Sycamore Hill (21 page)

“Jordan went to school in Boston. He said the women there were
haughty and lifeless.”

Then why did he marry one? I asked myself silently, feeling
furious. Reva was watching my face.

“I hope you are not taking this personally, Miss McFarland,” she
said smoothly. “You are not at all like that.”

“Perhaps Mr. Bennett just moved in the wrong circles,” I said
indifferently, shelling peas with a vengeance.

“Oh, he moved in the best circles,” Reva said. “He even married
one of the primest stock Boston could offer.” Her cold tone drew my attention.
“You’ve been in Sycamore Hill for two months or more, Miss McFarland,” she
said. “Don’t pretend you have not heard about Jordan’s wife, Gwendolyn.”

“Yes, I’ve heard a few things.”

“Never have I met a more arrogant woman, nor hated one so much.”

Reva’s veracity embarrassed me, but my averted look did not
prevent her from continuing.

“She treated me like so much dirt under her feet. She wanted
Jordan to send me and Diego away, but he wouldn’t agree.” Her hands halted in
their mutilation of the peapods, and she spread them on the table, staring
toward the window.

“Diego was just a little boy then... a beautiful little boy.
Gwendolyn Bennett wanted to possess Jordan, but she could not. She hated Diego
because Jordan loved him.” Reva looked at me, eyes flashing. “Why should he not
have loved Diego?” she demanded fiercely.

“Señorita
....”

The dark eyes lost their anger and glittered with anguish and
confusion. “She called us an embarrassment. My beautiful little boy ... an
embarrassment.” Her eyes filled, and her voice softened. “She called him
‘Jordan’s little bastard,’” she went on, her voice barely audible, and I felt a
pain cut into me.

“How could she have been so cruel, Miss McFarland? I was young and
foolish once. I fell in love with the wrong man. But she had no right to hurt
my boy like that. To say those things about him....” I reached across to touch
her hand, not knowing what to say to her.

“Before she came, people thought I was married,” Reva told me.
“Now they know about Diego, and it is just one more thing they use to hurt him.
I would rather they threw stones at me than hurt my son.”

I felt my own eyes filling with tears, and I sought uselessly for
something to say. Reva looked at me then. Her hand uncurled, and she clasped
mine.

“I’m sorry I have upset you. I did not mean to speak to you about
this. It is only since Diego left school that I have thought much about it.
Perhaps I should take him to Mexico, where he would be among his own people.
There no one would doubt me if I said I was a widow. It would be my secret and
my son's.

“Surely Mr. Bennett would not allow you to do that. You belong
here,” I told her.

“Jordan would let me do whatever I wish,” she said tiredly, and I
wondered if what she really meant was that he did not care enough to stop her
from taking his son away.

“I have lived here on this ranch since my father and mother came
from Mexico to work for Jordan’s parents,” Reva explained. “I was eight, a
skinny, little, big-eyed girl. Jordan was fourteen then....” She sighed.
‘Twenty years ago... such a long time.” She looked at me and smiled. “My son
was born in this house. But perhaps all that is not enough to make me belong here.
You must be part of the people in order to belong, and the people of Sycamore
Hill want no part of me or my bastard.”

“Please don’t call Diego that.”

“It’s the truth.” Her face contorted in pain.

“But don’t you love his father?”

Reva took a long time in answering. There was a distant, sad look
on her face. “Even after all this time, and all I’ve been through because of
him, I still love Diego’s father.”

“Then you must not do anything rash. Whatever anyone says, Diego
belongs here. Mexico is a long way from here, and Diego is not a Mexican. He is
an American. He was born here and raised here. You can’t take him away.”

“Tell the people of Sycamore Hill that,” Reva said bitterly. “He
has brown skin. And everyone around here thinks that all brown people are
Joaquin Murietta, riding to steal and kill.”

“Fear makes fools of people.”

“And fear makes them cruel as well.”

