“Since she loved him, he went carefully,
Bearing a thing so precious in his hand.”
GEORGE ELIOT.
ABOUT a week afterward, Don Juan Alvarez dismounted at the door of his uncle's mansion. His shout soon brought the porter, a "pure and ancient Christian," who had spent nearly all his life in the service of the family.
“God save you, father," said Juan. "Is my brother in the house?”
“No, señor and your worship,"—the old man hesitated, and looked confused.
“Where shall I find him, then?" cried Juan; "speak at once, if you know.”
“May it please your noble Excellency, I—I know nothing.
At least—the Saints have mercy on us!" and he trembled from head to foot.
Juan thrust him aside, nearly knocking him down in his haste, and dashed breathless into his uncle's private room, on the right hand side of the patio.
Don Manuel was there, seated at a table, looking over some papers.
“Where is my brother?" asked Juan sternly and abruptly, searching his face with his keen dark eyes.
“Holy Saints defend us!" cried Don Manuel, nearly startled out of his ordinary decorum. "And what madness brings you here?”
“Where is my brother" Juan repeated, in the same tone, and without moving a muscle.
“Be quiet—be reasonable, nephew Don Juan. Do not make a disturbance; it will be worse for all of us. We did all we could—”
“For Heaven's sake, señor, will you answer me?”
“Have patience. We did all we could for him, I was about to say; and more than we ought. The fault was his own, if he was suspected and taken—”
"Taken! Then I come too late." Sinking into the nearest seat, he covered his face with both hands, and groaned aloud. Don Manuel Alvarez had never learned to reverence the sacredness of a great sorrow. "Rushing in" where such as he might well fear to tread, he presumed to offer consolation. "Come, then, nephew Don Juan," he said, "you know as well as I do that water that has run by will turn no mill,' and that there is no good in throwing the rope after the bucket.' No man can alter that which is past. All we can do is to avoid worse mischief in future.”
When was it?" asked Juan, without looking up.
A week agorae.”
“Seven days and nights!”
“Thereabouts. But you—are you in love with destruction yourself, that, when you were safe and well at Nuera, you must needs come hither again?”
“I came to save him.”
“Unheard of folly! If you have been meddling with these matters—and it is but too likely, seeing you were always with him (though, the Saints forbid I should suspect an honorable soldier like you of anything worse than imprudence)—do you not know they will wring the whole truth out of him with very little trouble, and your life is not worth a brass maravedi?”
Juan started to his feet, and glared scorn and defiance in his uncle's face. "Whoever dares to hint so vile a slander," he cried, "by my faith he shall repent it, were he my uncle ten times over. Don Carlos Alvarez never did, and never will, betray a trust, let those wretches deal with him as they may. But I know him; he will die, or worse,—they will make him mad." Here Juan's voice failed, and he stood in silent horror, gazing on the dread vision that rose before his mind.
Don Manuel was daunted by his vehemence. "You are the best judge yourself of what amount of danger you may be incurring," he said. "But let me tell you, Señor Don Juan, that I hold you rather a dangerous guest to harbor under the circumstances. To have the Alguazils of the Holy Office twice in my house would be enough to cost me all my places, not to mention the disgrace of it.”
“You shall not lose a real by me or mine," returned Juan proudly.
“I did not mean, however, to refuse you hospitality," said Don Manuel, relieved, yet a little uneasy, perhaps even remorseful.
“But I mean to decline it, señor. I have only two favors to ask of you," he continued: "one, to allow me free intercourse with my betrothed; the other, to permit me"—his voice faltered, stopped. With a great effort he resumed—"to permit me to examine my brother's room, and whatever effects he may have left there.”
“Now you speak more rationally," said his uncle, mistaking the self-control of indignant pride for genuine calmness." But as to your brother's effects, you may spare your pains; for the Alguazils set the seal of the Holy Office upon them on the night of his arrest, and they have since carried them away. As to the other matter, what Doña Beatriz may think of the connection, after the infamy in which your branch of the family is involved, I cannot tell.”
A burning flush mounted to Juan's cheek as he answered, "I trust my betrothed; even as I trust my brother.”
“You can see the lady herself. She may be better able than T to persuade you to consult for your own safety. For if you are not a madman, you will return at once to Nuera, which you ought never to have quitted; or you will take the earliest opportunity of rejoining the army.”
