Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton

“ I owe you the greatest debt one man can incur to another—it was your hand that set before my feet their first stepping-stone to power. I date my fortunes from the hour in which I was placed in your father’s house as your preceptor. When the cardinal-duke invited you to Madrid, I was your companion; and when, afterwards, you joined the army, and required no longer the services of the peaceful scholar, you demanded of your illustrious kinsman the single favour—to provide for Calderon. I had already been fortunate enough to win the countenance of the duke, and from that day my rise was rapid. ”

“ And Calderon dropped on his knees, and, clasping his hands fervently, looked up imploringly in her face. The novice, now slowly returning to life and consciousness, strove to speak: her voice failed her, but her lips smiled arms fell feebly but endearingly upon Calderon, and her round his neck.
“Bless thee! bless thee!” exclaimed Calderon. “Bless thee in thy sweet mother’s name!”
While he spoke, the eyes of Beatriz caught the form of Philip, who stood by, leaning on his sword; his face working with various passions, and his lip curling with stern and intense disdain. ”

“ We must never halt at an obstacle in our way. We must hold that to be no crime which advances our common objects. Mesh upon mesh we must entangle the future monarch in our web: thou, by the nets of pleasure; I, by those of superstition. The day that sees Philip the Fourth upon the throne, must be a day of jubilee for the Brotherhood and the Inquisition. When thou art prime minister, and I grand inquisitor—that time must come—we shall have the power to extend the sway of the sect of Loyola to the ends of the Christian world. ”

“ Back! or thy next step is on the point of my sword.”
“Menace not, speak not, Philip—I am desperate. I am beside myself—I cannot parley with thee. Away! by thy hopes of Heaven away! I am no longer thy minion—thy tool. I am a father, and the protector of my child.”
“Brave device—notable tale!” cried Philip, scornfully, and placing his back against the door. “The little actress plays her part well, it must be owned,—it is her trade; but thou art a bungler, my gentle Calderon.” ”

“ My first benefactor, my beloved pupil, my earliest patron, was the same Don Martin Fonseca who seeks this girl with an honest love. This morning he has visited me, to implore my intercession on his behalf. Oh, prince! turn not away: thou knowest not half his merit. Thou knowest not the value of such subjects—men of the old iron race of Spain. Thou hast a noble and royal heart: be not the rival to the defender of thy crown. Bless this brave soldier—spare this poor orphan—and one generous act of self-denial shall give thee absolution for a thousand pleasures.”
“This from Roderigo Calderon!” ”

“ He loves you no less than he does his prince.”
“I bear no malice to him for that, your highness. He covets the smiles of the rising sun and rails at the humble object which, he thinks, obstructs the beam.”
“He might be easy on that score: I hate the man, and his cold formalities. He is ever fancying that we princes are intent on the affairs of state, and forgets that we are mortal and that youth is the age for the bower, not the council. My precious Calderon, life would be dull without thee: how I rejoice at thy return, thou best inventor of pleasure that satiety ever prayed for! ”

“ CHAPTER III. A RIVAL.
Calderon’s eyes were fixed musingly on the door which closed on Fonseca’s martial and noble form.
“Great contrasts among men!” said he, half aloud. “All the classes into which naturalists ever divided the animal world contained not the variety that exists between man and man. And yet, we all agree in one object of our being—all prey on each other! Glory, which is but the thirst of blood, makes yon soldier the tiger of his kind; other passions have made me the serpent: both fierce, relentless, unscrupulous—both! hero and courtier, valour and craft! ”

“ Precisely because Uzeda was the duke’s son was he the man in the world whom the duke most dreaded and suspected.
Whoever is acquainted with the Spanish comedy will not fail to have remarked the prodigality of intrigue and counter-intrigue upon which its interest is made to depend. In this, the Spanish comedy was the faithful mirror of the Spanish life, especially in the circles of a court. Men lived in a perfect labyrinth of plot and counter-plot. The spirit of finesse, manoeuvre, subtlety, and double-dealing pervaded every family. Not a house that was not divided against itself. ”

“ It will not, I think, be difficult to interest the queen in your favour: leave me this letter, it is one to touch the heart of a woman. If we succeed with the queen, who is the patroness of the convent, we may be sure to obtain an order from court for the liberation of the novice: the next step is one more arduous. It is not enough to restore Beatriz to freedom—we must reconcile your family to the marriage. This cannot be done while she is not noble; but letters patent (here Calderon smiled) could ennoble a mushroom itself—your humble servant is an example. ”

“ But I care not; my case, my wrongs, shall be laid before the king; I will inquire if it be thus that Philip the Third treats the defenders of his crown. Don Roderigo Calderon, will you place my memorial in the hands of your royal master? Do this, and I will thank you.”
“No, Fonseca, I will not ruin you; the king would pass your memorial to the Duke de Lerma. Tush! this is not the way that men of sense deal with misfortune. Think you I should be what I now am, if, in every reverse, I had raved, and not reflected? Sit down, and let us think of what can now be done.” ”

“ Though the king was yet in the prime of middle age, his health was infirm and his life precarious. Calderon had contrived, while preserving the favour of the reigning monarch, to establish himself as the friend and companion of the heir apparent. In this, indeed, he had affected to yield to the policy of the king himself; for Philip the Third had a wholesome terror of the possible ambition of his son, who early evinced talents which might have been formidable, but for passions which urged him into the most vicious pleasures and the most extravagant excesses. ”

