CHAPTER IV.

SUING OR DEFIANT?

The marquesa begged her daughter to go to bed, and María gladly obeyed, for she was very weary. She slowly divested herself of the handsome garments which had so unexpectedly resuscitated the beautiful young woman she had once been, and retired to her alcove. She was shivering with cold and had sunk into a fit of deep melancholy. After a long silence, during which she lay watching her mother with anxious eyes, she turned her face to the images, pictures, and relics which made her alcove a sort of oratory, and began to pray. The marquesa, who could also on great occasions make a due display of fervour, knelt kissing the feet of a crucifix.

“Give me my rosary, mamma,” said María; and the marquesa took her the beads which hung at the foot of the cross.

“Now you can leave me,” said her daughter. “I am sleepy, and when I have said my prayers I shall fall asleep.”

The marquesa fixed the hour at which they were to set out next day. It was agreed that they should both go and that the mother should remain in the carriage while María went in to see her husband.

“My heart tells me that we shall do great things, perhaps effect a reconciliation,” said the marquesa, kissing her daughter. “Now go to sleep and do not worry yourself with matters of conscience. You see the consequences of your obstinacy; honestly, my dear child, I put myself in a husband’s place--any husband’s; it is not that I wish to blame devotion, true devotion. Am not I a pious and sincere Catholic, though an unworthy one? Do I fail in my religious exercise? You should have thought of this mania for sanctity before you married and took up other duties.”

“One thing strikes me,” said María showing clearly that she was not worrying herself about matters of conscience, “I ought to have some jewelry to-morrow--a brooch, bracelets, earrings--you can bring me anything you think proper out of the case I gave you to take care of.”

“Very well,” said her mother with some embarrassment. “But almost all your trinkets wanted mending--I sent them to Ansorena. But I will see....”

“Rafaela tells me that you took away all the plate yesterday.”

“Yes, all of it. My dear child, I am always in a fright at your living alone in this great house. There are so many robberies.”

“I do not want the plate--but tell me, did you not take the silk curtains too, and my lace, and the inlaid ink-stand and card case--oh! and those two vases, and the Sêvres jars, and the fan painted by Zamacois and the water-colour by Fortuny, and several other things?”

“You have a remarkably good memory,” said the marquesa, laughing to conceal her annoyance. “Yes, I took them away. Such treasures ought not to be left in danger of robbery. Do you know that Madrid is swarming with burglars?”

“Then bring me my watch,” said María turning over in bed, “I had better know the time to a minute.”

“Very well--but I remember it is gone to be mended. It did not go.”

“Then I must do without it; goodnight, mamma.”

“To-morrow at ten. I will be here in time to dress you. Goodnight, my darling.”

But María could not sleep. For the first time in her life she realised one of her earliest dreams of pious mortification; she had imagined the possibility of lying on a bed of brambles, so that her body being tormented to the great edification of the soul, she might the better emulate the penitent saints whose lives she had read with such enthusiasm. That night her bed was a bed of thorns, till it became a bed of burning coals, and seemed to scorch her limbs. She felt like St. Laurence on his gridiron, or St. John in his cauldron; she could generally get to sleep by repeating her prayers, but to-night they hung buzzing on her lips, like bees at the door of a hive, while her brain seemed on fire, writhing like some soul in the depths of hell, nipped and stung by Satan’s ministers. She could bear it no longer; in her ears was a continual hissing like frying; it bewildered her brain; her very eyes ached in the dark. She sprang out of bed and struck a light.

“Now,” she said to herself, as she slipped some clothes on. “Now, this minute!”

