Marietta Part 10

"I daresay."

"So you mean to marry me in two months," concluded Marietta. "That is not a long time."

"Should you prefer two years?" inquired Beroviero with increasing annoyance. Marietta slipped from the table to her feet.

"It depends on the bridegroom," she answered. "Perhaps I may prefer to wait a lifetime!" She moved towards the door.

"Oh, you shall be satisfied with the bridegroom! I promise you that." The old man looked after her. At the door she turned her head, smiling.

"I may be hard to please," she said quietly, and she went out into the garden.

When she was gone Beroviero shut the window carefully, and though the round bull's-eye panes let in the light plentifully, they effectually prevented any one from seeing into the room. The door was already closed.

"You should have been more careful," he said to Zorzi in a tone of reproach. "You should not have let any one see you, when you took the boat."

"If the woman spent half the night looking out of her window, sir, I do not understand how I could have taken the boat without being seen by her."

"Well, well, there is no harm done, and you could not help it, I daresay. I have something else to say. You saw the lord Jacopo last night; what do you think of him? He is a fine-looking young man. Should not any girl be glad to get such a handsome husband? What do you think? And his name, too! one of the best in the Great Council. They say he has a few debts, but his father is very rich, and has promised me that he will pay everything if only his son can be brought to marry and lead a graver life. What do you think?"

"He is a very handsome young man," said Zorzi loyally. "What should I think? It is a most honourable marriage for your house."

"I hear no great harm of Jacopo," continued Beroviero more familiarly. "His father is miserly. We have spent much time in the preliminary arrangements, without the knowledge of the son, and the old man is very grasping! He would take all my fortune for the dowry if he could. But he has to do with a gla.s.s-blower!"

Beroviero smiled thoughtfully. Zorzi was silent, for he was suffering.

"You may wonder why I sent that message last night," began the master again, "since matters are already so far settled with Jacopo's father. You would suppose that nothing more remained but to marry the couple in the presence of both families, should you not?"

"I know little of such affairs, sir," answered Zorzi.

"That would be the usual way," continued Beroviero. "But I will not marry Marietta against her will. I have always told her so. She shall see her future husband before she is betrothed, and persuade herself with her own eyes that she is not being deceived into marrying a hunchback."

"But supposing that after all the lord Jacopo should not be to her taste," suggested Zorzi, "would you break off the match?"

"Break off the match?" cried Beroviero indignantly. "Never! Not to her taste? The handsomest man in Venice, with a great name and a fortune to come? It would not be my fault if the girl went mad and refused! I would make her like him if she dared to hesitate a moment!"

"Even against her will?"

"She has no will in the matter," retorted Beroviero angrily.

"But you have always told her that you would not marry her against her will-"

"Do not anger me, Zorzi! Do not try your specious logic with me! Invent no absurd arguments, man! Against her will, indeed? How should she know any will but mine in the matter? I shall certainly not marry her against her will! She shall will what I please, neither more nor less."

"If that is your point of view," said Zorzi, "there is no room for argument."

"Of course not. Any reasonable person would laugh at the idea that a girl in her senses should not be glad to marry Jacopo Contarini, especially after having seen him. If she were not glad, she would not be in her senses, in other words she would not be sane, and should be treated as a lunatic, for her own good. Would you let a lunatic do as he liked, if he tried to jump out of the window? The mere thought is absurd."

"Quite," said Zorzi.

Sad as he was, he could almost have laughed at the old man's inconsequent speeches.

"I am glad that you so heartily agree with me," answered Beroviero in perfect sincerity. "I do not mean to say that I would ask your opinion about my daughter's marriage. You would not expect that. But I know that I can trust you, for we have worked together a long time, and I am used to hearing what you have to say."

"You have always been very good to me," replied Zorzi gratefully.

"You have always been faithful to me," said the old man, laying his hand gently on Zorzi's shoulder. "I know what that means in this world."

As soon as there was no question of opposing his despotic will, his kindly nature a.s.serted itself, for he was a man subject to quick changes of humour, but in reality affectionate.

"I am going to trust you much more than hitherto," he continued. "My sons are grown men, independent of me, but willing to get from me all they can. If they were true artists, if I could trust their taste, they should have had my secrets long ago. But they are mere money-makers, and it is better that they should enrich themselves with the tasteless rubbish they make in their furnaces, than degrade our art by cheapening what should be rare and costly. Am I right?"

