The Spanish Brothers Part 24

Carlos found that a few strong, plain words were absolutely necessary in order to make Beatrix understand his brother's peril. She had listened hitherto to Don Juan's extracts from Scripture, and the arguments and exhortations founded thereon, conscious, indeed, that these were secrets which should be jealously guarded, yet unconscious that they were what the Church and the world branded as heresy. Consequently, although she heard of the arrest of Losada and his friends with vague regret and apprehension, she was far from distinctly a.s.sociating the crime for which they suffered with the name dearest to her heart. She was still very young; and she had not thought much--she had only loved. And she blindly followed him she loved, without caring to ask whither he was going himself, or whither he was leading her. When at last Carlos made her comprehend that it was for reading the Scriptures, and talking of justification by faith alone, that Losada was thrown into the dungeons of the Triana, a thrilling cry of anguish broke from her lips.

"Hush, senora!" said Carlos; and for once his voice was stern. "If even your little black foot-page heard that cry, it might ruin all."

But Beatrix was unused to self-control. Another cry followed, and there were symptoms of hysterical tears and laughter. Carlos tried a more potent spell.

"Hush, senora!" he repeated. "We must be strong and silent, if we are to save Don Juan."

She looked piteously up at him, repeating, "Save Don Juan?"

"Yes, senora. Listen to me. _You_, at least, are a good Catholic. You have not compromised yourself in any way: you say your angelus; you make your vows; you bring flowers to Our Lady's shrine. _You_ are safe."

She turned round and faced him--her cheek dyed crimson, and her eyes flas.h.i.+ng,--

"I am safe! Is that all you have to say? Who cares for that? What is _my_ life worth?"

"Patience, dear senora! Your safety aids in securing his. Listen.--You are writing to him. Tell him of the arrests; for hear of them he must.

Use the language about heresy which will occur to you, but which--G.o.d help me!--I could not use. Then pa.s.s from the subject. Write aught else that comes to your mind; but before closing your letter, say that I am well in mind and body, and would be heartily recommended to him. Add that I most earnestly request of him, for our common good and the better arrangement of our affairs, not to return to Seville, but to remain at Nuera. He will understand that. Lay your own commands upon him--your _commands_, remember, senora--to the same effect."

"I will do all that.--But here come my aunt and cousins."

It was true. Already the porter had opened for them the gloomy outer gate; and now the gilt and filagreed inner door was thrown open also, and the returning family party filled the court. They were talking together; not quite so gaily as usual, but still eagerly enough. Dona Sancha soon drew near to Beatrix, and began to rally her upon her occupation, threatening playfully to carry away and read the unfinished letter. No one addressed a word to Carlos; but that might have been mere accident.

It was, however, scarcely accidental that his aunt, as she pa.s.sed him on her way to an inner room, drew her mantilla closer round her, lest its deep lace fringe might touch his clothing. Shortly afterwards Dona Sancha dropped her fan. According to custom, Carlos stooped for it, and handed it to her with a bow. The young lady took it mechanically, but almost immediately dropped it again with a look of scorn, as if polluted by its touch. Its delicate carved ivory, the work of Moorish hands, lay in fragments on the marble floor; and from that moment Carlos knew that he was under the ban, that he stood alone amidst his uncle's household--a suspected and degraded man.

It was not wonderful. His intimacy with the monks of San Isodro, his friends.h.i.+p with Don Juan Ponce de Leon, and with the physician Losada, were all well-known facts. Moreover, had he not taught at the College of Doctrine, under the direct patronage of Fernando de San Juan, another of the victims. And there were other indications of his tendencies which could scarcely escape notice, once the suspicions of those who lived under the same roof with him were awakened.

For a time he stood silent, watching his uncle's countenance, and marking the frown that contracted his brow whenever his eye turned towards him. But when Don Manuel pa.s.sed into a smaller saloon that opened upon the court, Carlos followed him boldly.

They stood face to face, but could hardly see each other. The room was darkness, save for a few struggling moonbeams.

