MATTERS OF BUSINESS.
It was a very busy morning in Salabert's counting-house. Some large
payments had to be made. The Duke himself had presided over the
transactions and helped the cashier to count the notes. In spite of the
many years he had spent in handling money, he could never part with a
large sum without his hand shaking a little. He was nervous now, and
absorbed, nibbling his cigar, but not spitting as usual, for his throat
was dry. More than once he checked the clerk, believing that he was
allowing two notes to pass for one, but on each occasion he was in
error; the man was very dexterous at his work. When it was all done, the
Duke withdrew to his private room, where he found waiting M. de Fayolle,
the great importer of foreign horses, which he supplied to all the
aristocracy of Madrid.
"_Bon-jour, Monsieur_," said the Duke, clapping him roughly on the
shoulder. "Have you got another screw you want me to take off your
hands?"
"Oh, Monsieur le Duc, the horses I sold you are not screws, not a bit of
it. You have the best cattle that ever passed through my stables," said
the Frenchman with a foreign accent and a servile smile.
"All the cast-off rubbish from Paris is what you sell to me. But do not
suppose that I am taken in. I have known it a long time, Monsieur, a
very long time. Only I can never look in your cherubic and smiling face
without giving way."
M. Fayolle was smiling at the moment, showing his large yellow teeth
from ear to ear.
"The face is the mirror of the soul, Monsieur le Duc; you may rely on me
never to offer you anything but what is absolutely first-rate. Has
Apollyon turned out badly?"
"Hm. So-so."
"You must surely be jesting! I saw him in the street the other day, in
your phaeton. Every one turned round to look at him."
For some minutes they discussed various horses which Requena had bought
of the Frenchman; he found fault with every one of them. Fayolle
defended them with the enthusiasm of a dealer and a connoiseur.
Presently, at a pause, he looked at his watch, saying:
"I will not detain you any longer. I came for the settlement of that
last little account."
The Duke's face clouded. Then he said half laughing and half angry:
"Why, my good man, you are never happy unless you are getting money out
of me."
At the same time he put his hand in his pocket and took out his
note-book. M. Fayolle still smiled, saying that he could not bear to ask
for it, knowing that the Duke was such a pauper, and that it would be
dreadful indeed to see him reduced to beggary, a delicate joke which
Requena did not seem to hear, being absorbed in counting out the paper.
He laid out seven notes of one hundred dollars each and handed them to
Fayolle, ringing a bell for a clerk to bring a form of receipt. Fayolle,
on his part, counted them, and then said:
"You have made a mistake, Monsieur le Duc, the account is for eight
hundred dollars, and you have only given me seven."
Salabert did not seem to have heard him. With his eyes half-closed, and
shifting his cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other, he sat
silent, looking at the pocket-book, after fastening it with an elastic
band.
"This is one hundred dollars short," Fayolle reiterated.
"What? Short? Count once more. It is impossible!"
The horse-dealer counted.
"Three thousand five hundred pesetas."
"You see, I could not be wrong."
"But the horse was to cost four thousand. That was a bargain."
The Duke's face expressed the most candid surprise.
"What! Four thousand pesetas? No, my friend, no. The horse was to be
three thousand five hundred. It was on that understanding that I bought
it."
"Monsieur le Duc, you really are under a mistake," said Fayolle, now
quite grave. "You must remember that we finally agreed on four
thousand."
"I remember all about it. It is you who have a bad memory. Here," he
added to a clerk who came in with the receipt-form, "go downstairs, one
of you, to the stables, and ask Benigno how much I told him I was to
give for Apollyon?"
And at the same time, taking advantage of the moment when Fayolle looked
at the messenger, he made a significant grimace at the man. The
coachman's answer by the clerk was that the horse was to be three
thousand five hundred pesetas.
Thereupon the dealer grew angry. He was quite positive that the bargain
had stood at eight hundred dollars, and it was in this belief that he
had delivered it. Otherwise the horse should never have left his stable.
Requena allowed him to talk himself out, only uttering grunts of
dissent, without exciting himself in the smallest degree. Only when
Fayolle talked of having the horse back, he said in a lazy tone:
"Then you evidently have some one in your eye who will give you eight
hundred, and you want to be off the bargain?"
"Monsieur le Duc, I swear to you that it is nothing of the kind. Only I
am positive I am right."
