WHEN the Senora bade Felipe good-night, she did not go to bed. After
closing her door, she sat down to think what should be done about
Ramona. It had been a hard task she had set herself, talking all the
evening with Felipe without alluding to the topic uppermost in her mind.
But Felipe was still nervous and irritable. She would not spoil his
night's rest, she thought, by talking of disagreeable things. Moreover,
she was not clear in her own mind what she wished to have done about
Alessandro. If Ramona were to be sent away to the nuns, which was the
only thing the Senora could think of as yet, there would be no reason
for discharging Alessandro. And with him the Senora was by no means
ready to part, though in her first anger she had been ready to dismiss
him on the spot. As she pursued her reflections, the whole situation
cleared itself in her mind; so easily do affairs fall into line, in the
plottings and plannings of an arbitrary person, who makes in his formula
no allowance for a human element which he cannot control.
Ramona should be sent in disgrace to the Sisters' School, to be a
servant there for the rest of her life. The Senora would wash her hands
of her forever. Even Father Salvierderra himself could not expect
her any longer to keep such a shameless creature under her roof. Her
sister's written instructions had provided for the possibility of just
such a contingency. Going to a secret closet in the wall, behind a
life-size statue of Saint Catharine, the Senora took out an iron box,
battered and rusty with age, and set it on the bed. The key turned with
difficulty in the lock. It was many years since the Senora had opened
this box. No one but herself knew of its existence. There had been many
times in the history of the Moreno house when the price of the contents
of that box would have averted loss and misfortune; but the Senora no
more thought of touching the treasure than if it had been guarded by
angels with fiery swords. There they lay, brilliant and shining even in
the dim light of the one candle,--rubies, emeralds, pearls, and yellow
diamonds. The Senora's lip curled as she looked at them. “Fine dowry,
truly, for a creature like this!” she said. “Well I knew in the
beginning no good would come of it; base begotten, base born, she has
but carried out the instincts of her nature. I suppose I may be grateful
that my own son was too pure to be her prey!” “To be given to my adopted
daughter, Ramona Ortegna, on her wedding day,”--so the instructions
ran,--“if she weds worthily and with your approval. Should such a
misfortune occur, which I do not anticipate, as that she should prove
unworthy, then these jewels, and all I have left to her of value, shall
be the property of the Church.”
“No mention as to what I am to do with the girl herself if she proves
unworthy,” thought the Senora, bitterly; “but the Church is the place
for her; no other keeping will save her from the lowest depths of
disgrace. I recollect my sister said that Angus had at first intended to
give the infant to the Church. Would to God he had done so, or left it
with its Indian mother!” and the Senora rose, and paced the floor. The
paper of her dead sister's handwriting fell at her feet. As she walked,
her long skirt swept it rustling to and fro. She stooped, picked it up,
read it again, with increasing bitterness. No softness at the memory of
her sister's love for the little child; no relenting. “Unworthy!” Yes,
that was a mild word to apply to Ramona, now. It was all settled;
and when the girl was once out of the house, the Senora would breathe
easier. She and Felipe would lead their lives together, and Felipe would
wed some day. Was there a woman fair enough, good enough, for Felipe to
wed? But he must wed; and the place would be gay with children's voices,
and Ramona would be forgotten.
The Senora did not know how late it was. “I will tell her to-night,” she
said. “I will lose no time; and now she shall hear who her mother was!”
It was a strange freak of just impulse in the Senora's angry soul, which
made her suddenly remember that Ramona had had no supper, and led her
to go to the kitchen, get a jug of milk and some bread, and take them
to the room. Turning the key cautiously, that Felipe might not hear, she
opened the door and glided in. No voice greeted her; she held her candle
high up; no Ramona in sight; the bed was empty. She glanced at the
window. It was open. A terror seized the Senora; fresh anger also. “She
has run off with Alessandro,” she thought, “What horrible disgrace.”
Standing motionless, she heard a faint, regular breathing from the other
side of the bed. Hastily crossing the room, she saw a sight which had
melted a heart that was only ice; but the Senora's was stone toward
Ramona. There lay Ramona on the floor, her head on a pillow at the feet
of the big Madonna which stood in the corner. Her left hand was under
her cheek, her right arm flung tight around the base of the statue. She
was sound asleep. Her face was wet with tears. Her whole attitude was
full of significance. Even helpless in sleep, she was one who had taken
refuge in sanctuary. This thought had been distinct in the girl's mind
when she found herself, spite of all her woe and terror, growing sleepy.
