“Thine were the calming eyes
That round my pinnace could have stilled the sea,
And drawn thy voyager home, and bid him be
Pure with their pureness, with their wisdom wise,
Merged in their light, and greatly lost in thee.”
It was midday at the monastery of Montserrat, and a monk, walking in the
garden, turned and paused in his meditative promenade to listen to an
unwonted noise. The silence of this sacred height is so intense that
many cannot sleep at night for the hunger of a sound. There is no
running water except the fountain in the patio. There are no birds to
tell of spring and morning. There are no trees for the cool night winds
to stir, nothing but eternal rock and the ancient building so closely
associated with the life of Ignatius de Loyola. The valley, a sheer
three thousand feet below, is thinly enough populated, though a great
river and the line of railway from Manresa to Barcelona run through it.
So clear is the atmosphere that at the great distance the contemplative
denizens of the monastery may count the number of the railway carriages,
while no sound of the train, or indeed of any life in the valley,
reaches their ears.
What the monk heard was disturbing, and he hurried to the corner of the
garden, from whence a view of the winding road may be obtained. Floating
on the wind came the sound, as from another world, of shouting, and the
hollow rumble of wheels. The holy man peered down into the valley, and
soon verified his fears. It was the diligencia, which had quitted
the monastery a short hour ago, that flew down the hill to inevitable
destruction. Once before in the recollection of the watcher the mules
had run away, rushing down to their death, and carrying with them across
that frontier the lives of seven passengers, devout persons, who, having
performed the pilgrimage to the shrine of our Lady of Montserrat, had
doubtless received their reward. The monk crossed himself, but, being
human, forgot alike to pray and to call his brethren to witness the
scene. It was like looking at a play from a very high gallery. The
miniature diligencia on the toy road far below swayed from the bank of
the highway to the verge--the four mules stretched out at a gallop, as
in a picture. The shouts dimly heard at the monastery had the effect
they were intended to create, for the monk could see the carters and
muleteers draw aside to let the living avalanche go past.
There were but two men on the box-seat of the diligencia--the driver and
a passenger seated by his side. The monk recollected that this passenger
had passed two days at Montserrat, inscribing himself in the visitors'
book as Matthew S. Whittaker.
“I am ready to take the reins when your arms are cramped,” this
passenger was saying at that precise moment, “but I do not know the
road, and I cannot drive so well as you.”
He finished with a curt laugh, and, holding on with both hands, he
turned and looked at his companion. He was not afraid, and death
assuredly stared him in the face at that moment.
“Thanks for that, at all events,” returned the driver, handling his
reins with a steady skill. Then he fell to cursing the mules. As he
rounded each corner of the winding road, he gave a derisive shout
of triumph; as he safely passed a cart, he gave voice to a yell of
defiance. He went to his death--if death awaited him--with a fine
spirit, with a light in his eyes and the blood in his tanned cheeks.
The man at his side could perhaps have saved himself by a leap which
might, with good fortune, have resulted in nothing more serious than a
broken limb. As he had been invited by the driver to take this leap and
had curtly declined, it is worth while to pause and give particulars of
this passenger on the runaway diligencia. He was a slightly built man,
dressed in the ordinary dark clothes and soft black felt hat of the
middle class Spaniard. His face was brown and sun-dried, with deep lines
drawn downwards from the nose to the lips in such a manner that cynicism
and a mildly protesting tolerance were contending for mastery in an
otherwise studiously inexpressive countenance.
“The Excellency does not blame me for this?” the driver jerked out, as
he hauled round a corner with a sort of pride.
“No, my friend,” replied the American; and he broke off suddenly to
curve his two hands around his lips and give forth a warning shout in a
clear tenor that rang down the valley like a trumpet.
A muleteer leading a heavily laden animal drew his beast into the ditch,
and leapt into the middle of the road. He stepped nimbly aside and
sprang at the leading mule, but was rolled into the ditch like an old
hat.
“That is an old torero,” shouted the driver. “Bravo, bravo!”
As they flew on, Whittaker turned in his seat and caught a glimpse of
the man standing in the middle of the road, with arms spread out in an
attitude of apology and deprecation.
“Ah!” cried the driver, “we shall not pass these. Now leap!”
“No,” answered the other, and gave his warning shout.
Below them on the spiral road two heavy carts were slowly mounting.
These were the long country carts used for the carriage of wine-casks,
heavily laden with barrels for the monastery. The drivers, looking up,
saw in a moment what to expect, and ran to the head of their long teams
of eight mules, but all concerned knew in a flash of thought that they
could not pull aside in time.
“Leap, in the name of a saint!” cried the driver, clenching his teeth.
Whittaker made no answer. But he cleared his feet and sat forward,
his keen face and narrow eyes alert to seize any chance of life. The
maddened mules rushed on, seeking to free themselves from the swaying
destroyer on their heels. The leaders swung round the corner, but
refused to obey the reins when they caught sight of the cart in front.
