WAR'S ALARM
Juanita's carriage emerged from the valley of the Wolf into the plain at
sunset. She could see that the driver paid but little heed to his horses.
His attention wandered constantly to the mountains. For, instead of
looking to the road in front, his head was ever to the right, and his
eyes searched the plain and the bare brown hills.
At last he pulled up and, turning on his box, held up one finger.
"Listen, Señorita," he said, and his dark eyes were alight with
excitement.
Juanita stood up and listened, looking westward as he did. The sound was
like the sound of thunder, but shorter and sharper.
"What is it?"
"The Carlists--the sons of dogs!" he answered, with a laugh, and he
shook his whip towards the mountains. "See," he said, gathering up the
reins again, "that dust on the road to the west--that is the troops
marching out from Pampeluna. We are in it again--in it again!"
At the gate of the city there was a crowd of people. The carriage had to
stand aside against the trees to let pass the guns which clattered down
the slope. The men were laughing and shouting to each other. The
officers, erect on their horses, seemed to think only of the safety of
the guns as a woman entering a ballroom reviews her jewelery with a quick
comprehensive glance.
At the guard-house, beneath the second gateway, there occurred another
delay. The driver was a Pampeluna man and well-known to the sentries. But
they did not recognise his passenger and sent for the officer on duty.
"The Señorita Juanita de Mogente," he muttered, as he came into the
road--a stout and grizzled warrior smoking a cigarette. "Ah, yes!" he
said, with a grave bow at the carriage door. "I remember you as a
schoolgirl. I remember now. Forgive the delay and pass in--Señora de
Sarrion."
Juanita was ushered into the little bare waiting-room in the convent
school of the Sisters of the True Faith in the Calle de la Dormitaleria.
It is a small, square apartment at the end of a long and dark passage.
The day filters dimly into it through a barred window no larger than a
pocket-handkerchief. Juanita stood on tiptoe and looked into a narrow
alley. On the sill of this window Marcos had stood to wrench apart the
bars of the window immediately overhead, through which he had lifted her
one cold night--years and years ago, it seemed.
Nothing had changed in this gloomy house.
"The dear Sister Superior is at prayer in the chapel," the doorkeeper had
whispered. The usual formula; for a nun must always be given the benefit
of the doubt. If she is alone in her cell or in the chapel it is always
piously assumed that she is at prayer. Juanita smiled at the familiar
words.
"Then I will wait," she said, "but not very long."
She gave the nun a familiar little nod of warning as if to intimate that
no tricks of the trade need be tried upon her.
She stood alone in the little gray, dim room now, and waited with
brooding eyes. Within, all was quiet with that air of awesome mystery
peculiar to the cloister, which so soon gives place with increasing
familiarity, to a sense of deadly monotony. It is only from outside that
the mystery of the cloister continues to interest. Juanita knew every
stone in this silent house. Its daily round of artificial duties appeared
small to her eyes.
"They have nothing to do all day in a nunnery," she once said to Marcos
in jest. "So they rise up very early in the morning to do it."
She had laughed on first seeing the mark of Marcos' heel on the
window-sill. She turned and looked at it again now--without laughing. And
she thought of Torre Garda with its keen air, cool to the cheek like
spring water; with the scent of the bracken that she loved; with the
tall, still pines, upright against the sky, motionless, whispering with
the wind.
She had always thought that the cloister represented safety and peace in
a world of strife. And now that she was back within the walls she felt
that it was better to be in the world, to take part in the strife, if
necessary; for Heaven had given her a proud and a fierce heart. She would
rather be miserable here all her life than go back to Marcos, who had
dared to marry her without loving her.
The door of the waiting-room opened and Sor Teresa stood on the
threshold.
"I have come back," said Juanita. "I think I shall go into religion. I
have left Torre Garda."
She gave a short laugh and looked curiously at Sor Teresa--impassive in
her straight-hanging robes.
