luncheon. “Whenever the pace gets too rapid in town, I fly out here for
a rest.”
Her husband laughed. “For a change of activities,” he said. “Engracia is
a good shot, these are her trophies.”
The antlers of a stag hung over the fireplace, the floor was spread with
skins. Engracia, pouring tea at the head of the table, nodded towards a
shelf laden with silver cups.
“There are his trophies,” she laughed. “I have not yet won a prize.”
“You shot the birds we are eating,” said the husband. “Isn’t that more
important?”
After lunch the people who knew how to shoot went off with guns and left
me in the lodge with a bright fire crackling in the chimney and
Engracia’s little son for company.
It was part of our luck, as Patsy said, that we should have had that
sharp crisp day for our expedition, our one experience of life in a
Spanish hunting lodge. Even the weather was on our side!
We drove back through the town of El Pardo, a sleepy place on the bank
of the Manzanares. Cattle were drinking in the river; in a meadow where
we stopped to admire some fine oaks, a flock of half-tame magpies were
hopping over the grass.
In spite of April hailstorms it was a forward spring, the fruit trees
put on their bridal dresses early to welcome the bride. In the Buen
Retiro purple and white violets bloomed so thick that the air was
scented. The laburnums shook out long golden clusters, the wistaria
unfurled amethyst blossoms. The honey-sweet smell of the acacias in the
Recoletos came in at the windows and drove us abroad early and late. It
was impossible to stay indoors with the trees in flower, the streets
abloom with children and girls. The crowd of vehicles in the Paseo was
so great that horses and automobiles moved at a foot pace.
In the noon hour the working men and their families, who in winter had
sought the sunny corners for their out-of-door feasts, hunted for the
shadow of tree or kiosk. We were on friendly terms with several of
these family groups, and had often been invited to join them at their
meal. Patsy, consumed with curiosity to know just what they had to eat,
made an excuse to stop one day and talk with a mason, just as the man
left off work.
“Not two minutes after twelve,” Patsy told us afterwards, “the mason’s
wife and children came trotting up with the family dinner. The wife
carried a kettle of hot _puchero_, the eldest girl a dish of sausage and
garlic, neatly tied up in a clean napkin; one boy had the bread, another
the fruit, a middle-sized child plates, spoons and knives for the party.
The father said there were few days in the year when his children did
not dine with him; he believed in family life. He could not give time to
go home, so the family came to him and they all dined together in the
open air at the nearest sheltered corner.”
The house where the mason was at work was being swept, garnished and put
in apple-pie order for some of the wedding guests, who were to lodge
there. It was a good season for the working people. It may be that
Madrid is always as fresh, smart and tidy as it was in that year of
Grace, 1906, but it seemed to us that everybody tried to add to the
general festive air by a little private gilding and varnishing on his
own account. Don Jaime bought what he had threatened to buy for years,
a new set of teeth. Pedra made herself a scarlet bodice, in which she
looked prettier than ever. At the palace an army of furbishers were
touching up, silver-plating, gilding and polishing. Work was pushed at
the royal stables. The fifty state carriages needed for the wedding
pageant, with the harnesses, liveries, and ostrich plumes for the
horses, were renewed or furbished up to look as good as new, at a cost
of half a million duros.
The hostlers at the studs of Aranjuez had extra work, for the eight
cream-colored horses chosen to draw the bridal coach must have coats
like satin on the King’s wedding day. Aranjuez, a royal summer
residence, is a place lovely with the noise of running waters and the
songs of nightingales. The elms here were brought out from England by
grim Philip II, who laid out the garden so well that I relented a little
towards him when I saw it. The court no longer goes to Aranjuez, and the
royal stud is not what it was in the days when camels and lamas were
raised there; but it is still an interesting place, if I only had time
to tell about it! During the wars of the last century the French
destroyed the breeding stables, but in 1842 they were restored and
stallions were imported from England.
Extra hands were taken on at the Madrid Tapestry Manufactory.
“Everybody who owns a tapestry wants it in order of course,” said the
Director who showed us over the factory. A dozen men were at work upon a
famous set of ruby velvet hangings emblazoned with silver, priceless
things, not only unique but beautiful.
“You will see these hanging from the front of the Duke of Cestus’ palace
all through the fêtes,” the director said.
