Ramona

"Is your horse really faster than Jose"s?" said Alessandro. "Then I wish I had sent you. I"ll send you next time."

VII

IT was strange to see how quickly and naturally Alessandro fitted into his place in the household. How tangles straightened out, and rough places became smooth, as he quietly took matters in hand. Luckily, old Juan Can had always liked him, and felt a great sense of relief at the news of his staying on. Not a wholly unselfish relief, perhaps, for since his accident Juan had not been without fears that he might lose his place altogether; there was a Mexican he knew, who had long been scheming to get the situation, and had once openly boasted at a fandango, where he was dancing with Anita, that as soon as that superannuated old fool, Juan Canito, was out of the way, he meant to be the Senora Moreno"s head shepherd himself. To have seen this man in authority on the place, would have driven Juan out of his mind.

But the gentle Alessandro, only an Indian,--and of course the Senora would never think of putting an Indian permanently in so responsible a position on the estate,--it was exactly as Juan would have wished; and he fraternized with Alessandro heartily from the outset; kept him in his room by the hour, giving him hundreds of long-winded directions and explanations about things which, if only he had known it, Alessandro understood far better than he did.

Alessandro"s father had managed the Mission flocks and herds at San Luis Rey for twenty years; few were as skilful as he; he himself owned nearly as many sheep as the Senora Moreno; but this Juan did not know. Neither did he realize that Alessandro, as Chief Pablo"s son, had a position of his own not without dignity and authority. To Juan, an Indian was an Indian, and that was the end of it. The gentle courteousness of Alessandro"s manner, his quiet behavior, were all set down in Juan"s mind to the score of the boy"s native amiability and sweetness. If Juan had been told that the Senor Felipe himself had not been more carefully trained in all precepts of kindliness, honorable dealing, and polite usage, by the Senora, his mother, than had Alessandro by his father, he would have opened his eyes wide. The standards of the two parents were different, to be sure; but the advantage could not be shown to be entirely on the Senora"s side. There were many things that Felipe knew, of which Alessandro was profoundly ignorant; but there were others in which Alessandro could have taught Felipe; and when it came to the things of the soul, and of honor, Alessandro"s plane was the higher of the two. Felipe was a fair-minded, honorable man, as men go; but circ.u.mstances and opportunity would have a hold on him they could never get on Alessandro. Alessandro would not lie; Felipe might. Alessandro was by nature full of veneration and the religious instinct; Felipe had been trained into being a good Catholic. But they were both singularly pure-minded, open-hearted, generous-souled young men, and destined, by the strange chance which had thus brought them into familiar relations, to become strongly attached to each other. After the day on which the madness of Felipe"s fever had been so miraculously soothed and controlled by Alessandro"s singing, he was never again wildly delirious.

When he waked in the night from that first long sleep, he was, as Father Salvierderra had predicted, in his right mind; knew every one, and asked rational questions. But the over-heated and excited brain did not for some time wholly resume normal action. At intervals he wandered, especially when just arousing from sleep; and, strangely enough, it was always for Alessandro that he called at these times, and it seemed always to be music that he craved. He recollected Alessandro"s having sung to him that first night. "I was not so crazy as you all thought,"

he said. "I knew a great many of the things I said, but I couldn"t help saying them; and I heard Ramona ask Alessandro to sing; and when he began, I remember I thought the Virgin had reached down and put her hand on my head and cooled it."

On the second evening, the first after the shearers had left, Alessandro, seeing Ramona in the veranda, went to the foot of the steps, and said, "Senorita, would Senor Felipe like to have me play on the violin to him tonight?"

"Why, whose violin have you got?" exclaimed Ramona, astonished.

"My own, Senorita."

"Your own! I thought you said you did not bring it."

"Yes, Senorita, that is true; but I sent for it last night, and it is here."

"Sent to Temecula and back already!" cried Ramona.

