The old maid turned towards her, and fixed her eyes upon her with an expression of surprise mingled with the aforesaid indulgent compa.s.sion.

"But don't you really know?"

The girl made a sign in the negative, and at the same time she felt overwhelmed by terrible emotion. A cold chill swept suddenly through her inner being. Pale as death, she hung on the lips of Maria Josefa as if her sentence of life or death depended on them. Her excitement was quite evident to the lady, and after looking at her fixedly for a minute she said:

"No! I won't tell you. What is the good? Perhaps it is all a calumny."

Fernanda instantly regained her self-possession.

"All right!" she returned, with a gesture of displeasure; "be silent, for after all what has all this to do with me?"

This gesture wounded the old maid, who quickly returned with a malicious smile:

"But it is precisely because it does concern you that I am afraid to tell you."

"I don't understand."

Maria Josefa bent towards her and said:

"Because they say that the father of the creature is Luis."

As she had antic.i.p.ated the blow, Fernanda remained unmoved, and asked her with indifference:

"What Luis?"

"The count, girl."

"And why should it concern me that Luis is the father?"

Maria Josefa was somewhat disconcerted at this question.

"Because he was your betrothed."

"But as he is not so now," she returned, with a scornful shrug of the shoulders.

And then she begun talking to Garnet, who was on her other side, but the indifference was only put on from pride. An inexplicable penetrating sadness fell upon her soul, and took complete possession of her without leaving her power to think or do anything.

If Garnet had not been such a mere animal he would have seen directly that the smile with which she listened to his uncultured, rough conversation was only a stereotyped one without any expression whatever, and that the monosyllables and incoherent replies that fell from her lips showed very clearly that she was not listening to him, but to Paco Gomez, Manuel Antonio, and the others, as they went on chattering about the foundling child.

With what interest did she catch every word that these busybodies interchanged. And as they went on making the fact clear with increasing details, intermixing joking remarks and funny inuendos, there was a tightening at her heart, and it gradually contracted as if they were all compressing it in their hands one after the other to hurt her, but her face remained calm, and not the slightest contraction showed the pain she was suffering.

The party broke up at twelve as usual, and it was a great comfort to Fernanda to breathe the cool, damp, night air. She longed to be alone with her thoughts and think over what she had just heard.

It had rained a good deal. The streets, paved with flat stones, shone in the light of the lanterns. On leaving the house some took the lower road, and others, amongst whom was Fernanda, went off in the direction of the plaza. They had only gone a few steps when they heard the loud trotting of some horses that had that instant come round the corner, and were bearing down upon them.

"Ah! here is the Baron and his servant," said Manuel Antonio.

It was, in fact, the hour in which the eccentric Baron took his habitual ride through the streets of Lancia. His famous horse was pirouetting as usual, and making such a noise that although his servant's steed was much more quiet, it seemed as if a squadron were going through the town.

As they pa.s.sed the party Manuel Antonio, with his usual forwardness, cried out, "Good night, Baron." But he only turned his awful face towards them, looked at them fixedly with his blood-shot eyes, and then proceeded without a remark.

The Chatterbox abashed said:

"Go on, drunk as usual!"

They all pretended to look upon it as a joke, but at the bottom they all more or less felt the same alarm on seeing that sinister figure.

Fernanda, as a woman, and in her particular state of mind, was visibly affected, and after they had pa.s.sed she followed the two horses with eyes of terror until they were lost in the darkness.

On retiring to bed, with her wounded heart, she wished to a.n.a.lyse the emotion which swayed her, and to trace it back to the cause. She felt ashamed of herself. Her pride made her cry out with rage in a loud voice:

"What have these bad goings on to do with me? What have I to do with him or her?"

But hardly had she uttered these words than she felt the scalding tears upon her cheeks, and the heiress of Estrada-Rosa quickly turned and hid her face, suffused with blushes, in the pillows.

CHAPTER VII

THE INCREASE OF THE CONTINGENT

The terrible difficulties that were to arise with the marriage of Emilita, on account of the anti-bellicose opinions of her father, were got over with more facility than could have been expected.

History will not speak (although it could with more reason than it does of many events) of that solemn day when Nunez had to go in proper form and ask Don Cristobal for the hand of his daughter, of the memorable embrace with which the latter received him, clasping him warmly to his civil breast with that incredible fusion of two heterogeneous elements created to repel each other, and the artless graces of the sweet coy angel are taken for granted and understood. If this particular page were the subject for any historian, he could not abstain from drawing attention to the extreme importance of such concord, which until then had been considered impossible, and at the same time he would impartially show the reverse side of the picture, laying before future generations the way the maligned patrician, Don Cristobal Mateo, was the victim of a social injustice, and of the persecution of his brother citizens.

It must be said that all the world in Lancia thought themselves ent.i.tled to joke this respectable and ancient functionary on the marriage of his daughter, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, but whenever the matter was referred to, allusion was made to the antagonistic opinions he had hitherto held on the abolition of the land forces. The marriage was called the increase of the contingent, and some were impertinent enough to give it that name before his future son-in-law.

One can easily conceive what it cost him to give up a tiresome and ill-judged fad.

But in spite of all the diatribes and murmurs of the neighbours, that hurt Mateo's feelings more than they affected his good humour, and in spite of the envy that burned in the majority of hearts, the increase of the contingent was to be consummated.