“Suppose it should rain!” I cried horrified.
He shrugged his shoulders; “The Duke takes the risk,” he said. “The king
is not married every day.”
The last Friday in May the Princess Ena, her mother and her two brothers
entered Spain. We heard then for the first time that she wished to be
known in future as Queen Victoria.
“That shows courage,” was Patsy’s comment. “A great name is a good thing
to try and live up to, to be sure!”
Don Alfonso met the Princess at the frontier and they all travelled
together to El Pardo. All Madrid, at least all fashionable Madrid, rode,
drove, motored or ballooned out to meet them. Patsy of course managed to
be there with Don Jaime. They described the arrival of the bride as a
brilliant scene. All the great people were there in their best clothes;
there was an overwhelming amount of gold lace; they all looked and
behaved just as they should. “It was more than ever like Lohengrin,” was
Patsy’s summing up.
I begged for particulars and learned that the Princess looked beautiful
as she drove to the chateau in a carriage drawn by four mules; Don
Alfonzo on horseback at her right, the Prince of the Asturias at her
left.
“What did she wear?”
“Such golden hair, such a color, such blue, _blue_ eyes!” That was all
the satisfaction I got out of Patsy. Don Jaime was incoherent with
enthusiasm.
“_Muy guapa, divinamente guapa!_” he kept repeating. “And what a health,
grace heaven! Not only for a Princess but if only a simple gel!”
By this time Madrid was upside down with excitement. The hurry-flurry of
the final preparations was contagious. Most people really were busy, the
others thought they were. Don Jaime got up at twelve o’clock, instead of
two, and Patsy insisted, sometimes forgot to go to bed at all. The
wedding guests were pouring into the city by every train.
“I am becoming hardened to royalty,” Patsy announced one evening. “I
have seen three royal princes and four Ambassadors Extraordinary arrive
to-day. The Prince and Princess of Wales and the Crown Prince of Sweden
drove straight to the palace.”
All the King’s relations and the direct heirs to thrones stayed at the
palace. The other visiting Princes and Ambassadors Extraordinary were
lodged at the best private houses. We heard that the owners would accept
no pay for the use of them; it was honor enough to be allowed to lend
their houses to the King for the use of his guests.
“It may be the custom in other countries,” said Patsy, “but I doubt it.
There’s something chivalresque and Spanish about it!”
One of the envoys let it be known that he wished to give various
entertainments during his stay in Madrid. He was told that he had but to
give his orders: the house and the corps of servants were at his
disposal. Only, Spain reserved the right of paying all the bills. In a
commercial age such things are pleasant to meet with.
The Austrian Grand Duke stayed not far from the Tower at the palace of
the Duke of Medina Celli, the representative of an elder branch of the
royal family. At every coronation, the head of this house makes a formal
protest, and asserts his hereditary claim to the throne. He ranks next
to the King and has the second place at all ceremonials.
When the great people had all arrived, Villegas took an afternoon off
and drove us about the city to show us where they were staying. Outside
each palace or house where a distinguished guest was billeted a sentry
box, painted with the national colors of the guest, had been placed and
a sentinel posted. Over the handsome house allotted to Mr. Whittredge,
the American Ambassador Extraordinary, floated the stars and stripes;
the sentry box before the door was painted red, white and blue.
The American Consul at Madrid was an angel. It may not be set forth in
the civil-service examination papers that applicants for consulships
must prove angelic character; it is probably one of those traditions
mightier than law. How else could they face the cares of office without
becoming hopeless misanthropes? Our Consul made us welcome at the
Consulate, over whose door a rusty American eagle spread his painted tin
wings. In whatever trouble J. or Patsy or I found ourselves, we rushed
to No. 8 Calle Jorge y Juan and either the Consul, or his angelic clerk,
or his cherubic office boy, rescued and comforted us, smoothed out our
difficulties, set our erring feet on the right road. One morning when
the pressure on every official in Madrid, even the officials of foreign
governments, was almost at breaking point, Patsy dropped in at the
Consulate. He found the Consul opening his mail.
“Isn’t it a pretty large order to read all those letters, Mr. Summers?”
he asked.
