CHAPTER II
IRENE
"You have seen him," murmured the tall priest. "Now let us go back and wait for him. I will leave word."
He touched one of the two or three men who were watching the athletes, and whispered his message in the other's ear. Then he went back with Father Anthony.
"You have seen him," he repeated, when they sat once more in the cheerless room. "Now pronounce on him."
The other answered: "I have seen a wonderful body—but the mind, Father Victor?"
"It is as simple as that of a child—his thoughts run as clear as spring water."
"Ah, but they are swift thoughts. Suppose the spring water gathers up a few stones and rushes on down the side of the mountain. Very soon it is wearing a deeper channel—then but a little space, and it is a raging torrent and tears down great trees from its banks and goes shouting and leaping out toward the sea.
"Suppose a strange thought came in the mind of your Pierre. It would be like the pebbles in the swift-running spring water. He would carry it on, rushing. It would tear away the old boundaries of his mind—it might wipe out the banks you have set down for him—it might tear away the choicest teachings."
Father Victor sat straight and stiff with stern, set lips.
He said dryly: "Father Anthony has been much in the world."
"I speak from the best intention, good father. Look you, now, I have seen that same red hair and those same lighted blue eyes before, and wherever I have seen them has been war and trouble and unrest. I have seen that same whimsical smile which stirs the heart of a woman and makes a man reach for his revolver. This boy whose mind is so clear—arm him with a single wrong thought, with a single doubt of the eternal goodness of God's plans, and he will be a thunderbolt indeed, dear Father, but one which even your strong hand could not control."
"I have heard you," said the priest; "but you will see. He is coming now."
There was a knock at the door; then it opened and showed a modest novice in a simple gown of black serge girt at the waist with the flat encircling band. His head was downward; it was not till the blue eyes flashed inquisitively up that Father Anthony recognized Pierre.
The hard voice of Jean Paul Victor pronounced: "This is that Father Anthony of whom I have spoken."
The novice slipped to his knees and folded his hands. The two priests exchanged glances, one of triumph and one of wonder, while the plump fingers of Father Anthony poised over that dark red hair, pressed smooth on top where the skull-cap rested, and curling somewhat at the sides. The blessing which he spoke was Latin, and Father Victor looked somewhat anxiously toward his protégé till the latter answered in a diction so pure that Cicero himself would have smiled to hear it:
"Father, I thank thee, and if my mind were as old as thine I might be able to wish blessings as great as these in return."
"Stand up!" cried Father Anthony. "By Heavens, Jean Paul, it is the purest Latin I have heard this twelvemonth."
And the lad answered: "It must be pure Latin; Father Victor has taught me."
Gabrielle Anthony stared, and to save him from too obvious confusion the other priest interrupted: "I have a letter for you, my son."
And he passed the envelope to Pierre. The latter examined it with interest.
"The writing sprawls like the knees of a boy of ten. What old man has written to you, Pierre?"
"No man that I know. This comes from the south. It is marked from the United States."
"So far!" exclaimed the tall priest. "Give me the letter, lad."
But here he caught the whimsical eyes of Father Anthony, and he allowed his outstretched hand to fall. Yet he scowled as he said: "No; keep it and read it, Pierre."
"I have no great wish to keep it," answered Pierre, studying anxiously the dark brow of the priest.
"It is yours. Open it and read."
The lad obeyed instantly. He shook out the folded paper and moved a little nearer the light. Then he read aloud, as if it had never entered his mind that what was addressed to him might be meant for his eyes alone. And as he read he reminded Father Anthony of some childish chorister pronouncing words beyond his understanding. The tears came to the eyes of the good father.
And he said in his heart: "Alas! I have been too much in the world of men, and now a child can teach me."
The musical voice of the boy began:
"Morgantown,
"Son Pierre:
"Here I lie with a chunk of lead from the gun of Bob McGurk resting somewheres in the insides of me, and there ain't no way of doubting that I'm about to go out. Now, I ain't complaining none. I've had my fling. I've eat my meat to order, well done and rare—mostly rare. Maybe some folks will be saying that I've got what I've been asking for, and I know that Bob McGurk got me fair and square, shooting from the hip. That don't help me none, lying here with a through ticket to some place that's farther south than Texas."
