-Viii- · IV

-XI-

For a month past Don Manuel Pardo had been asking himself: ‘When will the lad make up his mind to ask me for Rita?’.

That he would ask for her, he never doubted for an instant. The Marquis’s position in that house was tacitly that of an accepted suitor. The friends of the house of Lage took the liberty of making unmasked allusions to the approaching wedding; the servants in the kitchen were already calculating how much the wedding gratuity would amount to. On retiring at night her sisters teased Rita mercilessly. At all hours they laughed like brothers and sisters with their cousin, and a gust of youthful mirth converted the ancient mansion into a noisy aviary.

One afternoon the Marquis was taking a siesta when there came a loud knocking at his door. He opened it: it was Rita, in a morning jacket, with a silk handkerchief tied dapperly round her head, displaying her beautiful bare neck. She brandished an enormous feather duster in her right hand, and looked like a very handsome servant maid—a resemblance which, far from repelling the Marquis, made his blood boil with greater impetuosity. Flushed and smiling, the girl shot fire from eyes, mouth, and cheeks.

“Perucho? Big Perucho?”

“Little Rita, big Rita?” replied Don Pedro, devouring her with his gaze.

“The girls say you must come.... We are very busy setting the garret in order, where all the lumber of grandfather’s time is kept. It seems wonderful things are being found there.”

“And what use can I be to you? I suppose you will not set me to sweep.”

“It will be just as the fancy takes us. Come, lazybones, sleepyhead, dormouse.”

A very steep staircase led to the garret, and the place was not very dark, for it received light from three large skylights, but it was very low; Don Pedro could not stand upright there, and the girls at the slightest lapse of attention bumped their heads against the rafters. A thousand discarded knick-knacks were stored in the garret, which had served in other days for the pomp, display, and splendor of the Pardos de la Lage, and now had dust and moths for companions; their hope lay in the visits of lively girls who from time to time explored it to unearth some jewel of bygone days, which they altered according to the prevailing fashion. With the antiquities that were mouldering there, a history of the customs and occupations of the Galician nobility for a couple of centuries past might have been written: remnants of painted and gilded sedans; lanterns with which pages lighted their mistresses on returning from evening parties when street lighting was unknown in Santiago; a uniform of the Royal Cavalry Brotherhood of Ronda; hoods and reticules embroidered with beads; waistcoats embroidered with showy flowers; openwork silk stockings, now yellowed; skirts trimmed with fringes; steel dress swords rusted over; playbills printed on silk, stating that the singing lady would sing a witty tonadilla and the clown perform an entertaining farce—all lay jumbled there with other similar curiosities, which breathed the eighteenth century from a thousand leagues, and among which were distinguished, as more symbolic and eloquent garments, Masonic implements: medal, triangle, mallet, square, and apron, relics of an encyclopedist grandfather of the thirty-third degree..., and a charming scarlet coatee with colonel’s badges embroidered in silver on cuffs and collar, the heirloom of Don Manuel Pardo’s grandmother, who according to the custom of her day, authorized by the example of Queen María Luisa, used her husband’s uniform to ride skillfully astride.

“A fine place you have brought me to,” said Don Pedro, suffocated by the dust and greatly annoyed at not being able to stir from his seat.

“Here we have you fast,” retorted Rita and Manolita, clapping their hands in triumph; “for however much you try, there is no chance of running after us or playing tricks on us. Our turn has come. We are going to dress you up in a small-sword and waistcoat. You shall see.”

“I have a mighty desire to play the mummer!”

“Only for a minute. Just to see what a figure you cut.”

“I tell you I will not dress up like a guy.”

“Why not? We have set our hearts upon it.”

“Take care, you will repent of it. Whichever of you comes near me will be sorry.”

“And what will you do to us, big boaster?”

“That is not to be told until it is seen.”

The mysterious threat seemed to inspire fear in the cousins, who confined themselves for the present to harmless mischief—a flick or two with the feather duster. The cleaning of the garret progressed: Manolita, with her muscular arms, handled the lumber; Rita classified it; Nucha dusted and folded it carefully; Carmen took little part in the bustle, and still less in the merriment: two or three times she vanished, doubtless to look out from the gallery. The others dropped broad hints at her.

“What is the weather like, Carmucha? Is it raining or is the sun shining?”

“Are there many people passing in the street? Answer, woman.”

“That girl is always daydreaming.”

As the garments were cleared of dust, the girls tried them on. The colonel’s uniform suited Manolita to a wonder, on account of her masculine figure. Rita was charming in her grandmother’s sea-green silk pelisse. Carmen consented only to let a grotesque ornament be placed on her head—a triple crest which at the time it was first worn was called The Three Powers. To Nucha fell the trial of the blond-lace mantillas. Meanwhile evening was coming on, and in the cobwebbed expanse of the garret very little could be seen. The twilight was favorable to the girls’ designs; taking advantage of the opportunity, the two eldest approached Don Pedro stealthily, and while Rita planted a three-cornered hat upon his head, Manolita threw over his shoulders a dove-colored waistcoat with garlands of blue and yellow flowers.