“Listen to this,” sighed the Consul:
“‘_Dear Sir_: My daughter and I arrive in Madrid on Saturday
morning. As I hear the city is full on account of the wedding fêtes
I must trouble you to engage rooms for us. They must be in a
stylish, but not too expensive house. We wish to go to the wedding,
the ball at the palace, and all the other entertainments. If you
should be unable to secure us invitations, kindly ask the
Ambassador to attend to the matter.
Yours truly,
MRS. EMERALD GREEN.’”
Just then a telegram was brought in by Pepé, the cherubic office boy.
The Consul sighed again as he read it aloud:
“Please wire answer to my letter immediately, stating address of
rooms. Am sending large trunk to your care. E. G.”
“Friends of yours?” asked Patsy.
“Never heard of them.”
“Wife and daughter of Congressman?”
“Emerald Green, it’s not a name I know.”
“Do you get many such letters?”
“Tons of them; it’s all in the day’s work.”
The ring in his voice was characteristic of the time. Nobody minded the
extra trouble they were put to, everybody gladly lent a hand to help
those two young people get married. If a household is turned topsy turvy
when a daughter is married, it is not strange that a city should be
turned upside down and inside out when a King is wed. Mr. Collier, the
American Minister, must have been as much pestered as the Consul; he
always had time for us though, and we brought away pleasant memories of
him and of the Legation where we were hospitably entertained.
Of all our friends, the Argentino alone held aloof from the joyous
bustle; a week before the wedding he left Madrid.
“I’m off for Barcelona till all this pother’s over,” he said. “Come with
me. What interest have we republicans in royal marriages?”
“The interest of seeing what we cannot see at home.”
“Ah! that’s the difference between your republic and mine; we do not
forget, be sure that you do not.”
“Don’t be cryptic,” said Patsy, “I never knew what a good republican I
was till I came to Spain.”
“Though Spain is one kingdom, the more free people in the world is the
Spaniard,” Don Jaime protested. “If he have a little money he do what
he like. United States is one republic; there no man can do what he
like.”
“He can think as he likes,” retorted the Argentino, then persuasively to
Patsy, “you’ve seen enough of old Spain and its pageants. Come with me
to Barcelona, have a look at new Spain. There’s a great fight on there,
that really is the most important thing that is happening in Spain.”
“What sort of a fight?”
“The eternal fight between Yesterday and To-morrow, between new ideas
and old. The liberals are making a brave stand. They are trying to get
control of the vast sums of money now expended by the Church, which they
wish to use for the public schools. There are not half enough schools to
go round even in Catalonia, the brains, the nerve center, the place that
does the thinking for Spain. Only thirty per cent of the people can read
and write; that’s not enough.”
“Too much monks, nuns and priests expulsed from France,” sighed Don
Jaime; “enough came before from Cuba and Porto Rico. The priest he know
what happen in every man’s house before the husband.”
“Which is worse?” asked Patsy, “the rule of the priest, the soldier, or
the shopkeeper?”
“We have not time to argue that question to-day,” laughed the
Argentino, “for the last time will you come to Barcelona?”
“No,” said Patsy, “I can see enough of the sort of fight you speak of at
home. I may never have another chance to see a king married.”
XV
THE KING’S WEDDING
Madrid was astir early the King’s wedding morning. We left the Tower at
seven o’clock, in order to get to the Puerta del Sol before the cordon
of troops was drawn. We were to see the procession from the Hotel de
Paris which stands at the angle of the Calle Alcalá and the Carerra San
Jeronimo. We should see the marriage pageant cross the Puerta del Sol,
the bull’s-eye of the city, pass down the Alcalá on the way from the
palace to the church, and return by the way of the Jeronimo. Our
friends, the Larz Andersons, had invited us to spend the day with them;
we arrived in time for early coffee.
“How could you,” said J, “ask Villegas to let us see the show from the
Prado when you had this invitation up your sleeve? This is the best
place in the city.”
“I thought it would be so interesting to watch it from the royal
museum.”
“So did a few hundred other people! They have been worrying and
harrying him for a month. No one is allowed inside the Prado to-day, not
even the head porter.”
“I think Don José might make an exception for his family and--for us.”
“Not even for himself. He is responsible for the safety of the pictures.
Do you realize what that means?”
Villegas is responsible for one of the world’s greatest treasures, and
is uneasy about the safety of the building that contains it. No wonder
Lucia complains her husband does not sleep as well as he once did.
