Carmen Ariza Part 141

The Beaubien and Father Waite remained some moments in silence. Then the woman spoke. "I am learning," she said. "She is the light that is guiding me. This little incident which you have just related is but a manifestation of the law of love by which she lives. She gave, unasked, and with no desire to be seen and advertised. It returned to her ten-fold. It is always so with her. There was no chance, no miracle, no luck about it. She herself did nothing. It was--it was--only the working of her beloved Christ-principle. Oh, Lewis! if we only knew--"

"We _shall_ know, Madam!" declared the man vehemently. "Her secret is but the secret of Jesus himself, which was open to a world too dull to comprehend. Carmen shall teach us. And," his eyes brightening, "to that end I have been formulating a great plan. That's why I've asked Hitt to come here to-night. I have a scheme to propose. Remember, my dear friend, we are true searchers; and 'all things work together for good to them that love G.o.d.' Our love of truth and real good is so great that, like the consuming desire of the Jewish nation, it is _bound_ to bring the Christ!"

For three months the Beaubien and Carmen had dwelt together in this lowly environment; and here they had found peace, the first that the tired woman had known since childhood. The sudden culmination of those mental forces which had ejected Carmen from society, crushed Ketchim and a score of others, and brought the deluded Mrs. Hawley-Crowles to a bitter end, had left the Beaubien with dulled sensibilities. Even Ames himself had been shocked into momentary abandonment of his relentless pursuit of humanity by the unantic.i.p.ated _denouement_. But when he had sufficiently digested the newspaper accounts wherein were set forth in unsparing detail the base rumors of the girl's parentage and of her removal from a brothel before her sudden elevation to social heights, he rose in terrible wrath and prepared to hunt down to the death the perpetrators of the foul calumny. Whence had come this tale, which even the girl could not refute? From Lafelle? He had sailed for Europe--though but a day before. Ketchim? The man was cringing like a craven murderer in his cell, for none dared give him bail. Reed? Harris? Was it revenge for his own sharp move in regard to La Libertad? He would have given all he possessed to lay his heavy hands upon the guilty ones! The editors of the great newspapers, perhaps? Ames raged like a wounded lion in the office of every editor in the city. But they were perfectly safe, for the girl, although she told a straightforward story, could not say positively that the published statements concerning her were false. Yet, though few knew it, there were two city editors and several reporters who, in the days immediately following, found it convenient to resign their positions and leave the city before the awful wrath of the powerful man.

Then Ames turned upon his wife. And, after weeks of terror, that browbeaten woman, her hair whitening under the terrible persecution of her relentless master, fled secretly, with her terrified daughter, to England, whither the stupified Duke of Altern and his scandalized mother had betaken themselves immediately following the expose.

Thereupon Ames's lawyer drew up a bill of divorce, alleging desertion, and laid it before the judge who fed from his master's hand.

Meantime, the devouring wrath of Ames swept like a prairie fire over the dry, withering stalks of the smart set. He vowed he would take Carmen and flaunt her in the faces of the miserable character-a.s.sa.s.sins who had sought her ruin! He swore he would support her with his untold millions and force society to acknowledge her its queen! He had it in his power to wreck the husband of every arrogant, supercilious dame in the entire clique! He commenced at once with the unfortunate Gannette. The latter, already tottering, soon fell before the subtle machinations of Hodson and his able cohorts. Then, as a telling example to the rest, Ames pursued him to the doors of the Lunacy Commission, and rested not until that body had condemned his victim to a living death in a state asylum. Kane, Fitch, and Weston fled to cover, and concentrated their guns upon their common enemy. The Beaubien alone stood out against him for three months. Her existence was death in life; but from the hour that she first read the newspaper intelligence regarding Carmen and the unfortunate Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, she hid the girl so completely that Ames was effectually balked in his attempts at drastic vindication in her behalf.

But this served only to intensify his anger, and he thereupon turned its full force upon the lone woman. Driven to desperation, she stood at length at bay and hurled at him her remaining weapon. Again the social set was rent, and this time by the report that the black cloud of bigamy hung over Ames. It was a fat season for the newspapers, and they made the most of it. As a result, several of them found themselves with libel suits on their hands. The Beaubien herself was confronted with a suit for defamation of character, and was obliged to testify before the judge whom Ames owned outright that she had but the latter's word for the charge, and that, years since, in a moment of maudlin sentimentalism, he had confessed to her that, as far as he knew, the wife of his youth was still living. The suit went against her. Ames then took his heavy toll, and retired within himself to sulk and plan future a.s.saults and reprisals.

