Chapter IV

HOW THE SPANIARDS ALSO PROPOSED TO THEMSELVES A QUESTION, AND HOW DON CARLOS EVAÑA PREPARED AN ANSWER

Winter gave place to spring, spring ripened into summer, and everything in Buenos Aires seemed to go on unchanged, but in seeming only. As the suns of the springtime covered the leafless trees with verdure, as the buds developed themselves into flowers, the flowers into fruit, so the thoughts of men developed themselves into distinct ideas, and these ideas grew and flourished till they were ready to become deeds.

Don Roderigo had spoken to his son, had told him that he knew of the idea he had brought back with him from Brazil, told him that it was folly, and counselled him to have nothing more to do with it.

"But, father," replied Marcelino, "can you not see why the idea pleased me? Do you not see that native Argentines are no longer the men they were two years ago, and that Spain is no longer the same Spain either? How can we accept Viceroys and laws from Spain, when Spain herself has no king, and when Frenchmen rule over half the country? There are men among us who speak of a republic, but most of us would be content with far less. With a queen of our own from the royal family of Spain, the government would remain in the hands of men such as you, who are accustomed to govern instead of falling into the hands of inexperienced men, who would bring anarchy upon us."

"I will not argue the question with you, Marcelino," replied Don Roderigo, "but I merely warn you that so long as an armed Frenchman treads the soil of Spain the integrity of the dominion of Spain must be the first object with every true Spaniard."

Marcelino listened to his father unconvinced, yet stirred himself no further in the matter, leaving it entirely in the hands of his friend Don Manuel Belgrano, who, being a man of much greater experience and of higher position than himself, was more likely to be able to bring it to a successful issue. But he also refused to listen to the solicitations of his friend Evaña; returning to his post at the Consulado, he passed his days in the sedulous discharge of his duties, and his evenings in study, or in pleasant social intercourse. At least one evening every week he passed at the quinta of Don Alfonso, till Magdalen learned to look for his visits as one of the pleasures of her monotonous life. Sometimes Evaña accompanied him, but never did either of them speak a word to Don Alfonso on the politics of the day. He was invariably civil to them, but to him their visits gave no pleasure, and they could plainly see that it was often a relief to him when they took their departure.

To Evaña these visits were as a penance undertaken for the sake of his friend, but of Don Alfonso's increasing taciturnity Marcelino took no note, there was one there always ready to talk to him, or to listen to what he said, who took a deep interest in all his studies, and whose large grey eyes lighted up her plain features into a beauty all their own as he spoke to her. To him the months passed quickly, and happy in the present he gave but now and then a passing thought to the future.

As for Don Carlos Evaña, his thoughts were ever in the future, but his hopes, his fears, and his projects he kept all to himself, working continually with one object steadily in view, the overthrow of Spanish rule, but working in a way which appeared to none to be work. His estancia he but once visited all that spring, and then his visit was a short one, nearly all his time he spent in the city. Don Cornelio Saavedra, Colonel of the Patricios, offered him a commission in the first battalion, the command of the company formerly led by Don Isidro Lorea, which he declined, yet he practised fencing every day, and those of his books which treated of the art of war were those most frequently studied by him.

One battalion of the Patricios was known as that of the "Pardos y Morenos," being composed entirely of men of colour, liberated slaves, or the descendants of freedmen. At the headquarters of this battalion Evaña was a frequent visitor. Don Cornelio Saavedra met him there one day and asked him somewhat scornfully whether he would prefer a commission in this regiment to one in the _corps d'elite_, but to him Evaña answered that as _yet_ he had no wish to enter any regiment. Don Cornelio noticed the accent on the word "yet," and replied:

"It would be difficult for even a philosopher to understand you, Don Carlos; for me, I confess that I understand you not at all."

But the free negroes and mulattos understood something about Don Carlos, of which Don Cornelio knew nothing, which was, that if they required favour or assistance in any way, none was so ready to help them as Don Carlos Evaña, and that the only way in which they could repay him for any such service was to repeat to him all the tittle-tattle and gossip they could collect among their women-folk concerning the saying and doings of certain of the chief men of the city who were Spaniards.

