AUTHOR'S NOTE: For now, I'll go on here. Maybe later I'll create a new fic starting with this chapter... I don't know yet.
Chapter 31
A clean-shaven Felipe appeared at the breakfast table the next morning. Amazing how a bath, clean clothes and a little rest can change a man!
Diego and Alejandro, as for them, were already seated, discussing an errand they had to run to the pueblo the same day, and Felipe joined them.
Barely a minute later, all three of them stood up as señorita Alacen entered the room, still limping but moving more easily thanks to a cane Don Alejandro had lent her.
"Buenos dias Señores," she greeted them. "Don Alejandro, thank you again for your gracious hospitality. I spent an excellent night."
"Buenos dias to you too, Señorita, and thank you again" he replied. "Please, have a seat..."
"Mil gracias, Don Alejandro."
She sat down and the conversations resumed. Diego lost the thread of these a bit, lost as he was in his thoughts. He was expecting yet an umpteenth paper from Monterey, a document he needed for Felipe's adoption procedure, and he'd also been asked a number of papers from Felipe's parish of origin. He was therefore currently writing letter after letter to explain at great length to whom it may concern that he had none of these papers in his possession and couldn't ask for those because he didn't know what parish exactly Felipe was born in and the boy himself didn't remember it either.
To sum it up, all this would still take a long time, but as Felipe was under twenty-one his mere consent, although necessary, was not sufficient to the matter.
Anyway, Diego sighed inwardly, hopefully we will be able to finally officialise things before he's twenty-one!
In the meanwhile, he was eagerly and diligently keeping an eye out for each arrival of mail to the pueblo by the stagecoach. And indeed, he intended to go there this very morning.
Meanwhile, the topic of the library had been brought up again, and Diego caught up with the conversation just in time to grasp what it was currently about.
"...show you all around the hacienda this morning, and Diego will show you the library and the treasures it contains."
"Truth be told, Father," Diego moderated, "I must go to the pueblo this morning, I have an errand to run there. And then I have also somewhat neglected the Guardian these last three days, I have a bit of catching up to do. But I'm sure Felipe will do the honours of our library to the señorita and will be an excellent replacement for me..."
Felipe, still very much amused by the situation, nevertheless notified his consent with a nod of his head.
'If the señorita has no objection,' he added through signs directed at Diego so that he'd translate for Luz.
"Not at all, Don Felipe, not at all. I will be glad for you to show me the library."
Felipe barely held back a start, just like Diego and Alejandro, incidentally. It was the first time ever anyone called him 'Don' Felipe. And yet, yes, that was how some people might call him once Diego had adopted him! He had never thought about that until then.
Bah! he immediately decided, for what very little a honorary title would change to the person he was...
Luz, for her part, picked up on a point Diego had mentioned in passing.
"What is this Guardian you talked about, Don Diego?"
"Oh, yes, of course," he replied. "This is our pueblo's newspaper," he explained.
"And Diego is its editor," Don Alejandro pointed out with an unusual hint of pride in his voice.
"A newspaper!" she exclaimed. "You publish a newspaper? Oh, how fascinating!"
Luz kept on asking questions about the newspaper, about its topics, themes and columns as well as about the articles currently still in progress. Don Alejandro was beaming and Felipe was smiling amusedly; he also took part in the conversation by providing his own answers that Diego translated.
At some point in the conversation, Luz began to carefully look at Felipe's gestures, a both perplexed and bewildered look on her face.
"I had indeed heard of gestured languages developed intended to deaf-and-dumb people," she said suddenly, "but until now I had never got the opportunity to witness a live demonstration of it."
Seeing her hosts surprised by her sudden change of subject, Luz realised that she had perhaps unintentionally offended them by addressing so directly the young man's disability, so she immediately offered an apology. Once again, she thought, she had spoken without considering first the potential impact her words could have on other people's susceptibility.
"Please forgive me," she told them, "I didn't mean to offend you in any way Don Diego, Don Felipe. Quite the contrary in fact, I am rather impressed."
"Don't worry Señorita," Diego replied, "we know that you had absolutely no intention to offend Felipe."
"Thank you Don Diego, you're lifting a weight off my shoulders. I would have hated for us to have a misunderstanding over this, even though that wouldn't be unheard of me."
I would have hated it even more! Don Alejandro thought.
No sooner had she finished her sentence than Luz gasped and raised her hand to her mouth, open-eyed, utterly dismayed to realise she had just used the word 'unheard'. Hopefully they haven't noticed.
"I must say I am impressed," she went on. "Not only is your son able to read lips, but he can also express ideas and concepts that go beyond the mere human basic necessities through an entirely gestural language! Like a language in its own right! This is truly stupendous!"
Once again, it annoyed Diego that she addressed him to say that, and not Felipe himself.
"I assure you, Señorita, you can talk directly to Felipe, he'll understand you perfectly!"
"Oh yes, please forgive me Don Felipe," she told him slowly, turning to the young man.
"We're aware it takes some getting used to," Don Alejandro chimed in to soften the rather terse tone his son had just used toward her. "Don't worry, we can understand that speaking directly to someone who cannot hear doesn't come naturally at first, and that it will require some adapting. But I'm sure Felipe understands this and doesn't hold it against you, right?"
Felipe smiled benevolently at the señorita to tell her that indeed, he didn't resent her. Luz didn't need any translation to understand this language and smiled back to express her gratitude.
"And it's really remarkable," she said, careful to look straight at him, "that you and your father have mastered that much both spoken language and sign language."
She turned to Diego:
"Do you really understand everything he says?"
