More than once, on hearing the hapless child's outcries, the neighbours had intervened and had remonstrated with the unnatural mother. But nothing ever came of it beyond a noisy discussion, in which the passionate Irishwoman, in sputtering Valencian, poured out her wrath on the gossips of the quarter, and afterwards vented her fury on the cause of the squabble. She was always declaring that she would send the child to the workhouse, but this was opposed by the carpenter, who prided himself on being a kind-hearted and merciful man, and who sometimes interfered to mitigate her punishment, though he generally left it to his wife "to correct her daughter," as he said to the neighbours who blamed him. His educational notions clashed with his more kindly instincts, and when they got the upper hand, alas, for the poor little girl!
Certain details of these horrible torments were sickening. On one occasion Clementina had been to the well and broken the pitcher. It was the third within a month. The child dared not go home, and sought refuge with a neighbour. The woman took her to her mother, but did not leave her till she had extorted a promise that she should not be punished. And in point of fact her mother did not punish her by any ordinary process of chastisement; her cries might have led to a disturbance. She formed the diabolical idea of holding the girl's head over a foul sink, till she was half asphyxiated and fainted away. The worst days for the wretched child were when she had dropped asleep at her prayers. The cruel Irishwoman was a bigot, and this offence she never forgave. On one occasion, she beat her so mercilessly for repeating her prayers half asleep before going to bed, that the carpenter, who was peacefully eating his supper in the kitchen, heard her cries, and went up to the bedroom, where he rescued her from her mother, who would otherwise perhaps have been the death of her.
This course of incredible cruelties ended at last in one which led to the interference of justice. The unnatural mother, at her wit's end how to torture the girl, burnt her legs with a candle. A neighbour happening to hear of it told others, and the scandal in the quarter produced a stir; they appealed to justice, informed against the Irishwoman, and the crime being proved, she was condemned to six months' imprisonment, while the girl was placed in an asylum.
About a year later Salabert came to Valencia, not yet a potentate, but with some money. On hearing what had occurred he went to see his daughter at the school for poor girls, whence he removed her to one where he paid for her education, and at long intervals went to see her. His generous deed was highly lauded, and he knew how to make it tell, setting himself up in the eyes of those who knew him as a living model of paternal devotion, in shining contrast to the brutality of his deserted mistress.
Not long after, he married, and settled in Madrid. His wife was the daughter of a dealer in iron bedsteads and spring mattresses, in the Calle Mayor. She was plain and sickly, but gentle and affectionate, with fifty thousand dollars for her portion. At the end of three or four years of married life, finding her health increasingly delicate, Doña Carmen lost all hope of having any children, and knowing that her husband had an illegitimate daughter in a Convent at Valencia, she proposed, with rare generosity, to have her at home and treat her as their child. Salabert accepted gladly; he went to fetch Clementina, and thenceforward a complete change came over the girl's fate.
She was at this time aged fourteen, and already a marvel of beauty, a happy combination of the refined and delicate northern type with the severer beauty of the Valencian women. Undeveloped as yet, in consequence of the cruel experiences of her childhood followed by the quiet routine of a convent, under this change of climate and mode of life she acquired in two or three years the commanding stature and majestic proportions we have seen. Her moral nature left much more to be desired. Her temper was irritable, obstinate, scornful, and gloomy. Whether she was born with these characteristics or they were the result of the misery and sufferings of her wretched infancy it would be hard to decide. In the convent, where she was never ill-treated, she was not much loved by her teachers or her companions; her character was suspicious, and her heart devoid of tenderness. Her companions' troubles not only did not touch her; but brought a cruel smile to her lips, which filled them with aversion. Then, from time to time, she had fits of fury, which made her both feared and hated. On one occasion, when a young girl had spoken to her in offensive terms, she had clutched her by the throat and nearly strangled her. And it was quite impossible afterwards to induce her to beg pardon, as the mother superior required her to do; she preferred a month of solitary confinement rather than humble herself.
The first months of her life in her father's house were a period of trial for kind Doña Carmen. Instead of a bright young creature, grateful for the immense favour she had done her, she found herself confronted with a little heartless savage, devoid of affection or docility, extravagant and capricious to the last degree, who never laughed heartily excepting when a servant had an accident, or a groom was kicked by a horse. But the good woman did not lose courage. With the unfailing instinct of a generous heart she understood that if no love could spring from the soil it was because nothing had been sown in it but the seeds of hate. The softer affections exist in every human soul, as electricity exists in every body; but to detect them, to rouse a response, they must be treated for a length of time with a strong current of kindness. This was what Doña Carmen did to her stepdaughter. For six months she kept her in a warm atmosphere of affection, a close net of delicate thoughtfulness, and unfailing proofs of lively and loving interest. At last Clementina, who had begun by being first disdainful and then indifferent, who would pass hours together locked in her own room and never go near her stepmother but when she was sent for, who never had made any advances, but lived in absolute reserve, suddenly succumbed, feeling the vital and mysterious throb which binds human beings to each other, as it does all the bodies of the created universe. The change was strange and violent, like everything else in that strangely compounded temperament. At the most unlooked-for moment she fell on her knees before Doña Carmen, professing such deep respect, such passionate affection, that the good woman was amazed, and had great difficulty in believing in her sincerity. The revelation of lovingkindness had burst at length on the girl's soul; her icy heart had melted under the motherly warmth of the large-hearted woman; the divine essence of love henceforth had a home where hitherto the essence of Satan alone had dwelt.
It was a perfect miracle. Instead of spending her life in her room, she would never leave her stepmother's; she now called her "Mamma" with a fervour, a joy, a determination, such as are only to be seen in the devout when they appeal to the Virgin. And Clementina's feeling for her father's wife was in truth devotion. Amazed to find that so gentle, so tender a being could exist in this world, she was never tired of gazing at her, as though she had dropped from heaven. She would read her thoughts in her eyes, anticipate her smallest wishes, let no one serve her but herself; and, like every lover, insisted on the exclusive possession of the object of her affection. The slightest sign of disapproval on Doña Carmen's part was enough to disconcert her and plunge her into the deepest grief. The haughty creature, who had made herself generally odious, would humble herself with intense satisfaction before her stepmother. It was the humiliation of the mystic prostrated by an irresistible spiritual impulse. When she felt the good woman's hand caress her face she fancied it was the touch of God Himself, and hardly dared to touch those thin, transparent fingers with her lips.
But it was only to her stepmother that she had so entirely changed. To all else, including her father, she still displayed the same scornful coldness, the same proud and obstinate temper. If now and again she seemed sweeter and more tractable, it was due, not to her own will, but to some express command of Doña Carmen's; and as soon as this command was at an end, or forgotten, she was the same malevolent being once more. The servants hated her for the insufferable pride which she showed as soon as she realised her position as her father's heiress, and for her total lack of compassion if they did wrong.
