Ponce de Leon: The Rise of the Argentine Republic

by William Pilling

Magdalen was but a very young woman, her teens wanted yet one of completion, but when she returned to the city, after her long visit at the Pajonales with the family of Don Fausto Velasquez, her father thought her quite old enough to govern his household for him. He had fitted up two rooms with great care for her especial use, adorning them with books, pictures, and trinkets which had years ago belonged to her mother, and which he had carefully packed up and brought with him across the ocean for the special purpose of some day bestowing them upon his daughter.

Doña Josefina and her friends found the Quinta de Don Alfonso a very pleasant resort in the warm summer evenings. It stood off a short distance from one of the main roads, separated from it and from the wide, open space which went by the name of the Plaza Miserere by thickly-planted trees.

Where ladies go, there young men are ever sure to follow, so that before her first summer at her father's quinta had passed over, Magdalen had taught some score of young men who had never tasted tea in their lives before, to drink it out of her porcelain cups. Among those who drank out of her porcelain cups this summer there were three who had found special favour in her eyes, Don Carlos Evaña, Don Marcelino Ponce de Leon, and Lieutenant Gordon, for they would now and then speak to her in English; her father having taken care that she should not forget her native tongue, generally speaking to her himself in that language, and she was glad when she could find any one to talk English with. Of English books she had what her friends thought a large collection, and these three friends would sometimes borrow some of these books from her, and talk to her about them after reading them. But one great trouble she had; she had not come at once to the quinta when she returned to the city with Don Fausto, but had remained several weeks with Doña Josefina, at whose house she had frequently met Dolores Ponce de Leon. Between Dolores and her a warm friendship had sprung up, in which there was more than friendship, for each became to the other as a sister, and as sisters they loved each other, telling each other unreservedly the deepest secrets of their hearts, hearts which had as yet known no deep emotion, and in which there were no secrets but such as they might have told unblushingly to all the world. Still they met occasionally at the house of Don Fausto Velasquez, where Magdalen went often, or at the house of Don Gregorio Lopez, where she went less frequently, but to the quinta Dolores never came, saying that her father had forbidden her. The reason of this remained a mystery to Magdalen, for when she had applied in her perplexity to Doña Josefina that lady had spoken to her such words of Don Alfonso that she felt she could never ask any more questions on the subject.

The outside of the house of Don Alfonso differed in one respect from the generality of the houses about Buenos Aires. On the eastern side, which was the front, instead of the usual verandah there stood before the main entrance a wide porch of trellis-work, over which honeysuckle and other flowering creepers climbed luxuriantly, loading the air in the summer-time with the sweet scent of flowers innumerable. The flooring of this porch, on a level with that of the house, was raised some two feet above the level of the garden, from which the approach was by three wide steps. In this porch it was a frequent custom with Don Alfonso to sit with his daughter or with their guests in the warm evenings of the summer and autumn, sheltered from the sun, and gazing through the foliage of the trees upon the green suburbs and upon the white houses of the nearer portion of the city, and farther away upon the summits of the towers and domes of churches.

Magdalen rejoiced with the joy of a young girl whose life so far had been passed amongst strangers, when she found herself at the head of her father's household, and her sweet womanly instincts developed themselves rapidly as she felt that the comfort of others depended upon her diligence and foresight. The household was but a small one, but there was much for her to do in the way of contrivance and arrangement, for Don Alfonso would never buy anything which could possibly be made at home, or which his quinta would produce.

So Magdalen passed the spring, summer, and autumn in great contentment with her father at his quinta; it was now winter, and though she had made frequent visits to her friends in the city, yet she had during all this time never passed one night from under her father's roof until the night of the 5th July, which she spent in very unwonted fashion under the roof of Don Fausto Velasquez, dancing and listening to soft speeches in the spacious saloons of Doña Josefina, which were crowded with all that Buenos Aires could furnish in the way of beauty and distinction.

The number of those having some claim to distinction in Buenos Aires was not great at that time, for until the first invasion of the English under Beresford the modes by which a native of Buenos Aires could distinguish himself were very few. Two English invasions had given opportunities for distinction, and officers of the Patricios and Arribeños who had shown skill or courage were the favoured guests of Doña Josefina on this occasion. Among these officers there was but one Spaniard, a captain in the regiment of the Andaluces. To this captain Doña Josefina showed great attention, introducing him to many a fair partner, whispering to them to pardon his coarse manners and want of address, as he was a protegé of hers, and had been lieutenant of the "Morenos de Ponce."

But of beauty Buenos Aires had enough and to spare. It is said (in Buenos Aires) that when Venus was apportioning her gifts among her sisters she gave pre-eminence in grace and elegance to the Spanish woman, in liveliness and savoir-faire to the Frenchwoman, to the Italian perfection of form and feature, to the Englishwoman a complexion clear as the morning, and so on, some special gift to the women of every race upon earth, but that she forgot the Porteña altogether, till being told of her neglect she took from each woman of every race a fragment of the special perfection of each one of them and bestowed it upon the Porteña, thus creating a race of women unequalled in the variety of their charms in any country under the sun. However that may be, it would be difficult to find anywhere such a collection of beauty as graced the saloons of Doña Josefina on this evening of the 5th July.