CHAPTER XV
OUR LADY OF THE SHADOWSThere were great clouds in the sky when the moon rose the next night andone of them threw Pampeluna into dark shadows when Marcos took his placein the little passage between the School in the Calle de la Dormitaleriaand the next building. The window at the end of the passage where Juanitaand Sor Teresa and some of the more favoured of the girls had theirrooms, was about six feet above the ground.
Marcos took his post immediately underneath and stretching his arm uptook hold of one of the two bars, and waited. Juanita looking from thedoor of her room could thus see his clenched hand and must know that hewas waiting. The clocks of the city struck ten. Immediately afterwardsthe watchmen began their cry. The city was already asleep.
It was very cold. Marcos changed his hand from time to time and breathedon his fingers. He carried a cloak for Juanita. The striking of thequarter found him still waiting beneath the window. But, soon after,Marcos' heart gave a leap to his throat at the touch of cold fingers onhis wrist. It was Juanita. He threw the cloak down and placing his heelon the sill of a lower window near the ground he raised himself to thelevel of the bars.
"Oh, Marcos!" whispered Juanita in his ear, through the open window.
He edged his shoulder in between the two bars which were fixedperpendicularly, and being strongly built he only found room to introducehis two thumbs within that which pressed against his chest. He slowlystraightened his arms and the iron gave an audible creak. It was ahundred years old, all rust-worn and attenuated.
"There," he said, "you can get through that."
"Yes," she answered. She was shivering and yet half laughing.
"Listen," she whispered, drawing him towards her. "Sor Teresa's door isopen. You can hear her snoring. Listen!"
She gave a half hysterical laugh.
"Quick," said Marcos--dropping to the ground.
Juanita turned sideways and pushed her head and shoulders through thebars. She leant down towards him holding out her arms and her thick plaitof hair struck him across the eyes. A moment later he had lifted her tothe ground.
"Quick," he said again, breathlessly. He threw the cloak round her anddrew the hood forward over her head. Then he took her hand and they rantogether down the narrow passage into the Calle de la Domitaleria. Sheran as quickly as he did with her long, schoolgirl legs, unhampered by awoman's length of skirt. At the corner Perro, who had been keeping watchthere, joined them and trotted by their side.
"What cloak is this?" she asked. "It smells of tobacco."
"It is my old military cloak."
"And this is my wedding dress!" she said, with a breathless laugh. "AndPerro is my bridesmaid."
They turned sharply to the left and in a moment stood on the desertedramparts close under the shadow of the Episcopal Palace. Below them wasdarkness. To the right, beneath them, the white falls of the rivergleamed dimly above the bridge, and the roar of it came to their earslike the roar of the sea.
Far across the plain, the Pyrenees rose, range behind range, a white wallin the moonlight. At their feet the walls of the ramparts, bastion belowbastion, broken and crenelated, a triumph of mediaeval fortification,faded into the shadow where the river ran.
"There is a snow-drift in this corner," whispered Marcos. "It is piled upagainst the rampart by the north wind. I will drop you over the wall onto it and then follow you. You remember how to hold to my hand?"
"Yes," she answered, very quick and alert. There was good blood in herveins, which was astir now, in the presence of danger. "Yes--as we usedto do it in the mountains--my hand round your wrist and your fingersround mine."
They were standing on the wall now. She knelt down and looked over; thenshe turned, still on her knees, and clasped her right hand round hiswrist while he held hers in his strong grip. She leant forward andwithout hesitation swung out, suspended by one arm, into the darkness. Hestooped, then knelt, and finally lay face downwards on the wall, loweringher all the while.
"Go!" he whispered. And she dropped lightly on to the snow-slope beatenby the wind into an icy buttress against the wall. A moment later hedropped beside her.
"My father is at the bridge," he said, as they scrambled down to thenarrow path that runs along the river bank beneath the walls. "He iswaiting for us there with a carriage and a priest."
Juanita stopped short.
"Oh, I wish I had not come!" she exclaimed.