* * * * *

Don Manuel Belgrano entered eagerly into a secret correspondence with certain confidential friends of the Princess Carlota; despatched missives to trusty friends of his own throughout the provinces, advocating her claims; and kept alive the zeal of her friends in the city by frequent secret conferences, which were held in the guise of dinner-parties, or of excursions into the country, so baulking the vigilance of Don Roderigo, or of any others unfriendly to the project. So passed with him the spring very harmlessly, but his enthusiasm greatly subsided as he learnt that even American air could not liberalize a Bourbon of the royal house of Spain.

* * * * *

Don Martin Alzaga was looked up to by every Spaniard as the champion of what all Spaniards thought their birthright, the right to rule after their own fashion and their own will all the colonies of Spain. Don Martin knew himself also that he was their champion and thought that he possessed every qualification necessary for a leader in such a cause. Tall, stern-featured, and spare of flesh, with a deep, harsh voice and an authoritative manner, his outward appearance gave the exact index to the man within. The events passing round him taught him nothing, the belief was innate in him that Napoleon was invincible, and that the Bourbons would never again rule in Spain. Acting upon these beliefs of his, he conceived the idea of erecting a new Spain in America, of which Buenos Aires should be the capital, and of which the government should be entirely in the hands of Spaniards, looking to Ferdinand VII. as their king, and acknowledging the authority of the Junta Central of Spain so long as any such Junta should exist.

Don Martin had devoted great attention after the defeat of Whitelock to enrolling and equipping an artillery corps composed entirely of Spaniards. With this new corps and the Spanish infantry regiments previously existing, he considered that he might safely set the Patricios at defiance. So long as Liniers remained Viceroy, native influence was paramount in the State, and nothing could be done towards recovering the ground already lost. He took counsel with such of the leading Spaniards as were in his confidence, among whom was Don Roderigo Ponce de Leon. Together they wrote to the Junta Central of Spain, then established at Seville, advising the recall of Marshal Liniers.

After the despatch of this letter, Don Roderigo counselled patience, stating that with the arrival of a new Viceroy would come a fair opportunity for the adoption of severe measures of repression. But patience was by no means any part of the character of Don Martin Alzaga, he chafed at the delay, and purposed within himself to take the supreme authority into his own hands, until such time as a new Viceroy should make his appearance, to whom he could surrender his power intact.

Colonel Don Francisco Elio, at that time Governor of Monte Video, was a man of the same stamp as Don Martin Alzaga. To him Don Martin imparted his plans. The first result of their understanding was that on the 24th September Colonel Elio, justifying his proceedings by the friendly reception given by the Viceroy to the envoy of Napoleon, which he stigmatised as treachery to Spain, arrested the unfortunate envoy, who was then in Monte Video, and openly rebelled against the authority of Marshal Liniers, whom he denounced as a traitor.

Marshal Liniers took no steps whatever to crush this rebellion; the Spaniards of Buenos Aires hailed the event with joy, as a presage of what they would presently do themselves, and native Argentines were filled with well-grounded alarm. Don Martin Alzaga exulted at the success of his first step, and steadily prepared to follow it up.

Yet among the Spaniards there was one who felt alarm at this first success. Don Roderigo Ponce de Leon saw that the deposition of the Viceroy would be a much more difficult matter to achieve in Buenos Aires than it had been in Monte Video, and that any false step would bring on a collision with the people in which not only the power of the Viceroy but Spanish rule altogether, might be overturned.

And among native Argentines there was one who for precisely the same reason heard of the event with exultation. Don Carlos Evaña hailed with joy any event which might bring his fellow-countrymen into open collision with their rulers.

