THE Senora Moreno had never before been so discomfited as in this matter
of Ramona and Alessandro. It chafed her to think over her conversation
with Felipe; to recall how far the thing she finally attained was from
the thing she had in view when she began. To have Ramona sent to the
convent, Alessandro kept as overseer of the place, and the Ortegna
jewels turned into the treasury of the Church,--this was the plan she
had determined on in her own mind. Instead of this, Alessandro was not
to be overseer on the place; Ramona would not go to the convent: she
would be married to Alessandro, and they would go away together; and
the Ortegna jewels,--well, that was a thing to be decided in the future;
that should be left to Father Salvierderra to decide. Bold as the Senora
was, she had not quite the courage requisite to take that question
wholly into her own hands.
One thing was clear, Felipe must not be consulted in regard to them. He
had never known of them, and need not now. Felipe was far too much in
sympathy with Ramona to take a just view of the situation. He would be
sure to have a quixotic idea of Ramona's right of ownership. It was not
impossible that Father Salvierderra might have the same feeling. If so,
she must yield; but that would go harder with her than all the rest.
Almost the Senora would have been ready to keep the whole thing a secret
from the Father, if he had not been at the time of the Senora Ortegna's
death fully informed of all the particulars of her bequest to her
adopted child. At any rate, it would be nearly a year before the Father
came again, and in the mean time she would not risk writing about it.
The treasure was as safe in Saint Catharine's keeping as it had been all
these fourteen years; it should still lie hidden there. When Ramona went
away with Alessandro, she would write to Father Salvierderra, simply
stating the facts in her own way, and telling him that all further
questions must wait for decision until they met.
And so she plotted and planned, and mapped out the future in her
tireless weaving brain, till she was somewhat soothed for the partial
failure of her plans.
There is nothing so skilful in its own defence as imperious pride. It
has an ingenious system of its own, of reprisals,--a system so ingenious
that the defeat must be sore indeed, after which it cannot still
find some booty to bring off! And even greater than this ingenuity at
reprisals is its capacity for self-deception. In this regard, it outdoes
vanity a thousandfold. Wounded vanity knows when it is mortally hurt;
and limps off the field, piteous, all disguises thrown away. But pride
carries its banner to the last; and fast as it is driven from one field
unfurls it in another, never admitting that there is a shade less honor
in the second field than in the first, or in the third than in the
second; and so on till death. It is impossible not to have a certain
sort of admiration for this kind of pride. Cruel, those who have it, are
to all who come in their way; but they are equally cruel to themselves,
when pride demands the sacrifice. Such pride as this has led many a
forlorn hope, on the earth, when all other motives have died out of
men's breasts; has won many a crown, which has not been called by its
true name.
Before the afternoon was over, the Senora had her plan, her chart of
the future, as it were, all reconstructed; the sting of her discomfiture
soothed; the placid quiet of her manner restored; her habitual
occupations also, and little ways, all resumed. She was going to do
“nothing” in regard to Ramona. Only she herself knew how much that
meant; how bitterly much! She wished she were sure that Felipe also
would do “nothing;” but her mind still misgave her about Felipe.
Unpityingly she had led him on, and entangled him in his own words,
step by step, till she had brought him to the position she wished him to
take. Ostensibly, his position and hers were one, their action a unit;
all the same, she did not deceive herself as to his real feeling about
the affair. He loved Ramona. He liked Alessandro. Barring the question
of family pride, which he had hardly thought of till she suggested
it, and which he would not dwell on apart from her continuing to press
it,--barring this, he would have liked to have Alessandro marry Ramona
and remain on the place. All this would come uppermost in Felipe's
mind again when he was removed from the pressure of her influence.
Nevertheless, she did not intend to speak with him on the subject again,
or to permit him to speak to her. Her ends would be best attained
by taking and keeping the ground that the question of their
non-interference having been settled once for all, the painful topic
should never be renewed between them. In patient silence they must await
Ramona's action; must bear whatever of disgrace and pain she chose to
inflict on the family which had sheltered her from her infancy till now.
