Marietta: A Maid of Venice by F. Marion Crawford (top ten ebook reader TXT) 📖

the little flower-beds to a depth of two or three feet during that time, while Giovanni sat motionless under the plane-tree, watching every movement of their spades. He rose nervously when he heard footsteps in the corridor, for he did not wish any one to find him seated there, apparently watching a most commonplace operation with profound interest. He had made a step towards the door of the laboratory, when he saw his father emerge from the dark passage. He was a coward, and he trembled from head to foot, his teeth chattered in his head, and the cold sweat moistened his forehead in an instant. The old man stood still four or five paces from him and looked from him to the men who had been digging. On seeing the master they stopped working and pulled off their knitted caps. As a further sign of respect they wiped their dripping faces with their shirt sleeves.

"What are you doing here?" asked Beroviero in a tone of displeasure. "The garden was very well as it was."

"I—I thought," stammered Giovanni, "that it would—that it might be better to dig it—"

"It would not be better," answered the old man. "You may go," he added, speaking to the men, who were glad enough to be dismissed.

Beroviero passed his son without further words and tried the door of the laboratory, but found it locked.

"What is this?" he asked angrily. "Where is Zorzi? I told him not to leave you here alone."

"You had great confidence in him," answered Giovanni, recovering himself a little. "He is in prison."

He took the key from his wallet and thrust it into the lock as he spoke.

"In prison!" cried Beroviero in a loud voice. "What do you mean?"

Giovanni held the door open for him.

"I will tell you all about Zorzi, if you will come in," he said.

Beroviero entered, stood still a moment and looked about. Everything was as Zorzi had left it, but the glass-maker's ear missed the low roar of the furnace. Instinctively he made a step towards the latter, extending his hand to see whether it was already cold, but at that moment he caught sight of the silk mantle in the chair. He glanced quickly at his son.

"Has Marietta been here with you this morning?" he asked sharply.

"Oh no!" answered Giovanni contemptuously. "Zorzi stole that thing and had not time to hide it when they arrested him last night. I left it just where it was, that the Governor might see it."

Beroviero's face changed slowly. His fiery brown eyes began to show a dangerous light and he stroked his long beard quickly, twisting it a little each time.

"If you say that Zorzi stole Marietta's silk mantle," he said slowly, "you are either a fool or a liar."

"You are my father," answered Giovanni in some perturbation. "I cannot answer you."

Beroviero was silent for a long time. He took the mantle from the chair, examined it and assured himself that it was Marietta's own and no other. Then he carefully folded it up and laid it on the bench. His brows were contracted as if he were in great pain, and his face was pale, but his eyes were still angry.

Giovanni knew the signs of his father's wrath and dared not speak to him yet..

"Is this the evidence on which you have had my man arrested?" asked Beroviero, sitting down in the big chair and fixing his gaze on his son.

"By no means," answered Giovanni, with all the coolness he could command. "If it pleases you to hear my story from the beginning I will tell you all. If you do not hear all, you cannot possibly understand."

"I am listening," said old Beroviero, leaning back and laying his hands on the broad wooden arms of the chair.

"I shall tell you everything, exactly as it happened," said Giovanni, "and I swear that it is all true."

Beroviero reflected that in his experience this was usually the way in which liars introduced their accounts of events. For truth is like a work of genius: it carries conviction with it at once, and therefore needs no recommendation, nor other artificial support.

"After you left," Giovanni continued, "I came here one morning, out of pure friendliness to Zorzi, and as we talked I chanced to look at those things on the shelf. When I admired them, he admitted rather reluctantly that he had made them, and other things which you have in your house."

Beroviero gravely nodded his assent to the statement.

"I asked him to make me something," Giovanni went on to say, "but he told me that he had no white glass in the furnace, and that what was there was the result of your experiments."

Again Beroviero bent his head.

"So I asked him to bring his blow-pipe to the main furnace room, where they were still working at that time, and we went there together. He at once made a very beautiful piece, and was just finishing it when a bad accident happened to him. Another man let his blow-pipe fly from his hand and it fell upon Zorzi's foot with a large lump of hot glass."

Beroviero looked keenly at Giovanni.

"You know as well as I that it could not have been an accident," he said. "It was done out of spite."

"That may be," replied Giovanni, "for the men do not like him, as you know. But Zorzi accepted it as being an accident, and said so. He was badly hurt, and is still lame. Nella dressed the wound, and then Marietta came with her."

"Are you sure Marietta came here?" asked Beroviero, growing paler.

"Quite sure. They were on their way here together early in the morning when I stopped them, and asked Marietta where she was going, and she boldly said she was going to see Zorzi. I could not prevent her, and I saw them both go in."

"Do you mean to say that although Zorzi was so badly hurt you did not have him brought to the house?"

"Of course I proposed that at once," Giovanni answered. "But he said that he would not leave the furnace."

"That was like him," said old Beroviero.

"He knew what he was doing. It was on that same day that a night boy told me how he had seen you and Zorzi burying something in the laboratory the night before you left."

