The Velvet Glove

by Henry Seton Merriman

  CHAPTER XIV

  IN THE CLOISTERMarcos and Sarrion went back to Pampeluna in the dusk of the winterevening, each meditating over that which they had seen and heard. Leonhad become a Jesuit. And Juanita was worse--infinitely worse than alonein the world.

  Marcos needed no telling of all that lay behind Leon's scared silence;for his father had brought him up in an atmosphere of plain language andwide views of mankind. Sarnon himself had seen Navarre ruined, its mensacrificed, its women made miserable by a war which had lastedintermittently for thirty years. He had seen the simple Basques, who hadno means of verifying that which their priests told them, fightingdesperately and continuously for a lie. The Carlist war has always beenthe war of ignorance and deceit against enlightenment and the advance ofthought. It is needless to say upon which side the cassock has rangeditself.

  The Basques were promised their liberty; they should be allowed to liveas they had always lived, practically a republic, if they only succeededin forcing an absolute monarchy on the rest of Spain. The Jesuits madethis promise. The society found itself in the position that no promisemust be allowed to stick in the throat.

  Sarrion, like all who knew their strange story, was ready enough torecognise the fact that the Jesuit body must be divided into two parts ofhead and heart. The heart has done the best work that missionaries haveyet accomplished. The head has ruined half Europe.

  It was the political Jesuit who had earned Sarrion's deadly hatred.

  The political Jesuit has, moreover, a record in history which has only inpart been made manifest.

  William the Silent was assassinated by an emissary of the Jesuits.Maurice of Orange, his son, almost met the same fate, and the would-bemurderer confessed. Three Jesuits were hanged for attempting the life ofElizabeth, Queen of England; and later, another, Parry, was drawn andquartered. Two years later another was executed for participating in anattempt on the Queen's life; and at later periods four more met a similarjust fate. Ravaillac, the assassin of Henry IV of France was a Jesuit.

  The Jesuits were concerned in the Gunpowder Plot of England and two ofthe fathers were among the executed.

  In Paraguay the Jesuits instigated the natives to rebel against Spain andPortugal; and the holy fathers, taking the field in person, provedthemselves excellent leaders.

  Pope Clement XIV was poisoned by the Jesuits. He had signed a Bull tosuppress the order, which Bull was to "be forever and to all eternityvalid." The result of it was "acqua tofana of Perugia," a slow andtorturing poison.

  Down to our own times we have had the hand of the Society of Jesus gentlyurging the Fenians. O'Farrell, who in 1868 attempted the life of the Dukeof Edinburgh in Australia, was a Jesuit sent out to the care of thesociety in Australia.

  The great days of Jesuitism are gone but the society still lives. InEngland and in other Protestant countries they continue to exist underdifferent names. The "Adorers of Jesus," the Redemptionists, the Brothersof the Christian Doctrine, the Brothers of the Congregation of the HolyVirgin, the Fathers of the Faith, the Order of St. Vincent de Paul--areJesuits. How far they belong to the heart and not to the head, is adetail only known to themselves. Those who have followed the contemporaryhistory of France may draw their own conclusions from the trials of thecase of the Assumptionist Fathers.

  "Los mismos perros, con nuevos cuellos"--said Sarrion to any who soughtto convince him that Spain owed her downfall to other causes, and thatthe Jesuits were no longer what they had been. "The same dogs with newcollars." And he held that they were not a progressive but aretrogressive society; that their statutes still held good.

  "It is allowable to take an oath without intending to keep it when onehas good grounds for so acting."

  "In the case of one unjustifiably making an attack on your honour, whenyou cannot otherwise defend yourself than by impeaching the integrity ofthe person insulting you, it is quite allowable to do so."

  "In order to cut short calumny most quickly, one may cause the death ofthe calumniator, but as secretly as possible to avoid observation."

  "It is absolutely allowable to kill a man whenever the general welfare orproper security demands it."

  If any man has committed a crime, St. Liguori and other Jesuit writershold that he may swear to a civil authority that he is innocent of itprovided that he has already confessed it to his spiritual father andreceived absolution. It is, they say, no longer on his conscience.

  "Pray," said the founder of the society, "as if everything depended onprayer, and act as if everything depended on action."