"Senor my uncle," said Carlos, "I fear my presence here is displeasing to you."

Don Manuel paused before replying.

"Nephew," he said at length, "you have been lamentably imprudent. The saints grant you have been no worse."

A moment of strong emotion will sometimes bring out in a man's face characteristic lineaments of his family, in calmer seasons not traceable there. Thus it is with features of the soul. It was not the gentle timid Don Carlos who spoke now, it was Alvarez de Santillanos y Menaya.

There was both pride and courage in his tone.

"If it has been my misfortune to offend my honoured uncle, to whom I owe so many benefits, I am sorry, though I cannot charge myself with any fault. But I should be faulty indeed were I to prolong my stay in a house where I am no longer what, thanks to your kindness, senor my uncle, I have ever been hitherto, a welcome guest." Having spoken thus, he turned to go.

"Stay, young fool!" cried Don Manuel, who thought the better of him for his proud words. They raised him, in his estimation, from a mark for his scorn to a legitimate object for his indignation. "There spoke your father's voice. But I tell you, for all that, you shall not quit the shelter of my roof."

"I thank you."

"You may spare the pains. I ask you not, for I prefer to remain in ignorance, to what perilous and fool-hardy lengths your intimacy with heretics may have gone. Without being a Qualificator of heresy myself, I can tell that you smell of the fire. And indeed, young man, were you anything less than Alvarez de Menaya, I would hardly scorch my own fingers to hold you out of it. The Devil--to whom, in spite of all your fair appearances, I fear you belong--might take care of his own. But since truth is the daughter of G.o.d, you shall have it from my lips. And the plain truth is, that I have no desire to hear every cur dog in Seville barking at me and mine; nor to see our ancient and honourable name dragged through the mire and filth of the streets."

"I have never disgraced that name."

"Have I not said that I desire no protestations from you? Whatever my private opinion may be, it stands upon our family honour to hold that yours is still unstained. Therefore, not from love, as I tell you plainly, but from motives that may perchance prove stronger in the end, I and mine extend to you our protection. I am a good Catholic, a faithful son of Mother Church; but I freely confess I am no hero of the Faith, to offer up upon its shrine those that bear my own name. I pretend not to such heights of sanct.i.ty, not I." And Don Manuel shrugged his shoulders.

"I entreat of you, senor my uncle, to allow me to explain--"

Don Manuel waved his hand with a forbidding gesture. "None of thy explanations for me," he said. "I am no silly c.o.c.k, to scratch till I find the knife. Dangerous secrets had best be let alone. This I will say, however, that of all the contemptible follies of these evil times, this last one of heresy is the worst. If a man _will_ lose his soul, in the name of common sense let him lose it for fine houses, broad lands, a duke's t.i.tle, an archbishop's coffers, or something else good at least in this world. But to give all up, and to gain nothing, save fire here and fire again hereafter! It is sheer, blank idiocy."

"I _have_ gained something," said Carlos firmly. "I have gained a treasure worth more than all I risk, more than life itself."

"What! Is there really a meaning in this madness? Have you and your friends a secret?" Don Manuel asked in a gentler voice, and not without curiosity. For he was the child of his age; and had Carlos told him that the heretics had made the discovery of the philosopher's stone, he would have seen nothing worthy of disbelief in the statement; he would only have asked him for proofs.

"The knowledge of G.o.d in Christ," began Carlos eagerly, "gives me joy and peace--"

"_Is that all?_" cried Don Manuel with an oath. "Fool that I was, to imagine, for half an idle minute, that there might be some grain of common sense still left in your crazy brain! But since it is only a question of words and names, and mystical doctrines, I have the honour to wish you good evening, Senor Don Carlos. Only I command you, as you value your life, and prefer a residence beneath my roof to a dungeon in the Triana, to keep your insanity within bounds, and to conduct yourself so as to avert suspicion. On these conditions we will shelter you.

Eventually, if it can be done with safety, we may even s.h.i.+p you out of the Spains to some foreign country, where heretics, rogues, and thieves are permitted to go at large." So saying, he left the room.

