The Sisterhood (40 page)

“What are those?” asked Esperanza.

“It is what has made the Beltrans rich. The natives that live on the land must make payments to us with a proportion of their crops. It is like the feudal system in some parts of Europe, I believe.”

“And what crops are those?”

“There is a kind of nut in the ground, not like the almond trees we had in Spain, and roots called “manioc,” a beautiful reddish-gold fruit with even more beautiful sweet flesh inside, and a green fruit called “avocado” that is very pleasing to eat when peeled and sprinkled with salt and chilies. Tomas also told me about the family. He has three younger sisters, but since his mother has decreed that the two younger girls are to enter a convent, he is only responsible for finding a husband for the eldest, who has had to wait until Tomas was married. He told me about the peasants who worked his family’s land, and the way his mother controlled them and her family and even the local priest with an iron hand. She is also very, very devout.

“I told him a little about myself, mainly what I thought would interest his mother—that my father had commanded a fleet, that my mother had been a royal ward, that both had died. I did not say anything about Consuela and my brothers and the evil gossip about the crown prince that destroyed our family. And while we were far from Spain, there were Spanish administrators here—who knew what these authorities might do with the information? My life had taken an interesting turn and I did not want to attract their attention.

“Finally on the eighth day, Tomas pointed to a cluster of buildings on the horizon. ‘The Beltran hacienda,’ he sighed. As we rode
very slowly toward it he warned me to say nothing to his mother of the way he had abducted me. His mother’s views on etiquette are as rigid as those on everyone’s duty to her.

“After days of traveling I knew I could not look particularly fresh, not to mention being in a state of dishevelment because Tomas kept stopping the horses and pulling me down to the blankets with him. I made him stop by a stream and I did my best to wash off the dust and smooth my hair, and Tomas straightened his clothes and brushed himself off as best he could. Then as we were dressing I saw he was eyeing my bosom again and I was about to protest that this was not the time, but he said only that I should button my bodice to the top and draw my shawl tightly round my shoulders. A note of anxiety had crept into his voice. After that, our progress toward the hacienda slowed to a crawl. Tomas seized every excuse to stop, pointing out trees and bushes as if they were the most interesting objects in the world, or saying he had spotted a snake here or a puma there as a boy. He swore he saw the wild creature
La Llorana
, who killed her own children and is doomed to walk the earth seeking them, snatching human children whenever she can. Tomas said she had tried to take him once, but he had a lucky escape.

“I said that if she had succeeded,
La Llorana
would no doubt have returned any child who talked as much as Tomas. Finally we saw a large cluster of buildings with blue shutters, and in the distance a boy left the fields and ran for the gate of a large sprawling house.

“By the time we rode up to the house, waiting for us on the veranda was a fat, beetle-browed woman dressed in black who looked like a human thundercloud. Three dark-haired girls younger than Tomas peered from behind her with interested expressions. The woman pointed at me rudely and asked how her son dare parade his harlot before his mother and innocent sisters. When Tomas
introduced me as his wife, she looked stricken, then raised her hands to heaven and emitted a loud piercing wail. She struck her breast dramatically—quite a large one that looked as if it could take a great many blows without the least damage—and called on the Virgin and the saints, one by one, to witness a mother’s trials while her daughters patted her ineffectually and whispered ‘Mama, hush!’ When she finally calmed down she looked at me as if I were some putrefying tidbit one of the mongrel dogs had brought home, and launched into an insulting diatribe. It was plain to see that I was a slut of no birth, no dowry, and who knew what kind of mongrel blood. It was not enough to rut with the peasants and people half the hacienda with his bastards; now nothing would do but to import prostitutes from the cesspool of the city to bring grief to his mother’s heart and kill her in her old age. God would punish him! And this so-called marriage he had been tricked into would be annulled at once.

“She ranted in this vein for half an hour, not letting Tomas get a word in, swearing to disinherit him unless Tomas divorced me immediately. I simply stared at her unmoved, thinking, ‘So this fat toad is my enemy?’ What a great many bad words she knows.

“Tomas’s family is too wealthy to need my dowry. When my new mother-in-law came to that particular issue Tomas finally spoke up, pleading that he had thought to please her by bringing home a true Spanish bride of
lipienza sangre
which she has taught him was better than any dowry. He added that I was a model of piety, had been at school in the oldest and holiest convent in Spain. And had traveled to Spanish America with a party of nuns bound for Las Golondrinas convent. Our marriage had been sanctioned by the church, and if she did not accept it there would be a scandal. And now that he was married, it was possible that a legitimate Beltran heir would appear in the next year. This only partly satisfied Tomas’s mother, who continued to rumble with bad temper like a large volcano about to erupt.

“I knew I must establish my rightful place in this embattled household at once or the dragon on the veranda would make my life intolerable. After all, Tomas was master of the estate now, and as his bride, mother-to-be of his children, and mistress of the hacienda, I must make it clear that I was in charge and I would never be bullied. I raised my head as high as I could, and looked her haughtily straight in the eye—something I had noticed her daughters and even Tomas avoided. Then I looked around me and sniffed disdainfully, as if the hacienda had a bad smell. ‘The estate is smaller than I expected. Much smaller. And the family
far
less well-bred than I had been led to believe. I am disappointed.’ Holding her gaze, I held out my hand imperiously for Tomas to help me dismount. I strode up the veranda steps, back ramrod straight, staring coldly at her as I gave her a curtsy so perfunctory it was an insult. ‘Dona Maria Isabella
Beltran
de Vilar d’Ascension, at your service.’ Then I swept silently into the house ahead of her, head held high like the royal princess some believed me to be. This rude little performance left the three girls gasping, and silenced my mother-in-law. I think she expected me to cry and wring my hands and beg forgiveness. Señora Beltran and I now have a daily battle of wills but I usually win. Tomas is in awe of us both.”

