The Torrent Part 2

Home to Alcira came rumors of other exploits by the "Prince," as don Jaime called his boy in view of the latter's ability to run through money. In parties with friends of the family, don Ramon's doings were spoken of as scandalous actually--a duel after a quarrel at cards; then a father and a brother--common workingmen in flannel shirts!--who had sworn they would kill him if he didn't marry a certain girl he had been taking to her shop by day and to dance-halls by night.

Old Brull made up his mind to tolerate these escapades of his son no longer; and he made him give up his studies. Ramon would not be a lawyer; well, after all, one didn't have to have a degree to be a man of importance. Besides the father felt he was getting old; it was hard for him to look after the working of his orchards personally. He could make good use of that son who seemed to have been born to impose his will upon everybody around him.

For some time past don Jaime had had his eye on the daughter of a friend of his. The Brull house showed noticeable lack of a woman's presence.

His wife had died shortly after his retirement from business, and the old codger stamped in rage at the slovenliness and laziness displayed by his servants. He would marry Ramon to Bernarda--an ugly, ill-humored, yellowish, skinny creature--but sole heiress to her father's three beautiful orchards. Besides, she was conspicuous for her industrious, economical ways, and a parsimony in her expenditures that came pretty close to stinginess.

Ramon did as his father bade him. Brought up with all the ideas of a rural skinflint, he thought no decent person could object to marrying an ugly bad-tempered woman, so long as she had plenty of money.

The father-in-law and the daughter-in-law understood each other perfectly. The old man's eyes would water at sight of that stern, long-faced puritan, who never had much to say in the house, but went into high dudgeon over the slightest waste on the part of the domestics, scolding the farmhands for the merest oversight in the orchards, haggling and wrangling with the orange drummers for a _centime_ more or less per hundredweight. That new daughter of his was to be the solace of his old age!

Meantime, the "prince" would be off hunting every morning in the nearby mountains and lounging every afternoon in the cafe; but he was no longer content with the admiration of the idlers hanging around a billiard table, nor was he taking part in the game upstairs. He was frequenting the circles of "serious" people now, had made friends with the _alcalde_ and was talking all the time of the great need for getting all "decent"

folk together to take the "rabble" in hand!

"Ambition is pecking at him," the old man gleefully remarked to his daughter-in-law. "Let him alone, woman; he'll get there, he'll get there... That's the way I like to see him."

Ramon began by winning a seat in the _Ayuntamiento_, and soon was an outstanding figure there. The least objection to his views he regarded as a personal insult; he would transfer debates in session out into the streets and settle them there with threats and fisticuffs. His greatest glory was to have his enemies say of him:

"Look out for that Ramon ... He's a tough proposition."

Along with all this combativeness, he sought to win friends by a lavish hand that was his father's torment. He "did favors," a.s.sured a living, that is, to every loafer and bully in town. He was ready to be "touched"

by anyone who could serve, in tavern and cafe, as advertising agent of his rising fame.

And he rose rapidly, in fact. The old folks who had pushed him forward with influence and counsel soon found themselves left far behind. In a short time he had become _alcalde;_ his prestige outgrew the limits of the city, spread over the whole district, and eventually reached the capital of the province itself. He got able-bodied men exempted from military service; he winked at corruption in the city councils that backed him, although the perpetrators deserved to go to prison; he saw to it that the constabulary was not too energetic in running down the _roders_, the "wanderers," who, for some well-placed shot at election time, would be forced to flee to the mountains. No one in the whole country dared make a move without the previous consent of don Ramon, whom his adherents always respectfully called their _quefe_, their "chief."

Old Brull lived long enough to see Ramon reach the zenith of his fame.

That scallawag was realizing the old man's dream: the conquest of the city, ruling over men where his father had gotten only money! And, in addition don Jaime lived to see the perpetuation of the Brull dynasty a.s.sured by the birth of a grandson, Rafael, the child of a couple who had never loved each other, but were united only by avarice and ambition.

Old Brull died like a saint. He departed this life with the consolation of all the last sacraments. Every cleric in the city helped to waft his soul heavenward with clouds of incense at the solemn obsequies. And, though the rabble--the political opponents of the son, that is--recalled those Wednesdays long before when the flock from the orchards would come to let itself be fleeced in the old Shylock's office, all safe and sane people--people who had something in this world to lose--mourned the death of so worthy and industrious a man, a man who had risen from the lowest estate and had finally been able to acc.u.mulate a fortune by hard work, honest hard work!

In Rafael's father there still remained much of the wild student who had caused so many tongues to wag in his youthful days. But his doings with peasant girls were hushed up now; fear of the _cacique's_ power stifled all gossip; and since, moreover, affairs with such lowly women cost very little money, dona Bernarda pretended to know nothing about them. She did not love her husband much. She was leading that narrow, self-centered life of the country woman, who feels that all her duties are fulfilled if she remains faithful to her mate and keeps saving money.

By a noteworthy anomaly, she, who was so stingy, so thrifty, ready to start a squabble on the public square in defense of the family money against day-laborers or middlemen, was tolerance itself toward the lavish expenditures of her husband in maintaining his political sovereignty over the region.

