(2/3) The Teeth of the Gale (11 page)

"Yes, thank you, we have done excellently," Sister Belen assured me. She was plainly some years older than Juana and looked, from her outdoor complexion, as if she must be in charge of the convent's garden or livestock. She had a sensible, good-humored face and I thought, if our expedition had to be lumbered with so many females, that she, at least, would give us little trouble. "Come, Sister Felicita," she said, "the young señor wants us back in the carriage."

I did not, of course; I wanted to walk beside Juana and recall old times. But there was no chance of that; Doña Conchita had come up and was asking how many more leagues it was to Pamplona and whether I had traveled this way before; the sisters climbed into the carriage and were shut up in it before I could exchange any more words with them.

We did not reach Pamplona that night; Doña Conchita insisted on yet another impromptu stop along the way, and dusk found us at a small village called Irurzun, where, fortunately, there was an inn simple but commodious enough to accommodate the whole party.

As soon as we halted, Juana and Sister Belen disappeared into the village church, presumably to pray for the success of the enterprise. I would have liked to follow their example, but was intercepted by Doña Conchita who asked me, with pretty civility, to take a glass of wine with her and tell her how I planned to rescue her babies.

"Well, señora, can you tell me a little about the children? It is not really possible to make any plan until we discover where they are being kept; but in the meantime, any description of their habits and dispositions may prove useful."

This, however, she seemed to find impossible to provide. Whether it was because the children had been reared by nurses and servants and had spent little time with their mother, or because she was the kind of person who has no gift for making a picture in words, I could not decide.

"Nico is a little angel—so good, so sweet! And Luisa is a perfect wonder at embroidery—already she has stitched two altar cloths for the Carmelite nuns—"

"How old are they?"

"Nico is nine—the poor darling has had a birthday since that monster abducted them—and Luisa just eight—"

"And the baby?"

"Oh, little Pilar? She is four. But now, give me your own history, Señor Felix. How did your parents chance to meet? Do, pray, tell me all about yourself."

This I had no great wish to do. Beautiful as Doña de la Trava was, kind and full of interest as she appeared, yet her company somehow made me fidgety. And the story of my parents, a very sad one, was not of a kind to be related idly, by way of passing the time, in the ale room of a posada, no matter how cordial the audience. I jumped up and said I would hurry the cook with our dinner, so that we might make an early start the next day.

On my way back from the kitchen I encountered the two sisters returning from their devotions, and offered them a glass of wine. This they declined, but came into the ale room to sit (indeed there was nowhere else) and placed themselves on a wooden bench. Then I remembered that Juana had met her cousin's children, they were fond of her—that, in fact, was why Doña Conchita had appealed to her for help in the first place. So I asked her if she could supply me with information as to any of their particular likes or dislikes, habits or skills or fears that she might call to mind.

"Yes, of course," she said readily. "Nico is very good at drawing—he loves animals and has great skill in making pictures of them. And he has a natural way with all beasts—dogs and horses trust him, and wild creatures too—he had a pet owl that he tamed, and a snake. Whereas Luisa is rather frightened of many animals—she is a nervous child, prone to nightmares. I remember she used to wake screaming, 'Father! Father!'"

"Ah, the poor angel," murmured Doña Conchita, who had been listening to this with slightly knitted brows. "Even then, when you met them three years ago, they were terrified of their father, he cast such a shadow over the whole household—"

"And Pilar?" I asked Juana, who was frowning and looking thoughtful. "Do you recall anything special about her? Or was she too small then to have developed any special characteristics?"

"Indeed no," said Juana laughing. "She was a perfect little devil. Even at the age of one it could be seen that all her ways derived straight from the Evil One."

"Oh, come, my love, how can you be so hard on the poor child?" said Conchita, smiling, but I could see that she was not pleased. "
Poor
little Pilar, how can you say such things about her at an age when she could hardly walk or talk. And she your own cousin!"

