‘How could you possibly resist such an appeal?’ said the Conde, raising his brows. He removed his spectacles, eyed me sharply, and inquired, ‘Why did the young lady become a nun in the first place? Was she so very religious?’
‘No . . . I do not think it was that. But she had had all those terrible experiences – abducted by the Mala Gente – nearly hanged – her own brother hiring assassins to kill her and being murdered himself; and there had been a cousin of hers, Laura, who had also died violently. I think Juana felt that her taking the veil might in some way atone for all these crimes . . .’
I see.’ He resumed his glasses and glanced at the finish of the letter. ‘There is little more – except a great many professions of gratitude and so forth, which we may take for granted.’
He handed me the paper, which was headed by a great conventual seal, and I read the lines again for myself.
Then I said, ‘Would you wish me to go upon this errand, Grandfather?’
‘My boy, I leave that decision entirely to you.’
Yet he had brought me home at racing speed.
I asked, ‘Do you know anything about these people, sir? Manuel de la Trava, and his wife?’
The Conde pursed his lip again.
‘He is of good family – noble blood of Aragon. He wrote some intelligent pamphlets on the backwardness of our educational and medical services. I daresay those were enough to get him jailed. He is, I believe, a friend of that Jose de Larra who writes in Madrid under the name of Figaro.’
‘Of course I have heard of him.’
‘Somebody told me that Manuel de la Trava had gone mad in prison. A not infrequent occurrence at Montjuich,’ added my grandfather gloomily. ‘They say it is a hell on earth. As to his wife, I know nothing, except that she was very rich and reputed to be a great beauty. Her family were not so wellborn as her husband’s. New money, from coal mines.’
I smiled a little, inside myself. Grandfather, despite his views on progress and reform, would always look more kindly on somebody who came from an ancient line. His attitude towards me had changed decidedly for the better when he found that I was not born out of wedlock, son of a penniless English army captain, but was, on the contrary, the legitimate grandson of an English duke. I could not hold this against him. For one thing, he loved and respected the peasants just as much as he did people of aristocratic descent.
‘The peasants, you see, are well-descended too,’ he had told me seriously. ‘Their forefathers have always been here, in Villaverde, since long before the Romans. Since Adam. They and I understand one another very well. It is only those jumped-up nobodies in the middle – people whose ancestors come from God knows where, foundry owners and shopkeepers, people who don’t know their place – that I cannot abide.’
All these things were passing through my head as I said, ‘Well – I should like to go on this errand, if you approve, Grandfather. I do not at all see how I can be helpful in getting these poor children away from their crazy father, but there is no sense in trying to make plans until I have seen what the circumstances are. And I must confess I shall be glad – very glad – of the chance to see Senorita Esparza once more.’
‘You must be prepared, don’t forget, to find great changes in her. Young ladies at that time of life grow up much faster than their male counterparts.’ His wise, ironic eye dwelt on me, I thought, with sympathy.
‘Yes, I suppose so . . . And she is a nun, after all.’
My heart sank again at the thought. To distract myself, I asked, ‘When did you receive this letter, Grandfather?’
He counted on his fingers. ‘Seven days ago now; I delayed answering until I had discovered your feelings on the matter. Now, since you wish to go, I will dictate a letter which you may write for me if you will – my fingers are so wretchedly stiff these days that they can hardly grasp a quill; then you may carry it with you to Bilbao, to this Reverend Mother at the Convento de la Encarnacion.’
‘How long will it take us to get to Bilbao?’
I had never been to Bilbao, which is a seaport on the Biscay coast, not far from the border of Spain and France.
‘It is farther than Salamanca – I suppose five or six days’ travelling. You could go part of the way by sea – take ship from Aviles or Gijon.’
A week from now, I was thinking, perhaps a week from this very day I may see her.
I still kept a remembrance she had left with me: a little snuffbox containing four tiny stones, ruby, ivory, agate, topaz, and a dried ilex leaf. I carried it with me always.
My grandfather gave me another long, considering look, and said, ‘I should like you to take Pedro with you.’