Without stopping to put on her shoes and stockings she went to look at the clock in her boudoir, her heart sank when she saw that it only marked one. Still so early! She calculated how long it would be till sunrise; then she shut herself into her boudoir. Who can tell what she did there? In the silence of the night and of empty rooms the clocks, with their regular ticking, like breathing, seem to live and watch. Perched on the chimney-shelves, these bronze personages, with faces like masks with twelve eyes, would make us believe that they can hear and understand by the same internal organs which produce that ceaseless and rythmical beat. The clock in María’s boudoir was the only witness to her proceedings; the portrait of Leon even knew nothing about them, for it hung with its face to the wall. The clock heard her, then, as she opened and shut various trunks; heard the pleasant splash of water as it flowed into the marble bath and over the rounded limbs of a human statue, dancing and rippling like the waters of a fountain in which alabaster tritons and nymphs disport themselves among translucent jets, cascades, and clouds of spray. The impudent rogue of a clock chuckled to itself as it steadily snapped its hundred teeth; it was long since it had heard such music. Then it smelt the faint, sweet savour of perfumes--it was long since that scent had been used there.

María returned to the boudoir carrying the light with her, and her first glance was at the dial near which she placed the candle. A quarter past two. Oh, what a bore is a clock that insists on telling you that it is very early! She had wrapped herself in an ample white sheet like a cloak, which helped to produce a reaction after the cold bath; her face was a little blue, but none the less charming, and her small hands clutched the wrapper to gather it round her, as a dove folds her grey wings over her white breast. The reaction from cold water is rapid and complete. She soon felt warm again, and then, as the reversed portrait caught her eye, she raised her arms to take it down--but it was too high. She mounted on a chair to reach it, and we have it on the authority of the clock that his mistress in her light attire was a charming figure which he opened his twelve eyes wide to gaze at.

María unhooked the portrait and, turning it round, set it upon a chair. There, as if he were present in the flesh, were the manly bust, the clever head, the deep honest eyes of Leon Roch; it was like the sudden entrance of a living person. María was strangely startled; all her blood rushed to her heart, leaving her veins empty and chill; breathless and rigid, she looked at the picture as though it were the apparition of some one long dead, or the embodiment of a face in a dream. It did not frown at her but gazed with a serene and kind expression--the natural expression of a warm and loyal nature. María stooped forward; her face was close to the portrait--then she drew back; with her hand she wiped off a little dust, and having done this, she kissed her husband--once, twice, thrice, on different parts of his face. At that instant she heard a dull, smothered chuckle--it was the clock, taking a deeper breath with the hoarse effort that is preparatory to its striking.

Three o’clock! the creature was growing more amiable and was getting the better of its mania for asserting that it was early. The house, as has been said, was on the outskirts of the city, and she could hear the cocks crowing to proclaim the end of this miserable, dreary, never-ending night.

“It will soon be day,” thought María. “As soon as it is day I will set out.”

Then she proceeded to dress. All the things that Pilar had brought were lying on the chairs, and, but that there were on the walls three several pictures of St. Joseph, the room might have been taken for that of a woman of the world after a night of dissipation.

María examined the colours of the silk stockings and finally selected the blue pair which she pulled over the rosy feet. Shoes were a more difficult matter; she tried the boots and shoes--happily her friend’s foot seemed to be the twin brother to her own--but she doubted as to the particular pair--boots or shoes? A question as important as the greater alternative: Heaven or Hell?

After much hesitation the boots were definitely discarded and she decided on the shoes--high shoes of bronze kid, Louis XV. shape, and embroidered with steel--gems in their way. María looked at them for a long time and then put them on. She had very pretty feet--prettiest of all when bare--still, she must have shoes on as a social necessity, though it was not _de rigeur_ in the days of Venus; and María looked down with satisfaction at the artificial beauties of feet with which not Daphne herself could have run, but which, nevertheless, were pretty enough to behold. She placed her foot firmly on the ground, contemplating the ankle; she turned on her heel and moved the pointed toe, almost like a thimble; the foot as well as the face has an expression of its own. María was satisfied and gave her mind to other matters.

