Part 9 (1/2)
”Go call Alessandro, Ramona, will you?” said Felipe. ”Tell him to bring his violin. I think I will go to sleep if he plays.”
A long search Ramona had for Alessandro. Everybody had seen him a few minutes ago, but n.o.body knew where he was now. Kitchens, sheepfolds, vineyards, orchards, Juan Can's bedchamber,--Ramona searched them all in vain. At last, standing at the foot of the veranda steps, and looking down the garden, she thought she saw figures moving under the willows by the was.h.i.+ng-stones.
”Can he be there?” she said. ”What can he be doing there? Who is it with him?” And she walked down the path, calling, ”Alessandro! Alessandro!”
At the first sound, Alessandro sprang from the side of his companion, and almost before the second syllables had been said, was standing face to face with Ramona.
”Here I am, Senorita. Does Senor Felipe want me? I have my violin here.
I thought perhaps he would like to have me play to him in the twilight.”
”Yes,” replied Ramona, ”he wishes to hear you. I have been looking everywhere for you.” As she spoke, she was half unconsciously peering beyond into the dusk, to see whose figure it was, slowly moving by the brook.
Nothing escaped Alessandro's notice where Ramona was concerned. ”It is Margarita,” he said instantly. ”Does the Senorita want her? Shall I run and call her?”
”No,” said Ramona, again displeased, she knew not why, nor in fact knew she was displeased; ”no, I was not looking for her. What is she doing there?”
”She is was.h.i.+ng,” replied Alessandro, innocently.
”Was.h.i.+ng at this time of day!” thought Ramona, severely. ”A mere pretext. I shall watch Margarita. The Senora would never allow this sort of thing.” And as she walked back to the house by Alessandro's side, she meditated whether or no she would herself speak to Margarita on the subject in the morning.
Margarita, in the mean time, was also having her season of reflections not the pleasantest. As she soused her ap.r.o.ns up and down in the water, she said to herself, ”I may as well finish them now I am here. How provoking! I've no more than got a word with him, than she must come, calling him away. And he flies as if he was shot on an arrow, at the first word. I'd like to know what's come over the man, to be so different. If I could ever get a good half-hour with him alone, I'd soon find out. Oh, but his eyes go through me, through and through me! I know he's an Indian, but what do I care for that. He's a million times handsomer than Senor Felipe. And Juan Jose said the other day he'd make enough better head shepherd than old Juan Can, if Senor Felipe'd only see it; and why shouldn't he get to see it, if Alessandro's here all summer?” And before the ap.r.o.ns were done, Margarita had a fine air-castle up: herself and Alessandro married, a nice little house, children playing in the suns.h.i.+ne below the artichoke-patch, she herself still working for the Senora. ”And the Senorita will perhaps marry Senor Felipe,” she added, her thoughts moving more hesitatingly. ”He wors.h.i.+ps the ground she walks on. Anybody with quarter of a blind eye can see that; but maybe the Senora would not let him. Anyhow, Senor Felipe is sure to have a wife, and so and so.” It was an innocent, girlish castle, built of sweet and natural longings, for which no maiden, high or low, need blush; but its foundations were laid in sand, on which would presently beat such winds and floods as poor little Margarita never dreamed of.
The next day Margarita and Ramona both went about their day's business with a secret purpose in their hearts. Margarita had made up her mind that before night she would, by fair means or foul, have a good long talk with Alessandro. ”He was fond enough of me last year, I know,”
she said to herself, recalling some of the dances and the good-night leave-takings at that time. ”It's because he is so put upon by everybody now. What with Juan Can in one bed sending for him to prate to him about the sheep, and Senor Felipe in another sending for him to fiddle him to sleep, and all the care of the sheep, it's a wonder he's not out of his mind altogether. But I'll find a chance, or make one, before this day's sun sets. If I can once get a half-hour with him, I'm not afraid after that; I know the way it is with men!” said the confident Margarita, who, truth being told, it must be admitted, did indeed know a great deal about the way it is with men, and could be safely backed, in a fair field, with a fair start, against any girl of her age and station in the country. So much for Margarita's purpose, at the outset of a day destined to be an eventful one in her life.
