The Staircase (16 page)

I FELL IN LOVE
with Elena that night. She was so small and helpless. I pretended she was my little sister. Or at least Cassie's. The next morning, after I took Mrs. Lacey her breakfast, I went into the kitchen to visit the child before having my own repast. I knew the wet nurse would be there nursing her. I was right. She sat in a far corner with Elena in her arms.

But I was unprepared for the sight that greeted me.

I found Sister Roberta kneeling on the floor with Ramona. The kitchen table had collapsed and there was flour, and dishes and even broken eggs, all over the place. "I told you this was going to happen one of these days," Sister Roberta was saying. "Now we must have a new table. But somehow, until we get one, this one must be repaired. Lizzy?" She looked up at me. "Come help."

I set myself to the task. It took half an hour. We swept, we wiped, we gathered, we salvaged—parts of Ramona's bread dough, assorted sliced vegetables, a whole bunch of fresh trout Sister had just purchased from a man who came to the door.

"It was the trout," Sister Roberta said. "The minute I put
them on the table, it collapsed. I knew I shouldn't have done that. What do we do now? Oh, I have been telling the Bishop for months that this kitchen is in serious disrepair. Where is the carpenter? Go fetch him, Lizzy. We must have this table repaired if we are to put a noon meal on the table."

I stood dumbly, full of flour. It was on my hands, my face, my purple uniform.
If there is any kind of a miracle around here to believe in,
I told myself,
it is happening right here and right now. That this table should collapse at this moment, that the carpenter should be needed just as he was dismissed—it has happened for some reason.

But did miracles involve broken table legs, eggs smeared on the floor, flour in one's hair, and smelly fish? Where was the music? Certainly I didn't expect "Panis Angelicus," but wouldn't a few hosannas be in order?

What was wrong with me? I didn't hold with such nonsense, and now I was starting to think like all the rest of them around here.

"Well?" Sister Roberta said. "Don't stand there like the town half-wit. Go fetch José."

"José?"

"Have you suddenly been struck dumb? The carpenter's name is José. And I know, I know, it's the Sabbath, but I'm sure the Lord will forgive him if he repairs our table this day."

Strange. I had never asked his name, and he had never offered it. "It isn't that, Sister."

"Well, what is it, then?"

"He is planning on leaving us tonight."

"Why?"

"Because the Bishop made him stop his work on the staircase for a week, lest Saint Joseph be offended. I don't know if he'll do this."

She raised her eyes to the ceiling. "This is a table. I'm sure Saint Joseph won't mind."

My mind was working fast. I looked around the kitchen, which so badly needed fixing. "Sister."

"I can't hold this trout any longer, Lizzy Fetch me that basin."

I fetched it. "Sister, the carpenter says he can't wait out the week while Saint Joseph decides to come, because he can't take food and lodging for nothing."

She dropped the trout into the basin with a loud plop. "Then let him come and work for his food and lodging."

"That's just it, Sister. You gave me an idea."

She walked the basin of trout over to the wooden sink. "Heaven forbid, you've enough ideas of your own."

"If you had other jobs to do, he could stay. I mean, look at this kitchen."

Sister Roberta stood looking while she wiped her hands on a towel.

"The window frames need repairing," I told her. "How often have I heard Ramona saying the rain was leaking in? Right, Ramona?"

"
Si,
" she said.

"Ramona is getting a new stove soon. What good, what good, when the kitchen is falling down around our ears? Sister, you've got enough work in this room alone to keep him busy for a month."

She studied for a moment on the matter. "Right now I
need the table fixed. Later I'll take up the matter with the Bishop. Go now, fetch him."

THE RESULT OF ALL
this was that I missed Sunday morning breakfast with the others and the carpenter stayed on. He came right to the kitchen with his tools, and while I sat in a corner and drank Ramona's special coffee—sweet with lots of sugar—and ate her corn bread and some eggs, he repaired the table leg. It was not a simple task, because the leg was rotted away. He had to carve a new one and it took most of the morning. I left him there, working.

The noon meal was delayed an hour, but the trout was cooked to perfection and served with Ramona's special browned potatoes.

