Part 20

One of the envoys let it be known that he wished to give various entertainments during his stay in Madrid. He was told that he had but to give his orders: the house and the corps of servants were at his disposal. Only, Spain reserved the right of paying all the bills. In a commercial age such things are pleasant to meet with.

The Austrian Grand Duke stayed not far from the Tower at the palace of the Duke of Medina Celli, the representative of an elder branch of the royal family. At every coronation, the head of this house makes a formal protest, and asserts his hereditary claim to the throne. He ranks next to the King and has the second place at all ceremonials.

When the great people had all arrived, Villegas took an afternoon off and drove us about the city to show us where they were staying. Outside each palace or house where a distinguished guest was billeted a sentry box, painted with the national colors of the guest, had been placed and a sentinel posted. Over the handsome house allotted to Mr. Whittredge, the American Ambassador Extraordinary, floated the stars and stripes; the sentry box before the door was painted red, white and blue.

The American Consul at Madrid was an angel. It may not be set forth in the civil-service examination papers that applicants for consulships must prove angelic character; it is probably one of those traditions mightier than law. How else could they face the cares of office without becoming hopeless misanthropes? Our Consul made us welcome at the Consulate, over whose door a rusty American eagle spread his painted tin wings. In whatever trouble J. or Patsy or I found ourselves, we rushed to No. 8 Calle Jorge y Juan and either the Consul, or his angelic clerk, or his cherubic office boy, rescued and comforted us, smoothed out our difficulties, set our erring feet on the right road. One morning when the pressure on every official in Madrid, even the officials of foreign governments, was almost at breaking point, Patsy dropped in at the Consulate. He found the Consul opening his mail.

“Isn’t it a pretty large order to read all those letters, Mr. Summers?” he asked.

“Listen to this,” sighed the Consul:

“‘_Dear Sir_: My daughter and I arrive in Madrid on Saturday morning. As I hear the city is full on account of the wedding fêtes I must trouble you to engage rooms for us. They must be in a stylish, but not too expensive house. We wish to go to the wedding, the ball at the palace, and all the other entertainments. If you should be unable to secure us invitations, kindly ask the Ambassador to attend to the matter.

Yours truly,

MRS. EMERALD GREEN.’”

Just then a telegram was brought in by Pepé, the cherubic office boy. The Consul sighed again as he read it aloud:

“Please wire answer to my letter immediately, stating address of rooms. Am sending large trunk to your care. E. G.”

“Friends of yours?” asked Patsy.

“Never heard of them.”

“Wife and daughter of Congressman?”

“Emerald Green, it’s not a name I know.”

“Do you get many such letters?”

“Tons of them; it’s all in the day’s work.”

The ring in his voice was characteristic of the time. Nobody minded the extra trouble they were put to, everybody gladly lent a hand to help those two young people get married. If a household is turned topsy turvy when a daughter is married, it is not strange that a city should be turned upside down and inside out when a King is wed. Mr. Collier, the American Minister, must have been as much pestered as the Consul; he always had time for us though, and we brought away pleasant memories of him and of the Legation where we were hospitably entertained.

Of all our friends, the Argentino alone held aloof from the joyous bustle; a week before the wedding he left Madrid.

“I’m off for Barcelona till all this pother’s over,” he said. “Come with me. What interest have we republicans in royal marriages?”

“The interest of seeing what we cannot see at home.”

“Ah! that’s the difference between your republic and mine; we do not forget, be sure that you do not.”

“Don’t be cryptic,” said Patsy, “I never knew what a good republican I was till I came to Spain.”

“Though Spain is one kingdom, the more free people in the world is the Spaniard,” Don Jaime protested. “If he have a little money he do what he like. United States is one republic; there no man can do what he like.”

“He can think as he likes,” retorted the Argentino, then persuasively to Patsy, “you’ve seen enough of old Spain and its pageants. Come with me to Barcelona, have a look at new Spain. There’s a great fight on there, that really is the most important thing that is happening in Spain.”

“What sort of a fight?”

