by Aiken, Joan
My throat was tight; I could do nothing but press his hands, then turn to go. "Hasta luego!" I croaked from the doorway.
And he: "Vaya con Dios."
13. Sister Milagros gives me her message at last; a surprise in the infirmary; a surprise from the Reverend Mother; our affairs are brought to a conclusion
When I knocked at the convent gate in Bilbao, and was greeted familiarly by the portress—as well she might, by now—she said, at once, "Now this time, Sister Milagros declares that she is not going to be deprived of the pleasure of seeing you. Twice, three times, she has missed the chance. I shall send for her at once."
And so, though I was itching to ask for news of the children, and dying to obtain permission to see Juana, politeness constrained me to wait while the portress hurried off through the cloister.
Presently she came back, panting out, "It is all right, it is all right. Be patient! I have sent word, also, to the Mother Superior that you are here, for I know she wishes to see you. Now, here is Sister Milagros, who has, for so long, had a thing to give you."
The face of the sister who accompanied her—wrinkled, square, kindly, not young—was someway familiar.
"It was you who kindly took care of my parrot in Santander," I said, bowing low. "When I was on my way to England. But I think, when I returned to collect Assistenta, that you were not there?"
"You are right, young man." Her berry-brown face creased in a smile. "I had been sent here, to Bilbao, by that time, to look after the herbs, as their stillroom sister had died. And then, some time after that a letter was sent for you, to Santander, enclosed in one to a Sister Annunciata."
"Sister Annunciata," I said slowly, remembering. "I never met her. Was not she the niece of the Englishman Smith?"
"Not his niece, his stepdaughter. And he wrote to her, when he was at the point of death, enclosing another letter directed to you. He hoped she would know where to find you. But by the time her letter arrived, she too, poor girl, was already dead of the cholera in Madrid."
"So many deaths—" I said, saddened and confused by her story.
"Never mind, child. They are all with the angels now."
I rather doubted if the Englishman Smith was so, as by his own confession he had killed half a dozen people at least, and had dealings with the Mala Gente, but I did not contradict.
"So—as she was dead when it arrived—Sister Annunciatas letter lay on a shelf in the convent in Madrid for several years, gathering dust, until somebody chanced to open it and found there was an enclosure addressed to you. This was then sent back to Santander. But I fear the sisters in the convent of the Esclavitud there are all very old by now—"
They were very old when I visited the place, I remembered six years ago. But now they must be really old.
"None of them could remember where you had come from. But, on the chance that I might remember, the letter was, after some time, sent here to me. And, just around that time, our Reverend Mother happened to mention that your help had been requested by the Doña de la Trava, to save her children, and that you would be coming, perhaps, to Bilbao. So—to cut a long story short—here is the letter!"
And she ceremonially handed me a faded, tattered, stained, weather-beaten packet, which certainly looked as if it had been gathering dust, in one religious house or another, for the last five years. The wafer that sealed it was cracked, the thin cord that bound it had rotted through; anybody could have read it. Anybody probably had.
To Felix Brooke: from Oviedo
They have found me guilty; which was no more than I expected. I go to the galleys tomorrow, if I have not died in the night, which is more probable. Listen: I am going to give you directions where to find the money. Caramba! Somebody might as well have the use of it, and I'd sooner you, a decent-spoken English boy, than some doltish peasant who chances on it while plowing. Here's how to find it. I have amused myself by putting the directions in cipher, so no thieving nun who opens this letter can avail herself of the knowledge.
Then followed several lines of letters all run together into gibberish words, neither English nor Spanish, making no sense whatsoever. After that, there were a few more lines of English.
Do you recall, when we parted, you asked me if I knew the whereabouts of an English hostelry, and I said I did? And told you in which town it was? That name has two letters repeated in it at the beginning of words. Take that letter as the start of your alphabet. And enjoy the treasure in better peace or health than was ever granted to
Your friend, George Smith
Alm ost stunned, I read the few lines over and over. Of course I remembered the name of the hostelry. It was The Rose and Ring Dove, in Bath, where I had at last been able to meet a messenger from my English family. Two letters repeated at the beginning of words—So: take R as the first letter of the alphabet—
Good heavens, I thought. No wonder the Mother Superior had been so willing to send for me. She could study those jumbled letters until the Last Trump and she would be no wiser, lacking the key phrase. And no wonder she had been reluctant for me to see Sister Milagros, or to receive the letter, until the errand with Don Manuel was accomplished—he, preferably, dead, and myself, she perhaps hoped, beguiled by Conchitas blandishments. Married to Conchita, with all that money in my pocket, how useful I might have been.
Call me not an olive till you see me gathered, Mother Agnese, I thought, looking forward with some relish to our interview.
Now a shy, pink, white-robed novice came to ask me if I would please visit the infirmary, so I tucked the letter with great care into my innermost jacket pocket and gave Sister Milagros very hearty thanks for keeping it so carefully.
"I regret it took so long to reach you," said she.
"It makes not the least difference in the world. The news it contains is eighteen years old already," I told her, and followed the novice.
