CHAPTER XI. HOWSOEVER THE RIVERS WIND, THE OCEAN RECEIVES THEM ALL
Meanwhile Fonseca had reached the convent; had found the porter gone; and, with a mind convulsed with apprehension and doubt, had flown on the wings of love and fear to the house indicated by Calderon. The grim and solitary mansion came just in sight—the moon streaming sadly over its gray and antique walls—when he heard his name pronounced; and the convent porter emerged from the shadow of a wall beside which he had ensconced himself.
“Don Martin! it is thou indeed; blessed be the saints! I began to fear—nay, I fear now, that we were deceived.”
“Speak, man, but stop me not! Speak! what horrors hast thou to utter?”
“I knew the cavalier whom thou didst send in thy place! Who knows not Roderigo Calderon? I trembled when I saw him lift the novice into the carriage; but I thought I should, as agreed, be companion in the flight. Not so. Don Roderigo briefly told me to hide where I could this night; and that to-morrow he would arrange preparations for my flight from Madrid. My mind misgave me, for Calderon’s name is blackened by many curses. I resolved to follow the carriage. I did so; but my breath and speed nearly failed, when, fortunately, the carriage was stopped and entangled by a crowd in the street. No lackeys were behind; I mounted the footboard unobserved, and descended and hid myself when the carriage stopped. I knew not the house, but I knew the neighbourhood, a brother of mine lives at hand. I sought my relative for a night’s shelter. I learned that dark stories had given to that house an evil name. It was one of those which the Prince of Spain had consecrated to the pursuits that had dishonoured so many families in Madrid. I resolved again to go forth and watch. Scarce had I reached this very spot when I saw a carriage approach rapidly. I secreted myself behind a buttress, and saw the carriage halt; and a man descended, and walked to the house. See there—there, by yon crossing, the carriage still waits. The man was wrapped in a mantle. I know not whom he may be; but—”
“Heavens!” cried Fonseca, as they were now close before the door of the house at which Calderon’s carriage still stood; “I hear a noise, a shriek, within.”
Scarce had he spoken when the door opened. Voices were heard in loud altercation; presently the form of the Jew was thrown on the pavement, and dashing aside another man, who seemed striving to detain him, Calderon appeared,—his drawn sword in his right hand, his left arm clasped round Beatriz.
Fonseca darted forward.
“My lover! my betrothed!” exclaimed the voice of the novice: “thou are come to save us—to save thy Beatriz!”
“Yes; and to chastise the betrayer!” exclaimed Fonseca, in a voice of thunder. “Leave thy victim, villain! Defend thyself!”
He made a desperate lunge at Calderon while he spoke. The marquis feebly parried the stroke.
“Hold!” he cried. “Not on me!”
“No—no!” exclaimed Beatriz, throwing herself on her father’s breast. The words came too late. Blinded and deafened with rage, Fonseca had again, with more sure and deadly aim, directed his weapon against his supposed foe. The blade struck home, but not to the heart of Calderon. It was Beatriz, bathed in her blood, who fell at the feet of her frenzied lover.
“Daughter and mother both!” muttered Calderon; and he fell as if the steel had pierced his own heart, beside his child. “Wretch! what hast thou done?” muttered a voice strange to the ear of Fonseca; a voice half stifled with Horror and, perhaps, remorse. The Prince of Spain stood on the spot, and his feet were dabbled in the blood of the virgin martyr. The moonlight alone lighted that spectacle of crime and death; and the faces of all seemed ghastly beneath its beams. Beatriz turned her eyes upon her lover, with an expression of celestial compassion and divine forgiveness; then sinking upon Calderon’s breast, she muttered, “Pardon him! pardon him, father! I shall tell my mother that thou hast blessed me!”
It was not for several days after that night of terror that Calderon was heard of at the court. His absence was unaccountable; for, though the flight of the novice was of course known, her fate was not suspected; and her rank had been too insignificant to create much interest in her escape or much vigilance in pursuit. But of that absence the courtier’s enemies well availed themselves. The plans of the cabal were ripe; and the aid of the Inquisition by the appointment of Aliaga was added to the machinations of Uzeda’s partisans. The king was deeply incensed at the mysterious absence of Calderon, for which a thousand ingenious conjectures were invented. The Duke of Lerma, infirm and enfeebled by years, was unable to confront his foes. With imbecile despair he called on the name of Calderon; and, when no trace of that powerful ally could be discovered, he forbore even to seek an interview with the king. Suddenly the storm broke. One evening Lerma received the royal order to surrender his posts, and to quit the court by daybreak. It was in this very hour that the door of Lerma’s chamber opened, and Roderigo Calderon stood before him. But how changed—how blasted from his former self! His eyes were sunk deep in their sockets, and their fire was quenched; his cheeks were hollow, his frame bent, and when he spoke his voice was as that of one calling from the tomb.
