Chapter 10

“Yes,” said Alessandro; “Margarita has said to me that the Senorita Ramona was only the foster-child of the Senora Moreno.”

“Foster-child!” repeated Juan Can, contemptuously, “there is something to the tale I know not, nor ever could find out; for when I was in Monterey the Ortegna house was shut, and I could not get speech of any of their people. But this much I know, that it was the Senora Ortegna that had the girl first in keeping; and there was a scandalous tale about her birth.”

If Juan Can's eyes had not been purblind with old age, he would have seen that in Alessandro's face which would have made him choose his words more carefully. But he went on: “It was after the Senora Ortegna was buried, that our Senora returned, bringing this child with her; and I do assure you, lad, I have seen the Senora look at her many a time as if she wished her dead. And it is a shame, for she was always as fair and good a child as the saints ever saw. But a stain on the blood, a stain on the blood, lad, is a bitter thing in a house. This much I know, her mother was an Indian. Once when I was in the chapel, behind the big Saint Joseph there, I overheard the Senora say as much. She was talking to Father Salvierderra, and she said, 'If the child had only the one blood in her veins, it would be different. I like not these crosses with Indians.'”

If Alessandro had been civilized, he would at this word “Indian” have bounded to his feet. Being Alessandro, he stood if possible stiller than before, and said in a low voice, “How know you it was the mother that was the Indian?”

Juan laughed again, maliciously: “Ha, it is the Ortegna face she has; and that Ortegna, why, he was the scandal byword of the whole coast. There was not a decent woman would have spoken to him, except for his wife's sake.”

“But did you not say that it was in the Senora Ortegna's keeping that the child was?” asked Alessandro, breathing harder and faster each moment now; stupid old Juan Can so absorbed in relish of his gossip, that he noticed nothing.

“Ay, ay. So I said,” he went on; “and so it was. There be such saints, you know; though the Lord knows if she had been minded to give shelter to all her husband's bastards, she might have taken lease of a church to hold them. But there was a story about a man's coming with this infant and leaving it in the Senora's room; and she, poor lady, never having had a child of her own, did warm to it at first sight, and kept it with her to the last; and I wager me, a hard time she had to get our Senora to take the child when she died; except that it was to spite Ortegna, I think our Senora would as soon the child had been dead.”

“Has she not treated her kindly?” asked Alessandro, in a husky voice.

Juan Can's pride resented this question. “Do you suppose the Senora Moreno would do an unkindness to one under her roof?” he asked loftily. “The Senorita has been always, in all things, like Senor Felipe himself. It was so that she promised the Senora Ortegna, I have heard.”

“Does the Senorita know all this?” asked Alessandro.

Juan Can crossed himself. “Saints save us, no!” he exclaimed. “I'll not forget, to my longest day, what it cost me, once I spoke in her hearing, when she was yet small. I did not know she heard; but she went to the Senora, asking who was her mother. And she said I had said her mother was no good, which in faith I did, and no wonder. And the Senora came to me, and said she, 'Juan Canito, you have been a long time in our house; but if ever I hear of your mentioning aught concerning the Senorita Ramona, on this estate or anywhere else in the country, that day you leave my service!'--And you'd not do me the ill-turn to speak of it, Alessandro, now?” said the old man, anxiously. “My tongue runs away with me, lying here on this cursed bed, with nothing to do,--an active man like me.”

“No, I'll not speak of it, you may be assured,” said Alessandro, walking away slowly.

“Here! Here!” called Juan. “What about that plan you had for making a bed for Senor Felipe on the verandah Was it of raw-hide you meant?”

“Ah, I had forgotten,” said Alessandro, returning. “Yes, that was it. There is great virtue in a raw-hide, tight stretched; my father says that it is the only bed the Fathers would ever sleep on, in the Mission days. I myself like the ground even better; but my father sleeps always on the rawhide. He says it keeps him well. Do you think I might speak of it to the Senora?”

“Speak of it to Senor Felipe himself,” said Juan. “It will be as he says. He rules this place now, from beginning to end; and it is but yesterday I held him on my knee. It is soon that the old are pushed to the wall, Alessandro.”

