PROLOGUE.
The family in Palazzo Loredan, in the Grand Canal, Venice, had finished their midday breakfast, and coffee was brought in.
There was the Marchesa Loredan, a widow, her widowed only daughter with a little son and his tutor, and Don Claudio Loredan, the Marchesa’s second son. Her eldest son was married; and the youngest, Don Enrico, was a monsignore, and coadjutor of an old canon whom he was impatiently waiting to succeed.
The breakfast had not been a cheerful one. Don Claudio, usually the life of the family and its harmonizing element, had been silent and preoccupied; and Madama Loredan’s black brows had two deep lines between them,—sure signs of a storm.
She rose as the coffee was bought in.
“Carry a tête-à-tête down to the arbor,” she said to the servant; and to her son, “I wish to speak to you, Claudio.”
The tutor rose respectfully, making sly but intense signals to his pupil to do the same. But the boy, occupied in counting the cloves of a mandarin orange, did not choose to see them.
A long window of the dining-room opened on abalcony, and from the balcony a stair descended to the garden. This garden, a square the width of the house, would soon be a mass of bloom; but spring had hardly come as yet. The little arbor in the centre was covered with rosebuds, and the orange-trees were in blossom. There was a table in the arbor, with a chair at each side.
Madama literally swept across the dining-room; for she did not lift a fold of the trailing robe of glossy white linen bordered with black velvet that followed her imperious steps.
Don Claudio was familiar with the several indications of his mother’s moods, and he followed in silence, carefully avoiding the glistening wake of her progress. When she had seated herself in the arbor, he took the chair opposite her, half filled a little rose-colored cup with coffee, dropped a single cube of sugar into it, stirred it with a tiny spoon that had the Loredan shield at the end of its slender twisted stem, and gravely set the cup before her.
He had not once raised his eyes to her face.
She watched him with a scrutinizing gaze. He was evidently expecting a reprimand; yet there was neither anger nor confusion in his handsome face. It had not lost its preoccupied and even sorrowful expression. She sipped her coffee in silence, and waited till he had drunk his.
“You were at Ca’ Mora last evening and this morning,” she said abruptly, when he set his cup down.
“My master is dying!” he responded quietly.
Madama was for a moment disconcerted. The old professor with whom her son had for two years been studying oriental languages was a man of note among the learned. He had exercised a beneficial influence over the mind of Don Claudio; and for a while she had been glad that an enthusiasm for study should counteract the natural downward tendency of a life full of worldly prosperity and its attendant temptations. Only of late had she become aware of any danger in this intimacy.
“Dying!” she echoed. “I did not know that he was ill.” She hesitated a moment, then bitterness prevailed.
“Of course his granddaughter has need of consolation,” she added with a sneer.
“I have not seen her to-day,” Don Claudio said, controlling himself. Then, with a sudden outburst, “I would gladly console her!” he exclaimed, and looked at his mother defiantly.
His defiance of her was like the flash of a wax taper on steel. Madama leaned forward and raised a warning finger.
“You will leave her to be consoled by her equals,” she said. “And when her grandfather is dead, you will see her no more. Woe to her if you disobey me!”
The young man shrugged his shoulders to hide a tremor.
“Woe to her!” repeated his mother, marking the tremor.
Don Claudio remained silent.
“Has she succeeded in compromising you?” Madama asked.
The quick blood covered her son’s face.
“You might, at least, refrain from slandering her!” he exclaimed. Then his voice became supplicating. “Mamma, all that Tacita Mora lacks is rank. She has a fair portion; and she has been delicately reared and guarded. Her manners are exquisite. And there can be no undesirable connection, for she will be quite alone in the world.”
His mother made an impatient gesture, and was about to speak; but he held his hands out to her.
“Mamma, I love her so!” he exclaimed. “You do not know her. She is not one of those girls who give a man opportunities, and are always on the lookout for a lover. We have never spoken a word of love. We have only looked at each other. But I cannot lose her!”
He threw himself on his knees at his mother’s side, and burst into tears.
She drew his head to her shoulder, and kissed him.
“You have only looked at each other!” she repeated. “My poor boy! As if that were not enough! Claudio, we all have to go through with it, as with teething. It is a madness. The only safe way is to follow the counsel of those who have had experience. It is only the pang of a day. This kind of passion does not endure; but order does. This is a passing fever of the fancy and theblood. Be patient a little while, and it will cure itself. Do not allow it to compromise your future. You will be glad of having listened to me when your love shall have died out.”
“It will never die!” he sobbed.