The brakes had long ceased to act; the wooden blocks were charred as by
fire. The two heavier mules at the pole made a terrified but intelligent
attempt to check the pace, and the weighty vehicle skidded sideways
across the road, shuddering and rattling as it went. It poised for a
moment on the edge of the slope, while the mules threw themselves into
their collars--their intelligence seeming to rise at this moment to a
human height. Then the great vehicle turned slowly over, and at the
same moment Whittaker and the driver leapt into the tangle of heels and
harness. One of the leaders swung right out in mid-air with flying legs,
and mules and diligencia rolled over and over down the steep in a cloud
of dust and stones.
When Matthew S. Whittaker recovered consciousness, he found himself in
a richly furnished bedroom. He woke as if from sleep, with his senses
fully alert, and began at once to take an interest in a conversation of
which he had been conscious in the form of a faint murmur for some time.
“A broken arm, my child, and nothing more, so far as I can tell at
present,” were the first comprehensible words. Whittaker tried to move
his left arm, and winced.
“And the other man?” inquired a woman's voice in Spanish, but with an
accent which the listener recognised at once. This was an Englishwoman
speaking Spanish.
“Ah! the other man is dead. Poor Mogul! He was always civil and
God-fearing. He has driven the diligencia up to us for nearly twenty
years.”
Whittaker turned his head, and winced again. The speaker was a monk--fat
and good-natured--one of the few now left in the great house on
Montserrat. His interlocutor was a woman not more than thirty, with
brown hair that gleamed in the sunlight, and a fresh, thoughtful
face. Her attitude was somewhat independent, her manner indicated a
self-reliant spirit. This was a woman who would probably make mistakes
in life, but these would not be the errors of omission. She was a
prototype of a sex and an age which err in advancing too quickly, and
in holding that everything which is old-fashioned must necessarily be
foolish.
Whittaker lay quite still and watched these two, while the deep-drawn
lines around his lips indicated a decided sense of amusement. He was in
pain, but that was no new condition to a man whose spirit had ever been
robuster than his body. He had, at all events, not been killed, and his
last recollection had been the effort to face death. So he lay with a
twisted smile on his lips listening to Brother Lucas, who, sad old monk
that he was, took infinite pleasure in glorifying to the young lady
his own action in causing the monastery cart to be brought out, and
in driving down the slope at a breakneck pace to place his medical
knowledge at the disposal of such as might require it. He bowed in a
portly way, and indicated with a very worldly politeness that he himself
was, in fact, at the disposal of the Senorita.
“I was not always a monk--I began life as a doctor,” he explained.
And his companion looked at him with speculative, clever eyes, scenting
afar off, with the quickness of her kind, the usual little romance--the
everlasting woman.
“Ah!” she said slowly.
And Whittaker in the alcove coughed with discretion. Both turned and
hurried towards him.
“He has recovered his senses,” said the girl.
The monk had, however, not laid aside all the things of this world. He
remembered the little ceremonies appertaining to the profession which he
had once practised. He waived aside the girl, and stooped over the bed.
“You understand what I say--you see me?” he inquired in a soothing
voice.
“Most assuredly,” replied Whittaker, coolly. “Most assuredly, my father.
And I do not think there is much the matter with me.”
“Holy Saints, but you go too quickly,” laughed the monk. “You will be
wanting next to get up and walk.”
“I should not mind trying.”
“Ah, that is good! Then you will soon be well. Senorita, we shall have
no trouble with this patient. This, Senor, is the Senorita Cheyne; in
whose house you find yourself, and to whom your thanks are due.”
Whittaker turned in bed to thank her; but instead of speaking, he
quietly fainted. He came to his senses again, and found that it was
evening. The windows of his room were open, and he could see across the
valley the brown hills of Catalonia, faintly tinged with pink. A nursing
sister in her dark blue dress and white winged cap was seated at the
open window, gazing reflectively across the valley. There was an odour
of violets in the room. A fitful breeze stirred the lace curtains.
Whittaker perceived his own travel-worn portmanteau lying half unpacked
on a side table. It seemed that some one had opened it to seek the few
necessaries of the moment. He noted with a feeling of helplessness
that his simple travelling accessories had been neatly arranged on the
dressing-table. A clean handkerchief lay on the table at the bedside.
The wounded man became conscious of a feeling that he had lost some of
the solitary liberty which had hitherto been his. It seemed that he had
been picked up on the road helpless and insensible by some one with the
will and power to take entire charge of him. The feeling was so new to
this adventurer that he lay still and smiled.
Presently the nun rose and came quietly towards him, disclosing within
the halo of her snowy cap a gentle pink-and-white face wrinkled by the
passage of uneventful years. She nodded cheerfully on seeing that his
eyes were open, and gave him some soup which was warming on a spirit
lamp in readiness for his return to consciousness.
“I will tell the Senorita,” she said, and noiselessly quitted the room.
A minute later Miss Cheyne came in with a pleasant frou-frou of silk,
and Whittaker wondered for whom she had dressed so carefully.
“I did not know,” she said in English, with an ease of manner which
is of this generation, “that I had succoured a countryman. You were
literally thrown at my gate. But the doctor, who has just left, confirms
the opinion of Brother Lucas that you are not seriously hurt. A broken
fore-arm and a severe shake, they say--to be cured by complete rest,
which you will be able to enjoy here. For there is no one in the house
but my aunt, Mrs. Dorchester, and myself.”