Beroviero started and leaned forward. Giovanni smiled thoughtfully, for he saw how his father was moved, and he knew that the strongest part of his story was yet untold.

"It would have been better to leave Paolo Godi's manuscript with me," he said, in a tone of sympathy. "I grew anxious for its safety as soon as I knew that Zorzi had charge of it. Yesterday morning I came in again. Zorzi was sitting on the working-stool, finishing a beautiful beaker of white glass."

"White glass?" repeated Beroviero in evident surprise. "White glass? Here?"

"Yes," answered Giovanni, enjoying his triumph. "I pointed out that when I had last come, there had been no white glass in the furnace. He answered that as one of the experiments had produced a beautiful red colour which he thought must be valuable, he had removed the crucible. He also showed me a specimen of it."

"Is it here?" asked Beroviero anxiously. "Where is it?"

Giovanni took the specimen from the table, for Zorzi had left it lying there, and he handed it to his father. The latter took it, held it up to the light, and uttered an exclamation of astonishment and anger.

"There is only one way of making that," he said, without hesitation.

"Yes," Giovanni answered coolly. "I supposed it was made according to one of your secrets."

A quick look was the only reply to this speech. Giovanni continued.

"I asked him to sell me the piece of glass he had been making when he came in, and at first he pretended that he was not sure whether you would allow it, but at last he took a piece of gold for it, and I was to have it as soon as it was annealed. When you see it, you will understand why I was so anxious to get it."

"Where is it?" asked the old man. "Show it to me."

Giovanni went to the other end of the annealing oven, and came back a moment later carrying the iron tray on which stood the pieces Zorzi had made on the previous morning. Beroviero looked at them critically, tried their weight, and noticed their transparency.

"That is not my glass," he said in a tone of decision.

"No," said Giovanni, "I saw that it was not your ordinary glass. It seems much better. Now Zorzi must have made it in a new crucible, and if he did, he made it with some secret of yours, for it is impossible that he should have discovered it himself. I said to myself that if he had made it, and the red glass there, he must have opened the book which you had buried together in this room, and that there was only one way of hindering him from learning everything in it, and ruining you and us by setting up a furnace of his own."

Beroviero was looking hard at Giovanni, but he was now thoroughly alarmed for the safety of his treasured manuscript, and listened with attention and without any hostility. The proofs seemed at first sight very strong, and after all Zorzi was only a Dalmatian and a foreigner, who might have yielded to temptation.

"What did you do?" asked Beroviero.

Giovanni told him the truth, how he had written a letter to the Governor, and had seen him in person, as well as Jacopo Contarini.

"Of course," Giovanni concluded, "you know best. If you find the book as you and he hid it together, he must have learned your secrets in some other way."

"We can easily see," answered old Beroviero, rising quickly. "Come here. Get the crowbar from the corner, and help me to lift the stone."

Giovanni took pains to look for the crowbar exactly where it was not, for he thought that this would divert any lingering suspicion from himself, but Beroviero was only annoyed.

"There, there!" he cried, pointing. "It is in that corner. Quickly!"

"It would be like the clever scoundrel to have copied what he wanted and then to have put the book back into the hiding-place," said Giovanni, pausing.

"Do not waste words, my son!" cried Beroviero in the greatest anxiety. "Here! This is the stone. Get the crowbar in at this side. So. Now we will both heave. There! Wedge the stone up with that bit of wood. That will do. Now let us both get our hands under it, and lift it up."

It was done, while he was speaking. A moment later Giovanni had scooped out the loose earth, and Beroviero was staring down into the empty hole, just as Giovanni had done on the previous night. Giovanni was almost consoled for his own disappointment when he saw his father's face.

"It is certainly gone," he said. "You did not bury it deeper, did you? The soil is hard below."

"No, no! It is gone!" answered the old man in a dull voice. "Zorzi has got it."

"You see," said Giovanni mercilessly, "when I saw the red and white glass which he had made himself I was so sure of the truth that I acted quickly. I saw him arrested, and I do not think he could have had anything like a book with him, for he was in his doublet and hose. And as he is safe in prison now, he can be made to tell where he has put the thing. How big was it?"

"It was in an iron box. It was heavy." Beroviero spoke in low tones, overcome by his loss, and by the apparent certainty that Zorzi had betrayed him.

"You see why I should naturally suspect him of having stolen the mantle," observed Giovanni. "A man who would betray your confidence in such a way would do anything."

"Yes, yes," answered the old master vaguely. "Yes—I must go and see him in prison. I was kind to him, and perhaps he may confess everything to me."

"We might ask Marietta when she first missed her mantle," suggested Giovanni. "She must have noticed that it was gone."

"She will not remember," answered Beroviero. "Let us go to the Governor's house at once. There is just time before mid-day. We can speak to Marietta at dinner."

"But you must be tired, after your journey," objected Giovanni, with unusual concern for his father's comfort.

"No. I slept well on the ship. I have done nothing to tire me. The gondola may be still there. Tell Pasquale to call it over, and we will go directly. Go on! I will follow you."

Giovanni went forward, and Beroviero stayed a moment to look again at the beautiful objects of white glass,