The priest surveyed the engineers seated at the tables around him. He became aware of their contempt. He was the youngest in the room by at least eleven years.
Dr. MacKenzie’s condescension took the form of asking the “child” a great many personal questions, such as no Spanish gentleman would put to another at a first or fifth meeting. Don Felipe answered them all as Roger would, simply, and with a shade of distaste perceptible only to the well-born. He had been in South America eight months. He had served at La Paz. He had begun the study of the Indians’ languages. He was born twenty-seven years ago, youngest of six children, in Seville.
“You’ll find our miners a rather rough lot,” said Dr. MacKenzie, who was proud of his colloquial Spanish, using a word that pointed to both “disorderly” and “oafish.” Ashley caught the expression that the priest turned toward the managing director; it contained a faint smile and seemed to say, “Oh, sir, not as oafish as you Protestants.”
To Ashley he said, “Pedro Quiñones tells me, Don Diego, that you have done much to enlarge the church here.”
Ashley choked. “The men gave their own time, Father.”
Don Felipe turned his black eyes on him and made no reply.
A few minutes later he asked, “These gentlemen are from several countries?”
“Yes, Father. Our director is from Scotland. Our doctor is from the Netherlands. There are four Germans and three Swiss. The larger number are from England and the United States.”
“And you, sir?”
“For reasons I cannot tell you now, I say that I am a Canadian.”
Don Felipe received the statement as though he were accustomed to such peculiar locutions.
Don Felipe was young, but he suffered from no insecurity. He arranged the next day to take his meals in the kitchen, where he established the best of relations with the Chinese cook. Like Roger, he gave all of himself to the task that was set before him. That soutane whipped about the lanes as though six priests had arrived. He had a beautiful singing voice which awoke others. There were processional litanies in the bitter cold—candles under the stars. The church was too small. His sermons were like journeys into a far country, dreams from which one awoke dazed and in great need of a friendly hand. He was a remorseless enemy of sin; sin was not allowed a cranny in which to cower, and yet, it was said, when he offered absolution to the penitent, strong men fainted. His greatest innovation, and difficult for the community to grasp, was his homage to women. Within a few months its effect became evident in their carriage. It became proverbial that his parishioners walked like the women of Andalucia. A number of my readers will have recognized that we are talking of the future Archbishop Felipe Ochoa, “Pastor of the Indians,” author of Rectas Facite in Solitudine (Semitas Dei Nostri).
Ashley had many brief encounters with the padre, but no conversations. Like Roger’s the priest’s face, in front view, was impassive; but his profile and the back of his head were vulnerable, as it is in the young. Ashley caught intimations of his homesickness for Seville (the beloved, the beautiful) and for his father and mother, of his longing for his professors and fellow students at the seminary, for the services and the music at the cathedral of his childhood, for the company of others who had also made the great decision. Ashley came to divine that he had only the vaguest notion where Scotland, Switzerland, and Canada were. His education had stored his head with far more important knowledge than that. Ashley could scarcely apprehend the extent to which he carried an irrational repulsion from Protestants. He had hitherto seen very few in his life—tourists, book in hand, impiously strolling about his cathedral as though they were in a railway station. He assumed that Protestants were a despised minority on the earth’s surface, crawling about abashedly, aware of their abjection but too satanically proud to acknowledge their error.
Time sped. The next eight months drew to a close; Ashley must descend the mountains for another vacation. He received a letter from the chairman of the board informing him that he had been promoted. He was to receive the salary of a man who had worked twelve years in the mine. The Kinnairdie Company wished to retain his services. The promotion was to be guarded as an administrative secret. The projects on which he was engaged, of building and electrification, were in full swing. He dreaded the vacation. He submitted to a physical examination by Dr. van Domelen and was permitted to continue at Rocas Verdes for another two months. But May, 1905, arrived and he must leave.
