XXI
THE Senora Moreno was dying. It had been a sad two years in the Morenohouse. After the first excitement following Ramona's departure haddied away, things had settled down in a surface similitude of their oldroutine. But nothing was really the same. No one was so happy as before.Juan Canito was heart-broken. There had been set over him the veryMexican whose coming to the place he had dreaded. The sheep had not donewell; there had been a drought; many had died of hunger,--a thing forwhich the new Mexican overseer was not to blame, though it pleased Juanto hold him so, and to say from morning till night that if his leg hadnot been broken, or if the lad Alessandro had been there, the wool-cropwould have been as big as ever. Not one of the servants liked thisMexican; he had a sorry time of it, poor fellow; each man and woman onthe place had or fancied some reason for being set against him; somefrom sympathy with Juan Can, some from idleness and general impatience;Margarita, most of all, because he was not Alessandro. Margarita,between remorse about her young mistress and pique and disappointmentabout Alessandro, had become a very unhappy girl; and her mother,instead of comforting or soothing her, added to her misery bycontinually bemoaning Ramona's fate. The void that Ramona had left inthe whole household seemed an irreparable one; nothing came to fill it;there was no forgetting; every day her name was mentioned by some one;mentioned with bated breath, fearful conjecture, compassion, and regret.Where had she vanished? Had she indeed gone to the convent, as she said,or had she fled with Alessandro?
Margarita would have given her right hand to know. Only Juan Can feltsure. Very well Juan Can knew that nobody but Alessandro had the wit andthe power over Baba to lure him out of that corral, "and never a railout of its place." And the saddle, too! Ay, the smart lad! He had donethe best he could for the Senorita; but, Holy Virgin! what had got intothe Senorita to run off like that, with an Indian,--even Alessandro!The fiends had bewitched her. Tirelessly Juan Can questioned everytraveller, every wandering herder he saw. No one knew anything ofAlessandro, beyond the fact that all the Temecula Indians had beendriven out of their village, and that there was now not an Indian in thevalley. There was a rumor that Alessandro and his father had bothdied; but no one knew anything certainly. The Temecula Indians haddisappeared, that was all there was of it,--disappeared, like any wildcreatures, foxes or coyotes, hunted down, driven out; the valley was ridof them. But the Senorita! She was not with these fugitives. That couldnot be! Heaven forbid!
"If I'd my legs, I'd go and see for myself." said Juan Can. "It wouldbe some comfort to know even the worst. Perdition take the Senora, whodrove her to it! Ay, drove her to it! That's what I say, Luigo." In someof his most venturesome wrathy moments he would say: "There's noneof you know the truth about the Senorita but me! It's a hard hand theSenora's reared her with, from the first. She's a wonderful woman, ourSenora! She gets power over one."
But the Senora's power was shaken now. More changed than all else in thechanged Moreno household, was the relation between the Senora Moreno andher son Felipe. On the morning after Ramona's disappearance, words hadbeen spoken by each which neither would ever forget. In fact, the Senorabelieved that it was of them she was dying, and perhaps that was not farfrom the truth; the reason that forces could no longer rally in her torepel disease, lying no doubt largely in the fact that to live seemed nolonger to her desirable.
Felipe had found the note Ramona had laid on his bed. Before it was yetdawn he had waked, and tossing uneasily under the light covering hadheard the rustle of the paper, and knowing instinctively that it wasfrom Ramona, had risen instantly to make sure of it. Before his motheropened her window, he had read it. He felt like one bereft of his sensesas he read. Gone! Gone with Alessandro! Stolen away like a thief in thenight, his dear, sweet little sister! Ah, what a cruel shame! Scalesseemed to drop from Felipe's eyes as he lay motionless, thinking ofit. A shame! a cruel shame! And he and his mother were the ones who hadbrought it on Ramona's head, and on the house of Moreno. Felipe feltas if he had been under a spell all along, not to have realized this."That's what I told my mother!" he groaned,--"that it drove her torunning away! Oh, my sweet Ramona! what will become of her? I will goafter them, and bring them back;" and Felipe rose, and hastily dressinghimself, ran down the veranda steps, to gain a little more time tothink. He returned shortly, to meet his mother standing in the doorway,with pale, affrighted face.