Every election opened a new breach in the family fortune. Don Ramon would receive orders to carry his district for some non-resident, who might not have lived there more than a day or two. So those who governed yonder in Madrid had ordered--and orders must be obeyed. In every town whole muttons would be set turning over the fires. Tavern wine would flow like water. Debts would be cancelled and fistfulls of _pesetas_ would be distributed among the most recalcitrant, all at don Ramon's expense of course. And his wife, who wore a calico wrapper to save on clothes and stinted so much on food that there was hardly anything left for the servants to eat, would be arrayed in splendor when the day for the contest came around, ready in her excitement to help her husband throw the entire house through the window, if need be.

This, however, was all pure speculation on her part. The money that was being scattered so madly broadcast was a "loan" simply. Some day she would get it back with interest. Already her piercing eyes were caressing the tiny, dark-complexioned, restless little creature that lay across her knees, seeing in him the privileged heir-apparent who would one day reap the harvest from all such family sacrifices.

Dona Bernarda had taken refuge in religion as in a cool, refreshing oasis in the desert of vulgarity and monotony in her life. Her heart would swell with pride every time a priest would say to her in the church:

"Take good care of don Ramon. Thanks to him the wave of demagogy halts at the temple door and evil fails to triumph in the District. He is the bulwark of the Lord against the impious!"

And when, after such a declaration, which flattered her worldly vanity and a.s.sured her of a mansion in Heaven, she would pa.s.s through the streets of Alcira in her calico wrapper and a shawl not over-clean, greeted affectionately, effusively, by the leading citizens, she would pardon don Ramon all the infidelities she knew about and consider the sacrifice of her fortune a good investment.

"If it were not for what we do, what would happen to the District....

The lower sc.u.m would conquer--those wild-eyed mechanics and common laborers who read the Valencian newspapers and talk about equality all the time. And they would divide up the orchards, and demand that the product of the harvests--thousands and thousands of _duros_ paid for oranges by the Englishmen and the French--should belong to all." But to stave off such a cataclysm, there stood don Ramon, the scourge of the wicked, the champion of "the cause" which he led to triumph, gun in hand, at election time; and just as he was able to send any rebellious trouble-maker off to the penal settlement, so he found it easy to keep at liberty all those who, despite the various murders that figured in their biographies, lent themselves to the service of the government in this support of "law and order!"

The patrimony of the House of Brull went down and down, but its prestige rose higher and higher. The sacks of money filled by the old man at the cost of so much roguery were shaken empty over all the District; nor were several a.s.saults upon the munic.i.p.al treasury sufficient to bring them back to normal roundness. Don Ramon contemplated this squandering impa.s.sively, proud that people should be talking of his generosity as much as of his power.

The whole District worshipped as a sacred flagstaff that bronzed, muscular, ma.s.sive figure, which floated a huge, flowing, gray-flecked mustache from its upper end.

"Don Ramon, you ought to remove that bush," his clerical friends would say to him with a smile of affectionate banter. "Why, man, you look just like Victor Emmanuel himself, the Pope's jailer."

But though don Ramon was a fervent Catholic (who never went to ma.s.s), and hated all the infidel turnkeys of the Holy Father, he would grin and give a satisfied twirl at the offending mouth-piece, quite flattered at bottom to be likened to a king.

The _patio_ of the Brull mansion was the throne of his sovereignty. His partisans would find him there, pacing up and down among the green boxes of plantain trees, his hands clasped behind his broad, strong, but now somewhat stooping back--a majestic back withal, capable of supporting hosts and hosts of friends.

There he "administered justice," decided the fate of families, settled the affairs of towns--all in a few off-hand but short and decisive words, like one of those ancient Moorish kings who, in that selfsame territory, centuries before, legislated for their subjects under the open sky. On market-days the _patio_ would be thronged. Carts would stop in long lines on either side of the door. All the hitching-posts along the streets would have horses tied to them, and inside, the house would be buzzing like a bee-hive with the chatter of that rustic gentry.

Don Ramon would give them all a hearing, frowning gravely meanwhile, his chin on his bosom and one hand on the head of the little Rafael at his side--a pose copied from a chromo of the Kaiser petting the Crown Prince.

On afternoons when the _Ayuntamiento_ was in session, the chief could never leave his _patio_. Of course not a chair in the city hall could be dusted without his permission; but he preferred to remain invisible, like a G.o.d, knowing well that his power would seem more terrible if it spoke only from the pillar of fire or from the whirlwind.

All day long city councilors would go trotting back and forth from the City Hall to the Brull _patio._ The few enemies don Ramon had in the Council--meddlers, dona Bernarda called them--idiots who swallowed everything in print provided it were against the King and religion--attacked the _cacique_ persistently, censuring everything he did. Don Ramon's henchmen would tremble with impotent rage. "That charge must be answered! Let's see now: somebody go and ask the boss!"

