Early Short Stories Vol. 2 Page 7

  “Sir,” said Tony, “if that is the extent of my offence, it lies with the young lady to set me free, since by her own avowal—” but here he stopped short, for, to his surprise, Polixena shot a terrified glance at him.

  “Sir,” interposed the Count, “we are not accustomed in Venice to take shelter behind a lady’s reputation.”

  “No more are we in Salem,” retorted Tony in a white heat. “I was merely about to remark that, by the young lady’s avowal, she has never seen me before.”

  Polixena’s eyes signalled her gratitude, and he felt he would have died to defend her.

  The Count translated his statement, and presently pursued: “His Illustriousness observes that, in that case, his daughter’s misconduct has been all the more reprehensible.”

  “Her misconduct? Of what does he accuse her?”

  “Of sending you, just now, in the church of Saint Mark’s, a letter which you were seen to read openly and thrust in your bosom. The incident was witnessed by his Illustriousness the Marquess Zanipolo, who, in consequence, has already repudiated his unhappy bride.”

  Tony stared contemptuously at the black Marquess. “If his Illustriousness is so lacking in gallantry as to repudiate a lady on so trivial a pretext, it is he and not I who should be the object of her father’s resentment.”

  “That, my dear young gentleman, is hardly for you to decide. Your only excuse being your ignorance of our customs, it is scarcely for you to advise us how to behave in matters of punctilio.”

  It seemed to Tony as though the Count were going over to his enemies, and the thought sharpened his retort.

  “I had supposed,” said he, “that men of sense had much the same behaviour in all countries, and that, here as elsewhere, a gentleman would be taken at his word. I solemnly affirm that the letter I was seen to read reflects in no way on the honour of this young lady, and has in fact nothing to do with what you suppose.”

  As he had himself no notion what the letter was about, this was as far as he dared commit himself.

  There was another brief consultation in the opposing camp, and the Count then said:—“We all know, sir, that a gentleman is obliged to meet certain enquiries by a denial; but you have at your command the means of immediately clearing the lady. Will you show the letter to her father?”

  There was a perceptible pause, during which Tony, while appearing to look straight before him, managed to deflect an interrogatory glance toward Polixena. Her reply was a faint negative motion, accompanied by unmistakable signs of apprehension.

  “Poor girl!” he thought, “she is in a worse case than I imagined, and whatever happens I must keep her secret.”

  He turned to the Senator with a deep bow. “I am not,” said he, “in the habit of showing my private correspondence to strangers.”

  The Count interpreted these words, and Donna Polixena’s father, dashing his hand on his hilt, broke into furious invective, while the Marquess continued to nurse his outraged feelings aloof.

  The Count shook his head funereally. “Alas, sir, it is as I feared. This is not the first time that youth and propinquity have led to fatal imprudence. But I need hardly, I suppose, point out the obligation incumbent upon you as a man of honour.”

  Tony stared at him haughtily, with a look which was meant for the Marquess. “And what obligation is that?”

  “To repair the wrong you have done—in other words, to marry the lady.”

  Polixena at this burst into tears, and Tony said to himself: “Why in heaven does she not bid me show the letter?” Then he remembered that it had no superscription, and that the words it contained, supposing them to have been addressed to himself, were hardly of a nature to disarm suspicion. The sense of the girl’s grave plight effaced all thought of his own risk, but the Count’s last words struck him as so preposterous that he could not repress a smile.

  “I cannot flatter myself,” said he, “that the lady would welcome this solution.”

  The Count’s manner became increasingly ceremonious. “Such modesty,” he said, “becomes your youth and inexperience; but even if it were justified it would scarcely alter the case, as it is always assumed in this country that a young lady wishes to marry the man whom her father has selected.”

  “But I understood just now,” Tony interposed, “that the gentleman yonder was in that enviable position.”

  “So he was, till circumstances obliged him to waive the privilege in your favour.”

