Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  “Yes. Take me to her room and leave me with her.”

  “Indeed, I would rather not see her myself this evening,” said Mendoza, feeling his anger still not very far from the surface. “You will be able to speak more wisely than I should.”

  “I daresay,” answered Doña Ana thoughtfully. “If you went with me to her, there might be angry words again, and that would make it much harder for me. If you will leave me at the door of her rooms, and then go away, I will promise to manage the rest. You are not sorry that you have told me, now, are you, my dear friend?”

  “I am most grateful to you. I shall do all I can to be of service to you, even though you said that it was not in my power to serve you.”

  “I was annoyed,” said Doña Ana sweetly. “I did not mean it — please forgive me.”

  They reached the door, and as she withdrew her hand from his arm, he took it and ceremoniously kissed her gloved fingers, while she smiled graciously. Then he knocked three times, and presently the shuffling of Eudaldo’s slippers was heard within, and the old servant opened sleepily. On seeing the Princess enter first, he stiffened himself in a military fashion, for he had been a soldier and had fought under Mendoza when both were younger.

  “Eudaldo,” said the General, in the stern tone he always used when giving orders, “her Excellency the Princess of Eboli will take Doña Dolores to her own apartments this evening. Tell the maid to follow later with whatever my daughter needs, and do you accompany the ladies with a candle.”

  But at this Doña Ana protested strongly. There was moonlight, there were lamps, there was light everywhere, she said. She needed no one. Mendoza, who had no man-servant in the house but Eudaldo, and eked out his meagre establishment by making use of his halberdiers when he needed any one, yielded after very little persuasion.

  “Open the door of my daughter’s apartments,” he said to Eudaldo. “Madam,” he said, turning to the Princess, “I have the honour to wish you good-night. I am your Grace’s most obedient servant. I must return to my duty.”

  “Good-night, my dear friend,” answered Doña Ana, nodding graciously.

  Mendoza bowed low, and went out again, Eudaldo closing the door behind him. He would not be at liberty until the last of the grandees had gone home, and the time he had consumed in accompanying the Princess was just what he could have spared for his supper. She gave a short sigh of relief as she heard his spurred heels and long sword on the stone pavement. He was gone, leaving Dolores in her power, and she meant to use that power to the utmost.

  Eudaldo shuffled silently across the hall, to the other door, and she followed him. He drew the bolt.

  “Wait here,” she said quietly. “I wish to see Doña Dolores alone.”

  “Her ladyship is in the farther room, Excellency,” said the servant, bowing and standing back.

  She entered and closed the door, and Eudaldo returned to his big chair, to doze until she should come out.

  She had not taken two steps in the dim room, when a shadow flitted between her and the lamp, and it was almost instantly extinguished. She uttered an exclamation of surprise and stood still. Anywhere save in Mendoza’s house, she would have run back and tried to open the door as quickly as possible, in fear of her life, for she had many enemies, and was constantly on her guard. But she guessed that the shadowy figure she had seen was Dolores. She spoke, without hesitation, in a gentle voice.

  “Dolores! Are you there?” she asked.

  A moment later she felt a small hand on her arm.

  “Who is it?” asked a whisper, which might have come from Dolores’ lips for all Doña Ana could tell.

  She had forgotten the existence of Inez, whom she had rarely seen, and never noticed, though she knew that Mendoza had a blind daughter.

  “It is I — the Princess of Eboli,” she answered in the same gentle tone.

  “Hush! Whisper to me.”

  “Your father has gone back to his duty, my dear — you need not be afraid.”

  “Yes, but Eudaldo is outside — he hears everything when he is not asleep. What is it, Princess? Why are you here?”

  “I wish to talk with you a little,” replied Doña Ana, whispering now, to please the girl. “Can we not get a light? Why did you put out the lamp? I thought you were in another room.”

  “I was frightened. I did not know who you were. We can talk in the dark, if you do not mind. I will lead you to a chair. I know just where everything is in this room.”