“Behold me, Duke de Lerma, I am returned at last!”
“Returned—blessings on thee! Where hast thou been? Why didst thou desert me?—no matter, thou art returned! Fly to the king—tell him I am not old! I do not want repose. Defeat the villany of my unnatural son! They would banish me, Calderon; banish me in the very prime of my years! My son says I am old—old! ha! ha! Fly to the prince; he too has immured himself in his apartment. He would not see me; he will see thee!”
“Ay—the prince! we have cause to love each other!”
“Ye have indeed! Hasten, Calderon; not a moment is to be lost! Banished! Calderon, shall I be banished?” And the old man, bursting into tears, fell at the feet of Calderon, and clasped his knees.
“Go, go, I implore thee! Save me; I loved thee, Calderon, I always loved thee. Shall our foes triumph? Shall the horn of the wicked be exalted?”
For a moment (so great is the mechanical power of habit) there returned to Calderon something of his wonted energy and spirit; a light broke from his sunken eyes; he drew himself up to the full of his stately height: “I thought I had done with courts and with life,” said he; “but I will make one more effort; I will not forsake you in your hour of need. Yes, Uzeda shall be baffled; I will seek the king. Fear not, my lord, fear not; the charm of my power is not yet broken.”
So saying, Calderon raised the cardinal from the ground, and extricating himself from the old man’s grasp strode, with his customary air of majestic self-reliance, to the door. Just ere he reached it, three low, but regular knocks sounded on the panel: the door opened, and the space without was filled with the dark forms of the officers of the Inquisition.
“Stand!” said a deep voice; “stand, Roderigo Calderon, Marquis de Siete Iglesias; in the name of the most Holy Inquisition, we arrest thee!”
“Aliaga!” muttered Calderon, falling back.
“Peace!” interrupted the Jesuit. “Officers, remove your prisoner.”
“Poor old man,” said Calderon, turning towards the cardinal, who stood spell-bound and speechless, “thy life at least is safe. For me, I defy fate! Lead on!”
The Prince of Spain soon recovered from the shock which the death of Beatriz at first occasioned him. New pleasures chased away even remorse. He appeared again in public a few days after the arrest of Calderon; and he made strong intercession on behalf of his former favourite. But even had the Inquisition desired to relax its grasp, or Uzeda to forego his vengeance, so great was the exultation of the people at the fall of the dreaded and obnoxious secretary, and so numerous the charges which party malignity added to those which truth could lay at his door, that it would have required a far bolder monarch than Philip the Third to have braved the voice of a whole nation for the sake of a disgraced minister. The prince himself was soon induced, by new favourites, to consider any further interference on his part equally impolitic and vain; and the Duke d’Uzeda and Don Gaspar de Guzman were minions quite as supple, while they were companions infinitely more respectable.
One day, an officer, attending the levee of the prince, with whom he was a special favourite, presented a memorial requesting the interest of his highness for an appointment in the royal armies, that, he had just learned by an express was vacant.
“And whose death comes so opportunely for thy rise, Don Alvar?” asked the Infant.
“Don Martin Fonseca. He fell in the late skirmish, pierced by a hundred wounds.”
The prince started and turned hastily away. The officer lost all favour from that hour, and never learned his offence.