  “He does me too much honour; but if a deep sense of my unworthiness obliges me to decline—”

  “You are still,” interrupted the Count, “labouring under a misapprehension. Your choice in the matter is no more to be consulted than the lady’s. Not to put too fine a point on it, it is necessary that you should marry her within the hour.”

  Tony, at this, for all his spirit, felt the blood run thin in his veins. He looked in silence at the threatening visages between himself and the door, stole a side-glance at the high barred windows of the apartment, and then turned to Polixena, who had fallen sobbing at her father’s feet.

  “And if I refuse?” said he.

  The Count made a significant gesture. “I am not so foolish as to threaten a man of your mettle. But perhaps you are unaware what the consequences would be to the lady.”

  Polixena, at this, struggling to her feet, addressed a few impassioned words to the Count and her father; but the latter put her aside with an obdurate gesture.

  The Count turned to Tony. “The lady herself pleads for you—at what cost you do not guess—but as you see it is vain. In an hour his Illustriousness’s chaplain will be here. Meanwhile his Illustriousness consents to leave you in the custody of your betrothed.”

  He stepped back, and the other gentlemen, bowing with deep ceremony to Tony, stalked out one by one from the room. Tony heard the key turn in the lock, and found himself alone with Polixena.

  III

  The girl had sunk into a chair, her face hidden, a picture of shame and agony. So moving was the sight that Tony once again forgot his own extremity in the view of her distress. He went and kneeled beside her, drawing her hands from her face.

  “Oh, don’t make me look at you!” she sobbed; but it was on his bosom that she hid from his gaze. He held her there a breathing-space, as he might have clasped a weeping child; then she drew back and put him gently from her.

  “What humiliation!” she lamented.

  “Do you think I blame you for what has happened?”

  “Alas, was it not my foolish letter that brought you to this plight? And how nobly you defended me! How generous it was of you not to show the letter! If my father knew I had written to the Ambassador to save me from this dreadful marriage his anger against me would be even greater.”

  “Ah—it was that you wrote for?” cried Tony with unaccountable relief.

  “Of course—what else did you think?”

  “But is it too late for the Ambassador to save you?”

  “From YOU?” A smile flashed through her tears. “Alas, yes.” She drew back and hid her face again, as though overcome by a fresh wave of shame.

  Tony glanced about him. “If I could wrench a bar out of that window—” he muttered.

  “Impossible! The court is guarded. You are a prisoner, alas.—Oh, I must speak!” She sprang up and paced the room. “But indeed you can scarce think worse of me than you do already—”

  “I think ill of you?”

  “Alas, you must! To be unwilling to marry the man my father has chosen for me—”

  “Such a beetle-browed lout! It would be a burning shame if you married him.”

  “Ah, you come from a free country. Here a girl is allowed no choice.”

  “It is infamous, I say—infamous!”

  “No, no—I ought to have resigned myself, like so many others.”

  “Resigned yourself to that brute! Impossible!”

  “He has a dreadful name for violence—his gondolier has told my little maid such tales of him
! But why do I talk of myself, when it is of you I should be thinking?”

  “Of me, poor child?” cried Tony, losing his head.

  “Yes, and how to save you—for I CAN save you! But every moment counts—and yet what I have to say is so dreadful.”

  “Nothing from your lips could seem dreadful.”

  “Ah, if he had had your way of speaking!”

  “Well, now at least you are free of him,” said Tony, a little wildly; but at this she stood up and bent a grave look on him.

  “No, I am not free,” she said; “but you are, if you will do as I tell you.”

  Tony, at this, felt a sudden dizziness; as though, from a mad flight through clouds and darkness, he had dropped to safety again, and the fall had stunned him.

  “What am I to do?” he said.

  “Look away from me, or I can never tell you.”

  He thought at first that this was a jest, but her eyes commanded him, and reluctantly he walked away and leaned in the embrasure of the window. She stood in the middle of the room, and as soon as his back was turned she began to speak in a quick monotonous voice, as though she were reciting a lesson.