She stood at the bedside, looking down at him with her capable, managing
air. Whittaker now knew the source of that sense of being “taken in
and done for,” of which he had become conscious the moment his senses
returned to him.
“They say,” she went on, with a decisiveness which was probably an
accentuation of her usual attitude, inspired by the necessity of sparing
the patient the exertion of an explanation or an apology--“they say,
however, that you are not naturally a very strong man, and that you have
tried your constitution in the past, so that greater care is required
than would otherwise be necessary in such a case.”
She looked at the brown face and sinewy neck, the hollow cheeks, the
lean hands (“all wires,” as she decided in her own prompt mind), and her
clear eyes were alight with a speculation as to what the past had been
in which this man had tried his constitution.
“I have led a rough life,” explained Whittaker; and Miss Cheyne nodded
her head in a manner indicative of the fact that she divined as much.
“I thought you were a Spaniard,” she said.
“No; I have lived in the Spanish colonies, however--the last few
years--since the troubles began.”
Miss Cheyne nodded again without surprise. She had gone about the world,
with those clear eyes of hers very wide open, and was probably aware
that in those parts where, as Whittaker gracefully put it, “troubles”
are, such men as this are usually to be found. For it is not the large
men who make a stir in the world. These usually sit at home and love a
life of ease. It is even said that they take to novel-writing and other
sedentary occupations. And in the forefront, where things are stirring
and history is to be manufactured, are found the small and the frail,
such as Matthew S. Whittaker, who, in addition to the battles of
progress, have to contend personally against constitutional delicacy,
nervous depression, and disease.
Miss Cheyne kept silence for a few moments, and, during the pause,
turned at the sound of horses' feet on the gravel below the windows. She
seemed to have been expecting an arrival, and Whittaker noticed a
sudden brightening of the eyes, an almost imperceptible movement of
the shoulders, as if Miss Cheyne was drawing herself up. The American
quickly reflected that the somewhat elaborate “toilette” was unusual,
and connected it with the expected visitor. He was not surprised when,
with a polite assurance that he had only to ask for anything he might
require, she turned and left him.
Whittaker now remembered having been told by the voluble driver of
the diligencia the history of a certain English Senorita who, having
inherited property from a forgotten uncle, had come to live in her
“possession” on the mountain side. He further recollected that the house
had been pointed out to him--a long, low dwelling of the dull red stone
quarried in this part of Catalonia. Being of an observant habit, he
remembered that the house was overgrown by a huge wisteria, and faced
eastward. He turned his head painfully, and now saw that his windows
were surrounded by mauve fronds of wisteria. His room was, therefore,
situated in the front of the house. There was, he recollected, a
verandah below his windows, and he wondered whether Miss Cheyne
received her visitors there in the cool of the afternoon. He listened
half-sleepily, and heard the horse depart, led away by a servant. There
followed the murmur of a conversation, between two persons only, below
his window. So far as he could gather from the tones, for the words were
inaudible, they were spoken in English. And thus he fell asleep.
During the next few days Whittaker made good progress, and fully enjoyed
the quiet prescribed to him by the doctors. The one event of the day was
Miss Cheyne's visit, to which he soon learnt to look forward. He had,
during an adventurous life, had little to do with women, and Miss
Cheyne soon convinced him of the fact that many qualities--such
as independence, courage, and energy--were not, as he had hitherto
imagined, the monopoly of men alone. But the interest thus aroused did
not seem to be mutual. Miss Cheyne was kind and quick to divine his
wants or thoughts; but her visits did not grow longer day by day as,
day by day, Whittaker wished they would. Daily, moreover, the visitor
arrived on horseback, and the murmured conversation in the verandah duly
followed. A few weeks earlier Whittaker had made the voyage across to
the island of Majorca, to visit an old companion-in-arms there, and
offer him a magnificent inducement to return to active service. That
comrade had smilingly answered that he held cards of another suite. Miss
Cheyne likewise appeared to hold another suite, and the American felt
vaguely that the dealer of life's cards seemed somehow to have passed
him by.
He daily urged the young doctor to allow him to leave his bed, “if
only,” he pleaded with his twisted smile, “to sit in a chair by the
window.” At last he gained his point, and sat, watch in hand, awaiting
the arrival of Miss Cheyne's daily visitor. To the end of his life
Matthew Whittaker believed that some instinct guided him at this time.
He had only spoken with his nurse and the doctor, and had refrained
from making inquiries of either respecting the lady whose hospitality he
enjoyed. He had now carefully recalled all that the dead driver of the
diligencia had told him, and had dismissed half of it as mere gossip.
Beyond the fact that Miss Cheyne's aunt, Mrs. Dorchester, acted as her
companion, he knew nothing. But he had surmised, from remarks dropped by
the young lady herself, that her mother had been a Spaniard; hence the
uncle from whom she had inherited this estate. He also had reason to
believe that Miss Cheyne's mother had brought her up in the older faith.
