Part 22 (1/2)
The Senora looked reproachfully at him. ”Not often of any,” she said; ”but certainly not of a sudden pa.s.sion for a person in every way beneath them, in position, in education, in all points which are essential to congeniality of tastes or a.s.sociation of life.”
The Senora spoke calmly, with no excitement, as if she were discussing an abstract case. Sometimes, when she spoke like this, Felipe for the moment felt as if she were entirely right, as if it were really a disgraceful thing in Ramona to have thus loved Alessandro. It could not be gainsaid that there was this gulf, of which she spoke. Alessandro was undeniably Ramona's inferior in position, education, in all the external matters of life; but in nature, in true n.o.bility of soul, no! Alessandro was no man's inferior in these; and in capacity to love,--Felipe sometimes wondered whether he had ever known Alessandro's equal in that.
This thought had occurred to him more than once, as from his sick-bed he had, un.o.bserved, studied the expression with which Alessandro gazed at Ramona. But all this made no difference in the perplexity of the present dilemma, in the embarra.s.sment of his and his mother's position now. Send a messenger to ask why Alessandro did not return! Not even if he had been an accepted and publicly recognized lover, would Felipe do that!
Ramona ought to have more pride. She ought of herself to know that. And when Felipe, later in the day, saw Ramona again, he said as much to her.
He said it as gently as he could; so gently that she did not at first comprehend his idea. It was so foreign, so incompatible with her faith, how could she?
When she did understand, she said slowly: ”You mean that it will not do to send to find out if Alessandro is dead, because it will look as if I wished him to marry me whether he wished it or not?” and she fixed her eyes on Felipe's, with an expression he could not fathom.
”Yes, dear,” he answered, ”something like that, though you put it harshly.”
”Is it not true,” she persisted, ”that is what you mean?”
Reluctantly Felipe admitted that it was.
Ramona was silent for some moments; then she said, speaking still more slowly, ”If you feel like that, we had better never talk about Alessandro again. I suppose it is not possible that you should know, as I do, that nothing but his being dead would keep him from coming back. Thanks, dear Felipe;” and after this she did not speak again of Alessandro.
Days went by; a week. The vintage was over. The Senora wondered if Ramona would now ask again for a messenger to go to Temecula. Almost even the Senora relented, as she looked into the girl's white and wasted face, as she sat silent, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes fixed on the willows. The altar-cloth was done, folded and laid away. It would never hang in the Moreno chapel. It was promised, in Ramona's mind, to Father Salvierderra. She had resolved to go to him; if he, a feeble old man, could walk all the way between Santa Barbara and their home, she could surely do the same. She would not lose the way. There were not many roads; she could ask. The convent, the bare thought of which had been so terrible to Ramona fourteen days ago, when the Senora had threatened her with it, now seemed a heavenly refuge, the only shelter she craved. There was a school for orphans attached to the convent at San Juan Bautista, she knew; she would ask the Father to let her go there, and she would spend the rest of her life in prayer, and in teaching the orphan girls. As hour after hour she sat revolving this plan, her fancy projected itself so vividly into the future, that she lived years of her life. She felt herself middle-aged, old. She saw the procession of nuns, going to vespers, leading the children by the hand; herself wrinkled and white-haired, walking between two of the little ones. The picture gave her peace. As soon as she grew a little stronger, she would set off on her journey to the Father; she could not go just yet, she was too weak; her feet trembled if she did but walk to the foot of the garden. Alessandro was dead; there could be no doubt of that.
He was buried in that little walled graveyard of which he had told her. Sometimes she thought she would try to go there and see his grave, perhaps see his father; if Alessandro had told him of her, the old man would be glad to see her; perhaps, after all, her work might lie there, among Alessandro's people. But this looked hard: she had not courage for it; shelter and rest were what she wanted,--the sound of the Church's prayers, and the Father's blessing every day. The convent was the best.
She thought she was sure that Alessandro was dead; but she was not, for she still listened, still watched. Each day she walked out on the river road, and sat waiting till dusk. At last came a day when she could not go; her strength failed her. She lay all day on her bed. To the Senora, who asked frigidly if she were ill, she answered: ”No, Senora, I do not think I am ill, I have no pain, but I cannot get up. I shall be better to-morrow.”
”I will send you strong broth and a medicine,” the Senora said; and sent her both by the hands of Margarita, whose hatred and jealousy broke down at the first sight of Ramona's face on the pillow; it looked so much thinner and sharper there than it had when she was sitting up. ”Oh, Senorita! Senorita!” she cried, in a tone of poignant grief, ”are you going to die? Forgive me, forgive me!”
”I have nothing to forgive you, Margarita,” replied Ramona, raising herself on her elbow, and lifting her eyes kindly to the girl's face as she took the broth from her hands. ”I do not know why you ask me to forgive you.”
Margarita flung herself on her knees by the bed, in a pa.s.sion of weeping. ”Oh, but you do know, Senorita, you do know! Forgive me!”
”No, I know nothing,” replied Ramona; ”but if you know anything, it is all forgiven. I am not going to die, Margarita. I am going away,” she added, after a second's pause. Her inmost instinct told her that she could trust Margarita now. Alessandro being dead, Margarita would no longer be her enemy, and Margarita could perhaps help her. ”I am going away, Margarita, as soon as I feel a little stronger. I am going to a convent; but the Senora does not know. You will not tell?”
”No, Senorita!” whispered Margarita,--thinking in her heart, ”Yes, she is going away, but it will be with the angels.”--”No, Senorita, I will not tell. I will do anything you want me to.”
”Thanks, Margarita mia,” replied Ramona. ”I thought you would;” and she lay back on her pillow, and closed her eyes, looking so much more like death than like life that Margarita's tears flowed faster than before, and she ran to her mother, sobbing out, ”Mother, mother! the Senorita is ill to death. I am sure she is. She has taken to her bed; and she is as white as Senor Felipe was at the worst of the fever.”
”Ay,” said old Marda, who had seen all this for days back; ”ay, she has wasted away, this last week, like one in a fever, sure enough; I have seen it. It must be she is starving herself to death.”
”Indeed, she has not eaten for ten days,--hardly since that day;”
and Margarita and her mother exchanged looks. It was not necessary to further define the day.
”Juan Can says he thinks he will never be seen here again,” continued Margarita.
”The saints grant it, then,” said Marda, hotly, ”if it is he has cost the Senorita all this! I am that turned about in my head with it all, that I've no thoughts to think; but plain enough it is, he is mixed up with whatever 'tis has gone wrong.”
”I could tell what it is,” said Margarita, her old pertness coming uppermost for a moment; ”but I've got no more to say, now the Senorita's lying on her bed, with the face she's got. It's enough to break your heart to look at her. I could just go down on my knees to her for all I've said; and I will, and to Saint Francis too! She's going to be with him before long; I know she is.”
”No,” said the wiser, older Marda. ”She is not so ill as you think. She is young. It's the heart's gone out of her; that's all. I've been that way myself. People are, when they're young.”
”I'm young!” retorted Margarita. ”I've never been that way.”
”There's many a mile to the end of the road, my girl,” said Marda, significantly; ”and 'It's ill boasting the first day out,' was a proverb when I was your age!”