AT TORRE GARDA
The river known as the Wolf finds its source in the eternal snows of the
Pyrenees. Amid the solitary grandeur of the least known mountains in
Europe it rolls and tumbles--tossed hither and thither in its rocky bed,
fed by this and that streamlet from stony gorges--down to the green
valley of Torre Garda.
Here there is a village crouched on either side of the river-bed, and
above it on a plateau surrounded by chestnut trees and pines, stands the
house of the Sarrions. In winter the wholesome smell of wood smoke rising
from the chimneys pervades the air. In summer the warm breath of the
pines creeps down the mountains to mingle with the cooler air that stirs
the bracken.
Below all, summer and winter, at evening and at dawn, night and day,
growls the Wolf--so named from the continuous low-pitched murmur of its
waters through the defile a mile below the village. The men of the valley
of the Wolf have a hundred tales of their river in its different moods,
and firmly believe that the voice which is ever in their ears speaks to
such as have understanding, of every change in the weather. The old women
have no doubt that it speaks also of those things that must affect the
prince and the peasant alike; of good and ill fortune; of life and of
death; of hope and its slow, slow dying in the heart. Certain it is that
the river had its humours not to be accounted for by outward
things--seeming to be gay without reason, like any human heart, in dull
weather, and murmuring dismally when the sun shone and the birds were
singing in the trees.
In clearest summer weather, the water would sometimes run thick and
yellow for days, the result of some landslip where the snow and ice were
melting. Sometimes the Wolf would hurl down a mass of debris--a forest
torn from the mountainside by avalanche, the dead bodies of a few stray
sheep, or a fox or a wolf or the dun corpse of a mountain bear. Many in
the valley had seen tables and chairs and the roof, perhaps, of a house
caught in the timbers of the old bridge below the village. And the river,
of course, had exacted its toll from more than one family. It was
jocularly said at the Venta that the Wolf was Royalist; for in the first
Carlist war it had fought for Queen Christina, doing to death a whole
company of insurgents at that which is known as the False Ford, where it
would seem that a child could pass while in reality no horseman might
hope to get through.
The house of Torre Garda was not itself ancient though it undoubtedly
stood on the site of some mediaeval watch-tower. It had been built in the
days of Ferdinand VII at the period when French architecture was running
rife over the world, and had the appearance of a Gascon chateau. It was a
long low house of two stories. Every room on the ground floor opened with
long French windows to a terrace built to the edge of the plateau, where
a fountain splashed its clear spring water into a stone basin, where gray
stone urns stood on lichen-covered pillars amid flower-beds.
Every room on the first floor had windows opening on a wide balcony which
ran the length of the house and was protected from the rain and midday
sun by the far-stretching eaves of the roof. The house was of gray stone,
roofed with slabs of the same, such as peel off the slopes of the
Pyrenees and slide one over the other to the valleys below. The pointed
turrets at each corner were roofed with the small green tiles that the
Moors loved. The winds and the snow and the rain had toned all Torre
Garda down to a cool gray-green against which the four cypress trees on
the terrace stood rigid like sentinels keeping eternal guard over the
valley.
Above the house rose a pine-slope where the snow lingered late into the
summer. Above this again were rocks and broken declivities of sliding
stones; and, crowning all, the everlasting snow.
From the terrace of Torre Garda a strong voice could make itself heard in
the valley where tobacco grew and ripened, or on the height where no
vegetation lived at all. The house seemed to hang between sky and earth,
and the air that moved the cypress trees was cool and thin--a very breath
of heaven to make thinkers wonder why any who can help it should choose
to live in towns.
The green shutters had been closed across the windows for nearly three
months, when on one spring morning the villagers looked up to see the
house astir and the windows opened wide.
There had been much to detain the Sarrions at Saragossa and Juanita had
to wait for the gratification of her desire to smell the pines and the
bracken again.
It seemed that it was no one's business to question the validity of the
strange marriage in the chapel of Our Lady of the Shadows. Evasio Mon who
was supposed to know more about it than any other, only smiled and said
nothing. Leon de Mogente was absorbed in his own peculiar selfishness
which was not of this world but the next. He fell into the mistake common
to ecstatic minds that thoughts of Heaven justify a deliberate neglect of
obvious duties on earth.
