Froth: A Novel

by Armando Palacio Valdés

But it was only to her stepmother that she had so entirely changed. To all else, including her father, she still displayed the same scornful coldness, the same proud and obstinate temper. If now and again she seemed sweeter and more tractable, it was due, not to her own will, but to some express command of Doña Carmen's; and as soon as this command was at an end, or forgotten, she was the same malevolent being once more. The servants hated her for the insufferable pride which she showed as soon as she realised her position as her father's heiress, and for her total lack of compassion if they did wrong.

The greatest sufferer was the English governess whom her father had engaged for her. She was an elderly woman, but she had a mania for dressing and tricking herself out like a girl. This harmless weakness was so constantly the theme of Clementina's mockery, that only necessity could have made the poor woman endure it. All the secrets of her toilet were mercilessly revealed for the amusement of the servants, and her physical defects, mimicked by the young lady's waiting-maid, were the laughing-stock of the kitchen. On a certain grand occasion, a day when there was a dinner-party, Clementina hid the old maid's false teeth, which she had left on the dressing-table after washing them. Her discomfiture may be imagined. But she took an innocent revenge by calling her "Señorita Capricho" and setting her as an exercise to translate from English into French certain maxims and aphorisms of scorching application, as: "Pride is the leprosy of the soul; a proud girl is a leper whom all should avoid with horror." "Those who do not respect their seniors can never hope to be respected," and the like.

Clementina laughed at these innuendoes; sometimes she would even dare to substitute some phrase of her own for that of her governess. Where she should have translated: "There is nothing so odious and contemptible as haughtiness in the young," she would write: "There is nothing so ridiculous and laughable as presumption in the old." Miss, as she was called, took offence, and complained to Doña Carmen, who would appeal to her stepdaughter, reproving her gently, and Clementina, seeing her grieved and annoyed, would smoothe her brow and kiss her lovingly. And all was well till next time. In fact Miss Anna and the servants were no doubt in the right when they said that the Señora would be the ruin of the girl. Doña Carmen, living in fearful solitude of soul, was so captivated and gratified by the warm affection her stepdaughter was always ready to lavish on her that she had no eyes for her faults, and even if she had, would not have found the courage to correct them.

At eighteen Clementina was one of the loveliest and wealthiest women of Madrid. Her father's fortune grew like the scum of yeast. He was regarded as one of the great bankers of the city, and was not known to have any other heir, nor was it likely that he would have one. The young aristocrats of family or wealth—the best known members of the Savage Club—began to flutter about her with the most pressing and eager attentions. If she appeared at a party a group of men fenced her round; if she went to church, another and a larger party stood in a row awaiting her exit; if she drove out in the Castellana Avenue, a cavalcade of admirers galloped beside her carriage as a guard of honour; at the theatre pairs of opera-glasses were invariably fixed upon her. The name of Clementina Salabert was to be heard in all the conversations of the gilded youth of Madrid, to be seen in print in every drawing-room chronicle, and was registered in the capital as that of one of the brightest stars of the firmament of fashion. She took up and dropped one lover after another without a thought, thus earning the reputation of a flirt and feather-brain. But this never interferes with a girl's chance of adorers; on the contrary, the self-love of men prompts them to pay great attentions to women of that stamp, in the hope, born of vanity, of being the nail to fix the weather-cock. Nor did she suffer any serious damage from a coarse and malignant rumour which, all through Madrid, connected her in a strange friendship with a young and famous bull-fighter. In this affair Doña Carmen's simplicity and weakness played a leading part. Not only did the good lady allow the man to visit at her house, and sit at her table, but she even accompanied the pair in public on more than one occasion. This, and her having cheered him at the death of several bulls, gave scandal—as busy in the capital as in the provinces—sufficient pretext for an attack on the envied beauty. But as it could bring forward nothing but bold suspicion and vague conjecture, and as, on the other side, there were positive facts which far outweighed them, the calumny did not diminish the number of her adorers. Its only use was as an outlet for the bile of some rejected one.

At this age, and often after, Clementina's manners betrayed a strong infusion of Bohemianism—of the free and easy airs and sarcastic coolness of the adventuresses of Madrid. A similar tendency may be observed, in a more or less exaggerated form, in all the upper circles of Madrid Society; it is a mark which distinguishes it from that of other countries. And in this tendency, which is everywhere conspicuous from the palace to the hovel, there is some good; it is not wholly evil. In the first place it implies a protest against the perpetual falsehood which the increasing refinement and complication of social formalities inevitably entail. Propriety of conduct and moderation of language are highly praiseworthy no doubt, but in an exaggerated form they result in the cold courtesy of a diplomate at a foreign Court. Men and women, crushed under the weight of so much formality, become artificial beings, puppets, whose acts and words are all set forth in a programme. To exclude liberty and familiarity from society is to undermine human nature; to prohibit frankness of speech is to destroy the charm which ought to exist in all human intercourse.

