A POINT OF HONOUR
There remained Concha to be dealt with. Ah, yes, and also his companions
El Sarria, Mortimer, and Etienne. Only--they did not count. What man
does count when the one woman is in the question? Friends of a lifetime
are skipped like the historical introduction of an exciting romance,
through whose pages battle, murder, and sudden death play gaily at
leap-frog and devil-take-the-hindmost.
Yes, Rollo owned it, Concha mattered. There was no blinking the fact. It
would be bitter almost as death for him to tell her that he must once
more leave her to take his life in his hand, upon a mere point of
honour. She might not understand. Like his friends she might denounce
his purpose as arrant quixotry and folly. Well, that would certainly
make it harder--but even then he would carry it through.
He found them seated in the lodgings which Rollo had secured for Concha
and La Giralda in a house that looked upon the Puerta del Sol. Opposite,
but upon the same staircase and landing, lodged El Sarria, who, if it
would have given any pleasure to Rollo, would have slept all night
outside his sweetheart's door.
Etienne, Mortimer, and Rollo himself had rooms on the other side of the
great square. But upon Rollo's return all were now assembled in Concha's
sitting-room, as had grown to be their easy custom. Concha needed no
chaperon, and if the straiter _convenances_ required one, was there not
La Giralda with her myriad wrinkles busied about the pots in the little
adjacent kitchen or seated with her knitting in the window-seat like a
favoured guest? For it was in this simple fashion that these six people
had come to dwell together. And as he entered, the heart of the young
man smote him sore.
Alas! that he, Rollo Blair, whom these had followed loyally,
questionless, as clansmen follow their chief through mirk midnight and
the brazen glare of noon, should now come among these faithful hearts
like a mute with the bowstring, to put an end to all this comradeship
and true comity!
All knew in a moment that there was something in the air, for though
Concha offered to prepare a cigarette with her own fingers, Rollo
declined it and sat down among them heavy and sad. It was some time
before he could bring himself to speak.
"You who are all my friends," he said, "my best and only friends--listen
to me. I will hide nothing from you. I have come directly from the
Queen. She and Mendizabal have offered me a high position, and one in
which we might all have kept together in great content, if such had been
your desire. Yet for the present I cannot accept it. I am not a free
man. For it lies on my soul that the Abbot of Montblanch trusted us
three when we had neither aim nor end in life. He gave us both of these.
He fitted us out for our mission. For me he did much more. He made me an
officer in the army of Don Carlos, though Heaven knows Don Carlos was
no more to me than any other stupid fool--I crave your pardon, Etienne!
I forgot your relationship."
"Say on," cried Etienne, gaily, flipping his cigarette ash with his
little finger, "do not consider my feelings. All my cousins are stupid
fools! I have always said so."
"Well, then," said Rollo, "to this man, who among other things gave us
each other's friendship, and" (here he reached out his hand to take
Concha's) "who gave me this----"
He was silent for some moments, still holding the girl's hand, while her
eyes were doubtless lovely as moonlit waters, could any man have seen
them. But no man did, for the fringed lashes remained resolutely, if
somewhat tremulously, downcast.
"Well, then, I cannot leave this man to think me a mere common traitor.
No, not if it loses me life and--all. I have failed in my mission. Not
only so, but by the irony of fate I have fought against his friends and
been saved by his enemies."
"We were saved by Concha Cabezos there, I tell you," said John Mortimer,
who thought all this mere rant. "Let the old priest alone, Rollo. Marry
the girl you want to marry, and take a good job when it is offered to
you. You may not get a second chance of either. And that is a plain
man's mind upon the matter, whether you want it or not!"
Sadly but determinedly Rollo shook his head.
"No, John," he said, "that I cannot do. I were bankrupt for life in my
own esteem if I did not go straight to the Prior, frankly explain our
failure, resign my commission into his hands, and offer him any other
service in my power. I think I see my way to one even now!"
"My advice," said Etienne, suddenly striking in, "is to let my good
uncle continue in his mistake a little longer, if indeed any mistake
there be. You use a delicacy he would have been the last to use with
you. I do not believe the old fox would have cared a straw if all our
throats had been cut, so that we had served his turn. Depend upon it, we
three were the poorest kind of pawns in his game. If I am not greatly
mistaken Cabrera and Elio were only his prancing knights, and Don
Carlos, my dear cousin, the stupid old king who is of no use except to
get himself checkmated."
"And who," said Rollo, smiling for the first time, "may the Queen be
upon this little family chessboard?"
"There is indeed rather a superabundance of Queens, as we have seen,"
said Etienne, "but he who pushes about all the pieces is doubtless the
petticoated old rogue himself. Baltasar Varela has been at the bottom of
every plot these thirty years, and if anything goes wrong, he will be
the first to skip over the mountains! Take a friend's advice,
Rollo"--here the honest fellow grasped his friend's hand hard--"send
your explanations and unused commissions to my respected relative by
post. For me, I would not go within fifty miles of him for all the
revenues of Montblanch twice told!"
