Marietta Part 7

It meant a great thing to her, for it had told her Zorzi's secret, which he had kept so well. He should know hers some day, but not yet, and her drooping lids could hide it if it ever came into her eyes. It was too soon to let him know that she loved him. That was one reason for hiding it, but she had another. If her father guessed that she loved the waif, it would fare ill with him. She fancied she could see the old man's fiery brown eyes and hear his angry voice. Poor Zorzi would be driven from Murano and Venice, never to set foot again within the boundaries of the Republic; for Beroviero was a man of weight and influence, of whom Venice was proud.

Youth would be very sad if it counted time and labour as it is reckoned and valued by mature age. Some day Zorzi would be no longer a mere paid helper, calling himself a servant when his humour was bitter, tending a fire on his knees and grinding coloured earths and salts in a mortar. He had the understanding of the glorious art, and the true love of it, with the magic touch; he would make a name for himself in spite of the harsh Venetian law, and some day his master would be proud to call him son. There would not be many months to wait. Months or years, what mattered, since she loved him and was at last quite sure that he loved her? To-day, that was enough. She would go over to the gla.s.s-house and sit in the garden, by the rose he had planted, and now and then she would go into the close furnace room where he worked with her father, or Zorzi would come out for something; she should be near him, she should see his face and hear his quiet voice, and she would say to herself: He loves me, he loves me-as often as she chose, knowing that it was true.

Since she knew it, she was sure that she should see it in his face, that had hidden it from her so long. There would be glances when he thought she was not watching him, his colour would come and go, as yesterday, and he would do her some little service, now and then, in which the sweet truth, against his will, should tell itself to her again and again. It would be a delicious and ever-remembered day, each minute a pearl, each hour a chaplet of jewels, from golden sunrise to golden sunset, all perfect through and through.

There were so many little things she could watch in him, now that she knew the truth, things that had long meant nothing and would mean volumes to-day. She would watch him, and then call him suddenly and see him try to hide the little gladness he would feel as he turned to her; and when they were alone a moment, she would ask him whether he had remembered to forget Jacopo Contarini's name; and some day, but not for a long time yet, she would drop a rose again, and she would turn as he picked it up, but she would not make him give it back to her, and in that way he should know that she loved him. She must not think of that, for it was too soon, yet she could almost see his face as it would be when he knew.

Yesterday her father had talked again of her marriage. A whole month had pa.s.sed since he had even alluded to it, but this time he had spoken of it as a certainty; and she had opened her eyes wide in surprise. She did not believe that it was to be. How could she marry a man she did not love? How could she love any man but Zorzi? They might show her twenty Venetian patricians, that she might choose among them. Meanwhile she would show her indifference. Nothing was easier than to put on an inscrutable expression which betrayed nothing, but which, as she knew, sometimes irritated her father beyond endurance.

He had always promised that she should not be married against her will, as many girls were. Then why should she marry Contarini, any more than any other man except the one she had chosen? She need only say that Contarini did not please her, and her father would certainly not try to use force. There was therefore nothing to fear, and since her first surprise was over, she felt sure of appearing quite indifferent. She would put the thought out of her mind and begin the day with the perfect certainty that the marriage was altogether impossible.

She looked out over her flowers. The door of the gla.s.s-house was open now, and the burly porter was sweeping; she could hear the cypress broom on the flagstones inside, and presently it appeared in sight while the porter was still invisible, and it whisked out a mixture of black dust and bread crumbs and bits of green salad leaves, and the old man came out and swept everything across the footway into the ca.n.a.l. As he turned to go back, the workmen came trooping across the bridge to the furnaces-pale men with intent faces, very different from ordinary working people. For each called himself an artist, and was one; and each knew that so far as the law was concerned the proudest n.o.ble in Venice could marry his daughter without the least derogation from patrician dignity. The workmen differed from her own father not in station, but only in the degree of their prosperity.

If Zorzi could ever have been one of them the rest would have been simple enough. But he could not, any more than a black man could turn white at will. There was no evasion of law by which a man not born a Venetian could ever be a gla.s.s-blower, or could ever acquire the privileges possessed from birth by one of those shabby, pale young men who were crowding past the porter to go to their hard day's work. Yet dexterous as they were, there was not one that had his skill, there was not one that could compare with him as an artist, as a workman, as a man. No Indian caste, no ancient n.o.bility, no mystic priesthood ever set up a barrier so impa.s.sable between itself and the outer world as that which defended the gla.s.s-blowers of Murano for centuries against all who wished to be initiated. Even the boys who fed the fires all night were of the calling, and by and by would become workmen, and perhaps masters, legally almost the equals of the splendid n.o.bles who sat in the Grand Council over there in Venice.

