The great anarchical association of which Ferdinand Contraras was the
leading spirit did not differ greatly in essential features from those
tyrannical and effete institutions which it was striving to supersede.
There was still the wide gulf between the classes, bridged over
speciously by the fact that they addressed each other as "comrade,"
waiving all distinctive titles.
The chief addressed the educated young fisherman as Somoza shortly,
which was natural. And, on the other hand, Somoza addressed him, though
always very respectfully, as Contraras, which would not have been at all
natural, under ordinary circumstances.
Still, Somoza did not slap him on the back, or take liberties, as he
would have done with an elderly fisherman in his own rank of life. The
gulf of class could not quite be crossed by dropping titles, and calling
each other comrade.
And then there was the question of wealth. Contraras, in spite of his
numerous donations to the cause, was still rich; so was Jaques.
Zorrilta was moderately well-off. Alvedero and Lucue were poor. The
sharing out had not begun yet. Lucue, as we know, lived in humble
lodgings in Soho, which galled him somewhat, as he was fond of comfort
and the flesh-pots.
Contraras, after a brief sojourn at Fonterrabia had come back to Madrid,
where he had many friends in his own sphere of life. Although not of
noble birth himself, he had married a woman, a member of a family poor
but boasting of the proudest blood of Spain in its veins.
At Madrid he had engaged a suite of rooms at the Ritz Hotel in the Plaza
de Canovas, near the Prado Museum. Democrat and anarchist as he was in
theory, the man delighted in displaying a certain amount of ostentation,
whether at home or abroad.
A little aware of his weakness in this direction, he consoled himself by
the thought that in doing this he was throwing dust in the eyes of
people of his own class--that he could more successfully carry on his
propaganda, because nobody would ever suspect him of seeking to
overthrow the regime under which he had prospered so exceedingly.
The young Frenchwoman, Valerie Delmonte, was in Madrid at the same time
also as Contraras. She was staying at an equally luxurious hostelry--
the Grand Hotel de la Paix in the Puerta del Sol. She also had a suite
of rooms, imitating her illustrious chief.
She chose to be known by her maiden name of Mademoiselle Valerie
Delmonte. It did not suit her emancipated notions that a woman should
sink her identity in that of a husband. She had borne with the
infliction for three short years of married life. When her elderly
husband, a rich Paris financier, died she found herself a very wealthy
woman. Monsieur Varenne had no near kith or kin. With the exception of
a few handsome legacies, he had left all his money to this young woman
who was very handsome and still young, only in the late twenties.
Contraras was an anarchist by profound and philosophical conviction. He
had persuaded himself that revolution, open and brutal revolution, was
the only cure for a rotten and diseased world.
Valerie had arrived at the same conclusion from a merely personal
standpoint--from the point of view of her own feelings. Naturally of a
morbid temperament, absolutely a child of the gutter, the offspring of
drunken and dissolute parents who had starved and beaten her, she had
suffered no illusions as to what existence meant for the impoverished.
She was a sharp-witted child, with plenty of brain-power, and a
marvellous capacity for self-education. At the age of twelve her
parents had sold her for a paltry sum to the proprietor of a travelling
circus. This man had perceived at once that there was plenty of grit in
the precocious child. He had got her very cheap. If he trained her
carefully he might make a good deal of money out of her.
The precocious little Valerie left her parents without the slightest
regret--her life had been one long torture with them. The
circus-proprietor was a big, burly man, not destitute of a rough
geniality. There was a hard look in his eyes, a dogged squareness of
the jaw that suggested a latent brutality.
On the whole, however, he was a welcome relief from her former
torturers, who had never thrown a kind word to her from the day of her
birth. Sometimes he was generous, sometimes he was brutal, as the mood
took him. Often he swore at her till she trembled in every limb.
Occasionally, in his cups, he beat her. But he was always sorry the
next day, and did his best to make amends. In short, he was a ruffian
with a certain amount of decent feeling, and an uncertain temperament.
She stayed with him till she was seventeen. She might have stayed with
him for ever, had not a sudden severance been put to their relations, by
the man's sudden death, brought about prematurely by his constant
indulgence in alcohol.