He reflected on these matters, and smiled half cynically at the
magnitude of his own interest in Miss Cheyne as he sat at the open
window. He had not long to wait before the clatter of horse's feet on
the hard road became audible. The house stood back from the high-road
in the midst of terraced olive groves, and was entirely surrounded by a
grove of cypress and ilex trees. The visitor, whose advent was doubtless
awaited with as keen an impatience by another within the red stone
house, now leisurely approached beneath the avenue of evergreen oak.
Whittaker got painfully upon his feet, and stood, half concealed by
the curtain. He was conscious of a singular lack of surprise when he
recognized the face of the horseman as one that he had already seen,
though, when he came in a flash of thought to reflect upon it, this
among all he knew was the last face that he could have expected to see
in that place.
He sat down quite coolly and mechanically, thinking and acting as men
think and act, by instinct, in a crisis. He seemed to be obeying some
pre-ordained plan.
The horseman was dark and clean-shaven--the happy possessor of one of
those handsome Andalusian faces which are in themselves a passport in
a world that in its old age still persists in judging by appearance.
Whittaker scrupulously withdrew from the window. He had no desire to
overhear their conversation. But his eyes were fierce with a sudden
anger. The very attitude of the new-comer--his respectful, and yet
patronizing, manner of removing his hat--clearly showed that he was
a lover, perhaps a favoured one. And the American, who, with all his
knowledge of the world, knew so little of women, stood in the middle
of the room wrapt in thought. It seemed hardly possible that a woman
of Miss Cheyne's intelligence, a woman no longer in the first flush of
girlhood, should fail to perceive the obvious. He did not know that
so far as her vanity is concerned a woman does not grow older, by the
passage of years, but younger--that she will often, for the sake of a
little admiration, accept the careless patronage of a man, knowing well
that his one good quality is the skill with which he flatters her. He
was not aware that Miss Cheyne was distinctly handicapped, and that her
judgment was warped by the fact that she had by some chance or another
reached to years of discretion without ever having had a lover.
Whittaker was not an impulsive man, although as prompt in action as he
was quick to make a decision. He was a citizen of that new country
where an old chivalry still survives. His sense of chivalry was also
intensified by the fact, already stated, that he knew but little of that
sex which is at the moment making a superficial stir in the world.
“If the harm is done, a day more will make it no worse, I reckon,” he
said reflectively. He would not listen to what they said, though he
could have heard easily enough, had he so desired. He watched Miss
Cheyne and her lover, however, as they slowly walked the length of the
garden--she, holding a fan in the Spanish fashion, to shield her face
from the setting sun; the man, hat in hand, and carrying himself with a
sort of respectful grandeur, characteristic of his race. At the end of
the garden they paused, and Whittaker smiled cynically at the sight
of the man's dark eyes as he looked at Miss Cheyne. He was apparently
asking for something, and she at last yielded, giving him slowly, almost
shyly, a few violets that she had worn in her belt. Whittaker gave a
curt laugh, but his eyes were by no means mirthful.
Later in the evening Miss Cheyne came into his room.
“You have had a visitor,” he said, in the course of their usual
conversation.
“Yes,” she answered frankly; and Whittaker reflected that, at all
events, she knew her own mind.
He said nothing further upon that subject, but later he referred to a
topic which he had hitherto scrupulously avoided. He had passed his
life among a class of men who were not in the habit of growing voluble
respecting themselves.
“I think you take me for an Englishman,” he said. “I am not. I am an
American.”
“Indeed! You have no accent,” replied Miss Cheyne; and, despite that
other suite of cards that she held, she looked at him speculatively. She
was, in a way, interested in him.
“I have lived abroad a great deal, the last few years in Cuba.” And his
quick eyes flashed across her face. She was not interested in Cuba, at
all events, and evidently knew nothing of that distressful island. When
she left him, he stood looking at the closed door reflectively.
“It will be for to-morrow,” he said to himself, with his short laugh.
The next morning the doctor paid his usual visit, and Whittaker handed
him an envelope.
“I am leaving this evening,” he said, “and I shall leave in your debt.”
The doctor, who was a young man and a Spanish gentleman, slipped the
envelope into his pocket.
“Thank you,” he said. “The debt is mine. You are not fit to be moved
yet; but it is as you like.”
“Will you order me a carriage to be here at five o'clock this evening?”
“I will do as you like.”
“And omit to mention it to my hostess. You understand my position here,
and my fear of outstaying a most courteous welcome?”
“I understand,” said the doctor, and departed.
At four o'clock Whittaker had packed his portmanteau. He took up his
position at the window and waited. Before long he heard the sound of a
horse's feet. Miss Cheyne's visitor presently appeared, and swung off
his hat with the usual deferential pride. The horse was led away. The
usual murmured conversation followed. Whittaker rose and walked to the
door. He paused on the threshold, and looked slowly round the room as if
conscious then that the moment was to be one of the indelible memories
of his life.