The greatest sufferer was the English governess whom her father had engaged for her. She was an elderly woman, but she had a mania for dressing and tricking herself out like a girl. This harmless weakness was so constantly the theme of Clementina's mockery, that only necessity could have made the poor woman endure it. All the secrets of her toilet were mercilessly revealed for the amusement of the servants, and her physical defects, mimicked by the young lady's waiting-maid, were the laughing-stock of the kitchen. On a certain grand occasion, a day when there was a dinner-party, Clementina hid the old maid's false teeth, which she had left on the dressing-table after washing them. Her discomfiture may be imagined. But she took an innocent revenge by calling her "Señorita Capricho" and setting her as an exercise to translate from English into French certain maxims and aphorisms of scorching application, as: "Pride is the leprosy of the soul; a proud girl is a leper whom all should avoid with horror." "Those who do not respect their seniors can never hope to be respected," and the like.
Clementina laughed at these innuendoes; sometimes she would even dare to substitute some phrase of her own for that of her governess. Where she should have translated: "There is nothing so odious and contemptible as haughtiness in the young," she would write: "There is nothing so ridiculous and laughable as presumption in the old." Miss, as she was called, took offence, and complained to Doña Carmen, who would appeal to her stepdaughter, reproving her gently, and Clementina, seeing her grieved and annoyed, would smoothe her brow and kiss her lovingly. And all was well till next time. In fact Miss Anna and the servants were no doubt in the right when they said that the Señora would be the ruin of the girl. Doña Carmen, living in fearful solitude of soul, was so captivated and gratified by the warm affection her stepdaughter was always ready to lavish on her that she had no eyes for her faults, and even if she had, would not have found the courage to correct them.
At eighteen Clementina was one of the loveliest and wealthiest women of Madrid. Her father's fortune grew like the scum of yeast. He was regarded as one of the great bankers of the city, and was not known to have any other heir, nor was it likely that he would have one. The young aristocrats of family or wealth—the best known members of the Savage Club—began to flutter about her with the most pressing and eager attentions. If she appeared at a party a group of men fenced her round; if she went to church, another and a larger party stood in a row awaiting her exit; if she drove out in the Castellana Avenue, a cavalcade of admirers galloped beside her carriage as a guard of honour; at the theatre pairs of opera-glasses were invariably fixed upon her. The name of Clementina Salabert was to be heard in all the conversations of the gilded youth of Madrid, to be seen in print in every drawing-room chronicle, and was registered in the capital as that of one of the brightest stars of the firmament of fashion. She took up and dropped one lover after another without a thought, thus earning the reputation of a flirt and feather-brain. But this never interferes with a girl's chance of adorers; on the contrary, the self-love of men prompts them to pay great attentions to women of that stamp, in the hope, born of vanity, of being the nail to fix the weather-cock. Nor did she suffer any serious damage from a coarse and malignant rumour which, all through Madrid, connected her in a strange friendship with a young and famous bull-fighter. In this affair Doña Carmen's simplicity and weakness played a leading part. Not only did the good lady allow the man to visit at her house, and sit at her table, but she even accompanied the pair in public on more than one occasion. This, and her having cheered him at the death of several bulls, gave scandal—as busy in the capital as in the provinces—sufficient pretext for an attack on the envied beauty. But as it could bring forward nothing but bold suspicion and vague conjecture, and as, on the other side, there were positive facts which far outweighed them, the calumny did not diminish the number of her adorers. Its only use was as an outlet for the bile of some rejected one.
At this age, and often after, Clementina's manners betrayed a strong infusion of Bohemianism—of the free and easy airs and sarcastic coolness of the adventuresses of Madrid. A similar tendency may be observed, in a more or less exaggerated form, in all the upper circles of Madrid Society; it is a mark which distinguishes it from that of other countries. And in this tendency, which is everywhere conspicuous from the palace to the hovel, there is some good; it is not wholly evil. In the first place it implies a protest against the perpetual falsehood which the increasing refinement and complication of social formalities inevitably entail. Propriety of conduct and moderation of language are highly praiseworthy no doubt, but in an exaggerated form they result in the cold courtesy of a diplomate at a foreign Court. Men and women, crushed under the weight of so much formality, become artificial beings, puppets, whose acts and words are all set forth in a programme. To exclude liberty and familiarity from society is to undermine human nature; to prohibit frankness of speech is to destroy the charm which ought to exist in all human intercourse.
Moreover, an instinct of equality underlies this assertion of freedom, and cannot fail to make it attractive to every lover of Nature and truth. A lady is not a bundle of fine clothes, of foregone conclusions and ready-made phrases; she is, above all else, a woman in whom culture has, or ought to have, tempered impetuosity of character and impulses of vanity, but not to have impaired the genuineness of Nature by transforming her in society into a cold dry doll, devoid of grace and originality. It must not be supposed that the perfect refinement and elegance proper to the scenes where the upper classes meet are unknown in Madrid. They are constantly observed by almost every Spanish woman of family; but, happily, they are united with the vivacity, grace, and spontaneity of the Spanish race, making our fair ones, in the opinion of impartial observers, the most accomplished, gracious, and agreeable women in Europe—excepting, perhaps, the French.
Clementina had a somewhat exaggerated taste for this freedom of word and action. She had acquired it no one knows how—by contagion in the atmosphere perhaps—since women in her position are not in the habit of spending their time with the commoner sort. She had had a waiting maid, born and brought up in Maravillas, and it was from her, in her moments of excitement, that Clementina picked up the greater part of her slang and sayings. Then came her friendship with the torero above-mentioned; an acquaintance with various young men who cultivated that style; the lower class of theatres, where the manners and customs of the lower classes of the Madrid populace are set on the stage—not without grace; and her intimacy with Pepe Frias, and some other fast women of fashion, finally gave her the full Bohemian flavour. She was an enthusiast for bull-fights. It was a perfect marvel if she missed one, sitting in her private box with the orthodox white mantilla and red carnations. And she would discuss the chances, and fulminate criticisms, and bestow applause; and was regarded by the habitués as a keen and eager connoisseur. The national sport, exciting and bloody, was quite after her mind, violent and indomitable as she was by nature. When she saw other women covering their eyes or showing weakness over the fortunes of the arena, she laughed sardonically, as doubting the genuineness of their horror.
Among the many adorers and suitors who successively and rapidly rose and fell in her favour, there was one who succeeded in securing her notice, at any rate, for a rather longer time than the rest. His name was Tomas Osorio. He was a young man of twenty-eight or thirty, rich, small and delicate, with a pleasing face and a lively, determined temper. Either of deliberate purpose, or from genuine independence of character, he made a deeper impression than his peers. When he first paid attention to her he did not cringe nor completely abdicate his own will. In some differences on important points in the course of his long courtship—for it lasted not less than two years—he firmly maintained his dignity. He was, like her, irritable, haughty and scornful; purse-proud too, and with a spiteful wit which stood him in good stead with women. Thanks to these qualities, Clementina did not tire of him so soon as of the rest. But at the end of the two years, within a few days of the marriage, it was broken off in a very public and almost scandalous manner. All Madrid was talking of it, and commentary was endless. The conclusion arrived at was that it was the gentleman who had taken the first steps towards the rupture, and this report, whether true or false, reached Clementina's ears, and was such a stab to her pride that she was almost ill with rage.
