“That grows after you marry, Juliana.”
“Not always, sir. Besides, there are your needs and my duty to consider. Who will care for you when you grow old? Isabel does not have the temperament for that.”
“For God’s sake, Juliana! I have never suggested that my daughters should look after me in my old age. What I want are grandchildren, and to see you both well placed. I cannot die in peace without leaving you protected.”
“I do not know whether Rafael Moncada is the man for me. I cannot imagine any kind of intimacy with him,” she murmured, blushing.
“You are no different from other girls in that respect, daughter. What virtuous young woman can imagine that?” Tomas de Romeu replied, as embarrassed as she was.
That was a subject he had never expected to discuss with his daughters.
He supposed that at the right moment Nuria would explain what they needed to know, although the chaperone probably was as ignorant about such matters as the girls. Juliana did not choose to tell her father that she talked about those things all the time with Agnes Duchamp, and that she had learned everything she needed to know in her romantic novels.
“I need a little more time to decide, Father,” Juliana pleaded.
Tomas de Romeu had never missed his departed wife so badly; she would have handled the problem wisely and with a firm hand, as mothers do. He was weary of so much hot and cold. He spoke with Rafael Moncada to ask for another postponement, and Moncada had no choice but to agree. Then Tomas ordered Juliana to talk things over with her pillow, and told her that if she did not have an answer in two weeks’ time, he would accept Moncada’s proposal, and that would be the end of that. It was his last word, he concluded, though his voice quavered as he said it. By then Moncada’s long offensive had reached the level of a personal challenge; people were talking about it in the stateliest salons and in the servants’ patios as well, how this young girl who had no fortune and no titles was humiliating the best catch in Barcelona. If his daughter kept asking him to put it off, Tomas de Romeu would be facing a serious confrontation with Moncada, but undoubtedly he would have continued to find excuses had a strange event not precipitated the outcome.
That day de Romeu’s two daughters had gone with Nuria to dispense charity, as they always did the first Friday of the month. There were fifteen hundred acknowledged beggars in the city, and several thousand indigents that no one took the trouble to count. For five years, always on the same day and at the same time, Juliana, flanked by the stiff figure of her chaperone, could be seen visiting houses of charity. Out of a sense of decorum and a wish not to offend with a display of ostentation, they covered themselves from head to foot in mantillas and dark coats and visited the barrio on foot. Jordi waited for them with the trap in a nearby plaza, combating his boredom with his flask of liquor. These excursions took all afternoon; in addition to succoring the poor, the women visited the nuns who ran the hospices.
That year Isabel had started to accompany them. At fifteen, she was old enough to learn compassion instead of wasting time spying on Diego and fighting a duel with herself before a mirror, as Nuria put it. They had to walk through narrow alleyways in barrios of raw poverty, where even the cats were on guard to keep from being caught and sold as hares. Juliana submitted with exemplary rigor to that heroic penance, but it made Isabel ill, not simply because the sores and boils, the rags and crutches, the toothless mouths and noses eaten by syphilis frightened her, but because that form of charity seemed a cruel joke.
She believed that all the duros in Juliana’s purse would do nothing to help the enormity of the misery.
“To do nothing is worse,” her sister would reply.
They had begun their round a half hour before and had visited only one orphanage when as they came to a corner, they saw three dangerous-looking men coming toward them. The men’s eyes were barely visible because they were wearing kerchiefs around their faces and hats pulled down to their eyebrows. Despite the official ban on wearing a cape, the tallest of them was wrapped in a cloak. It was the dead hour of the siesta, when very few people were about. The alley was bounded on either side by the massive stone walls of a church and a convent; there was not even a door recess to take refuge in. Nuria began to scream, but one of the rapscallions silenced her with a slap on the face that knocked her to the ground. Juliana opened her coat and tried to hide the purse with the money as Isabel glanced around, searching for a source of help. One of the footpads grabbed the purse, and another was just about to tear off Juliana’s pearl earrings when he was stopped by the sound of a horse’s hooves. Isabel yelled at the top of her lungs, and an instant later no other than Rafael Moncada made a providential appearance. In a city as densely populated as Barcelona, his riding to the rescue was little less than a miracle. Moncada needed only a glance to appraise the situation, to unsheathe his sword and confront the lowlifes. Two of them had already pulled out their curved knives, but two slashes of Moncada’s sword and his determined manner made them hesitate. Their rescuer looked enormous and noble on his steed: black boots gleaming in silver stirrups, tightly fitting, snow-white trousers, dark green velvet astrakhan-trimmed jacket, long sword with its rounded gold-engraved guard. From that vantage, Moncada could have dispatched more than one adversary without trying, but he seemed to enjoy intimidating them. With a fierce smile on his lips and his sword glinting in the air, he could have been the central figure in a battle painting. The aggressors huffed and panted as he goaded them mercilessly from on high. The horse, whirling in the midst of the fracas, reared, and for a moment it seemed that it would throw its rider, but Moncada merely gripped tighter with his legs. It was a strange and violent dance. In the center of the circle of daggers the steed circled, whinnying with terror, as Moncada reined it in with one hand and flourished his weapon in the other, surrounded by ruffians looking for the moment to sink their knives into him but not daring to step within his reach. Nuria added her yells to Isabel’s, and soon people came out to look, but when they saw iron gleaming in the pale light of day, they kept their distance. One boy went running to get the constables, but there was no hope that they would get there in time to help. Isabel took advantage of the confusion to yank the money purse from the hands of the cloaked man, then grabbed her sister by one arm and Nuria by the other and urged them to run. She could not move them; they were glued to the paving stones. The whole episode was very brief, but the minutes dragged by in the unreal time of nightmares.
Finally Rafael Moncada swatted one of the men’s dagger from his hand, and with that the three attackers realized that they would do better to retreat. The rescuing caballero made a sign of pursuing them but stopped when he saw how upset the women were and leapt from his mount to calm them. A red stain was spreading down the white cloth of his trousers. Juliana ran to take comfort in his arms, trembling like a rabbit.
“You are wounded!” she cried when she saw the blood on his leg.
“Only a scratch,” he replied.
All the commotion was too much for the girl. Her vision clouded, and her knees buckled, but before she hit the ground, Moncada’s waiting arms swept her up. Isabel grumbled impatiently that this was all they needed to complete the picture: her sister swooning. Moncada ignored her sarcasm and, limping slightly but never stumbling, carried Juliana to the plaza. Nuria and Isabel followed, leading the horse and surrounded by a crowd of curiosity seekers, each of whom had an opinion about what had happened and all of whom wanted to have the last word on the subject. When Jordi saw that procession, he jumped from the driver’s seat and helped Moncada get Juliana inside the carriage. Loud applause burst out among the onlookers. Seldom did anything as quixotic and romantic happen in the streets of Barcelona; there would be something to talk about for days. Twenty minutes later, Jordi drove into the patio of the de Romeu home, followed by Moncada on horseback.