As the smoke cleared he saw that the English officers in Mr. Young's house nearby had not been less prompt to act than himself. Followed by the British Ambassador they had rushed from the house and Colonel Wyndham was the first to reach the now white-faced Queen who, with the King's arm about her, was standing in the roadway.
He saw, too, that the bomb had exploded under the off-wheel horse, shattering its legs and ripping open its belly. Had the coach not been brought to a halt at the very moment the bomb was thrown it must have been hit and blown to pieces; and, even so, had the Queen not leant right over to look out of its left-hand window she would almost certainly have been struck by several of the splinters.
The royal couple had escaped by a miracle, but the bomb had disintegrated into a hundred deadly fragments, one of them actually cutting in two the gold chain of Carlos III that the King was wearing round his neck, and the others had caused appalling havoc. The coachman had tumbled from his box and lay groaning in the road. Two soldiers lay dead near him and a dozen spectators had been killed or wounded. The Major of the Escort had been thrown from his horse and was smothered with blood, the gilded front of the coach was now dripping red with gore, smears of it showed crimson on the white satin shoes and train of the Queen. There was blood everywhere.
After the first shock she showed great bravery; putting her hand to her heart she even managed to give the horrified crowd a reassuring smile. Don Alfonso, too, displayed the personal courage for which he was already renowned. With perfect calmness he immediately took command of the situation. As his brother-in-law, Don Carlos, came running up he told him to go back to his coach at once and assure the two mothers in it that the Queen and himself were unharmed. Then, as the Crown coach could no longer be used, he kissed his wife and led her forward, shielding her as far as he could from the sight of the dead and wounded, to the empty Coach of Respect, so that they could resume their drive to the Palace in it. At the sight of his calmness the crowd temporarily stunned and murmuring angrily, suddenly broke into renewed cheers, mingled with cries of blessing and thanksgiving.
Having handed the Queen into the coach, the King ordered that it should continue its journey at a slow pace, and got in beside her. De Quesnoy waited until it moved off, then returned to the stand.
As he mounted the steps at its end he saw that a little knot of people were standing bunched together at the place where he and Angela had been sitting. A moment later he joined them. They were facing inward looking down at something and talking in hushed voices. He heard a man among them say, 'And such a beautiful woman, too.' Then, peering between their heads he saw what it was at which they were looking. It was Angela.
She was lying back limply in her own seat against the tier of seats above. Her mouth hung open and the brim of her big hat with the yellow roses now stobd up at a grotesque angle owing to the back of it being crushed beneath her head; but someone had reverently crossed her hands upon her breast. A little lower down there was a small jagged hole in her satin dress, a broken strip of corset whalebone protruded from it and its edges were stained with blood.
Transfixed by horror de Quesnoy stared down at her. He had seen death too often not to recognize it on sight. In vain he strove to persuade himself that he was the victim of some ghastly nightmare out of which he would soon struggle with a gasp of relief. The death and bloodshed in the street from which he had just come made the truth only too plain. Barely a second before he jumped from the stand a fragment of the accursed bomb had hit Angela. The thing he stared down on with the gaping mouth in which the tongue lolled back was not his beautiful Angela. She was gone, and with her had gone the child that was to bring them so much joy.
A voice near him said in English, 'Count, I cannot find words to express . . . I, er . . . was seated just behind her. At least she can have felt little pain. As you leapt into the street she gave one cry and fell back. It was all over almost instantly.'
Turning his head slowly de Quesnoy recognized Sir Derek Keppel, who had come over in the suite of the Prince of Wales. Another voice said in Spanish, 'It was so, Senor Conde. I, too, witnessed this tragedy from close by. Look, there are ambulances now arriving in the street. Let us summon one of them to take the poor lady to the hospital.'
'No.' De Quesnoy found his voice suddenly, although it came only as a hoarse croak. 'I'll not have my wife's body exposed in a public morgue.' Stepping forward he picked Angela up in his arms, but then gazed round with haggard eyes, apparently uncertain what to do next.
