Froth Part 46

Up the river, and up the river, Water will never run up to the town; Down the river, and down the river, All the world is bound to run down.

The engineer remarked in explanation:

"A party of miners, going down in the cage which serves as a counterpoise to this one."

"I told you so, Condesa," exclaimed Salabert in a triumphant tone. "If they are in spirits to sing, they cannot be so miserable as you fancy."

The lady was silent for a moment, then she said, with a melancholy smile:

"It is not a very mirthful ditty, Duke."

This was going on in the upper compartment. In the lower division, Escosura observed in a scornful tone to the chief engineer:

"Do you know that your young doctor was so rash as to give us a taste of his materialistic views?"

"Materialistic! I do not know that he is a Materialist. What he prides himself on being--and the miners worship him for it--is a Socialist."

"Worse and worse."

"To tell the truth," said Penalver, with a sigh, "it is impossible to come up from the bottom of a mine without having caught a little of the infection."

At nine in the evening, after dining at Villalegre, the party returned to Madrid, by special train. They all set out well content with the excursion. They hoped to amaze their friends by their account of the underground banquet. The only unhappy person was Raimundo. The alternations of joy and anguish which Clementina's flirtation occasioned him had quite quenched his spirit. At last, seeing him so sad and exhausted, his mistress was merciful. She made him sit by her in the train, and without scandalising a party who were cured of all such weakness, she talked to him all the evening, and finally dropped asleep with her head on his shoulder.

Though a sleeping-car formed part of the train, it was not in favour.

Most of the travellers preferred remaining in the saloons. Towards morning, however, sleep overcame them all, and they succ.u.mbed where they sat, in a variety of att.i.tudes, some of them by no means graceful.

Ramon Maldonado was on a pinnacle of triumph and happiness. Esperancita, to judge by appearances, must certainly love him. He felt lifted above the earth, not merely by the natural superiority of his soul, but by the ecstasy of joy. His ugly little face was as radiant as a G.o.d's. Farewell for ever to the struggles and obstacles which had hitherto embittered his life. Free henceforth from the service of sorrow, as are the immortals, he gloried in his apotheosis, majestically serene.

He, too, had seated himself next the idol of his heroic heart, and for some hours sat talking to her in dulcet tones--of English cobs, and of the great pitched battles which were being constantly fought in the munic.i.p.al council, and in which he bore an active part; till the innocent child, soothed by the monotonous and insinuating discourse, closed her eyes, with her head thrown back against the cushion.

Maldonado remained awake, wide awake, thinking of his happiness.

Rosy-fingered Aurora, stepping over the ridge of the distant Sierra, and flying swiftly across the wide plain, peeped through the blinds of the carriages, diffusing a dim and subdued light, and still he was hugging himself in contentment.

Esperancita opened her eyes and smiled at him with a tender smile which thrilled the deepest fibres of his lyric soul. At this instant a lark began to sing. In Ramoncito the G.o.d was each moment growing more distinct from the man; intoxicated with love and happiness he murmured into the girl's ear, in a voice tremulous with emotion, a few incoherent and ardent phrases, the expression of the divine madness. Esperanza shut her eyes again--to hear that music better?

When he had exhausted all the superlatives in the dictionary to describe his pa.s.sion, the poetic young civilian thought to achieve the task of conquest by showing the damsel, as in a vision, all the glories he could shed upon her: "He was an only son, his parents had an income of a hundred and ten thousand reales[H] a year; at the next ensuing elections he intended to stand as candidate for Navalperal, where his family had estates, and if only he had the support of the Government he was certain to succeed. Then, as the Conservative party were greatly in need of new blood, he believed he should soon get an appointment as under secretary, and--who could tell?--by-and-by, at a change of Ministry, find himself entrusted with a portfolio."

The girl still kept her eyes shut. Ramoncito, more and more excited, when he had ended this catalogue of brilliant prospects, bent over her and whispered in impa.s.sioned tones: "Do you love me, dearest, do you love me?"

No answer.

"Tell me, do you love me?"

Esperancita, without opening her eyes, answered curtly:

"No."

CHAPTER XVI.

A DEPARTING SOUL.

A few weeks after this excursion, Dona Carmen's disease suddenly grew much worse. The physicians, indeed, had no doubt that her end was drawing near. She was in a state of complete prostration. Her face was so thin, that there seemed to be nothing left but the skin, and the large, sad, kind eyes, which rested with strange intensity on all who came near her, as if trying to read in theirs the terrible secret of death. And in view of her death, a thousand sordid feelings surged up in the minds of those who ought most to have sorrowed over it. Salabert reflected with indignation on the inheritance which was to pa.s.s to his daughter. He made fresh efforts to induce his wife to revoke her will, but without success. For the first time in her life, Dona Carmen showed great firmness of character. Though she was incapable of a revengeful sentiment, she perhaps felt bound by her desire to close her existence by an act of justice. A life of abject submission, during which she had never opposed the smallest obstacle to her husband's will, to his money-making schemes, or his illicit pa.s.sions, had surely earned her the privilege of a.s.serting her rights on her death-bed, and gratifying the impulses of her heart.

