Then, before she had quite finished
dressing, Matilde Macomer knocked at the door and came in. She was
looking far worse than Veronica, and from the absence of colour in her
face, her eyes seemed to be more near together than ever. Her appearance
made Veronica feel a little more hopeful, and the young girl said to
herself that after all the light of a rainy day was unbecoming to every
one, and much more so to a woman of forty than to a girl of twenty.
She did not wish to be alone with her aunt if she could help it, and she
promptly invented several little things for her maid to do, in order to
keep the latter in the room. The maid was a thin, dark woman of middle
age, from the mountains. She was a widow, and her husband had been an
under-steward on the Serra estate at Muro, who had been brutally
murdered five years earlier by half a dozen peasants whose rents had
been raised, when he endeavoured to exact payment. The rents had been
raised by Gregorio Macomer, and the woman knew it, and remembered. But
she was very quiet and grave, and seemed to be satisfied with her
position. She was certainly devoted to Veronica. Matilde glanced at her
two or three times, as though wishing her to go, but Veronica paid no
attention to the hint.
After exchanging a few words with her niece the countess began to walk
up and down nervously and seeming to hesitate as to what she should say.
She was horribly anxious, and very much afraid of betraying her anxiety.
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