CHAPTER XX
AT TORRE GARDA
The river known as the Wolf finds its source in the eternal snows of thePyrenees. Amid the solitary grandeur of the least known mountains inEurope it rolls and tumbles--tossed hither and thither in its rocky bed,fed by this and that streamlet from stony gorges--down to the greenvalley of Torre Garda.
Here there is a village crouched on either side of the river-bed, andabove it on a plateau surrounded by chestnut trees and pines, stands thehouse of the Sarrions. In winter the wholesome smell of wood smoke risingfrom the chimneys pervades the air. In summer the warm breath of thepines creeps down the mountains to mingle with the cooler air that stirsthe bracken.
Below all, summer and winter, at evening and at dawn, night and day,growls the Wolf--so named from the continuous low-pitched murmur of itswaters through the defile a mile below the village. The men of the valleyof the Wolf have a hundred tales of their river in its different moods,and firmly believe that the voice which is ever in their ears speaks tosuch as have understanding, of every change in the weather. The old womenhave no doubt that it speaks also of those things that must affect theprince and the peasant alike; of good and ill fortune; of life and ofdeath; of hope and its slow, slow dying in the heart. Certain it is thatthe river had its humours not to be accounted for by outwardthings--seeming to be gay without reason, like any human heart, in dullweather, and murmuring dismally when the sun shone and the birds weresinging in the trees.
In clearest summer weather, the water would sometimes run thick andyellow for days, the result of some landslip where the snow and ice weremelting. Sometimes the Wolf would hurl down a mass of debris--a foresttorn from the mountainside by avalanche, the dead bodies of a few straysheep, or a fox or a wolf or the dun corpse of a mountain bear. Many inthe valley had seen tables and chairs and the roof, perhaps, of a housecaught in the timbers of the old bridge below the village. And the river,of course, had exacted its toll from more than one family. It wasjocularly said at the Venta that the Wolf was Royalist; for in the firstCarlist war it had fought for Queen Christina, doing to death a wholecompany of insurgents at that which is known as the False Ford, where itwould seem that a child could pass while in reality no horseman mighthope to get through.
The house of Torre Garda was not itself ancient though it undoubtedlystood on the site of some mediaeval watch-tower. It had been built in thedays of Ferdinand VII at the period when French architecture was runningrife over the world, and had the appearance of a Gascon chateau. It was along low house of two stories. Every room on the ground floor opened withlong French windows to a terrace built to the edge of the plateau, wherea fountain splashed its clear spring water into a stone basin, where graystone urns stood on lichen-covered pillars amid flower-beds.
Every room on the first floor had windows opening on a wide balcony whichran the length of the house and was protected from the rain and middaysun by the far-stretching eaves of the roof. The house was of gray stone,roofed with slabs of the same, such as peel off the slopes of thePyrenees and slide one over the other to the valleys below. The pointedturrets at each corner were roofed with the small green tiles that theMoors loved. The winds and the snow and the rain had toned all TorreGarda down to a cool gray-green against which the four cypress trees onthe terrace stood rigid like sentinels keeping eternal guard over thevalley.
Above the house rose a pine-slope where the snow lingered late into thesummer. Above this again were rocks and broken declivities of slidingstones; and, crowning all, the everlasting snow.
From the terrace of Torre Garda a strong voice could make itself heard inthe valley where tobacco grew and ripened, or on the height where novegetation lived at all. The house seemed to hang between sky and earth,and the air that moved the cypress trees was cool and thin--a very breathof heaven to make thinkers wonder why any who can help it should chooseto live in towns.
The green shutters had been closed across the windows for nearly threemonths, when on one spring morning the villagers looked up to see thehouse astir and the windows opened wide.
There had been much to detain the Sarrions at Saragossa and Juanita hadto wait for the gratification of her desire to smell the pines and thebracken again.
It seemed that it was no one's business to question the validity of thestrange marriage in the chapel of Our Lady of the Shadows. Evasio Mon whowas supposed to know more about it than any other, only smiled and saidnothing. Leon de Mogente was absorbed in his own peculiar selfishnesswhich was not of this world but the next. He fell into the mistake commonto ecstatic minds that thoughts of Heaven justify a deliberate neglect ofobvious duties on earth.
