“Yes, yes; I dare say they are. They sometimes have them silver gilt.”
“It is quite a common thing, then, isn’t it?” asked I.
“Well, not exactly; that---- Ah! yes; I see! of course. He is a torero.”
“A what?”
“A mayo. I will explain it all to you. You will see them about in all
places, and you will get used to them.”
“But I haven’t seen one other as yet.”
“No, and they are not all so gay as this, nor so new in their finery,
you know.”
“And what is a torero?”
“Well, a torero is a man engaged in bull-fighting.”
“Oh! he is a matador, is he?” said I, looking at him with more than all
my eyes.
“No, not exactly that;--not of necessity. He is probably a mayo. A
fellow that dresses himself smart for fairs, and will be seen hanging
about with the bull-fighters. What would be a sporting fellow in
England--only he won’t drink and curse like a low man on the turf there.
Come, shall we go and speak to him?”
“I can’t talk to him,” said I, diffident of my Spanish. I had received
lessons in England from Maria Daguilar; but six weeks is little enough
for making love, let alone the learning of a foreign language.
“Oh! I’ll do the talking. You’ll find the language easy enough before
long. It soon becomes the same as English to you, when you live among
them.” And then Johnson, walking up to the stranger, accosted him with
that good-natured familiarity with which a thoroughly nice fellow always
opens a conversation with his inferior. Of course I could not understand
the words which were exchanged; but it was clear enough that the “mayo”
took the address in good part, and was inclined to be communicative and
social.
“They are all of pure gold,” said Johnson, turning to me after a minute,
making as he spoke a motion with his head to show the importance of the
information.
“Are they indeed?” said I. “Where on earth did a fellow like that get
them?” Whereupon Johnson again returned to his conversation with the
man. After another minute he raised his hand, and began to finger the
button on the shoulder; and to aid him in doing so, the man of the
bull-ring turned a little on one side.
“They are wonderfully well made,” said Johnson, talking to me, and still
fingering the button. “They are manufactured, he says, at Osuna, and he
tells me that they make them better there than anywhere else.”
“I wonder what the whole set would cost?” said I. “An enormous deal of
money for a fellow like him, I should think!”
“Over twelve ounces,” said Johnson, having asked the question; “and that
will be more than forty pounds.”
“What an uncommon ass he must be!” said I.
As Johnson by this time was very closely scrutinising the whole set of
ornaments I thought I might do so also, and going up close to our
friend, I too began to handle the buttons and tags on the other side.
Nothing could have been more good-humoured than he was--so much so that
I was emboldened to hold up his arm that I might see the cut of his
coat, to take off his cap and examine the make, to stuff my finger in
beneath his sash, and at last to kneel down while I persuaded him to
hold up his legs that I might look to the clocking. The fellow was
thoroughly good-natured, and why should I not indulge my curiosity?
“You’ll upset him if you don’t take care,” said Johnson; for I had got
fast hold of him by one ankle, and was determined to finish the survey
completely.
“Oh, no, I shan’t,” said I; “a bull-fighting chap can surely stand on
one leg. But what I wonder at is, how on earth he can afford it!”
Whereupon Johnson again began to interrogate him in Spanish.
“He says he has got no children,” said Johnson, having received a reply,
“and that as he has nobody but himself to look after, he is able to
allow himself such little luxuries.”
“Tell him that I say he would be better with a wife and couple of
babies,” said I--and Johnson interpreted.
“He says that he’ll think of it some of these days, when he finds that
the supply of fools in the world is becoming short,” said Johnson.
We had nearly done with him now; but after regaining my feet, I
addressed myself once more to the heavy pendules, which hung down almost
under his arm. I lifted one of these, meaning to feel its weight
between my fingers; but unfortunately I gave a lurch, probably through
the motion of the boat, and still holding by the button, tore it almost
off from our friend’s coat.
“Oh, I am so sorry,” I said, in broad English.
“It do not matter at all,” he said, bowing, and speaking with equal
plainness. And then, taking a knife from his pocket, he cut the pendule
off, leaving a bit of torn cloth on the side of his jacket.
“Upon my word, I am quite unhappy,” said I; “but I always am so
awkward.” Whereupon he bowed low.
