CHAPTER XXIV.

THREE AGAINST TWO.

The next evening, at the hour fixed by Don Pedro, Leon made his way to Pepa’s sitting-room. She was there with her father and a third person. Monina, who had been dancing and skipping round her mother, was condemned to retire to bed; a banishment involving floods of tears, but against which there is no appeal for the little ones when their elders have business to discuss. The marquis half-buried in a deep arm-chair, with his fat chin resting on his shirt front, his lips sticking out as if too much flesh had gone to the making of his face, his brows knit under a labyrinth of wrinkles--the scars, as it were, won in a hundred fights against “all exaggeration,” was an impressive personage. The third of the trio was an old man with white hair, a dry thin face, and excessively short-sighted, to judge from the strong concavity of his gold-mounted spectacles which were astride on a nose that, for size and curve, was more like a pelican’s bill than anything else in creation. His manners had the gravity of a student mixed with the patriarchal frankness of a man of good birth. They were all in mourning, and the grief of Pepa’s heart overflowed her eyes.

“Here he is,” said Don Pedro taking his daughter’s hand caressingly.

“So I see,” said Pepa looking up at Leon and then looking away. “And now he is to repeat what my father told me, and I would not believe.”

“My dearest child,” said Fúcar, “this is a case of honour, of duty, of social decency, of morality--both in the true and in the more customary sense. Consider.--You cannot have everything you want.”

“I know it, I know it,” murmured Pepa, fixing a stony gaze on the table-cloth before her.

“Much as it costs me,” said Leon feeling that brevity was most to the purpose. “I must declare that I see it to be an inexorable duty to part from the woman I love, and give up every hope of ever making her mine.”

No one said a word in reply. Pepa let her head drop on her father’s shoulder and closed her eyes. Leon took one of her hands, which she passively surrendered, and said with much feeling:

“It is the greatness of a crisis that tests greatness of soul.”

Again there was a pause; then Don Pedro, swallowing half his words and twisting his mouth nervously, began as follows:

“And I declare that we have come to this peaceable and happy compromise on the strength of an agreement concluded between Don Justo Cimarra and myself, by which my respected friend undertakes that his nephew will withdraw his action....” Don Pedro fairly choked. Don Justo came to the rescue.

“And renounce the rights he might legally assert.”

“Just so, he renounces all use of the weapon that the law places within his reach, on condition that he, who by every theory of law, morality, and religion is out of place in this miserable conjunction of three persons where there should be but two, shall disappear completely.--My dear friend,” he went on, turning to Leon with a conciliatory smile, “you, by retiring from a position untenable by law and morality--impossible, in fact, but for the corruption and laxity of modern society--you have saved us from a disgraceful scandal. I can only thank you with all my heart, and....”

Again Don Pedro cast an appealing glance at his friend.

“The circumstances of the case,” Don Justo went on emphasizing his speech with his forefinger, “are exceptional. For my part, I am thankful that the quarrel should be made up. I was the first to advise my nephew to withdraw from it, if we could only insure the permanent absence of this gentleman...” and the finger pointed at Leon. “But as the circumstances of the case are so exceptional--I must repeat it--and as the very small moral worth of my nephew himself would seem to justify that rebellion against his authority which we are anxious to avert...” and the finger pointed in mute accusation to Pepa. “I was, as I say, the first to advise the concessions demanded by this gentleman...” again the finger indicated Leon, “and which, I admit, are quite in the spirit of true judicial prudence. In view, then, of all these facts I thought it well to draw up in concert with my friend here...” the finger after wavering like the needle of a compass turned to the marquis--“the articles of an honourable peace, I pledged my word of honour that my nephew should accept the condition proposed by Señor Don Leon and fulfil his part of the compact.”

The worthy gentleman, who paused now and then in his speech to give it greater emphasis, here stopped for a moment, and then went on:

“The condition laid down by this gentleman, and agreed to, by proxy, by what I am obliged to term the innocent party--in the eyes of the law--is that this lady shall live with her father and her daughter, here at Suertebella; and that my nephew shall never, under any pretence, cross the boundary line of the estate, thus effecting a separation which, without being hostile, shall be absolute and complete.”

