The Ornaments of Love

Chapter Sixteen

In the weeks that followed, the two lovers saw each other only now and then, at parties or at church. The Marquesa had made a concerted effort to share what moments she could with his mother. Those few jewels offered to Veronica and Dídac, which provided a reasonable measure of privacy, were to transpire during dinner at either family's home, yet proved to be insufficient for either of the two. But for any longing they may have had to see each other, or even steal a kiss, which the young man would never do, they were more than gratified by their correspondence and remained vigilantly faithful to it.

Veronica wrote like a madwoman at all hours, constructing other worlds filled with enchanted forests, secret caves by the sea, or voyages to the stars on the backs of winged horses. In all of these fictions, in all these fantastic places, there were lovers. Lovers of all sorts. Lovers of all predicaments. Lovers of all passions.

The girl would stop every now and again to catch her breath and find herself fretting over just how ridiculous and stupid all these stories were, wanting to stop instantly and never see Dídac again out of sheer embarrassment and shame. But with blessed relief would come Dídac's writings full of the same simple and stupid worlds that were inhabited by nothing but lovers and those who would dare to tear them apart, as well.

She didn't see why his stories always had to feature antagonists tearing lovers apart; as of yet, there had not been a single villain present in their lives. Dídac's parents and siblings had shouted from the rafters with support, or so it seemed in the very short messages he sent her that were non-fictional. Even Veronica's mother had somehow shown herself to be hardly the villain at all, writing directly to the girl as to how proud she was of Veronica's sound decisions. The girl now wondered who her mother truly was, what the woman was like in everyone else's eyes, how she affected their lives. Was the effect as unbelievably pleasant as it had proved itself to be among those who had never met her? It all seemed so long ago that the woman was a part of her life.

But as for her relationship with Marcelina, Veronica felt that she hadn't been closer to any person as she was with her aunt. Marcelina continued the girl's education on womanhood to no end, and it was with a magnificent sense of pride that she read all of the correspondence between the two lovers. She was saddened that Dídac's mother couldn't be in on the whole charade; the boy confirmed Veronica's inquiry as to whether his mother had ever read any of her letters. Veronica told him the same of her aunt, upon the Marquesa's insistence, of course.

As for the progress Marcelina strove for in the young lovers' public relationship, there was little she could do but draw Dídac's parents into the conversation whenever possible. She would smile and sigh when they would tell her in so many words that the children should have a large amount of time by which to know each other. And wasn't that proper, they would ask, and wasn't that necessary? Marcelina thought it a hilarious notion on the part of the Ferreros, as if they were giving the two any real time at all.

One might have thought they would have grown to be more flexible with the passing of three sons into the world, but the Ferreros held fast to their family ways, and it was all Marcelina could do to keep planning private family dinners to accommodate Veronica and Dídac's need to see each other. She figured that, sooner or later, something would have to give. The structure of all this slow and laborious propriety wasn't nearly as solid as everyone believed. Marcelina found little ways to get beyond it so the two could have every possible moment between them before the girl's mother would insist a suitor be chosen. Lucía would not wait forever on Doña de Ferrero to realize that there should be a marriage proposal being made to her daughter presently. The time for the child's future to be settled was at hand. It would not wait upon the hopeful patience of parents who were sitting back to witness the maturing of an indecisive boy, wealthy or not.