‘Pedro? Why?’
I was not pleased. True, Pedro was a good fellow, we got on well, and I was fond of him; but for an errand of this sort, where great delicacy might be called for, and who knew what kind of complications might arise, I did not see the necessity for his company. Juana and I had been alone together on our previous adventure, and we had come through it very successfully. Pedro’s presence had been all very well on the journey from Salamanca, but I could not help feeling that, on this new mission, he might be most wretchedly in the way.
But my grandfather said placidly, ‘Pedro has grown into a very dependable, sensible fellow.’
‘Yes, that is true. He showed plenty of sense, coming from Salamanca.’
‘And you are going to have a pair of religious sisters on your hands; besides, I presume, Senora de la Trava.’
‘True,’ I said gloomily. I supposed the children’s mother might wish to come along and have some say in our rescue plans.
‘I shall feel easier in my mind if you have Pedro with you,’ my grandfather concluded in a firm tone.
I suppose I must still have looked as if I disagreed. My longing to conduct this adventure on my own was so very strong. A glow of pride warmed me through and through at the notion that Juana, even though she might now be a nun, had thought of me, had needed my help, had singled me out and taken such pains to have me sent for.
‘But, after all, it is only to entice some children away from a madman? There can be no great danger or difficulty about such a task?’
‘How can we possibly tell?’ said my grandfather. ‘I recall meeting Manuel de la Trava fifteen years ago at Santiago de Compostela –’
‘I can remember that journey,’ I began impulsively, and then stopped. I had been nearly four at the time. The pilgrimage had been undertaken so that my grandparents might pray for the safety of my uncles Juan and Esteban, colonels in the Spanish army fighting in the War of Independence. But those prayers had gone unanswered; both of my two uncles, like their brothers Miguel and Jose before them, had been killed in battle. I was now my grandfather’s sole descendant, for my cousin Manuel Isidro had died of the smallpox in Madrid last summer.
‘De la Trava was a fine, handsome fellow, intelligent, honest, and brave,’ my grandfather said slowly.
‘But he may be quite changed now if he has gone mad.’
‘His strength and courage may be unimpaired. You may find your task a difficult one. In all kinds of ways.’
I sighed, feeling certain that I would be able to manage it somehow, if only I were left to arrange matters to my own liking.
Grandfather smiled then, the rare smile that lit his face like the gleam of the dying sun.
‘Bear with me, Felix! I am an old man and must be humoured. The years have been long while you were away at Salamanca. But at least, while you were there, I could feel that you were in no danger and were profiting from excellent teachers – I trust that was so?’ he added, shooting a diamond-bright glance from under his bushy brows, which, unlike the rest of his hair, had remained jet-black.
‘Certainly it was,’ I replied stoutly. ‘I have been working hard, Grandfather. I have learned a great deal.’
‘But now you are my sole heir – I have lost so much – so much,’ he muttered.
‘I know, sir. And I am very sorry
. I won’t thwart you.’
Yet still, though ashamed of my childishness, I felt impatient at this weight of moral obligation which seemed to hang on me like a heavy collar; I had not asked to be his heir, after all!
‘You will have to look after your great-aunts when I am gone. And your grandmother too, very possibly. And there is much less money than there was.’
Indeed I had noticed that many of the treasured objects of silver, china, and porcelain were gone from the places they had once occupied in the big, glass-fronted walnut cabinets. So had the ornaments of Toledo steel, and some of the big glossy paintings of fruit and fishes and dead hares that used to hang on the walls. Pedro had told me that many things had been sold. Now for the first time I realised that these had probably paid for my education at Salamanca. Well: those pictures of dead hares were no great loss, I told myself doggedly.
But perhaps Grandfather had hated parting with them.
I was glad that I really had worked hard.
‘Are you sure, Grandfather, that you can manage without Pedro? After all, we do not know how long this business may take.’