Valerie could never recall the years that succeeded without a shudder.
The circus was broken up, she was left helpless and friendless.
It was during those terrible years that the iron entered her soul, when
she experienced the keen, cruel suffering of the really poor, when she
went to bed night after night, cold and hungry, after tramping the
streets in vain for work.
A weaker spirit would have succumbed to the temptation that was always
at hand, for she was a very attractive girl. But she was resolved, with
her indomitable grit, to keep herself pure. She turned away
disdainfully from the leering old men, the callous young ones who
accosted her as she paced the streets in her restless tramp for an
honest living. Better the river than that!
After many vicissitudes, she came to anchor at last. She was then about
twenty-two. She was very clever at educating herself. She had taught
herself to sing, she had taught herself to play the piano, she had
taught herself to dance.
She got an engagement at one of the minor halls in Paris to do a turn
which combined singing and dancing. She was very pretty and attractive.
In a small way she made a name. At the end of three months the manager
trebled her salary.
To this minor music hall came one night the rich financier, a somewhat
shady one, if the truth must be told, Monsieur Varenne, a man of about
fifty-five who had never married.
He was greatly attracted by this elegant young girl. Her voice was
small, her dancing was nothing great. But there was an indefinable
charm about her that appealed to his somewhat jaded senses.
He obtained an introduction through the manager, who was only too
anxious to oblige such a well-known personage. He invited her to
supper. She accepted the invitation graciously, but coldly. Her
coldness inflamed him the more.
When they met, he was surprised at her cleverness, the correctness with
which she expressed herself. This was certainly no ordinary girl of the
music halls.
"Tell me something about yourself, my dear," he said, as they sat over
their coffee. "I did not expect to find you such a charming companion."
Valerie smiled a little bitterly. "I have not very much to tell. I
expect my lot has been like that of many thousands in this delightful
world. I am a child of the gutter. My father and mother beat and
starved me, and sold me for a paltry sum to the proprietor of a
travelling circus. It wasn't exactly a rosy life then, but it was
paradise to where I had been. He died; I was thrown on my beam ends. I
can't tell you what I have been through for the last few years. I
couldn't bear to talk of it--I have suffered everything that the poor
have to suffer in such profusion--cold, hunger, the most absolute
misery. And, at last," she looked round at the luxurious appointments
of the restaurant a little disdainfully, "I find myself in receipt of a
decent salary, and the guest of a rich man who has pressed upon me every
dainty. And I have so often wanted a meal!"
Varenne was a very kindly man, in spite of his somewhat sharp ways in
business. Those last few pathetic words had gone straight to his heart.
She had often wanted a meal, and she was a most attractive girl! Many
would have called her beautiful.
"It is a sad history, my poor child," he said sympathetically. He
paused a moment before he put the delicate question. "And during those
terrible years, when you suffered hunger and privation, you kept
yourself straight? It would have been so easy to go wrong, so excusable
under the circumstances."
"Of course," she answered, and there was a note of wounded pride, of
indignation, in her voice. "I am not that sort of woman--better the
river than that. I might give myself to a man out of love or gratitude,
but never merely for money."
It was a new experience for the wealthy financier. Here was a girl who
had just stepped off the platform of a music hall, where she was, no
doubt, earning a very modest salary, who had grit and backbone in her,
and, moreover, a proper pride and self-respect.
He had, of course, with the easy confidence of a man of the world,
imagined the usual termination to such an adventure. But he recognised
at once that he could not make any proposition of the kind he meditated.
He pressed her hand tenderly at parting, and arranged a further
meeting.
They met several times, and Varenne went through agonies of indecision.
But the attraction was too strong, and at last he asked her to marry
him. It was that or losing her altogether.
And did it matter much? His world would laugh at him as a matter of
course, say he had got into his dotage. And a girl who was young enough
to be his daughter! There is no fool like an old fool, he told himself
rather ruefully.
But she had so subjugated him that he was quite a humble wooer in spite
of the enormous advantages he was offering her.
"Of course I am an old man, I cannot expect you to have any real
affection for me," he said.
