LA RECOGIDA
Sister Chucha, the nun who took first charge of newcomers to the
Penitentiary, was fat and kindly, and not very discreet. It was her
business to measure Manuela for a garb and to see to the cutting of her
hair. She told the girl that she was by far the most handsome penitent
she had ever had under her hands.
"It is a thousand pities to cut all this beauty away," she said; "for
it is obvious you will want it before long. So far as that goes you
will find the cap not unbecoming; and I'll see to it that you have a
piece of looking-glass--though, by ordinary, that is forbidden. Good
gracious, child, what a figure you have! If I had had one quarter of
your good fortune I should never have been religious."
She went on to describe the rules of the Institution, the hours and
nature of the work, the offices in Chapel, the recreation times and
hours for meals. Manuela, she said, was not the build for rope and mat
work.
"I shall get Reverend Mother to put you to housework, I think," she
said. "That will give you exercise, and the chance of an occasional
peep at the window. You don't deserve it, I fancy; but you are so
handsome that I have a weakness for you. All you have to do is to
speak fairly to Father Vicente and curtsey to the Reverend Mother
whenever you see her. Above all, no tantrums. Leave the others alone,
and they'll let you alone. There's not one of them but has her scheme
for getting away, or her friend outside. That's occupation enough for
her. It will be the same with you. Your friends will find you out.
You'll have a _novio_ spending the night in the street before
to-morrow's over unless I am very much mistaken." She patted her
cheek. "I'll do what I can for you, my dear."
Manuela curtseyed, and thanked the good nun. "All I have to do," she
said, "is to repent of my sin--which has become very horrible to me."
"La-la-la!" cried Sister Chucha. "Keep that for Father Vicente, if
you please, my dear. That is his affair. Our patroness led a jolly
life before she was a saint. No doubt, you should not have stabbed Don
Bartolome, and of course the Ramonez would never overlook such a thing.
But we all understand that you must save your own skin if you
could--that's very reasonable. And I hear that there was another
reason." Here she chucked her chin. "I don't wonder at it," she said
with a meaning smile.
The girl coloured and hung her head. She was still quivering with the
shame of her public torture. She could still see Manvers' eyes stare
chilly at the wall before them, and believe them to grow colder with
each stave of her admissions. Her one consolation lay in the thought
that she could please him by amendment and save him by a conviction; so
it was hard to be petted by Sister Chucha. She would have welcomed the
whip, would have hugged it to her bosom--the rod of Salvation, she
would have called it; but compliments on her beauty, caresses of cheek
and chin--was she not to be allowed to be good? As for escape, she had
no desire for that. She could love her Don Osmundo best from a
distance. What was to be gained, but shame, by seeing him?
Her shining hair was cut off; the cap, the straight prison garb were
put on. She stood up, slim-necked, an arrowy maid, with her burning
face and sea-green eyes chastened by real humility. She made a good
confession to Father Vicente, and took her place among her mates.
It was true, what Sister Chucha had told her. Every penitent in that
great and gaunt building was thrilled with one persistent hope, worked
patiently with that in view, and under its spell refrained from
violence or clamour. There was not one face of those files of
grey-gowned girls which, at stated hours, entered the chapel, knelt at
the altar, or stooped at painful labour through the stifling days,
which did not show a gleam. Stupid, vacant, vicious, morose, pretty,
sparkling, whatever the face might be, there was that expectation to
redeem or enhance it, to make it human, to make it womanish. There
was, or there would be, some day, any day, a lover outside--to whom it
would be the face of all faces.
Manuela had not been two hours in the company of her fellow-prisoners
before she was told that there were two ways of escape from the
Recogidas. Religion or marriage these were; but the religious
alternative was not discussed.
Sister Chucha, it transpired, had chosen that way--"But do you wonder?"
cried the girl who told Manuela, with shrill scorn. Most of the
sisters had once been penitents--"_Vaya_! Look at them, my dear!"
cried this young Amazon, conscious of her own charms.
