“Are we to come as usual to-night, sir, or will there be no fire?” he asked.
“Go and ask at the usual time. I have not decided yet. There — you are a good boy. If you hold your tongue there will be more.”
Giovanni offered the lad a piece of money, but he would not take it.
“We are glass-blowers’ sons, sir, we are not poor people,” he said with theatrical pride, for he would have taken the coin without remark if he had not felt that he possessed a secret of great value, which might place Giovanni in his power before long.
Giovanni was surprised.
“What do you want, then?” he asked.
“I am old enough to be an apprentice, sir.”
“Very well,” answered Giovanni. “You shall be an apprentice. But hold your tongue about what you saw. You told me everything, did you?”
“Yes, sir. And I thank you for your kindness, sir. If I can help you, sir—” he stopped.
“Help me!” exclaimed Giovanni. “I do not work at the furnaces! Wash your face and come by and by to my glass-house, and you shall have an apprentice’s place.”
“I shall serve you well, sir. You shall see that I am grateful,” answered the boy.
He touched Giovanni’s sleeve and kissed his own hand, and ran back to the steps before the front door. There he knelt down, leaning over the water, and washed his face in the canal, well pleased with the price he had got for his bruising.
Giovanni did not look at him, but turned to go on, past the corner of the house, in deep thought. From the narrow line into which the back door opened, Marietta and Nella emerged at the same moment. Nella had made sure that Giovanni had gone out, but she could not foresee that he would stop a long time to talk with the boy in the covered footway. She ran against him, as he passed the corner, for she was walking on Marietta’s left side. The young girl’s face was covered, but she knew that Giovanni must recognise her instantly, by her cloak, and because Nella was with her.
“Where are you going?” he asked sharply.
“To church, sir, to church,” answered Nella in great perturbation. “The young lady is going to confession.”
“Ah, very good, very good!” exclaimed Giovanni, who was very attentive to religious forms. “By all means go to confession, my sister. You cannot be too conscientious in the performance of your duties.”
But Marietta laughed a little under her veil.
“I had not the least intention of going to confession this morning,” she said. “Nella said so because you frightened her.”
“What? What is this?” Giovanni looked from one to the other. “Then where are you going?”
“To the glass-house,” answered Marietta with perfect coolness.
“You are not going to the laboratory? Zorzi is living there alone. You cannot go there.”
“I am not afraid of Zorzi. In the first place, I wish to know how he is. Secondly, this is the hour for making the tests, and as he cannot stand he cannot try the glass alone.”
Giovanni was amazed at her assurance, and immediately assumed a grave and authoritative manner befitting the eldest brother who represented the head of the house.
“I cannot allow you to go,” he said. “It is most unbecoming. Our father would be shocked. Go back at once, and never think of going to the laboratory while Zorzi is there. Do you hear?”
“Yes. Come, Nella,” she added, taking her serving-woman by the arm.
Before Giovanni realised what she was going to do, she was walking quickly across the wooden bridge towards the glass-house, holding Nella’s sleeve, to keep her from lagging, and Nella trotted beside her mistress like a frightened lamb, led by a string. Giovanni did not attempt to follow at first, for he was utterly nonplussed by his sister’s behaviour. He rarely knew what to do when any one openly defied him. He stood still, staring after the two, and saw Marietta tap upon the door of the glass-house. It opened almost immediately and they disappeared within.
As soon as they were out of sight, his anger broke out, and he made a few quick steps on the bridge. Then he stopped, for he was afraid to make a scandal. That at least was what he said to himself, but the fact was that he was afraid to face his sister, who was infinitely braver and cooler than he. Besides, he reflected that he could not now prevent her from going to the laboratory, since she was already there, and that it would be very undignified to make a scene before Zorzi, who was only a servant after all. This last consideration consoled him greatly. In the eyes of the law, and therefore in Giovanni’s, Zorzi was a hired servant. Now, socially speaking, a servant was not a man; and since Zorzi was not a man, and Marietta was therefore gone with one servant to a place, belonging to her father, where there was another servant, to go thither and forcibly bring her back would either be absurd, or else it would mean that Zorzi had acquired a new social rank, which was absurd also. There is no such consolation to a born coward as a logical reason for not doing what he is afraid to do.
But Giovanni promised himself that he would make his sister pay dearly for having defied him, and as he had also made up his mind to have Zorzi removed to the house, on pretence of curing his hurt, but in reality in order to search for the precious manuscripts, it would be impossible for Marietta to commit the same piece of folly a second time. But she should pay for the affront she had put upon him.
He accordingly came back to the footway and walked along toward his own glass-house; and the boy, who had finished washing his face, smoothed his hair with his wet fingers and followed him, having seen and understood all that had happened.
Marietta sent Pasquale on, to tell Zorzi that she was coming, and when she reached the laboratory he was sitting in the master’s big chair, with his foot on a stool before him. His face was pale and drawn from the suffering of the past twenty-four hours, and from time to time he was still in great pain. As Marietta entered, he looked up with a grateful smile.
“You seem glad to see us after all,” she said. “Yet you protested that I should not come to-day!”
“I cannot help it,” he answered.
