The Enemies of Women Part 5

In a short time the pupil was speaking Spanish correctly. It seemed that he had learned it as rapidly as possible in order to be better able to poke fun at his _hidalgo_ teacher.

The father also contributed to the education of the heir of the Lubimoffs the one thing he was able to teach. Every morning, after the lessons given by the Russian, which left the little fellow with a solemn face, Saldana would wait for him in a large room on the ground floor.

"Prince, on guard!"

And he, who had been the best blade in the Carlist army, and had on his conscience the slas.h.i.+ng of a skull to the jawbone in a duel during the Turkish campaign, smiled proudly when he saw how this eleven year old boy stood his ground during the fencing lesson, parrying the hard blows and returning them successfully at the least unguardedness on his father's part. Michael Fedor was going to be a splendid fighting man, a worthy descendant of the Cossack of Russia, and of the guerrilla of the Spanish mountains.

But Saldana was not to enjoy this satisfaction for long. Among his various "lucky wounds," which only bothered him slightly with the changing of the seasons, there was one which from time to time inflicted periods of acute pain. For many years he had carried in his body a Spanish bullet which the sawbones of his guerrilla band had been unable to extract. When the surgeons of London and Paris attempted the operation it was too late.

One morning the General's valet, on entering the room, found him dead.

Michael Fedor never forgot the sorrow he had felt on that occasion, nor the sumptuous funeral which the Princess had ordered, equal to that of a king deceased in exile. But what he remembered most clearly was the extraordinary grief of his mother. She too wanted to die. Her Russian maids were once obliged to s.n.a.t.c.h from her hands a phial of laudanum, receiving for their pains a few more blows than usual. Then, with her hair streaming down her back, she ran about wailing like a madwoman in front of all the portraits of the General. Oh! Her hero! Now she really knew how much she loved him....

For several months she received her visitors in a drawing room with black furnis.h.i.+ngs and curtains. Wearing loose mourning garments, she half reclined on a sofa in front of a full length portrait of Saldana.

His swords, his uniforms, and even a Russian saddle were on exhibition in the drawing room, which had been converted into a sort of museum of the deceased.

"He died like the man he was!" moaned the widow. "He was killed by his wounds."

At this period began the ultimate stage in the rise of Don Marcos Toledo. The Russian scholar receded into the background. A part of the dead man's glory pa.s.sed to his humble fellow countryman who had witnessed his great exploits. One evening, the Princess, while engaged in conversation in the drawing room museum with some n.o.ble relatives who had arrived from Russia, wept so copiously at the memory of her husband, that she decided to leave the room for a moment.

"Colonel, your arm."

Toledo was present in company with his pupil, and looked around with an expression of bewilderment. The Princess had to repeat her command in a more imperious voice. "Colonel, your arm!" She was speaking to him! For some time Don Marcos thought that the new t.i.tle was a whim of the Princess and that some day when he was least expecting it his commission as "Colonel" would be withdrawn.

But when the first months of mourning had pa.s.sed and the widow, tiring of solitude, started to resume her social calls, she insisted on being accompanied by Toledo, and on introducing him to her acquaintances in the aristocratic world.

"He is the aide-de-camp of the dead Marquis," she explained.

The very t.i.tle he had invented to give himself an air of importance in the eyes of his half-starved companions in poverty! Toledo no longer questioned the validity of his promotion. Now that the Princess was presenting him as her husband's aide-de-camp, he might well be a Colonel. And a Colonel he was, even for the young Prince, who at first had given him the t.i.tle to make fun of him, but finally came to call him "Colonel" by force of habit.

Toledo's dreams of splendid and showy toggery were now realized magnificently. With the Princess he did not need to fear the scruples sometimes shown by Saldana, who hated extravagance and mismanagement.

The great lady even felt disdain for those who were n.i.g.g.ardly in availing themselves of her generosity. Don Marcos was enabled to change his attire several times a day, and held long conferences with famous tailors. He sought personal elegance. He wished to dress like a gentleman of distinction, but at the same time to wear clothes of a cut that would plainly show that he was accustomed to uniforms: He had in mind something like a Napoleonic Marshal obliged to wear a dress suit.

Through his barber, likewise, he effected a great transformation. He imitated the manner in which the General had worn his hair, with a part that started at his forehead and ended at the back of his neck, and with stray locks hanging down at the temples. His mustache was taught to mingle with his side whiskers, in the Russian fas.h.i.+on. In accompanying the Princess, he learned to kiss ladies' hands with the grace and ease of an old courtier. He also learned to carry on long conversations without saying anything, to keep himself in the background, practically unseen, while his superiors were talking.