  The Princess suffered herself to be led a few steps, and presently she felt herself gently pushed into a seat. She was surprised, but realizing the girl’s fear of her father, she thought it best to humour her. So far Inez had said nothing that could lead her visitor to suppose that she was not Dolores. Intimate as the devoted sisters were, Inez knew almost as much of the Princess as Dolores herself; the two girls were of the same height, and so long as the conversation was carried on in whispers, there was no possibility of detection by speech alone. The quick-witted blind girl reflected that it was strange if Doña Ana had not seen Dolores, who must have been with the court the whole evening, and she feared some harm. That being the case, her first impulse was to help her sister if possible, but so long as she was a prisoner in Dolores’ place, she could do nothing, and she resolved that the Princess should help her to escape.

  Doña Ana began to speak quickly and fluently in the dark. She said that she knew the girl’s position, and had long known how tenderly she loved Don John of Austria, and was loved by him. She sympathized deeply with them both, and meant to do all in her power to help them. Then she told how she had missed Dolores at court that night.

  Inez started involuntarily and drew her breath quickly, but Doña Ana thought it natural that Dolores should give some expression to the disappointment she must have felt at being shut up a prisoner on such an occasion, when all the court was assembled to greet the man she loved.

  Then the Princess went on to tell how she had met Mendoza and had come with him, and how with great difficulty she had learned the truth, and had undertaken Dolores’ care for a few days; and how Mendoza had been satisfied, never suspecting that she really sympathized with the lovers. That was a state secret, but of course Dolores must know it. The King privately desired the marriage, she said, because he was jealous of his brother and wished that he would tire of winning battles and live quietly, as happy men do.

  “Don John will tell you, when you see him,” she continued. “I sent him two letters this evening. The first he burned unopened, because he thought it was a love letter, but he has read the second by this time. He had it before supper.”

  “What did you write to him?” asked Inez, whispering low.

  “He will tell you. The substance was this: If he would only be prudent, and consent to wait two days, and not attempt to see you alone, which would make a scandal, and injure you, too, if any one knew it, the King would arrange everything at his own pleasure, and your father would give his consent. You have not seen Don John since he arrived, have you?” She asked the question anxiously.

  “Oh no!” answered the blind girl, with conviction. “I have not seen him. I wish to Heaven I had!”

  “I am glad of that,” whispered the Princess. “But if you will come with me to my apartments, and stay with me till matters are arranged — well — I will not promise, because it might be dangerous, but perhaps you may see him for a moment.”

  “Really? Do you think that is possible?” In the dark Inez was smiling sadly.

  “Perhaps. He might come to see me, for instance, or my husband, and I could leave you together a moment.”

  “That would be heaven!” And the whisper came from the heart.

  “Then come with me now, my dear, and I will do my best,” answered the Princess.

  “Indeed I will! But will you wait one moment while I dress? I am in my old frock — it is hardly fit to be seen.”

  This was quite true; but Inez had reflected that dressed as she was she could not pass Eudal
do and be taken by him for her sister, even with a hood over her head. The clothes Dolores had worn before putting on her court dress were in her room, and Dolores’ hood was there, too. Before the Princess could answer, Inez was gone, closing the door of the bedroom behind her. Doña Ana, a little taken by surprise again, was fain to wait where she was, in the dark, at the risk of hurting herself against the furniture. Then it struck her that Dolores must be dressing in the dark, for no light had come from the door as it was opened and shut. She remembered the blind sister then, and she wondered idly whether those who lived continually with the blind learned from them to move easily in the dark and to do everything without a light. The question did not interest her much, but while she was thinking of it the door opened again. A skirt and a bodice are soon changed. In a moment she felt her hand taken, and she rose to her feet.

  “I am ready, Princess. I will open the door if you will come with me. I have covered my head and face,” she added carelessly, though always whispering, “because I am afraid of the night air.”

