A Castle in Spain Part 29

CHAPTER XIX.

IN WHICH DOLORES INDULGES IN SOME REMINISCENCES OF THE PAST.

The sleeper to whose sighs Harry had listened was Mrs. Russell, who awaked on the following morning burdened with the memories of unpleasant dreams. Dolores was bright and cheerful. Katie was as gay and as sunny as ever--perhaps a trifle more so.

"I don't understand how it is," said Mrs. Russell, "that you two can keep up your spirits so in this ogre's castle. I'm certain that something dreadful 's going to happen."

"Oh, auntie, you shouldn't be always looking on the dark side of things."

"I should like to know what other side there is to look on except the dark one. For my part, I think it best always to prepare for the worst; for then when it comes one isn't so utterly overwhelmed."

"Yes," said Katie, "but suppose it doesn't come? Why, then, don't you see, auntie, you will have had all your worry for nothing?"

"Oh, it's all very well for one like you. You are like a kitten, and turn everything to mirth and play."

"Well, here is our dear, darling Dolores," said Katie, who by this time had become great friends with the dark-eyed Spanish beauty.

"Look at her! She doesn't mope."

"Oh no, I doesn't what you call--mopes," said Dolores, in her pretty broken English. "I see no causa to mopes."

"But you're a prisoner as much as I am."

"Oh si--but thees is a land that I have a quaintance with: I know thees land--thees art."

"Have you ever been here before?"

"Si--yes. I lif here once when a child."

"Oh, you lived here," said Katie. "Well, now, do you know, I call that awfully funny."

"My padre--he lif here in thees castello. I lif here one time--one anno--one year, in thees castello."

"What! here in this castle?"

"Yes, here. The padre--he had grand flocks of the merino sheeps--to cultivate--to feed them in the pasturas--the sheep--one--ten--twenty thousand--the sheep. And he had thousand men shepherds--and he lif here in thees castello to see over the flocks. But he was away among the flocks alia the times. And me, and the madre, and the domesticos, we all did lif here, and it seems to me like homes."

"But that must have been long ago?"

"Oh, long, long ago. I was vara leetl--a child; and it was long ago.

Then the padre went to Cuba."

"Cuba! What! have you been there?"

"Oh, many, many years."

"Across the Atlantic--far away in Cuba?"

"Far, far away," said Dolores, her sweet voice rising to a plaintive note; "far away--in Cuba--oh, many, many years! And there the padre had a plantation, and was rich; but the insurrection it did break out, and he was killed."

Dolores stopped and wiped her eyes. Katie looked at her, and her own eyes overflowed with tears of tender sympathy.

"Oh, how sad!" she said. "I had no idea."

Dolores drew a long breath.

"Yes; he died, the good, tender padre; and madre and me be left all--all--all--alone--alone--in the cruele world. And the rebel came, and the soldiers, and oh, how they did fight! And the slaves, they did all run away--all--all--all--away; and the trees and fruits all destroy; and the houses all burn up in one gran' conflagration; and it was one kind, good American that did help us to fly; or we never--never would be able to lif. So we did come back to our patria poor, and we had to lif poor in Valencia. I told you I was lifing in Valencia when I left that place to come on thees travel."

"I suppose," said Katie, "since you lived in this castle once, you must know all about it."

"Oh yes, all--all about it."

"And you must have been all over it in every direction."

"Oh yes, all over it--all--all over it--thousand--thousand times, and in every parts and spots."

"It's such a strange old castle," continued Katie, who was very anxious to find out how far the knowledge of Dolores went, and whether she knew anything about the secret pa.s.sage; "it's such a strange old castle; it's like those that one reads of in the old romances."

"Yes, oh, vara, vara," said Dolores; "like the feudal Gothic castellos of the old--old charming romances; like the castello of the Cid; and you go up the towers and into the turrets, and you walk over the top, past the battlementa, and you spy, spy, spy deep down into the courts; and you dream, and dream, and dream. And when I was a vara leetl child, I did use to do nothing else but wander about, and dream, and dream, and get lost, and could not find my way back.

Oh, I could tell you of a thousand things. I could talk all the day of that bright, bright time when my padre was like a n.o.ble; so rich he was, and living in his grand castello."

"And did you really wander about so? and did you really get lost so?"

asked Katie, who was still following up her idea, being intent upon learning how much Dolores knew about the inner secrets of the castle--"such as where, now," she added, eagerly, "where would you get lost?"

"Oh, everywhere," said Dolores, "and all over. For there are halls that open into gallerias; and gallerias that open into rooms; and rooms into closets, and these into other halls; and grand apartments of states; and states beds-chambers; and there are the upper rooms for guests and domesticos; and down below them are rooms for the outer servitores; and far, far down, far down underground, there are dungeons--fearful, fearful places with darkness and r-r-rats!--and that is all that you do find when you come to move about in this wonderful, this maravelloso castello."

"And have you been all through the vaults?" asked Katie, trying to lead Dolores on farther.

"Yes," said Dolores, "all--all--through all the vaults, every single one; and there was an ancient servitor who showed me all the mysteria--an ancient, ancient, venerable man he was--and he showed me all the secrets, till all the castello was as known to me as thees room; and so I did become lost no more, and we did use to wander together through dark and lonely ways, and up to the turrets, and down to the vaults, till all this beautiful, beautiful old castello was known to me like my own room."

While Dolores talked in this strain she grew more and more enthusiastic, and made use of a multiplicity of graceful gestures to help out her meaning. And her eyes glowed bright and her expressive features showed wonderful feeling, while her motions and her looks were full of eloquence. It was a bright and joyous past that opened to her memory, and the thought of it could not be entertained without emotion. By that emotion she was now all carried away; and as Katie watched her glowing face and her dark gleaming eyes and all her eloquent gestures, she thought that she had never seen any one half so beautiful. But Katie was dying with curiosity to find out how far the knowledge of Dolores extended, and so at last, taking her cue from Dolores's own words, she said:

"Dark and lonely ways! What dark and lonely ways, dear Dolores? That sounds as though there are secret pa.s.sages through this old castle.

Oh, I do so love a place with vaults and secret pa.s.sages! And are there any here, dear? and have you been in them ever?"

Like lightning the glance of Dolores swept over Katie's face; it was a sudden, swift glance, and one full of subtle questioning and caution. Katie saw it all, and perceived too, at once, that whatever Dolores might know, she would not tell it in that fashion in answer to a point-blank question. As for Dolores, her swift glance pa.s.sed, and she went on with hardly any change in her tone:

"Oh yes; the dark and lonely ways, far, far below--in the vaults and through the wide, wide walls. For they run everywhere, so that in the ancient times of wars the warriors could pa.s.s from tower to tower."

Katie saw that Dolores was on her guard and was evading her question, from which she concluded that the little Spanish maid knew all about the secret pa.s.sage-way to Harry's room. The visitor to him must have been Dolores, and no other. But why? This she could not answer. She determined, however, upon two things--first, to keep her own eyes open and watch; and secondly, to tell Harry all about it the next time she saw him.