Chapter 17
The Cherub’s idea of a “little while” and a “long while” were always rather vague, and apt to dovetail confusingly one into another; but knowing what it was his aim to accomplish, I did not grudge the fifty minutes before his ample form and smiling face appeared in the doorway of the café.
“It’s all right,” were his first words. “I felt my luck wouldn’t desert me. Who do you suppose”—and he turned to Pilar, who had come on with him—“was the first man I ran across? No other than Don Esteban Villaroya.”
Pilar looked a little frightened. “But he’s a friend of the Duke’s. Won’t that make it awkward?”
“No; all the better. I told him Cristóbal and my daughter and I had motored from Burgos with an American friend, an important writer for the papers, who was going to pay us a visit. Not an untrue word to trouble my confessor with. Don Esteban may or may not mention our meeting to Carmona when he dines with him this evening.”
“Dines with him? Oh, I hope that won’t make mischief.”
“It won’t. Carmona arrived late last night, with his mother and guests. It seems preparations have been going on in the house for the past fortnight; and the first thing Carmona and his mother did was to send out half a dozen invitations for dinner this evening. Afterwards, he managed, probably through royal influence, to get permission from the Governor to take the party into the Alcázar by moonlight, and he’s going to have coloured illuminations, music, and Spanish dances given by professionals in the costumes of different provinces. A grand idea, Don Esteban thinks.”
“But why is he doing it?” asked Pilar, thoughtfully. “María purísima! It isn’t as if he were an impulsive or hospitable man, fond of getting up impromptu entertainments. This is done in a hurry. What can be his object? for he always has an object.”
“To amuse Lady Monica, who’s not pleased with him so far,” explained the Cherub. “And as he’s a good Catholic, at least in appearance, to-night or the night after will be his last chance to entertain till _Semana Santa_ is over.”
“Somehow, I don’t feel that’s reason enough,” said Pilar, looking so troubled that I felt new stirrings of anxiety, and must have shown it; for Pilar exclaimed that she was a “little beast” to worry me.
“You haven’t worried me,” I protested. “Still, I think I’ll go to that entertainment at the Alcázar.”
Pilar and her father stared. “I see what you mean,” said the girl. “You hope to walk in and meet Lady Monica. But you can’t, because the Alcázar’s closed to the public after sunset. It will only be open for the Duke as a favour, because he’s rich and important, and care will be taken that no outsider slips in.”
“If there should be one more guitarist than he hired, do you think it would be noticed?” I asked, smiling.
Pilar clapped her hands. “You’re a true lover, Don Ramón,” she exclaimed. “_Ay de mi!_ Nobody will ever love a little dark thing like myself, as Lady Monica is loved. I must be satisfied with the affections of my relations, and a few others, I suppose.” Great eyes lifted sadly ceiling-ward as she spoke, then cast down with distracting play of long curled lashes. Spanish after all to her finger-tips, this María del Pilar Inés, despite her Irish quickness. Poor Dick!
“You believe I could manage it, then?”
“I believe you _will_. Señor Waring has told me about the masked ball, and how you played Romeo to somebody’s Juliet.”
“The difficulty will be to get hold of the _impresario_.”
Pilar looked at her watch. “They’ll know at the Alcázar who’s been engaged. There’s an hour and a half yet before closing time.”
“What if you and I take a stroll through?” suggested Dick.
“We’ll all take a stroll through,” said Pilar, “and papa shall find out. You know, he can always make everybody tell him anything in five minutes. Even Cristóbal and I have never been able to keep a secret from him. If I’d planned to elope, he would only have to whisper and smile, for me to tell all, even if it meant my going into a convent directly after.”
“Yes, we must go to the Alcázar now, or it will be too late,” said the Cherub, with an indulgent twinkle at his spoiled daughter.
The car took us to the gate of the Alcázar, a gate of that unsuggestive Moorish simplicity which purposely hid all splendours of decoration from any save favoured eyes. The guardian knew and evidently respected Colonel O’Donnel; but with apologies which comprehended the whole party, he regretted that he could not let us in. The King was to arrive in a few days, returning from his yachting trip to the Canaries, and would live in the Alcázar which was being got ready for him. From now until the day after his departure, the Alcázar was to be closed to the public.