"Felipe!" she cried, "Ramona is not here."
"I know it," he replied in an angry tone. "That is what I told you weshould do,--drive her to running away with Alessandro!"
"With Alessandro!" interrupted the Senora.
"Yes," continued Felipe,--"with Alessandro, the Indian! Perhaps youthink it is less disgrace to the names of Ortegna and Moreno to have herrun away with him, than to be married to him here under our roof! Ido not! Curse the day, I say, when I ever lent myself to breaking thegirl's heart! I am going after them, to fetch them back!"
If the skies had opened and rained fire, the Senora had hardly lessquailed and wondered than she did at these words; but even for fire fromthe skies she would not surrender till she must.
"How know you that it is with Alessandro?" she said.
"Because she has written it here!" cried Felipe, defiantly holdingup his little note. "She left this, her good-by to me. Bless her! Shewrites like a saint, to thank me for all my goodness to her,--I, whodrove her to steal out of my house like a thief!"
The phrase, "my house," smote the Senora's ear like a note from someother sphere, which indeed it was,--from the new world into which Felipehad been in an hour born. Her cheeks flushed, and she opened her lips toreply; but before she had uttered a word, Luigo came running roundthe corner, Juan Can hobbling after him at a miraculous pace on hiscrutches. "Senor Felipe! Senor Felipe! Oh, Senora!" they cried. "Thieveshave been here in the night! Baba is gone,--Baba, and the Senorita'ssaddle."
A malicious smile broke over the Senora's countenance, and turning toFelipe, she said in a tone--what a tone it was! Felipe felt as ifhe must put his hands to his ears to shut it out; Felipe would neverforget,--"As you were saying, like a thief in the night!"
With a swifter and more energetic movement than any had ever before seenSenor Felipe make, he stepped forward, saying in an undertone to hismother, "For God's sake, mother, not a word before the men!--What isthat you say, Luigo? Baba gone? We must see to our corral. I will comedown, after breakfast, and look at it;" and turning his back on them, hedrew his mother by a firm grasp, she could not resist, into the house.
She gazed at him in sheer, dumb wonder.
"Ay, mother," he said, "you may well look thus in wonder; I have been noman, to let my foster-sister, I care not what blood were in her veins,be driven to this pass! I will set out this day, and bring her back."
"The day you do that, then, I lie in this house dead!" retorted theSenora, at white heat. "You may rear as many Indian families as youplease under the Moreno roof, I will at least have my grave!" In spiteof her anger, grief convulsed her; and in another second she hadburst into tears, and sunk helpless and trembling into a chair. Nocounterfeiting now. No pretences. The Senora Moreno's heart broke withinher, when those words passed her lips to her adored Felipe. At thesight, Felipe flung himself on his knees before her; he kissed the agedhands as they lay trembling in her lap. "Mother mia," he cried, "youwill break my heart if you speak like that! Oh, why, why do you commandme to do what a man may not? I would die for you, my mother; but how canI see my sister a homeless wanderer in the wilderness?"
"I suppose the man Alessandro has something he calls a home," said theSenora, regaining herself a little. "Had they no plans? Spoke she not inher letter of what they would do?"
"Only that they would go to Father Salvierderra first," he replied.
"Ah!" The Senora reflected. At first startled, her second thought wasthat this would be the best possible thing which could happen. "FatherSalvierderra will counsel them what to do," she said. "He could no doubtestablish them in Santa Barbara in some way. My son, when you
reflect,you will see the impossibility of bringing them here. Help them in anyway you like, but do not bring them here." She paused. "Not until I amdead, Felipe! It will not be long."
Felipe bowed his head in his mother's lap. She laid her hands on hishair, and stroked it with passionate tenderness. "My Felipe!" she said."It was a cruel fate to rob me of you at the last!"
