Chapter 22

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.”

“No fun with you among us, child,” the Cherub said. “The chivalrous bandoleros of the past exist in these days only in story books and ballads. Vivillo is a villainous brute, and a little farther south we’ll find no one on the road who’ll care to speak his name. They’ll call him Señor Coso. As for the Seven Men of Ecija, one says that they’re disbanded long ago, yet there’s a rumour that they still exist; and by the way, Don Ramón, for generations that famous band of seven brigands has had a connection—at least in old wives’ gossip—with the Dukes of Carmona.”

“How’s that?” I inquired, interested; for though I had heard many things about that house, I had not heard the story at which Colonel O’Donnel hinted.

“I wonder you don’t know!” said he. “Why, the tale runs that, more than a hundred years ago, the baby heir of the Carmonas was ailing. If they lost him, the title would go to another branch of the family; but the Duchess had died within a few days of his birth, and no foster-mother could be found to give the child health. Then the Duke caused it to be known far and near that, if any woman could save his boy, she should have a pension for life, enough to keep her in comfort with all her family; and that her daughter and her daughter’s daughter should, if she chose to make the contract, be foster-mothers of future Dukes of Carmona. In answer to this proclamation came a woman of Ecija, the town of the brigands; a Juno of a creature. She nursed the ailing heir back to health, and when the child had become devoted to her, the secret leaked out that she was the married sister of the terrible priest who led the brigand band. But she was not sent away for that reason. Instead, the Duke used his influence successfully to obtain a pardon for her husband, the priest’s brother-in-law, when he was taken red-handed for robbery and murder between Carmona and Seville; and in gratitude for this the man promised that his sons and sons’ sons should be always at the disposal of the ducal house. For the rest, the story goes that more than once in the last century this promise has been exacted and fulfilled in secret.”

“I wouldn’t put it past the present Carmona to have a nest of bandits up his sleeve,” said Dick. “It’s a pretty black sleeve, if some of the things one hears are true. But here’s a road-mender’s cottage. What about halting, and cocking snooks at El Vivillo?”

“It will do very well,” replied the Cherub. “If worst came to worst, we could make a good defence from inside.”

“Honestly, aren’t you pulling our legs about the brigands?” asked Dick, half-scornful and half-amused, as we slowed down.

“No,” said the Cherub. “I’m not joking, if that’s what you mean; for we are on the borders of the bandido country now. It will be years before brigandage is stamped out in Spain; and you must have read of the trouble there’s been lately. Not that I think there’s much chance of an encounter, but it’s well to be prepared; for if a band of men jump at you with carbines to their shoulders, there’s no getting out revolvers.”

“H’m!” muttered Dick. “I suppose you know what you’re talking about; but I wouldn’t mind betting that these people would laugh if we asked, ’What about brigands?’”

“All right; let us ask,” said the Cherub calmly.

By this time the car had stopped close to a tiny white box of a house set a few yards back from the road, with a strip of grass for a lawn; and an old man, evidently an ex-soldier, with a plump wife and a pretty daughter were coming out. We interchanged various compliments; said that, with the kind permission of his honour, the road-mender, we would lunch near his house; were told that the house and everyone as well as everything in it, was at our worship’s disposal; and finally the Cherub murmured a question as to whether any bandidos had been seen lately.

This way and that the old man glanced before answering. Then below his breath replied that, as it happened, four gentlemen of the profession had passed no more than three or four hours ago. They were out of luck, for they had been hunted by the civil guard; and as they were hungry had gone over to the right, there, to see what could be got at the nearest farm. As for this place, it was safe enough, for there was nothing in it which even a brigand would have; and one had to be agreeable to these persons, if they stopped to rest or chat; it was more prudent.

“You see, you would have lost your money if I’d taken your bet, Señor Waring,” said the Cherub.

Never was such a lunch as that we had by the roadside. We all worked at spreading out the contents of the hampers, while the road-mender and his family bustled about, not as inferiors with the hope of a tip, but helping us as friends and hosts.

When we arrived, not a soul was to be seen, save the dwellers in the white box. The only living things beside the trio and ourselves, were the larks that sprang heavenward pouring jewels from throbbing throats, and a few unknown birds of brilliant red and yellow, like drifting flower-petals. But whether these birds carried the news, or whether it blew over the country with the scented wind, certain it is that an audience collected to gaze upon us, as clouds boil up over a clear horizon.

