"Good! now give me the kiss here on the temple. The first and the last you will ever give me in your life. Wait a bit," she added once more jumping up. "For this kiss I am to give you fifty buffets on your purple cheeks. Do you agree to the compact?"

Garnet immediately consented. The young girl then reseated herself on his knees, and bent her head to receive the kiss.

"Good! now it is my turn!" she exclaimed with childish merriment.

"Prepare to receive your buffets. What cheeks! _Dios mio_, how magnificent! Do you see how blue they are? Well, I am going to turn them green. Attention! One! the first. Two! the second. Three! the third.

Four! Five!"

The strong, small hand of the beautiful vixen struck into the red cheeks of the Indian with no slight effect. His eyes began to get as red and angry as those of a wolf, his blood suddenly became inflamed, and with a sudden movement, he seized her roughly by the waist.

Fernanda uttered a terrified cry.

"What is the matter? Why are you angry?"

"Leave me, leave me, you brute!"

She struggled in desperation but she could not release herself.

Once more free, she was perfectly sober. She cast a vague, strange look at the Indian, and this look, suddenly a.s.suming an expression of horror, was fixed upon him as upon some wild animal that had just attacked her.

"What are you doing here? Ah, yes!" she exclaimed raising her hand to her forehead. "My G.o.d! What has come to me? Am I dreaming?"

Then once more fixing her angry, menacing eyes upon him, she cried in a rage:

"What are you doing standing there? Leave the room immediately! Leave the room! leave the room!" she repeated with a voice which grew louder each time.

But when the Indian got as far as the door, she rushed before him, flew along the pa.s.sages, and when she reached the staircase she fell down in a swoon.

She was lifted up and every care was bestowed upon her. When she recovered consciousness a torrent of tears streamed from her eyes, and continued all the afternoon. And when the party started for home she was still weeping.

"Did you see that this girl of Estrada-Rosa cried from the effects of wine?" said Captain Nunez, laughing.

CHAPTER IX

THE MASQUERADE

Shortly before the rosy dawn opened wide the windows of the East, Satan, who rose in a mischievous humour, sent the most knavish and wanton of the demons to Lancia with orders to awaken it from its slumbers. So the minister of h.e.l.l waved his black wings over the city, and gave vent to loud discordant laughter, which was effectual in arousing all the inhabitants from their dreams. They awoke with the most immoderate desires to upset, make fun of, and laugh at all ruling authorities, to improvise couplets, and say rude things. One of these people, we can imagine it must have been Jaime Moro, called his servant directly he had jumped out of bed, and asked him with a smiling countenance if Don Nicanor, the ba.s.s of the cathedral, would lend him his instrument. The servant without replying, instantly left the room, and soon reappeared with an enormous serpent (wind instrument) in his hands. And without any respect for his master, he applied the mouthpiece to his lips and produced a sound like the roaring of a lion. Moro, lightly attired as he was, made a pirouet and gave three or four taps of the heel in sign of great appreciation, as if that barbarous sound had touched the most delicate fibres of his heart. After trying himself to produce the same noise and ascertaining that he was quite equal to the achievement, he dressed himself, and after taking a hurried breakfast, he sallied into the street, wrapped in his cloak, under the folds of which he had put the instrument that had so delighted him. He stopped everybody with a mysterious wink, and retiring to the nearest portico, he, full of excitement, showed them his hidden treasure. n.o.body asked what he was going to do with it. They smiled, squeezed his hand significantly, and whispered in his ear:

"When is it to be?"

"To-night. The carriage leaves at twelve."

"They will escape us."

"Bah! all precautions are taken."

And he went on his way m.u.f.fled up to the eyes, for the cold was indeed diabolical.

The others not only smiled and pressed his hand, but each of them took from the pockets of his overcoat or from inside his gabardine some powerful instrument, albeit of an inferior kind to the above-mentioned one, and Moro applauded and praised each one, without boasting of his own superiority. And so he continued his round-about and tiring walk until he arrived not at Don Romana's confectioner's shop, which was the usual glorious termination of his morning expeditions, but at the house of Paco Gomez. The place resounded with the quick steps and many voices of a number of busy young people. They were all working with great energy, and with a diligence rarely seen in workshops. Some were cutting out banners, others were moulding cardboard masks, some were painting black letters on the sides of a lantern, some were dressing up two guy figures in gorgeous attire, and some were trying the mouthpieces of various wind instruments and serpents similar to that brought by Moro.

