‘WHAT!’
‘The child you worked so hard to save was not sired by your father, Zarita,’ Lorena said emphatically. ‘Believe me, I know. I managed to make your father believe that it was his, but it wasn’t. The child was conceived by my reckless plan to provide him with a son so that my own position would be secure.’
‘Your child’s father is Ramón Salazar?’ My voice croaked in stunned disbelief.
‘He is. Ramón has such an empty face with no distinguishing features that I thought the child would have mainly my looks. But I shouldn’t have done it. I ask you to forgive me.’
I looked to my aunt Beatriz for guidance. But she was equally taken aback. I fumbled for words as I tried to absorb what I’d just heard.
‘This is not a sin that it’s in my power to forgive,’ I told Lorena. ‘The wrong you did there was to my father, and I am glad that he’s not here to discover that truth.’
‘But the son he wanted was partly for your sake!’ Lorena cried out. ‘Oh yes, your father longed for a son to carry his name, but it was also for your welfare. He thought you too young and headstrong to manage your own affairs. He worried that when he died, a devious man might come along and master you and have command of all your possessions. He wanted to father a son on me so that the boy would grow up to protect his older sister!’
‘Papa still had concern for my welfare?’
‘He loved you very much, your father, but men are such gulls when they desire a woman. It’s easy to twist their minds and their hearts. I used my position in your father’s affections and I turned him against you. I told him that you hated me insanely and lied to others about me. I reported that you’d taken some of my things; that you’d stolen my personal possessions, and contrived to leave these in your room so that he could find them there.’
I gasped. ‘My father said nothing of this to me.’
‘Of course he wouldn’t. He made me promise never to speak of it to anyone else. But it forced him to agree with me at last that you should be sent away, for I said you might do the new baby harm. After he saw you slap my face on the day Don Piero called to propose to you, I convinced him that you had a wildness in you. I said you’d made threats, that you hinted of bad things you might do if ever there was a new child in the house.’
No wonder Papa believed me half mad and wanted to put me safely away.
‘It was I who was insane.’ Lorena’s breathing was heavier, yet she seemed to gather reserves of strength from within to carry on making her last confession. ‘I was madly jealous of his love for you. For myself, I cannot say that I loved your father. I married him to get out of my own father’s home, where there was no spare money for parties or pretty clothes. I wanted to have some fun and command my own household, and with you there it was impossible. Even when he’d banished you to the convent, he went on loving you. He spoke of you often; of how you used to read to each other at night.’
My heart was comforted. At last I understood now why Lorena wanted me gone and I felt true and sincere sympathy for her position.
‘I need your forgiveness,’ said Lorena in distress. ‘I beg for it. Please say that you forgive me that I may suffer less torment in the afterlife.’
‘I do. I do.’ I knelt by her bed and took her hand in mine. ‘I readily forgive you, Lorena. The fault was not only yours. I should have been more welcoming. I see now that I didn’t care for my father’s happiness. I resented you for taking the black mourning curtains from the windows. But it was the right thing to do – to let some light into the house after four months of grief. I forgive you.’
‘But I have done a greater misdeed.’ Lorena’s eyes were dulling, her eyelids drooping down.
‘It’s all right,’ I assured her. ‘Be at peace.’
‘No, you must pay attention, Zarita. I was so envious of you. I did everything I could to be like you. I listened to his stories. I tried to read his books – his dull, dull books. But he loved you, always you. So I thought that if I could get rid of you, then I would be able to control the house and him.’
‘You had your way in that, Lorena. Papa sent me away.’
‘Yes, but as soon as you were gone he missed you. He told me how you used to ride out together each day.’
Papa had loved me.
I remembered the early mornings of my childhood – going to the stables as the sun was rising and a bluish pale moon hung in the sky. Papa was by my side as we cantered past the forest to the green valley, hearing the call of wild creatures, seeing the hovering kestrel and hawk. A fast gallop through the meadows of sweet green grass and then a trot home, with him telling me tales of his own childhood. I felt a great pang of loss and wished that our last times together had been more pleasant.
‘Your papa actually pined for you.’ Lorena’s speech was slurred, but in her desire to unburden her soul she forced herself to continue. ‘I felt rejected. And the servants who’d disliked me from the beginning now hated me. Oh, they wouldn’t have gone so far as to poison me, but they resented my being in your mother’s rooms. They gave me sullen looks and performed each task I asked them as slowly as possible. I blamed all this on you. And then I think your papa began to turn from me and become watchful. His health was giving him worries. He started to sort his papers and make arrangements for the disposal of his estate. I discovered that he’d taken a large amount of money and hidden it away somewhere. It was for you, in case anything happened to him. He was having recurring pains in his chest and believed his heart was weakening. I think he thought he might be close to death. And I knew his next step would be to disinherit me and perhaps even the child if he found out it wasn’t his. So I made plans to rid myself of you.’ She raised her head up from her pillow. ‘I decided that I would kill you!’
‘This is mere fancy,’ I said firmly. ‘We quarrelled, that’s true, but no real malice was intended.’
‘It was on my part,’ Lorena said hoarsely. ‘You must escape. Zarita, you must escape!’
‘It is safe here,’ I told her.
‘Nowhere is safe from them.’ Her eyes darted around in panic. ‘Nowhere. You must leave Spain.’
Leave Spain! She was delirious. I took the cloth, wrung it out in cold water and bathed her forehead. Her skin looked like my mama’s had the day she’d died. She was slipping away very quickly now. I spoke to my aunt: ‘Where is the priest?’
‘I’ll go and find out.’ She hurried from the room.
‘Are we alone?’ Lorena whispered.
‘Yes.’ I had to lean close to her mouth to hear.
‘I have betrayed you, Zarita, in the most . . . most wicked way.’
‘Anything you have done, I forgive.’
‘The letter . . .’ Now she really was drifting, her mind clouding as her spirit began to disassociate itself from her body, ready for its flight to the next world. ‘There’s no escape. The letter . . . The letter . . .’
The door opened and my aunt entered with the priest. He set out the bowls of holy oils on the bedside table and opened his prayer book.
‘Zarita,’ Lorena said faintly, ‘you will burn . . . the letter . . .’
I nodded. ‘Yes, I will burn the letter.’ I had no idea what letter she meant, but I agreed with what she was saying in order to placate her in her last moments. ‘All your papers will be burned.’ This had already happened. I thought of the charred remains in the family home.
‘Too late,’ she murmured. ‘It is gone.’
If the letter was gone, then why did she want me to burn it?
Within a minute, Lorena too was gone. Her breathing rattled and then ceased. My aunt waited before drawing up the sheet to cover her face.
‘What ailed her at the end?’ The priest looked at me searchingly.
‘She was rambling,’ I said. ‘Everything was mixed up in her head.’ It was not for me to make a confession on behalf of another.
‘I will pray for her troubled soul,’ the priest said, and then added thoughtfully, ‘It was as if she carried a great guilt and did not want to face her Maker with it still on her conscience; something specific . . . something yet to be discovered.’