Calderon the Courtier Part 4

CHAPTER VII. THE OPEN COUNTENANCE, THE CONCEALED THOUGHTS

The next day, at noon, Calderon visited Fonseca in his place of confinement. The young man was seated by a window that overlooked a large dull court-yard, with a neglected and broken fountain in the centre, leaning his cheek upon his hand. His long hair was dishevelled, his dress disordered, and a gloomy frown darkened features naturally open and ingenuous. He started to his feet as Calderon approached. "My release--you have brought my release--let us forth!"

"My dear pupil, be ruled, be calm. I have seen the duke: the cause of your imprisonment is as I suspected. Some imprudent words, overheard, perhaps, but by your valet, have escaped you; words intimating your resolution not to abandon Beatriz. You know your kinsman, a mail of doubts and fears,--of forms, ceremonies, and scruples. From very affection for his kindred and yourself he has contrived your arrest; all my expostulations have been in vain. I fear your imprisonment may continue, either until you give a solemn promise to renounce all endeavor to dissuade Beatriz from the final vows, or until she herself has p.r.o.nounced them."

Fonseca, as if stupefied, stared a moment at Calderon, and then burst into a wild laugh. Calderon continued:

"Nevertheless, do not despair. Be patient; I am ever about the duke; nay, I have the courage, in your cause, to appeal even to the king himself."

"And to-night she expects me--to-night she was to be free!"

"We can convey the intelligence of your mischance to her: the porter will befriend you."

"Away, false friend, or powerless protector, that you are! Are your promises of aid come to this? But I care not; my case, my wrongs, shall be laid before the king; I will inquire if it be thus that Philip the Third treats the defenders of his crown. Don Roderigo Calderon, will you place my memorial in the hands of your royal master? Do this, and I will thank you."

"No, Fonseca, I will not ruin you; the king would pa.s.s your memorial to the Duke de Lerma. Tush! this is not the way that men of sense deal with misfortune. Think you I should be what I now am, if, in every reverse, I had raved, and not reflected? Sit down, and let us think of what can now be done."

"Nothing, unless the prison door open by sunset!"

"Stay, a thought strikes me. The term of your imprisonment ceases when you relinquish the hope of Beatriz. But what if the duke could believe that Beatriz relinquished you? What, for instance, if she fled from the convent, as you proposed, and we could persuade the duke that it was with another?"

"Ah! be silent!"

"Nay, what advantages in this scheme--what safety! If she fly alone, or, as supposed, with another lover, the duke will have no interest in pursuit, in punishment. She is not of that birth that the state will take the trouble, very actively, to interfere: she may reach France in safety; ay, a thousand times more safely than if she fled with you, a hidalgo and a man of rank, whom the state would have an interest to reclaim, and to whom the Inquisition, hating the n.o.bles, would impute the crime of sacrilege. It is an excellent thought! Your imprisonment may be the salvation of you both: your plan may succeed still better without your intervention; and, after a few days, the duke, believing that your resentment must necessarily replace your love, will order your release; you can join Beatriz on the frontier, and escape with her to France."

"But," said Fonseca, struck, but not convinced, by the suggestion of Calderon, "who will take my place with Beatriz? who penetrate into the gardens? who bear her from the convent?"

"That, for your sake, will I do. Perhaps," added Calderon, smiling, "a courtier may manage such an intrigue with even more dexterity than a soldier. I will bear her to the house we spoke of; there I know she can lie hid in safety, till the languid pursuit of uninterested officials shall cease, and thence I can easily find means to transport her, under safe and honourable escort, to any place it may please you to appoint."

"And think you Beatriz will fly with you, a stranger? Impossible! Your plan pleases me not."