“Nay, Juan Canito,” replied Alessandro, kindly. “It is not so. My father is many years older than you are, and he rules our people to-day as firmly as ever. I myself obey him, as if I were a lad still.”

“What else, then, but a lad do you call yourself, I wonder?” thought Juan; but he answered, “It is not so with us. The old are not held in such reverence.”

“That is not well,” replied Alessandro. “We have been taught differently. There is an old man in our village who is many, many years older than my father. He helped to carry the mortar at the building of the San Diego Mission, I do not know how many years ago. He is long past a hundred years of age. He is blind and childish, and cannot walk; but he is cared for by every one. And we bring him in our arms to every council, and set him by my father's side. He talks very foolishly sometimes, but my father will not let him be interrupted. He says it brings bad luck to affront the aged. We will presently be aged ourselves.”

“Ay, ay!” said Juan, sadly. “We must all come to it. It is beginning to look not so far off to me!”

Alessandro stared, no less astonished at Juan Can's unconscious revelation of his standard of measurement of years than Juan had been at his. “Faith, old man, what name dost give to yourself to-day!” he thought; but went on with the topic of the raw-hide bed. “I may not so soon get speech with Senor Felipe,” he said. “It is usually when he is sleepy that I go to play for him or to sing. But it makes my heart heavy to see him thus languishing day by day, and all for lack of the air and the sun, I do believe, indeed, Juan.”

“Ask the Senorita, then,” said Juan. “She has his ear at all times.”

Alessandro made no answer. Why was it that it did not please him,--this suggestion of speaking to Ramona of his plan for Felipe's welfare? He could not have told; but he did not wish to speak of it to her.

“I will speak to the Senora,” he said; and as luck would have it, at that moment the Senora stood in the doorway, come to ask after Juan Can's health.

The suggestion of the raw-hide bed struck her favorably. She herself had, in her youth, heard much of their virtues, and slept on them. “Yes,” she said, “they are good. We will try it. It was only yesterday that Senor Felipe was complaining of the bed he lies on; and when he was well, he thought nothing could be so good; he brought it here, at a great price, for me, but I could not lie on it. It seemed as if it would throw me off as soon as I lay down; it is a cheating device, like all these innovations the Americans have brought into the country. But Senor Felipe till now thought it a luxury; now he tosses on it, and says it is throwing him all the time.”

Alessandro smiled, in spite of his reverence for the Senora. “I once lay down on one myself, Senora,” he said, “and that was what I said to my father. It was like a wild horse under me, making himself ready to buck. I thought perhaps the invention was of the saints, that men should not sleep too long.”

“There is a pile of raw-hides,” said Juan, “well cured, but not too stiff; Juan Jose was to have sent them off to-day to be sold; one of those will be just right. It must not be too dry.”

“The fresher the better,” said Alessandro, “so it have no dampness. Shall I make the bed, Senora?” he asked, “and will the Senora permit that I make it on the veranda? I was just asking Juan Can if he thought I might be so bold as to ask you to let me bring Senor Felipe into the outer air. With us, it is thought death to be shut up in walls, as he has been so long. Not till we are sure to die, do we go into the dark like that.”

The Senora hesitated. She did not share Alessandro's prejudice in favor of fresh air.

“Night and day both?” she said. “Surely it is not well to sleep out in the night?”

“That is the best of all, Senora,” replied Alessandro, earnestly. “I beg the Senora to try it. If Senor Felipe have not mended greatly after the first night he had so slept, then Alessandro will be a liar.”

“No, only mistaken,” said the Senora, gently. She felt herself greatly drawn to this young man by his devotion, as she thought, of Felipe. “When I die and leave Felipe here,” she had more than once said to herself, “it would be a great good to him to have such a servant as this on the place.”

“Very well, Alessandro,” she replied; “make the bed, and we will try it at once.”

This was early in the forenoon. The sun was still high in the west, when Ramona, sitting as usual in the veranda, at her embroidery, saw Alessandro coming, followed by two men, bearing the raw-hide bed.

“What can that be?” she said. “Some new invention of Alessandro's, but for what?”

“A bed for the Senor Felipe, Senorita,” said Alessandro, running lightly up the steps. “The Senora has given permission to place it here on the veranda, and Senor Felipe is to lie here day and night; and it will be a marvel in your eyes how he will gain strength. It is the close room which is keeping him weak now; he has no illness.”