The banker was seized by an opportune fit of coughing; his eyes were
bloodshot, and his cheeks turned purple. Then he deliberately wiped his
mouth and rose, and said in his most boorish manner:
"Bless me, man! Don't put yourself out over a few miserable pesetas."
But he did not produce them.
The Frenchman was willing to take back the horse, but this again he
failed to achieve. There was a short silence. Fayolle was within an ace
of flying out, and making a fool of himself. But he restrained himself,
reflecting that this would do no good, and that sueing the Duke would do
even less. Who would be counsel for the plaintiff against such a man as
Requena? So he resigned himself to his fate, and took his leave, the
Duke escorting him to the door with much politeness, and clapping him
affectionately on the shoulder.
When the banker returned to his seat at the table, his eyes glistened
under his heavy eyelids with a smile of sarcastic triumph. A few minutes
after he again rang the bell.
"Go and inquire whether the Duchess is alone, or if she has visitors,"
he said to the man who answered it. And while the servant went on the
errand he sat motionless, leaning back in his chair, with his hands
folded, meditating.
"Padre Ortega is with the Duchess," was the answer in a few minutes.
Salabert "pshawed" impatiently, and sank into thought once more. He had
made up his mind to have a solemn discussion with his wife on ways and
means. Dona Carmen had never mentioned money to him in her life, and he
had never felt called upon to give her any account of his speculations
and business matters. He regarded himself as absolute master of his
fortune, and it never entered his head to think that she could make any
claims on it. A friend, however, had lately enlightened him on this
point. Speaking of Dona Carmen's feeble health, he had very naturally
inquired whether she had made her will, and this friend, who was a
lawyer, had at the same time mentioned the fact that, by the law of
Spain, half of the business and fortune was hers.
This was a terrible shock to Salabert. He was frightened to watch his
wife's decline; at her death her relations would claim half of all he
had made, would poke their noses into his concerns, even the most
private. Horror!
He consulted his lawyer. The simplest way of remedying the mischief, and
depriving these relations of their rights, was to induce his wife to
make a will in his favour. To the Duke this seemed the most natural
thing in the world, and in the interview he proposed, he intended to
suggest it to her as diplomatically as he could, so as not to alarm her
as to her own state of health.
So he waited, arranging and looking over his papers, till he thought it
was time to send again to inquire whether the priest was gone. But just
as he was about to do so, the porter came in and told him that some
gentlemen wanted to see him, and among them Calderon. The banker was
much annoyed.
"Did you say I was at home?"
"Well, as you always are at home in the morning, Senor Duque----"
"Damn you!" said the banker, with a furious scowl. But raising his voice
at once, and putting on the clumsy abruptness which he was so fond of
affecting: "Show them in, of course," he said, "show the gentlemen in."
On this Calderon came in, followed by Urreta and two other bankers not
less well known in Madrid. They all looked grave, almost sinister. But
Salabert, paying no heed to their looks, began shaking hands and
slapping backs, making a great noise. "Good business! Very good
business, now to lock you all four up, and make you each pay a round sum
as ransom! Ha, ha! Why here, in my room, are the four richest rascals in
Madrid. Four gorged sharks! How is your rheumatism, Urreta? It strikes
me that you want thoroughly overhauling as much as I do. And you,
Manuel, how long do you expect to hold out? Your cousin, you see, is
looking out very sharp."
The four gentlemen maintained a courteous reserve, and their extreme
gravity cut short this impertinent banter. The case was, in fact, a
serious one. About a year ago Salabert had sold them the business of a
railway from B---- to S----, which was already in full work, with all
the plant and rolling-stock. Though it had not been committed to
writing, it was fully understood by both parties that when the extension
from S---- to V---- should be put up for sale, as it was in connection
with the other line, Salabert should advance no claims, but leave it to
them to treat for it. Now, it had come to their knowledge that the Duke
had failed to keep his word, and had tried to jockey them in the most
barefaced way, by making a bid for the line.
The first to speak was Calderon.
"Antonio," he said, "we have come to quarrel with you very seriously."
"Impossible! Quarrel with such an inoffensive creature as I am?"
"You will remember that when we bought up your railway, you agreed, or
to be accurate, you solemnly promised, not to tender for the purchase of
the extension from S---- to V----."
