ANDRES DE FONSECA
Now I shall dwell but briefly on all the adventures which befell me
during the year or so that I remained in Spain, for were I to set out
everything at length, this history would have no end, or at least mine
would find me before I came to it.
Many travellers have told of the glories of Seville, to which ancient
Moorish city I journeyed with all speed, sailing there up the
Guadalquivir, and I have to tell of lands from which no other wanderer
has returned to England, and must press on to them. To be short then;
foreseeing that it might be necessary for me to stop some time in
Seville, and being desirous to escape notice and to be at the smallest
expense possible, I bethought me that it would be well if I could find
means of continuing my studies of medicine, and to this end I obtained
certain introductions from the firm of merchants to whose care I had
been recommended, addressed to doctors of medicine in Seville. These
letters at my request were made out not in my own name but in that of
“Diego d’Aila,” for I did not wish it to be known that I was an
Englishman. Nor, indeed, was this likely, except my speech should
betray me, for, as I have said, in appearance I was very Spanish, and
the hindrance of the language was one that lessened every day, since
having already learned it from my mother, and taking every opportunity
to read and speak it, within six months I could talk Castilian except
for some slight accent, like a native of the land. Also I have a gift
for the acquiring of languages.
When I was come to Seville, and had placed my baggage in an inn, not
one of the most frequented, I set out to deliver a letter of
recommendation to a famous physician of the town whose name I have long
forgotten. This physician had a fine house in the street of Las Palmas,
a great avenue planted with graceful trees, that has other little
streets running into it. Down one of these I came from my inn, a quiet
narrow place having houses with _patios_ or courtyards on either side
of it. As I walked down this street I noticed a man sitting in the
shade on a stool in the doorway of his _patio_. He was small and
withered, with keen black eyes and a wonderful air of wisdom, and he
watched me as I went by. Now the house of the famous physician whom I
sought was so placed that the man sitting at this doorway could command
it with his eyes and take note of all who went in and came out. When I
had found the house I returned again into the quiet street and walked
to and fro there for a while, thinking of what tale I should tell to
the physician, and all the time the little man watched me with his keen
eyes. At last I had made up my story and went to the house, only to
find that the physician was from home. Having inquired when I might
find him I left, and once more took to the narrow street, walking
slowly till I came to where the little man sat. As I passed him, his
broad hat with which he was fanning himself slipped to the ground
before my feet. I stooped down, lifted it from the pavement, and
restored it to him.
“A thousand thanks, young sir,” he said in a full and gentle voice.
“You are courteous for a foreigner.”
“How do you know me to be a foreigner, señor?” I asked, surprised out
of my caution.
“If I had not guessed it before, I should know it now,” he answered,
smiling gravely. “Your Castilian tells its own tale.”
I bowed, and was about to pass on, when he addressed me again.
“What is your hurry, young sir? Step in and take a cup of wine with me;
it is good.”
I was about to say him nay, when it came into my mind that I had
nothing to do, and that perhaps I might learn something from this
gossip.
“The day is hot, señor, and I accept.”
He spoke no more, but rising, led me into a courtyard paved with marble
in the centre of which was a basin of water, having vines trained
around it. Here were chairs and a little table placed in the shade of
the vines. When he had closed the door of the _patio_ and we were
seated, he rang a silver bell that stood upon the table, and a girl,
young and fair, appeared from the house, dressed in a quaint Spanish
dress.
“Bring wine,” said my host.
The wine was brought, white wine of Oporto such as I had never tasted
before.
“Your health, señor?” And my host stopped, his glass in his hand, and
looked at me inquiringly.
“Diego d’Aila,” I answered.
“Humph,” he said. “A Spanish name, or perhaps an imitation Spanish
name, for I do not know it, and I have a good head for names.”
“That is my name, to take or to leave, señor?”—And I looked at him in
turn.