The Beaubien, crushed, broken, sick at heart, gathered up the scant remains of her once large fortune, disposed of her effects, and withdrew to the outskirts of the city. She would have left the country, but for the fact that the tangled state of her finances necessitated her constant presence in New York while her lawyers strove to bring order out of chaos and placate her raging persecutor.

To flee meant complete abandonment of her every financial resource to Ames. And so, with the a.s.sistance of Father Waite and Elizabeth Wall, who placed themselves at once under her command, she took a little house, far from the scenes of her troubles, and quietly removed thither with Carmen.

One day shortly thereafter a woman knocked timidly at her door. Carmen saw the caller and fled into her arms. "It's Jude!" she cried joyously.

The woman had come to return the string of pearls which the girl had thrust into her hands on the night of the Charity Ball. n.o.body knew she had them. She had not been able to bring herself to sell them. She had wanted--oh, she knew not what, excepting that she wanted to see again the girl whose image had haunted her since that eventful night when the strange child had wandered into her abandoned life. Yes, she would have given her testimony as to Carmen; but who would have believed her, a prost.i.tute? And--but the radiant girl gathered her in her arms and would not let her go without a promise to return.

And return she did, many times. And each time there was a change in her. The Beaubien always forced upon her a little money and a promise to come back. It developed that Jude was cooking in a cheap down-town restaurant. "Why not for us, mother, if she will?" asked Carmen one day. And, though the sin-stained woman demurred and protested her unworthiness, yet the love that knew no evil drew her irresistibly, and she yielded at length, with her heart bursting.

Then, in her great joy, Carmen's glad cry echoed through the little house: "Oh, mother dear, we're free, we're free!"

But the Beaubien was not free. Night after night her sleepless pillow was wet with bitter tears of remorse, when the accusing angel stood before her and relentlessly revealed each act of shameful meanness, of cruel selfishness, of sordid immorality in her wasted life. And, lastly, the weight of her awful guilt in bringing about the destruction of Mrs. Hawley-Crowles lay upon her soul like a mountain.

Oh, if she had only foreseen even a little of it! Oh, that Carmen had come to her before--or not at all! And yet she could not wish that she had never known the girl. Far from it! The day of judgment was bound to come. She saw that now. And, but for the comforting presence of that sweet child, she had long since become a raving maniac. It was Carmen who, in those first long nights of gnawing, corroding remorse, wound her soft arms about the Beaubien's neck, as she lay tossing in mental agony on her bed, and whispered the a.s.surances of that infinite Love which said, "Behold, I make all things new!" It was Carmen who whispered to her of the everlasting arms beneath, and of the mercy reflected by him who, though on the cross, forgave mankind because of their pitiable ignorance. It is ignorance, always ignorance of what const.i.tutes real good, that makes men seek it through wrong channels.

The Beaubien had sought good--all the world does--but she had never known that G.o.d alone is good, and that men cannot find it until they reflect Him. And so she had "missed the mark." Oh, sinful, mesmerized world, ye shall find Me--the true good--only when ye seek Me with all your heart! And yet, "I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins."

Only a G.o.d who is love could voice such a promise! And Carmen knew; and she hourly poured her great understanding of love into the empty heart of the stricken Beaubien.

Then at last came days of quiet, and planning for the future. The Beaubien would live--yes, but not for herself. Nay, that life had gone out forever, nor would mention of it pa.s.s her lips again. The Colombian revolution--her mendacious connivances with Ames--her sinful, impenitent life of gilded vice--aye, the door was now closed against that, absolutely and forever more. She had pa.s.sed through the throes of a new birth; she had risen again from the bed of anguish; but she rose stripped of her worldly strength. Carmen was now the staff upon which she leaned.

And Carmen--what had been her thought when foul calumny laid its sooty touch upon her? What had been the working of her mind when that world which she had sought to illumine with the light of her own purity had cast her out?

