Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  But here he was interrupted, for Zoë turned from him and buried her face in the leathern cushion. Her body shook a little, and Zeno thought she was crying. She had grown almost used to him, and had begun to feel that she might have some power over him; and she was ashamed to own that he attracted her, though she meant to hate him. But the idea that he had only bought her like a piece of goods, to pass her on to an unknown man far away, was more than she could bear at first. Moreover, though the idea of eating sickened her, she was really weakened by need of food, and she had undergone within twenty-four hours as much as her nature could bear without breaking down in some way.

  Zeno was distressed, and bent over her, rather awkwardly, anxious to soothe her. She turned her face to him suddenly, without warning, and he saw that her eyes were dry and her cheeks flushed.

  ‘Venice is a beautiful city,’ he said coaxingly. ‘You will be a great person in my friend’s house — he will give you — —’

  ‘When are you going to send me? To-morrow?’ The girl had mastered herself a little.

  ‘I have told you that I have not made up my mind about you,’ Zeno answered. ‘The money I gave the Bokharian was my own. I may keep you here after all.’

  Zoë detested him in that moment. She longed to insult him, to strike him, to drive him away. There was something so condescending in what he said. He would make up his mind about her! He might keep her after all! He had paid his own money for her! It was not possible that she could have thought him handsome, that she could have been even momentarily attracted by his face, his manner, or his voice.

  ‘I hate you!’ she cried, shutting her teeth tightly as she spoke.

  He was near her, and she drew back from him as far as she could against the cushions of the divan. He resumed his seat, for he saw how angry she was. He had purposely spoken as if she were really the slave she told him that she was, and against the natural instinct which bade him treat her as his equal.

  ‘Indeed,’ he said coldly, and he took a cracked walnut from the table and began to peel the kernel, ‘it is not easy to know what will please you. You seem horrified at the idea of going to Venice and furious at the thought of staying here! Of course, there is a third possibility. I would not send my friend a slave who would be so discontented as to poison him and his family, and I shall certainly not keep one in my house who hates me and may take it into her head to cut my throat in my sleep. The only thing that remains will be to sell you back to the Bokharian at a loss. Should you like that?’

  Zoë felt again that he was her master.

  ‘You made me think you would be kind to me!’ she said, and her voice quavered.

  Zeno laughed, for he had been too much annoyed to yield at once to her appeal.

  ‘That did not prevent you from saying that you hated me, a while ago,’ he answered. ‘You must not expect too much Christian virtue of me, for I am no saint. I never learned to love those that hate me!’

  She liked him better now; as he threw back his head a little, looking at her from under his half-closed lids, she glanced at his brown throat and she did not think of cutting it, as he had suggested. But she was angry with herself for passing through so many phases of like and dislike in so short a time, and for not feeling relief at the thought of being sent on a long journey, which certainly would mean safety while it lasted, and perhaps a chance of freedom. She wondered, too, why she no longer wished to die outright now that she had saved Kyría Agatha. Her answer to his last speech was humble.

  ‘You made me say it,’ she said. ‘I am sorry, sir.’

  ‘At least, I have learnt that you would rather stay here than go back to Rustan Karaboghazji and that gentle wife of his — his red-haired dove!’

  ‘Anything rather than that!’

  Her tone was earnest, for it was the fate she feared most, both for herself and because she fancied that the dealer would in some way claim his money from Kyría Agatha. Zeno was apparently satisfied with her answer, for he looked more kindly at her and was silent for a time. Again he allowed his eyes to be delighted with her beauty.

  ‘I will not send you back,’ he said at last; and he held out his hand towards her, as if he were giving a promise to an equal.

  She was grateful, but she thought that perhaps he was trying to make her betray her birth. No slave would take the master’s hand familiarly in her own; she knew the ways of slaves, for there had been many in her adopted father’s house, and she touched the tips of Zeno’s fingers with her own and pressed her lips to the back of her own hand when she withdrew it. The action disconcerted him a little, for it was performed perfectly, with all the deference of born servitude.

  ‘You were not long in Rustan’s house, were you?’ he asked, not seeming to be much interested in the answer, for he hoped to take her unawares.

  If she told the truth, which he knew, he would show surprise and press her with another question; if she answered with an untruth he should gain that much knowledge of her character for future use. Quick-witted, she did neither.

  ‘It pleased my lord to remind me a while ago that a slave’s oath is never to be believed,’ she said. ‘It is the law that a slave must be tortured when giving evidence, is it not?’

  ‘I believe it is,’ answered Zeno, with a smile. ‘But you are quite safe! I only ask you how long you were in Rustan’s house.’

  ‘One night and part of a day,’ Zoë answered after a moment.

  Zeno pretended surprise.

  ‘So short a time! Then he only bought you yesterday?’

  ‘Yesterday evening.’

  ‘And of whom? Will you tell me that?’

  Zoë reflected a moment and then smiled.

  ‘Yes. I will tell you that. He bought me of a lady of Constantinople, in whose closest intimacy I was brought up. She is just of my own age and we are much alike.’