“The eternal fight between Yesterday and To-morrow, between new ideas and old. The liberals are making a brave stand. They are trying to get control of the vast sums of money now expended by the Church, which they wish to use for the public schools. There are not half enough schools to go round even in Catalonia, the brains, the nerve center, the place that does the thinking for Spain. Only thirty per cent of the people can read and write; that’s not enough.”

“Too much monks, nuns and priests expulsed from France,” sighed Don Jaime; “enough came before from Cuba and Porto Rico. The priest he know what happen in every man’s house before the husband.”

“Which is worse?” asked Patsy, “the rule of the priest, the soldier, or the shopkeeper?”

“We have not time to argue that question to-day,” laughed the Argentino, “for the last time will you come to Barcelona?”

“No,” said Patsy, “I can see enough of the sort of fight you speak of at home. I may never have another chance to see a king married.”

XV

THE KING’S WEDDING

Madrid was astir early the King’s wedding morning. We left the Tower at seven o’clock, in order to get to the Puerta del Sol before the cordon of troops was drawn. We were to see the procession from the Hotel de Paris which stands at the angle of the Calle Alcalá and the Carerra San Jeronimo. We should see the marriage pageant cross the Puerta del Sol, the bull’s-eye of the city, pass down the Alcalá on the way from the palace to the church, and return by the way of the Jeronimo. Our friends, the Larz Andersons, had invited us to spend the day with them; we arrived in time for early coffee.

“How could you,” said J, “ask Villegas to let us see the show from the Prado when you had this invitation up your sleeve? This is the best place in the city.”

“I thought it would be so interesting to watch it from the royal museum.”

“So did a few hundred other people! They have been worrying and harrying him for a month. No one is allowed inside the Prado to-day, not even the head porter.”

“I think Don José might make an exception for his family and--for us.”

“Not even for himself. He is responsible for the safety of the pictures. Do you realize what that means?”

Villegas is responsible for one of the world’s greatest treasures, and is uneasy about the safety of the building that contains it. No wonder Lucia complains her husband does not sleep as well as he once did.

We waited for the procession in the dining-room of the Paris, a comfortable low-ceiled room with a suggestion of a ship’s dining cabin about it. A table had been engaged for us in the window. The last guest to arrive was Don Jaime, who strolled in leisurely after the streets had been closed to other people for two hours. The Don had on a new coat, a white waistcoat and a gardenia in his buttonhole; it was pleasant to see him dressed for once as he deserved.

“I passed the nuncio of the holy Pap driving to the church,” he said. “They will not tardy greatly now.”

A few minutes later the first of the fifty gala wedding coaches came in sight. Though of varying degrees of splendor they were all on the same general plan of those we had seen when Sir Maurice de Bunsen presented his credentials. That day one Ambassador and his suite had been escorted in state to the palace; to-day the whole court and all the wedding guests must be transported from the palace to the church. Could the wonderful carriages, the proud horses, the ostrich plumes, the trappings, wigs, galloons and silk stockings hold out?

They did; they grew finer and finer. One coach was of tortoise shell, one blue and silver, one purple and gold lacquer. All the shining company of princes, grandees, ambassadors extraordinary, court ladies, maids of honor, was magnificently conveyed in gala coaches drawn by noble horses with nodding feathered head-dresses, all attended by grooms in satin liveries. It was a torrent of dazzling splendor that wearied the eyes and stunned the imagination.

“I have been forty years in diplomacy,” said a dapper old gentleman with a single eyeglass, who sat at the next table; “I have seen most of the royal marriages of my time; I never saw anything to compare to this.”

The bride rode with her mother in the tortoise-shell coach; they were talking together as they passed. Princess Beatrice looked pale and grave, the bride happy, expectant, calm, as every bride should look. In the last coach, a marvel of crystal and gold, rode the King behind eight proud cream-colored horses. They ambled daintily along, tossing and tossing their heads so the long ostrich plumes nodded in time to their high stepping. Where, when, had we seen horses like these before? While we waited for the wedding party to come back from church, I remembered.