"Certainly I remember it, perfectly."
"But we see with surprise that an offer from you----"
"An offer from me!" exclaimed the Duke, in the greatest surprise, and
opening his prominent eyes very wide. "Who told you that cock-and-bull
story?"
"It is not a cock-and-bull story. I, myself, saw your signature," said
the Marques de Arbiol.
"My signature? Impossible."
"My good friend, I tell you I saw it with my own eyes. 'Antonio
Salabert, Duke de Requena,'" replied Arbiol, very gravely.
"It cannot be; it is impossible!" repeated the Duke, walking up and down
the room in the most violent excitement. "It must be a forgery."
Arbiol smiled scornfully.
"It bore your seal."
"My seal?" he exclaimed, with ready parry. "Then the forgery was
committed in my own house. You cannot imagine what scoundrels I have
about me. I should need a hundred eyes." Foaming with rage, he rang the
bell.
"Now we shall see; we will find out whether I have been deceived or no.
Send Llera in here," he said to the servant who appeared. "And all the
clerks--immediately, this instant!"
Arbiol glanced at his companions, and shrugged his shoulders. But
Requena, though he saw this, did not choose to notice it; he went on
growling, snorting, uttering the most violent interjections, and walking
to and fro. Presently Llera made his appearance, followed by a group of
abject-looking clerks, ill-dressed and common. Salabert placed himself
in front of them, with his arms crossed, and said vehemently:
"Look here, Llera, I mean to find out who is the scoundrel who presented
a tender, in my name, with a forged copy of my signature, for the
purchase of the S---- and V---- line of railway. Do you know anything of
the matter?"
Llera, after looking him straight in the face, bent his head without
replying.
"And you others, do you know anything about it? Heh, do you know
anything whatever?"
The clerks in the same way stared at him; then they looked at Llera, and
they too bent their heads and stood speechless.
Salabert, with well-feigned fury, eyed them all in turn, and at length
addressing his visitors:
"You see," he said; "no one answers. The guilty man, or men, lurk among
them; for I suspect that more than one must be concerned. Do not be
afraid, I will give them a lesson, a terrible lesson. I will not rest
till I have them before the judge. Go," he added, to the delinquents,
"and those of you who are guilty may well quake. Justice will soon
overtake you."
To judge by the absolute indifference with which this fulmination was
received, the criminals must have been hardened indeed. Each man went
back to his place and his work as though the sword of Nemesis were not
drawn to cut his throat.
The bankers were half amused and half angry. At last one of the
quartette, biting his lips for fear of laughing outright, held out his
hand with a contemptuous gesture, saying:
"Good-bye, Salabert--_au revoir_."
The others followed his example without another word about the business
which had brought them. The Duke was not at all disconcerted; he
politely saw them to the head of the stairs, firing wrathful lightnings
at his clerks as he led his visitors through the office. On his return
he took not the slightest notice of the men; he walked down the room
like an actor crossing behind the scenes as he comes off the stage.
Soon after this performance he went downstairs himself, to go to his
wife's room. He found her alone, reading a book of devotions. Dona
Carmen, who had always been pious, had of late given herself up almost
exclusively to religious exercises. Her failing strength cut her off
more and more from the outer world, and left her sadly submissive to the
priests who visited her. Salabert had never opposed this taste for
devotion; he regarded it with pitying indifference, as an innocent
mania. However, just lately, some rather large bounties of Dona Carmen's
had alarmed him, and he had felt obliged to give her a paternal lecture.
He was accustomed to find her submissive, unambitious, absolutely
indifferent to the result of his various speculations; he treated her as
a child, if not as a faithful dog, whose head he might now and then pat
kindly. The hapless woman never had interfered in his life, his toil, or
his vices. Though his mistresses and fearful extravagance were discussed
by all the rest of the world, Dona Carmen knew nothing of them, or
ignored them. Nevertheless, the Duke's last connection with Amparo had
distressed her more than any former one. This arrogant but low creature
delighted in annoying the Duchess in every possible way, which was what
none of her predecessors had done. If she went out driving with her
husband, Amparo would keep pace in her carriage and exchange significant
glances with Requena. When the good lady gently complained of such
conduct, Salabert would simply deny, not merely his smiles and ogling,
but all acquaintance with the woman: he only knew her by sight, he had
never spoken to her in his life. It was the same at the Opera; Amparo
would stare all the evening at the Duke's box. At bull-fights and at
races she made a display of reckless luxury which attracted general
attention. Certain well-intentioned friends, in their compassion for
Dona Carmen, kept her informed as to the enormous sums this woman was
costing the Duke by her extravagance and caprices. These constant
vexations, endured unconfessed to any one but her director, had told on
the lady's health, reducing her to a state of weakness which made it
seem a miracle that she was still alive. Salabert had something else to
do than to consider her sufferings. He thought that with the title of
Duchess, and such enormous wealth, in so splendid a house, Dona Carmen
ought to be the happiest woman on earth.