"I remember the dance that she led her nurse, poor old Guillermina. And how she used to plague the two elder ones, scrambling after them and snatching their toys from them. Yet they were remarkably patient with her. Nico and Luisa spoke a special language to each other that they had made up themselves," Juana told me, "and little Pilar was wild to learn it too, though she could hardly speak Spanish then; but she used to scream with rage if they talked their own language in her presence; she would rush at them and hit them with her tiny fists. Truly, Conchita, I am sorry for her father if he has her somewhere shut up—
he
is the one who will suffer."

"How can you say such things?" repeated Conchita with a hurt, smiling face.

"Because I can remember very clearly the rages Pilar used to fall into when something was not given her that she wanted—my books about flowers and birds, for instance, that Nico used to look at. He was so careful with books always, but Pilar could not be trusted; she would tear and crumple the pages. And,
Dios mio,
the passions she fell into when she saw them put up out of reach on a high shelf. If she is the same now—"

"Of course not, she is much older and wiser," protested Conchita in her soft musical voice. "You are giving Señor Felix quite a wrong impression. What in the world will he be thinking?"

Juana looked at me calmly.

"He won't worry. Felix has some experience in dealing with willful children. Yes, and with evil spirits also." Momentarily, a grave expression passed over her face; I guessed she might be remembering, as I did, how we had been hunted over the mountains by a demon inhabiting the body of a brigand, and how we had to drive out the wicked spirit. Juana, too, I thought, has had experience in dealing with evil. Our eyes met, briefly, and I felt a closeness, as if we had clasped hands.

I said, hoping to ease the moment with Conchita, "Well, if the little Pilar has such an unquenchable spirit in her, I hope that we can turn it to good account when it comes to the children's rescue."

Doña Conchita smiled, just a curve of the lips and a widening of the dark velvety eyes as she thanked me.

Pedro came to tell us that our meal was ready, on a trestle table at the other end of the dim lit room. There were four places laid, for me, Conchita, and the two sisters.

"What about you, Pedro?" I said, surprised. "Are you not eating with us?" For, hitherto, he and I had eaten together as a matter of course.

But with a wholly expressionless tone and countenance he said he preferred to take his meal in the kitchen with Tomas and the postilions. "Servants' gossip," he hissed in my ear. "You never know what you may pick up."

From the cool glance Doña Conchita cast at him, raising her fine brows, I could see she considered the kitchen was properly his place. And as it was, the meal proved a little constrained; Juana and Sister Belen ate quietly and very sparingly of the excellent bean soup, omelette, and chicken with artichokes, Doña Conchita picked at each dish and murmured in her soft cooing voice that the soup was too salty, the omelette leathery, the chicken disgracefully overcooked, and the wine and bread horribly rough. I thought it fortunate indeed that Pedro was taking his supper elsewhere, for, nephew and great-nephew of two superb cooks, he was a very fair judge of food and might not have agreed with Conchita.

While we ate, Doña Conchita was gently, sweetly arch and mischievous about the former journey that Juana and I had taken in each other's company.

"What an intrepid pair of babies you were to travel so far, and through such dangers together. Did you ever stay in a posada such as this?"

"No indeed, we had no money for such entertainment," said I. "We slept in the bracken and caught our dinner out of brooks."

"
Ay, de mi,
what austerities! It is a wonder you survived."

But Sister Belen said sturdily that trout fresh from the brook was the best supper there was, and bracken made the finest bed of all. I noticed Juana throw her a grateful glance; I fancied that she was embarrassed and annoyed by Conchita's gentle raillery.

After we had eaten the two nuns went off immediately to the attic room where they had been quartered. Doña Conchita asked me if I would escort her to a very pretty waterfall that we had noticed not far from the village as we came along; it would, she said, look even prettier by moonlight. But I, with a sad lack of gallantry, replied that it would be best to retire early so that we could make an early start, since we were by no means as far advanced on our way as we should be. Observing her look of disappointment I added, however, that no doubt Pedro would be glad to escort her to the waterfall (though I knew he would not be) if she wished an escort, though, I thought, in such a rural spot, she would be perfectly safe by herself.

