The Car of Destiny
luncheon-hampers, and thin sword-sticks of leather which imitated bamboo
and concealed blades so flexible that they could be rolled up like
watch-springs.
“Let’s all buy presents for each other, in memory of the day,” suggested
Dick; and began by offering Pilar a pair of splendid hatpins. She
retaliated with sleeve-links; so, emboldened by this prelude, I begged
Monica to accept a brooch shaped like a shield. “Now I shall never lack
protection,” said she, with gentle emphasis; and it was well for me that
the Cherub was showing Lady Vale-Avon some marvellous sword passes. “Let
me see,” the girl went on, when she had defiantly pinned the trinket into
her lace cravat, under Carmona’s furious frown. “What shall I give you for
luck? Shall it be a dagger? Where’s the one you were looking at, Duke?”
“I don’t know,” he answered, so angry with me for my presumption that he
could hardly speak, though not daring to show his true feelings and
imperil his chances. “It seems to have disappeared. But we must really go
at once. My mother is tired, and we still have several things to see
before I can take you back to the hotel to rest.”
Purposely, he spoke in a loud tone, and Lady Vale-Avon heard through the
Cherub’s honeyed murmurs. She rose, and called Monica, who was swept away
without finding the dagger.
It was dinner-time when we returned to our hotel; but Carmona’s party did
not appear in the dining-room. We lingered on hoping that they would come,
until it was useless to hope longer, and as we drank black coffee, in the
_patio_, Colonel O’Donnel asked a waiter where were the people who had
lunched with us. “They have taken a private sitting-room,” replied the
man, which was a relief, as I began to be haunted by black fear that
Carmona had flitted by night.
By and by Pilar’s long lashes drooped, and the Cherub, catching her in the
act of stifling a yawn, laughingly ordered her off to bed. “You haven’t
had enough sleep these last few nights to keep a _cigarron_ alive,” said
he. Soon afterwards his own eyes began to look like those of a sleepy
child, and he excused himself with all the ceremony of Spanish
leave-takings. Dick and I were left alone together, and were discussing
what the morrow might bring forth, when a waiter hovered near us, bowing.
“The Excelentísima Señora Duquesa de Carmona would consider it a favour if
Señor Waring and Teniente O’Donnel would visit her in her sitting-room,”
he announced.
Were the heavens about to fall? My lifted eyebrows and Dick’s questioned
each other in bewilderment. But our lips were silent as we followed the
servant.
The sitting-room of the “Excelentísima Señora” was on the first floor,
perhaps a big bedroom hastily transformed. What we expected to see as the
waiter opened the door I hardly know; but we assuredly did not expect to
see the Duchess sitting alone.
The table where the party had dined was covered now by a piece of gaudy,
pseudo-Moorish embroidery, and adorned with flowers. A few guide-books and
novels were scattered about, and in her hand the Duchess held a
paper-covered volume, as if she had been reading. But the expression of
the dark, heavy face contradicted her pose. We could see that she was
excited.
“Forgive my not rising, as I am tired,” she said, as we came in. “It is
kind of you to be so prompt, and I thank you.” Then she paused, and we
waited.
“I beg you to sit down. I want the pleasure of a talk.”
We obeyed. And still waited.
“I am a little embarrassed,” went on the Duchess. “You must be patient.
What I wish to say is difficult. And yet the Señor Teniente, being himself
Spanish, will understand. We are in Spain, the land of formality and rigid
etiquette, among people of our class. That an automobile with two young
unmarried men in it (and even Colonel O’Donnel is a widower, not old)—that
such an automobile should be closely following ours which contains a
beautiful girl, is calculated to cause gossip. Everywhere we go along this
route my son and I have acquaintances, friends; and already there has been
talk, which flies from place to place in gossiping letters between women.
I am sure you would not like to think that you had caused me this distress
on account of my sweet young guest and her mother?”
Never had I been more completely taken aback. She had us at her mercy; for
how is a man to fight against a woman?
“We are motoring in your direction,” I said lamely. “The chances of the
road bring us together.”
“Ah! but I ask you, as a woman of my age may ask a favour of young men
like you, señores, not to take those chances. If it is as you say—and of
course I believe—that you happen to be motoring on our road, it would be
no great hardship to delay and give us a longer start. Remember, it is for
the sake of a young girl, and for an old woman’s peace of mind. Will you
do this kindness, then, for me?”
She had struck me dumb. I did not know how to answer her, and she knew it.
Even Dick, with his quick Yankee wit, for once was unready. And indeed,
the Duchess had us at a hateful disadvantage.
“We are in something of a hurry, Señora Duquesa,” I stammered awkwardly.
“Then, rather than cause you loss of time, we will be off very early, and
go as far as may be in the day. If we leave at—let us say seven o’clock
to-morrow, it would not be too inconvenient for you to wait till nine?
That is all I ask; and to stay the night at Manzanares instead of trying
to get on to some other stopping place. If you promise this, you are
honourable men, and I know you will keep your word.”
She had her lesson well, and had evidently rehearsed it with her son, for
this lymphatic, weary-eyed woman was not one to know in advance the names
of halting places on an automobile tour. It was clever of Carmona to use
his mother’s plump hand as a cat’s-paw to pull his chestnuts from the
fire; but it was not brave, because he must know that we could not let it
touch the flames.
