by Joan Aiken
With – I must acknowledge – a slightly shaking hand, I pulled the letter from my pouch and extended it.
Don Manuel still bent on me that deep, dark, penetrating and mistrustful eye.
‘You do not come from my wife – from Dona Conchita?’
I hesitated, then said, ‘Senor, I was called in by her at the start. I admit it. But I am not – I am not of her party. Please read the letter. I am sure Senorita Esparza puts the whole story much more clearly than I can. She is my real friend in this matter.’
I said this, I suppose, proudly, and Don Manuel’s look became a fraction less hostile and suspicious.
He said, ‘Anybody befriended by Dona Juana has a friend indeed. I have met that young lady once or twice and have a high opinion of her goodness and integrity.’
‘Is the letter really from Cousin Juana, Papa?’ demanded the little girl he had been carrying. He had put the child down to receive the paper. She was, I judged, three or four years older than Pilar, a round-faced child, not pretty, but with a look of great simplicity and sweetness. The boy, aged about nine, was thin, dark, haunted-looking, with a strong resemblance to his father but lacking his beauty. Both children eyed me warily, mirroring their father’s mistrust.
‘So it seems, Luisa. Quiet, now, while I read it.’ He unfolded the paper and gave it his attention. I noticed that his hands were terribly scarred, as if they had been burned with hot irons. Tales of the fearsome fortress of Montjuich, where he had been imprisoned, came back to me, of how prisoners there had put an end to their lives, rather than endure the cruelties practised by the jailors. Escapes were almost unknown.
Yet, having got away from that dread place, Don Manuel had not made his way out of Spain and into freedom and safety; he had gone to see his children.
‘Is the letter truly from Cousin Juana?’ repeated Luisa when he had read it.
‘Judge for yourself, querida. She has drawn you an owl.’
‘Oh yes, yes, that is one of Juana’s owls!’ exclaimed the boy, looking over his sister’s shoulder. ‘And she has put in a verse of that song we used to sing with her:
Zankhoua mehe eta
Buria pelatu;
Hori duzu senale
Zirela Zahartu.
Zahartu izan eta
Ezorano conzatu
Oficiotto hori
Beharduzu kitatu.
And a line of our secret language.’
‘What does it say?’ inquired Don Manuel.
‘It says, “You can trust this friend, he is a good man.”’
‘I am happy to hear it.’ Don Manuel did not look at all happy, however. He continued to regard me with fixed gravity. ‘So,’ he demanded, ‘what is your proposal, Senor Brooke? Why are you here?’
‘Well, senor,’ said I with diffidence, ‘I have had a little conversation with Senor Jose de Larra. He, I understand, has plans to convey you to other lands where you may continue to work for the Liberal cause in freedom and safety. After all, you cannot stay in this refuge for ever. But – ’ I glanced at Nico and Luisa – ‘what I have to say is perhaps better said between ourselves, senor.’
‘Anything you have to say can be said in front of these children,’ he answered quickly and calmly.
The boy looked up at him at once in deep anxiety.
‘You are not going away – are you, Papa? If you go, can we go too?’
Don Manuel’s look met mine over Nico’s head.
‘I hope so, indeed, my son. We shall have to see.’
Little Pilar at once began to dance around her brother and sister and Don Manuel, frantically clamouring, ‘Do not go away from us, dear Papa, do not! I love you much better than Mama and Guillermina and Abuelo Escaroz and Uncle Dor-Dor, who says he is my papa; but I think that you are my real papa. I do not wish you to go away, I do not, I do not!’
‘Hush, chiquita,’ said Luisa, seeing that Pilar was starting to work herself up into a frenzy. ‘Tell me about where you have been, all these weeks?’ Luisa seemed to have much greater skill in managing her little sister than did fat Don Amador. Pilar quieted down at once and began a long excited rigmarole about horses, carriages, and posadas.
‘I regret that I cannot offer you any refreshment, Senor Brooke,’ said Don Manuel, with great courtesy. ‘But I fear that we have not a scrap of food or drink about the place. My friend de Larra was to have brought us further supplies – I wonder what can have become of him, by the way? I expected him here by now.’
