Paris was not home—she hated the convent to which she had been sent to learn to be a lady. And she hardly ever saw maman any longer—it would all have been too much to bear if it had not been for Delphine.
Why hadn’t papa come after them? Why had he waited so long to acknowledge her existence?
“Your father was naturally upset when your mother ran off with you that way. And then, for so many months, he believed you were dead—killed, like so many others during the Terror. Child! You must try to understand that your father is doing what he believes best for you. He loves you—”
“If he really loved me, he would have taken the trouble to try and find me before. He would let me become a nun, as I wish to be.” Recklessly, in spite of Mother Angelina’s reproachful look, she cried out, “He doesn’t wish to be bothered with me any longer. Perhaps everything maman used to say was true, after all. She said he didn’t want her after a while, because she didn’t give him a son. She used to cry all the time because of the other women he had, even slaves. She said he had an octoroon mistress he loved better than her—”
Her almost hysterical outburst checked, Marisa had been dismissed. But even now, in spite of all her efforts, she found that she could not check her own wild, resentful thoughts.
Why couldn’t she have been born a boy? Why a female—slave forever to a man’s whims? Ah, for the freedom of those runaway days with the gypsies when she had been dressed as a boy and felt as free as a boy. In retrospect, the vagrant, vagabond life didn’t seem too unpleasant at all. She had learned to ride astride and to run barefoot over the hardest ground, and even to pick pockets without being caught. A whole year of freedom—and then another convent. But after a while, the atmosphere of peace and tranquillity had dissolved some of the tension in her thin, highly-strung body, and the nightmares from which she would wake, screaming, had grown less and less frequent. Marisa, the little gypsy rebel had changed into Marisa the postulant, desiring nothing more than to spend her life behind these quiet, safe walls, which had become her refuge.
And now, without warning, the peaceful future she had hoped for was to be snatched away from her. Without being consulted or offered a choice, she was to be sold into slavery. Yes, that was what it amounted to, after all!
A soft hiss made Marisa raise her head abruptly to meet a pair of coal-dark eyes that sparkled with mischief. Blanca! Only the gypsy girl would be so bold as to wander in here, of all places.
“Hah—innocent one! Are you dreaming of your handsome caballero? So you’ve changed your mind about becoming a sister like that sour-faced Sor Teresa, eh? But I don’t blame you. Me, I would do the same thing if I was offered a novio who is both rich and handsome. Muy hombre, that one. You’re lucky!”
“I don’t know what you mean!” But Marisa’s sharp rejoinder was almost automatic. Somehow, Blanca always contrived to know everything. Taking advantage of her privileged position as a protégée of the mother superior, she alone was free to come and go from the convent as she pleased; her father, when they were not travelling, desired that his only daughter be given an education. And since his tribe had saved the nuns’ lives, guiding them safely from a turbulent France to the comparative peace of Spain, Blanca’s intermittent, giggling presence within the otherwise quiet walls was tolerated—although some of the older nuns sighed over her wild ways and prayed for her soul.
There was a time when she and Marisa had been closer than sisters, and now even while she tried to frown, Marisa could not help letting her curiosity get the better of her. She repeated, with a forced air of indifference, “I don’t know where you pick such wild stories up. And you know you should not be here. If the reverend mother sees us talking, she’ll find all kind of penances for me to perform.”
Not in the least put off, Blanca merely gave a snort, putting her hands on her hips. “Ah, bah! You speak like a child who tries too hard to be good. And as for Mother Angelina, she is far too busy entertaining two visitors to worry about us just yet! You see—you cannot hide anything from me.” Her voice dropped, and she thrust her face closer to Marisa’s, her black eyes narrowing slyly. “What do you want to wager that you’ll be sent for again? I’m sure your fine new novio will want to take a look at his little convent bride. Didn’t you hear the bell at the gate?”
“What?” Marisa’s eyes had widened, and her voice sounded faint.
Blanca giggled, pleased at the effect of her words. “You look as if you are ready to faint with fear! What’s the matter, little one—have you forgotten what a man looks like? But I do not think you will be too displeased with this one. Your padre made a good choice; you’re luckier than most, you know!”
Her self-control seemed to fall away as Marisa jumped to her feet, golden eyes narrow, hands clenched into fists at her sides.
With a pleased grin, as if her baiting had been meant to provoke just such a reaction, Blanca danced back on her bare feet, her voice still taunting. “What’s the matter? Have I made you angry at last? I thought you’d be grateful to be warned beforehand that he’s here—your new novio and a friend. He must have been impatient to catch his first glimpse of you, don’t you think?”
“No!” And then, more strongly, “No, I tell you! I won’t be married off like—like some chattel! I don’t care how rich he is, or how handsome—I detest him already. I won’t see him! I’d rather kill myself than—”
“And here I was wondering if they’d got to you, after all. The good sisters, with all their preaching of humility and obedience and—” Blanca made a grimace “—discipline. Look at you! Why, you had begun to look like one of them already, wearing those clothes, your hair hidden as if you’d already lopped it off. When I told Mario, you should have seen his face! ‘What a waste!’ he kept saying. And he was so furious that my father should have brought you here and let you leave us. ‘She was born to be a gypsy,’ he kept saying. But me—” Blanca gave her companion a considering look, her head on a side, and giggled again. “Me—I think you are stupid! I saw him, this novio of yours, and he’s handsome. Tall, and well-dressed, for all that he has a friend who’s a popinjay. Perhaps he’ll wake you up, eh? I think this is what you need, to be made aware that you are a woman, and not a—a soul!”
“Oh! My soul is lost already. I’ve tried so hard to be good and to curb my temper and my wilfulness—but what good has it done me? No wonder Mother Angelina kept asking me so solemnly if I was sure I had a true vocation! Blanca, I won’t be married off, do you hear me? Go back and tell them you couldn’t find me anywhere—that I’m sick—or—or run off somewhere. I won’t see him! I’ll not be put on exhibition like a mare up for sale at a horse fair!”
Blanca’s dark eyes were crinkled to avoid the sun so that it was hard to read any expression in them.
“We are leaving tomorrow, all of us, for the big feria in Seville. You know my father is the best horse-trader in the country—everyone says so! And after that, we might travel back to France. Things are different now, so I hear. They have become gay again. That’s what I really came to tell you. Perhaps, when you’re married, your husband will take you there.”
Gold eyes stared into black ones—the two girls were almost the same height, but Blanca’s figure was more voluptuous, her simple skirt and blouse exposing bare ankles and tanned arms—the swelling curve of her well-developed breasts rising from the low-cut bodice she wore. Marisa, covered from waist to ankle, was slim enough to pass for a boy, her only redeeming feature being the dark-lashed yellow-gold eyes that looked enormous in her pinched, taut face. Beside Blanca, whose cloud of black hair fell down past her shoulders, Marisa would always look pale and insignificant, until, as she did now, she pulled the severe white head scarf off, and her hair, the color of antique gold, reflected the sunlight.
“You’re going to France? Oh, to be so free again! Whenever I see you, I start to realize that I’m like a bird in a cage.”
“Poor little bird!” Blanca repeated mockingly, softly. “But I hadn’t noticed that you were beating your wings against the bars of late. You seemed a happy prisoner!”
“It’s