IN WHICH DOLORES INDULGES IN SOME REMINISCENCES OF THE PAST.
The sleeper to whose sighs Harry had listened was Mrs. Russell, who
awaked on the following morning burdened with the memories of
unpleasant dreams. Dolores was bright and cheerful. Katie was as gay
and as sunny as ever--perhaps a trifle more so.
"I don't understand how it is," said Mrs. Russell, "that you two can
keep up your spirits so in this ogre's castle. I'm certain that
something dreadful 's going to happen."
"Oh, auntie, you shouldn't be always looking on the dark side of
things."
"I should like to know what other side there is to look on except the
dark one. For my part, I think it best always to prepare for the
worst; for then when it comes one isn't so utterly overwhelmed."
"Yes," said Katie, "but suppose it doesn't come? Why, then, don't you
see, auntie, you will have had all your worry for nothing?"
"Oh, it's all very well for one like you. You are like a kitten, and
turn everything to mirth and play."
"Well, here is our dear, darling Dolores," said Katie, who by this
time had become great friends with the dark-eyed Spanish beauty.
"Look at her! She doesn't mope."
"Oh no, I doesn't what you call--mopes," said Dolores, in her pretty
broken English. "I see no causa to mopes."
"But you're a prisoner as much as I am."
"Oh si--but thees is a land that I have a quaintance with: I know
thees land--thees art."
"Have you ever been here before?"
"Si--yes. I lif here once when a child."
"Oh, you lived here," said Katie. "Well, now, do you know, I call
that awfully funny."
"My padre--he lif here in thees castello. I lif here one time--one
anno--one year, in thees castello."
"What! here in this castle?"
"Yes, here. The padre--he had grand flocks of the merino sheeps--to
cultivate--to feed them in the pasturas--the sheep--one--ten--twenty
thousand--the sheep. And he had thousand men shepherds--and he lif
here in thees castello to see over the flocks. But he was away among
the flocks alia the times. And me, and the madre, and the domesticos,
we all did lif here, and it seems to me like homes."
"But that must have been long ago?"
"Oh, long, long ago. I was vara leetl--a child; and it was long ago.
Then the padre went to Cuba."
"Cuba! What! have you been there?"
"Oh, many, many years."
"Across the Atlantic--far away in Cuba?"
"Far, far away," said Dolores, her sweet voice rising to a plaintive
note; "far away--in Cuba--oh, many, many years! And there the padre
had a plantation, and was rich; but the insurrection it did break
out, and he was killed."
Dolores stopped and wiped her eyes. Katie looked at her, and her own
eyes overflowed with tears of tender sympathy.
"Oh, how sad!" she said. "I had no idea."
Dolores drew a long breath.
"Yes; he died, the good, tender padre; and madre and me be left
all--all--all--alone--alone--in the cruele world. And the rebel came,
and the soldiers, and oh, how they did fight! And the slaves, they
did all run away--all--all--all--away; and the trees and fruits all
destroy; and the houses all burn up in one gran' conflagration; and
it was one kind, good American that did help us to fly; or we
never--never would be able to lif. So we did come back to our patria
poor, and we had to lif poor in Valencia. I told you I was lifing in
Valencia when I left that place to come on thees travel."
"I suppose," said Katie, "since you lived in this castle once, you
must know all about it."
"Oh yes, all--all about it."
"And you must have been all over it in every direction."
"Oh yes, all over it--all--all over it--thousand--thousand times, and
in every parts and spots."
"It's such a strange old castle," continued Katie, who was very
anxious to find out how far the knowledge of Dolores went, and
whether she knew anything about the secret passage; "it's such a
strange old castle; it's like those that one reads of in the old
romances."
"Yes, oh, vara, vara," said Dolores; "like the feudal Gothic
castellos of the old--old charming romances; like the castello of
the Cid; and you go up the towers and into the turrets, and you walk
over the top, past the battlementa, and you spy, spy, spy deep down
into the courts; and you dream, and dream, and dream. And when I was
a vara leetl child, I did use to do nothing else but wander about,
and dream, and dream, and get lost, and could not find my way back.
Oh, I could tell you of a thousand things. I could talk all the day
of that bright, bright time when my padre was like a noble; so rich
he was, and living in his grand castello."
"And did you really wander about so? and did you really get lost so?"
asked Katie, who was still following up her idea, being intent upon
learning how much Dolores knew about the inner secrets of the
castle--"such as where, now," she added, eagerly, "where would you
get lost?"
"Oh, everywhere," said Dolores, "and all over. For there are halls
that open into gallerias; and gallerias that open into rooms; and
rooms into closets, and these into other halls; and grand apartments
of states; and states beds-chambers; and there are the upper rooms
for guests and domesticos; and down below them are rooms for the
outer servitores; and far, far down, far down underground, there are
dungeons--fearful, fearful places with darkness and r-r-rats!--and
that is all that you do find when you come to move about in this
wonderful, this maravelloso castello."
"And have you been all through the vaults?" asked Katie, trying to
lead Dolores on farther.
"Yes," said Dolores, "all--all--through all the vaults, every single
one; and there was an ancient servitor who showed me all the
mysteria--an ancient, ancient, venerable man he was--and he showed me
all the secrets, till all the castello was as known to me as thees
room; and so I did become lost no more, and we did use to wander
together through dark and lonely ways, and up to the turrets, and
down to the vaults, till all this beautiful, beautiful old castello
was known to me like my own room."
While Dolores talked in this strain she grew more and more
enthusiastic, and made use of a multiplicity of graceful gestures to
help out her meaning. And her eyes glowed bright and her expressive
features showed wonderful feeling, while her motions and her looks
were full of eloquence. It was a bright and joyous past that opened
to her memory, and the thought of it could not be entertained without
emotion. By that emotion she was now all carried away; and as Katie
watched her glowing face and her dark gleaming eyes and all her
eloquent gestures, she thought that she had never seen any one half
so beautiful. But Katie was dying with curiosity to find out how far
the knowledge of Dolores extended, and so at last, taking her cue
from Dolores's own words, she said:
"Dark and lonely ways! What dark and lonely ways, dear Dolores? That
sounds as though there are secret passages through this old castle.
Oh, I do so love a place with vaults and secret passages! And are
there any here, dear? and have you been in them ever?"
Like lightning the glance of Dolores swept over Katie's face; it was
a sudden, swift glance, and one full of subtle questioning and
caution. Katie saw it all, and perceived too, at once, that whatever
Dolores might know, she would not tell it in that fashion in answer
to a point-blank question. As for Dolores, her swift glance passed,
and she went on with hardly any change in her tone:
"Oh yes; the dark and lonely ways, far, far below--in the vaults and
through the wide, wide walls. For they run everywhere, so that in the
ancient times of wars the warriors could pass from tower to tower."
Katie saw that Dolores was on her guard and was evading her question,
from which she concluded that the little Spanish maid knew all about
the secret passage-way to Harry's room. The visitor to him must have
been Dolores, and no other. But why? This she could not answer. She
determined, however, upon two things--first, to keep her own eyes
open and watch; and secondly, to tell Harry all about it the next
time she saw him.