It was in Scotland just ten years ago this August, the season when Ben Marone puts on his imperial purple veil of heather, that we stood together outside the inn at Braemar waiting to see the royal carriage from Balmoral pass. Soon four, perfectly matched, cream-colored ponies--very like the King of Spain’s horses--came racing in sight at the top of their speed, drawing a large, plain, old-fashioned carriage. On the box sat a Highlander in tartan and filibegs.

“‘Twull be the Queen and Princess Beatrice,” said one of the villagers.

The carriage came within our line of vision. “Ay, ’tis her Majesty.”

On the back seat sat an old woman in a shabby black cloak and bonnet, a younger lady in black beside her. The Queen was old and very tired of state and ceremony; she looked neither to the right nor to the left, but straight before her, as the villagers pulled forelock or curtsied. She seemed to be thinking deeply, was perhaps looking into the future. If she could have foreseen that her little granddaughter--the one for whose future she might have felt the most concern--would assume the name she had made illustrious, would she have been pleased?

“They will be coming back from church in a moment.” Patsy, whom we had not seen that morning, brought the news. “I saw them go into San Jeronimo’s. The bride wore a white dress like others I have seen, only longer; her veil was lace--not that flimsy stuff; it did not cover her face.” He was proud of having observed, and remembered so much.

Soon after we heard the joyous marriage music, and the long, glittering procession began to pass again, much in the same manner as before, only the Queen sat beside the King in the crystal and gold coach with the big crown on the top. As they passed through the Puerta del Sol they bowed and smiled to the people; their happy young faces were flushed with heat and excitement. When the coach had disappeared down the Calle Mayor I confessed my plan to the company.

“I am going to leave you, to slip round by the back streets to the Youngs’ house, opposite the palace. From their windows I can see the procession turn from the Calle Mayor into the palace yard and drive up to the door.”

“Do not let her go,” I heard Don Jaime say emphatically in Spanish; he added something that I did not hear.

“It will be very hot,” said Lucia.

“Ninety in the shade,” Patsy agreed. “One of us will have to go with you.”

“Luncheon is ready,” said our hostess.

“Iced melon in the hand is worth a good deal in the bush,” said J., “but of course I will take you if you really want to go.”

“It’s pretty jolly here,” murmured Patsy.

“Champagne?” whispered the waiter.

“Take at least a biscuit, and you must drink the bride’s health before you go,” said the prince of hosts.

It seemed too bad to break up the party. They were evidently serious about not letting me go alone. I yielded and stayed.

The restaurant was filling up with men in uniform and ladies in court dress who had come from the wedding; most of the people staying at the hotel were of the diplomatic world. At a table near us sat Mrs. Cartwright, looking as handsome in her white court dress as when Villegas painted her when she was a bride. At another table the King’s former tutor, Señor Merry del Val, a handsome, distinguished man (brother of the Cardinal), and his charming wife. It certainly was very jolly in that pleasant company, talking over the dresses, the coaches and the coming fêtes.

If I had not stayed at the Hotel Paris, if I had gone to the Calle Mayor, I should have seen the gay procession of coaches, with the attendant postilions and _palfreniers_ walking on either side, turn into the palace yard one by one, till there was only left in the Calle Mayor for the crowd to gape at the _coche de respecto_ and the King’s coach. Then suddenly out of the heavens fall what at first looked like a great bouquet, not unlike those that had been showered down from window and balcony all along the route; then a blinding flash, a dreadful crash, a cloud of smoke; and when that cleared away the crystal coach shattered, the brave horses staggering on a pace or two, the King looking from the wrecked coach and crying:

“It is nothing; we are neither of us hurt.”

“Nothing?” But that is what King Umberto said, when he fell mortally stabbed at Monza.

The wheel horses reeled and fell, done to death, their shining sides, their white plumes all dabbled with blood. The King jumped out--his coat torn from his back--and helped out the bride. They were neither of them hurt, as he had said. The Queen was pale but wonderfully calm and brave,--till she looked down and saw the hem of her wedding dress covered with blood! Then through the distracted crowd, a small phalanx of resolute men pushed their way to the front, tall men in uniform, who surrounded the Queen, walked with her through the awful carnage down the Calle Mayor, across the palace yard to the door of her new home.

