CHAPTER XVIII
THE FIRST CLOUD.
The house of Captain Tiago was no less disturbed than the imaginationof the people. Maria Clara, refusing to listen to the consolationof her aunt and foster sister, did nothing but weep. Her father hadforbidden her to speak to Ibarra until the priests should absolvehim from the excommunication which they had pronounced upon him.
Captain Tiago, though very busy preparing his house for the receptionof the Governor General, had been summoned to the convent.
"Don't cry, my girl," said Aunt Isabel as she dusted off themirrors. "They will certainly annul the excommunication; they willwrite the Pope.... We will make a large donation.... Father Damasohad nothing more than a fainting spell.... He is not dead."
"Don't cry," said Andeng to her, in a low voice. "I will certainlyarrange it so that you can speak to him. What are the confessionalsmade for, if we are not expected to sin? Everything is pardoned whenone has told it to the curate."
Finally, Captain Tiago arrived. They scanned his face for an answerto their many questions, but his expression announced too plainlyhis dismay. The poor man was sweating, and passing his hand over hisforehead. He seemed unable to utter a word.
"How is it, Santiago?" asked Aunt Isabel, anxiously.
He answered her with a sigh and dried away a tear.
"For God's sake, speak! What has happened?"
"What I had already feared!" he broke out finally half crying. "All islost! Father Damaso orders that the engagement be broken. If it is notbroken off, I am condemned in this life and in the next. They all tellme the same thing, even Father Sibyla! I ought to shut the doors ofmy house and ... I owe him more than fifty thousand pesos. I told theFathers so, but they would take no notice of it. 'Which do you preferto lose,' they said to me, 'fifty thousand pesos, or your life and yoursoul?' Alas! Ay! San Antonio! If I had known it, if I had known it!"
Maria Clara was sobbing.
"Do not cry, my daughter," he added, turning to her. "You are notlike your mother. She never cried ... she never cried except when shewas whimsical just before your birth.... Father Damaso tells me thata relative of his has just arrived from Spain ... and that he wantshim to be your fiance."...
Maria Clara stopped up her ears.
"But, Santiago, are you out of your head?" cried Aunt Isabel. "Speakto her now of another fiance! Do you think that your daughter canchange lovers as easily as she changes her dress?"
"I was thinking the same thing, Isabel. Don Crisostomo is rich.... TheSpaniards only marry for love of money.... But what would you haveme do? They have threatened me with excommunication. They say thatI am in great peril: not only my soul, but also my body ... my body,do you hear? My body!"
"But you only give sorrow to your daughter. Are you not a friend ofthe Archbishop? Why don't you write him?"
"The Archbishop is also a friar. The Archbishop does only what thefriars say. But, Maria, do not cry. The Governor General will come. Hewill want to see you and your eyes are all inflamed.... Alas! Iwas thinking what a happy afternoon I was going to pass.... Withoutthis misfortune, I would be the happiest of men and all would envyme.... Calm yourself, my girl. I am more unfortunate than you and Ido not cry. You can have another and better fiance, but I lose fiftythousand pesos. Ah! Virgin of Antipolo! If I could only have someluck to-night!"
Noises, detonations, the rumbling of carriages, the galloping ofhorses, and a band playing the Marcha Real announced the arrival ofHis Excellency, the Governor General of the Philippine Islands. MariaClara ran to hide in her bedroom.... Poor girl! Gross hands wereplaying with her heart, ignorant of the delicacy of its fibers.
In the meantime, the house filled with people. Loud steps, commands,and the clanking of sabers and swords resounded on all sides. Theafflicted maiden was half kneeling before an engraving of the Virgin,a picture representing her in that attitude of painful solitude,known only to Delaroche, as if she had been surprised on returningfrom the sepulchre of her Son. But Maria Clara was not thinking ofthe grief of that Mother; she was thinking of her own. With her headresting on her breast and her hands on the floor, she looked like alily bent by the storm. A future, cherished for years in her dreams;a future whose illusions, born in her infancy and nursed through heryouth, gave form to the cells of her being--that future was now tobe blotted from the mind and heart by a single word!
Maria Clara was as good and as pious a Christian as her aunt. Thethought of an excommunication terrified her. The threat to destroythe peace of her father demanded that she sacrifice her love. Shefelt the entire strength of that affection which until now she hadnot known. It was like a river which glides along smoothly; its bankscarpeted with fragrant flowers, its bed formed by fine sand, the windscarcely rippling its surface, so quiet and peaceful that you wouldsay that its waters were dead; until suddenly its channel is pent up,ragged rocks obstruct its course, and the entangled trunks of treesform a dike. Then the river roars; it rises up; its waves boil; itis lashed into foam, beats against the rocks and rushes into the abyss.
She wanted to pray, but who can pray without hope? One prays whenthere is hope. When there is none, we surrender ourselves to Godand wail. "My God!" cried her heart, "why shouldst thou separate methus from him I love? Why deny me the love of others? Thou dost notdeny me the sun, nor the air, nor dost thou hide the heavens from mysight. Why dost thou deny me love, when it is possible to live withoutsun, without air, and without the heavens, but without love, never?"
"Mother, mother," she was moaning.
Aunt Isabel came to take her from her grief. Some of her girl friendshad arrived and the Governor General also desired to talk with her.
"Aunt, tell them that I am ill!" begged the frightened maiden. "Theywish to make me play the piano and sing."
"Your father has promised it. You are not going to go back on yourfather?"
Maria Clara arose, looked at her aunt, clasped her beautiful armsabout her and murmured: "Oh, if I had ..."
But, without finishing the sentence, she dried her tears and beganto make her toilet.