"He has a secret which I alone possess. The world is full of his
greatness, his influence, his power, his wealth, his judgment, his
ambition, his fame, and his magnificent future--but only one soul on
this dull earth knows his heart."
"You mean----" I asked, slowly.
"That to-morrow, if I would, I could be his wife. That door of revenge
will never shut, for he is that rare thing among us Spaniards, a man of
stable purpose. And why should I not?" she cried, with a swift turn, as
though I had put her on her defence; and her eyes shone and her cheeks
glowed. "Between him and me, as he himself has declared, it is a duel
to the death. If I will not be his wife he will crush me: he has said
it, and never has he failed to carry out a threat. It is true that I
hate him: I feed my rage on the wrongs he has done to us. But what
then? If we women may be sold for money, traded to swell the pride of a
millionaire's triumph, may we not sell ourselves for a stronger motive?
What think you of a marriage of hate? A marriage where the woman, with
the cunning we all have, hides under the soft laughter of her voice, the
caressing sweetness of her glances, the smooth witchery of her looks and
simulated love, the intent to ruin, to drag down the man that has bought
her, to sear his mind with the iron of her own callousness, to watch,
wait, mask, win, lure, cheat and scheme, until the moment comes when the
truth can be told and the hour of her revenge strikes."
"It is a duel in which even then you would be worsted; and if you ask my
opinion of the scheme, I think it loathsome." There was no lack of
energy in my tone now. I spoke hotly, for the idea of her marriage with
Quesada was hateful. She changed in an instant, dropped the curt
vehemence of manner and smiled at my quick protest.
"Yet the world would see in it a dramatically apt ending to a serious
family feud."
"The world will see right in whatever he chooses to do at present. But
while you hold that project in contemplation, I cannot help you," I
said, and rose as if to go.
"As you will," she answered coldly, and turned away to look out of the
window. For a full minute she remained silent, and then, turning back
quickly, keeping my face to the light, she placed her hands upon my
shoulders and searched my face with a look that seemed to kindle fire in
the very recesses of my soul, as she asked in a tone that thrilled me:
"And if to gain your help I abandon it, will you help me?"
"Yes, with every power I possess," I cried earnestly, gazing down into
her eyes. "On my honour as an Englishman."
She did not take her hands away, and let her eyes linger on my face till
I could feel the colour of delight creeping up to my cheeks, and could
scarce hold myself steady under the magnetism of her touch and glance.
It was not in human nature to bear unmoved such an ordeal; and I think
she divined something of the struggle within me.
"You give me your word of honour voluntarily. I know what that means to
an Englishman."
"I give you my word of honour, cousin Sarita," I answered firmly and
earnestly, feeling at the moment I could have laid down my life for her.
But the next moment with a slight push she seemed as if to thrust me and
my offer away from her. She moved back and shook her head.
"No. I will not take your word," she cried. "You would go away and
would grow cool and reflect, and say--'I am sorry. I was rash. My
English prudence was smothered. I am sorry.' I do not want this. I
would have your help--Heaven knows how sadly and how sorely I need help;
true, sincere, honest, manly, and unselfish, such as I know yours would
be; and how I would cherish it. But no, no, no, a hundred noes. There
shall be one man at least able to say--'Sarita has always been candid to
me.' If you came to me, I should whelm you surely in the flood of my
Carlism; and I should drag you down and ruin you. I meant to do it--I
told you so; and to you I will be candid. I needed you, not for
yourself--I did not know you then; I had not seen you, and it was for
the cause that to me is the breath of life. But I release you. Go now.
I have seen you--I know you. You are true--aye, cousin, as true a man,
I believe, as a friendless, often desperate woman might long to have for
a comrade; but no, no, I cannot, I cannot!" she cried wildly and half
incoherently, her arms moving with gestures of uncertainty. She covered
her face and as quickly uncovered it and smiled.
"You will think me a strange rhapsodist. But when you offered to help
me--ah, you can't think how tempted I was. I have resisted it,
however;" and she smiled again and almost instantly sighed deeply. "You
have come too soon--or too late."
"Too soon or too late? I would do anything in the world for you,
Sarita," I exclaimed, scarcely less deeply moved than she herself.
"You are too soon for me to be callous enough to make use of you; I am
not yet desperate enough. And too late to save me from myself. But I
shall see you again when the hour of temptation is not so sweetly near;"
and with that, showing many signs of feeling, she hurried from the room.
*CHAPTER VI*
*"COUNTING ALL RENEGADES LOVERS OF SATAN"*
The interview with Sarita excited me greatly, and I was too much
engrossed by the thoughts of it to be able to bear with equanimity a
second edition of Madame Chansette; so that when that dear and most
amiable of women came to me, I pleaded an engagement and left the house.
As I passed through the hall there was a trifling incident, to which at
the moment I paid very little heed. A couple of men were standing in
whispered conference by the door and did not notice my approach until
the servant made them aware of it. Then they drew aside, one with the
deference of a superior servant, the other with a quite different air.
He looked at me very keenly and apparently with profound interest, then
drew aside with a very elaborate bow and exclaimed:
"Senor, it is an honour."
This drew my attention to him, and I set him down for an eccentric and
gave him a salute as well as a pretty sharp look. He was a
long-visaged, sharp-eyed, high-strung individual, moderately
well-dressed, the most noticeable feature in my eyes being the
exaggerated courtesy, not to say obsequiousness, of his manner toward
me. I dismissed the matter with a smile, however, and went back to my
thoughts of Sarita and her affairs.
I walked back slowly to my hotel revolving them, and while I was
standing in the hall a few moments, was surprised to see the man I had
noticed at Madame Chansette's house walk past the hotel on the opposite
side of the street. For a moment this annoyed me. It looked uncommonly
as if he had followed me, and although I tried to laugh at the incident
as a mere absurdity, or coincidence, or at worst a result of the
fellow's eccentricity, I was not entirely successful; and now and again
during the rest of the day it recurred to me, to start always an
unpleasant series of conjectures.
The truth was, Sarita's involvement with these confounded Carlists, the
extraordinary connection between her and the man who had prepared that
welcome for me to Madrid, and the conviction fast settling down upon me
that she was rushing full steam and all sails set on the rocks, had got
on my nerves; and I was quite disposed to believe the fellow had
followed me intentionally, and that the episode was a part of that
spyism she had declared so prevalent.
In the evening Mayhew dined with me, and after dinner I took possession
of some rooms he had found for me in the Calle Mayor; and the bustle of
getting my things in order and the chatter with him served to relieve
the strain of my thoughts. But he was quick enough to see something was
amiss with me and would have questioned me had I given him the slightest
encouragement.
The next morning brought another disquieting incident. I walked to the
Embassy, and Mayhew joined me on the Plaza Mutor and we went on
together. As we stood in the doorway the spy--as in my thoughts I had
begun to term him--passed the end of the building, paused a moment to
look in my direction, and then went on.
"What is it, Carbonnell?" asked Mayhew, seeing me start.
"Nothing, old man; at least nothing yet; if it turns into something,
I'll speak to you about it," and not wishing him to have any clue I
wheeled about and went in.
Then I found something else to think about. There was a letter from my
father with very grave news about his health. After a preamble on
general matters, he wrote:--
"And now, my dear son, there is something you must know. I have for
some time past had serious apprehensions about my health, and some
months ago consulted the great heart specialist, Dr. Calvert, about it.
