The Complete Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham - II - The World Over (46 page)

“ ‘Are you refusing to go because of our conversation of the other night?’ Don Pedro asked.

“ ‘I have been thinking over what you said. I think your demand unreasonable, but I shall accede to it. The only way I can cease my friendship with Pepe is by not going to places where I am likely to meet him.’ A tremor of pain passed over her lovely face. ‘Perhaps it is best.’

“ ‘Do you love him still?’

“ ‘Yes.’

“Don Pedro felt himself go cold with anguish.

“ ‘Then why did you marry me?’

“ ‘Pepe was away, in Cuba, no one knew when he would come back. Perhaps never. My father said that I must marry you.’

“ ‘To save him from ruin?’

“ ‘From worse than ruin.’

“ ‘I am very sorry for you.’

“ ‘You have been kind to me. I have done everything in my power to prove to you that I am grateful.’

“ ‘And does Pepe love you?’

“She shook her head and smiled sadly.

“ ‘Men are different. He’s young. He’s too gay to love anyone very long. No, to him I’m just the friend whom he used to play with when he was a child and flirt with when he was a boy. He can make jokes about the love he once had for me.’

“He took her hand and pressed it, then kissed it and left her. He went to the ball by himself. His friends were sorry to hear of Soledad’s indisposition, but after expressing a proper sympathy devoted themselves to the evening’s amusement. Don Pedro drifted into the card-room. There was room at a table, and he sat down to play
chemin de fer.
He played with extraordinary luck and made a good deal of money. One of the players laughingly asked where Soledad was that evening. Don Pedro saw another give him a startled glance, but he laughed and answered that she was safely in bed and asleep. Then an unlucky incident occurred. Some young man came into the room, and addressing an artillery officer who was playing asked where Pepe Alvarez was.

“ ‘Isn’t he here?’ said the officer.

“ ‘No.’

“An odd silence fell upon the party. Don Pedro exercised all his self-control to prevent his face from showing what he suddenly felt. The thought flashed through his mind that those men at the table suspected that Pepe was with Soledad, his wife. Oh, the shame! The indignity! He forced himself to go on playing for another hour and still he won. He could not go wrong. The game broke up and he returned to the ballroom. He went up to his cousin.

“ ‘I’ve hardly had a word with you,’ he said. ‘Come into another room and let us sit down for a little.’

“ ‘If you like.’

“The room, Conchita’s boudoir, was empty.

“ ‘Where is Pepe Alvarez to-night?’ he asked casually.

“ ‘I can’t think.’

“ ‘You were expecting him?’

“ ‘Of course.’

“She was smiling as he was, but be noticed that she looked at him sharply. He dropped his mask of casualness and, though they were alone, lowered his voice.

“ ‘Conchita, I beseech you to tell me the truth. Are they saying that he is Soledad’s lover?’

“ ‘Pedrito, what a monstrous question to put to me!’

“But he had seen the terror in her eyes and the sudden instinctive movement of her hand to her face.

“ ‘You’ve answered it.’

“He got up and left her. He went, home and looking up from the patio saw a light in his wife’s room. He went upstairs ana knocked at the door. There was no answer, hut he went in. To his surprise, for it was late, she was sitting up working at the embroidery upon which much of her time was spent.

“ ‘Why are you working at this hour?’

“ ‘I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t read. I thought it would distract my mind if I worked.’

“He did not sit down.

“ ‘Soledad, I have something to tell you that must cause you pain. I must ask you to be brave. Pepe Alvarez was not at Conchita’s to-night.’

“ ‘What is that to me?’

“ ‘It is unfortunate that you were not there either. Everyone at the ball thought that you were together.’

“ ‘That’s preposterous.’

“‘I know, but that doesn’t help matters. You could have opened the gate for him yourself and let him out, or you could have slipped out yourself without anyone seeing you go or come.’

“ ‘But do you believe it?’