"Yes, Senorita. Our ponies are swift and strong. They can go a hundred miles in a day, and not suffer. It was Jose brought it, and he is at the Ortega"s by this time."

Ramona"s eyes glistened. "I wish I could have thanked him," she said.

"You should have let me know. He ought to have been paid for going."

"I paid him, Senorita; he went for me," said Alessandro, with a shade of wounded pride in the tone, which Ramona should have perceived, but did not, and went on hurting the lover"s heart still more.

"But it was for us that you sent for it, Alessandro; the Senora would rather pay the messenger herself."

"It is paid, Senorita. It is nothing. If the Senor Felipe wishes to hear the violin, I will play;" and Alessandro walked slowly away.

Ramona gazed after him. For the first time, she looked at him with no thought of his being an Indian,--a thought there had surely been no need of her having, since his skin was not a shade darker than Felipe"s; but so strong was the race feeling, that never till that moment had she forgotten it.

"What a superb head, and what a walk!" she thought. Then, looking more observantly, she said: "He walks as if he were offended. He did not like my offering to pay for the messenger. He wanted to do it for dear Felipe. I will tell Felipe, and we will give him some present when he goes away."

"Isn"t he splendid, Senorita?" came in a light laughing tone from Margarita"s lips close to her ear, in the fond freedom of their relation. "Isn"t he splendid? And oh, Senorita, you can"t think how he dances! Last year I danced with him every night; he has wings on his feet, for all he is so tall and big."

There was a coquettish consciousness in the girl"s tone, that was suddenly, for some unexplained reason, exceedingly displeasing to Ramona. Drawing herself away, she spoke to Margarita in a tone she had never before in her life used. "It is not fitting to speak like that about young men. The Senora would be displeased if she heard you," she said, and walked swiftly away leaving poor Margarita as astounded as if she had got a box on the ear.

She looked after Ramona"s retreating figure, then after Alessandro"s.

She had heard them talking together just before she came up. Thoroughly bewildered and puzzled, she stood motionless for several seconds, reflecting; then, shaking her head, she ran away, trying to dismiss the harsh speech from her mind. "Alessandro must have vexed the Senorita,"

she thought, "to make her speak like that to me." But the incident was not so easily dismissed from Margarita"s thoughts. Many times in the day it recurred to her, still a bewilderment and a puzzle, as far from solution as ever. It was a tiny seed, whose name she did not dream of; but it was dropped in soil where it would grow some day,--forcing-house soil, and a bitter seed; and when it blossomed, Ramona would have an enemy.

All unconscious, equally of Margarita"s heart and her own, Ramona proceeded to Felipe"s room. Felipe was sleeping, the Senora sitting by his side, as she had sat for days and nights,--her dark face looking thinner and more drawn each day; her hair looking even whiter, if that could be; and her voice growing hollow from faintness and sorrow.

"Dear Senora," whispered Ramona, "do go out for a few moments while he sleeps, and let me watch,--just on the walk in front of the veranda. The sun is still lying there, bright and warm. You will be ill if you do not have air."

The Senora shook her head. "My place is here," she answered, speaking in a dry, hard tone. Sympathy was hateful to the Senora Moreno; she wished neither to give it nor take it. "I shall not leave him. I do not need the air."

Ramona had a cloth-of-gold rose in her hand. The veranda eaves were now shaded with them, hanging down like a thick fringe of golden ta.s.sels. It was the rose Felipe loved best. Stooping, she laid it on the bed, near Felipe"s head. "He will like to see it when he wakes," she said.

The Senora seized it, and flung it far out in the room. "Take it away!

Flowers are poison when one is ill," she said coldly. "Have I never told you that?"

"No, Senora," replied Ramona, meekly; and she glanced involuntarily at the saucer of musk which the Senora kept on the table close to Felipe"s pillow.

"The musk is different," said the Senora, seeing the glance. "Musk is a medicine; it revives."