He put me off with vague assurances at the time, saying he must study
the case; but I have succeeded to-day in getting him to tell me the
truth. As I explained to him, a man in my position is not like ordinary
folk; he must know things and be prepared. The great responsibility of a
peerage requires that its affairs should not be jeopardised or involved
by any surprise such as sudden death; and I should be a coward if I
could be so untrue to my order as to leave matters unsettled out of a
paltry fear of facing the truth. I hope none of us Carbonnells will
ever be such poltroons. The truth is, it seems, that my death may
happen at any moment. For myself I hope I should never share so vulgar
a sentiment as the fear of death, and I let Dr. Calvert see I was really
astonished that he should have thought a man of my order and position
would be so untrue to the instincts of his breeding--to say nothing of
religion.
"Well, that is the verdict; and now for its effect upon you. I am
chiefly concerned for you and Mercy; because Lascelles must have every
pound that can be spared to maintain the position which the title
imposes. Mercy has from her mother about three hundred pounds a year,
and this will maintain her should she be so unfortunate as not to marry.
For her I can do no more, and for you can, unfortunately, do nothing.
The utmost that I dare leave away from the title is one thousand pounds;
and this I have left you in the fresh will I have made to-day. I have
no doubt that Lascelles, if he marries well, as I hope he will, will
always assist you; but you have now the chance of helping yourself--your
foot is upon the ladder--and I am very glad that our recent exertions,
though prompted by no thought of what we know now about my health, have
resulted in your getting such a start. You have abilities of your own,
and I urge you to use them to the best advantage in your present sphere,
and I pray God to bless you. While I live of course your present
allowance will continue.
"Then, lastly, as to the Castelars. Tell Madame Chansette what I have
told you about my health, and say that I can do positively and
absolutely nothing for them. But if you yourself can do anything, do it
by all means. If you can spare me any particulars, however, do so. I
do not shirk my duties as head of my house; I hope I never shall shirk
them; but the fewer anxieties I have now the better--so, at least, says
Dr. Calvert.
"Ours has been a life of many and long periods of separation, Ferdinand,
but you have been a dear son to me, and one of my few sorrows is, that I
cannot better provide for you."
The letter moved me considerably. My father and I had never been very
closely associated, but there was a genuine affection between us; and
the courage with which he faced the inevitable, though so
characteristically expressed, appealed to me strongly. I did not resent
my virtual disinheritance. The lot of the younger son had never galled
me much, and I was enough of a Carbonnell to admit the reasoning and to
recognise that such money as there was must go to keep up the peerage.
But I did not delude myself with any sparkling visions of what Lascelles
would do for me if he married well; and I perceived quite plainly that
now, indeed, my future lay in my own hands only, and that it would be
only and solely such as I could make it.
In one respect solely did this thought sting me. It was a barrier
between Sarita and me. I must marry for money or not at all, for the
plain bed rock reason that I had not, and probably never should have,
money to support a wife.
More than that, the letter doomed me to a continuance of my present
career. I should be dependent upon it always for mere existence money;
and this meant that I must make it the serious purpose of life, and not
merely a means for extracting as much pleasure as possible out of the
place where I might chance to be posted. This made me grave enough for
a time, for I knew of a dozen men with more brains than I possessed, as
qualified for the work as I was ignorant, and as painstaking as I was
the reverse, who had toiled hard and religiously for many years to
acquire just enough income to enable them to know how many of the good
things of life they had to do without.
But Nature had kindly left out the worry lobe from my brain, and I soon
held lightly enough the news as it affected my own pecuniary prospects.
I took more interest in my work that day than I should otherwise have
taken, I think, and found it very irksome. I wrote to my father, and
then went off to my rooms with a complete present irresponsibility and a
feeling of thankfulness that I had always been a comparatively poor man,
and that I should be a big fool if I were to add the wretchedness of
worry to the sufficient burden of comparative poverty.
I was whistling vigorously as I opened my door and stopped, with the
handle in my fingers, in sheer surprise, at seeing in possession of my
rooms the man whom I believed to be a spy. He was sitting reading as he
waited, and on seeing me he rose and made me one of his ceremonious
bows.
"Who are you, and what do you want here?" I asked in none too gracious a
tone, as I frowned at him.
"Senor Ferdinand Carbonnell--you are Ferdinand Carbonnell?"--he repeated
the name with a kind of relish--"I could not resist coming. I could not
resist the desire to speak to you, to stand face to face with you, to
take your hand. I have done wrong, I know; but I shall throw myself on
your mercy. I am leaving again to-night; but I could not go without
seeing you."
My former impression of him seemed to be confirmed. The man was a
lunatic, or at least an eccentric; and a word or two to humour him would
do no harm.
"You have been following me; may I ask why?" I asked, in a less abrupt
tone.
"I heard your name mentioned at the house where I saw you yesterday.
The friend who mentioned it knew nothing; but I knew; and when I heard
you were in the house, Senor, do you think I could leave without a sight
of you? Ah, Mother of God!"
I was rolling myself a cigarette with a half smile of amusement at the
man's eccentricity when a thought occurred to me. I stopped in the act,
and looked at him sharply and questioningly. The thought had changed my
point of view suddenly, and instead of amusement my feeling was now one
of some uneasiness.
"Just be good enough to tell me exactly what you mean; and be very
explicit, if you please," I said.
"I am from Saragossa, Senor Ferdinand Carbonnell, and my name is Vidal
de Pelayo," he answered, in a tone and manner of intense significance.
There was purpose, meaning, and pregnant earnestness in the answer, but
no eccentricity.
"I don't care if you are from Timbuctoo and your name is the Archangel
Gabriel. What do you mean?" I cried, testily.
The manner of his answer was a further surprise. He plunged his hand
somewhere into the deepest recesses of his clothes and brought out a
small, folded paper, from which he took a slip of parchment, and handed
it to me without a word.
"Vidal de Pelayo. No. 25. 1st Section. Saragossa.
"Counting all renegades lovers of Satan. By the grace of God.
(Signed) FERDINAND CARBONNELL."
The signature was written in a fine free hand utterly unlike my own, of
course; but there it was confronting me, and signed to a couple of lines
that read to me like so much gibberish. I turned it over and handed it
back with a laugh; and my thoughts went back again to my first opinion
of the man.
"Very interesting, no doubt; and very important, probably, but it does
not enlighten me."
"You mean you do not wish to know me? As you will. Then I suppose I
must not open my lips to you? But I have seen you; and it is a great day
for me!"
"You are right; I wish you to say nothing," I replied, assuming a very
grave look and speaking very severely. "You have done wrong to come
here at all," I added, seeing the effect of my previous words. "You must
not come again."
"You will wish to know that all is going well?" he said, in a tone of
remonstrance and surprise.
"I have other means of learning everything," I answered, with a
suggestion of mystery, and rose as a hint to him to go.
"You are at the British Embassy here. It is wonderful," he cried,
lifting his hands as if in profound admiration.
"Where I am and what I do concerns no one," I returned, cryptically.
"We all have our work. Return to yours."
