Arethusa Part 31

'What does her daughter wear?' asked Zoe.

'A dark purple cloak, with a broad silver tr.i.m.m.i.n.g.'

'How hideous!' exclaimed Zoe, for no particular reason.

'The secretary bows to the ground,' Lucilla said. 'He is saying something.'

She stopped speaking, and all three listened. Zoe could hear Omobono's voice quite distinctly.

'By a most unfortunate circ.u.mstance,' he was saying, 'Messer Carlo Zeno was obliged to go out on very urgent business, and has not yet returned. I am his secretary and major-duomo, as your lords.h.i.+p may deign to remember. In my master's absence I have the honour to welcome his guests, and to wait upon them.'

Sebastian Polo said something in answer to this fine speech; but in a low tone, and Zoe could not hear the words. Then a peculiarly disagreeable woman's voice asked a question. Zoe thought it sounded like something between the croaking of many frogs and the clucking of an old hen. 'We hope you will give us our dinner, whatever happens,'

said the lady, who seemed to be of a practical turn of mind.

'Is that the girl's voice?' asked Zoe of Lucilla, in a whisper.

The maid shook her head.

'The mother,' she answered. 'Now they are going in. I cannot hear what Omobono says, for he is leading the way. They are all gone.'

Zoe did not care who else came, and now that the moment was over she was much less disturbed by the fact that Giustina was under the same roof with her than she had expected to be. She did not believe that Zeno had ever kissed Giustina, and he had certainly never stepped on her.

She let her maids do what they would with her now, hardly noticing the skill they showed in helping her to move, and in smoothing away the pain she felt, as only the people of the East know how to do it. As she did not speak to them they dared not ask her questions about the master's absence. They had left him with her when they had been sent away; they had slept till morning; when they awoke they had found Zoe lying on the divan asleep in her clothes, and the master had gone out of the house unseen and had not returned. That was as far as their knowledge went; but they were sure that she knew everything, and they hoped that if they pleased her even more than usual she would let fall some words of explanation, as mistresses sometimes do when their servants are particularly satisfactory. Most young women, when they are in a good humour, let their maids know what they have been doing; and as soon as they are cross the maids revenge themselves by telling the other servants everything. In this way the balance of power is maintained between the employer and the employed, like the hydrostatic equilibrium in the human body, which cannot be destroyed without bringing on a syncope.

But though Zoe felt very much less pain after Yulia and Lucilla had bathed her and rubbed her, and had gently pulled at all her joints till she felt supple and light again, she said nothing about Zeno; and though they dressed her so skilfully that she could not help smiling with pleasure when they showed her to herself in the large mirror they held up between them, yet she only thanked them kindly, and gave them each two spoonfuls of roseleaf preserve, which represented to them an almost heavenly delight, as she well knew, and which she herself did not at all despise. That was all, however; and they were a little disappointed, because she did not condescend to talk to them about the master's disappearance, which was the greatest event that had happened since they had all three lived under Zeno's roof.

Meanwhile Omobono was playing his part of major-duomo downstairs, and had installed the guests at the table set for them in the large hall looking over the Golden Horn. After Polo and his wife, another Venetian merchant had arrived, the rich old banker Marin Corner, long established in Constantinople, and a friend of Sebastian Polo. The fifth person invited did not appear, so that two seats were vacant, the sixth being Zeno's own; and behind his high carved chair Omobono installed himself, to direct the servants, quite an imposing figure in his dark purple tunic and the handsome silver chain, which he had put on to-day to indicate his high office in the establishment. Poor Omobono! He little dreamt of what was in store for him that day.

The three older guests were moderately sorry that Zeno was not present. In their several ways they were all a little afraid of their eccentric countryman, about whom the most wild tales were told. Though in truth he was extremely punctual in meeting his financial engagements, both Sebastian Polo and Marin Corner had always felt a little nervous about doing business with a young man who was known to have kept an army at bay for a whole winter, who was reported to have slain at least a hundred Turks with his own hand, and whose brown eyes gleamed like a tiger's at the mere mention of a fight. It would be so extremely awkward if, instead of meeting a bill that fell due, he should appear at Corner's bank armed to the teeth and demand the contents of the strong box. On the whole the two elderly merchants ate with a better appet.i.te in his absence.

