Froth Part 24

"Ah! Senora, that depends."

"We are, for the most part. But it is in itself an infirmity, and should excite compa.s.sion in those who suffer from it. I need not say so to you, for you have a charitable soul. But I beg of you to entreat those who are less forgiving, in my name, to be gentle and patient with the poor old women."

"I will, Senora, I will," replied Yradier, won by the lady's sweetness.

"We shall see you on Thursday then?"

"I do not know whether my strength will allow of it."

"Oh, yes, I will answer for it." And feeling that he was not wanted, the young man then took his leave, pressing the lady's hand with affection and respect which spoke in his eyes, while he bowed ceremoniously to Clementina.

As soon as he was gone, she, who had been gazing with pain at her stepmother's worn features, and had been deeply moved by the goodness which was revealed in every word she uttered, rose from her seat and, kneeling down by Dona Carmen, took her thin white hands and kissed them in a transport of feeling. The beauty, who to all the rest of the world was so haughty, had a peculiar joy, not unlike the rapture of a mystic, in humbling herself before her stepmother. Dona Carmen's voice acted like a spell, stirring the dim sparks of virtue and tenderness which still lived in her heart, and fanning them for a moment to reviving heat. Then the elder lady gently removed her daughter's hat, and, laying it on a chair, bent down to kiss her fondly on the forehead.

"It is four days since you last came to see me, bad girl"

"Yesterday I could not, mamma. I spent the whole day over my accounts, doing sums. Oh, those hateful sums?"

"But why do you do them? Is not your husband there?"

"It is for fear of my husband that I do them. Do not you know that he has become as stingy and miserly as his brother-in-law?"

Dona Carmen knew that Osorio's affairs were not prospering, and that he had lately lost heavily on the Bourse; but she dared not tell his wife so.

"Poor, dear child! To have to think of such things when you were born to shine as a star in society."

"This alone was wanting to make him absolutely detestable. If one could but live one's life over again!"

The tender look had gone out of her eyes, they were gloomy and fierce; a deep frown puckered her statuesque brow, and in a husky tone she poured out all her grievances and related the daily vexations which her husband heaped upon her. To no one in the world but her stepmother would she have confided them; and she could speak of them without a tear, while Dona Carmen's weary eyes shed many as she listened.

"My darling child! And I would have given my life to see you happy! How blind we were, your father and I, to entrust you to such a man!"

"My father, indeed! A man who has never found out that he has a saint in his own house whom he ought to worship on his bended knees. When I think----"

"Hush, hush! He is your father," exclaimed Dona Carmen, laying a hand on her lips. "I am quite happy. If your father has his faults, I have mine; so I have no merit in forgiving him his if he on his part forgives me.

Do not let us discuss your father. Talk about yourself. You cannot think how these money difficulties worry me; I am not accustomed to them. I would set them right on the spot if I could; but, as you know, very little money pa.s.ses through my hands. I have to account to Antonio for all I draw, and he is not easily hoodwinked. I might, to be sure, put aside a few gold pieces for you; but my savings would not help you far.

However, I hope your difficulties will soon be over."

The good woman paused, gazing sadly into vacancy; then, kissing her daughter, who was still on her knees before her, she spoke into her ear in a low voice, and went on:

"Listen, child. I cannot live much longer, and I shall leave all I have to you. Half of your father's fortune is mine, as I understand from the family lawyer."

Clementina felt a thrill, a shock, which a psychologist would find it hard to define--a mixture of sorrow and surprise, with an undercurrent of satisfaction. However, sorrow predominated; she kissed her stepmother again and again.

"What are you saying? Die! No, you are not to die! I want you much, much more than your money. But for you I should have been a very wicked woman--and I shall be, I fear, the day you cease to live. The only moments when I feel any goodness in me are those I spend with you. I fancy, mamma, that you infect me with some of your exquisite virtue."

"There, there--flatter me no more," said Dona Carmen, again stopping her mouth. "You think yourself worse than you are. You have a good heart.

What sometimes makes you seem bad is your pride. Is not that the truth?"

