The Grandee Part 33

It was late. That miserable, neglected body, worn out by years and ill-health, could not regain its freshness and grace.

This _idee fixe_ corroded her brain during her long, wretched vigil. No longer to inspire love! To be old, and an object of repugnance! Her mind was torn with a thousand fears. Luis was marrying. Why? Had she not sacrificed to him her youth, honour, and salvation, if there was anything after this life but the infernal regions?

What was the good of it? At the first sign of decay in her face all his promises had vanished like a dream; the seven years of love had disappeared in the abyss of time without leaving the most insignificant sign. But she had not wrinkles yet; she was not so old--five-and-thirty, not more. She suddenly put her hand on the table by her side, lighted the candle, and jumped out of bed. She went to the looking-gla.s.s and looked at herself for some time, pa.s.sing her fingers over the surface of her face to ascertain that the much-feared wrinkles were not there.

A groan from behind made her turn her head. She raised the candle and fixed an angry glance upon the child, stretched upon the ground, trembling with fear. The child could not sleep. Her feverish eyes looked at her anxiously, her lips again murmured: "Pardon."

Without paying her any attention, the wife of Don Pedro went back to bed and put out the light. The rays of the morning sun, as they penetrated the room, fell upon the two sleepless beings. With G.o.d's daylight commenced the barbarous torture of an innocent creature.

Her fertile, diabolical imagination set to inventing torments with which to feed the hate which consumed her. The sight of suffering was a necessity to her. Josefina was sent down barefooted with a pencilled note to Concha. The missive said: "Concha, I send you this little rogue.

Punish her as you think fit."

Amalia knew what an executioner the maid would be, and, in fact, she expressed satisfaction at receiving this note, which flattered her vanity and her instincts.

"Do you know what this paper says?" she asked, in an aggressive tone.

Josefina made a negative sign. She read writing badly, especially when written as carelessly as that of the senora. The sempstress, however, made her spell out the words until she quite understood them.

"There, you see, you are sent for me to punish you for what you did yesterday."

On saying this she smiled sweetly, as if she were saying that she had something nice to give her.

The child looked at her in surprise.

"Punish me? G.o.dmother has already made me sleep on the floor."

"It does not matter, that is very little for such naughtiness as running away from home. You will have to have a whipping. I am sorry, my child, because you have never had this punishment, and it will hurt you very much. Young ladies have delicate flesh; they are not like us who are accustomed as babies to intemperance and blows. Come along!"

At the same time she drew from her stays one of the formidable whalebones then in vogue.

The child drew back in alarm, but the needlewoman caught her by the arm.

"Don't think of escaping, for then you will come in for a double share."

Josefina seized her hand, weeping bitterly.

"Don't beat me, for G.o.d's sake, Concha! You know my G.o.dmother beat me yesterday. Look, look at my hands. My head also hurts me. The ground was so hard. I love you very much. I have never blamed you to G.o.dmother."

"Silence! silence!" returned the sempstress, trying to disengage herself gently from the little hands. "There is nothing to be done but obedience. The senora gives the order."

"No, por Dios! Concha, no, por Dios!" replied the little creature between her sobs. "I love you very much, and G.o.dmother too. If you don't beat me I will give you my box of sheep."

"Really?" said Concha, mollified.

"Yes; now, directly, if you like."

"And your housewife?"

"That too."

"And the little cupboard with the mirror?"

"Yes, the little cupboard too."

Concha gave signs of giving in. The child looked at her with anxious eyes.

"And you promise always to be good?"

"Yes, I promise always to be good."

"Never to run away again."

"Never."

"Very well," she said, in an affectionate, condescending tone; "then if you promise to be good, and you don't tell the senora, and you give me all that you say, then--then--go on child!"

And in one instant she pulled her clothes off and began to beat her unmercifully, laughing like a mad woman with delight.

The screams of the child reached the second floor. The wife of the Grandee was standing before the gla.s.s arranging her hair. She stopped. A singular s.h.i.+ver ran through her, a certain indefinable, vague emotion like a tickling sensation that one can't with certainty term pleasant or unpleasant. Anyhow it was something that modified that insufferable fever that the frenzy of rage had raised in her heart. She stood motionless until the cries had ceased. Her eyes shone, her pulse beat higher.