But Giustina was inconsolable, and the good things did not appeal to her, neither the fresh sturgeon's roe from the Black Sea, nor the n.o.ble palamit, nor the delicate quails, nor even the roasted peac.o.c.k, whose magnificent tail rose out of a vast silver dish like a rainbow with spots on it.

She was a big, sleepy creature with quant.i.ties of handsomely dyed hair, as Lucilla had told Zoe. She had large and regular features, a perfectly colourless white skin, and a discontented mouth. She often turned her eyes to see what was going on, without turning her head at all, as if she were too lazy to make even that small effort. Her hands were well shaped, but heavy in the fingers, and they looked like new marble, too white to be interesting, too cold to touch.

She was terribly disappointed and deeply offended by what seemed to her a deliberate insult; for she did not believe a word of Omobono's polite apology. The truth was that Zeno had only invited the party because her mother had invited herself in the hope of bringing him to the point of offering to marry Giustina. As a matter of fact nothing had ever been farther from his thoughts. Sebastian Polo, urged by his wife, had entered into the closest relations of business with Zeno, and had again and again given him a share in transactions that had been extraordinarily profitable. He had rendered it necessary for Zeno to see him often, and had made it easy by his constant hospitality; in these things lay the whole secret of Zeno's visits to his house. But seeing that matters did not take a matrimonial direction as quickly as she had expected, Polo's wife had adopted a course which she intended to make decisive; she had asked herself and her daughter to dine with Zeno. From this to hinting that he had compromised Giustina, and thence to extracting an offer of marriage, would be easy steps, familiar to every enterprising mother, since the beginning of the matrimonial ages. And that was a long time ago--even before Solomon's day, when the horseleech's two daughters cried, 'Give, give!' Zeno's value as a possible husband lay less in his fortune than in his very magnificent connections at home, and in the fact that the Emperor Charles had been his G.o.dfather and afterwards his friend and patron.

Giustina understood her thoughtful parent's policy; she was therefore unhappy, and would eat no peac.o.c.k, a circ.u.mstance which greatly distressed Omobono. Happily for him, the young woman's abstention was fully compensated by the readiness of the elder guests to partake of what she obstinately refused, even to something like repletion.

While they ate, they talked; that is to say, Sebastian Polo and Marin Corner compared opinions on business matters such as the value of Persian silks, Greek wines, and white slaves, without giving away to each other the least thread of information that could be turned into money. And Polo's wife, who had an eye to the main chance, croaked a few words now and then, encouraging Corner to talk more freely of his affairs; perhaps, thought she, he might betray the secret of his wonderful success in obtaining from the Caucasus certain priceless furs which no merchant but he had ever been able to get. But though the fat dame lured him on to talk and made signs to have his gla.s.s filled again and again with Chian wine, and though the colours of a most beautiful sunset began to creep up his thin nose and his high cheek bones, as the rich evening light climbs in the western sky, Marin Corner's speech was as quiet and clear as ever, and what he said was, if anything, a trifle more cautious than before.

And meanwhile Giustina stared across her empty plate at the boats on the Golden Horn, and nursed her wrath against the man she wished to marry.

'My child,' croaked her mother, 'we fully understand your disappointment. But you should make an effort to be cheerful, if only for the sake of Messer Marin Corner, your father's valued friend.'

'I beg you to excuse my dulness, Madam,' answered the daughter dutifully, and with all the ceremony that children were taught to use in addressing their parents. 'I shall endeavour to obey you.'

'Come, come, Donna Giustina!' cried Corner. 'We will drink your health and happiness in this good----'

The sentence remained unfinished, and his lips did not close; as he set down the untasted wine, his eyes fixed themselves on a point between Omobono and Polo, and the sunset effects faded from his nose, leaving a grey twilight behind.

