AN IRRUPTION OF THE BARBARIANS; ALARIC, ATTILA, AND OMAR.
“Now then, Facunda, make haste, Señor Don Leon will be in soon from
his ride and he will be put out if his room is not done. Though,
Lord knows, he is never put out! A better man never was born. ‘Good
day, Facunda; have you fed your poultry? And Señor Trompeta, how is
he?’--‘Pretty well, thank you Señor Don Leon!’--And that is all we
have to say to each other. Well, well ... and only yesterday Trompeta
was saying there must be two hundred books here; more like two
thousand! Señor Don Leon Roch--it is a queer common sort of name--as
common as ours.--Every time he goes to Madrid, he brings back a whole
carriage full of books and then he makes these pictures. Señor Don
Leon, I wish you would tell me what is the use of them? They are
pretty too. Red and green lines, and spots, and splashes of every
colour. Now if I could only read I might know all about it, for here,
at the edge, there are letters and words scribbled....
“But come, woman! What are you about Facunda, gaping and dawdling
like a booby? Make haste and sweep and clear up before the master
comes. Then you can go down to the kitchen and eat the slice of ham
that is frizzling in the pan; and then take a turn in the sun!”
The speaker was Dame Facunda Trompeta, whose habit it was to talk
to herself whenever she was alone, addressing herself by name and
praising or scolding herself in turns. Even when she did not actually
express herself in words she did by gesture and grimace. She was the
happy wife of José Trompeta, a worthy coal merchant of Madrid, who,
having made a humble fortune by his trade, had retired to Carabanchel
to spend the rest of his days in peace. No life could in fact be more
peaceful and quiet than that of these two childless old folks. They
were both easy-tempered creatures and took affectionate care of each
other in their old age, with a kindly and respectful tenderness that
defied the chill of advancing years. They had bought the little house
of which they occupied the ground floor, letting the upper part at
a fair profit to some of the swarming families of the city who fled
from the whooping-cough or the measles.
In the beginning of April these rooms had been taken by a gentleman,
who had previously been very often to the great house of Suertebella
and who seemed to be a man of distinguished education, though he
hardly ever laughed and spoke as rarely as possible. The room Leon
had taken was spacious but bare; it might have been a prior’s cell,
lofty, airy and old-fashioned. From the windows to the east the trees
of Vista Alegre were visible in the distance, and in the foreground
the park of Suertebella; between this and the Trompeta’s little
court-yard, there was a gate in the wall, which almost always stood
open. To the west lay the picturesque road through Upper Carabanchel
with the park of La Montija, and the blue undulations and green
levels of a country which, from March till the beginning of June, is
not without a charm of its own. Out of this large room, which served
as drawing-room, dining-room and study, opened a bed-room and two
other tiny rooms, in one of which his servant slept. A few articles
of furniture brought from Madrid, with books, geological specimens,
prints, maps, an easel with paints and portfolios, a microscope, some
geological hammers, a simple chemical apparatus for analysis by
evaporation and the blow-pipe, filled the large room.
“There, now your room is ready and you can come in as soon as you
like,” said Facunda dropping into the student’s arm-chair; “you
cannot complain of my having turned your things topsy-turvy.” For the
worthy woman not only talked to herself, but addressed remarks to the
absent. “And tell me, Señor Don Leon, if you please, is it true that
formerly you used to go to dine frequently at Suertebella? Though you
now go there very seldom it strikes me that you admire the Señorita
Marquesa more than enough. She is so rich that her not being handsome
does not matter. You keep away from the great house at present
because she is in mourning. I know, I know what you fine folks
are!...” And Facunda paused, for she not only addressed her invisible
interlocutors but imagined their answers. It was not a harangue but a
discussion.
“What do you say? I am talking nonsense? Is it not a fact that you
are sweet upon the lady? All that courting of the child, what does
that mean; you may talk--San Blas! but if you were not a married
man.... However, you fine gentlemen are not so very particular. Don’t
talk to me; I was in service for twenty years with a countess, and
I could tell you things!... But come, come, Facunda, what are you
doing idling here? Stir about, woman, trot round. You have not got
the _puchero_ on yet.... Hark! what is that? What a noise, who can it
be?”
On the stairs there was a clatter of baby laughter and the busy
patter of little feet. Monina, Tachana and Guru, after playing in the
grounds, had wandered into the cow-yard and through the gate into the
Trompetas’ little plot, and finding themselves there they had set
their hearts on a regular exploration of the house, Monina’s nurse
following in their wake.
We have already made acquaintance with Monina, but Tachana and Guru
are strangers. Tachana, a young person of three, was the daughter
of the bailiff at Suertebella, Catalina by name, with a sweet
little face and a shy, quiet manner; she was Ramona’s companion
in all her games, and though they quarrelled on an average three
times an hour--not unfrequently fighting like infant furies--they
were the best friends in the world, and either of them would cry
bitterly if the other were threatened with punishment. It is easy to
understand how, by the process of transformation that words undergo
in baby mouths, Catalina or Catana had become Tachana, what is less
intelligible is how a boy christened Lorenzo, came to be called Guru;
but so it was, and even stranger travesties of names have been known.
