Sacred Ground (29 page)

She would never forget the day, three months ago, when she had gone out riding and had come upon a stranger at the edge of the property, sitting on a stool and sketching in a large book. His jacket was folded neatly on the grass, his shirt shone blazingly white in the sun, and a large straw hat had concealed his features until, hearing the sounds of her approach, he turned, slowly stood, and then swept his hat off his head to reveal hair the color of ripened wheat and eyes the blue of cornflowers. And his beard! Like fleece it was, closely cropped and framing a secret smile. His cravat was loosened, revealing a sunburnt throat, and the fabric of his breeches strained against strong, well-muscled legs. He had looked like a young god.

And then he had greeted her in Spanish! Marina had thought Yankees spoke only English. And with what ease he spoke her tongue, and almost without accent. More than a god— a magician, a wizard. A magnetic silence had captured them that day in a speechless moment as the summer breeze ruffled his sunlight-colored hair, and Marina felt her heart expand within her chest like a morning glory opening to the sun. And then the stranger had said, “Forgive me for staring, Señorita, but when I visited your village of the Angels, I wondered what angels it had been named for. Now I know.”

As she held tightly to him now, inhaling his scent, feeling his strong hands on her, hearing the deep timbre of his voice as she pressed her ear to his chest, Daniel was saying, “What are we to do?” Marina felt a sob gather in her throat and stay there to stop her from breathing. For three months she had known joy and misery, uncertainty and dreams. She had thought she loved Pablo, and then she had met Daniel. But she was promised to Pablo and the miracle she had prayed for nightly, to be released from that promise, never happened. And now Daniel was leaving, to sail away on tomorrow’s tide.

“I shall die,” she murmured against his chest. “I cannot live without you.”

“I, too, dearest Marina,” he said as he stroked her hair and marveled at this angel in his arms. “I have been called by God to take His word to foreign lands and I will need your strength and gentleness to help guide me on that difficult path. Before I met you, I knew fear. I would look out to sea and my soul would tremble at the thought of delivering myself into barbarian hands. And then you, kind and gentle soul, came into my life and calmed me. You remind me daily of God’s grace and that we are never alone. I see days of trial before me, and I fear that without you I shall fail.”

For three golden months they had spun a beautiful dream together, walking hand in hand by the marshes, where they would not be seen, Daniel talking about the wonders of the world, Marina seeing them behind her eyes. When he had told her all the things he was going to show her, Marina had believed it. For a while, they had lived in a fantasy. But reality was inevitable, as was her marriage to Quiñones. And now the day was upon them and the fantasy was at an end.

Marina held her breath. She knew what was coming next— the forbidden words as yet unspoken but which she knew Daniel must now utter. “Run away with me,” he said. “Be my wife.”

Love washed over her like an ocean wave, but pain as well, and fear and sorrow. She wanted nothing more under God’s sun than to be Daniel’s wife and to travel the world with him. But she knew the price that would be paid for such a selfish act.

She drew back, hating to leave the shelter of his arms, but knowing she needed distance between them, if only a little, for what she had to say. “I cannot go with you, my Daniel. My father is a proud and angry man. His wrath would know no limits if I were to defy him and bring dishonor to the family.”

“But you would be far from him, Marina.”

“It is not for myself that I fear. He would punish my mother for my transgression. He would punish her severely, and for the rest of her life. How could I be happy with you, my Daniel, knowing this?”

He took her face into his hands and murmured, “Love, such a mystery, it never asks permission to happen.” He kissed her again, more deeply, and her body responded.

“God in Heaven,” he said hoarsely, knowing that they had reached a dangerous brink. It would be so easy. There was straw on the floor. And no one would know.

“I cannot,” he whispered against her ear. “I will not have us be like this. If it cannot be as husband and wife, then I shall be satisfied with only your kiss.”

They held each other again and heard through the night the mournful roars of the grizzly bear in his compound, and the rattle of chains as he tried to free himself.

Marina wept softly for another moment, then she drew back, detaching herself completely from Daniel, filling her eyes with him one last time. “I must go. Father might catch us.”

