Padre Ignacio Part 3

Indeed, it seems very strange to myself that you should have been here not twenty-four hours yet, and know so much of me. For there has come no one else at all"--the Padre paused a moment and mastered the unsteadiness that he had felt approaching in his voice--"there has been no one else to whom I have talked so freely. In my early days I had no thought of being a priest. By parents destined me for a diplomatic career. There was plenty of money and--and all the rest of it; for by inheritance came to me the acquaintance of many people whose names you would be likely to have heard of. Cities, people of fashion, artists--the whole of it was my element and my choice; and by-and-by I married, not only where it was desirable, but where I loved. Then for the first time Death laid his staff upon my enchantment, and I understood many things that had been only words to me hitherto. To have been a husband for a year, and a father for a moment, and in that moment to lose all--this unblinded me. Looking back, it seemed to me that I had never done anything except for myself all my days. I left the world. In due time I became a priest and lived in my own country. But my worldly experience and my secular education had given to my opinions a turn too liberal for the place where my work was laid. I was soon advised concerning this by those in authority over me. And since they could not change me and I could them, yet wished to work and to teach, the New World was suggested, and I volunteered to give the rest of my life to missions. It was soon found that some one was needed here, and for this little place I sailed, and to these humble people I have dedicated my service. They are pastoral creatures of the soil. Their vineyard and cattle days are apt to be like the sun and storm around them--strong alike in their evil and in their good. All their years they live as children--children with men's pa.s.sions given to them like deadly weapons, unable to measure the harm their impulses may bring. Hence, even in their crimes, their hearts will generally open soon to the one great key of love, while civilization makes locks which that key cannot always fit at the first turn. And coming to know this," said Padre Ignacio, fixing his eyes steadily upon Gaston, "you will understand how great a privilege it is to help such people, and how the sense of something accomplished--under G.o.d--should bring Contentment with Renunciation."

"Yes," said Gaston Villere. Then, thinking of himself, "I can understand it in a man like you."

"Do not speak of me at all!" exclaimed the Padre, almost pa.s.sionately.

"But pray Heaven that you may find the thing yourself some day--Contentment with Renunciation--and never let it go."

"Amen!" said Gaston, strangely moved.

"That is the whole of my story," the priest continued, with no more of the recent stress in his voice. "And now I have talked to you about myself quite enough. But you must have my confession." He had now resumed entirely his half-playful tone. "I was just a little mistaken, you see--too self-reliant, perhaps--when I supposed, in my first missionary ardor, that I could get on without any remembrance of the world at all. I found that I could not. And so I have taught the old operas to my choir--such parts of them as are within our compa.s.s and suitable for worship. And certain of my friends still alive at home are good enough to remember this taste of mine and to send me each year some of the new music that I should never hear of otherwise. Then we study these things also. And although our organ is a miserable affair, Felipe manages very cleverly to make it do. And while the voices are singing these operas, especially the old ones, what harm is there if sometimes the priest is thinking of something else? So there's my confession! And now, whether Trovatore is come or not, I shall not allow you to leave us until you have taught all you know of it to Felipe."

The new opera, however, had duly arrived. And as he turned its pages Padre Ignacio was quick to seize at once upon the music that could be taken into his church. Some of it was ready fitted. By that afternoon Felipe and his choir could have rendered "Ah! se l' error t' ingombra"

without slip or falter.

Those were strange rehearsals of Il Trovatore upon this California sh.o.r.e. For the Padre looked to Gaston to say when they went too fast or too slow, and to correct their emphasis. And since it was hot, the little Erard piano was carried each day out into the mission garden.

There, in the cloisters among the jessamine, the orange blossoms, the oleanders, in the presence of the round yellow hills and the blue triangle of sea, the Miserere was slowly learned. The Mexicans and Indians gathered, swarthy and black-haired, around the tinkling instrument that Felipe played; and presiding over them were young Gaston and the pale Padre, walking up and down the paths, beating time or singing now one part and now another. And so it was that the wild cattle on the uplands would hear Trovatore hummed by a pa.s.sing vaquero, while the same melody was filling the streets of the far-off world.

For three days Gaston Villere remained at Santa Ysabel del Mar; and though not a word of restlessness came from him, his host could read San Francisco and the gold-mines in his countenance. No, the young man could not have stayed here for twenty years! And the Padre forbore urging his guest to extend his visit.

"But the world is small," the guest declared at parting. "Some day it will not be able to spare you any longer. And then we are sure to meet.