"I have seen you. You will give me your hand--the hand that has put
such life into the cause. God's blessing on you. 'Counting all
renegades lovers of Satan. By the grace of God.'" He uttered the
formula with all the air of a devout enthusiast; and I gazed at him,
keeping a stern set expression on my face the while, and wondering what
on earth he meant by the jargon. "And you are indeed Ferdinand
Carbonnell?" he said again, fixing his glowing eyes on me as he held my
hand.
"I am Ferdinand Carbonnell," I assented, nodding my head and wishing he
would go.
"I have made the arrangements required of me. When the little guest
arrives he will be in safe and absolutely secret keeping."
"What little guest?" I asked.
"Yes, indeed, what little guest? For what is he now but a guest and a
usurper, like a pilfering cuckoo in the eagle's eyrie? Why has it never
been done before? Why left to you to propose? But it will change
everything--a magnificent stroke," and his voice trembled with
earnestness and, as it struck me now, with deep sincerity.
Was he after all no more than a madman? In a moment I ran rapidly over
the facts as I knew them, and a suspicion darted into my mind. I
resolved to probe further.
"Sit down again, senor. I have thought of something," I said, and
placed wine and tobacco before him. We rolled our cigarettes and lighted
them; and all the time I was casting about for the best method of
pumping him without betraying myself. "It may, after all, be more
convenient for you to tell me how matters stand. What precisely have
you done in that matter? Assume that I know nothing," I said, with a
wave of the hand.
He was seemingly flattered by the request, and answered readily.
"I have done my utmost to organise my district. Of the lists of names
given me there is not one I have not sounded, and about whom I cannot
say precisely, 'He is for us,' or, 'He is against us.' I know to a
peseta what funds would be forthcoming on demand, and what reserve there
would be for emergencies. There is not a rifle, sword, or revolver that
is not scheduled and listed carefully."
"Good. These things are in your reports," I said, making a shot.
"So far as desired of me," he answered. "The totals."
"Exactly! Well?"
"When the great coup was devised, I was sounded only as to whether there
was in my district a place so safe and secret that a little guest, a
boy, could be hidden there indefinitely; and I know of just such a spot
in the mountains to the north of Huesca, where a guest, little or big,
boy or man, can be hidden in absolute secrecy. And so I reported. I
know no more; but I have guessed."
"It is dangerous to guess, Senor Pelayo," I said, with an air of
mystery.
"If I am wrong, so much the worse for Spain. But if the guest were
indeed the usurper"--and here he paused and searched my face as if for
confirmation of his hazard, but he might as well have counted the stones
in a wall--"if, I say, then the mountain spot I mean would hold him as
fast as his officers would hold us in his strongest prison had they wind
of this scheme. Do you wonder that my blood burns with excitement for
the day to dawn?"
"You have done your task thoroughly," I said, with the same air of
reserve; and his face flushed with pleasure at the praise. Then I added
with great sternness, "But now I have a word for you. You have done
wrong, very wrong, to breathe a word of this even to me. You have been
untrue to your duty. For all you could tell I might be a traitor
worming this knowledge out of you for evil purposes. You heard my name
by chance, you followed me and found me out, and with scarce a word of
question from me you have tumbled pell-mell into my lap secrets that
should have been kept with the closeness of the charnel house. Shame
upon your gossiping tongue and your falseness to your oath. You would
have shown yourself worthier of the trust we place in you had you set me
at defiance, and, when I questioned, refused even at the dagger's point
to breathe a word of answer. From now I shall watch you. I will give
you another chance. Go back to your work, breathe no syllable of what
has happened here: that you have even seen or spoken to me: look on the
very walls of your house and the very stones of the street as listeners,
watchers, spies, ready to catch your words and bring them to me; and if
you value your life, pluck out your tongue rather than let it ever again
betray you."
I have seldom seen a man more thunderstruck and bewildered. He turned
white to the lips and trembled violently, and his hands clasped the arms
of his chair for support, while his eyes, terror-wide, appealed to me
with the prayer for forgiveness his quivering lips refused to utter.
I feared I had overstrung the bow indeed, and filling a tumbler of wine,
I handed it to him and said, relaxing the sternness of my looks:
"Do as I bid you, and I will at no distant date send you a sign that you
have regained my confidence;" and with this hope to counterbalance his
abject fear, I dismissed him.
Then--shall I confess it?--I did a very boyish thing. Full of a
curiosity to know how I had looked when frightening the Carlist so
successfully, I postured and mouthed and frowned at and rated myself
before a mirror much as I had with Pelayo, and laughed with much
satisfaction at what I considered an excellent impersonation.
"By Gad, old chap," I exclaimed, with a nod to myself in the mirror, "if
diplomacy fails, you'll do something on the stage, and what's more, I'll
be hanged if I didn't feel that I meant it all the while I was giving it
him."
And then I became serious again.
*CHAPTER VII*
*SARITA, THE CARLIST*
There was indeed plenty of food for serious thought in the interview
with Vidal de Pelayo. If the man was really one of the provincial
leaders of the Carlists, I had stumbled across the track of an intended
attempt to abduct the young King, and such knowledge could scarcely fail
to place me in a particularly awkward position in regard to my cousin
Sarita.
She would as a matter of course be cognisant of the scheme, while it was
more than probable that it had sprung from her own nimble and daring
wits. My visitor had described it as the proposal of Ferdinand
Carbonnell; Sarita herself had said that Ferdinand Carbonnell was the
compound of her brother's and her own Carlism; and there was an
imagination, a daring, and a reckless disregard of risks in the scheme
which all pointed to Sarita as its originator.
But there was also my position as a member of the British Embassy staff
to consider. If the thing were done, even if it were attempted and
failed, there would be frantic excitement everywhere; Carlists known and
suspected would be flung into prison, and questioned with that
suggestive and forceful ingenuity which was generally successful in
extracting information from the unfortunate prisoners; the name of
Ferdinand Carbonnell was sure to come out; and if this Pelayo himself
should chance to be among the questioned--not at all an improbable
contingency--he would go a step further than anyone else and point me
out to the authorities as the actual head and front of the conspiracy.
That was a very awkward position to face. Apart from the decidedly
unpleasant results to myself personally, it was very certain that the
consequences to the British interests in Spain at such a moment might be
gravely embarrassing. It would be argued with much plausibility that
the staff of the Embassy could scarcely have failed to know what was
going on; and a charge of connivance in an abduction plot might fire a
mine that would blow up Heaven only knew what.
All these things I saw as I smoked a pipe of meditation in my room that
night; but I saw also something more. I was a soldier of fortune with
my way to make. My father's letter had shown me that too plainly for me
to misread. What, then, would be my position if I could use this plot,
the knowledge of which had been thrust upon me, to my own advantage,
while at the same moment saving Sarita from the results of her own wild
scheming?
What would be the standing of the Englishman in Madrid who should cut in
at the critical moment when the young King had been carried off, and
rescue him and restore him to the Queen-mother at the instant of her
agonised bereavement? It was a dizzying thought, and I am free to
confess the prospect fascinated me. I sat turning it over and over as I
smoked pipe after pipe, and the longer I thought the brighter glowed the
one picture--the position of the man who saved King--and the colder grew
the other--the duty of informing the Embassy of what I had learned.
When I knocked the ashes out of my last pipe in the hour of dawn--for I
sat thinking all through the night--I had made my decision. I would
fight for my own hand. So far as Sarita was concerned, I would warn her
of what I knew, and that the project must be abandoned from her side.
