."

"You cannot make that untrue which I have seen with my eyes."

"I can, though Zorzi has the right to prove his innocence himself. I may say too much, for I am not as generous as he is. Do you know that when they tried to kill him in the furnace room, and lamed him for life, he told every one, even me, that it was an accident? He is so brave and noble that when he comes here again, he will not tell you that it was your own son who tried to rob you, who did everything in his power to get Zorzi away from this room, in order to search for your manuscript, and who at last, as everything else failed, persuaded the Governor to arrest him. He will not tell you that, and he does not know that before they had taken him twenty paces from the door, Giovanni was already here, locked in and trying the stones with a hammer to find out which one covered the precious book. Did Giovanni tell you that this morning? No. Zorzi would not tell you all the truth, and I know some of it even better than he. But Zorzi was always generous and brave."

Beroviero had lifted his head now and was looking hard at her.

"And your mantle? How came it here?" he asked.

There was nothing to be done now, but to speak the truth.

"It is here," said Marietta, growing paler, "because I came here, unknown to any one except Pasquale who let me in, because I came alone last night to warn the man I love that Giovanni had planned his destruction, and to save him if I could. In my haste I left the mantle in that chair of yours, in which I had been sitting. It slipped from my shoulders as I sat, and there Giovanni must have found it. If you had seen it there you would know that what I say is true."

"I did see it," said Beroviero. "Giovanni left it where it was, and I folded it myself this morning. Zorzi did not steal the mantle. I take back that accusation."

"Nor has he stolen your secrets. Take that back, too, if you are just. You always were, till now."

"I have searched the place where he and I put the book, and it is not there."

"Giovanni searched it twelve hours earlier, and it was already gone. Zorzi saved it from your son, and then, in his rage, I suppose that Giovanni accused him of stealing it. He may even have believed it, for I can be just, too. But it is not true. The book is safe."

"Zorzi took it with him," said Beroviero.

"You are mistaken. Before he was arrested, he said that I ought to know where it was, in case anything happened to him, in order to tell you."

Beroviero rose slowly, staring at her, and speaking with an effort.

"You know where it is? He told you? He has not taken it away?"

Marietta smiled, in perfect certainty of victory.

"I know where it is," she said.

"Where is it?" he asked in extreme anxiety, for he could hardly believe what he heard.

"I will not tell you yet," was the unexpected answer Marietta gave him. "And you cannot possibly find it unless I do."

The veins stood out on the old man's temples in an instant, and the old angry fire came back to his eyes.

"Do you dare to tell me that you will not show me the place where the book is, on the very instant?" he cried.

"Oh yes," answered Marietta. "I dare that, and much more. I am not a coward like my brother, you know. I will not tell you the secret till you promise me something."

"You are trying to sell me what is my own!" he answered angrily. "You are in league with Zorzi against me, to break off your marriage. But I will not do it—you shall tell me where the book is—if you refuse, you shall repent it as long as you live—I will—"

He stopped short in his speech as he met her disdainful look.

"You never threatened me before," she said. "Why do you think that you can frighten me?"

"Give me what is mine," said the old man angrily. "That is all I demand. I am not threatening."

"Set me free from Messer Jacopo, and you shall have it," answered Marietta.

"No. You shall marry him."

"I will not. But I will keep your book until you change your mind, or else—but no! If I gave it to Zorzi, he is so honourable that he would bring it back to you without so much as looking into it. I will keep it for myself. Or I will burn it!"

She felt that if she had been a man, she could not have taken such an unfair advantage