“I believe that is the truth, Alessandro,” exclaimed Ramona; “I have been thinking the same thing. My head aches after I am in that room but an hour, and when I come here I am well. But the nights too, Alessandro? Is it not harmful to sleep out in the night air?”

“Why, Senorita?” asked Alessandro, simply.

And Ramona had no answer, except, “I do not know; I have always heard so.”

“My people do not think so,” replied Alessandro; “unless it is cold, we like it better. It is good, Senorita, to look up at the sky in the night.”

“I should think it would be,” cried Ramona. “I never thought of it. I should like to do it.”

Alessandro was busy, with his face bent down, arranging the bedstead in a sheltered corner of the veranda. If his face had been lifted, Ramona would have seen a look on it that would have startled her more than the one she had surprised a few days previous, after the incident with Margarita. All day there had been coming and going in Alessandro's brain a confused procession of thoughts, vague yet intense. Put in words, they would have been found to be little more than ringing changes on this idea: “The Senorita Ramona has Indian blood in her veins. The Senorita Ramona is alone. The Senora loves her not. Indian blood! Indian blood!” These, or something like them, would have been the words; but Alessandro did not put them in words. He only worked away on the rough posts for Senor Felipe's bedstead, hammered, fitted, stretched the raw-hide and made it tight and firm, driving every nail, striking every blow, with a bounding sense of exultant strength, as if there were suddenly all around him a new heaven and a new earth.

Now, when he heard Ramona say suddenly in her girlish, eager tone, “It must be; I never thought of it; I should like to try it,” these vague confused thoughts of the day, and the day's bounding sense of exultant strength, combined in a quick vision before Alessandro's eyes,--a vision of starry skies overhead, Ramona and himself together, looking up to them. But when he raised his head, all he said was, “There, Senorita! That is all firm, now. If Senor Felipe will let me lay him an this bed, he will sleep as he has not slept since he fell ill.”

Ramona ran eagerly into Felipe's room, “The bed is all ready on the veranda,” she exclaimed. “Shall Alessandro come in and carry you out?”

Felipe looked up, startled. The Senora turned on Ramona that expression of gentle, resigned displeasure, which always hurt the girl's sensitive nature far worse than anger. “I had not spoken to Felipe yet of the change, Ramona,” she said. “I supposed that Alessandro would have informed me when the bed was ready; I am sorry you came in so suddenly. Felipe is still very weak, you see.”

“What is it? What is it?” exclaimed Felipe, impatiently.

As soon as it was explained to him, he was like a child in his haste to be moved.

“That's just what I needed!” he exclaimed. “This cursed bed racks every bone in my body, and I have longed for the sun more than ever a thirsty man longed for water. Bless you, Alessandro,” he went on, seeing Alessandro in the doorway. “Come here, and take me up in those long arms of yours, and carry me quick. Already I feel myself better.”

Alessandro lifted him as if he were a baby; indeed, it was but a light burden now, Felipe's wasted body, for a man much less strong than Alessandro to lift.

Ramona, chilled and hurt, ran in advance, carrying pillows and blankets. As she began to arrange them on the couch, the Senora took them from her hands, saying, “I will arrange them myself;” and waved Ramona away.

It was a little thing. Ramona was well used to such. Ordinarily it would have given her no pain she could not conceal. But the girl's nerves were not now in equilibrium. She had had hard work to keep back her tears at the first rebuff. This second was too much. She turned, and walked swiftly away, the tears rolling down her cheeks.

Alessandro saw it; Felipe saw it.

To Felipe the sight was, though painful, not a surprise. He knew but too well how often his mother hurt Ramona. All he thought now, in his weakness, was, “Alas! what a pity my mother does not love Ramona!”

To Alessandro the sight was the one drop too much in the cup. As he stooped to lay Felipe on the bed, he trembled so that Felipe looked up, half afraid.

“Am I still so heavy, Alessandro?” he said smiling.

“It is not your weight, Senor Felipe,” answered Alessandro, off guard, still trembling, his eyes following Ramona.

Felipe saw. In the next second, the eyes of the two young men met. Alessandro's fell before Felipe's. Felipe gazed on, steadily, at Alessandro.