We waited for the procession in the dining-room of the Paris, a
comfortable low-ceiled room with a suggestion of a ship’s dining cabin
about it. A table had been engaged for us in the window. The last guest
to arrive was Don Jaime, who strolled in leisurely after the streets had
been closed to other people for two hours. The Don had on a new coat, a
white waistcoat and a gardenia in his buttonhole; it was pleasant to see
him dressed for once as he deserved.
“I passed the nuncio of the holy Pap driving to the church,” he said.
“They will not tardy greatly now.”
A few minutes later the first of the fifty gala wedding coaches came in
sight. Though of varying degrees of splendor they were all on the same
general plan of those we had seen when Sir Maurice de Bunsen presented
his credentials. That day one Ambassador and his suite had been escorted
in state to the palace; to-day the whole court and all the wedding
guests must be transported from the palace to the church. Could the
wonderful carriages, the proud horses, the ostrich plumes, the
trappings, wigs, galloons and silk stockings hold out?
They did; they grew finer and finer. One coach was of tortoise shell,
one blue and silver, one purple and gold lacquer. All the shining
company of princes, grandees, ambassadors extraordinary, court ladies,
maids of honor, was magnificently conveyed in gala coaches drawn by
noble horses with nodding feathered head-dresses, all attended by grooms
in satin liveries. It was a torrent of dazzling splendor that wearied
the eyes and stunned the imagination.
“I have been forty years in diplomacy,” said a dapper old gentleman with
a single eyeglass, who sat at the next table; “I have seen most of the
royal marriages of my time; I never saw anything to compare to this.”
The bride rode with her mother in the tortoise-shell coach; they were
talking together as they passed. Princess Beatrice looked pale and
grave, the bride happy, expectant, calm, as every bride should look. In
the last coach, a marvel of crystal and gold, rode the King behind eight
proud cream-colored horses. They ambled daintily along, tossing and
tossing their heads so the long ostrich plumes nodded in time to their
high stepping. Where, when, had we seen horses like these before? While
we waited for the wedding party to come back from church, I remembered.
It was in Scotland just ten years ago this August, the season when Ben
Marone puts on his imperial purple veil of heather, that we stood
together outside the inn at Braemar waiting to see the royal carriage
from Balmoral pass. Soon four, perfectly matched, cream-colored
ponies--very like the King of Spain’s horses--came racing in sight at
the top of their speed, drawing a large, plain, old-fashioned carriage.
On the box sat a Highlander in tartan and filibegs.
“‘Twull be the Queen and Princess Beatrice,” said one of the villagers.
The carriage came within our line of vision. “Ay, ’tis her Majesty.”
On the back seat sat an old woman in a shabby black cloak and bonnet, a
younger lady in black beside her. The Queen was old and very tired of
state and ceremony; she looked neither to the right nor to the left, but
straight before her, as the villagers pulled forelock or curtsied. She
seemed to be thinking deeply, was perhaps looking into the future. If
she could have foreseen that her little granddaughter--the one for whose
future she might have felt the most concern--would assume the name she
had made illustrious, would she have been pleased?
“They will be coming back from church in a moment.” Patsy, whom we had
not seen that morning, brought the news. “I saw them go into San
Jeronimo’s. The bride wore a white dress like others I have seen, only
longer; her veil was lace--not that flimsy stuff; it did not cover her
face.” He was proud of having observed, and remembered so much.
Soon after we heard the joyous marriage music, and the long, glittering
procession began to pass again, much in the same manner as before, only
the Queen sat beside the King in the crystal and gold coach with the big
crown on the top. As they passed through the Puerta del Sol they bowed
and smiled to the people; their happy young faces were flushed with heat
and excitement. When the coach had disappeared down the Calle Mayor I
confessed my plan to the company.
“I am going to leave you, to slip round by the back streets to the
Youngs’ house, opposite the palace. From their windows I can see the
procession turn from the Calle Mayor into the palace yard and drive up
to the door.”
“Do not let her go,” I heard Don Jaime say emphatically in Spanish; he
added something that I did not hear.
“It will be very hot,” said Lucia.
“Ninety in the shade,” Patsy agreed. “One of us will have to go with
you.”