But you shall hear from me soon, at any rate."

Again, as upon the first evening, the two exchanged a few courtesies, more graceful and particular than we, who have not time, and fight no duels, find worth a man's while at the present day. For duels are gone, which is a very good thing, and with them a certain careful politeness, which is a pity; but that is the way in the eternal profit and loss. So young Gaston rode northward out of the mission, back to the world and his fortune; and the Padre stood watching the dust after the rider had pa.s.sed from sight. Then he went into his room with a drawn face. But appearances at least had been kept up to the end; the youth would never know of the elder man's unrest.

V

Temptation had arrived with Gaston, but was destined to make a longer stay at Santa Ysabel del Mar. Yet it was perhaps a week before the priest knew this guest was come to abide with him. The guest could be discreet, could withdraw, was not at first importunate.

Sail away on the barkentine? A wild notion, to be sure! although fit enough to enter the brain of such a young scape-grace. The Padre shook his head and smiled affectionately when he thought of Gaston Villere.

The youth's handsome, reckless countenance would shine out, smiling, in his memory, and he repeated Auber's old remark, "Is it the good Lord, or is it merely the devil, that always makes me have a weakness for rascals?"

Sail away on the barkentine! Imagine taking leave of the people here--of Felipe! In what words should he tell the boy to go on industriously with his music? No, this was not imaginable! The mere parting alone would make it for ever impossible to think of such a thing. "And then," he said to himself each new morning, when he looked out at the ocean, "I have given to them my life. One does not take back a gift."

Pictures of his departure began to shine and melt in his drifting fancy.

He saw himself explaining to Felipe that now his presence was wanted elsewhere; that than would come a successor to take care of Santa Ysabel--a younger man, more useful, and able to visit sick people at a distance.

"For I am old now. I should not be long has in any case." He stopped and pressed his hands together; he had caught his Temptation in the very act. Now he sat staring at his Temptation's face, close to him, while then in the triangle two ships went sailing by.

One morning Felipe told him that the barkentine was here on its return voyage south. "Indeed." said the Padre, coldly. "The things are ready to go, I think." For the vessel called for mail and certain boxes that the mission sent away. Felipe left the room in wonder at the Padre's manner.

But the priest was laughing secretly to see how little it was to him where the barkentine was, or whether it should be coming or going. But in the afternoon, at his piano, he found himself saying, "Other ships call here, at any rate." And then for the first time he prayed to be delivered from his thoughts. Yet presently he left his seat and looked out of the window for a sight of the barkentine; but it was gone.

The season of the wine-making pa.s.sed, and the preserving of all the fruits that the mission fields grew. Lotions and medicines was distilled from garden herbs. Perfume was manufactured from the petals of flowers and certain spices, and presents of it despatched to San Fernando and Ventura, and to friends at other places; for the Padre had a special receipt. As the time ran on, two or three visitors pa.s.sed a night with him; and presently there was a word at various missions that Padre Ignacio had begun to show his years. At Santa Ysabel del Mar they whispered, "The Padre is not well." Yet he rode a great deal over the hills by himself, and down the canyon very often, stopping where he had sat with Gaston, to sit alone and look up and down, now at the hills above, and now at the ocean below. Among his parishioners he had certain troubles to soothe, certain wounds to heal; a home from which he was able to drive jealousy; a girl whom he bade her lover set right. But all said, "The Padre is unwell." And Felipe told them that the music seemed nothing to him any more; he never asked for his Dixit Dominus nowadays.

Then for a short time he was really in bed, feverish with the two voices that spoke to him without ceasing. "You have given your life," said one voice. "And, therefore," said the other, "have earned the right to go home and die." "You are winning better rewards in the service of G.o.d,"

said the first voice. "G.o.d can be better served in other places,"

answered the second. As he lay listening he saw Seville again, and the trees of Aranhal, where he had been born. The wind was blowing through them, and in their branches he could hear the nightingales. "Empty!

Empty!" he said, aloud. And he lay for two days and nights hearing the wind and the nightingales in the far trees of Aranhal. But Felipe, watching, only heard the Padre crying through the hours, "Empty! Empty!"

Then the wind in the trees died down, and the Padre could get out of bed, and soon be in the garden. But the voices within him still talked all the while as he sat watching the sails when they pa.s.sed between the headlands. Their words, falling for ever the same way, beat his spirit sore, like blows upon flesh already bruised. If he could only change what they said, he would rest.