She was a plump Andalusian, black-eyed, merry, and quick to change her
moods. Love had sent her to Saint Mary Magdalene, and love would take
her out again.
That Chucha, she owned, was a kind soul. She always put the pretty
ones to housework--"it gives us a chance at the windows. I have
Fernando, who works at the sand-carting in the river. He never fails
to look up this way. Some day he will ask for me." She peered at
herself in a pail of water, and fingered her cap daintily. "How does
my skirt hang now, Manuela? Too short, I fancy. Did you ever see such
shoes as they give you here! Lucky that nobody can see you."
This was the strain of everybody's talk in the House of Las
Recogidas--in the whitewashed galleries where they walked in squads
under the eye of a nun who sat reading a good book against the wall, in
the court where they lay in the shade to rest, prone, with their faces
hidden in their arms, or with knees huddled up and eyes fixed in a
stare. They talked to each other in the hoarse, tearful staccato of
Spain, which, beginning low, seems to gather force and volume as it
runs, until, like a beck in flood, it carries speaker and listener over
the bar and into tossing waves of yeasty water.
Manuela, through all, kept her thoughts to herself, and spoke nothing
of her own affairs. There may have been others like her, fixed to the
great achievement of justifying themselves to their own standard: she
had no means of knowing. Her standard was this, that she had purged
herself by open confession to the man whom she loved. She was clean,
sweetened and full of heart. All she had to do was to open wide her
house that holiness might enter in.
Besides this she had, at the moment, the consciousness of a good
action; for she firmly believed that by her surrender to the law she
had again saved Manvers from assassination. If Don Luis could only
cleanse his honour by blood, he now had her heart's blood. That should
suffice him. She grew happier as the days went on.
Meanwhile it was remarked upon by Mercedes and Dolores, and half a
dozen more, that distinguished strangers came to the gallery of the
chapel. The outlines of them could be descried through the _grille_;
for behind the _grille_ was a great white window which threw them into
high relief.
It was the fixed opinion of Mercedes and Dolores that Manuela had a
_novio_.
CHAPTER XVII
THE NOVIO
It is true that Manvers had gone to the Chapel of the Recogidas to look
for, or to look at, Manuela. This formed the one amusing episode in
his week's round in Madrid, where otherwise he was extremely bored, and
where he only remained to give Don Luis a chance of waging his war.
To be shot at in the street, or stabbed in the back as you are homing
through the dusk are, to be sure, not everybody's amusements, and in an
ordinary way they were not those of Mr. Manvers. But he found that his
life gained a zest by being threatened with deprivation, and so long as
that zest lasted he was willing to oblige Don Luis. The weather was
insufferably hot, one could only be abroad early in the morning or late
at night--both the perfection of seasons for the assassin's game.
Yet nothing very serious had occurred during the week following the
declaration of war. Gil Perez could not find Tormillo, and had to
declare that his suspicions of a Manchegan teamster, who had jostled
his master in the Puerta del Sol and made as if to draw his knife, were
without foundation. What satisfied him was that the Manchegan, that
same evening, stabbed somebody else to death. "That show 'e is good
fellow--too much after 'is enemy," said Gil Perez affably. So Manvers
felt justified in his refusal to wear mail or carry either revolver or
sword-stick; and by the end of the week he forgot that he was a marked
man.
On Sunday he told Gil Perez that he intended to visit the Chapel of the
Recogidas.
The rogue's face twinkled. "Good, sir, good. We go. I show you
Manuela all-holy like a nun. I know whata she do. Look for 'eaven all
day. That Chucha she tell me something--and the _portero_, 'e damgood
fellow."
Resplendent in white duck trousers, Mr. Manvers was remarked upon by a
purely native company of sightseers. Quick-eyed ladies in mantillas
were there, making play with their fans and scent-bottles; attendant
cavaliers found something of which to whisper in the cool-faced
Englishman with his fair beard, blue eyes, and eye-glass, his air of
detachment, which disguised his real feelings, and of readiness to be
entertained, which they misinterpreted.
