Penance of Magdalena and Other Tales | Page 3

It was half open, and she glanced in. The Father was not there, but she saw, bending over a table set against the window, a young man. His back was turned to her, and he was so intent upon his occupation that he had not heard her step. She should have turned and gone, for the rules were strict, and forbade conversation between the girls and young men of the Mission: but her curiosity was keen to know what the Indian boy (as she knew he must be) was doing in the Father's quarters, and what it could be that kept him so absorbed. Moreover, a spirit of defiance was in her. If the Father found her loitering there he would reprimand her. Well, she would break the rules: she was no Indian; and if he caught her there she would tell him so. Yes, she would see what the young man was doing; she wanted to know, and she would know. Quietly she stole into the room and edged round to one side go that she could see partly across the table. The young man was painting, in wonderful colors, on a sheet of parchment, painting wonderful things--beasts, and birds, and flowers, and even angels, a wonder of wonders to the simple girl.
At some involuntary sound that she made, the young man--it was Te��filo --turned and saw her. Her eyes were fixed upon him, wide with wonder, and her hands half raised in childlike rapture, while her slender figure, so different from the heavier forms of the Indian girls, gave her, to his eyes, the look and bearing of one of the very angels he had been copying. It was a marvel on his side, too; and for a few moments the two regarded each other, while love (that is born so often of sudden wonder in innocent hearts) awoke and stirred in both their breasts. They had often met before, but it had been casually, and the hour had not been ripe. Now he saw her and loved her; she saw him, an Indian, indeed, but transfigured, for he was an Indian who worked wonders. And the Spaniard in her gave way, that moment, to the Indian, and she loved an Indian, as her father had done.
He was the first to recover his self-possession. "The Father is not here," he said. "He will be back soon, for he set me my task until he should return, and I have almost done it." "Is that your task?" she asked. "How beautiful! How wonderful!" And she stepped nearer the table. "Show me, how do you make them? I never thought that Indians could make such things. I have heard my father say that holy men in Spain could make angels, but you are an Indian: how can you do it?" "I cannot tell you," he said slowly: then "Yes, I will tell you," and a flush came on his dark face, and a light into his eyes, as he looked at her. "I do not make them, these angels; they come to me because the Father has taught me to love them. He says the angels come to those who love them, and any one can love them. And when I saw you," he went on, his eyes upon her eager face, "I thought you were the angel I was painting, for you are like an angel, too; and now I shall always love you, and it will be easy to paint. Listen! the Father is coming. You must go quickly, but now I have seen you I must see you again. You are Magdalena, Agust��n's daughter. I shall find you to-morrow when I take the orders for the work to your father."
Magdalena slipped away, and thus was begun the short but happy love of Te��filo and Magdalena short, like the history of the beautiful Mission itself; happy, as all love is happy, let its end be what it may. Many a time they met in secret, for sweet interviews or even a hurried word or glance; but love grows best in the shade. And meanwhile, the great church had been growing too, and now it was Te��filo's proud task to paint the frescoes on the walls and dome, as the Father had hoped. Simple designs they were to be at first,--floral emblems and the symbols used for ages by the Church, but later Te��filo was to essay much more ambitious things, perhaps even the archangels, and San Juan, the soldier-saint, himself.
It was the winter of 1812, and Te��filo and Magdalena had loved each other for over a year, when Te��filo one day spoke to the Father of Magdalena, and said that he wished to marry her. For months Magdalena had tried to be dutiful and to engage the Father's