Another year went by. She had other suitors, off and on, and Osorio, on his part, courted other damsels. But in both, notwithstanding, the memory of the past survived. She was burning for revenge. So long as that man was going about the world, so perfectly content as he seemed, she felt herself humiliated. He, on the contrary, in spite of his affected indifference, was still consumed by love, or rather by desire. Clementina had captivated his senses, had pierced his flesh, and, do what he would, he could not extract the dart. She was always in his thoughts, always before his eyes, provoking his passion. The longer the time that elapsed the fiercer the fire burned within him, and the greater were the effort and the anguish of keeping up a haughty and indifferent demeanour when they happened to meet. Clementina, with a penetration common in women, had no difficulty in guessing that her former love still cherished a secret passion for her, and felt a malicious joy. Thenceforward she dressed and adorned herself for him alone—to bewitch him, to fascinate him, to make him drain the bitter cup of jealousy.
From this moment dated her fame as an elegant woman. Clementina was indeed, in this matter, a great artist. She knew how to dress so that her clothes should never by their colour or quality attract attention to the prejudice of her face. Understanding that what a woman wears should be not a uniform, but an adornment to set off the perfections which nature has bestowed upon her, she was no blind slave of fashion; when she thought it unbecoming to her beauty she boldly defied it or modified it. She avoided glaring hues, a profusion of trimmings, and elaborate styles of hair-dressing; she regarded and treated her person as a statue. Hence a certain tendency, constantly evident in her costume, towards drapery, and amplitude of flowing folds. Her fine, majestic figure gained greatly by this style of dress, which, though it became rather pronounced after her marriage, was never exaggerated beyond the limits of good taste. She was fond of wearing white, and this, with a simple manner of dressing her hair like that of the Milo Venus, made her appear in the drawing-rooms of Madrid like a beautiful Greek statue. One thing she did which, though highly censurable from a moral point of view, is not so as a matter of art. She wore her dresses very low. Her bust was superb; it might have been moulded by the Graces to turn the head of a god. The vain desire to display her beauty, unchecked by the wholesome control of a mother, led her on more than one occasion to incur the severest comments of society. Poor Doña Carmen, besides knowing nothing of social custom, was so lenient to her stepdaughter's fancies and caprices, that she accepted them as quite reasonable, and as undoubted evidence of her indisputable elegance and taste.
However, her vanity brought its own punishment. On one occasion when she made her appearance at a ball given by the Alcudias, the Marquesa said as she greeted her:
"Very pretty, very nice, Clementina. Your dress is lovely; but it is too low, my dear. Come with me and let us set it right."
She took the girl up to her room and, with motherly kindness, arranged some gauzy material to cover what really ought not to be displayed. Clementina managed to conceal her mortification, ascribing the fault to the dressmaker; but she felt so humiliated by the lecture, and the pitying smile which accompanied it, that she never again could endure to see the prudish Marquesa.
Under this constant fanning Osorio's flame waxed fiercer and fiercer, and he could no longer keep it to himself. At last he confided in his sister, who was fairly intimate with the young lady; he begged her to sound the way, and ascertain whether he might once more make advances without fear of a rebuff. Mariana undertook the commission. Clementina heard her with ill-disguised triumph, but sat demure until Señora de Calderón had poured out all her story, and assured her that Tomas was burning with devotion. Then she replied ambiguously, and with laughter: "She would think it over. She was deeply aggrieved by the reports that had been spread as to their rupture, but at any rate, he was not to give up all hope."
She did reflect seriously as to the means of satisfying the demands of her wounded pride, and at the end of a few days she announced to Mariana her ultimatum. If she was to consent to give her hand to Osorio, he must beg it of her parents on his knees, in the presence of such witnesses as she might choose.
Such a preposterous idea would never have occurred to any Spanish woman of pure race, and only the admixture of British blood could have led her to conceive of such a monstrous refinement of arrogance.
When Osorio was informed of the conditions imposed by his ex-fiancée he flew into a violent rage, and swore defiantly that he would be cut in pieces before he would suffer such degradation. The matter dropped, and things went on as before. But as, in spite of his utmost efforts, the serpent of desire gnawed at his heart with increasing virulence, the poor wretch at the end of two months had fallen into utter dejection; he was really dying of love; he could not tear himself from Madrid, and once more he besought his sister to open negotiations. Clementina, quite sure of having him in her power, was inflexible; either he must pass beneath these strange Caudine forks, or there was no hope.
And Osorio submitted.
What could he do?—The extraordinary ceremony was carried out one evening at the lady's residence. On reaching the house Osorio found assembled about a score of women whom Clementina had chosen from among the most envious of her acquaintances, or those who had been most malignant as to the cause of their former quarrel. He adopted the best conduct he possibly could in such a case: grave and solemn, with a certain ease of language and manner, betraying a suspicion of irony, as if he were performing a comedy for the benefit of a crazy person. He gave a brief preliminary sketch of their former engagement; confessed himself to blame; praised Clementina in extravagant terms—with so little moderation indeed that he seemed to be speaking sarcastically—and professed himself unworthy to aspire to her hand. Finally declaring that as she was so worthy to be adored, and the joy of winning her so great, he thought it but a small thing to ask her of her parents on his knees. At the same time he fell on one knee. Doña Carmen hastened to raise him, and embraced him effusively. Clementina even pressed his hand, better pleased by the grace and dignity with which he had got through the ordeal, than gratified in her conceit. In truth, on this occasion she felt for him, what she never felt again, a tiny spark of love. If any one suffered humiliation from this scene it was she herself, from the light and easy dignity with which her lover carried it off. But this was a trifle; a woman enjoys nothing more keenly and deeply than the superiority of the man who mollifies her. Clementina was happy that evening.
But though Osorio had come so well out of the ordeal, he never forgave her the intention to humiliate him; he was as proud as she. The insane passion she had inspired for a time smothered every other. His honeymoon was as brief as it was delicious. The shock of two such characters, both equally obstinate and proud, was inevitable. It soon came in the form of a series of petty annoyances which instantly extinguished the feeble sparks of affection which her husband had struck in the young wife's heart. In him passion survived longer. The knowledge each had of the other made them cautious, for fear of a more formidable collision which must have led to disaster. But this too came at last. Report said that Osorio, tired of his wife's indifference and scorn, had insulted her beyond forgiveness. Whether or no the story as it was told was true in all its details, their union at any rate was practically at an end for ever. Osorio forfeited his own right to interfere with his wife on the score of conduct, and could only look on while Clementina unblushingly and confessedly accepted the attentions of every man who offered them. He certainly, to parry the ridicule to which he was thus exposed, threw himself into excesses of dissipation, raising women from the lowest ranks to figure as his mistresses.
At home the husband and wife spoke no more to each other than was absolutely necessary. To escape the discomfort of a tête-à-tête at table, they always had some guest. In public they made a show of the most natural and friendly relations; Osorio would sometimes go late to fetch his wife from the theatre or party to which she had been. But every one understood the facts of the case. Clementina, as a rule, would go out on her lover's arm; they would stand talking in the lobby in the sight of all the world, while waiting for the carriage; she stepped in; before it drove off they would yet exchange a few confidential and incoherent remarks interrupted by gay laughter. Morality—fashionable morality—was satisfied, so long as the lover did not drive off in the same carriage, though a few minutes later they might meet again at some rendezvous.
