AN UNPARDONABLE WRONG.
The visits of Lucius to the house of Alcala were repeated on many
successive evenings, to the great annoyance of Teresa, who both
suspected and feared the stranger. Inez did not share the old
servant's displeasure. She saw that the society of the Englishman made
her brother strangely happy, as they studied together that marvellous
Book, of which Alcala spoke to her so often. Inez rather regretted
when she found that there would be a break in intercourse which was so
greatly enjoyed, Lucius having to go to Madrid on some mercantile
business in the latter part of September.
* * * * *
"Here, I have spent all, to the last maravedi,"[15] muttered old
Teresa, as she returned one Friday from market, laden with a basket
heavy with various provisions for the household: some bread, a flask
of oil (indispensable in a Spanish kitchen), a string of onions,
saffron for soup, a melon, chestnuts, oranges, and olives. Meat was a
luxury rarely tasted in the palace of the Aguileras. Wearily the old
woman set down the basket on the kitchen table, on which Inez, with
her delicate hands, was preparing her grandmother's cup of chocolate.
"I have satisfied the surgeon, as you desired, senorita," said Teresa,
"and have bought these things with what remained of the twenty dollars
which you gave me."
"You have laid out the dollars well, Teresa," said the maiden
graciously to her ungracious retainer; "I knew that you would do the
best that you could with the money."
"I wish that I knew where that money came from," said Teresa, her
sharp eyes surveying her young mistress with a keen look of suspicion.
As Inez never quitted the house unescorted by her duenna, and Teresa
had not once been asked to attend the senorita--except to mass--since
Alcala had received his wound, it had been a matter of curious
speculation to the old servant how the lady had suddenly become
possessed of twenty dollars, which seemed to her a very large sum.
Inez made no reply to the observation, but went on with her
occupation. This only served to intensify the curiosity of Teresa.
"I hope that those dollars were not given to the senorita by that
heretic Inglesito," hissed forth the old woman, as she rested her bony
knuckles on the table, and leant forward to peer more closely into the
face of Inez.
"You know well that Spanish ladies accept no money from cavaliers,"
replied Inez, with a heightened colour on her cheek and some
displeasure in her tone. "I had the dollars from Donna Maria de Rivas;
she was here yesterday, as you are perfectly aware."
Teresa did not look by any means satisfied with the reply; perhaps she
was too well acquainted with the family friend to deem her capable of
an act of free liberality. The old woman still sharply surveyed her
mistress as she observed, "I cannot abide that Donna Maria; she speaks
the thing which is false."
"Teresa!" Inez began reprovingly; but the old domestic tyrant would
have out her say.
"I heard this very morning that Donna Maria boasts that she possesses
a silver reliquary holding a lock of the blessed Santa Veronica's
hair" (here Teresa crossed herself devoutly), "a reliquary once
belonging to Philip the Second, our most Catholic king,--the saints
have his soul in their keeping!"
Inez moved from the table; the flush on her cheek had deepened to
crimson. The duenna presumed to lay her hand on her young lady's arm
to detain her.
"You know, senorita, that there is not a lock of that saint's hair to
be found in all Spain, from Navarre to Andalusia, save that one which
King Philip himself gave to your noble ancestor, Senor Don Amadeo de
Aguilera."
Inez tried to release her arm, but the pressure of the old woman's
hand had tightened into a gripe as she continued, after a pause: "You
would not have me imagine that a descendant of that illustrious
caballero, that a daughter of the house of Aguilera, has sold the
priceless relic for twenty dollars?" The question could not have been
asked with more pious horror, had it regarded the tombs containing the
bones of all the maiden's noble ancestors.
Inez, in her position of helpless poverty, could not throw off that
most intolerable yoke, the tyranny of an ill-tempered old duenna, who
knew herself to be indispensable, because her place could not be
supplied by another. Teresa considered that years of almost unpaid
service had given her the privilege of being as insolent as she
pleased to her gentle young mistress. On the present occasion Teresa
used--or abused--that privilege to the utmost.
"I would not have exchanged that precious relic," she cried, "for the
Golden Rose which his Holiness the Pope has sent to our queen! I'd
have begged--starved--thrown myself into the river--before I'd have
sold it for money! The glory of the house of De Aguilera is gone for
ever! The curse of the saints is upon us!" And Teresa, relaxing her
hold on Inez, burst into a flood of passionate tears.
Inez was not herself sufficiently free from a superstitious regard for
relics, not to be distressed and even somewhat alarmed at seeing the
light in which her act was viewed by the old duenna.
"We were in debt--in need," she said softly; "I hope that the blessed
saint herself would forgive what I did for the sake of a brother."
"The saint may--but I cannot!" exclaimed Teresa, hastily drying her
eyes, and then bursting out of the kitchen. Her anger, if the truth
must be told, sprang quite as much from her pride as from her
devotion. To have it noised about in the market-place of Seville that
the reliquary of King Philip, the heirloom of the Aguileras, had
actually been sold to purchase food,--this was even worse to the old
retainer of the family than the fear of offending Santa Veronica.
Inez stood for some moments with drooping head and downcast eyes. Had
she indeed, the poor girl asked herself, done something that might
draw down on herself and her family the wrath of the saints?
"Perhaps I should first have consulted my brother," thought Inez;
"though the reliquary was my own, the gift of my father. I should have
done so, had not most of the money which I received been required to
pay the surgeon to whose skill we owe so much. But I should not have
trusted my own judgment; I am but a weak, foolish girl. As soon as I
have carried this chocolate to my grandmother, I will go and confess
the truth to Alcala. He may condemn my act, but I am sure that he at
least will forgive it."
FOOTNOTES:
[15] A coin of less than a farthing's value.