Another Spaniard spoke. 'Permit me to recall myself to you, Senor Conde. I am the Marques de la Vera. My carriage is waiting behind the church. Allow me to place it at your disposal.'
Glancing up, de Quesnoy recognized a short, fair-haired man to whom he had been introduced at a reception a few nights earlier. With an effort he blurted out, Thank you, Marques. Please . . . show me the way to it.'
With murmurs of sympathy the little crowd parted. The Marques led the way, first up the stand then down a staircase behind it, through a narrow alley that ran along one side of the church and so into Madrid's oldest and most picturesque square, the Plaza Mayor. Parallel with the shady colonnades on all its four sides private carriages were lined up waiting for their owners. The Marques gestured towards one and cast an anxious glance at de Quesnoy, fearing that he must succumb under the weight of his burden. But the Count's slim figure was deceptive; his muscles were iron hard and he was immensely strong. At the moment he was not even conscious of the weight of the body he was carrying but, still half dazed, was saying bitterly to himself over and over again, 'Never again. Never again.'
When they reached the carriage and he had laid Angela on the front seat the Marquds ordered the hood to be put up and said, 'You are staying with the Cordobas, are you not?'
On de Quesnoy's nodding, he ordered his coachman to drive to the Palacio de Cordoba. The Count, Sir Derek and the Marques settled themselves on the back seat. The little group that had accompanied them, several of whom were openly crying, bowed reverently and crossed themselves; then the carriage pulled out of the line and drove off.
Slowly, for now that the crowds had broken up even the back streets were filled with strolling people, they circumvented the Puerta del Sol and the Calle Alcala, crossed the wide Paseo del Prado and reached a narrow street running parallel to the Calle Serrano. In it was situated the early eighteenth-century Palacio with its long rows of windows from each of which bellied out an ornamental iron grille. Behind the Palace was a spacious garden and beyond that a more modern block facing on the Recoletos, just below the Plaza de Colon, in which the Coralles banking business was conducted.
The Palace was almost deserted, as the two Condes with their wives and de Vendome had been bidden to the State luncheon at the Royal Palace and the servants had been given leave to go out to see the procession. The elderly janitor, who was still in his box, roused from his siesta as de Quesnoy passed him carrying Angela's body; but as he was not called on he assumed that she had only fainted from the heat, and promptly returned to his basket chair.
De Quesnoy, still with his mind repeating, 'Never again. Never again,' had automatically murmured his thanks to the Marques and Sir Derek, and now he carried Angela across the hall of the Palace, up one side of the great horseshoe staircase, through the lofty picture gallery and up further flights of stairs to the suite they had been given. In its bedroom he laid her gently on the big four-poster bed, then sank down in a chair beside it, burying his head in his hands.
Meanwhile at the Royal Palace the earlier arrivals knew nothing of the attempted assassination until later ones, who had been within hearing of the bomb's explosion, told them about it.
When the Sovereigns made their appearance everyone crowded round to express sympathy for them in their ordeal, and relief at their escape. The King waved the episode aside as the act of a madman and declared that the extraordinary enthusiasm shown by the crowds all along the route was ample proof of the loyalty of the Spanish people, and that they had taken his beautiful Queen to their hearts. He then decreed that the celebrations should continue as if nothing unusual had happened and, soon after one o'clock, he and his guests went in to lunch.
The Cordobas did not get back to their Palacio until well on in the afternoon, then, after a belated siesta, they had to dress and go again to the Royal Palace to attend the State banquet. The Infanta, her husband and de Vendome went by right of her position as the King's aunt; Conde Jose and his wife because - apart from the Coralles' millions, which had been brought into the family two generations earlier, making him one of the most powerful men in Spain - he was the head of one of its most ancient families and, as
Besides the de Quesnoys they had a number of other guests, mostly relatives who lived in the country, staying for the celebrations. These dined in the Palacio then went out to see the fireworks and illuminations. By midnight, tired but cheerful, they returned and congregated in the great drawing-room, from the walls of which tall
