The voice of the sick girl would break the spell.
“Eh, child, what are you thinking about? How romantic those girls
brought up in the provinces are!”
The sharp and clear-sighted eyes of Pilar fastened themselves, as she
said this, on Lucía’s face, where she descried a faint shadow, a sort of
gray veil extending from the forehead and the temples to the circles
under the eyes, and a certain sunkenness at the corners of the mouth.
Her morbid curiosity was awakened, inspiring her with a desire to
dissect for her pastime this simple heart. Her unerring woman’s
instinct had revealed many things to her, and unable to content herself
with a discreet guess, she desired to obtain the confidence of Lucía. It
would be one more emotion for her to enjoy during her stay at the
springs.
“I don’t know what I was thinking about--nothing,” answered Lucía,
calling to her aid the most commonplace of excuses and the most common.
“Because it sometimes seems as if you were sad, pretty one; and I don’t
know why you should be sad, for you are precisely in the most delightful
part of the honeymoon. Ah, you are to be envied! Miranda is very
agreeable. He has good manners, a good presence.”
“Yes, indeed; a very good presence,” repeated Lucía, like an echo.
“And he dotes upon you. Why, any one may see that. True, he goes about a
good deal with my brother--but what would you have, child? All men are
like that. The chief thing is that when they are with one they should be
amiable and affectionate--and that they should not be jealous. No, that
good quality, at least, Miranda has; he is not jealous.”
Lucía turned red as fire, and, stooping down, gathered a handful of dry
leaves from the ground, in order to hide her confusion; then she amused
herself crumbling them between her thumb and forefinger and blowing the
dust into the air.
“And yet,” continued Pilar, “any one else in his place--No, see, if I
were a man, I don’t know what I should have done--this thing of having a
stranger escorting one’s bride for so many days--in that way, in such
close company--and precisely when----”
At this direct and brutal thrust, Lucía raised her head, and fixed on
her friend the ingenuous but dignified and severe glance which at times
shone in her eyes. Pilar, skillful in her tactics, drew back in order
the better to make her spring.
“It is true that any one who knew you and him, would be just as
unsuspicious as Miranda. You, as we all know, a little saint, an angel
in a niche; and he--he is a gentleman of the old school, notwithstanding
his eccentricities--he is as honorable as the Cid. He takes it from far
back. I have known him very well for a long time past,” declared Pilar,
who, like all young girls of the middle class who have mixed in good
society, was eager to have it appear that she knew everybody.
“You--you have known him for a long time?” murmured Lucía, conquered,
offering the sick girl her arm to lean upon.
“Yes, child. He goes to Madrid every year; sometimes to spend the whole
winter there, but generally only a month or two in the spring. He has
little liking for society; he was invited to several houses, for his
father, the Carlist chief, was a distinguished man in his part of the
country, and he is connected with the Puenteanchas and with the Mijares,
who are also Urbietas, but he was so chary of his society that every one
was dying to have him. Once, because he danced a rigadoon, at
Puenteancha’s, with Isabelita Novelda, they teased her about it all the
evening--they said she could now undertake to tame wild beasts; that she
could take Plevna without firing a gun--Isabelita was as proud as a
peacock, and it turned out that the Puenteancha had requested him to
dance, as a favor to her, and that he had consented, saying that he
would dance with the first woman he met--he met Isabelita and he asked
her. Fancy how the silly girl looked when it was known! After being
convinced that she had made a conquest! Her nose grew longer than it
was, and it was long enough already--ha, ha!”
The sick girl’s laughter ended in a cough--a little cough that tickled
her throat and took away her breath, compelling her to sit down on one
of the rustic benches of the park. Lucía slapped her gently on the back
without speaking, not wishing to say a word that might change the
current of the conversation. Her eyes spoke for her.
“I can tell you it was a dreadful disappointment,” resumed Pilar, when
she had recovered her breath. “The hundreds of thousands of francs which
his father had laid by for him would have suited the Noveldita
exactly--but they say that he does not like women!”
“He does not like women?” said Lucía, as if the pronoun _he_ could refer
to only one person.