A shade of anxiety crossed his brow.
‘Pray do not trouble yourself, senor. In fact – now I come to think of it – I have a loaf of bread about me, to which the children are more than welcome –’
I had bought a small loaf myself, at the baker’s, thinking we might be glad of it, along the way. Now I pulled it out of my pouch and offered it to Luisa, whose eyes lit up. Her father, however, said quickly, ‘Thank the young senor, Luisa, but we have a little ritual here that we always perform before eating. We share our rations with the birds.’
He took a morsel of the bread, crumbled it, and spread the crumbs on the sill of one of the several large unglazed windows, through which swallows, mountain doves, and other small birds had, from time to time, been flitting in and out. On the western side of the room the windows looked directly over the cliff; the drop from them was formidable.
I saw the children’s eyes widen, as if they were surprised by what their father did. His ‘little ritual’ then, was not always performed, but was new to them? After a cluster of birds had found the crumbs, pecked at them, and quickly demolished them, he relaxed, smiled, and said, ‘Vaya! Enjoy your dinner, children.’
Did he, perhaps, suspect poison? Knowing Conchita, I supposed, he might not consider that possibility wholly out of the question. It was a bad thought.
While the children ate, sharing out the bread with scrupulous fairness, I said in a low voice, ‘Don Manuel: I believe that Senor Jose de Larra told you it might not be practicable for you to take the children with you on this present journey? Later on, perhaps, when you are established safely overseas, it may be that you can send for them – ?’
He answered quickly and firmly.
‘Understand this, Senor Brooke. In no circumstances will I consent to leave my childen in the care of that – that viperess and her fat slug of a lover. Are you aware that it was they who denounced me – that it was they who, on a set of false charges, had me consigned to Montjuich prison? Do you think that I would leave these good, innocent children with such a pair as that? Do you think Conchita Escaroz is a proper person to have the care of young ones? Why, she has never looked after them for a single day in her life. She is lazy, spoiled, self-absorbed, malicious, and a liar. Would you leave a child of yours with her?’
I thought about it. The news that it was Conchita herself who had denounced her husband did not, by now, entirely surprise me; it bore out various observations I had made myself. I could imagine her perfectly capable of such an act, if she had good reason for wishing to rid herself of an inconvenient tie. As for taking care of the children – no, I could not imagine that she had ever felt that responsibility very deeply. After all, she had cast off little Pilar into the care of fat Don Amador negligently enough. Despite her tears and occasional exclamations about her ‘little ones’ she had not, in general, displayed any particular anxiety about them; had eaten well, slept well, judging by her looks, and devoted rather more attention to her own comfort than to anything else.
‘No,’ I answered slowly, ‘I must confess that I would not. . .’
The children having eaten, Luisa, in a motherly way, was attempting to put her little sister to rights. With a comb from her own hair she had laboriously straightened Pilar’s tangled locks, had gently and carefully cleaned her numerous grazes with a handkerchief dipped in a cup of water, and was now doing her best to brush and straighten the tattered blue dress.
‘But what is this, hija? What is this packet here, in your petticoat pocket �
�� you have brought us some candy, perhaps, some turron?’
‘Oh, no; it is only a book. I forgot about it. It is a book that Mama said I might bring to Papa – the one he was asking for when he was in prison,’ Pilar said carelessly. ‘Sing me ‘Tragala, tragala,’ Nico!’
‘Hush! We must sing that only when there is nobody to hear.’
‘Well, there is no one here but Papa and Yellow-hair. And he is not bad. He made me a necklace.’
To my surprise she pulled from under her collar the circlet of plaited thongs with a blue bead that I had light-heartedly dropped over her head when we were in Zamora; which, it seemed, she had worn ever since.
Very softly Nico and Luisa began singing. I recognised the words: they were the battle-hymn of those who wished to re-establish the Constitution.
Si los curas ye frailes supieran
La paliza que los vamos a dar
Se pondrian en coro gritando:
Libertad! Libertad! Libertad!