When Clementina reached home it was half-past six o'clock. The driver whistled; the porter came out of his lodge and opened the gate first, and then the door of the hackney coach. He paid the man. The lady, without uttering a syllable, went through the garden, which though small was exquisitely kept, and up the outside steps of white marble, screened by a verandah, which extended across half the front of the house. The house itself was not very large, but handsome and artistic, of white stone and fine brickwork. It had been built by Osorio about four or five years since. As the plans had been fully discussed and considered, the rooms were well arranged, and this made it more comfortable than his brother-in-law's, though that was three or four times as large.
She asked a servant in the anteroom: "Where is Estefania?"
"It is some time since I last saw her, Señora."
She crossed a magnificent hall, lighted by two large lamps with polished vases borne by bronze statues, went along the corridor, and up the stairs leading to the first floor, meeting no one on her way. At the door of the drawing-room leading to her boudoir, she met Fernando, a page of fourteen in a smart livery.
"Estefania?" she asked.
"She must be in the kitchen."
"Tell her to come up at once."
She entered the boudoir, and going up to a long mirror resting on two pillar-feet of gilt wood, she took off her hat. The room was a small one, hung with blue satin bordered with wreaths in carton-pierre. On the chimney-piece, covered also with blue satin, stood a clock and two fine candelabra, the work of a silversmith of the last century. The carpet was white with a blue border; in the middle of the room there was a causeuse upholstered in gold colour, the armchairs were gilt, two large feather pillows lay on the floor. In one corner was the mirror, in another a Pompadour writing-table of inlaid wood; in the other two were columns covered with velvet, to support the lamps which now lighted the room. On one side this room opened into Clementina's drawing-room, and then into her bedroom. On the other side, a door led into a small drawing-room, where she was at home to her friends on Tuesday afternoons, and where cards were played at night by an intimate circle. Only a few very confidential friends were ever admitted to her boudoir, calling at the hours when she was "Not at home." Here those long and secret colloquies were held which women so greatly relish, in which they pour out their whole mind, with swift transition from the profoundest depths to the frivolities of the day and details of dress and fashion.
Within a few seconds of her taking off her hat Estefania came in. She was a pale young girl, with pretty black eyes; dressed suitably to her rank but with care and finish; over her skirt she wore a holland apron trimmed with white edging.
"You might have been ready for me, child. Where had you hidden yourself?" said her mistress, in a tone at once cross and indifferent.
"I was in the kitchen. I went to put a few stitches into Teresa's skirt; she had torn it on a nail," replied the girl, with affected servility.
Clementina made no reply, absorbed, no doubt, in thought. Standing in front of the mirror to take off her cloak, she gazed at herself with the perennial interest which a pretty woman feels in her own face.
"Did you go to Escobar's?" she asked at length.
"Yes, Señora."
"And what did he say?"
"That he has no silk so thick of that colour, but that he would send for it if the Señora wishes."
"Turura! That journey won't kill him! And to the milliner's?"
"Yes, they will send the caps on Saturday."
"Did you inquire after Father Miguel?"
"No, I had not time. It is such a long way."
"A long way! Why, did you not go in the carriage?"
"No, Señora. Juanito said that the mare was not shod."
"Then why did he not put in one of the Normandy horses?"
"I do not know. Whenever you tell me to take the carriage he finds some excuse."
"So it seems. Never mind, child; I will see to it. What next, Señor Juanito, with your masterful airs?"
But as she glanced up at the maid's face in the glass she thought she noticed something strange about her eyes, and turned round to see her better. In fact, Estefania's eyes were red with weeping.
"You have been crying, child?"
"I—no, Señora, no."
The denial was evidently a subterfuge. The lady had not to press her much to make her confess even the cause of her tears.
"The head cook, Señora," she whimpered out, "who used to take my part—when I say anything he bursts out laughing or says something rude, and the others, of course, as they are jealous because you are good to me, and to flatter the cook—the others laugh too; and because I said I should tell you, he said all manner of horrid things, and turned me out of the kitchen."
"Turned you out! And who is he to turn you out?" exclaimed her mistress vehemently. "Tell him to come here. I must give him a rowing, as well as Juanito, it seems! If we do not take care, the servants will rule this house instead of the masters."
"Señora, I dare not. If you would send Fernando!"
"Do as you please, but bring him here."
She had worked herself up into high wrath at the girl's story. Estefania was her favourite, whom she petted above all the other servants, and made the confidant of many of her secrets. The girl's fawning and flattery had won her heart so completely that, without being aware of it, she had allowed a large part of her will to go with it. It was, in fact, Estefania who ruled the house, since she ruled its mistress. The servant who could not win her good graces might prepare sooner or later to lose his place. And what happened was the necessary result in all such cases: the mistress's favourite was hated by all the rest of the household, not only from envy—the disgraceful passion which exists, in a greater or less degree, in every human being—but also because the nature that is hypocritical and time-serving to superiors, is inevitably haughty and malevolent to inferiors.
The chef, on being called by Fernando, to whom Estefania gave the message, soon made his appearance at the door of the boudoir wearing the insignia of his office, to wit, a clean apron and cap, both as white as snow. He was a man of about thirty, with a fresh and not bad-looking face, and large black whiskers. The frown on his brow and the anxious expression in his eyes betrayed that he knew why he had been sent for. Clementina had seated herself on the ottoman. Estefania withdrew into a corner, and when the cook came in she fixed her eyes on the floor.
"I hear, Cayetano, that after behaving very rudely to my maid, you turned her out of the kitchen. I have, therefore, sent for you to tell you that I will not allow any servant to behave badly to another; nor are you permitted to turn any one out so long as you are in my house."
"Señora, I did nothing to her. It is she who treats us all badly—teasing one and nagging at another, till there is no peace," the cook replied, with a strong Gallician accent.
"Well, even if she teases one and nags at another, you have not any right to insult her. She is to tell me, and there is an end of it," replied his mistress sharply, and mimicking his accent.
"But you see——"
"I see nothing. You hear what I say; there is an end of it," and she waved her hand imperiously.
The cook, with his face scarlet and quivering with rage, stood without stirring for a few seconds. Then, before he withdrew, he boldly fixed his wrathful gaze on the girl, who kept her eyes on the carpet with a bland hypocrisy which betrayed the triumph of her self-importance.
"Tell-tale!" he said, spitting out the words rather than speaking them.
The lady rose from her seat, and, bursting with rage at this want of respect, she exclaimed:
"How dare you insult her before my face? Go, instantly. Get out of my sight!"
"Señora, what I say is, that the fault is hers."
"So much the better. Go!"
"We will all go—out of the house, Señora. We can none of us put up with that impudent minx!"
"You go forthwith, as though you had never come! You may find yourself another place, for I will never allow any servant to get the upper hand of me."
The cook, in some dismay at this prompt dismissal, again stood rooted to the spot; but, suddenly recovering himself, he turned on his heel, saying with dignity:
"Very well, Señora, I will."
But when he was gone Clementina still muttered: "An insolent fellow is that Gallician! I don't believe any one but I gets such servants!"
Then, suddenly pacified by a new idea, she said:
"Come, now, I must dress; it is getting late."
