A HANDFUL OF ROSES
Patiently and softly went the oxen about the little pottage garden of
the friars, till, where the soil was sandiest and the ground most open,
under a south-looking wall on which the roses were still clustering (for
they grow roses late at La Granja), lo! a trench was dug. It was not so
deep as a rich man's grave in other countries, but in Spain as elsewhere
a little earth covers a multitude of sorrows.
The long shallow trench had been the last work of the two remaining
monks ere they departed to their duty in the stricken village. Savage
men, heathen of heart and cruel of hand, might await them there. Black
plague would certainly lurk in every doorway. Yet these two brothers,
simple in the greatness of their faith--not of the wise of the land, not
of the apparent salt of the earth, but only plain devout men, ignorant
of all beyond their breviaries and their duty to their fellows--had gone
forth as quietly and unostentatiously as a labouring man shoulders his
mattock and trudges to his daily toil.
Of the three that remained, Brother Teodoro did his best; but in spite
of his endeavours the bulk of the work fell to Rollo and Concha. Yet
under the page's dress and the rude outer slough of tarred canvas the
girl's heart sang. There was nothing terrible in death when he and she
together lifted the spent stuff of mortality and laid it in its last
resting-place. Without a shudder she replaced a fallen face-cloth. With
Rollo opposite to her she took the feet of the dead that had guarded
them so well in the red morning light, and when all were laid a-row in
the rest which lasts till the Judgment Day, and before the first
spadeful of earth had fallen, Concha, with a sudden impulse, took a
kerchief from her neck, and plucked a double handful of the roses that
clustered along the wall. They were white roses, small, but of a sweet
perfume, having grown in that high mountain air. Then without a word,
and while the monk was still busy with his prayers for the dead, she
sprang down to where at the corner opposite to Brother Domingo the
daughter of Munoz had been laid, the pinched fierceness of her
countenance relaxed into a strange far-away smile.
Concha spread the kerchief tenderly over the face of the girl, dropping
tears the while. And she crossed the little hands which pain and madness
had driven to deeds of darkness and blood, upon the breast in which the
angry young heart had beaten so hotly, and scattered the white roses
over all.
Then while the Basque Teodoro did his office over his dead brother,
Concha kneeled at the foot of the trench, a little crucifix in her hand.
Her lips moved as she held the rude image of the Crucified over that
fierce little head and sorely tortured body. He who had cast out so many
devils, would surely pardon and understand. So at least she thought.
Rollo watched her, and though brought up to be a good Presbyterian by
his father, he knew that this little foolish Concha must yet teach him
how to pray.
"God may hear her before the other, who knows!" he murmured. "One is a
man praying for men--she, a maiden praying for a maid!"
Then Rollo made the girl, whom the scene had somewhat overwrought, go
off to a secluded part of the garden and wash in the clean cool water of
a fountain, while he remained to shovel in the soil and pack it well
down upon the bodies of the dead who had served his purpose so
faithfully. Last of all he unyoked and fed the oxen, leaving them
solemnly munching their fodder, blinking their meek eyes and ruminating
upon the eternal sameness of things in their serene bovine world. He
came out, stripped himself to the skin, and washed in one of the
deserted kitchens from which Brother Domingo, sometime almoner and cook
to the Ermita of San Ildefonso, had for ever departed.
This being completed to his satisfaction, he went out to find Concha,
who, her face radiant with the water of the Guadarrama (and other things
which the young morning had brought her), met him as he came to her
through the wood.
She held up her face to be kissed as simply and naturally as a child.
Death was all about them, but of a truth these two lived. Yea, and
though they should die ere nightfall, still throughout the eternities
they might comfort themselves, in whatsoever glades of whatsoever
afterworlds they might wander, that on earth they had lived, and not in
vain.
For if it be true that God is Love, equally true is it that love is
life. And this is the secret of all things new and old, of Adam and Eva
his wife, of Alpha and Omega, of the mystic OM, of the joined serpent,
of the Somewhat which links us to the Someone.
