"The not so very false, as falsehood goes,--
The spinning out and drawing fine, you know;
Really mere novel-writing, of a sort,
Acting, improvising, make-believe,--
Surely not downright cheatery!"--R. Browning.
It cost Carlos some time and trouble to drive away the haunting thoughts
which Losada's words had awakened. But he succeeded at length; or
perhaps it would be more truthful to say the bright eyes and witching
smiles of Dona Beatrix accomplished the work for him.
Every dream, however, must have a waking. Sometimes a slight sound,
ludicrously trivial in its cause, dispels a slumber fraught with
wondrous visions, in which we have been playing the part of kings and
emperors.
"Nephew Don Carlos," said Don Manuel one day, "is it not time you
thought of shaving your head? You are learned enough for your Orders
long ago, and 'in a plentiful house supper is soon dressed.'"
"True, senor my uncle," murmured Carlos, looking suddenly aghast. "But
I am under the canonical age."
"But you can get a dispensation."
"Why such haste? There is time yet and to spare."
"That is not so sure. I hear the cura of San Lucar has one foot in the
grave. The living is a good one, and I think I know where to go for it.
So take care you lose not a heifer for want of a halter to hold it by."
With these words on his lips, Don Manuel went out. At the same moment
Gonsalvo, who lay listlessly on a sofa at one end of the room, or rather
court, reading "Lazarillo de Tormes," the first Spanish novel, burst
into a loud paroxysm of laughter.
"What may be the theme of your merriment?" asked Carlos, turning his
large dreamy eyes languidly towards him.
"Yourself, amigo mio. You would make the stone saints of the Cathedral
laugh on their pedestals. There you stand, pale as marble, a living
image of despair. Come, rouse yourself! What do you mean to do? Will
you take what you wish, or let your chance slip by, and then sit and
weep because you have it not? Will you be a _priest_ or a _man_? Make
your choice this hour, for one you must be, and both you cannot be."
Carlos answered him not; in truth, he dared not answer him. Every word
was the voice of his own heart; perhaps it was also, though he knew it
not, the voice of the great tempter. He withdrew to his chamber, and
barred and bolted himself in it. This was the first time in his life
that solitude was a necessity to him. His uncle's words had brought
with them a terrible revelation. He knew himself now too well; he knew
what he loved, what he desired, or rather what he hungered and thirsted
for with agonizing intensity. No; never the priest's frock for him. He
must call Dona Beatriz de Lavella his--his before God's altar--or die.
Then came a thought, stinging him with sharp, sudden pain. It was a
thought that should have come to him long ago,--"Juan!" And with the
name, affection, memory, conscience, rose up together within him to
combat the mad resolve of his passion.
Fiery passions slumbered in the heart of Carlos. Such art sometimes
found united with a gentle temper, a weak will, and sensitive nerves.
Woe to their possessor when they are aroused in their strength!
Had Carlos been a plain soldier, like the brother he was tempted to
betray, it is possible he might have come forth from this terrible
conflict still holding fast his honour and his brotherly affection. It
was his priestly training that turned the scale. He had been taught
that simple truth between man and man was a thing of little consequence.
He had been taught the art of making a hundred clever, plausible excuses
for whatever he saw best to do. He had been taught, in short, every
species of sophistry by which, to the eyes of others, and to his own
also, wrong might be made to seem right, and black to appear the purest
white.
His subtle imagination forged in the fire of his kindled passions chains
of reasoning in which no skill could detect a flaw. Juan had never
loved as he did; Juan would not care; probably by this time he had
forgotten Dona Beatriz. "Besides," the tempter whispered furtively
within him, "he might never return at all; he might die in battle." But
Carlos was not yet sunk so low as to give ear for a single instant to
this wicked whisper; though certainly he could not henceforth look for
his brother's return with the joy with which he had been wont to
anticipate that event. But, in any case, Beatriz herself should be the
judge between them. And he told himself that he knew (how did he know
it?) that Beatriz preferred _him_. Then it would be only right and kind
to prepare Juan for an inevitable disappointment. This he could easily
do. Letters, carefully written, might gradually suggest to his brother
that Beatriz had other views; and he knew Juan's pride and his fiery
temper well enough to calculate that if his jealousy were once aroused,
these would soon accomplish the rest.
Ere we, who have been taught from our cradles to "speak the truth from
the heart," turn with loathing from the wiles of Carlos Alvarez, we
ought to remember that he was a Spaniard--one of a nation whose genius
and passion is for intrigue. He was also a Spaniard of the sixteenth
century; but, above all, he was a Spanish Catholic, educated for the
priesthood.
The ability with which he laid his plans, and the enjoyment which its
exercise gave him, served in itself to blind him to the treachery and
ingratitude upon which those plans were founded.
He sought an interview with Fray Constantino, and implored from him a
letter of recommendation to the imperial recluse at San Yuste, whose
chaplain and personal favourite the canon-magistral had been. But that
eloquent preacher, though warm-hearted and generous to a fault,
hesitated to grant the request. He represented to Carlos that His
Imperial Majesty did not choose his retreat to be invaded by applicants
for favours, and that the journey to San Yuste would therefore be, in
all probability, worse than useless. Carlos answered that he had fully
weighed the difficulties of the case; but that if the line of conduct he
adopted seemed peculiar, his circumstances were so also. He believed
that his father (who died before his birth) had enjoyed the special
regard of His Imperial Majesty, and he hoped that, for his sake, he
might now be willing to show him some kindness. At all events, he was
sure of an introduction to his presence through his mayor-domo, Don Luis
Quixada, lord of Villagarcia, who was a friend of their house. What he
desired to obtain, through the kindness of His Imperial Majesty, was a
Latin secretaryship, or some similar office, at the court of the new
king, where his knowledge of Latin, and the talents he hoped he
possessed, might stand him in good stead, and enable him to support,
though with modesty, the station to which his birth entitled him. For,
although already a licentiate of theology, and with good prospects in
the Church, he did not wish to take orders, as he had thoughts of
marrying.
Fray Constantino felt a sympathy with the young man; and perhaps the
rather because, if report speaks true, he had once been himself in a
somewhat similar position. So he compromised matters by giving him a
general letter of recommendation, in which he spoke of his talents and
his blameless manners as warmly as he could, from the experience of the
nine or ten months during which he had been acquainted with him. And
although the attention paid by Carlos to his instructions had been
slight, and of late almost perfunctory, his great natural intelligence
had enabled him to stand his ground more creditably than many far more
diligent students. The Fray's letter Carlos thankfully added to the
numerous laudatory epistles from the doctors and professors of Alcala
that he already had in his possession.
All these he enclosed in a cedar box, which he carefully locked, and
consigned in its turn to a travelling portmanteau, along with a fair
stock of wearing apparel, sufficiently rich in material to suit his
rank, but modest in colour and fashion. He then informed his uncle that
before he took Orders it would be necessary for him, in his brother's
absence, to take a journey to their little estate, and set its concerns
in order.
His uncle, suspecting nothing, approved his plan, and insisted on
providing him with the attendance of an armed guard to Nuera, whither he
really intended to go in the first instance.