When the blow fell the portals of her mind closed at once against every accusing thought, against every insidious suggestion of defeat, of loss, of dishonor. The arrows of malice, as well as those of self-pity and condemnation, snapped and fell, one by one, as they hurtled vainly against the whole armor of G.o.d wherewith the girl stood clad. Self sank into service; and she gathered the bewildered, suffering Beaubien into her arms as if she had been a child. She would have gone to Ames, too, had she been permitted--not to plead for mercy, but to offer the tender consolation and support which, despite the havoc he was committing, she knew he needed even more than the Beaubien herself.

"Paul had been a murderer," she often said, as she sat in the darkness alone with the suffering woman and held her trembling hand. "But he became the chief of apostles. Think of it! When the light came, he shut the door against the past. If he hadn't, dearest, he never could have done what he did. And you, and Mr. Ames, will have to do the same." And this the Beaubien could do, and did, after months of soul-racking struggle. But Ames sat in spiritual darkness, whipped by the foul brood of l.u.s.t and revenge, knowing not that the mountainous wrath which he hourly heaped higher would some day fall, and bury him fathoms deep.

Throughout the crisis Father Waite had stood by them stanchly. And likewise had Elizabeth Wall. "I've just longed for some reasonable excuse to become a social outcast," the latter had said, as she was helping Carmen one day to pack her effects prior to removing from the Hawley-Crowles mansion. "I long for a hearthstone to which I can attach myself--"

"Then attach yourself to ours!" eagerly interrupted Carmen.

"I'll do it!" declared Miss Wall. "For I know that now you are really going to live--and I want to live as you will. Moreover--" She paused and smiled queerly at the girl--"I am quite in love with your hero, Father Waite, you know."

Harris, too, made a brief call before departing again for Denver.

"I've got to hustle for a living now," he explained, "and it's me for the mountains once more! New York is no place for such a tender lamb as I. Oh, I've been well trimmed--but I know enough now to keep away from this burg!"

While he was yet speaking there came a loud ring at the front door of the little bungalow, followed immediately by the entrance of the manager of a down-town vaudeville house. He plunged at once into his errand. He would offer Carmen one hundred dollars a week, and a contract for six months, to appear twice daily in his theater. "She'll make a roar!" he a.s.serted. "Heavens, Madam! but she did put it over the society ginks." And the Beaubien, shivering at the awful proposal, was glad Harris was there to lead the zealous theatrical man firmly to the door.

Lastly, came one Amos A. Hitt, gratuitously, to introduce himself as one who knew Cartagena and was likely to return there in the not distant future, where he would be glad to do what he might to remove the stain which had been laid upon the name of the fair girl. The genuineness of the man stood out so prominently that the Beaubien took him at once into her house, where he was made acquainted with Carmen.

"Oh," cried the girl, "Cartagena! Why, I wonder--do you know Padre Jose de Rincon?"

"A priest who once taught there in the University, many years ago? And who was sent up the river, to Simiti? Yes, well."

Then Carmen fell upon his neck; and there in that moment was begun a friendship that grew daily stronger, and in time bore richest fruit.

It soon became known that Hitt was giving a course of lectures that fall in the University, covering the results of his archaeological explorations; so Carmen and Father Waite went often to hear him. And the long breaths of University atmosphere which the girl inhaled stimulated a desire for more. Besides, Father Waite had some time before announced his determination to study there that winter, as long as his meager funds would permit.

"I shall take up law," he had one day said. "It will open to me the door of the political arena, where there is such great need of real men, men who stand for human progress, patriotism, and morality. I shall seek office--not for itself, but for the good I can do, and the help I can be in a practical way to my fellow-men. I have a little money. I can work my way through."

Carmen shared the inspiration; and so she, too, with the Beaubien's permission, applied for admittance to the great halls of learning, and was accepted.

"And now," began Father Waite that evening, when Hitt and his friend had come, and, to the glad surprise of Carmen, Elizabeth Wall had driven up in her car to take the girl for a ride, but had yielded to the urgent invitation to join the little conference, "my plan, in which I invite you to join, is, briefly, _to study this girl_!"

Carmen's eyes opened wide, and her face portrayed blank amazement, as Father Waite stood pointing gravely to her. Nor were the others less astonished--all but the Beaubien. She nodded her head comprehendingly.