* * * * *
It was now Rollo's chiefest desire to get back to the palace and find
out what had happened there during his absence. He had heard the rattle
of musketry fire again and again during the night, and he feared, as
much from the ensuing silence as from the escape of the daughter of
Munoz, that some disaster must have occurred there. He would have
started at once to reconnoitre, but Brother Teodoro, hearing of his
intention, volunteered to find out whether the gipsies had wholly
evacuated the neighbourhood.
There was a private path from the grounds of the Hermitage which led
into those of the palace. By this the Basque hastened off, and it was no
long time before he returned, carrying the news that not only was the
town clear and the gardens of the palace free from marauders, but that
Rollo's people were still in full possession of La Granja. He had even
been able to speak with one of the royal servants for an instant, a man
with whom he had some acquaintance. But this conference, the Basque
added, had been hastily interrupted by a certain old woman of a fierce
aspect, who had ordered the young man off. Nevertheless he had gained
enough information to assure him that there would now be no danger in
the whole party returning openly to the Palace of La Granja.
Accordingly Rollo set out, with Concha still wrapt in the cloak which
covered her page's dress. Rollo would gladly have carried the little
Princess, but Isabel had taken so overwhelming a fancy to Concha that
she could not be induced to quit her side for a moment. Indeed, she
declared her intention of leaving her mother and Dona Susana and
returning to Aranjuez with Concha so soon as her message should be
delivered.
Rollo whispered that the pretended page should not discourage this
sudden devotion, since in the journey that still lay before them the
willingness of the little Princess to accompany them might make all the
difference between success and failure.
The Sergeant received them at the garden door, which he had so carefully
watched all night. There was a kindlier look than usual upon his
leathern and saturnine features.
"I judge, Senor," he said, as he saluted Rollo, "that you have more to
tell me than I have to tell you."
"In any case, let me hear your story first," said Rollo; "mine can
keep!"
"In brief, then, having your authority," began the Sergeant, "I
permitted his Excellency the Duke of Rianzares to have an interview with
his daughter, at which, for safety's sake, I was present, and gained a
great deal of information that may be exceedingly useful to us in the
future. But in one thing I confess that I was not sufficiently careful.
The girl, being left to herself for a moment, escaped--by what means I
know not. Nor" (this with a quaint glance at Concha) "was she the only
lady who left the palace that night without asking my leave!"
But without answering, the cloaked page passed him rapidly, and with the
Princess still clinging to her hand, she passed upstairs. The Sergeant
looked after her and her young charge.
"You are sure of this lady's discretion?" he said.
"I have proved it to the death," answered the young man briefly and a
little haughtily.
The Sergeant shrugged his shoulders as if he would have said with the
Basque friar, "It is none of my business." But instead he took up his
report to his superior and continued, "We buried the body of the poor
woman Dona Susana within the precincts of the _Colegiata_----"
"And an hour ago I buried the body of her slayer," said Rollo, calmly.
For an instant the Sergeant looked astonished, as indeed well he might,
but he restrained whatever curiosity he felt, and only said:
"You will let me hear what happened in your own time, and also how you
discovered and regained the little Princess?"
Rollo nodded.
"And speaking of the Princess, if she asks questions," continued
Cardono, "had she not better be told that Dona Susana has gone to visit
her relations--which, as she was the last of her family, is, I believe,
strictly true!"
"But the Queen-Regent and the Duke--Senor Munoz, I mean?" queried Rollo.
"What of them?" For the young man had even yet no high opinion of that
nobleman or of his vocation in life.
"Oh, as to the Duke," answered the Sergeant, "I do not think that we
shall have much trouble with him. The Queen is our Badajoz. She is so
set on returning to Madrid that she will not move a step towards Aragon,
and we have not enough force to carry her thither against her will with
any possibility of secrecy."
"We might take the little Princess alone," mused Rollo; "she would go
with Concha anywhere. Of that I am certain."
The Sergeant shook his head.
