The Catholic World Volume Iii Part 114

I had nothing left but Rita's shilling. The price of the set was a shilling. Go along, said I to myself, it is better that Rita should do without the bauble than my saint without his guard; and I bought them.

I told Rita, and it was the truth, that my money did not hold out. The next day when I was taking them out to stick them up around the picture of the king, Rita came into the room. 'So then,' she said, 'you had money enough to buy these dirty soldiers, and not enough for my little comb,' and she s.n.a.t.c.hed them from my hands to throw them out of the window. 'Child,' I screamed, 'you are throwing my heart into the street with the soldiers!' And seeing that she paid me no attention, I caught up the broom and beat her. The only time I ever beat her in my life."

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"It would have been better for you," said Pedro, "if you had left the marks of your fingers upon her sometimes."

"Who can please you, Uncle Pedro?" said Rita. "My mother erred in not chastising her child, and I err in not spoiling mine."

"Daughter!" replied Pedro, "neither Hei! till they run away, nor Whoa!

till they stop short."

"But since you like soldiers so much, mother," proceeded Rita, "why did you take such trouble to prevent my cousin Miguel from becoming one?"

"I love soldiers because they suffer and pa.s.s through so much, and for the same reason, I wished to save my nephew."

"How I laughed then!" continued Rita, directing her conversation to Ventura. "Her grace burned lights to all the saints while the lots were being drawn. As she had not candlesticks, she stuck empty sh.e.l.ls to the walls with cement; put wicks in them; filled them with oil, and began to pray. While she was praying, in came Miguel's mother, and told her that he had been drafted. My mother, on hearing that, put out the lights, as if to say to the saints, 'Stay in the dark now, I need you no longer!'"

"How you talk, Rita," answered the good Maria. "I trust that G.o.d does not so judge our hearts. I resigned myself, my daughter. I resigned myself, because he had made known his pleasure, and when G.o.d will not, the saints cannot."

CHAPTER X.

The joy of Elvira was as brief as it had been keen. What can escape the eyes of one who loves? Is it not known that there are things, which, like the wind of Guadarrama, though scarce a breath, yet kill.

Before either Rita or Ventura had acknowledged even to their own consciousness, the mutual attraction which they exercised upon each other, Elvira was offering to G.o.d, for the second time, the pangs of her lost love. This time, however, without a remote hope. The prudent and patient girl looked upon a rupture as the sure forerunner of some catastrophe, and, like a martyr, endured without daring to repulse them, the evidences of an affection as pale and feeble as she was herself; an affection that was vanishing before the vivid flame of a new love, which already sparkled, active, brilliant, and beautiful like the object that inspired it. While the visits at the grating became every night colder and less' prolonged, there was no occasion that did not, by gesture, look, or word, bring into contact those two beings, who, like moths, took pleasure in approaching the flame, drawn by an instinctive impulse, which they obeyed, but did not pause to define; of which no one warned them, because among the people, a married woman unfaithful to her duties, or a lover neglectful of his, is an anomaly; and one which, in the family whose history we are relating, would have been looked upon as incredible to the point of impossibility. But Rita acknowledged no rein, and the life of a soldier had been a school of evil habits to Ventura. One day Perico, on setting out for the field, found Elvira in the yard, and said to her:

"Here is money, sister, to buy yourself colored dresses. You have fulfilled your promise to wear the habit of our Lady of Sorrows till Ventura came back, and now I wish to see your face, your dress--everything about you gay."

Elvira answered, with difficulty repressing her tears:

"Keep your money, brother, every day I feel myself worse. It is better for me to think of making my peace with G.o.d, than of buying wedding clothes, or of changing the colors which are to wrap me in the coffin."

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"Do not say that, sister!" exclaimed Perico. "You break my heart! It has become a habit with you to be melancholy. When you and Ventura are as happy as Rita and I, when you have two little ones like these of ours, to occupy you, your apprehensions will fly away. Come," he added, catching the children, "come and play with your aunt."

