Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

“My friend,” she said, in a mocking tone, “I know nothing, and you know everything. At the present moment your disappearance from the court will not attract even the smallest attention compared with the things that are happening. If you do not tell me what you know, you will not be here to-morrow, and I will see that you are burned alive for a sorcerer next week. Do you understand? Now tell me who killed Don John of Austria, and why. Be quick, I have no time to lose.”

  Adonis made up his mind very suddenly that it would be better to disobey Don John than the angry woman who was speaking to him.

  “Nobody killed him,” he answered bluntly.

  The Princess was naturally violent, especially with her inferiors, and when she was angry she easily lost all dignity. She seized the dwarf by the arm and shook him.

  “No jesting!” she cried. “He did not kill himself — who did it?”

  “Nobody,” repeated Adonis doggedly, and quite without fear, for he knew how glad she would be to know the truth. “His Highness is not dead at all—”

  “You little hound!” The Princess shook him furiously again and threatened to strike him with her other hand.

  He only laughed.

  “Before heaven, Madam,” he said, “the Prince is alive and recovered, and is sitting in his chair. I have just been talking with him. Will you go with me to his Highness’s apartment? If he is not there, and safe, burn me for a heretic to-morrow.”

  The Princess’s hands dropped by her sides in sheer amazement, for she saw that the jester was in earnest.

  “He had a scratch in the scuffle,” he continued, “but it was the fall that killed him, his resurrection followed soon afterwards — and I trust that his ascension may be no further distant than your Excellency desires.”

  He laughed at his blasphemous jest, and the Princess laughed too, a little wildly, for she could hardly control her joy.

  “And who wounded him?” she asked suddenly. “You know everything, you must know that also.”

  “Madam,” said the dwarf, fixing his eyes on hers, “we both know the name of the person who wounded Don John, very well indeed, I regret that I should not be able to recall it at this moment. His Highness has forgotten it too, I am sure.”

  The Princess’s expression did not change, but she returned his gaze steadily during several seconds, and then nodded slowly to show that she understood. Then she looked away and was silent for a moment.

  “I am sorry I was rough with you, Adonis,” she said at last, thoughtfully. “It was hard to believe you at first, and if the Prince had been dead, as we all believed, your jesting would have been abominable. There,” — she unclasped a diamond brooch from her bodice— “take that, Adonis — you can turn it into money.”

  The Princess’s financial troubles were notorious, and she hardly ever possessed any ready gold.

  “I shall keep it as the most precious of my possessions,” answered the dwarf readily.

  “No,” she said quickly. “Sell it. The King — I mean — some one may see it if you keep it.”

  “It shall be sold to-morrow, then,” replied the jester, bending his head to hide his smile, for he understood what she meant.

  “One thing more,” she said; “Don John did not send you down to tell this news to the court without warning. He meant that I should know it before any one else. You have told me — now go away and do not tell others.”

  Adonis hesitated a moment. He wished to do Don John’s bidding if he could, but he knew his danger, and that he should be forgiven if, to save his own head, he did not execute the commission. The Princess wished an immediate answer, and she had no difficulty in guessing the truth.

  “His Highness sent you to find Doña Dolores,” she said. “Is that not true?”

  “It is true,” replied Adonis. “But,” he added, anticipating her wish out of fear, “it is not easy to find Doña Dolores.”

  “It is impossible. Did you expect to find her by waiting in this corner! Adonis, it is safer for you to serve me than Don John, and in serving me you will help his interests. You know that. Listen to me — Doña Dolores must believe him dead till to-morrow morning. She must on no account find out that he is alive.”

  At that moment the officer who had offered to get information for the dwarf returned. Seeing the latter in conversation with such a great personage, he waited at a little distance.

  “If you have found out where Doña Dolores de Mendoza is at this moment, my dear sir,” said Adonis, “pray tell the Princess of Eboli, who is very anxious to know.”

  The officer bowed and came nearer.

  “Doña Dolores de Mendoza is in his Majesty’s inner apartment,” he said.

  CHAPTER XX

  DOLORES AND RUY Gomez had passed through the outer vestibule, and he left her to pursue his way towards the western end of the Alcazar, which was at a considerable distance from the royal apartments. Dolores went down the corridor till she came to the niche and the picture before which Don John had paused to read the Princess of Eboli’s letter after supper. She stopped a moment, for she suddenly felt that her strength was exhausted and that she must rest or break down altogether. She leaned her weight against the elaborately carved railing that shut off the niche like a shrine, and looked at the painting, which was one of Raphael’s smaller masterpieces, a Holy Family so smoothly and delicately painted that it jarred upon her at that moment as something untrue and out of all keeping with possibility. Though most perfectly drawn and coloured, the spotlessly neat figures with their airs of complacent satisfaction seemed horribly out of place in the world of suffering she was condemned to dwell in, and she fancied, somewhat irreverently and resentfully, that they would look as much out of keeping with their surroundings in a heaven that must be won by the endurance of pain. Their complacent smiles seemed meant for her anguish, and she turned from the picture in displeasure, and went on.