  “You must know that the Marquess Zanipolo, though a great noble, is not a rich man. True, he has large estates, but he is a desperate spendthrift and gambler, and would sell his soul for a round sum of ready money.—If you turn round I shall not go on!—He wrangled horribly with my father over my dowry—he wanted me to have more than either of my sisters, though one married a Procurator and the other a grandee of Spain. But my father is a gambler too—oh, such fortunes as are squandered over the arcade yonder! And so—and so—don’t turn, I implore you—oh, do you begin to see my meaning?”

  She broke off sobbing, and it took all his strength to keep his eyes from her.

  “Go on,” he said.

  “Will you not understand? Oh, I would say anything to save you! You don’t know us Venetians—we’re all to be bought for a price. It is not only the brides who are marketable—sometimes the husbands sell themselves too. And they think you rich—my father does, and the others—I don’t know why, unless you have shown your money too freely—and the English are all rich, are they not? And—oh, oh—do you understand? Oh, I can’t bear your eyes!”

  She dropped into a chair, her head on her arms, and Tony in a flash was at her side.

  “My poor child, my poor Polixena!” he cried, and wept and clasped her.

  “You ARE rich, are you not? You would promise them a ransom?” she persisted.

  “To enable you to marry the Marquess?”

  “To enable you to escape from this place. Oh, I hope I may never see your face again.” She fell to weeping once more, and he drew away and paced the floor in a fever.

  Presently she sprang up with a fresh air of resolution, and pointed to a clock against the wall. “The hour is nearly over. It is quite true that my father is gone to fetch his chaplain. Oh, I implore you, be warned by me! There is no other way of escape.”

  “And if I do as you say—?”

  “You are safe! You are free! I stake my life on it.”

  “And you—you are married to that villain?”

  “But I shall have saved you. Tell me your name, that I may say it to myself when I am alone.”

  “My name is Anthony. But you must not marry that fellow.”

  “You forgive me, Anthony? You don’t think too badly of me?”

  “I say you must not marry that fellow.”

  She laid a trembling hand on his arm. “Time presses,” she adjured him, “and I warn you there is no other way.”

  For a moment he had a vision of his mother, sitting very upright, on a Sunday evening, reading Dr. Tillotson’s sermons in the best parlour at Salem; then he swung round on the girl and caught both her hands in his. “Yes, there is,” he cried, “if you are willing. Polixena, let the priest come!”

  She shrank back from him, white and radiant. “Oh, hush, be silent!” she said.

  “I am no noble Marquess, and have no great estates,” he cried. “My father is a plain India merchant in the colony of Massachusetts—but if you—”

  “Oh, hush, I say! I don’t know what your long words mean. But I bless you, bless you, bless you on my knees!” And she knelt before him, and fell to kissing his hands.

  He drew her up to his breast and held her there.

  “You are willing, Polixena?” he said.

  “No, no!” She broke from him with outstretched hands. “I am not willing. You mistake me. I must marry the Marquess, I tell you!”

  “On my money?” he taunted her; and her burning blush rebuked him.

  “Yes, on your money,” she said sadly.

  “Why? Because, much as you hate him, you hate me still more?”

  She was silent.

  “If you hate me, why do you sacrifice yourself for me?” he persisted.

  “You torture me! And I tell you the hour is past.”

  “Let it pass. I’ll not accept your sacrifice. I will not lift a finger to help another man to marry you.”

  “Oh, madman, madman!” she murmured.

  Tony, with crossed arms, faced her squarely, and she leaned against the wall a few feet off from him. Her breast throbbed under its lace and falbalas, and her eyes swam with terror and entreaty.

  “Polixena, I love you!” he cried.

  A blush swept over her throat and bosom, bathing her in light to the verge of her troubled brows.

  “I love you! I love you!” he repeated.

  And now she was on his breast again, and all their youth was in their lips. But her embrace was as fleeting as a bird’s poise and before he knew it he clasped empty air, and half the room was between them.

  She was holding up a little coral charm and laughing. “I took it from your fob,” she said. “It is of no value, is it? And I shall not get any of the money, you know.”