"Mother! mother!" he cried in anguish. "I am yours,--wholly, devotedlyyours! Why do you torture me thus?"
"I will not torture you more," she said wearily, in a feeble tone. "Iask only one thing of you; let me never hear again the name of thatwretched girl, who has brought all this woe on our house; let her namenever be spoken on this place by man, woman, or child. Like a thief inthe night! Ay, a horse-thief!"
Felipe sprang to his feet.
"Mother." he said, "Baba was Ramona's own; I myself gave him to her assoon as he was born!"
The Senora made no reply. She had fainted. Calling the maids, in terrorand sorrow Felipe bore her to her bed, and she did not leave it for manydays. She seemed hovering between life and death. Felipe watched overher as a lover might; her great mournful eyes followed his every motion.She spoke little, partly because of physical weakness, partly fromdespair. The Senora had got her death-blow. She would die hard. It wouldtake long. Yet she was dying, and she knew it.
Felipe did not know it. When he saw her going about again, with a steponly a little slower than before, and with a countenance not so muchchanged as he had feared, he thought she would be well again, after atime. And now he would go in search of Ramona. How he hoped he shouldfind them in Santa Barbara! He must leave them there, or wherever heshould find them; never again would he for a moment contemplate thepossibility of bringing them home with him. But he would see them; helpthem, if need be. Ramona should not feel herself an outcast, so long ashe lived.
When he said, agitatedly, to his mother, one night, "You are sostrong now, mother, I think I will take a journey; I will not be awaylong,--not over a week," she understood, and with a deep sigh replied:"I am not strong; but I am as strong as I shall ever be. If the journeymust be taken, it is as well done now."
How was the Senora changed!
"It must be, mother," said Felipe, "or I would not leave you. I will setoff before sunrise, so I will say farewell tonight."
But in the morning, at his first step, his mother's window opened, andthere she stood, wan, speechless, looking at him. "You must go, my son?"she asked at last.
"I must, mother!" and Felipe threw his arms around her, and kissed heragain and again. "Dearest mother! Do smile! Can you not?"
"No, my son, I cannot. Farewell. The saints keep you. Farewell." And sheturned, that she might not see him go.
Felipe rode away with a sad heart, but his purpose did not falter.Following straight down the river road to the sea, he then kept up alongthe coast, asking here and there, cautiously, if persons answering tothe description of Alessandro and Ramona had been seen. No one had seenany such persons.
When, on the night of the second day, he rode up to the Santa BarbaraMission, the first figure he saw was the venerable Father Salvierderrasitting in the corridor. As Felipe approached, the old man's face beamedwith pleasure, and he came forward totteringly, leaning on a staff ineach hand. "Welcome, my son!" he said. "Are all well? You find me veryfeeble just now; my legs are failing me sorely this autumn."
Dismay seized on Felipe at the Father's first words. He would not havespoken thus, had he seen Ramona. Barely replying to the greeting, Felipeexclaimed: "Father, I come seeking Ramona. Has she not been with you?"
Father Salvierderra's face was reply to the question. "Ramona!" hecried. "Seeking Ramona! What has befallen the blessed child?"
It was a bitter story for Felipe to tell; but he told it, sparinghimself no shame. He would have suffered less in the telling, had heknown how well Father Salvierderra understood his mother's character,and her almost unlimited power over all persons around her. FatherSalvierderra was not shocked at the news of Ramona's attachment forAlessandro. He regretted it, but he did not think it shame, as theSenora had done. As Felipe talked with him, he perceived even moreclearly how bitter and unjust his mother had been to Alessandro.
"He is a noble young man," said Father Salvierderra. "His father was oneof the most trusted of Father Peyri's assistants. You must find them,Felipe. I wonder much they did not come to me. Perhaps they may yetcome. When you find them, bear them my blessing, and say that I wishthey would come hither. I would like to give them my blessing beforeI die. Felipe, I shall never leave Santa Barbara again. My time drawsnear."