“It wasn’t the children who wanted your son expelled,
señorita.
A few adults used one child’s jealousy to their own purpose. It won’t always be
that way.”

Reva shook her head dubiously. “Jordan was right about you,
señorita.
You know very little about people.”

I sat back, stung by her remark and reminded again of her
closeness to Jordan Bennett. Reva spread her hands in an apologetic gesture.

“It is true. Some people will change... those that wish to do so.
But James Olmstead? Reverend Hayes? Branford Poole? Never.”

“You blame all for the actions of a few,” I said.

“The many allowed the few to do as they wished, did they not?”

I could scarcely deny that, but I wondered if everyone even knew
what had happened to Diego, or if they had only heard a twisted view of the
incident in the schoolyard. “Perhaps things would be different if everyone was
aware of the true circumstances,” I said thoughtfully. Reva stared.

“What are you thinking,
señorita?"
Her usual smooth,
cream-brown forehead was puckered. I smiled, unable to suppress an impish
twinkle of mischief.

“The idea hasn’t yet formed itself completely....”

“Please do not get yourself into more trouble because of Diego,”
she protested, suspicious.

“I’m in trouble most of the time anyway,” I shrugged.

“Well, Jordan will be furious with me if you find yourself in
further trouble because of us.”

“I don’t believe that for a moment,
señorita.
Mr. Bennett’s
sense of humor thrives on my predicaments.”

Reva frowned at my taut expression. “You are wrong.”

“Well, don’t let’s worry about what Mr. Bennett thinks. What I do
is my own concern and none of his.” I launched our conversation into questions
about
El Día de los Muertos,
and relieved, Reva gave me a colorful and
enthusiastic narration of the holiday rooted in pre-Columbian Indian and
Spanish tradition. She explained for how several days she had been preparing
for the festive holiday. She showed me several dozen calaveras she had made for
other Mexican families employed on Eden Rock, as well as loaves of sweet bread
twisted into elaborate shapes. One loaf was a serpent, complete with forked
tongue and tail and decorated artistically with red and green icing. Most of
the others were shaped into human bones.

I accepted Reva’s invitation to her room, and was surprised at the
modest quarters she and Diego inhabited at the back of the ranch house, just
beyond the kitchen. I had expected Bennett to provide her with more comfortable
rooms.

Her room was pleasant enough, and far more spacious than my own.
It was painted ivory and draped with lacy curtains and panels of thicker
brocade. It was well-equipped with functional furnishings. There were two beds,
one on either side of the room. One wing chair covered in brocade stood near
the window overlooking the back garden.

Late roses on the lattice just outside the window filled the room
with sweet fragrance. A smaller, straight-backed chair stood by a desk in one
corner, where Diego’s books were stacked beneath a brass lamp.

Pictures on the wall were embroidered and framed in plain,
polished wood. A large, square, cloth-remnant braided rug lay over the wooden
floor. There was a pedestal table with a healthy fern near the windows. And
just in front of the windows, where the afternoon sun streamed in, was a long,
low table covered with a white cloth embroidered with brilliant colors. On the
table stood a large, exquisitely carved white-stone crucifix. To the right of
it stood a picture of a half-dozen people in somber attire and in a blank-stare
pose. The men were hatless and standing behind two women who were seated, one
higher than the other. Two children sat at the women’s feet. I recognized
Jordan Bennett immediately, with his mane of tawny, sun-bleached hair and those
magnificent light eyes. He looked no more than 14, tall and lanky and, with his
devilish grin, much like Sherman Poole.

Reva picked up the picture. She pointed a long, slender finger to
the taller of the two men. He had thick, dark hair that was brushed forward on
a high brow. Piercing, hard eyes stared at me out of a ruggedly handsome face
with a square, determined jaw. The thin lips were unsmiling and firm.

“This is Jordan’s father.” Her finger moved to the woman beneath
the man’s hand. “And his mother.” The woman had the same light-colored eyes as
did her son, and her hair was blond and braided in a large bun at the nape of
her slender neck. She was a delicate-looking woman and seemed mismatched with
the giant behind her. Jordan sat at her skirts, legs crossed Indian fashion and
hands folded in his lap.

