Chapter 15

“Wait, dear!” exclaimed his mother. “One thing at a time, I see how full your loving heart is, and I was never prouder of you as my son than when listening just now to your eloquent defence of Ramona, Perhaps you may be right and I wrong as to her character and conduct. We will not discuss those points.” It was here that the Senora had perceived some things that it would be out of her power to do. “We will not discuss those, because they do not touch the real point at issue. What it is our duty to do by Ramona, in such a matter as this, does not turn on her worthiness or unworthiness. The question is, Is it right for you to allow her to do what you would not allow your own sister to do?” The Senora paused for a second, noted with secret satisfaction how puzzled and unhappy Felipe looked; then, in a still gentler voice, she went on, “You surely would not think that right, my son, would you?” And now the Senora waited for an answer.

“No, mother,” came reluctantly from Felipe's lips. “I suppose not; but--”

“I was sure my own son could make no other reply,” interrupted the Senora. She did not wish Felipe at present to do more than reply to her questions. “Of course it would not be right for us to let Ramona do anything which we would not let her do if she were really of our own blood. That is the way I have always looked at my obligation to her. My sister intended to rear her as her own daughter. She had given her her own name. When my sister died, she transferred to me all her right and responsibility in and for the child. You do not suppose that if your aunt had lived, she would have ever given her consent to her adopted daughter's marrying an Indian, do you?”

Again the Senora paused for a reply, and again the reluctant Felipe said, in a low tone, “No, I suppose she would not.”

“Very well. Then that lays a double obligation on us. It is not only that we are not to permit Ramona to do a thing which we would consider disgraceful to one of our own blood; we are not to betray the trust reposed in us by the only person who had a right to control her, and who transferred that trust to us. Is not that so?”

“Yes, mother,” said the unhappy Felipe.

He saw the meshes closing around him. He felt that there was a flaw somewhere in his mother's reasoning, but he could not point it out; in fact, he could hardly make it distinct to himself. His brain was confused. Only one thing he saw clearly, and that was, that after all had been said and done, Ramona would still marry Alessandro. But it was evident that it would never be with his mother's consent. “Nor with mine either, openly, the way she puts it. I don't see how it can be; and yet I have promised Alessandro to do all I could for him. Curse the luck, I wish he had never set foot on the place!” said Felipe in his heart, growing unreasonable, and tired with the perplexity.

The Senora continued: “I shall always blame myself bitterly for having failed to see what was going on. As you say, Alessandro has been with us a great deal since your illness, with his music, and singing, and one thing and another; but I can truly say that I never thought of Ramona's being in danger of looking upon him in the light of a possible lover, any more than of her looking thus upon Juan Canito, or Luigo, or any other of the herdsmen or laborers. I regret it more than words can express, and I do not know what we can do, now that it has happened.”

“That's it, mother! That's it!” broke in Felipe. “You see, you see it is too late now.”

The Senora went on as if Felipe had not spoken. “I suppose you would really very much regret to part with Alessandro, and your word is in a way pledged to him, as you had asked him if he would stay on the place, Of course, now that all this has happened, it would be very unpleasant for Ramona to stay here, and see him continually--at least for a time, until she gets over this strange passion she seems to have conceived for him. It will not last. Such sudden passions never do.” The Senora artfully interpolated, “What should you think, Felipe, of having her go back to the Sisters' school for a time? She was very happy there.”

The Senora had strained a point too far. Felipe's self-control suddenly gave way, and as impetuously as he had spoken in the beginning, he spoke again now, nerved by the memory of Ramona's face and tone as she had cried to him in the garden, “Oh, Felipe, you won't let her shut me up in the convent, will you?” “Mother!” he cried, “you would never do that. You would not shut the poor girl up in the convent!”

The Senora raised her eyebrows in astonishment. “Who spoke of shutting up?” she said. “Ramona has already been there at school. She might go again. She is not too old to learn. A change of scene and occupation is the best possible cure for a girl who has a thing of this sort to get over. Can you propose anything better, my son? What would you advise?” And a third time the Senora paused for an answer.

These pauses and direct questions of the Senora's were like nothing in life so much as like that stage in a spider's processes when, withdrawing a little way from a half-entangled victim, which still supposes himself free, it rests from its weaving, and watches the victim flutter. Subtle questions like these, assuming, taking for granted as settled, much which had never been settled at all, were among the best weapons in the Senora's armory. They rarely failed her.

“Advise!” cried Felipe, excitedly. “Advise! This is what I advise--to let Ramona and Alessandro marry. I can't help all you say about our obligations. I dare say you're right; and it's a cursedly awkward complication for us, anyhow, the way you put it.”

“Yes, awkward for you, as the head of our house,” interrupted the Senora, sighing. “I don't quite see how you would face it.”