  She was going back to her sister on the terrace, and she was going to kneel once more beside the dear head of the man she had loved, and to say one last prayer before his face was covered for ever. At the thought she felt that she needed no rest again, for the vision drew her to the sorrowful presence of its reality, and she could not have stopped again if she had wished to. She must go straight on, on to the staircase, up the long flight of steps, through the lonely corridors, and out at hist to the moonlit terrace where Inez was waiting. She went forward in a dream, without pausing. Since she had freed her father she had a right to go back to her grief. But as she went along, lightly and quickly, it seemed beyond her own belief that she should have found strength for what she had done that night. For the strength of youth is elastic and far beyond its own knowledge. Dolores had reached the last passage that led out upon the terrace, when she heard hurrying footsteps behind her, and a woman in a cloak slipped beside her, walking very easily and smoothly. It was the Princess of Eboli. She had left the dwarf, after frightening him into giving up his search for Dolores, and she was hastening to Don John’s rooms to make sure that the jester had not deceived her or been himself deceived in some way she could not understand.

  Dolores had lost her cloak in the hall, and was bareheaded, in her court dress. The Princess recognized her in the gloom and stopped her.

  “I have looked for you everywhere,” she said. “Why did you run away from me before?”

  “It was my blind sister who was with you,” answered Dolores, who knew her voice at once and had understood from her father what had happened. “Where are you going now?” she asked, without giving the Princess time to put a question.

  “I was looking for you. I wish you to come and stay with me to-night—”

  “I will stay with my father. I thank you for your kindness, but I would not on any account leave him now.”

  “Your father is in prison — in the west tower — he has just been sent there. How can you stay with him?”

  “You are well informed,” said Dolores quietly. “But your husband is just now gone to release him. I gave Don Ruy Gomez
the order which his Majesty had himself placed in my hands, and the Prince was kind enough to take it to the west tower himself. My father is unconditionally free.”

  The Princess looked fixedly at Dolores while the girl was speaking, but it was very dark in the corridor and the lamp was flickering to go out in the night breeze. The only explanation of Mendoza’s release lay in the fact that the King was already aware that Don John was alive and in no danger. In that case Dolores knew it, too. It was no great matter, though she had hoped to keep the girl out of the way of hearing the news for a day or two. Dolores’ mournful face might have told her that she was mistaken, if there had been more light; but it was far too dark to see shades of colour or expression.

  “So your father is free!” she said. “Of course, that was to be expected, but I am glad that he has been set at liberty at once.”

  “I do not think it was exactly to be expected,” answered Dolores, in some surprise, and wondering whether there could have been any simpler way of getting what she had obtained by such extraordinary means.

  “He might have been kept under arrest until to-morrow morning, I suppose,” said the Princess quietly. “But the King is of course anxious to destroy the unpleasant impression produced by this absurd affair, as soon as possible.”

  “Absurd!” Dolores’ anger rose and overflowed at the word. “Do you dare to use such a word to me to-night?”

  “My dear Dolores, why do you lose your temper about such a thing?” asked the Princess, in a conciliatory tone. “Of course if it had all ended as we expected it would, I never should use such a word — if Don John had died—”

  “What do you mean?” Dolores held her by the wrist in an instant and the maddest excitement was in her voice.

  “What I mean? Why—” the Princess stopped short, realizing that Dolores might not know the truth after all. “What did I say?” she asked, to gain time. “Why do you hold my hand like that?”

  “You called the murder of Don John an absurd affair, and then you said, ‘if Don John had died’ — as if he were not lying there dead in his room, twenty paces from where you stand! Are you mad? Are you playing some heartless comedy with me? What does it all mean?”

  The Princess was very worldly wise, and she saw at a glance that she must tell Dolores the truth. If she did not, the girl would soon learn it from some one else, but if she did, Dolores would always remember who had told her the good news.

  “My dear,” she said very gently, “let my wrist go and let me take your arm. We do not understand each other, or you would not be so angry with me. Something has happened of which you do not know—”

  “Oh, no! I know the whole truth!” Dolores interrupted her, and resisted being led along in a slow walk. “Let me go to him!” she cried. “I only wish to see him once more—”

  “But, dearest child, listen to me — if I do not tell you everything at once, it is because the shock might hurt you. There is some hope that he may not die—”

  “Hope! Oh no, no, no! I saw him lying dead—”

  “He had fainted, dear. He was not dead—”

  “Not dead?” Dolores’ voice broke. “Tell me — tell me quickly.” She pressed her hand to her side.

  “No. He came to himself after you had left him — he is alive. No — listen to me — yes, dear, he is alive and not much hurt. The wound was a scratch, and he was only stunned — he is well — to-morrow he will be as well as ever — ah, dear, I told you so!”

  Dolores had borne grief, shame, torment of mind that night, as bravely as ever a woman bore all three, but the joy of the truth that he lived almost ended her life then and there. She fell back upon the Princess’s arm and threw out her hands wildly, as if she were fighting for breath, and the lids of her eyes quivered violently and then were quite still, and she uttered a short, unnatural sound that was more like a groan of pain than a cry of happiness.

  The Princess was very strong, and held her, steadying herself against the wall, thinking anything better than to let her slip to the floor and lie swooning on the stone pavement. But the girl was not unconscious, and in a moment her own strength returned.

