Carmen Ariza Part 95

"And she will go to the States with us! Oh, padre!" cried the girl, bounding up and down with joy.

Jose turned and went quickly into his own house. With grim determination he drew the battered haircloth trunk from beneath his bed and began to throw his few effects into it.

But he had scarce begun when Juan, now bearing the proud t.i.tle of official courier between Simiti and Bodega Central, entered with a letter. Jose recognized the writing, and tore it open at once. It was from his mother.

"My beloved son, at last, after these many years of most rigid economy, even of privation, I have saved enough from my meager income, together with what little you have been able to send me from time to time, and a recent generous contribution from your dear uncle, to enable me to visit you. I shall sail for Colombia just as soon as you send me detailed instructions regarding the journey. And, oh, my son, to see you offering the Ma.s.s in your own church, and to realize that your long delayed preferment is even at hand, for so your good uncle informs me daily, will again warm the blood in a heart long chilled by poignant suffering. Till we meet, the Blessed Virgin shield you, my beloved son."

The letter slipped from the priest's fingers and drifted to the floor.

With a moan he sank into a chair and buried his face in his hands.

CHAPTER 36

What had kept Jose de Rincon chained all these years to an inst.i.tution to which in thought, feeling, and sympathy he was so utterly alien, we have repeatedly pointed out--a warped sense of filial devotion, a devotion that would not willingly bring sorrow upon his proud, sensitive mother, and yet the kind that so often accomplishes just that which it strives to avoid. But yet he had somehow failed to note the nice distinction which he was always making between the promises he had given to her and the oath which he had taken at his ordination.

He had permitted himself to be held to the Church by his mother's fond desires, despite the fact that his nominal observance of these had wrecked his own life and all but brought her in sorrow to the grave.

The abundance of his misery might be traced to forgetfulness of the sapient words of Jesus: "For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother."

Then had come Carmen. And he had sacrificed his new-found life to the child. He had exhausted every expedient to keep himself in Simiti, that he might transfer his own great learning to this girl, and at the same time yield himself to her beneficent influence. Yet, despite his vague hopes, he had always dimly seen the day when she would leave him; but he had likewise tried to feel that when it arrived his own status would be such that the ecclesiastical ties which bound him would be loosened, and he would be free to follow her. Alas! the lapse of years had brought little change in that respect.

But now he saw the girl entering upon that very hour of departure which all his life in Simiti had hung like a menacing cloud above him. And the shock had been such that he had thrown every other consideration to the winds, and, regardless of consequences, was madly preparing to accompany her. Then, like a voice from the tomb, had come his mother's letter.

He slept not that night. Indeed, for the past two nights sleep had avoided his haggard eyes. In the feeble glow of his candle he sat in his little bedroom by his rough, bare table, far into the hours of morning, struggling, resolving, hoping, despairing--and, at last, yielding. If he had been born anew that fateful day, seven years before, when Rosendo first told him the girl's story, he had this night again died. When the gray hours of dawn stole silently across the distant hills he rose. His eyes were bleared and dull. His cheeks sunken. He staggered as he pa.s.sed out through the living room where lay the sleeping Americans. Rosendo met him in front of the house.

"Padre!" exclaimed the old man as he noted the priest's appearance.

Jose held up a warning hand. "Do not speak of it, Rosendo. I am not well. But not a word to Carmen!"

Rosendo nodded understandingly. "It has been hard on you, Padre. But you will soon be off now. And in the States with her--"

"For G.o.d's sake, friend, never speak of that again!" cried Jose sharply. "Listen! How long will it take to complete your preparations?"

"_Bien_," returned the amazed Rosendo when he recovered his breath, "we can get away to-morrow."

"Can you not go this evening?"

"No, Padre. There is much to do. But you--"

"Hear me, friend. Everything must be conducted in the greatest secrecy. It must be given out that the Americans go to explore the Boque; that you accompany them as guide; that Carmen goes as--as cook, why not?"