The moment that followed this silly prank was one of confusion. Don Pedro, half on all fours because the low pitch of the garret allowed no other posture, pursued his cousins, resolved to take memorable vengeance; while they, uttering mouse-like squeaks, stumbling against the furniture and lumber scattered here and there, sought the narrow door to avoid reprisals. While Rita entrenched herself behind the remnants of a sedan-chair and a rickety chest of drawers, two of the girls, the least courageous, fled; and Manolita having had the happy thought of temporarily blinding her cousin by throwing a shawl over his head, Rita also, the born leader of the mutiny, succeeded in escaping. To free himself from the shawl, tearing it to tatters, and to dash to the door and down the staircase in pursuit of the fugitive, were simultaneous actions with Don Pedro.

He bounded impetuously down the stairs, plunging into the corridor gropingly, guided by his instinct as a hunter of agile game who hears before him the hurried little trot of the beautiful quarry. At a turning of the passage he overtook her. The defense was soft, broken by laughter. Don Pedro, determined to inflict the promised punishment, applied it in fact near her ear—long and sounding. It seemed to him that the victim did not resist then; but so malicious a supposition must have been erroneous, for Rita seized a second’s truce in hostilities to flee once more, shouting:

“I’ll wager you don’t catch me again, coward!”

Lured on, forgetting the peril of the sport, the Marquis darted after his cousin, who had already vanished in the darkness of the passage. The corridor, irregular and winding, snaked around part of the house, turning in unexpected angles, and at times narrowing like an ill-stuffed sausage. Rita had the advantage in its familiar straits. The Marquis heard doors creak—a sign that the girl had taken sanctuary in some room. Don Pedro was in no mood to respect sanctuaries. He pushed the door behind which he judged Rita to be barricaded. The door resisted as if it had an obstacle before it; but Don Pedro’s fists easily disposed of the flimsy barricade of a couple of chairs, which came to the ground with a crash. He entered a completely dark room, and instinctively stretched out his hands so as not to run against the furniture; he perceived that something was stirring in the gloom; he groped in the air and touched a woman’s form, which he clasped in his arms without saying a word, with the intention of repeating the punishment. Oh, surprise! The most stubborn and spirited resistance, the most desperate protest, little hands of steel that he could not capture, a nervous body that shook itself, shrinking from all contact, and at the same time several exclamations of deep and genuine distress, two or three smothered cries calling for help.... The deuce! That was not like the other, not at all.... However blind and excited the Marquis might be, he could not fail to understand.... He felt a confusion unfamiliar to him, and released the girl.

“Nuchiña, do not cry.... Hush, woman.... I let you go; I will do you no harm.... Wait an instant.”

He hastily searched his pockets, struck a match, looked around, and lighted a candle in a candlestick.... Nucha, finding herself free, kept silence; but she remained upon the defensive. The Marquis began once more to excuse himself and comfort her.

“Nucha, do not be a child.... Forgive me, woman.... Excuse me, I did not think it was you.”

Checking a sob, Nucha exclaimed:

“Whoever it might be.... Such brutal things are not done to young ladies.”

“My girl, your lady sister provoked me..., and he who provokes me must not complain if he catches a tartar.... Come, let it end here, do not be vexed. What will uncle say of me? But are you crying still, woman? Mind that you are truly sensitive. Let us see, let us see that face.”

He raised the candlestick to throw light upon Nucha’s countenance. She was flushed, agitated, and down her cheeks a tear was slowly trickling; but as the light struck her eyes, she could not help smiling faintly and wiping away the tear with her handkerchief.

“Heavens! No one would dare touch you! You are a little spitfire! And you even show strength in your fists on such occasions! The deuce!”

“Go,” ordered Nucha, recovering her seriousness. “This is my bedroom, and it does not seem decent to me that you should be inside it.”

The Marquis took two paces toward the door; and turning round suddenly, asked:

“Are we friends? Is peace made?”

“Yes, provided you do not return to your old ways,” answered Nucha with simplicity and firmness.

“What will you do to me if I return?” inquired the rustic gentleman smiling. “You are capable of felling me on the spot with a buffet, my girl.”

“Certainly not.... I have not strength for that. I will do something else.”

“What?”

“Tell papa, very clearly, so that he may notice what has assuredly never crossed his mind: that it does not seem natural for you to live here, not being our brother, and we being unmarried girls. I know it is an impertinence on my part to undertake to correct papa; but he has not noticed this, nor does he think you capable of such pranks as today’s. As soon as he notices anything, it will occur to him without my whispering it in his ear, for I am nobody to advise my father.”

