DESERTERS.
In fact the doctors’ verdict was a hopeless one, though they thought
the end was as yet far off, and this brought some relief and even
hope to the anxious household. Time, whether future or past, is a
great consoler, and a misfortune postponed, like a misfortune long
past, is lost on the vague and distant horizon behind which lies the
wide realm of forgetfulness. The Tellería family settled down into
comparative ease of mind, and its members by degrees reserved their
usual tone and demeanour. Gustavo was elected and spent his days in
the Congress chamber. His mother, though she could not entirely throw
off the anxiety that weighed upon her, resumed that sweet expression
of bland conformity to the ways of the world, mixed with a certain
plaintive pietism which implied that she was, on the whole, resigned
to enjoy herself, and the futility of life filled up a large portion
of her time.
One morning Leon found her in a state of bewildered indecision,
contemplating a collection of summer hats that had come from a shop
in a large basket covered with oil-cloth; there was every variety
of headpiece conceived, month after month, by the ingenuity of the
French mind--birds’ nests buried in ears of corn and sparkling with
beetles, baskets piled up with tufts of moss, straw platters with
wild flowers, round helmets, formless mats cocked into corners,
saucepan-shaped erections with flat brims trimmed with hummingbirds,
turban hats wreathed with gauze veils, in short every extravagant and
absurd device that a milliner can create to tempt women to hasten
their husbands’ ruin. The marquesa examined them all, criticising
each with a sharp or a severe remark, as became a woman of superior
taste. Some she tried on before the glass, turning her head from side
to side to judge of the effects of shape and colour, and at last she
put them all back into the basket:
“I will not take any of them,” she said. “It is quite possible that
we may go to France and then I can get all I want there, as I have in
former years, and bring home something new, quite new--I will make it
all right with the Aduana (custom-house). Yes it is quite possible we
may go to France; you did not know, Leon?”
Leon with María and Luis Gonzaga had assisted at the review of the
hats, giving his opinion when it was asked. The conversation now
turned from the fashions to the custom-house duties. The twins sat
silent and sad, more particularly Luis, who kept his eyes fixed on
the flowers in the garden which was full of rhododendrons and lovely
pink-flowered azaleas.
“You did not know?” the lady repeated. “That wretched boy Leopoldo
is leaving us to-day. He is off to Biarritz with some other young
fellows--friends of his. I could not prevent him--I explained to
him that as we had all remained at home to be with Luis, he ought to
stay as well. He says that he requires sea-baths and gave no end of
reasons--he is taking advantage of the convenience of going with the
Duke de Ceriñola and Count de Garellano who have secured a saloon
carriage.”
On enquiring of a servant for Señor Polito they learnt that he was
breakfasting out, and that he intended to go straight from his
friend’s house to the station without coming home again. His packing
was done and his trunks locked. This extraordinary proceeding,
proving how much family and filial feeling her worthless son could
boast of, was a deep grief to the marquesa, who, with all her
follies, lacked neither tenderness nor the sense of right. Leopoldo,
she frankly admitted, had been shamefully ill-brought up--though by
no fault of hers--and was a hardened scapegrace, impervious to all
good feeling, and capable of leaving his family in the lurch in their
hour of greatest need if he saw a chance of riding a borrowed horse,
of driving a friend’s coach, or riding in a friend’s phaeton, of
being hand and glove with some sprig of the nobility or staking a few
dollars at cards.
The marquis, who had just come into the room in an elaborate
light-coloured spring suit, heard the news with the utter
indifference which some people assume as the very acme of good taste.
“It is natural,” he said, “boys must amuse themselves. They will
be men all in good time, with the ties and troubles of a social
position and public life, with rheumatism--for instance here am I,
in absolute need of repairs, and I shall be obliged to have them. My
doctor was quite furious when I told him I could not get away this
summer: ‘What!’ he exclaimed. ‘Señor Marqués! the head of a family
ought never to neglect his health. I condemn you to take baths; it is
a sentence without appeal!’ In short my dears--I set out to-morrow.”
His wife’s astonishment seemed to be caused by annoyance and
disappointment. All were to be free while she was to be a slave,
harnessed to the dreary round of a summer in Madrid.
“Our dear Luis,” the marquis went on, stroking his son’s cheek,
“gets better every day; I am not anxious about him; nothing will
do him so much good as rest. A summer in Madrid with his mother
at his side--how glad I should be to stay with you, but I am most
unlucky!--Several friends have begged me to share their carriage in
the train to-morrow.”