“And Marisol,” Sanchia exclaimed, “we will call you Marisol when we are together, not Dona Maria Isabella. You’re expecting a baby!”

“Yes, even Tomas’s mother is pleased he will have a
legitimate
heir.” A shadow crossed Marisol’s face. Her expression changed fleetingly and I saw that something gives her pain and that she struggles against it. Her big emerald-and-diamond ring on her finger sparkled and we all leaned over to admire it.

Marisol said that she would stay several days with us, that Tomas had business nearby. She returned the bows of several other wealthy women of her acquaintance also staying in the
convent—evidently as the wife of Don Tomas Beltran she is someone to be bowed to.

“I must tell you a story,” she whispered, turning back to us after her bowing. “The ladies over there have built at their own expense a special chapel in town for repentant fallen women. As you know, there are many brothels and prostitutes and concubines in the city but”—she giggled—“men here are notoriously generous, and fallen women often live very well. So”—she giggled even harder, and nodded in the direction of a group of finely dressed young women fanning themselves in a far corner—“
those
fallen ladies are reluctant to abandon their lifestyles permanently. They come to stay at the convent for the festivals or just to have a rest. None, however, will set foot in the new chapel, because it would be embarrassing for them to declare themselves fallen so publicly. So the new chapel stays empty.”

We were all surprised to hear such easy talk of brothels and concubines, but Zarita looked unconcerned. “Yes, the men have many mistresses among the mestizas, and live openly with them as if they were married. The women have children and go about very finely dressed, even to church.” Zarita leaned over to tuck a stray lock of hair behind Pia’s ear and the two smiled at each other.

I, too, had a great many things to tell Marisol, beginning with the fact that Sor Beatriz had had a daughter who was among the nuns who had founded the mission over thirty years before.

“No!” Marisol exclaimed. “Do you suppose they sent her here to keep her existence a secret? I mean, a nun with a child? It must have been awkward for Sor Beatriz. I wonder who the father was.”

And so we passed the next few days very pleasantly, gossiping in the courtyard between prayers and meals, speculating on who the father of Sor Beatriz’s child might have been, and wondering what sort of person Salome is. I told the others her story and said that I was determined to meet her. Finally Don Tomas sent a servant
to say that he had completed his business and they must leave. In parting Marisol said she was rich enough and we must divide her dowry between us. She also promised to send the carriage soon so we could pay her a visit before the baby came. Mother was as happy as we to learn that Marisol’s kidnap ordeal had ended well, though she shook her head over Don Tomas’s scandalous behavior.

From the Chronicle of Las Sors Santas de Jesus, by the pen of Esperanza, the Beltran Hacienda, July 1553

Marisol kept her word. A servant brought an invitation to visit and Mother sent for a dressmaker because our gowns were shabby and ragged at the hems. The dressmaker, an impoverished Spanish widow, was to make us each three new gowns—one for morning, one for afternoons and visiting, and one for evening parties. We accompanied her to the market where she bargained hard with the merchants for fabrics and lace, and a shoemaker took the measure of our feet for new leather slippers. Mother said that her price was fair, though our new finery ate up an alarming amount of our dowry money. Mother herself purchased Chinese fans as gifts for us, saying all ladies carried them nowadays.

Mother said that the Beltrans have a large circle of acquaintances among the local landowners, many of them single men.

The Beltran carriage arrived, with two armed outriders and a maid to look after us. Our trunks with our new dresses and laces and fans were tied on the top. My trunk also contained this Chronicle. Though I should give it up to the convent, I cannot bring myself to part with it yet and dare not leave it for others to find in my absence, especially as the length of our visit is uncertain. Here people seem to be very casual about their visits, and Mother
expects we will stay with the Beltrans for weeks. Pia and Zarita were sad to part, but Zarita assured Pia that divorces always took a long time and that she would still be at the convent when Pia returned. They embraced farewell, like two flowers kissing in the breeze.

The Beltran hacienda is a four-day journey from the convent. We have been here for two weeks, and Mother was right, Marisol and Tomas have invited a number of men to call on one pretext or another. In the gloomy
sala
with its heavy furniture and holy images and crucifixes crowding every available space, we sit silently on display every afternoon, sipping sugar water, our eyes modestly cast down. The fine clock Tomas’s father brought from Spain at unimaginable expense ticks loudly in the background and keeps the wrong time. The men drink a fiery alcohol made of some local plant and talk among themselves, walking up and down the
sala
like prize cocks, looking us over haughtily, as if we were livestock.

It is horrid!

The men circle Pia like wasps around a honeycomb. Dona Luisa, Tomas’s mother, watches us like a hawk, and if we so much as speak to one of the men, purses her lips and complains that we are shameless hussies. Dona Luisa especially disapproves of Pia, possibly because Tomas’s eldest sister Rita is not only the same age as Pia, but is considerably plainer. Dona Luisa makes sure they do not sit next to one another on the settee when we have callers.

Pia is genuinely indifferent to the men, although they write her poems and bring her flowers and languish pointedly in her presence looking sick with love. Marisol points out the advantages of this one or that one and tries to arouse some interest, but with no success. Pia misses Zarita.

Sanchia has suddenly become quite pretty. She has grown tall for her age, and quite graceful, with a lovely complexion and dark eyes full of mischief. She looks much older than thirteen and does
her best to flirt with Pia’s suitors. The child should never have been allowed a fan—she has found she can summon a man to her side in minutes simply by fluttering her eyelashes over the top. I am alarmed to see that they do not regard her as a child, and Tomas has been forced to remonstrate with several inflamed young rascals that Sanchia is not yet old enough to marry. This makes Sanchia very cross. She loves attention.