CHAPTER XXXIX
A HANDFUL OF ROSES
Patiently and softly went the oxen about the little pottage garden ofthe friars, till, where the soil was sandiest and the ground most open,under a south-looking wall on which the roses were still clustering (forthey grow roses late at La Granja), lo! a trench was dug. It was not sodeep as a rich man's grave in other countries, but in Spain as elsewherea little earth covers a multitude of sorrows.
The long shallow trench had been the last work of the two remainingmonks ere they departed to their duty in the stricken village. Savagemen, heathen of heart and cruel of hand, might await them there. Blackplague would certainly lurk in every doorway. Yet these two brothers,simple in the greatness of their faith--not of the wise of the land, notof the apparent salt of the earth, but only plain devout men, ignorantof all beyond their breviaries and their duty to their fellows--had goneforth as quietly and unostentatiously as a labouring man shoulders hismattock and trudges to his daily toil.
Of the three that remained, Brother Teodoro did his best; but in spiteof his endeavours the bulk of the work fell to Rollo and Concha. Yetunder the page's dress and the rude outer slough of tarred canvas thegirl's heart sang. There was nothing terrible in death when he and shetogether lifted the spent stuff of mortality and laid it in its lastresting-place. Without a shudder she replaced a fallen face-cloth. WithRollo opposite to her she took the feet of the dead that had guardedthem so well in the red morning light, and when all were laid a-row inthe rest which lasts till the Judgment Day, and before the firstspadeful of earth had fallen, Concha, with a sudden impulse, took akerchief from her neck, and plucked a double handful of the roses thatclustered along the wall. They were white roses, small, but of a sweetperfume, having grown in that high mountain air. Then without a word,and while the monk was still busy with his prayers for the dead, shesprang down to where at the corner opposite to Brother Domingo thedaughter of Munoz had been laid, the pinched fierceness of hercountenance relaxed into a strange far-away smile.
Concha spread the kerchief tenderly over the face of the girl, droppingtears the while. And she crossed the little hands which pain and madnesshad driven to deeds of darkness and blood, upon the breast in which theangry young heart had beaten so hotly, and scattered the white rosesover all.
Then while the Basque Teodoro did his office over his dead brother,Concha kneeled at the foot of the trench, a little crucifix in her hand.Her lips moved as she held the rude image of the Crucified over thatfierce little head and sorely tortured body. He who had cast out so manydevils, would surely pardon and understand. So at least she thought.Rollo watched her, and though brought up to be a good Presbyterian byhis father, he knew that this little foolish Concha must yet teach himhow to pray.
"God may hear her before the other, who knows!" he murmured. "One is aman praying for men--she, a maiden praying for a maid!"
Then Rollo made the girl, whom the scene had somewhat overwrought, gooff to a secluded part of the garden and wash in the clean cool water ofa fountain, while he remained to shovel in the soil and pack it welldown upon the bodies of the dead who had served his purpose sofaithfully. Last of all he unyoked and fed the oxen, leaving themsolemnly munching their fodder, blinking their meek eyes and ruminatingupon the eternal sameness of things in their serene bovine world. Hecame out, stripped himself to the skin, and washed in one of thedeserted kitchens from which Brother Domingo, sometime almoner and cookto the Ermita of San Ildefonso, had for ever departed.
This being completed to his satisfaction, he went out to find Concha,who, her face radiant with the water of the Guadarrama (and other thingswhich the young morning had brought her), met him as he came to herthrough the wood.
She held up her face to be kissed as simply and naturally as a child.Death was all about them, but of a truth these two lived. Yea, andthough they should die ere nightfall, still throughout the eternitiesthey might comfort themselves, in whatsoever glades of whatsoeverafterworlds they might wander, that on earth they had lived, and not invain.
For if it be true that God is Love, equally true is it that love islife. And this is the secret of all things new and old, of Adam and Evahis wife, of Alpha and Omega, of the mystic OM, of the joined serpent,of the Somewhat which links us to the Someone.