"Well, how are you, old woman, how are you?" said he as he went in, in a
half rough and half kindly tone which betrayed his entire indifference.
Dona Carmen looked up with a smile.
"What, you? What miracle brings you here at this hour?"
"I should have come earlier, but I was told that Father Ortega was with
you. How did you sleep? Pretty well? That's right. You are not so ill as
you fancy. Why do you let the priests come hanging about you as if you
were at the point of death?"
"Do you suppose a priest is of no use but when one is dying?"
"Of course priests about a house are indispensable to make it look
respectable," he answered, stretching himself in an easy chair, and
spreading out his legs. "Without a rag of black fustian, a newly
furnished palace like this is too gaudy. Still, in the long run, they
become a nuisance; they are never tired of begging; they have a swallow
like a whale's. I should like to buy sham ones made of wax or
papier-mache, they would answer every purpose."
"There, there, Antonio. Do not talk so wildly. Any one who heard you
would take you for a heretic, and that you are not, thank God!"
"What should I gain by being a heretic? That does not pay." Then
suddenly changing the subject, he said: "How is that caravansary of
yours in the Cuatro Caminos getting on?"
He meant the asylum of which Dona Carmen was the chief benefactress.
"It is doing very well, excepting that the Marquesa de Alcudia wishes to
retire, and we do not know whom to appoint as treasurer in her place."
"It is always empty on the Sabbath, I suppose?"
"Why?" said the lady, innocently.
"They are all off to Seville on broomsticks, no doubt."
"Bah! do not make game of the poor old things," said she, laughing. "You
and I are old folks, too."
"Very true, very true," replied the banker, affecting serious
melancholy. "We are a pair of old puppets, and one fine day, when we
least expect it, we shall find ourselves removed to other quarters."
He had discovered an opening for the subject he wished to discuss, and
had seized on it at once.
"No," said his wife, "you are strong and hearty enough. You will live to
fight many a battle yet; but I, my dear, have but one foot in the
stirrup."
"Nay, nay, we are both in the same plight. Once over the sixties there
is no knowing."
"If such reflections did anything to bring you nearer God, and make you
labour in His service, I should be glad indeed."
"Do you think I do nothing in His service, when I spend above five
thousand dollars in masses every year?"
"Come, Antonio, do not talk like that."
"My dear child, it is a very good thing to think of the next world, but
it is prudent, to say the least, to think of this world to. I have just
lately been considering that if you or I were to die, there would be no
end of complications for the survivor."
"Why?"
"Because husband and wife are not by law nearest of kin to each other,
and if by chance either of us died intestate, our relations would be a
perfect torment to the survivor."
"For that there is an easy remedy. We make our wills and it is settled."
"That is just what I have been thinking," said Salabert, endeavouring to
make a show of calm indifference, which he was far from feeling. "It
struck me that instead of our each making an independent will, we might
come to a mutual arrangement."
"What is that?"
"A will by which each is the heir to the other."
Dona Carmen looked down at the book she still held, and did not
immediately answer. The Duke, somewhat uneasy, watched her narrowly from
under his eyelids, gnawing his cigar with impatience.
"That is impossible," said she at last, very gravely.
"What is impossible? And why?" he hastily asked, sitting upright in his
chair.
"Because I intend to leave all I have, whether much or little, to your
daughter. I have promised her that I will."