"Nor does it please me," said Calderon, coldly; "the risks I proposed to run are too imminent to be contemplated complacently: I thank you for releasing me from my offer; nor should I have made it, Fonseca, but from this fear, what if to-morrow the duke himself (he is a churchman, remember) see the novice? what if he terrify her with threats against yourself? what if he induce the abbess and the Church to abridge the novitiate? what if Beatriz be compelled or awed into taking the veil?

what if you be released even next week and find her lost to you for ever?"

"They cannot--they dare not!"

"The duke dares all things for ambition; your alliance with Beatriz he would hold a disgrace to his house. Think not my warnings are without foundation--I speak from authority; such is the course the Duke de Lerma has resolved upon. Nothing else could have induced me to offer to brave for your sake all the hazard of outraging the law and braving the terrors of the Inquisition. But let us think of some other plan. Is your escape possible? I fear not. No; you must trust to my chance of persuading the duke into prosecuting the matter no further; trust to some mightier scheme engrossing all his thoughts; to a fit of good-humour after his siesta; or, perhaps, an attack of the gout, or a stroke of apoplexy. Such, after all, are the chances of human felicity, the pivots on which turns the solemn wheel of human life."

Fonseca made no reply for some moments; he traversed the room with hasty and disordered strides, and at last stopped abruptly.

"Calderon, there is no option; I must throw myself on your generosity, your faith, your friendship. I will write to Beatriz; I will tell her, for my sake, to confide in you."

As he spoke, Don Martin turned to the table, and wrote a hasty and impa.s.sioned note, in which he implored the novice to trust herself to the directions of Don Roderigo Calderon, his best, his only friend; and, as he placed this letter in the hands of the courtier he turned aside to conceal his emotions. Calderon himself was deeply moved: his cheek was flushed, and his hand seemed tremulous as it took the letter.

"Remember," said Fonseca, "that I trust to you my life of life. As you are true to me, may Heaven be merciful to you!"

Calderon made no answer, but turned to the door. "Stay," said Fonseca; "I had forgot this--here is the master key."

"True; how dull I was! And the porter--will he attend to thy proxy?"

"Doubt it not. Accost him with the word, 'Grenada.' But he expects to share the flight."

"That can be arranged. To-morrow you will hear of my success. Farewell!"

CHAPTER VIII. THE ESCAPE

It was midnight in the chapel of the convent.

The moonlight shone with exceeding l.u.s.tre through the tall cas.e.m.e.nts, and lit into a ghastly semblance of life the marble images of saint and martyr, that threw their long shadows over the consecrated floor.

Nothing could well be conceived more dreary, solemn, and sepulchral than that holy place: its distained and time-hallowed walls; the impenetrable ma.s.s of darkness that gathered into those recesses which the moonlight failed to reach; its antique and ma.s.sive tombs, above which reclined the sculptured effigies of some departed patroness or abbess, who had exchanged a living grave for the Mansions of the Blest. But there--oh, wonderful human heart!--even there, in that spot, the very homily and warning against earthly affections and mortal hopes--even there, couldst thou beat with as wild, as bright, and as pure a pa.s.sion as ever heaved the breast and shone in the eyes of Beauty, in the free air that ripples the Guadiana, or amidst the twilight dance of Castilian maids.

A tall figure, wrapped from head to foot in a cloak, pa.s.sed slowly up the aisle. But light and cautious though the footstep, it woke a low, hollow, ominous echo, that seemed more than the step itself to disturb the sanct.i.ty of the place. It paused opposite to a confessional, which was but dimly visible through the shadows around it. And then there emerged timidly a female form; and a soft voice whispered "It is thou, Fonseca!"

"Hist!" was the answer; "he waits without. Be quick; speak not--come."

Beatriz recoiled in surprise and alarm at the voice of a stranger; but the man, seizing her by the hand, drew her hastily from the chapel, and hurried her across the garden, through a small postern door, which stood ajar, into an obscure street bordering the convent wall. Here stood the expectant porter, with a bundle in his hand, which he opened, and took thence a long cloak, such as the women of middling rank in Madrid wore in the winter season, with the customary mantilla or veil. With these, still without speaking, the stranger hastily shrouded the form of the novice, and once more hurried her on till about a hundred yards from the garden gate he came to a carriage, into which he lifted Beatriz, whispered a few words to the porter, seated himself by the side of the novice, and the vehicle drove rapidly away.

