For 15 Days

One night 26 years ago, an unknown hand knocked three times at the door of a foundling home in Bilbao. The sister on duty waited the regulation three minutes to give the nocturnal caller time to retreat into the darkness, then she opened the door. In a wicker basket outside, a baby girl lay sleeping. "Take good care of my baby," said an unsigned note pinned to the basket. "Her name is Maria del Rosario. God protect her."

"You Are None Other ..." Soon afterward, a poor worker, Jose Trigo Villar, and his wife Concepcion came to the home to adopt a child. They chose blue-eyed, blonde-curled Maria. "You are taking away a real marquesita" said one of the nurses at the home. Jose Trigo remembered the remark often during the next quarter-century when, hounded by poverty and civil war, he tramped up & down Spain in search of a living.

His adopted daughter, romantically re-christened Carmen, grew tall, graceful and dignified. Jose never let her suspect that she was not his real daughter. In 1949, when Carmen was working in a foundry in Valencia, she got an offer of marriage. Her suitor was only a factory hand, stubby and stolid, but husbands were not found under every orange tree, so Carmen said yes. The night before the banns were posted, Jose and Concepcion told her what they knew about her birth. They repeated the nun's remark about her being "a real marquesita" and the young bride began to embellish her grey life with daydreams about a romantic past.

Last spring, an acquaintance called at the crowded flat where Carmen, her husband, her baby and her parents were living. Tall, dark, handsome Faustino Valentin, who introduced himself as a lawyer, listened with fascination to Carmen's story. "Hasta luego, Marquesita" he muttered thoughtfully, bowing over the girl's graceful hand as he left.

A few weeks later, Faustino returned to the Trigo flat with a briefcase full of documents. "Right here," he said, "I have proof that you are none other than the illegitimate daughter of the late Dona Maria del Rosario Heredia de Fonte Uberta, Marquesa de Escalona del Valle, Grandee of Spain and lady-in-waiting to Her Majesty Queen Victoria Eugenie of Spain. Here," he added, "is a copy of your mother's last will leaving you all her titles, privileges and estates."

"An Authentic Blueblood." The legacy made all of Carmen's daydreams come true--a palace in Seville, a ranch in Andalusia, three houses in Granada, a mansion in San Sebastian, stocks, bonds, and millions of pesetas in cash. The Trigos were beside themselves with joy. They uncorked the Manzanilla. The janitor and some friends stopped in to see what the commotion was about and left to publish the good tidings. By morning the news had spread to the papers in Madrid. Gifts poured in from fashion houses and perfume firms. A local bank placed a 100,000-peseta (about $9,000) checking account at Carmen's disposal. An elderly and aristocratic spinster, hired to teach the new marchioness etiquette, announced with finality: "I need no legal proof to realize that Dona Maria is an authentic blue-blood."

For 15 days, the Trigos, established in a new and fashionable apartment, were the toast of Valencia. Then, like a chill wind, came the breath of disillusion.

"Yah, Yah, Marquesita ..." In a letter to a Spanish weekly, one Marques de Castelvel, whose hobby is heraldry, pointed out that the title Escalona del Valle did not and never had existed in Spain. Newspapers sent their far-flung reporters scurrying. They found that there was no mansion in San Sebastian, no ranch in Andalusia, no palace in Seville, no stocks and no cash. When Valencia's Bureau of Criminal Investigation stepped in, the whole truth emerged: Faustino was not even a lawyer, but a law student who had flunked out; his documents were all forgeries.

Last week would-be Lawyer Faustino was in jail. Would-be Marchioness Carmen Trigo had a new job scrubbing floors in a Valencia hospital. She had sold all her fine clothes, jewels and furniture to pay her debts, but she still owed thousands of pesetas. Street urchins mocked, "Yah, yah. Marquesita," as she trudged to work each morning. But the kind nuns in the hospital gave Carmen a brief smile as she pushed her rag over the tile floor.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.