There were several long tables in the dining room to serve all the girls the noon meal during the week. On weekends we boarders all sat at one table, which was set with a fine linen cloth.

When I went to take my place for the noon meal with the other girls, I saw my dishes and cup had been set away from them, at the end.

Nobody looked at me when I entered and stood next to my place setting. "Do I have the pox?" I asked.

"We don't break bread with a traitor," Lucy said.

Elinora's head was bowed, but I could still see that her face was tear streaked. And I knew then that Mother Magdalena had visited the full extent of her fury on the girl. I almost felt sorry for her.

"I am not a traitor," I said.

"You snitched on your roommate!" I thought Consuello
would leap out of the chair and attack me. Indeed, Winona had to hold her back.

"Stop." Winona stood up. She was a tall girl with two black braids that she wore tipped with bright red ribbons. Her spectacles sat on the end of her nose, giving her an air of authority. "We do not wish to upset Elinora any more. She is beset enough, since her uncle-the-Bishop was told of the note and confined her to house arrest."

"House arrest?" I asked. It had a menacing and legal sound to it.

"She is not allowed to leave the house at all now," Winona recited. "Besides which, he seriously questioned her intention to become a nun, a fact that has made her distraught. How can she have a calling, he asked, when she is meeting a boy nights?"

"My thoughts exactly," I said.

"Not being of the Faith, of course, you cannot understand the ways of Catholics. We do not expect you to," Winona said.

"Why don't you explain it to me, then?"

She sighed and commenced in a patient voice. "Tradition has it that the most popular girls become nuns. The girls who have already formed friendships, not only with other girls but with boys their own age. If you were God, would you want a recluse? Someone who stayed to herself and brooded? Or would you want someone lively and fun-loving, like Elinora?"

Was I expected to answer this question? I was. I sighed. "I can't speak for God," I said, "but I don't think I'd want somebody who sneaked out at night to meet with a boy, no."

"Oh, you jealous little viper. You Yankee!" Winona hissed.

"She's not a Yankee," said Consuello. "Her father kept
slaves. He beat those poor people. And starved them and worked them to death."

"You slaver!" Winona said then.

"I never knew any slaves," I said. "That was all before I was born. But I know my father never beat or starved anybody."

"Abeyta comes from a family of quality hereabouts. He wishes to marry Elinora." Winona had brushed my thought aside.

"Then how can she become a nun?" I asked innocently.

Another thought brushed aside. "Because of your jealousy of Elinora, you have intervened in her friendship with Abeyta. He waited in vain last night under a Comanche moon. Now the success of their union is uncertain."

I would think so,
I thought,
after her uncle got through with her.

"And you have forced her uncle's hand," Winona continued, "so that he has forbidden her from ever speaking of becoming a nun again. Or doing anything to honor her calling."

Having delivered her speech, she sat down and recommenced eating her breakfast.

I stood, dazed. "You're right about one thing," I said. "I don't understand Catholics."

"Then you should have kept out of it," Rosalyn said. "Can't you see how crushed Elinora is that her calling has been so ignored by the Bishop? She suffers the pains of a martyr."

"I think she suffers the pains of a scolding by her uncle for sneaking out and meeting a boy," I said.

"How dare you?" Consuello leaped out of her chair this time. And what with the impediment of her weight, which was considerable, this was no mean feat. "Even if Elinora didn't
have a calling, how dare you turn on your schoolmates and be such a snitch? Don't you have any loyalty?"

"Yankees don't have any loyalty," Winona reminded her.

"Neither do slavers," said Rosalyn.

I stood in silence while Consuello's face wavered before me.
She has a lot of hair on her upper Up,
I thought.
Someday she'll have a real problem with a mustache.
"Please remove yourself," I told her quietly, "so I can sit down and eat."

Her eyes glared with hatred. "Everybody hates a snitch. You have broken Elinora's heart. And on Monday, when the other girls come back, all will be told of what you did. And you will be shunned."

"Get out of my way," I said again.

She went back to her place at the table. Having been branded a Yankee, a slaver, and a traitor all at the same time, I decided I was still hungry and I took my own seat, although I was obliged to get up and help myself to the food, which they'd taken all to their end.