"You can go back," said Marcos slowly; "it is not too late. You can stillgo back if you want to."
But Juanita only laughed at him.
"And know for the rest of my life that I am a miserable coward. And it isof cowards that nuns are made; no, thank you. I will carry it throughnow. Come along. Come and get married."
She gave a laugh as she led the way. When they reached the road they werein the full moonlight, and for the first time could see each other.
"What is the matter?" said Juanita suddenly. "Your face looks white;there is something I do not understand in it."
"Nothing," answered Marcos. "Nothing. We must be quick."
"You are sure you are keeping nothing back from me?" she asked, glancingshrewdly at him as she walked by his side.
"Nothing," he answered, for the first time, and very conscientiouslytelling her an untruth. For he was keeping back the crux of the wholeaffair which he thought she was too young to be told or to understand.
The carriage was waiting on the high road just across the old Romanbridge. Sarrion came forward in the moonlight to meet them. Juanita rantowards him, kissed him and clung to his arm with a little movement ofaffection.
"I am so glad to see you," she said. "It feels safer. They almost made mea nun, you know. And that horrid old Sor Teresa--oh, I beg your pardon! Iforgot she was your sister."
"She is hardly my sister," answered Sarrion with a cynical laugh. "It isagainst the rules you know to permit oneself any family affection whenone is in religion."
"You mustn't blame her for that," said Juanita. "One never knows. Youcannot tell why she went into religion. Perhaps she never meant to. Youdo not understand."
"Oh, yes I do," answered Sarrion bitterly.
They were hurrying towards the carriage and a man waiting at the opendoor took a step forward and raised his hat, showing in the moonlight ahigh bald forehead and a clean shaven face. He was slight and neat.
"This is an old school friend of mine," said Sarrion by way ofintroduction. "He is a bishop," he added.
And Juanita knelt on the road while he laid his hand on her hair with asmile half amused and half pathetic. He looked twenty years younger thanSarrion, and laying aside his sacerdotal manner as suddenly as he hadassumed it on Juanita's instinctive initiation, he helped her into thecarriage with a grave and ceremonious courtesy.
"This is your own carriage," she said when they were all seated.
"Yes--from Torre Garda," answered Sarrion. "And it is Pietro who isdriving. So you are among friends."
"And dear old Perro running at the side," exclaimed Juanita, jumping upand putting her head out of the window to encourage Perro with agreeting. Her mantilla flying in the wind blew across the bishop's facewhich that youthful-looking dignitary endured with patience.
"And there is a hot-water tin for our feet. I feel it through myslippers; for my feet are wet with the snow. How delightful!"
And Juanita stooped down to warm her hands.
"You have thought of everything--you and Marcos," she said. "You are sokind to me. I am sure I am very grateful ... to every one."
She turned towards the bishop, kindly including him in this expression ofthanks; which she could not do more definitely because she did not knowhis name. It was obvious that she was not a bit afraid of him seeing thathe had no vestments with him.
"At one time, on the ramparts, I was sorry I had come," she explained ina friendly way to him, "but now I am not. Of course it is all very wellfor me. It is great fun. But for you it is different; on such a coldnight. I do not know why everybody takes
so much trouble about me."
"Half of Spain is taking trouble about you, my child," was the answer.
"Ah! that is about my money. That is quite different. But Marcos, youknow, and Uncle Ramon are the only people who take any trouble about me,for myself you understand."
"Yes, I understand," answered the great man humbly, as if he were tryingto, but was not quite sure of success.
Marcos sat silently in his corner of the carriage. Indeed Juanitaexercised the prerogative of her sex and led the conversation, gaily andeasily. But when the carriage stopped beneath some trees by the roadsideshe suddenly lapsed into silence too.
She stood on the road in the bright moonlight and looked about her. Shehad thrown back the hood of Marcos' military cloak and now set hermantilla in order. Which was all the preparation this light-hearted bridemade for the supreme moment. And perhaps she never knew all that she hadmissed.
"I see no church and no houses," said Juanita to Marcos. "Where are we?"
