CHAPTER XIII.
After the fishing excursion, my uncle came every afternoon to make love to his fiancée, and all that dawning intimacy between her and me disappeared; perhaps it was imaginary all along. The wedding-day was fast approaching, and one could notice in the house that excitement which always precedes any great domestic event.
One morning my uncle went to Naranjal to invite Sotopeña to honor him by attending his wedding. But the great man was suffering with biliousness, and was just about to start for the Mondáriz Springs, and his many urgent matters of business and important engagements would not permit him to put off his journey even for twenty-four hours. This refusal was a severe blow to my uncle, whose influence in the province would increase on receiving a public testimony of esteem from the tutelary divinity of the region; from the man who was so popular, even among the men from his province, resident in the West Indies and South America.
Señor Aldao, on the contrary, felt more at his ease when he found out that Don Vicente would not visit them. What opinion would the owner of Naranjal form about the ornamental improvements effected at Tejo? Don Román’s instinctive regard for his own vanity was very great, and made him fearful that Sotopeña might laugh in his sleeve at the little variegated balls which reflected the landscape, at the plaster busts, at the stained glass windows in the chapel, at the great shield carved in wood, displaying the armorial bearings of the Aldao family, and at the hothouse made out of old window frames, and lastly, at all the arrangements for the wedding.
As the wedding-day drew near, and the friends and relatives sent in their wedding gifts, my uncle took full advantage of his right to monopolize Carmen’s conversation, so that I found fewer opportunities to approach her, though my desire to do so increased more and more. I saw more clearly every day her glacial coldness toward her future husband, though it was disguised and covered up by her gracious manners.
I was sure that I was correct in these surmises; it was impossible that I could make a mistake, as a more disinterested person might. Once or twice I perceived a start of repulsion, a gesture of nervous impatience at times when a woman, seated by the man she loves, ought to show a face lighted up with joy. I also observed—and this lent importance to the first observation—that Carmen did not display any greater happiness or tenderness in talking to her father or her brother. She was respectful, cordial, and affable, but nothing more; never effusive.
On the other hand, I noticed that whenever she spoke to Father Moreno, she did reveal a warmth of feeling impossible to disguise, because it shows itself in the gleaming of the eyes and in the inflection of the voice. Seeing this, I fell into disrespectful soliloquies:
“The little friar cannot cheat me! With those black eyes, that resolute air, that open character, and the picture with the great beard—oh, oh, what an Aben Jusuf he is!”
These suspicions were confirmed when I became convinced that the Moorish father and my aunt used to exchange those glances which everywhere bespeak a secret understanding; sometimes rapid, though expressive, sometimes deliberate and full of meaning. One would have said that Carmiña and the friar were plotting together to effect some mysterious and important purpose. I even heard them whisper something to each other in the orchard one day. “Can they meet at night?” I ventured to ask myself. But when I studied the arrangement of the house, I saw that it was quite impossible. Father Moreno had the best room in the house, except the one reserved for the bridal chamber, and it communicated with Don Román’s room, so that the friar could not stir without being heard by him. Candidiña and her sister slept in the same room with Carmiña, so that it was impossible for her to attempt to go out at night without being detected. Thus I could find no foundation, on that side either, for my evil surmises.
But nevertheless, I had not the slightest doubt that the friar and Señorita Aldao understood each other, and were seeking for an opportunity to meet clandestinely.