Ramona Part 17

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, n.o.body 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 pa.s.sionate 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?"

XII

THE little sheepfold, or corral, was beyond the artichoke-patch, on that southern slope whose sunshine had proved so disastrous a temptation to Margarita in the matter of drying the altar-cloth. It was almost like a terrace, this long slope; and the sheepfold, being near the bottom, was wholly out of sight of the house. This was the reason Felipe had selected it as the safest spot for his talk with Alessandro.

When Ramona reached the end of the trellised walk in the garden, she halted and looked to the right and left. No one was in sight. As she entered the Senora's room an hour before, she had caught a glimpse of some one, she felt almost positive it was Felipe, turning off in the path to the left, leading down to the sheepfold. She stood irresolute for a moment, gazing earnestly down this path. "If the saints would only tell me where he is!" she said aloud. She trembled as she stood there, fearing each second to hear the Senora's voice calling her. But fortune was favoring Ramona, for once; even as the words pa.s.sed her lips, she saw Felipe coming slowly up the bank. She flew to meet him. "Oh, Felipe, Felipe!" she began.

"Yes, dear, I know it all," interrupted Felipe; "Alessandro has told me."

"She forbade me to speak to you, Felipe," said Ramona, "but I could not bear it. What are we to do? Where is Alessandro?"

"My mother forbade you to speak to me!" cried Felipe, in a tone of terror. "Oh, Ramona, why did you disobey her? If she sees us talking, she will be even more displeased. Fly back to your room. Leave it all to me. I will do all that I can."

"But, Felipe," began Ramona, wringing her hands in distress.

"I know! I know!" said Felipe; "but you must not make my mother any more angry. I don't know what she will do till I talk with her. Do go back to your room! Did she not tell you to stay there?"

"Yes," sobbed Ramona, "but I cannot. Oh, Felipe, I am so afraid! Do help us! Do you think you can? You won't let her shut me up in the convent, will you, Felipe? Where is Alessandro? Why can't I go away with him this minute? Where is he? Dear Felipe, let me go now."