The facts were that he was painfully involved in Manuela's fate, and
uncomfortably near being in love again with the lovely unfortunate.
She was no longer a pretty thing to be kissed, no longer even a
handsome murderess; she was become a heroine, a martyr, a thing enskied
and sainted.
He had seen more than he had been meant to see during his ordeal in the
Audiencia--her consciousness of himself, for instance, as revealed in
that last dying look she had given him, that long look before she
turned and followed her gaolers out of court. He guessed at her
agonies of shame, he understood how it was that she had courted it; in
fine, he knew very well that her heart was in his keeping--and that's a
dangerous possession for a man already none too sure of the whereabouts
of his own.
When the organ music thrilled and opened, and the Recogidas filed
in--some hundred of them--his heart for a moment stood still, as he
scanned them through the gloom. They were dressed exactly alike in
dull clinging grey, all wore close-fitting white caps, were nearly all
dead-white in the face. They all shuffled, as convicts do when they
move close-ordered to their work afield.
It shocked him that he utterly failed to identify Manuela--and it
brought him sharply to his better senses that Gil Perez saw her at
once. "See her there, master, see there my beautiful," the man groaned
under his breath, and Manvers looked where he pointed, and saw her; but
now the glamour was gone. Gil was her declared lover. The Squire of
Somerset could not stoop to be his valet's rival.
The Squire of Somerset, however, observed that she held herself more
stiffly than her co-mates, and shuffled less. The prison garb clothed
her like a weed; she had the trick of wearing clothes so that they
draped the figure, not concealed it, were as wax upon it, not a
cerement. That which fell shapeless and heavily from the shoulders of
the others, upon her seemed to grow rather from the waist--to creep
upwards over the shoulders, as ivy steals clinging over a statue in a
park. Here, said he, is a maiden that cannot be hid. Call her a
murderess, she remains perfect woman; call her convict, Magdalen, she
is some man's solace. He looked: at Gil Perez, motionless and intent
by his side, and heard his short breath: There is her mate, he thought
to himself, and was saved.
They filed out as they had come in. They all stood, turned towards the
exit, and waited until they were directed to move. Then they followed
each other like sheep through a gateway, looking, so far as he could
see, at nothing, expecting nothing, and remembering nothing. A
down-trodden herd, he conceived them, their wits dulled by toil. He
was not near enough to see the gleam which kept them alive. Nuns gave
them their orders with authoritative hands, quick always, and callous
by routine, probably not intended to be so harsh as they appeared. He
saw one girl pushed forward by the shoulder with such suddenness that
she nearly fell; another flinched at a passionate command; another
scowled as she passed her mistress. He watched to see how Manuela, who
had come in one of the first and must go out one of the last, would
bear herself, and was relieved by a pretty and enheartening episode.
Manuela, as she passed, drew her hand along the top of the bench with a
lingering, trailing touch. It encountered that of the nun in command,
and he saw the nun's hand enclose and press the penitent's. He saw
Manuela's look of gratitude, and the nun's smiling affection; he
believed that Manuela blushed. That gratified him extremely, and
enlarged his benevolent intention.
Had Gil Perez seen it? He thought not. Gil Perez' black eyes were
fixed upon Manuela's form. They glittered like a cat's when he watches
a bird in a shrubbery. The valet was quite unlike himself as he
followed his master homewards and asked leave of absence for the
evening--for the first time in his period of service. Manvers had no
doubt at all how that evening was spent--in rapt attention below the
barred windows of the House of the Recogidas.
That was so. Gil Perez "played the bear," as they call it, from dusk
till the small hours--perfectly happy, in a rapture of adoration which
the Squire of Somerset could never have realised. All the romance
which, if we may believe Cervantes, once transfigured the life of
Spain, and gilded the commonest acts till they seemed confident appeals
for the applause of God, feats boldly done under Heaven's thronged
barriers, is nowadays concentred in this one strange vigil which all
lovers have to keep.
