(2/3) The Teeth of the Gale (24 page)

Even by starlight I could see that she was as white as paper. She looked sick with dread.

"I—I don't think—"

"My friend—you have
got
to." I tried to sound much more forceful than I felt. What if she won't? I thought. "Don Manuel will never believe my word alone. And think of the children up there—"

Well I knew her terror of heights. I remembered her anguish on the cliff above Bidassoa.

"You can do it—I promise you," I said.

She managed a faint smile. "You are too free with your promises, my friend." Then she went aloft.

It was too dark to follow her progress. But at last I heard de Larra call, "
Muy bien,
" and the rope came down again.

Me he pulled up bruisingly fast; in the course of the ascent I lost enough skin to cover an ostrich's egg, despite the fact that I kept fending myself away from the cliff face with my feet and hands. My speed, I discovered on arriving at the top, was because Juana had been helping to wind the ratchet. She and de Larra were both panting by the time I reached the crane arm and swung myself onto the flat platform below it.

At the sight of de Larra's face—it was lighter up here—I said, "What is it? What has happened?"

Without reply, he swung away and began walking rapidly up the steps toward the keep. Juana and I followed in silence and fear.

Once he turned and said to Juana, "Are you skilled at nursing? Did they teach you that, in your convent?"

"I—I know a little," she stammered. "Why—"

But already he was hurrying on again, up the slopes and through the roofless chambers, under arches, past ruined walls, without pausing to see if we were managing to keep pace with him.

In an undertone I asked Juana, "You don't know what it is—? He didn't say?"

She shook her head, stumbling over a lump of masonry concealed among rough shrubs, and I caught her hand to help her. It felt warm and strong.

Then, in the distance, we heard a quiet, regular sound: clink, and then a thud; another clink, then another thud. A familiar sound, but unexpected here.

"Somebody
digging
?" whispered Juana, puzzled.

We reached the wooden door to the keep. De Larra let us in through it, waited, and closed it behind us. At the foot of the stairs, where we stood in pitch darkness, he suddenly seized my arm.

"Were you in on the secret, about that book?" he hissed in my ear. "Did you know about it? For if you did—as God is my witness—I will stick this knife through your gullet."

I could feel the blade press against my windpipe, cold and deadly sharp. It made me cough.

"
Book?
" I spluttered. "What book, señor? I have no idea what you are talking about."

"The book that child brought, from her mother."

Then I remembered the tiny volume, the handbook on birds, that Pilar had in her petticoat pocket, that Don Manuel furiously flung out the window. A cold dread ran up my spine to the pit of my throat.

"Of all the cold, calculated acts of
villainy
—" de Larra was saying. "Medea herself could not have equaled it. You
swear
that you knew nothing?"

"As God is my judge, señor!"

"Is that the truth?" I could feel his ferocious mind, searching mine in the dark.

Juana said strongly, "El Señor Brooke is an honorable man, Don Jose. You do wrong to doubt him."

At that, de Larra gave a great sigh, and the knife blade dropped away from my neck.

"Very well—very well—forgive me. But we have been nearly mad with helplessness and horror."

"Why,
why
?" demanded Juana. "What has
happened
?"

Still without answering, he led the way up into the room where I had been before. The fire had gone out, but up here the large, unglazed windows gave light enough to see. We caught a faint sound of sobbing and whimpering, then perceived little Pilar, crouched by the body of another child that lay full length on the floor. Approaching more closely, I discovered this to be the boy, Nico, apparently ill or fainted; he moved and groaned a little, twisting about, and Pilar wailed, "Nico, Nico! Please don't go, like Luisa! Don't!"

"Where is the other girl?" I asked with dread.

"Dead," replied de Larra. Pilar sobbed again.

"
Dead?
But how?"

Juana had dropped to her knees beside the boy and was anxiously, carefully feeling his brow and his hands.

"It was that cursed book their mother sent. That hag! That vulture! Vitriol runs in her veins, not blood—that she could plan and carry out such an act!"

"The book? I don't understand."

