[CHAPTER XXI.]
EYES THAT KILL.
The room which had been assigned to Florentina at Aldeacorba was the pleasantest in the house. No one had used it since the death of Pablo's mother; but Don Francisco, deeming his niece worthy to be lodged there, had the room neatly arranged and added some little elegancies which had been quite unknown to it in his wife's lifetime. The balcony looked southwards and over the garden, so that the room was always flooded with light and perfume, and cheered by the happy song of birds. Florentina herself, during her few days' stay, had given it the stamp, so to speak, of her own individuality; all sorts of small properties and trifles betrayed the nature of the woman who lived in it, as you may know a bird by its nest. If there are some persons who would make a hell of a palace, so there are others who have only to enter a hovel to make it a Paradise.
It was that very stormy day—I say that day, for I cannot name the date; I only know that it was a day. It had rained all the morning; then the sky had cleared, and at last, high above the misty whiteness of the lower atmosphere, a rainbow threw its glorious arch. One end rested on the oaks of Ficóbriga, close to the sea, and the other on the woods of Saldeoro. Supreme in its simplicity the rainbow can be compared to nothing else, any more than an absolutely ideal and typical form can be. A rainbow is the epitome, the alpha and omega, of visible color.
Florentina was in her room, not threading beads, nor embroidering satin with gold thread, but cutting out garments from patterns made of newspaper. She was squatting on the floor, in the attitudes of a fidgetty child at play; now sitting on her heels, now on all fours, and plying the scissors without a moment's respite. By her side was a heap of pieces of woollen stuff, calico, cotton print, and other materials that she had been, that very morning, to buy at Villamojada, in spite of wind and weather; and snipping here, and cutting there, she was fast evolving sleeves, skirts, and bodies. They were not perhaps models of dressmaking, nor was the exactitude of the patterns to be entirely relied on, for they also were of her own devising; however, she would have been the first to acknowledge their shortcomings, and she hoped that good-will might conduce to a happy result. Her worthy father had said to her, as he saw her sitting to work:
"Bless me, child! one would think there were no dressmakers in the world. You cannot imagine how it annoys me to see a young lady of good position crawling about on the floor with shears in her hands.—It is not at all the right thing. I cannot bear that you should work to clothe yourself even, and am I to submit to see you working for others? What are dressmakers for—heh? What are dressmakers for?"
"A dressmaker would do it much better than I shall," replied Florentina laughing. "But then you see it would not be my doing, Papa; and to do it myself is the very thing I most want."
He left her to her own devices; but not alone, for in the middle of the alcove, between the bed and the wardrobe, stood an old-fashioned sofa and on the sofa lay two blankets, and at one end, on a pile of pillows, lay a weary little head. The face was haggard and colorless—asleep. Sunk rather, in an uneasy lethargy, broken now and again by violent starting and terrors. However, a calmer state had supervened by mid-day, when Florentina's father came into the room again, followed by Golfin. The surgeon went up to the sofa and leaned over Nela, watching her face.
"She seems to be sleeping more quietly now," he said: "We must have no noise."
"What do you think of my daughter?" said Don Manuel, laughing. "Do you see all the trouble she is taking. Now be quite impartial, Don Teodoro: Is there any reason why she should vex me? Honestly, when there is no necessity for taking so much trouble, why should she do so? What pleasure can it be to me to see my daughter wasting all I give her for pin-money; wasting it on others; and besides this mania for low occupations—for low occupations...."