“Couldn’t I make it right?” said I, bringing out my purse.
He lifted his hand, and I saw that it was small and white; he lifted it
and gently put it upon my purse, smiling sweetly as he did so. “Thank
you, no, señor; thank you, no.” And then, bowing to us both, he walked
away down into the cabin.
“Upon my word he is a deuced well-mannered fellow,” said I.
“You shouldn’t have offered him money,” said Johnson; “a Spaniard does
not like it.”
“Why, I thought you could do nothing without money in this country.
Doesn’t every one take bribes?”
“Ah! yes; that is a different thing; but not the price of a button. By
Jove! he understood English, too. Did you see that?”
“Yes; and I called him an ass! I hope he doesn’t mind it.”
“Oh! no; he won’t think anything about it,” said Johnson. “That sort of
fellows don’t. I dare say we shall see him in the bull-ring next Sunday,
and then we’ll make all right with a glass of lemonade.”
And so our adventure ended with the man of the gold ornaments. I was
sorry that I had spoken English before him so heedlessly, and resolved
that I would never be guilty of such gaucherie again. But, then, who
would think that a Spanish bull-fighter would talk a foreign language? I
was sorry, also, that I had torn his coat; it had looked so awkward; and
sorry again that I had offered the man money. Altogether I was a little
ashamed of myself; but I had too much to look forward to at Seville to
allow any heaviness to remain long at my heart; and before I had arrived
at the marvellous city I had forgotten both him and his buttons.
Nothing could be nicer than the way in which I was welcomed at Mr.
Daguilar’s house, or more kind--I may almost say affectionate--than
Maria’s manner to me. But it was too affectionate; and I am not sure
that I should not have liked my reception better had she been more
diffident in her tone, and less inclined to greet me with open warmth.
As it was, she again gave me her cheek to kiss, in her father’s
presence, and called me dear John, and asked me specially after some
rabbits which I had kept at home merely for a younger sister; and then
it seemed as though she were in no way embarrassed by the peculiar
circumstances of our position. Twelve months since I had asked her to be
my wife, and now she was to give me an answer; and yet she was as
assured in her gait, and as serenely joyous in her tone, as though I
were a brother just returned from college. It could not be that she
meant to refuse me, or she would not smile on me and be so loving; but I
could almost have found it in my heart to wish that she would. “It is
quite possible,” said I to myself, “that I may not be found so ready for
this family bargain. A love that is to be had like a bale of goods is
not exactly the love to suit my taste.” But then, when I met her again
in the morning, I could no more have quarrelled with her than I could
have flown.
I was inexpressibly charmed with the whole city, and especially with the
house in which Mr. Daguilar lived. It opened from the corner of a
narrow, unfrequented street--a corner like an elbow--and, as seen from
the exterior, there was nothing prepossessing to recommend it; but the
outer door led by a short hall or passage to an inner door or grille,
made of open ornamental iron-work, and through that we entered a court,
or patio, as they called it. Nothing could be more lovely or deliciously
cool than was this small court. The building on each side was covered by
trellis-work; and beautiful creepers, vines, and parasite flowers, now
in the full magnificence of the early summer, grew up and clustered
round the windows. Every inch of wall was covered, so that none of the
glaring whitewash wounded the eye, In the four corners of the patio were
four large orange-trees, covered with fruit. I would not say a word in
special praise of these, remembering that childish promise she had made
on my behalf. In the middle of the court there was a fountain, and round
about on the marble floor there were chairs, and here and there a small
table, as though the space were really a portion of the house. It was
here that we used to take our cup of coffee and smoke our cigarettes, I
and old Mr. Daguilar, while Maria sat by, not only approving, but
occasionally rolling for me the thin paper round the fragrant weed with
her taper fingers. Beyond the patio was an open passage or gallery,
filled also with flowers in pots; and then, beyond this, one entered the
drawing-room of the house. It was by no means a princely palace or
mansion, fit for the owner of untold wealth. The rooms were not over
large nor very numerous; but the most had been made of a small space,
and everything had been done to relieve the heat of an almost tropical
sun.
