The Spanish Jade Part 10

A couple of days at the Escorial, with nothing of Manuela to interfere, served Manvers to recover his tone. Before he was in the capital he was again that good and happy traveller, to whom all things come well in their seasons, to whom the seasons of all things are the seasons at which they come. He liked the bustle and flaunt of Madrid, he liked its brazen front, its crowded _carreras_, and appet.i.te for shows.

There was hardly a day when the windows of the Puerta del Sol had not carpets on their balconies. Files of halberdiers went daily to and from the Palace and the Atocha, escorting some gilded, swinging coach; and every time the Madrilenos serried and craned their heads. "_Viva Isabella!_" "_Abajo Don Carlos!_" or sometimes the other way about, the cries went up. Politics buzzed all about the square in the mornings; evening brimmed the cafes.

Manvers resumed his soul, became again the amused observer. Gil Perez bided his time, and contented himself with being the perfect body-servant, which he undoubtedly was.

On the first Sunday after arrival, without any order, he laid before his master a ticket for the _corrida_, such a one as comported with his dignity; but not until he was sure of his ground did he presume to discuss the gory spectacle. Then, at dinner, he discovered that Manvers had been more interested in the spectators than the fray, and allowed himself free discourse. The Queen and the Court, the _alcalde_ and the Prime Minister, the _manolos_ and _manolas_--he had plenty to say, and to leave unsaid. He just glanced at the performers--impossible to omit the _espada_--Corchuelo, the first in Spain. But the fastidious in Manvers was awake and edgy. He had not liked the bull-fight; so Gil Perez kept out of the arena. "I see one very grand old gentleman there, master," was one of his chance casts.

"You see 'im? 'E grandee of Espain, too much poor, proud all the same.

Put 'is 'at on so soon the Queen come in--Don Luis Ramonez de Alavia."

"Who's he?" asked Manvers.

"Great gentleman of Valladolid," said Gil Perez. "Grandee of Espain--no money--only pride." He did not add, as he might, that he had seen Manuela, or was pretty sure that he had. That was delicate ground.

But Manvers, who had forgotten all about her, went cheerfully his ways, and amused himself in his desultory fas.h.i.+on. After the close-pent streets of Segovia, where the wayfarer seems throttled by the houses, and one looks up for light and pants towards the stars and the air, he was pleased by the breadth of Madrid. The Puerto del Sol was magnificent--like a lake; the Alcala and San Geronimo were n.o.ble rivers, feeding it. He liked them at dawn when the hose-pipe had been newly at work and these great s.p.a.ces of emptiness lay gleaming in the mild sunlight, exhaling freshness like that of dewy lawns. When, under the glare of noon, they lay slumbrous, they were impressive by their prodigality of width and scope; in the bustle and hum of dusk, with the cafes filling, and spilling over on to the pavements, he could not tire of them; but at night, the mystery of their magic enthralled him. How could one sleep in such a city? The Puerto del Sol was then a sea of dark fringed with sh.o.r.es of bright light. The two huge feeders of it--with what argosies they teemed! Shrouded craft!

[Ill.u.s.tration: Madrid by night.]

That touch of the East, which you can never miss in Spain, wherever you may be, was unmistakable in Madrid, in spite of Court and commerce, in spite of newspaper, Stock Exchange, or Cortes. The cloaked figures moved silently, swiftly, seldom in pairs, without speech, with footfall scarcely audible. Now and again Manvers heard the throb of a guitar, now and again, with sudden clamour, the clack of castanets. But such noises stopped on the instant, and the traffic was resumed--whatever it was--secret, swift, impenetrable business.

For the most part this traffic of the night was conducted by men--young or old, as may be. The _capa_ hid them all, kept their semblance as secret as their affairs. Here and there, but rarely, walked a woman, superbly, as Spanish women will, with a self-sufficiency almost arrogantly strong, robed in white, hooded with a white veil. The mantilla came streaming from the comb, swathed her pale cheeks and enhanced her l.u.s.trous eyes; but from top to toe she was (whatever else; she may have been, and it was not difficult to guess) in white.

