“You must show us your presents,” said I, with deliberate cunning. All were displayed on the instant, with chattering, laughing, and clamourous claims for rival merits. But the veil was the thing which I looked on to covet. She had worn it one day after rain, when the roads had been clear of dust, and her face had gleamed through the lace as a star gleams through a floating cloud-film. I felt that I could not see it in other hands than mine.
While the Cherub compared the gifts with eloquence, I drew Mariquita apart. “I want that veil very much,” said I; “so much that I’ll give you a hundred pesetas if you’ll part with it.”
She opened her tobacco-brown eyes. “But the señor is only a man, and cannot know that the bit of embroidered net is worth no more, in money, than fifteen pesetas at most.”
“It wasn’t its money-worth I was thinking about.”
“A—ah, I see! The señorito—yes, of course, it would be strange if he did not! I love my new veil, not only because it is pretty, but more because it came to me from the most beautiful señorita I have ever seen. Still, since the señorito will value it even more than I can, I will give it to him, though not for the hundred pesetas. I will give it for nothing except his thanks.”
I told the girl she was too good; that I could not rob her of the gift just made; but she insisted, and I saw that her pride would be hurt if I refused. So I accepted, while a way of benefitting myself and rewarding her occurred to my mind.
“You see how it is with me.” I said, with a confidential air. “You have been very generous. Will you be helpful too?”
“You may trust me,” she answered. “I love a love affair, especially if there is difficulty. I shall have an acknowledged _novio_ myself soon, I hope. He is a bull-fighter—only a beginner, but he will be great one day, and though my father made a long face at first, now he shrugs his shoulders; and when that is done, there is always hope. Her Majesty the mother makes the long face, does she not?”
I nodded.
“She will shrug the shoulders by and by.”
“I doubt it. But meanwhile, I’ve written a letter. Will you try to give it to the young lady?”
“Yes,” said Mariquita. “I will try my best. I think I can do it. Not to-night, for she has gone to bed, and there would be no excuse to get back to her room, since I must pass through Her Majesty’s. But to-morrow morning I will take the ladies’ hot water, with oh, such an innocent face! And I will take the letter too.”
“Thank you many times,” said I.
“The thing isn’t done yet.”
“It’s for your goodwill I thank you in advance. And this is for your bull-fighter, as a present from his _novia_.”
I took out my scarf-pin. Her face flushed with pleasure, as it would have flushed for no sum of money. She might have waived away a present for herself, but she could not resist one for the _novio_, and I was thanked far beyond the gift’s merit.
If she went to bed happy, so did I, for I believed that Monica would have my letter in the morning; and if the wistfulness in her eyes meant some new trouble in which I had a part, I hoped that the words I had written might banish it.
XXIV
THE GOODWILL OF MARIQUITA
Nevertheless I could not sleep on my hard but clean pillows, for wondering about that look of Monica’s, and its meaning; and whenever I shut my eyes, hordes of red and yellow figures poured out of white houses upon white roads, forming irritating, kaleidoscopic patterns on my tired retina.
Each hour that passed was cried by the watchman, far away, and then close under my window; a fearsome cry like a groan of agony uttered by a madman in a dying spasm.
I was glad when morning came; and after such a bath as two or three miniature jugs of water afforded (the deer-eyed boy wondered in the name of all the saints what I could do with so many), I threw off the brain-clouds of a sleepless night.
Before long Monica would have my letter. She would know—if she could have doubted—that if I had loved her at first, I worshipped her now. She would know why we had not followed more closely yesterday; and why—unless Carmona chose to accept our help again—we would go on before the grey car to-day. She would know also that my most earnest hope was to take her away, out of the reach of harm.
I was dressed, and had had my coffee and hard, fat roll of Spanish bread, by half-past seven, as I was sure Ropes would be wanting to see me. I would not have disturbed Dick, who slept in a room across the _patio_, but I found him in the dining-room, wrestling with a glass of thick chocolate and a finger-shaped sweet biscuit. “I’m trying to like Spanish customs,” said he.
I laughed.
