Clara Tschudi

Eugenie Clara Tschudi

At the beginning of the last century there dwelt in the city of Malaga in Spain a merchant named Kirkpatrick. Although descended from a Scotch family of distinction that had been forced by the fall of the Stuarts to flee their native land, this later scion of the race earned his livelihood by the sale of wines which he dispensed with his own hand in a room at the rear of his shop. The business prospered and he became a rich man, exporting large quantities of Spanish wines to foreign countries; but he still kept his wine-room in Malaga, assisted by his four daughters, who did much to attract custom. The lofty family traditions of the Kirkpatricks of Closeburn could scarcely have been expected to be remembered amid the practical duties of the merchant's busy life, but his beautiful daughters were by no means unaware of their high descent nor without hope of elevating themselves once more to the rank of their ancestors. Of the four sisters, Manuela, the third, was the most aspiring as well as the most beautiful. Even when busy serving wine and chatting gayly with the gentlemen who frequented her father's wine-room, her mind was constantly dwelling on the traditions of her house, and in the glories of the past she forgot the sordid surroundings of the present. Although a true daughter of the soil from which she sprang, Manuela was very different from the ordinary Spanish girl, who is often indolent and ignorant; for with her Scotch blood she inherited the energy without which her dreams and ambitions could never have been realized. Determined to rise in the world, and with nothing but herself and her beauty to depend upon, she decided that only a brilliant marriage could accomplish her ends; and to achieve this she was ready to use any means or make any sacrifice. Among the officers stationed at that time in Malaga, most of whom were frequent patrons of Kirkpatrick's wine-room, was a colonel of artillery in the Spanish army, Count Manuel Fernandez de Teba. No longer young, and far from attractive in person, having lost an eye, and being very short-sighted besides, he was little fitted to awaken tender sentiments in the fair sex; but Manuela was not to be daunted by this. His heart seemed a citadel not too difficult of conquest, and without regard to his appearance she devoted herself to the study of his antecedents. The result of these genealogical researches exceeded her fondest hopes, for they proved that the bluest blood of Spain flowed in Count Teba's veins. He was descended from the noble Genoese family of Porto-Carrero, which, emigrating to Estremadura in the fourteenth century, had secured by marriage the right to bear some of the most illustrious names of Spain as well as the heirship to the joint estates of Teba, Banos, and Mora. He was the second son, it is true, but his elder brother was unmarried; and if she united her future with his, the ambitious maiden could reckon with some security on attaining in time the rank and position to which she aspired.