“The stars smile on thee, Don Martin. When thou hast learned more, consult with me again. Now, I see a way to assist thee.”
CHAPTER VI. WEB UPON WEB.
The next day, to the discomfiture of the courtiers, Calderon and the Infant of Spain were seen together, publicly, on the parade; and the secretary made one of the favoured few who attended the prince at the theatre. His favour was greater, his power more dazzling than ever it had been known before. No cause for the breach and reconciliation being known, some attributed it to caprice, others to the wily design of the astute Calderon for the humiliation of Uzeda, who seemed only to have been admitted to one smile from the rising sun in order more signally to be reconsigned to the shade.
Meanwhile, Fonseca prospered almost beyond his hopes. Young, ardent, sanguine, the poor novice had fled from her quiet home and the indulgence of her free thoughts, to the chill solitude of the cloister, little dreaming of the extent of the change. With a heart that overflowed with the warm thoughts of love and youth, the ghostlike shapes that flitted round her, the icy forms, the rigid ceremonials of that life, which is but the mimicry of death, appalled and shocked her. That she had preserved against a royal and most perilous, because unscrupulous suitor, her fidelity to the absent Fonseca, was her sole consolation.
Another circumstance had combined with the loss of her protectress and the absence of Don Martin to sadden her heart and dispose her to the cloister. On the deathbed of the old woman, who had been to her as a mother, she had learned a secret hitherto concealed from her tender youth. Dark and tragic were the influences of the star which had shone upon her birth, gloomy the heritage of memories associated with her parentage. A letter, of which she now became the guardian and treasurer—a letter, in her mother’s hand-woke tears more deep and bitter than she had ever shed for herself. In that letter she read the strength and the fidelity, the sorrow and the gloom, of woman’s love; and a dreary foreboding told her that the shadow of the mother’s fate was cast over the child’s. Such were the thoughts that made the cloister welcome, till the desolation of the shelter was tried and known. But when, through the agency of the porter, Fonseca’s letter reached her, all other feelings gave way to the burst of natural and passionate emotion. The absent had returned, again wooed, was still faithful. The awful vow was not spoken—she might yet be his. She answered; she chided; she spoke of doubt, of peril, of fear for him, of maiden shame; but her affection coloured every word, and the letter was full of hope. The correspondence continued; the energetic remonstrances of Fonseca, the pure and fervent attachment of the novice, led more and more rapidly and surely to the inevitable result. Beatriz yielded to the prayer of her lover; she consented to the scheme of escape and flight that he proposed.
Late at evening Fonseca sought Calderon. The marquis was in the gardens of his splendid mansion.
The moonlight streamed over many a row of orange-trees and pomegranates—many a white and richly sculptured vase, on its marble pedestal—many a fountain, that scattered its low music round the breathless air. Upon a terrace that commanded a stately view of the spires and palaces of Madrid stood Calderon, alone; beside him, one solitary and gigantic aloe cast its deep gloom of shade and his motionless attitude, his folded arms, his face partially lifted to the starlit heavens, bespoke the earnestness and concentration of his thoughts.
“Why does this shudder come over me?” said, he, half aloud. “It was thus in that dismal hour which preceded the knowledge of my shame—the deed of a dark revenge—the revolution of my eventful and wondrous life! Ah! how happy was I once! a contented and tranquil student; a believer in those eyes that were to me as the stars to the astrologer. But the golden age passed into that of iron. And now,” added Calderon, with a self-mocking sneer, “comes the era which the poets have not chronicled; for fraud, and hypocrisy, and vice, know no poets!”
The quick step of Fonseca interrupted the courtier’s reverie. He turned, knit his brow, and sighed heavily, as if nerving himself to some effort; but his brow was smooth, and his aspect cheerful, ere Fonseca reached his side.