CHAPTER XXIII
THE DUKE OF TORNOS APPEARS
The wide-awake, practical Don Rosendo found out through his agents in Madrid that the Duke of Tornos, Count of Buena Vista, related to the Royal family, former Ambassador in France, head major domo of the palace, etc., a person of much consequence in court and political circles, had decided to spend the summer in Sarrio for the benefit of the sea air, which was considered better for him than that of San Sebastian or Biarritz. When Belinchon heard of it he immediately wrote the duke a letter, placing his house at his disposal.
The duke naturally refused with many graceful expressions of gratitude, but Don Rosendo, who saw the great importance of the triumph of having such a personage under his roof, with whose assistance he counted on routing his adversaries, pressed the matter so much that the duke ended by accepting the invitation.
The Cabin party, having scented the impressive news, made Don Pedro Miranda also offer his house, promising to reimburse him for all the expense which he would thereby incur. But the duke was already engaged, and so was unable to accede to their request, pressing as it was, which fact filled them with rage, as we shall see. We must mention that the Duke of Tornos belonged to the Moderate party, and although in Sarrio neither the Club nor the Cabin party was very conversant with politics, as the local strifes absorbed all their attention, and their sympathies were always for the party in power, there was no doubt that liberal views prevailed at the Club, beginning with its enterprising chief, while at the Cabin they were more conservative. Therefore the favor conferred on the first was the more trying.
Don Rosendo had had an extra story built to his house the previous year. The birth of another grandchild had induced him to have it done. If the marriage continued to be so fruitful the house would soon be too small for the family. Gonzalo had talked of taking one for himself, as he wanted to be more independent, and to prevent this his father-in-law adopted this plan, and the new floor was built for the young family so that it should be independent. The staircase did not pass through the parents' quarters, although there was a little inner iron stairway, which facilitated communication between the two parts of the house. Gonzalo could enter and leave his dwelling without having to pass through his father-in-law's house, but they still had their meals together.
But when the Duke of Tornos accepted the invitation it was decided that he was to have the quarters of the young married couple, and they were to return to their old rooms. This was easily managed, for Venturita had furnished her domain with such luxury that it was speedily and easily converted into an abode worthy of the personage who was to be the honored guest. The telegram from his secretary announcing his departure from Madrid was anxiously awaited at the Club, and the faces of all the members glowed with joy and triumph, and shone with the hope that they would soon be able to give some decisive blows to their adversaries, who went about with black, angry looks, although they tried to hide their vexation under a feigned ignorance of the magnitude of the event of the duke's arrival. It was not long before somebody came to tell Belinchon of the mayor's cross-grained conduct about the music. He was at dinner when the news arrived, but with an admirable serenity that his enemies might have envied he finished the plate of soup before him, wiped his mouth, drank a glass of wine, wiped his mouth again, and quietly rose from the table without saying a word.
Like all the great leaders we read of in history, Don Rosendo never lost his dignity, and it was in critical moments like the present that he was inspired with the grandest ideas and the most helpful resolutions. He went at once to the telegraph office, and wired to the conductor of the orchestra at Lancia to come immediately to Sarrio and he would be well paid.
The conductor replied that they would be there that evening. "All right," he then said to himself; "if the music be not there to receive him, at least he shall have a serenade, and these wretches can rage as much as they like."
The arrival of the Duke of Tornos was, as we have seen, coincident with the fair of St. Anthony. The afternoon was like the morning, bright and clear, without the least heat, for the northeast wind of Sarrio and all Biscayan ports tempers the heat of the summer sun most delightfully. These fairs are frequented by all classes of society, more especially the artisans, so that they have retained their primitive, festive, cheerful character. From early morning numerous groups of girls leave the suburbs and cross the town to take the road to Lancia, clad in the classic black or colored merino skirt, with the flowered cotton handkerchief crossed in front and behind, low shoes, pearl earrings, and smooth, well-brushed, uncovered hair. Their merry talk and bright laughter awaken the quieter townsfolk, still in bed, and make them smile at pleasant recollections of the St. Anthony days of their youth, when merriment had also shone in their eyes, and no drop of gall had yet fallen into their cup of life. What girl in Sarrio would not recollect some one of these journeyings to the hermitage on a soft, pleasant morning, when the feet seemed winged and the heart beat quickly at the thought of soon seeing and spending the day with the adored swain!
