THE LOVE LETTER
‘I must mix myself with action lest I wither by despair.’
‘NO one,’ Conyngham heard a voice exclaiming as he went into the garden
on returning from his fruitless ride, ‘no one knows what I have
suffered.’
He paused in the dark doorway, not wishing to intrude upon Estella and
her visitors; for he perceived the forms of three ladies seated within a
miniature jungle of bamboo, which grew in feathery luxuriance around a
fountain. It was not difficult to identify the voice as that of the
eldest lady, who was stout, and spoke in deep, almost manly tones. So
far as he was able to judge, the suffering mentioned had left but small
record on its victim’s outward appearance.
‘Old lady seems to have stood it well,’ commented the Englishman in his
mind.
‘Never again, my dear Estella, do I leave Ronda, except indeed for
Toledo, where, of course, we shall go in the summer if this terrible Don
Carlos is really driven from the country. Ah! but what suffering! My
mind is never at ease. I expect to wake up at night and hear that Julia
is being murdered in her bed. For me it does not matter; my life is not
so gay that it will cost me much to part from it. No one would molest an
old woman, you think? Well, that may be so; but I know all the anxiety,
for I was once beautiful—ah! more beautiful than you or Julia; and my
hands and feet—have you ever noticed my foot, Estella?—even now—!’
And a sonorous sigh completed the sentence. Conyngham stepped out of the
doorway, the clank of his spurred heel on the marble pavement causing the
sigh to break off in a little scream. He had caught the name of Julia,
and hastily concluded that these ladies must be no other than Madame
Barenna and her daughter. In the little bamboo grove he found the elder
lady lying back in her chair, which creaked ominously, and asking in a
faint voice whether he were Don Carlos.
‘No,’ answered Estella, with a momentary twinkle in her grave, dark eyes;
‘this is Mr. Conyngham—my aunt, Señora Barenna, and my cousin Julia.’
The ladies bowed.
‘You must excuse me,’ said Madame Barenna volubly, ‘but your approach was
so sudden. I am a great sufferer—my nerves, you know. But young people
do not understand.’
And she sighed heavily, with a side glance at her daughter, who did not
even appear to be trying to do so. Julia Barenna was darker than her
cousin, quicker in manner, with an air of worldly capability which
Estella lacked. Her eyes were quick and restless, her face less
beautiful, but expressive of a great intelligence, which, if brought to
bear upon men in the form of coquetry, was likely to be infinitely
dangerous.
‘It is always best to approach my mother with caution,’ she said with a
restless movement of her hands. This was not a woman at her ease in the
world or at peace with it. She laughed as she spoke, but her eyes were
grave, even while her lips smiled, and watched the Englishman’s face with
an air almost of anxiety. There are some faces that seem to be watching
and waiting. Julia Barenna’s had such a look.
‘Conyngham,’ said Madame Barenna reflectively. ‘Surely I have heard that
name before. You are not the Englishman with whom Father Concha is so
angry—who sells forbidden books—the Bible, it is said?’
‘No, señora,’ answered Conyngham with perfect gravity; ‘I have nothing to
sell.’
He laughed suddenly, and looked at the elder lady with that air of good
humour which won for him more friends than he ever wanted; for this
Irishman had a ray of sunshine in his heart which shone upon his path
through life, and made that uneven way easier for his feet. He glanced
at Julia, and saw in her eyes the look of expectancy which was, in
reality, always there. The thought flashed through his mind that by some
means, or perhaps feminine intuition beyond his comprehension, she knew
that he possessed the letter addressed to her, and was eagerly awaiting
it. This letter seemed to have been gaining in importance the longer he
carried it, and this opportunity of giving it to her came at the right
moment. He remembered Larralde’s words concerning the person to whom the
missive was addressed, and the high-flown sentiments of that somewhat
theatrical gentleman became in some degree justified. Julia Barenna was
a woman who might well awaken a passionate love. Conyngham realised
this, as from a distance, while Julia’s mother spoke of some trivial
matter of the moment to unheeding ears. That distance seemed now to
exist between him and all women. It had come suddenly, and one glance of
Estella’s eyes had called it into existence.
‘Yes,’ Señora Barenna was saying, ‘Father Concha is very angry with the
English. What a terrible man! You do not know him, Señor Conyngham?’
‘I think I have met him, señora.’
‘Ah, but you have never seen him angry. You have never confessed to him!
A little, little sin—no larger than the eye of a fly—a little bite of a
calf’s sweetbread on Friday in mere forgetfulness, and Sancta Maria! what
a penance is required! What suffering! It is a purgatory to have such a
confessor.’
