In the Palace of the King Part 7

"No lady has been here," he answered quietly.

Dolores doubted the evidence of her own senses. Her belief in the man she loved was so great that his words seemed at first to have destroyed and swept away what must have been a bad dream, or a horrible illusion, and her face was quiet and happy again as she pa.s.sed him and went in through the open entrance. She found herself in a vestibule from which doors opened to the right and left. He turned in the latter direction, leading the way into the room.

It was his bedchamber. Built in the Moorish manner, the vaulting began at the height of a man's head, springing upward in bold and graceful curves to a great height. The room was square and very large, and the wall below the vault was hung with very beautiful tapestries representing the battle of Pavia, the surrender of Francis the First, and a sort of apotheosis of the Emperor Charles, the father of Don John.

There were two tall windows, which were quite covered by curtains of a dark brocade, in which the coats of Spain and the Empire were woven in colours at regular intervals; and opposite them, with the head to the wall, stood a vast curtained bedstead with carved posts twice a man's height. The vaulting had been cut on that side, in order that the foot of the bed might stand back against the wall. The canopy had coats of arms at the four corners, and the curtains were of dark green corded silk, heavily embroidered with gold thread in the beautiful scrolls and arabesques of the period of the Renascence. A carved table, dark and polished, stood half way between the foot of the bedstead and the s.p.a.ce between the windows, where a magnificent kneeling-stool with red velvet cushions was placed under a large crucifix. Half a dozen big chairs were ranged against the long walls on each side of the room, and two commodious folding chairs with cushions of embossed leather were beside the table. Opposite the door by which Dolores had entered, another communicated with the room beyond. Both were carved and ornamented with scroll work of gilt bronze, but were without curtains. Three or four Eastern, rugs covered the greater part of the polished marble pavement, which here and there reflected the light of the tall wax torches that stood on the table in silver candlesticks, and on each side of the bed upon low stands. The vault above the tapestried walls was very dark blue, and decorated with gilded stars in relief. Dolores thought the room gloomy, and almost funereal. The bed looked like a catafalque, the candles like funeral torches, and the whole place breathed the magnificent discomfort of royalty, and seemed hardly intended for a human habitation.

Dolores barely glanced at it all, as her companion locked the first door and led her on to the next room. He knew that he had not many minutes to spare, and was anxious that she should be in her hiding-place before his servants came back. She followed him and went in. Unlike the bedchamber, the small study was scantily and severely furnished. It contained only a writing-table, two simple chairs, a straight-backed divan covered with leather, and a large chest of black oak bound with ornamented steel work. The window was curtained with dark stuff, and two wax candles burned steadily beside the writing-materials that were spread out ready for use.

"This is the room," Don John said, speaking for the first time since they had entered the apartments.

Dolores let her head fall back, and began to loosen her cloak at her throat without answering him. He helped her, and laid the long garment upon the divan. Then he turned and saw her in the full light of the candles, looking at him, and he uttered an exclamation.

"What is it?" she asked almost dreamily.

"You are very beautiful," he answered in a low voice. "You are the most beautiful woman I ever saw."

The merest girl knows the tone of a man whose genuine admiration breaks out unconsciously in plain words, and Dolores was a grown woman. A faint colour rose in her cheek, and her lips parted to smile, but her eyes were grave and anxious, for the doubt had returned, and would not be thrust away. She had seen the lady in the cloak and veil during several seconds, and though Dolores, who had been watching the men who pa.s.sed, had not actually seen her come out of Don John's apartments, but had been suddenly aware of her as she glided by, it seemed out of the question that she should have come from any other place. There was neither niche nor embrasure between the door and the corridor, in which the lady could have been hidden, and it was hardly conceivable that she should have been waiting outside for some mysterious purpose, and should not have fled as soon as she heard the two officers coming out, since she evidently wished to escape observation. On the other hand, Don John had quietly denied that any woman had been there, which meant at all events that he had not seen any one. It could mean nothing else.

Dolores was neither foolishly jealous nor at all suspicious by nature, and the man was her ideal of truthfulness and honour. She stood looking at him, resting one hand on the table, while he came slowly towards her, moving almost unconsciously in the direction of her exquisite beauty, as a plant lifts itself to the sun at morning. He was near to her, and he stretched out his arms as if to draw her to him. She smiled then, for in his eyes she forgot her trouble for a moment, and she would have kissed him. But suddenly his face grew grave, and he set his teeth, and instead of taking her into his arms, he took one of her hands and raised it to his lips, as if it had been the hand of his brother's wife, the young Queen.

"Why?" she asked in surprise, and with a little start.

"You are here under my protection," he answered. "Let me have my own way."

"Yes, I understand. How good you are to me!" She paused, and then went on, seating herself upon one of the chairs by the table as she spoke.

"You must leave me now," she said. "You must lock me in and keep the key. Then I shall know that I am safe; and in the meantime you must decide how I am to escape--it will not be easy." She stopped again. "I wonder who that woman was!" she exclaimed at last.

"There was no woman here," replied Don John, as quietly and a.s.suredly as before.

He was leaning upon the table at the other side, with both hands resting upon it, looking at her beautiful hair as she bent her head.

