THE GRIP OF THE VELVET GLOVE
On returning to the hotel in the corner of the Plaza de la Constitution,
Sarrion threw down on the table before Marcos the note that Father Muro
had given him. He made no comment.
"My dear uncle," the letter ran, "I am writing to advise you of my
decision to go into religion. I am prompted to communicate this to you
without delay by the remembrance of your many kindnesses to me. You will,
I know, agree with me that this step can only be for my happiness in this
world and the next. Your grateful niece.--JUANITA DE MOGENTE."
Marcos read the letter carefully, and then seeking in his pocket,
produced the note that Juanita had passed to him through the hole in the
wall of the convent school at Saragossa. It seemed that he carried with
him always the scrap of paper that she had hidden within her dress until
the moment that she gave it to him.
He laid the two letters side by side and compared them.
"The writing is the writing of Juanita," he said; "but the words are not.
They are spelt correctly!"
He folded the letters again, with his determined smile, and placed them
in his pocket. Sarrion, smoking a cigarette by the stove, glanced at his
son and knew that Juanita's fate was fixed. For good or ill, for
happiness or misery, she was destined to marry Marcos de Sarrion if the
whole church of Rome should rise up and curse his soul and hers for the
deed.
Sarrion appeared to have no suggestions to make. He continued to smoke
reflectively while he warmed himself at the stove. He was wise enough to
perceive that his must now be the secondary part. To possess power and to
resist the temptation to use it, is the task of kings. To quietly
relinquish the tiller of a younger life is a lesson that gray hairs have
to learn.
"I think," said Marcos at length, "that we must see Leon. He is her
guardian. We will give him a last chance."
"Will you warn him?" inquired Sarrion.
"Yes," replied Marcos, rising. "He may be here in Pampeluna. I think it
likely that he is. They are hard pressed. If they get the dispensation
from Rome they will hurry events. They will try to rush Juanita into
religion at once. And Leon's presence is indispensable. They are probably
ready and only awaiting the permission of the Vatican. They are all here
in Pampeluna, which is better than Saragossa for such work--better than
any city in Spain. They probably have Leon waiting here to give his
formal consent when required."
"Then let us go and find out," said Sarrion.
The Plaza de la Constitucion is the centre of the town, and beneath its
colonnade are the offices of the countless diligences that connect the
smaller towns of Navarre with the capital, which continued to run even in
time of war to such places as Irun, Jaca, and even Estella, where the
Carlist cause is openly espoused. Marcos made the round of the diligence
offices. He had, it seemed, a hundred friends among the thick-set
muleteers in breeches, stockings, and spotless shirt, who looked at him
with keen, dust-laden eyes from beneath the shade of their great berets.
The drivers of the diligences, which were now arriving from the mountain
villages, paused in their work of unloading their vehicles to give him
the latest news.
They were soft spoken persons with a repressed manner, which
characterises both men and women of their ancient race, and they spoke to
him in Basque. Some freed their hands from the folds of the long blanket,
which each wore according to his fancy, to shake hands with him; others
nodded curtly. Men from the valley of Ebro muttered "Buenas"--the curt
salutation of Aragon the taciturn.
Marcos seemed to know them by their baptismal names. He even knew their
horses by name also, and asked after each, while Perro, affable alike
with rich and poor, exchanged the time of day with traveled dogs, all
lean and dusty from the road, who limped on sore feet and probably told
him of the snow while they lay in the sun and licked their paws. Like his
master, he was not proud, but took a wide view of life, so that all
varieties of it came within his field of vision.
Then master and dog took a walk down the Calle del Pozo Blanco, where the
saddle and harness-makers congregate; where muleteers must come to buy
those gay saddle-bags which so soon lose their bright colour in the
glaring sun; where the guardias civiles step in to buy their paste and
pipe-clay; where the great man's groom may chat with the teamster from
the mountain while both are waiting on the saddler's needle.
Finally Marcos passed through the wide Calle de San Ignacio to the
drawbridges across the double fosse, where the rope-makers are always at
work, walking backwards with an ever decreasing bundle of hemp at their
waists and one eye cocked upwards towards the roadway so that they know
all who come and go better even than the sentry at the gate. For the
sentries are changed three or four times a day, while the rope-maker goes
on forever.
Just beyond the second line of fortifications is a halting-place by a low
wall where the country women (whom one may meet riding in the
plain--dignified, cloaked and hooded figures, startlingly suggestive of a
sacred picture) on mule or donkey, stop to descend from their perch
between the saddle-bags or panniers. It is a sort of al fresco cloakroom
where these ladies repair the ravages of wind or storm, where they
assemble in the evening to pack their purchases on their beasts of
burden, and finally climb to the top of all themselves. For it is not
etiquette to ride in or out of the gates upon one's wares; and a breach
of this unwritten law would immediately arouse the suspicion of the
courteous toll-officer, who fingers delicately with a tobacco-stained
hand the bundles and baskets submitted to his inspection.
Here also Marcos had friends, and was able to tell the latest news from
Cuba, where some had husband, son or lover; a so-called volunteer to put
down the hopeless rebellion, attracted to a miserable death, by the
forty-pound bounty paid by Government. There were old women who chaffed
him, and young ones with fine-cut classic features and crinkled hair, who
lay in wait for a glance from his grave eyes.