Elinora spoke then, for the first time. "There is another matter no one has mentioned. I feel it incumbent upon me to bring it up."

Everyone turned their attention to her.

"That man has been hammering all morning in the kitchen. I thought he was dismissed by my uncle."

They all looked then at me for an explanation, so I gave it. I told them about the broken table, the repairs needed in the kitchen, and how Sister Roberta had hired the carpenter to work there this week. While everyone awaited Saint Joseph.

Elinora raised her eyes to the ceiling. "Does no one understand? Can I not make myself heard? We must have that filthy
beggar carpenter out of this place. I don't care whether he's working in the kitchen or the chapel. How can Saint Joseph come here if we have a carpenter working already? It shows Saint Joseph our lack of faith in him."

There were murmurings, of both agreement and consolation from the other girls.

"You had something to do with this," Elinora said to me then. "Just as you brought Abeyta's note to Mother Magdalena. You are an unbeliever, a heretic. What you have done is bring God's wrath down upon this place. Since that man has come we've had nothing but trouble here. Delvina died, and now this, with my uncle refusing to recognize my calling. That filthy beggar must have been sent by Satan himself. But I don't care what my uncle says. I have a calling. And I shall continue praying to Saint Joseph. And he will come."

"We'll pray with you," Consuello said. "We'd be honored to." And the others agreed.

Emboldened by their heartfelt backing, she gained strength. "But first we must effect the removal of that carpenter. Since I cannot go again to my uncle, we shall institute action. When the other girls come back on Monday, we'll launch a regular fast. We'll fast and pray. We'll only take liquid, but we won't eat a thing until the carpenter is gone. What say you, friends?"

"Yes, yes," they all agreed. They fair jumped up and down in their seats with glee. Then they lowered their voices and started speaking of it among themselves. They started to make plans.

I set myself to eating. The fish was excellent. And then I heard Elinora giggle and say, "If my uncle is spoiling for a fight, he'll get one. He doesn't know who he's gone up against
when he has me for an adversary. I'm not my mother, you know. She buckled under his authority. Why do you think she ran away with the first man in trousers who asked her? My uncle drove her away with his stupid rules. Well, there is more than one way to skin a cat."

ON SUNDAY AFTERNOONS,
lest idle hands act as the devil's workshop, we were required to do handwork in the front parlor for an hour.

We could pick from beadwork or embroidery. Consuello, Lucy, Winona, and Rosalyn, who were from wealthy Mexican families, did beadwork. Elinora and I struggled with embroidery. I was doing a sampler in green and red for Uncle William, which I planned on taking when I went back to Independence. It said
HOME SWEET HOME.

The five girls sat a distance away from me, by the window where bright sunshine shone in. At their feet, in the middle of their group of chairs, was the Santa Fe
Republican.
This morning everyone was talking about the man shot in the leg up at the fort, who was later seen struggling through town.

The man's name was Ramon Baca. "Long suspected," the newspaper account read, "of the murder of James L. Collins, government official at the U.S. Depository in Santa Fe, who was shot to death in June of 1869, at which time one hundred
thousand dollars of government funds, slated to be dispersed to federal office holders and the military in town, was stolen."

The paper reported that he had disappeared from sight and was still at large and dangerous.

A thrill of fear ran through me, even as Rosalyn said, "That's Delvina's husband! I heard Mother Magdalena whispering to Sister Catherine this morning that he might come to the convent and demand the baby."

"My uncle will never give the baby to that brigand," Elinora said. Though chastened, she still bragged about her uncle.
The girl never gives up,
I thought.
And she has no loyalties. None whatsoever.

Well, I decided, that ends the controversy over whether my protector was Jesse James. Even in this cave of a convent, surrounded by plaster saints with glazed eyes and black-robed nuns and the constant talk of an impending miracle, I could not let myself believe that.

If James had shot him, Baca would be dead, not just wounded in the leg. I knew that with a certainty, even while I fingered the gold piece in my apron pocket that Delvina had left for me, which Mrs. Lacey said was given to her by Jesse James.