Ramona's purpose was no less clear. She had decided, after some reflection, that she would not speak to the Senora about Margarita's having been under the willows with Alessandro in the previous evening, but would watch her carefully and see whether there were any farther signs of her attempting to have clandestine interviews with him.
This course she adopted, she thought, chiefly because of her affection for Margarita, and her unwillingness to expose her to the Senora's displeasure, which would be great, and terrible to bear. She was also aware of an unwillingness to bring anything to light which would reflect ever so lightly upon Alessandro in the Senora's estimation. ”And he is not really to blame,” thought Ramona, ”if a girl follows him about and makes free with him. She must have seen him at the willows, and gone down there on purpose to meet him, making a pretext of the was.h.i.+ng. For she never in this world would have gone to wash in the dark, as he must have known, if he were not a fool. He is not the sort of person, it seems to me, to be fooling with maids. He seems as full of grave thought as Father Salvierderra. If I see anything amiss in Margarita to-day, I shall speak to her myself, kindly but firmly, and tell her to conduct herself more discreetly.”
Then, as the other maiden's had done, Ramona's thoughts, being concentrated on Alessandro, altered a little from their first key, and grew softer and more imaginative; strangely enough, taking some of the phrases, as it were, out of the other maiden's mouth.
”I never saw such eyes as Alessandro has,” she said. ”I wonder any girl should make free with him. Even I myself, when he fixes his eyes on me, feel a constraint. There is something in them like the eyes of a saint, so solemn, yet so mild. I am sure he is very good.”
And so the day opened; and if there were abroad in the valley that day a demon of mischief, let loose to tangle the skeins of human affairs, things could not have fallen out better for his purpose than they did; for it was not yet ten o'clock of the morning, when Ramona, sitting at her embroidery in the veranda, half hid behind the vines, saw Alessandro going with his pruning-knife in his hand towards the artichoke-patch at the east of the garden, and joining the almond orchard. ”I wonder what he is going to do there,” she thought. ”He can't be going to cut willows;” and her eyes followed him till he disappeared among the trees.
Ramona was not the only one who saw this. Margarita, looking from the east window of Father Salvierderra's room, saw the same thing. ”Now's my chance!” she said; and throwing a white reboso coquettishly over her head, she slipped around the corner of the house. She ran swiftly in the direction in which Alessandro had gone. The sound of her steps reached Ramona, who, lifting her eyes, took in the whole situation at a glance.
There was no possible duty, no possible message, which would take Margarita there. Ramona's cheeks blazed with a disproportionate indignation. But she bethought herself, ”Ah, the Senora may have sent her to call Alessandro!” She rose, went to the door of Felipe's room, and looked in. The Senora was sitting in the chair by Felipe's bed, with her eyes closed. Felipe was dozing. The Senora opened her eyes, and looked inquiringly at Ramona.
”Do you know where Margarita is?” said Ramona.
”In Father Salvierderra's room, or else in the kitchen helping Marda,”
replied the Senora, in a whisper. ”I told her to help Marda with the peppers this morning.”
Ramona nodded, returned to the veranda, and sat down to decide on her course of action. Then she rose again, and going to Father Salvierderra's room, looked in. The room was still in disorder.
Margarita had left her work there unfinished. The color deepened on Ramona's cheeks. It was strange how accurately she divined each process of the incident. ”She saw him from this window,” said Ramona, ”and has run after him. It is shameful. I will go and call her back, and let her see that I saw it all. It is high time that this was stopped.”
But once back in the veranda, Ramona halted, and seated herself in her chair again. The idea of seeming to spy was revolting to her.
”I will wait here till she comes back,” she said, and took up her embroidery. But she could not work. As the minutes went slowly by, she sat with her eyes fixed on the almond orchard, where first Alessandro and then Margarita had disappeared. At last she could bear it no longer.