  ‘I see,’ said Zeno, completely deceived, and speaking almost to himself. ‘Poor girl! The same father, I suppose — hence the — —’

  Zoë drooped her eyes and looked at the carpet.

  ‘Yes — since you have guessed it, sir. We had the same father, though we never knew him. He died of the plague when we were a few months old.’

  Zeno was perfectly satisfied with this logical explanation which entirely explained Zoë’s aristocratic beauty, her nobility of manner, and the delicate rearing that was so apparent in all her ways, as well as the fearlessness which had made her turn upon him and tell him that she hated him. The only point he could not understand, was that Zoë should have smiled. But he thought, as was quite possible, that there might have been jealousy and even hatred between the mistress and her slave-born sister, and he would not enquire too closely yet, since all was so clear to him. Such unnatural doings were not rare in a city half-filled with slaves. Zoë’s mistress had probably sold her in a fit of anger, or perhaps deliberately and with a cruel purpose, or even out of avarice, to buy a string of pearls.

  The girl did not offer to say more, but she looked away from her owner and seemed to be thinking of the past, as indeed she was, though it was so different from that which his imagination was inventing for her.

  He, on his side, peeled another walnut thoughtfully, and looked at her from time to time, sure that he knew the truth, and wondering what he ought to do, and above all what he really wished to do. He had believed her deeply wronged, and had paid a great sum to redress that wrong, almost without hesitating, because it was his nature to help any one in distress, and because he, who counted neither life nor limb when his cause was good, had never counted such stuff as gold in a like case.

  But now, it was all clear. She was a slave, in spite of all appearances. She had suffered no injustice; her smile had told him that the change in her life had not been to greater unhappiness. That she should fear to be sent back to Rustan was only natural; she, who had no doubt always lived delicately in the great house where she had been born, must have felt the sordidness and the degradation of the slave-prison, in spite of the s
pecial care she had received in consideration of her beauty and value. Very likely, too, she had not much real feeling, in spite of her behaviour; slave women rarely have.

  What should he do with her? He was passionate rather than material or pleasure-loving; he was consequently an optimist and an idealist where women were concerned, and was full of a vague belief in the romantic side of love. He could no more really love a slave-girl than he could have loved a hired maid, though she might be beautiful beyond comparison, for he was incapable of attaching himself to beauty alone. Only his equal could be his mate, and he never could care long or truly for any creature that was less. At twenty, the youth in him would have boiled up and over for a week, or a month; but he was verging on thirty, his thirty years that had been crammed with the deeds of many a daring man’s whole life-time, and his nature had hardened in a nobler mould than his early youth had promised. He would not make a plaything of any woman now; and since he would not, he wondered what he should do with Zoë, now that she was his.

  In this mood of uncertainty he rose to leave her, more or less resolved not to see her again until he had come to some conclusion as to her future; for in spite of all he still felt himself attracted to her, and the line of her cheek and throat when her face was half-turned away was of exquisite beauty. Standing beside her for a moment, he knew that if ever again in his life he stooped to take a woman for a toy, lovelessly, stupidly, contemptibly, the plaything would be this Arethusa whom he had bought of a scoundrelly Bokharian dealer.

  ‘Good-night,’ he said, looking down into her upturned eyes. ‘If you need anything, if you want anything, send for Omobono, and you shall have it. Good-night, Arethusa.’

  It was the first time he had called her by her name, as he knew it. He did not even hold out his hand. She looked up steadily.

  ‘What shall you do with me?’ she asked, very anxiously, surprised by his sudden leave-taking.

  She was so lovely then that he felt a despicable impulse to take her into his arms, just for her loveliness, and close her sad eyes with kisses. Instead, he shook his head and turned away.

  ‘I do not know,’ he said, half-aloud. He reached the door. ‘I do not know,’ he repeated, as if the problem were very hard to solve; and he went out, not turning back to look at her.

  Thus ended the first hour the slave spent with her master; and when he was gone she felt suddenly exhausted, as if she had fought with her hands; and strangely enough she knew all at once that she was weak from want of food, and that the thought of eating no longer disgusted her. Half-ashamed of herself, she glanced at the door through which Zeno had disappeared, as if she thought he might come back, and listened, as though expecting his footstep. Then, not seeing or hearing anything, she began to eat quickly, and almost ravenously, as if she were doing something to be a little ashamed of, and she hoped that the maids would not come in and see her.

  She was soon satisfied, for it had been a nervous craving rather than anything else, and every woman who reads these lines knows precisely how Zoë felt, or will know one of these days; for in all that belongs to the instinctive side of life, women are much more alike than men are; whereas, because they are not led, pushed, or dragged through one average course of teaching, as most men are, but are left to think and above all, to guess at truth for themselves, they are much more unlike in their way of looking at things. This also is the reason why many gifted men and a good many really learned ones would rather talk to women than to men; for among men they hear the same things everlastingly, but women always have something new to say, which is flattering, pleasant, amusing, or irritating — perhaps, as they choose. Women have also a sort of mock-humble, wholly appealing way of asking the great man how it is possible that he can really care to talk with a poor, ignorant, little woman, when he might be engaged in a memorable conversation with the other great man, who is talking to the other poor, ignorant little woman with lovely eyes, on the other side of the room. In this way we learn that life is full of contradictions.