“It will die!” she said. “And now, listen to me. I have told the Sangredo that you are going to visit them this afternoon. It is a week since Bianca came home from school. You should have gone sooner. Go, and make yourself agreeable. If you do so, I will consent to your going once more to see Professor Mora, and I will myself go to inquire for him.”
The young man rose, and stood hesitating and frowning.
“Go, my dear!” his mother urged. “It is only a civility, and commits you to nothing.”
He went slowly away, knowing well that further appeal was useless. His mother followed him after a moment.
“My gondola!” she said to a servant who was taking off the tablecloth, and went on to an adjoining boudoir where her daughter sat.
“Boys are such a trial!” she said with an impatient sigh, and dropped into a sofa. “Alfonso has, happily, reached the age of reason. Enrico is under good guardianship, or I should tremble for his future, he is so impatient. It is true, Monsignor Scalchi does live longer than we thought he would; but, as I say to Enrico, can I kill Monsignor Scalchi in order that you may be made a canonat once? Wait. He cannot live long. Enrico declares that he will never die. And now Claudio, with his folly!”
“What will he do?” the daughter asked.
“He will do as I command him!” the Marchesa answered sharply. “I only wish, Isabella, that you would be half as resolute with your son. Peppino may go without his dessert this evening. It may make him remember to rise the next time that the mistress of the house leaves the table.”
In a boarding-house, on the Riva degli Schiavoni, a number of tourists, among them some artists, are seated at their one o’clock dinner.
Says a lady, “They say that the old Greek, or Arabic, or Turkish, or Hindu, or Boston Professor whom we met at the Lido last month—you remember him, Mr. James?—well—where did I begin? I’ve lost my nominative case.”
2d Lady.They say that he is dying, poor old man! My gondolier told me this morning that Professor Mora has visited every part of the globe, and knows a thousand languages. He seemed even to doubt if the professor might not have been to the moon. The gondolier evidently looks upon him with wonderment. And as for the professor’s granddaughter, she is one of the marvels of the earth.
1st Lady.Mr. James can tell you all aboutthat. I think he did succeed in getting a sketch of the girl, if not of her grandfather. I don’t know where he keeps it, unless it is worn next his heart. It is not among the sketches that he shows to people. In fact, everything about this family is mysterious and uncommon.
A gentleman.What is it, Mr. James? The story promises to be interesting.
Mr. James (sotto voce).Damn the women! (Aloud.) This old professor, I am told, came here fifteen years ago, some say, from the East. Shortly after, his widowed daughter with her little girl followed him. I am not aware that they behaved in a mysterious manner, unless it is a mystery that people should be able to live quietly and innocently, and mind their own business; all which the Mora certainly achieved. They were not rich, but to the poor and unfortunate they were angels of mercy.
1st Lady (striking in).Everybody didn’t think so.
Mr. James.Everybody doesn’t think that God is good. Of course there were servants’ stories and gossips’ stories, and those who wished to believe them did believe them.
Gentleman.Will the girl be left alone?
1st Lady.Do not cherish any hopes, sir. The mother is dead; but the young lady has an admirer. He is a fine young man with a palace and an ancestry, and the most beautiful eyes in the world. She goes out with him in his gondola by moonlight. It is so romantic!
Mr. James.Did you ever see them out together by moonlight, or at any other hour?
1st Lady.Others have.
Mr. James.What others? Name one!
1st Lady.Really, sir! (leaves the table).
Mr. James.The Signorina Mora will not be left alone. There is a respectable woman with her—
2d Lady.A nurse!
Mr. James.—a very respectable woman with her who has been here since her mother died, two years ago. She is an elderly woman of very pleasant appearance and manners. Some one has said that she belongs to some charitable order that nurses the sick.
2d Lady (in a stage voice).“Juliet! Where’s the girl? What, Juliet!”
Gentleman.Ahem!
In the church of Saint X. the half of the Chapter on duty that week had just come out of choir, and were taking off their vestments and laying them away, each in his proper drawer in the wall of the sacristy. The sound of alternate singing and praying yet came from the church. A Novena was going on; and Monsignor Scalchi, the oldcanonicofor whose place Monsignor Loredan waited so impatiently, officiated.
Some of the clergy hastened away, others lingered,chatting together. One stood watching the gloomy way in which Monsignor Loredan flicked a speck of dust from his broad-brimmed hat.
“Well?” said the young man, aware of the other’s gaze, but without looking at him.
“I was wondering how Monsignor Scalchi is,” his friend said.
“When he sees me, he coughs,” said the coadjutor.
At that moment the person of whom they spoke entered the sacristy, with a priest at either hand. A rustling cope of cloth of gold covered his whole person, his eyes were downcast, his hands folded palm to palm, and he murmured prayers as he came.
