Paco Gomez, being richer in resources than Ulysses, had written beforehand to some friends of his at Leon, suggesting that they should organise some rough music when Garnet and his bride passed that way. Everything was in readiness. Nevertheless the preparations would have come to naught had it not been for the treachery of Manuel Antonio, for on his arrival at Lancia he secretly made Paco acquainted with all that was taking place. Whereupon Gomez profited by the telegraphic communication, recently instituted, and put himself in communication with his followers. Fernanda was some time in realising that this excitement was on her account, but when some cries that reached her ears made her sensible of the fact she turned pale, her eyes dilated, and uttering a cry she threw herself against the little window with the intent of throwing herself out, but Garnet caught her by the waist. The young girl struggled for some moments in fury, but not being able to free herself from those strong bear-like arms, she threw herself back in the seat, covered her face with her hands, and burst into passionate sobbing.
Dios mio! Her sin had indeed been great, but what a fearful punishment!
CHAPTER X
FIVE YEARS AFTER
Five years have passed. The noble city of Lancia has changed little in appearance and still less in customs; several gilded cages in the form of gorgeous houses, built with Indian money round about the San Francisco Park; foot-ways in various streets that never had them in former times, three more lamps in the Plaza de la Constitución; a supplementary municipal guard that owed its existence, less to the necessities of the service, than to the efforts of the justice of the peace, a fellow of excellent ideas almost entirely devoted to Venus, and whose propitiatory sacrifices to Vulcan were only made at the expense of the municipality; in the Bombé promenade a few bronze statues with falling drapery of which the erection caused great scandal, and the magistrate Saleta was informed at the Grandee's evening party that the half nude was a hundred times more suggestive than the complete; a few silver threads in the heads of our old acquaintances; and the radiant countenance of Manuel Antonio, the most fetching of all the sons of the famous city, showed signs that his beauty was on the wane, like a dream fading in the cold wind of morning, or snowdrops falling in the silence of a day in winter.
The same vegetative, dull, sleepy life; the same gatherings in the shop-parlours, where the sweets of slander were regaled; and personal nicknames still weighed like lead upon the well-being of several respectable families. On sunny afternoons there were the same groups of clerics and military airing themselves in the Bombé. The great bells of the cathedral continued to peal at certain hours, when old lady-devotees were seen hastily wending their way to the service of the rosary, or nones, and the monotonous voice of the canons sounded solemnly in the silence of the old vaulted aisles.
In Altavilla at the evening hour the eternal groups of youths still laughed and talked in loud tones still loth to let any pretty dressmaker, or plump servant-maid pass by without rendering them homage with their eyes or lips, and not seldom with their hands. And there in the heights of the firmament there were the same clusters of greyish clouds heaped together in solemn silence over the old cathedral to listen on melancholy autumn nights to the wind moaning through the high tin arrow on the tower. We are in November. The Conde de Onis was accustomed to ride on dull days as well as fine. The society of men pleased him less and less. His character had become more secretive and melancholy. Sin had destroyed the feeble germs of cheerfulness which nature had put in his heart. The gloomy, extravagant, fanatical temperament of the Gayosos had been increased by the incessant gnawing of remorse, his imagination was distorted, his slight activity enervated, and his whole existence darkened.
People worried him. He imagined hostility in their glances, and he saw hidden meanings in their most innocent remarks that made his blood boil with rage. He never dared enter churches, nor fall on his knees as formerly before the bleeding crucifix in his mother's room. If he heard hell mentioned, he fled in terror. He gave plentiful alms to churches, and paid for Masses he never heard; he put candles before the images, and in the privacy of his chamber he puerilely amused himself in asking fate, by the tossing of money, whether he would be eternally damned or whether he would only go to purgatory. When he heard the chant of priests going to a funeral he grew pale, trembled and stopped his ears. At night he would suddenly jump up from sleep in a cold sweat, crying miserably: "There is nothing but death, nothing but death!" For some time he lived thus in almost utter retirement without going out more than he was made to by her, whose will ruled his own. But at last his suffering became too intense, and he feared his gloomy thoughts would upset his reason, so he took to riding or walking in the country until he was tired out. The physical fatigue relieved his mind, and the sight of nature soothed his tormented imagination.
It was a dark, cold evening. The clouds pressed heavily upon the hills looking towards the north, and hid the high mountains of Lorrin that stretch like a distant curtain in the west. Heavy rains had fallen converting the low part of the town into a lagoon, and the roads, which went from thence, into seas of mud. In spite of this, the count ordered his horse to be saddled. He left Lancia by the Castilian Road, and galloped amid splashes of mud across meadows and chestnut woods. The yellow leaves of the trees shone like gold, a thousand little streams made their uncertain way down the base of the hill where the waters were deposited on the pasture land with its gentle soft green undulations. A darker fringe marked the stream of the Lora, which hides itself mysteriously under the osiers and thick lines of alder trees. The count, with his head thrown back and his eyes half closed, inhaled with delight the fresh humidity of the afternoon. The road flanked the hill in gentle decline. Before crossing it, and losing sight of the town, he stopped his horse and cast a look back. Lancia was a heap, albeit not large, of red roofs over which waved the dark arrow on the cathedral spire. Below was a yellow spot—the oak-wood of the Grange, and a little lower down were the old orange-coloured turrets of his solitary house. The rain had ceased. A cold wind dispersed the clouds and scattered them behind the mountains; the sky became clear with the pale blue of autumn days, and a few stars appeared like diamonds in the horizon. The trees, mountains, streams and verdure-clad valley shone indistinctly under the clearness of the twilight. The count again put his horse to a gallop and quickly descended the hill which hid Lancia from view. The wind affected his senses and whistled in his ears producing a sweet intoxication that dissipated the black clouds of his imagination. Along the muddy road he only met a stray herd of cattle with its driver, or a waggon drawn leisurely by oxen, in which the carter carelessly slept at the bottom. But before turning a corner he thought he heard the distant sound of wheels and bells. It was the coach that arrived at Lancia in the evening. As it passed by him, he cast an absent glance into the interior, two large shining eyes encountered his own, which gave him a sort of an electric shock. He quickly turned his head again, but there was nothing then to be seen but the back of the coach disappearing in the distance. He pulled the rein of his horse and followed it, but after a few moments in a stunned sort of way stopped ashamed, and went on with his ride.
"It must be Fernanda." A passing, but very definite feeling told him the fact. Nevertheless he might be mistaken. He had heard no news of her arrival. He knew that she had been a widow for some months. Garnet had at last met his end like an ox from a fit of apoplexy. But at the same time everybody knew that the widow of the Indian bore a deadly hatred against Lancia ever since the humiliating practical joke that her compatriots had played on her at the time of her marriage. The fact of her not having come there at the death of her father the preceding year was a clear proof of it. The Count thought of all this for some minutes, and then put it from his mind, for his thoughts were changed by the sight of a dark thick cloud which presaged another storm. But something indefinite and sweet remained in his mind, which put him in a good humour. He turned the horse and arrived at Lancia very late in the evening, very tired, and covered with mud; but his heart was light and cheerful without his knowing why.