She went into her dressing-room, followed by Estefania, who, contrary to what might have been expected, looked grave and gloomy. Clementina hurriedly began to remove her walking-dress and change it for a simple dinner-dress, such as she wore at home to receive a few friends in the evening—always very light in hue, and cut open at the throat, though with long sleeves. At a sign from the mistress the maid brought out a "crushed-strawberry" pink dress from the large wardrobe with mirrors, which lined all one side of the room. Before putting it on she arranged her hair, and exchanged her bronze kid boots for shoes to match the dress. The pale girl meanwhile never opened her lips; her face grew every moment sadder and more anxious. At last, on her knees to put on her mistress's shoes, she raised beseeching eyes to her face and said timidly:
"Señora, may I entreat you—not to send Cayetano away?"
Clementina looked at her in amazement.
"Is that it? After you yourself——"
"The thing is," said Estefania, turning as red as her complexion would allow, "if you send him away the others will take offence."
"And what does that matter?"
But the girl insisted very earnestly with urgent and persuasive entreaties. For a time the lady refused, but as the matter was unimportant, and she perceived, not without surprise, the interest and even anxiety of her favourite for the cook's reprieve, she presently yielded, desiring Estefania to make the necessary explanations. On this the girl's face immediately cleared; she was as bright as a bird, and began to help her mistress to dress very deftly and briskly.
Two taps at the door made them both start.
"Who is there?" called the lady.
"Are you dressing, Clementina?" was asked from outside.
It was her husband's voice. Her surprise was not the less; Osorio very rarely came to her rooms when she was alone.
"Yes, I am dressing. Is there any one downstairs?"
"As usual—Lola, Pascuala and Bonifacio. I want to speak to you. I will wait for you here in the drawing-room."
"Very well; I will come."
Until her toilet was complete Clementina spoke no more; her expression was one of gloomy anticipation, which her maid could not fail to observe. Her fingers, as she gave the last touches to the folds of her skirt, trembled a little, like those of a young lady dressing for her first ball.
Osorio was, in fact, waiting for her in the little drawing-room beyond the boudoir. He was lounging at his ease in an arm-chair, but, on seeing his wife, he rose, and dropped the end of the cigar he was smoking into the spittoon. Clementina saw that he was paler than usual. He was the same neat and dapper little man, with a bad complexion, as when he had married; but in the course of these twelve years his temper had been greatly spoiled. He had many wrinkles on his face, his hair and beard were streaked with grey, and his eyes had lost their brightness. He closed the door which his wife had left open, and going up to her said, with affected ease: "My cashier handed me to-day a cheque from you, for fifteen thousand pesetas. Here it is."
He took out his pocket-book, and from it a half-sheet of scented satin paper which he held out to her. She looked at it for a moment with a grave and gloomy face, but did not wince. She said not a word.
"A fortnight ago he gave me one for nine thousand. Here it is." The same proceedings, the same silence.
"Last month there were three: one for six thousand, one for eleven thousand, and one for four thousand. Here they are."
Osorio flourished the handful of papers before his wife's eyes; then, as this did not unlock her lips, he asked: "Do you acknowledge it?"
"Acknowledge what?" she said, shortly.
"That these documents are correct."
"They are, no doubt, if they bear my signature. I have a bad memory, especially for money matters."
"A happy gift," he replied with an ironical smile, as he went through the papers in his pocket-book. "I, too, have often tried to forget them. Unfortunately my cashier makes it his business to refresh my memory. Well," he went on as his wife said no more, "I came up solely to ask you a question—namely: Do you suppose that things can go on like this?"
"I do not understand."
"I will explain. Do you suppose that you can go on drawing on my account every few days such sums as these?"
Clementina, who had been pale at first, had coloured crimson.
"You know better than I."
"Why better? You ought to know the amount of your fortune."
"Well, but I do not know," she replied, sharply.
"Nothing can be more simple. The six hundred thousand dollars which your father paid over when we were married, being invested in real estate, produce, as you may see by the books, about twenty-two thousand dollars a year. The expenses of the house, without counting my private outlay, amounts to about three times as much. You can surely draw your own conclusions."
"If you are vexed at your money being spent you can sell the houses," said Clementina with scornful brevity, her colour fading to paleness again.
"But if they were sold I should none the less be responsible for the whole value. You know that?"
"I will sign you any paper you like, saying that I hold you responsible for nothing."
"That is not enough, my dear. The law will never release me from responsibility for your fortune, so long as I have any money. Moreover, if you spend it in pleasure"—and he emphasised the word—"it may be all very well for you, but deplorable for me, because I shall still be compelled to supply you with—necessaries."
"To keep me, in short?" she said with a bitter intonation.
"I wished to avoid the word; but it is no doubt exact."
Osorio spoke in an impertinent and patronising tone, which piqued his wife's pride in every possible way. Ever since the violent differences which had led to their separation under the same roof, they had had no such important interview as this. When, in the course of daily life, they came into collision, matters were smoothed over with a short explanation, in which both parties, without compromising their pride, used some prudence for fear of a scandal. But the present question touched Osorio in a vital part. To a banker money is the chief fact in life.
His personal pride, too, had suffered greatly in the last few years, though he had not confessed it. It was not enough to feign indifference and disdain of his wife's misconduct; it was not enough to pay her back in her own coin, by flaunting his mistresses in her face and making a parade of them in public. Both fought with the same weapons, but a woman can inflict with them far deeper wounds than a man. The misery he suffered from his wife's disreputable life did not diminish as time went on; the gulf which parted them grew wider and deeper. And so revenge was ready to seize this opportunity by the forelock.
Clementina looked him in the face for a moment. Then, shrugging her shoulders and with a contemptuous curl of her lips, she turned on her heel and was about to leave the room. Osorio stepped forward between her and the door.
"Before you go you must understand that the cashier has my orders to pay you no cheques that do not bear my signature."
"For your regular expenses I will allow a fixed sum on which we will agree. But I can have no more surprises on the cash-box."
Clementina, who had been about to quit the room by the ante-chamber, turned to go to her boudoir. Before leaving the room she held the curtain a moment in her hand, and facing her husband she said, with concentrated rage, "In that you are as mean a cur as your brother-in-law, only he never made believe, like you, to be generous."
She dropped the curtain, and slammed the door in his face.
Osorio made as though to follow her; but he instantly stopped short and yelled, rather than spoke, so she might hear him:
"Oh, yes! I am a mean cur, because I do not choose to maintain a crew of hungry puppies. I leave that to the hags who choose to pet them!"
This brutal speech seemed to have eased his mind, for his lips wore a smile of triumphant sarcasm.
Five minutes later they were both in the dining-room, laughing and jesting with a small party of guests.
"LET me see, let me see. Explain yourself."
"Señor Duque, the matter is as clear as possible. I spoke with Regnault to-day. If the furnaces are altered, a few roads made, and proper machinery set up, the mine can be made to yield half as much again as it now does. It may be as much as sixty thousand flasks of mercury. The outlay needed to produce these results would not exceed a hundred to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars."
"That seems to me a great deal."
"A great deal for such a result?"
"No, that seems to me a great many flasks."
"But I have no doubt that what Regnault says is true. He is an intelligent and practical engineer. He worked for six years in California; and, indeed, the English engineer said the same."