These maidens seemed to emit a waft of brightness which rose from the street to the houses, entered the windows, and invited the inmates to leave for a few hours the heavy weight of business, ambition, envy, and all the low passions which make up the sum of human misery, and follow them in the enjoyment of the fresh morning air, the green fields, the incomparable rich milk sold at the hermitage, in the games of puss in the corner and blind man's buff, in the languid Spanish dances, Morana's sweet caramels and cakes, and, what was better still, the kisses of somebody, when the face was not ugly and the hairs of the _mostacho_ not too obtrusive.
Pablito sallied forth in the early morning, accompanied by his faithful Piscis, both mounted on fine spirited horses, which of course pirouetted from side to side. A weighty reason added to his equestrian propensity made him use this mode of transport. Young Belinchon had not frequented any fairs for the past year, and avoided going on foot. He seldom left the house, especially at night, and only traversed the most frequented streets, and then very rarely alone. He had hidden and bitter enemies. Valentina, the fair, vivacious seamstress, had sworn by all the saints of heaven to plant a dagger in his back.
It is needless to give the reason why. After having ruined her he had abandoned her and gone elsewhere, like a careless, gaudy butterfly which flies from flower to flower. It had cost him some trouble, or rather some alarm. When he heard of his lover's oath, which did not surprise him, as he knew her character so well, he tried to avoid an early, wretched death by sending different emissaries to her with offers of sums of money, her maintenance without work, and suggesting to take and bring up the child. The angry seamstress indignantly rejected all these offers, repeating her horrible, bloodthirsty oath each time an ambassador came to see her.
Naturally our handsome youth felt rather qualmish under the circumstances, and he would have given his carriage and horses to have had eyes at the back of his head. He made the best of those he had, and whenever he went out on foot he exhausted himself in looking about him. But confidence came with time, for as Valentina scarcely ever left home, and never frequented balls and fairs since her trouble, nobody had seen her. So Pablito, never meeting her on the street, felt emboldened by the suggestion of Piscis to go to the festival of St. Anthony.
Thus they mounted early, and took the wide, dusty Lancian road, shaded for some distance from the town by majestic giant elms. The road inclined, without being very steep, and on both sides was the smiling district of Sarrio, bordered by two or three lines of undulating hills, with the mountains of Narcin in the distance rising above the valley of Lancia still lying in mist.
Looking back after going some distance, the beautiful town was seen bathed in the sunlight, which brightened the white fronts of the houses, while the vast expanse of the sea, touched by the oblique rays of the rising sun, presented a milky-white appearance.
The horses of our equestrians, in the pride of their beautiful breed and their bright, shining backs, caracoled incessantly, which ostentatious display of their muscular power in the morning light raised clouds of dust. The work-girls who were making their way to the hermitage grew impatient, and chaffed the riders more from vexation at the dust than from fear of the horses; and taunts in somewhat bad taste were cast at the severe Piscis, who turned a deaf ear to them, so absorbed was he in the contemplation of the hoofs of the horses, as their right elevation had been entrusted to his training.
"Bah! the road is too narrow for him!"
"I say, parson, don't kick up such a dust! On horseback you think yourself somebody, but you look like a puppy-dog. You fancy yourself a duke, and you look like a monkey."
They did not interfere with Pablito. The bizarre youth exercised the same fascination over the work-girls as he did over the young ladies. Not only were they attracted by his fine figure, his gallantry and his riches, but also, and perhaps chiefly, by his conquests. The number of adorers he had had in all classes made an aureole of glory round his head. There had been much talk against him among the artisans on account of the affair with Valentina; they called him false, traitor, rogue; but all of them, even the friends of the victim, admired him in secret, and would have required little persuasion to fall into his arms, much as they swore and declared that she had been very foolish to think anything of that flirt.
