OUR LADY OF THE SHADOWS
There were great clouds in the sky when the moon rose the next night and
one of them threw Pampeluna into dark shadows when Marcos took his place
in the little passage between the School in the Calle de la Dormitaleria
and the next building. The window at the end of the passage where Juanita
and Sor Teresa and some of the more favoured of the girls had their
rooms, was about six feet above the ground.
Marcos took his post immediately underneath and stretching his arm up
took hold of one of the two bars, and waited. Juanita looking from the
door of her room could thus see his clenched hand and must know that he
was waiting. The clocks of the city struck ten. Immediately afterwards
the watchmen began their cry. The city was already asleep.
It was very cold. Marcos changed his hand from time to time and breathed
on his fingers. He carried a cloak for Juanita. The striking of the
quarter found him still waiting beneath the window. But, soon after,
Marcos' heart gave a leap to his throat at the touch of cold fingers on
his wrist. It was Juanita. He threw the cloak down and placing his heel
on the sill of a lower window near the ground he raised himself to the
level of the bars.
"Oh, Marcos!" whispered Juanita in his ear, through the open window.
He edged his shoulder in between the two bars which were fixed
perpendicularly, and being strongly built he only found room to introduce
his two thumbs within that which pressed against his chest. He slowly
straightened his arms and the iron gave an audible creak. It was a
hundred years old, all rust-worn and attenuated.
"There," he said, "you can get through that."
"Yes," she answered. She was shivering and yet half laughing.
"Listen," she whispered, drawing him towards her. "Sor Teresa's door is
open. You can hear her snoring. Listen!"
She gave a half hysterical laugh.
"Quick," said Marcos--dropping to the ground.
Juanita turned sideways and pushed her head and shoulders through the
bars. She leant down towards him holding out her arms and her thick plait
of hair struck him across the eyes. A moment later he had lifted her to
the ground.
"Quick," he said again, breathlessly. He threw the cloak round her and
drew the hood forward over her head. Then he took her hand and they ran
together down the narrow passage into the Calle de la Domitaleria. She
ran as quickly as he did with her long, schoolgirl legs, unhampered by a
woman's length of skirt. At the corner Perro, who had been keeping watch
there, joined them and trotted by their side.
"What cloak is this?" she asked. "It smells of tobacco."
"It is my old military cloak."
"And this is my wedding dress!" she said, with a breathless laugh. "And
Perro is my bridesmaid."
They turned sharply to the left and in a moment stood on the deserted
ramparts close under the shadow of the Episcopal Palace. Below them was
darkness. To the right, beneath them, the white falls of the river
gleamed dimly above the bridge, and the roar of it came to their ears
like the roar of the sea.
Far across the plain, the Pyrenees rose, range behind range, a white wall
in the moonlight. At their feet the walls of the ramparts, bastion below
bastion, broken and crenelated, a triumph of mediaeval fortification,
faded into the shadow where the river ran.
"There is a snow-drift in this corner," whispered Marcos. "It is piled up
against the rampart by the north wind. I will drop you over the wall on
to it and then follow you. You remember how to hold to my hand?"
"Yes," she answered, very quick and alert. There was good blood in her
veins, which was astir now, in the presence of danger. "Yes--as we used
to do it in the mountains--my hand round your wrist and your fingers
round mine."
They were standing on the wall now. She knelt down and looked over; then
she turned, still on her knees, and clasped her right hand round his
wrist while he held hers in his strong grip. She leant forward and
without hesitation swung out, suspended by one arm, into the darkness. He
stooped, then knelt, and finally lay face downwards on the wall, lowering
her all the while.
"Go!" he whispered. And she dropped lightly on to the snow-slope beaten
by the wind into an icy buttress against the wall. A moment later he
dropped beside her.
"My father is at the bridge," he said, as they scrambled down to the
narrow path that runs along the river bank beneath the walls. "He is
waiting for us there with a carriage and a priest."
Juanita stopped short.
"Oh, I wish I had not come!" she exclaimed.