Guru, who was Tachana’s brother, was nearly six, he was as grave and
demure as his sister, an unusually thoughtful but a fine, handsome
boy, and the pride of his father--with a sweetheart, and a watch,
and a little great coat, and a stick--and he always spoke of the two
younger children as ‘the girls.’
“Facunda,” said the voice of the nurse from below, “the locusts are
upon you. Mind, they do no mischief.”
They rushed up in a crowd, Monina skipping and dancing, Tachana
walking with much dignity with a shawl tied round her waist for a
train, while Guru gave himself the airs of the father of a family,
warning them to be careful and well behaved.
“Why here is my little day-star!” cried Facunda, snatching up Monina
and covering her with kisses. Ramona kicked with all the strength of
her little legs, crying:
“No, no, ugly old woman!”
“Bless her, the darling! You, Catana, don’t get into mischief or I
will be after you.... Lorenzo, let Monina alone. Naughty boy, what
are you doing to the child? Let her be, poor little thing.”
Monina and Tachana trotted all round the rooms. They were already
tired with playing in the garden, and their faces were hot and their
eyes bright. Monina had dimples that an angel might have coveted at
the corners of her mouth when she laughed, and Tachana’s dark curls
fell over her forehead so that she had to push them out of her eyes,
which she was constantly blinking as though the light hurt them.
Monina, on the contrary, kept hers wide open with a keen, restless,
investigating glance, the expression of insatiable curiosity and
ambition which wanted first to examine and then to have everything
that came within her ken.
Facunda told them to be very good and to touch nothing, and she
would have been more precise in her injunctions but that she
heard the voice of the nurse down-stairs gossiping with Casiana,
the wife of one of the game-keepers. It is within the limits of
possibility--happily an infinitely remote possibility--that the
earth, rebelling against the laws of attraction, might quit its orbit
and perish in flames from dashing against some other globe; but under
no conceivable theory could it have been possible that Facunda,
hearing the voices of two other women, should resist the attraction
and not run to hear what they were talking about. Consequently she
left the children, creeping silently and cautiously half way down
the stairs. Monina and Tachana meanwhile had come to a standstill in
front of the table on which lay the geological plates, and drawings
finished or in progress. A smile of triumph, such as might light
up the countenance of the discoverer of a new world, shone on each
little face. What pretty things! What bright colours! They had no
idea of what the pictures meant, but they admired them none the less
for that; indeed, they were almost like one of their own works of
art, when a kind hand supplied them with paper and pencils. Guru, who
had a paint box, could certainly have produced works in this style.
These were not mere pictures of babies and houses and horses; they
were a gorgeous blaze of colour and splendour!
Now it is a well-known fact that when a child sees a thing it
admires, be it what it may, it never takes it for granted that it
is finished. It always wishes to add some embellishments of its
own handiwork. Children have, no doubt, a loftier ideal of art
than their elders, and from their point of view every work of art
will bear touching up. This was Monina’s opinion, at any rate, who
discovering on the table and close at hand an ink-stand, dipped her
small finger in and drew a broad black line across the drawing.
Enchanted with the marked effect of the experiment she laughed with
glee, looking round at her companions who laughed too, and Monina,
encouraged by success put her whole little hand into the ink and
daubed the paper from end to end. The result was sublime. Over the
strata, carefully washed in with various tints, lay heavy black
clouds, charged, it would seem, with thunder and rain.
Tachana was much too dainty to put her fingers into the ink; on the
other hand, she was great at pencil effects. Happy opportunity! On
the table lay a blue chalk pencil and on a portfolio stand, close by,
a fine geological atlas--a master-piece of German lithography--was
lying open. These delightful gaudy pages wanted improving; who could
doubt it; an industrious hand might draw a bold line round the margin
of each. What could be better? This was Tachana’s idea and she was a
Raphael in strong lines which she executed with unhesitating dash.
Guru knew that their efforts might end in a whipping and he bid the
little girls cease their mischief; but at the same time he felt
that it was a grand opportunity for him--he, who had a paint box,
and really knew how to “do pictures” almost as good as those of
Velasquez. Monina’s was horrid daubing! What was the meaning of the
black blotches and crosses with which her dirty little fingers had
marked the margin of the print? Appearances might be saved if only
he were to embellish the picture with a house in one corner of it--a
house with two windows like eyes, a chimney at the top, and a dog in
front of the door. No sooner thought of than done. He selected a red
chalk pencil that there might be no mistaking his work for Monina’s,
he took another plate and began his house. In less than five minutes
he had added a horse with a man riding on it and smoking a pipe
bigger than the house.
