The Velvet Glove Part 23

It was seven o'clock when they halted at a roadside inn. Sarrion quitted the saddle and went indoors to order coffee while Marcos sat on his tall black horse scanning the road in front of him. The valley of the Ebro is flat here, with bare, brown hills rising on either side like a gigantic mud-fence. Strings of carts were making their way towards Saragossa. Far away, Marcos could perceive a recurrent break in the dusty line. A cart or carriage traveling at a greater than the ordinary market pace was making its laborious way past the heavier traffic. It came at length within clearer sight; a carriage all white with dust and a pair of skinny, Aragonese horses such as may be hired on the road.

The driver seemed to recognise Marcos, for he smiled and raised his hand to his hat as he drew up at the inn, a recognised halting-place before the last stage of the journey.

Marcos caught sight of a white cap inside the carriage. He leant down on his horse's neck and perceived Sor Teresa, who had not seen him looking out of the carriage window towards the inn. He rode round to the other door and dropped out of the saddle. Then he turned the handle and opened the door. But Sor Teresa had no intention of descending. She leant forward to say as much and recognised her nephew.

"You!" she exclaimed. And her pale face flushed suddenly. She had been a nun for many years and was no doubt a conscientious one, but she had never yet learnt to remove all her love from earth to fix it on heaven.

"Yes."

"How did you know that I should be here?"

"I guessed it," answered Marcos, who was always practical. "You will like some coffee. It is ordered. Come in and warm yourself while the horses rest."

He led the way towards the inn.

"What did you say?" he asked, turning on the threshold; for he had heard her mutter something.

"I said, 'Thank G.o.d'!"

"What for?"

"For your brains, my dear," she answered. "And your strong heart."

Sarrion was making up the fire when they entered the room--lithe and young in his riding costume--and he turned, smiling, to meet her. She kissed him gravely. There was always something unexplained between these two, something to be said which made them both silent.

"There is the coffee," said Marcos, "on the table. We have no time to spare."

"Marcos means," explained Sarrion significantly, "that we have no time to waste."

"I think he is right," said Sor Teresa.

"Then if that is the case, let us at least speak plainly," said Sarrion, "with a due regard," he allowed, with a shrug of the shoulder, "to your vows and your position, and all that. We must not embroil you with your confessor; nor Juanita with hers."

"You need not think of that so far as Juanita is concerned," said Sor Teresa. "It is I who have chosen her confessor."

"Where is she?" asked Marcos.

"She is here, in Saragossa!"

"Why?" asked the man of few words.

"I don't know."

"Where is she in Saragossa?"

"I don't know. I have not seen her for a fortnight. I only learnt by accident yesterday afternoon that she had been brought to Saragossa with some other girls who have been postulants for six months and are about to become novices."

"But Juanita is not a postulant," said Sarrion, with a laugh.

"She may have been told to consider herself one."

"But no one has a right to do that," said Sarrion pleasantly.

"No."

"And even if she were a novice she could draw back."

"There are some Orders," replied Sor Teresa, slowly stirring her coffee, "which make it a matter of pride never to lose a novice."

"Excuse my pertinacity," said Sarrion. "I know that you prefer generalities to anything of a personal nature, but does Juanita wish to go into religion?"

"As much ..." She paused.

"Or as little," suggested Marcos, who was looking out of the window.

"As many who have entered that life." Sor Teresa completed the sentence without noticing Marcos' interruption.

"And these periods of probation," said Sarrion, reverting to those generalities which form the language of the cloister. "May they be dispensed with?"

"Anything can be dispensed with--by a dispensation," was the reply.

Sarrion laughed, and with an easy tact changed the subject which could scarcely be a pleasant one between a professed nun and two men known all over Spain as leaders in that party which was erroneously called Anti-Clerical, because it held that the Church should not have the dominant voice in politics.

"Have you seen our friend, Evasio Mon, lately?" he asked.

"Yes--he is on the road behind me."

"Behind you? I understood that he left Pampeluna yesterday for Saragossa," said Sarrion.

"Yes--but I heard at Alagon that he was delayed on the road at the Castejon side of Alagon--an accident to his carriage--a broken wheel."

"Ah!" said Sarrion sympathetically. He glanced at Marcos who was looking out of the window with a thoughtful smile.

"You yourself have had a hurried journey from Pampeluna," said Sarrion to his sister. "I hear the railway line is broken by the Carlists."

"The damage is being repaired," replied Sor Teresa. "My journey was not a pleasant one, but that is of no importance since I have arrived."

"Why did you come?" asked Marcos, bluntly. He was a plain-dealer in thought and word. If Sor Teresa should embroil herself with her confessor, as Sarrion had gracefully put it, by answering his questions, that was her affair.

"I came to prevent, if I could, a great mistake."

"You mean that Juanita is quite unfitted for the life into which, for the sake of his money, she is being forced or tricked."

"Force has failed," replied Sor Teresa. "Juanita has spirit. She laughed in the face of force and refused absolutely."

"And?" muttered Sarrion.

"One may presume that subtler means were used," answered the nun.