“Andres de Fonseca,” he replied bowing, “a physician of this city, well
known enough, especially among the fair. Well, Señor Diego, I take your
name, for names are nothing, and at times it is convenient to change
them, which is nobody’s business except their owners”. I see that you
are a stranger in this city—no need to look surprised, señor, one who
is familiar with a town does not gaze and stare and ask the path of
passers-by, nor does a native of Seville walk on the sunny side of the
street in summer. And now, if you will not think me impertinent, I will
ask you what can be the business of so healthy a young man with my
rival yonder?” And he nodded towards the house of the famous physician.
“A man’s business, like his name, is his own affair, señor,” I
answered, setting my host down in my mind as one of those who disgrace
our art by plying openly for patients that they may capture their fees.
“Still, I will tell you. I am also a physician, though not yet fully
qualified, and I seek a place where I may help some doctor of repute in
his daily practice, and thus gain experience and my living with it.”
“Ah is it so? Well, señor, then you will look in vain yonder,” and
again he nodded towards the physician’s house. “Such as he will take no
apprentice without the fee be large indeed; it is not the custom of
this city.”
“Then I must seek a livelihood elsewhere, or otherwise.”
“I did not say so. Now, señor, let us see what you know of medicine,
and what is more important, of human nature, for of the first none of
us can ever know much, but he who knows the latter will be a leader of
men—or of women—who lead the men.”
And without more ado he put me many questions, each of them so shrewd
and going so directly to the heart of the matter in hand, that I
marvelled at his sagacity. Some of these questions were medical,
dealing chiefly with the ailments of women, others were general and
dealt more with their characters. At length he finished.
“You will do, señor,” he said; “you are a young man of parts and
promise, though, as was to be expected from one of your years, you lack
experience. There is stuff in you, señor, and you have a heart, which
is a good thing, for the blunders of a man with a heart often carry him
further than the cunning of the cynic; also you have a will and know
how to direct it.”
I bowed, and did my best to hold back my satisfaction at his words from
showing in my face.
“Still,” he went on, “all this would not cause me to submit to you the
offer that I am about to make, for many a prettier fellow than yourself
is after all unlucky, or a fool at the bottom, or bad tempered and
destined to the dogs, as for aught I know you may be also. But I take
my chance of that because you suit me in another way. Perhaps you may
scarcely know it yourself, but you have beauty, señor, beauty of a very
rare and singular type, which half the ladies of Seville will praise
when they come to know you.”
“I am much flattered,” I said, “but might I ask what all these
compliments may mean? To be brief, what is your offer?”
“To be brief then, it is this. I am in need of an assistant who must
possess all the qualities that I see in you, but most of all one which
I can only guess you to possess—discretion. That assistant would not be
ill-paid; this house would be at his disposal, and he would have
opportunities of learning the world such as are given to few. What say
you?”
“I say this, señor, that I should wish to know more of the business in
which I am expected to assist. Your offers sound too liberal, and I
fear that I must earn your bounty by the doing of work that honest men
might shrink from.”
“A fair argument, but, as it happens, not quite a correct one. Listen:
you have been told that yonder physician, to whose house you went but
now, and these”—here he repeated four or five names—“are the greatest
of their tribe in Seville. It is not so. I am the greatest and the
richest, and I do more business than any two of them. Do you know what
my earnings have been this day alone? I will tell you; just over
twenty-five gold pesos,[2] more than all the rest of the profession
have taken together, I will wager. You want to know how I earn so much;
you want to know also, why, if I have earned so much, I am not content
to rest from my labours. Good, I will tell you. I earn it by
ministering to the vanities of women and sheltering them from the
results of their own folly. Has a lady a sore heart, she comes to me
for comfort and advice. Has she pimples on her face, she flies to me to
cure them. Has she a secret love affair, it is I who hide her
indiscretion; I consult the future for her, I help her to atone the
past, I doctor her for imaginary ailments, and often enough I cure her
of real ones. Half the secrets of Seville are in my hands; did I choose
to speak I could set a score of noble houses to broil and bloodshed.
