The Grandee Part 21

She left the place and ran like mad to the wood, where, arrived at a solitary spot, she sits at the foot of a tree and leans her head against the trunk. With her eyes fixed on s.p.a.ce, her face changed and sad, and her hands crossed upon her knee, her whole att.i.tude was expressive of dumb, despairing agony.

The hour for dinner arrived. Two parallel tables had been arranged in the large _salon_ on the ground floor.

The dispersed party rea.s.sembled at the magic word of dinner shouted to the four winds by the rough voice of Manin and the silvery one of Manuel Antonio.

When poetic sentiments have their course in the open air in the middle of woods they greatly facilitate the secretion of the gastric juices. So the nymphs as well as the fauns did full justice to the olives, the cuc.u.mbers, and the slices of sausage before sitting down to the tables.

By the unanimous voice of the military and clergy, worthily represented by Fray Diego, the task of giving each guest his seat was to be undertaken by the bride.

The merry, wayward Emilita, transformed suddenly into a very grave matron, filled the office with a tact and amiability that won her the approbation of the a.s.sembly; every girl was given the youth she liked best as a partner, and to every older person, was accorded the companion who was most congenial in character and tastes.

But mad was the applause when she put Lieutenant Rubio between the two Senoritas de Mere. She left this facetious act to the last, which cleverness saved the officer from thinking it was intentional.

Finding himself the victim of such a trick the military man was put out, and was even on the point of protesting against this arrangement of Emilita, but he controlled himself against this outrage of all the laws of gallantry; and as he was taking his place it occurred to him to parody the words of Napoleon as he looked at his two neighbours: "From the height of these two seats forty centuries contemplate me."

This remark won the applause of the company, and put the injured creature into a good humour, and he got on so well with his little old friends that he was that evening voted a capital sort of fellow.

Moro was seated by the side of the count, and during the dinner he impressed on him the advantage of having a billiard-table in the palace of the Grange. He knew every make, but the best was indisputably that of Tutau of Barcelona, and he praised up the article as if he were a traveller for the house. Luis' face showed his disappointment and vexation at not being by Amalia, but Emilita neither dared to put him there, nor by Fernanda. The first would have been a scandal, the second a vexation to both.

They feasted like at a banquet in the "Iliad." But the Achilles of this extensive repast was Manin, the rough Manin who, according to those that were next to him, consumed no less than eleven calabashes of wine.

Certainly Manin deserved being called, if not a Sueve, as that would offend Saleta, at least a Lombard. He talked and halloed as if he were in the street.

The three Fates of the Pensioner, who from the time Fray Diego gave his blessing to their sister, had gained so much childish grace, threw pellets of bread at the officers, who cast glances at the bride, and winked at their friend Nunez, as they murmured remarks which sent them off into fits of laughter.

Paco Gomez was having a battle royal with Maria Josefa. It was difficult to say which of the two had the worst of it, and which launched the sharpest, most envenomed darts. Saleta being some way off from his friend and censor, Don Enrique Valero, was enjoying himself to his heart's content, relating to Don Juan Estrada-Rosa and two other gentlemen how he made the conquest of a certain English lady, wife of a consul he had known at Hong-Kong, on his way out to the Philippines. The ship only stopped there twenty-four hours. In this short time he won her heart and made her go off with him. But he had to separate from her at once, for the event was made the subject of a diplomatic reclamation on the part of Great Britain.

Manuel Antonio being suddenly seized with a great interest in a scarlet subaltern by his side overwhelmed him with delicate attentions.

"Federico--a little olive--don't take so much mustard, it will spoil it.

Keep yourself for the partridges. I know they are most excellent. Do you like Bordeaux? Stop a moment, I will get you some."

And rising from the table in his eagerness to serve, he fetched a couple of bottles and placed them before the youth.

"So Lancia seems to agree with you. When you came six months ago you looked thin and pale. I said, 'What a sad sight, and a young man so bright and pleasant.' Because I thought you were suffering from the chest. I know you had a hard time of it in Barcelona. Eh? and see now, whoever would have thought it? I recollect that when you arrived you wore a gabardine of the colour of flies' wings, very well made, and a scarf of a very pretty sky blue. I recollect that the civil costume suited you very well, but I like you better in uniform. It may be fancy, but I can't help it. I say that with the uniform and with the moustache you are, to my mind, just perfect."

Sundry significant coughs from the officers facing them paralysed him suddenly. But it did not affect him long, for he was incapable of being put to shame by anybody.

The one who was the most put out and cross was the ensign himself.

As the banquet drew to its close some of the gentlemen, favoured by the Muses, rose to propose toasts in verse or something approaching it. And those who had not a poetic vein congratulated the bridal pair in prose, but the result in either case was the same--to wish the bride and bridegroom an eternal honeymoon; and the periodical which announced the marriage the following day, also expressed the same wish. The toast of the father of the bride was the most original and interesting of all.

Was it not strange to hear the bitter enemy of the armed force sing its praises, and declare himself a sworn partisan of the increase of the contingent, and the pay of the officers? He was so moved at his own words that the tears coursed down his cheeks. Of course some said he wept the wine he had drunk, but we are far from believing this malevolent insinuation, first, because it is absurd to talk of weeping wine, and secondly, because his tone was so sincere and his manner so pathetic that n.o.body could doubt that his words came from the bottom of his heart.

