"Yes, senora. Listen to me. _You_, at least, are a good Catholic. You
have not compromised yourself in any way: you say your angelus; you make
your vows; you bring flowers to Our Lady's shrine. _You_ are safe."
She turned round and faced him--her cheek dyed crimson, and her eyes
flashing,--
"I am safe! Is that all you have to say? Who cares for that? What is
_my_ life worth?"
"Patience, dear senora! Your safety aids in securing his. Listen.--You
are writing to him. Tell him of the arrests; for hear of them he must.
Use the language about heresy which will occur to you, but which--God
help me!--I could not use. Then pass from the subject. Write aught
else that comes to your mind; but before closing your letter, say that I
am well in mind and body, and would be heartily recommended to him. Add
that I most earnestly request of him, for our common good and the better
arrangement of our affairs, not to return to Seville, but to remain at
Nuera. He will understand that. Lay your own commands upon him--your
_commands_, remember, senora--to the same effect."
"I will do all that.--But here come my aunt and cousins."
It was true. Already the porter had opened for them the gloomy outer
gate; and now the gilt and filagreed inner door was thrown open also,
and the returning family party filled the court. They were talking
together; not quite so gaily as usual, but still eagerly enough. Dona
Sancha soon drew near to Beatrix, and began to rally her upon her
occupation, threatening playfully to carry away and read the unfinished
letter. No one addressed a word to Carlos; but that might have been
mere accident.
It was, however, scarcely accidental that his aunt, as she passed him on
her way to an inner room, drew her mantilla closer round her, lest its
deep lace fringe might touch his clothing. Shortly afterwards Dona
Sancha dropped her fan. According to custom, Carlos stooped for it, and
handed it to her with a bow. The young lady took it mechanically, but
almost immediately dropped it again with a look of scorn, as if polluted
by its touch. Its delicate carved ivory, the work of Moorish hands, lay
in fragments on the marble floor; and from that moment Carlos knew that
he was under the ban, that he stood alone amidst his uncle's
household--a suspected and degraded man.
It was not wonderful. His intimacy with the monks of San Isodro, his
friendship with Don Juan Ponce de Leon, and with the physician Losada,
were all well-known facts. Moreover, had he not taught at the College
of Doctrine, under the direct patronage of Fernando de San Juan, another
of the victims. And there were other indications of his tendencies which
could scarcely escape notice, once the suspicions of those who lived
under the same roof with him were awakened.
For a time he stood silent, watching his uncle's countenance, and
marking the frown that contracted his brow whenever his eye turned
towards him. But when Don Manuel passed into a smaller saloon that
opened upon the court, Carlos followed him boldly.
They stood face to face, but could hardly see each other. The room was
darkness, save for a few struggling moonbeams.
"Senor my uncle," said Carlos, "I fear my presence here is displeasing
to you."
Don Manuel paused before replying.
"Nephew," he said at length, "you have been lamentably imprudent. The
saints grant you have been no worse."
A moment of strong emotion will sometimes bring out in a man's face
characteristic lineaments of his family, in calmer seasons not traceable
there. Thus it is with features of the soul. It was not the gentle
timid Don Carlos who spoke now, it was Alvarez de Santillanos y Menaya.
There was both pride and courage in his tone.
"If it has been my misfortune to offend my honoured uncle, to whom I owe
so many benefits, I am sorry, though I cannot charge myself with any
fault. But I should be faulty indeed were I to prolong my stay in a
house where I am no longer what, thanks to your kindness, senor my
uncle, I have ever been hitherto, a welcome guest." Having spoken thus,
he turned to go.
"Stay, young fool!" cried Don Manuel, who thought the better of him for
his proud words. They raised him, in his estimation, from a mark for
his scorn to a legitimate object for his indignation. "There spoke your
father's voice. But I tell you, for all that, you shall not quit the
shelter of my roof."
"I thank you."
"You may spare the pains. I ask you not, for I prefer to remain in
ignorance, to what perilous and fool-hardy lengths your intimacy with
heretics may have gone. Without being a Qualificator of heresy myself,
I can tell that you smell of the fire. And indeed, young man, were you
anything less than Alvarez de Menaya, I would hardly scorch my own
fingers to hold you out of it. The Devil--to whom, in spite of all your
fair appearances, I fear you belong--might take care of his own. But
since truth is the daughter of God, you shall have it from my lips. And
the plain truth is, that I have no desire to hear every cur dog in
Seville barking at me and mine; nor to see our ancient and honourable
name dragged through the mire and filth of the streets."
"I have never disgraced that name."
"Have I not said that I desire no protestations from you? Whatever my
private opinion may be, it stands upon our family honour to hold that
yours is still unstained. Therefore, not from love, as I tell you
plainly, but from motives that may perchance prove stronger in the end,
I and mine extend to you our protection. I am a good Catholic, a
faithful son of Mother Church; but I freely confess I am no hero of the
Faith, to offer up upon its shrine those that bear my own name. I
pretend not to such heights of sanctity, not I." And Don Manuel
shrugged his shoulders.