“Ah!” he said; and as he said it, he closed his eyes, and let his head sink back into the pillow.

“Is that comfortable? Is that right?” asked the Senora, who had seen nothing.

“The first comfortable moment I have had, mother,” said Felipe. “Stay, Alessandro, I want to speak to you as soon as I am rested. This move has shaken me up a good deal. Wait.”

“Yes, Senor,” replied Alessandro, and seated himself on the veranda steps.

“If you are to stay, Alessandro,” said the Senora, “I will go and look after some matters that need my attention. I feel always at ease about Senor Felipe when you are with him. You will stay till I come back?”

“Yes, Senora,” said Alessandro, in a tone cold as the Senora's own had been to Ramona. He was no longer in heart the Senora Moreno's servant. In fact, he was at that very moment revolving confusedly in his mind whether there could be any possibility of his getting away before the expiration of the time for which he had agreed to stay.

It was a long time before Felipe opened his eyes. Alessandro thought he was asleep.

At last Felipe spoke. He had been watching Alessandro's face for some minutes. “Alessandro,” he said.

Alessandro sprang to his feet, and walked swiftly to the bedside. He did not know what the next word might be. He felt that the Senor Felipe had seen straight into his heart in that one moment's look, and Alessandro was preparing for anything.

“Alessandro,” said Felipe, “my mother has been speaking to me about your remaining with us permanently. Juan Can is now very old, and after this accident will go on crutches the rest of his days, poor soul! We are in great need of some man who understands sheep, and the care of the place generally.”

As he spoke, he watched Alessandro's face closely. Swift changing expressions passed over it. Surprise predominated. Felipe misunderstood the surprise. “I knew you would be surprised,” he said. “I told my mother that you would not think of it; that you had stayed now only because we were in trouble.”

Alessandro bowed his head gratefully. This recognition from Felipe gave him pleasure.

“Yes, Senor,” he said, “that was it. I told Father Salvierderra it was not for the wages. But my father and I have need of all the money we can earn. Our people are very poor, Senor. I do not know whether my father would think I ought to take the place you offer me, or not, Senor. It would be as he said. I will ask him.”

“Then you would be willing to take it?” asked Felipe.

“Yes, Senor, if my father wished me to take it,” replied Alessandro, looking steadily and gravely at Felipe; adding, after a second's pause, “if you are sure that you desire it, Senor Felipe, it would be a pleasure to me to be of help to you.”

And yet it was only a few moments ago that Alessandro had been turning over in his mind the possibility of leaving the Senora Moreno's service immediately. This change had not been a caprice, not been an impulse of passionate desire to remain near Ramona; it had come from a sudden consciousness that the Senor Felipe would be his friend. And Alessandro was not mistaken.

IX

WHEN the Senora came back to the veranda, she found Felipe asleep, Alessandro standing at the foot of the bed, with his arms crossed on his breast, watching him. As the Senora drew near, Alessandro felt again the same sense of dawning hatred which had seized him at her harsh speech to Ramona. He lowered his eyes, and waited to be dismissed.

“You can go now, Alessandro,” said the Senora. “I will sit here. You are quite sure that it will be safe for Senor Felipe to sleep here all night?”

“It will cure him before many nights,” replied Alessandro, still without raising his eyes, and turning to go.

“Stay,” said the Senora. Alessandro paused. “It will not do for him to be alone here in the night, Alessandro.”

Alessandro had thought of this, and had remembered that if he lay on the veranda floor by Senor Felipe's side, he would also lie under the Senorita's window.

“No, Senora,” he replied. “I will lie here by his side. That was what I had thought, if the Senora is willing.”

“Thank you, Alessandro,” said the Senora, in a tone which would have surprised poor Ramona, still sitting alone in her room, with sad eyes. She did not know the Senora could speak thus sweetly to any one but Felipe. “Thank you! You are kind. I will have a bed made for you.”

“Oh, no.” cried Alessandro; “if the Senora will excuse me, I could not lie on a bed. A raw-hide like Senor Felipe's, and my blanket, are all I want. I could not lie on any bed.”