This was just, and as it should be, admitted the Cherub; but we were not the public. We were special ones, even as special as the Duke of Carmona who would entertain his friends there that evening. Surely the guardian must know that the O’Donnel family was on terms of friendship with the Governor of the Alcázar, who would suffer severe pains of the heart if he heard that such visitors had been turned away. Thus the good Cherub continued to whisper. And whether or no coin changed hands I cannot tell; but certain it is that in less than the five minutes allowed by Pilar for the working of her father’s fascinations, we were inside the forbidden precincts, accompanied by a lamb-like attendant.
It was from him that we must learn what we wished to know; but it would be unwise to betray a premature thirst for information on any subject save the history or beauties of the Alcázar. Asking a question now and then of our guide, we wandered from _patio_ to _patio_, from room to room of that wonderful royal dwelling once called “the house of Cæsar.” Many a rude shock and vicissitude had it sustained when Goths fought for it with Romans, when Moors seized it from Christians, when Christians won it back, and conducted themselves within its jewelled walls in ways unworthy of their faith and boasted chivalry, yet the beauties which Pedro the Cruel restored in admiring imitation of the Alhambra, glowed still with undimmed splendour, in the sunshine of this twentieth century afternoon.
If I had not been preoccupied by my own private and extremely modern anxieties, I should have let imagination work the spell it longed to work, and make of me some humble character gliding shadow-like, but ever observant, through tale after tale of the “Arabian Nights.” In just such a palace as this had the Seven Calenders lost each an eye; behind any one of these fretted arches might one come upon a king, half man, half jet-black marble. The most captious of genies could have found no fault with the Hall of the Ambassadors save the absence of the roc’s egg; and despite my impatience the storied enchantment of the place soon had me in its grip.
Scheherezade, I said to myself, could have invented no tales to surpass in thrilling interest the scenes which had been enacted here. The drama of widowed Egilona and her handsome Moorish prince, ruined by her love; the tragedy of Abu Said, done to death by Pedro for the sake of his “fair ruby, great as a racket ball,” and the store of gems for which men still search secretly in hidden nooks of the Alcázar; the murder of the young Master of Santiago, who came to Pedro as an honoured guest; the love story of Maria de Padilla, whose spirit, the guardian whispered, could be seen to this day flitting in moonlight and shadow along her favourite garden walks, or trailing white robes through rooms which had been hers.
“Perhaps, as the moon is full, Maria will appear to-night in the garden to the Duke of Carmona and his guests,” said Pilar; and I knew from this preface that our probation was at an end.
The attendant laughed. “Perhaps,” he replied; “but I think there will be too much noise to please her. The Duke has engaged a troupe of dancers and guitarists to entertain his friends.”
“No doubt King Don Pedro used to amuse his in the same way,” remarked the Cherub, “employing the forerunners of Ramiro Olivero and his school maybe.”
“It is Ramiro Olivero who performs to-night,” said the attendant, playing into our hands.
“Of course! He is the favoured one in such affairs,” assented the Cherub. “It ought to be a pretty entertainment, and interesting to the Duke’s English guests. It will be somewhere in the gardens?”
“In the lower garden of the Moorish kiosk,” was the unsuspecting reply.
Pilar looked at me, and her eyes said, “The key you wanted is in your hand.”
XXVII
MOONLIGHT IN THE GARDEN
When the Cherub dies and is gathered to his Irish and Spanish fathers (far distant be the day!) he will not know a happy moment in Paradise unless he is doing something ingenuously kind for somebody. It is my conviction that he will have to be made a guardian angel; and I mentioned this theory to him as he took me to the house of Ramiro Olivero, ex-bull-fighter, present professor of Spanish dancing.
The others were waiting in the car, as, according to the Cherub’s plan of campaign, he and I were to visit Olivero alone.
We climbed many stairs to the flat where the celebrated man lives and conducts his school for dancing. He it was who came to the door, and it was a sight worth seeing to watch his somewhat hard, middle-aged features relax in response to cherubic murmurings.
