The Ornaments of Love

by G A Dazio

  “Why was I not compatible with him? What’s wrong with me?” the girl asked quietly.

  “Nothing dear, nothing at all! You mustn’t believe that this was your shortcoming, for really it wasn’t. Eduardo was a very unique man, and to think that a young girl like you should have been able to receive him... It’s ridiculous, really! You are just a girl.”

  “So, then it will not always be this way? Do you think one day I would be able to receive a man like the General if I had to?”

  “What a question! Why does this matter to you?”

  “What if it is the same with Dídac? What if I cannot receive him?”

  Marcelina laughed in spite of herself. “No, no dear, you will not have to worry.”

  “But what if...?”

  “Well, I do not purport to know the answer to your question, but I can tell you that my best guess would be that you will never come across a man like the General ever again. It would be highly unlikely.”

  Veronica wasn’t sure if she believed Marcelina. Somehow, she felt as if her sexual compatibility were a delicate issue that had not been even slightly resolved. The horror of finding herself in the same situation with the young man whom she was engaged to was a nightmare, one that had been playing over and over in her mind, plaguing her with fear for too long now.

  “Dídac...,” the girl muttered soundlessly.

  Marcelina eyed Veronica with a shocked lift of her eyebrow.

  “Dídac!” the woman retorted. She began to laugh despite herself. “The boy? This has truly concerned you?” The very thought of it sent her into another fit of laughter.

  “Tia...?” the girl started apprehensively.

  “No, dear. No, no, no. Do not even concern yourself with that thought. He is just not that species of man, for Heaven’s sake! My God, you do go out of your way to endow him beyond reason.”

  Veronica was angered by the woman’s teasing. Her face showed a disappointment that she went out of her way to make strikingly apparent.

  “What is that face?” Marcelina asked incredulously. “You don’t expect me to take that seriously, do you? But really, with his fair skin and those blond locks, you think he is going to be designed like a southern man? Veronica, no, this is not likely.”

  Veronica didn’t want this. She felt her aunt had failed to make something clear to her and was teasing her about it. Blond! What difference did it make that he was blond?

  “I don’t understand you, Tia. What has his hair to do with my concerns?”

  Marcelina loved this moment, she was ashamed to realize. She loved that she had grown to know so very much about men, of their variety, of their breed. But there was no point in divulging this matter with a girl who was about to spend the rest of her life with one man.

  “Please, take my word for it. You have found someone perfect for you. I knew from the moment I saw him that he would be perfect for you. And I don’t want you to worry about anything. I promise he will provide for you everything you could ever need. I know it to be true! You would know after five minutes of speaking with him, if you were me, that he is so perfectly suited to provide you with love and happiness, more perfectly suited than you could ever hope a husband to be.”

  Veronica was grateful to hear those words, even if they were not the scientific explanation she might have hoped for. It was enough to know that her fears were unfounded, and she relaxed at the satisfaction that again overtook her anxiety.

  “And you! You will be able to teach him a thing or two that his father has perhaps... forgotten to mention, hmm?”

  Veronica laughed joyously at the thought of it, and once again her aunt had somehow managed in a few minutes, and with a minimum of words, to render her completely satisfied and at ease.

  * * *

  When she was in her bedroom that night, still feeling the stinging pain of not having Eduardo to hold her, to love her, Marcelina couldn’t help but feel that the young girl was marvelous to be so intuitive and thoughtful of her pending situation. Had Marcelina been even half as thoughtful at that age, she would have most certainly avoided a catalogue of grief from her clumsy trials and errors. She was certain that having avoided the embarrassing failures of youth would have proven to be a good thing. There were her contemporaries who believed that each woman must endure the same torturous trials in order to become a lady of substance. But Marcelina didn’t see it in this way. Marcelina felt that every woman enters this life on a journey, one which is unique and whole onto itself, unduplicated in any mother’s forethoughts.

  Marcelina felt that she was coming upon an opportunity which would be vital to Veronica’s journey. She didn’t think it was a mother’s place to dictate how to live one’s life, but rather silently and secretly observe a daughter’s journey, seeing to it whenever possible that the path was made easier. All of this assistance would result in the young woman’s life possessing a wealth of possibilities and opportunities impossible by any other means. A journey filled with wondrous new adventures that might ultimately make way for a greater abundance of happiness. And in the end, it was Veronica’s happiness which motivated the Marquesa’s immediate actions.

  And so, without words of assurance or leave, the thought of Marcelina’s next venture on her niece’s behalf formulated in her mind. Indeed, a task lie ahead of the woman that she would execute with the speed and grace that she prided herself on.

  Her eyes closed, the low blue light from the moon through the draperies quieted, and Marcelina saw her next journey clearly in the darkness.

  She would not rely upon the intuitions of his father, nor would she insult herself with hope in his mother. No, she would steer straight to the heart of the matter, as she did in all situations.

  She would begin Dídac’s education immediately.