On the stairs he needed the support of the balustrade. When he reached
the verandah his face was colourless, with shining eyes. Miss Cheyne was
sitting with her back turned towards him, but her companion saw him at
once and rose to his feet, lifting his hat with a politely inquiring
air. From long habit acquired among a naturally polite people, Whittaker
returned the salutation.
“You do not recognise me, Senor?” he said, in English.
And the other shook his head, still polite and rather surprised.
“I was known in Cuba by the name of Mateo.”
The Spaniard's handsome, sunburnt face slowly turned to the colour
of ashes. His eyes looked into Whittaker's, not in anger, but with a
pathetic mingling of reproach and despair.
“What is the meaning of this?” said Miss Cheyne, alert, and rising,
characteristically, to the emergency of the moment.
Whittaker bit his lip and looked at the Spaniard, who seemed to be
dazed.
“You had better go,” he said, almost gently.
“What is the meaning of this?” repeated Miss Cheyne, looking from one
to the other. Then she turned to Whittaker, by what instinct she never
knew. “Who is this gentleman?” she asked, angrily. “What have you
against him?”
Whittaker, still biting his lip, looked hard at her. Then he made a
gesture with his two hands, which was more eloquent than a thousand
words; for it seemed to convey to the two persons who breathlessly
awaited his words that he found himself in a position that was
intolerable.
“I knew him in Cuba,” he said slowly. “I have nothing against him, Miss
Cheyne; but the man is a priest.”
* * *
“There, Senorita--I have made it myself.”
The proprietor of the Venta of the Moor's Mill set down upon the table
in front of the inn a cracked dish containing an omelette. It was not
a bad omelette, though not quite innocent of wood-ash, perhaps, and
somewhat ill-shapen. The man laughed gaily and drew himself up. So
handsome a man could surely be forgiven a broken omelette and some
charcoal, if only for the sake of his gay blue eyes, his curling
brown hair, and his devil-may-care air of prosperity. He looked at the
Senorita and laughed in the manner of a man who had never yet failed to
“get on” with women. He folded his arms with fine, open gestures, and
stood looking with approving nods upon his own handiwork. He was without
the shadow of the trailing vine which runs riot over bamboo trelliswork
in front of the Venta, affording a much needed shade in this the
sunniest spot in all Majorca, and the fierce sun beat down upon his
face, which was tanned a deep, healthy brown. He was clad almost in
white; for his trousers were of canvas, his shirt of spotless linen.
Round his waist he wore the usual Spanish faja or bright red cloth. He
was consciously picturesque, and withal so natural, so good-natured, so
astonishingly optimistic, as to be quite inoffensive in his child-like
conceit.
The Venta of the Moor's Mill stands, as many know, at the northern end
of the Val D'Erraha, looking down upon the broader valley, through which
runs the high road from Palma to Valdemosa. The city of Palma, itself,
is only a few miles away, for such as know the mountain path. Few
customers come this way, and the actual trade of the Venta is small.
Some day a German doctor will start a nerve-healing establishment here,
with a table d'hote at six o'clock, and every opportunity for practising
the minor virtues--and the Valley of Repose will be the Valley of Repose
no longer.
“Ah! It is a good omelette,” said the host of the Venta, as Miss Cheyne
took up her fork. “Though I have not always been a cook, nor yet an
innkeeper.”
He raised one finger, shook it from side to side in an emphatic
negation, and laughed. Then he turned suddenly, and looked down into the
valley with a grave face and almost a sigh.
The man had a history it appeared--and, rarer still, was willing to tell
it.
She knew too much of the Spanish race, or perhaps of all men, to ask
questions.
“Yes,” she said pleasantly, “it is a good omelette.” And the man turned
sharply and looked at her as if she had said something startling. She
noticed his action, and showed surprise.
“It is nothing,” he said with a laugh, “only a coincidence--a mere
accident. It is said by the peasants that the mind of a friend has
wings. Perhaps it is so. As I looked down into the valley I was thinking
of a man--a friend. Yes--name of a Saint--he was a friend of mine,
although a gentleman! Educated? Yes, many languages, and Latin. And
I--what am I? You see, Senorita, a peasant, who wears no coat.”
And he laughed heartily, only to change again suddenly to gravity.
“And as I looked down into the valley I was thinking of my friend--and,
believe me, you spoke at that moment with something in your voice--in
your manner--who knows?--which was like the voice and manner of my
friend. Perhaps, Senorita, the peasants are right, and the mind of my
friend, having wings, flew to us at that moment.”
The lady laughed, and said that it might be so.
“It is not that you are English,” the innkeeper continued, with easy
volubility. “For I know you belong to no other nation. I said so to
myself the moment I saw you, riding up here on horseback alone. I called
upstairs to Juanita that there was an English Senorita coming on a
horse, and Juanita replied with a malediction, that I should raise my
voice when the nino was asleep. She said that if it was the Pope of Rome
who came on a horse he must not wake the child. 'No,' I answered, 'but
he would have to go upstairs to see it;' and Juanita did not laugh. She
sees no cause to laugh at anything connected with the nino--oh, no! it
is a serious matter.”
He was looking towards the house as he spoke.