“It is pretty, is it not?” she said, as she took me through it.
“Very pretty,” I said. “I wish we could live in such houses.”
“Oh, they would not do at all for dear old fat, cold, cozy England. You
are quite different, you know, in everything from us in the south; more
phlegmatic, but then so much steadier. The men and the houses are all
the same.”
I can hardly tell why, but even this wounded me. It seemed to me as
though she were inclined to put into one and the same category things
English, dull, useful, and solid; and that she was disposed to show a
sufficient appreciation for such necessaries of life, though she herself
had another and inner sense--a sense keenly alive to the poetry of her
own southern clime; and that I, as being English, was to have no
participation in this latter charm. An English husband might do very
well, the interests of the firm might make such an arrangement
desirable, such a mariage de convenance--so I argued to myself--might be
quite compatible with--with heaven only knows what delights of
super-terrestial romance, from which I, as being an English thick-headed
lump of useful coarse mortality, was to be altogether debarred. She had
spoken to me of oranges, and having finished the survey of the house,
she offered me some sweet little cakes. It could not be that of such
things were the thoughts which lay undivulged beneath the clear waters
of those deep black eyes--undivulged to me, though no one else could
have so good a right to read those thoughts! It could not be that that
noble brow gave index of a mind intent on the trade of which she spoke
so often! Words of other sort than any that had been vouchsafed to me
must fall at times from the rich curves of that perfect mouth.
So felt I then, pining for something to make me unhappy. Ah, me! I know
all about it now, and am content. But I wish that some learned pundit
would give us a good definition of romance, would describe in words that
feeling with which our hearts are so pestered when we are young, which
makes us sigh for we know not what, and forbids us to be contented with
what God sends us. We invest female beauty with impossible attributes,
and are angry because our women have not the spiritualised souls of
angels, anxious as we are that they should also be human in the flesh. A
man looks at her he would love as at a distant landscape in a
mountainous land. The peaks are glorious with more than the beauty of
earth and rock and vegetation. He dreams of some mysterious grandeur of
design which tempts him on under the hot sun, and over the sharp rock,
till he has reached the mountain goal which he had set before him. But
when there, he finds that the beauty is well-nigh gone, and as for that
delicious mystery on which his soul had fed, it has vanished for ever.
I know all about it now, and am, as I said, content. Beneath those deep
black eyes there lay a well of love, good, honest, homely love, love of
father and husband and children that were to come--of that love which
loves to see the loved ones prospering in honesty. That noble brow--for
it is noble; I am unchanged in that opinion, and will go unchanged to my
grave--covers thoughts as to the welfare of many, and an intellect
fitted to the management of a household, of servants, namely, and
children, and perchance a husband. That mouth can speak words of wisdom,
of very useful wisdom--though of poetry it has latterly uttered little
that was original. Poetry and romance! They are splendid mountain views
seen in the distance. So let men be content to see them, and not attempt
to tread upon the fallacious heather of the mystic hills.
In the first week of my sojourn in Seville I spoke no word of overt love
to Maria, thinking, as I confess, to induce her thereby to alter her
mode of conduct to myself. “She knows that I have come here to make love
to her--to repeat my offer; and she will at any rate be chagrined if I
am slow to do so.” But it had no effect. At home my mother was rather
particular about her table, and Maria’s greatest efforts seemed to be
used in giving me as nice dinners as we gave her. In those days I did
not care a straw about my dinner, and so I took an opportunity of
telling her. “Dear me,” said she, looking at me almost with grief, “do
you not? What a pity! And do you not like music either?” “Oh, yes, I
adore it,” I replied. I felt sure at the time that had I been born in
her own sunny clime, she would never have talked to me about eating. But
that was my mistake.
I used to walk out with her about the city, seeing all that is there of
beauty and magnificence. And in what city is there more that is worth
the seeing? At first this was very delightful to me, for I felt that I
was blessed with a privilege that would not be granted to any other man.
But its value soon fell in my eyes, for others would accost her, and
walk on the other side, talking to her in Spanish, as though I hardly
existed, or were a servant there for her protection. And I was not
allowed to take her arm, and thus to appropriate her, as I should have
done in England. “No, John,” she said, with the sweetest, prettiest
smile, “we don’t do that here; only when people are married.” And she
made this allusion to married life out, openly, with no slightest tremor
on her tongue.
