Part 41

It seemed to me that we must agree to do what the Duchess asked, and, while keeping the letter of our promise, take means to see Monica in Seville. There, I must let her know all that had taken place, even if I could not communicate with her before. And I must implore her to come away with me lest some plot had been hatched meanwhile behind my back.

“What do you think, Waring?” I said. Then, giving him a cue, “I feel that we must consent, even though we may not see things according to the Duchess’s point of view.”

“Why, of course, a man can’t refuse a lady; a lady generally knows that,” Dick answered, avenging our wrongs with one sharp dig.

She thanked us effusively. “Then I may depend on you?” she asked, looking at me.

“You may depend upon us,” I said. “And pray don’t trouble to leave at an inconvenient time. My friend and I promise you two hours’ start.”

XXII

THE LUCK OF THE DREAM-BOOK

It was late, and Monica must have gone to bed, therefore it was impossible to send her a message. Next morning I was up early, and had my coffee and roll on a little table in the patio, in the hope of snatching a word with her. But she came down as closely attended by her mother and the Duchess as if she had been a queen, and they her ladies-in-waiting. I had only a chance to say good-bye, as they were ready to drive off; and when I would have added a hasty explanation of our delay, the Duchess began to speak, so that Monica was whisked away without hearing.

“Wicked—old—cat!” was Pilar’s exclamation when Dick told her the story of last night’s dilemma. But when asked what she would have done in our place, her invention failed; and the Cherub approved our course.

The others had taken full advantage of our generosity, and had not left Toledo till nine. Therefore, according to our contract, we were obliged to wait until eleven, surprising Ropes by our procrastination.

But as we were on the point of spinning away from the hotel, a goat-herd turned the corner at the head of his shaggy flock. The man, tanned a dark bronze with constant exposure, wore his rags with the air of a king marching to conquest, and rather than show vulgar curiosity, strode past scarcely deigning a look at the automobile, though it was as likely as not the first he had ever seen. His goats, equally unconcerned, strayed among our wheels without hurry, and when they chose clattered off with much play of little cloven hoofs on cobblestones. A sharper note of contrast could hardly have been struck, Dick and I said to each other. A meeting between the automobile, latest product of man’s restless invention, made to fly across states and continents, and the goat-herd whose knowledge of the world might extend ten miles beyond the place where, since his birth, he had carried on one of the most ancient occupations on the globe. So the ages seemed united, and Virgil and Theocritus brought suddenly face to face with Maeterlinck and Henley; and an instant later we had taken a small excursion into the middle ages of superstition. Pilar told us gravely that in a volume of “Dreams and Love Lore,” valued beyond all other books by the young girls of Andalucía, one read that it brought good luck to lovers to meet a flock of goats when starting on a journey in the morning.

Thus encouraged to hope for what I dared not expect, we set off, again and again finding ourselves hard put to it to get the long chassis of the Gloria round sharp corners of narrow streets. More than once it could be done only by backing the car, a feat which was witnessed with cries of astonishment by a crowd of water-sellers with painted tin vessels, milkmen on donkey back, knife-grinders, and Murillo cherubs who were following to see us off. Thus attended we slid down the steep hill which twisted past the old fortifications of Toledo, and brought us out at last upon the Puente de Alcántara, that most wonderful bridge of all the world.

The Tagus, grandest river in Spain, and golden as old father Tiber himself, plunged through his narrow gorge a hundred feet below the arch of stone, and on either hand stood up the sun-baked cliffs, Toledo seated on their summit, crowned with towers, like an empress upon her throne. Far beneath, in the swirl of yellow water were Moorish mills, white with age, grinding corn for their new masters.

As we passed across the bridge at a foot-pace between strings of tasselled and jingling mules, little grey donkeys loaded with pigskins of wine, brown jugs of olive oil, or bags of meal, and charming children who offered us roses for a perrilla, we had our last sight of the cathedral spires. The voice of a young girl, washing white and blue clothing in a trough of running water, sped us upon our journey. Her head was bound in a scarlet handkerchief; and smiling at us while she pounded the linen, she sang a strange song, half chant, with that wild Eastern lilt which has been handed down from the Moors to the sons and daughters of Spain.