“Ah, but if you had been with us just now!” Nella began, still frightened.
But Marietta would not let her go on.
“Hold your tongue, Nella,” she said, with a little laugh. “You should know better than to trouble a sick man’s fancy with such stories.”
Nella understood that Zorzi was not to know, and she began examining the foot, to make sure that the bandages had not been displaced during the night.
“To-morrow I will change them,” she said. “It is not like a scald. The glass has burned you like red-hot iron, and the wound will heal quickly.”
“If you will tell me which crucible to try,” said Marietta, “I will make the tests for you. Then we can move the table to your side and you can prepare the new ingredients according to the writing.”
Pasquale had left them, seeing that he was not wanted.
“I fear it is of little use,” answered Zorzi, despondently. “Of course, the master is very wise, but it seems to me that he has added so much, from time to time, to the original mixture, and so much has been taken away, as to make it all very uncertain.”
“I daresay,” assented Marietta. “For some time I have thought so. But we must carry out his wishes to the letter, else he will always believe that the experiments might have succeeded if he had stayed here.”
“Of course,” said Zorzi. “We should make tests of all three crucibles to-day, if it is only to make more room for the things that are to be put in.”
“Where is the copper ladle?” asked Marietta. “I do not see it in its place.”
“I have none — I had forgotten. Your brother came here yesterday morning, and wanted to try the glass himself in spite of me. I knocked the ladle out of his hand and it fell through into the crucible.”
“That was like you,” said Marietta. “I am glad you did it.”
“Heaven knows what has happened to the thing,” Zorzi answered. “It has been there since yesterday mor
ning. For all I know, it may have melted by this time. It may affect the glass, too.”
“Where can I get another?” asked Marietta, anxious to begin.
Zorzi made an instinctive motion to rise. It hurt him badly and he bit his lip.
“I forgot,” he said. “Pasquale can get another ladle from the main glass-house.”
“Go and call Pasquale, Nella,” said Marietta at once. “Ask him to get a copper ladle.”
Nella went out into the garden, leaving the two together. Marietta was standing between the chair and the furnace, two or three steps from Zorzi. It was very hot in the big room, for the window was still shut.
“Tell me how you really feel,” Marietta said, almost at once.
Every woman who loves a man and is anxious about him is sure that if she can be alone with him for a moment, he will tell her the truth about his condition. The experience of thousands of years has not taught women that if there is one person in the world from whom a man will try to conceal his ills and aches, it is the woman he loves, because he would rather suffer everything than give her pain.
“I feel perfectly well,” said Zorzi.
“Indeed you are not!” answered Marietta, energetically. “If you were perfectly well you would be on your feet, doing your work yourself. Why will you not tell me?”
“I mean, I have no pain,” said Zorzi.
“You had great pain just now, when you tried to move,” retorted Marietta. “You know it. Why do you try to deceive me? Do you think I cannot see it in your face?”
“It is nothing. It comes now and then, and goes away again almost at once.”
Marietta had come close to him while she was speaking. One hand hung by her side within his reach. He longed to take it, with such a longing as he had never felt for anything in his life; he resisted with all the strength he had left. But he remembered that he had held her hand in his yesterday, and the memory was a force in itself, outside of him, drawing him in spite of himself, lifting his arm when he commanded it to lie still. His eyes could not take themselves from the beautiful white fingers, so delicately curved as they hung down, so softly shaded to pale rose colour at their tapering tips. She stood quite still, looking down at his bent head.
“You would not refuse my friendship, now,” she said, in a low voice, so low that when she had spoken she doubted whether he could have understood.
He took her hand then, for he had no resistance left, and she let him take it, and did not blush. He held it in both his own and silently drew it to him, till he was pressing it to his heart as he had never hoped to do.
“You are too good to me,” he said, scarcely knowing that he pronounced the words.
Nella passed the window, coming back from her errand. Instantly Marietta drew her hand away, and when the serving-woman entered she was speaking to Zorzi in the most natural tone in the world.
“Is the testing plate quite clean?” she asked, and she was already beside it.
Zorzi looked at her with amazement. She had almost been seen with her hand in his, a catastrophe which he supposed would have entailed the most serious consequences; yet there she was, perfectly unconcerned and not even faintly blushing, and she had at once pretended that they had been talking about the glass.
“Yes — I believe it is clean,” he answered, almost hesitating. “I cleaned it yesterday morning.”
Nella had brought the copper ladle. There were always several in the glass-works for making tests. Marietta took it and went to the furnace, while Nella watched her, in great fear lest she should burn herself. But the young girl was in no danger, for she had spent half her life in the laboratory and the garden, watching her father. She wrapped the wet cloth round her hand and held the ladle by the end.
“We will begin with the one on the right,” she said, thrusting the instrument through the aperture.
Bringing it out with some glass in it, she supported it with both hands as she went quickly to the iron table, and she instantly poured out the stuff and began to watch it.
“It is just what you had the other day,” she said, as the glass rapidly cooled.
Zorzi was seated high enough to look over the table.
“Another failure,” he said. “It is always the same. We have scarcely had any variation in the tint in the last week.”
“That is not your fault,” answered Marietta. “We will try the next.”