“ ‘No. I agreed with you that the thing was preposterous. Where was Pepe Alvarez?’

“ ‘How do I know? How should I know?’

“ ‘It is very strange that he should not have come to the most brilliant party, the last party, of the season.’

“She was silent for a minute.

“ ‘The night after you spoke to me about him I wrote and told him that in view of the circumstances I thought it would be better if in future we saw no more of one another than could be helped. It may be that he did not go to the ball for the same reason that I did not.’

“They were silent for a while. He looked down at the ground, but he felt that her eyes were fixed on him. I should have told you before that Don Pedro possessed one accomplishment which raised him above his fellows, but at the same time was a drawback. He was the best shot in Andalusia. Everyone knew this and it would have been a brave man who ventured to offend him. A few days earlier there had been pigeon-shooting at Tablada, the wide common outside Seville along the Guadalquivir, and Don Pedro had carried all before him. Pepe Alvarez on the other hand had shown himself so indifferent a marksman that everyone had laughed at him. The young artilleryman had borne the chaff with good-humour. Cannon were his weapon, he said.

“ ‘What are you going to do?’ Soledad asked.

“ ‘You know that there is only one thing I can do.’

“She understood. But she tried to treat what he said as a pleasantry.

“ ‘You’re childish. We’re not living any more in the sixteenth century.’

“
‘I know. That is why I am talking to you now. If I have to challenge Pepe I shall kill him. I don’t want to do that. If he will resign his commission and leave Spain I will do nothing.’

“ ‘How can he? Where is he to go?’

“ ‘He can go to South America. He may make his fortune.’

“ ‘Do you expect me to tell him that?’

“ ‘If you love him.’

“ ‘I love him too much to ask him to run away like a coward. How could he face life without honour?’

“Don Pedro laughed.

“ ‘What has Pepe Alvarez, the son of the attorney at Carmona, to do with honour?’

“She did not answer, but in her eyes he saw the fierce hatred she bore him. That look stabbed his heart, for he loved her, he loved her as passionately as ever.

“Next day he went to his club and joined a group who were sitting at the window looking out at the crowd passing up and down the Sierpes. Pepe Alvarez was in it. They were talking of last night’s party.

“ ‘Where were you, Pepe?’ someone asked.

“ ‘My mother was ill. I had to go to Carmona,’ he answered. ‘I was dreadfully disappointed, but perhaps it was all for the best.’ He turned laughingly to Don Pedro. ‘I hear you were in luck and won everybody’s money.’

“ ‘When are you going to give us our revenge, Pedrito?’ asked another.

“ ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to wait for that,’ he answered. ‘I have to go to Cordova. I find that my attorney has been robbing me. I know that all attorneys are thieves, but I stupidly thought this one was honest.’

“He seemed to speak quite lightly, and it was as lightly that Pepe Alvarez put in his word.

“ ‘I think you exaggerate, Pedrito. Don’t forget that my father is an attorney and he at least is honest.’

“ ‘I don’t believe it for a minute,’ laughed Don Pedro. I have no doubt that your father is as big a thief as any.’

“The insult was so unexpected and so unprovoked that for a moment Pepe Alvarez was staggered. The others were startled into sudden seriousness.

“ ‘What do you mean, Pedrito?’

“ ‘Exactly what I say.’

“ ‘It’s a lie and you know it’s a lie. You must withdraw that at once.’

“Don Pedro laughed.

“ ‘Of course I shall not withdraw. Your father is a thief and a rascal.’

“Pepe did the only thing he could do. He sprang from his chair and with his open hand hit Don Pedro in the face. The outcome was inevitable. Next day the two men met on the frontier of Portugal. Pepe Alvarez, the attorney’s son, died like a gentleman with a bullet in his heart.”

The Spaniard ended his story on such a casual note that for the first moment I hardly took it in. But when I did I was profoundly shocked.

“Barbarous,” I said. “It was just cold-blooded murder.”

My host got up.