If she persisted, then I would take my own measures to save her.
In pursuance of this, I went to Madame Chansette's on the following
afternoon to see Sarita. She was frankly pleased to see me, and after a
few minutes gave me herself the opening I wished.
"I have made up my mind in regard to you, Ferdinand." She used my
Christian name with the unconstrained freedom of relationship. "I will
not have your help. You shall not be involved through me in any of
these matters. If you can prevail in your way upon Sebastian Quesada to
give up what he has taken from us, do so; but you shall not have him for
an enemy on my account."
"That is very nice and commonplace of you, Sarita," said I, with a
smile.
"I was not quite myself when you were here yesterday. You surprised me
out of myself. I was excited, and talked wildly, and you must forget it
all."
"What a very charming day it is. Did you notice how blue the sky was at
about ten o'clock?"
"What do you mean?" she cried, looking at me in quick surprise.
"Are you going to the Opera to-morrow? I hear that Vestacchia's ballet
is wonderfully good," I continued, in a dull, everyday tone. "By the
way, I hear that the young Duke of Sempelona is likely to make a
_mesalliance_."
"What is all this rubbish?"
"I thought we were to be commonplace, that's all. I hear, too----" but
she interrupted me now with a burst of laughter.
"Ridiculous!" she cried. "As if you and I need talk of such things. I
tell you I will not have your help."
"Very well. I'll pack it up and put it away in my trunks against the
day it is needed. That is settled."
"So you can be provoking, can you? I thought you were a serious
Englishman, with a good deal of the man in you."
"But you don't want the man; and as I can play many parts, I brought
with me the society dude in case he should be handy."
"You are angry because I won't let you interfere with my affairs, eh?
So you have your pet little weaknesses, too."
"Why don't you care to speak of fashionable marriages? You mentioned
one that was in the making when I was here last."
"You think it a pleasant subject for a jest?" she cried, resentfully.
"Scarcely a fair hit. You have just told me you were not yourself
then--and I thought and hoped it had been abandoned, and was to be
forgotten like the rest of what you said."
To this she made no immediate reply, but after a pause, asked slowly and
earnestly--
"And do you take enough interest in my future to feel serious about such
a project?"
"There would not be much of the man in me and far less of the cousin,
and none of the friend, if I did not," I returned.
"You have seen me once and known me three days."
"You forget the first time I saw you, Sarita. I do not. I never
shall--and never wish to. There are some wounds that are long in the
making; others that are made in a flash: and the latter may endure
longer than the former." She threw a penetrating glance at me, sighed,
and turned away again.
"I wonder if you will ever understand me," she said, half wistfully. "I
will not have your help. I have told you."
"It is already packed away--waiting," I returned, lightly. But the
light tone jarred, and she tapped her foot and frowned in impatient
protest. I smiled. "Why play at this game of pretences?" I asked. "I
am going to help you, whether you will or no; and you are going to take
my help, whether you will or no. And you are going to give up
that--well, the need for us to talk about projected marriages,
fashionable or otherwise. You know quite well that I am just as much in
earnest as you are; and already you have read me well enough to be
perfectly aware that having made that use of my name, you have given me
the opportunity to help you which I shall not fail to use. Why then
pretend? Let us be frank. I'll set the example. I have come to tell
you of something that you must abandon--a plan that originated with you:
the part of you, that is, that goes to make up half of the mythical
Ferdinand Carbonnell. A plan that the real Ferdinand Carbonnell will
not sanction."
"You have come to dictate to me, you say? You to me?" she cried, at
first half indignantly, but then laughing. "But what is it?" she asked,
with a change to curiosity.
"Tell me first the answer to this puzzle phrase, or charade: 'Counting
all renegades lovers of Satan.'" I put the question with a smile, but
the sudden, intense dismay on her face startled me.
"Where did you hear that?" she asked. "How could it come to you? You
must tell me. I must know."
"Tell me first what it means; that is, if it means anything more than a
jingle."
"You don't know?" and her eyes lighted quickly.
"No, I don't know--but I suspect. Tell me, however."
"What do you suspect?"
"To question is scarcely to trust, Sarita. I suspect that it is some
secret password among you Carlists."
"But how could it come to your ears?" she cried, anxiously.
"Should not Ferdinand Carbonnell be trusted by his followers?"
"Someone has heard your name, has seen you and has mistaken you--oh,
Ferdinand, I might have expected it, but scarcely yet. Wait; yes, I
know. It will have been Vidal de Pelayo. He has been here from
Saragossa: he may have heard your name--ah, I see it was he. And did he
come to you--where? Tell me everything." Her speech was as rapid as
her deductions were quick and shrewd.
"Yes, it was Vidal de Pelayo;" and I told her generally what had passed
at the interview, keeping back for the moment that part of it which
referred to the abduction plot. She listened with rapt attention,
viewing it much more seriously than I did; as was not, perhaps,
unreasonable. "And now, what does that absurdly-sounding phrase mean?"
"You have only half of it."
"You mean, 'By the grace of God;' but that only makes it all the odder."
"If you take the initials of the first sentence you will see the meaning
of the second."
"Of course, Carlos, by the grace of God," I exclaimed.
"It is a phrase that Spain will learn to know one day," she said. "It
will be the watchword of the New Liberty," and her face lighted with
enthusiasm.
"The 'New Liberty,' Sarita; what do you mean by that?"
"The liberty, the greatness that our rightful King will bring back to
us. Where do we stand now, but at the very bottom of the scale of
contempt? What is Spain, but the doormat on which every upstart
country, even this America, wipes her feet? And what were we once--the
leaders of the world; the possessors of half the earth, rulers holding
sway on sea as well as land? Are we not the same Spaniards to-day as
then? What we did once can we not do again? Aye, and Don Carlos will
lift from us the shame of our sloth, put blood and fire once more into
the veins of apathy, restore us to our ancient standing, and once again
give us the strength to show the face of pride to our enemies. Is not
that a day for Spaniards to pray for; and to work, scheme, plot, and
toil unceasingly; to shed our blood for, if the need demands it? I will
give mine freely and without stint;" and her face glowed like the face
of a martyr.
"It is a dream, no more. Look at your countrymen, Sarita, and ask
yourself where is to be found the power to work this miracle; where the
men, the resources, the brains, the energy, everything that is of the
very essence of success?"
"Do you think we do not know that? But it is just all that which Don
Carlos will alter? What are we now but a people in whose lives the very
salt and marrow are withering? I know it; but I know also what will
stop the decay; and Don Carlos will give it us. We must free ourselves
from the corroding blight of the misgovernment which those who have
usurped the throne have forced on us that they might buttress up their
own wrongful claims. While we are weak, divided, torn by dissension and
undone by mistrust, they can continue to force on us the oppression
which they miscall government. They sap the nation's very life that
they may pluck for themselves the ever-dwindling fruits from such
branches as have not yet been destroyed. But do we not know the cure?
Can you yourself not see it? If the forceful blood of true liberty was
once again set flowing in the veins of our nation, the change would soon
tell. You know, for you are an Englishman. You have the liberty denied
to us, and craved by us. You and these Americans, who would now put
this last dire shame upon us. You are increasing, we are dwindling.