Felipe was so full of impatience to continue his search, that he hardlylistened to the Father's words. "I will not tarry," he said. "I cannotrest till I find her. I will ride back as far as Ventura to-night."
"You will send me word by a messenger, when you find them," said theFather. "God grant no harm has befallen them. I will pray for them,Felipe;" and he tottered into the church.
Felipe's thoughts, as he retraced his road, were full of bewildermentand pain. He was wholly at loss to conjecture what course Alessandro andRamona had taken, or what could have led them to abandon their intentionof going to Father Salvierderra. Temecula seemed the only place, now, tolook for them; and yet from Temecula Felipe had heard, only a few daysbefore leaving home, that there was not an Indian left in the valley.But he could at least learn there where the Indians had gone. Poor asthe clew seemed, it was all he had. Cruelly Felipe urged his horseon his return journey. He grudged an hour's rest to himself or to thebeast; and before he reached the head of the Temecula canon the creaturewas near spent. At the steepest part he jumped off and walked, to saveher strength. As he was toiling slowly up a narrow, rocky pass, hesuddenly saw an Indian's head peering over the ledge. He made signsto him to come down. The Indian turned his head, and spoke to some onebehind; one after another a score of figures rose. They made signs toFelipe to come up. "Poor things!" he thought; "they are afraid." Heshouted to them that his horse was too tired to climb that wall; but ifthey would come down, he would give them money, holding up a gold-piece.They consulted among themselves; presently they began slowly descending,still halting at intervals, and looking suspiciously at him. He heldup the gold again, and beckoned. As soon as they could see his facedistinctly, they broke into a run. That was no enemy's face.
Only one of the number could speak Spanish. On hearing this man's replyto Felipe's first question, a woman, who had listened sharply and caughtthe word Alessandro, came forward, and spoke rapidly in the Indiantongue.
"This woman has seen Alessandro," said the man.
"Where?" said Felipe, breathlessly.
"In Temecula, two weeks ago," he said.
"Ask her if he had any one with him," said Felipe.
"No," said the woman. "He was alone."
A convulsion passed over Felipe's face. "Alone!" What did this mean! Hereflected. The woman watched him. "Is she sure he was alone; there wasno one with him?"
"Yes."
"Was he riding a big black horse?"
"No, a white horse," answered the woman, promptly. "A small whitehorse."
It was Carmena, every nerve of her loyal nature on the alert to bafflethis pursuer of Alessandro and Ramona. Again Felipe reflected. "Ask herif she saw him for any length of time; how long she saw him."
"All night," he answered. "He spent the night where she did."
Felipe despaired. "Does she know where he is now?" he asked.
"He was going to San Luis Obispo, to go in a ship to Monterey."
"What to do?"
"She does not know."
"Did he say when he would come back?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"Never! He said he would never set foot in Temecula again."
"Does she know him well?"
"As well as her own brother."
What more could Felipe ask? With a groan, wrung from the very depths ofhis heart, he tossed the man a gold-piece; another to the woman. "
I amsorry," he said. "Alessandro was my friend. I wanted to see him;" and herode away, Carmena's eyes following him with a covert gleam of triumph.
When these last words of his were interpreted to her, she started, madeas if she would run after him, but checked herself. "No," she thought."It may be a lie. He may be an enemy, for all that. I will not tell.Alessandro wished not to be found. I will not tell."
And thus vanished the last chance of succor for Ramona; vanished in amoment; blown like a thistledown on a chance breath,--the breath of aloyal, loving friend, speaking a lie to save her.
Distraught with grief, Felipe returned home. Ramona had been veryill when she left home. Had she died, and been buried by the lonely,sorrowing Alessandro? And was that the reason Alessandro was going awayto the North, never to return? Fool that he was, to have shrunk fromspeaking Ramona's name to the Indians! He would return, and ask again.As soon as he had seen his mother, he would set off again, and nevercease searching till he had found either Ramona or her grave. But whenFelipe entered his mother's presence, his first look in her face toldhim that he would not leave her side again until he had laid her at restin the tomb.