Three artists can never work in one studio without occasional
outbreaks of temper. Monina wanted to add a touch to Guru’s house,
and he shoved her off with his elbow. Monina snatched away the sheet
saying: “Mine, mine!”
Then Tachana echoed the cry: “Mine!”
The plate, which was of folio size, fell off the table, Tachana and
Monina each seized one end and--crash. The two babies shouted with
glee as it tore across and Monina clapped her inky little paws.
“Oh! you naughty girls, now see what you have done!” said Guru,
turning pale with horror. But Monina’s only reply was to snatch down
another print and tear a piece out of it. Then she clutched the
pencil from Tachana and across the long lines that she had so gravely
drawn, Monina scribbled a perfect spider’s net of flourishes, holding
the pencil by the middle and scratching with all her might and main.
Guru at last succeeded in putting a stop to her Vandalic energy, and
threatened to slap her; but the little imp escaped, skipping about
the room and wiping her grimy little fingers on the silk cushions.
In the course of her peregrinations her eye fell on the table on
which stood the microscope and she stopped short to stare at it,
standing on tiptoe with her hands on the edge of the table. Then she
tried to reach it exclaiming:
“My! pretty, pretty!” which being interpreted, meant to convey the
idea that she supposed it to be a new toy and intended for her.
“Look at her! naughty, naughty,” said Guru, “now she wants the
eye-glass.”
And Guru himself, anxious to prove his superior knowledge, drew the
instrument within reach and applied his right eye to the top of the
tube.
“In this glass I can see Paris,” he announced.
Tachana had pulled a chair to the table that she might see too; but
Monina had gotten ahead of her; she climbed up on the chair, and from
thence, on all fours, on to the table, sending the microscope and the
rest of the apparatus crashing to the floor.
At this moment a man entered the room. The three little Vandals were
turned to stone; Monina on the table, not in the least abashed but
very grave and her eyes very wide open; Tachana on the chair, her
finger in her mouth and her eyes downcast; Guru looking for a corner
where he might hide himself.
“What have these brats been doing?--San Blas! What a mess!” cried
Facunda, who came in at the master’s heels.
Leon cast a despairing glance at the torn prints, the scribbled
atlas, the microscope on the floor; that one glance was enough to
reveal the extent of the disaster.
“You little wretches, what have you done?” he exclaimed, going up to
the table. “And you, Facunda, what were you thinking of to leave them
alone here? What were you about? Listening to gossip no doubt--You
are a worse baby than they are!”
He stamped his feet angrily. Then he heard a piteous cry from
Tachana--a cry from her baby heart.
“Was it you, Monina?” said Leon, looking at the child with grave
displeasure. Monina shook her head in denial till it seemed as though
she would shake it off; at the same time her conscience no doubt
pricked her, for she looked at her hands like a second Lady Macbeth.
“But it was you ... look at your hands. You little wretch!”
Monina looked up in his face, imploring mercy; two large tears rolled
down her cheeks, and her face was puckered up for a whimper when
Tachana’s lamentations suddenly filled the house; she was a perfect
Magdalen; there was nothing for it but to believe in the sincerity of
such noisy repentance.
“There, there,” said Leon, kissing the two little sinners and taking
Monina in his arms, “do not cry any more. What a pretty pair of
hands! What would Mamma say? Come and wash them--you dirty little
creature!”
“The nurse let them come up alone, that she might stay down-stairs
and gossip and chatter,” said Facunda, following with the water jug,
“I cannot be everywhere at once; it is all her fault.”
Monina’s hands were washed; then Leon, seating himself, took a young
lady on each knee.
“Look, what a lot of mischief you have done,” he said, “and Guru,
where is Guru?”
Lorenzo had vanished. “He is at the bottom of it all,” said Facunda.
“These poor little dears would have done no harm if he had not led
them into it.”
“Guru, Guru,” cried the two babies in a duet, laying the burthen of
the crime on the shoulders of their absent accomplice.
“That monkey of a boy! If I catch him here....”
Monina, whose alarm had given place to sauciness, was pulling Leon’s
beard.
“Stop! little lady, you hurt,” he exclaimed.
“Tachana say,” babbled Monina. “Tachana say....”
“Well, what does Tachana say?”
“Tachana say ... you am my papa.”
“No, no,” said Leon, looking at Tachana who was sucking her fingers.
“I am not your papa. Take your hand out of your mouth and tell me why
you say I am your papa.”
Very slowly, and in low tones Tachana made answer:
“My mamma say you am.”
Monina, who was a merry little soul and who when she had got an
idea into her head stuck to it and repeated it, burst into shouts
of laughter, clapping her hands and kicking with delight as if her
feet had a language of their own, and repeated again twenty or thirty
times:
“You am my papa. You am my papa....”
Facunda turned to leave the room saying to herself:
“Why, it is as clear as day; I did not need the child to tell me
that.”
“Señora Facunda,” said Leon. “The nurse may leave the children. I
will take them home.”