"Let me explain," Father Waite continued. "We are a.s.sembled here to-night as representatives, now or formerly, of very diversified lines of human thought. I will begin with myself. I have stood as the embodiment of Christly claims, as the active agent of one of the mightiest of human inst.i.tutions, the ancient Christian Church. For years I have studied its accepted authorities and its all-inclusive a.s.sumptions, which embrace heaven, earth, and h.e.l.l. For years I sought with sincere consecration to apply its precepts to the dire needs of humanity. I have traced its origin in the dim twilight of the Christian era and its progress down through the centuries, through heavy vicissitudes to absolute supremacy, on down through schisms and subsequent decline, to the present hour, when the great system seems to be gathering its forces for a life and death stand in this, the New World. I have known and a.s.sociated with its dignitaries and its humble priests. I know the policies and motives underlying its quiet movements. I found it incompatible with human progress. And so I withdrew from it my allegiance."

Carmen's thought, as she listened, was busy with another whose experience had not been dissimilar, but about whom the human coils had been too tightly wound to be so easily broken.

"Our scholarly friend, Mr. Hitt," Father Waite went on, "represented the great protest against the abuses and corruption which permeated the system for which I stood. He, like myself, embodied the eternal warfare of the true believer against the heretic. Yet, without my churchly system, I was taught to believe, he and those who share his thought are d.a.m.ned. But, oh, strange anomaly! we both claimed the same divine Father, and accepted the Christly definition of Him as Love. We were two brothers of the same great family, yet calling each other _anathema_!"

He looked over at Hitt and smiled. "And to-day," he continued, "we brothers are humbly meeting on the common ground of failure--failure to understand the Christ, and to meet the needs of our fellow-men with our elaborate systems of theology."

"I heard another priest, years ago, make a similar confession," said Hitt reflectively. "I would he were here to-night!"

"He is here, in spirit," replied Father Waite; "for the same spirit of eager inquiry and humble desire for truth that animates us no doubt moved him. I have reason to think so," he added, looking at Carmen.

"For this girl's spiritual development I believe to be very largely his work."

Hitt glanced at Carmen inquiringly. He knew but little as yet of her past a.s.sociation with the priest Jose.

"You and I, Mr. Hitt, represented the greatest systems of so-called Christian belief," pursued Father Waite. "Madam Beaubien, on the other hand, has represented the world that waits, as yet vainly, for redemption. We have not been able to afford it her. Yet--pardon my frankness in thus referring to you, Madam. It is only to benefit us all--that the means of redemption _have_ been brought to her, we must now admit."

All turned and looked at Carmen. She started to speak, but Father Waite raised a detaining hand. "Let me proceed," he said. "Miss Wall represents the weariness of spirit and unrest abroad in the world to-day, the spirit that finds life not worth the while; and Mr.

Haynerd voices the cynical disbelief, the agnosticism, of that great cla.s.s who can not accept the childish tenets of our dogmatic systems of theology, yet who have nothing but the philosophy of stoicism or epicureanism to offer in subst.i.tute."

Haynerd bowed and smiled. "You have me correctly cla.s.sified," he said.

"I'm a Yankee, and from Missouri."

"And now, having placed us," said the Beaubien, "how will you cla.s.sify Carmen?"

Father Waite looked at the girl reverently. "Hers is the leaven," he replied gently, "which has leavened the whole lump.

"My good friends," he went on earnestly, "like all priests and preachers, I have been but a helpless spectator of humanity's troubles. I have longed and prayed to know how to do the works which Jesus is said to have done; yet, at the sick-bed or the couch of death, what could I do--I, to whom the apostolic virtue is supposed to have descended in the long line of succession? I could anoint with holy oil. I could make signs, and pray. I could give promises of remitted sins--though I knew I spoke not truth. I could comfort by voicing the insipid views of our orthodox heaven. And yet I know that what I gave was but mental nostrums, narcotics, to stupify until death might end the suffering. Is that serving Christ? Is that Christianity?

Alas, no!"

"And if you were a good orthodox priest," interposed Haynerd, "you would refuse burial to dissenters, and bar from your communion table all who were not of your faith, eh?"