It was not an intrusive crowd that came; neither did they approach offensively near, or stare with vulgar curiosity. It’s component members—three or four handsome young mule-drivers, princely in shabbiness; an elderly tiller of the soil, with the eyes and profile of a half-tamed hawk; an old woman and a young girl madonna-like in their hooded cloaks, as they sat their patient donkeys; and a couple of shy children with the eyes of startled deer—hovered, paused, and ruminated, ready to take flight, like wild creatures of the forest, at a rude look or chaffing word.

But they got no rude looks or chaffing words from us, though we dared not smile too invitingly, lest they misunderstand, and flee from us, offended. We bowed gravely; they gravely bowed in return. Then, following a hurried whisper of advice from the tactful Cherub, we continued our meal. But presently, sandwich in hand, he strolled towards the scattered group, mingled with it, and murmured. What he murmured, we in the car and round it could not hear; but the chill uncertainty on those dark faces brightened into sympathetic amusement.

“He’s telling them about ourselves and the automobile,” chuckled Pilarcita. “Oh, I know him! He’s probably making up nonsense about the car and its workings. In another minute they’ll be his slaves, and friends of us all.”

As she whispered, the plump figure sauntered back. “I think that now it’s safe to offer them a share of our food,” said he, in the manner of one who imparts a delicious secret. “They are dying for some; but they’ll refuse unless we go about it in the right way, for they’re as proud as we are.”

Pilar was not allowed to move, because, in Spain, women are to be worshipped from afar, and must not mingle with strangers. But she handed plates of the dainties supplied by Doña Rosita, to Dick and me, and thus laden we wandered towards our audience.

“Offer something first to the road-mender’s family,” suggested the Cherub, and we obeyed. “Probably you are not hungry,” was his preface. “Why should you be, when you have plenty of food as good as ours, maybe better? But here are things from Madrid. It may happen they are new to you. We shall be pleased if you taste them.”

Then proud, hesitating fingers hesitated no longer, but descended upon thin slices of ham, shredded and sweetened eggs, cheese, and mazapan. Nobody betrayed eagerness, but faces beamed, especially when the road-mender, proud of us as if we had been his relations, went round with our wineskin, cordially bidding every man put it to his lips.

As the company ate and drank, the Cherub circulated among them, and soon was primed with the abbreviated life-story of each person, though he had apparently asked no questions. Somehow, it was the first impulse of the most reserved soul to confide in the Cherub; and when the meal was finished, and no excuse remained for lingering, the wild birds, tamed by kindness, flew away regretfully.

“They’ll all have good words to speak for automobilists after this,” said Pilar.

“Until some ruffian comes tearing along, upsetting their carts and breaking their illusions,” added Dick.

When we were ready to go on, the road-mender’s wife would not be content unless Pilar would have a look at the house, which she took, and came back delighted. “Tiny rooms, but clean as wax,” she reported. “Pictures and crucifixes and Toledo knives on the snow-white walls, and beautiful bright copper in the kitchen. I believe I could be happy to live there—with someone I loved.”

Was the image of Don Cipriano in her mind as she said this? or Dick’s tanned face and whimsical grey eyes? Or did she think only of an existence in the society of her father?

“Beware gutters!” was the road-mender’s last word as we spun away; and we were glad of the warning; for despite careful driving, a few seconds of inattention might have sent us crashing into and over a deep trough across the road, half hidden by thick dust. There were many of these gutters, which might have been put underneath in the form of culverts; but, as the Cherub remarked, since nobody takes the trouble to complain, in Spain, why should anyone bother?

There were broken patches, too, where somebody had begun to build a bridge, and then apparently forgotten all about going on with it; but luckily there were side tracks made by other pioneers, by which, with care, one could skirt the great square hole, and land safely on the other side.

Thus we arrived before a walled town with a Moorish gateway; and, for all the changes which had come or gone since the days of those who set it up, the place might have been under a spell of enchantment, a kind of “sleeping sickness,” for at least five hundred unnoticeable years.

Our maps said that it was Ciudad Real; Colonel O’Donnel added that of all garrison towns it was the one which young officers hated worst. And while the car paused with panting motor for a discussion as to the way on, two dark youths by the roadside interested themselves in our situation. They had red handkerchiefs twisted round their heads, and the smarter of the pair wore two sombreros, one over the other—a simple way of carrying his Sunday hat on week-days; and they looked up from a meal of maize bread and onions to enter into conversation.