"Thank God! you have come, Felipe," she said in a feeble voice. "I hadbegun to fear you would not come in time to say farewell to me. I amgoing to leave you, my son" and the tears rolled down her cheeks.
Though she no longer wished to live, neither did she wish to die,--thispoor, proud, passionate, defeated, bereft Senora. All the consolationsof her religion seemed to fail her. She had prayed incessantly, but gotno peace. She fixed her imploring eyes on the Virgin's face and on thesaints; but all seemed to her to wear a forbidding look. "If FatherSalvierderra would only come!" she groaned. "He could give me peace. Ifonly I can live till he comes again!"
When Felipe told her of the old man's feeble state, and that he wouldnever again make the journey, she turned her face to the wall and wept.Not only for her own soul's help did she wish to see him: she wishedto put into his hands the Ortegna jewels. What would become of them? Towhom should she transfer the charge? Was there a secular priestwithin reach that she could trust? When her sister had said, in herinstructions, "the Church," she meant, as the Senora Moreno well knew,the Franciscans. The Senora dared not consult Felipe; yet she must. Dayby day these fretting anxieties and perplexities wasted her strength,and her fever grew higher and higher. She asked no questions as to theresult of Felipe's journey, and he dared not mention Ramona's name. Atlast he could bear it no longer, and one day said, "Mother, I found notrace of Ramona. I have not the least idea where she is. The Father hadnot seen her or heard of her. I fear she is dead."
"Better so," was the Senora's sole reply; and she fell again into stilldeeper, more perplexed thought about the hidden treasure. Each day sheresolved, "To-morrow I will tell Felipe;" and when to-morrow came,she put it off again. Finally she decided not to do it till she foundherself dying. Father Salvierderra might yet come once more, andthen all would be well. With trembling hands she wrote him a letter,imploring him to be brought to her, and sent it by messenger, who wasempowered to hire a litter and four men to bring the Father gently andcarefully all the way. But when the messenger reached Santa Barbara,Father Salvierderra was too feeble to be moved; too feeble evento write. He could write only by amanuensis, and wrote, therefore,guardedly, sending her his blessing, and saying that he hoped herfoster-child might yet be restored to the keeping of her friends. TheFather had been in sore straits of mind, as month after month had passedwithout tidings of his "blessed child."
Soon after this came the news that the Father was dead. This dealt theSenora a terrible blow. She never left her bed after it. And so the yearhad worn on and Felipe, mourning over his sinking and failing mother,and haunted by terrible fears about the lost Ramona, had been torturedindeed.
But the end drew near, now. The Senora was plainly dying. The Venturadoctor had left off coming, saying that he could do no more; nothingremained but to give her what ease was possible; in a day or two moreall would be over. Felipe hardly left her bedside. Rarely was mother soloved and nursed by son. No daughter could have shown more tendernessand devotion. In the close relation and affection of these last days,the sense of alienation and antagonism faded from both their hearts.
"My adorable Felipe!" she would murmur. "What a son hast thou been!"And, "My beloved mother! How shall I give you up?" Felipe would reply,bowing his head on her hands,--so wasted now, so white, so weak; thosehands which had been cruel and strong little more than one short yearago. Ah, no one could refuse to forgive the Senora now! The gentleRamona, had she seen her, had wept tears of pity. Her eyes wore at timesa look almost of terror. It was the secret. How should she speak it?What would Felipe say? At last the moment came. She had been withdifficulty roused from a long fainting; one more such would be thelast, she knew,--knew even better than those around her. As she regainedconsciousness, she gasped, "Felipe! Alone!"
He understood, and waved the rest away.
"Alone!" she said again, turning her eyes to the door.
"Leave the room," said Felipe; "all--wait outside;" and he closed thedoor on them. Even then the Senora hesitated. Almost was she ready togo out of life leaving the hidden treasure to its chance of discovery,rather than with her own lips reveal to Felipe what she saw now, sawwith the terrible, relentless clear-sightedness of death, would makehim, even after she was in her grave, reproach her in his thoughts.