It was some moments before Beatriz could sufficiently recover from her first agitation and terror, to feel alive to all the strangeness of her situation. She was alone with a stranger; where was Fonseca? She turned towards her companion.

"Who art thou?" she said, "whither art thou leading me-and why--"

"Why is not Don Martin by thy side? Pardon me, senora: I have a billet for thee from Fonseca; in a few minutes thou wilt know all."

At this time the vehicle came suddenly in the midst of a train of footmen and equipages that choked up the way. There was a brilliant entertainment at the French emba.s.sy; and thither flocked, all the rank and chivalry of Madrid. Calderon drew down the blind and hastily enjoined silence on Beatriz. It was some minutes before the driver extricated himself from the throng; and then, as if to make amends for the delay, he put his horses to their full speed, and carefully selected the most obscure and solitary thoroughfares. At length, the carriage entered the range of suburbs which still at this day the traveller pa.s.ses on his road from Madrid to France. The horses stopped before a lonely house that stood a little apart from the road, and which from the fashion of its architecture appeared of considerable antiquity. The stranger descended and knocked twice at the door: it was opened by an old man, whose exaggerated features, bended frame, and long beard, proclaimed him of the race of Israel. After a short and whispered parley, the stranger returned to Beatriz, gravely a.s.sisted her from the carriage, and, leading her across the threshold, and up a flight of rude stairs, dimly lighted, entered a chamber richly furnished. The walls were hung with stuffs of gorgeous colouring and elaborate design.

Pedestals of the whitest marble placed at each corner of the room supported candelabra of silver. The sofas and couches were of the heavy but sumptuous fashion which then prevailed in the palaces of France and Spain; and of which Venice (the true model of the barbaric decorations with which Louis the Fourteenth corrupted the taste of Paris) was probably the original inventor. In an alcove, beneath a silken canopy, was prepared a table, laden with wines, fruits, and viands; and altogether the elegance and luxury that characterised the apartment were in strong and strange contrast with the half-ruined exterior of the abode, the gloomy and rude approach to the chamber, and the mean and servile aspect of the Jew, who stood, or rather cowered by the door, as if waiting for further orders. With a wave of the hand the stranger dismissed the Israelite; and then, approaching Beatriz, presented to her Fonseca's letter.

As with an enchanting mixture of modesty and eagerness Beatriz, half averting her face, bent over the well-known characters, Calderon gazed upon her with a scrutinising and curious eye.

The courtier was not, in this instance, altogether the villain that from outward appearances the reader may have deemed him. His plan was this: he had resolved on compliance with the wishes of the prince--his safety rested on that compliance. But Fonseca was not to be sacrificed without reserve. Profoundly despising womankind, and firmly persuaded of their const.i.tutional treachery and deceit, Calderon could not believe the actress that angel of light and purity which she seemed to the enamoured Fonseca. He had resolved to subject her to the ordeal of the prince's addresses. If she fell, should he not save his friend from being the dupe of an artful _intriguante_?--should he not deserve the thanks of Don Martin for the very temptation to which Beatriz was now to be submitted? If he could convince Fonseca of her falsehood, he should stand acquitted to his friend, while he should have secured his interest with the prince. But if, on the other hand, Beatriz came spotless through the trial; if the prince, stung by her obstinate virtue, should menace to sink courtship into violence, Calderon knew that it would not be in the first or second interview that the novice would have any real danger to apprehend; and he should have leisure to concert her escape by such means as would completely conceal from the prince his own connivance at her flight. Such was the compromise that Calderon had effected between his conscience and his ambition. But while he gazed upon the novice, though her features were turned from him, and half veiled by the headdress she had a.s.sumed, strange feelings, ominous and startling, like those remembrances of the Past which sometimes come in the guise of prophecies of the Future, thronged, indistinct and dim, upon his breast. The unconscious and exquisite grace of her form, its touching youth, an air of innocence diffused around it, a something helpless, and pleading to man's protection, in the very slightness of her beautiful but fairy-like proportions, seemed to reproach his treachery, and to awaken whatever of pity or human softness remained in his heart.