* * * * *

October passed over and nothing was done, so also November. Towards the end of November, one warm afternoon on which the sun shone down upon the city from a sky of intense blue, uncheckered by one white cloud, when the white-washed houses cast a glare upon the streets such that it was a torment to walk abroad, when steady-going citizens were just rousing themselves from their siesta in the coolest recesses of their houses, one man braved both the sun and the glare, left his house and walked slowly along the deserted street till he reached the house of Don Fausto Velasquez. Entering by the open doorway, he crossed the first patio, passed through the zaguan into the second, and paused to clap his hands. A mulatta girl issued from one of the side rooms at his summons, smiled at him as she saw him, and came up to him saying:

"At your service, Don Carlos. What may be your pleasure?"

"The Señora Doña Josefina; will it be possible for me to speak with her?" replied Don Carlos Evaña, for he it was who had thus come to disturb the siesta of Doña Josefina.

"Certainly it will, Don Carlos," replied the mulatta. "It is late already," she added, looking up at the sun. "If you will have the goodness to pass to the sala, in one moment she will be with you."

Don Carlos passed to the sala as he was requested, but the one moment had spun itself out to half an hour ere the folding doors opened, and Doña Josefina glided into the room. She was dressed in a flowing robe of some soft, white material, loosely girded below her ample bosom; the short, loose sleeves left nearly the whole of her plump white arms visible; the upper part of her dress was surmounted by a stiff sort of ruff about three inches deep, which rose from her shoulders almost to the level of her ears, and the dress itself was open in front to within three inches of the girdle. Her luxuriant black hair was simply plaited and wound round her head till it formed a sort of coronet, gold pendants hung from her ears, and in her hand she carried a large fan with which she fanned herself gently as she sailed down the large room to the obscure corner in which Don Carlos had ensconced himself.

Don Carlos, reclining lazily in a low chair, was so absorbed in his own thoughts that her noiseless approach over the soft carpet was unperceived by him till she was close to him, when he started up from his seat and bowed lowly to her without speaking. Then as she stretched out her hand to him he raised it to his lips, an act of homage which the lady received with perfect complacency, after which, leading her to a sofa, he seated himself on a chair near to her saying:

"With your permission, Señora."

"It is yours, Don Carlos," replied the lady, languidly leaning one arm upon a cushion, and with her head slightly inclined to one side, turning her lustrous black eyes full upon him; then as he returned her glance she smiled and added:

"Do you know, Carlos, you are a perfect heretic. I was going to deny myself, but when I heard it was you I knew it was no use, and now your face is as solemn as if you were going to a funeral. I suppose you have something that you think very important to tell me."

"I have, Señora, or I should not have disturbed you at this hour."

"Well, I only hope it is not to recommend to me some other protegé, for, frankly, he fatigues me, this Asneiros of yours. If you had not come I was going to send for you before I went, to speak to you about him."

"Before you went! then you are going? I only heard of it this morning from Marcelino, and I have come at once to ask you not to go."

"It is not quite settled yet, but I promised Constancia that I would tell her certainly this evening. Constancia goes the day after to-morrow and wants me to go with her. Justito has not been well lately and the country air would do him good, but Fausto wants me to put off my visit until the new year, why, I don't know."

"And I too want you to put off your visit."

"You! what interest can you have in keeping me in the city?" As she spoke Doña Josefina leaned her head more to one side, and waving her fan gently, cast a languishing glance above it, then suffered the long lashes to fall over her eyes, veiling them.

"The interest is not mine, Señora, it is for the interest of the Patria that I wish you to stop."

"Every one knows that to Don Carlos the interest of the Patriao is above every other consideration, so I suppose I must stop and suffer another month or six weeks of this heat in the city. But what can a poor thing like me do for the Partia, Carlos?"

"One thing that I cannot do, and I know that the Partia is as dear to you as it is to me, else I had not troubled you, Señora."