“Well, I don't propose to face it,” continued Felipe, testily. “I don't propose to have anything to do with it, from first to last. Let her go away with him, if she wants to.'

“Without our consent?” said the Senora, gently.

“Yes, without it, if she can't go with it; and I don't see, as you have stated it, how we could exactly take any responsibility about marrying her to Alessandro. But for heaven's sake, mother, let her go! She will go, any way. You haven't the least idea how she loves Alessandro, or how he loves her. Let her go!”

“Do you really think she would run away with him, if it came to that?” asked the Senora, earnestly. “Run away and marry him, spite of our refusing to consent to the marriage?”

“I do,” said Felipe.

“Then it is your opinion, is it, that the only thing left for us to do, is to wash our hands of it altogether, and leave her free to do what she pleases?”

“That's just what I do think, mother,” replied Felipe, his heart growing lighter at her words. “That's just what I do think. We can't prevent it, and it is of no use to try. Do let us tell them they can do as they like.”

“Of course, Alessandro must leave us, then,” said the Senora. “They could not stay here.”

“I don't see why!” said Felipe, anxiously.

“You will, my son, if you think a moment. Could we possibly give a stronger indorsement to their marriage than by keeping them here? Don't you see that would be so?”

Felipe's eyes fell. “Then I suppose they couldn't be married here, either,” he said.

“What more could we do than that, for a marriage that we heartily approved of, my son?”

“True, mother;” and Felipe clapped his hand to his forehead. “But then we force them to run away!”

“Oh, no.” said the Senora, icily. “If they go, they will go of their own accord. We hope they will never do anything so foolish and wrong. If they do, I suppose we shall always be held in a measure responsible for not having prevented it. But if you think it is not wise, or of no use to attempt that, I do not see what there is to be done.”

Felipe did not speak. He felt discomfited; felt as if he had betrayed his friend Alessandro, his sister Ramona; as if a strange complication, network of circumstances, had forced him into a false position; he did not see what more he could ask, what more could be asked, of his mother; he did not see, either, that much less could have been granted to Alessandro and Ramona; he was angry, wearied, perplexed.

The Senora studied his face. “You do not seem satisfied, Felipe dear,” she said tenderly. “As, indeed, how could you be in this unfortunate state of affairs? But can you think of anything different for us to do?”

“No,” said Felipe, bitterly. “I can't, that's the worst of it. It is just turning Ramona out of the house, that's all.”

“Felipe! Felipe!” exclaimed the Senora, “how unjust you are to yourself! You know you would never do that! You know that she has always had a home here as if she were a daughter; and always will have, as long as she wishes it. If she chooses to turn her back on it, and go away, is it our fault? Do not let your pity for this misguided girl blind you to what is just to yourself and to me. Turn Ramona out of the house! You know I promised my sister to bring her up as my own child; and I have always felt that my son would receive the trust from me, when I died. Ramona has a home under the Moreno roof so long as she will accept it. It is not just, Felipe, to say that we turn her out;” and tears stood in the Senora's eyes.

“Forgive me, dear mother,” cried the unhappy Felipe. “Forgive me for adding one burden to all you have to bear. Truth is, this miserable business has so distraught my senses, I can't seem to see anything as it is. Dear mother, it is very hard for you. I wish it were done with.”

“Thanks for your precious sympathy, my Felipe,” replied the Senora. “If it were not for you, I should long ago have broken down beneath my cares and burdens. But among them all, have been few so grievous as this. I feel myself and our home dishonored. But we must submit. As you say, Felipe, I wish it were done with. It would be as well, perhaps, to send for Ramona at once, and tell her what we have decided. She is no doubt in great anxiety; we will see her here.”

Felipe would have greatly preferred to see Ramona alone; but as he knew not how to bring this about he assented to his mother's suggestion.

Opening her door, the Senora walked slowly down the passage-way, unlocked Ramona's door, and said: “Ramona, be so good as to come to my room. Felipe and I have something to say to you.”

Ramona followed, heavy-hearted. The words, “Felipe and I,” boded no good.

“The Senora has made Felipe think just as she does herself,” thought Ramona. “Oh, what will become of me!” and she stole a reproachful, imploring look at Felipe. He smiled back in a way which reassured her; but the reassurance did not last long.

“Senorita Ramona Ortegna,” began the Senora. Felipe shivered. He had had no conception that his mother could speak in that way. The words seemed to open a gulf between Ramona and all the rest of the world, so cold and distant they sounded,--as the Senora might speak to an intruding stranger.

“Senorita Ramona Ortegna,” she said, “my son and I have been discussing what it is best for us to do in the mortifying and humiliating position in which you place us by your relation with the Indian Alessandro. Of course you know--or you ought to know--that it is utterly impossible for us to give our consent to your making such a marriage; we should be false to a trust, and dishonor our own family name, if we did that.”