"It is a pity there are not more like you, Señor Conde," said one old
peasant; "for it is you that keeps the men from fighting among themselves
and makes them tend the sheep or take in the crops. Carlist or Royalist,
the land comes before either, say I."
"For it is the land that feeds the children," added another, who carried
a pair of small espradrillas in her apron pocket.
Marcos went back to his father with such information as he had been able
to gather.
"Leon is here," he said. "He is in Retreat at the monastery of the
Redemptionists, which stands half-empty on the road to Villaba. Sor
Teresa and Juanita are both well and in the school in the Calle de la
Dormitaleria. Mon has been here for some weeks, but went to Madrid four
days ago. It is an open secret that Pacheco will go over to the Carlists
with his whole army corps for cash down--but he will not take a promise.
The Carlists think that their opportunity has come."
"And so do I," said Sarrion. "The Duke of Aosta is the son of Victor
Emmanuel, we must remember that. And no son of the man who overthrew the
Pope can hope to be tolerated by the clerical party here. The new king
will be assassinated, Marcos. I give him six months."
"Will you come this afternoon to the old monastery on the Villaba road
and see Leon?" asked Marcos.
"Oh, yes," laughed his father. "I shall enjoy it." It was the hour of the
siesta when they quitted the town on horseback by the Puerta de Rochapea
which gives exit to the city on the northern side. It had been sunny
since morning, and the snow had melted from the roads, but the hills
across the plain were still white and great drifts were piled against the
ramparts, forming a natural buttress from the summit of the steep river
bank almost to the deep embrasures of the wall.
Marcos turned in his saddle and looked up at these as they rode down the
slope. Sarrion saw the action and glanced at Marcos and then at the
towering walls. But he made no comment and asked no questions.
There are two old monasteries on the Villaba road; huge buildings within
a high wall, each owning a chapel which stands apart from the
dwelling-house. It is a known fact that the Carlists have never
threatened these buildings which stand far outside the town. It is also a
fact that the range of them has been carefully measured by the artillery
officers, and the great guns on the city walls were at this time trained
on the isolated buildings to batter them to the ground at the first sign
of treachery.
Marcos pulled the bell-rope swinging in the wind outside the great door
of the monastery, while Sarrion tied the horses to a post. The door was
opened by a stout monk whose face fell when he perceived two laymen in
riding costume. Humbler persons, as a rule, rang this bell.
"The Marquis de Mogente is here?" said Marcos, and the monk spread out
his hands in a gesture of denial.
"Whoever is here," he said, "is in Retreat. One does not disturb the
devout."
He made a movement to close the door, but Marcos put his thickly booted
foot in the interstice. Then he placed his shoulder against the
weather-worn door and pushed it open, sending the monk staggering back.
Sarrion followed and was in time to place himself between the monk and
the bell towards which the devotee was running.
"No, my friend," he said, "we will not ring the bell."
"You have no business here," said the holy man, looking from one to the
other with sullen eyes.
"So far as that goes, no more have you," said Marcos. "There are no
monasteries in Spain now. Sit down on that bench and keep quiet."
He turned and glanced at his father.
"Yes," said Sarrion, with his grim smile, "I will watch him."
"Where shall I find Leon de Mogente?" said Marcos to the monk. "I do not
wish to disturb other persons."
The monk reflected for a moment.
"It is the third door on the right," he said at length, nodding his
shaven head towards a long passage seen through the open door.
Marcos went in, his spurred heels clanking loudly in the half-empty
house. He knocked at the door of the third cell on the right; for in his
way he was a devout person and wished to disturb no man at his prayers.
The door was opened by Leon himself, who started back when he saw who had
knocked. Marcos went into the room which was small and bare and
whitewashed, and closed the door behind him. A few religious emblems were
on the wall above the narrow bed. A couple of books lay on the table. One
was open. It was a very old edition of à Kempis. Leon de Mogente's
religion was of the sort that felt itself able to learn more from an old
edition than a new one. There are many in these days of cheap imitation
of the mediaeval who feel the same.
Leon sat down on the plain wooden bench and laid his hand on the open
book. He looked with weak eyes at Marcos and waited for him to speak.
Marcos obliged him at once.
"I have come to see you about Juanita," he said. "Have you given your
consent to her taking the veil?"
Leon reflected. He had the air of a man who having been carefully taught
a part, loses his place at the first cue.
"What business is it of yours?" he asked, rather hesitatingly at length.
"None."
Leon made a hopeless gesture of the hand and looked at his book with a
face of distress and embarrassment. Marcos was sorry for him. He was
strong, and it is the strong who are quickest to detect pathos.
"Will you answer me?" he asked.
And Leon shook his head.
"I have come here to warn you," said Marcos, not unkindly. "I know that
Juanita has inherited a fortune from her father. I know that the Carlist
cause is falling for want of money. I know that the Jesuits will get the
money if they can. Because Don Carlos is their last chance in their last
stronghold in Europe. They will get Juanita's money if they can--and they
can only do it by forcing Juanita into religion. And I have come to warn
you that I shall prevent them."
Leon looked at Marcos and gulped something down in his throat. He was not
afraid of Marcos, but he was in terror of some one or of something else.
Marcos studied the white face, the shrinking, hunted eyes, with the quiet
persistence learnt from watching Nature.
"Are you a Jesuit?" he asked bluntly.
But Leon only drew in a gasping breath and made no answer.
Then Marcos went out and closed the door behind him.