FADED SPLENDOUR.
"Is this a prison or a palace?" was the mental inquiry of Lucius, as,
after again asking his way to the house of Don Alcala de Aguilera, he
reached the stately building, which was one of the numerous relics
which the Moors have left behind them in Seville. The high, dead,
fortress-like wall, suggested the former term; a glimpse through the
open archway of the dwelling, the latter. From this archway a
vestibule led into an inner court, from which it was divided by an
ornamental grating; this grating also being open at the time, nothing
impeded the view into the marble-paved patio beyond. This patio, or
court, was surrounded by clustering columns of the most graceful
proportions; while in the centre of it orange-trees and broad-leaved
bananas, the oleander and the myrtle, bordered a fountain of exquisite
design. The vestibule itself was paved with Moorish tiles, of hue the
most brilliant; and the exterior of the archway was gracefully
sculptured. The first impression made by a glance through the opening
was, that a scene of Oriental beauty and splendour lay beyond it. Had
Lucius had time for closer observation, he must have noticed also
marks of poverty and decay. Every here and there a bright tile in the
passage, and marble square in the patio, had been broken or
displaced--the carving on the fountain had in many places been
injured, and no water fell into its basin; but the plants in the
little central garden looked fresh and green in the softened light, as
if tended by a woman's hand. The aspect of the place, so unlike that
of any mansion in a northern clime, was calculated to raise admiration
and excite curiosity in the mind of a stranger, and waken a desire to
explore the interior, and make acquaintance with the dwellers in so
picturesque and romantic a home.
The appearance of the one whom Lucius saw at the entrance, however,
contrasted with the stately elegance of the mansion of which she was
an inmate. Chaffering with an itinerant vendor of fish stood an old
woman, wrinkled and bent. From her coarse dress, arms bare to the
elbow, and the strong scent of garlic which hung about her, the dame
might rather have been deemed a denizen of one of the low purlieus of
Seville, than the servant of an aristocrat. The old crone, who used
much gesticulation in speaking, was so eager about her bargaining that
she did not notice the approach of Lucius Lepine. The colloquy between
her and the hawker had probably lasted for some time, as both parties
looked heated and angry.
"Five cuartos a piece! why, I would not give twenty for the whole lot
of them; they're not fresh--not fit to set before the senora!" were
the first words heard by Lucius as he came up to the archway.
"I tell you again, they were alive and swimming this morning,"
interrupted the man.
"Don't you think I know good fish when I see them?" cried the
shrill-voiced dame. "I who have been for nigh sixty years in the
service of the illustrious caballero Don Pedro de Aguilera, his son,
and his grandson besides!"
"It's not the fish, but the price, that don't suit you," retorted the
hawker. "Come, you shall have them a bargain,--let's say nine cuartos
a pair."
"I'll give eight, and no more," cried the dame, eying the fish with a
hungry look, but clinching hard the coppers which she held in her
hand.
The hawker shook his head, and shouldered his basket.
"You'll lose the custom of the house," threatened the woman.
"No great loss," laughed the hawker, as he turned from the arch; "the
barber round the corner will buy all this fish, and he earns enough
with his razor to pay a fair price for his dinner!"
The torrent of abuse which the old dame launched after the retreating
hawker, was suddenly stopped by the question of Lucius,----
"Is Don Alcala de Aguilera within?"
Old Teresa was startled and annoyed at the preceding colloquy having
been overheard by a stranger. It was also wounding to her vanity as a
woman, and her pride as a retainer of a noble family, that she should
be seen in the deshabille in which she had emerged from the kitchen,
instead of the black silk dress in which she was wont to attend Donna
Inez to mass. In a tone of irritation Teresa replied that the
illustrious caballero was not in the house.
"Is he likely soon to come in?" inquired Lucius Lepine.
The servant did not know, or chose not to tell. The caballero came in
and out at his pleasure: he might be spending the evening at the
governor's palace, he might not be home till midnight. Teresa stood in
the middle of the archway like a jealous guardian of the place, who
would suffer the entrance of no stranger to disturb its dignified
seclusion. But the sound of Lepine's question had reached other ears
than those of Teresa.
"Alcala, is it you at last?" exclaimed a sweet, eager voice from
within; and Lucius caught a glimpse of a youthful form hurrying across
the patio with a rapidity very unusual in the movements of a lady of
Spain. It was indeed but a glimpse, for the donna, seeing that he at
the entrance was a stranger and not her expected brother, instantly
retreated, disappearing behind the foliage of the shrubs that
surrounded the fountain.