And a _regidor_ would be off to don Ramon's like a greyhound; and arriving at the _patio_ panting, out of breath, he would heave a sigh of relief and contentment at sight of "the chief" there, pacing up and down as usual, ready to get his friends out of their difficulties as if the limitless resources of Providence were at his command. "So-and-So said this-and-that!" Don Ramon would stop in his tracks, think a moment, and finally say, in an enigmatic oracular voice: "Very well, tell him to put this in his pipe and smoke it!" Whereupon the henchman, mouth agape, would rush back to the session like a racehorse. His companions would gather about him eager to know the reply that don Ramon's wisdom had deigned to suggest; and a quarrel would start then, each one anxious to have the privilege of annihilating the enemy with the magic words--all talking at the same time like magpies suddenly set chattering by the dawn of a new light.

If the opposition held its ground, again stupefaction would come over them. Another mad dash in quest of a new consultation. Thus the sessions would go by, to the great delight of the barber Cupido--the sharpest and meanest tongue in the city--who, whenever the Council met, would observe to his early morning shaves:

"Holiday today: the usual race of councilors bare-back."

When party exigencies forced don Ramon to be out of town, it was his wife, the energetic dona Bernarda, who attended to the consultations, issuing statements on party policy, as wise and apt as those of "the chief" himself.

This collaboration in the upbuilding and the up-holding of the family influence was the single bond of union between husband and wife. This cold woman, a complete stranger to tenderness, would flush with pleasure every time the chief approved her ideas. If only she were "boss" of "the Party!" ...Don Andres had often said as much himself!

This don Andres was her husband's most intimate friend, one of those men who are born to be second everywhere and in everything. Loyal to the family to the point of sacrifice, he served, with the couple itself, to fill out the Holy Trinity of the Brull religion that was the faith of all the District. Where don Ramon could not go in person, don Andres would be present for him, as the chief's _alter ego_. In the towns he was respected as the supreme vicar of that G.o.d whose throne was in the _patio_ of the plantain trees; and people too shy to lay their supplications before the G.o.d himself, would seek out that jolly advocate,--a very approachable bachelor, who always had a smile on his tanned, wrinkled face, and a story under his stiff cigar-stained mustache.

Don Andres had no relatives, and spent almost all his time at the Brull's. He was like a piece of furniture that seems always to be getting in the way at first; but when all were once accustomed to him, he became an indispensable fixture in the family. In the days when don Ramon had been a young subordinate of the _Ayuntamiento_, he had met and liked the man, and taking him into the ranks of his "heelers," had promoted him rapidly to be chief of staff. In the opinion of the "boss,"

there wasn't a cleverer, shrewder fellow in the world than don Andres, nor one with a better memory for names and faces. Brull was the strategist who directed the campaign; don Andres the tactician who commanded actual operations and cleaned up behind the lines when the enemy was divided and undone. Don Ramon was given to settling everything in a violent manner, and drew his gun at the slightest provocation. If his methods had been followed, "the Party" would have murdered someone every day. Don Andres had a smooth tongue and a seraphic smile that simply wound _alcaldes_ or rebellious electors around his little finger, and his specialty was the art of letting loose a rain of sealed doc.u.ments over the District that started complicated and never-ending prosecutions against troublesome opponents.

He attended to "the chief's" correspondence, and was tutor and playmate to the little Rafael, taking the boy on long walks through the orchard country. To dona Bernarda he was confidential adviser.

That surly, severe woman showed her bare heart to no one in the world save don Andres. Whenever he called her his "senora," or his "worthy mistress," she could not restrain a gesture of satisfaction; and it was to him that she poured out her complaints against her husband's misdeeds. Her affection for him was that of a dame of ancient chivalry for her private squire. Enthusiasm for the glory of the house united them in such intimacy that the opposition wagged its tongues, a.s.serting that dona Bernarda was getting even for her husband's waywardness. But don Andres, who smiled scornfully when accused of taking advantage of the chief's influence to drive hard bargains to his own advantage, was not the man to be trifled with if gossip ventured to smirch his friendship with the _senora_.

Their Trinity was most closely cemented, however, by their fondness for Rafael, the little tot destined to bring fame to the name of Brull and realize the ambitions of both his grandfather and his father.

Rafael was a quiet, morose little boy, whose gentleness of disposition seemed to irritate the hard-hearted dona Bernarda. He was always hanging on to her skirts. Every time she raised her eyes she would find the little fellow's gaze fixed upon her.

"Go out and play in _the patio_," the mother would say.

And the little fellow, moody and resigned, would leave the room, as if in obedience to a disagreeable command.

Don Andres alone was successful in amusing the child, with his tales and his strolls through the orchards, picking flowers for him, making whistles for him out of reeds. It was don Andres who took him to school, also, and who advertised the boy's fondness for study everywhere.

If don Rafael were a serious, melancholy lad, that defect was chargeable to his interest in books, and at the Casino, the "Party's" Club, he would say to his fellow-worshippers:

"You'll see something doing when Rafaelito grows up. That kid is going to be another Canovas."

And before all those rustic minds the vision of a Brull at the head of the Government would suddenly flash, filling the first page of the newspapers with speeches six columns long, and a _To Be Continued_ at the end; and they could see themselves rolling in money and running all Spain, just as they now ran their District, to their own sweet wills.