Tragala, tragala, tragala,
Cara de morron
Ne queremos reina bruja
Ni queremos rey follon.*
Don Manuel was walking up and down, up and down the long room, with his hands behind his back and brows compressed.
I sat on the windowsill and waited. At one point he came up to me and said in a low voice, but with terrific emphasis, ‘I tell you, senor, rather than leave these good, simple children in the clutches of that harpy, I would take them with me and jump off the cliff, out there!’ He nodded to the window.
‘I fancy that Dona Conchita would probably leave the children in the custody of her parents for most of the time,’ I suggested doubtfully.
‘The old Escaroz? And what sort of care would that be? They are Carlists, dyed-in-the-wool reactionaries.’
Have you no kin of your own, I was on the point of asking, who might undertake the maintenance of the children, then remembered Don Ignacio, who had refused to shelter his brother, and had, it was
*If the priests and friars only knew
what a beating we are going to give them
they would huddle together shouting
Liberty, Liberty, Liberty!
Swallow it, swallow it, swallow it
old long-face diehard
we don’t want a witch for a queen
or a sluggard for a king.
(Riego’s hymn became the National Anthem of the
Spanish Republic in 1931.)
thought, reported him to the Military Commission. And not a reliable-looking man . . .
‘Well, I would leave them only on one condition,’ Don Manuel said suddenly. ‘If Dona Juana would undertake to have them –’
‘But, senor, how could I possibly promise for her? After all, she is a nun, devoting her life to God – and, in any case, why would Dona Conchita ever consent to such an arrangement?’
His suggestion seemed to me hopelessly impracticable and set about with difficulties; indeed, now that I came to think of it, Juana herself had raised some objection, when she was writing the letter, when Conchita suggested –
‘Luisa! What have you got there?’ suddenly exclaimed Don Manuel, in a sharp, strange, frightening voice.
‘Why, it is nothing but a little book, Papa – it is your little book of birds, remember? – that Mama has sent to you. I have been showing the pictures to Pilar. See, Pilar, here is an eagle, we saw one just like that earlier today. I have been unsticking the pages because the book must have got damp – they are all stuck together –’
‘Give it here! At once!’ His voice and face were both terrible; the children, trembling, gazed at him petrified, and I, all at once, began to remember the stories of his madness, the fits of frenzy and ungovernability – though, now that I came to think of it, most of those stories had issued from Conchita . . .
Violently he snatched the book from Luisa’s hands. I had a momentary glimpse of it: a tiny leather-bound volume, about the size of a pack of cards, but thicker; on every second page was a highly-tinted picture of a bird, with text opposite.
‘It is your dear little bird book that you had when you were a boy.’ Luisa said reproachfully. ‘You promised that Nico should have it one day as he loved it so. I remember when you wrote from prison and asked Mama to send it –’
‘Yes! And she never did. But now she sends it – why, I wonder? As a reminder of past kindness between us? I think not! I’ll take nothing – nothing from that harpy!’ The book spun from his fingers, out through the window – one of those windows that looked over the cliff. He turned on his heel and swooped towards me.
‘Did you know about this book?’ The terrible eye bored into mine.
‘Indeed I did not, senor! – I – I only encountered your daughter Pilar when she was halfway up the cliff – previously she was in the care of Don Amador –’
‘Yellow-hair came climbing up and helped me,’ corroborated Pilar. ‘But I wouldn’t have been stuck for very long on my own,’ she added quickly.
‘How did you come to be by the cliff, then, child?’
‘Uncle Dor-Dor left me there. He said he was going to look for a tunnel.’
‘He did, did he?’ Don Manuel said grimly. Again he turned on me. ‘Do you know Don Amador?’
‘No, senor, I do not. He has been travelling separately from Dona Conchita – but he was in San Quilez this morning, Dona Juana had a glimpse of him –’
‘That is a pity. If you were acquainted with him, you could have taken him a message from me. The tunnel he seeks is mined, as the road was. If I choose, I can destroy it, as I did the road.’
Don Manuel began his tigerish pacing again.