Then I began to recall how the pages of the little volume were all gummed together and Luisa had eagerly tugged them apart, licking her finger to moisten them.

"You mean the sticky pages—"

"Poisoned," he said. "Manuel guessed immediately that there was some wicked trick, and threw it away. But already both the elder children—"

"Yes, now I remember. And—and the girl—she is dead? Already?"

"First she went mad," said Don Jose curtly. "She ran, she laughed, she danced, she screamed that angels were dancing with her. Then she said that she was a bird and could fly—before her father could stop her she leaped from that window there—"

Juana, kneeling by the boy, had one hand pressed over her mouth in horror. The other arm was clasped, around the sobbing Pilar.

"Her father is out there now, digging her a grave," said de Larra.

"And Nico—he also—"

"He had not handled the book as much as his sister, Manuel says. But, you see—"

"Have you given him anything?" said Juana quickly. "He should have white of egg beaten in milk, or a mustard emetic—"

De Larra laughed shortly. "You think we have those things up here? We gave him water—as much as he could drink—"

"But I don't understand," I said slowly. "Even Conchita—even
she
—can't have meant her children to die?"

"No, of course not. Don't you see," impatiently interrupted Juana, "it was her husband the book was meant for. It was Don Manuel. And she didn't mean him to die; she meant to send him mad. So that she could claim his estate."

I remembered Don Ignacio saying, "He must be mad, and die in his madness."

"But what a fool!" Juana was going on furiously. "I always thought Conchita stupid, but not as stupid as that! A plan that might so easily miscarry—"

At that moment we heard steps on the stair.

"Manuel," said de Larra in a quick warning voice. "Do not question him—he has been distressed beyond bearing—"

Don Manuel came in. He did indeed look beaten and ravaged, ten years older than when I had seen him last. At the sight of us he checked.

"Don Felix and Doña Juana are innocent," said de Larra at once. "They know nothing. They feel for you, most truly."

Indeed Juana, getting up, walked straight to him and clasped his hands in hers.

His face still stared past her. He seemed hardly aware of his surroundings. But two slow tears found their way down his cheeks, as she continued to press his hands.

Little Pilar ran to him and seized him, around the leg.

"Papa! Papa! Is Nico going to die also?
Please
don't let Nico die!"

"It is as God wills, child," he said wearily. He looked down at Pilar with, I thought, some revulsion; and I could hardly blame him. Then, apparently taking in, for the first time, the presence of Juana, he murmured, "You are—you are Sister Juana—who used to be Juana Esparza?"

"Yes, señor. I have come to give you"—she stopped and swallowed—"to give you my promise about your children."

"I remember you," he went on slowly. "I always thought you—a good influence. A true friend. Will you—I have dug her grave and laid her in it. Will you come and say a prayer for my daughter Luisa?"

His words came loosely, as if they drifted from him without direction.

"Of course I will, Don Manuel," Juana said in deep compassion. "Let us all go. I will just make this poor boy a little more comfortable." She took off the blue cloak I had given her and folded it into a wad for him to lie on. Then she made a sign of assent to Don Manuel and we went after him down the stairs, little Pilar following forlornly in the rear. She seemed quite quenched with crying—very different from the other occasions on which I had seen her.

The grave he had dug for Luisa was under the tree that Pilar and I had climbed. It was an oak.

The only tools he had been able to find for digging were a rusty iron bar and an old blunt ax blade. It must have been a formidable task, using such implements, in the hard and scanty soil; I could see that his hands were dusty and gashed and bleeding, on top of those earlier scars. He had hauled over part of a broken pillar to lie on top of the grave, in order to mark it, and keep off wild beasts.

Juana kneeled down at the foot of the grave and the rest of us did likewise, wherever we happened to be placed. Dawn had come by now. A lark was singing nearby; we waited in silence for a moment or two, while its voice spiraled upward into the pale green sky, and while Juana collected her thoughts.

Then she said, "Most pitiful Father: We need not ask You to take charge of Your dear child Luisa, for she is already with You and sharing Your eternal joy. But we do ask You to comfort her brother and sister. May their lives be as guildess and free from harm as hers was."