The young men stood respectfully aside as he passed, his garments smelling of incense, and went to disrobe at the other end of the sacristy.
“Don’t lose courage, Don Enrico!” said one of the group. “He looks feeble. He can scarcely lift his feet from the floor.”
“Poh!” exclaimed Don Enrico. “He is as strong as I am. He buys his shoes too long, so that they may drag at the heels and make him seem weak in the legs.”
He yawned, saluted with a graceful wave of the hand, and sauntered out into the silent piazza.
“Don Enrico is out of temper about his brother’s affairs, as well as his own,” one of his friends said when he was out of hearing. “They say that Claudio is in love with Tacita Mora, and is makinga fool of himself. If he should offend the Sangredo, Don Enrico will lose the cardinal’s patronage. Professor Mora was as blind as a bat. He thought that Tacita was a child, and that Don Claudio was enamored of the Chinese language.”
“But the nurse never leaves the girl,” some one said.
“Oh! the nurse is dark!” said one of the sacristans.
Yes; they all agreed that the nurse was dark.
One after another they dropped away, till only Monsignor Scalchi was left kneeling at aprie-dieu, and an under-sacristan going about his work, filling a silver lamp for the shrine of Saint X., shaving down the lower ends of great yellow wax torches to set in triple-footed iron stands for a funeral, counting out wafers for the altar. There was silence save for a light lapse of water against the steps outside; there was a sleepy yellow sunshine on the marble floor, and a smell of incense in the soft air.
As Monsignor Scalchi rose from his knees, a second under-sacristan entered.
“Here are the books from San Lazzaro, Monsignore,” he said. “But the translations from the Turkish are not yet ready. The illness of Professor Mora delayed them. He was to have looked them over.”
“Did you learn how the professor is?” asked the prelate, glancing over the books given him.
“I went to ask, Monsignore. Gian says that heis failing fast. The Marchesa Loredan has been to see him.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Monsignor Scalchi, looking up from the volume in his hand.
“Yes; and Gian says that the nurse watches over everything.”
“The nurse seems to be a dark one,” monsignore remarked.
“Yes,” said the sacristan, “the nurse is dark.”
The mistress of Palazzo Sangredo sat in one of her stateliest salons talking with her cousin, the Countess Bembo. At some distance from them, half enveloped in the drapery of a great window, Bianca Sangredo peeped out into the Canal.
“I saw him myself!” said the countess in a vehement whisper. “I saw him go into the house, and I saw him come out. And he was there again this morning, and stopped half an hour. You ought to have an explanation with the marchesa. Everybody knows that the families wish for a marriage between him and Bianca. If Sangredo would stay at home and attend to his duties, Don Claudio would not dare to behave so. But Sangredo never is at home.”
“Oh, yes, he is!” said Sangredo’s wife languidly. “He is always at home in Paris. But the marchesa declares that Claudio goes to Ca’ Mora to study, and that he already speaks Arabiclike a sheik. Professor Mora is famous. Papadopoli says that since Mezzofanti no one else has known so many languages.”
“Yes,” said her cousin sharply. “And the professor’s granddaughter will teach him to conjugateamorein every one of them.”
“Mamma,” said Bianca from the window, “Don Claudio’s gondola is at the step.”
“Come and sit by me, child!” her mother said hastily.
When their visitor entered the salon, the two elder ladies received him with the utmost cordiality. Bianca only bent her head, and did not leave her mother’s side; but her childlike dimpling smile was full of kindness. She had a charming snow-drop stillness and modesty.
“I have already seen you to-day, Don Claudio,” said the Countess Bembo. “I passed you near the Giudecca; and you did not look at me, though our gondolas almost touched.”
“I beg your pardon!” he said seriously. “I had been, or was going, to the house of Professor Mora, and I saw no one. He lies at the point of death. It is a great grief to me.”
The ladies began to question and sympathize. After all, things might not be so bad as they had feared.
“He will be a loss to the world, as well as to his friends,” Don Claudio said. “His knowledge of languages is something wonderful. Besides that, he is one of the best of men. His mode of teachingcaught the attention at once. ‘Sometimes,’ he once said to me, ‘you may see protruding from the earth an ugly end of dry stick. Pull it, and you find a long root attached. Follow the root, and it may lead you to a beautiful plant laden with blossoms. And so a seemingly dry and insignificant fact may prove the key to a treasure of hidden knowledge.’ That was his way of teaching. However dry the proposition with which he began a discourse, it was sure to lead to something interesting.”
“You must feel very sad!” the young girl said compassionately.
“It is sad,” he answered, and let his eyes dwell on her fair, innocent face. Then, the entrance of other visitors creating a little stir, he bent toward her and murmured “Thanks!”