"Has the Padre any mall for Santa Barbara?" asked Felipe. "The ship bound southward should be here to-morrow."

"I will attend to it," said the priest, not moving. And Felipe stole away.

At Felipe's words the voices had stopped, as a clock finishes striking.

Silence, strained like expectation, filled the Padre's soul. But in place of the voices came old sights of home again, the waving trees at Aranhal; then it would be Rachel for a moment, declaiming tragedy while a houseful of faces that he knew by name watched her; and through all the panorama rang the pleasant laugh of Gaston. For a while in the evening the Padre sat at his Erard playing Trovatore. Later, in his sleepless bed he lay, saying now and then: "To die at home! Surely I may be granted at least this." And he listened for the inner voices. But they were not speaking any more, and the black hole of silence grew more dreadful to him than their arguments. Then the dawn came in at his window, and he lay watching its gray grow warm into color, until suddenly he sprang from his bed and looked at the sea. Blue it lay, sapphire-hued and dancing with points of gold, lovely and luring as a charm; and over its triangle the south-bound ship was approaching.

People were on board who in a few weeks would be sailing the Atlantic, while he would stand here looking out of this same window. "Merciful G.o.d!" he cried, sinking on his knees. "Heavenly Father, Thou seest this evil in my heart! Thou knowest that my weak hand cannot pluck it out! My strength is breaking, and still Thou makest my burden heavier than I can bear." He stopped, breathless and trembling. The same visions was flitting across his closed eyes; the same silence gaped like a dry crater in his soul. "There is no help in earth or heaven," he said, very quietly; and he dressed himself.

VI

It was still so early that few of the Indians were stirring, and one of these saddled the Padre's mule. Felipe was not yet awake, and for a moment it came in the priest's mind to open the boy's door softly, look at him once more, and come away. But this he did not, nor even take a farewell glance at the church and organ. He bade nothing farewell, but, turning his back upon his room and his garden, rode down the canyon.

The vessel lay at anchor, and some one had landed from ha and was talking with other men on the sh.o.r.e. Seeing the priest slowly coming, this stranger approached to meet him.

"You are connected with the mission here?" he inquired.

"I--am."

"Perhaps it is with you that Gaston Villere stopped?"

"The young man from New Orleans? Yes. I am Padre Ignacio."

"Then you'll save me a journey. I promised him to deliver these into your own hands."

The stranger gave them to him.

"A bag of gold-dust," he explained, "and a letter. I wrote it at his dictation while he was dying. He lived hardly an hour afterward."

The stranger bowed his head at the stricken cry which his news elicited from the priest, who, after a few moments' vain effort to speak, opened the letter and read:

My dear Friend,--It is through no man's fault but mine that I have come to this. I have had plenty of luck, and lately have been counting the days until I should return home. But last night heavy news from New Orleans reached me, and I tore the pressed flower to pieces. Under the first smart and humiliation of broken faith I was rendered desperate, and picked a needless quarrel. Thank G.o.d, it is I who have the punishment. By dear friend, as I lie here, leaving a world that no man ever loved more, I have come to understand you. For you and your mission have been much in my thoughts. It is strange how good can be done, not at the time when it is intended, but afterward; and you have done this good to me. I say over your words, "Contentment with Renunciation," and believe that at this last hour I have gained something like what you would wish me to feel. For I do not think that I desire it otherwise now. My life would never have been of service, I am afraid. You am the last person in this world who has spoken serious words to me, and I want you to know that now at length I value the peace of Santa Ysabel as I could never have done but for seeing your wisdom and goodness. You spoke of a new organ for your church. Take the gold-dust that will reach you with this, and do what you will with it. Let me at least in dying have helped some one. And since them is no aristocracy in souls--you said that to me; do you remember?--perhaps you will say a ma.s.s for this departing soul of mine. I only wish, must my body must go under ground in a strange country, that it might have been at Santa Ysabel did Mar, where your feet would often pa.s.s.

"'At Santa Ysabel del Mar, where your feet would often pa.s.s.'" The priest repeated this final sentence aloud, without being aware of it.

"Those are the last words he ever spoke," said the stranger, "except bidding me good-by."

"You knew him well, then?"

"No; not until after he was hurt. I'm the man he quarreled with."

The priest looked at the ship that would sail onward this afternoon.

Then a smile of great beauty pa.s.sed over his face, and he addressed the strange. "I thank you. You will never know what you have done for me."

"It is nothing," answered the stranger, awkwardly. "He told me you set great store on a new organ."