"Yes, Carlos," replied Doña Josefina, straightening herself up, dropping her hands into her lap, and in a moment throwing off her usual languid manner; "yes, Carlos, the Patria is dear to me as you say; though you care nothing for me, you appreciate me rightly. You have confided to me your hopes and plans; in what I can do you will find that I am as good a patriot as you are. And I know that there is trouble before us; Fausto has told me that the Spaniards will not be content until they have deposed the Viceroy here as they have done in Monte Video. Deposed Liniers! do you hear me, Carlos? These Spaniards are going to turn him out and send him to Spain, perhaps in chains, because he is a Frenchman!"

"If that were all, Señora, it would be little," replied Evaña, "that is nothing but the first step; the next will be to disarm the Patricios, and then----but it is not necessary to inquire what more."

"Disarm the Particios! never!" replied Doña Josefina, closing her fan with a click, as though she had quite made up her mind on that point. "If such are their ideas we must keep our Viceroy at any cost. We must prevent the first step, and all the rest is safe."

"Exactly so, Señora. I have spoken the same thing to many, but you are the first to whom I have spoken who has seen as I do the necessity of risking everything, of daring everything, rather than permit the Spaniards to annul an appointment we originally made."

A pleased smile came on to the face of the lady as Evaña spoke, then looking down at her hands as she twirled her fan between her fingers, she said in a low voice:

"We are agreed then, Carlos; tell me, what can I do?"

"When the Cabildo publishes a decree deposing Liniers, which they are sure to do before long, they will rely upon the Spanish regiments to enforce it if necessary. If Liniers calls upon the native regiments they will come forward to a man to support him, but they are fewer in number than the Spaniards and not so well organised, the result of a struggle would be doubtful."

"Not at all, Carlos! You know not those young men how enthusiastic they are, and Liniers they will follow to the death."

"Liniers will never call upon the Patricios to support him unless he feels certain of success; he will yield without fighting. Now if we can get one regiment of the Spanish troops to join us we shall then have the superiority in numbers."

"And Gregorio's dragoons?"

"Also I shall have them at hand when the day comes, and the hussars of Don Martin Rodriguez, all the cavalry is ours. Have no fear, Señora, with one of the Spanish regiments of infantry, our superiority in numbers and enthusiasm will secure us the victory. In the Andaluz regiment nearly all the men are native Argentines, if one officer pronounce in our favour the whole regiment will turn over to us."

Here Evaña paused and looked steadily at Doña Josefina.

"Asneiros!" ejaculated that lady, with a look of annoyance, then leaning back again upon her cushions she commenced fanning herself.

"Yes, Señora, Asneiros. Among all the Spaniards there is no better officer than Asneiros, and you can bring him over to us when the day comes. I am sorry if he has given you any annoyance, but the kindness you have shown him for these months past will prove a great service to the Partia."

"There is one can do much more with Asneiros than I can, Carlos," replied Doña Josefina, looking away from him with a fresh flourish of her fan.

"Impossible, Señora," replied Evaña; "anyone to whom you show favour is at once your slave."

"How the men are blind," replied the lady, turning her eyes again upon Evaña. "Always that Dolores comes to see me then comes Asneiros, and whilst she is here he has no eyes for anyone else."

"Dolores!" exclaimed Evaña with a sudden start.

"Dolores! yes, Dolores, Señor Don Carlos. Does it appear to you strange that that barbarian of a Spaniard should think more of Dolores than of me?"

"But Dolores! And she?"

"What matters to you Dolores?"

Then as Evaña leaned back in his chair with a frown on his face without answering, Doña Josefina bent forward and tapped him on the knee with her fan, saying:

"Ah! Carlos! you are a great politician, and very wise and very secret, but we ladies have our eyes and know how to use them. You are very astute, and think you can hide from us what you hope and wish for, but there are certain things that we know, and when the occasion comes, we discover them. But we, we are friends, Carlos; have no fear, there is one I know, for whose little fingers Dolores cares more than for the whole body of that Asneiros."

Again leaning back upon her cushions, she turned her lustrous black eyes upon him, gently fanning herself the while.