"Indeed you are!" Zorzi now spoke in a tone of real conviction.

"If I thought you were really capable of making coloured drinking-cups like that abominable object you made this morning, with the idea that they could ever be used, you should not stay on Venetian soil a day," resumed the old man energetically. "You would be as bad as my sons, or worse. Even they have enough sense to know that half the beauty of a cup, when it is used, lies in the colour of the wine itself, which must be seen through it. But I forgive you, because you were only anxious to blow the gla.s.s thin, in order to show me the tint. You know better. That is why I mean to trust you in a very grave matter."

Zorzi bent his head respectfully, but said nothing.

"I am obliged to make a journey before my daughter's marriage takes place," continued Beroviero. "I shall entrust to you the ma.n.u.script secrets I possess. They are in a sealed package so that you cannot read them, but they will be in your care. If I leave them with any one else, my sons will try to get possession of them while I am away. During my last journey I carried them with me, but I am growing old, life is uncertain, especially when a man is travelling, and I would rather leave the packet with you. It will be safer."

"It shall be altogether safe," said Zorzi. "No one shall guess that I have it."

"No one must know. I would take you with me on this journey, but I wish you to go on with the experiments I have been making. We shall save time, if you try some of the mixtures while I am away. When it is too hot, let the furnace go out."

"But who will take charge of your daughter, sir?" asked Zorzi. "You cannot leave her alone in the house."

"My son Giovanni and his wife will live in my house while I am away. I have thought of everything. If you choose, you may bring your belongings here, and sleep and eat in the gla.s.s-house."

"I should prefer it."

"So should I. I do not want my sons to pry into what we are doing. You can hide the packet here, where they will not think of looking for it. When you go out, lock the door. When you are in, Giovanni will not come. You will have the place to yourself, and the boys who feed the fire at night will not disturb you. Of course my daughter will never come here while I am away. You will be quite alone."

"When do you go?" asked Zorzi.

"On Monday morning. On Sunday I shall take Marietta to Saint Mark's. When she has seen her husband the betrothal can take place at once."

Zorzi was silent, for the future looked black enough. He already saw himself shut up in the gla.s.s-house for two long months, or not much less, as effectually separated from Marietta by the narrow ca.n.a.l as if an ocean were between them. She would never cross over and spend an hour in the little garden then, and she would be under the care of Giovanni Beroviero, who hated him, as he well knew.

CHAPTER VI

Aristarchi rose early, though it had been broad dawn when he had entered his home. He lived not far from the house of the Agnus Dei, on the opposite side of the same ca.n.a.l but beyond the Baker's Bridge. His house was small and unpretentious, a little wooden building in two stories, with a small door opening to the water and another at the back, giving access to a patch of dilapidated and overgrown garden, whence a second door opened upon a dismal and unsavoury alley. One faithful man, who had followed him through many adventures, rendered him such services as he needed, prepared the food he liked and guarded the house in his absence. The fellow was far too much in awe of his terrible master to play the spy or to ask inopportune questions.

The Greek put on the rich dress of a merchant captain of his own people, the black coat, thickly embroidered with gold, the breeches of dark blue cloth, the almost transparent linen shirt, open at the throat. A large blue cap of silk and cloth was set far back on his head, showing all the bony forehead, and his coal-black beard and s.h.a.ggy hair had been combed as smooth as their s.h.a.ggy nature would allow. He wore a magnificent belt fully two hands wide, in which were stuck three knives of formidable length and breadth, in finely chased silver sheaths. His muscular legs were encased in leathern gaiters, ornamented with gold and silver, and on his feet he wore broad turned-up slippers from Constantinople. The dress was much the same as that which the Turks had found there a few years earlier, and which they soon amalgamated with their own. It set off the captain's vast breadth of shoulder and ma.s.sive limbs, and as he stepped into his hired boat the idlers at the water-stairs gazed upon him with an admiration of which he was well aware, for besides being very splendidly dressed he looked as if he could have swept them all into the ca.n.a.l with a turn of his hand.

Without saying whither he was bound he directed the oarsman through the narrow channels until he reached the shallow lagoon. The boatman asked whither he should go.

"To Murano," answered the Greek. "And keep over by Saint Michael's, for the tide is low."