A Golden Book of Venice Part 31

A gondola of the Nicolotti detached itself from a group of serenaders just above the palace, was caught for a few moments among the _pali_ before the Ca' Giustiniani, and then floated leisurely down toward the Piazzetta. She noted it idly while she sat waiting for Marco, for in the gondola there was a graceful figure, closely wrapped, clasping her mantle yet more closely with a hand that was white and slender enough for one of the n.o.bility; yet the gondolier wore the black sash of the Nicolotti with the great hat of a bravo shading his face. "It is some intrigue," she said, almost unconsciously, in the midst of her sad dreaming.

"Oh, Marco, thou art come! It hath been long without thee."

"The Senate is but just dismissed," he answered, smiling fondly at the eagerness which gave to her pale face a pa.s.sing flush of health. "But why is the Lady Beata not with thee?" he questioned abruptly.

"She is in the chapel, making it fair with flowers."

"Thou knowest it, Marina?"

"She came to me with a question but a little while ago, when Marconino was with me--and I wished to be alone. Marco, he was so beautiful! And the day has been a dream; I wished for no one but for thee alone."

He held her hand in a mute caress, but with preoccupation, while his eyes wandered back to the Piazzetta searchingly.

"It is strange," he muttered to himself, still watching from the end of the balcony. "It was an echo of the Lady Beata's voice that startled me, crossing the Piazzetta saying two words only--'In Padua.'"

Then rousing himself, he turned brightly to his wife. "Carina, I have news for thee, for the time hath been momentous for us in Venice. Di Gioiosa hath gone forward, these many days, with terms from Venice; and soon, it is thought, there will be peace."

_Terms_ from Venice to Rome!--but the words did not move her from her resolve to let no shadow of their difference mar the beauty of this night.

She looked at him wearily. "It is ever the same," she said, "through this long, dreary year--ever the same! Let us forget it all for this one night. Let us talk together of our Marconino!"

And as if there had been no questions--no interdict--no pain--while the night sounds died into silence and the moon withdrew her glamor and left them alone to the solemn mystery of the starlight, they sat and talked together of love and their little one and their hopes for him, and of things that lie too deep for utterance--save by one to one--far into that beautiful Venetian night, with the odor of flowers and incense blown up to them on the breath of the sea.

XXIX

The yellow lamp flames were burning late in the cabinet of Girolamo Magagnati, who took less note of the difference between evening hours and those of early dawn since there was no longer in his household a beloved one to guard from weariness. Nay, the night was rather the time in which he might forget himself and plunge more whole-heartedly into his schemes of work--financial or creative. For the world was surely on the eve of discoveries important to his art, and it would be well if he might secure them, before his working days should pa.s.s, for the Stabilimento Magagnati.

Piero Salin stood in the doorway as he glanced up from the drawings that littered his table--the dark oak table which had seemed a centre of cheer to Girolamo, when, in this very chamber, his child had made a radiance for him in which the lines of his life shone large and satisfying.

Girolamo never seemed to remember that this son-in-law was a great man among the people; to him he was only Piero Salin, barcariol; the single token of the old man's favor was that in his thought he no longer added the despicable word _toso_; and it was a proof that he was mellowing with the years, for Girolamo never forgot this unwelcome and dishonorable past, and Piero was always ill at ease in his presence.

"Messer Magagnati," he began awkwardly, twirling his black cap in his hand rather after the fashion of a gondolier than of the Chief of the Nicolotti, "I must crave, by dawn of the morrow, the blessing of San Nicol--of holy memory."

"Enter," said Girolamo, with a reluctance not wholly concealed by his attempt at courtesy, for he felt the moments to be the more precious that the dawn was near; but the invocation of the sailor's patron saint portended a journey. "Verily, Piero, thy comings and goings have been, of late, so frequent that one learns the wisdom of not mourning over-much when thou dost crave an ave at the shrine of San Nicol. May he grant thee favoring breezes! Thou art in favor with the Ten, they tell me."

Piero shrugged his shoulders. "Favor or disfavor," he said, "it is but the turning of the head--and both may lead to that place of unsought distinction between San Marco and San Teodoro, if the orders of their Excellencies bring not the end they sought. But it matters little--a candle flame is better blown out than dying spent."