  "Of what are you thinking?" Sarrion asked suddenly, when they had riddenalmost to the city gates in silence.

  "I was wondering what Juanita will say, some day, when she knows andunderstands everything."

  "I was not wondering what Juanita will say," confessed Sarrion with alaugh, "but what Evasio Mon will do."

  For Sarrion persisted in taking an optimistic view of Juanita and thatwhich must supervene when she had grown into understanding and knowledge.

  Marcos went back to the hotel. He had many arrangements to make. Sarrionrode to the large house in the Calle de la Dormitaleria where the schoolof the Sisters of the True Faith is located to this day. In an hour hejoined Marcos in the little sitting-room looking on to the Plaza de laConstitucion.

  "All is going well," he said, "I have seen Dolores. They go across to theCathedral for vespers at five o'clock. It will be almost dark. You haveonly to wait in the inner patio, adjoining the cloisters. They passthrough that way. Juanita will be sent back for something that isforgotten. And then is your time. You can have ten minutes. It is notlong."

  "It will do," said Marcos rather gloomily. He was not afraid of the wholeSociety of Jesuits, of the king, nor yet of Don Carlos. But he fearedJuanita.

  "We need not inquire who will send her back. But she will come. She willnot expect to see you. Remember that and do not frighten her."

  So Marcos set out at dusk to await Juanita. The entrance to the twopatios that give entrance to the Cathedral cloister is immediatelyopposite to the door of the school of the Sisters of the True Faith. Alamp swings over the doorway in the Calle de la Dormitaleria. There is nolamp in the first patio but another hangs in the vaulted arch leadingfrom one patio to the other. In the cloister itself, which is the mostbeautiful in Spain, there are two dim lamps.

  Marcos sat down on the wooden bench which runs right round the quadrangleof the inner patio. He had not long to wait. The girls passed throughwhispering and laughing among themselves. Two nuns led the way. SorTeresa followed the last two girls, looking straight in front of herbetween the wings of her great cap. One of the last pair was Juanita. Shewalked listlessly, Marcos thought. He rose and went towards the archwayleading from the inner patio to the cloisters. The moon was rising andcast a white light down upon the delicate stone-work of the cloisterwindows.

  Almost immediately Juanita came hurrying back and instinctively drew hermantilla closer at the sight of his shadowy form. Then she recognisedhim.

  "Oh, Marcos," she whispered. "At last. I thought you had forgotten allabout me."

  "Quick," he answered. "This way. We have only ten minutes."

  He took her hand and hurried her back into the cloisters. He led her tothe right, to the corner of the quadrangle farthest removed from theCathedral where by daylight few pass, and at night none.

  "What do you mean?" she asked, "Only ten minutes."

  "It has all been arranged," he answered. "I met you here on purpose. Youhave only ten minutes in which to settle."

  "To settle what?" she asked with a laugh.

  "Your whole life."

  "But one cannot settle one's life in an Ave Maria," she said, which meansin the twinkling of an eye. And she looked at him by the dim light andlaughed again. For she was young and they had always made holidaytogether, and laughed.

  "Did you mean that letter which you wrote to my father about going intoreligion?"

  "Oh, I don't know. I suppose so. I meant it at t
he time, Marcos. It seemsto be the only thing to do. Everything seems to point to it. Every sermonI hear. Everything I read. Everything any one ever says to me. But now--"she turned and looked at him, "--now that I see you again I cannot thinkhow I did it."

  "Am I so very worldly?"

  "Of course you are. And yet I suppose you have some chance of salvation.It seems to me that you have--a little chance, I give you. But it seemshard on other people. Oh, Marcos, I hate the idea of it. And yet they areso kind to me--all except Sor Teresa. If anybody could make me hate it,she would. She is so unkind and gives me all the punishments she can."

  Marcos smiled slowly and with great pity, of which men have a betterunderstanding than any woman. He thought he knew why Sor Teresa wascruel.

  "They are all so kind. And I know they are good. And they take it forgranted that the religious life is the only possible one. One cannot helpbecoming convinced even against one's will."

  She turned to him suddenly and laid her two hands on his arm.

