The Golden Gondola

Chapter 1 ~ 1750He awoke and for a moment thought that he was still at sea. He could feel the waves rising and falling until suddenly he realised that they existed only in his mind. The bed he lay on was still. He opened his eyes, the room was entirely strange to him. It was bare and poverty-stricken and the sunshine coming through the uncurtained, unshuttered windows illuminated the rough uncovered wooden floor. He stirred and was instantly conscious of an aching head and a body that felt as if it was bruised all over. Someone came quickly from a corner of the room and laid a cool hand on his forehead. He looked up into the kindly dark eyes of a middle-aged woman. “So the signor is awake,” she smiled. “Where am I?” He found it difficult to enunciate the words. His mouth was dry and his lips cracked. “You are safe, signor. My husband rescued you last night from the storm. You must thank the Mother of God for your safe deliverance.” “The storm!” He repeated the words slowly and now it all came back to him. The sound of the ship breaking against the rocks, the cries of the sailors, the shrieks of the passengers, the wind and rain that seemed to whip the very skin from off his back and then the bitter cold of the water as he dived into it. “You are lucky, signor,” the woman was saying. “No bones broken. You must be a very strong man to have been through such a storm and to have survived.” “Yes, I am strong,” he repeated, catching at the words almost like a child who was learning to talk. But then he remembered something else. “The girl! Is she safe?” “She is safe, signor. Thanks to you. My husband saw you struggling with her in the water. You held her on to a piece of floating wood and then, as you came near to the shore, he waded in and rescued you. You do not remember?” “No. I can only remember holding on and trying to persuade her to do likewise. She was unconscious, I think.” “The poor lady. Yes, she was unconscious. If it had not been for you, signor, she would have been drowned.” “Who else is saved?” “No one, signor. No one at all.” “No one!” He sat up despite the pain that seemed to shoot through his body at the effort. “But that is impossible! Incredible! What happened to the Captain and the crew?” “They are all drowned, signor, every one of them. Some of the bodies have already come ashore. The rest must be in the ship or at the bottom of the ocean.” “It seems unbelievable.” “It is the good God who save you, signor, or His Blessed Mother. No one else could have kept a man alive in such a storm as there was last night.” “Surely you must be mistaken?” he insisted. “No, no, signor. You will see for yourself when you are better. My husband and the men from the village are all down at the shore now. Soon they will go out to the ship to take what they can from the wreck.” His eyes narrowed. “I must get up,” he said. “Where are my clothes?” “But, Signor – ” The woman’s protests were silenced before she could speak them. “My clothes, I said, and quickly.” “Si, si, Signor.” She hurried from the room. He could hear her wailing all the way down the stairs that it was crazy for him to move when he should rest. With a tremendous effort he got off the bed, throwing aside the thin blanket that had covered him, and then, as his feet reached the floor, dragging it off the bed to wrap around his nakedness. His legs felt as if they were too weak to carry him. With an effort he walked to the window. The sun was shining, but there were still clouds over the sea. He had a glimpse of the waves, white-crested, but there was no doubt at all that the sea was dropping. He was still standing at the window when the door opened and the woman returned. She carried his clothes over one arm, in her other hand was a tray containing a bottle of wine and a hunk of rough, black bread such as the peasants ate. The man at the window turned to her with a smile. “That is what I need,” he said, and, taking the bottle, he then poured half its contents down his throat. He felt the rough wine bring new life to his tired body. The woman watched him appreciatively. “I will cook something for the Signor. It is early. The Signor needs food for his strength.” “Later,” he commanded. “I must get down to the ship. Leave me now so that I can get dressed.” “Ah! The Signor is in a hurry to see if anyone is alive,” the woman said. “You will find that I have spoken the truth. They are all drowned, every one of them.” She went from the room. The man finished the wine and for a moment played with the idea of eating a piece of the dark bread. But he felt it would choke him and instead he busied himself dressing. His clothes had been dried, but they were sadly cockled and creased. The smart breeches too were torn. Two of the jewelled buttons on his coat were missing. He was, however, quite indifferent to his appearance. It was only when he was dressed that he realised that his shoes were missing and remembered kicking them off before he dived overboard. He swept his hair back from his face and, having no ribbon to tie it with, left it to hang untidily about his ears as he prepared to walk downstairs in his stockinged feet. The stairs that led to the top of the house were little more than a ladder. He negotiated them carefully, feeling the splinters in the wood prick his feet through the torn and laddered stockings. When he had descended, he found himself in a huge kitchen furnished almost solely by a large table. The woman who had attended to him was cooking over a fire. She straightened her back as he appeared and smiled at him as if he had achieved something miraculous. “You are, indeed, a strong man,” she said in terms of heartfelt