“She won't dare to hurt me at the Virgin's feet,” she had said; “and
the window is open. Felipe would hear if I called; and Alessandro will
watch.” And with a prayer on her lips she fell asleep.
It was Felipe's nearness more than the Madonna's, which saved her from
being roused to hear her doom. The Senora stood for some moments
looking at her, and at the open window. With a hot rush of disgraceful
suspicions, she noted what she had never before thought of, that
Alessandro, through all his watching with Felipe, had had close access
to Ramona's window. “Shameful creature!” she repeated to herself. “And
she can sleep! It is well she prayed, if the Virgin will hear such!” and
she turned away, first setting down the jug of milk and the bread on a
table. Then, with a sudden and still more curious mingling of justness
in her wrath, she returned, and lifting the coverlet from the bed,
spread it over Ramona, covering her carefully from head to foot. Then
she went out and again locked the door.
Felipe, from his bed, heard and divined all, but made no sound. “Thank
God, the poor child is asleep!” he said; “and my poor dear mother feared
to awake me by speaking to her! What will become of us all to-morrow!”
And Felipe tossed and turned, and had barely fallen into an uneasy
sleep, when his mother's window opened, and she sang the first line of
the sunrise hymn. Instantly Ramona joined, evidently awake and ready;
and no sooner did the watching Alessandro hear the first note of her
voice, than he struck in; and Margarita, who had been up for an hour,
prowling, listening, peering, wondering, her soul racked between her
jealousy and her fears,--even Margarita delayed not to unite; and
Felipe, too, sang feebly; and the volume of the song went up as rounded
and melodious as if all hearts were at peace and in harmony, instead of
being all full of sorrow, confusion, or hatred. But there was no one of
them all who was not the better for the singing; Ramona and Alessandro
most of all.
“The saints be praised,” said Alessandro. “There is my wood-dove's
voice. She can sing!” And, “Alessandro was near. He watched all night. I
am glad he loves me,” said Ramona.
“To hear those two voices.” said the Senora; “would one suppose they
could sing like that? Perhaps it is not so bad as I think.”
As soon as the song was done, Alessandro ran to the sheepfold, where
Felipe had said he would see him. The minutes would be like years to
Alessandro till he had seen Felipe.
Ramona, when she waked and found herself carefully covered, and bread
and milk standing on the table, felt much reassured. Only the Senora's
own hand had done this, she felt sure, for she had heard her the
previous evening turn the key in the lock, then violently take it out;
and Ramona knew well that the fact of her being thus a prisoner would be
known to none but the Senora herself. The Senora would not set servants
to gossiping. She ate her bread and milk thankfully, for she was very
hungry. Then she set her room in order, said her prayers, and sat down
to wait. For what? She could not imagine; in truth, she did not much
try. Ramona had passed now into a country where the Senora did not rule.
She felt little fear. Felipe would not see her harmed, and she was going
away presently with Alessandro. It was wonderful what peace and freedom
lay in the very thought. The radiance on her face of these two new-born
emotions was the first thing the Senora observed as she opened the door,
and slowly, very slowly, eyeing Ramona with a steady look, entered the
room. This joyous composure on Ramona's face angered the Senora, as it
had done before, when she was dragging her up the garden-walk. It seemed
to her like nothing less than brazen effrontery, and it changed the
whole tone and manner of her address.
Seating herself opposite Ramona, but at the farthest side of the room,
she said, in a tone scornful and insulting, “What have you to say for
yourself?”
Returning the Senora's gaze with one no less steady, Ramona spoke in the
same calm tone in which she had twice the evening before attempted to
stay the Senora's wrath. This time, she was not interrupted.
“Senora,” she said slowly, “I tried to tell you last night, but you
would not hear me. If you had listened, you would not have been so
angry. Neither Alessandro nor I have done anything wrong, and we were
not ashamed. We love each other, and we are going to be married, and go
away. I thank you, Senora, for all you have done for me; I am sure
you will be a great deal happier when I am away;” and Ramona looked
wistfully, with no shade of resentment, into the Senora's dark, shrunken
face. “You have been very good to do so much for a girl you did not
love. Thank you for the bread and milk last night. Perhaps I can go away
with Alessandro to-day. I do not know what he will wish. We had only
just that minute spoken of being married, when you found us last night.”
The Senora's face was a study during the few moments that it took to say
these words. She was dumb with amazement. Instantaneously, on the
first sense of relief that the disgrace had not been what she supposed,
followed a new wrath, if possible hotter than the first; not so much
scorn, but a bitterer anger. “Marry! Marry that Indian!” she cried, as
soon as she found voice. “You marry an Indian? Never! Are you mad? I
will never permit it.”