When the Princess, after the first year of mourning, resolutely returned to her box at the Opera, Don Marcos attended her, remaining discreetly in the rear, like the Chamberlain of a Queen. One evening, during an intermission, on pa.s.sing to the front of her box, the Princess heard the Colonel telling an old French general, a friend of the house, about the battle of Villablanca.

"And the Marquis said to me: 'Now it's your chance, Toledo: Let's see how you can make out with a bayonet charge.' So I bared my sword, and at the head of my regiment...."

"He's a true soldier," interrupted the Princess, "a worthy companion of my hero.... The Marquis often talked to me about him."

And at that moment she was really sure she had heard the silent Saldana relate the gallant deeds of his aide-de-camp.

The Russian teacher, regarded by Toledo as an unpleasant person who would bear watching, soon left the Lubimoff palace. Perhaps he was jealous of the Colonel's growing influence; perhaps mysterious reasons needed his attention far from Paris. The Princess did not mind in the least the disappearance of the scholar. She had forgotten her rebellious looking Russians; she stopped giving them money. At present she had other interests.

She suddenly evinced a desire to live for some time in London, and for this reason, she granted her son's request to be allowed to travel alone throughout Europe.

"You're a man now; you will soon be fourteen. Travel, and don't stop at expense; always remember that you are Prince Lubimoff.... The Colonel will go with you. He will be your aide, as he was for the heroic Marquis."

His first trip was to Spain. Michael Fedor wanted to see his father's native land. Toledo thought it in point for the young Prince to show great admiration for Spain. Michael must remember they were in the enemy's country. Toledo was a Carlist Colonel who had refused amnesty, and had declined to recognize the reigning dynasty! But they traveled for three months in Spain, without being noticed except for the largeness of their tips. It is quite true that Toledo avoided coming in contact with any of his former comrades. He felt that he now belonged to a different world. Inwardly he felt the same change the General had.

As soon as Michael Fedor had recovered from his first enthusiasm for bull fighting, they continued their travels across the continent as far as Russia, arriving considerably later than the numerous letters of introduction sent by the Princess Lubimoff to her relatives. The Prince remained there a year, visiting his less distant estates, and making the acquaintance of all the great families in his mother's circle of friends. The Colonel talked grandiloquently about everything related to war with various generals who received him as an equal. Was he not the aide and companion in heroic deeds of Saldana, whom they had known in the war against Turkey, when they were mere subalterns?

The former friends of the Princess Lubimoff told her son some unexpected news. His mother had announced her forthcoming marriage to an English gentleman. She had written to the Czar asking his authorization. This news startled no one save Michael Fedor. The times of the wild Nadina had long since pa.s.sed. Her actions aroused no further interest. Other young Princesses had effaced her memory with adventures that caused even greater commotion. No one save a few of the ladies of the old court, when they forgot their cares and interests as mothers, would bring to mind the Princess Lubimoff, recalling days of vanished youth, which for old people are always more interesting than the present.

When the young man returned to the Paris palace, he found his mother as much of a Princess as ever, but married to a Scotch gentleman, Sir Edwin Macdonald.

"Some day you will leave me," she said with a tragic note in her voice she used on great occasions. "A Prince Lubimoff should live at the court, serve his Emperor, be an officer in the Guard; and I need a companion, some one to lean on. Sir Edwin is the personification of distinction; but don't ever think that I shall forget your father.

Never!... My hero!"

Michael Fedor saw a gentleman who, indeed, was "the personification of distinction"; attentive to everyone, very precise in his bearing, a man of few words, who shut himself up for long hours--studying, according to the Princess. English politics was his preoccupation, and his one great dream was to return to Parliament, which he had been forced to leave by defeat at election.

This cold man, with a pale smile and extreme insistence on good form even in the most trivial actions, neither displeased Michael as a step-father nor appealed to him as a friend. He was an inoffensive, somewhat stuffy person, whom Michael grew accustomed to seeing every day in his father's former place, and whom he had expected to see sooner or later anyhow.

This marriage brought other people to the Lubimoff palace, with all the intimacy inspired by relations.h.i.+p.

One of Sir Edwin's brothers had been obliged, like all the second sons in wealthy British families, to go out in the world and earn his living.

After a life of adventure, he had finally settled down in the United States, near the Mexican border, and had soon found himself, through a marriage with an heiress of the country, much richer than his elder brother.