“Juanita is your wife?” said the Englishwoman.
“Yes. We have been married a year, and I am still sure that she is the
most beautiful woman in the world. Is it not wonderful? And she will be
jealous if she hears me talking all this while with the Senorita.”
“You can tell her that the Senorita has grey hair,” said Miss Cheyne,
practically.
“That may be,” said the innkeeper, looking at her with his head on
one side, and a gravely critical air. “But you still have the air”--he
shrugged his shoulders, and spread out his hands--“the air that takes a
man's fancy. Who knows?”
Miss Cheyne, who had dealt much with a simple people, accustomed to the
statement of simple facts in plain language, only laughed. There is
a certain rough purity of thought which vanishes at the advance of
civilisation. And cheap journalism, cheap fiction, cheap prudery have
not yet reached Spain.
“I know nothing,” went on the man, with a shrewd, upward nod of the
head. “But the Senorita has a lover. He may be faithless, he may be
absent, he may be dead--but he is there--the God be thanked!”
He touched his broad chest in that part where a deadly experience told
him that the heart was to be found, and looked up to Heaven, all with a
change of expression and momentary gravity quite incomprehensible to men
of northern breed.
Miss Cheyne laughed again without self-consciousness. Uneducated people
have a way of arriving at once at those matters that interest rich and
poor alike, which is rather refreshing, even to the highly educated.
“But I, who talk like a washerwoman, forget that I am an innkeeper,”
said the man, with a truer tact than is often found under fine linen.
And he proceeded to wait on her with a grand air, as if she were a queen
and he a nobleman.
“If Juanita were about it would be different,” he said, whipping the
cloth from the table and shaking the crumbs to the four winds. “And the
Senorita would be properly served. But--what will you? the nino is but a
fortnight old, and I--I am new at my trade. The Senorita takes coffee?”
Miss Cheyne intimated that she did take coffee.
“And you, perhaps, will take a cup also,” she added, whereupon the man
bowed in his best manner. He had that perfect savoir-faire--a certain
innate gentlemanliness--which is the characteristic of all Spaniards.
His manner indicated an appreciation of the honour, and conveyed at the
same time the intimation that he knew quite well how to behave under the
circumstances.
He went into the house from which--all the doors and windows being
open--came the sound of his conversation with Juanita, while he prepared
the coffee. It was quite a frank and open conversation, having Miss
Cheyne for its object, and stating that she had not only found the
omelette good, but had eaten it all.
Presently he returned with the coffee-pot, two cups, and a small jug
of cream on a tray. He turned the handle of the coffee-pot towards Miss
Cheyne, and conveyed in one inimitable gesture that he would take his
coffee from no other hand.
“The Senorita is staying in Palma?” he asked, pleasantly.
“Yes.”
“For pleasure?”
“No--for business.”
The innkeeper laughed gaily and deprecatingly, as if between persons
of their station business was a word only to be mentioned as a sort of
jest.
“I am the owner of a small property in the island--over in that
direction--towards Soller. It is held on the 'rotas' system by a good
farmer, who has frequently come to see me where I live at Monistrol,
near Barcelona. He has often begged me to come to Majorca to see the
property, and now I have come. I am staying a few days at Palma.”
“Farming is good in Majorca,” said the man, shrewdly. “You should
receive a large sum for your share of the harvest. I, too, shall buy
land presently when I see my chance, for I have the money. Ah, yes: I
was not always an innkeeper!”
He sipped his coffee pensively.
“That reminds me again of my friend,” he said, after a pause. “Why do I
think of him this afternoon? It is a strange story; shall I tell it?”
“I shall be glad to hear it,” replied Miss Cheyne, in her energetic way.
She was stirring her coffee slowly and thoughtfully.
“I knew him in his own country--in America; and then in Cuba--”
Miss Cheyne ceased stirring her coffee suddenly, as if she had come
against some object in the cup. A keen observer might have guessed that
she had become interested at that moment in this idle tale.
“Ah! You know Cuba?” she said, indifferently interrogative.
“If I know Cuba?” he laughed, and spread out his hands in mute appeal
to the gods. “If I know Cuba! When Cuba is an independent republic,
Senorita--when the history of all this trouble comes to be written, you
will find two names mentioned in its pages. The one name is Antonio.
When you are an old woman, Senorita, you can tell your children--or
perhaps your grandchildren, if the good God is kind to you--that you
once knew Antonio, and took a cup of coffee with him. But you must not
say it now--never--never. And the other name is Mateo. You can tell your
children, Senorita, when your hair is white, that you once spoke to a
man who was a friend to this Mateo.”
He finished with his gay laugh, as if he were fully alive to his own
fine conceit, and begged indulgence.