Salabert had never dreamed of stumbling on such an obstacle, he had
thought of the mutual bequest as a settled thing. He was equally
startled and vexed, but he immediately recovered himself, and assuming a
serious and dignified manner, he spoke:
"Very good, Carmen. I have no wish to coerce you in the matter. You are
mistress of your possessions, and can leave them to whom you choose,
though you must remember that that fortune has been earned by me at the
cost of much toil. During the years of our married life, pecuniary
questions have never given rise to any differences between us, and I
sincerely wish that they never may. Money, as compared with the
feelings of the heart, is of no importance whatever. The thing that
pains me is the thought that any other person, even though it be my own
daughter, should have usurped my place in your affections."
At these words his voice broke a little.
"No, Antonio, no," Dona Carmen hastened to put in. "Neither your
daughter nor any one else can rob you of the affection due to you. But
you are rich enough without needing my fortune, and she wants it."
"No. It is vain to try to soften the blow, I feel it in the depths of my
heart," replied Salabert in pathetic accents, and pressing one hand to
his left side. "Five-and-thirty years of married life, five-and-thirty
years of joys and griefs, of fears and hopes in common, have not availed
to secure me the foremost place in your affections. Nothing that can be
said will remedy that. I fancied that our union, the years of love and
happiness that we have spent together, might be closed by an act which
would crown our lives by making one of us inherit the whole of what we
have gained. The devotion of a husband and wife is never better
displayed than in a last will and testament."
Requena's oratory had risen to a tone of moral dignity which, for a
moment, seemed to impress his wife. However, she replied with perfect
sweetness but unshaken firmness:
"Though Clementina is not my own flesh and blood, I love her as if she
were. I have always regarded her as my own child, and it seems to me an
act of injustice to deprive a child of its share of an inheritance."
"But, my dear," exclaimed the Duke vehemently, "for whom do you suppose
I want it but for my daughter? Make me your heir, and I pledge myself to
transmit it to her, not only undiminished but greatly augmented."
Dona Carmen kept silence, but shook her head in negation. Her husband
rose as though emotion were quite too much for him.
"Oh, yes! I understand! You cannot forgive me some little errors of
caprice and folly. You are taking advantage of this opportunity of
revenge. Very well, very well. Indulge your vengeance; but believe me
when I say that I have never loved any woman better than you. The heart
cannot be made to obey orders, Carmen; if I desired to tear your image
out of mine, my heart would answer: 'No, I cannot give it up without
breaking.' It is sad, very sad, to meet with so cruel a disenchantment
at the end of our lives. If you were to die to-morrow, which God forbid!
what worries and troubles must await me, besides the grief of losing the
wife I adore. Why I, a poor old man, might be compelled to quit the
house where I have lived so many years, which I built and beautified in
the hope of dying under its roof in your arms!"
Requena's voice broke at judicious intervals, and his eyes filled with
tears. When he ceased speaking he sank into his armchair as though quite
crushed, pressing his handkerchief to his eyes.
But Dona Carmen, though tender-hearted and sensitive, showed no signs of
emotion. On the contrary, she replied in a steady voice:
"You know perfectly well that there is no truth in all that. I am not
capable of taking any revenge, nor, if I were, could there be any such
vengeance in leaving all I can to your daughter, who is mine solely by
the affection I bear to her."
The Duke changed his tactics. He looked at his wife compassionately for
a few minutes, and then he said:
"The greatest happiness you could confer on Clementina to show your
affection would be to get out of her way as soon as you can. Poor Osorio
is up to the ears in hot water. Now I understand why his creditors have
been so long-suffering. You no doubt have said something to his wife of
this will of yours, and as you are somewhat ailing they are looking for
your death like showers in May. Make no mistake about that."
Dona Carmen at these cruel words turned even paler than she always was.
She clutched the arms of her chair with an effort to keep herself from
fainting. This that her husband had said was horrible, but only too
probable. He saw her agitation, and at once brought forward facts to
confirm his hypothesis. He drew a complete picture of Osorio's position,
pointing out how unlikely it was that his creditors should still give
him time if they had not some definite hope to count on; and this could
only be her own death.
The unhappy woman at last spoke. Her words were almost sublime:
"If, indeed, Clementina desires my death," she said, "then so do I, with
all my heart. Everything I can leave is for her."
Salabert left the room in a towering rage, fighting like a bull assailed
by crackers, or an actor who has been hissed off the stage.
Dona Carmen lay for some time motionless in the attitude in which he had
left her, her eyes fixed on vacancy. At last two tears dropped from her
eyes and slowly trickled down her cheeks.