Part 25 (1/2)
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THE FIRST CLOUD.
The home of Captain Tiago was naturally not less disturbed than the minds of the crowd. Maria Clara refused to be comforted by her aunt and her foster-sister. Her father had forbidden her to speak to Crisostomo until the ban of excommunication should be raised.
In the midst of his preparations for receiving the governor-general Captain Tiago was summoned to the convent.
”Don't cry, my child,” said Aunt Isabel, as she polished the mirrors with a chamois skin, ”the ban will be raised. They will write to the holy father. We will make a big offering. Father Damaso only fainted; he isn't dead!”
”Don't cry,” whispered Andeng; ”I will arrange to meet Crisostomo.”
At last Captain Tiago came back. They scanned his face for answers to many questions; but the face of Captain Tiago spoke discouragement. The poor man pa.s.sed his hand across his brow and seemed unable to frame a word.
”Well, Santiago?” demanded the anxious aunt.
He wiped away a tear and replied by a sigh.
”Speak, for heaven's sake! What is it?”
”What I all the time feared,” he said at last, conquering his tears. ”Everything is lost! Father Damaso orders me to break the promise of marriage. They all say the same thing, even Father Sibyla. I must shut the doors of my house to him, and--I owe him more than fifty thousand pesos! I told the fathers so, but they wouldn't take it into account. 'Which would you rather lose,' they said, 'fifty thousand pesos or your soul?' Ah, St. Anthony, if I had known, if I had known!”
Maria Clara was sobbing.
”Don't cry, my child,” he said, turning to her; ”you aren't like your mother; she never cried. Father Damaso told me that a young friend of his is coming from Spain; he intends him for your fiance----”
Maria Clara stopped her ears.
”But, Santiago, are you mad?” cried Aunt Isabel. ”Speak to her of another fiance now? Do you think your daughter changes them as she does her gloves?”
”I have thought about it, Isabel; but what would you have me do? They threaten me, too, with excommunication.”
”And you do nothing but distress your daughter! Aren't you the friend of the archbishop? Why don't you write to him?”
”The archbishop is a monk, too. He will do only what the monks say. But don't cry, Maria; the governor-general is coming. He will want to see you, and your eyes will be red. Alas, I thought I was going to have such a good afternoon! Without this misfortune I should be the happiest of men, with everybody envying me! Be calm, my child, I am more unhappy than you, and I don't cry. You may find a better fiance; but as for me, I lose fifty thousand pesos! Ah, Virgin of Antipolo, if only I have luck tonight!”
Salvos, the sound of wheels and of horses galloping, the band playing the Royal March, announced the arrival of His Excellency the governor-general of the Philippine Islands. Maria Clara ran to hide in her chamber. Poor girl! Her heart was at the mercy of rude hands that had no sense of its delicate fibres.
While the house was filling with people, while heavy footsteps, words of command, and the hurling of sabres and spurs resounded all about, the poor child, heart-broken, was half-lying, half-kneeling before that picture of the Virgin where Delaroche represents her in a grievous solitude, as though he had surprised her returning from the sepulchre of her son. Maria Clara did not think of the grief of this mother; she thought only of her own. Her head bent on her breast, her hands pressed against the floor, she seemed a lily broken by the storm. A future for years caressed in dreams, illusions born in childhood, fostered in youth, grown a part of her being, they thought to shatter all these with a word, to drive it all out of her mind and heart. A devout Catholic, a loving daughter, the excommunication terrified her. Not so much her father's commands as her desire for his peace of mind demanded from her the sacrifice of her love. And in this moment she felt for the first time the full strength of her affection for Crisostomo. The peaceful river glides over its sandy bed under the nodding flowers along its banks; the wind scarcely ridges its current; it seems to sleep; but farther down the banks close in, rough rocks choke the channel, a heap of knotty trunks forms a d.y.k.e; then the river roars, revolts, its waters whirl, and shake their plumes of spray, and, raging, beat the rocks and rush on madly. So this tranquil love was now transformed and the tempests were let loose.
She would have prayed; but who can pray without hope? ”O G.o.d!” her heart complained. ”Why refuse a man the love of others? Thou givest him the suns.h.i.+ne and the air; thou dost not hide from him the sight of heaven. Why take away that love without which he cannot live?”
The poor child, who had never known a mother of her own, had brought her grief to that pure heart which knew only filial and maternal love, to that divine image of womanhood of whose tenderness we dream, whom we call Mary.
”Mother, mother!” she sobbed.