  Chapter Twenty

  The details of the plan eluded her at first, they always did. She could be certain of the means to and the result of any of her ambitions, but the finer points of intricacy always seemed tiresome and hazy in the beginning.

  Marcelina did not have the slightest doubt that she could seduce the young man, the boy with the supernatural green eyes who worshiped her niece with his uncontrollable stare. On the contrary, seduction would be the easiest of her trials. Marcelina knew she was a beautiful woman and that he was a boy of barely eighteen who, if memory served, couldn’t sit still, he was so full of youthful exuberance. Winning him over would hardly be a task.

  And she had little doubt as to his discretion. She would not have entertained the thought of this enterprise had she believed he was not a gentleman. And just whom would he tell if he wasn’t? No one of any importance, she mused.

  The trick was to provide the opportunity for them both. Discretion in this venture was beyond important, not so much for the boy’s sake as it was for Veronica’s. If rumors of something scandalous were to surface about the young man, they might serve to lionize him, but then they might not. Rumors certainly wouldn’t have the slightest effect on Marcelina, they never had in the past; her money had seen to it.

  But rumors might very well injure Veronica, not so much her reputation as her feelings. Marcelina was not impervious to the girl’s alarming youth, and regardless of the toils she had taken in educating her, eradicating the potent possibility of injuring the unstable emotions of a fifteen-year-old girl was not an achievement that should be expected.

  Marcelina would have to ensure a way of educating both her precious pupils in a discreet manner that would ensure that neither of them ever realized the other’s experience.

  “If he only has a few more weeks before entering the academy, you must be sure and give him leave to visit Veronica anytime he wishes. Surely, you will not force him to drag one of you along whenever the boy wants to see her. As long as one of us are present when they are together...”

  The Marquesa was in rare form, she thought. She spent the lazy Sunday afternoon with Francesca, who had accompanied her from morning mass back to the Castell de Amontoní. V
eronica had remained at home for feminine reasons that the two ladies spoke vaguely of in hushed tones, and Dídac had escorted his father on another one of his endless trips downtown to speak with a dozen colleagues.

  The two ladies were more than delighted to stroll through the grounds, now that the weather had blessedly lightened up. They walked slowly together, arm in arm, followed by both ladies’ entourages, none of whom had yet been given leave to re-enter the house after mass.

  The cooler air had made the day spectacular, the Marquesa thought. The sea air drifted in moist fragrant gusts through their skirts and over their sun hats, instilling the most pleasant, lazy contentment in their joints. They strolled along the gravel pathways, stopping only now and again to sit and enjoy the lovely blooms, which had somehow not been destroyed by the weeks of blistering heat.

  Marcelina could not have hoped for a greater sign of approval from Heaven than this glorious day. The very air was such that she felt the world might kneel before her and conform to her every design. It was as if the very crystal hue of the azure sky had been tinted the perfect shade, the sun’s warmth erecting the heavens marvelously on this day so that nothing could interfere with her enterprise.

  “Oh, but it is not nearly so demanding for us to accompany Dídac. Really, you make me think you don’t want me around,” Francesca teased gaily. “And what will happen when he is off at school and I have no reason to come calling? You think I will not suffer then?”

  Marcelina was warmed by the words. With Blanca de Flores gone from Barcelona, it had been so long that she had any woman for a friend. How I will adore the woman when all of this is over and done with, the two children married and quarreling all the time, and she and I content with our success, sitting together after lunch every week with our minds at ease, she thought. What an opportunity I will have then!

  “Don’t be silly, Francesca! As it is, I hardly see you as much as I would like. You know very well what I am speaking of. These children have not known each other for more than three months, and all their time together has included a veritable cavalry staring them down so that they are made to feel like cattle on the auction block. The only privacy they could hope to have comes in their correspondence, and having read both sides of it, I can assure you that they are just as inclined to remain proper in script, as well.”

  “But what is so uncommon in that?” Francesca posed, frankly. “They are engaged to be married, are they not? They will have all the time in the world to get to know each other when they are married in three years.”

  “Yes, in three years! Do you really want to babysit them as if we were the Queen’s guard for the next three years? What’s the point of having us old harpies eying them at every moment if it is settled that they are to be married? Really, let’s not forget that our work is more or less done with. As far as I am concerned, while Veronica is wearing his engagement ring, she is already married to the boy, and I couldn’t be happier with the arrangement. But why should we impose all of this formal nonsense upon ourselves for three long years?

  “I’m not sure I understand you correctly, Marcelina. You wish them not to be supervised before they are married?” She was honestly taken aback by the Marquesa’s suggestion.

  “Supervised, yes. Imprisoned by our presence, no. Dear, really, what will be the use of haunting them like a plague?”

  “Marcelina!”

  The Marquesa laughed easily and pulled the woman’s arm closer to her as if she were a young girl. “No, don’t you play that role, you know very well what I am talking about. What will they do, spend all that time smiling stupidly at one another without ever having the chance to really understand each other? Dídac doesn’t strike me as the type of young man who will be happy with a caricature for a wife, some fool kept in a drawing room to entertain his guests. I can promise you that my niece will resign herself to no such position. They’re in love, dear. And the only thing ridiculous about that is they hardly know anything at all about each other! It’s all amazing to me.