"Practically," Diego answered. "But sometimes he speaks too fast, I have to tell him to slow down. And he can sometimes be a real chatterbox, you know," he added, casting a knowing glance and a teasing smile at the young man. To the point that I can hardly get a word in edgeways!"
Felipe made a show of rolling his eyes to express how little he made of his father's teasing, but he smiled to show he didn't resent him and could take a joke.
"But tell me," she said, "this sign language you use... is it the one that's been developed by Abbot de l'Épée?"
"You know of his work?" Diego asked, surprised.
In a sense, he thought, it shouldn't surprise him that much. She seemed to be well aware of the innovations and discoveries of these last fifty years.
"Not only that," Diego went on to answer Luz's question. "We also drew on Juan Pablo Bonet and Pedro Ponce de León. But yes, we greatly took inspiration from his works."
"You mean..." Luz began, "you... you've developed yourself the language you use? The two of you?"
"More or less," Diego answered. "Yes," he added, "somehow... But we largely tapped into what others had done before and adapted it to our needs and our situation."
"Once again my son is too modest, Señorita," Don Alejandro chimed in. "He has done a great job with Felipe, and not just about language. He took care of him after he lost his parents, felt lost and had lost his hearing, he took him under his wing somehow; then he taught him to read and write, and later when he came back from Spain he took over his education and instruction again, making him the young man he now is. I'm very proud of the father my son has become."
Diego blushed to the tip of his ears, unaccustomed as he was to his father's praise. Deep down he regretted that part of what prompted his father to speak so highly of him was his desire to make him look good in an eligible woman's eyes, but in his heart he also knew that those compliments were sincere: Don Alejandro had never criticised him over the way he (partially) raised Felipe, and had instead always happily supported him in this task. And hearing him now say that he was a good father was indeed the best compliment Don Alejandro could ever pay his son, and Diego swelled out his chest a bit.
Then, regaining his usual countenance, he went on:
"Father de l'Épée's language is a bit too linked to the syntax of the French language, so since Felipe didn't know French we had to adapt it to Spanish..."
"A whole language..." Luz marvelled, "this is truly incredible. So you can manage to express any idea through gestures in that language?"
Almost, Felipe replied with a hand gesture she understood. Then he added something else which meaning she didn't grasp. She therefore looked questioningly at Diego.
"He said that the most frustrating part is when he actually can express what he means using this language, but people in front of him don't understand."
"Yes, I can relate to that..." she replied. "I have a rough idea of how it must feel: sometimes an idea, a concept is very clear in my mind, but the people I try to explain it to don't know the specific vocabulary used to express this idea, or they don't even grasp the basic concepts upon which it relies, to begin with. It's therefore very frustrating. But of course I guess this is a very small frustration compared to the one you must experience sometimes."
Felipe nodded.
"To tell you the truth, Don Diego, Don Felipe, I'm quite curious about that language you use and have developed. I find this absolutely fascinating. Dare I ask you to try to teach me some basics during my stay here? Well, if that's not too much inconvenient to you, of course. I'm aware that you both have probably much to do."
"Diego has all the time in the world, Señorita," Don Alejandro replied, exceptionally almost pleased with his son's usual idleness. "I am sure he will be happy to share some of his knowledge and talent with you."
Diego had no other choice but to accept. And anyway, he thought slyly, he could probably at some point in the process 'stick' her with Felipe on the pretext of some practical conversational exercises, while he'd go his separate way: he really didn't want to add grist to his father's mill. The sooner Don Alejandro would understand there was nothing to expect from the señorita's presence under their roof, the better for everyone involved. Or rather not involved. And there would be no involving at all!
"But for now, I have to go to pueblo this morning," Diego said, rising to his feet. "Felipe, I entrust you with the care of our guest and with the task to do the honours of our library."
And with a little luck, he thought, she might find there some good book in which she'd bury herself during her convalescence, and which would make her forget this sudden whim about getting acquainted with sign language.
"To tell you the truth Don Diego, and if that's not too much inconvenient to you, I would like to go to pueblo too. I need to see the padre, which I couldn't do yesterday because I had to rest in my room."
The padre? Felipe and Don Alejandro wondered What sins could she have committed since she arrived in Los Angeles and regained consciousness just the day before? Sins serious enough for her to feel the need to talk to the padre no later than this morning? Couldn't she wait until Sunday?
"Are you quite sure you're fit enough for that, Señorita?" Don Alejandro asked, concerned. "You're still recovering..."
"I feel fit enough for a short walk outside, don't worry. And with your cane I can move with more ease, thank you again for that. I promise not to overdo things. As soon as I'm done with the padre, I'll go and obediently sit down in the tavern, where I'll quietly wait for Don Diego, I promise! And after lunch I'll go back to bed and stay there all afternoon; is that all right with you?"
"Very well," Don Alejandro conceded without even checking with his son, but first and foremost Diego will take you to Dr. Hernandez's, so that the doctor examines you, I insist."
"Fine," she agreed, "it will also give me the opportunity to thank him and settle what I owe him."
"Don't worry about that Señorita," Don Alejandro told her, "Diego already took care of it".
Luz turned to Diego and told him:
"You'll tell me how much I owe you, and don't protest, we've already had this discussion."
Not particularly eager to engage in endless protestations, Diego wisely nodded, despite his father's obvious disapproval.
"I'm going to give orders to get the carriage ready," he said. "We leave in half an hour, if that's all right with you Señorita."
"Your schedule will be mine, Don Diego. After all, I'm the one who's imposing on you..."
You can say that again, Diego thought without letting his face give anything away. And here he now had to have a carriage hitched up instead of just saddling his horse and ride to the pueblo!
"Good," he simply answered, "until then, Felipe, if you'd be kind enough to show the señorita around the hacienda..."