“And everything has been settled in a satisfactory manner,” said Don Pedro, relaxing his frown and stroking his daughter’s hair with his heavy hand, while she said not a word, and did not even open her eyes. “Time, time,” he said, “time is the remedy for all things.--Do you not think so, Leon?”

“I, for my part,” said Leon, “do not expect time to give me what it has not got to bestow. I hate to forget--it is the death of the heart. My feelings will be the same that they are now to my dying day--but at a distance, where I can never be troubled by a wretch whom I have always despised, and always shall despise. I have spent my life in the pursuit of an ideal--the ideal Christian family: the centre of peace and corner-stone of virtue; the stepping-stone to moral perfection; the fount in which each and all may be baptised and purified. Such a home is an education; it compels us to grow to a higher standard and rubs off the asperities of our nature, giving us the most precious lessons by placing in our care the men of the future, that we may train them from the cradle to years of discretion.--And all this has been, and must ever be, to me no more than a dream. Two women have crossed my path, Religion gave me the first, and religion, wrongly understood, tore her from me. The second would have given me herself--gave me her heart and soul; and I took the gift; but the law deprives me of it, and I have no choice but to resign it. All my attempts to achieve the lovely reality will be no less ill-fated. Society threw this woman into the arms of another man, and if I claim her I condemn her and myself to a life of unqualified disgrace, on a level with the basest of those I most abhor. Nay, and our dishonour becomes a legacy to innocent creatures, guiltless of the errors committed before they were born, but nevertheless coming nameless and dishonoured into the world.”

He kissed Pepa’s hand which she had left in his, and then went on:

“The presence of these two persons, who will be scandalized, no doubt, by my words, shall not prevent my expressing my feelings.--To me, this woman is mine, mine by the divine law of love. I, radical as I am, bow to this law of the heart; but when I wish to put these anarchical views into practice, I tremble and dare not. The fierce rebellion lingers in my soul and cannot venture forth. Those who cannot transform the world and uproot its errors, must respect them. Those who cannot see the mysterious limit-line between legality and iniquity, must yield to the law with the patience of slaves. Those whose souls rise with cries and struggles in a revolt which seems legitimate, are nevertheless incompetent to place a sounder constitution in the place of that which crushes them, and can only suffer in silence.”

“We are all slaves to the laws of the age we live in,” said Don Justo sternly.

“That is true,” Leon said; he was evidently speaking for Pepa’s benefit alone. “Our spirits are but a part of the spirit that made those laws; we are so far responsible for their defects that we must accept the consequences. If every one who felt injured by the machine in which we move--the majority in lazy indifference--if the sufferers, I say, were to set to work to alter it and could not repair it, what a world this would become! We must submit to be torn and mangled, secretly bewailing our misery, and only wishing we could live to see new machinery at work. But even that, I have no doubt, would hurt some one, since every improvement in one phase of human life brings some fresh form of suffering. Life is an aspiration--a thirst which revives as soon as it is quenched. If we could conceive of immortality under no other aspect, we could imagine it as consisting in seeing ourselves constantly under the dominion of--whether in small actions or in great ones--and constantly enchanted by the lovely vision of that distant horizon we call perfection.--If you, poor soul, could only know how I have fought with myself since we last talked together. I reconsidered every impossible alternative. It would be so easy to escape from this maze by simply following the impulse of my heart, and shielding myself behind theoretical and selfish arguments which no one but myself could follow and which even I could not distinctly marshall.--You were ready to come, the carriage was waiting, all the means of flight were ready, there was not an obstacle in sight and we could have afforded to think lightly of the opinion of society.--To be off and happy in some distant land! How easy and pleasant it seemed! You--not my wife--I your lover; both living in the practice of social anarchy, our illicit connection an outrage on the noblest and most necessary institution of human society; I haunted by a ghost, and you by a living man, who on every possible occasion would proclaim and urge his rights; neither of us having any claims against others while the whole world would have claims against us. Your daughter, again, growing up with this horrible example before her innocent eyes; and on what moral ground could you damn me if one day she felt inclined to become the mistress of the first man who fell in love with her? When once we break the bounds, we have no choice but to cast off all the ties that give order and stability to the world.--Yes, I thought over everything that could be said on either side. Then I considered whether I could not stay here, and soothe my anxieties with the satisfaction of being near you, even though I should neither see you nor speak to you. But that again cannot be. If I stay within reach of you, some time or other, almost without intending it, we should be certain to meet. Then that man I loathe would interfere--I should be unable to control my hatred, and I know, I feel, it would end in bloodshed. If I do not go away--far away, and soon--I know how that baleful impulse would grow stronger in me; it is like some hideous bidding to kill. Under my calmer reason turbid springs seethe in my soul, surging up to sweep away every obstacle. There is that within me which urges me to violence and rebellion; but I lack courage, for I reflect that nothing permanent, right, or moral, can be built up on anarchy or on blood. I take refuge in my conscience, and I have decided to go. I go to save your honour and the happiness of your child.”