"Yes, mamma, quite true. You do not know what pride is, or the miseries it brings to those who feel it as I do. To be constantly thinking of things which hurt me--to see enemies on all sides--to feel a look as though it were the point of a dagger in my heart--to catch a word, and turn it over and over in my brain till it almost makes me sick--to live with my heart sore, my mind full of alarms--oh! how often have I envied those who are as good and as humble as you. How happy should I be if I had not a gloomy and suspicious temper and the pride which devours my soul! And who knows," she went on after a pause, "that I might not have been happier in some other sphere of life? If I had been poor, and had married some hard-working and intelligent young fellow, my lot might have been better. Obliged to help my husband, to take care of a business, or attend to the details of the house, like other women who labour and struggle, I might, perhaps, not have come to this. I ought to have had a loving and patient husband--a man of talent, who could guide me. As it is, mamma, accustomed as I am to luxury and the fashionable world, I would gladly give it all up this very day and go to live in some pleasant spot in the country, far from Madrid. I only want a little love, and to keep you with me to teach me to feel and be good."

Clementina's present mood was idyllic; she had been pleasantly impressed by the simple home in the Calle de Serrano. In every woman, however hardened, however immersed in love adventures, there remains an eclogue in some corner of her brain which now and again comes to the surface.

Good Dona Carmen listened to her and encouraged her by her smiles, and the younger lady's confidences lasted long. She recalled her early life, when she came to tell her stepmother of the declarations made to her at the ball of the night before, and to read her the _billets-doux_ of her adorers. These reminiscences of the past made her happy. She was even tempted to talk about Pepe Castro and Raimundo, and confess the childish feelings which stirred her soul; but a feeling of respect withheld her.

Dona Carmen's leniency was indeed so excessive as to verge on folly; it is very possible that, even if her stepdaughter had confessed her worst sins, she would hardly have been scandalised.

They breakfasted together, the Duke having gone to breakfast with a Minister. Afterwards, having relieved and refreshed their spirits with this long chat, they went together in the carriage to San Pascual's, where they prayed a while; and then they drove to the Avenue of the Retiro. They went home before dark, as the evening air was bad for Dona Carmen, and Clementina must be home in good time.

It was Sat.u.r.day, the day on which the Osorios kept open house for dinner and cards. Before going up to dress, Clementina looked round the dining-room, studied the arrangement of the table, and ordered some little alterations in the dishes of fruit which decked it. She sent for the packet of _menus_--written on parchment paper with the Duke's monogram stamped in gold--begged her husband's secretary to write the name of a guest on each, and herself laid them in order on the table napkins: herself and her husband opposite each other in the middle; to the right and left of Osorio, two ladies in the seats of honour; to her own right and left, two gentlemen; and then the rest of the party in order of dignity, age, or her own preference for her guests. Then she spoke a few words with the butler, and after giving him her instructions, she went away. At the door she turned to look once more at the table, and added:

"Remove those strong-smelling flowers from the Marquesa de Alcudia's place and give her camellias, or something else which has no scent."

The pious Marquesa could not endure strong perfumes, being liable to headache. Clementina, who hated her, showed more consideration for her than for any of her friends; her ancient t.i.tle, severe judgment, and even her bigotry, made her respected, and her presence in a drawing-room lent it prestige.

Clementina went to her room, followed by Estefania, the coachman's sworn foe. She put on a magnificent dress of creamy-white, cut low. She usually wore a sort of _demi-toilette_ for these Sat.u.r.day receptions, with sleeves to the elbow. But this evening she was moved to display her much-praised person in honour of a foreign diplomate who was to dine in the house for the first time. While the maid was dressing her hair, her mind wandered vaguely over the events of the day. She had not kept her appointment with Pepe; he would certainly arrive in a rage. She pouted her under lip disdainfully, and her eyes had a spiteful glitter, as if to say: "And what do I care?" Then she remembered Raimundo's greeting and that ill-starred look backwards, with a feeling of shame to which her cheeks bore witness by a deepening colour. She called herself a fool--heedless, mad. Happily for her, the young man seemed to be simple and unpretending; otherwise he would at once have built wild castles in the air. She thought of him a good deal, and with some tenderness. He was, in fact, attractive and good-looking and had a way of speaking, at once gentle and firm, which impressed her greatly; then his pa.s.sionate devotion to his mother's memory, his retired life, his strange mania for b.u.t.terflies, all helped to make him interesting.

How many times Clementina had thought over all this during the last few months it would be hard to say, but very often, beyond a doubt. Her spirit, lulled by a slumberous sweetness, was sentimentally inclined.