She met his glance quite frankly. "I have never been in love with
anybody; my life has been too hard to permit me to indulge in the softer
emotions. But I like you very much. I have always hated rich men; they
think they can buy anything with their gold. You are a rich man, I
know, you have told me so yourself, but you have a kind nature and a
good heart."
"And can you overlook the disparity of years?" he questioned, still very
humble.
"I am twenty-two, but I don't think I am very young; I am old in
experience and bitterness. Well, if you care to risk the experiment, I
will be your wife. I will do my best to make you happy."
They were married. And this marriage was the turning point in Valerie's
life. If everything had gone smoothly, she might have forgotten those
bitter experiences, outlived her still more bitter rancour against the
prosperous and well-to-do.
Unfortunately the friends of Monsieur Varenne would not forgive him for
this false step, so unpardonable in a man of his intelligence and
position. He was a fool, that was clear, but they were not going to
abet him in his mad folly. Their doors were shut against his wife, this
creature of the music halls, to whom he was going to leave his fortune.
After this bitter experience, the iron entered even deeper into her
soul. Her husband was kindness and tenderness itself. In his devotion
to his young wife, he paid no attention to the fact that he had cut
himself off from his old friends, his old social life.
He was ready to comply with her slightest wish. He showered on her the
most costly gifts, his purse was absolutely at her disposal. She had
everything that wealth could give, except the one thing she craved, to
mix on equal terms with these people who despised her.
When the kindly old man died, she mourned him sincerely. If she had
never loved him, in the true sense of the word, she had felt for him a
very warm and grateful affection. On his death-bed, she had faltered
forth a few words of self-reproach, had blamed herself for taking
advantage of his generosity, for not having sufficiently counted the
cost to himself.
On this point he had reassured her. "I have been very happy, my dear,
happier than I ever expected to be. I would not have anything changed."
She came into that considerable fortune which was of so little use to
her. During her few years of married life she had educated herself into
a woman of considerable accomplishments, for she had a very quick and
acute intelligence.
Her socialist proclivities were now fully developed, after the scurvy
treatment at the hands of her husband's friends. The circles where
these doctrines were preached readily opened their doors to an
attractive and enthusiastic young woman, whose wealth would be very
useful for propaganda. She was more than the equal of these purse-proud
parvenus, who would not accept her acquaintance, in intellect and
behaviour. She felt it bitterly.
Very soon she came under the influence of Contraras, who was possessed
of great personal magnetism. His reasoned arguments, his fiery
eloquence, quickly led her a step further--from socialism to anarchy.
In a very short space she became one of the leading spirits of the
brotherhood. As the old regime would not receive her, she would do her
best to overthrow it, and assert the doctrine of absolute equality.
Contraras came frequently to the Grand Hotel de la Paix to visit his
young colleague. He had very charming manners, this elderly enthusiast,
and Valerie liked him very much, apart from his principles. He was one
of the few rich men she had ever known, her late husband being another,
whom she did not despise. He was no mere hoarder of wealth, using it as
a means to enslave his less fortunate fellow-creatures.
Contraras came in one afternoon in a very cheerful mood. She looked at
him eagerly. She could read his countenance pretty well by now.
"You have something to tell me, Contraras?"
The old man smiled. "Yes, my dear, I have got what we wanted. You can
walk in boldly. There will be no smuggling through the back door,
although we could have managed that, if the other had failed."
"Did you get it in the quarter you expected?"
"Yes; I had a little tussle with del Pineda, but I overcame his
scruples. Besides, he is considerably in my debt. I assured him that
he would never be accused of complicity, that I would take all the blame
on my own shoulders."
He rubbed his hands and chuckled softly.
"What does Contraras, a man of means and position, with powerful
connections in Spain, know of the secret sentiments of Mademoiselle
Delmonte, a charming young lady of wealth, whom he has met abroad?
Mademoiselle Delmonte asks for his good offices in a certain matter of a
most, apparently, innocent nature. He places himself at her disposal,
and secures what she wants through the agency of a certain Duke who is
equally ignorant of her real purposes."
A dreamy look stole into the young woman's eyes. She spoke in a low
voice, as if she were muttering to herself.
"A week to wait, only just one little week. And then, if all goes as we
think and hope--the dawn of the new era! But I shall not live to see
it."