The Car of Destiny
I gave Ropes his way. But I lingered near enough to watch the scene which
followed; and had that innocent-looking jar been broken, or had the
contents of the soaked bouquet exploded of its own accord, I should have
been near enough to share my chauffeur’s fate.
He explained in broken Spanish, eked out with gesture; and the fact that
he was English, with the most honest of English faces to vouch for his
sincerity, helped him. The man in his grasp was Catalán, which was not in
his favour at Seville. The civil guards looked at the jar with respectful
interest, but did not offer to take it; and, after a moment of lively
conversation, Ropes and his captive marched rapidly away with the men in
red, black, and white.
At least, whatever happened now, the King was safe; and Monica was safe.
It was not until eight o’clock, when I went to the quiet hotel where we
had appointed to meet and dine, that I found out anything more. Then they
told me that the King returned to his box after walking in the procession,
and that, soon after, Dick had been surprised by a visit from a member of
the police in plain clothes. The man had come to the O’Donnels’ box,
inquired if the American gentleman were Mr. Waring, asked if he had a
chauffeur named Peter Ropes, and being answered in the affirmative had
told the story of the bomb. Dick had then gone with the policeman to see
Ropes, had made a statement concerning himself, his business, his car, his
chauffeur, his occupation in life, and the friends with whom he was
staying. All had proved satisfactory. Ropes had been thanked by the police
for his promptness and presence of mind, and threatened with active
gratitude from higher quarters. Both had been asked to remain within reach
for a few days; and the episode was over.
But it was not until they heard my part of the story that Dick or the
O’Donnels knew precisely where and how Ropes had come into the drama.
XXXI
BEHIND AN IRON GRATING
“Say,” remarked Dick in a stage whisper, “there’d be a big drop in the bee
industry if all the world turned Protestant and bought no more great wax
candles.”
We were standing inside the Moorish arch of the Puerta del Perdon, in the
Court of Oranges. Beyond, where the stuffed crocodile swung in a light
breeze, was the entrance to the cathedral, black as the mouth of a cave.
The wind which rocked that huge reptile—the gift of a disappointed
Sultan—sent the petals of ten thousand orange blossoms drifting over our
heads in a perfumed snow-storm. Past us trooped a dark-robed brotherhood,
each man with his tall candle raining wax on the grass-grown stones of the
old court.
This it was which had drawn forth Dick’s reflection; but I scarcely heard
his words. I was watching for Monica; and my last chance must come soon if
it were to come at all.
Pilar and her father were not with us. They had gone into the cathedral,
where they had secured seats not far from the royal chapel, and in the
best position to hear the Miserere. Though it was early still, not quite
nine o’clock, vast crowds were gathering and it was possible, they
thought, that Carmona and his guests were already in their places. If they
were seen there, Colonel O’Donnel would send out a messenger (a man
employed in the cathedral) with a word for me.
Earlier, this person had come to the hotel, where he had been told to look
well at me that he might not fail to recognize me again. And Dick and I
had not stood on sentinel duty for fifteen minutes when he appeared,
beating through the opposing tide of the multitude as it swept towards the
cathedral.
“His worship the Colonel O’Donnel, wished their worships the two
señoritos, to know that those they wished to find were not visible in the
cathedral.”
“Could they be there, and invisible?” I asked.
“The cathedral is very dimly lighted; and they might not be seen if they
were in some chapel. There are several with many people in them, and the
doors are locked.”
“Is that allowed?”
“The people have given something to a verger not to let others in. I have
power of the same kind, if any señor wished me to use it.”
“Here they come!” whispered Dick. “Carmona, Lady Vale-Avon, and Lady
Monica.”
We stepped farther back into shadow, though such precaution was hardly
needed. It was so dim in the Court of Oranges that the crowd groped its
way over the cracked, uneven pavement. Only because they were close upon
us, and he was watching, had Dick been able to make out the faces we knew.
“Stop with us,” I said to Colonel O’Donnel’s messenger. “You shall have a
hundred pesetas if you will open the door of an empty chapel for me, and
lock it again when I give the word.”
“But I fear there are no empty ones—” he began.
