“I am a Catholic.”
“Yes.”
“I am in love with a man. He wants to marry me. But that is impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s a Red.”
“You mean that he is an anti-clerical and would not agree to a religious ceremony whereas you, in accordance with the teachings of your faith, would not consider you were married at all if you only went through a civil one?”
“That is a point, but I’m sure it could be overcome. I know the hiding-places of at least a dozen priests who are still living here in Madrid and I could easily get one of them to marry us. As far as Cristoval … it is Cristoval, you know.”
“I guessed as much.”
“As far as Cristoval is concerned I’ve sounded him very carefully. He is a priest-hater but like so many men of his kind his anti-clericalism is the result of a conviction that the religious orders have exploited and enslaved the masses, but he admits that for some people a religion is a necessity. He’s so terribly in love with me I’m quite sure he’d agree to a secret religious ceremony if I wished it.”
“But you’re afraid that if you asked him to do so he would suspect that you are a reactionary.”
“No, it’s not that. The beliefs instilled in childhood die hard. At least two-thirds of the Reds are still Catholics at heart. Again and again I hear from the other side of Militiamen caught in the act of butchering priests who beg for another priest to hear their confession and give them absolution before they are led out to execution. Call it superstition if you will, but Cristoval and the other leaders know that it’s still there deep down in most of us, and he would look on my wish to be married by a priest only as something of that kind.”
“The real obstacle then.…”
“Is that I don’t feel I could go through such a ceremony without telling him the truth. If he knew the part I have been playing he would probably shoot me and then himself. In any case there could not possibly be an hour’s happiness for either of us once he knew what I am.”
“A bad break, my dear. I’m sorry.”
She smiled a little ruefully. “I can, of course, do the other thing, but then I should be falling into mortal sin. He’s shown a marvellous restraint, yet, for all his outward forbearance, he has been pressing me subconsciously for weeks. He adores me. I adore him. I can’t bear to see him suffer and our jobs make it impossible for us to get away from each other. The strain is just breaking me up. We can’t go on like this any longer. I’ve got to decide one way or another.”
“You’re asking for my advice?”
“Yes. There’s no one else I can turn to. Tell me what to do.”
“I can’t. None of us can ever decide such things for each other. All I can do is to give you a few points to think about. Marriage is a contract and if it’s to be an honourable one both parties must come to it with clean hands. To have and to hold.…’ You know the rest.”
Lucretia nodded. “That’s just what I feel.”
“The other thing,” de Richleau went on slowly, “has not the same significance. Some great spirits have even lived a life as courtesans. They have been born to it and paid off a Karma in the more unpleasant aspects of that trade. Yet such relationships must not be entered into deliberately for lust or gain. It may be that you owe something to this man. You might have a child by him which, as things are, could prove a serious penalty and not one to be risked lightly. The prohibition of the Church is purely arbitrary but a wise ordinance to discourage general licence. If you do it out of self-indulgence you’ll have to pay for it later on. If you can do it out of a conviction that he needs you more than you need him, then you are the stronger and it will be credited to you.
“Only the voice which speaks within yourself can give you the answer. That voice is neither of the body, nor of the mentality which has been built up by your environment, nor of the brain with which you have learned to reason, nor of that higher, but not highest, property, the soul. It is of the indestructible spirit that has been you from the beginning of your journey and will remain you till the end of time. That voice is always right.”
“Thank you.” Lucretia-José pushed back her chair. “I shall never forget this evening. How strange, that we should talk of these things here, at such an hour, in this dreary, terror-stricken city, when we are both so occupied with war and plotting.”
He smiled. “No. It is not really strange. Those of us who know do not go out trying to convert people. We only speak of such things when it seems that somebody has been sent to us in search of knowledge. It was doubtless because you needed—not guidance, but a reawakening to the essential truths you have always known within your inner self, that you were sent to me tonight. Run along now, or you’ll be late for your party.”
“I’m late already, but I’m tremendously grateful to you.”
A few moments later they parted. The Duke returned without accident to his very comfortable prison while Lucretia hurried the quarter of a mile to the Café Roma, where she was to meet Cristoval. He was not there so she sat down at a table and ordered herself another coffee.
He turned up after she had been sitting there about ten minutes, and with a muttered apology sat down beside her.
“You’re very late, darling,” she said. “We were to have met here at ten and it’s nearly half past already. You’re looking very glum, too. Is anything the matter?”
He looked up and she saw that his eyes were immensely troubled as he answered, “Yes. I happened to be passing a café up by the Fernando el Santo and I saw you sitting there with our old friend Hypolite Dubois. When you both left I followed him and he went to ground in a garage attached to the British Embassy Annexe. He looks a bit older now he’s no longer dyeing his hair but I recognised his profile immediately.”
Suddenly he gripped her wrist. “What the hell were you doing exchanging confidences with the Due de Richleau?”
