‘il s’en faut bien que l’innocence trouve autant de protection que le crime.’
for those minded to leave spain at this time, there was but one route, namely, the south, for the northern exits were closed by the carlists, still in power there, though thinning fast. indeed, don carlos was now illustrating the fact, which any may learn by the study of the world’s history, that it is not the great causes, but the great men, who have made and destroyed nations. nearly half of spain was for don carlos. the church sided with him, and the best soldiers were those who, unpaid, unfed, and half clad, fought on the southern slopes of the pyrenees for a man who dared not lead them.
sir john pleydell had intended crossing the frontier into portugal, following the carriage conveying his prisoner to the seaport of lisbon, where he anticipated no difficulty in finding a ship captain who would be willing to carry conyngham to england. all this, however, had been frustrated by so unimportant a person as concep?ion vara, and the carriage ordered for nine o’clock to proceed to talavera now stood in the courtyard of the hotel, while the baronet in his lonely apartment sat and wondered what he should do next. he had dealt with justice all his life, and had ensued it not from love, but as a matter of convenience and a means of livelihood. from the mere habit, he now desired to do justice to conyngham.
‘see if you can find out for me the whereabouts of general vincente at the moment, and let the carriage wait,’ he said to his servant, a valet-courier of taciturn habit.
the man was absent about half an hour, and returned with a face that promised little.
‘there is a man in the hotel, sir,’ he said, ‘the servant of mr. conyngham, who knows, but will not tell me. i am told, however, that a lady living in toledo, a contessa barenna, will undoubtedly have the information. general vincente was lately in madrid, but his movements are so rapid and uncertain, that he has become a by-word in spain.’
‘so i understand. i will call on this contessa this afternoon, unless you can get the information elsewhere during the morning. i shall not want the carriage.’
sir john walked slowly to the window, deep in thought. he was interested in conyngham, despite himself. it is possible that he had not hitherto met a man capable of so far forgetting his own interests as to undertake a foolish and dangerous escapade without anything in the nature of gain or advantage to recommend it. the windows of the hotel of the comercio in toledo look out upon the market-place, and sir john, who was an indoor man, and mentally active enough to be intensely bored at times, frequently used this opportunity of studying spanish life.
he was looking idly through the vile panes, when an old priest passed by, and glanced up beneath shaggy brows.
‘seen that man before,’ said sir john.
‘ah!’ muttered father concha, as he hurried on towards the palazzo barenna. ‘so far, so good. where the fox is, will be found the stolen fowl.’
concep?ion vara, who was saddling his horse in the stable yard of the inn, saw the padre pass.
‘ah, clever one!’ he muttered, ‘with your jokes about my wife. now you may make a false journey for all the help you receive from me.’
and a few minutes later concep?ion rode across the bridge of alcantara, some paces behind conyngham, who deemed it wise to return to his duties at madrid without delay.
despite the great heat on the plains, which, indeed, made it almost dangerous to travel at midday, the streets of toledo were cool and shady enough, as sir john pleydell traversed them in search of the palazzo barenna. the contessa was in, and the englishman was ushered into a vast room, which even the taste of the day could not entirely deprive of its medi?val grandeur. sir john explained to the servant in halting spanish that his name was unknown to the se?ora barenna, but that—a stranger in some slight difficulty—he had been recommended to seek her assistance.
sir john was an imposing-looking man, with that grand air which enables some men not only to look, but to get over a wall while an insignificant wight may not so much as approach the gate. the se?ora’s curiosity did the rest. in a few minutes the rustle of silk made sir john turn from the contemplation of a suit of armour.
‘madame speaks french?’
‘but yes, se?or.’
madame barenna glanced towards a chair, which sir john hastened to bring forward. he despised her already, and she admired his manner vastly.
‘i have taken the immense liberty of intruding myself upon your notice, madame.’
‘not to sell me a bible?’ exclaimed se?ora barenna, with her fan upheld in warning.