“They say, however, that as a son he has few equals--he pets his mother
like a baby. She is said to be a woman of great refinement, belonging to
the French aristocracy--extremely delicate in her health, and I even
think that long ago, when she was young----”
The sick girl tapped her forehead significantly with her forefinger.
“It seems the father desired that the child should be born on Spanish
soil and he brought his wife before her confinement to Ondarroa, his
native place; they accustomed the boy to speak Spanish, except with his
nurse, with whom he spoke the Basque dialect. Paco Mijares, who is a
relation of his and knows all about it, told me so.”
Lucía listened eagerly, drinking in every word with avidity, to all
these insignificant details.
“He has curious fancies and caprices. At one time he took the notion to
work and entered a commercial house. After that he studied medicine and
surgery, and I understand that he put Rubio and Camison in the shade. In
Madrid he went to the hospitals to study for pleasure; at the time of
the war he did the same thing. Do you know where I sometimes used to
meet him in Madrid? In the Retiro, looking fixedly at the large lake.
What is the matter, child?”
Lucía, with closed eyes and deathly pale, leaned back against the trunk
of the tree that shaded the bench on which they sat. When she opened her
eyes, the shadow on her temples was more marked, and her gaze wandered
like that of a person recovering from a swoon.
“I don’t know--I sometimes seem to lose consciousness in that way. It is
as if there were a sinking here,” she murmured, laying her hand on her
heart.
“It is as I thought,” said Pilar to herself. “She has begun her capers
early,” she added, in her own mind, cynically. Night was falling
rapidly; a cold breeze stirred the foliage of the trees; the two
friends, shivering, drew their wraps closer around them. At the same
moment two dark figures appeared at the end of the avenue. They were
those of Miranda and Perico, who manifested some surprise at finding
Lucía and Pilar in the park at this late hour.
“A pretty way, a pretty way to cure yourself! The devil! you’ll be lucky
if you don’t get an attack of pneumonia for this! get up, you crazy
girl; come, come!”
Pilar rose, weak and pale, and took Miranda’s arm. Perico offered his to
Lucía, whose natural vigor of constitution had by this time got the
better of her momentary faintness.
“I doubt if she can take the waters to-morrow,” the latter said to her
companion. “She was rather excited to-day, and now the reaction shows
itself in fatigue.”
“I wager she would be strong enough, strong enough, if I offered to let
her go to the Casino!”
“Ah, Periquillo of my soul!” cried the sick girl, whose fine ear had not
lost a word of the conversation, “will you let me go, eh? What harm
would that do me? Miranda, you intercede for me.”
“Once in a while--it might be good for her--it would serve to distract
her.”
“Don’t mind what he says, Gonzalvo. Señor Duhamel says she ought not to
go, and who knows best, she or the doctor?” said Lucía.
“And you?” asked Perico, incited to a touch of gallantry by the hour,
the sight of the husband walking in front, and his inveterate
habits,--“and you, young and pretty as you are, why do you not come to
the Casino? All that finery that is lying idle in your trunks would be
better employed where it could be seen. Come, make up your mind, make up
your mind, and I will bring you a bunch of camellias like the one the
Swede carried last night.”
“I have no desire to eclipse the Swede,” said Lucía, with a smile.
“Where would she be if I were to show myself?”
“Well, although you say it in jest, in jest, it is the simple truth,”
and Perico traitorously lowered his voice. “You are worth a dozen
Swedes”; and in a louder tone, he added: “If Juanito Albares did not
make such a fool of himself, deuce a one would look at her, would look
at her.”
(Juanito Albares, as Perico familiarly called him, was a duke, a grandee
of Spain, a count and a marquis, and had I know not how many other
titles besides, a fact worthy to be borne in mind by the future
biographers of the elegant Gonzalvo.)
“Where are your eyes, then?” exclaimed Lucía, with Spanish frankness.
“You have great audacity to say that! The Swede is beautiful! Her
complexion is whiter than milk, and then her eyes----”
“Put no confidence in whiteness,” interposed Pilar, “while Venus’s towel
and Paris white are to be bought. She is too large.”
“Too tall,” declared Perico, like the fox in the fable.