Ramona's eyes dilated, her cheeks paled; she opened her lips, but no sound came from them; she looked toward Felipe, and seeing him with downcast eyes, and an expression of angry embarrassment on his face, despair seized her. Felipe had deserted their cause. Oh, where, where was Alessandro! Clasping her hands, she uttered a low cry,--a cry that cut Felipe to the heart. He was finding out, in thus being witness of Ramona's suffering, that she was far nearer and dearer to him than he had realized. It would have taken very little, at such moments as these, to have made Felipe her lover again; he felt now like springing to her side, folding his arms around her, and bidding his mother defiance. It took all the self-control he could gather, to remain silent, and trust to Ramona's understanding him later.

Ramona's cry made no break in the smooth, icy flow of the Senora's sentences. She gave no sign of having heard it, but continued: “My son tells me that he thinks our forbidding it would make no difference; that you would go away with the man all the same. I suppose he is right in thinking so, as you yourself told me that even if Father Salvierderra forbade it, you would disobey him. Of course, if this is your determination, we are powerless. Even if I were to put you in the keeping of the Church, which is what I am sure my sister, who adopted you as her child, would do, if she were alive, you would devise some means of escape, and thus bring a still greater and more public scandal on the family. Felipe thinks that it is not worth while to attempt to bring you to reason in that way; and we shall therefore do nothing. I wish to impress it upon you that my son, as head of this house, and I, as my sister's representative, consider you a member of our own family. So long as we have a home for ourselves, that home is yours, as it always has been. If you choose to leave it, and to disgrace yourself and us by marrying an Indian, we cannot help ourselves.”

The Senora paused. Ramona did not speak. Her eyes were fixed on the Senora's face, as if she would penetrate to her inmost soul; the girl was beginning to recognize the Senora's true nature; her instincts and her perceptions were sharpened by love.

“Have you anything to say to me or to my son?” asked the Senora.

“No, Senora,” replied Ramona; “I do not think of anything more to say than I said this morning. Yes,” she added, “there is. Perhaps I shall not speak with you again before I go away. I thank you once more for the home you have given me for so many years. And you too, Felipe,” she continued, turning towards Felipe, her face changing, all her pent-up affection and sorrow looking out of her tearful eyes,--“you too, dear Felipe. You have always been so good to me. I shall always love you as long as I live;” and she held out both her hands to him. Felipe took them in his, and was about to speak, when the Senora interrupted him. She did not intend to have any more of this sort of affectionate familiarity between her son and Ramona.

“Are we to understand that you are taking your leave now?” she said. “Is it your purpose to go at once?”

“I do not know, Senora,” stammered Ramona; “I have not seen Alessandro; I have not heard--” And she looked up in distress at Felipe, who answered compassionately,--

“Alessandro has gone.”

“Gone!” shrieked Ramona. “Gone! not gone, Felipe!”

“Only for four days,” replied Felipe. “To Temecula. I thought it would be better for him to be away for a day or two. He is to come back immediately. Perhaps he will be back day after to-morrow.”

“Did he want to go? What did he go for? Why didn't you let me go with him? Oh, why, why did he go?” cried Ramona.

“He went because my son told him to go,” broke in the Senora, impatient of this scene, and of the sympathy she saw struggling in Felipe's expressive features. “My son thought, and rightly, that the sight of him would be more than I could bear just now; so he ordered him to go away, and Alessandro obeyed.”

Like a wounded creature at bay, Ramona turned suddenly away from Felipe, and facing the Senora, her eyes resolute and dauntless spite of the streaming tears, exclaimed, lifting her right hand as she spoke, “You have been cruel; God will punish you!” and without waiting to see what effect her words had produced, without looking again at Felipe, she walked swiftly out of the room.

“You see,” said the Senora, “you see she defies us.”

“She is desperate,” said Felipe. “I am sorry I sent Alessandro away.”

“No, my son,” replied the Senora, “you were wise, as you always are. It may bring her to her senses, to have a few days' reflection in solitude.”

“You do not mean to keep her locked up, mother, do you?” cried Felipe.

The Senora turned a look of apparently undisguised amazement on him. “You would not think that best, would you? Did you not say that all we could do, was simply not to interfere with her in any way? To wash our hands, so far as is possible, of all responsibility about her?”

“Yes, yes,” said the baffled Felipe; “that was what I said. But, mother--” He stopped. He did not know what he wanted to say.

The Senora looked tenderly at him, her face full of anxious inquiry.

“What is it, Felipe dear? Is there anything more you think I ought to say or do?” she asked.