Ramona looked anxiously at her. “I have never disobeyed you, Senora,”
she said, “but this is different from all other things; you are not my
mother. I have promised to marry Alessandro.”
The girl's gentleness deceived the Senora.
“No,” she said icily, “I am not your mother; but I stand in a mother's
place to you. You were my sister's adopted child, and she gave you to
me. You cannot marry without my permission, and I forbid you ever to
speak again of marrying this Indian.”
The moment had come for the Senora Moreno to find out, to her surprise
and cost, of what stuff this girl was made,--this girl, who had
for fourteen years lived by her side, docile, gentle, sunny, and
uncomplaining in her loneliness. Springing to her feet, and walking
swiftly till she stood close face to face with the Senora, who, herself
startled by the girl's swift motion, had also risen to her feet, Ramona
said, in a louder, firmer voice: “Senora Moreno, you may forbid me
as much as you please. The whole world cannot keep me from marrying
Alessandro. I love him. I have promised, and I shall keep my word.” And
with her young lithe arms straight down at her sides, her head thrown
back, Ramona flashed full in the Senora's face a look of proud defiance.
It was the first free moment her soul had ever known. She felt herself
buoyed up as by wings in air. Her old terror of the Senora fell from her
like a garment thrown off.
“Pshaw!” said the Senora, contemptuously, half amused, in spite of her
wrath, by the girl's, as she thought, bootless vehemence, “you talk like
a fool. Do you not know that I can shut you up in the nunnery to-morrow,
if I choose?”
“No, you cannot!” replied Ramona.
“Who, then, is to hinder me.” said the Senora, insolently.
“Alessandro!” answered Ramona, proudly.
“Alessandro!” the Senora sneered. “Alessandro! Ha! a beggarly Indian, on
whom my servants will set the dogs, if I bid them! Ha, ha!”
The Senora's sneering tone but roused Ramona more. “You would never
dare!” she cried; “Felipe would not permit it!” A most unwise retort for
Ramona.
“Felipe!” cried the Senora, in a shrill voice. “How dare you pronounce
his name! He will none of you, from this hour! I forbid him to speak to
you. Indeed, he will never desire to set eyes on you when he hears the
truth.”
“You are mistaken, Senora,” answered Ramona, more gently. “Felipe is
Alessandro's friend, and--mine,” she added, after a second's pause.
“So, ho! the Senorita thinks she is all-powerful in the house of
Moreno!” cried the Senora. “We will see! we will see! Follow me,
Senorita Ramona!” And throwing open the door, the Senora strode out,
looking back over her shoulder.
“Follow me!” she cried again sharply, seeing that Ramona hesitated; and
Ramona went; across the passage-way leading to the dining-room, out into
the veranda, down the entire length of it, to the Senora's room,--the
Senora walking with a quick, agitated step, strangely unlike her usual
gait; Ramona walking far slower than was her habit, and with her eyes
bent on the ground. As they passed the dining-room door, Margarita,
standing just inside, shot at Ramona a vengeful, malignant glance.
“She would help the Senora against me in anything,” thought Ramona; and
she felt a thrill of fear, such as the Senora with all her threats had
not stirred.
The Senora's windows were open. She closed them both, and drew the
curtains tight. Then she locked the door, Ramona watching her every
movement.
“Sit down in that chair,” said the Senora, pointing to one near the
fireplace. A sudden nervous terror seized Ramona.
“I would rather stand, Senora,” she said.
“Do as I bid you.” said the Senora, in a husky tone; and Ramona obeyed.
It was a low, broad armchair, and as she sank back into it, her senses
seemed leaving her. She leaned her head against the back and closed
her eyes. The room swam. She was roused by the Senora's strong
smelling-salts held for her to breathe, and a mocking taunt from the
Senora's iciest voice: “The Senorita does not seem so over-strong as she
did a few moments back!”
Ramona tried to reason with herself; surely no ill could happen to her,
in this room, within call of the whole house. But an inexplicable terror
had got possession of her; and when the Senora, with a sneer on her
face, took hold of the Saint Catharine statue, and wheeling it half
around, brought into view a door in the wall, with a big iron key in the
keyhole, which she proceeded to turn, Ramona shook with fright. She had
read of persons who had been shut up alive in cells in the wall, and
starved to death. With dilating eyes she watched the Senora, who, all
unaware of her terror, was prolonging it and intensifying it by her
every act. First she took out the small iron box, and set it on a table.
Then, kneeling, she drew out from an inner recess in the closet a large
leather-covered box, and pulled it, grating and scraping along the
floor, till it stood in front of Ramona. All this time she spoke no
word, and the cruel expression of her countenance deepened each moment.
