“Between ourselves, and in the strictest confidence,” Don Pedro went on, putting his mouth close to Leon’s ear that he might not be overheard, “it is a real mercy for Pepa, and for me too, in spite of the shock of the catastrophe. If Federico had returned to Europe he would have ruined her and me too. A merciful providence, it would seem, has cut the knot in a sudden and tragical manner, and released my daughter and me from the miserable position in which we were placed by her marriage with that gambling, swindling, forger. It was a girl’s fancy which cost us all very dear. Do me the favour to shut that door that we may talk freely. We must not be overheard.”
Leon did as he was desired.
“You,” he said, “are the proper person to tell her.”
“There is no help for it; I must confess that I do not think that Pepa will be heart-broken or even grieved. It will be a painful shock—not even that perhaps. Between you and me ...” and he lowered his voice to a whisper, although the door was shut—“I believe that Pepa loved her husband as little as it is possible to love a husband, do you understand? I cannot help thinking that her feelings towards that scoundrel of the first water were very nearly akin to mine, and I never concealed the fact that I hated him—hated him with all my heart. Pepitinilla will not shed many tears—By Heaven! Very likely none at all!”
And the marquis rubbed his hands as he did when he had concluded a good stroke of business. The very Exchequer office quaked in the recesses of its empty vaults when the Marquis de Fúcar rubbed his hands. “It is a mercy, a real mercy, for her and for me,” he repeated, as if he were talking to himself, “Providence has interfered to save us. If that man had come back to Europe—and he would have come back when he had spent all his money—Ah! Vampire! You were not satisfied with fleecing me in Madrid but you must need get hold of all the moneys in the hands of my Havana correspondent, you were not content with forging letters to rob me of the thirty thousand dollars I had in Ferguson’s house in London, but when we sent you to Cuba you must try the same trick again. Rascally gambler! But God can punish, God will not let a rogue escape!...” and he ground one fist into the palm of the other hand. Then, as if he had remembered the duty imposed upon him by human dignity and christian charity, he added:
“But we must forgive the dead, and I forgive him with all my heart. His punishment has been terrible. What awful disasters these fires on American vessels are! Not a soul was saved on board the City of Tampico but the cabin boys and one passenger—a mad Quaker. Federico embarked in her with the intention of going to Colon, and on to California, the natural home of adventurers; he had made away with all the money I had in a house there—how wonderfully Providence has put a stop to his criminal career! And then you freethinkers declare that the Almighty is too great to trouble himself about our miserable little lives! I tell you he does; I tell you he does! Of course we must not exaggerate, and I do not pretend to say that he attends to every trifle when he is asked. But you see?—my daughter filled the house with tapers when Monina was ill and put up prayers to all the saints.... They would have enough to do up there if they attended to all the mothers whenever a child coughs or sneezes; but great crimes, great rogues....”
Leon had nothing to say to this interpretation of the working and ways of Providence.
“Well, well,” the marquis went on. “He disgraced my name and tormented my little fool of a daughter. But it is all over; may the earth—the waters—lie lightly on him.... There is one thing I never could comprehend, and that will always, always be a mystery to me....”
“I can guess what,” said Leon quickly. “You cannot imagine what made Pepa marry Cimarra. She is kind-hearted, intelligent, and full of feeling; Federico was always a heartless reprobate; you had only to talk to him for half an hour to discover what a shallow, selfish creature he was.”
“Just so. Well, I do not deny that I brought up Pepa very badly. She is very much altered; her troubles have done for her what I failed to do. Only four years ago she was so capricious.... But you can remember her. Really, but that she has a heart of gold, my daughter might have been my greatest grief, I own it.—But then, what a soul she has! What noble sentiments, and what a depth of tenderness under the whims and airs that come to the surface.... Mere bubbles, mere bubbles—I can find no other word—while her true self is sound and good to the core. I will tell you one thing that I am as sure of as I am of the Gospel: if my daughter had but married a good man, judicious and at the same time attractive, whom she could have loved without reserve, she would have been a woman out of a thousand—a model wife and mother....”