Part 85

“Not she. The Duke and Duchess of Carmona and the Duke’s fiancée and her mother will be in a box next the royal bride and bridegroom; Pilar heard that, and wrote me. You see, they’re in high favour at Court now, and Carmona’s ambition will be satisfied at last. The new Duchess is to be a lady-in-waiting, and take up her duties when the King and Queen come back from their honeymoon.”

“She never will take them up as Duchess of Carmona,” said I.

“Car ready,” announced Ropes, who had made record time in changing an inner tube, and was panting with his exertions.

But where was San Cristóbal to-day—on this day of all others, when his services were needed? We had not gone half a mile when there came a whizz, and a grinding noise which meant a broken chain. Ropes grew pale and bit his lip. In his overpowering anxiety for me he was losing nerve.

“Never mind mending it here,” I said. “Tighten up the axle, and go on with one sprocket only. We can get into the town that way, and find a machine-shop.”

We did find one; but we were kept a full hour in Aranjuez; nor could we make good going afterwards as we approached the capital. The road was covered with vehicles, and packed as we neared Madrid; for every soul not bidden to the great bull-fight wished to see the favoured ones who were, and to applaud the King and Queen who by their splendid courage two days before had won double popularity.

It was almost beyond endurance to be caught in the pack, and to know that there was no way out, except to move with the throng; nevertheless, it had to be endured. And time went on.

We had hoped to run into some hole or corner as near as might be to the royal entrance of the Plaza de Toros, before the crowd began to pour in; but an hour struck as we crept into the great sunlit plaza—four o’clock; the time appointed for the pageant to begin.

XLI

THE FIFTH BULL; AND AFTER

Hundreds—thousands, it seemed—of automobiles and carriages were before us; and as the Gloria was stopped by the stopping of others in front, a shout rang up to the sky, from behind the high brown walls of the bull-ring. It was the welcome which the public gave their King and his bride as they appeared in the royal box.

We were too late to intercept Carmona; for as the royalties had taken their places, he was certain to be already in his, with his fiancée by his side.

Covered with dust, burnt by the sun which had shone hotly since Manzanares, all but spent with fatigue, I leaned back in my seat. For a moment I did not hear what Dick was saying, although I was conscious that he spoke; but suddenly the meaning of his words broke in on my tired brain.

“It’ll be two hours before the King and Queen leave their box and lesser folks can move,” he said. “I’m not going to have you sitting here in the heat and dust.”

“I must wait till they come out,” I answered dully. “It’s the only way.”

“No, it isn’t. I told you Pilar’d sent me a ticket. The card says ‘sombra,’ so the seat’s in the shade all right, and you’re going to have it.”

“But you?” I said. “Pilar would never forgive me—”

“She’d never forgive me if I didn’t hand it over to you. But I’ll get in somehow. It can cost me fifty dollars if it likes to slip past a policeman, but I guess the price won’t stop me. I don’t mind if I stand up in the callijon. I’m tall enough to see all I want, and more; and if a bull jumps over the barrera, as one did at Seville the other day, my legs are long enough to save me.”

Ropes was to stay with the car and wait until we came again. Before that time my fate would be decided. Nothing could keep me from meeting Monica now; and nothing should keep her from me, if she loved me. If not—if after all I had been dreaming, why, she would be the Duchess of Carmona to-morrow.

Under horses’ noses, between backs and bonnets of motors, we edged our way through the dense crowd of vehicles and people massed together on the baking plain outside the bull-ring. The circle which had been cleared for royalty had filled again now, like a sandbank which has caved in upon itself; but the spectacle on the other side of those steep brown walls had begun, and the main entrance was comparatively clear.

Armed with the ticket engraved with the magic words “Corrida Real” over a black and white sketch of a mounted picador, I was allowed to enter. But when I had passed along a corridor and through a door which opened into a crowded tendido, I heard Dick’s voice at my ear. “Only twenty-five dollars after all,” said he, “and I can sit on the steps. Grand! We’re next to Tendido Number 9. I see Pilar; look—close to the end, front row.”

After the silent rooms of the old Moorish house and the little patio with its tinkling fountain, the brilliant light and colour, the confused sounds and movement, the vast size of the bull-ring struck me fiercely between the eyes, bewildering sight and sense.

Seats were valuable in the tendidos for this great day, when almost every place meant a royal favour; but we were late, and instead of moving on to search for my twelve inches of plank or stone, I was thankful to squeeze in close to the entrance. I did not see Colonel O’Donnel, and though I was close to the famous Tendido Number 9 (which must have held every eye till the royalties came), I forgot to look for Pilar in that white-and-rose garden of Spanish loveliness.

The first act of the great royal bull-fight had begun. Twenty glittering, spangled espadas marched with elastic steps into the ring, followed by the yellow-trousered picadors on their sorry horses. The three gala coaches carrying the distinguished amateur picadors and their ducal patrons who graced this marriage feast, still circled picturesquely in the arena, making a pageant of the Middle Ages. The sun blazed on nodding ostrich plumes, gold embroidered hammercloths, dazzling liveries, powdered heads, and splendid horses in quaint harness, rich with gold and jewels. The three Dukes, owners of the coaches, had introduced the cavaliers they patronized to the King-President; the bride-Queen in her white mantilla and flowers of Spanish colours stood bowing in the glass frame of the royal box. Gaily decorated palcos, tendidos, grados, tier upon tier, half in sun, half in shadow, rose above the huge ring like so many terraced flower-beds, dazzling with the gold lace of uniforms and the bright tints of women’s dresses softened by white mantillas. Over all was a fluttering of fans, like thousands of hovering butterflies; and a hum floated up loud as the humming of a million bees, to the blue dome of sky, where English and Spanish flags waved together.

Mechanically my eyes took in the splendid scene, as they searched for Monica; and finding her, for a time saw nothing else.

She was in a box near the royalties, and sat between her mother and the Duchess, with Carmona and some man whom I did not know, behind them. She was in a white dress and white mantilla, with pink and white malmaisons in her hair; and her face was pathetically pale in its frame of falling lace. In her hand was a fan with which to shut out such horrors of the fight as none but Spanish women born and bred dare trust themselves to see. My place was distant and far below; yet my eyes were keen, and it seemed to me that she looked thin and frail, though very beautiful. If for an instant, since Dick broke the news to me, I had doubted the loyalty of her heart, the sight of her sad young face would have driven doubt away. I was more than ever certain that in promising to marry Carmona she thought to save me from punishment threatened by him.

Neither he nor she guessed that I was near. But where did she believe me to be? Perhaps Carmona had said that for her sake he had let me fly danger after stabbing him in the cathedral, by hurrying back to England.

The Duke was leaning forward to speak to her. She did not look up at him, but let her eyes listlessly travel over the vast audience. I thought they lingered on Tendido Number 9, draped with flowered shawls of Andalucía, and crowded with pretty women. Suddenly she blushed, and turned away. I looked where she had looked, and knew what had brought the blood to her cheeks. Pilar, in rose colour, with a white mantilla and the orthodox malmaisons, of pink and crimson, was gazing up at the Carmona box, an imploring expression on her face. Pilar, too, was pale and thin. I realized more and more that nearly six weeks had been struck out of my life.