Ramona. Helen Hunt Jackson

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СКАЧАТЬ unchanged. In the woman it was not that; there was no buried love to come to such resurrection in her heart, for she had never loved Angus Phail. But, long unloved, ill-treated, heartbroken, she woke at that moment to the realization of what manner of love it had been which she had thrown away in her youth; her whole being yearned for it now, and Angus was avenged.

      When Francis Ortegna, late that night, reeled, half-tipsy, into his wife's room, he was suddenly sobered by the sight which met his eyes—his wife kneeling by the side of the cradle, in which lay, smiling in its sleep, a beautiful infant.

      “What in the devil's name,” he began; then recollecting, he muttered: “Oh, the Indian brat! I see! I wish you joy, Senora Ortegna, of your first child!” and with a mock bow, and cruel sneer, he staggered by, giving the cradle an angry thrust with his foot as he passed.

      The brutal taunt did not much wound the Senora. The time had long since passed when unkind words from her husband could give her keen pain. But it was a warning not lost upon her new-born mother instinct, and from that day the little Ramona was carefully kept and tended in apartments where there was no danger of her being seen by the man to whom the sight of her baby face was only a signal for anger and indecency.

      Hitherto Ramona Ortegna had, so far as was possible, carefully concealed from her family the unhappiness of her married life. Ortegna's character was indeed well known; his neglect of his wife, his shameful dissipations of all sorts, were notorious in every port in the country. But from the wife herself no one had even heard so much as a syllable of complaint. She was a Gonzaga, and she knew how to suffer in silence, But now she saw a reason for taking her sister into her confidence. It was plain to her that she had not many years to live; and what then would become of the child? Left to the tender mercies of Ortegna, it was only too certain what would become of her. Long sad hours of perplexity the lonely woman passed, with the little laughing babe in her arms, vainly endeavoring to forecast her future. The near chance of her own death had not occurred to her mind when she accepted the trust.

      Before the little Ramona was a year old, Angus Phail died. An Indian messenger from San Gabriel brought the news to Senora Ortegna. He brought her also a box and a letter, given to him by Angus the day before his death. The box contained jewels of value, of fashions a quarter of a century old. They were the jewels which Angus had bought for his bride. These alone remained of all his fortune. Even in the lowest depths of his degradation, a certain sentiment had restrained him from parting with them. The letter contained only these words: “I send you all I have to leave my daughter. I meant to bring them myself this year. I wished to kiss your hands and hers once more. But I am dying. Farewell.”

      After these jewels were in her possession, Senora Ortegna rested not till she had persuaded Senora Moreno to journey to Monterey, and had put the box into her keeping as a sacred trust. She also won from her a solemn promise that at her own death she would adopt the little Ramona. This promise came hard from Senora Moreno. Except for Father Salvierderra's influence, she had not given it. She did not wish any dealings with such alien and mongrel blood, “If the child were pure Indian, I would like it better,” she said. “I like not these crosses. It is the worst, and not the best of each, that remains.”

      But the promise once given, Senora Ortegna was content. Well she knew that her sister would not lie, nor evade a trust. The little Ramona's future was assured. During the last years of the unhappy woman's life the child was her only comfort. Ortegna's conduct had become so openly and defiantly infamous, that he even flaunted his illegitimate relations in his wife's presence; subjecting her to gross insults, spite of her helpless invalidism. This last outrage was too much for the Gonzaga blood to endure; the Senora never afterward left her apartment, or spoke to her husband. Once more she sent for her sister to come; this time, to see her die. Every valuable she possessed, jewels, laces, brocades, and damasks, she gave into her sister's charge, to save them from falling into the hands of the base creature that she knew only too well would stand in her place as soon as the funeral services had been said over her dead body.

      Stealthily, as if she had been a thief, the sorrowing Senora Moreno conveyed her sister's wardrobe, article by article, out of the house, to be sent to her own home. It was the wardrobe of a princess. The Ortegnas lavished money always on the women whose hearts they broke; and never ceased to demand of them that they should sit superbly arrayed in their lonely wretchedness.

      One hour after the funeral, with a scant and icy ceremony of farewell to her dead sister's husband, Senora Moreno, leading the little four-year-old Ramona by the hand, left the house, and early the next morning set sail for home.

      When Ortegna discovered that his wife's jewels and valuables of all kinds were gone, he fell into a great rage, and sent a messenger off, post-haste, with an insulting letter to the Senora Moreno, demanding their return. For answer, he got a copy of his wife's memoranda of instructions to her sister, giving all the said valuables to her in trust for Ramona; also a letter from Father Salvierderra, upon reading which he sank into a fit of despondency that lasted a day or two, and gave his infamous associates considerable alarm, lest they had lost their comrade. But he soon shook off the influence, whatever it was, and settled back into his old gait on the same old high-road to the devil. Father Salvierderra could alarm him, but not save him.

      And this was the mystery of Ramona. No wonder the Senora Moreno never told the story. No wonder, perhaps, that she never loved the child. It was a sad legacy, indissolubly linked with memories which had in them nothing but bitterness, shame, and sorrow from first to last.

      How much of all this the young Ramona knew or suspected, was locked in her own breast. Her Indian blood had as much proud reserve in it as was ever infused into the haughtiest Gonzaga's veins. While she was yet a little child, she had one day said to the Senora Moreno, “Senora, why did my mother give me to the Senora Ortegna?”

      Taken unawares, the Senora replied hastily: “Your mother had nothing whatever to do with it. It was your father.”

      “Was my mother dead?” continued the child.

      Too late the Senora saw her mistake. “I do not know,” she replied; which was literally true, but had the spirit of a lie in it. “I never saw your mother.”

      “Did the Senora Ortegna ever see her?” persisted Ramona.

      “No, never,” answered the Senora, coldly, the old wounds burning at the innocent child's unconscious touch.

      Ramona felt the chill, and was silent for a time, her face sad, and her eyes tearful. At last she said, “I wish I knew if my mother was dead.”

      “Why?” asked the Senora.

      “Because if she is not dead I would ask her why she did not want me to stay with her.”

      The gentle piteousness of this reply smote the Senora's conscience. Taking the child in her arms, she said, “Who has been talking to you of these things, Ramona?”

      “Juan Can,” she replied.

      “What did he say?” asked the Senora, with a look in her eye which boded no good to Juan Canito.

      “It was not to me he said it, it was to Luigo; but I heard him,” answered Ramona, speaking slowly, as if collecting her various reminiscences on the subject. “Twice I heard him. He said that my mother was no good, and that my father was bad too.” And the tears rolled down the child's cheeks.

      The Senora's sense of justice stood her well in place of tenderness, now. Caressing the little orphan as she had never before done, she said, with an earnestness which sank deep into the child's mind, “Ramona must not believe any such thing as that. Juan Can is a bad man to say it. He СКАЧАТЬ