Part 16 (2/2)
”A brother may ask what he pleases, and be answered. Wish me joy, Carlos; I have arranged that little matter with Dona Beatriz.” And his light words half hid, half revealed the great deep joy of his own strong heart. ”My uncle,” he continued, ”is favourable to my views; indeed, I have never known him so friendly. We are to have our betrothal feast at Christmas, when your time of retreat here is over.”
Carlos ”wished him joy” most sincerely. Fervently did he thank G.o.d that it was in his power to do it; that the snare that had once wound itself so subtly around his footsteps was broken, and his soul escaped. He could now meet his brother's eye without self-reproach. Still, this seemed sudden. He said, ”Certainly you did not lose time.”
”Why should I?” asked Juan with simplicity. ”'By-and-by is always too late,' as thou wert wont to say; and I would they learned that proverb at the camp. In truth,” he added more gravely, ”I often feared, during my stay there, that I might have lost all through my tardiness. But thou wert a good brother to me, Carlos.”
”Mayest thou ever think so, brother mine,” said Carlos, not without a pang, as his conscience told him how little he deserved the praise.
”But what in the world,” asked Juan hastily, ”has induced thee to bury thyself here, amongst these drowsy monks?”
”The brethren are excellent men, learned and pious. And I am not buried,” Carlos returned with a smile.
”And if thou wert buried ten fathoms deep, thou shouldst come up out of the grave when I need thee to stand beside me.”
”Do not fear for that. Now thou art come, I will not prolong my stay here, as otherwise I might have done. But I have been very happy here, Juan.”
”I am glad to hear it,” said the merry-hearted, unsuspecting Juan. ”I am glad also that you are not in too great haste to tie yourself down to the Church's service; though our honoured uncle seems to wish you had a keener eye to your own interest, and a better look-out for fat benefices. But I believe his own sons have appropriated all the stock of worldly prudence meant for the whole family, leaving none over for thee and me, Carlos.”
”That is true of Don Manuel and Don Balthazar, not of Gonsalvo.”
”Gonsalvo! he is far the worst of the three,” Juan exclaimed, with something like anger in his open, sunny face.
Carlos laughed. ”I suppose he has been favouring you with his opinion of me,” he said.
”If he were not a poor miserable weakling and cripple, I should answer him with the point of my good sword. However, this is idle talk.
Little brother” (Carlos being nearly as tall as himself, the diminutive was only a term of affection, recalling the days of their childhood, and more suited to masculine lips than its equivalent, dear)--”little brother, you look grave and pale, and ten years older than when we parted at Alcala.”
”Do I? Much has happened with me since. I have been very sorrowful and very happy.”
Don Juan laid his available hand on his brother's shoulder, and looked him earnestly in the face. ”No secrets from me, little brother,” he said. ”If thou dost not like the service of Holy Church after all, speak out, and thou shall go back with me to France, or to anywhere else in the known world that thou wilt. There may be some fair lady in the case,” he added, with a keen and searching glance.
”No, brother--not that I have indeed much to tell thee, but not now--not to-day.”
”Choose thine own time; only remember, no secrets. That were the one unbrotherly act I could never forgive.”
”But I am not yet satisfied about your wound,” said Carlos, with perhaps a little moral cowardice, turning the conversation. ”Was the bone broken?”
”No, fortunately; only grazed. It would not have signified, but for the treatment of the blundering barber-surgeon. I was advised to show it to some man of skill; and already my cousins have recommended to me one who is both physician and surgeon, and very able, they say.”
”Dr. Cristobal Losada?”
”The same. Your favourite, Don Gonsalvo, has just been prevailed upon to make trial of his skill.”
”I am heartily glad of it,” returned Carlos. ”There is a change of mind on his part, equal to any wherewith he can reproach me; and a change for the better, I have little doubt.”
Thus the conversation wandered on; touching many subjects, exhausting none; and never again drawing dangerously near those deep places which one of the brothers knew must be thoroughly explored, and that at no distant day. For Juan's sake, for the sake of One whom he loved even more than Juan, he dared not--nay, he would not--avoid the task. But he needed, or thought he needed, consideration and prayer, that he might speak the truth wisely, as well as bravely, to that beloved brother.
XVII.
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