  “I was going to advise you to do it in any case, my dear. It is just as well that neither of us should be recognized by any one in the corridors so far from my apartments.”

  The door opened and let in what seemed a flood of light by comparison with the darkness. The Princess went forward, and Eudaldo got upon his legs as quickly as he could to let the two ladies out, without looking at them as they crossed the hall. Inez followed her companion’s footfall exactly, keeping one step behind her by ear, and just pausing before passing out. The old servant saw Dolores’ dress and Dolores’ hood, which he expected to see, and no more suspected anything than he had when, as he supposed, Inez, had gone out earlier.

  But Inez herself had a far more difficult part to perform than her sister’s. Dolores had gone out alone, and no one had watched her beyond the door, and Dolores had eyes, and could easily enough pretend that she could not see. It was another matter to be blind and to play at seeing, with a clever woman like the Princess at one’s elbow, ready to detect the slightest hesitation. Besides, though she had got out of the predicament in which it had been necessary to place her, it was quite impossible to foresee what might happen when the Princess discovered that she had been deceived, and that catastrophe must happen sooner or later, and might occur at any moment. The Princess walked quickly, too, with a gliding, noiseless step that was hard to follow. Fortunately Inez was expected to keep to the left of a superior like her companion, and was accustomed to taking that side when she went anywhere alone in the palace. That made it easier, but trouble might come at one of the short flights of steps down and up which they would have to pass to reach the Princess’s apartments. And then, once there, discovery must come, to a certainty, and then, she knew not what.

  She had not run the risk for the sake of being shut up again. She had got out by a trick in order to help her sister, if she could find her, and in order to be at liberty the first thing necessary was to elude her companion. To go to the door of her apartments would be fatal, but she had not had time to think what she should do. She thought now, with all the concentration of her ingenuity. One chance presented itself to her mind at once. They most pass the pillar behind which was the concealed entrance to the Moorish gallery above the throne room, and it was not at all likely that Doña Ana should know of its existence, for she never came to that part of the palace, and if Inez lagged a little way behind, before they reached the spot, she could slip noiselessly behind the pillar and disappear. She could always trust herself not to attract attention when she had to open and shut a door.

  The Princess spoke rarely, making little remarks now and then that hardly required an answer, but to which Inez answered in monosyllables, speaking in a low voice through the thick veil she had drawn over her mantle under her hood, on pretence of fearing the cold. She thought it a little safer to speak aloud in that way, lest her companion should wonder at her total silence.

  She knew exactly where she was, for she touched each corner as she passed, and counted her steps between one well-known point and the next, and she allowed the Princess to gain a little as they neared the last turning before reaching the place where she meant to make the attempt. She hoped in this way, by walking quite noiselessly, and then stopping suddenly just before she reached the pillar, to gain half a dozen paces, and the Princess would take three more before she stopped also. Inez had noticed that most people take at least three steps before they stop, if any one calls them suddenly when they are walking fast. It seems to need as much to balance the body when its speed is checked. She noticed everything that could be heard.

  She grew nervous. It seemed to her that her companion was walking more slowly, as if not wishing to leave her any distance behind. She quickened her own pace again, fearing that she had excited suspicion. Then she heard the Princess stop suddenly, and she had no choice but to do the same. Her heart began to beat painfully, as she saw her chance slipping from her. She waited for Doña Ana to speak, wondering what was the matter.

  “I have mistaken the way,” said the Princess, in a tone of annoyance. “I do not know where I am. We had better go back and turn down the main staircase, even if we meet some one. You see, I never come to this part of the palace.”

  “I think we are on the right corridor,” said Inez nervously. “Let me go as far as the corner. There is a light there, and I can tell you in a moment.” In her anxiety to seem to see, she had forgotten for the moment to muffle her voice in her veil.