"Leon," said Juanita gaily to Cousin Peligros, "will assuredly be a saintsome day: he has so little sense of humour."
For Leon it seemed could not be brought to understand Juanita's sunnyview of life.
"You may look solemn and talk of great mistakes as much as you like," shesaid to her brother. "But I know I was never meant for a nun. It will allcome right in the end. Uncle Ramon says so. I don't know what he means.But he says it will all come right in the end."
And she shook her head with that wisdom of the world which is given towomen only; which may live in the same heart as ignorance and innocenceand yet be superior to all the knowledge that all the sages have ever putin books.
There were lawyers to be consulted and moreover paid, and Juanita gailysplashed down her name in a bold schoolgirl hand on countless documents.
There is a Spanish proverb warning the unwary never to drink water in thedark or sign a paper unread. And Marcos made Juanita read everything shesigned. She was quick enough, and only laughed when he protested that shehad not taken in the full meaning of the document.
"I understand it quite enough," she answered. "It is not worth troublingabout. It is only money. You men think of nothing else. I do not want tounderstand it any better."
"Not now; but some day you will."
Juanita looked at him, pen in hand, momentarily grave.
"You are always thinking of what I shall do ... some day," she said.
And Marcos did not deny it.
"You seem to hedge me around with precautions against that time," shecontinued, thoughtfully, and looked at him with bright and searchingeyes.
At length all the formalities were over, and they were free to go toTorre Garda. Events were moving rapidly in Spain at this time, and thesmall wonder of Juanita's marriage was already a thing half forgotten.Had it not been for her great wealth the whole matter would have passedunnoticed; for wealth is still a burden upon its owners, and there aremany who must perforce go away sorrowful on account of their greatpossessions. Half the world guessed, however, at the truth, and every manjudged the Sarrions from his own political standpoint, praising orblaming according to preconceived convictions. But there were some inhigh places who knew that a great danger had been averted.
Cousin Peligros had consented to Sarrion's proposal that she should for atime make her home with him, either at Torre Garda or at Saragossa. Shehad lived in troublous times, but was convinced that the Carlists, likeHeaven, made special provision for ladies.
"No one," said she, "will molest me," and she folded her hands incomplacent serenity on her lap.
She had a profound distrust of railways, in which common mode ofconveyance she suspected a democratic spirit, though to this day theSpanish ticket collector presents himself, hat in hand, at the door of afirst-class carriage, and the time-table finds itself subservient to theconvenience of any Excellency who may not have finished his coffee in therefreshment-room.
Cousin Peligros was therefore glad enough to quit the train at Pampeluna,where the carriage from Torre Garda awaited them. There were saddlehorses for Sarrion and Marcos, and a handful of troops were waiting inthe shadow of the trees outside of the station yard. An officer rodeforward and paid his respects to Juanita.
"You do not recognise me, Senorita," he said. "You remember the chapel ofOur Lady of the Shadows?"
He blushed as he laughed; for he was a simple man leading a hard andlonely life.
"Yes, Senorita; why not?"
"I have no doubt," said Juanita, looking at him shrewdly, "that thesaints heard you."
"Marcos," he explained, "wrote to ask me for a few men to take yourcarriage through the danger zone. So I took the liberty of riding withthem myself. I am the watch-dog, Senorita, at the gate of your valley.You are safe enough once you are within the valley of the Wolf."
They talked together until Sarrion rode forward to announce that all wereready to depart, while Cousin Peligros sat with pinched lips anddisapproving face. She took an early opportunity of mentioning thatladies should not talk to gentlemen with such familiarity and freedom;that, above all, a smile was sufficient acknowledgment for any jestexcept those made by the very aged, when to laugh was a sign of respect.For Cousin Peligros had been brought up in a school of manners nowfortunately extinct.
"He is Marcos' friend," explained Juanita. "Besides, he is a nice person.I know a nice person when I see one," she concluded, with a friendly nodtowards the watch-dog of the valley of the Wolf, who was talking in theshade of the trees with Marcos.
The men rode together in advance of the carriages and the luggage carts.The journey was uneventful, and the sun was setting in a cloudless westwhen the mouth of the valley was reached. It was Cousin Peligros' happylot to consider herself the centre of any party and the pivot upon whichsocial events must turn. She bowed graciously to Captain Zeneta when hecame forward to take his leave.