We went through a couple of cloisters and into a big, airy room where, at a distance, I saw a number of children playing. Among them I was happy to observe Nico and Pilar, he looking decidedly more like a human boy than when I had last seen him.
But what took all my attention from the children was much closer to the door, sitting in a basket chair with his leg stretched out in splints before him—
"Pedro!"
"My very self! Carracho!Am I glad to see you!" said he, grinning away like a pumpkin lantern. "Your servant, Señor Felix!" And he would have stood up, but I prevented him.
"I don't understand! How in the wide world did you get here? You were shot—I saw you drop like a stone—into that frightful gorge. How were you saved? Who saved you? Tell me the whole story."
"It is very simple. Do you remember the mother bear—who was about to devour Doña Juana when I popped a spoonful of lead down her gullet?"
"I suppose you are going to say that she saved you?
"So she did. She had fallen in about the same spot, and stuck fast in a tree growing out of the cliff down below; there she lodged, poor thing, like a great furry bird's nest. So when that fellow's shot winged me"—he rubbed his shoulder, which was also bandaged—"I hear by che way that you tipped him down the rubbish chute in Berdun; that was very well done, Señor Felix. My congratulations!—"
"Thank you."
"So—when he winged me, that made me lose my hold, and down I fell, right onto Mama Bear, who broke my fall. I lay on her, getting my wits about me, with nothing worse than a broken leg, while up above, had I only known it, those two gente were clubbing you insensible and wheeling you off in the tartana."
"What happened to you then?"
"Well, I won't deny that I was in poor case. There I lay, wondering every minute if I was going to roll into the gorge, and becoming a trifle light-headed with pain, but calling for help as lustily as I could, in between times; when, lo and behold, who should come along but a group of the scissor merchants."
"The esquiladores!"
"The very same. And they, with their ropes and tackle, had me out of there in the hiss of a
n adder. Not only that, but one of them, knowing where I had come from, went off like an arrow to fetch Sister Belen, who had been making her name known as a healer of hurts all over the countryside. And—and so she came—and strapped my leg up in a twinkling, and that's the end of the matter!"
"Oh, Prudencia will be so happy! Poor soul—she thinks you are in purgatory this very minute."
"Ay, ay, that's bad," said he. "But she'll soon know better. Thank heaven. I've plenty of ill deeds to repent before I take myself off there. Or so Sister Belen assures me!"
He looked so well, so happy, so radiant indeed, that I could not help giving him a hug. By this time the children were with us, Pilar hopping about like a grasshopper; Nico, I could see, still thin and pale, but, thank God, perfectly sensible and in control of his faculties. He thanked me, shyly and formally, for having saved him from the effects of poison, and for saving his father.
"That, I fear, we dont know yet, my boy."
"But we do. We do! One of the gypsies who brought Señor Pedro here said that Papa was safe in France. And he sent a message that we would hear from him by and by."
"Oh, thank God for that," said I from the bottom of my heart.
Now I was summoned to the presence of the Reverend Mother and led off, not to that dismal little reception room where I had been on previous occasions, but to a cheerful parlor with a statue of St. Philomena, looking out onto an orchard. There, to my very great surprise was, not the sour-faced Gorgon who had interviewed me twice before, but a total stranger, a lady with a smiling but acute face and two extremely shrewd eyes, who surveyed me from head to foot, and then said in French. "Bien! After so long I meet you. And very happy to make your acquaintance, Monsieur Brooke y Cabezada."
Seeing my surprise, she added kindly, "Ah, you wonder not to see Mother Agnese. She has—ahem—been summoned to Madrid to give—to attend an inquiry. And it is not certain when she will return. So I am transferred from our house in Bayonne to take her place."
She rang a little bell, and when a lay sister appeared, asked that Sister Félicita be sent for.
When Juana arrived and saw me, she turned brilliant pink, then bit her lip and scowled at the floor.
"Thank you for corning so fast, Sœur Félicitée," said the French nun blandly. "Now: I am about to address you young people, so listen with care. It is for the old to speak first and be heeded by the young, n'est-ce pas? For our time is short, whereas you have all the time in the world, with your lives before you. So pay attention."
She gave each of us a sharp look.
We were all three standing, the Deputy Reverend Mother because it was the custom of her Order not to be seated in the presence of guests; I, because I could not sit while a woman stood; and Juana because she could not sit in the presence of her superior. So we stood in a triangle, rather as if, I thought, we were about to begin dancing in a ring.
Juana kept her eyes fixed on the floor and would not look at me.
"Now, my daughter," the nun said to her, "Mother Agnese told me before she went that you were going through many deep troubles and soul-searchings, because you had given your promise to Don Manuel to look after his children, but you had also, and previously, given your promise to God to be a Religious. And Mother Agnese had advised you to remain in the convent and allow the children to attend school here, where you could be in contact with them. Is that not so?"
"Yes, Mère Madeleine," Juana said in a low tone.
"Mother Agnese suggested that the children should live with their grandparents."