  Zoë slept ten hours without dreaming, and awoke refreshed and rested, to wonder presently why her mood had changed so much. But Zeno was restless in the night, and dissatisfied with himself and with what he had done; when he lay awake he found fault with his impulsive action, but when he fell asleep for half-an-hour Zoë haunted his dreams. More than once he got up and walked barefoot on the marble mosaic pavement of his room, and he threw open the shutters and looked out. The night was calm and clear, and the air was almost wintry. To the left of Pera’s towering outline the northern constellations shone bright and cold. Each time he looked he wondered at the slow motion of the Bear; the seven stars hung above the Pole, for it was springtime, and they hardly seemed to have moved a handbreadth to their westward sinking in a whole hour, when he looked again. When morning came his face was a little paler than usual, and he felt that he was in a bad humour.

  Omobono only guessed it from a certain increase of his natural reserve, but that was enough for the experienced secretary, who was wonderfully careful not to speak unless Zeno spoke to him, and, above all, not to mention the existence of the women’s apartment upstairs. On the other hand, although it was a Sunday, he had expected to be sent by his master to draw the money from the house of Cornèr, according to Pesaro’s letter, of which he had thoroughly mastered the contents. But the order was not given, and as Zeno was neither forgetful of details nor slack in matters of business, Omobono began to wonder what had happened.

  On Monday Zeno’s mood had not changed, nor did he send for the money, and the secretary’s curiosity grew mightily; on Tuesday it became almost unbearable. So far as he knew, and he knew most things that went on in the house, Zeno had only once gone upstairs, when he had supped with Zoë on Saturday evening, and had remained barely an hour. Since then he had not even asked after the slave, and no one had seen her except the two little maids, who came out upon the landing to receive the meals at regular hours, but never spoke to the men-servants. The secretary could have asked to see Zoë, to enquire if she needed anything, and she would certainly have received him; but he was afraid to do so without orders, and Zeno gave none, and might come in at the very moment when Omobono was there. The industrious secretary had fits of abstraction over his letters and accounts, and stared out of the window, stroking his neatly-trimmed grey beard very thoughtfully.

  On Wednesday, a little before noon, Zoë was sitting in her window, and she again saw Zeno go down the steps to the water and get into his skiff. It was always there now, even at dawn, for since there had been women in the house Zeno had been rowed to another place for his morning plunge in the Golden Horn. To-day he was dressed with particular care, Zoë thought, as she caught sight of him, and she did not draw back from the window, as she had done the first time, but stayed where she was, and she wished in her heart that he would look up and see her. He did not even turn as he stepped into the boat, and she thought he held his head lower than when she had last seen him, and looked down, and raised his shoulders a little like a person determined not to look to the right or the left. Then the two men pulled the skiff away upstream, and she watched it till she could no longer distinguish it from many others that moved about on the water in the direction of the palace. She wondered where he went.

  He had not been gone ten minutes when a man came to the gate of the fore-court on the other side of the house, and asked to see the secretary. He was simply dressed in a clean brown woollen tunic, that hung almost to the ground. It had wide sleeves, and they hid his joined hands as he stood waiting, in the attitude monks often take before a superior, or when reciting prayers before meals. But the man was not a monk, for he wore a broad belt of dark red leather, in which he carried a sheathed knife, a Syrian ink-horn, and a small cylindrical case of hammered brass, which held his reed pens. On his head he wore a tall felt cap, such as dervishes now wear.

  The slave at the door looked at him attentively before admitting him. There was something unusual in his expression, though his fe
atures were not very marked, and he had the rather pasty complexion that is so common in the East. His eyes were perhaps a little longer and more almond-shaped than those of the average Greek or Bokharian, and he kept them half-closed. His scanty black beard had a few grey hairs in it. His nostrils curved sharply, but the nose was neither very large nor markedly aquiline. A commonplace face enough in Constantinople; but there was something oddly fixed in its expression, that made the slave feel uncomfortable and yet submissive. Many persons of all conditions came to the merchant’s house on business during the day, and it was the rule to send them to Omobono. The slave’s business was to keep out thieves, beggars, and suspicious characters; he stood aside, admitted the visitor to the court which separated the house from the street, and shut the gate again.

  One of the free house-servants, of whom two or three were always waiting, came forward — a square-shouldered Venetian named Vito, who had been a sailor and had followed Zeno for years. He enquired the stranger’s name and business.

  ‘I am Gorlias Pietrogliant,’ was the answer. ‘My business with the secretary is private.’

  The serving-man disappeared, and returned a moment later to conduct the visitor to the private room of the counting-house on the ground floor, where Omobono sat behind a high desk covered with papers and slips of parchment.

  Omobono straightened himself on his stool and eyed the newcomer with a look of enquiry, at the same time drawing from his right arm the half sleeve of grey cotton which he always put on when he was going to write long, lest a spot of ink should stain the soft linen wrist-band which just showed below the tight cuff of his coat. He was a careful man. He looked at his visitor keenly, till he suddenly became aware that his scrutiny was returned with a rather disquieting fixedness.