“I shall not stir from Seville till I obtain my brother's deliverance; or—" Juan did not name the other alternative. Involuntarily he placed his hand on his belt, in which he had concealed certain old family jewels, which he believed would produce a considerable sum of money; for his last faint hope for Carlos lay in a judicious appeal to the all-powerful "Don Dinero."
“You will never leave it, then," said Don Manuel "And you must hold me excused from aiding and abetting your folly. Your brother's business has cost me and mine more than enough already. I had rather ten thousand times that a man had died of the plague in my house, were it for the scandal's sake alone! Nor, bad as it is, is the scandal all. Since that miserable night, my unhappy son Gonsalvo, in whose apartment the arrest took place, has been sick unto death, and out of his mind.”
“Don Gonsalvo! What brought my brother to his room?”
“The devil, whose servant he is, may know; I do not. He was found there, in his sword and cloak, as if ready to go forth, when the officers came.”
“Did he leave no message—no word for me?”
“Not one word. I know not if he spoke at all, save to offer to show the Alguazils his personal effects. To do him justice, nothing suspicious was found amongst them. But the less said on the subject the better. I wash my hands of it, and of him. I thought he would have done honor to the family; but he has proved its sorest disgrace.”
“Señor, what you say of him you say of me also," said Juan, growing white with anger. "And already I have heard quite enough.”
“That is as you please, Señor Don Juan.”
“I shall only trespass upon you for the favor you have promised me-permission to wait upon Doña Beatriz.”
“I shall apprise her of your presence, and give her leave to act as she sees fit." And glad to put an end to the interview, Don Manuel left the room.
Juan sank into a seat once more, and gave himself up to an agony of grief for his brother.
So absorbed was he in his sorrow, that a light footstep entered and approached unheard by him. At last a small hand touched his arm. He started and looked up. Whatever his anguish of heart might be, he was still the loyal lover of Doha Beatriz. So the next moment found him on his knees saluting that hand with his lips. And then followed certain ceremonies abundantly interesting to those who enact them, but apt to prove tedious when described.
“My lady's devoted slave," said Don Juan, using the ordinary language of the time, "bears a breaking heart to-day. We knew neither father nor mother; there were but the two of us.”
“Did you not receive my letter, praying you to remain at Nuera?" asked the lady.
“Pardon me, queen of my heart, in that I dared to disregard a wish of yours. But I knew his danger, and I came to save him. Alas too late.”
“I am not sure that I do pardon you, Don Juan.”
“Then, I presume so far as to say, that I know Doña Beatriz better than she knows herself. Indeed, had I acted otherwise, she would scarce have pardoned me. How would it have been possible for me to consult for my own safety, leaving him, alone and unaided, in such fearful peril?”
“You acknowledge there is peril—to you?”
"There may be, señora.”
“Ay de mi I Why, in Heaven's name, have you thus involved yourself? O Don Juan, you have dealt very cruelly with me!”
“Light of my eyes, life of my life, what mean you by these words?”
“Was it not cruel to allow your brother, with his gentle, winning ways, and his soft specious words, to lead you step by step from the faith of our fathers, until he had you entangled in I know not what horrible heresies, and made you put in peril your honor, your liberty, your life—everything?”
“We only sought Truth.”
“Truth!" echoed the lady, with a contemptuous stamp of her small foot and twirl of her fan. "What is Truth? What good will Truth do me if those cruel men drag you from your bed at midnight, take you to that dreadful place, stretch you on the rack?" But that last horror was too much to bear; Doña Beatriz hid her face in her hands, and wept and sobbed passionately.
Juan soothed her with every tender, lover-like art. "I will be very prudent, dearest lady," he said at last; adding, as he gazed on her beautiful face, "I have too much to live for not to hold life very precious.”
“Will you promise to fly—to leave the city now, before suspicions are awakened which may make flight impossible?”
“My first and my only love, I would die to fulfill your slightest wish. But this thing I cannot do.”
“And wherefore not, Señor Don Juan?”
“Can you ask I must hazard everything, spend everything, in the chance—if there be a chance—of saving him, or at least, of softening his fate." "Then God help us both," said Doña Beatriz.
