Lizzy Enders’s relationship with Elinora

Lizzy Enders’s relationship with Elinora is a movement from wary cohabitation and betrayal toward hard-won friendship. Lizzy initially sees Elinora as provocative and difficult to understand, while Elinora treats Lizzy as a threat to her romance with Abeyta and her religious hopes. Their most damaging quarrel grows from Lizzy’s intervention in Elinora’s secret affairs and Elinora’s cruelty to Cleo, Lizzy’s kitten. It is not resolved by a simple apology: a violent attack forces them into the same danger, and their later reconciliation makes room for affection without erasing the harm between them.

Roommates and Rivals

The two girls share a room at the convent school, but at first their proximity offers little intimacy. Lizzy notices Elinora’s conspicuous nose and provoking ways, her talk of becoming a bride of Christ, and her efforts to persuade the other girls to wait for a miracle. Elinora has also managed to sneak out while Lizzy slept. Lizzy’s bewilderment is mixed with resentment, and she concludes that life is unfair. The contrast between them is already sharp: Elinora acts on intense romantic and religious expectations, while Lizzy, bereaved and left in unfamiliar surroundings, struggles to understand the rules and beliefs governing her new community.

The first major breach concerns Abeyta. After Lizzy brings his note to Mother Magdalena, Elinora is punished. At the funeral procession for Delvina, Lizzy sees Elinora protesting as Mother Magdalena leads her away; later, at breakfast, Elinora’s tear-streaked face shows Lizzy the apparent cost of that punishment. The other girls condemn Lizzy as a traitor for informing on her roommate. They say she has broken Elinora’s heart and warn that the returning students will shun her. Lizzy rejects the charge, but the social isolation is real: she has to get up and serve herself food after the girls have taken it to their end of the table.

Elinora also blames Lizzy for a wider run of calamities. She links the carpenter’s arrival, Delvina’s death, and Jean Baptiste Lamy’s refusal to recognize her calling, accusing Lizzy of bringing God’s wrath upon the convent by delivering Abeyta’s note. She insists that she will continue praying to Saint Joseph and proposes a fast to force the carpenter’s removal. Lizzy’s response, that she does not understand Catholics, makes their religious divide explicit. Elinora sees faith and signs as guides to action; Lizzy cannot share that certainty, and Elinora interprets her skepticism as hostility.

Cleo and the Deepening Conflict

The conflict turns personal and physical when Cleo pounces on beads scattered across the floor. Rosalyn objects that kittens are forbidden, and Elinora orders that Cleo be handed over. Lizzy reaches for her, but Elinora holds the frightened animal, faces the window, and throws her out onto the street while the other girls restrain Lizzy. Lizzy hears Cleo meowing outside and accuses the girls of taking their anger at her out on an innocent kitten. Elinora’s action is more than an extension of the earlier dispute: it gives Lizzy a concrete reason to distrust her and makes reconciliation impossible for a time.

After Elinora is punished, Lizzy avoids her even though they still share a room. She uses the hour when the girls may read or write to look after Elena, returning when the lights are out. During that week, she watches Elinora’s anxious behavior: Elinora scarcely eats, tosses in bed, giggles without apparent cause, and stands at the window in her nightdress. Lizzy concludes that she intends to run away because she has been switched. When Lizzy asks whether she is looking for Abeyta, Elinora suspects that Lizzy might report her again. Lizzy tells her she would not interfere this time, even if Elinora left through the window.

Elinora explains the choice she has set for herself. If Saint Joseph comes, she will become a nun; if he does not, she will marry Abeyta, taking the events of the week as a sign. Lizzy envies Elinora’s saints and signs, though she has no comparable guide. When Saint Joseph does not come, Abeyta arrives at the window. Elinora drags her portmanteau toward it and warns Lizzy not to tell, invoking Abeyta’s influential father as a threat. Lizzy says she would not dream of stopping her. That answer marks a change from her earlier intervention: even while their relationship remains broken, Lizzy is no longer trying to govern Elinora’s choices.

Shared Danger and Reconciliation

The attempted escape is interrupted by Ramon Baca, who has come for Elena. He mistakes Elinora for the person he seeks, then recognizes Lizzy as the girl who sits in the courtyard with his baby. As he moves toward Lizzy, Elinora clings to his arm and demands to know what he has done to Abeyta. Ramon throws her aside and advances with her still grasping his leg; when he raises a knife against her, Elinora’s protective intervention has placed her in immediate danger. The confrontation changes the terms of their relationship. Lizzy and Elinora are no longer only opponents in a quarrel over the note and the kitten: they have both been caught in the danger surrounding Elena and Ramon.

After the attack, the girls gather around Lizzy and Elinora at a meal honoring Mrs. Lacey, eager to hear about Ramon and how Lizzy struck him with a statue of the Blessed Virgin. Their former animosities are temporarily forgotten, and Lizzy feels accepted among the other girls again. Elinora tells Lizzy that she owes her much and asks to begin their friendship anew. Lizzy privately recognizes that they have never really been friends, but accepts, and the girls applaud. Her explanation that she acted for Elena rather than for Elinora is not the whole truth: Elinora recognizes the lie and appreciates the protection it offers her dignity. Lizzy’s loyalty is directed toward Elena, yet it saves Elinora too.

Their reconciliation becomes more candid when they are alone. Elinora admits that throwing Cleo out was mean, but reminds Lizzy that she had first reported the note meant for her. She says she felt she had to do something. Lizzy holds Cleo and tells her to take her anger out on Lizzy rather than an innocent cat. Elinora then reveals that Cleo was not blind, despite the blood Lizzy had seen around the kitten’s eyes and Sister Roberta’s belief that she had lost her sight. Elinora says she had pricked the cat’s eyes. This admission confirms the deliberate cruelty behind the act, but Elinora asks to make up for the harm and offers to use her influence to obtain whatever Lizzy wants. Lizzy is so relieved that Cleo is all right that her anger has already ebbed; instead of demanding repayment, she turns their attention to cleaning their room. They sit on the floor laughing together, Cleo between them.

Friendship, Elena, and Parting

The cleaned room becomes the setting for a fuller exchange about their choices. Lizzy asks whether Elinora still wants to run away with Abeyta. Elinora says that she does, explains that Abeyta loves her, and admits that she never wanted to be at the convent. The conversation lets Lizzy see more than the impulsiveness she had attributed to her roommate: Elinora has her own history of being sent away and her own reasons for resisting the life chosen for her. When Elinora speaks of asking Abeyta’s family to help find Elena a home, the two girls’ repaired relationship begins to serve a purpose beyond their private forgiveness.

Elinora eventually asks Lizzy to accept her compliments and acknowledges that she has been beastly to her. Lizzy answers that she has not had many friends at the convent from whom to accept compliments. That exchange does not make the past disappear, but it allows both girls to name their part in the distance between them. Lizzy, for her part, admits that she had been angry; the sight of Cleo safe has changed what she feels. Their laughter together is a small but concrete sign of trust restored after Elinora’s confession.

At Lizzy’s departure from Santa Fe with Elena, Elinora and Abeyta stand hand in hand to see her off. Lizzy says she will miss everyone, including Elinora, and promises to invite her to the ranch in the future. Just before Lizzy mounts Ben, Elinora whispers something that surprises her. Only later does Lizzy identify the admission: Elinora had pricked Cleo’s eyes that day, and when Cleo proved not to be blind, she falsely suggested that the carpenter had held the kitten. The final disclosure preserves the friendship’s teasing, imperfect character. Elinora had concealed the truth even as the girls reconciled, but Lizzy leaves with affection for her, their history of injury and repair now part of what binds them.