"The Queen-Regent, and she alone, is the fountain of authority. If you
kidnap and sequester her within the Carlist lines, you will certainly
paralyse the government of Madrid. Especially you may prevent the
sweeping away of the monasteries--which, I take it, is at the bottom of
all this pother, though for the life of me I cannot see what concern the
matter is of yours. But to carry off the Princess would profit you
nothing. Isabel Segunda is but a child, and will not come of age for
many years. Your friend the Abbot would gain nothing by her captivity.
But the Queen-Regent were a prize indeed!"
After he had spoken thus freely, Rollo continued to muse, and the
Sergeant to watch him. The latter had a great opinion of this young
man's practical ability.
"If he had had but the fortune to be born poor--and in Andalucia, he
might have been one day as great as I!" was the opinion of this modest
Sergeant. And indeed he spoke but the words of truth and soberness. For
it was the opinion of nine out of ten of his countrymen that he, Jose
Maria of Ronda, was the greatest man of all time.
"Well," said Rollo at last, "let us go up and talk a little to my
friends and El Sarria. I think I see a way of inducing her Royal
Highness to accompany us. But it will require some firmness, and even a
certain amount of severity."
The Sergeant nodded with grim appreciation.
"It is a pity with women," he said philosophically, "but sometimes, I
know, it is the only way."
"The severity I speak of," continued Rollo, not regarding his words,
"will mostly fall to the lot of the Senor Munoz. But we may chance to
work on the lady's feelings through him."
The Sergeant gave Rollo a quick glance, in which was discernible a
certain alertness of joy. The Sergeant also did not love his
grandeeship, the Duke of Rianzares.
So these two went abreast up the great staircase, and found the Princess
Isabel already playing joyously with Etienne, John Mortimer joining
clumsily in as best he could. Concha had vanished, and La Giralda was
nowhere to be seen.
"The rogue is in no haste to visit her mother after her night
adventure!" said the Sergeant in a low tone, as Rollo and he stood
watching the scene from the doorway.
"Nor I," admitted Rollo with a smile, "yet see the lady we must!"
"And shall!" said the Sergeant.
Yet in spite of the unpleasant interview which lay before him, Rollo
could not help smiling at the game that was going forward in the upper
hall.
"_Sur le pont d' Avignon,
Tout le monde y passe,_"
chanted Etienne.
"_Tout le monde y passe!_" chorused the little Princess, holding out her
hands.
John Mortimer made a confused noise in his throat and presently was
compelled to join the circle and dance slowly round, his countenance
meantime suggestive of the mental reserve that such undignified
proceedings could only be excused as being remotely connected with the
safe shipment of a hundred hogsheads of Priorato.
"_The children walk like this,
And the ladies walk like that----_"
There was no help for it. Etienne and the Princess first mimicked the
careless trip of the children, and then, with chin in the air and lift
of imaginary furbelow, the haughty tread of the good dames of Avignon
as they took their way homeward over that ancient bridge.
But suddenly arrested with both hands in the air and his mouth open,
John Mortimer looked on in confusion and a kind of mental stupor. He was
glad that no one of his nation was present to see him making a fool of
himself. The next moment Isabel had seized his hand, and he found
himself again whirling lumpishly round to the ancient refrain:--
"_Sur le pont d' Avignon,
Tout le monde y passe!_"
The little Queen's merry laugh rang out at his awkwardness, and then
seeing Rollo she ran impetuously to him.
"Come you and play," she cried, "the red foreigner plays like a wooden
puppet. And where is that darling little page-boy from Aranjuez?"
"That I cannot tell," quoth Rollo, smiling, "but here comes his sister!"
A moment after Concha entered the room talking confidentially to La
Giralda. She was now dressed in her own girlish costume of belted
blouse, black _basquina_ pleated small after the Andalucian manner, and
the quaint and pretty _rebozo_ thrown coquettishly back from the finest
and most bewitching hair in Spain.
The little Isabel went up to Concha, took her by the hand, perused her
from head to foot, and then remarked with deep feeling--
"You are very well, Senorita, but--I liked your brother better!"