  "Oh, Marcos," she whispered, with a sort of sob of apprehension. "Can younot do something for me?"

  "Yes," he answered. "That is why I am here. But it must be done at once."

  "Why?" she asked. And she was grave enough now.

  "Because they have sent to Rome for a dispensation of your novitiate.They wish to hurry you into religion at once."

  "Yes," she said. "I know. But why?"

  "Because they want your money."

  "But I have none, or very little. They have told me so."

  "That is a lie," said Marcos, bluntly.

  "Oh, but you must not say that," she whispered, with a sort of horror."Father Muro told me so. He represents Heaven on earth. We are told hedoes."

  "He does it badly," said Marcos, quietly.

  Juanita reflected for a moment. Then suddenly she stamped her foot on thepavement worn by the feet of generations of holy men.

  "I will not go into religion," she said. "I will not. I always feel thatthere is something wrong in all they say. And with you and Uncle Ramon itis different. I know at once that what you say is quite simple and plainand honest; that you have no other meaning in what you say but that whichthe words convey. Marcos--you and Uncle Ramon must take me away fromhere. I cannot get away. I am hemmed in on every side."

  "We can take you away," answered Marcos slowly, "if you like."

  She turned and looked at him, her attention caught by some tense note inhis voice.

  "What do you mean?" she asked. "Your face is so odd and white. What doyou mean, Marcos?"

  "We can take you away, but you must marry me."

  She gave a short laugh and stopped suddenly.

  "Oh--you must not joke," she said. "You must not laugh. It is my wholelife, remember."

  "I am not laughing. It is no joke," said Marcos steadily.

  "What...?"

  For a moment they sat in silence. The low chanting of vespers came totheir ears through the curtained doors of the Cathedral.

  "Listen to them," said Juanita suddenly. "They are half asleep. They arenot thinking of what they are singing. They are taking snuffsurreptitiously behind their hands to keep themselves awake. And it iswe, poor wretched schoolgirls and nuns who have to keep the saints in agood humour by attending to every word and being most preposterouslydevout whether we feel inclined to be or not. No, I will not go intoreligion. That is certain. Marcos, I would rather marry you than that--ifit is necessary."

  "It is necessary."

  "But they can have all the money; every real,'" suggested Juanitahopefully.

  "No; they have tried that way. They cannot do it in these times. The onlyway they can get the money is for you to go of your own free will intoreligion and to bequeath of your own free will all your worldlypossessions to the Order you join."

  "Yes, I know," said Juanita. Her spirits had risen every minute. She wasgay again now. His presence seemed to restore to her the happy gift oftouching life lightly which is of the heart. And the heart knows no age,neither is it subject to the tyranny of years.

  "Well, I will marry you if there is no help for it. But..."

  "But..." echoed Marcos.

  "But of course it is only a sort of game, is it not?"

  "Yes," he answered. "A sort of game."

  "Promise?"

  "I promise."

  They were sitting on the steps of one of the chapels. Juanita swung roundand peered through the railings as if to see what Saint had hishabitation there.

  "It is only St. Bartholomew," she said, airily. "But he will do. You havepromised, remember that. And St. Bartholomew has heard you. It is only tosave me from being a nun that we are being married. And I am to be justthe same as I am now. We can go fishing, I mean, as we used to, and climbthe mountains and have jokes just as we always do in the holidays."

  "Yes," said Marcos.

  She held out her hand as she had seen the peasants in Torre Garda whenthey had struck a bargain and would seal it irrevocably.

  "Touch it," she said with a gay laugh, as she had heard them say.

  And they shook hands in the dark cloisters.

  "There is a window at the end of the passage in which is your room," saidMarcos. "It looks out on to a small courtyard and is quite near theground. Come to that window to-morrow night at ten o'clock and I shall bethere."

  "What for?" she asked.

  "To be married," he answered. "My father and I will arrange it. We shallboth be there. If you do not come to-morrow night I shall come again thenext night. You will be back in your room by half-past eleven."

  "Married?" asked Juanita.

  "Yes."

  He had risen and was standing in front of her.

  "And now you must go back to the Cathedral."

  "But Sor Teresa's breviary?"

  "She has it in her pocket," said Marcos.