Nacre's Promise

Chapter XXII : Ambient gloom

Since their return and Ernesto's revelation, the surrounding air seemed charged with a particular heaviness that affected everyone close to Isabel and Diego.

Isabel knew she absolutely had to meet Don Rodrigo in private to discreetly ask for an interview. Her father's words had completely changed her life and she was no longer in a position to change her mind.

The days passed and her determination not to sink into melancholy began to falter at this twist of fate. Why was she the one for whom the long-awaited happiness was presumably impossible?

Still not knowing if she was of the same blood as Diego, her half-sister perhaps, she envisioned a dark future where she would remain forever single, inconsolable and lonely in the midst of strangers.

A life next to him, with the same feelings would be impossible, she thought. I will be forced to move away, to start again elsewhere, far from my family and my friends. Why is such a hardship inflicted on me? What did I do wrong to be punished like this?

As she could not answer these questions, she spent a lot of time in prayer in the chapel on the estate. This small building, which Don Rodrigo had completely restored, was a haven of peace. Within these walls only she could feel serenity in solitude as she sought to commune with God.

This discreet hiding place had not yet been discovered.

She waited again and again, hidden from the sight of Diego who, paradoxically, she missed very much. She was so afraid of the answer that she waited a long time for the moment when she would find the courage to meet Don Rodrigo and hold him to account for his origins.

She had looked at lots of solutions, made lots of plans, to try to explain the mystery of her birth and sometimes she let herself think that Don Rodrigo would answer her:

But what are you going to imagine? Did I take you in because you were abandoned on the public road? I am not your father!

But for that, she would have to have the courage to ask him the question, even if there was a chance the answer wouldn't please her.

— Why do I have such a complicated destiny, she fumed aloud. Why did it fall on me?

Carlina looked for her several times, worried not to find her in the stable or near the house, but Isabel did not show up.

The stepmother did not know anything about the storms that were ravaging these beloved heads at that time, but deep down she understood that an event, which seemed to be related to the period before her wedding to Ernesto, had just upset his whole family. Although she longed to help those close to her, her intuition nonetheless encouraged her to remain withdrawn, benevolent and patient.

Ernesto blamed himself. He regretted so much his lack of control over events and, to see his daughter gnawing at her blood, tortured him. But in the end, since the solution to this problem could not come from him, he just waited until Rodrigo was informed and avoided finding himself face to face with Isabel.

Yet how could he have betrayed Isabel by hiding from her that he and Imelda were not his parents and betrayed Don Rodrigo by breaking his oath?

With Imelda, it seemed to them at the time that this was the best solution and now he doubted it. Weren't all adopted children one day looking for their origins? He should have asked Don Rodrigo who Isabel's parents were. It was rather difficult at the time as Don Rodrigo was his employer and they were new to the business, but that was no excuse. Indeed, the adoption, requested by Don Rodrigo under the seal of secrecy, should at least have included in return the truth about the origins of the child. They were not forced to accept even if this child, who replaced their deceased child, was providential.