"Yes, Mère Madeleine," Juana said again; her voice was even less enthusiastic.
"Well, child, I have raised the matter with Señor and Señora Escaroz. And I can tell you that they don't wish to have their grandchildren. In fact," Mère Madeleine went on briskly, "Señor Escaroz told me he didn't care a snap of his fingers what became of the son of a seditious madman or the misbegotten daughter of a profligóte courtier from Madrid." Mère Madeleine raised her brows disapprovingly as she pronounced these words. "I understand that their daughter Conchita had been a great disappointment to them, and they were interested in the children only so long as they believed Don Manuel to be dead and Nico his heir. On learning that he was alive, they gave me to understand that I might place the children in the Bilbao orphanage for all they cared."
"Well!" I said cheerfully. "Juana, that frees you from any—"
"A moment!" Mère Madeleine raised her hand. "My dear'Sœur Félicitée, you know I can speak to you as a friend, having been acquainted with you for the last five years. I have watched with the utmost sympathy your struggles to become Religious. You brought energy, goodwill, courage, intelligence to the business; but, year after year, as you know, I have made you postpone taking your final vows. You asked me why, and I would never tell you. I tell you now. Your heart was not in it. You were not happy. I knew that from the start. Yet why did you call yourself'Sœur Félicitée, I wonder? The truth is that you have no vocation. And the task that you have, here, of giving a home to those two chi ldren is, I believe, the one that God was saving up for you. And, believe me, it will be every bit as difficult as life in the convent. More so, perhaps! Nico will be delicate for some time to come; and I have it on good evidence that Pilar is a little Tartar."
She smiled.
Juana looked up at Mère Madeleine—radiant, bewildered, cross, embarrassed, the tears peeling down her face.
"But—Mère Madeleine—a home—how can I give them a home? I have sold mine—"
"You forget, my daughter—when you leave you will have your dowry repaid—another factor which, I fear, may have been weighing with our dear Mother Agnese more than it ought—"
"But how can I be sure that I can care for the children properly?"
"Oh," replied Mère Madeleine with her bland look. "As to that—I daresay you will find some obliging person who will be prepared to help you in such a task."
So then I made my bow and said, "Reverend Mother, my grandfather the Conde Don Francisco Acarillo de Santibana y Escurial de la Sierra y Cabezada permits to ask you if, supposing her vows should be withdrawn, I may pay my addresses to the Señorita Esparza—"
And at that, even through her crossness, the cornered Juana could not forbear an unwilling grin.
***
SO WE were married, with no parade and little ceremony, in the convent chapel, with Pedro acting as a groomsman, and the two children in attendance.
"This getting wed is such a famous notion, I'm going to work on Sister Belen to persuade her to come out of the cloister," Pedro muttered to me just before the service, while we were waiting for Juana to appear, looking prickly and self-conscious, in her white lace and silver crown, on the arm of the convent chaplain.
"Pedro!"
"I plan to keep writing letters to her," he said. "It will be hard work."
I did notice that Sister Belen gave him an especially friendly greeting when healths were being drunk afterward.
We started on the return journey to Villaverde very soon after the ceremony, for I was eager to get back to Grandfather with the least possible delay.
"I am so longing for you and the children to be there. And for you to meet Grandfather—that will make me so happy—"
But—alas—that final happiness was not to be permitted.
* * *
Afterword
When I first decided to write about Felix at the age of eighteen, I hardly realized what a fearsome period of Spanish history I was going to plunge him into. The years between 1823 and 1833 are called by some historians the "Ominous Decade" because such a lot of bad things were going on in Spain.
After what we call the Peninsular War, 1808–14, and the Spanish call the War of Independence, during which English, French, and Spanish armies skirmished all over Spain, with the English and Spanish allied to drive out the French, the country was desperately poor and in a state of upheaval. The upper classes were worried that there would be a revolution, as in France.
So during the late 1820s, when this story is set, there were three main parties in Spain: that of the king, reactionary and repressive; the Carlists, even more reactionary (they had an idea that the king was being influenced by Freemasons); and the Liberals, a surprisingly large group. These three groups were all in conflict, but the Liberals had the worst of it.
I wish I had more space to tell about the awfulness of Ferdinand (he seems to have spent his exile knitting socks from statues of the saints) and his parents, Carlos and Maria Luisa. You have only to look at their portrait:; by Goya to see how weak, obstinate, vain, and stupid they were. And Goya's paintings The Second of May and The Third of May show what happened when the French came into Spain in 1809, the year in which Felix was born.
One real character appears in this story. Mariano Jose de Larra was a Liberal journalist who spent his childhood in France during the War of Independence, with his family, who were Bonapartists. After the war, in the amnesty of 1818, they came back to Spain. De Larra soon began writing indignant essays, under the name "Figaro," about the state of the country. One of them was called to "To Write in Madrid Is to Weep." He said that trying to reform Spain was like plowing the sea. Sad to tell, he committed suicide at the age of twenty-eight. He would have been glad to know that in the middle of the twentieth century Spain at last became a democracy.