“You’re talking nonsense, my young friend. Don Pedro did the only thing he could do in the circumstances.”

I left Seville next day, and from then till now have never been able to discover the name of the man who told me this strange story. I have often wondered whether the lady I saw, the lady with the pale face and the lock of white hair, was the unhappy Soledad.

T
WO
or three people, hearing sounds of a quarrel in the patio, came out of their rooms and listened.

“It’s the new lodger,” said a woman. “She’s having a row with the porter who brought her things.”

It was a tenement house of two storeys, built round a patio, in a back street of La Macarena, which is the roughest quarter in Seville. The rooms were let to working men and the small functionaries with whom Spain is overrun, postmen, policemen, or tram-conductors, and the place swarmed with children. There were twenty families there. They squabbled and made it up; they chattered their heads off; they helped one another when help was needed; for the Andalusians are good-natured people, and on the whole they got on well enough together. One room had been for some time unlet. A woman had taken it that morning, and an hour later had brought her bits and pieces, carrying as much as she could herself, a
gallego
—the Galicians are the general porters of Spain—laden with the rest.

But the quarrel was growing more violent, and the two women above, on the first floor, anxious not to miss a word, leant over the balcony.

They heard the newcomer’s shrill voice raised in a torrent of abuse and the man’s sullen interjections. The two women nudged one another.

“I shan’t go till you pay me,” he kept on saying.

“But I’ve paid you already. You said you’d do it for three reales.”

“Never! You promised me four.”

They were haggling over rather less than twopence halfpenny.

“Four reales for moving those few things? You’re crazy.”

She tried to push him away.

“I shan’t go till you pay me,” he repeated.

“I’ll give you a penny more.”

“I won’t take it.”

The dispute grew more and more noisy. The woman screamed at the porter and cursed him. She shook her fist in his face. At last he lost patience.

“Oh, all right, give me the penny and I’ll go. I’m not going to waste time on a slut like you.”

She paid him, and the man, throwing down her mattress, left her. She flung a filthy word at him as he went. She came out of the room to drag the things in, and the two women in the balcony saw her face.

“
Carai
, what an evil face! She looks like a murderess.”

A girl came up the stairs at that moment, and her mother called out: “Did you see her, Rosalia?”

“I asked the
gallego
where she came from, he says he brought the things from Triana. She promised him four reales and then wouldn’t pay.”

“Did he tell you her name?”

“He didn’t know. But in Triana they called her La Cachirra.”

The vixen appeared again to fetch a bundle she had forgotten. She glanced at the women in the balcony watching her unconcernedly, but said nothing. Rosalia shuddered.

“She frightens me.”

La Cachirra was forty, haggard and very thin, with bony hands and fingers like a vulture’s claws. Her cheeks were sunken and her skin wrinkled and yellow. When she opened her mouth, with its pale, heavy lips, she showed teeth that were pointed like those of a beast of prey. Her hair was black and coarse; she wore it in a clumsy knot, which seemed on the point of falling over her shoulders, and in front of each ear fell a straight wisp. Her eyes, deep-set in their sockets, large and black, shone fiercely. Her face bore an expression of such ferocity that no one dared come near to speak with her. She kept entirely to herself. The curiosity of the neighbours was aroused. They knew she was very poor, for her clothes were wretched. She went out every morning at six and did not return till night; but they could not even find out how she earned her living. They urged a policeman who lived in the house to make inquiries.

“As long as she doesn’t break the peace, I have nothing to do with her,” said he.

But in Seville scandal travels quickly and in a few days a mason who lived in an upper room brought the news that a friend in Triana knew her story. La Cachirra had only come out of prison one month before, and she had spent seven years there—for murder. She had lodged in a house in Triana, but the children, finding out what had happened, threw stones at her and called her names; and she, turning upon them with foul words and with blows, had filled the whole place with such tumult that the landlord gave her notice. Cursing him and all who had turned her out, La Cachirra one morning suddenly disappeared.