  “But really, they already know what their boundaries before marriage are. You will never convince me that your son is not every inch a gentleman, and the very thought that I should concern myself with what they say to each other privately is pointless. I know his values. He makes everyone in his presence strikingly aware of the man his father has raised and his mother has tempered. And I know my niece. I know she expects him to be every bit the gentleman that he has proven he is. So, what is the point of scrutinizing their every word, pushing ourselves to guard against the slightest improper question or behavior? It all seems a tremendous waste of time.”

  The lady had heard all that the Marquesa had said, and she knew that, though it might seem an unconventional outlook to anyone else, between the two of them it was the most reasonable one. Francesca trusted her son as much as she loved him, and realized that she had carried out the motions of a mother the whole time the two had known each other.

  Dídac had courted the young girl like a gentleman, taking the reins from his parents and seeking out his future with this girl without either of the two being made aware of it until he had set his own path. These were not the actions of a boy who needed a mother’s hand to guide him. That time was past. Dídac had proven to her with each passing day that he had chosen to become a man and behaved like one with a remarkable sense of valor. And it provided her with a magnificent sense of pride as she conceded to her dear friend that their children were more than capable of steering their course in life with minimal help in the future.

  “I’m so very happy we discussed this,” Francesca said now. “It was something I have thought over long, but the idea would’ve never been realized into words.”

  “Oh, but it is so good to hear you say that! The thought has occurred to me now for some time, and I don’t know what I would have done if I had to go on pretending that my new nephew’s behavior was of the slightest interest to me. Really, I am so in love with the boy, I probably would have found myself constructing elaborate schemes to get the young man alone with Veronica, just so that they might have but one moment for themselves. And after I had exhausted myself in that endeavor, I would have set about making the most ridiculous excuses to everyone for not knowing of their whereabouts!”

  Doña Francesca laughed in intimate jest, gripping Marcelina’s hand in her own as they turned to walk back to the house. “Oh, my dear, you make this all so much good fun!”

  * * *

  That evening, after Francesca had settled in her mind to speak with her son over his frequent visits to his fiancée at her aunt’s house, she abruptly lost her inclination to approach him.

  Her husband had returned with the boy in the middle of what seemed to be another useless but heated argument over some frivolous point of view. And as usual, Dídac was stubborn in his inability to let the argument go. He had more of a need to hold the last word than anyone she had ever met, save his father.

  As the two entered with frantic footsteps into Francesca’s parlor, it required a stern signal from Joaquim to convince Dídac that their discussion was at an end. He rose his hand and looked to the boy with his most serious face, muttering under his breath, “Enough.”

  Dídac was frustrated at his inability to challenge his father’s halting gesture, but to continue such a debate before his mother would set Joaquim into a rage that would result in a severe punishment. Joaquim was not a parent to be disrespected by his son in front of anyone, and that unsaid rule, Dídac was more than willing to obey. Francesca’s son would not venture to distress his mother for any reason, least of all over some moronic argument.

  “What’s all this nonsense you fight over? My God, to hear you speak, you’d think you were two ruffians in a tavern!” she soured her face in jest.

  “Mother!” Dídac was shocked by her statement, joking or no.

  “Your son may think he is in his better judgment, my dear, but I am convinced that he has never possessed such a thing.” Joaquim bent to kiss her
cheek before landing exhausted on the crimson sofa.

  Francesca turned to her son and winked, giving the boy a final dismissal from his frustration. Even with this relief, he could not bring himself to sit down, continuing to pace slowly about the room.

  “Oh, but you’re mistaken as usual, señor. If you would open your eyes and close your stubborn mouth, you might yet see that better judgment is the only thing my son makes use of. You think he has snared the most beautiful girl from the finest family in the city by chance? Perhaps it is you who have misplaced your better judgment,” she teased, a melodramatic face the final insult.

  Dídac smiled at his mother and made a ceremonial bow in her favor.

  “Yes, see how he responds to his mother’s wisdom,” she smiled. “Really, I don’t know why I let you talk to my son at all.”

  The tired man laughed with one jolly chortle. “That’s perfect! Now I’ll have to spend twice as long penetrating that thick skull of his. It’s all your fault, my love!”

  “What’s this nonsense he’s saying,” she turned to her son with a wicked smile. “Why does he keep talking and talking. My, but he enjoys the sound of his voice! How do you put up with him, love?”

  The boy smirked at last, unable to resist his mother’s reaching hand, which gently pulled him to his seat beside her. He exhaled audibly and slowly turned to meet her gaze and said, “It’s baffling, isn’t it?”

  Francesca let out her most charming little giggle and kissed her son’s cheek over and over, sending him into the most pleasant of moods. Indeed, he instantly forgot that he should be upset with his father, who raised his hands in defeat, rising to find the sherry in his library.