Moreover, an instinct of equality underlies this assertion of freedom, and cannot fail to make it attractive to every lover of Nature and truth. A lady is not a bundle of fine clothes, of foregone conclusions and ready-made phrases; she is, above all else, a woman in whom culture has, or ought to have, tempered impetuosity of character and impulses of vanity, but not to have impaired the genuineness of Nature by transforming her in society into a cold dry doll, devoid of grace and originality. It must not be supposed that the perfect refinement and elegance proper to the scenes where the upper classes meet are unknown in Madrid. They are constantly observed by almost every Spanish woman of family; but, happily, they are united with the vivacity, grace, and spontaneity of the Spanish race, making our fair ones, in the opinion of impartial observers, the most accomplished, gracious, and agreeable women in Europe—excepting, perhaps, the French.

Clementina had a somewhat exaggerated taste for this freedom of word and action. She had acquired it no one knows how—by contagion in the atmosphere perhaps—since women in her position are not in the habit of spending their time with the commoner sort. She had had a waiting maid, born and brought up in Maravillas, and it was from her, in her moments of excitement, that Clementina picked up the greater part of her slang and sayings. Then came her friendship with the torero above-mentioned; an acquaintance with various young men who cultivated that style; the lower class of theatres, where the manners and customs of the lower classes of the Madrid populace are set on the stage—not without grace; and her intimacy with Pepe Frias, and some other fast women of fashion, finally gave her the full Bohemian flavour. She was an enthusiast for bull-fights. It was a perfect marvel if she missed one, sitting in her private box with the orthodox white mantilla and red carnations. And she would discuss the chances, and fulminate criticisms, and bestow applause; and was regarded by the habitués as a keen and eager connoisseur. The national sport, exciting and bloody, was quite after her mind, violent and indomitable as she was by nature. When she saw other women covering their eyes or showing weakness over the fortunes of the arena, she laughed sardonically, as doubting the genuineness of their horror.

Among the many adorers and suitors who successively and rapidly rose and fell in her favour, there was one who succeeded in securing her notice, at any rate, for a rather longer time than the rest. His name was Tomas Osorio. He was a young man of twenty-eight or thirty, rich, small and delicate, with a pleasing face and a lively, determined temper. Either of deliberate purpose, or from genuine independence of character, he made a deeper impression than his peers. When he first paid attention to her he did not cringe nor completely abdicate his own will. In some differences on important points in the course of his long courtship—for it lasted not less than two years—he firmly maintained his dignity. He was, like her, irritable, haughty and scornful; purse-proud too, and with a spiteful wit which stood him in good stead with women. Thanks to these qualities, Clementina did not tire of him so soon as of the rest. But at the end of the two years, within a few days of the marriage, it was broken off in a very public and almost scandalous manner. All Madrid was talking of it, and commentary was endless. The conclusion arrived at was that it was the gentleman who had taken the first steps towards the rupture, and this report, whether true or false, reached Clementina's ears, and was such a stab to her pride that she was almost ill with rage.

Another year went by. She had other suitors, off and on, and Osorio, on his part, courted other damsels. But in both, notwithstanding, the memory of the past survived. She was burning for revenge. So long as that man was going about the world, so perfectly content as he seemed, she felt herself humiliated. He, on the contrary, in spite of his affected indifference, was still consumed by love, or rather by desire. Clementina had captivated his senses, had pierced his flesh, and, do what he would, he could not extract the dart. She was always in his thoughts, always before his eyes, provoking his passion. The longer the time that elapsed the fiercer the fire burned within him, and the greater were the effort and the anguish of keeping up a haughty and indifferent demeanour when they happened to meet. Clementina, with a penetration common in women, had no difficulty in guessing that her former love still cherished a secret passion for her, and felt a malicious joy. Thenceforward she dressed and adorned herself for him alone—to bewitch him, to fascinate him, to make him drain the bitter cup of jealousy.

From this moment dated her fame as an elegant woman. Clementina was indeed, in this matter, a great artist. She knew how to dress so that her clothes should never by their colour or quality attract attention to the prejudice of her face. Understanding that what a woman wears should be not a uniform, but an adornment to set off the perfections which nature has bestowed upon her, she was no blind slave of fashion; when she thought it unbecoming to her beauty she boldly defied it or modified it. She avoided glaring hues, a profusion of trimmings, and elaborate styles of hair-dressing; she regarded and treated her person as a statue. Hence a certain tendency, constantly evident in her costume, towards drapery, and amplitude of flowing folds. Her fine, majestic figure gained greatly by this style of dress, which, though it became rather pronounced after her marriage, was never exaggerated beyond the limits of good taste. She was fond of wearing white, and this, with a simple manner of dressing her hair like that of the Milo Venus, made her appear in the drawing-rooms of Madrid like a beautiful Greek statue. One thing she did which, though highly censurable from a moral point of view, is not so as a matter of art. She wore her dresses very low. Her bust was superb; it might have been moulded by the Graces to turn the head of a god. The vain desire to display her beauty, unchecked by the wholesome control of a mother, led her on more than one occasion to incur the severest comments of society. Poor Doña Carmen, besides knowing nothing of social custom, was so lenient to her stepdaughter's fancies and caprices, that she accepted them as quite reasonable, and as undoubted evidence of her indisputable elegance and taste.