The Sisterhood

Chapter 25


From the Chronicle of Las Sors Santas de Jesus, by the pen of Esperanza, the Mission Convent of Las Golondrinas de Los Andes, May 1553





Mother has written to Salome, but has not yet had a reply. I must be patient. It is the custom here that widows do not receive visitors for at least a year and sometimes longer. Since Easter, Mother has received inquiries from possible suitors for us, though the prospect makes my heart sink. Meanwhile, much as I hate sewing, the three of us have undertaken the mending for the orphanage in return for our room and food, to save our dowries. The dry season has begun and the air is fresher, and we have a favorite shady spot in the bustling courtyard where we sit at our work. Sanchia grumbles that we have been here half a year and she wishes Pia or I would hurry and find a husband, or that she would, so we could leave the convent.

Pia, calm as ever, reminds Sanchia that she is only twelve and too young to worry about such things, but Sanchia, who has grown tall for her age, tosses her black curls and says that here girls younger than she are betrothed and sometimes married by twelve. Pia’s friend Zarita, who sits with us most days, nods.

Zarita was such a child wife herself and is in the convent awaiting her divorce. Hopeful divorcees stay in the convent, for propriety’s sake, until their petition is considered by the tribunal. Though it takes a very long time, these petitions are usually granted, and women go on to marry another husband they like better than the first one. Sometimes husbands who are being divorced send messages or come to the gate and order or pitifully beg their wives to come home, rarely with success.

We were scandalized at first. Now we are used to a constant procession of disgruntled wives, often accompanied by children, relatives, servants, and their pet birds or dogs. The richer ones bring household goods that are essential to their comfort—candelabra, gold and silver plates, feather mattresses, and many dresses and fans and shawls. Occasionally there is a public outburst of hysterics while a would-be divorcee establishes her place in the hierarchy of wives, widows, repentant prostitutes, and destitute females who occupy the courtyard. It is a world of women we have never seen before and is most entertaining.

Zarita is sixteen and as beautiful as Pia. When they whisper and giggle with their heads together it is like seeing two flowers, one fair and one dark. Zarita was married off at the age of nine by her father, who is now dead. Her brother insists on a divorce because he wishes her to marry his friend. When asked whether she hopes her petition will succeed, she shrugs and sighs. Zarita does not like her brother’s friend any better than her first husband, and would be happy to remain at the convent. She and Pia find solace in each other’s company. But in the end she will be obliged to obey one man or the other, so she hopes the tribunal will not hurry.

Pia is unconcerned about her unmarried state, content to pass her days with Zarita. Mother says that as the eldest of the three of us, I must be married first. She has made some inquiries on my behalf, but has rejected several possibilities, saying I will not like the rough ways of many of the colonial men.

Would they like me?

Zarita has a mirror, and when she wasn’t looking I picked it up. I have dark eyes, a long nose, long eyelashes, and heavy brows that make me look quite solemn. I tried out a smile. My teeth look very white, possibly because we are all a little brown from the sun. No teeth are missing. I bit my lips to give them a little color, and pinched my cheeks. Would a man like such a face? I am not beautiful like Pia or even pretty like Sanchia; perhaps I resemble my mother.

I told my reflection that I wish I did not have to be married.

There was a bustle and commotion in the courtyard, and I put the mirror down to see that it was caused by a well-dressed woman, veiled, as is the custom among the married women, with a nun and two novices at her elbow and two maids following with cushions and a sunshade and shawls. Clearly she was someone important to have so many people in attendance. The maids plumped the cushions on a bench, a footstool was placed for the lady’s feet, and a servant hurried out with hibiscus water. When the lady was settled, a neatly dressed mestiza maid detached herself from the little group, made her way across the courtyard to us, curtsied, and asked our names. When I told her she smiled a little said, “As my mistress said…please come with me.”

Pia and Sanchia and I exchanged surprised looks, but put down our sewing and smoothed our skirts and followed the maid to the fine lady’s little court. The fine lady threw back her veil and we shrieked, “Marisol!”

“It is!” exclaimed Sanchia and threw herself into Marisol’s arms.

I did the same, then Pia, and the four of us laughed and cried and hugged until we were breathless. As usually happens when there is any excitement, everyone else in the courtyard stopped what they were doing to watch. Zarita drifted over and joined us as we settled down around Marisol.

She looked very well. In fact, Marisol looked wonderful. Her dark hair tumbled around her shoulders, her cheeks were pink, and her eyes danced. Rings flashed on her fingers and she wore a great many necklaces. Her face had somehow softened, no longer overcast with anger and impatience. She was also unmistakably pregnant. Clearly much had happened since the terrible day that she was abducted.