But he took her by the shoulders and said with passion: “I will be at the house of Francisco Marquez until midnight tomorrow, and then I must sail with the tide. I pray with all my heart and soul, my beloved, that you will find the strength to come to me. But if I do not hear from you, I shall take it as God’s will that we are not meant to be together. And if you marry Quiñones, I will wish you a long and happy life with him. I shall never forget you, and I shall never love another as I love you, my dearest, dearest Marina.”

* * *

“Mamá, you must come quickly! Something is wrong with Marina. I think she is having one of her spells!”

Carlotta needed to say not another word. Angela flew out of the kitchen, where servants were busy filling wine goblets for the arriving guests. The wedding ceremony was to begin in an hour.

Entering Marina’s chamber she found her daughter lying supine across the bed, sobbing her heart out. She had not yet put on her wedding dress! Dismissing the others, including Carlotta, who had been there to help Marina dress, Angela lifted her daughter by the shoulders, and said gently, “Are you ill, my child? Shall I fetch the laudanum?”

“I am not sick, Mamá! I am unhappy!”

Angela wiped the tears from Marina’s face. “This should be the happiest moment of your life. How can you cry? Tell me what is wrong, child.”

Marina flung herself against her mother’s breast and let the words tumble out. Angela listened to the story in astonishment. Marina was in love with the
Americano
? When had they had time or opportunity to fall in love?

“Marina,” she said sternly, lifting her daughter up and searching her face for deceit. “Tell me truthfully, have you have been alone with him?”

Marina bowed her head. “During siesta, while everyone slept.”

“You were alone with an
American
?”

“He is very much the gentleman, Mamá! All we did was talk. And such wonderful talk!” The words rushed out, tumbling so rapidly from her lips that Angela was left speechless. “Daniel isn’t a trader like other Yankees, Mamá, he is an explorer. He travels around the world and sees fabulous wonders and strange new places. He paints them, Mamá, as a record, a memorial to the various peoples he encounters. He told me of a place where the people ride great big animals with humps on their backs and a land where people live in houses made of snow.”

“What nonsense, Marina.”

“Oh no, Mamá! These aren’t fabled places, they are real. And I want to see them. Oh how I long to go to China and India and Boston. I wish to drink tea and coffee, and wear capes and turbans, and dance at a campfire and ride in a snow sleigh. You and I have only
seen
snow from a distance, Mamá, on the mountain peaks. But Daniel has
walked
in it, he has slept in it.”

Marina seized her mother’s hands between her own feverish ones. “Daniel has described to me buildings so tall they disappear in clouds, churches as big as cities and palaces with a hundred rooms. He has walked on roads that are two thousand years old, Mamá, and there is a river called the Nile where there are gigantic stone lions that were built by mythical beings at the beginning of time.”

Angela didn’t understand half of what her daughter was describing, but the words were not important. What stunned her was the light in Marina’s eyes, the luminescence of youth and optimism, and yearning for knowledge and adventure. A light that Angela had never seen in her own eyes in a mirror, nor in the eyes of her other children.

And then the brutal truth of what Marina was saying struck: the
Americano
wanted to take Angela far away! “What is in these other places that we do not have here?”

“Mamá, when you look at the horizon, don’t you wonder what lies beyond?”

Angela was suddenly angry at Goodside for filling Marina’s head with nonsense. “There is nothing beyond the horizon. There is only here, this world,
our
world. What lies beyond belongs to others, not to us. Here is where our hearts are, where the soul yearns to be.”

“
Your
soul, Mamá, not mine.”

Marina’s words struck her like a blow, and she thought:
Am I the only one who hears the poetry in the trees when the wind whispers through them? Am I the only one whose heart answers the cry of the red-tailed hawk overhead? Am I the only one unafraid of earthquakes, imagining them simply to be a sleepy old giant turning over in his bed?

“Look, Mamá,” Marina said, dropping to her knees and pulling a box from under the bed. She lifted large squares of heavy paper from it, on which Angela could see colorful pictures. “These are called watercolors, Mamá. Look at the beauty Daniel creates.”