Colonel O’Donnel remembered Señor Olivero since the time when he was a _banderillero_; oh, incomparably the most brilliant _banderillero_ of his day. Then, afterwards, what triumphs as a _torero_! Ah, that was something for an old admirer to remember. Not to regret, naturally, since the señor was as great an artist in his present profession as in that other doubtless sacrificed to family affections.
This gentleman whom he (Colonel O’Donnel) now ventured to introduce was from England, travelling with a friend from the States who wrote articles on Spain for well-known journals. The American could speak no Spanish, but with the gentleman from England it was like the native tongue. Therefore it was he who most often attended important ceremonies, and made notes for his friend to work up into articles. This entertainment in which Señor Olivero was assisting the Duke of Carmona, for instance; it would be all that was characteristic of Spain, as well as beautiful. If the señor would allow the gentleman from England to enter the Alcázar as one of his guitarists, an article could be made for the great American newspapers which would not only be a credit to the journalist, but would widely advertise the skill of Señor Olivero and his pupils.
If every man has his price, it was not derogatory to his merits that these pearls of flattery should be the price which bought Olivero. Not a penny was to be paid for the favour. When the word “money” was hinted, rather than spoken, the ex-hero of the bull-ring waved it away with a superb gesture. But he would be glad to see the articles when they appeared; and this was promised, for Dick must write them for the neglected papers he was supposed to represent.
In return for the promise (and the compliments), it was arranged that I should present myself at his house about ten o’clock (the dance was timed to begin at 10.45), there dress for my part, and be furnished with a guitar. Once inside the Alcázar I need not play upon the instrument; but, said Olivero, it was well that I should be able to do so if called upon. My costume was to be a short _chulo_ jacket and tight-hipped, loose-legged grey trousers, with a low-collared, unstarched shirt, and a broad-brimmed grey sombrero de Cordoba. With this hat, well tipped over my eyes, in moonlight or even spasmodic rose-and-gold bursts of coloured fire, recognition would be impossible at a distance; and I meant to keep at a distance from all the Duke’s party—with one exception.
By the time the plan was mapped out, it was nearly seven o’clock, but the O’Donnels still urged me to dine at the Cortijo de Santa Rufina. The Gloria would eat up the six miles distance in ten minutes; I could bathe and dress before 8.15, when dinner would be ready (a telegram had been sent to the servants from Cordoba), and rested and refreshed, I could start for Seville in the car again at half-past nine.
So we flashed out across the Guadalquivir, by way of the bridge of Isabel Segunda, into that strange suburb which gave Trajan birth, and my family their name; ancient Trajana, now Triana, town of potters, picadores, and gypsies.
Dark-browed boys played _toreros_ to our car as bull, their coats _muletas_, sticks their _banderillas_, yelling and springing lithely aside as the enemy rushed on them. Girls, handsome as Carmen, flung us flowers, staring boldly eye to eye; and this was my welcome to the place near which the Casa Trianas had once lived and thought themselves great!
Almost could I have seen the towers of the old house—now the property of the King—as we passed into open country again; but I did not speak, nor did the others, though the thought in my mind must have been in Pilar’s and Colonel O’Donnel’s.
Five miles more, through falling dusk and sweet country scents and we turned off the main road into another, gleaming white as a path of snow in the opal twilight. Then, in a wide-reaching plantation of olives, spraying silver on a ruddy soil where glimmered irrigation tanks and grinding mills, we came upon a large, irregular clump of white buildings grouped together, and made one by a high wall with an open belfry at one corner.
“Here we are at home!” exclaimed the Cherub with a contented sigh, as he gently touched Ropes’ shoulder. “Welcome, dear friends, to the Cortijo de Santa Rufina. It, and all within its walls, is at your disposition.”
We drove in through a wide gate in the outer wall, where there was a clamour of greeting from the steward, many servants, and more dogs, dogs of all races, who selected Pilar for their wildest demonstrations. In a second she was out of the car, and half drowned in a wave of tumultuous doghood. Laughing, shaking hands with the servants, patting or suppressing greyhounds, collies, setters, retrievers, she had never seemed so charming. This was the _real_ Pilar—Pilar at home; the Pilar it would be next to impossible to uproot from such associations. Again, poor Dick! And now he no longer tried to hide the loving admiration in his eyes. I think he would even have done his best to fondle a wild bull or two of her acquaintance had they been among the friends who gave her welcome.