"So you have got me back," she said. "Back to the convent."
"Not to this convent," replied Sor Teresa, quietly.
"But I have come back. I shall come back--the Mother Superior..."
"The Mother Superior is in Saragossa. I am mistress here," replied Sor
Teresa, standing still and dark, like one of the pines at Torre Garda.
The Sarrion blood was rising to her pale cheek. Her eyes glowed darkly
beneath her overshadowing head-dress. Command--that indefinable spirit
which is vouchsafed to gentle people, while rough and strong men miss
it--was written in every line of her face, every fold of her dress, in
the quiet of her small, white hands, resting motionless against her
skirt.
Juanita stood looking at her with flashing eyes, with her head thrown
back, with clenched hands,
"Then I will go somewhere else. But I do not understand you. You always
wanted me to go into religion."
Sor Teresa held up one hand and cut short her speech. For the habit of
obedience is so strong that clear-headed men will deliberately go to
their death rather than relinquish it. The gesture was known to Juanita.
It was dreaded in the school.
"Think--" said Sor Teresa. "Think before you say that."
"Well," argued Juanita, "if you did not urge me in words, you used every
means in your power to induce me to take the veil--to make it impossible
for me to do anything else."
"Think!" urged Sor Teresa. "Think again. Do not include me in such
generalities without thinking."
Juanita paused. She ran back in her mind over a hundred incidents of
school life, remembered, as such are, with photographic accuracy.
"Well," she admitted at length. "You did your best to make me hate it--at
all events."
"Ah!" said Sor Teresa, with a slow smile.
"Then you did not want me to go into religion--" Juanita came a step
nearer and peered into Sor Teresa's face. She might as well have sought
an answer in a face of stone.
"Answer me," she said impatiently.
"All are not suited for the religious life," answered the Sister Superior
after the manner of her teaching. "I have known many such, and I have
seen much sorrow arising from a mistaken sense of duty. I have heard of
lives wrecked by it--I have known of two."
Juanita who had moved away impatiently, now turned and looked at Sor
Teresa. The gloom of evening was gathering in the little bare room. The
stillness of the convent was oppressive.
"Were you suited to the religious life?" asked the girl suddenly.
But Sor Teresa made no answer.
Juanita sat suddenly down. Her movements were quick and impulsive still,
as they had been when she was a schoolgirl. When she had arrived at the
convent she had felt hungry and tired. The feelings came back to her with
renewed intensity now. She was sick at heart. The gray twilight within
these walls was like the gloom of a hopeless life.
"I wonder who the other was," she said, half to herself. For the world
was opening out before her like a great book hitherto closed. The lives
of men and women had gained depth and meaning in a flash of thought.
She rose and impulsively kissed Sor Teresa.
"I used to be afraid of you," she said, with a laugh which seemed to
surprise her, as if the voice that had spoken was not her own. Then she
sat down again. It was almost dark in the room now, and the window
glimmered a forlorn gray.
"I am so hungry and tired," said Juanita in rather a faint voice, "but I
am glad I came. I could not stay in Torre Garda another hour. Marcos
married me for my money. The money was wanted for political purposes.
They could not get it without me--so I was thrown in."
She dropped her two hands heavily on the table and looked up as if
expecting some exclamation of surprise or horror. But her hearer made no
sign.
"Did you know this?" she asked, in an altered voice after a pause. "Are
you in the plot, too, as well as Marcos and Uncle Ramon? Have you been
scheming all this time as well, that I should marry Marcos?"
"Since you ask me," said Sor Teresa, slowly and coldly, "I think you
would be happier married to Marcos than in religion. It is only my
opinion, of course, and you must decide for yourself. It is probably the
opinion of others, however, as well. There are plenty of girls who ..."
"Oh! are there?" cried Juanita, passionately. "Who--I should like to
know?"
"I am only speaking in generalities, my child."
Juanita looked at her suspiciously, her April eyes glittering with a new
light.