Chapter XXVII
The cat Jumps Out of the Bag
Lucretia-José’s heart almost stopped beating. That Cristoval, of all people, should have spotted her with the Duke was a terrifying thought. His having followed the Duke afterwards showed that his suspicions had been thoroughly aroused. It was obvious that he had put two and two together and made exactly four of it. His dark eyes stared into hers, accusing her of the blackest treachery.
“Come on,” he snapped. “What were you up to with that Monarchist plotter?”
For an instant she had been really scared, her mind paralysed by confused flashes of the dire calamity which seemed about to overtake them all as a result of his discovery. It was the harsh, utterly foreign note in his voice that pulled her together. With the illogicality of a woman she was no longer concerned with the fact that he had found her out; much less that his indignation was perfectly justified. She was furious with him for daring to use such a tone to her; livid with him for the implied insult in challenging her good faith.
“How dare you?” she gritted out between clenched teeth. “How dare you! Let go of my wrist this instant.”
If she had struck him Cristoval could not have been more
surprised. “I—I’m sorry,” he stammered, releasing her quickly. “But I’ve got to know the truth about this.”
“Oh, you got to, eh?” she sneered. “And who gave you the right to question me about my actions?”
“I don’t need to answer that.”
Lucretia’s face was white and her eyes as hard as agate; she pressed home her attack. “You owe me an explanation and I mean to have it. How dare you follow me about and spy upon my movements?”
“I didn’t,” Cristoval glowered. “I just happened to be passing, and I saw the two of you sitting there.”
Suddenly she realised that her one advantage was their personal relationship and began consciously to mislead him as a matter of dire necessity.
“You did,” she insisted. “You spied on us and when we parted you lurked about like some dirty little sneak-thi
ef until you could follow him, instead of coming straight up to me as any decent man would have done. I suppose this is one more manifestation of your insane jealousy.”
“I only wanted to see where he went to, and I’m not jealous—at least, not of him.”
“Of whom, then?”
“Oh, I don’t know—all sorts of people.”
“There! It was jealousy! You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“It was not!” Cristoval declared angrily.
“Oh, yes, it was! Heaven knows I give you little enough cause to be jealous but you don’t trust me an inch.”
“I do trust you. I’ve told you so scores of times.”
“Yes, and each time it’s been after you’ve made me thoroughly miserable by catechising me as to how long I’ve spent with this man and what I said to some other. If you trusted me you would never have acted as you did just now.”
“But this was different,” Cristoval protested. “It was a political matter. This Duke is an enemy of the Government—and a darned dangerous one, too.”
“Either you trust me or you don’t. Which is it?”
“Oh, all right, then. I trust you.”
“Absolutely?”
“Yes—absolutely.”
“That’s better,” Lucretia conceded. She was silent for a moment and went on more calmly, “Now you’re behaving reasonably I’ll tell you about it. Some of the F.A.I. people are anxious to get hold of de Richleau, and as I knew him when we all thought he was Hypolite Dubois I was given the job of luring him out of his bolt-hole. I succeeded, too, by sending him a rather cryptic message implying that I was in communication with the other side and asking him to meet me at that café. Did you see the two plain-clothes men on each corner of the street?”
“No. There were a few people about but I didn’t notice them particularly.”
“Well, next time you attempt to play the sleuth you should keep your eyes open. They were there to arrest the Duke directly I gave the signal.”
“Why didn’t you give it, then?”
“Because, stupid, he came alone instead of bringing his friend Richard Eaton with him as I told him to, and we want to bag them both.”
“I should have thought a bird in the hand.…”
“Nonsense, my dear. We know where he is and he can’t do any harm there. His safe return this evening will have given him confidence, and next time he’ll bring his friend with him. Then we’ll get the two of them.”
“I wish you’d told me all this at first,” Cristoval grumbled.
“I would have if you hadn’t jumped to conclusions and been positively insulting with your absurd and unjust suspicions. Now promise me, darling, that you really won’t treat me to any more of these awful, jealous scenes.”
He smiled and took her hand. “I’m sorry, sweet—am I forgiven?”
“Yes,” she smiled back. “I’m much too fond of you ever to be angry with you for long.”
“I know I’m jealous,” he said after a moment, “but I just can’t help it. You don’t know what hell it is to see you every day but to have to leave you every night. You say you love me, but you’re often out with other men, and you’re always close as an oyster about where you’ve been and what you’re doing. What proof have I that it really is me you care for?”
“My word, darling. I love you, and I swear to you that I’ve never said that to any other man.”
“Then why in the world won’t you marry me?”
“I’ve told you again and again that I don’t think people should marry with things as they are. After the war perhaps.…”
“Oh, yes, I know,” he said miserably. “But don’t you see that’s getting farther off, rather than nearer? When you said that two months ago it looked as if we might be married by this time. I was reasonable. I said I’d wait. But look what’s happened since. Owing to the Russians refusing to supply arms except through the Partido Comunista we lost a lot of ground. The Catalans came to our rescue. Thank God they did; but whoever would have dreamed three months ago that the Catalans would be coming to the assistance of their age-old enemies, the Madrileños? They stopped the Generals breaking through the Guadarramas. Right! The Germans promptly countered that by sending planes which enabled the Rebels to push up to the city from the south. They’re on top at the moment again but it won’t last. The International Brigade will be in the line tomorrow and giving Franco a pretty pain in the neck. What’ll happen next? God knows! We’ll have the Bersaglieri, the Chasseurs Alpins, the British Grenadiers and the Swiss Navy all out here soon, fighting on one side or the other. Can’t you see that the struggle may drift on for ages? And all the time I’m wanting you like hell?”