Manvers watched them pa.s.s and repa.s.s; at a distance they looked like moths, but close at hand showed the carriage and intolerance of queens.

They looked at him fairly as they pa.s.sed, unashamed and unconcerned.

Their eyes asked nothing from him, their lips wooed him not. There was none of the invitation such women extend elsewhere; far otherwise, it was the men who craved, the women who dispensed. When they listened it was as to a pet.i.tioner on his knees, when they gave it was like an alms. Imperious, free-moving, high-headed creatures, they interested him deeply.

It was true, as Gil Perez was quick to see, that at his first bull-fight Manvers had been unmoved by the actors, but stirred to the deeps by the spectators; if he had cared to see another it would have been to explore the secrets of this wonderful people, who could become animals without ceasing to be men and women. But why jostle on a bench, why endure the dust and glare of a _corrida_ when you can see what Madrid can show you: the women by the Manzanares, or the nightly dramas of the streets?

Love in Spain, he began to learn, is a terrible thing; a grim tussle of wills, a matter of life and death, of meat and drink. He saw lovers, still as death, with upturned faces, tense and white, eating the iron of guarded balconies. Hour by hour they would stand there, waiting, watching, hoping on. No one interfered, no one remarked them. He heard a woman wail for her lover--wail and rock herself about, careless of who saw or heard her, and indeed neither seen nor heard. Once he saw a couple close together, vehement speech between them. A lovers'

quarrel, terrible affair! The words seemed to scald. The man had had his say, and now it was her turn. He listened to her, touched but not persuaded--had his reasons, no doubt. But she! Manvers had not believed the heart of a girl could hold such a gamut of emotions. She was young, slim, very pale; her face was as white as her robe. But her eyes were like burning lakes; and her voice, hoa.r.s.e though she had made herself, had a cry in it as sharp as a violin's, to out the very soul of you. She spoke with her hands too, with her shoulders and bosom, with her head and stamping foot. She never faltered though she ran from scorn of him to deep scorn of herself, and appealed in turn to his pride, his pity, his honour and his l.u.s.t. She had no reticence, set no bounds: she was everything, or nothing; he was a G.o.d, or dirt of the kennel. In the end--and what a climax!--she stopped in the middle of a sentence, covered her eyes, sobbed, gave a broken cry, turned and fled away.

The man, left alone, spread his arms out, and lifted his face to the sky, as if appealing for the compa.s.sion of Heaven. Manvers could see by the light of a lamp which fell upon him that there were tears in his eyes. He was pitying himself deeply. "Senor Jesu, have pity!" Manvers heard him saying. "What could I do? Woe upon me, what could I do?"

To him there, as he stood wavering, returned suddenly the girl. As swiftly as she had gone she came back, like a white squall. "Ah, son of a thief? Ah, son of a dog!" and she struck him down with a knife over the shoulder-blade. He gasped, groaned, and dropped; and she was upon his breast in a minute, moaning her pity and love. She stroked his face, crooned over him, lavished the loveliest vocables of her tongue upon his worthless carcase, and won him by the very excess of her pa.s.sion. The fallen man turned in her arms, and met her lips with his.

Manvers, shaking with excitement, left them. Here again was a Manuela!

Manuela, her burnt face on fire, her eyes blown fierce by rage, her tawny hair streaming in the wind; Manuela with a knife, hacking the life out of Esteban, came vividly before him. Ah, those soft lips of hers could bare the teeth; within an hour of his kissing her she must have bared them, when she snarled on that other. And her eyes which had peered into his, to see if liking were there--how had they gleamed.

upon the man she slew? Her sleekness then was that of the cat; but she had had no claws for him.