The time fixed for the auspicious occasion was the month of August. By that time it had acquired such importance that, as generally happens in little places, hardly anything else was talked of. The relations of the Pensioner, and his four daughters were numberless, and they all expected to be invited on the day of the marriage. And then, on the other side, some of the worthy and punctilious officers of the battalion of Pontevedra, friends of the bridegroom, were filled with the same desire.

As it was not possible to entertain so many people in the poetic dwelling of the Pensioner, they thought of celebrating the marriage in the country. The house most fitting for the occasion, by reason of its proximity to the town, was the Grange.

Don Cristobal made the request to the count, with whom he and his daughters were on very friendly terms, and he immediately placed it at his disposal. The happy union, the safe pledge of peace between the civil and military elements, was celebrated early in the day at the church of San Rafael. Fray Diego performed the ceremony, as he enjoyed great prestige among the officers for being the strangest priest and the most inveterate toper of the capital. More than twenty ladies, and almost as many gentlemen, a.s.sisted at the service. That over, they all resorted to the Grange to spend the day there. Carriages were not required to go to a place so near the town. But they had the Count of Onis and the Quinones' to convey the bride and bridegroom, and a few elderly people like the two Senoritas de Mere. The guests included almost all the Grandee's party, several of that of the de Meres, and a good number of officers.

The count had the old house arranged as well as possible. It was as well known to almost everybody as their own homes, for being so near the town, and having such a beautiful wood, it was the best place for _fetes champetres_, and the counts had never refused permission for these occasions. When they had arrived and enjoyed the chocolate, which was waiting for them in the large room, paved with brick on the ground floor, which served as dining-room, they dispersed without ceremony over the house and about the estate, prepared to kill the time as well as they could until the bell rang for dinner.

The bride, with Amalia, who had been her bridesmaid, and two other ladies sat quietly in one of the rooms. Her eyes were shining, her cheeks red, and it was in vain that she tried to conceal the deep emotion she was feeling under a dignified and serious demeanour.

Those in her company, who were all married, caressed her incessantly, pa.s.sed their hands over her hair, gave her little pats on the cheeks, and sometimes took her by the hands and impressed a kiss on her forehead, with the half tender, half ironical condescension evinced by the long experienced to the novices in matrimony. There is not one who does not feel at the sight of a bride the echo of certain distant music in her heart, the taste of the honey of the remote moon comes to her lips; but it comes, alas! with the bitter taste of several years of matrimonial prose. In every married woman there is a poet disillusioned of his muse. Hence the Byronic smile on her face at the sight of the happiness shining in the eyes of a bride.

Emilita had changed her character in a quarter of an hour. All the playfulness and sprightliness she had hitherto displayed was now changed to gravity and sedateness. She talked wisely with the matrons, her companions, about starting the larder, about domestic servants, who were considered by all to be dreadfully going down, and the price of meat.

She seemed to have grown so old in this quarter of an hour that it was surprising not to see some silver threads in her golden hair. To turn to her sisters, they, in strange contrast, seemed to have lost some years since the invest.i.ture of the younger one. They had gone back to childhood. Like creatures longing to disport themselves in the light and air, the three rushed into the wood, making the silence that reigned there ring with their voices and innocent shouts of laughter. _Virgen del Amporo_! how they jumped! how they laughed! What impish tricks those little mad things were up to! For the greater enjoyment of the innocent games that their youthful retrogression demanded, they threw off their mantillas, let their hair loose, took off their gloves, cast aside fan and parasol, did all that youth could suggest, and were as pranksome as any children. Not only was their angelic hair allowed to float upon their shoulders, but they took off watches, rings, and bracelets and handed them to papa, taking him by the collar to give him a thousand caresses, like bright and affectionate children as they were. Then, seeing that some of the officers of the battalion were looking at them, they turned red and confused, pinned up their skirts until the foot and part of the leg was visible, and then ran through the wood, avoiding, like the nymphs of Diana, the ardent glances of the officers.

And when they reached a distant solitary spot, where the shadows deepened, and they were beyond the reach of mundane noises and malicious eyes of men, they shouted with delight like G.o.d's little birds to their companions to come and enjoy the delightful quiet where they could display their charms and enjoy themselves without fear of being surprised. Then one proposed to play at skipping and the rest acceded, clapping their hands. Jovita was the first. Jump, jump, until she fell on the gra.s.s in a state of exhaustion, pressing her hand to her heart that palpitated with fatigue, not with the insane agitation of youthful pa.s.sions. Then another jumped, and then another, until they were all exhausted but merry, their rosy cheeks and bright eyes showing the pleasant happiness accruing to an innocent mind. When tired of this they proposed the game of "Let them give unto the kite a little onion with the mite." What laughter and merriment ensued! How the quiet wood echoed with the silvery voices of those beautiful, delicate creatures! Wearied of this game they dispersed for a little. A few formed a group seated at the foot of the trunk of an oak, and went in for the pleasant enjoyment of recounting in a low voice a thousand puerilities; others went in with enthusiasm for the search of little blue flowers, with which they made chains to deck themselves with; others ran after each other like swallows in the air uttering piercing screams the while. The steadier ones devoted their efforts to catching gra.s.shoppers and other timid insects. But they soon rea.s.sembled, for a very daring girl proposed climbing a tree if they helped her; and another one said Yes, she would help her. So bear a hand! the spirited girl, who was named Consuelo, set about putting her little feet in the most accessible branches. The wayward companion, who was no other than Socorro, the third of the Pensioner's sirens, helped her. Consuelo finally climbed to where two branches crossed, from thence she got on to another, and all the nymphs applauded, and shouted with enthusiasm.