You enjoy the splendours of the achievements of liberty; we are pining
on the undigested meal of past greatness. You are what we were once,
the very opposite of what we are now; and what you are, Don Carlos would
make us--aye, and by the grace of God, he shall yet do it; and if my
little life can help him, I shall not have lived it in vain."
So absorbing, so thrilling was her enthusiasm, that I did not wonder at
others yielding to her whirlwind influence. I sought to argue with her,
to show her the fallacy of her dreams, to convince her that Don Carlos
at best was merely struggling to get back the throne from anything but
self-less motives, that the destiny of a nation lay not with the
leadership of one man, but in the nature of the people themselves--but
argument broke itself in vain against her passion and enthusiasm.
"There is nothing before you but disillusion, Sarita," I said at length;
"whether it comes in the form of failure to rouse your countrymen--for
men more easily fit themselves with a new skin than with a new nature;
or in the more tragic form of passing success in the Carlist movement,
to be followed by a knowledge that after all your Don Carlos is no more
than a man, and a Spaniard."
"I do not expect you to see things with my eyes," she said; then, after
a long pause, "If I dream, well, I dream. But I would rather live a
dreamer of dreams, and die in striving to realise them, than live and
die a drone among drones. But I have told you I will not have your
help."
"And I have shown you that you cannot avoid it. For good or ill, the use
of my name before I arrived has made it inevitable. You are doing
things in my name, and whether you wish it or not, that fact brings us
together in close association. What has happened with Vidal de Pelayo
may happen at any moment with another; and how can we escape the
consequences? But I must make terms, even with you. For instance, you
have in the making a plan to carry off the young King----"
"What?" she cried, in a tone of profound astonishment.
"Is it not so?"
"Did Pelayo tell you anything of the kind?"
"Can the followers of Ferdinand Carbonnell have any secrets from
him--when they find him in the flesh? He told me no more than he
knew--that he was to procure a safe place for a little guest; the rest
is surmise; but surmise made easy. And I have come to tell you that the
project must be stopped."
"Must?" she cried, angrily.
"Must," I answered, firmly. "Stopped either by you or else go on to be
checkmated by me."
"That is a word I have never yet heard from anyone," she exclaimed.
"Then it is quite time somebody used it," said I, as firmly and
masterfully as I could make my manner. "I mean it."
"I will not listen to you. I won't bear it," and she got up and stared
at me with resentment, surprise and rebellion in every feature of her
face.
"I am not going because you are angry, Sarita. I care for you far too
much to let a passing mood like that ruffle my purpose. I will not let
you commit this crime."
"This is ridiculous--monstrous;" and she tossed her head disdainfully.
"You are presuming on what passed when you were here yesterday."
"I am doing nothing of the kind, and only your anger would lead you to
make so unjust an accusation. What I am doing is to use some of the
privileges which you have given to Ferdinand Carbonnell. I have been
within an ace of losing my life through the use of the name; I have been
recognised by one of your chief agents as the leader himself--and now I
intend to use that leadership to save you from the consequences of your
own blindness. A moment's reflection will convince you that I am not
speaking at random."
"You would make me your enemy?" she asked.
"It would not be the first time that enmity has followed acts which
should have generated sincere friendship. Would the Ferdinand Carbonnell
of your making be deterred from doing what he deemed right by such a
motive? No; and neither will the real man."
"It is the very key-note of our plans," she cried.
"Then you must arrange a different harmony."
"You shall not interfere with it. You shall not, I say," she exclaimed,
tempestuously.
"I am absolutely resolved. You shall either abandon the mad project, or
I myself will thwart it."
"Would you quarrel with me?"
"If you force a quarrel on me because of it; yes." This reply seemed to
amaze her more than anything I had said, and her gaze was full of
reproach and consternation.
"And you said just now you cared for me," she said, softly.
"How deeply it may never be in my power to tell you, for all said and
done, I am only a poor devil with all his way in the world yet to make.
But for this you have made me rich in power, and I will use the power
you have given me to the uttermost--to save you."
Then she came and stood close before me and putting her hands on my
shoulders, as she had done once before, looked pleadingly into my eyes.
"Will nothing move you, Ferdinand?"
"Nothing," I returned, meeting her eyes firmly.
"Not if I tell you----" she hesitated and bit her lip in disconcerting
agitation. My heart gave a wild leap at the thought of how the broken
sentence might have been finished. I loved her, Heaven knows how
deeply, and for an instant I cheated myself with the wild fancy that a
confession of answering love was halting on her trembling lips. "Not if
I do what I have never yet done to any man--beg and implore you to leave
this thing alone?"
Moved though I was I would not let her see anything of my feeling; I
changed no muscle of my face, and met her eyes with the same calm,
resolute look as I answered slowly and earnestly--
"Sarita, if such a thing were possible as that you love me and that the
words which faltered on your lips just now had been a confession of that
love, I should still answer you that nothing would move me from my
purpose."
She started violently, listened to me at first with such a look as one
might give whose heart has suddenly been bared, and then with an
expression of dismay which changed at last to almost passionate reproach
her hands slipped from my shoulders and she fell into a chair and
covered her face to hide her emotion.
But the weakness passed in an instant and she rose and faced me, once
again calm, confident, and self-reliant.
"It shall not be abandoned. You have no right to do this. It shall go
on, do what you will. You shall not come between me and my duty;
between me and my country. I have urged and entreated you, and you have
scorned me. It is not in your power to bend me--cold and hard and
strong as you may think yourself. I can be cold and hard and strong,
too, as you will find. What if I tell you, as I do, that you shall
never set eyes on me again if you do not give way?" and she drew herself
to her full height, splendid in her flashing, gleaming anger. But I did
not yield a jot from my purpose.
"That must be as you will, Sarita," I said, calmly. "Nothing can change
my resolve. Because I will not see or say that all you do is right, you
are angry. Well, leave it there. Believe me, I will stop this and save
you from yourself."
"I do not want your help; and I will not have it. An enemy of Spain can
be no friend of mine," she cried, passionately, and was going from the
room with all the signs of her anger and emotion flaming in her face
when the door was opened and a servant ushered in Colonel Livenza.
[Illustration: "AN ENEMY OF SPAIN CAN BE NO FRIEND OF MINE, SHE
CRIED."--_Page_ 87.]
As soon as he saw me, his face lowered ominously and the anger deepened
and darkened when he perceived by Sarita's face that our interview had
been no mere conventional one.
Sarita was for the moment too agitated to stay and speak with him, and
with a hasty word of greeting and excuse she hurried past him and left
us alone.
He looked after her in surprise and deep annoyance, and then turned with
a scowl to me as if for an explanation; looking on me as an intruder.
"I did not expect to meet you here, senor," he said, angrily; but the
scene with Sarita had left me in no pleasant mood, and I was glad enough
to have someone on whom to vent the temper which I had been keeping
under such restraint.
"I am not aware that I am in any way called upon either to anticipate or
consider your expectations," I returned, pretty curtly.
"That's a very strange reply."
"To a very impertinent remark," I retorted. I hated the fellow, and was
not in the least concerned to conceal the feeling. In my then mood,
guessing the object of his visit, nothing would have given me greater
pleasure than to have kicked him downstairs and out of the house. I
believe he guessed something of this, for he turned aside, pretended not
to hear my answer, and made way for me to pass.