Why had she left him her crucifix? After all, had she murdered the fellow, or protected herself? She told the monk that she had been driven into a corner--to save Manvers and herself. Was he to believe that--or his own eyes? His eyes had just seen a Spanish girl with her lover, and his judgment was warped. Manuela might be of that sort--she had not been so to him. Nor could she ever be so, since there was no question of love between them now, and never could be.

"Come now," thus he reasoned with himself. "Come now, let us be reasonable." He had pulled her out of a scuffle and she had been grateful; she was pretty, he had kissed her. She was grateful, and had knifed a man who meant him mischief--and she had left him a crucifix.

Grat.i.tude again. What had her gipsy skin and red kerchief to do with her heart and conscience? "Beware, my son, of the pathetic fallacy,"

he told himself, and as he turned into the carrera San Geronimo, beheld Manuela robed in white pa.s.s along the street.

He knew her immediately, though her face had but flashed upon him, and there was not a st.i.tch upon her to remind him of the ragged creature of the plain. A white mantilla covered her hair, a white gown hid her to the ankles. He had a glimpse of a white stocking, and remarked her high-heeled white slippers. Startling transformation! But she walked like a free-moving creature of the open, and breasted the hot night as if she had been speeding through a woodland way. That was Manuela, who had lulled a man to save him.

After a moment or so of hesitation he followed her, keeping his distance. She walked steadily up the _carrera_, looking neither to right nor to left. Many remarked her, some tried to stop her. A soldier followed her pertinaciously, till presently she turned upon him in splendid rage and bade him be off.

Manvers praised her for that, and, quickening, gained upon her. She turned up a narrow street on the right. It was empty. Manvers, gaining rapidly, drew up level. They were now walking abreast, with only the street-way between them; but she kept a rigid profile to him--as severe, as proud and fine as the Arethusa's on a coin of Syracuse. The resemblance was striking; straight nose, short lip, rounded chin; the strong throat; unwinking eyes looking straight before her; and adding to these beauties of contour her splendid colouring, and carriage of a young G.o.ddess, it is not too much to say that Manvers was dazzled.

It is true; he was confounded by the excess of her beauty and by his knowledge of her condition. His experiences of life and cities could give him no parallel; but they could and did give him a dangerous sense of power. This glowing, salient creature was for him, if he would.

One word, and she was at his feet.

For a moment, as he walked nearly abreast of her, he was ready to throw everything that was natural to him to the winds. She stirred a depth in him which he had known nothing of. He felt himself trembling all over--but while he hesitated a quick step behind caused him to look round. He saw a man following Manuela, and presently knew that it was Gil Perez.

And Gil, with none of his own caution, walked on her side of the street and, overtaking her, took off his hat and accosted her by some name which caused her to turn like a beast at bay. Nothing abashed, Gil asked her a question which clapped a hand to her side and sent her cowering to the wall. She leaned panting there while he talked rapidly, explaining with suavity and point. It was very interesting to Manvers to watch these two together, to see, for instance, how Gil Perez comported himself out of his master's presence; or how Manuela dealt with one of her own nation. They became strangers to him, people he had never known. He felt a foreigner indeed.

The greatest courtesy was observed, the most exact distance. Gil Perez kept his hat in his hand, his body at a deferential angle. His weaving hands were never still. Manuela, her first act of royal rage ended, held herself superbly. Her eyes were half closed, her lips tightly so; and she so contrived as to get the effect of looking down upon him from a height. Manvers imagined that his name or person was being brought into play, for once Manuela looked at her companion and bowed her head gravely. Gil Perez ran on with his explanations, and apparently convinced her judgment, for she seemed to consent to something which he asked of her; and presently walked on her way with a high head, while Gil Perez, still holding his hat, and still explaining, walked with her, but a little way behind her.

A cooling experience. Manvers strolled back to his hotel and his bed, with his unsuspected nature deeply hidden again out of sight. He wondered whether Gil Perez would have anything to tell him in the morning, or whether, on the other hand, he would be discreetly silent as to the adventure. He wondered next where that adventure would end.

He had no reason to suppose his servant a man of refined sensibilities.

