The Velvet Glove Part 18

Down to our own times we have had the hand of the Society of Jesus gently urging the Fenians. O'Farrell, who in 1868 attempted the life of the Duke of Edinburgh in Australia, was a Jesuit sent out to the care of the society in Australia.

The great days of Jesuitism are gone but the society still lives. In England and in other Protestant countries they continue to exist under different names. The "Adorers of Jesus," the Redemptionists, the Brothers of the Christian Doctrine, the Brothers of the Congregation of the Holy Virgin, the Fathers of the Faith, the Order of St. Vincent de Paul--are Jesuits. How far they belong to the heart and not to the head, is a detail only known to themselves. Those who have followed the contemporary history of France may draw their own conclusions from the trials of the case of the a.s.sumptionist Fathers.

"Los mismos perros, con nuevos cuellos"--said Sarrion to any who sought to convince him that Spain owed her downfall to other causes, and that the Jesuits were no longer what they had been. "The same dogs with new collars." And he held that they were not a progressive but a retrogressive society; that their statutes still held good.

"It is allowable to take an oath without intending to keep it when one has good grounds for so acting."

"In the case of one unjustifiably making an attack on your honour, when you cannot otherwise defend yourself than by impeaching the integrity of the person insulting you, it is quite allowable to do so."

"In order to cut short calumny most quickly, one may cause the death of the calumniator, but as secretly as possible to avoid observation."

"It is absolutely allowable to kill a man whenever the general welfare or proper security demands it."

If any man has committed a crime, St. Liguori and other Jesuit writers hold that he may swear to a civil authority that he is innocent of it provided that he has already confessed it to his spiritual father and received absolution. It is, they say, no longer on his conscience.

"Pray," said the founder of the society, "as if everything depended on prayer, and act as if everything depended on action."

"Of what are you thinking?" Sarrion asked suddenly, when they had ridden almost to the city gates in silence.

"I was wondering what Juanita will say, some day, when she knows and understands everything."

"I was not wondering what Juanita will say," confessed Sarrion with a laugh, "but what Evasio Mon will do."

For Sarrion persisted in taking an optimistic view of Juanita and that which must supervene when she had grown into understanding and knowledge.

Marcos went back to the hotel. He had many arrangements to make. Sarrion rode to the large house in the Calle de la Dormitaleria where the school of the Sisters of the True Faith is located to this day. In an hour he joined Marcos in the little sitting-room looking on to the Plaza de la Const.i.tucion.

"All is going well," he said, "I have seen Dolores. They go across to the Cathedral for vespers at five o'clock. It will be almost dark. You have only to wait in the inner patio, adjoining the cloisters. They pa.s.s through that way. Juanita will be sent back for something that is forgotten. And then is your time. You can have ten minutes. It is not long."

"It will do," said Marcos rather gloomily. He was not afraid of the whole Society of Jesuits, of the king, nor yet of Don Carlos. But he feared Juanita.

"We need not inquire who will send her back. But she will come. She will not expect to see you. Remember that and do not frighten her."

So Marcos set out at dusk to await Juanita. The entrance to the two patios that give entrance to the Cathedral cloister is immediately opposite to the door of the school of the Sisters of the True Faith. A lamp swings over the doorway in the Calle de la Dormitaleria. There is no lamp in the first patio but another hangs in the vaulted arch leading from one patio to the other. In the cloister itself, which is the most beautiful in Spain, there are two dim lamps.

Marcos sat down on the wooden bench which runs right round the quadrangle of the inner patio. He had not long to wait. The girls pa.s.sed through whispering and laughing among themselves. Two nuns led the way. Sor Teresa followed the last two girls, looking straight in front of her between the wings of her great cap. One of the last pair was Juanita. She walked listlessly, Marcos thought. He rose and went towards the archway leading from the inner patio to the cloisters. The moon was rising and cast a white light down upon the delicate stone-work of the cloister windows.

Almost immediately Juanita came hurrying back and instinctively drew her mantilla closer at the sight of his shadowy form. Then she recognised him.

"Oh, Marcos," she whispered. "At last. I thought you had forgotten all about me."

"Quick," he answered. "This way. We have only ten minutes."

He took her hand and hurried her back into the cloisters. He led her to the right, to the corner of the quadrangle farthest removed from the Cathedral where by daylight few pa.s.s, and at night none.

"What do you mean?" she asked, "Only ten minutes."

"It has all been arranged," he answered. "I met you here on purpose. You have only ten minutes in which to settle."

"To settle what?" she asked with a laugh.

"Your whole life."

"But one cannot settle one's life in an Ave Maria," she said, which means in the twinkling of an eye. And she looked at him by the dim light and laughed again. For she was young and they had always made holiday together, and laughed.

"Did you mean that letter which you wrote to my father about going into religion?"

"Oh, I don't know. I suppose so. I meant it at the time, Marcos. It seems to be the only thing to do. Everything seems to point to it. Every sermon I hear. Everything I read. Everything any one ever says to me. But now--"

she turned and looked at him, "--now that I see you again I cannot think how I did it."

"Am I so very worldly?"

"Of course you are. And yet I suppose you have some chance of salvation.

It seems to me that you have--a little chance, I give you. But it seems hard on other people. Oh, Marcos, I hate the idea of it. And yet they are so kind to me--all except Sor Teresa. If anybody could make me hate it, she would. She is so unkind and gives me all the punishments she can."

Marcos smiled slowly and with great pity, of which men have a better understanding than any woman. He thought he knew why Sor Teresa was cruel.

"They are all so kind. And I know they are good. And they take it for granted that the religious life is the only possible one. One cannot help becoming convinced even against one's will."

She turned to him suddenly and laid her two hands on his arm.

"Oh, Marcos," she whispered, with a sort of sob of apprehension. "Can you not do something for me?"

"Yes," he answered. "That is why I am here. But it must be done at once."

"Why?" she asked. And she was grave enough now.

"Because they have sent to Rome for a dispensation of your novitiate.

They wish to hurry you into religion at once."

"Yes," she said. "I know. But why?"

"Because they want your money."

"But I have none, or very little. They have told me so."

"That is a lie," said Marcos, bluntly.

"Oh, but you must not say that," she whispered, with a sort of horror.

"Father Muro told me so. He represents Heaven on earth. We are told he does."

"He does it badly," said Marcos, quietly.

Juanita reflected for a moment. Then suddenly she stamped her foot on the pavement worn by the feet of generations of holy men.

"I will not go into religion," she said. "I will not. I always feel that there is something wrong in all they say. And with you and Uncle Ramon it is different. I know at once that what you say is quite simple and plain and honest; that you have no other meaning in what you say but that which the words convey. Marcos--you and Uncle Ramon must take me away from here. I cannot get away. I am hemmed in on every side."

"We can take you away," answered Marcos slowly, "if you like."