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Background
to the excerpt: The war has been over for some years. Still, many
daughters of the aristocracy remain unhappily in the convent school.
The truth is, many of the great families are staring ruin in the
face. They have no dowries for their daughters, and family pride
won't permit them to allow their daughters to marry below their
class. Now a handful of girls remain in their isolated convent
school, to all intents and purposes, abandoned.
"Isabella's
husband might come for her soon," Paloma said on a bright,
let's-change-the-subject note, and Bella groaned silently. She
knew what would come next.
Alejandra gave a scornful snort. "Who, the imaginary one?"
"He's not imaginary, is he Isabella?" Paloma turned
to Bella.
Bella didn't answer. They'd been over this a hundred, a thousand
times. At first she'd fought the accusation tooth and nail, but
now, after all these years, she was half inclined to think she'd
dreamed it, dreamed him. But Reverend Mother had the marriage
papers in her desk and his signature was on it, firm and black
and clear. Lucien Alexander Ripton, Lieutenant.
"Of course he is," Alejandra insisted. "Her tall
English Lieutenant, with his broad shoulders and his so-beautiful
face just like an angel!" she said in a mocking voice.
"An angel, wed to Isabella Ripton?" All
the girls laughed.
Bella sewed doggedly on. She understood why they pecked at her.
She might attack someone too, if she was about to be married to
an old, poxed vizconde
Besides, it was her own fault. She shouldn't have told them in
the first place.
It was shortly after fighting in Spain was over. Napoleon's puppet
was ejected, King Ferdinand was crowned King of Spain, and relatives
turned up to collect this girl or that. The convent was full of
talk of dowries and settlements, of betrothals arranged and marriages
planned. The girls were abuzz with excitement and nerves and romantic
speculation.
At almost sixteen, Isabella was still plagued by pimples and a
flat chest, and when even the younger girls started to patronize
and pity her, she could not bear it. In secret whispers in the
dark one night, she'd confided in her friend, Mariana, about Lieutenant
Ripton, her tall dark Englishman, as beautiful as an angel, who'd
killed a man to protect Isabella, and then married her to save
her from her evil cousin Ramón. Now the war was over, he
would surely come for her and take her away to England.
But Mariana had whispered Isabella's secrets to another girl,
and soon it was all through the convent, and of course, nobody
had believed her. Skinny, plain, Isabella Ripton, secretly married
to a handsome Englishman? As if anyone would believe that.
Her name? Pshaw! So she had an English surname — many Spaniards
had English surnames. It proved nothing.
"Has he seen a picture of you — a truthful one?"
"Why would he want to marry a girl who looks like a boy?"
"He knows what I look like. He chose me," Bella
used to tell them proudly, hoping her pimples would be gone and
her breasts would grow by the time he came for her. "Nobody
had to arrange it."
"So you know nothing about him. For all you know of his family
he could be some peasant!"
"He was an officer, so of course he's not a peasant. And
he's tall, strong and fearless, the most beautiful man I ever
saw in my life!"
"Beautiful?" The other girls laughed
"Beautiful like an archangel," Bella insisted. "Beautiful
and terrible. A warrior angel! Just wait till he comes, you will
see."
And some girls would continue to scoff, and some would sigh and
secretly envy her.
At night, in her small, stone room on her hard, narrow bed, Bella
would spin dreams of Lieutenant Ripton...
Lieutenant Ripton lay mortally wounded, and Isabella would find
him and care for him, and he would be miraculously cured, and
fall madly in love with her.
Lieutenant Ripton would be attacked by the enemy and Bella would
stand by him, and together they would fight them off, and as the
enemy fled, he would turn to her and say, "Isabella, without
you my life would be over. I love you."
Many and varied were the deeds of bravery and daring she performed
in her dreams, and at the end of each one, Lieutenant Ripton would
say, "Isabella, I love you."
Lieutenant Ripton would know her as nobody in the world would
know her. And he would love her. Truly love her. And she would
love him back with all her heart. And they would be happy forever
and ever after.
Day after day, week after week, Bella had prayed for Lieutenant
Ripton to come — even to write, but there was no word, no
sign.
Still, she would rage and defend herself, defend him — he
was as beautiful as an angel, he was busy fighting, he
was a hero, he was too important to be able to come just now,
but he would come for her, he would!
Gradually her skin cleared up. Her breasts remained disappointingly
small, and she learned from a smuggled-in looking glass that she
would never be a beauty, not even pretty. Interesting was the
most charitable assessment of her features.
Still Lieutenant Ripton did not come, and as the years passed,
the dream of the handsome husband who would — must love her,
slowly began to wither on the vine.
The truth was there, staring her in the face. Like the fathers
and brothers of the other girls who remained in the convent long
after the war was over, Lieutenant Ripton had taken her money
and abandoned her. He was not much better than Ramón. He'd
done it more kindly than Ramón, perhaps, but in the long
run, the result was the same.
Some nights, lying in her hard, narrow bed, Bella secretly wept
for her broken dreams. But tears did nothing, so she scrubbed
them away. She would look up through her high, barred window and
gaze at the stars outside.
There was a world out there and she wanted to be part of it.
The other girls continued to taunt her, teasing her about her
imaginary husband. And Bella still defended him, still stubbornly
claimed there was an important reason why he couldn't come—one
had one's pride, after all— but nobody believed her, not
even Bella herself. It was a routine like everything that happened
in the convent.
Now she said to Alejandra, "You could come with me, if you
wanted."
"Come where?"
"I'm leaving the convent." Her announcement was followed
by a stunned silence.
"Is he comi—" Paloma began.
"Nobody is coming for me, Paloma." Isabella glanced
at Sister Beatriz, who was still asleep, and said in a lowered
voice. "I'm leaving anyway."
"I don't believe you. What will you do? How will you support
yourself? Who will protect you? It's dangerous—"
"I will support myself, " Bella said. "And I will
protect myself. I won't stay here, waiting forever for someone
to rescue me. Life isn't a fairy-tale."
"Isabella Ripton," said a voice from the doorway.
All the girls jumped guiltily.
"Isabella," Sister Josefina repeated as she entered
the door. She was the youngest and prettiest of the nuns, closest
in age to the girls, merry and lively, but dedicated to her vocation.
"Tidy yourself up. Your hair is a mess. Reverend Mother wants
you to come to her office at once. You have a visitor!"
"A visitor? Who?" In eight years, Bella had never had
a visitor. Not since Ramón. And why would he come back
after all this time?
Sister Josefina smiled. "Can't you guess?"
Mystified, Bella shook her head.
"An Englishman."
Bella froze.
Sister Josefina nodded. "Tall, dark, and as beautiful as
an archangel."
Bella couldn't move a muscle. She couldn't utter a word or even
marshall a coherent thought.
"A very stern, very masculine archangel." Sister Josefina
sighed. And a blush rose on her cheeks.
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Bride
By Mistake