Remembering his eloquence on the road to Madrid, the paean he blew upon the fairness of Valencian women, he laughed. "Here's a muddy wash upon my blood-boltered pastoral," he said aloud. "Here's an end of my knight-errantry indeed!"

There was nearly an end of him--for almost at the same moment he was conscious of a light step behind him and of a sharp stinging pain and a blow in the back. He turned wildly round and struck out with his stick. A man, doubled in two, ran like a hare down the empty street and vanished into the dark. Manvers, feeling sick and faint, leaned to recover himself against a doorway, and probably fell; for when he came to himself he was in his bed in the hotel, with Gil Perez and a grave gentleman in black standing beside him.

CHAPTER XIII

CHIVALRY OF GIL PEREZ

He felt stiff and stupid, with a roasting spot in his back between his shoulders; but he was able to see the light in Gil Perez' eyes--which was a good light, saying, "Well so far--but I look for more." Neither Gil nor the spectacled gentleman in black--the surgeon, he presumed--spoke to him, and disinclined for speech himself, Manvers lay watching their tip-toe ministrations, with spells of comfortable dozing in between, in the course of which he again lost touch with the world of Spain.

When he came to once more he was much better and felt hungry. He saw Gil Perez by the window, reading a little book. The sun-blinds were down to darken the room; Gil held his book slantwise to a c.h.i.n.k and read diligently, moving his lips to p.r.o.nounce the words.

"Gil Perez," said Manvers, "what are you reading?" Gil jumped up at once.

"You better, sir? Praised be G.o.d! I read," he said, "a little catholic book which calls itself 'The Garden of the Soul'--ver' good little book. What you call ver' 'ealthy--ver' good for 'im. But you are better, master. You 'ungry--I get you a broth." Which he did, having it hot and hot in the next room.

"Now I tell you all the 'istory of this affair," he said. "Last night I see Manuela out a walking. I follow 'er too much--salute 'er--she lift 'er 'ead back to strike me dead. I say, 'Senorita, one word. Why you give your crucifix to my master--ha?' Sir, she began to shake--'ead shake, knee shake; I think she fall into 'erself. You see flowers in frost all estiff, stand up all right. By'nbye the sun, 'e climb the sky--thosa flowers they fall esquash--all rotten insida. So Manuela fall into 'erself. Then I talk to 'er--she tell me all the 'istory of thata time. She kill Esteban Vincaz, she tell me--kill 'im quick, just what I told you. Becausa why? Becausa she d.i.c.ksure Esteban kill you. But I say to 'er, Manuela, that was too bad, lady.

Kill Esteban all the same. Ver' good for 'im, send 'im what you call kingdom-come like a shot. But you leava that crucifix on my master's plate--make 'im tender, too sorry for you. He think, Thata nice girl, very. I like 'er too much. Now 'e 'as your crucifix in gold, lika piece of Vera Cruz, lika Santa Teresa's finger, and all the world know you kill Esteban Vincaz and 'e like you. Sir, I make 'er sorry--she begin to cry. I think--" and Gil Perez walked to the window--"I think Manuela ver' fine girl--like a rose. Now, master--" and he returned to the bed--"I tell you something. That man who estab you las' night was Tormillo. You know who?"

Manvers shook his head. "Never heard of him, my friend. Who is he?"

"He is servant to Don Luis Ramonez, the same I see at the _corrida_. I tell you about 'im--no money, all pride."

Manvers stared. "And will you have the goodness to tell me why Don Luis should want to have me stabbed?"

"I tell you, sir," said Gil Perez. "Esteban Vincaz was Don Bartolome Ramonez, son to Don Luis. Bad son 'e was, if you like, sir. Wil'

oats, what you call. All the sama n.o.bleman, all the sama only son to Don Luis."

Manvers considered this oracle with what light he had. "Don Luis supposes that I killed his son, then," he said. "Is that it?"

"'E damsure," said Gil Perez, blinking fast.

"On Manuela's account--eh?"