Who were they? Where did they come from? Some said they were the staff of the British Embassy, who had seen the accident from the Youngs’ windows; some that they were six tall life-guardsmen, who had played some part in the pageant. The important thing is, they were Englishmen; they and Sir Maurice de Bunsen, the English Ambassador, appeared, as if by magic, at the moment they were wanted.

No whisper of the tragedy reached the Paris. In the restaurant the gaily dressed people lingered at the tables, toasting the bride. Our party was one of the first to break up. A friend drove me to the Consulate, where finding the Consul had not returned, I waited to see him. He came in shortly, white as a ghost, and cried out for a glass of water. From Mr. Summers I heard the first account of the horror. He had seen the bodies of the innocent people killed by the bomb carried by. He had counted eight soldiers, seventeen civilians, all strangers to him. One he had known by sight, a little girl, the five-year-old daughter of a great house. He had seen her a few minutes before standing on a neighboring balcony with her parents. “Such a little body,” he said; “where the face had been, there was a twist of child’s curls, nothing more; the face was gone.”

What awful sights I had been spared! I carried the news home to the Tower. Villegas had not yet come back, the others had heard nothing.

Lucia clapped her hands to her heart when she heard of the outrage. “God grant,” she said with white lips, “that it was not an Italian who threw the bomb.” She is a Roman; her first fear, her first hope were for Italy.

“What was that thing Don Jaime said to you at the Paris, when I proposed going to the Youngs’ house?” I asked Patsy.

He said “Do not let her go; the police fear that a bomb will be thrown in the Calle Mayor.”

If the police knew so much, why could they not have averted the horror?

This was never explained.

XVI

WEDDING GUESTS

“_Los Reyes! los Reyes! Bueno, Bueno!_” Don Jaime waved his sombrero wildly over his head and ran across the wet grass, followed by Patsy, who had snatched off his Panama and was roaring as if this were a football game:

“Hip, hip, hurrah! The Queen, the Queen!”

It was the morning after the wedding; considering the hour--it was still early--there were a great many people sitting in the chairs or pacing slowly under the trees of the Recoletos. All Madrid was drawing its breath, trying to steady its nerve by a little air and exercise. Without warning, without escort, the King and Queen whirled by in an open automobile. The bride and groom had slipped out of the palace and had been driven to the hospital to see the eighty people who were wounded by the bomb that had been meant to kill them. They had flashed through the Puerta del Sol, through the most crowded quarter of the city, and were now returning to the palace, attended only by a chauffeur.

“_Bravo va!_” cried the seller of orgeat from his booth; then, yielding to enthusiasm, he vaulted over the counter, left the till unprotected, and joined in the chase.

“_Viva, viva!_” The crowd in the Recoletos lost its head; women waved parasols, men hats or handkerchiefs. The applause was fine, spontaneous, electrical.

“They’re game!” cried Patsy. “He’s a man, and I guess she’s a good deal of a woman.”

They looked so brave, the blonde bride so grave, so loyal, so fresh, that we were all moved; there was heart in the cries of _viva_, _bueno_, _bravo_, that followed them, applause of a very different calibre from the rather perfunctory toasting and hurrahing of yesterday.

There was but one dissentient voice. I heard the old gentleman who had been forty years in diplomacy say: “It is against all precedent! Without even an escort! It will be much criticised.”

It may have been criticised at Court; the people liked it. Don Alfonzo is wise enough to know that the applause of the gallery is more important to the actor than the appreciation of the stalls.

The wedding fêtes lasted a week. The gala performance at the opera, the bull-fight, the battle of flowers, the balloon race, the ball at the palace and all the more private festivities such as dinners and luncheons, had been carefully planned, so that no hour should hang heavy on the wedding guests. Time had to be made for one more function, the funeral of the officers and soldiers killed by the bomb. It took place the very day after the disaster. I did not see that black pageant of death, I wish I had; but J. saw and told me about it.

