Читать книгу Carmen Ariza - Charles Francis Stocking - Страница 13

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On a sweltering midsummer afternoon, a year after the events just related, Rome lay panting for breath and counting the interminable hours which must elapse before the unpitying sun would grant her a short night’s respite from her discomfort. Her streets were deserted by all except those 56 whose affairs necessitated their presence in them. Her palaces and villas had been abandoned for weeks by their fortunate owners, who had betaken themselves to the seashore or to the more distance resorts of the North. The few inexperienced tourists whose lack of practical knowledge in the matter of globe-trotting had brought them into the city so unseasonably were hastily and indignantly assembling their luggage and completing arrangements to flee from their over-warm reception.

In a richly appointed suite of the city’s most modern and ultra-fashionable hotel two maids, a butler, and the head porter were packing and removing a formidable array of trunks and suit cases, while a woman of considerably less than middle age, comely in person and tastefully attired in a loose dressing gown of flowered silk, alternated between giving sharp directions to the perspiring workers and venting her abundant wrath and disappointment upon the chief clerk, as with evident reluctance she filled one of a number of signed checks to cover the hotel expenses of herself and servants for a period of three weeks, although they had arrived only the day before and, on account of the stifling heat, were leaving on the night express for Lucerne. The clerk regretted exceedingly, but on Madam Ames’ order the suite had been held vacant for that length of time, during which the management had daily looked for her arrival, and had received no word of her delay. Had Madam herself not just admitted that she had altered her plans en route, without notifying the hotel, and had gone first to the Italian lakes, without cancelling her order for the suite? And so her sense of justice must convince her that the management was acting wholly within its rights in making this demand.

While the preparations for departure were in progress the woman’s two children played about the trunks and raced through the rooms and adjoining corridor with a child’s indifference to climatal conditions.

“Let’s ring for the elevator and then hide, Sidney!” suggested the girl, as she panted after her brother, who had run to the far end of the long hall.

“No, Kathleen, it wouldn’t be right,” objected the boy.

“Right! Ho! ho! What’s the harm, goody-goody? Go tell mother, if you want to!” she called after him, as he started back to their rooms. Refusing to accompany him, the girl leaned against the balustrade of a stairway which led to the floor below and watched her brother until he disappeared around a turn of the corridor.

“Baby!” burst from her pouting lips. “’Fraid of everything! It’s no fun playing with him!” Then, casting a glance of inquiry 57 about her, “I’d just like to hide down these stairs. Mother and nurse never let me go where I want to.”

Obeying the impulse stimulated by her freedom for the moment, the child suddenly turned and darted down the stairway. On the floor beneath she found herself at the head of a similar stairway, down which she likewise hurried, with no other thought than to annoy her brother, who was sure to be sent in search of her when her mother discovered her absence. Opening the door below, the child unexpectedly found herself in an alley back of the hotel.

Her sense of freedom was exhilarating. The sunlit alley beckoned to a delightful journey of discovery. With a happy laugh and a toss of her yellow curls she hurried along the narrow way and into the street which crossed it a short distance beyond. Here she paused and looked in each direction, uncertain which way to continue. In one direction, far in the distance, she saw trees. They looked promising; she would go that way. And trotting along the blazing, deserted street, she at length reached the grateful shade and threw herself on the soft grass beneath, tired and panting, but happy in the excitement of her little adventure.

Recovering quickly, the child rose to explore her environment. She was in one of those numerous public parks lining the Tiber and forming the city’s playground for her less fortunate wards. Here and there were scattered a few people, mostly men, who had braved the heat of the streets in the hope of obtaining a breath of cool air near the water. At the river’s edge a group of ragged urchins were romping noisily; and on a bench near them a young priest sat, writing in a notebook. As she walked toward them a beggar roused himself from the grass and looked covetously through his evil eyes at the child’s rich clothes.

The gamins stopped their play as the girl approached, and stared at her in expectant curiosity. One of them, a girl of apparently her own age, spoke to her, but in a language which she did not understand. Receiving no reply, the urchins suddenly closed together, and holding hands, began to circle around her, shouting like little Indians.

The child stood for a moment perplexed. Then terror seized her. Hurling herself through the circle, she fled blindly, with the gamins in pursuit. With no sense of direction, her only thought to escape from the dirty band at her heels, she rushed straight to the river and over the low bank into the sluggish, yellow water. A moment later the priest who had been sitting on the bench near the river, startled by the frenzied cries of the now frightened children, rushed into the shallow water and brought the girl in safety to the bank.

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Speaking to her in her own language, the priest sought to soothe the child and learn her identity as he carried her to the edge of the park and out into the street. But his efforts were unavailing. She could only sob hysterically and call piteously for her mother. A civil guard appeared at the street corner, and the priest summoned him. But scarcely had he reported the details of the accident when, suddenly uttering a cry, the priest thrust the girl into the arms of the astonished officer and fled back to the bench where he had been sitting. Another cry escaped him when he reached it. Throwing himself upon the grass, he searched beneath the bench and explored the ground about it. Then, his face blanched with fear, he rose and traversed the entire park, questioning every occupant. The gamins who had caused the accident had fled. The beggar, too, had disappeared. The park was all but deserted. Returning again to the bench, the priest sank upon it and buried his head in his hands, groaning aloud. A few minutes later he abruptly rose and, glancing furtively around as if he feared to be seen, hastened out to the street. Then, darting into a narrow crossroad, he disappeared in the direction of the Vatican.

At midnight, Padre Josè de Rincón was still pacing the floor of his room, frantic with apprehension. At the same hour, the small girl who had so unwittingly plunged him into the gravest danger was safely asleep in her mother’s arms on the night express, which shrieked and thundered on its way to Lucerne.