"_Cierto_, she cooks as well as Maria."

"Very well. Juan must be kept in complete ignorance of the real nature of your trip. He must not go with you. He is the courier--I will see that Fernando sends him again to Bodega Central to-morrow, and keeps him there for several days. You say it is some two hundred miles to Llano. How long will it take to go that distance?"

"Why--_Quien sabe_, Padre?" returned Rosendo thoughtfully. "With a fair trail, and allowing the _Americanos_ some time to prospect on the Boque--where they will find nothing--and several days to look over La Libertad, we ought to reach Llano in six weeks."

"And Cartagena?"

"A week later, if you do not have to wait a month on the river bank for the boat."

"Then, all going well, within two months Carmen should be out of the country."

"Surely. You and she--"

"Enough, friend. I do not go with her."

"What? _Caramba_!"

"Go now and bid Carmen come to me immediately after the _desayuno_.

Tell Dona Maria that I will eat nothing this morning. I am going up to the old church on the hill."

Rosendo stared stupidly at the priest. But Jose turned abruptly and started away, leaving the old man in a maze of bewilderment.

In the gloom of the old church Jose threw himself upon a bench near the door, and waited torpidly. A few moments later came a voice, and then the soft patter of bare feet in the thick dust without. Carmen was talking as she approached. Jose rose in curiosity; but the girl was alone. In her hand she held a scrubby flower that had drawn a desperate nourishment from the barren soil at the roadside. She glanced up at Jose and smiled.

"It is easy to understand their language, isn't it, Padre? They don't speak as we do, but they reflect. And that is better than speaking.

They reflect G.o.d. They stand for His ideas in the human mind. And so do you. And I. Aren't they wonderful, these flowers! But you know, they are only the way we interpret certain of G.o.d's wonderful ideas.

Only, because we mortals believe in death, we see these beautiful things at last reflecting our thought of death--don't we? We see only our thoughts, after all. Everything we see about us is reflected thought. First we see our thoughts of life and beauty and good. And then our thoughts of decay and death.

"But G.o.d--He never sees anything but the good," she went on. "He sees the real, not the supposition. And when we learn to see only as He does, why, then we will never again see death. We will see ourselves as we really are, immortal. G.o.d sees Himself that way. Jesus learned to see that way, didn't he? His thought was finally so pure that he saw nothing but good. And that gave him such power that he did those things that the poor, ignorant, wrong-thinking people called miracles.

But they were only the things that you and I and everybody else ought to be doing to-day--and would be doing, if we thought as he did, instead of thinking of evil.

"But," she panted, as she sat down beside him, "I've talked a lot, haven't I? And you sent for me because you wanted to talk. But, remember," holding up an admonitory finger, "I shall not listen if you talk anything but good. Oh, Padre dear," looking up wistfully into his drawn face, "you are still thinking that two and two are seven! Will you never again think right? How can you ever expect to see good if you look only at evil? If I looked only at wilted flowers I would never know there were any others."

"Carmen," he said in a hollow voice, "I love you."

"Why, of course you do," returned the artless girl. "You can't help it. You have just _got_ to love me and everything and everybody.

That's reflecting G.o.d."

He had not meant to say that. But it had been floating like foam on his tossing mind. He took her hand.

"You are going away from me," he continued, almost in a whisper.

"Why, no, Padre," she replied quickly; "you are going too! Padre Rosendo said we could start to-morrow at sunrise."

"I do not go," he said in a quavering voice. "I remain, in Simiti."

She looked up at him wonderingly. What meant this change which had come over him so suddenly? She drew closer.

"Why, Padre?" she whispered.

His mother's face hovered before him in the dim light. Behind her a mitered head, symbolizing the Church, nodded and beckoned significantly. Back of them, as they stood between him and the girl, he saw the glorified vision of Carmen. It was his problem. He turned wearily from it to the gentle presence at his side.

"Why, Padre dear?" came again the soft question.

"I stay--to work out--my problem," was his scarcely audible reply.