“Oh, I beg pardon,” said I, drawing back my hand, and feeling angry with
myself for not being fully acquainted with all the customs of a foreign
country.
“You need not beg pardon,” said she; “when we were in England we always
walked so. It is just a custom, you know.” And then I saw her drop her
large dark eyes to the ground, and bow gracefully in answer to some
salute.
I looked round, and saw that we had been joined by a young cavalier,--a
Spanish nobleman, as I saw at once; a man with jet black hair, and a
straight nose, and a black moustache, and patent leather boots, very
slim and very tall, and--though I would not confess it then--uncommonly
handsome. I myself am inclined to be stout, my hair is light, my nose
broad, I have no hair on my upper lip, and my whiskers are rough and
uneven. “I could punch your head though, my fine fellow,” said I to
myself, when I saw that he placed himself at Maria’s side, “and think
very little of the achievement.”
The wretch went on with us round the plaza for some quarter of an hour
talking Spanish with the greatest fluency, and she was every whit as
fluent. Of course I could not understand a word that they said. Of all
positions that a man can occupy, I think that that is about the most
uncomfortable; and I cannot say that, even up to this day, I have quite
forgiven her for that quarter of an hour.
“I shall go in,” said I, unable to bear my feelings, and preparing to
leave her. “The heat is unendurable.”
“Oh dear, John, why did you not speak before?” she answered. “You cannot
leave me here, you know, as I am in your charge; but I will go with you
almost directly.” And then she finished her conversation with the
Spaniard, speaking with an animation she had never displayed in her
conversations with me.
It had been agreed between us for two or three days before this, that we
were to rise early on the following morning for the sake of ascending
the tower of the cathedral, and visiting the Giralda, as the iron
figure is called, which turns upon a pivot on the extreme summit. We had
often wandered together up and down the long dark gloomy aisle of the
stupendous building, and had, together, seen its treasury of art; but as
yet we had not performed the task which has to be achieved by all
visitors to Seville; and in order that we might have a clear view over
the surrounding country, and not be tormented by the heat of an advanced
sun, we had settled that we would ascend the Giralda before breakfast.
And now, as I walked away from the plaza towards Mr. Daguilar’s house,
with Maria by my side, I made up my mind that I would settle my business
during this visit to the cathedral. Yes, and I would so manage the
settlement that there should be no doubt left as to my intentions and my
own ideas. I would not be guilty of shilly-shally conduct; I would tell
her frankly what I felt and what I thought, and would make her
understand that I did not desire her hand if I could not have her heart.
I did not value the kindness of her manner, seeing that that kindness
sprung from indifference rather than passion; and so I would declare to
her. And I would ask her, also, who was this young man with whom she was
intimate--for whom all her volubility and energy of tone seemed to be
employed? She had told me once that it behoved her to consult a friend
in Seville as to the expediency of her marriage with me. Was this the
friend whom she had wished to consult? If so, she need not trouble
herself. Under such circumstances I should decline the connection! And I
resolved that I would find out how this might be. A man who proposes to
take a woman to his bosom as his wife, has a right to ask for
information--ay, and to receive it too. It flashed upon my mind at this
moment that Donna Maria was well enough inclined to come to me as my
wife, but----. I could hardly define the “buts” to myself, for there
were three or four of them. Why did she always speak to me in a tone of
childish affection, as though I were a schoolboy home for the holidays?
I would have all this out with her on the tower on the following
morning, standing under the Giralda.
On that morning we met together in the patio, soon after five o’clock,
and started for the cathedral. She looked beautiful, with her black
mantilla over her head, and with black gloves on, and her black morning
silk dress--beautiful, composed, and at her ease, as though she were
well satisfied to undertake this early morning walk from feelings of
good nature--sustained, probably, by some under-current of a deeper
sentiment. Well; I would know all about it before I returned to her
father’s house.