Away boomed the Gloria to the stables—the sole garage at the Cortijo—while we were bidden through the Moorish entrance-porch and wrought-iron _cancela_ into a _patio_ surrounded on all sides by an arcade, roofed with green and brown tiling. The supporting pillars were of pale pink brick, not marble, and the pavement was of brick also, interset with a pattern of small blue tiles. But the tiles were old and good; from a carved stone basin in the middle of the court sprang the tall crystal stem of a fountain, blossoming into diamonds; pearly arum lilies, pink azaleas, and pale green hydrangeas bloomed in huge white and blue and yellow pots from Triana, of the same beautiful shapes made before Santa Justa and Santa Rufina knew they were saints, and undertook to keep the Giralda from falling.
The windows leading into the rooms surrounding the _patio_ were large as doors, and all were hospitably open, giving through thin curtains glimpses of old furniture carefully grouped to please a woman’s dainty taste. Pilar again—always Pilar! Here were her _lares_ and _penates_; and she was a goddess among lesser household gods. I knew that it would be safer for Dick to say a hasty good-bye upon the threshold; but I knew also that no power on earth could force him to do it.
“This is only a farm, you know,” said the girl, meekly, all the while dimpling with pride in her home and what she had made it; “for we are only farmers, aren’t we, Papa.”
Our rooms—Dick’s and mine—were not overstocked with furniture; but there were two or three things for which an antiquary would have pawned his soul. On one side, our windows looked upon the _patio_; on the other, we gazed through iron bars over olives and meadows where grain was green. There was no sound save the tinkling rain of the fountain, and now and then the sleepy note of a bird, or a far-away lowing of cattle—perhaps the welcoming bellow of Vivillo, the brown bull which was the sole possession of Carmona coveted by Pilar.
The two servants who waited at dinner were wreathed in smiles at seeing again their master and mistress; and their occasional furtive glances of interest in my direction made me wonder if they had not received mysterious instructions as to how they must answer any questions concerning me. But, whatever those instructions might be, I was sure they would be loyally carried out; for the Cherub is a man servants would obey through torture until death, if these days were as the old.
At half-past nine Ropes was ready to spin me back into Seville. We arrived earlier than need be; and having made an appointment to meet at a quiet hotel, where Ropes would await me from half-past eleven till half-past twelve, I decided to walk past Carmona’s house and reconnoitre.
I knew where to find it, in the Calle de las Dueñas; but if I had hoped for a tell-tale glimpse within, as in a London or Parisian mansion, I was disappointed. Once a Moorish palace, it showed a closed, secretive front to the narrow street. But I knew, for I had read, that within there were six courtyards, ninety marble pillars, half a dozen fountains, a garden of orange and magnolia trees, with myrtle hedges clipped to represent the ducal arms; that there were vast treasures of statuary, pictures by Velasquez, Murillo, and Alonso Cano; gold-inlaid plate armour; tapestry from the Netherlands not to be surpassed at the Royal Palace at Madrid.
I knew that these splendours would loom large in the eyes of Lady Vale-Avon, and might count for something even with Monica, who confessed to a love of all things beautiful. I thought of the famous Carmona jewels, which would belong to the wife of the Duke, while she lived, as they had belonged to generations of Duchesses. Above all, I thought of the incomparable Blanca Laguna pearl and its glistening maids of honour, which, by this time perhaps, had been shown to Monica. There were few girls in Spain, or in the world, I remembered hearing my mother say, who could resist that pearl as a bride. And now it was offered to Monica, a penniless girl of eighteen, whose beauty formed her sole dowry.
There, behind the cold reserve of those white walls with the shut, brass-studded doors and barred windows, she was being fêted by the Duke, dining on gold plate, in a tapestried room fragrant with orange flowers. I could see the pictures. I could see the look in Carmona’s eyes as they turned to her, saying, “all this is yours if you will have it.” And Carmona’s eyes were handsome eyes; I had to admit that, in justice.