But I do not speak, I am paid to keep silent; and when I am not paid,
still I keep silent for my credit’s sake. Hundreds of women think me
their saviour, I know them for my dupes. But mark you, I do not push
this game too far. A love philtre—of coloured water—I may give at a
price, but not a poisoned rose. These they must seek elsewhere. For the
rest, in my way I am honest. I take the world as it comes, that is all,
and, as women will be fools, I profit by their folly and have grown
rich upon it.
[2] About sixty-three pounds sterling.
“Yes, I have grown rich, and yet I cannot stop. I love the money that
is power; but more than all, I love the way of life. Talk of romances
and adventure! What romance or adventure is half so wonderful as those
that come daily to my notice? And I play a part in every one of them,
and none the less a leading part because I do not shout and strut upon
the boards.”
“If all this is so, why do you seek the help of an unknown lad, a
stranger of whom you know nothing?” I asked bluntly.
“Truly, you lack experience,” the old man answered with a laugh. “Do
you then suppose that I should choose one who was _not_ a stranger—one
who might have ties within this city with which I was unacquainted. And
as for knowing nothing of you, young man, do you think that I have
followed this strange trade of mine for forty years without learning to
judge at sight? Perhaps I know you better than you know yourself. By
the way, the fact that you are deeply enamoured of that maid whom you
have left in England is a recommendation to me, for whatever follies
you may commit, you will scarcely embarrass me and yourself by
suffering your affections to be seriously entangled. Ah! have I
astonished you?”
“How do you know?” I began—then ceased.
“How do I know? Why, easily enough. Those boots you wear were made in
England. I have seen many such when I travelled there; your accent also
though faint is English, and twice you have spoken English words when
your Castilian failed you. Then for the maid, is not that a betrothal
ring upon your hand? And when I spoke to you of the ladies of this
country, my talk did not interest you overmuch as at your age it had
done were you heart-whole. Surely also the lady is fair and tall? Ah! I
thought so. I have noticed that men and women love their opposite in
colour, no invariable rule indeed, but good for a guess.”
“You are very clever, señor.”
“No, not clever, but trained, as you will be when you have been a year
in my hands, though perchance you do not intend to stop so long in
Seville. Perhaps you came here with an object, and wish to pass the
time profitably till it is fulfilled. A good guess again, I think.
Well, so be it, I will risk that; object and attainment are often far
apart. Do you take my offer?”
“I incline to do so.”
“Then you will take it. Now I have something more to say before we come
to terms. I do not want you to play the part of an apothecary’s drudge.
You will figure before the world as my nephew, come from abroad to
learn my trade. You will help me in it indeed, but that is not all your
duty. Your part will be to mix in the life of Seville, and to watch
those whom I bid you watch, to drop a word here and a hint there, and
in a hundred ways that I shall show you to draw grist to my mill—and to
your own. You must be brilliant and witty, or sad and learned, as I
wish; you must make the most of your person and your talents, for these
go far with my customers. To the hidalgo you must talk of arms, to the
lady, of love; but you must never commit yourself beyond redemption.
And above all, young man”—and here his manner changed and his face grew
stern and almost fierce—“you must never violate my confidence or the
confidence of my clients. On this point I will be quite open with you,
and I pray you for your own sake to believe what I say, however much
you may mistrust the rest. If you break faith with me, _you die_. You
die, not by my hand, but you die. That is my price; take it or leave
it. Should you leave it and go hence to tell what you have heard this
day, even then misfortune may overtake you suddenly. Do you
understand?”
“I understand. For my own sake I will respect your confidence.”
“Young sir, I like you better than ever. Had you said that you would
respect it because it was a confidence, I should have mistrusted you,
for doubtless you feel that secrets communicated so readily have no
claim to be held sacred. Nor have they, but when their violation
involves the sad and accidental end of the violator, it is another
matter. Well now, do you accept?”
“I accept.”
“Good. Your baggage I suppose is at the inn. I will send porters to
discharge your score and bring it here. No need for you to go, nephew,
let us stop and drink another glass of wine; the sooner we grow
intimate the better, nephew.”
It was thus that first I became acquainted with Señor Andres de
Fonseca, my benefactor, the strangest man whom I have ever known.