"You can go back," said Marcos slowly; "it is not too late. You can still
go back if you want to."
But Juanita only laughed at him.
"And know for the rest of my life that I am a miserable coward. And it is
of cowards that nuns are made; no, thank you. I will carry it through
now. Come along. Come and get married."
She gave a laugh as she led the way. When they reached the road they were
in the full moonlight, and for the first time could see each other.
"What is the matter?" said Juanita suddenly. "Your face looks white;
there is something I do not understand in it."
"Nothing," answered Marcos. "Nothing. We must be quick."
"You are sure you are keeping nothing back from me?" she asked, glancing
shrewdly at him as she walked by his side.
"Nothing," he answered, for the first time, and very conscientiously
telling her an untruth. For he was keeping back the crux of the whole
affair which he thought she was too young to be told or to understand.
The carriage was waiting on the high road just across the old Roman
bridge. Sarrion came forward in the moonlight to meet them. Juanita ran
towards him, kissed him and clung to his arm with a little movement of
affection.
"I am so glad to see you," she said. "It feels safer. They almost made me
a nun, you know. And that horrid old Sor Teresa--oh, I beg your pardon! I
forgot she was your sister."
"She is hardly my sister," answered Sarrion with a cynical laugh. "It is
against the rules you know to permit oneself any family affection when
one is in religion."
"You mustn't blame her for that," said Juanita. "One never knows. You
cannot tell why she went into religion. Perhaps she never meant to. You
do not understand."
"Oh, yes I do," answered Sarrion bitterly.
They were hurrying towards the carriage and a man waiting at the open
door took a step forward and raised his hat, showing in the moonlight a
high bald forehead and a clean shaven face. He was slight and neat.
"This is an old school friend of mine," said Sarrion by way of
introduction. "He is a bishop," he added.
And Juanita knelt on the road while he laid his hand on her hair with a
smile half amused and half pathetic. He looked twenty years younger than
Sarrion, and laying aside his sacerdotal manner as suddenly as he had
assumed it on Juanita's instinctive initiation, he helped her into the
carriage with a grave and ceremonious courtesy.
"This is your own carriage," she said when they were all seated.
"Yes--from Torre Garda," answered Sarrion. "And it is Pietro who is
driving. So you are among friends."
"And dear old Perro running at the side," exclaimed Juanita, jumping up
and putting her head out of the window to encourage Perro with a
greeting. Her mantilla flying in the wind blew across the bishop's face
which that youthful-looking dignitary endured with patience.
"And there is a hot-water tin for our feet. I feel it through my
slippers; for my feet are wet with the snow. How delightful!"
And Juanita stooped down to warm her hands.
"You have thought of everything--you and Marcos," she said. "You are so
kind to me. I am sure I am very grateful ... to every one."
She turned towards the bishop, kindly including him in this expression of
thanks; which she could not do more definitely because she did not know
his name. It was obvious that she was not a bit afraid of him seeing that
he had no vestments with him.
"At one time, on the ramparts, I was sorry I had come," she explained in
a friendly way to him, "but now I am not. Of course it is all very well
for me. It is great fun. But for you it is different; on such a cold
night. I do not know why everybody takes so much trouble about me."
"Half of Spain is taking trouble about you, my child," was the answer.
"Ah! that is about my money. That is quite different. But Marcos, you
know, and Uncle Ramon are the only people who take any trouble about me,
for myself you understand."
"Yes, I understand," answered the great man humbly, as if he were trying
to, but was not quite sure of success.
Marcos sat silently in his corner of the carriage. Indeed Juanita
exercised the prerogative of her sex and led the conversation, gaily and
easily. But when the carriage stopped beneath some trees by the roadside
she suddenly lapsed into silence too.
She stood on the road in the bright moonlight and looked about her. She
had thrown back the hood of Marcos' military cloak and now set her
mantilla in order. Which was all the preparation this light-hearted bride
made for the supreme moment. And perhaps she never knew all that she had
missed.
"I see no church and no houses," said Juanita to Marcos. "Where are we?"
