The Ornaments of Love

Chapter Twenty-Seven

"Are you mad? It's impossible," Dídac hissed at the Marquesa. "She would never want such a thing. How can you imagine this for her? You're her aunt, are you not? Do you not care for her honor? I won't do it, I will not! Can you imagine how severe a disaster it would be for us if my family were to find out?"

"Please, señor," she rolled her eyes, "you would not be here in this room now if that were of the slightest concern to either of us."

She had settled him down to talk in her sitting room, pulling him to his seat lovingly, inspiring that wonderful passion in which he had felt absolute contentment the entire week after she'd accepted his terms of love.

But with only a few moments of caressing between them, she had put the same question to the boy as bluntly and indelicately as she had Veronica.

"How can you suggest this? She is to be my wife. Do you not care at all what this would do to her?"

"And what would it do to her? What would it do to you, for that matter? Are you not a gentleman, will you not treat her with all of the love and discretion that you would a wife? You have been waiting for this for months, have you not? You mean to tell me you would not jump at the opportunity to consummate your marriage with her now?"

"This is blasphemy! How dare you suggest I would dishonor her in that way before we are properly wed?"

"Spare me," Marcelina grunted with the rise of her hand to shun his response. "You will not convince me that you believe such nonsense. Not after you've suffered to have me as your lover, not after you have wept tears in this very room for me to love you. I have spared you this as much as I can, but the time for you to play the role of a man is before you. There is nothing more of this sniveling that I will take from you. Veronica is a woman now, and as she has agreed to take you as her husband, so you should have the decency to take her into your arms now and cherish her for it. That's what all this has been for! Can't you see? I do love you, but I will not marry you. Your boyish sentimentalities must come to an end. You must move on to your duties, and I must move on with my life, as well."

He was destroyed by this. The catalog of pain she sputtered out at him was more lethal than any sword. He could not feel his fingers any longer; it seemed the blood had emptied from his face.

"You promised me we would be together. You told me so yourself!"

"I did say those things, but you hear into those words implications that simply do not exist. We will always betogether! You are to marry her, are you not? For all purposes, she is now my daughter, you will soon be my son, and there is no more instruction that you require. It is time you left the nest of my bed and take with you the considerable talents I have fostered in you. Exercise them on the woman you have chosen to be your wife! It is of no consequence how you feel; she will expertly manage through the effects of those outside influences you speak of, I assure you. You will remember, señor, as I have instructed you, be assured that her education on the subject of being a great woman has been magnified tenfold. And she isa great woman, I have seen to at least that much. Nothing but your love and affection will be of any concern to her in this life. Now, enough of this talk. She will accompany me here from now on and I expect you to be a good husband to her, as she will be an excellent wife to you. It is settled, Dídac. Your chosen life will begin now. You have made all of this quite necessary."

***

Veronica was nervous enough to be considered ill as the two ladies rode in the black carriage through the downtown streets of the city. She had never spent much time in this section of town, only coming two or three times in the past half year. And she could not say she was entirely saddened by this, for the trip across town was one that she did not enjoy. From the window of their carriage, she had seen many horrors that she would consciously have to put out of her mind just to sleep. This was not the beautiful world of the upper city with its graceful monuments and palaces; certainly not the Castell de Amontoní. What she saw around her were the poor everywhere, who rotted along with the crumbling ghettos. Though it was one of the richest cities in Europe, a city that once could only be compared in wealth to the old Republic of Venice or the Genoa of centuries earlier, Barcelona accommodated sectors of poverty even in the security of its stunning wealth. And while these ghettos were sporadic along their journey to the district that sheltered the Marquesa's townhouse, the glimpses of utter despair in these dying souls was a horror Veronica could barely keep her eyes open to.