Ramona knew, but she would have never dared to say, that Felipe hated musk. Many times he had said to her how he hated the odor; but his mother was so fond of it, that it must always be that the veranda and the house would be full of it. Ramona hated it too. At times it made her faint, with a deadly faintness. But neither she nor Felipe would have confessed as much to the Senora; and if they had, she would have thought it all a fancy.

"Shall I stay?" asked Ramona, gently.

"As you please," replied the Senora. The simple presence of Ramona irked her now with a feeling she did not pretend to a.n.a.lyze, and would have been terrified at if she had. She would not have dared to say to herself, in plain words: "Why is that girl well and strong, and my Felipe lying here like to die! If Felipe dies, I cannot bear the sight of her. What is she, to be preserved of the saints!"

But that, or something like it, was what she felt whenever Ramona entered the room; still more, whenever she a.s.sisted in ministering to Felipe. If it had been possible, the Senora would have had no hands but her own do aught for her boy. Even tears from Ramona sometimes irritated her. "What does she know about loving Felipe! He is nothing to her!"

thought the Senora, strangely mistaken, strangely blind, strangely forgetting how feeble is the tie of blood in the veins by the side of love in the heart.

If into this fiery soul of the Senora"s could have been dropped one second"s knowledge of the relative positions she and Ramona already occupied in Felipe"s heart, she would, on the spot, have either died herself or have slain Ramona, one or the other. But no such knowledge was possible; no such idea could have found entrance into the Senora"s mind. A revelation from Heaven of it could hardly have reached even her ears. So impenetrable are the veils which, fortunately for us all, are forever held by viewless hands between us and the nearest and closest of our daily companions.

At twilight of this day Felipe was restless and feverish again. He had dozed at intervals all day long, but had had no refreshing sleep.

"Send for Alessandro," he said. "Let him come and sing to me."

"He has his violin now; he can play, if you would like that better,"

said Ramona; and she related what Alessandro had told her of the messenger"s having ridden to Temecula and back in a night and half a day, to bring it.

"I wanted to pay the man," she said; "I knew of course your mother would wish to reward him. But I fancy Alessandro was offended. He answered me shortly that it was paid, and it was nothing."

"You couldn"t have offended him more," said Felipe. "What a pity! He is as proud as Lucifer himself, that Alessandro. You know his father has always been the head of their band; in fact, he has authority over several bands; General, they call it now, since they got the t.i.tle from the Americans; they used to call it Chief., and until Father Peyri left San Luis Rey, Pablo was in charge of all the sheep, and general steward and paymaster. Father Peyri trusted him with everything; I"ve heard he would leave boxes full of uncounted gold in Pablo"s charge to pay off the Indians. Pablo reads and writes, and is very well off; he has as many sheep as we have, I fancy!"

"What!" exclaimed Ramona, astonished. "They all look as if they were poor."

"Oh, well, so they are," replied Felipe, "compared with us; but one reason is, they share everything with each other. Old Pablo feeds and supports half his village, they say. So long as he has anything, he will never see one of his Indians hungry."

"How generous!" warmly exclaimed Ramona; "I think they are better than we are, Felipe!"

"I think so, too," said Felipe. "That"s what I have always said. The Indians are the most generous people in the world. Of course they have learned it partly from us; but they were very much so when the Fathers first came here. You ask Father Salvierderra some day. He has read all Father Junipero"s and Father Crespi"s diaries, and he says it is wonderful how the wild savages gave food to every one who came."

"Felipe, you are talking too much," said the Senora"s voice, in the doorway; and as she spoke she looked reproachfully at Ramona. If she had said in words, "See how unfit you are to be trusted with Felipe. No wonder I do not leave the room except when I must!" her meaning could not have been plainer. Ramona felt it keenly, and not without some misgiving that it was deserved.

"Oh, dear Felipe, has it hurt you?" she said timidly; and to the Senora, "Indeed, Senora, he has been speaking but a very few moments, very low."