“He has been here--sitting where you sit now,” he continued, with
impressive gravity. “He came to me: 'Antonio,' he said, 'There are five
thousand men out there who want you.' 'Amigo,' replied I, 'there is one
woman here who does the same'--and I bowed, and Mateo went away without
me. I thought he had gone back there to conduct affairs--to fight in his
careless way, with his tongue in his cheek, as it were. He did all with
his tongue in his cheek--that queer Mateo. And then came a message from
Barcelona, saying that he wanted me. Name of a dog, I went--for his
letter was unmistakable. He had, it appeared, had an accident. I found
him with his arm in a sling. He had been cared for in the house of
an Englishwoman--so much he told--but I guessed more. This
Englishwoman--well, he said so little about her, that I could only
conclude one thing. You know, Senorita--when a man will not talk of a
woman--well, it assuredly means something. But there was, it appears,
another man--this man, I grind my teeth to tell you of it--he was
a priest. One Bernaldez, whom we had both known in Cuba. He had, it
appears, come over to Spain in ordinary dress; for he was too well known
to travel as Bernaldez, the priest. He was a fine man--so much I will
say for him. The Englishwoman was, no doubt, beautiful. Bernaldez met
her. She did not know that he was a priest.”
Antonio paused, shrugged his shoulders and spread out his arms.
“The devil did the rest, Senorita. And she? Did she care for him?
Ah--one never knows with women.”
“Perhaps they do not always know themselves,” suggested Miss Cheyne,
without meeting her companion's eyes.
“Perhaps that is so, Senorita. At all events, Mateo went to these two,
when they were together. Mateo was always quick and very calm. He faced
Bernaldez, and he told the woman. Then he left them. And I found him in
Barcelona, two days afterwards, living at the Hotel of the Four Nations,
like one in his sleep. 'If Bernaldez wants me,' he said, 'he knows where
to find me.' And the next day Bernaldez came to us, where we sat in
front of the Cafe of the Liceo on the Rambla. 'Mateo,' he said, 'you
will have to fight me.' And Mateo nodded his head. 'With the revolver.'
Mateo looked up with his dry smile. 'I will take you at that game,'
he said, 'for nuts'--in the American fashion, Senorita--one of their
strange sad jokes. Then Bernaldez sat down--his eyes were hollow; he
spoke like one who has been down to the bottom of misery. 'I know a
place,' he said, 'that will suit our purpose. It is among the mountains,
on the borders of Andorra. You take the train from Barcelona to Berga,
the diligencia from Berga to Organa. Between Organa and La Seo de Urgel
is a bridge called La Puente del Diabolo. I will meet you at this bridge
on foot on Thursday morning at nine o'clock. We can walk up into the
mountains together. I shall bring a small travelling clock with me. We
shall stand it on the ground between us, and when it strikes, we fire.'”
Antonio had, in the heat of his narrative, leant forward across the
table. With quick gestures he described the whole scene, so that Miss
Cheyne could see it as it had passed before his eyes.
“There is a madness, Senorita,” he went on, “which shows itself by a
thirst for blood. I looked at Bernaldez. He was sane enough, but I think
the man's heart was broken. 'It is well,' said Mateo; 'I am your man--at
the Puente del Diabolo at nine o'clock on Thursday morning.' And mind
you, Senorita, these were not Italians or Greeks--they were a Spaniard
and an American--men who mean what they say, whether it be pleasant or
the reverse.”
Miss Cheyne was interested enough now. She sat, leaning one arm on the
table, and her chin in the palm of her hand. She held her lip with her
teeth, and watched the man's quick expressive face.
“We were there at nine o'clock,” he went on, “that Mateo, with his arm
in a sling. We had passed the night at the hotel of the Libertad at
Organa, where we both slept well enough. What will you?--when one is
no longer young, the pulse is slow. The morning mist had descended the
mountain side, the air was cold. There at the Puente, leaning against
the wall, cloaked and quiet--was Bernaldez. 'Ah!' he said to me, 'you
have come, too?' 'Yes, Amigo,' I answered, 'but I do not give the word
for two friends to let go at each other. Your little clock can do that.'
He nodded and said nothing. Senorita, I was sorry for the man. Who was I
that I should judge? You remember, you, who read your Bible, the
writing on the ground? Bernaldez led the way, and we climbed up into
the mountains in the morning mist. Somewhere above us there was a little
waterfall singing its eternal song. In the cloud, where we could not see
him, a curlew hung on his heavy wings, and gave forth his low warning
whistle. 'Have a care--have a care,' he seemed to cry. Presently
Bernaldez stopped, and looked around him. It was a desolate place. 'This
will do,' he said. 'And he who drops may be left here. The other may
turn on his heel, say “A Dios,” and go in safety. 'Yes,' answered Mateo.
'This will do as well as any other place.' Bernaldez looked at him, with
a laugh. 'Ah,' he said, 'you think that you are sure to kill me--but I
shall, at all events, have a shot for my money. Who knows? I may kill
you.' 'That is quite possible,' answered Mateo. Bernaldez threw back his
cloak. He carried the little travelling clock in one hand--a gilt thing
made in Paris. 'We will stand it here,' he said, 'on a rock between
us.' We were in a little hollow far up the mountain side, and the mist
wrapped us round like a cloak. I know these mountains, Senorita, for it
was here that the fiercest of the fighting in the last Carlist War took
place. There are many dead up there even now, who have never been found.
I also was in that trouble--ah, no, I was not always an innkeeper!”