Had our honours any doubt as to the road? If so, and our worships would deign to mention the destination desired, they might have the happiness of helping us.

We wanted to go to Manzanares, I replied.

In that case, replied the owner of the two sombreros, there was a short cut which would be of assistance. Not only would it save us a bad section of road, but an hour’s time as well. We must not go through the town, but turn to the left round the wall, nor must we enter the village which we would soon see, but skirt that also. Presently we would come to fields planted with olives, and our way would lead through these. We must not be disheartened if it appeared wild and rough. We should be able to pass, and in the end would be glad that we had availed ourselves of such advice.

Taking this for granted, I gave each of the lads a peseta, which they accepted more as their just due than as a favour. To avoid the town, it seemed that we must steer into chaos, void and formless; but there were only a few hundred yards of desert. Beyond, we found ourselves in a good road, which led to the white village we had been told to expect; and there, as we were already primed with information, we wasted no time in asking questions. Instead, we plunged into open country, with a vista of olive trees in the grey-green distance. From fair, the road dwindled to doubtful; then to a certainty of badness. It narrowed; softened to a sandbank; hardened into a wilderness of rocks and stones scattered between deep ruts dug by the wheels of ox-carts. Apparently no other vehicles than these had ever weathered the terrors of this passage; yet we persevered; for here were the promised olive trees, so near, indeed, that we lurched against them as we rocked from side to side. We had been warned whatever happened not to be discouraged, and we cheered each other bravely, while our heads bumped the roof. “We shall be out of this presently,” we gasped. “It will surely be all right soon.”

Meanwhile, however, it was a nightmare; the sort of thing which a delirious chauffeur might dream and rave of, in a fever; and instead of improving, the way grew worse.

“Can it be possible those chaps deceived us on purpose?” I jerked out between chattering teeth, as the car sprang from one three-foot rut into another, in spite of Ropes’ coaxing.

“I’ll bet it’s a trick of Carmona’s,” gasped Dick, at the risk of biting his tongue. “I thought that fellow in the two hats looked a fox.”

“I did see them laughing when I glanced round after we passed,” said Pilar, as jumpily as if she rode a trotting horse. “But I—thought—they were pleased with the pesetas.”

“I expect they’d got more than we gave, to send us the wrong way,” growled Dick. “We must have been dreaming not to think of it.”

“We can’t go about suspecting everyone we meet to be in Carmona’s pay,” said I. “We’d be mistaken as often as right, and then we should feel small. After all, there isn’t much harm done.”

“It’s a wonder we haven’t smashed something, sir,” sighed the much enduring Ropes.

“That’s what Carmona prayed to his demons we would do,” said Dick.

“I’ll back San Cristóbal against them all,” said I.

“Besides, there was the mule with the four white feet, and the goat-herd,” Pilar reminded me.

“I can’t say they’ve brought us luck.”

“Wait,” said Pilar.

“Meanwhile let’s turn back,” said Dick. “Another hundred yards like this, and even if we don’t smash the differential or the chassis, Ropes will get side-slip of the brain. Half an hour of such driving must be equal to a week in Purgatory for a chauffeur.”

We did turn back, and feeling years older, arrived once more at the point from which he had started. We would have given something to see the man with the two hats, and his companion, but they had prudently taken themselves off, like full-fed vultures. This time we made no inquiries, but trusted to our intuition and our maps, which, without once contradicting each other, led us into a decent road that seemed like a path to paradise after all we had endured.

Making up for lost time, and revelling in joy of motion, we put on our best speed, which for a few moments brought the roadside telegraph posts as close together as fir trees in a Norwegian forest. But suddenly the motor slowed, and stopped with a tired sigh within sight of a village white as newly polished silver.

“Petrol gone,” said Ropes. “It oughtn’t to be, but it is. Extra strain in that short cut of the Duke’s used it up.”

He got out, and untied a bidon from the reserve store fastened upon the foot-board. But the tin was light in his hand as a feather. He gave a low whistle, and a shadow darkened his face, a shadow which was not made by the brim of his motor-cap as he bent his head to examine the bidon.

“There’s a leak here, sir,” he said to me—for though Dick was now supposed to be his master, in moments of stress he clung to old habits. “Looks as if the tin had been pricked with some sharp instrument. H’m! Shouldn’t wonder if it had been. It would be of a piece with all the rest.”

“You mean at Toledo?”