The persons holding this discourse were Requena and his secretary, or head-clerk, or whatever he called himself, since he had no particular style or title in the household. He was known only by his name—Llera. He was an Asturian, tall and bony, with a colourless, hard-featured face, enormously long arms and legs, and large hands and feet. His manner was rough and awkward; his eyes, which were fine, had a frank, honest look, and were bright with energy and intelligence. He was an indefatigable, an amazing worker. No one knew when he ate or slept. When he made his appearance at eight in the morning, he brought with him as much work ready done as most men get through in a day, and at midnight he might often still be seen in his office, pen in hand.
Salabert, having the gift of judging men, without which no one makes a great success in the world, had discovered Llera's intelligence and character after employing him for a short while as an underling, and without giving him any showy position—which was not at all his way—he made him a responsible one, by accumulating in his hands all the most important business of the house. He very soon was the great banker's confidential man, the soul of the business. His laborious industry put all the other employés to shame, and Salabert took advantage of it to load him with work after regular hours. Llera was at the same time his private secretary, his steward, the head clerk of the office, the inspector of all the works he had in construction, and the agent in most of his transactions. And for doing all this inconceivable amount of work—more than four men of average industry would have got through—he paid him six thousand pesetas a year. The man thought himself well paid, remembering that only six years ago he was earning but twelve hundred and fifty.
Every day, before taking his morning walk and paying his round of business calls, Requena looked into Llera's office, made inquiries as to things in general, and chatted with him for a longer or shorter time according to circumstances.
The Duke's offices were at the top of his palace in the Avenue de Luchana, a magnificent mansion, standing in the midst of a garden which for extent was worthy to be called a park. In the spring the dense foliage of the fine old trees almost hid the white tops of the turrets; in winter the numbers of firs and evergreens which grew there, still gave it a pleasant verdure. It was the meeting-place of all the birds in that quarter of the city. The entrance to the house was up a large flight of marble steps; above the ground floor, where the reception-rooms were, and the dining-room, there were three storeys, and the Duke's offices, which were not large, filled part only of the upper floor. They were large enough for Salabert, who conducted his affairs from thence, with the help of a dozen expert clerks.
The luxury displayed in the house was amazing; the furniture and fittings were almost priceless. This was not in keeping with the avarice with which the master was generally credited; but this and other contradictions will be explained as we become better acquainted with his character, which was curious enough to be well worthy of study.
The kitchens were in the basement, roomy and well-fitted; the dining-room, at the back of the house, opened into a conservatory of vast dimensions, filled with exotic shrubs and flowers, where water was laid on to form little pools and water-falls of charming effect and imitating nature as closely as possible. The picture-gallery was in a separate building at the end of the garden, and in another some of the servants slept, but not all.
The Duke, occupying the only chair in Llera's office, while the secretary stood in front of him twirling a large pair of scissors used for cutting paper, turned his wet cigar three or four times from one corner of his mouth to the other, and made no reply to the clerk's last words. At last he growled rather than said:
"Humph! The Ministry grows more pig-headed every day."
"What does that matter. You know the secret of making it give way. Telegraph to Liverpool, and within a fortnight the price of mercury will have fallen from sixty to forty dollars the flask."
About four years since, Requena, at Llera's suggestion and advice, had formed a company or syndicate for buying up all the mercury which should come into the market. Thanks to these tactics, the price of this product had gone up wonderfully. The company had now an enormous stock in hand at Liverpool; Llera's scheme was to throw this into the market at a given moment and so produce a great fall in the price, which would frighten the Government. This, which was to be done at the moment when the Government was about to repay a loan of fifteen million dollars borrowed ten years since of a foreign house, would reduce them to selling the mines of Riosa. If Requena was then prepared to pull the affair through at the sacrifice of a few thousands, to subsidise the press, and bribe certain individuals, he might be certain of success. This project, conceived of by Llera, and matured by the Duke, had run its due course, and was now near the final coup.
"Well, we shall see," said the rich man, and after meditating a few minutes he went on: "When the mines are for sale it will be necessary to form another company. The Mercury Syndicate will not serve our turn."
"Of course!"
"The thing is that I do not want to sink more than eight million pesetas in this concern."
"That is a different matter," said Llera, becoming very serious. "It does not seem to me possible to keep the control of such a business with so small a stake in it. The management will slip into other hands, and the profits will soon be reduced to so much per cent., more or less—that is to say, a mere nothing."
"Very true, very true," mumbled Salabert, again falling into deep thought. Llera too remained silent and pensive.
"I have already explained to you the only way of keeping the concern in your own hands," said he.
This way consisted in securing a sufficiently large number of shares in the mine which the company was to purchase, and to go on buying up as many as possible; then to throw them into the market at so low a price as to alarm the shareholders. Thus to buy and sell at a loss for some time was Llera's plan for bringing down the price of the shares, when he could acquire half the shares plus one, for much less money, and be master of the whole concern.
To Salabert this was not so clear as to his clerk. His intellect was keen and far-seeing, but he lacked breadth of view and initiative, though those who saw him boldly undertake ventures of vast scope were apt to think that he had them. The first conception, the mother idea, of a new concern scarcely ever originated in his brain. It came to him from outside; but once sown there it germinated and developed as it would have done in no other in Spain. By degrees he analysed it, or rather dissected it, laying bare its inmost fibres, contemplating it from all sides; and once convinced that it would prove advantageous, he launched it with the rare and surprising audacity which had so greatly deceived the public as to his gifts as a speculator. He was perfectly convinced that when once he had made up his mind to an enterprise, vacillation must be fatal. Still, this boldness proceeded not from his temperament but from reflection; it was the outcome of extreme astuteness.
Otherwise he was by nature timid, and this weakness, instead of diminishing under the almost invariable success of his undertakings, increased as time went on. Avarice is always suspicious and full of alarms, and Salabert grew more and more avaricious. Also, as a man grows older, it is a rule without exceptions, that pessimism soaks into his mind. Our banker, accustomed to grand results from his speculations, regarded any concern in which the profits were small as altogether deplorable; if by any chance they were nil, or he even lost a trifle, he thought it a matter for serious lamentation. Thus, but for Llera, with his bold temperament and fertile imagination, the Duke de Requena would not, for some years past, have ventured on any concern of even moderate extent. On the other hand, what he had lost in dash and resource he had made good by really astounding tact and skill, and a knowledge of men which can be acquired only by years of unremitting study. Thus it may be said that he and Llera complemented each other to perfection.
Salabert's sagacity and knowledge of human nature sometimes erred by excess; now and then he was caught in his own trap. In his dealings with men, studying them always from the point of view of substantial interest, he had formed so poor an opinion of them, that it became monstrous, and led him into serious mistakes. Perhaps, after all, what he saw in others was no more than the reflection of himself; to this error we are all liable. To him every man and woman had a price; a cheap conscience or a dear one, but all alike for sale. Of late years his faith in bribery had become a passion. If he came across any one who would not yield to money, he never suspected it could be in good faith, but only supposed the price was higher than his bid.