“I know, my sweet, I know,” Lucretia said softly. “I feel as bad about it as you do sometimes; but we can’t discuss it now. We’re terribly late as it is and the orders are that we should put in an appearance at this reception.”
“D’you want to make a night of it?”
“No. As soon as I’ve shown myself and had a word with a few people I shall be quite ready to go.”
Cristoval stood up. “Right, then. We’ll break away early and I’ll see you home.”
“Thank you, darling.”
They walked down to the Prado through the darkened and almost deserted streets. Every few minutes the crump of shells came to them from the south-west, but central Madrid was quiet; the majority of its inhabitants lurking unseen behind shuttered windows, waiting in nerve-racked suspense for the blast of the sirens to announce the next air raid.
In the biggest salle of the famous Art Gallery the miseries of the outer world had been temporarily forgotten. The party had not yet really got going but an air of subdued gaiety was perceptible among the gathering already assembled. Parties were all too rare in Madrid these days and the Socialist leaders, with their wives and girl friends, were glad enough of an excuse to forget their worries for a time in welcoming the new ‘Saviours of the Republic’.
The Goyas were no longer on the walls. Like most of the other famous masterpieces that the Gallery normally contained they had been removed to the vaults of the Bank of Madrid by the principal trustee, the Duke of Alba, just before the outbreak; but many lesser pictures of considerable interest and value still adorned the long suites of galleries.
An attempt had been made to decorate the rooms used for the reception with the flags of all the nations represented in the International Brigade. These were so many that some countries’ flags could not be found, and others had provided the Reception Committee with decidedly ticklish problems. Did one, or did one not display the German standard? Yes, but an old one that had not got the Nazi swastika emblazoned on it since there were a good many anti-Hitler refugees in the Brigade. How about the Italian flag? No, definitely not, although there were a number of anti-Mussolini refugees in the Brigade too. Any deficiencies were made up by a plentiful supply of Catalan and Basque national colours and Soviet flags bearing the hammer, sickle and stars.
The buffet tables were loaded down with a fine assortment of drinks for which the cellars of many private houses had been raided, but the edibles were not up to the same standard. Madrid was no place for epicures in these days.
The advance guard of the officers of the Brigade, which was being entertained, were a mixed lot. Most of them differed from their men in that they hardly knew one political creed from another, but had hurried to Spain from all quarters of the globe purely because they loved being in a scrap; these owed their appointments mainly to the fact that they were experienced soldiers of fortune with long records as professional fighters behind them. A number had joined only because they knew that in a civil war sweeping over a civilised country there was certain to be plenty of loot to be had; jewels, money, and church vessels of gold and silver which could be buried in a safe place until they could be collected when the war was over. Others were there from a pure, flaming conviction in the righteousness of the Spanish Government’s cause. Whatever their motives,
they were a hard-bitten crowd who obviously meant business.
Cristoval and Lucretia had not been there ten minutes before they ran straight into Simon and Rex. Lucretia would have prevented the meeting if she could but she had no chance.
Simon with his kindly smile was as sleek and amiable as ever; Rex was in great spirits. After his four months in Spain he spoke colloquial, but not grammatical, Spanish quite fluently now. He addressed them cheerfully:
“Did you folks hear this party was thrown to welcome the International Brigade? If you did, just don’t you believe it. The party’s all for me. A little farewell ‘do’ because I’m hitting the trail for home tomorrow.”
Grinning, Simon explained the situation jerkily. “He’s a ticket-of-leave man, really, Junta-de-Defensa just won’t believe he didn’t help de Richleau and Richard Eaton escape. Time of that shooting at the Bellas Artes, remember? They’ve ordered his deportation but they let him out on parole tonight as a special favour to me.”
“I saw your friend de Richleau only this evening,” Cristoval said at once.
“Where?” inquired Simon, his heavy eyelids drooping.
“At a little café off the Fernando el Santo. He’s taken refuge with some of the British Embassy people apparently. His hair’s grey now and he’s lost that curious birthmark across his face but I should have known that iron profile of his anywhere. He’s a dangerous man and he ought to be locked up, although I wouldn’t like anything worse to happen to him after that good turn he did me when he was at Valmojado.”
The cat was out of the bag. Lucretia bit the inner edge of her lip but she could do nothing as Simon asked curiously, “Valmojado? When was that? What was he doing there?”
Tense and anxious she waited for the answer, but before Cristoval could speak again there occurred a totally unexpected but exceedingly unwelcome diversion. A thick-set, heavy man near by swung round clutching a bumper of champagne in his hand. It was Lieutenant, now evidently from his rank badges Colonel, Mudra.
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