Amen! Pray to him day and night, señora. Perhaps he may have pity on us.”
“There is no chance of saving Don Carlos. Know you not that of all the prisoners the Holy House receives, scarce one in a thousand goes forth again to take his place in the world?”
Juan shook his head. He knew well that his task was almost hopeless; yet, even by Doña Beatriz, he was not to be moved from his determination.
But he thanked her in strong, passionate words for her faith in him and her truth to him. "No sorrow can divide us, my beloved," he said, "nor even what they call shame, falsely as they speak therein. You are my star, that shines on me throughout the darkness.”
“I have promised.”
“My uncle's family may seek to divide us, and I think they will. But the lady of my heart will not heed their idle words?”
Doña Beatriz smiled. "I am a Lavella," she said. "Do you not know our motto? —`True unto death.'”
“It is a glorious motto. May it be mine too.”
“Take heed what you do, Don Juan. If you love me, you will look well to your footsteps, since, wherever they lead, mine are bound to follow." Saying this, she rose, and stood gazing in his face with flushed cheek and kindling eyes.
The words were such as might thrill any lover's heart with joy and gratitude. Yet there was something in the look which accompanied them that changed joy and gratitude into vague fear and apprehension. The light in that dark eye seemed borrowed from the fire of some sublime but terrible resolve within. Juan's heart quailed, though he knew not why, as he said, "My queen should never tread except through flowery paths.”
Doña Beatriz took up a little golden crucifix that, attached to a rosary of coral beads, hung from her girdle. "You see this cross, Don Juan?”
“Yes, señora mía.”
“On that horrible night when they dragged your brother to prison, I swore a sacred oath upon it. You esteemed me a child, Don Juan, when you read me chapters from your book, and talked freely to me about God, and faith, and the soul's salvation. Perchance I was a child in some things. For I supposed them good words; how could they be otherwise, since you spoke them? I listened and believed, after a fashion; half thinking all the time of the pretty fans and trinkets you brought me, or of the pattern of such and such an one's mantilla that I had seen at mass. But your brother tore the veil from my eyes at last, and made me understand that those specious words, with which a child played childishly, were the crime that finds no pardon here or hereafter. Of the hereafter I know not; of the here I know too much, God help me! There be fair ladies, not more deeply involved than I, who have changed their gilded saloons for the dungeons of the Triana. But then it matters not so much about me. For I am not like other girls, who have fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers to care for them. Saving Don Carlos (who was good to me for your sake), no one ever gave me more than the half-sorrowful, half-pitying kindness one might give a pet parrot from the Indies. Therefore, thinking over all things, and knowing well your reckless nature, Señor Don Juan, I swore that night upon this holy cross, that if by evil hap you were attainted for heresy, I would go next day to the Triana and accuse myself of the same crime.”
Juan did not for a moment doubt that she would do it; and thus a chain, light as silk but strong as adamant, was flung around him.
“Doña Beatriz, for my sake—" he began to plead.
“For my sake, Don Juan will take care of his life and liberty," she interrupted, with a smile that, if it had a little sad ness, had very far more of triumph in it. She knew the power her resolve gave her over him: she had bought it dearly, and she meant to use it. "Is it still your wish to remain here," she continued; "or will you go abroad, and wait for better times?”
Juan paused for a moment.
“No choice is left me while Carlos pines uncomforted in a dungeon," he said at last, firmly, though very sorrowfully.
“Then you know what you risk, that is all," answered the lady, whose will was a match for his.
In a marvelously short time had love and sorrow transformed the young and childish girl into a passionate, determined woman, with all the fire of her own southern skies in her heart.
Ere he departed, Juan pleaded for permission to visit her frequently. But here again she showed a keen-sighted apprehensiveness for him, which astonished him. She cautioned him against their cousins, Manuel and Balthazar; who, if they thought him in danger of arrest, were quite capable of informing against him themselves, to secure a share of his patrimony. Or they might gain the same end, without the disgrace of such a baseness, by putting him quietly out of the way with their daggers. On all accounts, his frequent presence at the house would be undesirable, and might be dangerous; but she agreed to inform him, by means of certain signals (which they arranged together), when he might pay a visit to her with safety. Then, having bidden her farewell, Don Juan turned his back on his uncle's house with a heavy heart.