Doubtless any person reading this history would think that I, the
narrator, was sowing a plentiful crop of troubles for myself in having
to deal with him, setting him down as a rogue of the deepest, such as
sometimes, for their own wicked purposes, decoy young men to crime and
ruin. But it was not so, and this is the strangest part of the strange
story. All that Andres de Fonseca told me was true to the very letter.
He was a gentleman of great talent who had been rendered a little mad
by misfortunes in his early life. As a physician I have never met his
master, if indeed he has one in these times, and as a man versed in the
world and more especially in the world of women, I have known none to
compare with him. He had travelled far, and seen much, and he forgot
nothing. In part he was a quack, but his quackery always had a meaning
in it. He fleeced the foolish, indeed, and even juggled with astronomy,
making money out of their superstition; but on the other hand he did
many a kind act without reward. He would make a rich lady pay ten gold
pesos for the dyeing of her hair, but often he would nurse some poor
girl through her trouble and ask no charge; yes, and find her honest
employment after it. He who knew all the secrets of Seville never made
money out of them by threat of exposure, as he said because it would
not pay to do so, but really because though he affected to be a selfish
knave, at bottom his heart was honest.
For my own part I found life with him both easy and happy, so far as
mine could be quite happy. Soon I learned my role and played it well.
It was given out that I was the nephew of the rich old physician
Fonseca, whom he was training to take his place; and this, together
with my own appearance and manners, ensured me a welcome in the best
houses of Seville. Here I took that share of our business which my
master could not take, for now he never mixed among the fashion of the
city. Money I was supplied with in abundance so that I could ruffle it
with the best, but soon it became known that I looked to business as
well as to pleasure. Often and often during some gay ball or carnival,
a lady would glide up to me and ask beneath her breath if Don Andres de
Fonseca would consent to see her privately on a matter of some
importance, and I would fix an hour then and there. Had it not been for
me such patients would have been lost to us, since, for the most part,
their timidity had kept them away.
In the same fashion when the festival was ended and I prepared to wend
homewards, now and again a gallant would slip his arm in mine and ask
my master’s help in some affair of love or honour, or even of the
purse. Then I would lead him straight to the old Moorish house where
Don Andres sat writing in his velvet robe like some spider in his web,
for the most of our business was done at night; and straight-way the
matter would be attended to, to my master’s profit and the satisfaction
of all. By degrees it became known that though I was so young yet I had
discretion, and that nothing which went in at my ears came out of my
lips; that I neither brawled nor drank nor gambled to any length, and
that though I was friendly with many fair ladies, there were none who
were entitled to know my secrets. Also it became known that I had some
skill in my art of healing, and it was said among the ladies of Seville
that there lived no man in that city so deft at clearing the skin of
blemishes or changing the colour of the hair as old Fonseca’s nephew,
and as any one may know this reputation alone was worth a fortune. Thus
it came about that I was more and more consulted on my own account. In
short, things went so well with us that in the first six months of my
service I added by one third to the receipts of my master’s practice,
large as they had been before, besides lightening his labours not a
little.
It was a strange life, and of the things that I saw and learned, could
they be written, I might make a tale indeed, but they have no part in
this history. For it was as though the smiles and silence with which
men and women hide their thoughts were done away, and their hearts
spoke to us in the accents of truth. Now some fair young maid or wife
would come to us with confessions of wickedness that would be thought
impossible, did not her story prove itself; the secret murder perchance
of a spouse, or a lover, or a rival; now some aged dame who would win a
husband in his teens, now some wealthy low-born man or woman, who
desired to buy an alliance with one lacking money, but of noble blood.
Such I did not care to help indeed, but to the love-sick or the
love-deluded I listened with a ready ear, for I had a fellow-feeling
with them. Indeed so deep and earnest was my sympathy that more than
once I found the unhappy fair ready to transfer their affections to my
unworthy self, and in fact once things came about so that, had I willed
it, I could have married one of the loveliest and wealthiest noble
ladies of Seville.
But I would none of it, who thought of my English Lily by day and
night.