CHAPTER XIII.

ICES, HAM, CIGARS AND WINE.

The news of María’s improvement flew from room to room, and down to the stable where Polito was lounging about; to the hot-houses where Telleria and Onésimo were inspecting the pines and making sapient observations on the progress of acclimatisation--which, according to Don Joaquin, must, in time, lead to a vastly increased production of taxable material; to the aviary where Milagros was lost in admiration at the piping of the little birds, an amusement very much to her taste; and was everywhere received with joy. A number of visitors besides the Tellerias had come to make enquiries, and each and all were met with the same obsequious politeness on the part of the marquis. Some only left a card and went away, but more intimate friends staid awhile to condole with Milagros, who, after making the tour of the garden, went indoors to recover from her fatigues on a sofa in the Chinese drawing-room. There, amid the bronze idols and sombre porcelains, she breathed forth her complaints and lamentations.

“That monster cannot make any objection now to my seeing my daughter.... Here!”

A footman, who was going through the room with a tray of glasses and liqueur, paused at the call.

“Bring me an ice.”

“What flavour does the Señora prefer?”

“Pineapple if you have it or banana. Pilar will you have some?”

“I have this instant been fed with some cocoanut sweetmeat--plum-pudding--sherry, and I do not know what more! That worthy stone-mason Marquis tried to be revenged on me for all my jokes by stuffing me to death. He insists that I am to dine here, to ride in his carriages, use his horses and carry off all his camellias. We know well enough that the worthy broker has a good cook, good horses, a fine garden and a tribe of bedizened servants.--The cook, I may say, is not much to boast of, an apprentice from the Trois frères Provenceaux--I declare this gingerbread palace oppresses me more than I can say; it is for all the world like a pawnbroker’s shop; or a livery coat figged out with gold lace, or.... But, my dear Milagros, do you know that we have an important part to play? Shall we go into María’s room? Shall the reconciliation be effected at once?”

The marquesa’s eyes opened wider like the revolving light when it is growing broader; but they collapsed again as she said:

“The reconciliation! Oh, that, unluckily, is not in the programme.”

“And Pepa--where is she?”

“At Madrid.”

“It would be an awkward thing if she were to come to Suertebella. But I do not understand how María came here.”

“My poor child was stricken down by a sudden attack. She was in a house where there was no furniture--no beds, nothing decent. Don Pedro had her carried here. I am truly grateful to him for his kindness! But that wretched son-in-law of mine--I cannot help it, I must just tell you.--Ah! here is the ice.”

The lady had risen to her feet with some degree of maternal and womanly dignity; but she suddenly calmed down, and dropping into her seat again among the monsters, she proceeded to eat the ice which soon disappeared in the depths of her afflicted person.

Polito had come back to the billiard-room where he was playing with his friend Perico Nules.

“Here, Philidor,” he suddenly exclaimed. “Just be good enough to order some one to bring me a little mild-cured ham, and a glass of....”

“Of sherry?” Polito hesitated, scratching his beard.

“No--you bother me. _Chateau Yquem._ If I could only do without this beastly tar; but I cannot, I choke directly.... Stay, one moment _mon cher Philidor_, some ham for this gentleman too, or some smoked tongue and a glass of _Pajarete_.”

When they were alone Polito lifted his fingers significantly to his lips and said to his companion: “Smoke?”

“Yes, let us smoke,” said the other taking his pipe out of his pocket.

“No man, not your own tobacco. There is a chest full of cigars. All the produce of _Vuelta Abajo_ is in this house.”

The worthy couple, using their cues as walking-sticks, made their way to a box which, by its insidious fragrance betrayed the superior quality and aristocratic brand of the cigars that lay packed within the cedar boards.

“Very good tobacco--capital!”

“Look here my boy, all this comes, beyond a doubt, from the wealth of the nation.... We may as well lay in a stock.” And he plunged his hand into the box.

“Come, this is going too far!” said Perico Nules somewhat scandalized at the proceeding.

“Nonsense! Let us sing like Raoul _chascun per se_,” and he hummed the words to Meyerbeer’s air, the Marquis de Fúcar’s store of cigars diminishing perceptibly meanwhile.

“And, after all, what is all this that we see and touch--and smoke?” said Nules, striking a match. “What is the gorgeous and luxurious place where we now are? this magnificent room, with its fine Arabian tiles, the horses on which we were riding this afternoon, the pines in the hot-house, the pictures, flowers, carpets, vases.--What are they all? They are the juice, the savour, the very extract of our beloved native land--you understand? And as everything displaced by foul means from its natural position tends, sooner or later to return to it--just as animal organisms assimilate from nourishment the equivalent of what they lose by wear and tear, the obvious consequence....”

Here the servant came in with the ham, and his presence postponed the inference.

“And as we ourselves are the country, or an integral part of it,” said Leopoldo.

“The country is claiming its own again,” added Nules attacking the food.

This humorous youth was the originator, according to trustworthy authority, of the ribald and malicious interpretation of the pictures and texts in the chapel.

“Wealth, my dear boy,” he went on smacking his lips over the _Pajarete_, “works in a circle, you understand? It returns to the point it started from.--The State robs my father of half his income from Xeres in the form of taxes; Fúcar, under the happy impetus of a loan, robs the treasury of half a year’s revenue; and I drink Fúcar’s wine and smoke his cigars, thus supplying wants which my father fails to satisfy by reason of the heavy taxation. You follow me in my explanation of this circulation? But there are still a few cigars left in the case; if we leave them, the servants will smoke them.”

“Heaven forefend! _Pietoso ciel!_” sang Leopoldo. “That would be too much! _In tal periglio estremo_,” and again he hummed his Meyerbeer’s.

“Oh! what luck!” exclaimed Nules, looking out of the window. “Here are the Villa-Bojío party--mamma and two interesting daughters.” Leopoldo peeped out to see the ladies stepping out of a landau at the front door, and his heart stirred in his breast with some little excitement--like the kernel of a “withered nut rattling within its hollow shell,” as the wind sways the bough on which it hangs.

“Let us take them out for a drive,” suggested Nules.

“To be sure, what fun!--Philidor,” shouted Polito, “let us have a carriage out.--But come and meet them.”

“We will drive them out to Leganes.”

“There is nothing to see there.”

“We can show them the lunatics.”