Conquistadora - Esmeralda Santiago [127]
The evening Angelus bell tolled as Severo came up the stairs, slowly, as if not to appear too eager. He’d trimmed his hair, shaved, bathed in water that still gave off a slight, spicy scent of bay rum and cinnamon. He was dressed in dark brown pants and jacket, a double-breasted vest of paisley cloth, a crisp white shirt, and a carefully knotted cravat. It was an outfit she’d never seen him wear, clothes that must have been fashioned in Europe because no one in the campo could tailor a man’s suit that fit so wonderfully. He noticed her appraisal and his cheeks flamed. The color spread to his forehead and to the tips of his ears, newly exposed by the haircut. To give him time to recover, she looked into the batey. It was empty except for industrious hens and chicks pecking at the brownish red ground. He’d ordered the workers to the other side of the batey so that, should she refuse him, there would be no witnesses to his humiliation. This impressed her. He didn’t forget even the smallest details.
“Please sit down,” she said sweetly to let him know he had nothing to fear.
“Señora, over the last six years I have been your most devoted servant. In Spain our backgrounds and lives would have made it unlikely for us to know each other. But we are in a place where anything is possible. I dare to speak today as a simple man most sincerely and irrevocably in love with you. In your precious fingers I place my heart, my self, my goods, and my future, and humbly request your hand in marriage.”
He’d obviously rehearsed his words, probably thinking that a woman like her must hear pretty speeches and poetic sentiments. There was confidence but also quiet humility in his demeanor. For a moment, she wanted to tell him he had overreached, that she didn’t love him, that the only reason she would marry him was because she needed him at Hacienda los Gemelos and dared not refuse him. Their eyes met, and she flushed head to toe. In that instant she knew that none of it mattered to either of them.
In Spain, a suitor visited on Sunday afternoons and even a widow with children was chaperoned by a female relative or trusted family friend. He’d sit not touching any part of her not necessary to touch in the course of normal conversation. After a visit that was to be neither too short nor too long, he’d go home to do whatever men did when they were soon to be married. The woman would return to her rooms to fantasize about married life and to finish work on her trousseau.
After Ana agreed to marry him, Severo came up the stairs of the casona every evening, always impeccably dressed in a newly pressed and starched white shirt and dark pants. He’d dispensed with the cravat, paisley vest, and jacket, which Ana wouldn’t see again until their wedding day.
They sat on the porch, chaperoned by Flora, who performed her duties with alacrity when Severo was near. Also within sight of the couple was Conciencia, who even as a toddler displayed none of the behavior of normal children. She sat quietly by Ana’s side on the chair José had made for her, with a back lower than on a regular chair to accommodate her hump. If she grew restless, or if Ana asked her to leave them alone because they needed to discuss adult things, Conciencia went into the house, dragging her little chair behind her.
This second engagement had none of the romance or excitement of the first, none of the expectation of love thwarted and reclaimed. Most evenings, Ana and Severo sat on the porch discussing what brought them together and interested them most—Hacienda los Gemelos. But sometimes their conversation took an unintended path, when they exchanged versions of their lives, sanitized. These intimacies were careful