‘Surely madame can have no sins,’ said Conyngham pleasantly.
‘Not now,’ said Señora Barenna with a deep sigh. ‘When I was young it
was different.’
And the memory of her sinful days almost moved her to tears. She glanced
at Conyngham with a tragic air of mutual understanding, as if drawing a
veil over that blissful past in the presence of Julia and Estella. ‘Ask
me another time,’ that glance seemed to say.
‘Yes,’ the lady continued, ‘Father Concha is very angry with the English.
Firstly, because of these bibles. Blessed Heaven! what does it matter?
No one can read them except the priests, and they do not want to do so.
Secondly, because the English have helped to overthrow Don Carlos—’
‘You will have a penance,’ interrupted Miss Julia Barenna quietly, ‘from
Father Concha for talking politics.’
‘But how will he know?’ asked Señora Barenna sharply; and the two young
ladies laughed.
Señora Barenna looked from one to the other, and shrugged her shoulders.
Like many women she was a strange mixture of foolishness and worldly
wisdom. She adjusted her mantilla and mutely appealed to Heaven with a
glance of her upturned eyes. Conyngham, who was no diplomatist, nor
possessed any skill in concealing his thoughts, looked with some interest
at Julia Barenna, and Estella watched him. ‘Julia is right,’ Señora
Barenna was saying, though nobody heeded her; ‘one must not talk nor even
think politics in this country. You are no politician, I trust, Señor
Conyngham—Señor Conyngham, I ask you, you are no politician?’
‘No, señora,’ replied Conyngham hastily; ‘no; and if I were, I should
never understand Spanish politics.’
‘Father Concha says that Spanish politics are the same as those of any
other country—each man for himself,’ said Julia with a bitter laugh.
‘And he is, no doubt, right.’
‘Do you really think so?’ asked Julia Barenna, with more earnestness than
the question would seem to require; ‘are there not true patriots who
sacrifice all—not only their friends, but themselves—to the cause of
their country?’
‘Without the hope of reward?’
‘Yes.’
‘There may be, señorita—a few,’ answered Conyngham with a laugh, ‘but not
in my country. They must all be in Spain.’
She smiled and shook her head in doubt. But it was a worn smile.
The Englishman turned away and looked through the trees. He was
wondering how he could get speech with Julia alone for a moment.
‘You are admiring the garden,’ said that young lady; and this time he
knew that there had in reality been that meaning in her eyes which he had
imagined to be there.
‘Yes, señorita, I think it must be the most beautiful garden in the
world.’
He turned as he spoke, and looked at Estella, who met his glance quietly.
Her repose of manner struck him afresh. Here was a woman having that air
of decision which exacts respect alike from men and women. Seen thus,
with the more vivacious Julia at her side, Estella gained suddenly in
moral strength and depth—suggesting a steady fire in contrast with a
flickering will-o’-the-wisp blown hither and thither on every zephyr.
Yet Julia Barenna would pass anywhere as a woman of will and purpose.
Julia had risen, and was moving towards the exit of the little grove in
which they found themselves. Conyngham had never been seated.
‘Are the violets in bloom, Estella? I must see them,’ said the visitor.
‘We have none at home, where all is dry and parched.’
‘So bad for the nerves—what suffering!—such a dry soil that one cannot
sleep at night,’ murmured Madame Barenna, preparing to rise from her
seat.
Julia and Conyngham naturally led the way. The paths winding in and out
among the palms and pepper trees were of a width that allowed two to walk
abreast.
‘Señorita, I have a letter for you.’
‘Not yet—wait!’
Señora Barenna was chattering in her deep husky tones immediately behind
them. Julia turned and looked up at the windows of the house, which
commanded a full view of the garden. The dwelling rooms were as usual
upon the first floor, and the windows were lightly barred with curiously
wrought iron. Each window was curtained within with lace and muslin.
The paths wound in and out among the trees, but none of these were large
enough to afford a secure screen from the eye of any watcher within the
house. There was neither olive nor ilex in the garden to afford shelter
with their heavy leaves. Julia and Conyngham walked on, out-distancing
the elder lady and Estella. From these many a turn in the path hid them
from time to time, but Julia was distrustful of the windows and
hesitated, in an agony of nervousness. Conyngham saw that her face was
quite colourless, and her teeth closed convulsively over her lower lip.
He continued to talk of indifferent topics, but the answers she made were
incoherent and broken. The course of true love did not seem to run
smooth here.
‘Shall I give you the letter? No one can see us, señorita. Besides, I
was informed that it was of no importance except to yourself. You have
doubtless had many such before, unless the Spanish gentlemen are blind.’