The details of the “nothing” she proposed to do, slowly arranged
themselves in her mind. There should be no apparent change in Ramona's
position in the house. She should come and go as freely as ever; no
watch on her movements; she should eat, sleep, rise up and sit down
with them, as before; there should be not a word, or act, that Felipe's
sympathetic sensitiveness could construe into any provocation to Ramona
to run away. Nevertheless, Ramona should be made to feel, every moment
of every hour, that she was in disgrace; that she was with them, but not
of them; that she had chosen an alien's position, and must abide by it.
How this was to be done, the Senora did not put in words to herself, but
she knew very well. If anything would bring the girl to her senses, this
would. There might still be a hope, the Senora believed, so little did
she know Ramona's nature, or the depth of her affection for Alessandro,
that she might be in this manner brought to see the enormity of the
offence she would commit if she persisted in her purpose. And if she did
perceive this, confess her wrong, and give up the marriage,--the Senora
grew almost generous and tolerant in her thoughts as she contemplated
this contingency,--if she did thus humble herself and return to her
rightful allegiance to the Moreno house, the Senora would forgive her,
and would do more for her than she had ever hitherto done. She would
take her to Los Angeles and to Monterey; would show her a little more
of the world; and it was by no means unlikely that there might thus come
about for her a satisfactory and honorable marriage. Felipe should see
that she was not disposed to deal unfairly by Ramona in any way, if
Ramona herself would behave properly.
Ramona's surprise, when the Senora entered her room just before supper,
and, in her ordinary tone, asked a question about the chili which was
drying on the veranda, was so great, that she could not avoid showing it
both in her voice and look.
The Senora recognized this immediately, but gave no sign of having done
so, continuing what she had to say about the chili, the hot sun, the
turning of the grapes, etc., precisely as she would have spoken to
Ramona a week previous. At least, this was what Ramona at first thought;
but before the sentences were finished, she had detected in the Senora's
eye and tone the weapons which were to be employed against her. The
emotion of half-grateful wonder with which she had heard the first words
changed quickly to heartsick misery before they were concluded; and
she said to herself: “That's the way she is going to break me down, she
thinks! But she can't do it. I can bear anything for four days; and the
minute Alessandro comes, I will go away with him.” This train of thought
in Ramona's mind was reflected in her face. The Senora saw it, and
hardened herself still more. It was to be war, then. No hope of
surrender. Very well. The girl had made her choice.
Margarita was now the most puzzled person in the household. She had
overheard snatches of the conversation between Felipe and his mother and
Ramona, having let her curiosity get so far the better of her discretion
as to creep to the door and listen. In fact, she narrowly escaped
being caught, having had barely time to begin her feint of sweeping the
passage-way, when Ramona, flinging the door wide open, came out,
after her final reply to the Senora, the words of which Margarita had
distinctly heard: “God will punish you.”
“Holy Virgin! how dare she say that to the Senora?” ejaculated
Margarita, under her breath; and the next second Ramona rushed by, not
even seeing her. But the Senora's vigilant eyes, following Ramona,
saw her; and the Senora's voice had a ring of suspicion in it, as she
called, “How comes it you are sweeping the passage-way at this hour of
the day, Margarita?”
It was surely the devil himself that put into Margarita's head the quick
lie which she instantaneously told. “There was early breakfast, Senora,
to be cooked for Alessandro, who was setting off in haste, and my mother
was not up, so I had it to cook.”
As Margarita said this, Felipe fixed his eyes steadily upon her. She
changed color. Felipe knew this was a lie. He had seen Margarita peering
about among the willows while he was talking with Alessandro at the
sheepfold; he had seen Alessandro halt for a moment and speak to her as
he rode past,--only for a moment; then, pricking his horse sharply, he
had galloped off down the valley road. No breakfast had Alessandro had
at Margarita's hands, or any other's, that morning. What could have been
Margarita's motive for telling this lie?