As if she had been at the work all her life, she chilled the ladle and chipped off the small adhering bits of glass from it, and slipped the last test from the table, carrying it to the refuse jar with tongs. Once more she wrapped the damp cloth round her hand and went to the furnace. The middle crucible was to be tried next. Nella, looking on with nervous anxiety, was in a profuse perspiration.
“I believe that is the one into which the ladle fell,” said Zorzi. “Yes, I am quite sure of it.”
Marietta took the specimen and poured it out, set down the ladle on the brick work, and watched the cooling glass, expecting to see what she had often seen before. But her face changed, in a look of wonder and delight.
“Zorzi!” she exclaimed. “Look! Look! See what a colour!”
“I cannot see well,” he answered, straining his neck. “Wait a minute!” he cried, as Marietta took the tongs. “I see now! We have got it! I believe we have got it! Oh, if I could only walk!”
“Patience — you shall see it. It is almost cool. It is quite stiff now.”
She took the little flat cake up with the tongs, very carefully, and held it before his eyes. The light fell through it from the window, and her head was close to his, as they both looked at it together.
“I never dreamed of such a colour,” said Zorzi, his face flushing with excitement.
“There never was such a colour before,” answered Marietta. “It is like the juice of a ripe pomegranate that has just been cut, only there is more light in it.”
“It is like a great ruby — the rubies that the jewellers call ‘pigeon’s blood.’”
“My father always said it should be blood-red,” said Marietta. “But I thought he meant something different, something more scarlet.”
“I thought so, too. What they call pigeon’s blood is not the colour of blood at all. It is more like pomegranates, as you said at first. But this is a marvellous thing. The master will be pleased.”
Nella came and looked too, convinced that the glass had in some way turned out more beautiful by the magic of her mistress’s touch.
“It is a miracle!” cried the woman of the people. “Some saint must have made this.”
The glass glowed like a gem and seemed to give out light of its own. As Zorzi and Marietta looked, its rich glow spread over their faces. It was that rare glass which, from old cathedral windows, casts such a deep stain upon the pavement that one would believe the marble itself must be dyed with unchanging color.
“We have found it together,” said Marietta.
Zorzi looked from the glass to her face, close by his, and their eyes met for a moment in the strange glow and it was as if they knew each other in another world.
“Do not let the red light fall on your faces,” said Nella, crossing herself. “It is too much like blood — good health to you,” she added quickly for fear of evil.
Marietta lowered her hand and turned the piece of glass sideways, to see how it would look.
“What shall we do with it?” she asked. “It must not be left any longer in the crucible.”
“No. It ought to be taken out at once. Such a colour must be kept for church windows. If I were able to stand, I would make most of it into cylinders and cut them while hot. There are men who can do it, in the glass-house. But the master does not want them here.”
“We had better let the fires go out,” said Marietta. “It will cool in the crucible as it is.”
“I would give anything to have that crucible empty, or an empty one in the place,” answered Zorzi. “This is a great discovery, but it is not exactly what the maste
r expected. I have an idea of my own, which I should like to try.”
“Then we must empty the crucible. There is no other way. The glass will keep its colour, whatever shape we give it. Is there much of it?”
“There may be twenty or thirty pounds’ weight,” answered Zorzi. “No one can tell.”
Nell listened in mute surprise. She had never seen Marietta with old Beroviero, and she was amazed to hear her young mistress talking about the processes of glass-making, about crucibles and cylinders and ingredients as familiarly as of domestic things. She suddenly began to imagine that old Beroviero, who was probably a magician and an alchemist, had taught his daughter the same dangerous knowledge, and she felt a sort of awe before the two young people who knew such a vast deal which she herself could never know.
She asked herself what was to become of this wonderful girl, half woman and half enchantress, who brought the colour of the saints’ blood out of the white flames, and understood as much as men did of the art which was almost all made up of secrets. What would happen when she was the wife of Jacopo Contarini, shut up in a splendid Venetian palace where there were no glass furnaces to amuse her? At first she would grow pale, thought Nella, but by and by would weave spells in her chamber which would bring all Venice to her will, and turn it all to gold and precious stones and red glass, and the people to fairies subject to her will, her husband, the Council of Ten, even the Doge himself.
Nella roused herself, and passed her hand over her eyes, as if she were waking from a dream. And indeed she had been dreaming, for she had looked too long into the wonderful depths of the new colour, and it had dazed her wits.
CHAPTER XII
ON THAT DAY Marietta felt once more the full belief that Zorzi loved her; but the certainty did not fill her with happiness as on that first afternoon when she had seen him stoop to pick up the rose she had dropped. The time that had seemed so very distant had come indeed; instead of years, a week had scarcely passed, and it was not by letting a flower fall in his path that she had told him her love, as she had meant to do. She had done much more. She had let him take her hand and press it to his heart, and she would have left it there if Nella had not passed the window; she had wished him to take it, she had let it hang by her side in the hope that he would be bold enough to do so, and she had thrilled with delight at his touch; she had drawn back her hand when the woman came, and she had put on a look of innocent indifference that would have deceived one of the Council’s own spies. Could any language have been more plain?
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 994