“She’s improvising a copla!” exclaimed Pilar. “Listen; it’s for you, brother Cristóbal.”

So I listened, and heard that my eyes though dark as starless skies, could blaze as the sun with love, and that the blessing of a poor girl who had none to care for her, was upon the rich girl who held the treasure of my heart.

“You must blow her a kiss to pay for the song,” Pilar said. “Don’t you know that? But then, you haven’t been in Spain long—except in your thoughts. That’s expected; just as a girl must politely kiss her hand to a bull-fighter if he kisses his to her; for if she doesn’t, she puts the evil-eye upon him; and like as not he’s gored the next time he goes into the arena. Oh, I love the coplas! And wasn’t that woman singing in good Spanish? Even the common people speak well here, for Valladolid and Toledo Spanish is the best in Spain.”

I looked back and kissed my hand to the girl, who would have been insulted had I thrown money; and lifting my eyes once more to the towering city, I saw a mediæval background such as old masters love to give their pictures.

The landscape was wild, and unchanged to all appearance from the days when the Crescent and the Cross battled for supremacy on those stony hills and in those savage gorges. Once again, I felt myself a crude anachronism, in my automobile, nor did the impression leave me when Toledo was hidden round a corner; nor when we flashed past ancient Eastern norias, slowly turned by sleepy horses or indignant donkeys; nor with glimpses of sentinel watch-towers, or ruined castles—such “castles in Spain” as Don Pedro promised to the Black Prince’s soldiers—and seldom gave if they were worth giving.

Now, our business was to hark back to the king’s highway between Madrid and Seville—that road on which Dick thriftily planned his quick service of automobiles for passengers and market gardeners; but to-day there was none of that excitement of the chase to which we were accustomed. I was depressed despite the good omen of the goats, and an encounter with a mule who had four white feet—a sign of some extraordinary piece of luck, according to Pilar’s Dream-Book. The gently undulating, olive-silvered country, with its occasional far-off hamlets and fine church spires did not interest me, and I was not as thankful as I should have been for the good road.

At last we had left the zone of brown cities and sombre hued villages, and come into the zone of dazzling white habitations, which meant that we were nearing the southern land, loved by the sun. The huge, semi-fortified, high-walled farmhouses standing in lonely spaces were white as great shells floating solitary on seas of waving green. The close-grouped knots of cottages huddled together for mutual protection might have been cut from blocks of marble; and their tenants were vivid creatures, burning like tropical flowers against the dazzling white of their rough walls.

Never for ten minutes was the landscape the same. From olive plantations we rushed into a bleak country of savage hills, where windmills planted upon rocks beckoned with slowly moving arms; so down into flowery valleys with a thread of silver river tangled in the grasses near a long white road. And always the horizon was broken with tumbled mountains, purple, gold, and rose, swimming in a sea of light and changing colour.

“Soon we’ll be in Cervantes’ country,” said the Cherub; “and good country it is—for sport. I come myself sometimes with friends, after wild boar; and there are plenty of rabbits to be had when there’s nothing better.”

“Don’t speak of rabbits,” said Dick. “It makes me hungry to think of them; and as nobody has said anything about lunching, and we’re having such a good run, I haven’t liked to mention it. Still, there’s that Andaluz ham and goodness knows how many other things wasting their sweetness—”

The Cherub shook his head. “We mustn’t stop here. It will be better to wait till we come to another road-mender’s house. We’re sure to pass one before long. Then we’ll pull up, and the women will bring us water, or anything we want.”

“I believe what you’re really thinking of, is brigands!” exclaimed Pilar.

“Well,” smiled the Cherub, “maybe something of the sort was in my mind; though you need have no fear, my Pilarcita.”

“As if I would—a soldier’s daughter!” sneered Pilarcita. “I wish we would meet the Seven Men of Ecija, or El Vivillo himself—if they haven’t caught him yet. It would be fun.”