‘a bible! i believe i have one at home, in england, madame, but—’
‘it is well,’ said madame sinking back and fanning herself rather faintly. ‘excuse my fears. but there is an englishman—what is his name? i forget.’
‘borrow.’
‘yes; that is it, borrow. and he sells bibles; and father concha, my confessor, a bear, but a holy man—a holy bear, as one might say—has forbidden me to buy one. i am so afraid of disobeying him, by heedlessness or forgetfulness. there are, it appears, some things in the bible which one ought not to read, and one naturally—’
she finished the sentence with a shrug, and an expressive gesture of the fan.
‘one naturally desires to read them,’ suggested sir john. ‘the privilege of all eve’s daughters, madame.’
se?ora barenna treated the flatterer to what the french call a fin sourire, and wondered how long julia would stay away. this man would pay her a compliment in another moment.
‘i merely called on the excuse of a common friendship, to ask if you can tell me the whereabouts of general vincente,’ said sir john, stating his business in haste and when the opportunity presented itself.
‘is it politics?’ asked the lady, with a hasty glance round the room.
‘no, it is scarcely politics; but why do you ask? you are surely too wise, madame, to take part in such. it is a woman’s mission to please—and when it is so easy!’
he waved his thin white hand in completion of a suggestion which made his hearer bridle her stout person.
‘no, no,’ she whispered, glancing over her shoulder at the door. ‘no; it is my daughter. ah! se?or, you can scarce imagine what it is to live upon a volcano!’
and she pointed to the oaken floor with her fan. sir john deemed it wise to confine his display of sympathy to a glance of the deepest concern.
‘no,’ he said; ‘it is merely a personal matter. i have a communication to make to my friend general vincente or to his daughter.’
‘to estella?’
‘to the se?orita estella.’
‘do you think her beautiful? some do, you know. eyes—i admit—yes, lovely.’
‘i admire the se?orita exceedingly.’
‘ah yes, yes. you have not seen my daughter, have you, se?or? julia—she rather resembles estella.’
se?ora barenna paused and examined her fan with a careless air.
‘some say,’ she went on, apparently with reluctance, ‘that julia is—well—has some advantages over estella. but i do not, of course. i admire estella, excessively—oh yes, yes.’
and the se?ora’s dark eyes searched sir john’s face. they might have found more in sculptured marble.
‘do you know where she is?’ asked sir john, almost bluntly. like a workman who has mistaken his material, he was laying aside his finer conversational tools.
‘well, i believe they arrive in toledo this evening. i cannot think why. but with general vincente one never knows. he is so pleasant, so playful—such a smile—but you know him. well, they say in spain that he is always where he is wanted. ah!’ madame paused and cast her eyes up to the ceiling, ‘what it is to be wanted somewhere, se?or.’
and she gave him the benefit of one of her deepest sighs. sir john mentally followed the direction of her glance, and wondered what the late count thought about it.
‘yes, i am deeply interested in estella—as indeed is natural, for she is my niece. she has no mother, and the general has such absurd ideas. he thinks that a girl is capable of choosing a husband for herself. but to you—an englishman—such an idea is naturally not astonishing. i am told that in your country it is the girls who actually propose marriage.’
‘not in words, madame—not more in england than elsewhere.’
‘ah,’ said madame, looking at him doubtfully, and thinking, despite herself, of father concha.
sir john rose from the chair he had taken at the se?ora’s silent invitation.
‘then i may expect the general to arrive at my hotel this evening,’ he said. ‘i am staying at the comercio, the only hotel, as i understand, in toledo.’
‘yes, he will doubtless descend there. do you know frederick conyngham, se?or?’
‘yes.’
‘but everyone knows him!’ exclaimed the lady vivaciously. ‘tell me how it is. a most pleasant young man, i allow you—but without introductions and quite unconnected. yet he has friends everywhere.’
she paused and, closing her fan, leant forward in an attitude of intense confidence and secrecy.