  They went on rapidly, and the Doña Ana did what most people do when a companion offers to examine the way, — she stood still a moment and hesitated, looking after the girl, and then followed her with the slow step with which a person walks who is certain of having to turn back. Inez walked lightly to the corner, hardly touching the wall, turned by the corner, and was out of sight in a moment. The Princess walked faster, for though she believed that Dolores trusted her, it seemed foolish to give the girl a chance. She reached the corner, where there was a lamp, — and she saw that the dim corridor was empty to the very end.

  CHAPTER IX

  THE PRINCESS WAS far from suspecting, even then, that she had been deceived about her companion’s identity as well as tricked at the last, when Inez escaped from her. She would have laughed at the idea that any blind person could have moved as confidently as Inez, or could afterwards have run the length of the next corridor in what had seemed but an instant, for she did not know of the niche behind the pillar, and there were pilasters all along, built into the wall. The construction of the high, springing vault that covered the whole throne room required them for its solidity, and only the one under the centre of the arch was built as a detached pillar, in order to give access to the gallery. Seen from either end of the passage, it looked exactly like the rest, and few persons would have noticed that it differed from them, even in passing it.

  Doña Ana stood looking in the direction she supposed the girl to have taken. An angry flush rose in her cheek, she bit her lips till they almost bled, and at last she stamped once before she turned away, so that her little slipper sent a sharp echo along the corridor. Pursuit was out of the question, of course, though she could run like a deer; some one might meet her at any turning, and in an hour the whole palace would know that she had been seen running at full speed after some unknown person. It would be bad enough if she were recognized walking alone at night at a distance from her own apartments. She drew her veil over her face so closely that she could hardly see her way, and began to retrace her steps towards the principal staircase, pondering as to what she should say to Mendoza when he discovered that she had allowed his daughter to escape. She was a woman of manlike intelligence and not easily unbalanced by a single reverse, however, and before she had gone far her mind began to work clearly. Dolores, she reasoned, would do one of two things. She would either go straight to Don John’s apartments, wait for him, and then tell him her story, in the hope that he would protect her, or she would go to the Duchess Alv
arez and seek protection there. Under no circumstances would she go down to the throne room without her court dress, for her mere appearance there, dressed as she was, would produce the most profound astonishment, and could do her no possible good. And as for her going to the Duchess, that was impossible, too. If she had run away from Doña Ana, she had done so because the idea of not seeing Don John for two days was intolerable, and she meant to try and see him at once. The Duchess was in all probability with the Queen, in the latter’s private apartments, as Dolores would know. On the whole, it seemed far more likely that she had done the rashest thing that had suggested itself to her, and had gone directly to the man she loved, — a man powerful enough to protect her against all comers, at the present time, and quite capable of facing even the King’s displeasure.

  But the whole object of Doña Ana’s manoeuvre had been to get possession of Dolores’ person, as a means of strongly influencing Don John’s actions, in order thus to lead him into a false position from which he should not be able to escape without a serious quarrel with King Philip, which would be the first step towards the execution of the plot elaborated by Doña Ana and Perez together. Anything which could produce an open difference between the brothers would serve to produce two parties in Spain, of which the one that would take Don John’s side would be by far the stronger. His power would be suddenly much increased, an organized agitation would be made throughout the country to set him on the throne, and his popularity, like Cæsar’s, would grow still more, when he refused the crown, as he would most certainly do. But just then King Philip would die suddenly of a fever, or a cold, or an indigestion, as the conspirators thought best. There would be no direct male heir to the throne but Don John himself, the acknowledged son of the Emperor Charles; and even Don John would then be made to see that he could only serve his country by ruling it, since it cried out for his rule and would have no other. It was a hard and dangerous thing to lead King Philip; it would be an easy matter to direct King John. An honest and unsuspicious soldier would be but as a child in such skilful hands. Doña Ana and Perez would rule Spain as they pleased, and by and by Don John should be chosen Emperor also by the Electors of the Holy Roman Empire, and the conspirators would rule the world, as Charles the Fifth had ruled it. There was no limit to their ambition, and no scruple would stand between them and any crime, and the stake was high and worth many risks.