But Felipe had too many serious cares on his mind to busy himself long
with any thought of Margarita or her fibs. She had said the first thing
which came into her head, most likely, to shelter herself from the
Senora's displeasure; which was indeed very near the truth, only there
was added a spice of malice against Alessandro. A slight undercurrent of
jealous antagonism towards him had begun to grow up among the servants
of late; fostered, if not originated, by Margarita's sharp sayings as to
his being admitted to such strange intimacy with the family.
While Felipe continued ill, and was so soothed to rest by his music,
there was no room for cavil. It was natural that Alessandro came and
went as a physician might. But after Felipe had recovered, why should
this freedom and intimacy continue? More than once there had been sullen
mutterings of this kind on the north veranda, when all the laborers
and servants were gathered there of an evening, Alessandro alone being
absent from the group, and the sounds of his voice or his violin coming
from the south veranda, where the family sat.
“It would be a good thing if we too had a bit of music now and then,”
Juan Canito would grumble; “but the lad's chary enough of his bow on
this side the house.”
“Ho! we're not good enough for him to play to!” Margarita would reply;
“'Like master, like servant,' is a good proverb sometimes, but not
always. But there's a deal going on, on the veranda yonder, besides
fiddling!” and Margarita's lips would purse themselves up in an
expression of concentrated mystery and secret knowledge, well fitted to
draw from everybody a fire of questions, none of which, however, would
she answer. She knew better than to slander the Senorita Ramona, or to
say a word even reflecting upon her unfavorably. Not a man or a woman
there would have borne it. They all had loved Ramona ever since she came
among them as a toddling baby. They petted her then, and idolized her
now. Not one of them whom she had not done good offices for,--nursed
them, cheered them, remembered their birthdays and their saints'-days.
To no one but her mother had Margarita unbosomed what she knew, and what
she suspected; and old Marda, frightened at the bare pronouncing of such
words, had terrified Margarita into the solemnest of promises never,
under any circumstances whatever, to say such things to any other member
of the family. Marda did not believe them. She could not. She believed
that Margarita's jealousy had imagined all.
“And the Senora; she'd send you packing off this place in an hour,
and me too, long's I've lived here, if ever she was to know of you
blackening the Senorita. An Indian, too! You must be mad, Margarita!”
When Margarita, in triumph, had flown to tell her that the Senora had
just dragged the Senorita Ramona up the garden-walk, and shoved her into
her room and locked the door, and that it was because she had caught her
with Alessandro at the washing-stones, Marda first crossed herself in
sheer mechanical fashion at the shock of the story, and then cuffed
Margarita's ears for telling her.
“I'll take the head off your neck, if you say that aloud again!
Whatever's come to the Senora! Forty years I've lived under this roof,
and I never saw her lift a hand to a living creature yet. You're out of
your senses, child!” she said, all the time gazing fearfully towards the
room.
“You'll see whether I am out of my senses or not,” retorted Margarita,
and ran back to the dining-room. And after the dining-room door was
shut, and the unhappy pretence of a supper had begun, old Marda had
herself crept softly to the Senorita's door and listened, and heard
Ramona sobbing as if her heart would break. Then she knew that what
Margarita had said must be true, and her faithful soul was in sore
straits what to think. The Senorita misdemean herself! Never! Whatever
happened, it was not that! There was some horrible mistake somewhere.
Kneeling at the keyhole, she had called cautiously to Ramona, “Oh, my
lamb, what is it?” But Ramona had not heard her, and the danger was too
great of remaining; so scrambling up with difficulty from her rheumatic
knees, the old woman had hobbled back to the kitchen as much in the dark
as before, and, by a curiously illogical consequence, crosser than ever
to her daughter. All the next day she watched for herself, and could
not but see that all appearances bore out Margarita's statements.
Alessandro's sudden departure had been a tremendous corroboration of the
story. Not one of the men had had an inkling of it; Juan Canito, Luigo,
both alike astonished; no word left, no message sent; only Senor Felipe
had said carelessly to Juan Can, after breakfast: “You'll have to look
after things yourself for a few days, Juan. Alessandro has gone to
Temecula.”