I could hardly feel this was likely to be true of Pilar, but doubtless it did no harm to ask.

"Console this poor child's bereaved father and help him to see his path clear ahead," went on Juana. Then she paused. I wonder if she was thinking about asking God to punish the ill-doers who had caused Luisa's horrible and untimely death. In the old days she would certainly have done so. Then she had a strong and passionate sense of justice and used to long for retribution against the people who had hurt her.

But she can safely leave all that to God? Surely she knows that by now? I thought.

Yes, Felix, said the voice of God in my ear. And
you
can safely leave Juana to
me.

I almost smiled, the message came through so warm and clear, like a sudden blaze of sunshine in my mind.

Juana looked up over her joined hands and met my eyes, for I was kneeling at the opposite end of the grave. She was frowning with concentration and resolve and glanced at me, just then, as if I were no more than a tree or a stone.

"And I hereby give my solemn promise that as much of my life as they may need shall be devoted to the care of Luisa's brother and sister; that I will help them to grow in grace and wisdom, and so free themselves from this wicked wrong and tragedy.

"Please give me Your support in this work, my dear Lord."

"Amen," said Don Manuel strongly, and so did the rest of us.

Then Juana recited a prayer for the dead, in Latin, to which we made the responses. After that she stood up, without self-consciousness, and held out her hand again to Don Manuel. This time he took it between both of his.

"Thank you, child," he said huskily. "I do believe that you will do as you say. I pray God that my son lives to receive your care. And you restore, a little, my faith in human nature."

"If that is so, I am glad to hear it." Her voice was calm, quite matter-of-fact. She went on, "And now, Don Manuel, it is a hard thing to tell you, but I think you should leave this place without delay."

"Yes!" said de Larra in heartfelt agreement. "Doña Juana is right, Manuel."

"But, the boy—" His face contorted in anguish.

"The boy is in the hands of God. Your staying can make no difference. These young people will care for him as well as you can—better—"

Young people,
I thought indignantly; how old are you, Señor de Larra, I should like to know? Not much older than I myself. But it was true that Don Manuel was older, was in his middle or late thirties—indeed he looked at this moment almost like an old man; there must have been a considerable gap in age between him and his wife. Perhaps that was why...

At that moment I saw Conchita herself coming over the grass.

She was dressed very stately, in black silk, with a black lace mantilla. She carried her great black ostrich-feather fan. True, these things were a little dusty and mud-splashed, but she had plainly taken considerable pains with her appearance, and moved with great dignity, waving her fan from side to side as she approached.

Behind her came Don Amador, even more dusty and disheveled, and panting a little as he endeavored to keep pace with her.

I could see that Conchita was taken aback at the sight of de Larra. Myself and Juana she had perhaps expected, but Don Jose she had not, and his presence disturbed her, though she did her best to conceal the fact and came on composedly. What startled her even more was the appearance of her own husband, when he turned around and became aware of her. She drew a sharp breath and gazed at him with huge eyes.

He, for his part, turned completely white, so that his face looked like a shield, with the black eye patch and the diagonal line of its ribbon across his cheek. The good eye blazed with outrage.

"You!" he brought out harshly. "How in the name of the fiend did
you
get here?"

Having come as close as she dared, Conchita stood still and stared at her husband, her face gradually growing as pale as his.

Of course, I thought, she expected to find him running mad and raving. That was why she came. To be a witness to his madness. And now, since he is plainly not mad at all, but sane and sober as anybody else present, she does not know what to do.

"How did I get here?" she repeated slowly. "Why—by the tunnel, Manuel. You are not the only one who knows its location. Your brother Ignacio told me how to find it."

She was staring at him, all the while, with a deep, distraught look, almost one of appeal. It was, I supposed, a couple of years since she had seen him; his appearance plainly shocked and disturbed her.

Dear God, I thought in astonishment, she
loves
him; in spite of having betrayed him and plotted his ruin and death, she does still love him in her own selfish, childish way.