Pablito pursued his way in a serious mood, also busy with his skittish quadruped. Nevertheless, he occasionally deigned to smile slightly, and this suspicion of a smile so excited the girls that they threw additional fire and wit into their attacks on the invulnerable Piscis.
About two miles on there was a beautiful open green space crossed by the road, which was to be the scene of the festivities in the afternoon, when the people came from the town and the others returned from the hermitage. To go to the hermitage one had to leave the highroad and take the narrow, steep paths bound by little stone walls covered with briers. A mile further on one came on to another open space on the top of the little hill where the shrine stood. The view from thence was beautiful and unequaled. There was an immense expanse of seacoast, not flat, but hilly, planted in some places with maize, in others with corn, and in most places only with grass, and intersected by the long, dusty road of Lancia, with its dark, level line of gigantic elms terminating in the pink and white line of the town.
By the shrine young women from the neighborhood, with more than one satin-cheeked, ruddy-lipped peasant girl, were selling milk in little earthenware mugs. There were also tables covered with cloths spread with _bizcochos_ (milk biscuits flavored with cinnamon) and other sugar pastry of ancient renown. The chief feature of the festival was to drink milk in the morning at the hermitage, play with the mugs, and then break them by rolling them down the hill. At twelve o'clock they ate the provisions brought with them, and then repaired to the walnut grove, the usual scene of the gathering. Pablito did not omit a single item of the program. He bought more than a dozen mugs of milk and a great quantity of biscuits, with which he laid siege to his friends, and then played with them so roughly that they often lost their footing and he fell with them onto the ground, to the great delight of the onlookers. He was most assiduous in his attentions to a very pretty, dark young girl, daughter of Maroto the policeman, who sold fish in the market-place, to whom the reader will recollect Periquito said, in the pit of the theatre, "Ramona, I love you," to the great amusement of Piscis and Pablo.
When the hour came for repairing to the walnut grove he tried to put her upon his horse in front of him. The girl resisted a little, but at last she gave in, for there was no help for it. So the youth arrived with her in the midst of the feast, to the applause and hurrahs of his friends, while the other girls expressed disapproval, and looked scandalized, although they were the first to succumb to the charms of the handsome sultan when they were the objects of his attentions.
By three o'clock the walnut grove was full of visitors. The vast green formed an emerald ground upon which the kerchiefs of the women, white, red, and yellow, in continual motion, formed a movable design in brilliant colors. Fresh arrivals came by the high road from Sarrio, and dispersed on the green on both sides. The roar of conversation, like the waves of the sea, was audible a little distance off, and the sharp twang of the guitar could be heard above the dull, monotonous sound and ring of the tambourine. There were some tents with rough plank tables loaded with swollen goatskins of wine, like victims prepared for sacrifice, surrounded by numerous groups of men. Then on the green there was a large crowd of both sexes, in the centre of which the dance of the country was going on to the sound of the castanets and with the motions peculiar to the district.
The dance continued five or six hours without any pause whatsoever. They perspired freely, but they were never fatigued. The men might be so sometimes, the women never. Those who danced so much were country girls from the neighboring villages, who returned home by the cross-roads without passing through the town.
The artisans of Sarrio made up parties for the _giraldilla_ (a Moro-Spanish country-dance), in which they sang in loud voices as they opened and closed the lines, leaving in the middle now a group of women, now a group of men. The young gentlemen knowing the girls through the dances at the schools, and accustomed to the pleasure, did not wish to relinquish their right of monopoly in the open air, and so they joined them, although they danced without grace with loose arms and stiff legs. Then a little further off the artisan lads danced with the girls who were either neglected by the gentlemen or, being of a superior calibre, cast scornful looks in their direction and preferred their own class.
It must not be thought that fashionable dances were omitted that afternoon. Don Mateo having sought for a substitute for the orchestra, had come upon an Italian harpist and violinist, and had paid them to play out of his own pocket. So there, in a corner of the green, under an immense walnut tree, within a rope barrier, were a dozen closely clasped couples giving occasional turns to the measure of the charming national _habanera_, surrounded by a large crowd of spectators.