As I reached the door, going very slowly and keeping my eyes upon him in
that melodramatic manner into which a bad temper will lead the mildest
of us, Sarita came hurrying back, and her glance of alarm at us both
showed she feared some sort of a quarrel.
"I will see you again, Sarita," I said, with a warmth in my manner which
was intended more to displease Livenza than to please her. But she was
still very angry, and drawing back, said--
"After what has passed that will scarcely be necessary or desirable."
At which the man smiled and shrugged his shoulders contemptuously and
with a suggestion of triumph which galled me. And, smarting under the
sense of my defeat, I left the house.
*CHAPTER VIII*
*SEBASTIAN QUESADA*
The interview with Sarita both distressed and perplexed me, and my
uneasiness was considerably aggravated by the fact that she went away
from the city leaving Madame Chansette in ignorance of her movements and
in much anxiety.
I could not doubt that in some way this absence was connected with the
plot which I had declared my intention to thwart, and Madame Chansette
and I had more than one consultation concerning her, in which that good
soul's fears were largely shared by me.
I was, moreover, doubtful whether to take any further steps in Sarita's
affairs until I had seen her again, and, in particular, whether to
approach Sebastian Quesada on the subject of his giving up some of the
Castelar property.
"He will not do it, Ferdinand; I am convinced he will never do it," said
Madame Chansette; "but I wish you to convince yourself also, and then we
can together try to bring Sarita to reason."
I was considering the questionable policy of doing something of the kind
when a somewhat odd adventure occurred to change this aspect of affairs,
and relieve me from the trouble of coming to any decision on the point.
Madrid was growing very uneasy over the Cuban question, and the populace
were getting quite out of hand in the mad demand for war. Quesada was
far too clear-headed not to understand the infinite danger to Spain of a
war with America. He knew, probably, how hopelessly rotten was the
state of the army and navy, and he threw the whole of his powerful
influence into the scale against war. But the Madrid people went mad,
and several riots occurred in which ugly results were with difficulty
avoided; and one of these disturbances, directed against Quesada
himself, was destined to have weighty consequences for me.
I was in my rooms one afternoon when I heard the sounds of a disturbance
in the street, and, looking out, I saw a big crowd hurrying with shouts,
and cries, and gesticulations, and with alternate huzzaing and hooting,
in the direction of the Puerta del Sol, where Quesada's office, the
Ministry of the Interior, stood. I turned out to see what would happen,
and soon I found myself in the midst of a mob bent on making a very
rowdy demonstration against Quesada and his counsels of peace and
prudence.
I hung on the skirts of the crowd, listening to the fierce groans and
hisses of those who had reached the Ministry, and wondering curiously
what would be the upshot. Then, just as matters were beginning to get
very lively indeed, a carriage with a dashing pair of greys came
rattling down the Calle de Arenal, and the coachman, being unable to get
through the crowd, was idiot enough to lay his whip on the backs of some
of the men who stood thronging the roadway.
This fool's act maddened the mob, and with a roar like beasts some of
them swarmed on to the box and dragged him off, while others unharnessed
the horses, hauled them from the carriage, and with shouts and oaths
turned their heads and sent them galloping back along the road they had
come.
Meanwhile I had seen that the only occupant of the carriage was a girl,
who was almost fainting with fright. I slipped across the road on the
chance of being able to help her, and found some of the crowd quite
disposed to punish the young mistress for the act of the coachman. One
or two of them were already fumbling at the carriage door, and matters
had begun to wear an ugly look. The girl was shrinking back in the
farthest corner of the carriage, gazing in terror at the rough brutes,
who were yelling and shouting in mob temper, as they clustered round the
door; and on seeing me she gave a look which I read as a dumb, piteous
appeal for help.
By a fortunate chance the carriage had stopped close to the pathway at a
point where the pavement was very narrow, and, the crowd being in the
road and only a couple of men on the other side, I slipped round to that
side, shouldered the men out of the way, opened the door, and said, in a
tone of command--
"Quick, senorita. Trust to me; I will protect you. You cannot stay
here." A glance at me seemed to assure her that I meant well and not
evil; and just as the clumsy louts succeeded in opening the other door,
she got up, put her hand in mine, and jumped from the carriage.
Without a word I put her next the wall, and, getting between her and the
balked and angry crowd, I hurried with her as fast as I could to the
corner where two or three streets open into the Puerta del Sol, the
crowd pressing upon our heels and growing more vehement every minute.
Most luckily there was a cab standing at the corner of the Calle de la
Montera, and I made straight for this. The driver was away seeing the
fun, no doubt, and I shoved and shouldered my way toward it, and laid
about me so lustily with my stick, getting a fair share of blows in
return, that I won the way through and put the girl inside. As soon as
that was done I turned at bay for a minute and let drive with my stick
and fist in all directions, clearing a path till I could mount the box,
when I lashed the horse into so much of a gallop as its weary, weedy
legs were capable of achieving. In this way, hatless, breathless, and
with my clothes torn and my muscles aching, I succeeded in getting the
girl out of the clutch of the mob, who greeted my departure with yells
of disappointment.
When I was well out of all danger of interference and the shouts of the
people were no more than a distant hum, I pulled up and went to look
after my charge. She was lolling against the cushions of the fly in a
half-faint condition, and at first did not understand me when I asked
where I should drive her. But at length she told me who she was, and I
could understand the reason of the crowd's anger. She was Sebastian
Quesada's sister, Dolores Quesada, and asked me to drive her to his
house in the Puerta de Alcala.
I must have cut a queer-looking figure, but as there was no one else to
act coachman I clambered back on to the box and hustled the aged animal
in the shafts into as good a pace as I could, choosing the quietest
streets for the route. By the time we reached the house my "fare" was
better, but asked me to give her my arm, sent one servant to mind the
horse, another in search of a Senora Torella, and insisted upon my
entering and helping to give an account of what had occurred.
When the colour began to come back to her face I was rather surprised to
find she was a really pretty girl. She was disposed to make much of the
incident, and thanked me very graciously, although too profusely.
"Do you know to whom you are beholden, Dolores?" asked the duenna,
Senora Torella. "May I ask your name, senor?" And when I told her she
said--"It is not for us to thank you. Senor Quesada will do that; but
now, can we not help you? You will, of course, allow us to place a
carriage at your disposal for your return home, or would you rather that
we sent some message to your friends? You have suffered at the hands of
the mob."
"If you will send a servant with the fly which I borrowed to the police,
with some explanation, it will, perhaps, save trouble; and if you will
let someone fetch me another fly I can get home all right. But as for
thanks, it is sufficient recompense to have been of some service to the
senorita. Stay, there is one other matter--give that coachman of yours
a severe reprimand. It was his violence in lashing at the crowd which
provoked them and led to all this trouble. You are feeling better now,
senorita?"
She had been lying back in a low chair, gazing at me with an open-eyed
stare which I found somewhat embarrassing, and she now roused herself,
sat up, smiled, and coloured.
"Thanks to you, senor, I am better. But for your help and courage what
might not have happened to me? What an escape! And what do I not owe
you? I shall never cease to thank the Holy Virgin for having sent you to
rescue me." She was clearly an emotional creature, but this kind of
exaggerated gratitude was not at all to my liking.
"Pray don't make too much of it. I just happened to be on the spot at
the moment, but I did nothing more than anyone else would have done
under the same circumstances. Besides, it's pretty certain that the
crowd only meant to frighten you, and nothing serious would have
happened even had I not been there."