“Go on with your story,” said Miss Cheyne, curtly, and closed her teeth
over her lower lip again.
“We stood there, then, and watched Bernaldez take the clock from its
case. He held it to his ear to make sure that it was going. It seemed to
me that it ticked as loud up there as a clock ticks in a room at night.
Bernaldez set forward the hands till they stood at five minutes to
eleven. 'The eleventh hour,' said Mateo, with his dry laugh. Bernaldez
set the clock down again. He took off his hat and threw it down to mark
the ground. 'Ten paces,' he said, and, turning on his heel, counted
aloud. I looked half-instinctively at his bared head. The tonsure was
still visible to any who sought it; for it was but half-grown over.
Mateo counted his steps and then turned. The clock gave a little tick,
as such clocks do, four minutes before they strike. It seemed to me to
hurry its pace as we three stood listening in that silence. We could
hear the whisper of the clouds as they hurried through the mountains.
The clock gave another click, and the two men raised their pistols of
a similar pattern. The little gong rang out, and immediately after two
shots, one following the other. Bernaldez had fired first. Mateo--a man
with a reputation to care for--took a moment longer for his aim. I heard
Bernaldez's bullet sing past his ear like a mosquito. Bernaldez fell
forward--thus, on his arm--and the clock had not ceased striking when we
stood over him; and Mateo had held the pistol in his left hand.”
The narrator finished abruptly with a quick gesture. All through his
story he had added a vividness to his description by quick movements of
the hand and head, by his flashing eyes, his southern fire, so that his
hearer could see the scene as he had seen it; could feel the stillness
of the mountains; could hear the whisper of the clouds; could see the
two men facing each other in the mist. With a gesture he showed her
how Bernaldez lay, on his face on the wet stones, with a half-concealed
tonsure, turned towards heaven in mute appeal, awaiting the last great
hearing of his case in that Court where there is no appeal.
“And there we left him, Senorita,” added Antonio, shortly.
He rose, walked away from her to the edge of the great slope, and stood
looking down into the valley that lay shimmering below him. After a
time he came back slowly. In his simplicity he was not ashamed of dimmed
eyes.
“I tell you this, Senorita,” he said with a laugh, “because you are an
Englishwoman, and because this Mateo was my friend. He is an American.
His name is Whittaker--Matthew S. Whittaker. And this afternoon I was
reminded of him; I know not why. Perhaps it was something that I said
myself, or some gesture that I made, which I had caught from him. If one
thinks much about a person, one may catch his gestures or his manner:
is it not so? And then you reminded me of him a second time. That was
strange.”
“Yes,” said Miss Cheyne, thoughtfully; “that was strange.”
“He went to Cuba again at once, Senorita; that was a year ago. And I
have never heard from him. If, as the peasants say, the mind of a friend
has wings, perhaps Mateo's mind has flown on to tell me that he is
coming. He said he would come back.”
“Why was he coming back?” asked Miss Cheyne.
“I do not know, Senorita.”
Miss Cheyne had risen, and was making ready to depart. Her gloves and
riding-whip lay on the table. The afternoon was far spent, and already
the shadows were lengthening on the mountain-side. She paid the
trifling account, Antonio taking the money with such a deep bow that the
smallness of the coin was quite atoned for. He brought her horse from
the stable.
“The horse and the Senorita are both tired,” he said, with his pleasant
laugh. And, indeed, Miss Cheyne looked suddenly weary. “It is not right
that you should go by the mountain path,” he added. “It is so easy to
lose the way. Besides, a lady alone--it is not done in Spain.”
“No; but in England women are learning to take care of themselves,”
laughed Miss Cheyne.
She placed her foot within his curved hands, and he lifted her to the
saddle. All her movements were easy and independent. It seemed that she
only stated a fact, and the man shook his head forebodingly. He belonged
to a country which in some ways is a century behind England and America.
She nodded a farewell, and turned the horse's head towards the mountain
path.
“I shall find my way,” she said. “Never fear.”
“Only by good fortune,” he answered, with a shake of the head.
The sun had almost set when she reached Palma. At the hotel her lawyer,
who had made the voyage from Barcelona with her, awaited her with
impatience, while her maid leant idly from the window. In the evening
she went abroad again, alone, in her independent way. She walked slowly
on the Cathedral terrace, where priests lingered, and a few soldiers
from the neighbouring barracks smoked a leisurely cigarette. All turned
at intervals, and looked in the same direction--namely, towards the
west, where the daylight yet lingered in the sky. The moon, huge and
yellow, was rising over the mountains, above Manacor, at the eastern end
of the island. One by one the idlers dropped away, moving with leisurely
steps towards the town. In very idleness Miss Cheyne followed them. She
knew that they were going to the harbour in anticipation of the arrival
of the Barcelona steamer. She was on the pier with the others, when the
boat came alongside. The passengers trooped off, waving salutations to
their friends. One among them, a small-made, frail man, detached himself
from the crowd, and made his way towards Miss Cheyne, as if this meeting
had been prearranged--and who shall say that it was not?--by the dim
decrees of Fate.