“Never mind,” said Miranda, in a low voice, to Pilar. “We will make that
obstinate brother of yours listen to reason, and you shall go some night
to the Casino. A pretty thing it would be if you were to leave Vichy
without seeing the theater and listening to the concert. It would be
unheard of.”
“Ah, Miranda! You are my guardian angel! If there is no other way of
accomplishing it, you and I will run away some night--an elopement. We
will do as they do in the novels: you shall come on a fiery steed, I
will get up behind, and let them overtake us if they can. We will first
put Perico and Lucía under lock and key, and leave them there to do
penance for their sins, eh? What do you say?”
When they reached the entrance to the _châlet_, where lights were
already shining among the dark foliage of the trees, Miranda said to
himself:
“This one is more amusing than my wife. At least she says something, if
it is only nonsense; and she is cheerful, although she has half of one
lung God knows in what condition.”
“This girl is more insipid than water, than water,” Perico, on his side,
said to himself on parting from Lucía.
Meantime the longed-for day of the evening entertainment arrived. Pilar
was in the habit of spending a couple of hours daily in the Salle des
Dames of the Casino, generally from one to three o’clock in the
afternoon. The Salle des Dames is one of the many attractions of the
fine building which is the center of the gayety of the town, where the
ladies who are subscribers to the Casino can take refuge without fear of
masculine intrusion; there they are at home, and rule with absolute
sway; they play the piano, embroider, chat, and sometimes indulge in a
sherbet or some sweetmeat or bon-bon, which they nibble with as much
enjoyment as if they were mice let loose in a cupboard full of dainties.
It might be taken for a modern Moorish harem, a gynecæum, not hidden
within the modest shadow of the home, but situated in the most public of
all possible places. There congregated all the feminine stars of the
firmament of Vichy, and there Pilar met assembled the small but
brilliant Spanish-American colony--the de Amézegas, Luisa Natal, the
Countess of Monteros; and there was established a sort of Spanish
coterie which, if not very numerous, was none the less animated and gay.
While some blonde Englishwoman executed pieces of classic music on the
piano, and the Frenchwomen seized the occasion to display exquisite
worsted-work, at which they worked at the rate of two or three stitches
an hour, the Spanish women, more sincere, gave themselves up frankly to
idleness and spent the time chatting and fanning themselves. A fine
geographical globe at the farther end of the parlor seemed asking what
was its object and aim in such a place; and in exchange, the portraits
of the two sisters of Louis XVI, Victoria and Adelaide, traditional
_dames_ of Vichy, with powdered hair and rosy, smiling faces, presided
over the exhibition of frivolity continually being celebrated in their
honor. There were whisperings, like the flutterings of bird’s wings in
an aviary; sounds of laughter, like the sound of pearls dropping into a
crystal cup; the silky flutter of fans, the click of the sticks, the
noise made by the casters of the chairs rolling over the waxed floors,
the _frou-frou_ of skirts, like the rustling of insects’ wings. The air
was perfumed by the mingled odors of gardenia, toilet vinegar,
smelling-salts, and perfumery. On chairs and tables lay trinkets and
articles of adornment, long-handled silk parasols embroidered in gold,
work-boxes of Russian leather, work-baskets of straw ornamented with
worsted balls and tassels; here a lace scarf, there a lawn handkerchief;
here a bunch of flowers exhaling in death their sweetest perfume, there
a dotted tulle veil, and, resting on it, the pins used to fasten it. The
group of Spanish women, headed by Lola Amézega, who was of a very
resolute character, maintained a certain independence and intimacy among
themselves, very different from the reserve of the Englishwomen, between
whom and the Spanish group there was even perceptible a feeling of
secret hostility and mutual contempt.
It afforded great diversion to the Spanish group to see the Englishwomen
gravely take out a newspaper, as large as a sheet, from their pockets,
and read it from the first word to the last.
Pilar had been unable to persuade Lucía to accompany her to the Salle
des Dames; the shyness and timidity resulting from her provincial
education deterred her from going; she dreaded, more than fire, the
inquisitive glances of those women, who examined her toilet as minutely
as a skillful confessor examines the recesses of the conscience of his
penitent. Pilar, on the contrary, was there in her natural element. Her
rather shrill voice yielded in power only to the Cuban lisp of the
leader, Lola Amézega.