Zorzi's very existence was an anomaly. He had no social right to be what he was, and he knew it when he called himself a servant, for the cruel law would not allow him to be anything else so long as he helped Angelo Beroviero.

Suddenly, while Marietta watched the men, Zorzi was there among them, coming out as they went in. He must have risen early, she thought, for she did not know that he had slept in the laboratory. He looked pale and thin as he flattened himself against the door-post to let a workman pa.s.s, and then slipped out himself. No one greeted him, even by a nod. Marietta knew that they hated him because he was in her father's confidence; and somehow, instead of pitying him, she was glad.

It seemed natural that he should not be one of them, that he should pa.s.s them with quiet indifference and that they should feel for him the instinctive dislike which most inferiors feel for those above them. Doubtless, they looked down upon him, or told themselves that they did; but in their hearts they knew that a man with such a face was born to be their teacher and their master, and the girl was proud of him. He treated them with more civility than they bestowed on him, but it was the courtesy of a superior who would not a.s.sert himself, who would scorn to thrust himself forward or in any way to claim what was his by right, if it were not freely offered. Marietta drew back a little, so that she could just see him between the flowers, without being seen.

He stood still, looking down at the ca.n.a.l till the last of the men had pa.s.sed in. Then, before he went on, he raised his eyes slowly to Marietta's window, not guessing that her own were answering his from behind the rosemary and the geranium. His pale face was very sad and thoughtful as he looked up. She had never seen him look so tired. The porter had shut the door, which he never allowed to remain open one moment longer than was absolutely necessary, and Zorzi stood quite alone on the footway. As he looked, his face softened and grew so tender that the girl who watched him unseen stretched out her arms towards him with unconscious yearning, and her heart beat very fast, so that she felt the pulses in her throat almost choking her; yet her face was pale and her soft lips were dry and cold. For it was not all happiness that she felt; there was a sweet mysterious pain with it, which was nowhere, and yet all through her, that was weakness and yet might turn to strength, a hunger of longing for something dear and unknown and divine, without which all else was an empty shadow. Then her eyes opened to him, as he had never seen them, blue as the depth of sapphires and dewy with love mists of youth's early spring; it was impossible that he should stand there, just beyond the narrow water, and not feel that she saw him and loved him, and that her heart was crying out the true words he never hoped to hear.

But he did not know. And all at once his eyes fell, and she could almost see that he sighed as he turned wearily away and walked with bent head towards the wooden bridge. She would have given anything to look out and see him cross and come nearer, but she remembered that she was not yet dressed, and she blushed as she drew further back into the room, gathering the thin white linen up to her throat, and frightened at the mere thought that he should catch sight of her. She would not call her serving-woman yet, she would be alone a little while longer. She threw back her russet hair, and bent down to smell the rose in the tall gla.s.s. The sun was risen now and the first slanting beams shot sideways through her window from the right. The day that was to be so sweet had begun most sweetly. She had seen him already, far earlier than usual; she would see him many times before the little brown maid crossed the ca.n.a.l to bring her home in the evening.

The thought put an end to her meditations, and she was suddenly in haste to be dressed, to be out of the house, to be sitting in the little garden of the gla.s.s-house where Zorzi must soon pa.s.s again. She called and clapped her hands, and her serving-woman entered from the outer room in which she slept. She brought a great painted earthenware dish, on which fruit was arranged, half of a small yellow melon fresh from the cool storeroom, a little heap of dark red cherries and a handful of ripe plums. There was white wheaten bread, too, and honey from Aquileia, in a little gla.s.s jar, and there was a goblet of cold water. The maid set the big dish on the table, beside the gla.s.s that held Zorzi's rose, and began to make ready her mistress's clothes.

Marietta tasted the melon, and it was cool and aromatic, and she stood eating a slice of it, just where she could look through the flowers on the window-sill at the door of the gla.s.s-house, so that if Zorzi pa.s.sed again she should see him. He did not come, and she was a little disappointed; but the melon was very good, and afterwards she ate a few cherries and spread a spoonful of honey on a piece of bread, and nibbled at it; and she drank some of the water, looking out of the window over the gla.s.s.

"Was it always so beautiful?" she asked, speaking to herself, in a sort of wonder at what she felt, as she set the gla.s.s upon the table.

Nella, the maid, turned quickly to her with a look of inquiry.

"What?" she asked. "What is beautiful? The weather? It is summer! Of course it is fine. Did you expect the north wind to-day, or rain from the southwest?"

Marietta laughed, sweet and low. The little maid always amused her. There was something cheerful in the queer little scolding sentences, spoken with a rising inflection on almost every word, musical and yet always seeming to protest gently against anything Marietta said.