“ I knew that thou wouldest not shrink at the means that could secure to thee a noble end. Yea, when, years ago, in the valley of the Xenil, I saw thee bathe thy hands in the blood of thy foe, and heard thy laugh of exulting scorn;—when I, alone master of thy secret, beheld thee afterwards flying from thy home stained with a second murder, but still calm, stern, and lord of thine own reason, my knowledge of mankind told me, ‘Of such men are high converts and mighty instruments made!’”
The priest paused; for Calderon heard him not. His cheek was livid, his eyes closed, his chest heaved wildly. ”

“ The saints that watch over our human destinies will one day cast her in thy way: and the same hour that gives thee a daughter shall redeem and hallow the memory of a wife.... Leonarda has vowed to be a mother to our child; to tend her, work for her, rear her, though in poverty, to virtue. I consign these letters to Leonarda’s charge, with thy picture—never to be removed from my breast till the heart within has ceased to beat. Not till Beatriz (I have so baptised her—it was thy mother’s name!) ”

“ Above all, hating, as thou didst, the very name of the Moor, thou wert the man of men to aid in our great design of expelling the accursed race from the land of Spain. Enough—I served thee, and thou didst repay us. Thou hast washed out thy crime in the blood of the infidel—thou art safe from detection. In Roderigo Calderon, Marquis de Siete Iglesias, who will suspect the Roderigo Nunez—the murderous student of Salamanca? Our device of the false father stifled even curiosity. Thou mayest wake to the future, nor tremble at one shadow in the past. The brightest hopes are before us both ”

“ The reason I choose Aliaga is this,—Calderon will never suspect his friendship, and will not, therefore, thwart us with the king. The Jesuit, who would sell all Christendom for the sake of advancement to his order or himself will gladly sell Calderon to obtain the chair of the Inquisition.”
“I believe it,” replied Guzman. “I approve your choice; and you may rely on me to destroy Calderon with the prince. I have found out the way to rule Philip; it is by never giving him a right to despise his favourites—it is to flatter his vanity, but not to share his vices. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Nay, blush not: some men despise thee for thy talents: I do thee homage. By my great grandsire’s beard, it will be a merry time at court when I am monarch, and thou minister!”
Calderon looked earnestly at the prince, but his scrutiny did not serve to dispel a certain suspicion of the royal sincerity that ever and anon came across the favourite’s most sanguine dreams. With all Philip’s gaiety, there was something restrained and latent in his ambiguous smile, and his calm, deep, brilliant eye. ”

“ Treat this cavalier with all the respect and worship due to his birth and merits. Go, Don Martin, go,” he added, in a lower voice; “go, unless you desire to lose Beatriz for ever. Nothing but obedience can save you from the imprisonment of half a life!”
Awed and subdued by this threat, Fonseca, in gloomy silence, placed his sword in its sheath, and sullenly followed the alguazils. Calderon watched them depart with a thoughtful and absent look; then, starting from his reverie, he bade his torchbearers proceed, and resumed his way to the Prince of Spain. ”

“ If Uzeda once gain his ear, thou art lost.”
“Not so,” cried Calderon, proudly. “My service is to the king; I have a right to his royal protection, for I have a claim on his royal gratitude.”
“Do not deceive thyself,” said the duke, in a whisper. “The king cannot live long: I have it from the best authority, his physician; nor is this all—a formidable conspiracy against thee exists at court. But for myself and the king’s confessor, Philip would consent to thy ruin. ”

“ At whatever hazard, save thy power; for with it are bound, as mariners to a plank, the hopes of those who make the mind a sceptre.”
“Thy enthusiasm blinds and misleads thee, Aliaga,” said Calderon, coldly. “For me, I tell thee now, as I have told thee before, that I care not a rush for thy grand objects. Let mankind serve itself—I look to myself alone. But fear not my faith; my interests and my very life are identified with thee and thy fellow-fanatics. If I desert thee, thou art too deep in my secrets not to undo me ”

“ There was something in the frank and hearty tone of the governor which at once won Fonseca’s confidence. He became agitated and distracted with suspicions of his former tutor and present patron.
“What, I ask, hast thou done to attract his notice? Calderon is not capricious in cruelty. Art thou rich, and does he hope that thou wilt purchase freedom with five thousand pistoles? No! Hast thou crossed the path of his ambition? Hast thou been seen with Uzeda? or art thou in favour with the prince? ”

“ 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 ”

“ She was alone with a stranger; where was Fonseca? She turned towards her companion.
“Who art thou?” she said, “whither art thou leading me-and why—”
“Why is not Don Martin by thy side? Pardon me, senora: I have a billet for thee from Fonseca; in a few minutes thou wilt know all.”
At this time the vehicle came suddenly in the midst of a train of footmen and equipages that choked up the way. There was a brilliant entertainment at the French embassy; and thither flocked, all the rank and chivalry of Madrid. Calderon drew down the blind and hastily enjoined silence on Beatriz. ”

“ We never can love what we can easily win; but this, Calderon, this heart would be a conquest. Listen. I was at the convent chapel of St. Mary of the White Sword yesterday with the queen. Thou knowest that the abbess once was a lady of the chamber, and the queen loves her.”
“Both of us were moved and astonished by the voice of one of the choir—it was that of a novice. After the ceremony the queen made inquiries touching this new Santa Cecilia; and who dost thou think she is? No; thou wilt never guess!—the once celebrated singer—the beautiful, the inimitable Beatriz Coello! Ah! ”

“ We have been foes and rivals; why should not our path be the same? Calderon has deprived you of friends more powerful than himself. His hour is come. The Duke de Lerma’s downfall cannot be avoided; if it could, I, his son, would not as, you may suppose, withhold my hand. But business fatigues him—he is old—the affairs of Spain are in a deplorable condition—they need younger and abler hands. My father will not repine at a retirement suited to his years, and which shall be made honourable to his gray hairs. But some victim must glut the rage of the people ”