The Spanish Brothers Part 30

"You will _never_ leave it, then," said Don Manuel. "And you must hold me excused from aiding and abetting your folly. Your brother's business has cost me and mine more than enough already. I had rather ten thousand times that a man had died of the plague in my house, were it for the scandal's sake alone! Nor, bad as it is, is the scandal all.

Since that miserable night, my unhappy son Gonsalvo, in whose apartment the arrest took place, has been sick unto death, and out of his mind."

"Don Gonsalvo! What brought my brother to his room?"

"The devil, whose servant he is, may know; I do not. He was found there, in his sword and cloak, as if ready to go forth, when the officers came."

"Did he leave no message--no word for me?"

"Not one word. I know not if he spoke at all, save to offer to show the Alguazils his personal effects. To do him justice, nothing suspicious was found amongst them. But the less said on the subject the better. I wash my hands of it, and of him. I thought he would have done honour to the family; but he has proved its sorest disgrace."

"Senor, what you say of him you say of me also," said Juan, glowing white with anger. "And already I have heard quite enough."

"That is as you please, Senor Don Juan."

"I shall only trespa.s.s upon you for the favour you have promised me--permission to wait upon Dona Beatriz."

"I shall apprise her of your presence, and give her leave to act as she sees fit." And glad to put an end to the interview, Don Manuel left the room.

Juan sank into a seat once more, and gave himself up to an agony of grief for his brother.

So absorbed was he in his sorrow, that a light footstep entered and approached unheard by him. At last a small hand touched his arm. He started and looked up. Whatever his anguish of heart might be, he was still the loyal lover of Dona Beatriz. So the next moment found him on his knees saluting that hand with his lips. And then followed certain ceremonies abundantly interesting to those who enact them, but apt to prove tedious when described.

"My lady's devoted slave," said Don Juan, using the ordinary language of the time, "bears a breaking heart to-day. We knew neither father nor mother; there were but the two of us."

"Did you not receive my letter, praying you to remain at Nuera?" asked the lady.

"Pardon me, queen of my heart, in that I dared to disregard a wish of yours. But I knew _his_ danger, and I came to save him. Alas! too late."

"I am not sure that I do pardon you, Don Juan."

"Then, I presume so far as to say, that I know Dona Beatriz better than she knows herself. Indeed, had I acted otherwise, she would scarce have pardoned me. How would it have been possible for me to consult for my own safety, leaving him alone and unaided, in such fearful peril?"

"You acknowledge there is peril--_to you_?"

"There may be, senora."

"Ay de mi! Why, in Heaven's name, have you thus involved yourself? O Don Juan, you have dealt very cruelly with me!"

"Light of my eyes, life of my life, what mean you by these words?"

"Was it not cruel to allow your brother, with his gentle, winning ways, and his soft specious words, to lead you step by step from the faith of our fathers, until he had you entangled in I know not what horrible heresies, and made you put in peril your honour, your liberty, your life--everything?"

"We only sought Truth."

"Truth!" echoed the lady, with a contemptuous stamp of her small foot and twirl of her fan. "What is Truth? What good will Truth do me if those cruel men drag you from your bed at midnight, take you to that dreadful place, stretch you on the rack?" But that last horror was too much to bear; Dona Beatrix hid her face in her hands, and wept and sobbed pa.s.sionately.

Juan soothed her with every tender, lover-like art. "I will be very prudent, dearest lady," he said at last; adding, as he gazed on her beautiful face, "I have too much to live for not to hold life very precious."

"Will you promise to fly--to leave the city now, before suspicions are awakened which may make flight impossible?"

"My first and my only love, I would die to fulfil your slightest wish.

But this thing I cannot do."

"And wherefore not, Senor Don Juan?"

"Can you ask? I must hazard everything, spend everything, in the chance--if there be a chance--of saving him, or, at least, of softening his fate."

"Then G.o.d help us both," said Dona Beatriz.

"Amen! Pray to him day and night, senora. Perhaps he may have pity on us."

"There is no chance of saving Don Carlos. Know you not that of all the prisoners the Holy House receives, scarce one in a thousand goes forth again to take his place in the world?"

Juan shook his head. He knew well that his task was almost hopeless; yet, even by Dona Beatriz, he was not to be moved from his determination.

But he thanked her in strong, pa.s.sionate words for her faith in him and her truth to him. "No sorrow can divide us, my beloved," he said, "nor even what they call shame, falsely as they speak therein. You are my star, that s.h.i.+nes on me throughout the darkness."

"I have promised."

"My uncle's family may seek to divide us, and I think they will. But the lady of my heart will not heed their idle words?"

Dona Beatriz smiled. "I am a Lavella," she said. "Do you not know our motto?--'True unto death.'"

"It is a glorious motto. May it be mine too."

"Take heed what you do, Don Juan. If you love me, you will look well to your footsteps, since, wherever they lead, mine are bound to follow."

Saying this, she rose, and stood gazing in his face with flushed cheek and kindling eyes.

The words were such as might thrill any lover's heart with joy and grat.i.tude. Yet there was something in the look which accompanied them that changed joy and grat.i.tude into vague fear and apprehension. The light in that dark eye seemed borrowed from the fire of some sublime but terrible resolve within. Juan's heart quailed, though he knew not why, as he said, "My queen should never tread except through flowery paths."

Dona Beatriz took up a little golden crucifiz that, attached to a rosary of coral beads, hung from her girdle. "You see this cross, Don Juan?"

"Yes, senora mia."

"On that horrible night when they dragged your brother to prison, I swore a sacred oath upon it. You esteemed me a child, Don Juan, when you read me chapters from your book, and talked freely to me about G.o.d, and faith, and the soul's salvation. Perchance I was a child in some things. For I supposed them good words; how could they be otherwise, since you spoke them? I listened and believed, after a fas.h.i.+on; half thinking all the time of the pretty fans and trinkets you brought me, or of the pattern of such and such an one's mantilla that I had seen at ma.s.s. But your brother tore the veil from my eyes at last, and made me understand that those specious words, with which a child played childishly, were the crime that finds no pardon here or hereafter. Of the hereafter I know not; of the here I know too much, G.o.d help me!

There be fair ladies, not more deeply involved than I, who have changed their gilded saloons for the dungeons of the Triana. But then it matters not so much about me. For I am not like other girls, who have fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers to care for them. Saving Don Carlos (who was good to me for your sake), no one ever gave me more than the half-sorrowful, half-pitying kindness one might give a pet parrot from the Indies. Therefore, thinking over all things, and knowing well your reckless nature, Senor Don Juan, I swore that night upon this holy cross, that if by evil hap _you_ were attainted for heresy, _I_ would go next day to the Triana and accuse myself of the same crime."

Juan did not for a moment doubt that she would do it; and thus a chain, light as silk but strong as adamant, was flung around him.

"Dona Beatriz, for my sake--" he began to plead.

"For _my_ sake, Don Juan will take care of his life and liberty," she interrupted, with a smile that, if it had a little sadness, had very far more of triumph in it. She knew the power her resolve gave her over him: she had bought it dearly, and she meant to use it. "Is it _still_ your wish to remain here," she continued; "or will you go abroad, and wait for better times?"

Juan paused for a moment.

"No choice is left me while Carlos pines uncomforted in a dungeon," he said at last, firmly, though very sorrowfully.

"Then you know what you risk, that is all," answered the lady, whose will was a match for his.