His wife was a Mexican. She owned famous silver mines in the interior and vast ranches on the border. She had only one daughter; and the latter was in her eighth year when Arthur Macdonald died as a result of a fall from his horse. The widow, with her little Alicia, moved to Europe. She wanted to live in London, to be near her brother-in-law, Sir Edwin, then a member of Parliament, and much admired by the Mexican woman as one of the directors of the world's affairs. Later she established herself in Paris, as the capital most to her taste, and as the place where she could meet many people from Mexico.

The Princess Lubimoff treated her relative well, although her friends.h.i.+p suffered sudden changes, often going from extreme affection to sudden coldness.

She and Dona Mercedes could talk about mines and vast estates, although neither of them had any accurate knowledge of their respective fortunes.

They estimated their wealth only by the enormous quant.i.ties of money--millions of francs a year--which their distant business agents sent them, and which they spent without knowing just how. There was another thing which attracted the Princess, in her moments of good will, to Dona Mercedes: she herself was blond, while the Spanish Creole still kept traces of Hispanic-Aztec beauty, with a dark, somewhat olive complexion, large, wide-open, almond eyes, and hair astonis.h.i.+ng for its blackness, brilliancy, and length.

But an instinctive rivalry frequently embittered the relations of the two multi-millionaires. The Princess was sure that her own wealth was far the greater. When Dona Mercedes talked about Mexican silver, she mentioned Russian platinum! "What is silver worth compared to platinum!"

And in order completely to floor her opponent, the Princess would bring out her family history. Beginning with the remote Cossack ancestor, who almost became the legitimate husband of Catherine the Great, she paraded before her Mexican rival generals, marshals of the Emperor's household, hetmans, followed by their retinues of half savage hors.e.m.e.n, princes and amba.s.sadors. Sir Edwin's wife talked as though she belonged to the reigning house, letting it be understood that her famous ancestor had played a part in the establis.h.i.+ng of one of the Czars. For this reason she had always been shown special consideration at court.

Dona Mercedes, inwardly jealous of so much greatness, nevertheless smiled a sweet enigmatic smile, as though she were to say, "That is all very far away--and perhaps a lie."

Then immediately she would begin talking in her rapid whimsical French, a French which she had never been able to free from numerous Spanish locutions that still clung tenaciously.

"Mama was an intimate friend of Eugenie.... Don't you know who Eugenie is? The Empress, the wife of Napoleon III. When Madame Barrios--that was my mother's name--was announced at the Tuileries, the doors were opened wide. Papa was one of the men who made Maximilian emperor."

Over against the aristocratic grandeur of the Saint Petersburg court she set the image of the Mexican court, of the brief Empire which had ended in the execution of the Archduke Maximilian, and the madness of his bride, Carlotta. The Emperor endeavored to establish the musty old etiquette of the Austrian Court, but the Mexican matrons, when they called on the young Empress, said in the frank maternal fas.h.i.+on of the colonies: "How is everything, Carlotta?... How do you like the country, my dear?"

Moved by a similar frankness, Dona Mercedes would end her discourse by saying carelessly:

"Papa, seeing that the Empire was going badly, recognized Juarez as the head of the government, and joined the side of the Republic. He did it to save our mines."

Then she would talk on for a long time about the Barrios, who, according to her, were descendants of the most ancient aristocracy of Spain. All the n.o.bles of Madrid were therefore relatives of hers. Everybody knew that! As a child she had seen at home a lot of papers which proved her right to the t.i.tle of Marchioness; but owing to the revolutions in her country, and her travels, she no longer knew where to find them.

If the Princess referred to the splendor of her palace, the Creole would immediately mention her elegant private mansion in the Champs elysees.

The arrival of Colonel Toledo, as a valorous adornment giving the princely residence military prestige, did not intimidate Dona Mercedes.

She too had a Spaniard, an Aragonese cleric, who acted as a sort of royal private chaplain, and whom she considered a man of science, because, bored by his sinecure in her employ, he had taken up elementary astronomy, and had set up a telescope on the roof of her house.

Whenever the Mexican lady dared to imitate her entertainments, her carriages or her clothes, the Princess Lubimoff would audibly lament the fact that Paris was not in Russia, where she might call on the chief of police to force this low-bred Creole to show the respect due to her superiors. But after these bursts of anger she would feel a sudden wave of tenderness for Dona Mercedes. "In spite of your illiteracy," she would say, "you are a woman of natural talent and the only one with whom I can talk for an hour at a stretch."