The young ladies smiled derisively at this rough imitation of their own dances, and felt sorry that such handsome young men should dance with such awkwardness. But when any of the party ventured to ask one for a turn, she, after a little demurring, laughing and blushing, and such like, to show that the act was purely one of condescension, took the arm of the swain and joined in the dance.
Gonzalo came to the feast on foot with Cecilia, the eldest child, and the nurse. And as the road was long and steep, he carried his little girl almost all the way to prevent her getting tired. Ventura hated festivals; besides, her father had taken the carriage to meet the Duke of Tornos, and to think of going nearly two miles on foot was a monstrous idea. Doña Paula could not go either, for she had been delicate for some time, and the doctors thought that weakness and her want of health were due to a defect of circulation, a cardiacal affection which might turn serious at any time, although not so at present. Cecilia had wanted to release Gonzalo from his burden during the walk, but he had laughingly said:
"You, you little skeleton," for so he called her jokingly; "be quiet, and don't let me have to carry you, too."
And so they arrived like husband and wife, and proceeded to wander over the green, stopping every instant to greet friends they met. They bought sweets for the child, they stood looking at the dancing to the guitar, then they stopped by the _giraldilla_, and finally they went to where the harp and the violin were being played, and there they saw Pablo among the dancing couples, with his arm encircling the form of the beautiful Ramona. Certainly the fantastic youth seemed a little confused when he saw them, and, turning to his sister, he asked:
"Is mama here?"
Cecilia made a negative gesture, and he was reassured.
The child being soon tired of watching the dancing, asked to return to the peasants' dance. So recrossing the highroad, they went back to the gaieties on the other side, which was very fortunate for them, for just at that moment a fearful blood-curdling scene befitting a romantic tragedy was enacted on the spot they had quitted.
Pablito was dancing with his dark young lady, serene in his enjoyment of cutting a good figure. His face, always fresh-looking, was now extremely bright, not so much from physical exercise as from emotional excitement under the sensuous strains of the dance music. Ramona also, as scarlet as a poppy, leaned her chin, embellished with two ravishing dimples, on his shoulder, when she was suddenly horror-struck at the sight of a livid face with two flaming eyes, and Pablito heard a discordant cry behind him:
"Take that, villain!" and at the same time he felt a sharp dig in his back. He turned quickly round, and saw the fury-fraught, distorted face of Valentina, brandishing a weapon in her hand. The youth thought he was mortally wounded and fell to the ground with deathly signs upon his countenance. A crowd of people immediately hastened to raise him, while others caught hold of the seamstress. As he was being carried to a neighboring cottage, Pablito thought he heard the cries of Valentina, who was trying to free herself from her captives, doubtless still anxious to kill him.
The news spread through the place. Many people ran to the scene. Cecilia and Gonzalo, seeing the excitement, asked what it was about; and a friend, who knew the truth, told them that there was only a dispute among the peasants, and so managed to get them away.
In the meanwhile the doctor from a neighboring village, who was there, was asked to go and dress the wound. He was a young man fresh from the lecture hall. The first thing he did was to take off the youth's coat by cutting it down the back, and doing the same with his waistcoat and shirt, and when the flesh was bared he could not help laughing:
"What a wound! There is nothing to be seen."
In fact, the little penknife with which the seamstress had attempted his murder had pierced his coat, his waistcoat, and his shirt; but as to the flesh, it had been left intact. Pablo was greatly relieved to find himself still in the land of the living. Then the woman of the house temporarily stitched up his shirt and he put on the doctor's coat while Piscis went to fetch the horses. Pablo left the house by the back way, and struck across the fields so as not to be seen, for he was not only ashamed of being seen in that dreadful garb, but he was filled with horror at the recollection of the baneful words of Valentina, for if he remembered rightly (and his faint condition had not been conducive to a great feat of memory), the seamstress had cried, when he was carried away by the four men:
"Get along, brute; and if I have not killed you now, somebody will soon do so."
