The Venetians

Little golden cloudlets, like winged living creatures, were hanging high up in the rosy glow above Santa Maria della Salute, and all along the Grand Canal the crowded gondolas were floating in a golden haze, and all the westward-facing palace windows flashed and shone with an illumination which the lamps and lanterns that were to be lighted after sundown could never equal, burnt they never so merrily. It was Shrove Tuesday in Venice, Carnival time. The sun had been shining on the city and on the lagoons all day long. It was one of those Shrove Tuesdays which recall the familiar proverb⁠—

“Sunshine at Carnival, Fireside at Easter.”

But who cares about the chance of cold and gloom six weeks hence when today is fair and balmy? A hum of joyous, foolish voices echoed from those palace façades, and floated out seaward, and rang along the narrow Calle, and drifted on the winding waterways, and resounded under the innumerable bridges; for everywhere in the City by the Sea men, women, and children were making merry, and had given themselves up to a wild and childish rapture of unreasoning mirth, ready to explode into loud laughter at the sorriest jokes. An old man tapped upon the shoulder by a swinging paper lantern⁠—a boy whose hat had been knocked off⁠—a woman calling to her husband or her lover across the gay flotilla⁠—anything was food for mirth on this holiday evening, while the great gold orb sank in the silvery lagoon, and all the sky yonder towards Chioggia was dyed with the crimson afterglow, and the Chioggian fishing-boats were moving westward in all the splendour of their painted sails.

While she leant thus, with the tip of her finger touching the pearl, and her eyes lifted interrogatively, a heavy hand was laid upon Vansittart’s shoulder, and he was half twisted out of his chair⁠—tilted after the manner of chairs on which young men sit⁠—by sheer brute force on the part of the owner of the hand.

“Come out of that!” said a voice that was thickened by drink.

Vansittart was on his feet in an instant, facing a man as tall as himself, and a good deal more bulky⁠—a son of Anak, sandy-haired, pallid, save for red spots on his cheekbones, spots that burnt like flame.

He was scowling savagely, breathless with rage. Lisa had risen as quickly as Vansittart, and Lisa’s aunt had moved towards the newcomer in evident trouble of mind.

“Signor Giovanni,” she faltered, “who would have thought to see you in Venice tonight?”

“Not you, evidently, you wicked old hag⁠—nor you, hussy!” cried the man, furious with jealousy and drink. “I’ve caught you at your games, have I, you good-for-nothing slut! You couldn’t stay indoors like a decent woman, but you must needs walk the streets late at night with this Cockney cad here.”

“Take care what you say to her⁠—or to me,” said Vansittart, in that muffled bass which means a dangerous kind of anger.

He put his arm round Fiordelisa, drawing her towards him as if she belonged to him and it were his place to guard her from every assailant. The crowd made a ring about them, looking on, amused and interested, with no thought of interference which might spoil sport.

They were steadily ascending the worst hill they had to climb; the omnibus was on an inclined plane, and Hilda Champernowne in her place at the back of the vehicle looked down upon Jack Vansittart seated in a hollow by the door. They were near the top, when the brake was put on suddenly, and the horses were pulled up. A ripple of silvery laughter rang out upon the frosty air.

“Fairies!” cried Vansittart.

“Who can it be, and why are we stopping?” asked Miss Champernowne, “when we are so late, too!”

There were voices, two or three feminine voices, all talking at once, and then Hubert was heard answering. Anon more laughter. Sir Hubert and a groom got off the bus, and the former came to the door.

“Can you make room for three girls?” he asked.

“Not for a mouse,” replied his wife. “We are hideously crushed already. I believe all our gowns are spoilt.”

“Then a little more squeezing won’t hurt,” said Sir Hubert. “Look here, you three men can come outside. It’ll be a tight pack, but we’ll manage it, and the three ladies can have your places. It’s a lovely night. You’re none of you bronchial, I hope.”

“A chronic sufferer, from my cradle,” said Mr. Tivett, in a meek, little voice.

“Oh, Tivett can stay inside. He is the nearest approach I know to Euclid’s definition of a line⁠—length without breadth.”

Jack Vansittart was out by this time, and Reggie Hudson, a soldierly young man, slipped out after him. The women drew themselves together discontentedly. Each would have had an omnibus to herself if she could.

Suddenly among all those homely countenances he saw a young face, young and beautiful, a face that flashed upon him first with a rapid thrill of recognition, and then with an aspect that struck into his heart like a dagger, and when that sharp pang was over left a heaviness as of lead.

It was Fiordelisa’s face. He could not be mistaken. Nay, the fact was made certainty as he looked, for he saw that the girl recognized him. She was gazing upward to the spot where he sat; she was talking about him to the woman who stood next her, indicating him with too expressive gesticulation.

Was she telling that stolid listener that the man yonder had slain his fellow-creature in a tavern row; that he was a murderer? She would put it so, no doubt⁠—she whose lover he had killed.

If she were saying this the stolid woman received the statement very placidly. She only nodded, and shrugged her shoulders, and then nodded again, while Fiordelisa talked to her more and more excitedly, with dramatic emphasis. Surely no woman would stand and shrug and nod as this woman shrugged and nodded, at a tale of murder.

Then Lisa looked up again at him, beaming with smiles, her dark eyes sparkling in the gaslight; and then her turn came to swell the chorus; and then the curtain fell, and he saw her no more.

All he could do was to hold his tongue, and wait for that which was to come.

“Do you happen to remember a murder, or, I will rather say, a scuffle ending in homicide, which occurred at Venice three years ago in Carnival time⁠—an English tourist stabbed to death by another Englishman, who got away so cleverly that he was never brought to book for what he had done? The row was about a woman, and the woman was Harold Marchant’s mistress. Marchant was jealous of the stranger’s attentions to the lady⁠—he had lived long enough in Italy to have learnt the use of the knife⁠—and after a free fight of a few moments he stabbed his man to the heart. Ferrari heard the story from a Venetian, who was present in the Caffè Florian when the thing happened.”

“Did the Venetian know Marchant?”

The words came slowly from dry lips, the voice was husky; but neither Mrs. Vansittart nor Mr. Sefton wondered that Eve Marchant’s lover should be deeply moved.

“I don’t know; but there were people in Venice who knew him, and from whom Ferrari heard his mode of life.”

“But you said that Marchant was living under an assumed name.”

“Did I?” asked Sefton, surprised. “I don’t remember saying it, but it is the fact all the same. At Venice Harold Marchant called himself Smith; and Smith was the name he gave on board the P. and O. steamer which took him to Alexandria.”

“Why did he go to Alexandria?”

“Why? To get away from Venice in the quickest and completest manner he could.