Osorio kept silent watch, with concealed greed, over the progress of her malady, looking to its termination as the end of his own difficulties.

Dona Carmen would be released from her earthly husk, and he from his creditors. Clementina herself, the object of the tender soul's devoted affection, could not help rejoicing over the prospect of so many millions which were to drop into her hands. She did her best to silence her desires, and subdue her impatience; but, in spite of herself, a tempting fiend made her heart give a little leap of gladness, every time the antic.i.p.ation flashed through her brain.

It was with infernal astuteness that Salabert set to work to infuse distrust into his wife's mind. Sometimes by insinuation, and sometimes by brutally broad hints, he poured the poison of suspicion into her soul. Clementina and Osorio were looking for her death, as for flowers in May. What airs they would give themselves when they had paid all their debts! And then they would live and enjoy themselves on her money.

The poor woman said nothing, indignant at these base innuendoes. But, nevertheless, in her soul, broken and saddened by suffering, the keen point of this envenomed dart festered deeply, though she strove to conceal her anguish. Every time Clementina came to see her--and towards the end this was twice a day--her stepmother's eyes would rest on hers in mute interrogation, trying to read in them the thoughts in the brain behind. This intent gaze embarra.s.sed the younger woman, making her feel a perturbation, which, though slight, occasionally betrayed itself.

As her malady increased, this anxiety on Dona Carmen's part became almost a mania. In the isolation of soul in which she lived, Clementina represented the one link of affection which bound her to life. It was because her stepdaughter had always been cold and haughty to every one else, that she had never doubted the sincerity of her love for her, and it had made her happy and proud. It had sufficed to indemnify her for the scornful indifference with which every one else had treated her.

Now, the horrible doubt which had been forced upon her, filled her heart with bitterness. Such a spirit of goodness and love as her own craved to believe in goodness and love. The uprooting of this last belief made her heart bleed with anguish.

One evening they were alone together; Dona Carmen, motionless in her deep arm-chair, with her head thrown back on the pillows, was listening to Clementina, who was reading aloud the pious history of the apparition of the Virgin of la Salette. Her thoughts wandered from the narrative; they were disturbed as usual by the fatal doubt, which tortured her more than even her acute physical sufferings. She could not take her eyes off Clementina's fair head, with the fixed look of divination peculiar to dying persons, as though she could read what was pa.s.sing within, but without gaining the certainty she longed for. More than once, when the reader glanced up, she met that dull, grief-stricken gaze, and hastily looked down again with a sudden sense of uneasiness. A desire, a whim, had blazed up in the sick woman's mind, a feverish yearning such as dying creatures feel. She longed to hear her stepdaughter quench, by some gentle word, the fearful pain of that burning doubt. Again and again the question hovered on her lips; invincible shame kept her from uttering it.

"Lay down the book, child, you are tired," she said at last. And her voice came trembling from her throat, as though she had said something very serious.

"You are, perhaps, of listening. I am not. I have a strong throat."

"G.o.d preserve it to you, my child," replied Dona Carmen tenderly, as she looked at her.

There was a brief silence.

"Do you know what I have been told?" she asked finally, with an effort, and her voice was so low that the last syllables were scarcely audible.

Clementina, who was about to read again, raised her head. The few drops of blood left in Dona Carmen's emaciated body suddenly rushed to her face and tinged it with a faint flush.

"I was told--that you wish for my death."

Clementina's rich blood now mounted in a tide to her cheeks and dyed them crimson. The two women looked at each other for a moment in confusion. At last it was the younger who exclaimed, with a dark frown:

"I know who told you that!"

And as she spoke the blood faded from her face again like a sudden fall of the tide. Her stepmother's retreated to her weary heart. She bent her head with its white hairs, and said:

"If you know, do not utter his name."

"Why not?" cried her wrathful stepdaughter. "When a father, with no motive whatever, solely for the sake of a few dollars, can insult his daughter and make a martyr of his wife, he has no right to claim either affection or respect. I say it, and I do not care who hears me. It is an infamous calumny! My father is a man who knows no G.o.d, no love but money. I knew that your will had alienated his love for me--if indeed he ever had any."

"Oh!"

"Yes, I knew it perfectly. But I never could have believed that it would lead him to do anything so vile as to calumniate me so cruelly. I confess to you that I have always loved you the most--oh, yes, much, much the most! I have no hesitation in saying so. Nay, I will say more: I have never really loved any one but you and my children. If this will is the cause of your doubting my love for you, destroy it, undo it, revoke it. Your love and your peace of mind are far dearer to me than your money."

Her voice thrilled with indignation. Her eyes were sternly fixed on vacancy, as though she could evoke the figure of her father and crush him to powder. At the moment she was ardently sincere. Dona Carmen's dim eyes grew bright with contentment as her daughter spoke. At last they glittered through tears as she exclaimed: