THE Condesa de Luna, the orphan daughter of dead parents who
represented both branches of a famous old Gothic family, already known
about the capital for her beauty, was known far and wide as the richest
heiress in all Venezuela and Guiana; her prairies stretched from the
ocean to the Apure, her herds so countless that they roamed wild upon
pampas which were hers, hunted by peons who were hers. The old stone
castle with the Spanish arms was hers, and another like it stood empty
for her in far Madrid. Her guardian, the Marquis del Torre, was a poor
man beside her; and his nephew, Don Ramon, poorer still.
Dolores was brought up as follows: At five she rose, and went, with
Jacinta, to early mass--nearly always to a different church, as is the
seemly custom in Carácas, lest young men should take advantage of it
and take position behind the chairs of their adored ones in church,
where they could not be repelled; for, of course, no young gentleman,
however madly in love, would insult his lady by accosting her in the
open street. After mass, at six, being the time of sunrise and by
comparison safe, Jacinta would take her charge for a walk, usually on
the Calvareo, then deserted. At seven they would be home, and then in
the great court-yard, under the palms and rose-red orchids, Dolores
would take her lessons--French, English, music--all from priests. At
eleven, bath; at twelve, breakfast; then reading, perhaps a siesta in
a hammock made of birds’ plumage. So she passed her days, all in the
half-light of the great court-yard; only toward sunset again would
she see the open sky, driving with one of her two governesses in the
state carriage down the broad valley to where the wheel road stopped,
and back again; or more rarely, as on this night, venturing on another
walk. And all the youth of Carácas would gaze after her carriage;
the young men driving out too, by themselves, in carriages, who had
passed their days more in gambling or cock-fighting than with books and
music; never, indeed, at mass. For here the lords of creation vent
their authority in ordaining their wives and sisters to the Church and
goodness, themselves to evil. But the most hardened duellist among
them could no more than look at Dolores; only her reckless cousin
Ramon would venture to ride athwart her carriage, and presume upon his
cousinship to bow.
Yet intercourse is possible always betwixt young people who seek each
other out; and all Carácas gave Ramon to her for her suitor. And
to-night even, as he stood and glowered at the Archbishop from behind
the tree-ferns, he had another chance. For there is, and was, one more
strange custom in this strange city; at the sunset hour the young
ladies of Carácas, all in their gayest dresses, sit in the great open
windows and look upon the street--a curious sight it is to see the
bright eyes and white throats thrust, like birds from a cage, through
the iron bars of the sombre stone windows. (For no wind or cold ever
needs a window of glass in that perpetual perfect weather; the high sun
never makes a shutter needful in the narrow streets.) And there they
sit, unoccupied; and the young men of the city, dressed also in their
best, walk by as slowly, and look as lingeringly, as they dare; and
perhaps, if the dark shadow of mamma or the dueña does not come out too
quickly from the inner room, a few quick words are spoken, and a flower
left or given. And what says the old proverb of the Caraqueños?
“_Better two words in secret than a thousand openly._”
Sebastian Ruy, Marques del Torre, too, was bred as a young nobleman of
oldest lineage should be, or should have been, in that early eighteenth
century that still lingered then in the Andes. But this took him to
Madrid and to Paris in the years VII. and VIII.; and the eighteenth
century, as one knows, ended in those wee small numbers. Torre came
back to plunge his country in a revolution which lasted intermittently,
like one of its own volcanoes, for more than twenty years. The young
Parisian étudiant began his first émeute in Carácas itself, with a
barricade after the orthodox fashion of the years I. and II. This being
quickly suppressed--partly that there were no pavements, and partly
that each house was an impregnable fortress--but mostly that the city
was of the governing class and stood with Spain--Torre had had to leave
the capital for the pampas, where, for over twelve years, he maintained
discursive warfare with a changeable command of Indians and peons,
which, however, on the whole, increased in numbers, officered by a few
young gentlemen, under himself. His marquisate he forgot, and sought to
make others forget it. He was, throughout Venezuela, The General. He
had never been back within the walls of Carácas; and, at nearly forty,
he learned of his only aunt’s death following his uncle’s, and of the
little girl they left, and of his guardianship.
A little girl she appeared to his imagination on the pampas; when
he got to Carácas, she was a young woman. The General’s locks were
already grizzled and his face weather-beaten with ten years’ open life
on the plains; his face was marked, close beside the eye, with the
scar of a sabre. He had one interview with Dolores, saw her nurse, her
instructors, her father confessor; heard stories about his nephew Don
Ramon, which troubled him, went back to camp.
Then intervened a brief campaign in the mountains of the Isla
Margarita; Torre went there to take command. This is the famed old
island of pearls; they lie there in the reefs amid the bones of men and
ships. Torre found no pearls, but he defeated the royal troops in the
first engagement resembling an open battle he had ventured fight. This
matter settled, he lay awake at night, and thought about his new ward.
Further tidings reached him from Carácas, of his nephew. It was said
young Ramon boasted he would marry her. Then the King, as is the royal
way after defeat in battle, made further concessions to the “Liberals,”
as the revolutionists were called; and in the coaxing amity of the
time, Torre was permitted, nay, invited, to return to the capital. He
did so, and was immediately tendered a banquet by the royal Governor,
and a ball at which his ward was present. The royal Governor and his
lady sat beneath a pavilion, webbed of the scarlet and gold of Spain.
The Countess Dolores came and curtsied deeply to them; then she rose
the taller for it, and as she turned haughtily away they saw that she
was almost robed in pearls; three strands about her neck and six about
her waist; and the ribbon in her mantilla was pale green, white, and
red. El Gobernador only smiled at this, the liberal tricolor, and made
a pretty speech about it; but the vice-regal lady made some ill-natured
reference to the pearls, as spoils from Margarita. Don Ramon was
standing by and heard it. The General saw it not.
After the formal dance the General went up to compliment his ward.
This was the first time he had seen her since his return; for even he
could not call save in the presence of the family; and she had no other
family than himself. He could not call on her until--unless--he married
her. He said, “I am glad my lady Countess is kinder to our colors than
my nephew.” He watched her as he said this; she started, and at the
end of the sentence blushed. He saw her blush. Then he bowed, as if to
retire.
“The pearls,” she said, hastily, “are all I have; see!” And the
Marquis, bowing, saw that the neck-strands were not a necklace, but
after passing thrice around her neck, descended to be lost in the laces
of her dress.
The Marquis ended his bow, and went back to camp. Next week there came
an Indian soldier to Dolores with a box of island pearls; they were
large as grapeshot, and went thrice about her waist. But the General no
longer contradicted her engagement to his nephew.