"And whither art thou bent on the morrow?"

"Nay, Messer Girolamo, that is not mine own secret. But this word would I leave with thee; if, perchance, I return not before many days, seek me on the border-land--at the point nearest Roman dominions." He had come close to the old merchant, and uttered the last words in a tone very low and full of meaning.

Girolamo started. "On the border-land of Rome!" he echoed. "This mission of thine is then weighty; and thou fearest----"

"Nay, I fear naught," said Piero haughtily. "But the times are perilous; and later, if thou would'st seek me, thou hast the clew. But of the mission, to which I am sworn in secrecy, let it not be known that I have so much as named it--it would argue ill for me and thee. And the clew is for thy using only. Meanwhile, forget that I have spoken. The Ave Maria will soon waken the fishers of Murano. _Addio_!"

But he still waited as if he had not uttered all his mind. Girolamo studied his face closely.

"There is more," he said. "Speak!"

"By the Holy Madonna of San Donato!" said Piero, casting off his restraint with a sudden impulse, "if I come not back, I would have thee know that if ever there came a chance to me to serve Marina--the Lady Marina of the Giustiniani--I, Piero, barcariol or gastaldo, would serve her as a soldier may serve a saint. For she hath been good to the Zuanino. Ay, though it cost me my life, I would serve her like a saint in heaven!" he repeated. Then, flushed with the shame of such unwonted speech and confession, he hastened to the door, and his steps were already resounding on the stone floor of the pa.s.sage when Girolamo recovered from his astonishment sufficiently to follow him into the shadow and command him to stop.

"Thou hast seen my daughter--thou hast news of her?"

"Ay, yestere'en, at the Ave Maria, I spoke with her, in Santa Maria dell' Orto, coming upon her kneeling before the great picture of Jacopo Robusti--she, saint enough already to wear a gloria and looking as if the heart of her were worn away from grief! She hath need of thee daily, for her love for thee is great, and death not far."

"Tell it plainly!" commanded Girolamo, hastening after the retreating figure and violently grasping his arm to detain him. "Have I failed to her in aught? She is soul of my soul! Maledetto! why dost thou break my heart?"

"Look to thine other son-in-law!" Piero retorted wrathfully; "him of the crimson robe who sits in the Councils of Venice, and findeth no cure for thy daughter--dying of terror beside him."

"It is a base slander!" cried old Girolamo, trembling with anger and fear. "Never was wife more beloved and petted! Marcantonio hath no thought, save for Marina and Venice!"

"Ay, 'for Marina and Venice,'" was the scornful answer, "_but Venice first_. Splendor and gifts and the pleasing of every whim, if he could but guess it--gold for her asking, and her palace no better than a cross for her dwelling; for the one thing she needeth for her peace and life he giveth not!"

"What meanest thou?" cried Girolamo, furiously. "Hath he not spent a fortune on physicians--sparing nothing, save to torment her no more, since their skill is but weariness to her! She is eating her heart out for this quarrel with Rome--which no man may help, and it is but foolishness for women to meddle with; and she hath ever been too much under priestly sway. Why earnest thou hither this night?"

"For this cause and for no other," said Piero solemnly, "that thou mightest find me, if need should be for any service to her. And to swear to thee, by the Madonna and every saint of Venice, that I would give my life for her!"

But old Girolamo grew the angrier for Piero's professions of loyalty.

"Shall her father do less than thou?" he questioned, wrathfully. "On the morrow will I go to her, and leave her no more until she forgets."

"By all the saints in heaven, and every Madonna in Venice, and our Lady of every traghetto!" Piero exclaimed, as he wrenched himself away from Girolamo's angry grasp, while the old man staggered against the wall, still holding a bit of cloth from the gondolier's cloak in his closed hand, "I am vowed to my mission before this dawn! What I have spoken is for duty to thine house, and not in anger--though I could color my stiletto in good patrician blood and die for it gaily, if that would help her!"