Gil Perez the quick, the admirable servant, the jaunty adventurer, the
assured rogue, had vanished. Here he stood beneath the stars,
breathing prayers and praises--not a little valet sighing for a
convicted Magdalen, but a young knight keeping watch beneath his lady's
tower. And he was not alone there: at due intervals along the frowning
walls were posted other servants of the sleeping girls behind them;
other knights at watch and ward.
The prayer he breathed was the prayer breathed too for Dolores or
Mercedes in prison. "Virgin of Atocha, Virgin of the Pillar, Virgin of
Sorrow, of Divine Compassion, send happy sleep to thy handmaid Manuela,
shed the dew of thy love upon her eyelids, keep smooth her brows, keep
innocent her lips. Dignify me, thy servant, Gil Perez, more than other
men, that I may be worthy to sustain this high honour of love."
His eyes never wavered from a certain upper window. It was as blank as
all the rest, differed in no way from any other of a row of
five-and-twenty. To him if was the pride of the great building.
"O fortunate stars!" he whispered to himself, "that can look through
these and see my love upon her bed. O rays too much blessed, that can
kiss her eyelids, and touch lightly upon the scented strands of her
hair! O breath of the night, that can fan in her white neck and stroke
her arm stretched out over the coverlet! To you, night-wind, and to
you, stars, I give an errand; you shall take a message from me to
lovely Manuela of the golden tresses. Tell her that I am watching out
the dark; tell her that no harm shall come to her. Whisper in her ear,
mingle with her dreams, and tell her that she has a lover. Tell her
also that the nights in Madrid are not like those in Valencia, and that
she would do well to cover her arm and shoulder up lest she catch cold,
and suffer."
There spoke the realist, the romantic realist of Spain; for it is to be
observed that Gil Perez did not know at all whereabouts Manuela lay
asleep, and could not, naturally, know whether her arm was out of bed
or in it. He had forgotten also that her hair had been cut off--but
these are trifles. Happy he! he had forgotten much more than that.
When Manvers told him that he intended to pay Manuela a visit on the
day allowed, Gil Perez suffered the tortures of the damned. Jealous
rage consumed his vitals like a corroding acid, which reason and
loyalty had no power to assuage. Yet reason and loyalty played out
their allotted parts, and it had been a fine sight to see Gil grinning
and gibbering at his own white face in the looking-glass, shaking his
finger at it and saying to it, in English (since it was his master's
shaving-glass), "Gil Perez, my fellow, you shut up!" He said it many
times, for he had nothing else to say--jealousy deprived him of his
wits; and he felt better for the discipline. When Manvers returned
there was no sign upon Gil's brisk person of the stormy conflict which
had ravaged it.
Manvers had seen her and, by Sister Chucha's charity, had seen her
alone. The poor girl had fallen at his feet and would have kissed them
if he had not lifted her up. "No, my dear, no," he said; "it is I who
ought to kneel. You have done wonders for me. You are as brave as a
lion, Manuela; but I must get you away from this place."
"No, no, Don Osmundo," she cried, flushing up, "indeed I am better
here." She stood before him, commanding herself, steeling herself in
the presence of this man she loved against any hint of her beating
heart.
He had himself well in hand. Her beauty, her distress and misfortune
could not touch him now. All that he had for her was admiration and
pure benevolence. Fatal offerings for a woman inflamed: so soon as she
perceived it her courage was needed for another tussle. Her blood lay
like lead in her veins, her heart sank to the deeps of her, and she
must screw it back again to the work of the day.
He took her hand, and she let him have it. What could it matter now
what he had of hers? "Manuela," he said, "there is a way of freedom
for you, if you will take it. A man loves you truly, and asks nothing
better than to work for you. I know him; he's been a good friend to
me. Will you let me pay you off my debt? His name is Gil Perez. You
have seen him, I know. He's an honest man, my dear, and loves you to
distraction. What are you going to say to him if he asks for you?"
She stood, handfasted to the man who had kissed her--and in kissing her
had drawn out her soul through her lips; who now was pleading that
another man might have her dead lips. The mockery of the thing might
have made a worse woman laugh horribly; but this was a woman made pure
by love. She saw no mockery, no discrepancy in what he asked her. She
knew he was in earnest and wished her nothing but good.