Let us listen to the concert:
“Well, I bought this to-day,” Lola was saying unconstrainedly, as she
turned up the sleeve of her pink muslin gown, trimmed with dark garnet
bows, and displaying to view a bracelet, from which hung a little pig
with curled-up tail and swelling sides, executed in fine enamel.
“I have one in another style,” said Amalia Amézega, showing a pig no
less resplendent than her sister’s, which dug its snout into the lace of
her necktie.
“Heavens! what an ugly fashion!” exclaimed Luisa Natal, a belle whose
attractions were now on the wane, and who was very careful to use no
ornaments except such as might serve to enhance her beauty. “For my
part, I would not wear such creatures. They make one think of
black-pudding, don’t they, countess?”
The Countess of Monteros, a Spanish woman of the old-fashioned type,
very devout and somewhat austere, nodded in the affirmative.
“I don’t know what they are going to invent next,” she said slowly. “I
have seen in the shops, elephants, lizards, frogs, and toads, and even
spiders,--in short, the most disgusting creatures possible,--as
ornaments for young ladies. In my youthful days we had no fancy for such
oddities; fine brilliants, beautiful pearls, a ruby heart--and, yes, we
wore cameos, also, but it was a charming caprice--one had one’s likeness
or that of some virgin or saint engraved on the stone.”
There was a brief silence; the Amézegas, subjugated by the imperiousness
of that authoritative voice, did not venture to reply.
“See, countess,” said Pilar, at last, delighted to have an opportunity
to enrage the Amézegas, “what is really pretty is that pin of Luisa’s.”
Luisa drew from her hair the long golden pin with its head of amethyst
set with diamonds.
“The Swede wore one like it yesterday,” she said, handing it to the
countess. “She had on the whole set--earrings, a necklace of amethyst
balls, and the pin. She looked magnificent with those and the heliotrope
gown.”
“Last night?” asked Pilar.
“Yes, at the theater. The other was gloomy and listless as usual; at ten
he entered her box and handed her the customary bouquet of camellias and
white azaleas; they say it costs him seventy francs a night. It is a
regular addition to his bill at the hotel.”
“That nephew of mine has neither shame nor discretion,” said the
Countess of Monteros gravely.
“A married man!” said Luisa Natal, who lived very happily with her
husband, who blindly obeyed all her caprices.
“And is it known, finally, whether the Swede is the daughter or the wife
of that baron of--of--I never can remember his name--well, of that old
man who escorts her?” asked the countess, allowing herself to be drawn
at last, in spite of her dignity, into the current of curiosity.
“Of Holdteufel?” asked Amalia Amézega, in a sing-song voice. “Bah! who
knows! But judging by the liberty he allows her he would seem to be her
husband rather than her father.”
“One needs to have effrontery,” continued Luisa Natal, with gentle and
smiling condemnation, “to make one’s self the talk of every one in that
way.”
“The idea!” said Pilar, in her thin voice. “Why, that is what he wants.
What do you suppose? The point of the thing and the pleasure of it are
in being talked about.”
“Juanito was always the same--always fond of making a noise,” murmured
the countess softly, remembering how her nephew, when a wild boy of ten,
used to go to her house and give her a headache, teasing her for a
thousand nonsensical things.
“Why, the day before yesterday----”
Eager curiosity was expressed in every face. The group drew their chairs
closer together and for a full minute a sound of casters rolling over
the floors could be heard.
“The day before yesterday,” continued Amalia Amézega, lowering her
voice, “she went to the shooting match----”
“Do you shoot now?” asked Pilar and Luisa Natal simultaneously.
“A little, for amusement,” and Lola smoothed down the straight black
fringe of hair that covered her forehead to within half an inch of the
eyebrows, making her look like a page of the Middle Ages, setting off
the tropical pallor of her face and her large eyes like those of a
child, but of a malicious and precocious child.