He had every intention of returning to his post after this vacation . . . ? and yet! He longed to leave the mountains forever. He rejoiced in his work, he loved his Chileans and Indians, but he was starved for companionship—above all, for wife and child, but that did not bear thinking of. He had been tormented lately, waking and sleeping, by a recurrent dream: on a dark night, nearer to dawn than to midnight, he was standing under their elms . . . ? the southeast corner room . . . ? he was throwing some pebbles into the window. She awoke; she descended the stairs and opened the front door. But this was insane! Such rashness could only involve them all in further misery. Mrs. Hodge had said seven years—that would be July, 1909. Ashley intended to return to Rocas Verdes, yet he packed his knapsacks as though for a final departure. He sewed his paper money into his clothing; his salary checks he could cash in any large town. For the first time in his life he was gloating over money.
His leave-takings were much the same. Again he called on Dr. MacKenzie.
“This time you must stop at Manantiales—at least for a week. You must learn to know Mrs. Wickersham’s hotel. I’ve telegraphed her that you were coming and here’s a letter for her. You’ve heard the men talk about her?”
“A little.”
“She won’t have Heidrich again, or van Domelen or Platt. She says she can’t stand gloomy men. There are two other passable hotels in Manantiales, but nothing on earth can compare with her Fonda. The beds, Tolland, the food, the copper-lined bathtubs, the servants! And, of course, herself. I’ve known her a little over thirty years. She got me my first job, in fact. In the early days she was the miners’ post office and banker and even employment agency. She was more than that—she was a sort of guardian of standards. There was a German mine—it’s in other hands now—called the ‘Suevia Eterna.’ Living conditions were bad; it was arrogant to its non-German engineers, late in its pay checks—all that; but it thought itself the best mine in the hills. She advised young men away from it. She abetted other mines in stealing its good men. Well, old ‘Suevia’ sent a committee to call on her. She burned the skin off their scalps; told them how to run a mine. But I’d hate to work in any mine that she ran—if she ran it as she runs her hotel. One night at the Fonda an American businessman was telling us all that the white man was the masterwork of God and that all these Indians and mixed races came into the world to be his servant help. She made him finish his dinner upstairs. He had to leave the next morning and she wouldn’t let him pay his bill.”
“She’s English?”
“Yes, born in the late thirties, I expect. Came out here as a bride. Husband was one of these emerald hunters. She told a story once of cooking for a lot of men over in the Peruvian oriente where it never stops raining—in a thatched hut, holding an umbrella over her tapir stew; and of being in some diggings higher up than this, where you have to learn from scratch how to boil an egg. Husband died, leaving her with a little girl; she opened the Fonda. Three things interest her: her hospitals and orphanages; good company and good talk at her dinner table; and her reputation for knowing everything that’s going on in the Andes.—By the way, have you got a cravat?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, take this one. She insists on men wearing a cravat at dinner.”
“Thank you.—Which of the goddesses of Greece does she resemble, Dr. MacKenzie?”
“Oh, you remember that little discussion, do you? Well, I once expounded the whole theory to her.” Here Dr. MacKenzie fell into his soundless laughter. “She told me that I was an old fool. She told me eac
h man belongs to one type: that’s why we’re so tiresome. But that most women were all five or six goddesses mixed up together. She said that every woman wanted to be an Aphrodite, but she had to settle for what she could get. She said that she’d been all of them—all six. She said that it’s a lucky woman who graduates from Artemis to Aphrodite, to Hera and ends up as Athene. It’s sad when they get stuck in one image.—Come back and tell me what you think.”
On the night before he left Ashley walked through the lanes of the villages. It was intensely cold. He came to the church and pushed open the door. All was dark but for a lighted wick burning in its cup of red glass. It cast a faint reflection on the little dome above it. Don Felipe was kneeling before it, unfathomably motionless. Ashley returned to the square. He was smiling.
To himself he said, “That’s for Roger.”