"It is clear that the hand of Heaven guided you," said the duenna, with
a solemn earnestness which quite disconcerted me. I did not regard
myself as exactly the sort of person Heaven would choose for an
instrument; and not caring for the turn of the conversation, I rose to
leave. They were loth for me to go, however, and urged me to wait until
the brother came home; but I had had enough of it, and went away, not
sorry to have succeeded in getting a propitious introduction to
Sebastian Quesada.
The next day brought Quesada himself to the Embassy; and I met him with
deep and genuine interest, heightened considerably by my knowledge of
that little secret which Sarita had told me.
"Senor Carbonnell, you have laid my family under an obligation that will
end only with death," he said, with Spanish exaggeration, "and the
measure of my gratitude is the limitless measure of my love for my dear
sister. You must render me another service by giving me your
friendship; and though that will add to my obligation, it may afford me
an opportunity of showing you something of my gratitude." And all the
time he was saying this with exaggerated gesture and elaboration of
courtesy, his piercing dark eyes were fixed on my face, seeking to read
me, as it seemed, to judge the manner of man I was, to calculate the
kind of reward I should appreciate, to gauge whether I made much or
little of the service I had rendered; and, in a word, to drag out my
inner man to the light so that he might see it and appraise it shrewdly.
"I trust your sister is well after her alarm--it was an awkward two
minutes for her; but, believe me, if she tells you that there was
anything heroic about the rescue or any real danger for me, it is only
because her frightened eyes could not judge calmly."
"Spoken like an Englishman, Senor Carbonnell; but, pardon me, I know
what a Madrid crowd can do in less than two minutes when excited. My
fool of a coachman was very nearly mauled to death by the roughs, and
lies now with a broken leg, a couple of fractured ribs, and a cracked
pate. It serves him right, perhaps; but it shows you--or, at any rate,
it shows me--that Dolores' danger was no mere imagination. And now I
bring you a request--to dine with us to-morrow--and I have come with it
in person lest you should be engaged then, in which case you must choose
your own day; for we can take no refusal--unless you can name any other
way in which our friendship may begin more auspiciously."
"I shall be very glad," said I, cordially. "Indeed, I have wanted to
see you on some private matters." A gleam of lightning questioning
flashed from his remarkable eyes, until he threw up the mantling veil of
as pleasant a smile as ever brightened a human face.
"That will be charming. Myself, all that I have, or know, will be at
your disposal, senor. By the way, do you know your very name has
interested me immensely, for reasons you could never guess, but I may
some day tell you, to your infinite surprise, I am sure. And there are
other reasons, too. Are you not the son of Lord Glisfoyle?"
"Yes, the younger son."
"Then do you know that in a somewhat roundabout way you and I are
connections? Dolores and I are fascinated by the thought; and we will
discuss all this to-morrow, for I intend ours to be really a little
family gathering--just ourselves, Senor Carbonnell. And now, as I am a
very busy man, will you pardon me if I run away?"
"No mischief was done by the crowd last night at the Ministry of
Interior, I trust?"
He smiled at the sheer impossibility of anyone harming him.
"None whatever. My carriage was a little scratched--the rascals
recognised it, of course, for mine; a few straps of the harness were
lost, and my silly, hot-headed, faithful fool of a Pedro has been laid
by the heels for a while. That is all. Ah, would God, senor, that
these wild Madrid mobs could always be as lightly turned from the mad
purpose on which they are bent!" And as we shook hands his face was
very dark with thought.
I went with him to his carriage, not perhaps quite without a feeling of
gratification to be seen on terms of friendship with the most powerful
man in Spain; nor could I resist the strangely magnetic influence of his
personality. I believed him to be one of the most dangerous and
treacherous of men; and yet he had so wrought upon me in the course of a
few minutes' conversation, that I could not resist the temptation to
believe that, whatever he might be to others, to me at least he was
sincere in this desire for my friendship.
Mayhew and I dined together, and, as my adventure was now common
property and very generally discussed, our talk fell naturally upon
Sebastian Quesada's visit.
"You'll have to be careful you don't get your head turned, Carbonnell,"
he said. "You'll remember he's a man who never does anything without a
purpose."
"What wise chaps they were of old, to have Death's head always handy," I
returned, with a laugh. "You're prettier than a Death's head, however,
Silas." He was, in fact, a remarkably good-looking fellow.
"Well, a skull has one point over us, after all--it can't affect to hide
its expression with any forced laughs. You can see the worst of it at
any moment."
"Which means?"
"That A may not always be right, for instance, when he thinks that
whatever B may be with other folk, he's sincere with him."
"You've hit it, by Jove, Silas. That's exactly what I did think."
"My dear fellow, it's exactly what everybody thinks with Quesada. I
sometimes think he's a bit of a hypnotist. You know the trick. Old
Madame Blavatsky, when she had a good subject in tow, could chuck a bit
of cord on the floor and make him believe it was a snake. After all,
it's only diplomacy a little developed."
"You think I'm a good subject, as you call it, then?"
"We're all more or less good subjects for Quesada; but I do mean that if
you believe in him he'll make you see snakes--aye, and feel the sting of
'em, too."
"But I did get the girl out of a fix. Hang it, he can't have any motive
in my case."
Mayhew laughed.
"Hasn't a girl ever given you a thing you didn't want at the moment, and
haven't you wrapped it up very carefully and put it away somewhere,
appreciating the act, and thinking it would be sure to come in handy
some day? That's Quesada's policy; and I can think of plenty of things
a devoted young friend on the staff of the Embassy here might be useful
for."
It wasn't exactly a pleasant view to take of the incident, but I could
not help seeing it might be a very true one.
"What an ass a fellow's self-conceit can make of him, Si," I exclaimed,
after a pause. "But I shan't forget what you've said."
"Don't, old fellow. I know the man, and I know he's to be labelled
dangerous. I don't believe there's any villainy--aye, any villainy of
any kind, that he'd stick at to get his way. And he gets it to a degree
that astounds those who don't know him. With all my heart, I warn you,"
he said, more earnestly than I had ever known him speak.
The warning took effect; it pricked the bubble of my fatuous
self-conceit, and was in my thoughts all the next day as I was turning
over the problem of broaching Sarita's affairs to Quesada. It must mean
crossing swords with him, indeed; and the result of such an encounter
must at best be doubtful.
I was fully conscious of this; but at the time I had not a thought or
suspicion of the infinite hazard and trouble that lay in wait to
overwhelm me, and to which I was advancing with the precocious
self-confidence of conceited inexperience.
*CHAPTER IX*
*THE QUESADA VERSION*
At the Minister's house the cordiality of my reception by both brother
and sister was almost embarrassing in its warmth. The Minister was
effusive, elaborate, and demonstrative; the sister gentle, solicitous,
and intensely earnest in her gratitude. She pressed my hands, thanked me
in simple, sincere phrases, but left her gratitude to be expressed
chiefly through her eloquent eyes, which were constantly upon me. She
had taken a quite exaggerated view of my act, was bent upon setting me
up for a hero, and appeared to be resolved to act up to her ideal view
of the case.
The Minister was an excellent talker, and, taking the burden of the
conversation upon himself, proved himself a most entertaining companion.