“Well,” continued Amalia, seeing that her audience was listening
attentively, “Gimenez, and the little Marquis of Cañahejas, and Monsieur
Anatole were there, and they were all talking about a paragraph in
_Figaro_, alluding to a scandal caused at one of the most fashionable
watering places in France, or all Europe, by the insane passion of a
Spanish grandee for a Swedish lady----”
“Only the initials of the names were given,” added Lola; “but it was as
clear as daylight. And to make it more clear it said, ‘_This worthy
grandson of the Count of Almaviva spends a fortune in flowers!_’”
A chorus of laughter broke from the circle. Lola had a way of saying
things with a certain lisp and a movement of the eyelids that greatly
added to their piquancy.
“And she? How does she receive his attentions?” asked Pilar.
“She?” replied Lola. “Oh, every night, on receiving the bouquet, she
answers invariably: ‘Dhanks, tuke, you are too amiaple!’”
They laughed more loudly than before. Even the countess smiled, holding
her fan before her face for the sake of propriety.
“Hist!” said Luisa Natal, “there she comes.”
“The Swede!” exclaimed Pilar.
They all turned round, greatly excited. The door of the Ladies’ Parlor
opened slowly, an old man, dressed with elegant simplicity, with white
side-whiskers, the rest of his face being smoothly shaven, stood in a
courtly attitude at the threshold of the door, while a tall and graceful
woman passed into the room; her classic beauty was set off by her gown
of black silk, close-fitting and sparkling with jet; the hat of tulle,
trimmed with golden wheat-ears, rested on her brow like a diadem; her
walk was noble and queenly. Without deigning to salute any one, she went
straight to the piano and, seating herself before it, proceeded to play
a mazourka of Chopin’s in a masterly manner. Her attitude served to
display to advantage the stately grace of her figure--the long and
rounded arms, the hips, the shoulder-blades, which at every movement of
her white hands defined themselves clearly through the tight-fitting
bodice.
“Is it not true,” said Pilar in a low voice to Luisa Natal, “that if
Lucía Miranda were to dress like her, she would resemble her somewhat in
her figure?”
“Bah!” murmured Luisa Natal, “the Mirandita has not an atom of _chic_.”
From the group of Englishwomen now broke forth the energetic hissing
sound which in every language signifies “Silence! hold your tongues and
listen, or at least permit others to listen.” The Spanish women touched
one another with their elbows and imperturbably went on with their
whispering.
“Do you see that man?” said Lola Amézega.
“Who? who? who?” They all asked in chorus.
“Who do you suppose? Albares. There, there at the window. Take care.
Don’t let him see that you are observing him.”
Looking in at the window overlooking the roof of the Casino was to be
seen, in effect, a youthful, almost boyish face defined against the
porcelain-like whiteness of the necktie, among whose folds rested one of
those agates called “cat’s eyes,” on which the caprice of fashion has of
late bestowed so exaggerated a value. A morning-suit of a soft,
exquisite shade of gray, a fine beaver hat, a gardenia in the
button-hole, and chamois gloves of a rather bright color--such were the
details of the costume of the inquisitive young man who was thus
exploring with his gaze the Salle des Dames. He presented a strange
mixture of weakness and strength; with an under-sized frame, he had the
muscles of a Hercules. Gymnastic exercises, fencing, riding, and hunting
had apparently hardened a constitution, which nature had made weakly,
almost sickly. He was short of stature, his limbs were delicate as a
woman’s, but the muscles were of steel. That this was the case was
apparent from the manner in which his garments hung upon him; from a
certain virile turn of the knees and the shoulders; in addition to this
he had that air of haughty superiority which wealth, birth, and the
habit of command, united, bestow.
But if the duke had expected to be rewarded for his indiscretion, he
was doomed to disappointment; for the Swede, after she had played with
perfect self-possession and consummate skill some half-dozen mazourkas,
arose with no less majesty than she had displayed on her entrance to the
room, and without looking to the right or left walked straight toward
the door. This opened as if by magic, and the diplomat with the white
side-whiskers presented himself, grave and courteous as before, and
offered her his arm. It was the exit of a queen, _très réussie_, as the
group of Frenchwomen said among themselves.