Stays; coiffure; two important matters which could not be attended to together. The first is sometimes a question of strength; the second a sublime work of art. María began with the more serious matter, and it needed no hydraulic pressure to imprison her slender waist. The hair-dressing was a greater difficulty. She seated herself at the dressing-table in a meditative attitude, with her hands raised like a priest who pauses to pray before touching some sacred object, and at length, after various attempts she succeeded in restoring to some extent the structure that Juana had achieved the previous evening--a perfectly simple knot, as it had to be in the absence of various articles of the toilet. But it was becoming, and that was the main point. No puffs or padding.

The rest of her toilet was on the lines of last night’s rehearsal: the black silk dress, with its linings and trimmings of straw colour; the hat, which might have been the creation of fairy hands.... Nothing could be better or more bewitching. María gazed at herself in astonishment; she was a different woman! It could not be she who was so beautiful. It was magic. Nay, a good Catholic could not believe in magic! It was a special mercy of Heaven, a providential interposition, to enable her to carry out a meritorious purpose. It could be none other than God who had lent her such exceptional beauty and such brilliant and becoming attire. Superstition clung to her soul as a limpet sticks by suction to a rock.

“God consents, it is God’s will--” she said to herself, eagerly seizing on the idea.

Then she looked at herself once more--in front, in profile--yes, she looked well. How slender and well-formed she was, how gracefully her head was poised on her shoulders! The misty veil slightly shaded her pale face, as it might be the shadow of a bird flying by and pausing to admire so sweet a picture. There was a sort of symbolical passion in the depths of the black velvet with lights of straw-coloured silk; in that sombre nimbus with sulphurous gleams framing her delicate complexion there was a perfect harmony; and in those melancholy sea-blue eyes, that looked as if a threat lurked under their sadness, a revenge under their pain, under their tenderness a dagger.

“Gloves!” she exclaimed, “where are they? How provoking if Pilar should have forgotten to leave them.”

She found them however, and put them on.

“I have no trinkets, but that is of no consequence--I have my virtue,” she added to herself, “that is the only thing that really matters.”

After another glance in the mirror she went on: “Yes, I am handsome--if only I can say just what I feel.... If I can find the right words....”

She pulled the bell, startling all the household. The servants were some time getting up, but at last they appeared. Her maid, who came sleepy and stupid into her room, was astounded at seeing her mistress ready dressed--and so beautifully dressed! María desired her to send Señor Pomares to her at once. The worthy man, who had been recalled after Leon’s departure, presently made his appearance, with a puffy, stupid face and tottering with the bewildered air of a man who has been roused from his deepest and sweetest slumbers. But María did not look at him.

“Order the carriage to be got ready at once,” she said. The steward looked blank with astonishment.

“But--you forget,” he said, “you forget...?”

“What?”

“That the carriage is gone.”

“To be sure, very true,” said María. “I had forgotten. Well, send for a hired carriage, a landau.”

“At this hour?”

“Is it not daylight?”

“Dawn is only just breaking.”

“What has that to do with it? It seems to me that you want to make difficulties ... you are of no use at all--”

Pomares was dumbfounded. So hasty ... so violent.... His mistress must be mad.

“Well, why do you not stir, in Heavens name?” she exclaimed, “why do you stand staring at me? A carriage, and at once, at any cost!”

“Very good, Señora; I will go and see.”

“At once; as quickly as possible. I want to be off as soon as it is light.”

After infinite trouble Pomares, dragging his weary limbs from one place to another, succeeded in hiring a carriage; but not till the day was somewhat far advanced. María burning with impatience, waited in her room. She took a cup of black coffee, and then alternately paced the room and paused to pray, or sat sunk in thought.

When at length the landau was announced she started up, and going straight to a pretty little cupboard she took out a bottle of not remarkably pure water. Her lips moved, muttering no doubt a prayer, while she poured part of the contents into a silver cup; then, carefully lifting her veil she drank that water which was from the sacred Grotto at Lourdes.