He was filled with awe—with grateful wonder—that life permits us to pay old debts, to redeem old blindnesses, old stupidities. His grandmother had promised him that.
Ashley had no intention of going to the Fonda. He told himself he was no fool. When he arrived at Manantiales the sun was about to sink beneath the Pacific. He walked under trees and low-flying birds. The descent from the heights left him drowsy. With stealth he slowly approached the inn and entered the garden. He sank down on a bench. A fountain was rising from a pool at his feet. All was still in the house. The first lights appeared in the windows. He thought of the sala of white and deep-sea blue. He thought of the crucifix on the wall. Most of all he thought of Mrs. Wickersham. He was longing for someone to talk with. He was longing for friendship.
“All right,” he said, rising. “I’ll risk my life for it.”
He straightened his shoulders and walked into the front hall. She was sitting by a lamp in her little office, bent over her account books. She looked up and saw him. Again she asked him in the tones of a drill sergeant, “Who are you?”
“James Tolland, ma’am, from Rocas Verdes. I have a letter to you from Dr. MacKenzie.”
“Come in here, please.” She took the green shade off the lamp so that the light would fall fully upon him. She looked him up and down. “Haven’t I seen you before?”
“No, ma’am.”
She looked at him hard. A slight frown crossed her face. She went into the hall, clapped her hands, and called “Tomás! Tomás!” An Indian boy came running toward her. She gave her directions in the dialect of the sierra. “Move Doctor Pepper-and-Salt to Number Ten damn-damn quick. Tell Teresita to make Number Four perfect like Heaven and the Angels. When Number Four is ready, carry hot water to the bath and come to me.—Mr. Tolland, your room and bath will be ready in fifteen minutes. Your room is Number Four at the top of those stairs. Here are some San Francisco papers to read while you’re waiting. Dinner is at nine. You can go to sleep. Tomás will knock at your door at a quarter before nine. If you want a drink before dinner, be sure that it is half strength. The first twenty-four hours after a descent are tricky.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Wickersham.”
He turned and went toward the sala. At the door he turned his head to the right. The crucifix was no longer hanging on the wall. In his astonishment, in his consternation, Ashley let the newspapers fall from his hand. Mrs. Wickersham had been following him with her eyes. She knew very well why, three minutes earlier, she had made room for him at the Fonda. There was nothing particularly prepossessing about John Ashley; Dr. MacKenzie’s telegram and letter carried little weight with her. She accepted him because he had lied to her. She remembered very well that they had seen each other before. She had forgotten whatever words they had exchanged, but she was sure of the fact. It wasn’t merely the lie that arrested her now, it was the sturdiness of the lie, its “sincerity.” Mrs. Wickersham was, as Dr. MacKenzie had said, “choke-full” of curiosity. She knew that Ashley was not a liar and that he had lied to her. She wanted to know more about that.
She never joined her guests at lunch. She descended at nine o’clock wearing long trailing black dresses of silk or lace, no longer in their first youth, decked out with bugles of jet and scarlet velvet bows. The first three evenings she placed Ashley far from her at the lower end of the table. She watched him and was sorry that she had asked him into the house. He spoke very little. He listened to Swiss botanists and Swedish archaeologists and Baptist missionaries, to businessmen and engineers (including a compatriot from Canada) and those eternal professional world travelers already composing their chapter on the “Land of the Condor.” She placed him beside the Chilean doctor at her hospital and the mayor of Manantiales. He wasn’t a man’s man. Men merely tried to impress him with their wealth or position. Women liked him, but women like any man who will give them his whole attention. She would let him stay out the week. On the fourth night she seated him at her left and there he remained.
“Mr. Tolland, what were you doing in my kitchen today?”
“It was on fire, ma’am.”
“And what did you do?”
“I put it out. I want your permission to go into the kitchen and laundry every day until they’re in order. These earthquakes have shaken up your pipes and flues and boilers. I saw some places that could be dangerous.”