Meanwhile months passed, and Calderon still languished in his dungeon. At last the Inquisition opened against him its dark register of accusations. First of these charges was that of sorcery, practised on the king; the rest were for the most part equally grotesque and extravagant. These accusations Calderon met with a dignity which confounded his foes, and belied the popular belief in the elements of his character. Submitted to the rack, he bore its tortures without a groan; and all historians have accorded concurrent testimony to the patience and heroism which characterised the close of his wild and meteoric career. At length Philip the Third died: the Infant ascended the throne; that prince, for whom the ambitious courtier had perilled alike life and soul! The people now believed that they should be defrauded of their victim. They were mistaken. The new king, by this time, had forgotten even the existence of the favourite of the prince. But Guzman, who, while affecting to minister to the interests of Uzeda, was secretly aiming at the monopoly of the royal favour, felt himself insecure while Calderon yet lived. The operations of the Inquisition were too slow for the impatience of his fears; and as that dread tribunal affected never to inflict death until the accused had confessed his guilt, the firmness of Calderon baffled the vengeance of the ecclesiastical law. New inquiries were set on foot: a corpse was discovered, buried in Calderon’s garden—the corpse of a female. He was accused of the murder. Upon that charge he was transferred from the Inquisition to the regular courts of justice. No evidence could be produced against him; but, to the astonishment of all, he made no defence, and his silence was held the witness of his crime. He was adjudged to the scaffold—he smiled when he heard the sentence.
An immense crowd, one bright day in summer, were assembled in the place of execution. A shout of savage exultation rent the air as Roderigo Calderon, Marquis de Siete Iglesias, appeared upon the scaffold But, when the eyes of the multitude rested—not upon that lofty and stately form, in all the pride of manhood, which they had been accustomed to associate with their fears of the stern genius and iron power of the favourite—but upon a bent and spectral figure, that seemed already on the verge of a natural grave, with a face ploughed deep with traces of unutterable woe, and hollow eyes that looked with dim and scarce conscious light over the human sea that murmured and swayed below, the tide of the popular emotion changed; to rage and triumph succeeded shame and pity. Not a hand was lifted up in accusation—not a voice was raised in rebuke or joy. Beside Calderon stood the appointed priest, whispering cheer and consolation.
“Fear not, my son,” said the holy man. “The pang of the body strikes years of purgatory from thy doom. Think of this, and bless even the agony of this hour.”
“Yes,” muttered Calderon; “I do bless this hour. Inez, thy daughter has avenged thy murder! May Heaven accept the sacrifice! and may my eyes, even athwart the fiery gulf, awaken upon thee!”
With that a serene and contented smile passed over the face on which the crowd gazed with breathless awe. A minute more, and a groan, a cry, broke from that countless multitude; and a gory and ghastly head, severed from its trunk, was raised on high.
Two spectators of that execution were in one of the balconies that commanded a full view of its terrors.
“So perishes my worst foe!” said Uzeda.
“We must sacrifice all things, friends as foes, in the ruthless march of the Great Cause,” rejoined the Grand Inquisitor; but he sighed as he spoke.
“Guzman is now with the king,” said Uzeda, turning into the chamber. “I expect every instant a summons into the royal presence.”
“I cannot share thy sanguine hopes, my son,” said Aliaga, shaking his head. “My profession has made me a deep reader of human character. Gaspar de Guzman will remove every rival from his path.”
While he spoke, there entered a gentleman of the royal chamber. He presented to the Grand Inquisitor and the expectant duke two letters signed by the royal hand. They were the mandates of banishment and disgrace. Not even the ghostly rank of the Grand Inquisitor, not even the profound manoeuvres of the son of Lerma, availed them against the vigilance and vigour of the new favourite. Simultaneously, a shout from the changeable crowd below proclaimed that the king’s choice of his new minister was published and approved.
And Aliaga and Uzeda exchanged glances that bespoke all the passions that make defeated ambition the worst fiend, as they heard the mighty cry, “LONG LIVE OLIVAREZ THE REFORMER!”
That cry came, faint and muffled, to the ears of Philip the Fourth, as he sate in his palace with his new minister. “Whence that shout?” said the king, hastily.
“It rises, doubtless, from the honest hearts of your loyal people at the execution of Calderon.”
Philip shaded his face with his hand, and mused a moment: then, turning to Olivarez with a sarcastic smile, he said: “Behold the moral of the life of a courtier, count! What do they say of the new opera?”
At the close of his life, in disgrace and banishment, the count-duke, for the first time since they had been uttered, called to his recollection those words of his royal master.
‘The fate of Calderon has given rise to many tales and legends. Amongst those who have best availed themselves of so fruitful a subject may be ranked the late versatile and ingenious Telesforo de Trueba, in his work on “The Romances of Spain.” In a few of the incidents, and in some of the names, his sketch, called “The Fortunes of Calderon,” has a resemblance to the story just concluded. The plot, characters, and principal events, are, however, widely distinct in our several adaptations of an ambiguous and unsatisfactory portion of Spanish history.