“One would think she was the Princess Micomicona,” said Lola Amézega,
who had spent no less than two hours before the looking-glass, that
morning, practicing the regal walk of the Swede.
“What an air!” said Luisa Natal. “No, it cannot be denied that she is a
handsome woman. What a figure! and what hands! Have you noticed them?”
“What a disappointment for Albares!” exclaimed Amalia; “she did not even
know he was there.”
Every eye was turned toward the window. The duke had disappeared.
“Now he has no doubt gone to the park to try to meet her; shall we go
see?”
“Yes, yes; the sight will be amusing.”
They rose, and hastily gathering up their fans, parasols, and veils,
hurried toward the door.
“Eh, young ladies!” said the Countess of Monteros, “don’t walk so fast.
I am not so young as you are, and I shall be left behind. By my faith,”
she added, under her breath, “when I see my fine nephew I shall tell him
what I think of him for making that poor Matilde, who is an angel,
grieve herself to death by his conduct, as he is doing.”
While Pilar amused herself in a manner so agreeable to her inclinations,
Lucía sat waiting for her on the balcony of the _châlet_. At this hour
neither Miranda nor Perico was in the house. The Casino had swallowed up
every one. Only at rare intervals was a passer-by to be seen in this
retired neighborhood. The only sound to be heard was the monotonous
noise of the machine on which the daughter of the _concierge_ was
sewing. In the garden, the roses, drunk with the sunshine which they had
been quaffing all the morning, exhaled themselves in perfumes; even the
cold white roses showed the effects of the heat in a tinge, like pale
flesh-color, but flesh-color still. It seemed as if all the odors of the
garden had mingled together to form one sole odor, penetrating,
powerful, inebriating, like the fragrance of a single rose, but a rose
of gigantic size--a glowing rose that exhaled from its purple mouth an
intoxicating and deadly fragrance. Lucía had taken her work and busied
herself at it for a while, but after a quarter of an hour or so the
cushion fell from her lap, the thimble slipped from her finger, and she
sat with vacant gaze fixed on the clump of rose bushes, until at last
her eyelids closed of themselves, and leaning her forehead against the
vine that covered the balcony, she abandoned herself to the delicious
enjoyment of the balmy air, unconscious of external sights or sounds,
scarcely breathing. Two months before she could not have remained quiet
for half an hour; the beauty of nature would have incited her to
physical activity. Now, on the contrary, it invited her to repose, it
produced in her a sort of half-conscious torpor, like that of the lizard
sleeping in the sun.
One afternoon Pilar, returning from the clubhouse, found Lucía more
pensive than usual.
“Silly child,” she said, “of what are you thinking? If you were to go to
the Casino it would amuse you greatly.”
“Pilarcita,” murmured Lucía, throwing her arms around the neck of her
friend, “will you keep a secret for me if I tell you one?”
The eyes of the sick girl lighted up.
“Of course I will! open your heart to me, child. In confidence, is it
not so? You may tell me anything. I have seen so many things--there is
nothing that could surprise me.”
“Listen,” said Lucía, “I want to know, at all costs, how Don Ignacio
Artegui’s mother is.”
Pilar drew back, disappointed; then laughing, with her cynical laugh,
she cried:
“Is that all? A great secret that! What a big handful three flies make.”
“For Heaven’s sake!” entreated Lucía uneasily, “don’t give a hint of
this to any one. I am dying to know, but if any one should hear--Miranda
or----”
“Simpleton! I shall soon learn what you wish to know, and without any
one hearing anything about it. I have a hundred ways of finding out. I
promise you your curiosity shall be gratified.”
Pilar tapped Lucía, who looked serious and a little confused, two or
three times on the cheek.
“Are we going to take a walk to-day, madam nurse?” she asked.
“Yes, and you shall drink some milk in Vesse. But put on a warmer dress,
for Heaven’s sake; you are so careless, you are quite capable of
exposing yourself to taking a cold. Have you not observed how fragrant
the roses are? In Leon there are hardly any roses; I remember that I
used to place all I could find before the image of the Virgin, which I
have there in my room.”