There hardly stands, as I think, on the earth, a building more
remarkable than the cathedral of Seville, and hardly one more grand. Its
enormous size; its gloom and darkness; the richness of ornamentation in
the details, contrasted with the severe simplicity of the larger
outlines; the variety of its architecture; the glory of its paintings;
and the wondrous splendour of its metallic decoration, its
altar-friezes, screens, rails, gates, and the like, render it, to my
mind, the first in interest among churches. It has not the coloured
glass of Chartres, or the marble glory of Milan, or such a forest of
aisles as Antwerp, or so perfect a hue in stone as Westminster, nor in
mixed beauty of form and colour does it possess anything equal to the
choir of Cologne; but, for combined magnificence and awe-compelling
grandeur, I regard it as superior to all other ecclesiastical edifices.
It is its deep gloom with which the stranger is so greatly struck on his
first entrance. In a region so hot as the south of Spain, a cool
interior is a main object with the architect, and this it has been
necessary to effect by the exclusion of light; consequently the church
is dark, mysterious, and almost cold. On the morning in question, as we
entered, it seemed to be filled with gloom, and the distant sound of a
slow footstep here and there beyond the transept inspired one almost
with awe. Maria, when she first met me, had begun to talk with her usual
smile, offering me coffee and a biscuit before I started. “I never eat
biscuit,” I said, with almost a severe tone, as I turned from her. That
dark, horrid man of the plaza--would she have offered him a cake had she
been going to walk with him in the gloom of the morning? After that
little had been spoken between us. She walked by my side with her
accustomed smile; but she had, as I flattered myself, begun to learn
that I was not to be won by a meaningless good nature. “We are lucky in
our morning for the view!” that was all she said, speaking with that
peculiarly clear, but slow pronunciation which she had assumed in
learning our language.
We entered the cathedral, and, walking the whole length of the aisle,
left it again at the porter’s porch at the farther end. Here we passed
through a low door on to the stone flight of steps, and at once began to
ascend. “There are a party of your countrymen up before us,” said Maria;
“the porter says that they went through the lodge half an hour since.”
“I hope they will return before we are on the top,” said I, bethinking
myself of the task that was before me. And indeed my heart was hardly
at ease within me, for that which I had to say would require all the
spirit of which I was master.
The ascent to the Giralda is very long and very fatiguing; and we had to
pause on the various landings and in the singular belfry in order that
Miss Daguilar might recruit her strength and breath. As we rested on one
of these occasions, in a gallery which runs round the tower below the
belfry, we heard a great noise of shouting, and a clattering of sticks
among the bells. “It is the party of your countrymen who went up before
us,” said she. “What a pity that Englishmen should always make so much
noise!” And then she spoke in Spanish to the custodian of the bells, who
is usually to be found in a little cabin up there within the tower. “He
says that they went up shouting like demons,” continued Maria; and it
seemed to me that she looked as though I ought to be ashamed of the name
of an Englishman. “They may not be so solemn in their demeanour as
Spaniards,” I answered; “but, for all that, there may be quite as much
in them.”
We then again began to mount, and before we had ascended much farther we
passed my three countrymen. They were young men, with gray coats and
gray trousers, with slouched hats, and without gloves. They had fair
faces and fair hair, and swung big sticks in their hands, with crooked
handles. They laughed and talked loud, and, when we met them, seemed to
be racing with each other; but nevertheless they were gentlemen. No one
who knows by sight what an English gentleman is, could have doubted
that; but I did acknowledge to myself that they should have remembered
that the edifice they were treading was a church, and that the silence
they were invading was the cherished property of a courteous people.
“They are all just the same as big boys,” said Maria. The colour
instantly flew into my face, and I felt that it was my duty to speak up
for my own countrymen. The word “boys” especially wounded my ears. It
was as a boy that she treated me; but, on looking at that befringed
young Spanish Don--who was not, apparently, my elder in age--she had
recognised a man. However, I said nothing further till I reached the
summit. One cannot speak with manly dignity while one is out of breath
on a staircase.
“There, John,” she said, stretching her hands away over the fair plain
of the Guadalquivir, as soon as we stood against the parapet; “is not
that lovely?”
I would not deign to notice this. “Maria,” I said, “I think, that you
are too hard upon my countrymen?”