Angela was spellbound. The American had captured not only the look of California in his paints, but also the feel. As she went from vista to vista, she could smell the heat of summer, hear the drone of insects, taste the dryness in the air. He had painted a pair of quails, their topknot feathers nodding toward each other. And the peaceful blue Pacific, white sails on the horizon. Gentle paintings, she thought, executed by a heart of love.

“Daniel says the sunlight in California is unlike anywhere in the world. He says it is sharper and purer, and the colors are alive.” Marina added softly, “My Daniel is an artist.”

Angela gave her a startled look.
My
Daniel? As they heard the musicians outside tuning their instruments, and voices raised in greeting as guests arrived, Angela felt a terrible foreboding steal over her. “But think of Pablo. He is a nice boy. You will have a good life with him.” She heard the note of panic in her words, and she realized her heart was racing. If Navarro were to hear of this—

Marina bowed her head. “Yes, Mamá, I know. I will marry Pablo.”

“You will? After all this?”

Marina’s uplifted eyes swam with tears. “I will marry Pablo because I have promised to do so. I will not dishonor you, Mamá.”

“But… you will not be happy.”

Marina bent her head. “My heart will always belong to Daniel. But Pablo is a good man and I shall try to be a good wife to him.”

Angela beheld her daughter’s bowed head and marveled that this beautiful, strong spirit should have sprung from her and Navarro.

“Then you must get dressed, before the others start to wonder.” As Angela moved aside the dressmaker’s sewing box which had been brought out for last minute alterations to the wedding dress, memories from long ago suddenly came to mind— her mother packing for their trip to Spain, and how it had destroyed her when they couldn’t go. Now that Angela thought back on it, perhaps the trip hadn’t been solely for Doña Luisa’s benefit after all. At the time, sixteen and in her own world, Angela had thought the journey was for her mother. But hadn’t her mother said, “I want you to have a better life”? How Luisa had grown quieter and quieter afterward, as if her soul were shrinking, like a candle flame growing smaller until it was out.

Angela realized now in shock that her mother had never planned on coming back from Spain. But deserting a husband was against the law of man and Church. She would have been excommunicated, a devout woman like Luisa. Perhaps imprisoned.
She was doing it for me.

And then another memory: Navarro scoffing over Angela’s choice of name for their baby. “Marina? You name our daughter for a fleet of ships?”

But to Angela, Marina was more than just the Spanish word for navy. It also pertained to the ocean, to the sea, and it conjured images of marine creatures swimming in freedom. And how ironic that Marina should fall in love with a sea captain! Perhaps the dream had been a prophecy.

She continued to look at her daughter’s bowed head, the slumped shoulders, the attitude of resignation. It was the way the old Indian had looked when he had gone away with the padre. And through the open shutters, over the music and the laughter, Angela could hear the cries of the grizzly bear, who had not asked to be brought here, roaring pitifully in his pen to be set free.

“This Daniel,” she said as her heart began to break in two, “he is a Protestant?”

Marina lifted her head, light shining again in her eyes. “He is a good and devout man, Mamá. He wants to take the word of God to people who have never heard of Jesus Christ. But…” She frowned. “Why do you ask?”

Angela listened to the sounds of merriment drift through the open shutters, she sensed the warm evening, balmy and sweet, and knew that in years to come she would remember every small detail of this moment: the musician hitting a wrong note, a firecracker going off, the booming laugh of Pablo’s father, how the small painting of Santa Teresa, hanging on the wall, winked in the candlelight. “You cannot go into the town,” she finally said. “You must arrange for a place to meet Daniel.”

Marina gave her a puzzled look. “What are you talking about?”

“Where is Daniel Goodside? Can you send word to him, before he leaves at midnight?”

“I will not go,” Marina said firmly, although tears rose in her eyes and fell freely, and her voice broke with a sob.

Angela took her by the shoulders. “Child, you have something rare and beautiful. So few of us find such love in our lives, you cannot let it slip through your fingers.” Angela suspected that such embers of passion might even glow somewhere in her own heart, but no man had come along to fan them into flame, and perhaps never would. But Marina must be allowed her chance to know deep and abiding love.