  “Let me go!” she cried wildly. “Let me go to him, or I shall die!”

  “Go, child — go,” said the Princess, with an accent of womanly kindness that was rare in her voice. But Dolores did not hear it, for she was already gone.

  Dolores saw nothing in the room, as she entered, but the eyes of the man she loved, though Inez was still beside him. Dolores threw herself wildly into his arms and hid her face, crying out incoherent words between little showers of happy tears; and her hands softly beat upon his shoulders and against his neck, and stole up wondering to his cheeks and touched his hair, as she drew back her head and held him still to look at him and see that he was whole. She had no speech left, for it was altogether beyond the belief of any sense but touch itself that a man should rise unhurt from the dead, to go on living as if nothing not common had happened in his life, to have his strength at once, to look into her eyes and rain kisses on the lids still dark with grief for his death. Sight could not believe the sight, hearing could not but doubt the sound, yet her hands held him and touched him, and it was he, unhurt saving for a scratch and a bruise. In her overwhelming happiness, she had no questions, and the first syllables that her lips could shape made broken words of love, and of thanks to Heaven that he had been saved alive for her, while her hands still fluttered to his face and beat gently and quickly on his shoulders and his arms, as if fearing lest he should turn to incorporeal light, without substance under her touch, and vanish then in air, as happiness does in a dream, leaving only pain behind.

  But at last she threw back her head and let him go, and her hands brushed away the last tears from her grey eyes, and she looked into his face and smiled with parted lips, drinking the sight of him with her breath and eyes and heart. One moment so, and then they kissed as only man and woman can when there has been death between them and it is gone not to come back again.

  Then memory returned, though very slowly and broken in many places, for it seemed to her as if she had not been separated from him a moment, and as if he must know all she had done without hearing her story in words. The time had been so short since she had kissed him last, in the little room beyond: there had been the minutes of waiting until the King had come, and then the trying of the door, and then the quarrel, that had lasted a short ten minutes to end in Don John’s fall; then the half hour during which he had lain unconscious and alone till Inez had come at the moment when Dolores had gone down to the throne room; and after that the short few minutes in which she had met her father, and then her interview with the King, which had not lasted long, and now she was with him again; and it was not two hours since they had parted — a lifetime of two hours.

  “I cannot believe it!” she cried, and now she laughed at last. “I cannot, I cannot! It is impossible!”

  “We are both alive,” he answered. “We are both flesh and blood, and breathing. I feel as if I had been in an illness or in a sleep that had lasted very long.”

  “And I in an awful dream.” Her face grew grave as she thought of what was but just passed. “You must know it all — surely you know it already — oh, yes! I need not tell it all.”

  “Something Inez has told me,” he replied, “and some things I guess, but I do not know everything. You must try and tell me — but you should not be here — it is late. When my servants know that I am living, they will come back, and my gentlemen and my officers. They would have left me here all night, if I had been really dead, lest being seen near my body should send them to trial for my death.” He laughed. “They were wise enough in their way. But you cannot stay here.”

  “If the whole court found me here, it would not matter,” answered Dolores. “Their tongues can take nothing from my name which my own words have not given them to feed on.”

  “I do not understand,” he said, suddenly anxious. “What have you said? What have you done?�
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  Inez came near them from the window, by which she had been standing. She laid a hand on Dolores’ arm.

  “I will watch,” she said. “If I hear anything, I will warn you, and you can go into the small room again.”

  She went out almost before either of them could thank her. They had, indeed, forgotten her presence in the room, being accustomed to her being near them; but she could no longer bear to stay, listening to their loving words that made her loneliness so very dark. And now, too, she had memories of her own, which she would keep secret to the end of her life, — beautiful and happy recollections of that sweet moment when the man that seemed dead had breathed and had clasped her in his arms, taking her for the other, and had kissed her as he would have kissed the one he loved. She knew at last what a kiss might be, and that was much; but she knew also what it was to kneel by her dead love and to feel his life come back, breath by breath and beat by beat, till he was all alive; and few women have felt that or can guess how great it is to feel. It was better to go out into the dark and listen, lest any one should disturb the two, than to let her memories of short happiness be marred by hearing words that were not meant for her.

  “She found you?” asked Dolores, when she was gone.

  “Yes, she found me. You had gone down, she said, to try and save your father. He is safe now!” he laughed.

  “She found you alive.” Dolores lingered on the words. “I never envied her before, I think; and it is not because if I had stayed I should have suffered less, dear.” She put up her hands upon his shoulders again. “It is not for that, but to have thought you dead and to have seen you grow alive again, to have watched your face, to have seen your eyes wake and the colour come back to your cheeks and the warmth to your dear hands! I would have given anything for that, and you would rather that I should have been there, would you not?” She laughed low and kissed away the answer from his lips. “If I had stayed beside you, it would have been sooner, love. You would have felt me there even in your dream of death, and you would have put out your hand to come back to me. Say that you would! You could not have let me lie there many minutes longer breaking my heart over you and wanting to die, too, so that we might be buried together. Surely my kisses would have brought you back!”