Maximina Part 3

II.

After they had breakfasted they found that they had no water. At the first stop, Juana got out, and came back with a tumblerful. There is some slight basis for the belief that during her short absence Miguel kissed his bride elsewhere than on her hand; but we have no absolute proof of it.

At Venta de Banos four travellers entered the same compartment,--three ladies and a gentleman. All were upwards of forty. From what they said it was evident that they were brother and sisters; and they spoke with a decided Galician[3] accent.

Miguel took the seat by his wife's side, and put the maid in front of them, and made up his mind to be very circ.u.mspect, so that the strangers might not suspect that they were newly married. Nevertheless, one circ.u.mstance could not escape them: the constant exchange of glances and the mysterious conversation kept up by the young people betrayed them beyond peradventure. The ladies laughed at first, then they whispered together, and finally they schemed to get into conversation with their companions; and in this they were speedily successful.

It did not take them long to find out what they wanted to know; whereupon there sprang up, for some reason or other, a lively sympathy for Maximina, and they made it perfectly manifest, and overwhelmed her with attentions. The girl, who was not used to such things, appeared confused and embarra.s.sed, and smiled with that timid, bashful look that was characteristic of her.

This entirely won the hearts of the Galician ladies; they openly took her under their protection. They were all unmarried; the brother also.

None of them had been willing to get married, "because of the grief which the mere idea of separation caused the others": they were unanimous in this a.s.sertion. As for the rest, how many proposals they had refused!

One of them,--Dolores,--according to the other two, had been engaged six years to a law student in Santiago. When he finished his studies, Dolores for some reason or other had broken their engagement, and the young lawyer had gone home, where, in his indignation, he had immediately married the richest belle of the village.

The second sister, Rita, had had several attachments, but her papa had objected to them. The young man who loved her was a poet; he was poor.

Nothing could induce her papa to give up his opposition and accept him for a son-in-law. When least they thought of such a thing, he had in desperation disappeared from Santiago, after taking a tender farewell of Rita,--the lady objected to having the romantic details of this farewell related!--and nothing more was ever heard of him. Some supposed that he had perished in the claws of a tiger while searching for a gold mine in California.

As for the third, Carolina, she was a regular flyaway! Her brother and sisters had never been able to tame her down. When at home they had the greatest reason to think she was in love and that the affair was becoming serious, _poum_! one fine evening she suddenly jilted her lover and took a new one in his place! Carolina, who was forty-five at the very lowest reckoning, became quite rosy when she heard this report, and exclaimed, with a fascinating smile:--

"Don't you heed what they say, Maximina! How silly that girl is!... To be sure I cannot deny that I like change; but who does not? Men have to be punished from time to time, for they are very bad! very bad! Don't you be vexed, Senor Rivera.... That is the reason why I said to myself, 'I shall not give my heart to any one whatever.'"

"That means," said Rita, "that you have never been really in love!"

"Very likely; as yet I have not been troubled with those anxieties and worriments which lovers, they say, suffer from. No man ever pleased me for more than a fortnight."

"How terrible!" exclaimed Dolores and Rita, laughing.

"Don't say such things, you silly girl!"

"Why shouldn't I say what I feel, Rita?"

"Because it isn't proper. Young ladies ought to be careful what they say!"

"Come now, Carolina," urged Miguel, a.s.suming great seriousness, "in the name of humanity I beg you to soften your hard heart and listen to some happy man!"

"Yes; fine rascals you men are!"

"Child!" cried Dolores.

"Let her alone! let her alone!" interrupted Miguel. "In time she will come to feel how wrong it is! I am in hopes that it will not be long before some one will come and avenge all of us!"

"Nonsense!"

During this banter the brother, who was a fat gentleman, with long white mustaches, snored like a sea-calf.

Maximina listened in amazement to all these things which she could scarcely comprehend, and she glanced at Miguel from time to time, trying to make out whether they were speaking in earnest or in jest. The Senoritas de Cuervo--for such was their name--were on their way to Madrid to spend the season--this was their custom every year: the remainder of the winter they spent at Santiago, and in the spring they went to a very picturesque little village, where they amused themselves in their own way, running like fawns across country, climbing trees to get cherries and figs and apples, drinking water from their hands, making excursions on mule-back to neighboring villages (what fun! what a good time they did have, _madre mia_!), and taking part in farm work, and drinking milk just brought in by the man from the milking.