One of Llera's hardest tasks was to get such schemes of bribery out of his master's head when he had to do with men who would have rejected it with indignation. If he were engaged in a law-suit, the first thing he thought of was how much it would cost him to bribe the judge who would decide it; if he were concerned in a government transaction, he calculated the sum to be handed over to the Minister, or the Under-Secretary, or the Councillors of State. Unluckily, he not unfrequently made practical use of the black-lead he had always ready to disfigure the face of humanity with.
Requena had absolutely no moral sense, and never had known what it was. His life, as a nameless waif in Valencia, had been characterised by a series of tricks and dodges, and such a lively inventiveness of means for extracting coin from his fellow-creatures, as made him worthy to compare with the favourite heroes of Spanish romance. In fact the name of one of them, El picaro Guzman, had actually been bestowed on Salabert as a nickname by some wags of his acquaintance, but they kept it to themselves.
It was told of him with apparent truth that when he was in Cuba, whither he went to seek his fortune, he bought a tavern with all its furniture, including a negro woman who managed the business. This negress, for all the time he remained, was his servant, his housekeeper, his slave and his concubine, by whom he had several children. When he had saved some thousands of dollars to return to Spain, he squared his petty accounts by selling the tavern, the furniture, the black woman, and the children.
Then he took army contracts, speculated in tobacco, government loans and tenders for roads; these he sometimes sold again at a premium, and sometimes carried out the works without any regard to the conditions of the contract. But in all he did he displayed his wonderful capacity, his practical sagacity, and so large a development of the organ of acquisitiveness, as made him a man of mark among bankers.
He was not disagreeable to deal with, though, unlike most men who aspire to wealth or power, his manners were not smooth nor his language choice. He was brusque rather than courteous, but he was keen in the distinction of persons, and could be very civil when he must. The natural abruptness of his manners served him well to disguise the subtle astuteness of his mind. That blunt, straightforward air, that exaggerated freedom and provincial rusticity, could only cover a frank and loyal heart. To the outside world he was the perfect type of the old Castilian school, freespoken, downright and impertinent. He would be loquacious or taciturn as suited his purpose, expressed himself with real or affected difficulty—which, no one ever could discover—could sometimes jest with some wit, but with unfailing coarseness, and was wont to say such detestable things to the face of friend or foe as made him a terror in drawing-rooms. The importance his wealth conferred on him had encouraged this defect: he talked to most people, even to ladies, with a plainness which verged on cynicism and grossness.
Nevertheless, when he came across a person of political importance whom he desired to propitiate, this bluntness vanished and became flattery that was almost servile. But the farce, however well played, deceived no one. The Duke of Requena was regarded as a very wily old fox; no one believed a word he said, or allowed himself to be deluded by that blunt bonhomie. Those who had dealings with him were on their guard even when feigning confidence and satisfaction. Still, as always happens with a man who has succeeded in raising himself, the faults which every one recognised—or to be exact, his ill-fame—did not hinder his neighbours from respecting him, talking to him hat in hand and with a smile on their lips, even when they had no need of him. Men not unfrequently humble themselves for the mere pleasure of it. Salabert well knew this innate tendency of the human spine to bend, and took unfair advantage of it. Many men in quite independent circumstances not only took from him impertinence which they would have thought intolerable in their oldest friend, but even sought his society.
"We will see, we will see," he repeated, when Llera recapitulated the scheme for getting sole control of the mines. "You are too full of fancies. Your head is too hot. That does not do in business. We must take care not to get into the same scrape as we did with the granaries."
By Llera's advice the banker had constructed granaries in some of the principal towns of Spain, and they had not proved such a success as had been hoped. However, as the undertaking had been on a moderate scale the losses, too, had not been great. But the Duke, who had bewailed them as though they had been enormous, and had not spared his secretary much gross insult, was always reminding him of the disaster. It served him as a weapon when he wished to depreciate Llera's schemes, though he would afterwards avail himself of them, and owed to them considerable additions to his wealth. By such means he kept him in subjection, ignorant of his real value, and ready to undertake any task however disagreeable.
Llera, though somewhat mortified by this reminder, still insisted that the transaction now under consideration would infallibly succeed if it were conducted on the lines he had suggested. Salabert abruptly closed the discussion by changing the subject. He briefly inquired into the business of the day. The loss of some money he had advanced for a relation in Valencia put him into a frantic rage; he stamped and fumed like a bull stung by the darts, called himself a thousand fools, and actually had the face to declare, in Llera's presence, that his good nature would be the ruin of him. The whole loss amounted to about four or five thousand dollars. The form of loan which Requena adopted to his most intimate friends was this: he paid the sum usually in paper, demanding six per cent. on the securities deposited, and besides this he himself cut off the coupons, and claimed the dividends. So that the securities, instead of bringing in the net interest, yielded him six per cent. more. These were the dealings to which he was prompted, not by interest, but by kindness of heart!
He left Llera's office in a state of fury, went to the counting-room, and learning there that it was necessary to draw on the bank for nine thousand dollars in currency, he himself took charge of the cheque, after having signed it; he would have to go there to a meeting of directors, and it would be no trouble to him as he passed to get it cashed.
He went out on foot, as was his custom in the morning. The birds were singing in the beautiful trees which bordered the walks. It was quite clear that they had incurred no bad debts. The Duke cursed their foolish trick of singing, and would not listen to their gleeful trills. He walked on slowly with a gloomy scowl, taking no notice of the greetings of the gardeners and the gate-keeper, biting his huge cigar with more than usual viciousness. In the street, however, his face somewhat recovered its tone. He had a pleasant and useful meeting with the President of the Council of State, who likewise was fond of an early walk, and who bowed to him in the Avenue de Recoletos; they stood talking for a few minutes, and he availed himself of the opportunity of recommending to the President, with the intentional bluntness which he affected, the prospectus of certain salt-marshes in which he was interested. Then, at a deliberate pace, gazing with his prominent, guileless eyes at the passers by, and more especially at the fresh damsels hastening home from market with their baskets loaded, and their cheeks rosy from the effort, he proceeded to the Bank of Spain. Numbers of persons lifted their hats to him, now and again he paused for a moment, shook hands with one or another, and after exchanging a few words with an acquaintance, went on his way.
It was still early. Before reaching the Bank, it occurred to him that he would go to see his friend and connection Calderón, whose warehouse and counting-house were in the Calle de San Felipe Neri, still in the state in which his father had left them—that is to say, very poverty-stricken, not to say dirty and squalid. In these quarters, where the light filtered in through panes darkened by dust and protected by clumsy ironwork, and where the smell of hides was perfectly sickening, old Calderón with mechanical regularity had accumulated dollar on dollar, till several piles of a million each had formed there. His son Julian had made no change. Though he was one of the wealthiest bankers in Madrid he had not given up the hide warehouse and the small profits which this business brought in—small as compared with those on securities and stocks which the banking house dealt in.