* * * * *
It was now Rollo's chiefest desire to get back to the palace and findout what had happened there during his absence. He had heard the rattleof musketry fire again and again during the night, and he feared, asmuch from the ensuing silence as from the escape of the daughter ofMunoz, that some disaster must have occurred there. He would havestarted at once to reconnoitre, but Brother Teodoro, hearing of hisintention, volunteered to find out whether the gipsies had whollyevacuated the neighbourhood.
There was a private path from the grounds of the Hermitage which ledinto those of the palace. By this the Basque hastened off, and it was nolong time before he returned, carrying the news that not only was thetown clear and the gardens of the palace free from marauders, but thatRollo's people were still in full possession of La Granja. He had evenbeen able to speak with one of the royal servants for an instant, a manwith whom he had some acquaintance. But this conference, the Basqueadded, had been hastily interrupted by a certain old woman of a fierceaspect, who had ordered the young man off. Nevertheless he had gainedenough information to assure him that there would now be no danger inthe whole party returning openly to the Palace of La Granja.
Accordingly Rollo set out, with Concha still wrapt in the cloak whichcovered her page's dress. Rollo would gladly have carried the littlePrincess, but Isabel had taken so overwhelming a fancy to Concha thatshe could not be induced to quit her side for a moment. Indeed, shedeclared her intention of leaving her mother and Dona Susana andreturning to Aranjuez with Concha so soon as her message should bedelivered.
Rollo whispered that the pretended page should not discourage thissudden devotion, since in the journey that still lay before them thewillingness of the little Princess to accompany them might make all thedifference between success and failure.
The Sergeant received them at the garden door, which he had so carefullywatched all night. There was a kindlier look than usual upon hisleathern and saturnine features.
"I judge, Senor," he said, as he saluted Rollo, "that you have more totell me than I have to tell you."
"In any case, let me hear your story first," said Rollo; "mine cankeep!"
"In brief, then, having your authority," began the Sergeant, "Ipermitted his Excellency the Duke of Rianzares to have an interview withhis daughter, at which, for safety's sake, I was present, and gained agreat deal of information that may be exceedingly useful to us in thefuture. But in one thing I confess that I was not sufficiently careful.The girl, being left to herself for a moment, escaped--by what means Iknow not. Nor" (this with a quaint glance at Concha) "was she the onlylady who left the palace that night without asking my leave!"
But without answering, the cloaked page passed him rapidly, and with thePrincess still clinging to her hand, she passed upstairs. The Sergeantlooked after her and her young charge.
"You are sure of this lady's discretion?" he said.
"I have proved it to the death," answered the young man briefly and alittle haughtily.
The Sergeant shrugged his shoulders as if he would have said with theBasque friar, "It is none of my business." But instead he took up hisreport to his superior and continued, "We buried the body of the poorwoman Dona Susana within the precincts of the _Colegiata_----"
"And an hour ago I buried the body of her slayer," said Rollo, calmly.
For an instant the Sergeant looked astonished, as indeed well he might,but he restrained whatever curiosity he felt, and only said:
"You will let me hear what happened in your own time, and also how youdiscovered and regained the little Princess?"
Rollo nodded.
"And speaking of the Princess, if she asks questions," continuedCardono, "h
ad she not better be told that Dona Susana has gone to visither relations--which, as she was the last of her family, is, I believe,strictly true!"
"But the Queen-Regent and the Duke--Senor Munoz, I mean?" queried Rollo."What of them?" For the young man had even yet no high opinion of thatnobleman or of his vocation in life.
"Oh, as to the Duke," answered the Sergeant, "I do not think that weshall have much trouble with him. The Queen is our Badajoz. She is soset on returning to Madrid that she will not move a step towards Aragon,and we have not enough force to carry her thither against her will withany possibility of secrecy."
"We might take the little Princess alone," mused Rollo; "she would gowith Concha anywhere. Of that I am certain."
The Sergeant shook his head.