“This is my father and mother.” Reva indicated the people to the
left of the Bennetts. The man was broad-shouldered and lean, with very black
hair and eyes. He had a mustache, well-trimmed and complimentary to his long
face. Reva’s mother was attractive, with her same darkness, but slightly heavy.
The young girl at her feet was thin and big-eyed, as Reva had described
herself.

“It’s the only picture I have of my parents. It was taken by a man
passing through on his way to the goldfields. He was a journalist from the
East, and he had a camera that stood on three tall, wooden legs. We’d never
seen a camera before. He would set the contraption up and then get underneath
all this black draping.” She laughed in remembrance. ‘Then there would be this
great flash of light. It was wonderful!”

Reva looked at the picture again. “I heard that he wrote a book
about the West, but I’ve never seen it. I wonder if this picture is in it.”

“Were you and Mr. Bennett both the only children in your
families?”

“I had two sisters and a brother. My two sisters died in infancy.
My brother, Raoul, died when he was ten. I was only three then, and I remember
almost nothing about him.”

“How very sad.”

“It was not uncommon for families to lose so many children.
Measles took many. Fevers, dysentery, even hunger.” Reva carefully set the
picture back on the altar. “It was different for
Senor
and
Senora
Bennett. The
senora
confided a great deal to my mama. They were
amigas.
My mother was strong and used to hard work. The
senora
was frail. She
was kind to the people who helped her. She was a great lady. Nothing like that
woman Jordan brought home with him from Boston,” Reva said, her tone a wealth
of comment on her feelings about Gwendolyn Bennett.

“My mama did the cooking, canning, cleaning for Jordan’s mama. The
señora
did her sewing. She loved to sew. She taught me to do this work.”
Reva fingered the exquisite embroidery.

“It’s beautiful.”

“I will never have the art of the
señora,"
Reva said
reverently. “But I try. She did such beautiful things. Once, she made me a
white ruffled dress for my confirmation. She embroidered pink rosebuds all
around the hem. I loved that dress.” She smiled. “I still have it packed away
in case I ever have a daughter.”

Her dream sank painfully into my mind as I thought of Jordan with
her, close and loving. An unpleasant feeling curled inside me. I had no right
to be jealous, and yet I was. I looked at Reva and envied her so intensely, I
thought I would cry. I swallowed hard, looking away.

“The
señora
was greatly admired,” Reva told me. “She would
have liked to have more children.”

“Why didn’t she?” I asked, still not looking at Reva.

“The
señor
and
señora
lived apart.”

I looked back. “You mean they didn’t love each other?”

“Oh, no. They loved one another very much. But Jordan was a large
baby, and the
senora
was a delicate woman. She had great pain in
childbirth and almost died. She was afraid of having another baby, and the doctor
said she would probably die if she did. So she did not sleep with her husband.”

My face burned with embarrassment at Reva Gutierrez’s intimate
disclosure about Jordan’s parents.

Reva smiled. “I had forgotten how innocent you are. Of course,
that is necessary to your position... that you be ignorant of the intimate
activities between men and women.”

“I’m not totally lacking in knowledge about the facts of life,” I
said, thinking of the books I had read. My flush receded only slightly.

“You mustn’t admit that to the school board,” Reva teased. “They
might think your great knowledge will corrupt the innocent children.” Her
mocking tone was in no way unkind, and I smiled.

“It seems so absurd. What is correct and acceptable for other
people to feel and know is denied to me because I am a teacher.”

“If you had other interests besides your teaching, you would not
give your all to the children,” Reva disagreed. “That’s as it should be. If you
had a family, you would not have time to ride to Eden Rock to teach my son.
That is why it is best to have a spinster teach; no one else demands her
loyalties or efforts. All is for the children’s education and betterment.”