“In Chile gentlemen don’t soil their hands, Mr. Tolland. I have repairmen and plumbers of my own.”
He looked her in the eye. “Yes, I’ve seen their work. . . . ? Mrs. Wickersham, I’m a tinker. And I’m miserable when I haven’t anything to do. I want you to show me your orphanages and hospitals—all those parts that the visitors don’t see. Before the boilers blow up and the drains overflow.”
“Gosh!”
He changed to his workingman’s clothes. He collected some assistants and tools. He was introduced to the sisters and the teachers and the cooks and the doctors. By the end of the week there was a sawing and a hammering, soldering and ditchdigging. By the end of the second week partitions were removed and partitions were installed. The sisters were particularly delighted when he made them shelves, dozens of shelves. He cleaned fireplaces and wells and latrines.
He sang “‘Nita, Juanita” and “No gottee tickee, No gettee shirtee, At the Chinee laundryman’s.”
To himself he said, “This is for Sophia.”
He looked younger every day. He was greeted with blushes and laughter when he arrived in the morning, “Don Jaime, el canadiense.” The wards knew him. The schoolchildren knew him. The blind girls were directed to rise and sing to him. The astonishment increased that so obviously important a personage spoke their language so well and that he deigned to labor. In the wards and on the sun terrace he would stop and talk to the amputated young and to the aged. He seemed to have a genius for remembering names. Early, before his hands and clothes were dirty, he would pick up the smallest orphans as though he had held children before. He belonged to that order of human beings from whom come hope and reassurance. What particularly struck Mother Superintendent was his deference to girls and women, an indefinable homage that was like something remembered from old legends and ballads.
Mrs. Wickersham defended her heart as best she could. The old are slow to believe that the young can repose a real friendship in them. At best the young can be polite, but are in a hurry to rejoin their coevals. Besides, they—the old—draw back from the demands that a new friendship might exact; they have seen so many fade, have begun to forget the valued ones. It may be that friendship is little more than a fatigued and fatiguing word. What then was the energy in the glance that Ashley turned toward her? Was that, really, friendship? Moreover, Ashley arrived at the Fonda at the moment when Mrs. Wickersham was losing control of her life’s rudder. She had begun to weary of well doing. All those girls she had collected and trained and married—the blind whom she had taught lacemaking and weaving. Aïe, Aïe, Aïe! The times she had been awakened at four in the morning for one thing or another—to save a boy from the brutality of the police, or a member of the police force from the resentment of the workers. She was a citizen of Chile and had re
ceived ribbons of recognition from a grateful republic. She had appealed to the President himself to extend clemency to some half-mad worker who had desecrated a church or some distraught girl who had hurled her baby into a cistern. Doers of good have their seasons of weakness. They know that there is no spiritual vulgarity equal to that of expecting gratitude and admiration, but they allow themselves to be seduced by the sweet fantasies of self-pity. “No one has ever done anything for me, spontaneously.” She had lost touch with the emotion which had first prompted her to these works. Sorriest of all, she had grown weary of women and woman talk, of their way of seizing on the hopeful or the alarming—exaggerating both—of their helplessness when confronting a choice between two evils. And, like all persons of resolute mind and long experience, she had become impatient at the presence of independence in others. She had become bad company to herself. She had invited cynicism into her thought; her tongue had become malicious. She had decided to devote what few years remained to her to enjoying herself—to the only enjoyments left to her: to trying to rule others’ lives and to making of herself a “character.” She was fashioning a mask for her face—Mrs. Wickersham, amusing, a little frightening, and always right, wise, and admirable. Some go forward and some go back. A sort of insolence in regard to the opinions of others expressed itself in her wearing, in the evening, a décolleté that had gone out of fashion for half a century and in a free application of the rabbit’s foot and rouge.
And then John Ashley arrived at the Fonda and proffered his friendship.
“Mr. Tolland, do you play cards?”
The Eighth Day Page 19