But Girolamo could not yet find his voice, and Piero, with his hand on the latch of the great iron gates of the water-story, turned and called back: "Women are not like men, and Marina is like no other woman that ever was born in Venice. Whether it be the priests that have bewitched her--may the Holy Madonna have mercy, and curse them for it!--or whether she be truly the Blessed Virgin of San Donato come to earth again, one knows not. But, Messer Magagnati,"--and the voice came solemnly from the dark figure dimly outlined against the gray darkness beyond the iron bars,--"thy daughter is dying for this curse of the Most Holy Father--'il mal anno che Dio le dia!' (may heaven make him suffer for it!)--and she hath no peace in Venice. _She will never forget nor change_. If thy love be great, as thou hast said, thou wilt find some way to help her. _For in Venice she hath no peace_."

The old merchant, dazed by Piero's hot words, was a pitiful figure, standing, desolate, behind the closed bars of his gate, the night wind lifting his long beard and parting the thin gray locks that flowed from under his cap, while he called and beckoned impotently to Piero to return, repeating meanwhile mechanically, with no perception of their meaning, those strange words of Piero's--"_In Venice she hath no peace_." He stood, peering out into the gray gloom and listening to the lessening plash of the oar, until the gondola of the gastaldo was already far on the way to San Marco, where sat the Ten.

But it was not of Piero's mission he was thinking, but of his child--saying over and over again those fateful words, "In Venice she hath no peace." Had Piero said that?

Suddenly the entire speech recurred to him--insistent, tense with meaning. She could not live in Venice. Marina had no peace in Venice.

She would never forget nor change. She had need of him--of her father's love; and if he loved enough, _he would find a way_!

Chilled and heart-sick he turned, and with no torch and missing the voice which had guided him through the long, dark pa.s.sage, he groped his way to his cabinet and sat down to confront a graver problem than any he had ever conquered with Marina's aid. He _would_ find a way--but "it must not be in Venice!" How could they leave Venice? Were they not Venetians born, and was not Venice in trouble? To leave her now were to deny her. _It could not be_!

He put the argument many times, feverishly at first, then more calmly--coming always to the same conclusion, "it could not be." It was a comfort to reach so sensible and positive a decision. To-morrow he would go to his daughter, and meanwhile he must continue his work; he needed to rea.s.sert his power, for he had been strangely shaken.

He drew the scattered papers together, but the lines, blurred and confused, carried no meaning; the fragments of broken gla.s.s in the little trays beside him were a dull, untranslucent gray, and written all over papers and fragments, in vivid letters that burned into his brain, were those other terrible words of Piero's which he had tried in vain to forget--"Thy daughter is dying for this curse." _Marina--dying_!

How should Piero know more about Marina than her own father knew? Did he profess to be a physician that one should credit his every word? What did he mean by his impudent boast of "dying for her, if need should be!"

Had she not her husband and father to care for her? Her husband "who was denying her the only thing that could give her life and peace," Piero had said.--What was the matter with his insulting words, that he could not forget them?--Had she not her father, who was going to her on the morrow, when he had matured his plans, and would do whatever she wished--"in Venice"? Her father "who loved her, as his own soul"--that was what he had said to Piero, with the memory of all those dear years when they had been all in all to each other, in this home.

Was it for hours or moments only that he sat in torture--enduring, reasoning, placing love against pride, Marina against Venice, Venice against a father's weakness, duty to the Republic before the need of this only child who was "soul of his soul"?

The last of his race--inheriting the traditions and pa.s.sionate attachments of that long line of loyal men who had founded and built up the stabilimento which was the pride of Murano; of the people, yet enn.o.bled by the proffer of the Senate, and grandsire to the son of one of the highest n.o.bles of the Republic--what was there left in life for him away from Venice? How should he bear to die dishonored and disinherited by the country which he had deserted in her hour of struggle? For never any more might one return who should desert Venice for Rome!

And those panes of brilliant, crystal clarity which he had dreamed of adding to the honors of the Stabilimento Magagnati--so strong that a single sheet might be framed in the great s.p.a.ces of the windows of the palaces and show neither curve nor flaw--so pure that their only trace of color should come from a chance reflection which would but lend added charm--these might not be the discovery of his later days, though the time was near in which this gift _must_ come to Venice. He had not dreamed that he could ever say, while strength yet remained to think and plan, "The house of Magagnati has touched its height, and others may come forward to do the rest for Venice."