"The Queen-Regent, and she alone, is the fountain of authority. If youkidnap and sequester her within the Carlist lines, you will certainlyparalyse the government of Madrid. Especially you may prevent thesweeping away of the monasteries--which, I take it, is at the bottom ofall this pother, though for the life of me I cannot see what concern thematter is of yours. But to carry off the Princess would profit younothing. Isabel Segunda is but a child, and will not come of age formany years. Your friend the Abbot would gain nothing by her captivity.But the Queen-Regent were a prize indeed!"
After he had spoken thus freely, Rollo continued to muse, and theSergeant to watch him. The latter had a great opinion of this youngman's practical ability.
"If he had had but the fortune to be born poor--and in Andalucia, hemight have been one day as great as I!" was the opinion of this modestSergeant. And indeed he spoke but the words of truth and soberness. Forit was the opinion of nine out of ten of his countrymen that he, JoseMaria of Ronda, was the greatest man of all time.
"Well," said Rollo at last, "let us go up and talk a little to myfriends and El Sarria. I think I see a way of inducing her RoyalHighness to accompany us. But it will require some firmness, and even acertain amount of severity."
The Sergeant nodded with grim appreciation.
"It is a pity with women," he said philosophically, "but sometimes, Iknow, it is the only way."
"The severity I speak of," continued Rollo, not regarding his words,"will mostly fall to the lot of the Senor Munoz. But we may chance towork on the lady's feelings through him."
The Sergeant gave Rollo a quick glance, in which was discernible acertain alertness of joy. The Sergeant also did not love hisgrandeeship, the Duke of Rianzares.
So these two went abreast up the great staircase, and found the PrincessIsabel already playing joyously with Etienne, John Mortimer joiningclumsily in as best he could. Concha had vanished, and La Giralda wasnowhere to be seen.
"The rogue is in no haste to visit her mother after her nightadventure!" said the Sergeant in a low tone, as Rollo and he stoodwatching the scene from the doorway.
"Nor I," admitted Rollo with a smile, "yet see the lady we must!"
"And shall!" said the Sergeant.
Yet in spite of the unpleasant interview which lay before him, Rollocould not help smiling at the game that was going forward in the upperhall.
"_Sur le pont d' Avignon, Tout le monde y passe,_"
chanted Etienne.
"_Tout le monde y passe!_" chorused the little Princess, holding out herhands.
John Mortimer made a confused noise in his throat and presently wascompelled to join the circle and dance slowly round, his countenancemeantime suggestive of the mental reserve that such undignifiedproceedings could only be excused as being remotely connected with thesafe shipment of a hundred hogsheads of Priorato.
"_The children walk like this, And the ladies walk like that----_"
There was no help for it. Etienne and the Princess first mimicked thecareless trip of the children, and then, with chin in the air and liftof imaginary furbelow, the haughty tread of the good dames of Avignonas they took their way homeward over that ancient bridge.
But suddenly arrested with both hands in the air and his mouth open,John Mortimer looked on in confusion and a kind of mental stupor. He wasglad that no one of his nation was present to see him making a fool ofhimself. The next moment Isabel had seized his hand, and he foundhimself again whirling lumpishly round to the ancient refrain:--
"_Sur le pont d' Avignon, Tout le monde y passe!_"
The little Queen's merry laugh rang out at his awkwardness, and thenseeing Rollo she ran impetuously to him.
"Come you and play," she cried, "the red foreigner plays like a woodenpuppet. And where is that darling little page-boy from Aranjuez?"
"That I cannot tell," quoth Rollo, smiling, "but here comes his sister!"
A moment after Concha entered the room talking confidentially to LaGiralda. She was now dressed in her own girlish costume of beltedblouse, black _basquina_ pleated small after the Andalucian manner, andthe quaint and pretty _rebozo_ thrown coquettishly back from the finestand most bewitching hair in Spain.
The little Isabel went up to Concha, took her by the hand, perused herfrom head to foot, and then remarked with deep feeling--
"You are very well, Senorita, but--I liked your brother better!"