“To be sure,” thought the Senora; “what was I thinking of! How the boy makes one forget he is an Indian! But the floor is harder than the ground, Alessandro,” she said kindly.

“No, Senora,” he said, “it is all one; and to-night I will not sleep. I will watch Senor Felipe, in case there should be a wind, or he should wake and need something.”

“I will watch him myself till midnight,” said the Senora. “I should feel easier to see how he sleeps at first.”

It was the balmiest of summer nights, and as still as if no living thing were on the earth. There was a full moon, which shone on the garden, and on the white front of the little chapel among the trees. Ramona, from her window, saw Alessandro pacing up and down the walk. She had seen him spread down the raw-hide by Felipe's bed, and had seen the Senora take her place in one of the big carved chairs. She wondered if they were both going to watch; she wondered why the Senora would never let her sit up and watch with Felipe.

“I am not of any use to anybody,” she thought sadly. She dared not go out and ask any questions about the arrangements for the night. At supper the Senora had spoken to her only in the same cold and distant manner which always made her dumb and afraid. She had not once seen Felipe alone during the day. Margarita, who, in the former times,--ah, how far away those former times looked now!--had been a greater comfort to Ramona than she realized,--Margarita now was sulky and silent, never came into Ramona's presence if she could help it, and looked at her sometimes with an expression which made Ramona tremble, and say to herself, “She hates me; She has always hated me since that morning.”

It had been a long, sad day to Ramona; and as she sat in her window leaning her head against the sash, and looked at Alessandro pacing up and down, she felt for the first time, and did not shrink from it nor in any wise disavow or disguise it to herself, that she was glad he loved her. More than this she did not think; beyond this she did not go. Her mind was not like Margarita's, full of fancies bred of freedom in intercourse with men. But distinctly, tenderly glad that Alessandro loved her, and distinctly, tenderly aware how well he loved her, she was, as she sat at her window this night, looking out into the moonlit garden; after she had gone to bed, she could still hear his slow, regular steps on the garden-walk, and the last thought she had, as she fell asleep, was that she was glad Alessandro loved her.

The moon had been long set, and the garden, chapel-front, trees, vines, were all wrapped in impenetrable darkness, when Ramona awoke, sat up in her bed, and listened. All was so still that the sound of Felipe's low, regular breathing came in through her open window. After hearkening to it for a few moments, she rose noiselessly from her bed, and creeping to the window parted the curtains and looked out; noiselessly, she thought; but it was not noiselessly enough to escape Alessandro's quick ear; without a sound, he sprang to his feet, and stood looking at Ramona's window.

“I am here, Senorita,” he whispered. “Do you want anything?”

“Has he slept all night like this?” she whispered back.

“Yes, Senorita. He has not once moved.”

“How good!” said Ramona. “How good!”

Then she stood still; she wanted to speak again to Alessandro, to hear him speak again, but she could think of no more to say. Because she could not, she gave a little sigh.

Alessandro took one swift step towards the window. “May the saints bless you, Senorita,” he whispered fervently.

“Thank you, Alessandro,” murmured Ramona, and glided back to her bed, but not to sleep. It lacked not much of dawn; as the first faint light filtered through the darkness, Ramona heard the Senora's window open.

“Surely she will not strike up the hymn and wake Felipe,” thought Ramona; and she sprang again to the window to listen. A few low words between the Senora and Alessandro, and then the Senora's window closed again, and all was still.

“I thought she would not have the heart to wake him,” said Ramona to herself. “The Virgin would have had no pleasure in our song, I am sure; but I will say a prayer to her instead;” and she sank on her knees at the head of her bed, and began saying a whispered prayer. The footfall of a spider in Ramona's room had not been light enough to escape the ear of that watching lover outside. Again Alessandro's tall figure arose from the floor, turning towards Ramona's window; and now the darkness was so far softened to dusk, that the outline of his form could be seen. Ramona felt it rather than saw it, and stopped praying. Alessandro was sure he had heard her voice.

“Did the Senorita speak?” he whispered, his face close at the curtain. Ramona, startled, dropped her rosary, which rattled as it fell on the wooden floor.

“No, no, Alessandro,” she said, “I did not speak.” And she trembled, she knew not why. The sound of the beads on the floor explained to Alessandro what had been the whispered words he heard.