Part 8 (2/2)
”Dear Senora,” whispered Ramona, ”do go out for a few moments while he sleeps, and let me watch,--just on the walk in front of the veranda. The sun is still lying there, bright and warm. You will be ill if you do not have air.”
The Senora shook her head. ”My place is here,” she answered, speaking in a dry, hard tone. Sympathy was hateful to the Senora Moreno; she wished neither to give it nor take it. ”I shall not leave him. I do not need the air.”
Ramona had a cloth-of-gold rose in her hand. The veranda eaves were now shaded with them, hanging down like a thick fringe of golden ta.s.sels. It was the rose Felipe loved best. Stooping, she laid it on the bed, near Felipe's head. ”He will like to see it when he wakes,” she said.
The Senora seized it, and flung it far out in the room. ”Take it away!
Flowers are poison when one is ill,” she said coldly. ”Have I never told you that?”
”No, Senora,” replied Ramona, meekly; and she glanced involuntarily at the saucer of musk which the Senora kept on the table close to Felipe's pillow.
”The musk is different,” said the Senora, seeing the glance. ”Musk is a medicine; it revives.”
Ramona knew, but she would have never dared to say, that Felipe hated musk. Many times he had said to her how he hated the odor; but his mother was so fond of it, that it must always be that the veranda and the house would be full of it. Ramona hated it too. At times it made her faint, with a deadly faintness. But neither she nor Felipe would have confessed as much to the Senora; and if they had, she would have thought it all a fancy.
”Shall I stay?” asked Ramona, gently.
”As you please,” replied the Senora. The simple presence of Ramona irked her now with a feeling she did not pretend to a.n.a.lyze, and would have been terrified at if she had. She would not have dared to say to herself, in plain words: ”Why is that girl well and strong, and my Felipe lying here like to die! If Felipe dies, I cannot bear the sight of her. What is she, to be preserved of the saints!”
But that, or something like it, was what she felt whenever Ramona entered the room; still more, whenever she a.s.sisted in ministering to Felipe. If it had been possible, the Senora would have had no hands but her own do aught for her boy. Even tears from Ramona sometimes irritated her. ”What does she know about loving Felipe! He is nothing to her!”
thought the Senora, strangely mistaken, strangely blind, strangely forgetting how feeble is the tie of blood in the veins by the side of love in the heart.
If into this fiery soul of the Senora's could have been dropped one second's knowledge of the relative positions she and Ramona already occupied in Felipe's heart, she would, on the spot, have either died herself or have slain Ramona, one or the other. But no such knowledge was possible; no such idea could have found entrance into the Senora's mind. A revelation from Heaven of it could hardly have reached even her ears. So impenetrable are the veils which, fortunately for us all, are forever held by viewless hands between us and the nearest and closest of our daily companions.
At twilight of this day Felipe was restless and feverish again. He had dozed at intervals all day long, but had had no refres.h.i.+ng sleep.
”Send for Alessandro,” he said. ”Let him come and sing to me.”
”He has his violin now; he can play, if you would like that better,”
said Ramona; and she related what Alessandro had told her of the messenger's having ridden to Temecula and back in a night and half a day, to bring it.
”I wanted to pay the man,” she said; ”I knew of course your mother would wish to reward him. But I fancy Alessandro was offended. He answered me shortly that it was paid, and it was nothing.”
”You couldn't have offended him more,” said Felipe. ”What a pity! He is as proud as Lucifer himself, that Alessandro. You know his father has always been the head of their band; in fact, he has authority over several bands; General, they call it now, since they got the t.i.tle from the Americans; they used to call it Chief., and until Father Peyri left San Luis Rey, Pablo was in charge of all the sheep, and general steward and paymaster. Father Peyri trusted him with everything; I've heard he would leave boxes full of uncounted gold in Pablo's charge to pay off the Indians. Pablo reads and writes, and is very well off; he has as many sheep as we have, I fancy!”
”What!” exclaimed Ramona, astonished. ”They all look as if they were poor.”
”Oh, well, so they are,” replied Felipe, ”compared with us; but one reason is, they share everything with each other. Old Pablo feeds and supports half his village, they say. So long as he has anything, he will never see one of his Indians hungry.”
”How generous!” warmly exclaimed Ramona; ”I think they are better than we are, Felipe!”
”I think so, too,” said Felipe. ”That's what I have always said. The Indians are the most generous people in the world. Of course they have learned it partly from us; but they were very much so when the Fathers first came here. You ask Father Salvierderra some day. He has read all Father Junipero's and Father Crespi's diaries, and he says it is wonderful how the wild savages gave food to every one who came.”
”Felipe, you are talking too much,” said the Senora's voice, in the doorway; and as she spoke she looked reproachfully at Ramona. If she had said in words, ”See how unfit you are to be trusted with Felipe. No wonder I do not leave the room except when I must!” her meaning could not have been plainer. Ramona felt it keenly, and not without some misgiving that it was deserved.
”Oh, dear Felipe, has it hurt you?” she said timidly; and to the Senora, ”Indeed, Senora, he has been speaking but a very few moments, very low.”
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