A little while before, as Marianne had dressed herself with the help of a skillful abigail, a servant with a flowing beard had come to her with a request that she go downstairs. She had expected to see her hostess again, but the manservant had shown her into the drawing room and then retired, closing the door behind him. Marianne had realized that she must face what might well prove to be the most momentous encounter of her life alone.
The sleep which had begun in the house of Rebecca the Jewess must have lasted for a long time because the sun, which she had taken for morning when she woke, was setting now behind the long, black spindles of the cypress trees. Its light reddened the stone walls of the ancient building whose foundations must have gone back to the ill-judged crusade of the blind doge, Enrico Dandolo, and set the tiny motes of dust dancing before the gloved hands of the late hospodar.
The sounds from the garden were growing muted, while those of the great city scarcely penetrated the walls of this ancient palace. In a little while they would cease altogether, as the voices of the muezzins called the faithful to their evening prayers.
Marianne gripped her hands together and gnawed her lip. Her nerves were at full stretch. Her visitor, more feared than longed for, was late. She had paused in front of the portrait and was regarding it with unconscious severity when, before she could resume her fevered pacing, the door opened again to admit the bearded servant who stood aside, bowing deeply, as a tall white figure appeared in the doorway. Marianne's heart missed a beat.
Her eyes widened and her lips parted soundlessly as the newcomer stepped into the sunlight and bowed in his turn, without speaking. But even while she was stunned into silence, Marianne knew that she was not dreaming. She was looking, between the pale caftan and white muslin turban, straight into the dark face and bright blue eyes of Caleb!
Time seemed to stand still. The silence stretched out between these two united by the bonds of matrimony and yet divided by so much else. Conscious of the rudeness of her stare, Marianne pulled herself together while an odd sense of relief overwhelmed her.
Despite everything her godfather and Donna Lavinia had said to her, she had been expecting the worst. Prepared for a being so hideously deformed that she could scarcely bear to look at him, she found that the reality, however strange, was anything but frightening. Recalling her first meeting with Caleb on the deck of the Sea Witch, Marianne was again struck almost with pleasure at the sight of that strong and splendid face. By whatever name, this man was beyond doubt the handsomest she had ever set eyes on.
On the other hand, the fact of his being who he was raised a whole new set of problems just as difficult as the last, and chief of them: what was Prince Sant'Anna, not to mention Turhan Bey, doing on the forecastle of Jason's ship masquerading as an Ethiopian slave? Moreover, now that she saw him again, she realized that she had always wondered a little about that claim to be Ethiopian, for although the man called Caleb was certainly dark-skinned, he was nothing like as dark as the deep black common to the inhabitants of that country.
Seeing that she was too busy gazing at him to speak first, Corrado Sant'Anna nerved himself to break the silence. He did it very gently, speaking as softly as though he feared to shatter something precious, for the look on the young woman's face was not the one he had feared to see there. No, the great green eyes regarding him held neither fear nor revulsion but only an infinite astonishment.
"Do you understand now?" he asked.
Without taking her eyes from his, Marianne shook her head.
"No. Less than ever, I think. There is nothing repulsive about you—far from it. I'd say, even, that you—you are very handsome. But you must surely know that. So why the mask? Why the seclusion? Why all this mystery?"
The bronze lips smiled bleakly, showing a flash of white teeth.
"I thought a woman of your quality would have understood the reasons. I carry the burden of a sin not my own, nor my mother's, either, although it cost her her life. You know, do you not, that my father strangled my mother at my birth, never dreaming for an instant that he and he alone had passed on the black blood which darkened my skin."
"How can that be?"
"Do you know anything about the laws of heredity? I thought not. I made a study of them when I was old enough to understand. A learned Cantonese physician explained to me one day how it is that the offspring of a black person and a white may exhibit no negroid characteristics at all and yet may, in his turn, produce a black child. But how was my father to guess that his mother, the she-devil who brought disgrace to our family, had conceived him of her black slave, Hassan, and not her husband, Prince Sebastiano? Obsessed by Lucinda and her satanic legend, he believed that my poor mother, too, was sunk in dishonor—and he killed her."
"I know that dreadful story," Marianne said quickly. "Léonora Franchi—Mrs. Crawfurd, I mean—told it to me. How cruel, and how stupid!"
The prince shrugged. "Any man might have done the same. Your own father, perhaps, if such a thing had happened to him. I have no right to blame mine—especially since he spared my life. Not that it has been much of a blessing to me. I'd rather he had let my mother live and done away with me—the blot on his escutcheon."
There was so much bitterness in the deep serious voice of the last of the Sant'Annas that Marianne felt strangely stirred. It occurred to her suddenly that there was something ridiculous in the two of them confronting one another like that, in the middle of the vast, empty room, and she pointed to a pair of cushioned stone seats set in one of the window embrasures, at the same time managing a smile.
"Wouldn't you rather sit down, Prince? We could talk more easily—and we have so much to say. It might take a long time."
"You think so? I do not mean to inflict my presence on you for longer than necessary. Believe me when I say that if matters had stood otherwise I should never have dreamed of revealing myself to you. You thought me dead and it was probably better so, for you have suffered much through me, although I never willed it. God knows that when I married you I hoped with all my heart that you would find, if not happiness, at least tranquillity and peace of mind."
This time Marianne's smile was without constraint, and as the prince had not moved she took a step toward him.
"I know that," she said quietly. "But do please come and sit down! As you have just said—we are married."
"Barely!"
"Do you believe that? God, who joined us together, counts for something. We might be friends, at least. Didn't you save my life that night by the little ruined temple, when Matteo Damiani was going to kill me? Didn't you kill him in Venice and set me free?"
"Didn't you repay me by saving me from being flogged to death by John Leighton?" he retorted. But he abandoned his resistance and let her lead him to the window bay, which was still flooded with evening sunshine.
Now that she was closer to him, Marianne recognized the smell of lavender and latakia that she remembered from the previous night and it was enough to recall the strange events of that night, pushed to the back of her mind by the surprise she had just had. Before she could stop herself she had asked the question which sprang to her lips.
"It was you, wasn't it, who carried me off from Rebecca's house last night? Princess Morousi told me—"
"It's no secret. Yes, it was I."
"Why?"
"That is one of the matters I was alluding to a moment ago, but for which you might have continued to believe me dead. In a word—the child."
"The child!"
He smiled again, the same bleak smile that lent such charm to his almost too perfect features. Now that she was able to see him close to and in full sunlight Marianne was surprised to feel again exactly the same jolt of spontaneous admiration that she had felt seeing him on board the Sea Witch. A bronze god, she had thought then, a splendid animal. But the god had feet of clay and the wild animal was wounded.