The fiends had possession of the Senora Moreno this morning, and no
mistake. A braver heart than Ramona's might have indeed been fearful, at
being locked up alone with a woman who looked like that.
Finally, she locked the door and wheeled the statue back into its place.
Ramona breathed freer. She was not, after all, to be thrust into
the wall closet and left to starve. She gazed with wonder at the old
battered boxes. What could it all mean?
“Senorita Ramona Ortegna,” began the Senora, drawing up a chair, and
seating herself by the table on which stood the iron box, “I will now
explain to you why you will not marry the Indian Alessandro.”
At these words, this name, Ramona was herself again,--not her old self,
her new self, Alessandro's promised wife. The very sound of his name,
even on an enemy's tongue, gave her strength. The terrors fled away.
She looked up, first at the Senora, then at the nearest window. She was
young and strong; at one bound, if worst came to worst, she could leap
through the window, and fly for her life, calling on Alessandro.
“I shall marry the Indian Alessandro, Senora Moreno,” she said, in a
tone as defiant, and now almost as insolent, as the Senora's own.
The Senora paid no heed to the words, except to say, “Do not interrupt
me again. I have much to tell you;” and opening the box, she lifted out
and placed on the table tray after tray of jewels. The sheet of written
paper lay at the bottom of the box.
“Do you see this paper, Senorita Ramona?” she asked, holding it up.
Ramona bowed her head. “This was written by my sister, the Senora
Ortegna, who adopted you and gave you her name. These were her final
instructions to me, in regard to the disposition to be made of the
property she left to you.”
Ramona's lips parted. She leaned forward, breathless, listening, while
the Senora read sentence after sentence. All the pent-up pain, wonder,
fear of her childhood and her girlhood, as to the mystery of her birth,
swept over her anew, now. Like one hearkening for life or death, she
listened. She forgot Alessandro. She did not look at the jewels. Her
eyes never left the Senora's face. At the close of the reading, the
Senora said sternly, “You see, now, that my sister left to me the entire
disposition of everything belonging to you.”
“But it hasn't said who was my mother,” cried Ramona. “Is that all there
is in the paper?”
The Senora looked stupefied. Was the girl feigning? Did she care nothing
that all these jewels, almost a little fortune, were to be lost to her
forever?
“Who was your mother?” she exclaimed, scornfully, “There was no need to
write that down. Your mother was an Indian. Everybody knew that!”
At the word “Indian,” Ramona gave a low cry.
The Senora misunderstood it. “Ay,” she said, “a low, common Indian. I
told my sister, when she took you, the Indian blood in your veins would
show some day; and now it has come true.”
Ramona's cheeks were scarlet. Her eyes flashed. “Yes, Senora Moreno,”
she said, springing to her feet; “the Indian blood in my veins shows
to-day. I understand many things I never understood before. Was it
because I was an Indian that you have always hated me?”
“You are not an Indian, and I have never hated you,” interrupted the
Senora.
Ramona heeded her not, but went on, more and more impetuously. “And if
I am an Indian, why do you object to my marrying Alessandro? Oh, I am
glad I am an Indian! I am of his people. He will be glad!” The words
poured like a torrent out of her lips. In her excitement she came closer
and closer to the Senora. “You are a cruel woman,” she said. “I did not
know it before; but now I do. If you knew I was an Indian, you had no
reason to treat me so shamefully as you did last night, when you saw me
with Alessandro. You have always hated me. Is my mother alive'? Where
does she live? Tell me; and I will go to her to-day. Tell me! She will
be glad that Alessandro loves me!”
It was a cruel look, indeed, and a crueller tone, with which the Senora
answered: “I have not the least idea who your mother was, or if she is
still alive, Nobody ever knew anything about her,--some low, vicious
creature, that your father married when he was out of his senses, as you
are now, when you talk of marrying Alessandro!”
“He married her, then?” asked Ramona, with emphasis. “How know you that,
Senora Moreno?”
“He told my sister so,” replied the Senora, reluctantly. She grudged the
girl even this much of consolation.
“What was his name?” asked Ramona.
“Phail; Angus Phail,” the Senora replied almost mechanically. She found
herself strangely constrained by Ramona's imperious earnestness, and she
chafed under it. The tables were being turned on her, she hardly knew
how. Ramona seemed to tower in stature, and to have the bearing of
the one in authority, as she stood before her pouring out passionate
question after question. The Senora turned to the larger box, and opened
it. With unsteady hands she lifted out the garments which for so many
years had rarely seen the light. Shawls and ribosos of damask, laces,
gowns of satin, of velvet. As the Senora flung one after another on the
chairs, it was a glittering pile of shining, costly stuffs. Ramona's
eyes rested on them dreamily.