“Luncheon is ready,” said our hostess.
“Iced melon in the hand is worth a good deal in the bush,” said J., “but
of course I will take you if you really want to go.”
“It’s pretty jolly here,” murmured Patsy.
“Champagne?” whispered the waiter.
“Take at least a biscuit, and you must drink the bride’s health before
you go,” said the prince of hosts.
It seemed too bad to break up the party. They were evidently serious
about not letting me go alone. I yielded and stayed.
The restaurant was filling up with men in uniform and ladies in court
dress who had come from the wedding; most of the people staying at the
hotel were of the diplomatic world. At a table near us sat Mrs.
Cartwright, looking as handsome in her white court dress as when
Villegas painted her when she was a bride. At another table the King’s
former tutor, Señor Merry del Val, a handsome, distinguished man
(brother of the Cardinal), and his charming wife. It certainly was very
jolly in that pleasant company, talking over the dresses, the coaches
and the coming fêtes.
If I had not stayed at the Hotel Paris, if I had gone to the Calle
Mayor, I should have seen the gay procession of coaches, with the
attendant postilions and _palfreniers_ walking on either side, turn into
the palace yard one by one, till there was only left in the Calle Mayor
for the crowd to gape at the _coche de respecto_ and the King’s coach.
Then suddenly out of the heavens fall what at first looked like a great
bouquet, not unlike those that had been showered down from window and
balcony all along the route; then a blinding flash, a dreadful crash, a
cloud of smoke; and when that cleared away the crystal coach shattered,
the brave horses staggering on a pace or two, the King looking from the
wrecked coach and crying:
“It is nothing; we are neither of us hurt.”
“Nothing?” But that is what King Umberto said, when he fell mortally
stabbed at Monza.
The wheel horses reeled and fell, done to death, their shining sides,
their white plumes all dabbled with blood. The King jumped out--his coat
torn from his back--and helped out the bride. They were neither of them
hurt, as he had said. The Queen was pale but wonderfully calm and
brave,--till she looked down and saw the hem of her wedding dress
covered with blood! Then through the distracted crowd, a small phalanx
of resolute men pushed their way to the front, tall men in uniform, who
surrounded the Queen, walked with her through the awful carnage down the
Calle Mayor, across the palace yard to the door of her new home.
Who were they? Where did they come from? Some said they were the staff
of the British Embassy, who had seen the accident from the Youngs’
windows; some that they were six tall life-guardsmen, who had played
some part in the pageant. The important thing is, they were Englishmen;
they and Sir Maurice de Bunsen, the English Ambassador, appeared, as if
by magic, at the moment they were wanted.
No whisper of the tragedy reached the Paris. In the restaurant the gaily
dressed people lingered at the tables, toasting the bride. Our party was
one of the first to break up. A friend drove me to the Consulate, where
finding the Consul had not returned, I waited to see him. He came in
shortly, white as a ghost, and cried out for a glass of water. From Mr.
Summers I heard the first account of the horror. He had seen the bodies
of the innocent people killed by the bomb carried by. He had counted
eight soldiers, seventeen civilians, all strangers to him. One he had
known by sight, a little girl, the five-year-old daughter of a great
house. He had seen her a few minutes before standing on a neighboring
balcony with her parents. “Such a little body,” he said; “where the face
had been, there was a twist of child’s curls, nothing more; the face was
gone.”
What awful sights I had been spared! I carried the news home to the
Tower. Villegas had not yet come back, the others had heard nothing.
Lucia clapped her hands to her heart when she heard of the outrage. “God
grant,” she said with white lips, “that it was not an Italian who threw
the bomb.” She is a Roman; her first fear, her first hope were for
Italy.
“What was that thing Don Jaime said to you at the Paris, when I proposed
going to the Youngs’ house?” I asked Patsy.
He said “Do not let her go; the police fear that a bomb will be thrown
in the Calle Mayor.”
If the police knew so much, why could they not have averted the horror?
This was never explained.
XVI
WEDDING GUESTS
“_Los Reyes! los Reyes! Bueno, Bueno!_” Don Jaime waved his sombrero
wildly over his head and ran across the wet grass, followed by Patsy,
who had snatched off his Panama and was roaring as if this were a
football game:
“Hip, hip, hurrah! The Queen, the Queen!”