“For a few days!” exclaimed Margarita, sarcastically, when this was
repeated to her. “That's easy said! If Alessandro Assis is seen here
again, I'll eat my head! He's played his last tune on the south veranda,
I wager you.”
But when at supper-time of this same eventful day the Senora was heard,
as she passed the Senorita's door, to say in her ordinary voice, “Are
you ready for supper, Ramona?” and Ramona was seen to come out and walk
by the Senora's side to the dining-room; silent, to be sure,--but then
that was no strange thing, the Senorita always was more silent in the
Senora's presence,--when Marda, standing in the court-yard, feigning to
be feeding her chickens, but keeping a close eye on the passage-ways,
saw this, she was relieved, and thought: “It's only a dispute there has
been. There will be disputes in families sometimes. It is none of our
affair. All is settled now.”
And Margarita, standing in the dining-room, when she saw them all
coming in as usual,--the Senora, Felipe, Ramona,--no change, even to
her scrutinizing eye, in anybody's face, was more surprised than she had
been for many a day; and began to think again, as she had more than
once since this tragedy began, that she must have dreamed much that she
remembered.
But surfaces are deceitful, and eyes see little. Considering its
complexity, the fineness and delicacy of its mechanism, the results
attainable by the human eye seem far from adequate to the expenditure
put upon it. We have flattered ourselves by inventing proverbs of
comparison in matter of blindness,--“blind as a bat,” for instance. It
would be safe to say that there cannot be found in the animal kingdom
a bat, or any other creature, so blind in its own range of circumstance
and connection, as the greater majority of human beings are in the
bosoms of their families. Tempers strain and recover, hearts break and
heal, strength falters, fails, and comes near to giving way altogether,
every day, without being noted by the closest lookers-on.
Before night of this second day since the trouble had burst like a
storm-cloud on the peaceful Moreno household, everything had so resumed
the ordinary expression and routine, that a shrewder observer and
reasoner than Margarita might well be excused for doubting if any
serious disaster could have occurred to any one. Senor Felipe sauntered
about in his usual fashion, smoking his cigarettes, or lay on his bed in
the veranda, dozing. The Senora went her usual rounds of inspection, fed
her birds, spoke to every one in her usual tone, sat in her carved chair
with her hands folded, gazing out on the southern sky. Ramona busied
herself with her usual duties, dusted the chapel, put fresh flowers
before all the Madonnas, and then sat down at her embroidery. Ramona had
been for a long time at work on a beautiful altar-cloth for the chapel.
It was to have been a present to the Senora. It was nearly done. As she
held up the frame in which it was stretched, and looked at the delicate
tracery of the pattern, she sighed. It had been with a mingled feeling
of interest and hopelessness that she had for months been at work on it,
often saying to herself, “She won't care much for it, beautiful as it
is, just because I did it; but Father Salvierderra will be pleased when
he sees it.”
Now, as she wove the fine threads in and out, she thought: “She will
never let it be used on the altar. I wonder if I could any way get it to
Father Salvierderra, at Santa Barbara. I would like to give it to him.
I will ask Alessandro. I'm sure the Senora would never use it, and it
would be a shame to leave it here. I shall take it with me.” But as she
thought these things, her face was unruffled. A strange composure had
settled on Ramona. “Only four days; only four days; I can bear anything
for four days!” these words were coming and going in her mind like
refrains of songs which haunt one's memory and will not be still. She
saw that Felipe looked anxiously at her, but she answered his inquiring
looks always with a gentle smile. It was evident that the Senora did
not intend that she and Felipe should have any private conversation;
but that did not so much matter. After all, there was not so much to be
said. Felipe knew all. She could tell him nothing; Felipe had acted for
the best, as he thought, in sending Alessandro away till the heat of the
Senora's anger should have spent itself.