“Yes, sir. Everything was right, then. I bought enough petrol in Madrid to last to Cordoba, pretty well all we could carry, and ordered more to meet us there, grande vitesse, in case I couldn’t get it—as you said we were sure now to go that way.”

“Well, let’s look at your other bidons. We shall be in a fix if we’re held up here.”

“Two more empty,” announced Ropes. “And three bidons don’t suddenly take to leaking, of themselves. I suppose if I’d had my wits about me, I’d have looked, at Toledo, before starting; but who’s to think of everything? I did have a thorough go at the car, for fear of mischief, but forgot the bidons However, there’s one to go on with, I’m pretty sure; for it’s stowed away in a place nobody would think of, if they had to do the villain act in a hurry.”

Whereupon he handed out a new bidon from the tool box, and we both gave a sigh of relief to see that it was intact. At least, we had now enough to get us to Manzanares; and at worst we could but be hung up there while Ropes went back by train as far as Madrid to buy petrol.

While we had been making these discoveries, however, the village had been discovering us. It was not the time of year, as Pilar said, for bears and monkeys to arrive by road, therefore when something was seen approaching rapidly and stopping suddenly, the inhabitants of the white town had not been able to bear the suspense. Somebody had given the word that there was a thing to see, and out Torralba came pouring in its hundreds, a brilliant procession a full quarter of a mile long.

Youth and beauty took the lead. Girls with arms thrown round the shoulders of one another’s blue, pink, or yellow jackets skipped along the dazzling road like peasant graces. Little, star-eyed brown boys had apparently taken the trouble to step off Murillo’s canvases to find out what we were, while their toddling sisters cried at being outdistanced. Behind these came men, middle-aged and old, in strange-shaped caps like fur and leather coal-scuttles, women with bare black heads, or faded blue handkerchiefs shadowing withered faces, and beggars hobbling on their sticks; a shouting, laughing army pouring its bright coloured stream down the white line of the straight road. And before the Gloria had been refreshed with her long drink of petrol, the wave of life had broken round her bonnet. Bright eyes stared, brown hands all but touched us; and children knew not whether to shriek with fright or laugh with joy as they saw themselves reflected in the glass turned up against our roof. But at the first cough of the motor as it throbbed into waking, the throng rolled back, dividing to let us pass, as if the car had cloven it in two, and joining again to tear home in our wake.

All the able-bodied women who had not come out to meet us were sitting before the doors of their white houses, making lace mantillas and flounces for the young Queen-elect,—Torralba is famous for its lace-makers,—and they waved work-worn hands as we ran by, wishing us good speed, or throwing an improvised copla after the vanishing Gloria.

Now we were in Don Quixote land; and had we gone back to his day as we entered his country of La Mancha, our red car could have roused little more excitement. Village after village turned out for us; always the same gorgeous colours against the background of white houses and blue arch of sky; always the same brilliant eyes and rich brown faces with scarlet lips that laughed. It was even a relief to the monotony to meet a band of fierce-eyed young carters ranged in a line with big stones in their hands, wanting to bash in the aristocrat’s features, if the aristocrats frightened their mules. But neither the aristocrats nor mules showed fear. Pilar even leaned out, as if daring the four or five sullen fellows to throw their stones into a girl’s face, and their arms fell inoffensively.

“I don’t believe any Spaniard, no matter how bad, would hurt a woman who had done him no harm!” she exclaimed.

The road, with its rutty, irritating surface, seemed endless. We had started late, according to our promise, and having lost more than an hour on the “short cut,” grey wings of twilight began at last to fold in the landscape. It was long since we had passed a village; Manzanares was not yet near, and I began to wonder whether the Gloria would not again grow thirsty before we could give her drink.

Turn after turn; always the same jolting; always the same scene, till our minds wearied. Then, suddenly rounding a bend, we came upon something which made every one of us forget boredom.

There was the Duke’s car—the grey car which we had sworn to avoid—stuck in a caniveau that cut the road in two. There were Carmona and his chauffeur staring balefully into the inner workings of the motor; there were the Duchess and Lady Vale-Avon, dust-powdered and disconsolate, sitting forlornly on roadside hillocks; and there was Monica, her veil off, walking up and down impatiently with her little hands buried in the pockets of her grey coat, the last gleam of sunset finding a responsive note in the gold of her hair.

“What did I tell you!” exclaimed Pilar. “The goat-herd! The mule with the white feet! It’s the luck of the Dream-Book!”