‘Yes, yes, this is an easy time, before the harvest. And, between you, I daresay, you will find some way of bringing the affair to a speedy conclusion. Though it’s an unhappy matter.’ The Conde sighed. ‘But now, run along with you, my dearest boy, you look tired to death. You had best get some sleep before all the old ladies come swarming out, and before you need to start planning your new departure.’
‘May I take this letter, Grandfather?’
‘Certainly, certainly. Sleep well now – ’ He made the sign of the cross as I bowed and left him.
The paper, with its heavy seal, felt warm in my fingers. ‘Sister Felicita therefore suggested that we appeal to you for the good offices of your grandson . . .’ How those words danced in my heart!
Tucking the letter into my jacket pocket I went to the kitchen, where Pedro was being fed a huge breakfast by his aunt Prudencia, the cook. She at once rose and gave me a great embrace.
‘Glorious Virgin! How the boy has grown! I never thought you’d fill out and shoot up so! But your hair is still as yellow as a gold duro and your eyes blue as flax.’
Annoyed with myself, I blushed. When I was younger I had hated my yellow hair, so different from that of everybody else; and I still thought that it made me seem younger than my age.
‘How is everybody?’ I asked quickly. ‘Rodrigo – Gaston – Sancho – Manuela – Maria?’
‘All well, all well – all agog to see you too, only the Conde said you’d go straight off to your bed after you had eaten.’
‘And so I shall, only first I must go and see if old Gato is somewhere about. He is – he is still alive?’ I asked Pedro.
‘Who? Oh, the old cat, yes, he’ll be somewhere out there in the stable-yard, so far as I know, he was here when I left to fetch you. But very old now – so stiff he can’t jump on to the mounting-block any longer.’
I went into the stable yard calling, ‘Gato! Gato!’ And saw him, sitting in a patch of sun and straw, my old yellow cat. He must be an immense age for a cat now, even in human years older than I. He was one of the first things I could remember.
He stood up, stiffly, and started towards me. I saw with grief that he was lacking an eye, and that one of his ears was in tatters. He had always been a great battler, Gato. He walked very slowly indeed, stiff and skeleton-thin, with his tail straight upright, like a sword. I could see the shadows of all his bones, along his tawny side. And when he was within a yard of me, he suddenly lay down, on his side, on the dusty cobbles.
As I stooped to stroke him, I saw that he was dead. The one good eye, still yellow as amber, stared at nothing. He had waited for me as long as he possibly could.
I carried him to a far-distant corner of my grandmother’s garden, took a spade from a shed, and buried him under a neglected grape-arbour, wrapped up in one of my old cambric shirts. Sleep well, old fellow, I told him. Dream of mice. Rest there, in the shade. I won’t forget you. Never, never. Once, you were my only comfort.
Suddenly my three years at Salamanca – learning, reading, talking, arguing, discussing – fell away and seemed as if they had been no more than three minutes. I was the Felix of an earlier time once more. The substance of home lapped me round. I belonged here, at Villaverde – like it or not.
Slowly, feeling all of my exhaustion now, I made my way to my room. Thoughts drifted past – Grandfather – Juana – my tired old Gato – and then, just before I slept, the memory of those two men, smothered to death under the avalanche, came into my mind. Poor devils – poor devils – had anybody dug them out yet? Very probably they might lie there for days, on such a rarely used road . . .
When I woke, the room was filled with reflected sunset glow. My windows looked south – in fact they pierced clean through the town wall – towards the great snow-covered mountain range round which Pedro and I had just skirted, the Picos de Ancares. I had always loved this room, even in my loneliest, most miserable days, for its silence and security and seclusion – few members of the household ever troubled to climb up here and seek me out.
But now I was aware of a small, scrabbling sound, before I opened my eyes, as if squirrels or mice had got into the place and were searching for eatables. I rolled over and sat up, startling my great-aunts Josefina and Visitacion almost to death. (Fortunately I had flung myself down with all my clothes on.)
The two old ladies huddled together, staring at me with bright beady eyes. They were like two dried-up old insects, wrapped in layers of silk, wool, and bombazine, with Manila shawls over all, enveloped in a cloud of lavender water that made me cough, hung about with little pockets and laces, with clinking sets of keys, with fans and handkerchiefs and crucifixes and beads and needle-cases.