"Well, El Sarria, what say you? They are all against me, you see!" said
Rollo, mournfully, adding after a moment, "as indeed I knew they would
be!"
As usual the ex-outlaw had little to say, and was deplorably shy as to
saying it.
"Senor," he said after a long pause, "you have doubtless your own point
of honour. I had one once which very nearly cost myself and another a
lifetime of misery. Let the senor weigh the matter well and often before
he runs a like risk!"
"That also is against me!" said Rollo, smiling; "Concha, you have heard
all the others--what do you say?"
Concha rose and stood beside him. She put her arm gently on his shoulder
so that her hand touched his cheek.
"I understand, if they do not!" she said. "I understand all. You are
right. Go!"
* * * * *
So Rollo set forth, and with him there also journeyed to the north
Etienne--first, because he was tired of Madrid, second, because he was
returning to France, thirdly (and privately), because the village of
Sarria and a certain green garden lattice were to be found on the route
thither; John Mortimer, because if Rollo were bound to see the Prior,
perhaps after all something might be done about the _Priorato_; El
Sarria, because night and morning, noon and midnight, he prayed with his
face towards that Convent of the Holy Innocents where Dolores and her
babe waited for him; La Giralda, because she might as well go northward
as in any other direction; and Concha--but it is superfluous to say why
Concha was going.
Nevertheless Rollo insisted that since he was solely responsible, he
alone should adventure the anger of the Prior, though indeed any or all
of the others would readily have accompanied him to Montblanch.
But the young Scot felt acutely how perversely, and like a cross-grained
jade, Fate had treated him. He knew also that appearances were against
him and in what fashion his actions might have been misrepresented to
the Prior. Being singularly little given to suspicion, Rollo was not
greatly affected by Etienne's estimate of his uncle. Besides, there was
the information concerning the approaching suppression of the convents
to be communicated, in such a form that it might be of use to the Abbot
and brethren of Montblanch, and yet do no injury to those through whom
he had come into possession of the secret.
In due time, therefore, after leaving Madrid the party arrived at the
village of Sarria. For, being possessed of all manner of governmental
passes and recommendations, they travelled rapidly and luxuriously
considering the difficult and troublous times. At Sarria, Rollo, looking
out eagerly northward to where above the horizon the peaks of Montblanch
pushed themselves up blue and soft like a row of ragged and battered
ninepins, paused only to assure himself of the well-doing of Dolores
Garcia and her son under the roof of the good Sisters in the Convent of
the Holy Innocents. There were also a few arrangements to be made--and
his will. Which last did not take long time. It contained only one
clause: "I leave all of which I die possessed to my betrothed wife
Concha Cabezos of Seville.--ROLLO BLAIR."
The arrangements were these--Concha remained to assist Don Ramon, who
had once more assumed the position of a property-holder and man of
authority among his townsfolk, to open out and prepare his house for the
reception of Dolores. That little wife and mother, in spite of her new
joy, continued delicate in health, though (needless to say) the nuns had
given her the very best possible nursing. But those who saw the meeting
of husband and wife knew that now she would have a better chance of
recovery than all the bitter tisanes and laborious simples of the
Sisters' store-cupboard had afforded her.
Etienne and John Mortimer decided to await events at the hostelry of
Gaspar Perico. The former took the first opportunity of converting the
silent serving-maid as far as possible to his interests by a judicious
gift of some half a dozen gold pieces. Immediately thereafter, having
thus protected his rear, he sought the green lattice. It had been taken
down and a seven-foot wall had been built. Indeed a mason, who was at
that moment engaged in laying the coping, informed him that the family
had left for South America. Whereupon Etienne went back in haste and
found the barefooted Abigail.
"Why did you not tell me that they were gone--before----?" he demanded
angrily.
"Before what?" asked the Abigail, putting the corner of her apron to her
mouth and biting it with the utmost simplicity.
"Before I gave you that money?"
"Because--why, because your Excellency never asked me!"
"And pray, _Senorita_," growled Etienne, waxing grimly satirical, "what
did you suppose that I gave you the money for?"
The maid-servant let go the apron, put one finger to her mouth instead,
and, looking down with infinite modesty, sketched with her bare toe upon
the ground.
"Well?" queried Etienne, impatiently, and with a sharp rising
inflection.
"Because," fluttered the little maid-of-all-work, "because I--_I thought
you liked me_!"
Etienne turned away in a dumb rage, and the small sharp-featured Abigail
got behind the back-kitchen door to dance three steps and a double
shuffle all to herself.
When he had recovered his powers of speech Etienne called her the
several kinds of fiend which can be defined by the French language, but
this broke no bones.
"Well, dear _Senorita_," she remarked very sagely, when tasked by Concha
with duplicity (after the manner of Satan reproving sin), "he never
asked me, and besides, _then_ he would not have given me the six
Napoleons!"
Which last proposition of the Abigail of Sarria would not have gained in
credibility had it been supported by a Papal Bull.