Pablito was in such deadly fear of being killed by an unknown hand that he would not stay a minute longer at the fair, and when he reached the road, where Piscis was waiting for him, he mounted his horse and lost no time in regaining the town. The sun was sinking. Some of the people began leaving the fair, when there was a great excitement at the sight of six or eight carriages coming along the road from Lancia. It was the Duke of Tornos and his suite. In an open carriage he was seated with his secretary and the great patrician, Don Rosendo. In the next carriage came Don Rufo, Alvaro Peña, and two gentlemen from Lancia; and in the others were Don Rudesindo, Navarro, Don Jeronimo de la Fuente, and several other partizans of the illustrious Belinchon followed in the other vehicles.
On arriving at the walnut grove the duke was astonished at the sight of the motley crowd assembled on the green. He was a man forty-six years of age, with flaccid cheeks of a sickly hue, a drooping lower lip, expressive of boredom and disdain; his cold, glassy, squinting eyes had a vacant expression, and in one of them he had an eyeglass fixed which gave an excessively impertinent look to his repulsive face. He had no beard, but a long mustache with waxed ends. He dressed in a style never seen in the country; that is to say, with the capricious originality of those who do not follow, but set the fashions. He wore a white American hat with a wide brim. He had a yellow shirt, lilac-colored gloves, and instead of a cravat a white handkerchief tied in the scarf form, with a great pearl pin.
"Delightful! delightful!" he exclaimed at the sight of the picturesque scene, languidly raising his eyelids. His voice was weak, and his enunciation low and labored, as if he were applauding from his box the trills of some prima donna at the Royal Theatre.
Don Rosendo gave him an explanation of the festival; he pointed to the steep hill leading to the shrine, which was visible in the distance; then he directed his attention to the different groups of dancers.
"There, Señor Duke, they are dancing to the strains of the guitar and tambourine; it is the characteristic dance of the country. Over there is the _giraldilla_, in which the town girls dance as they sing. There they drink; those are the tables where sweetmeats are sold. Under that walnut tree they are dancing the _habanera_. See, see, Señor Duke, it is the classic dance of our country--the men on one side, the women on the other; they go on quietly for hours and hours, singing the old ballads. It is a chaste dance, as you acknowledge."
"Delightful! delightful!" repeated the duke in his drawling tone, directing his eyeglass chiefly at the _giraldilla_. The Duke of Tornos was right. Few more cheerful, beautiful sights could be seen in any other spot on earth.
The feast waxed frenzied at its close. The guitar accentuated its sharp, strident tones, which vibrated in the far distance, accompanied by the persistent, dull sound of the tambourine; the young girls, excited and hot, with their cheeks on fire and their hair in disorder, not only sang, but shouted as they revolved in the _giraldilla_, and waxed desperate at the cessation of the enjoyment so seldom at their command. Those who had been indulging in wine also joined in the cries, with nasal sounds, as they tried to maintain their equilibrium upon the grass. And the lads and lasses of the _danza-prima_ (first figure), in increasing excitement, raised the tone of the long, monotonous songs. Even the Italian harpist and violinist dashed into a mazurka, of which the couples showed their appreciation by kicking out wildly on the grass.
Light was leaving the picture, and as it faded a mysterious poetic charm pervaded the scene and reminded one of the happy retreats of old Arcadia.
It seemed as if the people ought to live and die thus in perpetual happiness and youth. Why leave the spot, why withdraw from that happy retreat to return to the fatigues of daily life, the anxieties and cares of business? To enjoy, in innocence of heart and feeling, health and the sublime harmonies of life and sound; to enjoy the delights of love, the root of all things; to enjoy the force that maintains the cohesion of the universe; to enjoy the plumage of the birds, the murmur of the streams, the scent of the flowers, the dew of the fields, the foam of the sea, the eternal blue of the skies: for this it is to be created a man, not to fill the brief days of one's ephemeral existence with bitter vengeance, pale jealousy, and gnawing depression. The tradition of Paradise is the most ancient and logical of human traditions.