  She continued to laugh strangely, and the rouge burned like fire in her ashen face.

  “What are you talking of?” he said.

  “They never give me anything but the clothes I wear. And I shall never see you again, Anthony!” She gave him a dreadful look. “Oh, my poor boy, my poor love—‘I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, POLIXENA!’”

  He thought she had turned light-headed, and advanced to her with soothing words; but she held him quietly at arm’s length, and as he gazed he read the truth in her face.

  He fell back from her, and a sob broke from him as he bowed his head on his hands.

  “Only, for God’s sake, have the money ready, or there may be foul play here,” she said.

  As she spoke there was a great tramping of steps outside and a burst of voices on the threshold.

  “It is all a lie,” she gasped out, “about my marriage, and the Marquess, and the Ambassador, and the Senator—but not, oh, not about your danger in this place—or about my love,” she breathed to him. And as the key rattled in the door she laid her lips on his brow.

  The key rattled, and the door swung open—but the black-cassocked gentleman who stepped in, though a priest indeed, was no votary of idolatrous rites, but that sound orthodox divine, the Reverend Ozias Mounce, looking very much perturbed at his surroundings, and very much on the alert for the Scarlet Woman. He was supported, to his evident relief, by the captain of the Hepzibah B., and the procession was closed by an escort of stern-looking fellows in cocked hats and small-swords, who led between them Tony’s late friends the magnificoes, now as sorry a looking company as the law ever landed in her net.

  The captain strode briskly into the room, uttering a grunt of satisfaction as he clapped eyes on Tony.

  “So, Mr. Bracknell,” said he, “you have been seeing the Carnival with this pack of mummers, have you? And this is where your pleasuring has landed you? H’m—a pretty establishment, and a pretty lady at the head of it.” He glanced about the apartment and doffed his hat with mock ceremony to Polixena, who faced him like a princess.

  “Why, my girl,” said he, amic
ably, “I think I saw you this morning in the square, on the arm of the Pantaloon yonder; and as for that Captain Spavent—” and he pointed a derisive finger at the Marquess—“I’ve watched him drive his bully’s trade under the arcade ever since I first dropped anchor in these waters. Well, well,” he continued, his indignation subsiding, “all’s fair in Carnival, I suppose, but this gentleman here is under sailing orders, and I fear we must break up your little party.”

  At this Tony saw Count Rialto step forward, looking very small and explanatory, and uncovering obsequiously to the captain.

  “I can assure you, sir,” said the Count in his best English, “that this incident is the result of an unfortunate misunderstanding, and if you will oblige us by dismissing these myrmidons, any of my friends here will be happy to offer satisfaction to Mr. Bracknell and his companions.”

  Mr. Mounce shrank visibly at this, and the captain burst into a loud guffaw.

  “Satisfaction?” says he. “Why, my cock, that’s very handsome of you, considering the rope’s at your throats. But we’ll not take advantage of your generosity, for I fear Mr. Bracknell has already trespassed on it too long. You pack of galley-slaves, you!” he spluttered suddenly, “decoying young innocents with that devil’s bait of yours—” His eye fell on Polixena, and his voice softened unaccountably. “Ah, well, we must all see the Carnival once, I suppose,” he said. “All’s well that ends well, as the fellow says in the play; and now, if you please, Mr. Bracknell, if you’ll take the reverend gentleman’s arm there, we’ll bid adieu to our hospitable entertainers, and right about face for the Hepzibah.”

  The End of A Venetian Night’s Entertainment

  XINGU

  December, 1911

  Mrs. Ballinger is one of the ladies who pursue Culture in bands, as though it were dangerous to meet alone. To this end she had founded the Lunch Club, an association composed of herself and several other indomitable huntresses of erudition. The Lunch Club, after three or four winters of lunching and debate, had acquired such local distinction that the entertainment of distinguished strangers became one of its accepted functions; in recognition of which it duly extended to the celebrated “Osric Dane,” on the day of her arrival in Hillbridge, an invitation to be present at the next meeting.