The Ornaments of Love

Chapter Ten

Throughout the night, they talked by the simple light of two candles, the darkness focusing Veronica's absorption of her aunt's word, suspending time as the present world was shut out. Marcelina was both more direct and loving than ever, and the girl thought of nothing beyond the woman's words, and how she described her life's experiences.

"Don't think for a moment I don't understand how you feel, or that I'm not overwhelmed with joy for you. If anything, I'm quite jealous of you right now. I truly wish there had been someone to guide me through it when I was your age. The confusion of it all overshadowed the entire event. But I must describe to you the first time I was with a man. It could be characterized as hardly more than a hurried stumble. You're sure to look back on this night as if it were a fairy tale, I promise you." Marcelina paused, searching her mind for the details that could not be recalled very easily.

"His name was Antonio, a servant in our father's house in Madrid, the son of the stable master. Their small family lived in a cottage on the grounds. We were the same age and it was his good fortune to receive schooling from my tutors during most of our childhood. His family was much loved and cared for by my father, and he was given the opportunity to receive a formal education when a tutor was eventually called for my sister and me. Looking back at this, I find it hard to imagine my father ever married my mother, for they were so very different in mind or character. Mamá thought it a disgrace that a common boy—indeed, the stable master's son—should even be allowed in the same room as her daughter and reminded father of her opposition as vehemently as possible whenever the chance arose. I suppose she did know more than a thing or two about a young girl's viewpoint, considering how often she ignored me.

"Anyhow, Antonio was quite gifted. He excelled in all his studies to such a degree that he made your mother jealous and frustrated, particularly when the tutor had to explain many of the lessons over again. He sat apart from us, as my mother insisted, but he could hardly sit so far away as to be unable to see and hear our teacher. In time, though her opposition never changed, her attention to the matter did, and the divide shortened enough that we three children began speaking to each other in class almost every day. When he was seventeen and I fifteen, I began to come out of my shell, even before I was presented as a young lady. Despite the forces against us, we became true friends.

"Naturally, we were watched the entire time we were at study, so we bravely took it upon ourselves to meet in private. I made a habit of retiring every day to a small patio, just outside of the house, and would take to reading my lessons alone. My mother welcomed the opportunity for a bit of free time for herself and would only check on me now and then through a window. At that age, Lucía naturally couldn't stand to be bothered by me, and gladly welcomed her own privacy from me. Confident in the arrangement that I had established for myself, I would quietly slip away when I could to meet Antonio in the farthest part of the gardens in the late afternoon. It was always near a grove of old olive trees on the far border of the gardens that would take ten minutes to reach. I always thought that I would gladly have walked a thousand miles just to see him alone.

"He tried to dress his best when he would come, and I made the same fuss privately with my own appearance. Antonio was such a different person when we were alone, so relaxed. He called me by my first name, never for a moment speaking to me as if I were too good for him. He was like a brother, and he was my true confidant.

"We would talk for hours sometimes, talk about everything that concerned us and our dreams for the future. Antonio often spoke of his plans and hopes to be supported by his father to attend the Academy when he turned eighteen, which we both knew was impossible. He would have the most frightened look upon his face when he realized that truth could not be fantasized away. You see, he would spend the rest of his life in the stables. His father was all too realistic when it concerned his future, making the point to shoot him down from the clouds when Antonio's dream of an alternate life would light up his face. And what was worse, I myself knew the family expected Antonio to succeed his father in a few years when the old man retired.