"I thought you meant Milagros. He once said that he thought her pretty,
and liked her hair. It is red, everybody knows that. Besides, we are
married."
She dropped her tired head upon her folded arms--a schoolgirl attitude
which returned naturally to her amid the old surroundings.
"I don't care what becomes of me," she said wearily. "I don't know what
to do. It is very hard that papa should be dead and Leon ... Leon such a
preposterous stupid. You know he is."
Sor Teresa did not deny this sisterly truth; but stood motionless,
waiting for Juanita's decision.
"I am so hungry and tired," she said at length. "I suppose I can have
something to eat ... if I pay for it."
"Yes; you can have something to eat."
"And I may be allowed to stay here to-night, at all events."
"No, you cannot do that," answered the Sister Superior.
Juanita looked up in surprise.
"Then what am I to do? Where am I to go?"
"Back to your husband," was the reply in the same gentle, inexorable
voice. "I will take you back to Marcos--that is all I will do for you. I
will take you myself."
Juanita laughed scornfully and shook her head. She had plenty of that
spirit which will fight to the end and overcome fatigue and hunger.
"You may be mistress here," she said. "But I do not think you can deny me
a lodging. You cannot turn me out into the street."
"Under exceptional circumstances I can do both."
"Ah!" muttered Juanita, incredulously.
"And those circumstances have arisen. There, you can satisfy yourself."
She laid before Juanita, on the bare table, a paper which it was not
possible to read in the semi-darkness. She turned to the mantelpiece,
where two tall candles added to the sacerdotal simplicity of the room.
While the sulphur match burnt blue, Juanita looked indifferently at the
printed paper.
"It is a siege notice," said Sor Teresa, seeing that her hearer refused
to read. "It is signed by General Pacheco, who arrived here with a large
army to-day. It is expected that Pampeluna may be besieged by to-morrow
evening. The investment may be a long one, which will mean starvation.
Every householder must make a return of those dwelling under his roof. He
must refuse domicile to any strangers; and I refuse to take you into this
house."
Juanita read the paper now by the light of the candles which Sor Teresa
set on the table. It was a curt, military document without explanation or
unnecessary mitigation of the truth. For Pampeluna had seen the like
before and understood this business thoroughly.
"You can think about it," said Sor Teresa, folding the paper and placing
it in her pocket. "I will send you something to eat and drink in this
room."
She closed the door, leaving Juanita to realise the grim fact that--shape
our lives how we will, with all foresight--every care--the history of the
world or of a nation will suddenly break into the story of the single
life and march over it with a giant stride.
Presently a lay-sister brought refreshments and set the tray on the table
without speaking. Juanita knew her well--and she, doubtless, knew
Juanita's story; for her pious face was drawn into lines indicative of
the deepest disapproval.
Juanita ate heartily enough, not noticing the cold simplicity of the
fare. She had finished before Sor Teresa returned and without thinking of
what she was doing, had rearranged the tray after the manner of the
refectory. She was standing by the window which she had opened. The
sounds of war came into the room with startling distinctness. The boom of
the distant guns disputing the advance of the Carlists; while nearer, the
bugles called the men to arms and the heavy tramp of feet came and went
in the Calle de la Dormitaleria.
"Well," asked Sor Teresa. "What have you decided to do?"
Juanita listened to the alarm of war for a moment before turning from the
window.
"It is not a false alarm?" she inquired. "The Carlists are really out?"
For she had fallen into the habit of the Northern Provinces, of speaking
of the insurrection as if it were a recurrent flood.
"They have been preparing all the winter," answered Sor Teresa.
"And Pampeluna is to be invested?"
"Yes."
"And Torre Garda?..."
"Torre Garda," answered the nun, "is to be taken this time. The Carlists
have decided to besiege it. It is at the mouth of the valley that the
fighting is taking place."
"Then I will go back to Torre Garda," said Juanita.