After her first dismay at suddenly learning that Alessandro had gone,
had passed, she had reflected that it was just as well. He would come
back prepared to take her with him. How, or where, she did not know;
but she would go with no questions. Perhaps she would not even bid the
Senora good-by; she wondered how that would arrange itself, and how far
Alessandro would have to take her, to find a priest to marry them. It
was a terrible thing to have to do, to go out of a home in such a way:
no wedding--no wedding clothes--no friends--to go unmarried, and journey
to a priest's house, to have the ceremony performed; “but it is not my
fault,” said Ramona to herself; “it is hers. She drives me to do it. If
it is wrong, the blame will be hers. Father Salvierderra would gladly
come here and marry us, if she would send for him. I wish we could go to
him, Alessandro and I; perhaps we can. I would not be afraid to ride so
far; we could do it in two days.” The more Ramona thought of this, the
more it appeared to her the natural thing for them to do. “He will be on
our side, I know he will,” she thought. “He always liked Alessandro, and
he loves me.”
It was strange how little bitterness toward the Senora was in the girl's
mind; how comparatively little she thought of her. Her heart was too
full of Alessandro and of their future; and it had never been Ramona's
habit to dwell on the Senora in her thoughts. As from her childhood up
she had accepted the fact of the Senora's coldness toward her, so now
she accepted her injustice and opposition as part of the nature of
things, and not to be altered.
During all these hours, during the coming and going of these crowds
of fears, sorrows, memories, anticipations in Ramona's heart, all that
there was to be seen to the eye was simply a calm, quiet girl, sitting
on the veranda, diligently working at her lace-frame. Even Felipe was
deceived by her calmness, and wondered what it meant,--if it could be
that she was undergoing the change that his mother had thought possible,
and designated as coming “to her senses.” Even Felipe did not know the
steadfast fibre of the girl's nature; neither did he realize what a bond
had grown between her and Alessandro. In fact, he sometimes wondered of
what this bond had been made. He had himself seen the greater part
of their intercourse with each other; nothing could have been farther
removed from anything like love-making. There had been no crisis
of incident, or marked moments of experience such as in Felipe's
imaginations of love were essential to the fulness of its growth. This
is a common mistake on the part of those who have never felt love's true
bonds. Once in those chains, one perceives that they are not of the sort
full forged in a day. They are made as the great iron cables are made,
on which bridges are swung across the widest water-channels,--not of
single huge rods, or bars, which would be stronger, perhaps, to look
at, but of myriads of the finest wires, each one by itself so fine, so
frail, it would barely hold a child's kite in the wind: by hundreds,
hundreds of thousands of such, twisted, re-twisted together, are made
the mighty cables, which do not any more swerve from their place in the
air, under the weight and jar of the ceaseless traffic and tread of two
cities, than the solid earth swerves under the same ceaseless weight and
jar. Such cables do not break.
Even Ramona herself would have found it hard to tell why she thus loved
Alessandro; how it began, or by what it grew. It had not been a sudden
adoration, like his passion for her; it was, in the beginning, simply
a response; but now it was as strong a love as his,--as strong, and as
unchangeable. The Senora's harsh words had been like a forcing-house air
to it, and the sudden knowledge of the fact of her own Indian descent
seemed to her like a revelation, pointing out the path in which destiny
called her to walk. She thrilled with pleasure at the thought of the joy
with which Alessandro would hear this,--the joy and the surprise. She
imagined to herself, in hundreds of ways, the time, place, and phrase in
which she would tell him. She could not satisfy herself as to the best;
as to which would give keenest pleasure to him and to her. She would
tell him, as soon as she saw him; it should be her first word of
greeting. No! There would be too much of trouble and embarrassment then.
She would wait till they were far away, till they were alone, in the
wilderness; and then she would turn to him, and say, “Alessandro, my
people are your people!” Or she would wait, and keep her secret until
she had reached Temecula, and they had begun their life there, and
Alessandro had been astonished to see how readily and kindly she took
to all the ways of the Indian village; and then, when he expressed
some such emotion, she would quietly say, “But I too am an Indian,
Alessandro!”
Strange, sad bride's dreams these; but they made Ramona's heart beat
with happiness as she dreamed them.