"This sister Carolina of ours becomes unendurable as soon as we get there. She sets out early in the morning, and no one knows anything about her till dinner time; and before dinner is fairly over, she is off again, and does not get back till night!"

"How you do talk, Lola! I go out with the other girls to hunt for nests or wash clothes down by the river.... But you spend your mortal hours exchanging small talk with some silly gallant who dances attendance on you...."

"Heavens! what a cruel thing to say. I must hope, Senor Rivera, that you will not put any credence in such nonsense, without any foundation in fact.... Just imagine! all the gallants in that place are farm hands!"

"That makes no difference," replied Miguel. "Farm hands also have hearts and can love beautiful objects. I have no doubt that you have many a suitor among them."

"As to that," replied Lola, with a blush, "if I must tell the truth--yes, sir, they are very fond of me. Every year, as soon as it is known that we have come, the young men make their arrangement to give me a serenade, and they even cut down a little tree so as to get in front of my window."

"The serenade was not for you alone," interrupted Carolina, warmly....

"It is for all of us."

"But the tree was mine," replied Lola, with some show of ill-temper.

"The tree! very good; but not the serenade," replied the other, somewhat piqued.

Lola gave her a sharp look, and went on: "Judge for yourself, Senor Rivera, whether it does not show that they are in love with me: when the engineers came to build a bridge, I said that I did not like the place where they had made their arrangements to put it, but I wanted it farther back, ... and as soon as the young men of the village heard what I had said, they made a formal visit to the engineers and told them that the bridge must be put where the senorita wanted it, and that no other site for it must be thought of, because they would put a stop to it; and as the engineers were not willing to change their plans, the result was, the bridge was not built till four years ago."

"All this," said Miguel, "is not so much to your honor as to that of those intelligent young men!"

"They are such nice boys!"

"Nothing so sanctifies the soul as love and admiration," exclaimed Rivera, sententiously.

Lola said, "Ah!" and blushed.

These three ladies were dressed in an improbable, and, if we may be allowed the expression, an anachronistic style: their dresses were beautiful, picturesque, and even rather fantastic, such as suited only maidens of fifteen. Carolina wore her hair in two braids with silk ribbons in the ends, and constricted her flabby and wrinkled neck with a blue velvet band from which hung a little emerald crucifix: the others, in their attempt to be a little more fashionable, had their hair done up, but they wore just as many ribbons and other ornaments.

The evening was already at hand.

The Cuervo family proposed to have dinner, and hospitably invited their new-made friends to partake of the luncheon that they had brought with them; Rivera and his bride accepted, and likewise offered to share their provisions, and with all good-fellowship and friendliness they all set to work to make way with them, having first spread napkins over their knees.

The brother, who had waked up just in time, fed like an elephant; during dinner time he made few remarks, but they were to the point: one of them was this:--

"I am a regular eagle as far as tomatoes are concerned!"

Miguel sat in silent wonder for some time, but at last he began to appreciate the depth hidden in this hyperbolical sentence.

A close intimacy had sprang up among them all. Dolores, not satisfied with calling Miguel by his Christian name, instead of his t.i.tle, proposed that she and Maximina should go to the extent of addressing each other with "thou":--

"I cannot feel that a person is my friend unless I can 'thee and thou'

her.... Besides, it is customary among girls."

The bride smiled timidly at this strange proposition, and the Galician ladies, without further excuse began to make use of the second personal p.r.o.noun. But Maximina, though warmly urged, could not bring herself to such a degree of intimacy, and before she knew it, she dropped into the ordinary form,[4] whereupon the Cuervo ladies showed that they felt affronted; the poor child found herself obliged to make use of numberless round-about expressions to avoid addressing them directly.

Miguel, in order to take a humorous revenge upon them for the annoyance that they caused his wife, began in turn to speak to them with great familiarity; and, though this for a moment surprised them, they took it in perfectly good part. Not satisfied with this, he soon took occasion to shake the white-mustachioed gentleman rudely by the arm, saying:--

"See here, old boy, don't sleep so much! Wouldn't you like a little gin?"