On their first acquaintance he and Monina had established an ardent friendship—not wholly disinterested to be sure on the child’s part, since it involved frequent visits to the toy-shop and the confectioner’s—and not unfrequently he had found himself neglecting a more important engagement in order to go to the Fúcars’ house to play with Monina. She was so sweet, so merry, so intelligent, so inquisitive. Her ungrammatical chatter was so expressive, she made such intelligent remarks, she was so lively, so graceful, so gentle, so docile! The friendship had been but brief, but in that short time Leon had played every game that a man can devise; he had carried her pick-a-back; had tried to teach her to speak, to give a penny to a beggar, to forgive when she was hurt, to pity the poor, to be kind to animals, to obey her mother, to answer as soon as she was spoken to, not to cry for nothing. He had grown accustomed to her winning smile and could not bear to miss it. How could any one help adoring such a rosy dawn even though it were veiled in mist? Monina’s real name was Ramona, after Pepa’s mother, the late Marquesa de Fúcar. She was two years old and not very like her mother, for she was very pretty—pink and white, with eyes of cherubic blue and a sweet round lisping mouth, slightly built and as restless as a bird. Her chirping jargon, with every verb made regular, fascinated him; and when she took a fancy to flit from spot to spot—fluttering like a butterfly and as busy as a bee, he could not take his eyes off her. Play brought roses to her cheeks; she was so overflowing with life that she laughed when she talked, flew rather than walked, and her innocent questions and baby comments would startle him with an innocent logic with which infants so often confound the wise.
And now, what a terrible change! A single day had sufficed to transform this bright and guileless being into a suffering wreck. In a few hours there would be left on earth of tiny Monina but a fast corrupting mass from which men must avert their gaze.—The idea was too hideous; Leon could not resign himself to it. No, Monina must not die. Without that sweet life he could not live.
Why?—but he could not tell why; all he knew was that a fibre, a nerve, an aching cord was tied—nailed, to his heart, and that Ramona was pulling at it, to fly away to heaven. Till now the bond had seemed a mere nothing, a fancy, an amusement; now he felt that it had struck deep roots which must be torn up and carry a large part of his heart with them.
All this crossed rapidly through his mind; then he turned to speak to the doctor. There was no hope; the child could not live twenty-four hours; the medicine he had given did not seem to produce the perspiration and relief which might have opened the door of hope.
“And is there nothing else to be done?” asked Leon, as pale as a corpse himself.
“We can try mercurial rubbing.”
Not a minute was wasted; the doctor suggested, Leon gave orders with fevered haste, and the nurses and servants executed them with eager promptitude.
Pepa, having recovered her senses, had returned to her post by the child’s bed, to watch the last flickering of that precious life, to give her baby, water, kisses, gentle touches, to listen to her breathing, and gaze into her dim eyes. Her face betrayed the efforts she was making in order that her anguish as a mother might not hinder her usefulness as a nurse; alert, careful, forgetful of herself and of everything else, her whole soul was absorbed in covering up the little tossing arms and in listening to the choking cough, the rattling breath, the gasping croak, more tragical than any cry—sounding now like the creak of metal that needs greasing, and now like a low, shrill whistle, or a musical note in a dream.
The hours went on—what fearful hours! And yet the day was too soon gone and it was night! No one had kept count of the time, not a sound was to be heard but that of suppressed sobs; all hearts sank under the pressure of a crushing weight. The whole great house was full of dismayed grief; and of the odour of the tapers that were burning before the Virgin and the Saints. The daughter of the house was dying; she no longer even put her hands to her throat to “take that away.” She lay there helpless, worn out, conquered in the fight; her head was sunk deep in the pillow, and her little hands, spread motionless, had ceased to twist the sheet into cords. If only the cruel scourge would let her die thus. But no; once more its clutch was relaxed for an instant and Monina again murmured: “more.”
“She is dreaming of her toys,” whispered Pepa, pressing her handkerchief to her lips as though to hush her sobs while her tears ran in streams through her fingers.