The scene of action was an immense dismantled room. Paco Gomez lived in the palace of a marquis, to whom his father was majordomo and who never came to Lancia. The implacable practical joker was a vigilant and careful director of all the work of his companions, leaving the room every minute to give orders to the servants, or to receive some message sent to him. Never was he more indefatigable. He was generally rather disagreeable, and even with his jokes he brought to bear a certain scornful manner, either real or a.s.sumed, that made him more formidable.

But now he strained every nerve in the matter, for it was a question of the most stupendous and best-arranged farce that the town of Lancia had ever witnessed since the monks of San Vicente came to found it. The cause of it was that Fernando Estrada-Rosa was to marry (the pen scarcely dares write it), Fernanda Rosa was to marry (how difficult it is to say it), was to marry Garnet!

From the time of the memorable scene at the Grange, Fernanda lived in a stupor of misery, in a depression of body and soul that alarmed her father. The doctor was sent for, and he said it was nothing more than a nervous attack, which would be cured by a journey to the court, drives and amus.e.m.e.nts. But the girl absolutely refused to try these remedies.

She declined drives, theatres, parties, and, still more, a journey anywhere. She only went from her room to the dining-room, and from thence to her father's room, where she only stayed a short time. She had no energy to go on to the second floor, nor spirit to enter into, and direct the duties of the servants. She was mostly shut up in her own room, where she had nothing to do, and she would throw herself into a chair and remain for a long time motionless with her hands on her knees and her eyes fixed. Sometimes she began to read, but finding that the book conveyed nothing to her mind, she ended by casting it aside.

Sometimes she appeared at the window, and remained whole hours with a miserable face upon the balcony, whilst her eyes were fixed on s.p.a.ce, or on a point of the street without seeing the pa.s.sers by, or replying to the many greetings made to her, or noticing that she was making herself an object of curiosity to the neighbours. But all at once she was seized with a desire to go to Madrid, and the journey had to be arranged instantly. She expressed her wish in the morning, and by the evening the father and daughter were in the diligence, so eager and vehement had the girl been in demanding the journey. Once started, her state of mind was completely changed. She threw herself madly and wildly into all the pleasures of Madrid that were attractive to a rich, beautiful, provincial girl. She pa.s.sed two months in the intoxication of theatres, drives, grand evening parties, and concerts. A nervous sort of cheerfulness seemed suddenly to have taken possession of her, and she appeared happy in the midst of the noise and whirl of society, where she was soon known by the nickname of "The African." To add to the gaiety of her life, she liked to dine at cafes and restaurants like a dissipated youth. Don Juan was divided betwixt his pleasure of seeing her contented, and the acute sense of discomfort that the disorganised life, so contrary to his usual habits, and age, caused him.

One afternoon, as they were returning from the drive on the Prado, Fernanda suddenly began sobbing violently. Don Juan was astonished and taken aback, for she had been laughing all the afternoon, and making fun of a certain youth who persisted in following the carriage.

"What has come to you? Fernanda, my daughter!"

The girl did not reply. With her handkerchief to her eyes, and her body shaken by her sobs, she only wept more bitterly.

"Fernanda! _por Dios_! people are looking at you!"

The crying then changed to an attack of nerves, and Don Juan told the coachman to drive home at once. But before arriving there, the young girl ceased weeping, raised her head, and said in a tone of determination:

"Papa, I want to go back to Lancia!"

"All right, my daughter; we will go to-morrow."

"No, no; I want to go now, at once."

"But think, there is only one hour before the train goes."

"There is plenty of time."

There was nothing to be done but to have their things packed in the trunks and to rush in haste to the station, and the nerves of the excited girl were only somewhat calmed when the whistle of the engine announced their departure and they were off over the arid tracts of land outside Madrid.

The day following her arrival at Lancia, she did not appear to greet her father, nor to take chocolate with him as usual. When the father was thinking of calling her, a servant suddenly entered his room looking pale and agitated.

"The senorita is taken very ill!"

Don Juan repaired to his daughter's apartment, and found her in all the agonies of violent sickness.

"Quick! fetch the doctor!" cried the poor father.

Fernanda made a negative gesture, and weakly muttered: "No; send for the father confessor."

But no notice was taken of this remark. The doctor came, and after carefully considering the case, he called Don Juan aside and said to him:

"Your daughter has taken a large quant.i.ty of laudanum."

"For what?" asked the father without understanding.

"For the reason that these quant.i.ties are generally taken--to poison herself."