“Then make one empty. Can you do that—for a hundred pesetas?”
“Yes, señor, I think I can.”
By this time Monica, still in her black mantilla, had flitted past us
between her mother and the Duke, but we were following. Dim as it was in
the court, the moon looked out from behind the Giralda tower, and it was
not dark enough for my project. Inside the cathedral, however (save where
blazed the Holy Week monument, an illuminated temple of white and gold),
was a mysterious darkness. Not the hundreds of great wax candles sufficed
to light the aisles in that vast forest of stone. Stumbling, groping to
pass through a hanging veil of shadow, thousands of men and women drifted
aimlessly to and fro, themselves black as the shadows they fought, save
here and there some soldier whose uniform waked a brief flame of red and
gold, or a hooded brother who glowed purple under a lighted pillar.
Purposely we pushed against the people before us, so that in a space black
as a lake of ink the trio we followed was separated. The rush of people
from behind was so sudden—so well managed by us,—that it took the Duke
unawares. The three were caught in the eddy, divided, and before they
could come together again I had my arm through Monica’s, and was dragging
her away, the messenger clinging to me closely.
“Don’t be frightened,” I said. “It’s I—Ramón. I have to speak with you.”
She looked up at me, her pale face dim as a spirit’s in the dark.
“Shame!” she stammered brokenly. “To force me like this—you, who have—”
“Done nothing except love you too well; and you must give me the chance to
win you back. You owe it to me,” I said almost fiercely; and she was
silenced.
“Monica! where are you?” I heard Lady Vale-Avon’s voice call, and could
have thanked her for giving me the direction to avoid.
“Take us to that empty chapel quickly,” I said to the man. Then he, who
would have known how to find his way in that stone forest blindfold,
steered us through the sea of people, and into a haven beyond the waves.
Not a chapel was lighted; but as my eyes grew used to the gloom I could
see faces on the other side of the tall, shut gates of openwork iron which
we passed.
“I have the key of this one. I will promise the people a better place if
they’ll come out,” whispered the messenger, stopping before a pair of
these closed doors, and unlocking it with a great key.
I heard him speciously informing a group of shadows that they would be too
far from the music to hear it well. He had a friend who would open another
chapel nearer. Eagerly ten or twenty persons snapped at the bait, flocked
out, and the instant their backs were turned, I half dragged, half carried
Monica in. Then before she could escape, if she had wished to try, the
great iron gates were shut and locked upon us.
“They will be looking everywhere for you,” I said. “Come with me to the
back where it is so dark that no one can see us. This chapel must seem to
be empty.”
“I want to be found,” the girl answered cruelly. “I’m going to marry the
Duke.”
“If you love him and not me, I shan’t lift my hand to keep you,” I said.
“The other night I believed it was so, and made up my mind to trouble you
no more. But Miss O’Donnel said—”
“Miss O’Donnel!” exclaimed Monica. “I wonder you can speak of her to me.”
Her voice quivered with angry scorn, yet my heart leaped with joy at the
words which confirmed Pilar’s suspicions and my hopes.
“She’s as loyally your friend as I am loyally your lover,” I assured her.
“Now listen. There are things which you must hear; and if when you’ve
heard them you ask me to take you to your mother and Carmona, I’ll obey
instantly.” Then, without giving her time to cut me short, I began to talk
of the letter I had written at Manzanares, and how I sent it, and what it
had said. “Did you get it?” I asked.
“No such letter as that. It was a very different one—a horrible letter.
Oh, Ramón! if it were true; if _you_ had been true! If you could have gone
on loving me!” She broke into sobbing, and hid her face between her hands.
“Don’t dare to doubt that I did, and always will. Tell me what the letter
said?” I pulled her hands down, too roughly perhaps, and held them fast in
mine.
She tried to check her sobs. “I could show you the letter if there were a
light. Since that day I’ve carried it with me, so that I could look at it
sometimes, and have strength to hate you if my heart failed.”
“My own darling—mine again,” I soothed her. “It’s been a horrible plot. If
that letter was not full of love and longing for you, it was forged; no
doubt after the handwriting of the one I really sent.”
“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 Dick’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 snatched 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