The fat dame thought it was an apoplexy, and half rose from her seat; but Giustina's eyes followed the direction of his look and she uttered a cry of real fear. Sebastian Polo, who sat with his back to the sight that terrified his daughter, gazed at the other three in astonishment.

But Omobono turned half round and gasped, and seized the back of Zeno's empty chair, swinging it round on one of its legs till it was between him and the vision.

Tocktamish stood there, grinning at the a.s.sembled company in a way to terrify the stoutest heart amongst them. He was magnificently arrayed in his full dress uniform of flaming yellow and gold, and his huge round fur papakh was set well back on his s.h.a.ggy head. His right hand toyed amidst a perfect a.r.s.enal of weapons in his belt, and his blood-shot eyes rolled frightfully as he looked from one guest to the other, showing his shark's teeth as he grinned and grinned again.

It was certainly Tocktamish, the Tartar; and Tocktamish was not perfectly sober. He was the more pleased by the impression his appearance had produced. He at once came forward to the empty place of the absent guest, which was next to Giustina's.

'I see that you have kept a place for me,' he said in barbarous Greek.

'That was very kind of you! And I am in time for the peac.o.c.k, too!'

Thereupon he sat down in the chair, looked round the table, and grinned again.

The fat lady collapsed in a fainting fit, the two elderly merchants edged away from the board as far as they could, and Giustina uttered another piercing shriek when the Tartar leered at her.

'Who is this person?' her father tried to ask with dignity, meaning the question for Omobono.

But Omobono had vanished, and the servants had fled after him.

CHAPTER XV

Tocktamish poured half a flagon of Chian wine into a tall Venetian beaker and drank it off by way of whetting his appet.i.te.

'The master of the house is unavoidably absent,' he observed, when he had smacked his lips noisily. 'He has sent me to beg that you will excuse him and make yourselves at home.'

By this time Dame Polo was beginning to revive, and the two men were somewhat rea.s.sured as to the Tartar's intentions. When he had entered he had looked as if he meant to murder them all, but it was now evident from his manner that he wished to produce a pleasant impression. He drew the peac.o.c.k towards him, and at once took all the best pieces that were left on the dish, using his fingers to save trouble. Giustina watched him without turning her head, and judged that, after all, he had only meant to show his admiration for her beauty when he had leered so horribly. She was in reality the least timid of all the party, though she had shrieked so loudly, and she remembered a fairy story about a frightful monster that had loved a beautiful princess. She was already pondering on the means of making a similar conquest.

'Are we to understand,' asked Marin Corner, politely, but in a shaky tone, 'that you come from Messer Carlo Zeno?'

Tocktamish grunted a.s.sent, for his mouth was full, and he nodded emphatically.

'Messer Carlo Zeno is in need of a large sum of money without delay,'

he said, when he was able to speak again.

Sebastian Polo looked at Marin Corner significantly; and Marin Corner looked at Sebastian Polo. The fat lady p.r.i.c.ked her ears, figuratively speaking, for indeed they were much too deeply embedded in their exuberant surroundings of cheek and jowl to suggest that they could ever p.r.i.c.k at all. The Tartar crammed his mouth full again, and his great beard wagged with his jaws in the inevitable silence that followed. In her heart Giustina compared him to a ravenous lion, but her father thought he resembled a hungry hyena.

Finding that his throat was not cut yet, and learning that there was to be a question of money, Marin Corner felt that the colour was returning to his nose and the warmth to his heart.

'Why does Messer Carlo not come home himself and get the money he needs?' he asked.

By this time Omobono had recovered from his fright enough to creep into the room behind Tocktamish. He was already making anxious gestures to the two Venetian gentlemen to enjoin caution. The Tartar drank again before he answered the question.

'He happened to be so busy that he preferred to send me to get the money for him,' said the soldier. 'You see we are old friends. We fought together in Greece.'

Then Omobono's voice was heard, quavering with anxiety.