"Leon," said Juanita gaily to Cousin Peligros, "will assuredly be a saint
some day: he has so little sense of humour."
For Leon it seemed could not be brought to understand Juanita's sunny
view of life.
"You may look solemn and talk of great mistakes as much as you like," she
said to her brother. "But I know I was never meant for a nun. It will all
come right in the end. Uncle Ramon says so. I don't know what he means.
But he says it will all come right in the end."
And she shook her head with that wisdom of the world which is given to
women only; which may live in the same heart as ignorance and innocence
and yet be superior to all the knowledge that all the sages have ever put
in books.
There were lawyers to be consulted and moreover paid, and Juanita gaily
splashed down her name in a bold schoolgirl hand on countless documents.
There is a Spanish proverb warning the unwary never to drink water in the
dark or sign a paper unread. And Marcos made Juanita read everything she
signed. She was quick enough, and only laughed when he protested that she
had not taken in the full meaning of the document.
"I understand it quite enough," she answered. "It is not worth troubling
about. It is only money. You men think of nothing else. I do not want to
understand it any better."
"Not now; but some day you will."
Juanita looked at him, pen in hand, momentarily grave.
"You are always thinking of what I shall do ... some day," she said.
And Marcos did not deny it.
"You seem to hedge me around with precautions against that time," she
continued, thoughtfully, and looked at him with bright and searching
eyes.
At length all the formalities were over, and they were free to go to
Torre Garda. Events were moving rapidly in Spain at this time, and the
small wonder of Juanita's marriage was already a thing half forgotten.
Had it not been for her great wealth the whole matter would have passed
unnoticed; for wealth is still a burden upon its owners, and there are
many who must perforce go away sorrowful on account of their great
possessions. Half the world guessed, however, at the truth, and every man
judged the Sarrions from his own political standpoint, praising or
blaming according to preconceived convictions. But there were some in
high places who knew that a great danger had been averted.
Cousin Peligros had consented to Sarrion's proposal that she should for a
time make her home with him, either at Torre Garda or at Saragossa. She
had lived in troublous times, but was convinced that the Carlists, like
Heaven, made special provision for ladies.
"No one," said she, "will molest me," and she folded her hands in
complacent serenity on her lap.
She had a profound distrust of railways, in which common mode of
conveyance she suspected a democratic spirit, though to this day the
Spanish ticket collector presents himself, hat in hand, at the door of a
first-class carriage, and the time-table finds itself subservient to the
convenience of any Excellency who may not have finished his coffee in the
refreshment-room.
Cousin Peligros was therefore glad enough to quit the train at Pampeluna,
where the carriage from Torre Garda awaited them. There were saddle
horses for Sarrion and Marcos, and a handful of troops were waiting in
the shadow of the trees outside of the station yard. An officer rode
forward and paid his respects to Juanita.
"You do not recognise me, Senorita," he said. "You remember the chapel of
Our Lady of the Shadows?"
"Yes. I remember," she answered, shaking hands. "We caught you saying
your prayers when we arrived."
He blushed as he laughed; for he was a simple man leading a hard and
lonely life.
"Yes, Senorita; why not?"
"I have no doubt," said Juanita, looking at him shrewdly, "that the
saints heard you."
"Marcos," he explained, "wrote to ask me for a few men to take your
carriage through the danger zone. So I took the liberty of riding with
them myself. I am the watch-dog, Señorita, at the gate of your valley.
You are safe enough once you are within the valley of the Wolf."
They talked together until Sarrion rode forward to announce that all were
ready to depart, while Cousin Peligros sat with pinched lips and
disapproving face. She took an early opportunity of mentioning that
ladies should not talk to gentlemen with such familiarity and freedom;
that, above all, a smile was sufficient acknowledgment for any jest
except those made by the very aged, when to laugh was a sign of respect.
For Cousin Peligros had been brought up in a school of manners now
fortunately extinct.
"He is Marcos' friend," explained Juanita. "Besides, he is a nice person.
I know a nice person when I see one," she concluded, with a friendly nod
towards the watch-dog of the valley of the Wolf, who was talking in the
shade of the trees with Marcos.
The men rode together in advance of the carriages and the luggage carts.
The journey was uneventful, and the sun was setting in a cloudless west
when the mouth of the valley was reached. It was Cousin Peligros' happy
lot to consider herself the centre of any party and the pivot upon which
social events must turn. She bowed graciously to Captain Zeneta when he
came forward to take his leave.