“Did my adopted mother wear all these?” she asked, lifting in her hand a
fold of lace, and holding it up to the light, in evident admiration.
Again the Senora misconceived her. The girl seemed not insensible to the
value and beauty of this costly raiment. Perhaps she would be lured by
it.
“All these are yours, Ramona, you understand, on your wedding day, if
you marry worthily, with my permission,” said the Senora, in a voice
a shade less cold than had hitherto come from her lips. “Did you
understand what I read you?”
The girl did not answer. She had taken up in her hand a ragged, crimson
silk handkerchief, which, tied in many knots, lay in one corner of the
jewel-box.
“There are pearls in that,” said the Senora; “that came with the things
your father sent to my sister when he died.”
Ramona's eyes gleamed. She began untying the knots. The handkerchief was
old, the knots tied tight, and undisturbed for years. As she reached the
last knot, and felt the hard stones, she paused. “This was my father's,
then.” she said.
“Yes,” said the Senora, scornfully. She thought she had detected a new
baseness in the girl. She was going to set up a claim to all which had
been her father's property. “They were your father's, and all these
rubies, and these yellow diamonds;” and she pushed the tray towards her.
Ramona had untied the last knot. Holding the handkerchief carefully
above the tray, she shook the pearls out. A strange, spicy fragrance
came from the silk. The pearls fell in among the rubies, rolling right
and left, making the rubies look still redder by contrast with their
snowy whiteness.
“I will keep this handkerchief,” she said, thrusting it as she spoke,
by a swift resolute movement into her bosom. “I am very glad to have one
thing that belonged to my father. The jewels, Senora, you can give to
the Church, if Father Salvierderra thinks that is right. I shall marry
Alessandro;” and still keeping one hand in her bosom where she had
thrust the handkerchief, she walked away and seated herself again in her
chair.
Father Salvierderra! The name smote the Senora like a spear-thrust,
There could be no stronger evidence of the abnormal excitement under
which she had been laboring for the last twenty-four hours, than the
fact that she had not once, during all this time, thought to ask herself
what Father Salvierderra would say, or might command, in this crisis.
Her religion and the long habit of its outward bonds had alike gone from
her in her sudden wrath against Ramona. It was with a real terror that
she became conscious of this.
“Father Salvierderra?” she stammered; “he has nothing to do with it.”
But Ramona saw the change in the Senora's face, at the word, and
followed up her advantage. “Father Salvierderra has to do with
everything,” she said boldly. “He knows Alessandro, He will not forbid
me to marry him, and if he did--” Ramona stopped. She also was smitten
with a sudden terror at the vista opening before her,--of a disobedience
to Father Salvierderra.
“And if he did,” repeated the Senora, eyeing Ramona keenly, “would you
disobey him?”
“Yes,” said Ramona.
“I will tell Father Salvierderra what you say,” retorted the Senora,
sarcastically, “that he may spare himself the humiliation of laying any
commands on you, to be thus disobeyed.”
Ramona's lip quivered, and her eyes filled with the tears which no other
of the Senora's taunts had been strong enough to bring. Dearly she
loved the old monk; had loved him since her earliest recollection. His
displeasure would be far more dreadful to her than the Senora's. His
would give her grief; the Senora's, at utmost, only terror.
Clasping her hands, she said, “Oh, Senora, have mercy! Do not say that
to the Father!”
“It is my duty to tell the Father everything that happens in my family,”
answered the Senora, chillingly. “He will agree with me, that if you
persist in this disobedience you will deserve the severest punishment. I
shall tell him all;” and she began putting the trays back in the box.
“You will not tell him as it really is, Senora,” persisted Ramona. “I
will tell him myself.”
“You shall not see him! I will take care of that!” cried the Senora, so
vindictively that Ramona shuddered.
“I will give you one more chance,” said the Senora, pausing in the
act of folding up one of the damask gowns. “Will you obey me? Will you
promise to have nothing more to do with this Indian?”
“Never, Senora,” replied Ramona; “never!”
“Then the consequences be on your own head,” cried the Senora. “Go to
your room! And, hark! I forbid you to speak of all this to Senor Felipe.
Do you hear?”
Ramona bowed her head. “I hear,” she said; and gliding out of the room,
closed the door behind her, and instead of going to her room, sped like
a hunted creature down the veranda steps, across the garden, calling in
a low tone, “Felipe! Felipe! Where are you, Felipe?”