And she could see, without knowing that she saw, how much he desired to
be rid of his obligation to her. Therefore, she reasoned, she would be
serving him again if she agreed to what he proposed. Here--if laughing
had been her mood--was matter for laughter, that when he tried to pay
her off he was really getting deeper into debt. Look at it in this
way. You owe a fine sum, principal and interest, to a Jew; you go to
him and propose to borrow again of him in order that you may pay off
the first debt and be done with it. The Jew might laugh but he would
lend; and Manuela, who hoarded love, hugged to her heart the new bond
she was offered. The deeper he went into debt the more she must lend
him! There was pleasure in this--shrill pleasure not far off from
pain; but she was a child of pleasure, and must take what she could get.
Her grave eyes, uncurtained, searched his face. "Is this what you
desire me to do? Is this what you ask of me?"
"My dear," said he, "I desire your freedom. I desire to see you happy
and cared for. I must go away. I must go home. I shall go more
willingly if I know that I have provided for my friend."
She urged a half-hearted plea. "I am very well here, Don Osmundo. The
sisters are kind to me, the work is light. I might be happy here----"
"What!" he cried, "in prison!"
"It is what I deserve," she said; but he would not hear of it.
"You are here through my blunders," he insisted. "If I hadn't left you
with that scoundrel in the wood this would never have happened. And
there's another thing which I must say----" He grew very serious.
"I'm ashamed of myself--but I must say it." She looked at her hands in
her lap, knowing what was coming.
"They said, you know, that Esteban must have thought me your lover."
She sat as still as death. "Well--I was."
Not a word from her. "My dear," he went on painfully--for Eleanor
Vernon's clear grey eyes were on him now, "I must tell you that I did
what I had no business to do. There's a lady in England who--whom--I
was carried away--I thought----" He stopped, truly shocked at what he
had thought her to be. "Now that I know you, Manuela, I tell you
fairly I behaved like a villain."
Her face was flung up like that of a spurred horse; she was on the
point to reveal herself,--to tell him that in that act of his lay all
her glory. But she stopped in time, and resumed her drooping, and her
dejection. "I must serve him still--serve him always," was her burden.
"I was your lover truly," he continued, "after I knew what you had
risked for me, what you had brought yourself to do for me. Not before
that. Before that, I had been a thief--a brute. But after it, I loved
you--and then I had your cross set in gold--and betrayed you into Don
Luis' mad old hands. All this trouble is my fault--you are here
through me--you must be got out through me. Gil Perez is a better man
than I am ever likely to be. He loves you sincerely. He loved you
before you gave yourself up. You know that, I expect..."
She knew it, of course, perfectly well, but she said nothing.
"He wouldn't wish to bustle you into marriage, or anything of the sort.
He's a gentleman, is Gil Perez, and I shall see that he doesn't ask for
you empty-handed. I am sure he can make you happy; and I tell you
fairly that the only way I can be happy myself is to know that I have
made you amends." He got up--at the end of his resources. "Let me
leave his case before you. He'll plead it in his own way, you'll find.
I can't help thinking that you must know what the state of his feelings
is. Think of him as kindly as you can--and think of me, too, Manuela,
as a man who has done you a great wrong, and wants to put himself right
if he may." He held out his hand. "Good-bye, my dear. I'll see you
again, I hope--or send a better man."
"Good-bye, Don Osmundo," she said, and gave him her hand. He pressed
it and went away, feeling extremely satisfied with the hour's work.
Eleanor Vernon's clear grey eyes smiled approvingly upon him. "Damn it
all," he said to himself, "I've got that tangle out at last." He began
to think of England--Somersetshire--Eleanor--partridges. "I shall get
home, I hope, by the first," he said.
"He's a splendour, your _novio_, Manuelita," said Sister Chucha, and
emphasised her approval with a kiss. "Fie!" she cried, "what a cold
cheek! The cheek of a dead woman. And you with a _hidalgo_ for your
_novio_!"