I thought for a moment in silence. Only boors could in so many words
refuse such a request, put with apparent frankness by a woman old enough
to be their mother. Yet I must not be trapped into promising anything that
could separate me from Monica.
To be near her, at her service always, was the one thing of supreme
importance; but to throw aside my sheep’s clothing and declare myself a
wolf would be to lose her; for the instant that Carmona was sure of my
identity he would denounce me. I would be sent across the frontier while
Monica remained with him, unprotected save by her mother, who was his
loyal friend. This was sure to happen, even if I did not count the trouble
I might cause Colonel O’Donnel if I were arrested while posing as his son.
It seemed to me that we must agree to do what the Duchess asked, and,
while keeping the letter of our promise, take means to see Monica in
Seville. There, I must let her know all that had taken place, even if I
could not communicate with her before. And I must implore her to come away
with me lest some plot had been hatched meanwhile behind my back.
“What do you think, Waring?” I said. Then, giving him a cue, “I feel that
we must consent, even though we may not see things according to the
Duchess’s point of view.”
“Why, of course, a man can’t refuse a lady; a lady generally knows that,”
Dick answered, avenging our wrongs with one sharp dig.
She thanked us effusively. “Then I may depend on you?” she asked, looking
at me.
“You may depend upon us,” I said. “And pray don’t trouble to leave at an
inconvenient time. My friend and I promise you two hours’ start.”
XXII
THE LUCK OF THE DREAM-BOOK
It was late, and Monica must have gone to bed, therefore it was impossible
to send her a message. Next morning I was up early, and had my coffee and
roll on a little table in the _patio_, in the hope of snatching a word
with her. But she came down as closely attended by her mother and the
Duchess as if she had been a queen, and they her ladies-in-waiting. I had
only a chance to say good-bye, as they were ready to drive off; and when I
would have added a hasty explanation of our delay, the Duchess began to
speak, so that Monica was whisked away without hearing.
“Wicked—old—_cat!_” was Pilar’s exclamation when Dick told her the story
of last night’s dilemma. But when asked what she would have done in our
place, her invention failed; and the Cherub approved our course.
The others had taken full advantage of our generosity, and had not left
Toledo till nine. Therefore, according to our contract, we were obliged to
wait until eleven, surprising Ropes by our procrastination.
But as we were on the point of spinning away from the hotel, a goat-herd
turned the corner at the head of his shaggy flock. The man, tanned a dark
bronze with constant exposure, wore his rags with the air of a king
marching to conquest, and rather than show vulgar curiosity, strode past
scarcely deigning a look at the automobile, though it was as likely as not
the first he had ever seen. His goats, equally unconcerned, strayed among
our wheels without hurry, and when they chose clattered off with much play
of little cloven hoofs on cobblestones. A sharper note of contrast could
hardly have been struck, Dick and I said to each other. A meeting between
the automobile, latest product of man’s restless invention, made to fly
across states and continents, and the goat-herd whose knowledge of the
world might extend ten miles beyond the place where, since his birth, he
had carried on one of the most ancient occupations on the globe. So the
ages seemed united, and Virgil and Theocritus brought suddenly face to
face with Maeterlinck and Henley; and an instant later we had taken a
small excursion into the middle ages of superstition. Pilar told us
gravely that in a volume of “Dreams and Love Lore,” valued beyond all
other books by the young girls of Andalucía, one read that it brought good
luck to lovers to meet a flock of goats when starting on a journey in the
morning.
Thus encouraged to hope for what I dared not expect, we set off, again and
again finding ourselves hard put to it to get the long chassis of the
Gloria round sharp corners of narrow streets. More than once it could be
done only by backing the car, a feat which was witnessed with cries of
astonishment by a crowd of water-sellers with painted tin vessels, milkmen
on donkey back, knife-grinders, and Murillo cherubs who were following to
see us off. Thus attended we slid down the steep hill which twisted past
the old fortifications of Toledo, and brought us out at last upon the
Puente de Alcántara, that most wonderful bridge of all the world.
The Tagus, grandest river in Spain, and golden as old father Tiber
himself, plunged through his narrow gorge a hundred feet below the arch of
stone, and on either hand stood up the sun-baked cliffs, Toledo seated on
their summit, crowned with towers, like an empress upon her throne. Far
beneath, in the swirl of yellow water were Moorish mills, white with age,
grinding corn for their new masters.
As we passed across the bridge at a foot-pace between strings of tasselled
and jingling mules, little grey donkeys loaded with pigskins of wine,
brown jugs of olive oil, or bags of meal, and charming children who
offered us roses for a _perrilla_, we had our last sight of the cathedral
spires. The voice of a young girl, washing white and blue clothing in a
trough of running water, sped us upon our journey. Her head was bound in a
scarlet handkerchief; and smiling at us while she pounded the linen, she
sang a strange song, half chant, with that wild Eastern lilt which has
been handed down from the Moors to the sons and daughters of Spain.
“She’s improvising a _copla!_” exclaimed Pilar. “Listen; it’s for you,