"Say that you did not see her," she said, "not that she was not here, for she pa.s.sed me after all the men, walking very cautiously to make no noise; and when she was in the corridor she ran--she was young and light-footed. I could not see her face."

"You believe me, do you not?" asked Don John, bending over the table a little, and speaking very anxiously.

She turned her face up instantly, her eyes wide and bright.

"Should I be here if I did not trust you and believe you?" she asked almost fiercely. "Do you think--do you dare to think--that I would have pa.s.sed your door if I had supposed that another woman had been here before me, and had been turned out to make room for me, and would have stayed here--here in your room--if you had not sent her away? If I had thought that, I would have left you at your door forever. I would have gone back to my father. I would have gone to Las Huelgas to-morrow, and not to be a prisoner, but to live and die there in the only life fit for a broken-hearted woman. Oh, no! You dare not think that,--you who would dare anything! If you thought that, you could not love me as I love you,--believing, trusting, staking life and soul on your truth and faith!"

The generous spirit had risen in her eyes, roused not against him, but by all his question might be made to mean; and as she met his look of grateful gladness her anger broke away, and left only perfect love and trust behind it.

"A man would die for you, and wish he might die twice," he answered, standing upright, as if a weight had been taken from him and he were free to breathe.

She looked up at the pale, strong features of the young fighter, who was so great and glorious almost before the down had thickened on his lip; and she saw something almost above nature in his face,--something high and angelic, yet manly and well fitted to face earthly battles. He was her sun, her young G.o.d, her perfect image of perfection, the very source of her trust. It would have killed her to doubt him. Her whole soul went up to him in her eyes; and as he was ready to die for her, she knew that for him she would suffer every anguish death could hold, and not flinch.

Then she looked down, and suddenly laughed a little oddly, and her finger pointed towards the pens and paper.

"She has left something behind," she said. "She was clever to get in here and slip out again without being seen."

Don John looked where she pointed, and saw a small letter folded round the stems of two white carnations, and neatly tied with a bit of twisted silk. It was laid between the paper and the bronze inkstand, and half hidden by the broad white feather of a goose-quill pen, that seemed to have been thrown carelessly across the flowers. It lay there as if meant to be found, only by one who wrote, and not to attract too much attention.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, in a rather singular tone, as he saw it, and a boyish blush reddened his face.

Then he took the letter and drew out the two flowers by the blossoms very carefully. Dolores watched him. He seemed in doubt as to what he should do; and the blush subsided quickly, and gave way to a look of settled annoyance. The carnations were quite fresh, and had evidently not been plucked more than an hour. He held them up a moment and looked at them, then laid them down again and took the note. There was no writing on the outside. Without opening it he held it to the flame of the candle, but Dolores caught his wrist.

"Why do you not read it?" she asked quickly.

"Dear, I do not know who wrote it, and I do not wish to know anything you do not know also."

"You have no idea who the woman is?" Dolores looked at him wonderingly.

"Not the very least," he answered with a smile.

"But I should like to know so much!" she cried. "Do read it and tell me.

I do not understand the thing at all."

"I cannot do that." He shook his head. "That would be betraying a woman's secret. I do not know who it is, and I must not let you know, for that would not be honourable."

"You are right," she said, after a pause. "You always are. Burn it."

He pushed the point of a steel erasing-knife through the piece of folded paper and held it over the flame. It turned brown, crackled and burst into a little blaze, and in a moment the black ashes fell fluttering to the table.

"What do you suppose it was?" asked Dolores innocently, as Don John brushed the ashes away.

"Dear--it is very ridiculous--I am ashamed of it, and I do not quite know how to explain it to you." Again he blushed a little. "It seems strange to speak of it--I never even told my mother. At first I used to open them, but now I generally burn them like this one."

"Generally! Do you mean to say that you often find women's letters with flowers in them on your table?"

"I find them everywhere," answered Don John, with perfect simplicity. "I have found them in my gloves, tied into the basket hilt of my sword--often they are brought to me like ordinary letters by a messenger who waits for an answer. Once I found one on my pillow!"

"But"--Dolores hesitated--"but are they--are they all from the same person?" she asked timidly. Don John laughed, and shook his head.

"She would need to be a very persistent and industrious person," he answered. "Do you not understand?"

"No. Who are these women who persecute you with their writing? And why do they write to you? Do they want you to help them?"

"Not exactly that;" he was still smiling. "I ought not to laugh, I suppose. They are ladies of the court sometimes, and sometimes others, and I--I fancy that they want me to--how shall I say?--to begin by writing them letters of the same sort."

"What sort of letters?"

"Why--love letters," answered Don John, driven to extremity in spite of his resistance.

"Love letters!" cried Dolores, understanding at last. "Do you mean to say that there are women whom you do not know, who tell you that they love you before you have ever spoken to them? Do you mean that a lady of the court, whom you have probably never even seen, wrote that note and tied it up with flowers and risked everything to bring it here, just in the hope that you might notice her? It is horrible! It is vile! It is shameless! It is beneath anything!"

"You say she was a lady--you saw her. I did not. But that is what she did, whoever she may be."

"And there are women like that--here, in the palace! How little I know!"