He laughed and felt in his pocket.
‘Yes!’ she whispered. ‘Quickly—now.’
He gave her the letter in its romantic pink, scented envelope with a
half-suppressed smile at her eagerness. Would anybody—would Estella—ever
be thus agitated at the receipt of a letter from himself? They were at
the lower end of the inclosure, which was divided almost in two by a
broader pathway leading from the house to the centre of the garden, where
a fountain of Moorish marble formed a sort of carrefour, from which the
narrower pathways diverged in all directions.
Descending the steps into the garden from the house were two men, one
talking violently, the other seeking to calm him.
‘My uncle and the Alcalde—they have seen us from the windows,’ said Julia
quickly. All her nervousness of manner seemed to have vanished, leaving
her concentrated and alert. Some men are thus in warfare—nervous until
the rifle opens fire, and then cool and ready.
‘Quick!’ whispered Julia. ‘Let us turn back.’
She wheeled round, and Conyngham did the same.
‘Julia!’ they heard General Vincente call in his gentle voice.
Julia, who was tearing the pink envelope, took no heed. Within the first
covering a second envelope appeared, bearing a longer address. ‘Give
that to the man whose address it bears, and save me from ruin,’ said the
girl, thrusting the letter into Conyngham’s hand. She kept the pink
envelope.
When, a minute later, they came face to face with General Vincente and
his companion, a white-faced, fluttering man of sixty years, Julia
Barenna received them with a smile. There are some men who, conscious of
their own quickness of resource, are careless of danger, and run into it
from mere heedlessness, trusting to good fortune to aid them should peril
arise. Frederick Conyngham was one of these. He now suspected that this
was no love letter which the man called Larralde had given him in
Algeciras.
‘Julia,’ said the General, ‘the Alcalde desires to speak with you.’
Julia bowed with that touch of hauteur which in Spain the nobles ever
observe in their manner towards the municipal authorities.
‘Mr. Conyngham,’ continued the General, ‘this is our brave Mayor, in
whose hands rests the well-being of the people of Ronda.’
‘Honoured to meet you,’ said Conyngham, holding out his hand with that
frankness of manner which he accorded to great and small alike. The
Alcalde, a man of immense importance in his own estimation, hesitated
before accepting it.
‘General,’ he said, turning and bowing very low to Señora Barenna and
Estella, who now joined them, ‘General, I leave you to explain to your
niece the painful duties of my office.’
The General smiled and raised a deprecating shoulder.
‘Well, my dear,’ he said kindly to Julia, ‘it appears that our good
Alcalde has news of a letter which is at present passing from hand to
hand in Andalusia. It is a letter of some importance. Our good Mayor,
who was at the window a minute ago, saw Mr. Conyngham hand you a letter.
Between persons who only met in this garden five minutes ago such a
transaction had a strange air. Our good friend, who is all zeal for
Spain and the people of Ronda, merely asks you if his eyes deceived him.
It is a matter at which we shall all laugh presently over a lemonade—is
it not so? A trifle, eh?’ He passed his handkerchief across his
moustache, and looked affectionately at his niece.
‘A letter!’ exclaimed Julia. ‘Surely the Alcalde presumes. He takes too
much upon himself.’ The official stepped forward.
‘Señorita,’ he said, ‘I must be allowed to take that risk. Did this
gentleman give you a letter three minutes ago?’
Julia laughed and shrugged her shoulders.
‘Yes.’
‘May I ask the nature of the letter?’
‘It was a love letter.’
Conyngham bit his lip and looked at Estella.
The Alcalde looked doubtful, with the cunning lips of a cheap country
lawyer.
‘A love letter from a gentleman you have never seen before?’ he said with
a forced laugh.
‘Pardon me, Señor Alcalde, this gentleman travelled in the same ship with
my mother and myself from Bordeaux to Algeciras, and he saved my life.’
She cast a momentary glance at Conyngham; which would have sealed his
fate had the fiery Mr. Larralde been there to see it. The Prefect
paused, somewhat taken aback. There was a momentary silence, and every
moment gave Julia and Conyngham time to think. Then the Alcalde turned
to Conyngham.
‘It will give me the greatest pleasure,’ he said, ‘to learn that I have
been mistaken. I have only to ask this gentleman’s confirmation of what
the señorita has said. It is true, señor, that you surreptitiously
handed to the Señorita Barenna a letter expressing your love?’
‘Since the señorita has done me the honour of confessing it, I must ask
you to believe it,’ answered Conyngham steadily and coldly.