“What is it you are going to do, mother?” said Felipe. “I don't seem to understand what you are going to do.”

“Nothing, Felipe! You have entirely convinced me that all effort would be thrown away. I shall do nothing,” replied the Senora. “Nothing whatever.”

“Then as long as Ramona is here, everything will be just as it always has been?” said Felipe.

The Senora smiled sadly. “Dear Felipe, do you think that possible? A girl who has announced her determination to disobey not only you and me, but Father Salvierderra, who is going to bring disgrace both on the Moreno and the Ortegna name,--we can't feel exactly the same towards her as we did before, can we?”

Felipe made an impatient gesture. “No, of course not. But I mean, is everything to be just the same, outwardly, as it was before?”

“I supposed so,” said the Senora. “Was not that your idea? We must try to have it so, I think. Do not you?”

“Yes,” groaned Felipe, “if we can!”

XIII

THE Senora Moreno had never before been so discomfited as in this matter of Ramona and Alessandro. It chafed her to think over her conversation with Felipe; to recall how far the thing she finally attained was from the thing she had in view when she began. To have Ramona sent to the convent, Alessandro kept as overseer of the place, and the Ortegna jewels turned into the treasury of the Church,--this was the plan she had determined on in her own mind. Instead of this, Alessandro was not to be overseer on the place; Ramona would not go to the convent: she would be married to Alessandro, and they would go away together; and the Ortegna jewels,--well, that was a thing to be decided in the future; that should be left to Father Salvierderra to decide. Bold as the Senora was, she had not quite the courage requisite to take that question wholly into her own hands.

One thing was clear, Felipe must not be consulted in regard to them. He had never known of them, and need not now. Felipe was far too much in sympathy with Ramona to take a just view of the situation. He would be sure to have a quixotic idea of Ramona's right of ownership. It was not impossible that Father Salvierderra might have the same feeling. If so, she must yield; but that would go harder with her than all the rest. Almost the Senora would have been ready to keep the whole thing a secret from the Father, if he had not been at the time of the Senora Ortegna's death fully informed of all the particulars of her bequest to her adopted child. At any rate, it would be nearly a year before the Father came again, and in the mean time she would not risk writing about it. The treasure was as safe in Saint Catharine's keeping as it had been all these fourteen years; it should still lie hidden there. When Ramona went away with Alessandro, she would write to Father Salvierderra, simply stating the facts in her own way, and telling him that all further questions must wait for decision until they met.

And so she plotted and planned, and mapped out the future in her tireless weaving brain, till she was somewhat soothed for the partial failure of her plans.

There is nothing so skilful in its own defence as imperious pride. It has an ingenious system of its own, of reprisals,--a system so ingenious that the defeat must be sore indeed, after which it cannot still find some booty to bring off! And even greater than this ingenuity at reprisals is its capacity for self-deception. In this regard, it outdoes vanity a thousandfold. Wounded vanity knows when it is mortally hurt; and limps off the field, piteous, all disguises thrown away. But pride carries its banner to the last; and fast as it is driven from one field unfurls it in another, never admitting that there is a shade less honor in the second field than in the first, or in the third than in the second; and so on till death. It is impossible not to have a certain sort of admiration for this kind of pride. Cruel, those who have it, are to all who come in their way; but they are equally cruel to themselves, when pride demands the sacrifice. Such pride as this has led many a forlorn hope, on the earth, when all other motives have died out of men's breasts; has won many a crown, which has not been called by its true name.

Before the afternoon was over, the Senora had her plan, her chart of the future, as it were, all reconstructed; the sting of her discomfiture soothed; the placid quiet of her manner restored; her habitual occupations also, and little ways, all resumed. She was going to do “nothing” in regard to Ramona. Only she herself knew how much that meant; how bitterly much! She wished she were sure that Felipe also would do “nothing;” but her mind still misgave her about Felipe. Unpityingly she had led him on, and entangled him in his own words, step by step, till she had brought him to the position she wished him to take. Ostensibly, his position and hers were one, their action a unit; all the same, she did not deceive herself as to his real feeling about the affair. He loved Ramona. He liked Alessandro. Barring the question of family pride, which he had hardly thought of till she suggested it, and which he would not dwell on apart from her continuing to press it,--barring this, he would have liked to have Alessandro marry Ramona and remain on the place. All this would come uppermost in Felipe's mind again when he was removed from the pressure of her influence. Nevertheless, she did not intend to speak with him on the subject again, or to permit him to speak to her. Her ends would be best attained by taking and keeping the ground that the question of their non-interference having been settled once for all, the painful topic should never be renewed between them. In patient silence they must await Ramona's action; must bear whatever of disgrace and pain she chose to inflict on the family which had sheltered her from her infancy till now.