She blushed. “It was not so terrible after all. In fact, it was quite romantic.”

“Marisol!” We waited in suspense. “Tell us!”

“When the bandits carried me away, I was terrified. But angry, too, that anyone would attack women in this way. The man who seized me was very strong, but fury sustained me, and as we galloped away I determined that when we stopped I would fight, kick, and bite with all my strength. It was the only way not to let the fear overwhelm me.

“We rode and rode, until at last we reached a deserted tumbledown settlement with a few houses that were crumbling and empty, and some sort of chapel with a cross on top. The riders slowed their horses, and though I knew I could count on no help here I decided to fight to the end. I looked up at the villain who had snatched me, and tore the scarf from his face to find it was the impertinent fellow, Don Tomas Beltran! He was laughing and looking rather pleased with himself.

“‘Don Tomas!’ I exclaimed. ‘How dare you treat ladies so!’ and slapped him as hard as I could. He looked surprised but caught my wrists before I could strike him again and held them fast, forcing me to listen to him. ‘I have an honorable proposal. I need a wife of my own choosing. At this very moment my mother is arranging my wedding to an older woman from a good Spanish family, who is very fat, ugly, and devout, who smells bad, and who is very bossy and will, my mother thinks, succeed in recalling me to my family responsibilities. You, on the other hand…I could not let such a pretty and spirited girl waste away in a convent.’

“This was outrageous of course. But flattering in a way.” Marisol smiled. “Then he went on, ‘With my father’s death I am saddled like a mule with a huge estate and its responsibilities, not least of which is to marry and provide heirs. Legitimate ones, not my others…never mind. I am summoned home to be officially betrothed to the fat dragon, and as my godfather has sworn to have me jailed and taken home by force unless I obey, it is best to marry you now and court you later. It is the only escape I can devise, but I flatter myself that being my wife will have its compensations—I court charmingly. You will be the mistress of a great house and the queen of my heart. You will have many servants and clothes and jewels and everything you desire. Your children will be Beltran heirs. And not least…’ He drew a hand down my bodice and I shivered, imagining how it would feel if his hand slid farther. ‘Unless, of course, you are too holy to be troubled by carnal thoughts…but somehow I think you are not. For that I love you already. Conveniently,’ he pointed to the hovel with the cross on top, ‘we are near a priest. And here, as a token of my good faith and our betrothal, is a ring.’ He bowed and held it out to me.

“A ragged, rather wild-eyed figure in a priest’s cassock shuffled out of the church, squawked like a surprised chicken, raised his hand in benediction and muttered to no one in particular, shuffled back and forth in the dust, as if waiting for worms to appear. The situation was ridiculous—a kidnapping, a pompous proposal in the middle of nowhere, now this human chicken…but the ring was a very large emerald with diamonds. And there was no help to be had in the deserted settlement.

“I said, ‘And if I refuse your gracious offer, Don Tomas, this hermit or vagabond or priest, or…chicken…will marry us anyway?’

“He smiled. ‘Oh, yes. I will marry you now whether you agree or not, that being the only way I can avoid my mother’s plan. But once we are married you will be put to the trouble of swearing to the ecclesiastical court that you were abducted and married against your will. My formidable mother, who I can promise you will be furious, will give you every assistance in your divorce. But consider this—it is also possible that once you are married to me you will not wish to seek an annulment. How else will you know?’

“Arrogant but very handsome. Rich. And his arms carrying me on his horse had been strong. Looking at him I thought, why not accept? The nuns would only find me someone older and duller. I held out my hand and he slipped the ring on my finger. ‘Let it be the shortest of betrothals,’ he said. The old priest led us into the hot little chapel and married us. Afterward the men who had accompanied Tomas wished us joy, left a horse for me, and rode off. Don Tomas gave the priest a gold coin, leaving the man blinking at such generosity, and led me by the hand into one of the little empty houses as the sun was setting. He unpacked food, spread our blankets on the ground, and built a blazing fire that soon matched our passion that night.

“The next morning, Tomas said I was a married woman, Dona Maria Isabella Beltran de Vilar d’Ascension, and when he brought me home as his bride he would insist his family not call me by my childhood name but Dona Maria, as befits the heir’s wife. We needed all the dignity we could muster between us—when I met his mother, I would understand.

“Tomas led my horse by the bridle to keep it from running away. I had never been on a horse before and it was thrilling to be so high up, though it made my back stiff and legs sore at first. We rode along together as husband and wife, talking and talking, sometimes arguing, often laughing, as if we would never stop. Tomas told me about the country, how his family had come with the conquistadors and been granted a vast tract of land with many silver mines and encomienda rights.”

“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.