Oh, heavenly Father, what do I do now, I wondered? Tentatively, hesitantly, I said, ‘Senor, if you were to write a letter to Dona Juana Esparza – if you were to ask her to undertake the care of your children – until you were ready for them – I do not really see how she could refuse such a request. I can see that is, perhaps, the only solution.’
And waited, without a great deal of hope, for his answer. His mood seemed so much fiercer now.
‘I could take Juana the letter,’ I said. ‘And perhaps – perhaps in the circumstances, Dona Conchita would agree –’
Perhaps, perhaps, I thought. Too many perhapses.
The three children huddled together apprehensively, watching their father. The two elder ones loved him deeply, I could see by their expressions; but, just the same, this predicament was more than children of such an age should have to bear. They were tired and half-starved, and dreadfully frightened. Supposing troops from the Military Commission should come and bombard the castle? Suppose the assassins Pepe and Esteban made their way in, as I had, and killed Don Manuel? The murderers would no doubt say that it was sufficient evidence of madness just to have brought the children and taken refuge in such a place.
I began to be sorry that I had inserted those cramping-irons.
‘Well,’ said Don Manuel at last, in a milder tone, ‘I will write a note to Juana Esparza. Her, I know I can trust. And you, Senor Felix Brooke, will be so kind as to deliver it. Are you, by the way – ’ he glanced at Juana’s letter – ‘a grandson of Don Francisco, the Conde de Cabezada?’
‘Why yes, sir.’
‘He is a fine man, your grandfather. You may give him my respects, if you please, when you next see him. Now, how can I write? I have no paper, ink, nor pen.’
It was a pity, I thought, that he had just thrown away that useful little book.
‘You could write on the back of Juana’s letter,’ I suggested, ‘and I can easily make a pen – here are hundreds of feathers –’
It was true. Pigeons had used the place extensively for nesting.
‘And we can make ink from soot and water,’ suggested Luisa.
‘Bueno. You are a practical little woman, hija. Would you like to be taken care of by your cousin Juana – until I have found a new home for you?’
‘Oh yes!’ Their faces lit up. ‘Cousin Juana
has a beautiful home of her own in France. We stayed there once, and she told us stories about the laminak. But we would rather be with you, Papa.’
I refrained from telling the poor things that Juana’s home had been sold to furnish her dowry for the convent in Bayonne. One step at a time, I thought.
Don Manuel slowly wrote his note, with the pen I had trimmed, and the ink made from soot.
‘There, then. Bring me back her reply, acceding to my request, and I will let you take the children to her. De Larra will see that the arrangements are faithfully carried out.’
Their faces drooped. And I could not help wondering how Conchita would ever submit to such a disposition of her children; but that, too, must wait for time to solve.
‘Vaya!’ He handed me the note. ‘Now you had best climb down quickly, for the weather worsens.’
This was an understatement. A mountain storm was brewing up, the sky had gone black as a boar’s hide, large drops of rain had begun to fall, and thunder growled a low, ominous warning. I was exceedingly glad that I had left Pedro lying under a thick-set pine tree, and my gun beside him, well wrapped up in my jacket.
‘Senor – with your permission – I brought along a piece of rope – just in case Don Jose failed to obtain any. Rather than climb down that cliff, which in this rain would be a great deal more difficult than climbing up, I will put your pulley back into working order. I daresay Nico will help me, will you not, Nico?’
‘Oh yes, senor,’ the boy said readily, and, having received his father’s permission, he led me down the stairs, unbarred the door at the foot, and showed me the way to the pulley. It was governed by a primitive device, like a capstan. The old rope, tattered and frayed, still dangled from the wheel; it was a comfort to recall that what I had brought was good stout new hempen cord, the best that Pamplona could provide. Even so it was with scanty enthusiasm that, having replaced the old rope by the new, tested the pulley-arm, wheel, and capstan, I finally (having discarded the rickety old basket which seemed to have been used in long-ago times for hoisting up supplies) made a loop of the rope, sat myself in it, and instructed Nico to let me down slowly. This, although a slender boy, he could do easily enough, because of the ratchet mechanism which prevented the rope from running too fast.