“The deuce! You say it in such a way..., as if it were a matter of life and death!”

“Just so.”

The Marquis departed with this dismissal, and at supper-time he was taciturn and wrapped in his own thoughts, paying no heed to Rita’s blandishments. Nucha, though with her countenance somewhat altered, showed herself as ever, affable, tranquil, and attentive to the proper service and order of the table. That night the Marquis did not let Julián sleep, keeping him entertained until the small hours with a long and detailed conversation. The following days were days of truce; Don Pedro went out a good deal, and was often seen at the Casino, beside the tribunal of slanderers. He was not wasting his time there. He informed himself of particulars that concerned him, for instance the true state of his uncle’s fortune. In Santiago it was said, as he had suspected already, that Don Manuel Pardo was leaving the third and fifth of his property as an entail to his eldest son Gabriel, who between the entail, his legal share, and the family estate, would sweep into his net almost the whole house of Lage. No other hope remained to the little cousins than the inheritance from an unmarried aunt, Doña Marcelina—Nucha’s godmother to be precise—who resided in Orense, hoarding sordidly and living like a rat in its hole. These tidings gave Don Pedro food for reflection, and kept Julián awake for a few nights more. At length he took a final resolution.

Don Manuel Pardo trembled with pleasure on seeing his nephew enter his study one morning, with that indefinable expression observable on the face and in the bearing of one who comes to treat of some important matter. Don Manuel had heard that where there are several sisters, the difficulty is to dispose of the first, and afterward the others fall away of themselves, like the beads of a chaplet after the one nearest the end of the thread. Rita once settled, the rest was child’s play. Manolita would at length be taken off his hands by the pompous young master of Formoseda; Carmen would have certain foolish notions knocked out of her head, and being so pretty would not lack a good match; and Nucha.... As for Nucha, she was no burden to him in the house, for she managed it wonderfully; besides, as the presumptive heiress of her godmother, she had no need of protection through marriage. If she found no husband, she would live with Gabriel when the latter, his studies being completed, should establish himself as became the heir of the house of Lage. With such pleasant thoughts, Don Manuel opened his ears to receive the dew of his nephew’s words.... What he received was a thunderclap.

“Why are you so startled, uncle?” exclaimed Don Pedro, inwardly enjoying the mortification and amazement of the old gentleman. “Is there any obstacle? Has Nucha another suitor?”

Don Manuel began to raise a thousand objections, keeping back some that were not to be spoken. The girl’s youth was brought forward, her delicate health, and the father even pleaded her lack of beauty, seasoning the observation with allusions by no means veiled to Rita’s fine figure and the bad taste of not preferring her. He clapped his nephew on the shoulders and knees; he cracked jokes, he tried to advise him as one advises a child choosing among toys; and at last, after relating several anecdotes suited to the subject and told in dialect, he ended by declaring that to the other girls he would give something on their marriage, but as for Nucha... since she expected to inherit her aunt’s property.... Times were bad, upon his word.... Then, confronting the Marquis, he asked him:

“And what does that sly puss of a Nucha say, let us see?”

“You will ask her that, uncle.... I have said nothing of consequence to her...! We are growing too old to go making sheep’s eyes.”

Oh, what a swell of emotion there was in the house of Lage for the space of a fortnight! Interviews with the father, whisperings of the sisters among themselves, late sittings and early risings, slamming of doors, hidden fits of weeping that revealed eyes swollen like fists, upsets in meal times, conferences with grave friends, the curiosity of an officious duenna who deadens her footsteps to overhear something behind a curtain, all the dramatic trifles that accompany a grave domestic event.... And as in the provinces walls are of glass, there was outrageous gossip in Santiago, commenting on the scandals that had occurred among the young ladies of the house of Lage on account of their cousin. Rita was accused of having bitterly insulted her sister because she was taking her suitor away from her, and Carmen of abetting her, because Nucha rebuked her window-gazing. Nucha also was censured as deceitful and hypocritical. Don Manuel’s heels were well gnawed, it being asserted that he had said in all confidence to a person who repeated it in all intimacy: ‘My nephew was not to leave this house without one of the girls, and since he took a fancy to Nucha, she had to be given to him.’ It was affirmed that the sisters no longer exchanged a single word at table, and this was confirmed by seeing Rita on the promenade walking alone with Carmen in front, while the cousin followed behind with Don Manuel and Nucha. The latter walked as if ashamed, downcast and modest. The gossip grew when Rita set out for Orense to keep Aunt Marcelina company for a season, as she said, and Don Pedro for an inn, it being deemed improper for the betrothed pair to live under the same roof on the eve of marriage.