The one personal touch during dinner was in regard to his previous hint
at our relationship.
"Did you understand that hint I dropped yesterday about there being some
connection between our families?" he asked.
"Well, yes and no," I replied. "I have had some kind of hint from my
father, but I don't know exactly the details."
"It is in some respects a painful story, and one we rarely, if ever,
speak of; indeed, it is known to but very few people. But this is a
family conclave, and if we may not open the cupboard of the skeleton--as
you English very grimly say--who may? By the way, how excellently you
speak Spanish. I should not know you for any but a Spaniard."
"I was many years as a youth in Spain."
"You have a wonderful idiom; eh, Dolores?"
"I thought Senor Carbonnell was a countryman at first," she said, her
eyes and face lighting as if that were a rare virtue of mine.
"No, Dolores, you were wrong there. What he did for you was English
work. Had he been our countryman he would have been talking,
gesticulating, and scolding the rabble. But, instead, he acted. There
was one thing possible to do, and with British practicality he saw it
and did it instantly. No one but an Englishman would have thought of
it. A Frenchman would have rushed to the door and defied the crowd; but
that wouldn't have saved you. A German might have thought of what
Carbonnell did; but he'd have been only half-way round the carriage by
the time Carbonnell had the door open and had whisked you out. One of
these confounded Americans might have done it--but he'd have tried to
dash through the crowd, in at the wrong door and out at the right--too
much in a hurry to go round the carriage first. He'd have done it,
however. But it was the English character to see just what to do, and
how to do it most easily, and then to do it in the same moment."
"You are still resolved to make too much of it," I cried, with a laugh
at his comparisons.
"Can we make too much of a cause that brings us a new friend, and,
indeed, a new relative of such mettle? What think you, Dolores?"
"I think too much for mere words. Senor Carbonnell will feel, I am
afraid, that I am very clumsy with my thanks."
"You were speaking about relationship?" I put in, as a diversion.
"It makes a sorry page in our family history; for in truth we committed
a series of blunders. Your grandfather had three sons, Carbonnell; and
the youngest of them--I fear something of a scapegrace--settled here in
Madrid under the name of Castelar, fell in love with my father's
youngest sister, Sarita, and married her against the wishes of all our
family. You see we regarded him as an adventurer, knowing nothing of
his being an Englishman and the son of an English peer. Besides, there
was the religious difficulty, I was a lad at the time, about ten or
twelve--it's five-and-twenty years ago now--and remember the thing only
vaguely; but I know I was as indignant as the rest of us;" and he
laughed, frankly and openly.
"The marriage was a very disastrous one, I have heard," said I.
"Very. Could not have been worse; and we did not learn who your uncle
really was until after his wife's death. She died professing herself
bitterly sorry for her disobedience to the family wishes, and was
reconciled to us; but the children----" and he tossed up a hand as
though the trouble were too great for words.
"I have seen Sarita Castelar," I said; and the remark brought one of
those lightning gleams from his eyes which I had seen before.
"Have you seen the brother, Ramon?" he asked, changing instantly to a
smile. "He should prove interesting to you, if you knew all. But they
both harbour the worst opinion of me; and Ramon's opinions have taken
the pointed and substantial shape of a dagger thrust uncomfortably close
to my heart, and a bullet that proved him, fortunately for me, a very
poor shot. But I could not endure that, and when we catch him he will
have his opportunities of pistol practice cut short." He made light of
the matter in his speech, but there was that in his looks which told
plainly how bitterly and intensely he hated.
"Don't speak of it, Sebastian," cried Dolores, shuddering.
"I'm afraid our relationship is a little indefinite," I said. "My uncle
married your aunt, and we are therefore--what?"
"Staunch friends, I hope, Carbonnell; closer friends, I trust, than many
relatives are."
"With all my heart I hope that too, senor," declared Dolores, and soon
after she and Senora Torella, who had scarcely said a word in Quesada's
presence, left us. As soon as we were alone and had lighted our cigars,
my host returned to the subject of the Castelars, and his open,
unembarrassed manner of dealing with it surprised me.
"You have seen Sarita Castelar, you say, Carbonnell? She is a very
beautiful girl, don't you think?" and his keen eyes were watching my
face as I answered.
"Unquestionably. One of the most beautiful I have ever seen."
"It is a coincidence, too, is it not?--she is the image of her mother in
looks; you are not at all unlike your uncle in looks, and you speak
Spanish like a--as well as he did; you are here in Madrid. It would be
a strange coincidence if the parallel was to be carried a stage
farther."
"And I were to fall in love with her and marry her, you mean?" If he
could bluff, so could I; and in neither my laugh nor my face was there a
trace of anything but apparent enjoyment of a rich absurdity. But it
required no lynx eye to see that he did not enjoy my completion of his
suggested parallel. "I'm afraid she'd have a poor sort of future. We
younger sons of poor peers are not as a rule millionaires. But she is a
very beautiful girl."
"She is a very extraordinary one, and her brother has had far too much
influence with her. I fear sometimes----" he left the sentence
unfinished, pursed his lips, and shook his head dubiously.
"By the way, she and Madame Chansette--who is, I believe, your late
father's sister--are hopeful that the family will restore the property
which I understand belongs to Sarita's mother and should have gone to
her children."
"Say rather you don't understand, Carbonnell," he cried, laughing and
shaking his head. "The good and amiable Chansette has what you English
call a bee in her bonnet on that subject; and unfortunately the two
children share the delusion. Why, if there was such property I should
surely know of it; do you think I should not positively hail the chance
of providing adequately for Sarita? Not for Ramon, perhaps. That I
grant you. The young dog deserves the whip and worse. My very life is
not safe while he is at liberty. But Sarita--why, I like the child. I
call her child, although she is four-and-twenty; but as I am
seven-and-thirty, and she has always been a child in my thoughts, she
seems so now. Wonderfully pretty, wilful, disobedient, resentful,
always irresistibly charming, but still a child. Don't take her
seriously, Carbonnell; for she is just the type of woman, when taken
seriously, for whom men rush even to the gates of hell."
"Then there is no such property?" I asked, quietly.
"How like the practical, pertinacious, dogged Englishman!" he exclaimed,
laughing airily. "No, there is no such property, Carbonnell; and anyone
who married Sarita Castelar must be content with her beauty as her sole
dower." It was impossible to resist the impression that under the
words, lightly spoken and with an easy laugh, there lay a sneer and a
caution for me. It was the first note of his voice that had not rung
true in my ears.
"I am glad to have had that assurance, Senor Quesada," I answered,
gravely. "My father charged me to see into the matter and I will report
to him exactly what you say." We spoke no more then on the subject, and
soon after we had joined Dolores and her duenna, her brother excused
himself on the plea of State papers to read.
After an hour or so of music and chatter, in which Dolores showed
herself not only a beautiful singer but a most charming little hostess,
the Minister came back to us, and did everything that lay in his power
to make me feel that in him I had found a sincere friend. But Mayhew's
warning, my previous knowledge of Quesada's acts and character, and more
than all the sentence of his which had sounded false in my ears, had
completely changed my thoughts toward him, and I caught myself more than
once listening for the proofs of his falseness even when he was making
his loudest professions of good-will and friendship. And I went home
saturated with the belief that he was, as Mayhew had declared, a most
dangerous man.