The Grandee

by Armando Palacio Valdés

She stopped, not knowing of whom they were speaking, and cast an anxious look from one servant to the other, until a simultaneous shout of laughter from them both made her understand that they were speaking of her.

"Why do you call me a foundling?" cried the innocent child, with difficulty repressing her tears. "I will go and tell my godmother."

"Go run and tell her," returned Concha pushing her to the door.

And henceforth she went by that name among the servants. Amalia prohibited her being brought into the drawing-room in the evening. The count, whose only chance of seeing his child was on these occasions, asked for an explanation, and the lady replied that as she had to get up early for her lessons, she required more sleep; but he did not feel satisfied. He knew that some harm was brewing, but fearing a worse evil he had the sense to be silent.

Then Amalia thought of a more direct way of wounding the count. The child whom she had not only deprived of her caresses, but of all her position in the house, was in a fair way to be an extra little servant. In one instant the transformation was completed. The señora gave orders for all her hats and clothes to be put on one side, and for her to be dressed in the poorest, oldest things out of the press; that she was to be treated like the rest of the servants, and perform little offices in the kitchen that were within her power.

The courtship of Fernanda and the count was getting more conspicuous every day. Although they abstained from talking intimately in the house of Quiñones before the jealous Valencian, she was not oblivious to what was going on. Her eyes, like two rays of light, seemed to pierce her lover's brain and read what was there: Luis was in love with his old betrothed. The adulterous connection weighed on his mind like a heavy stone. She, the loved and preferred of former days, was now old and faded beside that splendid rose who had just reached perfection. If he had not given her up already, it was through his weakness of character, through the powerful ascendant she had managed to get over him during the seven years of their liaison. But he wanted nothing better than to break with her. She read it perfectly in his furtive glances, and in the gloomy abstraction that weighed upon him, in his sudden, unnatural cheerfulness, in his fear and servility which increased every time he came near her. One evening the count asked for a glass of water. A sudden light came into Amalia's eyes—the longed-for moment had arrived. She pulled the bell, and said in a peculiar tone to the maid who answered it:

"Paula, send a glass of water."

A few minutes afterwards Josefina came in, poorly clad, with a little coarse linen apron, and shod with rough shoes. Her little hands had difficulty in carrying a tray with water, and sugar, and sugar-tongs. The guests were astounded, and Luis turned pale. The child advanced to the middle of the room looking timidly at her godmother, who signed to her to go to the count. The count staggered as if he had had a blow, but seeing the little creature standing before him, he hastened to take the glass, and raised it with trembling hand to his lips. Amalia's eyes meanwhile looked cold and indifferent, but the imperceptible trembling of her lips betrayed the cruel delight she was feeling. A significant silence pervaded the gathering whilst this scene was being enacted.

Directly Josefina had left, the Señora de Quiñones explained this change to her guests with perfect naturalness. Some punishment had been found necessary for the arrogance that the child had taken to showing towards the servants. It would not be for long. Nevertheless, it was a daily struggle with the will of Quiñones, who objected to her being brought up with so much indulgence.

"The fact is," she concluded in a tone so natural that it would have reflected credit on an actress—"the fact is, sometimes I am obliged to put her in her place in my house. What good is it to raise her to a position she cannot maintain? Any day we may die, and the poor thing will have to support herself by work, if she does not find a husband before then. And what husband would take a girl with many requirements, and no money?"