Maximina Part 58

The tone in which she spoke and the look with which she accompanied her words, left no room for doubt. Saavedra knew that though she would not kill herself, yet that she would give herself a slash, that the blood would run, and that there would be a serious piece of mischief in which he would appear in no enviable light. Therefore he hastened to say:--

"I will not touch you; don't be afraid." And then he added with an ironical smile, in a tone overflowing with spite, "Come, come! where it is least to be expected there arises a Lucretia. If I were an artist, Maximina, I would paint you this way with your arm raised, and would send you to the exhibition. The razor is a trifle prosaic, but that is the fault of the times. Lucretias nowadays, instead of an embossed dagger use their husbands' razor!"

Perhaps the rejected seducer would have gone on flinging at his expected victim other coa.r.s.e insults and cowardly jests like the above, but at that instant Maximina's quick ear caught the soft and delicate voice of her little one, who was just waking up in the sleeping-room; it was so slight a sound that only a mother could have heard it at that distance.

She threw down the razor, and exclaimed, "My heart's delight, I am coming."

She flew like an arrow past Don Alfonso. If he had attempted to stay her flight, she would certainly have knocked him over with the impetus that she had and her muscular development.

The _caballero_ had no thought of doing any such thing. What he did was to turn on his heels, take his hat, and set out to dissipate his ill humor and vexation on the Castellana.

Maximina's calmness quickly returned. Nevertheless, a few hours afterward she began to feel such an intense chill that she was obliged to go to bed and ask for a cup of _tila_. On the following day she was all right again. She thought of sending word to Miguel, asking him to come home, but on second thought she saw that she would be obliged to give some reason, and she had none. And if he should have any suspicion and oblige her to confess what had taken place? He would certainly challenge Saavedra, who, as he was an expert in such affairs, would kill him.

"Oh, I would kill myself sooner than tell him!"

And the faithful wife, at the mere thought of it, s.h.i.+vered with horror.

XXIV.

"The first part of my plan has 'gang agley'; now let us see if I shall be luckier in the second," said Don Alfonso, on leaving Miguel's house.

That afternoon, while his eyes were wandering at haphazard over the throng of carriages flying up and down the Castellana, he was deeply engaged in concocting the most odious and villanous plans, which we shall shortly find him carrying into execution.

During the days that followed, he began to show more attention and love to his cousin than ever, spending long hours in her company. This sudden ardor on her lover's part was sufficient to turn Julita's head completely. The asperity of her restless and ardent temperament had already for some time been changing into mildness. Don Alfonso, owing to _la brigadiera's_ blameworthy carelessness, had got into the habit of taking certain liberties with her, innocent enough in themselves, but extremely dangerous. When he had made her his slave, he asked her one day:--

"Julita, do you want to marry me?"

"What a question!" exclaimed the girl, growing crimson as a poppy.

"Well, then, let us have it understood that you accept me as your husband."

"Who told you so, jackanapes."[58]

"You have told me with those sharp eyes of yours ever since I knew you!

You can't deny it, Julia!"

"_Tonto! tonto!_ you insufferable fellow!" exclaimed the girl, trying to be angry.

"Let us not speak any more of that. That matter is settled. In the first place, we have both agreed, La Senorita Dona Julia Rivera on the one hand, and Don Alfonso Saavedra on the other, that we wish to enter into wedlock. Now then, how to carry our project into effect? I have already reached the twenty-fifth year of my age--if you did not know it before, you know it now." (Julia laughed.) "Consequently the law authorizes me to marry whenever I wish, without my mother's consent. Still this permission is indispensable for me, in the first place, on account of the frantic affection which she professes for me; on account of the duty that I owe her of not going against her wishes or causing her a grief which the poor woman does not deserve; and in the second place, through a selfish consideration, which is likewise of much weight. I have been a wretch, Julita; a prodigal who has in a few years run through the fortune that I inherited from my father. The result of that is that I now find myself at my mother's mercy, and she, be it said in the interest of truth, has not hitherto been n.i.g.g.ardly toward me. But as you can easily imagine, I don't know what might happen if I married against her wishes. Now then, I confess with shame, I am not used to working, nor even if I wanted to work should I know what to set my hand to. So then, we must tell my mamma, if we are to get married. To-morrow I will write her, and if, as I have no reason to doubt, she has no objection to our marriage, we can immediately set the time for it."

What a sleepless night Julita spent! and yet how happy a night it was!

Don Alfonso took it for granted that their marriage was settled, and even spoke of it as though it had already taken place. The talks which they had during the four days which elapsed between the letter and its answer were almost all concerned with the preparations to be made for the wedding,--what they would do after they were joined, etc. Julia waited impatiently for the mamma's answer from Seville. As for _la brigadiera_, as Don Alfonso was her right eye, she had never taken her into consideration at all. By his advice she had not said a word to her about it as yet.

At last the letter came.

Would that it had never come! Saavedra entered his aunt's house with his face pale and dark lines under his eyes, and with a mortal sadness depicted on it. In order to accomplish this theatrical effect he had spent the previous night in a drunken spree. Julia's face changed when she saw him; then instantly she knew by intuition what news he had brought. When they had taken their seat together by the piano, the place where they had carried on almost all their secret conversations, the _caballero_ exclaimed in a tone full of sorrow, and hiding his face in his hands:--

"How unhappy I am, Julita!"

She was silent for a few moments, and then said:--

"Your mother does not consent to our marriage,--is that it?"

Don Alfonso did not reply. Silence reigned for some time. Finally Julia broke it in a trembling voice:--

"Don't take it so to heart, Alfonso. Instead of helping me, you take away my courage."

"You are right, my beauty! even in this I am selfish. I ought to consider that beside the grief that you feel as keenly as I do, if you love me, you have had an insult put upon you."

"No, no," the young girl hastened to say; "I do not feel that it is an insult. All I feel is that I cannot be yours."

Saavedra gave her a fascinating look of love, and pressed her hand warmly.

"Mamma does not speak unkindly of you. If she had said anything that could be construed as derogatory to you, I should know well how to reply to it. It will be better for you to read her letter for yourself," he said, taking it from his pocket.

This letter had been written by Saavedra himself, counterfeiting her penmans.h.i.+p and sending it to a friend to be mailed back from Seville; it was a doc.u.ment remarkable for its ingenuity. Julia's name was not mentioned in it; the mamma deeply lamented, because she had dreamed of a brilliant match for her dear boy; he well knew who she was. This had been the hope of all her life, she had pledged her word, and all the relatives were counting upon it; finally, that as now she was getting old and feeble, this disappointment would certainly cause her death.

The effect caused by this letter on the young girl was exactly what its author intended. Instead of quenching the fire, it made it burn all the more fiercely; jealousy was the princ.i.p.al fuel in this case.

"Who is the woman whom they want you to marry, Alfonso?" asked Julita timidly, while big tears rolled down her cheeks.

"I don't know, I don't know, let me alone!" he exclaimed, with a gesture of despair.

"Tell me, Alfonso: I am very anxious to know."

"What difference does it make who she is? I hate her, I detest her."

"At any rate, I want to know what her name is."

"She is the Countess de San Clemente."

"Is she young?"

"Much older than you are: she is at least twenty-five or twenty-six."

"Is she pretty?"

"How do I know? What difference does it make to me whether she is pretty or homely?"

"But is she pretty?"

"They say she is; but I tell you that it makes no difference to me."

The girl was silent for a long time; her heart beat violently. At length she said in a melancholy tone, giving her lover an anxious look:--