The novice had read the letter; and turning, in the impulse of surprise and alarm, to Calderon for explanation, for the first time she remarked his features and his aspect; for he had then laid aside his cloak, and the broad Spanish hat with its heavy plume. It was thus that their eyes met, and, as they did so, Beatriz, starting from her seat, uttered a wild cry--

"And thy name is Calderon--Don Roderigo Calderon?--is it possible?

Hadst thou never another name?" she exclaimed; and, as she spoke, she approached him slowly and fearfully.

"Lady, Calderon is my name," replied the marquis: but his voice faltered. "But thine--thine--is it, in truth, Beatriz Coello?"

Beatriz made no reply, but continued to advance, till her very breath came upon his cheek; she then laid her hand upon his arm, and looked up into his face with a gaze so earnest, so intent, so prolonged, that Calderon, but for a strange and terrible thought--half of wonder, half of suspicion, which had gradually crept into his soul, and now usurped it--might have doubted whether the reason of the poor novice was not unsettled.

Slowly Beatriz withdrew her eyes, and they fell upon a large mirror opposite, which reflected in full light the features of Calderon and herself. It was then--her natural bloom having faded into a paleness scarcely less statue-like than that which characterised the cheek of Calderon himself, and all the sweet play and mobility of feature that belong to first youth being replaced by a rigid and marble stillness of expression--it was then that a remarkable resemblance between these two persons became visible and startling. That resemblance struck alike, and in the same instant, both Beatriz and Calderon; and both, gazing on the mirror, uttered an involuntary and simultaneous exclamation.

With a trembling and hasty hand the novice searched amidst the folds of her robe, and drew forth a small leathern case, closed with clasps of silver. She touched the spring, and took out a miniature, upon which she cast a rapid and wild glance; then, lifting her eyes to Calderon, she cried, "It must be so--it is, it is my father!" and fell motionless at his feet.

Calderon did not for some moments heed the condition of the novice: that chamber, the meditated victim, the present time, the coming evil--all were swept away from his soul; he was transported back into the past, with the two dread Spirits, Memory and Conscience! His knees knocked together, his aspect was livid, the cold drops stood upon his brow; he muttered incoherently and then bent down, and took up the picture. It was the face of a man in the plain garb of a Salamanca student, and in the first flush of youth; the n.o.ble brow, serene and calm, and stamped alike with candour and courage; the smooth cheek, rich with the hues of health; the lips, parting in a happy smile, and eloquent of joy and hope; it was the face of that wily, grasping, ambitious, unscrupulous man, when life had yet brought no sin; it was, as if the ghost of youth were come back to accuse the crimes of manhood! The miniature fell from his hand--he groaned aloud. Then gazing on the prostrate form of the novice, he said--"Poor wretch! can I believe that thou art indeed of mine own race and blood; or rather, does not nature, that stamped these lineaments on thy countenance, deceive and mock me? If she, thy mother, lied, why not nature herself?"

He raised the novice in his arms, and gazed long and wistfully upon her lifeless, but almost lovely features. She moved not--she scarcely seemed to breathe; yet he fancied he felt her embrace tightening round him--he fancied he heard again the voice that had hailed him "FATHER!" His heart beat aloud, the divine instinct overpowered all things, he pressed a pa.s.sionate kiss upon her forehead, and his tears fell fast and warm upon her cheek. But again the dark remembrance crossed him, and he shuddered, placed the novice hastily on one of the couches, and shouted aloud.