CHAPTER XIX
THE WAR OPENS
Returning from his visit, climbing the Calle Mayor at that blankest
hour of the summer day when the sun is at his fiercest, raging
vertically down upon a street empty of folk, but glittering like glass
and radiant with quivering air, Manvers was shot at from a distance, so
far as he could judge, of thirty yards. He heard the ball go shrilling
past him and then splash and flatten upon a church wall beyond. He
turned quickly, but could see nothing. Not a sign of life was upon the
broad way, not a curtain was lifted, not a shutter swung apart. To all
intents and purposes he was upon the Castilian plains.
Unarmed though he was, he went back upon his traces down the hill,
expecting at any moment that the assassin would flare out upon him and
shoot him down at point-blank. He went back in all some fifty yards.
There was no man in lurking that he could discover. After a few
moments' irresolution--whether to stand or proceed--he decided that the
sooner he was within walls the better. He turned again and walked
briskly towards the Puerta del Sol.
Sixty yards or so from the great _plaza_, within sight of it, he was
fired at again, and this time he was hit in the muscles of the left
arm. He felt the burning sting, the shock and the aching. The welling
of blood was a blessed relief. On this occasion he pushed forward, and
reached his inn without further trouble. He sent for Gil Perez, who
whisked off for the surgeon; by the time he brought one in Manvers was
feverish, and so remained until the morning, tossing and jerking
through the fervent night, with his arm stiff from shoulder to
finger-points.
"That a dam thief, sir, 'e count on you never looka back," said Gil
Perez, nodding grimly. "Capitan Rodney, 'e all the same as you. Walka
'is blessed way, never taka no notice of anybody. See 'im at
Sevastopol do lika that all the time. So then this assassin 'e creep
after you lika one o'clock up Calle Mayor, leta fly at you twice, three
time, four time--so longa you let 'im. You walka backward, 'e never
shoot--you see."
Manvers felt that to walk backwards would be at least as tiresome as to
walk forwards and be shot at in a city which now held little for him
but danger and _ennui_. Not even Manuela's fortunes could prevail
against boredom. As he lay upon his hateful bed, disgust with Spain
grew upon him hand over hand. He became irritable. To Gil Perez he
announced his determination. This sort of thing must end.
Gil bowed and rubbed his hands. "You go 'ome, sir? Is besta place for
you. Don Luis, 'e kill you for sure. You go, 'e go 'ome, esleep on
'is olda bed--too mucha satisfy." Under his breath he added, "Poor
Manuela--my poor beautiful! She is tormented in vain!"
Manvers told him what had passed in the House of the Recogidas. "I
spoke for you, Gil. I think she will listen to you."
Gil lifted up his head. "Every nighta, when you are asleep, sir, I
estand under the wall. I toucha--I say 'Keep safa guard of Manuela,
you wall.' If she 'ave me I maka 'er never sorry for it. I love 'er
too much. But I think she call me dirt. I know all about 'er too
much."
What he knew he kept hidden; but one day he went to the Recogidas and
asked to see Sister Chucha. He was obsequious, but impassioned, full
of cajolery, but not for a moment did he try to impose upon his
countrywoman by any assumption of omniscience. That was reserved for
his master, and was indeed a kind of compliment to his needs. Sister
Chucha heard him at first with astonishment.
"Then it was for you, Gil Perez, that the gentleman came here?"
Gil nodded. "It was for me, sister. How could it be otherwise?"
"I thought that the gentleman was interested."
Gil peered closely into her face. "That gentleman is persecuted.
Manuela can save him from the danger he stands in--but only through me.
Sister, I love her more than life and the sky, but I am content, and
she will be content, that life shall be dumb and the sky dark if that
gentleman may go free. Let me speak with Manuela--you will see."
The nun was troubled. "Too many see Manuela," she said. "Only
yesterday there came here a man."
"Ha!" said Gil Perez fiercely. "What manner of a man?"