‘Ah, there you are, Felix!’ murmured Josefina.
Visitacion just stared. She, apparently, during my three years’ absence, had suffered a slight stroke, for her face was a little lop-sided.
I said politely, ‘Thank you kindly for coming to wake me, Aunt Josefina, Aunt Visitacion. I am glad to see you well. Can I – can I help you in any way?’
They looked at one another, then at me again. Then they both twittered together, in their high, husky voices.
‘We wished to ask you – that is, we were anxious to know –’
‘What did you wish to ask me, senoras?’ I inquired, for they seemed to have come to a halt, and I wanted my room to myself.
‘Is it true that you are going on this errand? Are you really going to search for that terrible man who has made away with his own children?’ they said together.
And how the Devil did you learn that? I wondered. For sure, my grandfather never told you.
But I remembered that keeping any secret in this household was out of the question. The contents of a letter would be whispered around the house, almost before its owner had done reading it.
‘Is your grandfather really in favour of such a mad, dangerous scheme? Francisco is so simple and gullible! The whole thing is a plot – a perilous, terrifying plot!’
‘A plot, senoras? How can it be that?’
‘Child, child, don’t you see, it is a plot to involve you, and so also the Conde, in dangerous, democratic affairs. The Society of the Exterminating Angel will be after him directly, and the Military Commission. He will be a doomed man!’
‘But why – I don’t see –’
I knew, of course, about the Society of the Exterminating Angel. It had been founded by the Bishop of Osma and was secretly organised and most powerful. It was said that Don Carlos, the king’s brother, and his wife belonged to it; that the meetings were held in the palace at Madrid, and its mission was to organise vengeance upon all the Liberals who had supported the democratic constitution.
‘And then what will become of us?’ lamented Josefina. ‘If your grandfather is thrown into prison – and his estates confiscated – we and your grandmother will be forced t
o beg in the streets! We shall starve in degradation –’
I could hardly help laughing, their fears seemed so selfish and irrational. But they were both as white as pastry and gazed at me with huge, haunted eyes. I did my best to reassure them, promised them that if I detected any evidence of such a plot as they envisaged, I would withdraw from the business; finally I succeeded in shepherding them out of my chamber.
Hen-witted old creatures, I thought, as they twittered and clattered their way down the flight of stone stairs outside my door, silly, self-absorbed old fools. All they worry about is where their next meal is coming from. As if I would let their remonstrances affect me in any way – specially in a matter such as this!
My grandfather had interviewed Pedro while I slept, and arrangements were already in preparation for our new journey. Pedro was so unaffectedly delighted at hearing he was to accompany me again that I had not the heart to let him know how contrary to my wish this had been.
‘Look!’ he said with pride. ‘The Conde has lent me this pair of pistols which belonged to your uncle Esteban! What an honour! Are they not handsome? How far is it to Bilbao? I believe the people all speak Basque in that place. How in the world we make ourselves understood?’
I remembered how Juana had attempted in vain to teach me Basque, or, as it should properly be called, Euskara. It is undoubtedly a language of the Devil. In all the weeks we were together I learned only about half a dozen words: gab-boon, egg-en-noon, for good night, good morning, gizon, a man, khatten, to eat, erratten, to drink. But, they say, Euskara is the language that our father Adam spoke in Eden.
‘Don’t worry your head,’ I told Pedro. ‘Nearly all the Basques speak some Spanish and some French.’
My grandfather sent for me after dinner and presented me with a corresponding pair of pistols which had belonged to my uncle Juan.
‘I hope you will not need to use them,’ said he. ‘But it is well to be provided against danger. And they are good weapons. Besides, if de la Trava has really taken refuge in the High Pyrenees, you may need to protect yourselves against wolves or wild boar. Ha! Now your eyes begin to sparkle. Well, I hope such beasts may prove the worst perils that you have to encounter. Wolves can be easier to tackle than wicked men.’