“Because, if I’m going to carry through that scheme of mine about motor traffic, I may have to live on the spot, you see.”
“Oh!” said I. “And what about Colonel O’Donnel’s copper mines? Have you thought of a means to persuade him it’s his duty to have them worked?”
“In a way, I have,” Dick answered dryly. “An indirect sort of way. What about our gasoline? Heard anything about it?”
“No. I’m going to find Ropes.”
“Rather a sell for Carmona, if he did order our _bidons_ pricked, to feel it’s his fault if we’re held up as long as he is.”
“There’s Ropes in the _patio_,” I said. “I’ll go and interview him.”
“What news?” I asked.
“Well, sir, I did what the landlord said last night, and had a try for moto-naphtha—as they call it here—at the chemist’s.”
“Did they have any?”
“Oh yes, sir, they had some. As much as a pint apiece, in the two shops. They wanted to sell it by the ounce.”
Dick and I laughed, though my mirth was not care-free. I had visions of being stuck at this place until Ropes made a journey to Madrid and back, Carmona’s car slipping away long before we were ready.
“I was afraid it was hopeless to look for petrol here,” I said, striving for resignation, even though I saw Mariquita going upstairs with two battered tins of hot water.
“Not yet, sir. A man who heard me asking for moto-naphtha at the chemist’s, advised me to try the cemetery.”
“The cemetery? You misunderstood the word.”
“No, sir; it _was_ cemetery. And what’s more, he said the Mayor keeps it there to kill lobsters.”
This statement, delivered somewhat nervously, was received with derision.
“The fellow was stuffing you,” said Dick.
“I don’t think so, sir.”
“Then he’s mad,” I insisted. “Fishing for lobsters with moto-naphtha in a cemetery at Manzanares is a story Baron Munchausen would have thought twice about before telling.”
“_Langostas_ does mean _langouste_—or lobsters, I suppose, sir?” asked Ropes.
“Ye—es,” I answered thoughtfully. Then lightning flashed across the darkness of my mind. “It means locusts as well,” said I. “They use petrol to kill locusts, and for some reason best known to themselves keep it at the cemetery. We’ll go, Ropes, and persuade them to sell us more than an ounce.”
“Right, sir. At once?”
“In a moment,” said I.
Mariquita, empty-handed, was coming downstairs. I waylaid her, under that portion of the balcony hidden from the window of Lady Vale-Avon’s room.
“Did you deliver the letter?” I asked.
“Yes, señor.”
“To the young lady herself?”
“To herself. But I must tell you what worries me, señor. As I was leaving the outer room, I heard a sound like a cry of distress, from the inner room. I looked back, and Her Majesty the mother had gone in. That is all I know. I could do nothing, whatever had happened, and I felt it would be well to escape before I could be questioned.”
“What do you think happened?”
“How can I tell, señor? Unless the terrible lady snatched your letter from the angel.”
“At least, I hope the angel had had time to read it.”
“I do not know, señorito. There was not much time; but she might have been quick; and if the letter was not long, there is still hope.”
This was poor comfort. All my joyous anticipations dashed, I tried to think of some way of finding out whether Monica had read my letter, and whether there were any way of smuggling another to her.
The note had been written in such haste, that I scarcely knew what I had said. No name had been signed; nevertheless, if Lady Vale-Avon read what I had written, she would say to herself, “It is not Cristóbal O’Donnel who says these things, but a more dangerous man.” If she had the letter, she could show it to Carmona; but, as I thought the matter over, I decided that it was unlikely she would do this.
Spaniards, especially Spaniards with Moorish blood in their veins, do not like to think girls they love capable of carrying on secret correspondence with other men; and I imagined that Lady Vale-Avon was a woman to guess this. Already Carmona knew that Lady Monica was interested in someone else, or had a girlish fancy for him, which might or might not have been frightened away. But his desire for her would not be whetted by the fact that she was receiving letters from that someone else, perhaps sending them to him; and it struck me that Lady Vale-Avon would conceal the correspondence, rather than flaunt it in Carmona’s face. If I were right, then I was as safe as before from the Duke’s jealousy; but, had Monica read my letter?