Carlos was stung to the quick by his contempt; but remembered at last that it was a fragment of the true cross (really the first that had fallen to his lot) given him to wear in honour of his Master.

Sleep would not visit his eyes that night. The next day was the Sabbath, a day he had been wont to welcome and enjoy. But never again should the Reformed Church of Seville meet in the upper room which had been the scene of so much happy intercourse. The next reunion was appointed for another place, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Dona Isabella de Baena and Losada were in the dungeons of the Triana. Fray Ca.s.siodoro de Reyna, singularly fortunate, had succeeded in making his escape. Fray Constantino, on the other hand, had been amongst the first arrested; but Carlos went as usual to the Cathedral, where that eloquent voice would never again be heard. A heavy silent gloom, like that which precedes a thunderstorm, seemed to fill the crowded aisles.

Yet it was there that the first gleam of comfort reached the breaking heart of Carlos. It came to him through the familiar words of the Latin service, loved from childhood.

He said afterwards to the trembling children of one of the victims, whose desolated home he dared to visit, "For myself, horror took hold of me. I dared not to think. I scarce dared to pray, save in broken words that were only like cries of pain. The first thing that helped me was that grand verse in the Te Deum, chanted by the sweet childish voices of the Cathedral choir--'Tu, devicto mortis aculeo, aperuesti credentibus regna coelorum.' Think, dear friends, not death alone, but its sting, its sharpness,--for us and our beloved,--He has overcome, and they and we in him. The gates of the kingdom of heaven stand open; opened by his hands, and neither men nor fiends can shut them again."

Such words as these did Carlos find opportunity to speak to many bereaved ones, from whom the desire of their eyes had been taken by a stroke far more bitter than death. This ministry of love did not greatly increase his own peril, since the less he deviated from his ordinary habits of life the less suspicion he was likely to awaken. But had it been otherwise, he was not now in a position to calculate.

Perhaps he was too near heaven; at all events, he had already ventured too much for Christ's sake not to be willing, at his call, to venture a little more.

Meanwhile, the isolation of his position in his uncle's house grew overpowering. No one reproached him, no one taunted him, not even Gonsalvo. He often longed for some bitter word, ay, though it were a curse, to break the oppressive silence. Every eye looked upon him with hatred and scorn; every hand shrank from the slightest, most accidental contact with his. Almost he came to consider himself what all others considered him,--polluted, degraded--under the ban.

Once and again would he have sought escape by flight from an atmosphere in which it seemed more and more impossible to breathe. But flight meant arrest; and arrest, besides its overwhelming terrors for himself, meant the danger of betraying Juan. His uncle and his uncle's family, though they seemed now to scorn and hate him, had promised to save him if they could, and so far he trusted them.

XXIV.

A Gleam of Light

"It is a weary task to school the heart, Ere years or griefs have tamed its fiery throbbings, Into that still and pa.s.sive fort.i.tude Which is but learned from suffering."--Hemans

Shortly afterwards, the son and heir of Dona Inez was baptized, with the usual amount of ceremony and rejoicing. After the event, the family and friends partook of a merienda of fruit, confectionery, and wine, in the patio of Don Garcia's house. Much against his inclination, Carlos was obliged to be present, as his absence would have occasioned remark and inquiry.

When the guests were beginning to disperse, the hostess drew near the spot where he stood, near to the fountain, admiring, or seeming to admire, a pure white azalia in glorious bloom.

"In good sooth, cousin Don Carlos," she said, "you forget old friends very easily. But I suppose it is because you are going so soon to take Orders. Every one knows how learned and pious you are. And no doubt you are right to wean yourself in good time from the concerns and amus.e.m.e.nts of this unprofitable world."

No word of this little speech was lost upon one of the neatest gossips in Seville, a lady of rank, who stood near, leaning on the arm of Losada's former patient, the wealthy Canon. And this was what the speaker, in her good nature, probably intended.