"All the more necessary, then, for you to remain in town," said Evaña, after a pause. "Doña Constancia goes to the quinta the day after to-morrow, but she does not like Asneiros, she will not ask him to the quinta, but if you go he will visit you there, and he will be away when we want him, for we cannot tell when the day will come."

"Look you, Carlos," said Doña Josefina, interrupting him, "I had a plan for that Asneiros which would have suited us all very well. Every Wednesday I have two visitors, Dolores and Magdalen Miranda. They come to see each other, and are great friends. You have met them here on Wednesdays. Who you came to see you have never told me, but I am not one to whom it is necessary to tell things. I asked Asneiros to come that he might meet Magdalen, but when you are not there to make Dolores talk to you this gentleman can talk only to her, and for the Inglesita he has not one glance. Then when Marcelino can manage it, he comes always for at least one hour on Wednesdays, and has neither eyes nor words for anyone but for Magdalen. These Wednesdays, which were to me a pleasure, are now the bane of my life, everything goes contrary, and I counted that by going out with Constancia I should put an end to them."

"You intended Magdalen for this Spaniard?"

"Precisely so, and she thinks nothing of him, and watches the door with all her eyes till Marcelino comes. That Marcelino should amuse himself with her is well enough, so long as it pass not amusement. Young men are not all like you, Carlos; they must have amusement, and with each new face they see they think they are in love. I wanted Elisa to come also on Wednesdays, and she came in the winter, but after Marcelino came back from Brazil she comes only in the evenings. That is all through Magdalen, the insignificant little creature; I begin to lose patience with her."

"Magdalen is a great deal too good for Asneiros," said Evaña.

"What an idea! Even he is good enough for that snub-nosed little thing. Think you what is her father? A miserable, without soul. And what has he? Just enough live to on. Not even presentable would Magdalen be but that we had befriended her."

"Possibly not, Señora; you have been very kind to her. But do not afflict yourself, let affairs arrange themselves. For Dolores there is not the slightest fear. She is kind to Asneiros, for he rings praises of Marcelino in her ear, and that is always music to Dolores, but more there is nothing."

"Ah! Carlos! with what confidence you speak," said Doña Josefina, with a toss of her head, and smiling.

"Let us leave that, Señora. What matters to us at present is that you keep, and increase if you can, your influence over Asneiros. How to do it you know much better than I can tell you."

"Do you want me to make love to him on my own account?" asked the lady, with a supplicating glance.

"Far be it from me to indicate the 'how.' One thing only I ask of you to promise me, which is that you do not leave the city at present."

"And when then will your lordship give me permission to go?"

"When we have tried our strength with the Spaniards, and have beaten them."

"Let it be so. I give you my promise."

"And the Patria will some day thank you, and know you as one of her most faithful children," replied Evaña, rising from his chair.

"Sit down, Carlos; do not go yet. Have you nothing more to say to me?"

"The object of my visit is accomplished."

"And already you go? Sit down again, Carlos. The Patria is your first love, and we are going to do what we can for her; but after her there is another love, come and talk to me of that."

"I have but one love, Señora," replied Evaña, standing before her, and twirling his hat round with his long, white fingers.

"Sit down Carlos, and I will talk to you of Dolores," said Doña Josefina, with a full glance of her speaking eyes, before which his stern eyes sank back abashed.

"Not now, Señora," replied Don Carlos, in a voice in which there was so clear an accent of pain that Doña Josefina, after looking at him for a moment in perplexity, insisted no longer upon his remaining, but rose herself from the sofa, and walked with him to the large folding-door which gave exit to the patio.

"Lose all fear, Carlos," said she to him as he stepped out into the sunshine; "between the two of us we will arrange this barbarian of a Spaniard, and turn him into a patriot."

"That I fear we can never do," replied Evaña; "but if he serve us as we wish him the rest is no matter."

"If he serve us well we will give him the Inglesita as his reward," said Doña Josefina; then adding with a laugh, "and a well-matched couple they will be."

To this Evaña made no answer, but with a low bow took his departure.