The Car of Destiny Part 39

"You mean my mother-would do a thing like that?"

"She might have justified it by telling herself that the end sanctified the means."

"I know-she was ready to do almost anything to turn me from you," Monica admitted, leaning against me so confidingly that all I had suffered was forgotten. "I couldn't have believed this of her; but-she did tell me the night before Manzanares that at Toledo she heard you calling Pilar O'Donnel, 'darling.' 'Young Mr. O'Donnel seems very fond of his sister,'

mother said, looking straight at me, though she seemed to speak innocently. 'I heard him call her "darling girl." ' You can imagine how I felt! But I hoped she was mistaken, or that she'd invented it to make me unhappy; so I wouldn't let myself be _very_ unhappy, only a little distressed. Because, you know, Miss O'Donnel is awfully pretty and perfectly fascinating. Mother said, the night we were at Manzanares, that she was one of those girls whom most men fall irresistibly in love with; and-and I loved you so much, I couldn't help being jealous."

"As if any man could even _see_ poor little Pilar, when you were near!" I exclaimed, forgetting d.i.c.k's difference of opinion.

"Oh, I had faith in you, then. But next morning that pretty Mariquita handed me a letter, which I was sure was from you, as she hid it behind a tin of hot water. I was taking it, when mother saw, and s.n.a.t.c.hed it away.

You can't imagine the things I said to her, to make her give it back. I was so furious, that for once in my life I wasn't in the least afraid, and I would have tried to rush past her and run out to you, when she'd refused to give the letter up, but I wasn't dressed. My room had no door of its own. I had to go through mother's room to get out; and before I knew what she was doing, she'd slammed the door between us, locking it on her side.

I hadn't even a proper window, only a little barred, square thing, high up in the wall. I couldn't scream for help, even if I hadn't been ashamed to make a scene in a strange hotel; so what was I to do.

"She kept me there, wild with rage against her, for quite an hour after I was dressed and ready to dart out when I had the chance; but at last she unlocked the door, looking very grave. 'I've opened your letter,' she said, 'and read it, as it was my duty and my right to do. It is different from what I expected, and I've decided after all that it's as well you should have it.'

"Then she handed me a torn envelope, and I recognized it as the one we had crumpled up between us when she s.n.a.t.c.hed it away. Your handwriting was on it, and I never doubted it was yours inside, though it looked as if you'd written in a hurry, with a bad pen. No name was signed; but the letter said you thought it best to tell me, without waiting longer, that you feared we'd both been hasty and made a mistake in our feelings. Our meeting was romantic, and we'd been carried away by our youth and hot blood. Now you'd had time to see that it would be unwise of me to give up a man like the Duke of Carmona for one unworthy enough to have fallen in love with another girl. Accordingly, you released me from all obligations, and took it for granted that you were also free. Then you bade me good-bye, wishing me a happy future in case your car and the Duke's happened to go on by different ways. Do you wonder I tried to hate you, and that I said 'yes' the very next night, when the Duke asked me again if I wouldn't change my mind and marry him?"

For answer, I caught her against my breast, and we clung to each other as if we could never part.

"Such a promise is no promise," I said at last. "I have you, and I don't mean to let you go, lest I lose you for ever. Monica, will you trust yourself to me, and run away with me to-night?"

"Yes," she whispered. "I daren't go back to them. But what shall we do?"

"I'll tell you what I've been thinking," I said. "My car isn't far off.

Colonel O'Donnel and Pilar, who'd do anything for you and me, are in the cathedral. Just outside this chapel the man who locked us in is waiting for my signal to open the door. With the O'Donnels and d.i.c.k Waring to see you through, will you motor with me to Cadiz, take ship for Gibraltar, and marry me on English soil?"

"Suppose there should be no ship for days?" she hesitated.

"There is one nearly every day; but at worst I can hire a boat of some sort."

"Once we were in Gibraltar, you'd be out of reach if the Duke tried to take revenge," she said. "Yes, I _will_ go! I love you and I can't give you up again. Oh, Ramon, I never would have promised to marry him, if I hadn't longed to show you that-that I didn't care, and that there was someone who wanted me very much, if you didn't."

"How like a woman!" I exclaimed, laughing-for I could laugh now.

"He has only kissed my hand," she went on, "and I hated even that."

"Yet you're wearing his brooch," a returning flash of jealousy made me say; "and a mantilla, to please him."

"The brooch is his mother's. So is the mantilla. She at least has been kind; so I let her put them both on for me to-day, when she asked."

"Kind? When there's time I'll tell you one or two things. But now there's no time for anything except to take you away."

"Listen! The Miserere has begun," she said. "Has it been long? I heard it only now. Can we get out before it's over?"

"Of course we can-though not quite as easily, perhaps, as if the crowd were moving with us. However, we can't afford to wait."

"What wonderful music!" Monica whispered. "I wish I dared to feel it were blessing us."

"Yes, feel it so," I said, and involuntarily was silent to listen for an instant to the melodious flood which swept from aisle to aisle in golden billows. Out from the wave of organ music and men's voices, boyish soprano notes sprayed high, flinging their bright crystals up, up, until they fell, shattered, from the vaulted ceiling of stone.