Pepa did not lift her head nor open her eyes and she spoke with bitter despair.

“I am incapable of argument; I seek one, but in vain; I look into my soul and I find nothing but love.”

Then she slowly raised herself and opened her hot and aching eyes; but she looked at no one as she added:

“I am punished. When I see that the fetters which link me to a villain cannot be broken, I cannot help remembering that the fault is all my own.--Yes, mine; for in a fit of jealous pique I bound myself for life to a worthless wretch. I flung myself into evil; degrading myself and my father, and turning marriage into a wicked and hideous farce.--Why had I no patience? I rushed into marriage with a strange impulse towards martyrdom. It was the mad vanity of anguish which seeks to add to its tortures.--Then, when you thought I was free, why did you seek me? We both made a cruel mistake in binding ourselves with intolerable bonds. As soon as you were free, I was suddenly caught again, and in that fatal pillory; but I hoped some chivalrous hand might dash it to pieces.”

“There was no way but bloodshed,” Leon said hastily.

Pepa made no answer.

“I am the victim,” she exclaimed after a painful silence. “And I cannot bear to die--it is grief and punishment. I hate to be sacrificed; it is misery, utter misery, even if it is right and just--even if I deserve it. Here, before me, I see two respectable men--my father and a judge. Well, before them, and before you.--The man I claim....” And she fixed her eyes on Leon’s with an indescribable expression of love and reproach; she gasped for air and hardly seemed to have breath enough to speak: “You are mine--and before you all three I declare that this desertion...” she burst into tears and added feebly: “is cowardly.”

Don Justo lifted up his calm persuasive voice.

“Try,” he said, “to see the immediate details in their true proportions, and fix your thoughts on broad and eternal facts. The soul may grow to the dignity of its sorrows and borrow from them a sort of majesty to rule the spirit.”

“True,” said Leon sadly. “Our very wounds reveal a secret and ineffable fount of compensation. Pepa--my darling, my heart’s wife--wife, I say, by an unwritten law on which we may not act, which can never be of any avail; but which lurks in my soul like the germ of truth, a holy seed buried in the depths of being.--Look into your soul and you will see yourself nobler and more worthy in your sorrow than in the satisfaction of your passion. Though we are conquered and humiliated by the crushing necessity that parts us--a mysterious mixture of something dignified and venerable with iniquity and injustice, a horrible and unnatural coalition, we may enjoy the noblest form of triumph. You are religious; and I believe in the immortality of the soul, in eternal justice, in final perfection: a brief creed but a grand and firm one. We are conquered; we are victims and martyrs. But Hope has no limits. It is a grace which links us to the unknown and calls to us from afar, beautifying life and giving us strength to stand firm and walk onward. We will not be so criminal as to cut the thread which guides us forward to a goal which, though remote, is not invisible to eyes that are not bound by an evil conscience. Conquer despair, rise superior to it; resign yourself, and hope.”

“Hope? Have I not said that I should die hoping?” said Pepa bitterly, recurring to an old idea. “It is my punishment; my heart told me long since that its name was Hope. And if I die?”