That home on the third floor, that sunny study, that quiet and simple life. Who knows! Happiness may dwell where we least expect to find it. A heap of frippery, a handful of gems, a dish or two more on the table cannot give it. But an odious reflection, which for some little time had embittered all her dreams, flashed through her mind. She was growing old--yes, old. She allowed herself no illusions. Estefania found it more difficult every week to hide the silver threads among her golden hair.

Though she firmly resisted every temptation to apply any chemical preparation to her beautiful tresses, she was beginning to think that there would be no help for it. The candid, eager, happy love, of which her adventure with young Alcazar had given her visions, was not for her.

Nothing was left for her, nor had been for some time, but the vapid, vulgar inanities of aristocratic fops, all equally commonplace in their tastes, their speech, and their unfathomable vanity. What connection could there be between her and this boy but that of mother and son? She sometimes wondered whether Raimundo's feelings towards her were quite what he had described them in that first interview; but at this moment she was sure that he had spoken the simple truth, that love was impossible between a lad of twenty and a woman of seven-and-thirty--for she was seven-and-thirty though she was wont to take off two years--at any rate such love as she at this moment longed for.

These reflections furrowed her brow, and with an effort she determined to think of something else. Looking at her maid in the gla.s.s, she noticed that the girl was deadly pale. She turned round to make sure, and said:

"Are you ill, child? You are very white."

"Yes, Senora," said the girl in some confusion.

"Do you feel the old sickness again?"

"I think so."

"Well, go and lie down, and send up Concha. It is very odd. I will send for the doctor to-morrow, to see if he can do anything for you."

"No, no, Senora," the girl hastened to exclaim. "It is nothing, it will go off."

A few minutes later the lady made her appearance in the drawing-room, brilliantly beautiful. Osorio was there already, walking up and down the room with his friend and almost daily visitor at dinner, Bonifacio. He was a man of about sixty, solemn and starch, with a bald head, a yellow face and black teeth. He had been Governor in various provinces, and now held the post of chief of a Department of State. He talked little, and never contradicted--the first and indispensable virtue of a man who would fain dine well and spend nothing, and his dress-coat was perennially adorned with the red cross of the order of Calatrava to which he belonged. In his own house, the most conspicuous object was a portrait of himself with a very tall plume in his cap and an amazingly long white cloak over his shoulders.

In one corner sat Pascuala, a widow with no perceptible income, whom Clementina regarded partly as a friend, and partly as a companion to be made use of, and with her, Pepa Frias, who had just arrived. As Clementina pa.s.sed the two men to shake hands with Pepa, her eyes met her husband's in a flash like gloomy and ominous lightning. Osorio's face, always dark and bilious, was really impressive by its ferocity. It was only for an instant. The ladies exchanged a few words, and the men joined them, the banker beginning to jest with his wife about her dress in a tone of affectionate banter.

"That is the way my wife wastes my money. My dear, though you may not care to hear it, I may tell you that you grow stout at an alarming rate."

"Do not say so, Osorio, Clementina has the loveliest skin of any woman in Madrid," said Pascuala.

"I should think so. The enamelling she went through in Paris last spring cost me a pretty penny."

Clementina fell in with the jest, but she had great difficulty in acting her part. Through the convulsive smiles which now and then lighted up her face, and her brief enigmatical phrases, it was easy to see her uneasiness, and even a spice of hatred.

The door-bell rang frequently, and in a few minutes the drawing-room held fifteen or twenty guests. The Marquesa de Alcudia brought none of her daughters; they were rarely seen at the Osorios'. Then came the Marquesa de Ujo, a woman who had been pretty, but was now much faded; as languid as a South American, though she was a native of Pamplona, somewhat romantic, by way of being _incomprise_, with literary tastes.

She had with her a daughter, taller than herself, and who must have been fifteen at least, though her mother made her wear petticoats above her ankles that she might not make her seem old. The poor girl endured the mortification with a fairly good grace, though she blushed when any one happened to look at her feet.

Next came General Patino, Conde de Morillejo; he never missed a Sat.u.r.day. Then the Baron and Baroness de Rag appeared; it was their first dinner there, and Clementina devoted herself to them, heaping them with attentions. The Baron was plenipotentiary of some great foreign Power. The Minister of Arts and Agriculture, Jimenez Arbos, Pinedo, Pepe Castro, and the Cotorrasos husband and wife--all came in together.