But she dared not withhold it. It must be said. Pointing to the statueof Saint Catharine, whose face seemed, she thought, to frown unforgivingupon her, she said, "Felipe--behind that statue--look!"
Felipe thought her delirious, and said tenderly, "Nothing is there,dearest mother. Be calm. I am here."
New terror seized the dying woman. Was she to be forced to carrythe secret to the grave? to be denied this late avowal? "No! no!Felipe--there is a door there--secret door. Look! Open! I must tellyou!"
Hastily Felipe moved the statue. There was indeed the door, as she hadsaid.
"Do not tell me now, mother dear. Wait till you are stronger," he said.As he spoke, he turned, and saw, with alarm, his mother sitting uprightin the bed, her right arm outstretched, her hand pointing to the door,her eyes in a glassy stare, her face convulsed. Before a cry could passhis lips, she had fallen back. The Senora Moreno was dead.
At Felipe's cry, the women waiting in the hall hurried in, wailingaloud as their first glance showed them all was over. In the confusion,Felipe, with a pale, set face, pushed the statue back into its place.Even then a premonition of horror swept over him. What was he, the son,to find behind that secret door, at sight of which his mother had diedwith that look of anguished terror in her eyes? All through the sadduties of the next four days Felipe was conscious of the undercurrentof this premonition. The funeral ceremonies were impressive. The littlechapel could not hold the quarter part of those who came, from far andnear. Everybody wished to do honor to the Senora Moreno. A priest fromVentura and one from San Luis Obispo were there. When all was done, theybore the Senora to the little graveyard on the hillside, and laid her bythe side of her husband and her children; silent and still at last,the restless, passionate, proud, sad heart! When, the night after thefuneral, the servants saw Senor Felipe going into his mother's room,they shuddered, and whispered, "Oh, he must not! He will break hisheart, Senor Felipe! How he loved her!"
Old Marda ventured to follow him, and at the threshold said: "Dear SenorFelipe, do not! It is not good to go there! Come away!"
But he put her gently by, saying, "I would rather be here, good Marda;"and went in and locked the door.
It was past midnight when he came out. His face was stern. He had buriedhis mother again. Well might the Senora have dreaded to tell to Felipethe tale of the Ortegna treasure. Until he reached the bottom of thejewel-box, and found the Senora Ortegna's letter to his mother, he wasin entire bewilderment at all he saw. After he had read this letter, hesat motionless for a long time, his head buried in his hands. His soulwas wrung.
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"And she thought that shame, and not this!" he said bitterly.
But one thing remained for Felipe now, If Ramona lived, he would findher, and restore to her this her rightful property. If she were dead, itmust go to the Santa Barbara College.
"Surely my mother must have intended to give it to the Church," he said."But why keep it all this time? It is this that has killed her. Oh,shame! oh, disgrace!" From the grave in which Felipe had buried hismother now, was no resurrection.
Replacing everything as before in the safe hiding-place, he sat down andwrote a letter to the Superior of the Santa Barbara College, tellinghim of the existence of these valuables, which in certain contingencieswould belong to the College. Early in the morning he gave this letter toJuan Canito, saying: "I am going away, Juan, on a journey. If anythinghappens to me, and I do not return, send this letter by trusty messengerto Santa Barbara."
"Will you be long away, Senor Felipe?" asked the old man, piteously.
"I cannot tell, Juan," replied Felipe. "It may be only a short time; itmay be long. I leave everything in your care. You will do all accordingto your best judgment, I know. I will say to all that I have left you incharge."
"Thanks, Senor Felipe! Thanks!" exclaimed Juan, happier than he had beenfor two years. "Indeed, you may trust me! From the time you were a boytill now, I have had no thought except for your house."
Even in heaven the Senora Moreno had felt woe as if in hell, had sheknown the thoughts with which her Felipe galloped this morning out ofthe gateway through which, only the day before, he had walked weepingbehind her body borne to burial.
"And she thought this no shame to the house of Moreno!" he said. "MyGod!"
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