He stopped, finding himself alone with Leon; his wife and the twins
had left the room.
“It is really no fault of mine,” he went on as he walked up and down
the pretty drawing-room, crammed with a thousand costly trifles of
French exportation, tapestry, porcelain, furniture, and all the
expensive magnificence which fills our houses for lack of the real
works of art which are taken away from their proper place and use,
to be stored in museums by an æsthetic government.--“It is no fault
of mine; you can easily believe that I go very much against my
will. I am truly distressed at the levity of my two sons who have
deserted their father’s roof just when poor Milagros most needs
their society to cheer her and when Luis is so ill--for he is very
ill, it is of no use to deceive ourselves. I believe he will go on
getting worse; he may get through the autumn--but the winter.--In
any case the boys have behaved badly, very badly. Leopoldo is going
to-night and Gustavo to-morrow. I should not have thought it of
Gustavo--however, he is going, he is in love, over head and ears
in love. The Marquesa de San Salomó starts to-morrow for Arcachon,
Paris and le Havre; Gustavo accordingly is going northwards too and
the labels of his luggage are addressed for le Havre via Arcachon
and Paris--a very nice little journey. The marquesa is very pretty
and elegant, and Gustavo is very attractive--whether all they say is
true! who knows? I don’t believe a word of it. But there is no doubt
that Gustavo’s fiery eloquence and his fearless and vigorous defence
of the Church made a great sensation in the fashionable world. The
ladies’ seats were filled quite early with pretty faces under the
most elegant hats, and there was a constant murmur of discussion
and approval. And it is certainly the fact that women are among the
staunchest guardians of the time-honoured creed of our ancestors. Do
you hope to pervert the national conscience, you atheists? Then you
must begin by annihilating the fairer half of the human race.--The
truth is that Gustavo is an admirable speaker; his fervid language
moves the Chamber and delights the galleries. Then he has found a
congenial subject, a subject that speaks for itself--that appeals
to the feelings, to the heart, to all that is most sacred and
precious in the soul and which is altogether consonant to the spirit
of Castilian nobility. The Marquis de Fúcar said to me yesterday
with a knowing wink: ‘That young fellow has struck into the right
path’--and I replied: ‘Oh, yes! Gustavo knows where he is going--and
how to get there.’ He is so full of talent that, as my friend Don
Cayetano Polentinos said to me: ‘He is a perfect manual of hopes!’
Clever, good-looking, full of eager eloquence. However, I must own I
should have liked to see him with more family feeling. I leave home
because I absolutely need rest and health; but Gustavo.--Still, I can
understand the attractiveness of such a woman as the Marquesa de San
Salomó.--Yes, yes, I am coming. (This to a servant who had come in
to say that breakfast was getting cold.) Are you ready for breakfast
Leon? You too will be weighing anchor I suppose....”
The next day Leon went to see off his father-in-law and Gustavo,
who left by the same train though in different carriages and very
different society--both however with free passes due to the kindness
of some member on the Company’s board.
“I could not possibly put off this journey,” Gustavo said to his
brother-in-law, leading him away to the least crowded part of the
station. “If anything happens at home you will telegraph to me at
once.--Look, do you see that woman? I expected as much as soon as I
heard that my father was going away.--Do you see her?”
“Her--who?”
“Paca, Paquira--there she goes....” And among the crowd, above
which surged a mass of plumed and wreathed hats, with gaudy birds,
and blue and green veils shrouding pretty faces, like clouds, Leon
distinguished a young girl of pleasing appearance and elegantly
dressed, disputing with the guard for two seats in a carriage.
“And there is my father with two friends who are getting in with
them.--Now, I ask you--what can such folly lead to in a man who ought
to remember his age and his duties, the state of his household and
his own social position? That mania for remaining young is the ruin
of modern society.--Well, if you do not go away be as much as you
can with my mother and Luis. My mother has a soft heart and this
misfortune has come upon her like a warning from Heaven--a warning
that she should cease to regard this life as one long scene of
amusement. Will she take the lesson to heart? I fear not. She has
a kind heart but too weak a nature. I am furious when I see that
swindler Leopoldo getting money out of her. But that is just like
her--whatever he asks for she is ready to give him.--Ah, my father
has got into another compartment; he is in the next one, with his
friends. Well, so long as he saves us from any public scandal.
Good-bye; write to me, or send a telegram if anything happens.
Arcachon, Hotel Brisset--and then Paris, _poste restante_.”