From each dimly seen column shot forth one of those slender-stemmed, flaming white lilies of light, such as had bloomed in Our Lady's garden, as the _pasos_ moved blossoming through the streets. It seemed as if they might have been gathered and replanted here, to lighten the darkness; and as the music soared and sank, its waves set the lily-flames flickering.

I peered out, and saw my man hovering near. In the gloom he did not catch the signal I gave him with my hand, but when I shook a handkerchief between the gratings he came quickly. As he unlocked the doors I slid the promised bribe into his palm; and having glanced about to make sure as far as possible that we were not watched, I called Monica.

"Take us out by the nearest way," I said; and the man began to hurry us officiously through the crowd.

Monica clung to me tightly, and I could feel the tremblings that ran through her body. My heart was pounding too; for it is when the ship is nearest home, after a stormy voyage, that the captain remembers he has nerves. It seemed too marvellous to be true, that the girl was mine at last, and yet-what could separate us, now that I held her close against my side, and she was ready to go with me, out of her world into mine?

"This way, this way, senorito," our guide warned me, plucking at my arm as I steered ahead, confused by a thousand moving shadows. I followed, brushing sharply against a tall man in conical _capucha_ and trailing robe of blue. He turned, his masked face close to mine, so close that even in the dusk I caught a flash of glittering eyes. Then, giving me a sudden push, he cried out, "Help-murder! An anarchist-a free-thinker! To the rescue!"

It was Carmona's voice, and I knew instantly that he must have borrowed this dress from some friend in the cathedral-perhaps a member of the _cofrada_ to which he himself belonged-so that he could search for me and Monica, without being seen by us.

Thrusting the girl behind me, yet keeping her close, I hurled him away, but he sprang at me again, and this time something glittered in his right hand. I fought with him for it, and pulled a slim length of steel up through his closed fingers, so that the sharp dagger-blade must have cut him to the bone. He gave a cry, and relaxed his grasp; but though he was disabled for the instant a dozen men in the crowd, which swirled round us now, caught and held me fast. Monica was wrenched from me; the dagger had fallen to the ground (but not before I had seen it was of Toledo make); the figure in the blue _capucha_ was swept out of my sight, and I was fighting like a madman in a strait-jacket for freedom.

x.x.xII

ON THE ROAD TO CADIZ

It was a mouse who gnawed a hole in the net that entangled the lion.

Now, I am no lion in importance, nor was Colonel O'Donnel's messenger of as little significance as a mouse; yet he was the last creature to whom I would have looked for succour in a moment of stress. Nevertheless to him I owed my rescue.

"A mistake, a mistake," he chirped, jumping about, bird-like, just outside the circle of struggling men. "I am a verger here; this gentleman was with me. He did nothing. He is a most respectable and twice wealthy person, a tourist whom I guide. He is innocent-no anarchist, no free-thinker. That other-that pretended brother-has made a practical joke. See, he has run away to escape consequences. There is nothing against this n.o.ble senor; you have it on the word of a verger."

Because it was bewilderingly dark, and they might have got the wrong man; because, too, the verger was probably right, and it had been a joke played upon them by a person who had now disappeared, the twelve or fifteen men who surrounded me fell back shamefacedly, glad on second thoughts to melt away before they could be identified and reproached for disturbing the public peace, and spoiling the music to which their King listened.

I was free, but I would not leave the cathedral yet, for my hope was to find Monica again. I wandered in every direction, while the verger went off to bring d.i.c.k and the O'Donnels to meet me in the Orange Court.

Pilar's delight in the first part of my story was dashed by the sequel. Of course, she said, it must come right in the end, since Monica and I understood each other at last. But just for the moment everything seemed difficult. The Duke was sure now that I was Casa Triana, and not Cristobal O'Donnel. He would almost certainly make all the trouble he could, and a man of his influence could make a good deal. As his attempt to stick a dagger into me-by way of a quick solution-had been covered by the _capucha_ of a _cofrada_, I could not take revenge by laying a counter accusation. I might say I had recognized his voice, and that I thought I had recognized the dagger bought in Toledo; but I could prove nothing, and the Duke would score.

Still, as the Cherub remarked consolingly, he could not do much worse than force me out of Spain. Neither I, nor anyone else, had ever said in so many words that I was Cristobal O'Donnel. If people had taken my ident.i.ty for granted because of a few round-about hints, and because for a joke I had borrowed a friend's uniform for a day or two, nothing very serious could be made out of that after all; and as Cristobal really was on leave, he need not be involved. He was a good officer, whose services were valued, and I was not to worry lest harm should come upon him. I need think only of Monica and of myself. Had I formed any idea of what to do next?

"I must get Monica out of Carmona's house," I said.

"You'll have to lie in wait and s.n.a.t.c.h her from under their noses next time they show them," suggested d.i.c.k; "unless-"

"Unless?"

"Carmona keeps his indoors until he's arranged to have yours politely deported."

"I can't be got rid of in an hour."

"You could to-morrow."