Would she hold true to me—true to a man with no palaces, no lands, no priceless pearls, and only half as many hundreds a year as her other lover had thousands? Would she be able to resist her mother, now that mother had seen with her own eyes how much there was to fight for and to win?
The question would come. But with it came a vision of Monica herself, pure and sweet as beautiful, loyal and loving as she was lovely. And I said to myself, “Yes, she will be true.”
It was with the clear ringing of these words in my mind that I turned my back upon the house of Carmona.
Once I had passed into the Alcázar with Olivero’s band of dancers and guitarists I was free to do as I pleased. And I pleased to escape from my laughing, chattering companions before the arrival of the Duke and his guests, and the illuminations in their honour. There was no better place to wait and watch for the opportunity I wanted, than in the mock-Moorish kiosk at the end of the lower garden. From there I could see without being seen; and the moment a chance came I should be ready to take it.
It was early still, but Olivero lost no time in marshalling his little army into place, that they might make a good effect as a _tableau vivant_ when the great people came. He seated his six men with guitars, their sombreros at precisely the right angle on their glossy black heads, and in a row of chairs in front six young women in black dresses with black lace mantillas, the red and yellow ribbons of their castanets already in their hands. Then, at intervals, he grouped the dancers, youths, and pretty girls, carefully dressed in the costumes of different provinces, making a bouquet of bright colours in the light of a few concealed lamps which supplemented the silver radiance of the moon, now almost at the zenith.
The minutes passed. The dancers talked in subdued tones which scarcely disturbed the nightingales. A breeze rustled the crisp leaves of the orange trees and myrtle hedges; far away the voice of the watchman told the hour of eleven, echoed by the chiming bells of a church clock; and the last stroke had not sounded when there was a burst of merry voices in a distant avenue. Carmona and his friends had come—late, of course—or there could have been no Andalucíans among them; and suddenly, as if on a signal, the gardens pulsed with rose-coloured light. In the pink blaze I saw Monica, slender and fair as a lily, in a white dress sparkling with silver; but I had only time to see that she walked beside Carmona, when the rose flame died down and left the garden pure and peaceful under the moon.
For an instant the soft light seemed darkness, and I lost the white figure. When it sprang to my eyes again in a sharp emerald flash, while all the hidden fountains in the garden walks spouted jewels, others were grouped round it; only the gold crown of rippling hair shone out clear as a star for me among other women’s dark coils and braids.
Old ebony chairs with crimson velvet cushions and the Carmona arms in heavy gilding, had been sent to the Alcázar from the Duke’s house, for the entertainment. The party sat down, and the dancing began, to the _flamenco_ music of guitars and the clacking of castanets; the _fandango_, the _bolero_, the _malagueña_, the _chaquera vella_; all the classical dances of old Spain, and each one a variant on the theme of love, the woman coy, coquettishly retreating; the man persuading or demanding, the woman yielding in passionate abandonment at last.
In the midst of a _sevillana_ I came out from the shadows of the kiosk and walked without a sound of rattling pebble or cracking twig, along a path which the moon had not yet found.
The high backs of the ebony chairs were turned to me. I could not even see the heads of the people who sat in them; but I had watched them take their places, and I knew that Monica’s chair was the outside one on the end, at the right.
Everyone was absorbed in watching the dance. As it approached its tempestuous climax of joy and love, I moved into the deep shadow of a magnolia tree, close to Monica—so close that, reaching out from behind the round trunk which screened me, I touched her hand.
With a start, she glanced up, expecting perhaps to find that the breeze had blown a rose-branch across her fingers. Instead, she saw my face; for I had taken off the wide-brimmed grey sombrero and bared my head to her.
For a second she looked straight into my eyes, as if she doubted that she saw aright. Then, an unbelievable thing happened. Her eyes grew cold as glass. Her lips tightened into a line which I had not dreamed their soft curves could take. Her youth and beauty froze under my gaze. With a haughty lifting of her brows, and an indescribable movement of her shoulder which could mean nothing but scornful indifference, she turned away as if impatient at having lost a gesture of the dancers.