The Ornaments of Love

Chapter Eighteen

It was the very worst of July. A blasting heat had penetrated every part of the house, and all moved as slowly as possible. The siesta became a day-long event, though hardly anyone could find a room cool enough to sleep well in. Even the sea breeze was of little comfort, merely keeping the hot, wet air moving. Perhaps, that was a blessing in itself? As the people of the house stayed to their rooms, not caring to dress in anything more than sheer nightgowns until dark, windows were shuttered and draped to prevent the sun's radiance from growing the heat inside during the daytime.

Veronica could not remember a summer as impossible as this one, and after weeks of the heat intensifying each day, she resigned herself to the misery of it all, musing that she might very well have stayed in Madrid if the weather would impose such cruelty. Only the comfort of her correspondence with Dídac kept her spirits level. Not a day passed that she did not receive a letter of some sort from Dídac, and they varied from his usual short stories to poetry, and sometimes even more intimate letters of love.

Veronica would not be out-done by the boy. Her every written word to him must magnify their love even more, she thought. She wrote every day, her long tales of childhood dreams, and more often, she began to speak outright to him when his letters posed specific questions or topics that beckoned her answer. All of this brought about a sense of satisfaction that was intoxicating and highly addictive. She looked forward to each day. She rose with the sun now, long having cast off the days of sleeping until noon, when the house was still drunk after some long party; all of that was not possible with the heat of this month. And she preferred to write by the morning light that penetrated through the shuttered windows of her room. It provided her with an immense sense of satisfaction, and the weariness brought on by the wet heat could not dilute the sensation. And after the weeks since he had secretly proposed to her, she was still in love. Nothing, it seemed, could change this awareness. Yes, love, that is what it was.

It had been only a week or so after Marcelina and Veronica had last returned from the Villa Ferrero. They had gone on to spend a total of three days there. Her aunt and his father continued their discussions and eventually brought Dídac's mother over into their private plot. The whole house was on the two lovers' side when they left, and Marcelina had so quickly become sisters with Doña de Ferrero that the air of joy in the house rose to a level of outright celebration. And with their celebration, Don Joaquim and his wife proved impervious to waiting. They both turned to Dídac and insisted he reveal all of his private plans for the future.

The boy was naturally shocked when asked, and even more bewildered to find such a warm reception from his parents when he admitted that he'd follow his father's enterprise of law. He would very much like to be enrolled in the proper studies, immediately.

When Dídac had felt that his future was secure, that his parents widely approved of the arrangement, he even went as far as to reveal that he had asked for Veronica's hand in marriage, that he had given the girl a ring of engagement.

The very look upon his mother's face was indescribable, a swirling and undefined mixture of awe, love, anger, joy, hatred and finally bewilderment. The woman had looked to the Marquesa for support at that moment, silently pleading for some explanation when one had already been given. And in the end, Doña de Ferrero was by far the happiest of all, eventually coming upon a profound sense of love for her son when she saw the ring, taken from her own chamber, as it lay over Veronica's finger, a girl she had already begun thinking of as her daughter.

It was a magnificent moment for both families, and though, in reality, nothing could have been final until approval came from Veronica's mother in Madrid. Both Marcelina and Francesca had written letters immediately to the woman, letters of love with such conviction that the woman sent word within two weeks that she would approve of the union purely on the grounds that her sister, the Marquesa, spoke with such high regard of the Ferrero family and their young man. She went out of her way to express her great joy for this blessing and extended an invitation for all of them to come back to Madrid with Veronica before the fall term began, if they could. Her final note made a specific and a very loving remark that the Ferreros were her family now and that she must be given the opportunity to love them as her sister did.