But she, sighing, said, no, it had been just an idle whim; and she took herself off to bed. I did likewise and found Pedro there already, casting a critical eye over the rude and scanty bedding.

"If the Doña de la Trava has done no better, we shall hear about it in the morning!" he said with a grin, as we shared out the threadbare covers between the two primitive cots.

"Well? Did you hear any servants' gossip?"

"Less than I hoped," he said. "Pepe and Esteban are merely hired for the journey and have no knowledge about the family. And old Tomas, even when full of wine, has little to say. He did give as his opinion, though, that the Señor de la Trava was
not
mad; or, at least, not mad at the time when he was sent to prison. But, poor devil, he was in the dungeons of Montjuich for two years—
ay, Dios!
—they say nobody comes out of that place in his right mind."

"I wonder how he ever escaped?"

"He must have had good friends. By the way," Pedro said, cautiously glancing about us, "Tomas told me—speaking of friends—that Mother Agnese, the old Mother Superior of the convent where your SeÑOra Juana was, in Bilbao—Tomas says that she is a cousin of the king's own confessor, Archbishop Saez. And also an old friend of Doña Conchitas mother, Señora Escaroz."

"Is she indeed?" I said thoughtfully.

The king's confessor had been responsible for so much savage persecution of the Liberals that even the Russians and French had protested about him and he had, in the end, been relieved of his position as King Ferdinand's adviser, but, instead, as a consolation, made an archbishop. If he was the cousin of the gimlet-eyed Mother Agnese, it might account for her being so well informed about my grandfather. And if she was also a close friend of the pair of old toads, Conchitas parents, what did this betoken? I resolved to be doubly discreet in all that I did and said.

I wondered if Pedro would say anything about Juana—with whom, I had observed, during the day, he had grown to be on very easy, friendly terms; she accepted his services when they were offered, or amiably declined them, without any of the prickliness of former times; and he had held various chaffing conversations with her and Sister Belen; indeed the pair seemed more comfortable with Pedro than any other members of the party. Remembering Grandfather's insistence that Pedro should come along, and my own first opposition to the plan, I thought, not for the first time, what a very shrewd old fellow Grandfather is!

"She's a proper lady, your Señora Juana," Pedro observed pensively, blowing out the candle. "What my great-aunt Bernie would have called one of the old school—not jumped-up nobodies but real old-fashioned aristocracy."

"Good heavens, Pedro!" I was amused and astonished to find that Pedro's views were so identical to those of my grandfather.

"No, I mean it," he said seriously. "She's the sort that will do their duty through thick and thin—if it means walking over burning coals. And yet no fine airs about her; easy and joky as you please. Whereas—" Whatever else he had been about to add he providently decided to withhold.

"Well, I am glad you think so well of her. Although—" Here, like Pedro, I was overtaken by second thoughts and closed my mouth.

"While as for that Sister Belen—" Now there was a broad smile in his voice. "I wouldn't mind being washed up with
her
on a desert island."

"
Pedro!
"

"Too bad she's a nun," he said.

Then we slept.

Irurzun was only six leagues this side of Pamplona, so we reached that city early in the morning and made no long stop there. I had been there once before, with Juana, shortly before our last parting, and I remembered it with sadness, though it is a handsome place, raised upon a bluff and ringed about by mountains with the mighty snowcapped Pyrenees to northward. If Doña Conchita had not said she wished to make some purchases there, I would have suggested that we ride straight through without stopping, but since she wished to pause, I thought the time might usefully be employed in buying one or two more pieces of equipment. I suggested, therefore, that we might all meet in forty minutes' time close to the gate in the town wall that opens northeastward near the River Arga.

Just as I was about to take my leave of the party, Juana jumped down from the carriage and approached me.

"Felix," she said quietly, "would you do me a kindness?"

"Of course! You know that. Anything in the world." My tone was no louder than hers but I tried to put my heart into it.