"It was most considerate of Marcos," she said to Juanita in his hearing,
"to provide this escort. He no doubt divined that, accustomed as I am to
living in Madrid, I might have been nervous in these remote places."
Juanita was tired. They were near their journey's end. She did not take
the trouble to explain the situation to Cousin Peligros. There are some
fools whom the world allows to continue in their folly because it is less
trouble. Marcos and Sarrion were riding together now in silence. From
time to time a peasant waiting at the roadside came forward to exchange a
few words with one or the other. The road ascended sharply now, and the
pace was slow. The regular tramp of the horses, the quiet evening hour,
the fatigue of the journey were conducive to contemplation and silence.
When Marcos helped Cousin Peligros and Juanita to descend from the
high-swung traveling carriage, Juanita was too tired to notice one or two
innovations. When, as a schoolgirl, she had spent her holidays at Torre
Garde no change had been made in the simple household. But now Marcos had
sent from Saragossa such modern furniture as women need to-day. There
were new chairs on the terrace. Her own bedroom at the western corner of
the house, next door to the huge room occupied by Sarrion, had been
entirely refurnished and newly decorated.
"Oh, how pretty!" she exclaimed, and Marcos lingering in the long passage
perhaps heard the remark.
Later, when they were all in the drawing-room awaiting dinner, Juanita
clasped Sarrion's arm with her wonted little gesture of affection.
"You are an old dear," she said to him, "to have my room done up so
beautifully, so clean, and white, and simple--just as you know I should
like it. Oh, you need not smile so grimly. You know it was just what I
should like--did he not, Marcos?"
"Yes," answered Marcos.
"And it is the only room in the house that has been done. I looked into
the others to see--into your great barrack, and into Marcos' room at the
end of the balcony. I have guessed why Marcos has that room ..."
"Why?" he asked.
"So that you can see down the valley--so that Perro who sleeps on the
balcony outside the open window has merely to lift his head to look right
down to where the other watch-dogs are, ten miles away."
After dinner, Juanita discovered that there was a new piano in the
drawing-room, in addition to a number of those easier chairs which our
grandmothers never knew. Cousin Peligros protested that they were
unnecessary and even conducive to sloth and indolence. Still protesting,
she took the most comfortable and sat with folded hands listening to
Juanita finding out the latest waltz, with variations of her own, on the
new piano.
Sarrion and Marcos were on the terrace smoking. The small new moon was
nearing the west. The night would be dark after its setting. They were
silent, listening to the voice of their ancestral river as it growled,
heavy with snow, through the defile. Presently a servant brought coffee
and told Marcos that a messenger was waiting to deliver a note. After the
manner of Spain the messenger was invited to come and deliver his letter
in person. He was a traveling knife-grinder, he explained, and had
received the letter from a man on the road whose horse had gone lame. One
must be mutually helpful on the road.
The letter was from Zeneta at the end of the valley; written hastily in
pencil. The Carlists were in force between him and Pampeluna; would
Marcos ride down to the camp and hear details?
Marcos rose at once and threw his cigarette away. He looked towards the
lighted windows of the drawing-room.
"No good saying anything about it," he said. "I shall be back by
breakfast time. They will probably not notice my absence."
He was gone--the sound of his horse's feet was drowned in the voice of
the river--before Juanita came out to the terrace, a slim shadowy form in
her white evening dress. She stood for a minute or two in silence, until,
her eyes becoming accustomed to the darkness, she perceived Sarrion and
an empty chair. Perro usually walked gravely to her and stood in front of
her awaiting a jest whenever she came. She looked round. Perro was not
there.
"Where is Marcos?" she asked, taking the empty chair.
"He has been sent for to the valley. He has gone."
"Gone!" echoed Juanita, standing up again. She went to the stone
balustrade of the terrace and looked over into the darkness.
"I heard him cross the bridge a few minutes ago," Sarrion said quietly.
"He might have said good-bye."
Sarrion turned slowly in his chair and looked at her.
"He probably did not wish his comings and goings to be talked of by
Cousin Peligros," he suggested.
"Still, he might have said good-bye ... to me."
She turned again and leaning her arms on the gray stone she stood in
silence looking down into the valley.