Pierre lowered the letter and looked gravely upon Father Victor.
"There are blasphemies coming. Shall I read on?"
"Yes."
He began again, a little spot of red coming into either cheek:
"Hell ain't none too bad for me, I know. I ain't whining none. I just lie here and watch the world getting dimmer until I begin to be seeing things out of my past. That shows the devil ain't losing no time with me. But the thing that comes back oftenest and hits me the hardest is the sight of your mother, lying with you in the hollow of her arm and looking up at me and whispering, 'Dad,' just before she went out"
The hand of the boy fell, and his wide eyes sought the face of Father Victor. The latter was standing.
"You told me I had no father—"
An imperious arm stretched toward him.
"Give me the letter."
He moved to obey, and then checked himself.
"This is my father's writing, is it not?"
"No, no! It's a lie, Pierre!"
But Pierre stood with the letter held behind his back, and the first doubt in his life stood up darkly in his eyes. Father Victor sank slowly back into his chair. All his gaunt frame was trembling.
"Read on," he commanded.
And Pierre, white of face, read on:
"So I got a idea that I had to write to you, Pierre. There ain't nothing I can make up to you, but knowing the truth may help some. Poor kid, you ain't got no father in the eyes of the law, and neither did you have no mother, and there ain't no name that belongs to you by rights."
Father Anthony veiled his eyes, but the bright starved eyes of Jean Paul Victor stared on at the reader. His voice was lower now, and the lips moved slowly, as though numb with cold:
"I was a man in them days, and your mother was a woman that brought your heart into your throat and set it singing. She and me, we were too busy being just plain happy to care much what was right or wrong; so you just sort of happened along, Pierre. Me being so close to hell, I remember her eyes that was bluer than heaven looking up to me, and her hair, that was copper with gold lights in it, ran down across the white of her shoulder, and even past her side and around you, Pierre, till it seemed like you was lying in a red river. She being about all in, she got hold of my hand and looked up to me with them blue eyes I been talking about, and said 'Dad,' and went out. And I damned near followed her.
"I buried Irene on the side of the mountain under a big, rough rock, and I didn't carve nothing on the rock. Then I took you, Pierre, and I knew I wasn't no sort of a man to raise up the son of Irene; so I brought you to Father Victor on a winter night and left you in his arms. That was after I'd done my best to raise you and you was just about old enough to chatter a bit. There wasn't nothing else to do. My wife, she went pretty near crazy when I brought you home. And she'd of killed you, Pierre, if I hadn't took you away.
"You see, I was married before I met Irene. So there ain't no alibi for me. I just acted the hound. But me being so close to hell now, I look back to that time, and somehow I see no wrong in it still.
"And if I done wrong then, I've got my share of hell-fire for it Here I lie, with my boys, Bill and Bert, sitting around in the corner of the room waiting for me to go out. They ain't men, Pierre. They're wolves in the skins of men. They're the right sons of their mother. When I go out they'll grab the coin I've saved up, and leave me to lie here and rot, maybe.
"Lad, it's a fearful thing to die without having no one around that cares, and to know that even after I've gone out I'm going to lie here and have my dead eyes looking up at the ceiling. So I'm writing to you, Pierre, part to tell you what you ought to know; part because I got a sort of crazy idea that maybe you could get down here to me before I go out.
"You don't owe me nothing but hard words, Pierre; but if you don't try to come to me, the ghost of your mother will follow you all your life, lad, and you'll be seeing her blue eyes and the red-gold of her hair in the dark of the night as I see it now. Me, I'm a hard man, but it breaks my heart, that ghost of Irene. So here I'll lie, waiting for you, Pierre, and lingering out the days with whisky, and fighting the wolf eyes of them there sons of mine. If I weaken—If they find they can look me square in the eye—they'll finish me quick, and make off with the coin. Pierre, come quick.
The hand of Pierre dropped slowly to his side, and the letter fluttered with a crisp rustling to the floor.