It is thus they say that the heart of a wild beast beats at the sight of its victim. It was the commencement of the child's martyrdom. Under the weakest pretexts she inflicted the cruellest punishments, giving evidence of an imagination so fertile that it would have delighted the executioners of the Holy office. Not only did she strike her for the most innocent offences and pinch her and bite her, but she delighted in keeping her in continual dread of dreadful punishments, and so making her suffer day and night. She made her go barefooted into the garden on the coldest mornings to fetch her a flower, or she kept her whole hours with her head in the sun to keep the birds from picking at a currant bush. She made her sleep on the ground by the side of her bed, when she sent her several times down into the kitchen for water. She reduced her to eating food she knew she did not like, and deprived her of what she knew she liked.

As the days went by her madness and cruelty increased. At first she made a pretext of some act of carelessness on the part of the child to torment her. Afterwards she did not stop there, but she did it when it came into her mind, or when her physical state impelled her to do so.

One torture of her own invention was that of p.r.i.c.king her hands with a needle, and she delighted in seeing them covered with indentures in a few days, when there was scarcely room to put another stab. She deputed this task to Concha, the executioner of her orders, who fulfilled it most conscientiously. She made her learn by heart long pieces of catechism much beyond her power. And if she stumbled three times, she said: "Go and ask Concha for a kiss."

This was the phase she had invented in derision for the little creature to get a stab with the needle. She was never allowed to change her underclothing, so the delicate skin of the child soon became chafed, and she could not help scratching herself. Whereupon Concha flew into a rage, accused her of having the itch, and pushed her from the room. It got worse and worse. The microscopic maid, at the instigation of her mistress, insisted on her wearing boots too small for her which made bad places on her feet and caused her dreadful pain.

One of the most terrible tortures the child suffered was when Amalia took it into her head she was not to cry. Sometimes she let her sob and moan under the blows, and she seemed to revel in the tears of the little creature, and in hearing her piteous entreaties between the sobs; but occasionally she insisted on her suffering in silence. As this was impossible she became like a ravenous wild beast.

"Be silent!"

The child could not, and a groan escaped.

"Silence!" she repeated, accompanying the command with several blows.

So Josefina tried to be silent, and made desperate efforts in the attempt, but in spite of herself the difficult respiration took the form of a groan. More blows.

"Silence, or I will kill you."

The little creature shut her mouth with all her might; she turned livid, and sometimes she fell down senseless. That tender heart was breaking from distress of mind.

At such moments Amalia experienced a diabolical sensation of mingled pleasure and pain similar to that which is felt in scratching a boil.

Her boil was that violent pa.s.sion--a mixture of love, licentiousness and arrogance. Not being able to vent upon her former lover the mortification which tore her heart, she wreaked her vengeance on the fruit of their love. When the child was bleeding and trembling at her feet, her looks of anguish, her gestures, and the tone of her voice seemed to her those of her lover, humiliated and supplicating, and then she experienced an awful pleasure which made her eyes s.h.i.+ne and her nostrils dilate.

Josefina was a miniature likeness of Luis. When she had been happy, her face mobile and smiling, and her eyes s.h.i.+ning with cheerfulness, it had not been so apparent; but now misery and pain had given to her look a profound melancholy, and to the lines of her face a certain expression of fatigue that were the two things which characterised her likeness to the Conde de Onis. When those beautiful blue eyes turned towards her in sweet resignation, when those red lips trembled in asking pardon, the Valencian felt a voluptuous feeling pervade her worn-out body, so that she was reminded of the pleasures she had experienced in the indulgence of her unlawful pa.s.sion.

After all, she thought, she had not aged at all, in nothing but the fading of that face of hers and her head producing white hairs with such horrible rapidity. Her body, her breast, her arms, her neck retained the same alabaster hue, the same adorable brilliancy, the mark of a fine and beautiful race. She touched herself in search of consolation with feverish hands, and encountered the same softness and freshness. That body had not worn out. She still felt her own youth, the ardent circulation of her blood, the thirst for enjoyment, and the yearning for the rapture of love.

And yet all those delights were gone for ever; the novel of her life that had embellished her dark existence of latter years had come to the last chapter. She was an old woman! It was a settled fact. At this thought that branded itself on her brain as with a hot iron she felt overwhelmed by an animal necessity to cry, roar, or tear. It was at such times that the child underwent the cruellest punishments, and her fragile existence incurred real danger. Terror was another of the sufferings she frequently inflicted on her. In the late hours of the night she made her get up, and sent her to the most remote rooms of the house in search of something. The child returned pale, trembling, and overwhelmed with fear. Sometimes her terror was so great that she let the candlestick fall, and returned running and screaming with fright.