"I entreat of you, senor my uncle, to allow me to explain--"
Don Manuel waved his hand with a forbidding gesture. "None of thy
explanations for me," he said. "I am no silly cock, to scratch till I
find the knife. Dangerous secrets had best be let alone. This I will
say, however, that of all the contemptible follies of these evil times,
this last one of heresy is the worst. If a man _will_ lose his soul, in
the name of common sense let him lose it for fine houses, broad lands, a
duke's title, an archbishop's coffers, or something else good at least
in this world. But to give all up, and to gain nothing, save fire here
and fire again hereafter! It is sheer, blank idiocy."
"I _have_ gained something," said Carlos firmly. "I have gained a
treasure worth more than all I risk, more than life itself."
"What! Is there really a meaning in this madness? Have you and your
friends a secret?" Don Manuel asked in a gentler voice, and not without
curiosity. For he was the child of his age; and had Carlos told him
that the heretics had made the discovery of the philosopher's stone, he
would have seen nothing worthy of disbelief in the statement; he would
only have asked him for proofs.
"The knowledge of God in Christ," began Carlos eagerly, "gives me joy
and peace--"
"_Is that all?_" cried Don Manuel with an oath. "Fool that I was, to
imagine, for half an idle minute, that there might be some grain of
common sense still left in your crazy brain! But since it is only a
question of words and names, and mystical doctrines, I have the honour
to wish you good evening, Senor Don Carlos. Only I command you, as you
value your life, and prefer a residence beneath my roof to a dungeon in
the Triana, to keep your insanity within bounds, and to conduct yourself
so as to avert suspicion. On these conditions we will shelter you.
Eventually, if it can be done with safety, we may even ship you out of
the Spains to some foreign country, where heretics, rogues, and thieves
are permitted to go at large." So saying, he left the room.
Carlos was stung to the quick by his contempt; but remembered at last
that it was a fragment of the true cross (really the first that had
fallen to his lot) given him to wear in honour of his Master.
Sleep would not visit his eyes that night. The next day was the
Sabbath, a day he had been wont to welcome and enjoy. But never again
should the Reformed Church of Seville meet in the upper room which had
been the scene of so much happy intercourse. The next reunion was
appointed for another place, a house not made with hands, eternal in the
heavens. Dona Isabella de Baena and Losada were in the dungeons of the
Triana. Fray Cassiodoro de Reyna, singularly fortunate, had succeeded
in making his escape. Fray Constantino, on the other hand, had been
amongst the first arrested; but Carlos went as usual to the Cathedral,
where that eloquent voice would never again be heard. A heavy silent
gloom, like that which precedes a thunderstorm, seemed to fill the
crowded aisles.
Yet it was there that the first gleam of comfort reached the breaking
heart of Carlos. It came to him through the familiar words of the Latin
service, loved from childhood.
He said afterwards to the trembling children of one of the victims,
whose desolated home he dared to visit, "For myself, horror took hold of
me. I dared not to think. I scarce dared to pray, save in broken words
that were only like cries of pain. The first thing that helped me was
that grand verse in the Te Deum, chanted by the sweet childish voices of
the Cathedral choir--'Tu, devicto mortis aculeo, aperuesti credentibus
regna coelorum.' Think, dear friends, not death alone, but its sting,
its sharpness,--for us and our beloved,--He has overcome, and they and
we in him. The gates of the kingdom of heaven stand open; opened by his
hands, and neither men nor fiends can shut them again."
Such words as these did Carlos find opportunity to speak to many
bereaved ones, from whom the desire of their eyes had been taken by a
stroke far more bitter than death. This ministry of love did not
greatly increase his own peril, since the less he deviated from his
ordinary habits of life the less suspicion he was likely to awaken. But
had it been otherwise, he was not now in a position to calculate.
Perhaps he was too near heaven; at all events, he had already ventured
too much for Christ's sake not to be willing, at his call, to venture a
little more.
Meanwhile, the isolation of his position in his uncle's house grew
overpowering. No one reproached him, no one taunted him, not even
Gonsalvo. He often longed for some bitter word, ay, though it were a
curse, to break the oppressive silence. Every eye looked upon him with
hatred and scorn; every hand shrank from the slightest, most accidental
contact with his. Almost he came to consider himself what all others
considered him,--polluted, degraded--under the ban.
Once and again would he have sought escape by flight from an atmosphere
in which it seemed more and more impossible to breathe. But flight
meant arrest; and arrest, besides its overwhelming terrors for himself,
meant the danger of betraying Juan. His uncle and his uncle's family,
though they seemed now to scorn and hate him, had promised to save him
if they could, and so far he trusted them.