"I know of something much more beautiful than the weather," Nella added, seeing that she got no answer except a laugh. "Do you wish to know what is more beautiful than a summer's day?"

"Oh, I know the answer to that!" cried Marietta. "You used to catch me in that way when I was a small girl."

"Well, my little lady, what is the answer? I have said nothing."

"What is more beautiful than a summer's day? Why, two summer's days, of course! I was always dreadfully disappointed when you gave me that answer, for I expected something wonderful."

Nella shook her head as she unfolded the fine linen things, and uttered a sort of little clucking sound, meant to show her disapproval of such childish jests.

"Tut, tut, tut! We are grown up now! Are we children? No, we are a young lady, beautiful and serious! Tut, tut, tut! That you should remember the nonsense I used to talk to make you stop crying for your mother, blessed soul! And I myself was so full of tears that a drop of water would have drowned me! But all pa.s.ses, praise be to G.o.d!"

"I hope not," said Marietta, but so low that the woman did not hear.

"I will ask you a riddle," continued Nella presently.

"Oh no!" laughed Marietta. "I could no more guess a riddle to-day than I could give a dissertation on theology. Riddles are for rainy days in winter, when we sit by the fire in the evening wishing it were morning again. I know the great riddle at last-I have found it out. It is the most beautiful thing in the world."

"Then it is true," observed Nella, looking at her with satisfaction.

"What?" asked the young girl carelessly.

"That you are to be married."

"I hope so," answered Marietta. "Some day, but there is time yet-perhaps a very long time."

"As long as it will take to make a wedding gown embroidered with gold and pearls. Not a day longer than that." Nella looked very wise and watched her mistress's face.

"What do you mean?"

"The master has ordered just such a gown. That is what I mean. Do you think I would talk of such a beautiful thing, just to make you unhappy, if you were not to have one? But you will not forget poor Nella, my little lady? You will take me with you to Venice?"

"Then you think I am to marry some one from the city? What is his name?"

"The master knows. That is enough. But it must be the Doge's son, or at least the son of the Admiral of Venice. It will take two months to embroider the gown. That means that you are to be married in August, of course."

"Do you think so?" asked Marietta indifferently.

"I know it." And Nella gave a discontented little snort, for she did not like to have her conclusions questioned. "Am I half-witted? Am I in my dotage? Am I an imbecile? The gown is ordered, and that is the truth. Do you think the master has ordered a wedding gown embroidered with gold and pearls for himself?"

Marietta tossed her hair back and shook it down her shoulders, laughing gaily at the idea.

"Ah!" cried Nella indignantly. "Now you are mocking me! You are making a laughing-stock of your poor Nella! It is too bad! But you will be sorry that you laughed at me, when I am not here to bring you melons and cherries and tell you the news in the morning! You will say: 'Poor Nella! She was not such an ignorant person after all!' That is what you will say. I tell you that if your father orders a wedding gown, you are the only person in the house who can wear it, and he would not order it just to see how beautiful you would be as a bride! He is a serious man, the master, he is grave, he is wise! He does nothing without much reflection, and what he does is well done. He says, 'My daughter is to be married, therefore I will order a splendid dress for her.' That is what he says, and he orders it."

"That has an air of reason," said Marietta gravely. "I did not mean to laugh at you."

"Oh, very well! If you thought your father unreasonable, what should I say? He does not say one thing and do another, your father. And I will tell you something. They will make the gown even handsomer than he ordered it, because he is very rich, and he will grumble and scold, but in the end he will pay, for the honour of the house. Then you will wear the gown, and all Venice will see you in it on your wedding day."

"That will be a great thing for the Venetians," observed the young girl, trying not to smile.

"They will see that there are rich men in Murano, too. It will be a lesson for their intolerable vanity."

"Are the Venetians so very vain?"

"Well! Was not my husband a Venetian, blessed soul? It seems to me that I should know. Have I forgotten how he would fasten a c.o.c.k's feather in his cap, almost like a gentleman, and hang his cloak over one shoulder, and pull up his hose till they almost cracked, so as to show off his leg? Ah, he had handsome legs, my poor Vito, and he never would use anything but pure beeswax to stiffen his mustaches. No, he never would use tallow. He was almost like a gentleman!"

Nella's little brown eyes were moist as she recalled her husband's small vanities; his dislike of tallow as a cosmetic seemed to affect her particularly.

"That is why I say that it will be a lesson to the pride of those Venetians to see your marriage," she resumed, after drying her eyes with the back of her hand. "And the people of Murano will be there, and all the gla.s.s-blowers in their guild, since the master is the head of it. I suppose Zorzi will manage to be there, too."

Nella spoke the last words in a tone of disapproval.