Calderón was a banker of a different type from Salabert. He was of an essentially conservative temper, timid in speculation, always preferring small profits to large when there was any risk. His intelligence was somewhat limited, cautious, hesitating and circumspect. Every new undertaking struck him as madness. When he saw a friend embarking on one he smiled maliciously, and congratulated himself on the superior shrewdness with which he was gifted; if it turned out well he would shake his head, saying with determined foreboding: "Those who laugh last, laugh longest." At home he was parsimonious, nay stingy to a scandal; and though the house was kept on a comparatively luxurious footing, this was partly the result of his wife's entreaties, and the raillery of his friends, but even more of his conviction, slowly formed, that some external prestige was indispensable, if he was to compete with the numbers of skilful financiers established in the capital. But after having bought good furniture, he insisted on such care being taken of it, such refinements of precaution on the part of the servants and his wife and children, that they were really the slaves of these costly possessions. Then with regard to the carriage, it is impossible to imagine the anxieties and agitations without end which it cost him. Every time the coachman told him that a horse wanted shoeing it was a fresh worry. He had a pair of French mares of some value, and he loved them as he loved his children, or more. He drove them out of an evening; but never to go to the theatre for fear of cold; he would rather see his wife walk or take a hired carriage than expose them to any risk. And if one of them really fell ill, there are no words for our banker's state of mind; anxiety and dejection were written in his face. He went frequently to see the animal, patted and petted her, and would often assist the coachman and the vet. in applying the remedies, however unpleasant. Till the invalid had recovered no one in the house had any peace.
As a husband he was most officious; but in this he was hardly to blame. His wife's apathy was such that if he had not taken charge of the kitchen accounts and the store-cupboard keys, God knows how the house would have been kept. Mariana did nothing and gave no orders. Any other woman would have felt humiliated by finding herself obliged to refer to her husband at every moment for the most trifling details of domestic life, but she took it quite as a matter of course, and found it most convenient, when Calderón's stinginess did not make itself too pressingly felt. Her part was that of a child in the house, and she was quite content to play it.
The person who sometimes dumbly rebelled against the exclusive centralisation of all administrative power in the master's hands was Mariana's mother, the diminutive lady with deep set eyes, of whom mention was made in the first chapter. Her protests indeed were neither frequent nor lengthy. At heart she and her son-in-law were in perfect agreement. The old woman, the widow of a provincial merchant, who herself had helped in saving his capital, was even more devoted to order and economy than Calderón himself—that is to say, more sordidly thrifty. For this reason she never would have endured to live with her son; his expensive tastes, and, yet more, Clementina's extravagance and disreputable caprices enraged her, and would have embittered every moment of her life. In Calderón's house she was inspector or spy over the servants, and she filled the part to admiration. Her son-in-law could rest in confidence, and thanks to this and to his expectation that Mariana would be enriched by her will, he showed far more consideration for her than for his wife.
Salabert was at heart not less covetous than Calderón, and hardly less timid; but his intellect was very superior, his cowardice was counterbalanced by a strong infusion of bounce, and his avarice by a profound knowledge of mankind. He knew very well that the paraphernalia and ostentation of wealth have a marked influence on the minds of the most indifferent, and contribute in a great measure to inspire the confidence without which no important enterprise can prosper. Hence the luxury in which he lived—his palace, his servants, and the famous balls he occasionally gave to the fashionable world of Madrid. For Calderón he had a profound contempt, though at the same time his society put him into a good humour. As he contemplated his friend's inferiority he swelled in his own esteem, regarding himself as a greater man than he really was, and deriving from it the liveliest satisfaction. He not only judged himself to have more cleverness and astuteness—the only superior qualities he really possessed—but, to be, by comparison, generous and liberal, almost a prodigy.
Panting and puffing he went into the dark warehouse in the Calle de San Felipe Neri, producing the usual effect of amazing, crushing, annihilating the clerks of the house, to whom the Duke de Requena was not merely the greatest man in Spain, but a quite supernatural being. His visit impressed them with the same reverence and enthusiasm, awe and adoration, as the appearance of the Mikado arouses in the Japanese. And if they did not prostrate themselves with their foreheads in the dust, they coloured up to their ears, and for some minutes they could not put pen to paper, nor attend to the requirements of a customer. They looked at each other with awe-stricken eyes, repeating in an undertone, what indeed they all knew: "The Duke!" "The Duke!"
The Duke passed in, as usual when he by chance called there, without vouchsafing them a glance, and made his way to the little room where Calderón sat. Long before reaching him, he began shouting: "Caramba, Julian! When do you mean to get out of this hole? This is not a banking-house, it is a stye. Are you not ashamed to be seen here? Poof! Do you skin the beasts here, or what? The stink is intolerable."
Calderón's private room was beyond the front office, a mere closet, separated from the rest by a partition of painted wood, with a spring door. Thus he could hear all that his friend was saying, before Salabert reached him.
"What do you expect, man?" said he, somewhat nettled at his clerks being made the confidants of this philippic. "We are not all dukes, trampling millions under foot."
"Millions! Does it need millions to keep an office clean and comfortable? You had better confess that you cannot bear to spend a peseta in making yourself decent. I have told you many times, Julian, you are poor, and you will be poor all your days. I should be richer with a thousand pence than you with a thousand dollars—because I know how to spend them."
Calderón grumbled a protest and went on with his work. The Duke, without taking his hat off, dropped into the only easy chair, covered with white buckskin, or which ought to have been white, for it was of a doubtful hue now, between yellow and greenish-grey, with black patches where heads and hands were wont to rest. There were besides three or four stools covered with the same material, in the same state, a book-case full of bundles of papers, a small cash-box, an ancient walnut-wood writing-table covered with oil-cloth, and behind the table a greasy, shabby arm-chair in which the head of the house sat enthroned. This small room was lighted by a barred window, to ward off the prying looks of passers-by; there were blinds, which, being the cheapest and commonest of their kind, had this peculiarity, that one was much too wide and the other so short that it did not cover the lower pane by at least a quarter.
"Why in the world don't you quit this blessed leather-shop, which is not worthy of a man of your position and fortune?"
"Fortune—fortune!" muttered Calderón with his eyes still fixed on the paper he was writing on. "People talk of my fortune I know, but if I were compelled to liquidate, who knows what would come of it?"
Calderón never confessed his wealth; he loved to crawl; any allusion to his riches annoyed him beyond measure. Salabert, on the contrary, loved to flourish his millions in the face of the world, and play the nabob, at the smallest possible cost of course.
"Besides," Calderón went on with some acerbity, "every one looks at what comes in and never thinks of what goes out. Our expenses are greater every day. Have you any idea, now, of what our private expenditure has been this year? Come."
"Nothing much," replied Requena, with a depreciating smile.
"Nothing much? Why it amounts to more than seventy-five thousand dollars, and we are only in November."
"What do you say?" exclaimed the Duke greatly astonished. "Impossible!"
"As I tell you."
"Come, come; do not try to throw dust in my eyes, Julian. Unless you include in the seventy-five thousand the cost of the house you are building in Calle Homo de la Mata."
"Why, of course."
At this Salabert burst into such a fit of laughing that he seemed about to choke; the cigar dropped out of his mouth, his face, usually so pale, turned so red as to be alarming, and the fit of coughing which ensued was so violent that it threatened him with congestion.
"My dear fellow, I thank you! That is really delicious," he gasped between coughing and laughing. "I never thought of that before. Henceforth I will include in my household expenses all the paper I buy and the houses I build. I shall have accounts like a king's to show."
The Duke's hearty and uproarious mirth annoyed and piqued Calderón out of all measure.