"It is a comfort," he said--"yes, it is a comfort that G.o.d has let me see my daughter marry an honourable soldier--for to speak of a soldier in Spain is to speak of honour. To keep up the army, to honour the army, is to keep up and honour the honour of the nation. To keep up the army is to keep up the power and prosperity of the country. To keep up the army is to keep up our prestige with the greatest nations of Europe. To keep up the army is to live respected by the world. To keep up the army is to keep up ourselves. To keep up the army----"

"Let the army be kept up, but let Don Cristobal sit down," called out somebody.

The Pensioner held his position, cast a look of sad reproach to the place whence the voice had come, raised his pocket handkerchief to his eyes to dry his tears, calmly drank the wine that remained in his gla.s.s, and gravely took his seat amid the applause and laughter of the company.

Fernanda did not open her lips during the dinner. All the efforts of Garnet, who, through the kindness of Emilita had been placed near to his much-desired lady love, were without effect. Neither by talking of saffron and describing how tobacco is gathered, making exact calculations on each load of sugar, and what would be the profit if duty were lowered, nor going over the hundred and one interesting details of the importation of salted meats from the Argentine Republic and the codfish from Newfoundland, could Romeo extract more than dry monosyllables from his Juliet. All she did was to hand him her gla.s.s from time to time, and say in an imperious tone: "Some more wine."

The Indian quickly complied with the request, and the young lady emptied the gla.s.s at one gulp, put it on the table, then cast her contemptuous eyes over the guests, and fixed them persistently upon Amalia. By degrees those eyes became heavier, the eyelids drooped, they became inflamed and turned from one side to the other with more difficulty.

Don Santos, who was astonished at this manner of drinking, ventured to say:

"Fernanda, you drink like a fish. Stupid! I am afraid I have offended you."

"Give me wine," returned Fernanda, giving him such a strange look that it quite upset him.

All the toasts having been now given, drunk, and responded to, the cheerful company again dispersed. The Pensioner and the officers averse to love-making were the only ones who remained at table. They entered into discussions on the best way of increasing, without much affecting the Treasury, captains' pay by eight dollars, lieutenants' by five, and ensigns' by three a month. Without this reform, the interested parties explicitly stated that there would very soon be a complete dissolution of the army, and it would cease to be the pivot of the honour of the country, and we should never rise to the dignity of other nations, nor have prosperity, power and honour in our lives.

Jaime Moro went in search of Fray Diego and Don Juan Estrada-Rosa and dragged them to the _tresillo_ table. Don Juan had lost and so was reluctant, but the plausible fellow managed to convince him that the reason he had not won in the morning was because he, Moro, never lost at that time, but his luck always turned in the afternoon, so he had a good chance of winning now.

Seated at the end of the table was Manin, who, without interfering with the officers' conversation, employed himself in lazily cutting slices of bread with his clasp-knife, and putting large pieces in his mouth, which he washed down with long draughts of Burgundy left in the bottles. He did not approve of the dinner that Maranon, the master of the cafe of Altavilla, had supplied them. After stuffing like a savage, he said that all the dishes were just as if they came from the perfumers, and that where there was plenty of beans with black pudding, sausage and marrow bones, no macaroni was wanted. It must be observed that to Manin every dish he did not know was macaroni, which was a source of much amus.e.m.e.nt to the Grandee.

Whilst concluding the meal so indecorously, he kept up a stream of complaints against it, and Don Cristobal, at whom he cast sundry angry glances, seemed to be held in some degree responsible for it.

Suddenly the door was opened with a great clamour, and four girls rushed into the room in such a state of excitement that the little party was quite taken aback. Without paying any attention to the others, they all turned to Quinones' majordomo:

"Manin, a bear! Manin, a bear!"

"Where?" he asked, without moving.

"In the wood."

"Who put it there?"

The four stood astounded at this strange question. At last one of them ventured timidly to remark:

"He came by himself."

"Bah! bah! bah!" returned the majordomo rudely.

And he returned to his lumps of bread with more ardour than ever, which perhaps justified malicious people of the town saying that they did not want to hear of the bears he had killed, for he was nothing but a rustic clown.

"But, child, say how you saw it," said the sympathetic Consuelo, who now put in her word, whereupon one who was paler than the others advanced and said with some difficulty:

"How fearful! _Madre mia_, how fearful! I thought I should have died--because you see the bear--the bear was horrible."

She was in such a state of panic, that she could only utter these incoherent words.

Then the resolute Consuelo came forward, and said in a firm voice:

"You see, Manin, this child was with us in the thickest part of the wood a long way off. She heard a bird sing, a mavis I believe--was it not a mavis? Very well, then she heard a thrush, and she turned in the direction whence the sound came. She went some distance, but could not come across it. When she turned back, the bear came out of the bushes, it attacked her, pulled her to the ground, and without doing her any harm, we do not know why, it went off and disappeared."

The famous bear-hunter then quietly rose from his seat, and said in the quiet, firm tone pertaining to heroes:

"Let us go and see what it is."

He asked for a gun, and followed from afar by the pallid damsels, he beat the wood. The only thing forthcoming was a German pig, one of a pair that the count had to improve the breed. The female had died, and the male wandered about sad and alone in the depths of the wood whilst his companion was metamorphosed into black puddings and chops. There were strong suspicions that the author of the attack was this widowed hog, but the young lady of the adventure swore and maintained that it had been a bear that had attacked her, and that they were not to tell her it was that animal, because she had often seen a bear in the zoological museum of the university.