"The chapel is above us in the darkness," replied Marcos. And he led the
way up a winding path.
The little chapel stood on a sort of table-land looking out over the
plain that lay to the south of it. In front of it were twelve pines
planted in a row at irregular intervals. The shadow of each tree in
succession fell upon a low stone cross set on the ground before the door
at each successive hour of the twelve; a fantasy of some holy man long
dead.
The chapel door stood open and just within it a priest in his short white
surplice awaited their arrival. Juanita recognised the sunburnt old cura
of Torre Garda.
But he only had time to bow rather formally to her; for a bishop was
behind.
"I have only lighted one candle," he said to Marcos. "If we make an
illumination they can see it from Pampeluna."
The bishop followed the old priest into the sacristy where the one candle
gave a flickering light. There they could be heard whispering together.
Sarrion, Marcos and Juanita stood near the door. The moonlight gleamed
through the windows and a certain amount of reflected light found its way
through the open doorway.
Suddenly Juanita gave a start and clutched at Marcos' arm.
"Look," she said, pointing to the right.
A kneeling figure was there with something that gleamed dully at the
shoulders.
"Yes," explained Marcos. "It is a friend of mine, an officer of the
garrison who has ridden over. We require two witnesses, you know."
"He is saying his own prayers," said Juanita, looking at him.
"He has not much opportunity," explained Marcos. "He is in command of an
outpost at the outlet of the valley of the Wolf."
As they looked at him he rose and came towards them, his spurs clanking
and his great sword swinging against the prie-dieu chairs of the devout.
He bowed formally to Juanita, and stood, upright and stiff, looking at
Marcos.
The old cura came from the sacristy and lighted two candles on the altar.
Then he turned with the taper in his hand and beckoned to Marcos and
Juanita to come forward to the rails where two stools had been placed in
readiness. The cura went back to the sacristy and returned, followed by
the bishop in his vestments.
So Juanita de Mogente was married in a little mountain chapel by the
light of two candles and a waning moon, while Sarrion and the officer in
his dusty uniform stood like sentinels behind them, and the bishop
recited the office by heart because he could not see to read. He was a
political bishop and no great divine, but he knew his business, and got
through it quickly.
He splashed down his historic name with a great flourish of the quill pen
in the register and on the certificate which he handed with a bow to
Juanita.
"What shall I do with it?" she asked.
"Give it to Marcos," was the answer.
And Marcos put the paper in his pocket.
They passed out of the chapel and stood on the little terrace in the
moonlight amid the shadows of the twelve pine trees while the bishop
disrobed in the sacristy.
"What are those lights?" asked Juanita, breaking the silence before it
grew irksome.
"That is Pampeluna," replied Marcos.
"And the light in the mountains?" she asked, pointing to the north.
"That is a Carlist watch-fire, Senorita," answered the officer briskly,
and no one seemed to notice his slip of the tongue except Sarrion, who
glanced at him and then decided not to remind him that the title no
longer applied to Juanita.
In a few moments the bishop joined them, and they all made their way down
the winding path. The bishop and Sarrion were to go by the midnight train
to Saragossa, while the carnage and horses were housed for the night at
the inn near the station, a mile from the gates; for this was a time of
war, and Pampeluna was a fenced city from nightfall till morning.
Marcos and Juanita reached the Calle de la Dormitaleria in safety,
however, and Juanita gave a little sigh of fatigue as they hurried down
the narrow alley.
"To-morrow," she said, "I shall think this has all been a dream."
"So shall I," said Marcos gravely.
He lifted her into the window, and she stood listening for a moment while
she took from her finger the wedding ring she had worn for half an hour
and gave it back to him.
"It is of no use to me," she said; "I cannot wear it at school."
She laughed, and held up one finger to command his attention.
"Listen!" she whispered. "Sor Teresa is still snoring."
She watched him bend the bars back again to their proper place.
"By the way," she asked him. "What was the name of the chapel where we
were married--I should like to know?"
Marcos hesitated a moment before replying.
"It is called Our Lady of the Shadows."