Elvira's eyes followed her brother. Her heart was torn with grief; grief all the more agonized and profound for being repressed. She considered that a complaint from her would be like an indiscreet cry of alarm at an inevitable misfortune.

"Aunt," said Angel, "nothing can keep Melampo when father goes."

"He does what he ought, like the good dog he is," answered Elvira.

"And why is he called Melampo?" the child continued, with that zeal for asking questions which older people ridicule, instead of respecting and encouraging.

"He is called so," answered Elvira, "because Melampo is the name of one of the dogs that went to Bethlehem with the shepherds to see the child Jesus. There were three of them, Melampo, Cubilon, and Tobina, and the dogs that bear these names never go mad."

"Aunt," said Angela, running after a little bird, "I can't catch this swallow."

"That is not a swallow. Swallows do not come till spring, and these you must never catch nor molest."

"Why not, aunt?"

"Because they are friends to man, they confide in him and make their nests under his eaves. They are the birds that pulled the thorns out of the Saviour's crown when he hung upon the cross."

At this moment Angel fell and began to cry. Rita rushed impetuously out of her room and s.n.a.t.c.hed him up, exclaiming:

"What has he done to himself? what is the matter with mother's glory?"

Wiping his face, which was dirty, with her ap.r.o.n, she continued:

"What is the matter? Sweet little face, covered with mud. Bless his pretty eyes and his mouth, and his poor little hands!"

And covering him with kisses, pa.s.sionate caresses, she took him and his sister into her mother's house. Returning presently she went into the back-yard to wash.

It has already been said that this yard was next to that of uncle Pedro, separated from it by a low wall.

Rita according to the popular custom began to sing.

Among the people of Andalucia, one can hardly be found whose memory is not a treasury of couplets; and these are so varied that it would be difficult to suggest an idea, for the expression of which a suitable verse would not immediately be found.

A fine voice, well modulated and dear, answered Rita from the adjoining yard; in this manner a musical colloquy was carried on, concluded by the male voice in this couplet, which indicated the wings that the preceding one had given to his desires:

"With no loss of time, To succeed I intend; Without sigh to the air, Or complaint to the wind."

In the mean time Elvira sat sewing beside her mother. Her sweet and placid countenance betrayed none of the pain and anguish of her heart.

Nevertheless, Anna looked at her with the penetrating eyes of a mother, and thought, "Will the hopes fail which I placed in Ventura's return? Does our Lord want her for himself?"

At this moment the children rushed in, wild with delight.

"Mamma Anna! Aunt Elvira!" they shouted. "Uncle Pedro says the a.s.s had a little colt last night. She is in the stable with it, and we did not know it here. Come and see it! come and see it!"

And one pulling at the grandmother and the other at the aunt, they went, to the yard and threw the door wide open.

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What a two-edged dagger for the heart of Anna, the honorable woman, the loving mother! Ventura was there with Rita!

Quick as lightning Ventura stepped upon the wheel of a cart which stood close to the wall, and with one spring disappeared.

Rita, enraged, continued her washing, and with unparalleled effrontery began to sing:

"No mother-in-law plagued Eve; No sister-in-law worried Adam; Nor caused their souls to grieve, For in Eden they never had them."

The children had run on to the stable without stopping. Anna led her daughter, almost fainting, into the house, and there upon the bosom of her mother, from whom the cause of her grief was no longer a secret, Elvira burst into sobs.

"And you knew it," said her mother; "silent martyr to prudence. Weep, yes, weep, for tears are like the blood which flows from wounds, and renders them less mortal. I knew what she was and warned him. I knew that reprobation must follow the union of kindred blood, and I told him so. He would not listen. It would have been better to let him go to the war. But the heart errs as well as the understanding."

In the mean time the impudent woman went on singing:

"Mothers-in-law, and sisters-in-law, See a cargo pa.s.sing go; What a famous load 'twould be.