LATET ANGUIS.
In the course of that afternoon Don Pedro Fúcar had invited Doña
Pilar de San Salomó--whom we have seen looking on at the interesting
spectacle of her friend swallowing an ice in the Chinese boudoir--to
go round the hot-houses with him, and cast a glance, by the way, at
the English horses he had just had sent to him from a famous stable
in London. The worthy money-dealer, the “product of his century,” the
noble who derived his patent, not indeed from battles against the
Moors, but at any rate from contracts with good Christians, was well
aware of the small estimation in which he was held by Pilar. Still,
not content with having the exchequer of both hemispheres at his feet,
he was very anxious to stand in the good graces of the initiated,
so he overwhelmed his guest with attentions and civilities. Besides
displaying with more than usual zeal all the splendours of Suertebella,
he presented to her some of the treasures it contained: exotic flowers
in costly vases, rare fruits, and, to crown all, some sacred relics
from the altars in his chapel. With all his habits of politeness the
moneyed magnate could not conceal that each gift cost him a greater
pang than the last, and at length so far forgot himself as to sigh
deeply, gazing at the ground, as though he might there see written in
mysterious characters--like the binomial theorem on Newton’s tomb--the
formula of a bargain or a loan which might bring the very earth we
dwell on into the money safe of the Fúcars.
The lady, misinterpreting this disturbance of mind, ascribed it to the
day’s events, to Pepa’s painful and compromising position, and the
unexpected presence of Leon Roch and his wife. Satisfied that she was
on the right scent, Pilar, as they returned to the house, expressed her
thanks for all her host’s attentions, and added:
“And your kindness is all the more striking when I reflect that you
must just now be greatly troubled by all these rumours.”
“And such rumours!” exclaimed Don Pedro with tragic emphasis. “You
cannot imagine!... You may fancy what they must be to make this
mountain quake!” And he laid his hand on his breast to indicate that
even that rock had its hidden springs of sentiment.
At five o’clock Don Pedro took his leave, after once more placing the
house and all it contained at the service of the Tellerias. He himself
went to Madrid to dine with his daughter, and was not to return till
the next morning. Still, if anything serious required his presence he
would come at any hour of the night. Happily María was much better
and would no doubt recover. After greeting Gustavo, who had but just
arrived, having been delayed by his parliamentary duties and the
responsibilities of his office, he left the house.
Pilar also had intended starting for Madrid, but she was detained by
Gustavo who was very anxious to tell her Heaven knows what; however,
the lady listened to him eagerly, and with the keenest enjoyment of
some stupendous piece of gossip of very doubtful taste, but which
gratified her curiosity and her malice. They walked out together in the
garden, Pilar exclaiming from time to time with a peal of laughter:
“It is like a practical joke which at the same time is a kick or a
beating! It is one of those providential dispensations which make the
victim cry and every one else laugh. But in this case there is no call
for pity or sympathy. Merciful Heaven! What a great man you are and how
unfailingly ready to help every one! Why, you intercept the progress
of evil by arranging things as cleverly as a novel writer, giving us a
surprise that is positively alarming--but a surprise that compels us to
turn to you and cry out: ‘Lord have mercy! Give us warning before you
strike!’”
This profane sally was followed by another burst of laughter; then she
said saucily:
“I shall go there.”
“You!--what for?”
“I should like to see their faces,” said Pilar stuffing her
handkerchief into her mouth; and she wiped the tip of her tongue as the
tip of a weapon is polished after being dipped in poison. “I will find
some pretext.”
It was dusk by the time Pilar called for her carriage; she ordered the
coachman to drive her to the Fúcar’s house in Madrid.
She went in. Don Pedro and his daughter were just sitting down to
dinner with Don Onésimo and Doña Vera. Fúcar invited Pilar to join
them, but she excused herself, saying that she had only just time to
give them the good news of which she was the bearer. She kissed Pepa,
she gave her hand to Onésimo and then began to pet Monina.
“What is it?” asked Don Pedro.
“That María is really almost well again. And it is quite certain that a
reconciliation would be effected--Milagros herself told me so. I am so
glad! I cannot bear marriages that turn out badly.--My little Monina,
will you not give me a kiss?”
“No,” said Monina decidedly, turning away and covering her face with
her little hands.
“Oh, silly, cruel child!”
“I do not love you....”
Repulsed on this quarter Pilar turned to Pepa, and glancing at her
compassionately she said:
“Good-bye dear ... you know I feel deeply for all your troubles.”
She rustled out on Don Pedro’s arm, whispering a few words in his ear
which had the effect of a pistol-shot. As she parted from him at the
carriage door, the lady fired a parting shot.
“I wished to warn you, that you might be on your guard. Resignation,
Señor Marqués, Christian submission is what is wanting.”