"A little man," she told him, "that came in creeping, rounding his
shoulders--so, and swimming with his hands. He saw Manuela, and left
her trembling. She was white and grey--and very cold."
"That man," said Gil, folding his arms, "was our enemy. Let me now see
Manuela."
It was more a command than an entreaty. Sister Chucha obeyed it. She
went away without a word, and returned presently, leading Manuela by
the hand. She brought her into the room, released her, and stood,
watching and listening.
Eyes leaped to meet--Manuela was on fire, but Gil's fire ate up hers.
"Senorita, you have surrendered in vain. These men must have blood for
blood. The patron lies wounded, and will die unless we save him.
Senorita, you are willing, and I am willing--speak."
She regarded him steadily. "You know that I am willing, Gil Perez."
"It was Tormillo you saw yesterday?"
"Yes, Tormillo--like a toad."
"He was sent to mock you in your pain. He is a fool. We will show him
a fool in his own likeness. Are you content to die?"
"You know that I am content."
He turned to the nun. "Sister Chucha, you will let this lady go. She
goes out to die--I, who love her, am content that she should die. If
she dies not, she returns here. If she dies, you will not ask for her."
The sister stared. "What do you mean, you two? How is she to die?
When? Where?"
"She is to die under the knife of Don Luis," said Gil Perez. "And I am
to lay her there."
"You, my friend! And what have you to do with Don Luis and his
affairs?"
"Manuela is young," said Gil, "and loves her life. I am young, and
love Manuela more than life. If I take her to Don Luis and say, 'Kill
her, Senor Don Luis, and in that act kill me also,' I think he will be
satisfied. I can see no other way of saving the life of Don Osmundo."
"And what do you ask me to do?" the nun asked presently.
"I ask you to give me Manuela presently for one hour or for eternity.
If Don Luis rejects her, I bring her back to you here--on the word of
an old Christian. If he takes her, she goes directly to God, where you
would have her be. Sister Chucha," said Gil Perez finely, "I am
persuaded that you will help us."
Sister Chucha looked at her hands--fat and very white hands. "You ask
me to do a great deal--to incur a great danger--for a gentleman who is
nothing to me."
"He is everything to Manuela," said Gil softly. "That you know."
"And you, Gil Perez--what is he to you?" This was Sister Chucha's
sharpest. Gil took it with a blink.
"He is my master--that is something. He is more to Manuela. And she
is everything to me. Sister, you may trust me with her."
The nun turned from him to the motionless beauty by her side.
"You, my child, what do you say to this project? Shall I let you go?"
Manuela wavered a little. She swayed about and balanced herself with
her hands. But she quickly recovered.
"Sister Chucha," she said, "let me go." The soft green light from her
eyes spoke for her.
CHAPTER XX
MEETING BY MOONLIGHT
By moonlight, in the sheeted park, four persons met to do battle for
the life of Mr. Manvers, while he lay grumbling and burning in his bed,
behind the curtains of it. Don Luis Ramonez was there, the first to
come--tall and gaunt, with undying pride in his hollow eyes, like a
spectre of rancour kept out of the grave. Behind him Tormillo came
creeping, a little restless man, dogging his master's footsteps,
watching for word or sign from him. These two stood by the lake in the
huge empty park, still under its shroud of white moonlight.
Don Luis picked up the corner of his cloak and threw it over his left
shoulder. He stalked stately up and down the arc of a circle which a
stone seat defined. Tormillo sat upon the edge of the seat, his elbows
on his knees, and looked at the ground. But he kept his master in the
tail of his eye. Now and again, furtively, but as if he loved what he
feared, he put his hand into his breast and felt the edge of his long
knife.
Once indeed, when Don Luis on his sentry-march had his back to him, he
drew out the blade and turned it under the moon, watching the cold
light shiver and flash up along it and down. Not fleck or flaw was
upon it; it showed the moon whole within its face. This pair, each
absorbed in his own business, waited for the other.