At very nearly the same hour as that gorgeous marriage procession, there passed over the same ground, through the Puerta del Sol and down the Alcalá, a long string of black hearses. The first two, the coaches of honor, were splendid with sable trappings; on the top lay the arms of the dead officers. The King, the Prince of Wales, and most of the other royalties walked in the procession that followed.

In spite of the gloom cast by the dreadful disaster, the fêtes went on with slight modifications, as if nothing had happened. The ball at the palace was changed into a reception. Dancing when so many mourned their dead was out of the question. It was decided that the King and Queen must not appear at the battle of flowers. It was too dangerous; the deadly bouquet that masqued the bomb held a warning.

For perhaps a day there was a panicky feeling. The crowd was nervous, keyed up; it would take nothing to make a stampede. I was never allowed to go out alone lest “something should happen.” Very soon, however, Madrid recovered its tone. Crowds of orderly, well-dressed people thronged the streets day and night, admiring the magnificent illuminations, the splendid decorations. Where other cities use bunting and cotton cloth, Madrid used satin, silk, damask, brocade. The fronts of the houses were brave with rich embroideries and priceless tapestries. The famous ruby velvet hangings covered the façade of the Duke Cestus’ palace, the pattern of the silver blazonry outlined at night with electric light. During the whole week those priceless treasures hung exposed to the burning sun, or to the chance of rain, which fortunately never came.

Villegas was busier than ever, devising schemes for decoration, giving advice about a costume, receiving a distinguished visitor. He was continually summoned to the Prado to show the pictures to one or other of the wedding guests. Some days he hardly did more than look into the studio, where Cisera always had his brushes ready, and Angoscia, the model, waited, sometimes all day, to pose for one little half hour.

One morning we met the Maestro on the stairs--J. had the studio next door to his. “Just in time!” cried Villegas. “I was afraid I should not get you. They have telephoned from the palace that

we must meet the Prince and Princess of Wales at the museum. They haven’t given me time enough even to go home and put on a black coat.”

Villegas had on his funny little blue studio jacket, buttoned up to the neck, a jacket not quite like any other; he designed it for himself when he was a student. I never saw him in any other coat, except when on Court duty.

It was so late that Villegas and J. jumped into a cab; Patsy and I followed them on foot.

“We are in time,” said Patsy, as we drew near the Prado; “there are the red legs.”

Each of the King’s guests was provided with two carriages, a court carriage and a state-department carriage. The every-day carriages, in which they drove about in the morning and did their shopping or sight-seeing, were handsome but simple landaus with the royal coat-of-arms on the panels. The main distinction was the red stockings and blue velvet breeches of the servants. Patsy always kept a sharp lookout for the red legs.

There were more people than usual going into the museum, most of them country folk come to Madrid for the fêtes. Patsy and I stood in the crowd and watched the Prince and Princess get out of the carriage with Mr. Keppel, the equerry. Villegas met the Prince at the door and asked leave to present his English pupil (J.). Then they all disappeared together into the Prado, Villegas leading the way with the Princess. She is tall, slender, with pretty yellow hair and an air of great distinction; there is a strong family resemblance between her and the young Queen.

Villegas said that the Princess, like most of the royalties he escorts over the museum, was greatly interested in the royal portraits. When the pictures are artistically important like the Velasquez, the Moros, even the Goyas, he is able to tell all about the originals; but when they are of mediocre value, by unimportant painters, poor Villegas is harrassed with fear lest he may not always give the right name, date and title.

The Prince admired immensely, and seemed to enter into the spirit of the Velasquez “Siege of Breda.” When the magnanimous attitude of the conqueror was pointed out--he cannot take the keys of the city because both hands are occupied, the Prince said:

“That was so nice of him!”

He paused a long time before Paul Veronese’s picture of the Marriage of Cana. On the table before the Saviour is a dish of meat that, the Prince pointed out, resembled a roast sucking pig. “But,” he said, “they were all Jews; they would never have eaten pork!”

J. said this showed that the Prince really looked