Pepa meanwhile, lost in painful meditation, did not know what to
think nor to what possible issue to look. Her spirit was torn by dark
presentiments and wild conjectures. This news of a reconciliation had
pierced her soul like a three-edged blade.
The quartette sat gloomily enough through the meal; to Pepa food was
a nauseous mixture that she simply could not swallow, and her father
hardly eat anything either. In the midst of her utter misery, Pepa, who
had noticed her father’s strange look of worry and vexation since the
day before, saw that this evening he was almost beside himself. Don
Joaquin too, the partner of all the marquis’ secrets was irritable;
what was happening?
“Ah!” said Pepa to herself, seizing on a notion sad enough in itself
but at this moment a happy one for her; “My father must have suffered
some great reverse of fortune; he is ruined perhaps, we shall be
beggars.”
This idea, gloomy as it was, comforted her. Her father’s melancholy,
in that case, had nothing to do with her personal griefs. What did she
care for other interests, for all the money, all the bonds, all the
securities, all the loans past, present or to come? That evening, Pepa
might have passed close to all the stamped paper in the world piled up
in a heap and set fire to on all four sides at once, and she would not
even have cast a glance at the ruin.
After dinner, and when their friends had left them, Pepa and Don Pedro
withdrew to the room where Monina slept just as the little angel,
despoiled of her clothes, was being put into the rosy paradise of
innocent dreams. Don Pedro took his grandchild in his arms, and kissing
her with even more tenderness than usual, said:
“Poor little dove! you shall never fall into the clutches of that
vulture!”
“What is the matter Papa?--What is the matter?” exclaimed Pepa, adding
her more urgent embrace to the soft clasp of Monina’s arms round the
marquis’ bull-neck.
“Nothing, my child. Nothing. Do not be uneasy, do not let yourself be
agitated; trust in me, and I will put everything right.”
“But will not you explain to me?...”
“Certainly not.”
“Has anything gone wrong in your business?”
“No my pet, no,” said Fúcar repelling this conjecture with some
indignation as casting a reflection on his dignity as a man of business.
“I have made ten millions clear by the last loan. Divest your mind at
once of such a dismal idea!”
“But then....”
“It is nothing; do not worry yourself. Sleep peacefully and leave it to
me to put everything right.”
“And you are going out?” said Pepa disconsolately, as her father
disengaged himself from the loving arms that held him.
“Yes, I have something I must attend to this evening. The Minister of
Finance expects me. This miserable country does not find the last loan
enough--it wants another.”
“I am really most uneasy. What was it that Pilar said to you?”
“To me? nothing,” said the marquis a little awkwardly. “Nothing but
what you heard.”
“She whispered something.”
“No--at least I do not remember it. The reconciliation of our friend
Leon with poor María seems to be a settled thing--that was all. I
am glad, for it is altogether wrong that two persons of the highest
character--a good husband and a good wife--should quarrel about a Mass
more or less. It is perfect insanity.--Good-bye sweet-heart.”
“Reconciliation!” exclaimed Pepa with flashing eyes.
The marquis, who did not happen to see her at this instant, took a few
steps towards the door.
“Let us be thankful that those who are good can be brought together
again,” he murmured as he left the room. “But for the wicked there can
be neither peace nor pardon.--May God forgive him!”
Pepa was about to speak, but the words on her lips were so tempestuous
that she restrained herself. She sat a long time without stirring.
Then she grew restless, walked up and down the room, called her maid,
gave some orders, contradicted them, scolded the nurse, and wandered
aimlessly about the house.
When Monina was fairly asleep Pepa locked herself into her own room:
beyond a doubt some mystery was in the air, filling it with an electric
tension that could be felt though not seen. But every human soul
tormented by a crushing grief is disposed to imagine that the unknown
woes of others must be of a similar character, and Pepa believed that
her father’s uneasiness must be in some way akin to her own sorrows,
or at any rate that their griefs had a common origin. The magnitude of
her own misery blinded her to every other; she could not think that any
living soul could be troubled by another cause than this dreaded truce
between Leon and María which had been so abruptly announced.
No arguments to prove that the source of our anguish may be a lie have
any effect in extracting the sting; on the contrary, a syllogism is
the worst forceps in the world and when it is applied to extract only
a thorn it seems to increase the smart a hundred-fold. Pepa, when she
tried to convince herself that Pilar’s information was a fiction, only
tortured herself the more. This reconciliation racked her as though a
harrow were being dragged over her bleeding heart.
It was growing late, and Don Pedro, she knew, would not come till
morning. His benevolence and liberality maintained more than one house
in Madrid besides his own.
An idea had entered Pepa’s head, and she did not hesitate to carry it
out. She drove to Suertebella, crept into the house through the museum
and the _Incroyable_ drawing-room, whence she made her way through the
long suites of apartments to the room she wanted to reach. As we have
seen she realised her project; with regard to its issue we can only beg
the reader to have patience and read on.