The young Englishman would fain have sent in his card, and presented
himself to the lady or ladies within, but shyness prevented his thus
making an attempt to enter the house without a formal introduction.
Lucius had seen little or nothing of society in the higher circles of
Seville, and feared to give offence by some unintentional breach of
its rules. The manner of Teresa would have shown a less intelligent
observer than Lucius, that she at least would have resented and
resisted as an intrusion any attempt on his part to venture within the
archway. A little disappointed at his failure in procuring an
interview with his friend, Lucius placed his card in the soiled,
wrinkled hand of Teresa, to be given to her master on his return. With
a lingering look through the vestibule into the beautiful patio
beyond, the Englishman quitted the place.
In a state of high irritation, Teresa hurried through the passage into
the court, taking care to close and lock the grating between them.
With the air of a duenna who, having grown gray in service, thinks
that she is privileged to say what she pleases, the old woman
approached her young lady.
Donna Inez, on a low marble seat, was bending over the work on which
she had been engaged when roused by hearing the voice of Lucius.
The work was that of decorating some garment of the gayest
description,--of bright green richly embroidered with silver, into
which Inez was fastening spangles of the same brilliant metal. A scarf
of the most vivid scarlet lay carelessly thrown across her knees. The
gay colouring of the work on which she was employed contrasted with
the black dress of the Spanish maiden; and she was pursuing her
occupation with anything but pleasure, if one might judge from the
gushing tears which ever and anon fell on her beautiful work.
"Donna Inez, Donna Inez! how could you do anything so unseemly?"
exclaimed old Teresa, giving vent to her irritation. "What would the
hidalgo Don Pedro de Aguilera have said, could he have seen his
grand-daughter, without so much as a veil on her head, rushing towards
an English stranger--a heretic, too!--with no more dignity than if she
were some wandering gitana?"
Inez raised her tear-swollen eyes, and there was no lack of dignity in
the tone of her gentle reply, "Methinks you forget your place,
Teresa."
"Forget!" repeated the old woman angrily; "I should remember well
enough, if I knew what is, or rather what is _not_, my place in this
house. Am I not doctor, sick-nurse, and attendant to the old senora,
and duenna to the young one; purveyor, keeper of stores, preparer of
meals, anything and everything here,--helped by no one but
bandy-legged Chico, who only serves the senor because no one else
thinks him worth the puchero[5] which he eats? Ah! it was very
different, child, in your grandfather's days, before the hated French
soldiers swarmed like wasps into Seville!"
Inez knew that poor old Teresa had entered on an inexhaustible theme
when she began to speak of the good old days before the occupation of
the city by the French in 1810. Teresa had been little more than a
child when she had entered the service of Donna Benita de Aguilera,
then a happy young wife and mother, but soon to be left a widow with
wrecked fortune and shattered mind. Her husband, Don Pedro, a wealthy
nobleman, and of the bluest blood in Spain, had joined the army raised
to repel the invader. The tidings of De Aguilera's death in fight had
reached his young wife at a time when French soldiers were quartered
in her house. The shock had weakened the lady's intellect; and though
she had lived on, was living on still in extreme old age, her
subsequent life had been but as a lengthened childhood.
The family fortune had also at that time received a blow from which it
had never recovered. Teresa was never weary of telling of the
treasures which Don Pedro once had possessed, services of silver
plate, and a splendid goblet of gold, and of the jewels of his
bride,--which, by her account, might have purchased half Andalusia.
Bitter were Teresa's invectives against the foreign robbers, who had
not only killed her master, but plundered his helpless widow and
orphan. Teresa had clung to the De Aguilera family in weal and in woe;
but age and adversity had rendered more irritable a temper not
naturally sweet; and having once dandled in her arms the father of
Inez, the old duenna always looked on his daughter as a mere child.
Teresa was as ready to chide as to serve the senorita; but the
retainer's long-tried fidelity made Inez tolerate from her what from
another she could not have borne.
Teresa now went rambling on with her reminiscences; but the mind of
Inez was so painfully preoccupied, that she took in the meaning of
nothing, and was only aware of the fact that the old woman was
speaking, by the babble of her voice distressing an ear intently
listening for the step of Alcala. The sun had sunk, and the first
faintly visible star shone over the patio, which was unprovided with
the awning commonly used in the courts of the wealthy to soften the
glare of a southern sky. Inez could no longer see to work; but her
labour was finished--the last silver spangle had been fixed on the
glossy green satin sleeve. The maiden sat listening, waiting, weeping,
till startled again by a sound at the entrance to the house, which
made her spring to her feet with the exclamation, "It is my brother at
last!"
FOOTNOTES:
[5] A kind of soup, common in Spain