"It was most considerate of Marcos," she said to Juanita in his hearing,"to provide this escort. He no doubt divined that, accustomed as I am toliving in Madrid, I might have been nervous in these remote places."
Juanita was tired. They were near their journey's end. She did not takethe trouble to explain the situation to Cousin Peligros. There are somefools whom the world allows to continue in their folly because it is lesstrouble. Marcos and Sarrion were riding together now in silence. Fromtime to time a peasant waiting at the roadside came forward to exchange afew words with one or the other. The road ascended sharply now, and thepace was slow. The regular tramp of the horses, the quiet evening hour,the fatigue of the journey were conducive to contemplation and silence.
When Marcos helped Cousin Peligros and Juanita to descend from thehigh-swung traveling carriage, Juanita was too tired to notice one or twoinnovations. When, as a schoolgirl, she had spent her holidays at TorreGarde no change had been made in the simple household. But now Marcos hadsent from Saragossa such modern furniture as women need to-day. Therewere new chairs on the terrace. Her own bedroom at the western corner ofthe house, next door to the huge room occupied by Sarrion, had beenentirely refurnished and newly decorated.
"Oh, how pretty!" she exclaimed, and Marcos lingering in the long passageperhaps heard the remark.
Later, when they were all in the drawing-room awaiting dinner, Juanitaclasped Sarrion's arm with her wonted little gesture of affection.
"You are an old dear," she said to him, "to have my room done up sobeautifully, so clean, and white, and simple--just as you know I shouldlike it. Oh, you need not smile so grimly. You know it was just what Ishould like--did he not, Marcos?"
"Yes," answered Marcos.
"And it is the only room in the house that has been done. I looked intothe others to see--into your great barrack, and into Marcos' room at theend of the balcony. I have guessed why Marcos has that room ..."
"Why?" he asked.
"So that you can see down the valley--so that Perro who sleeps on thebalcony outside the open window has merely to lift his head to look rightdown to where the other watch-dogs are, ten miles away."
After dinner, Juanita discovered that there was a new piano in thedrawing-room, in addition to a number of those easier chairs which ourgrandmothers never knew. Cousin Peligros protested that they wereunnecessary and even conducive to sloth and indolence. Still protesting,she took the most comfortable and sat with folded hands listening toJuanita finding out the latest waltz, with variations of her own, on thenew piano.
Sarrion and Marcos were on the terrace smoking. The small new moon wasnearing the west. The night would be dark after its setting. They weresilent, listening to the voice of their ancestral river as it growled,heavy with snow, through the defile. Presently a servant brought coffeeand told Marcos that a messenger was waiting to deliver a note. After themanner of Spain the messenger was invited to come and deliver his letterin person. He was a traveling knife-grinder, he explained, and hadreceived the letter from a man on the road whose horse had gone lame. Onemust be mutually helpful on the road.
The letter was from Zeneta at the end of the valley; written hastily inpencil. The Carlists were in force between him and Pampeluna; wouldMarcos ride down to the camp and hear details?
Marcos rose at once and threw his cigarette away. He looked towards thelighted windows of the drawing-room.
"No good saying anything about it," he said. "I shall be back bybreakfast time. They will probably not notice my absence."
He was gone--the sound of his horse's feet was drowned in the voice ofthe river--before Juanita came out to the terrace, a slim shadowy form inher white evening dress. She stood for a minute or two in silence, until,her eyes becoming accustomed to the darkness, she perceived Sarrion andan empty chair. Perro usually walked gravely to her and stood in front ofher awaiting a jest whenever she came. She looked round. Perro was notthere.
"Where is Marcos?" she asked, taking the empty chair.
"He has been sent for to the valley. He has gone."
"Gone!" echoed Juanita, standing up again. She went to the stonebalustrade of the terrace and looked over into the darkness.
"I heard him cross the bridge a few minutes ago," Sarrion said quietly.
"He might have said good-bye."
Sarrion turned slowly in his chair and looked at her.
"He probably did not wish his comings and goings to be talked of byCousin Peligros," he suggested.
"Still, he might have said good-bye ... to me."
She turned again and leaning her arms on the gray stone she stood insilence looking down into the valley.
The Velvet Glove Page 20