The sun now gilded the tops of the walnut trees which surrounded the green and cast long shadows upon the ground. A slight shudder of cold and melancholy ran through the company, which those who were heated with dancing or wine vainly strove to resist. It soon permeated the whole assembly. Voices were heard of mothers calling to their children, and of brothers to their sisters; groups were formed that waited for a moment to see if their party was complete before starting off. The first to break up was the _giraldilla_; the singing and dancing went on, for as the peasant folk had not so far to go in returning to their homes, they had no fear of nightfall.
The people collected by the carriages in the middle of the road. The duke turned his eyeglass in all directions, looking at the preparations of departure with the eye of a connoisseur in painting. At last, seeing the great crowd assemble from all sides, he gave orders to go on slowly in the wake of the crowd, as he wished to see everything, not because it was beautiful, but because it was new to him.
The carriages then proceeded in the midst of the crowd, surrounded by affectionate couples in intimate converse; old men leading children by one hand and carrying handkerchiefs full of sweetmeats in the other; groups of girls interchanging their experiences in loud voices, with much laughter. As soon as they had gone a little distance from the walnut grove, the canticles, which were the chief features of the festivals of the neighborhood, commenced.
The artisans have good reason to be proud of their voices. They generally sing some sentimental song to a drawn-out, melancholy tune, a harmonious accompaniment being given by the seconds in thirds; at other times, when the party is larger, they use the traditional street ditties, which are various and delightful. That they did on this occasion. The duke was surprised at hearing the chorus of fresh voices incessantly repeating simple couplets like the following:
"I was high above In the tower of love; The foundations rumbled, But I never tumbled.
"Why should the poor Call at your door, When your palm never itches To give of your riches?"
But the puerile ideas of the lines acquired in their mouths an undue importance. They seemed solemn phrases, mysterious and wondrous formulas that no outsider could enter into without sacrilege. The air seemed filled with those sweet, drawn-out sounds; an indescribable feeling pervaded the singers from whose mouths they fell; each time they repeated them with more tenderness, with more unction, as they colored them with those poetic sentiments which always fill their hearts, and are transmitted from mothers to daughters in the romantic Biscayan town. It was the melancholy of those who apprehend the world of beauty, love it, and are forced by circumstances to live and die far from it. Between the couplets there was a silent pause, filled with the tramp of feet. The choir seemed to be in a waking dream, only alive to the vague feelings which the song aroused in the depths of their hearts.
Night fell suddenly. The branches of the high elms stood out clearly in the diaphanous atmosphere, but the shadows cast upon the road became darker. The landscape had lost its color, and the bluish hue of the tracts planted with corn were hardly distinguishable in the shades of evening. The great sweep of the ocean in the distance was now indistinct. The brilliant blue of midday had changed into a metallic greenish gray. The choir soon shook off its melancholy. A young girl started a bright, merry air, and the others willingly joined in, as if glad to awake from a sad dream:
"Do not bewail That you must fail To go to Anthony Fair, There to tread on air; For lo! it is raining, And you'll be complaining That no more you will get The dress now so wet."
This was sung with the eager shout of enthusiasm usual with such songs, and a few minutes after its conclusion an improvised couplet, illustrating the present situation, followed:
"Come to St. Anthony Fair; There you will stare; A duke to see As polite as can be. The girls laughed and ran To see such a great man."
And thenceforth the magnate was introduced into the songs; and he, turning his eyeglass from right to left, and shaking his head with a benevolent smile, repeated in a low voice:
"Delightful! delightful! A Teniers picture! a Lorena's landscape!"
By the time they reached the town night had closed in. The duke with his secretary withdrew to the rooms prepared for him by Don Rosendo. The secretary was a young man of six-and-twenty, pale, and red-haired, whose undeveloped brain contained no idea beyond that of the colossal importance of the duke, and the imperious necessity of becoming a personage, if not of so much consequence, yet important enough to also have a secretary. Beyond these ideas the world had no other meaning for Cosio, for such was his name.