Tormillo saw them coming, and marked it by rising from his seat. He
peered along the edge of the water to be sure, then he went noiselessly
towards them, looking back often over his shoulder at Don Luis. But
his master did not seem to be aware of anyone. He stood still, looking
over the gloomy lake.
Tormillo, having gone half way, waited. Gil Perez hailed him. "Is
that you, Tormillo?" The muffled figure of a girl by his side gave no
sign.
"It is I, Gil Perez. Be not afraid."
"If I were afraid of anything, I should not be here. I have brought
Manuela of her own will."
"Good," said Tormillo. "Give her to me. We will go to Don Luis."
"Yes, you shall take her. I will remain here. Senorita, will you go
with him?"
Manuela said, "I am ready."
Tormillo turned his face away, and Gil Perez with passion whispered to
Manuela.
"My soul, my life, Manuela! One sign from you, and I kill him!"
She turned him her rapt face. "No
sign from me, brother--no sign from me."
"My life," sighed Gil Perez. "Soul of my soul!" She held him out her
hand.
"Pray for me," she said. He snatched at her hand, knelt on his knee,
stooped over it, and then, jumping up, flung himself from her.
"Take her you, Tormillo."
Tormillo took her by the hand, and they went together towards the
semicircular seat, in whose centre stood Don Luis like a black statue.
Soft-footed went she, swaying a little, like a gossamer caught in a
light wind. Don Luis half-turned, and saluted her.
"Master," said Tormillo, "Manuela is here." As if she were a figure to
be displayed he lightly threw back her veil. Manuela stood still and
bowed her head to the uncovered gentleman.
"I am ready, senor Don Luis," she said. He came nearer, watching her,
saying nothing.
"I killed Don Bartolome, your son," she said, "because I feared him.
He told me that he had come to kill me; but I was beforehand with him
there. It is true that I loved Don Osmundo, who had been kind to me."
"You killed my son," said Don Luis, "and you loved the Englishman."
"I own the truth," she said, "and am ready to requite you. I thought
to have satisfied you by giving myself up--but you have shown me that
that was not enough. Now then I give you myself of my own will, if you
will let Don Osmundo go free. Will you make a bargain with me? He
knew nothing of Don Bartolome, your son."
Don Luis bowed. Manuela turned her head slowly about to the still
trees, to the sleeping water, to the moon in the clear sky, as if to
greet the earth for the last time. For one moment her eyes fell on Gil
Perez afar off--on his knees with his hands raised to heaven.
"I am ready," she said again, and bowed her head. Tormillo put into
Don Luis' hands the long knife. Don Luis threw it out far into the
lake. It fled like a streak of light, struck, skimmed along the
surface, and sank without a splash. He went to Manuela and put his
hand on her shoulder. She quivered at his touch.
"My child," said he, "I cannot touch you. You have redeemed yourself.
Go now, and sin no more."
He left her and went his way, stately, along the edge of the water. He
stalked past Gil Perez at his prayers as if he saw him not--as may well
be the case. But Gil Perez got upon his feet as he went by and saluted
him with profound respect.
Immediately afterwards he went like the wind to Manuela. He found her
crying freely on the stone seat, her arms upon the back of it and her
face hidden in her arms She wept with passion; her sobs were pitiful to
hear. Tormillo, not at all moved, waited for Gil Perez.
"_Esa te quiere bien que te hace llorar_," he said: "She loves thee
well, that makes thee weep."
"I weep not," said Gil Perez; "it is she that weeps. As for me, I
praise God."
"Aha, Gil Perez," Tormillo began--then he chuckled. "For you, my
friend, there's still sunlight on the wall."
Gil nodded. "I believe it." Then he looked fiercely at the other man.
"Go you with God, Tormillo, and leave me with her."
Tormillo stared, spat on the ground. "No need of your 'chuck chuck' to
an old dog. I go, Gil Perez. _Adios, hermano_."
Gil Perez sat on the stone seat, and drew Manuela's head to his
shoulder. She suffered him.
[Illustration: Inside back cover art (left side)]
[Illustration: Inside back cover art (right side)]