admiration. “I need shoes,” he told her. “Hellas, signor, I have none. My husband wears his only pair, and mine would be too small for your big feet.” She laughed as she spoke and then he heard another gentler laugh come from the far corners of the room. He turned and saw a girl lying on a roughly improvised mattress beneath a small window. Oblivious of his strange appearance he contrived to give her an almost courtly bow. “You are alive, Signorina!” He spoke in Italian, but she answered him in English. “I am told it is entirely due to you, sir, that I am.” He walked towards her and looked down at her. “You are English?” “Like yourself.” “I had no idea. I did not see you on board.” “No. I kept to my cabin. My father was ill and it was impossible for me to leave him.” Her eyes clouded as she spoke, as if she suddenly realised that her father must be dead. The man stood looking down at her in amazement. He would certainly have remembered her had he seen her, he thought. Her face was pale as she lay back against the coarse pillow and her long golden hair fell over her shoulders. He had never seen such hair. It was the true colour of gold and even in the dingy atmosphere of the kitchen it seemed to glitter and glisten almost as if it was alive. “Have you found out who else has been saved?” she asked in a low voice. He saw then that her eyes were dark, almost purple in their depths and fringed with dark eyelashes. A strange combination, he thought to himself, and then realised that she had asked a question. “The woman tells me that everyone was drowned save ourselves.” “She told me the same thing,” the girl answered. “It cannot be true, it cannot. There must be others.” “That is what I am going to see for myself.” “Please see if my father – but, no, I know he is dead,” the girl said. “He died before I left his side, before the ship hit the rocks. It was the constant buffeting and his seasickness. I think it must have affected his heart. I was just about to tell the Captain when the crash came.” “I believe it is still impossible to get to the ship,” the man said. “But I will do my best.” “Thank you.” She moved one of her hands towards him and he realised that they had taken her clothes away too to dry them. She must be naked beneath the covering blankets and he saw the whiteness of one shoulder peeping from beneath the cascading golden hair. She was lovely, he thought, and as if she was suddenly conscious of his thoughts she raised the blanket a little higher towards her chin, while a faint flush spread over her white cheeks. “I will go and see what I can discover,” he said abruptly and turned away. “Please, one moment! Will you tell me your name? I should like to know who I owe my gratitude to – and my life.” “My name is Harvey Drake. Sir Harvey Drake, Baronet, of Watton Park, Worcestershire. And yours?” “I am Paolina Mansfield. My father was Captain Mansfield, late of the Grenadier Guards.” “You have an Italian name.” “My mother was Italian.” So that, he thought, explained the dark eyes that were such an unusual contrast to the gold hair. “Your servant, Miss Mansfield.” He bowed and was gone, hurrying from the house over the roughly cobbled path despite the discomfort of walking without shoes. Fortunately it was not far to the beach. A narrow winding path led him down the cliffside where he could see a group of men standing at the water’s edge. As he reached them, they turned towards him eagerly, full of expressions of goodwill and congratulations that he had defeated death the night before. He was introduced to Gasparo, the big bearded fisherman who had saved him and to whose house he had been taken. “Thank you,” he said. “And I am more grateful than I can say. I hope to reward you more suitably when I can reach the ship and perhaps salvage some of my personal belongings.” “That is doubtful, signor,” one of the fishermen said. “The ship has been battered continuously against the rocks. We cannot get to her. If the waves don’t subside soon she will sink and once that happens nothing can be saved. The sea is very deep around the rocks.” Sir Harvey looked at the ship. It was only a short distance from the shore and yet the rocks that constituted the small island of peril also caused a water race, which surged between them and the high cliffs. He could see that the fishermen were right. The ship was being lifted with every fresh wave and battered down against the rocks. Already all the superstructure was gone and it looked as if in another hour or so nothing would be left. He could see the jagged tear in the ship’s side that had let in the first influx of water. Wreckage was strewn about all over the sea and each piece, as it came near enough to the shore, was eagerly salvaged by the fishermen. One piece of wood, skimming the waves, bore the ship’s name – Santa Lucia. Beneath it was inscribed, Naples, 1740. “Only ten years old,” a fisherman remarked as he waded in and pulled it out of the water. “Not a long life!” “She had a lot of good stuff in her,” another man answered. “Come on, let’s get at it.” But it was still too rough and too dangerous for them to put out their boats although over a dozen of them were waiting on the sand. “Can any of you swim?” Sir Harvey asked the question and before they spoke he knew the answer. “No, no, signor.” It was what he might have expected. He gauged the distance between the shore and ship and then began to take off his coat. “What are you doing, signor?” “I am going out to see what is left,” Sir Harvey answered. A babel of sound arose immediately. The fishermen tried to persuade him to change his mind, pointing out the dangers and telling him of the risks he undertook.