‘and how about his little affair?’ she whispered.
‘his little affair, madame?’
‘de c?ur,’ explained the lady, tapping her own breast with an eloquent fan.
‘estella,’ she whispered after a pause.
‘ah!’ said sir john, as if he knew too much about it to give an opinion. and he took his leave.
‘that is the sort of woman to break one’s heart in the witness box,’ he said as he passed out into the deserted street, and se?ora barenna, in the great room with the armour, reflected complacently that the english lord had been visibly impressed.
general vincente and estella arrived at the hotel in the evening, but did not of course appear in the public rooms. the dusty old travelling carriage was placed in a quiet corner of the courtyard of the hotel, and the general appeared on this, as on all occasions, to court retirement and oblivion. unlike many of his brothers-in-arms, he had no desire to catch the public eye.
‘there is doubtless something astir,’ said the waiter, who, in the intervals of a casual attendance on sir john, spoke of these things, cigarette in mouth. ‘there is doubtless something astir, since general vincente is on the road. they call him the stormy petrel, for when he appears abroad there usually follows a disturbance.’
sir john sent his servant to the general’s apartment about eight o’clock in the evening asking permission to present himself. in reply, the general himself came to sir john’s room.
‘my dear sir,’ he cried, taking both the englishman’s hands in an affectionate grasp, ‘to think that you were in the hotel and that we did not dine together. come, yes, come to our poor apartment, where estella awaits the pleasure of renewing your acquaintance.’
‘then the se?orita,’ said sir john, following his companion along the dimly-lighted passage, ‘has her father’s pleasant faculty of forgetting any little contretemps of the past?’
‘ask her,’ exclaimed the general in his cheery way. ‘ask her.’ and he threw open the door of the dingy salon they occupied.
estella was standing with her back to the window, and her attitude suggested that she had not sat down since she had heard of sir john’s presence in the hotel.
‘se?orita,’ said the englishman, with that perfect knowledge of the world which usually has its firmest basis upon indifference to criticism, ‘se?orita, i have come to avow a mistake and to make my excuses.’
‘it is surely unnecessary,’ said estella, rather coldly.
‘say rather,’ broke in the general in his smoothest way, ‘that you have come to take a cup of coffee with us and to tell us your news.’
sir john took the chair which the general brought forward.
‘at all events,’ he said, still addressing estella, ‘it is probably a matter of indifference to you, as it is merely an opinion expressed by myself which i wish to retract. when i first had the pleasure of meeting you, i took it upon myself to speak of a guest in your father’s house, fortunately in the presence of that guest himself, and i now wish to tell you that what i said does not apply to frederick conyngham himself, but to another whom conyngham is screening. he has not confessed so much to me, but i have satisfied myself that he is not the man i seek. you, general, who know more of the world than the se?orita, and have been in it almost as long as i have, can bear me out in the statement that the motives of men are not so easy to discern as younger folks imagine. i do not know what induced conyngham to undertake this thing; probably he entered into it in a spirit of impetuous and reckless generosity, which would only be in keeping with his character. i only know that he has carried it out with a thoroughness and daring worthy of all praise. if such a tie were possible between an old man and a young, i should like to be able to claim mr. conyngham as a friend. there, se?orita—thank you, i will take coffee. i made the accusation in your presence. i retract it before you. it is, as you see, a small matter.’
‘but it is of small matters that life is made up,’ put in the general in his deferential way. ‘our friend,’ he went on after a pause, ‘is unfortunate in misrepresenting himself. we also have a little grudge against him—a little matter of a letter which has not been explained. i admit that i should like to see that letter.’
‘and where is it?’ asked sir john.
‘ah!’ replied vincente, with a shrug of the shoulders and a gay little laugh, ‘who can tell? perhaps in toledo, my dear sir—perhaps in toledo.’