“It matters not.”

“It matters not?” she said, for Leon’s fervent spirituality did not meet her mood. He would have said more, but he was at an end of his arguments, and the suggestions of consolation and hope with which he tried to do battle were, he saw, of no more avail than weapons which break in the hand in the heat of a fray. He knew not what to say. Feeling, which can sometimes be quelled by reason, and which he had studiously endeavoured to subdue and control, rose in revolt, snatched up its despotic sceptre and asserted its dominion. He rose.

“Now--so soon?” said Pepa rushing into his arms with a sudden overflow of passion.

”Heaven forgive me!” cried Leon choked with emotion. “With my wretched arguments, I am belabouring myself with my own logic. It is a horrible farce a mockery of morality and cannot bind me.”

Pepa clasped her hands as if in prayer and preparing for death, and Leon was on the point of uttering some wildly subversive ideas which came boiling from his heart like the lava from a volcano, when the maid rushed in who had charge of Monina. She was pale and trembling.

“What is the matter?” said the marquis.

“The man--there!”

“Who?”

“A man. He came in suddenly--he is kissing the child.”

“It is he!” exclaimed Fúcar much agitated.

“He!”

“But it was agreed that he was not to come!”

“He--he is here?” cried Leon suddenly losing logic, reason, prudence and self-command, and flaring up in frenzy. “Let him dare to come in! Does he presume to desecrate these walls? I am glad to meet him here--I will tear him limb from limb like a foul beast!”

He turned to the door, where a man was standing. Pepa, with a piercing shriek, fell senseless. Don Pedro threw his strong arms round Leon to hold him back, and the older gentleman rushed forward indignantly to check his nephew’s further advance.

“For mercy’s sake!--in the name of all the Saints!” exclaimed Don Pedro.

“Stand back!” said Don Justo. “Do not stir a step forward.”

“What business have you here?” cried Leon with contemptuous insolence.

“Go,” said the magistrate. “Have you forgotten our agreement?”

“No. The agreement is not yet in force,” replied Cimarra, not moving an inch, and fixing his eyes on Leon with the glare of a wild tiger. “I came to see my little girl for the last time. I will not contravene the compromise, if others adhere to it. I have no desire to come here unless you are here.”

“I entreat you to go away,” said Don Pedro to Federico.

“He must go first.”

But the gloomy, surly figure in the door-way made no sign of moving.

“He must go first,” echoed Cimarra.

“Yes--I first--wretch!--So it must be,” said Leon.

Meanwhile Don Pedro and a maid had lifted Pepa and carried her to a sofa.

“You first,” Federico insisted, his cynicism yielding for a moment to an impulse of real dignity. “If not, I....”

“Nay; I will go first,” said Leon bitterly. “It is but right.”

He went up to the senseless form lying pale and dumb on the sofa, and gazed at her for a moment; he looked up at Cimarra, and bending over Pepa, kissed her cheek with tender passion. Then, fixing his eyes on her husband, he said:

“Bully! Thus I take leave of the woman you claim as your wife. If it is a crime, kill me; you have a right to do so.--Have you a weapon?”

“Yes,” said Federico sullenly, and putting his hand into his breast-pocket. It seemed as though a spark of honour, vigour and dignity had suddenly flashed into being in this abject creature--a corpse returned from the grave--as the will-o’-the-wisp suddenly flickers up from a foul morass. He stood face to face with his foe, a pistol in his hand, with a dull roar in his voice, and a sinister light in his eye. Leon waited calmly. But Don Pedro and his friend seized Federico and held his arms. After a violent struggle, they succeeded in pulling him back; Leon remained standing with his arms folded, in the middle of the room.

“Leave the house!” cried Don Justo to his nephew.

“I will answer for the other,” said Don Pedro.

Don Justo dragged Federico away, not allowing him to pause an instant till he was fairly out of the house.

Leon sadly but steadily quitted the room by the other door. Fúcar accompanied him as far as the Chinese room, where he left him, stretched like a lifeless body on a divan.

“Go” he said, “leave us, and put an end to this misery.” And he went back to his daughter.