"The chapel is above us in the darkness," replied Marcos. And he led theway up a winding path.
The little chapel stood on a sort of table-land looking out over theplain that lay to the south of it. In front of it were twelve pinesplanted in a row at irregular intervals. The shadow of each tree insuccession fell upon a low stone cross set on the ground before the doorat each successive hour of the twelve; a fantasy of some holy man longdead.
The chapel door stood open and just within it a priest in his short whitesurplice awaited their arrival. Juanita recognised the sunburnt old curaof Torre Garda.
But he only had time to bow rather formally to her; for a bishop wasbehind.
"I have only lighted one candle," he said to Marcos. "If we make anillumination they can see it from Pampeluna."
The bishop followed the old priest into the sacristy where the one candlegave a flickering light. There they could be heard whispering together.Sarrion, Marcos and Juanita stood near the door. The moonlight gleamedthrough the windows and a certain amount of reflected light found its waythrough the open doorway.
Suddenly Juanita gave a start and clutched at Marcos' arm.
"Look," she said, pointing to the right.
A kneeling figure was there with something that gleamed dully at theshoulders.
"Yes," explained Marcos. "It is a friend of mine, an officer of thegarrison who has ridden over. We require two witnesses, you know."
"He is saying his own prayers," said Juanita, looking at him.
"He has not much opportunity," explained Marcos. "He is in command of anoutpost at the outlet of the valley of the Wolf."
As they looked at him he rose and came towards them, his spurs clankingand his great sword swinging against the prie-dieu chairs of the devout.He bowed formally to Juanita, and stood, upright and stiff, looking atMarcos.
The old cura came from the sacristy and lighted two candles on the altar.Then he turned with the taper in his hand and beckoned to Marcos andJuanita to come forward to the rails where two stools had been placed inreadiness. The cura went back to the sacristy and returned, followed bythe bishop in his vestments.
So Juanita de Mogente was married in a little mountain chapel by thelight of two candles and a waning moon, while Sarrion and the officer inhis dusty uniform stood like sentinels behind them, and the bishoprecited the office by heart because he could not see to read. He was apolitical bishop and no great divine, but he knew his business, and gotthrough it quickly.
He splashed down his historic name with a great flourish of the quill penin the register and on the certificate which he handed with a bow toJuanita.
"What shall I do with it?" she asked.
"Give it to Marcos," was the answer.
And Marcos put the paper in his pocket.
They passed out of the chapel and stood on the little terrace in themoonlight amid the shadows of the twelve pine trees while the bishopdisrobed in the sacristy.
"What are those lights?" asked Juanita, breaking the silence before itgrew irksome.
"That is Pampeluna," replied Marcos.
"And the light in the mountains?" she asked, pointing to the north.
"That is a Carlist watch-fire, Senorita," answered the officer briskly,and no one seemed to notice his slip of the tongue except Sarrion, whoglanced at him and then decided not to remind him that the title nolonger applied to Juanita.
In a few moments the bishop joined them, and they all made their way downthe winding path. The bishop and Sarrion were to go by the midnight trainto Saragossa, while the carnage and horses were housed for the night atthe inn near the station, a mile from the gates; for this was a time ofwar, and Pampeluna was a fenced city from nightfall till morning.
Marcos and Juanita reached the Calle de la Dormitaleria in safety,however, and Juanita gave a little sigh of fatigue as they hurried downthe narrow alley.
"To-morrow," she said, "I shall think this has all been a dream."
"So shall I," said Marcos gravely.
He lifted her into the window, and she stood listening for a moment whileshe took from her finger the wedding ring she had worn for half an hourand gave it back to him.
"It is of no use to me," she said; "I cannot wear it at school."
She laughed, and held up one finger to command his attention.
"Listen!" she whispered. "Sor Teresa is still snoring."
She watched him bend the bars back again to their proper place.
"By the way," she asked him. "What was the name of the chapel where wewere married--I should like to know?"
Marcos hesitated a moment before replying.
"It is called Our Lady of the Shadows."
The Velvet Glove Page 15