The Higher Court Part 4

"You are stunning," said Isabel, knocking lightly on the open door. "For myself, I thought it unnecessary to change my linen frock." As she spoke she threw back a coat of sable. "I thought I might go as I am, for I shall not enter the house. You have not been with Reginald, so of course there is not the slightest reason for not going in at a time like this.

You can give Father Barry my lilies, and ask him to see me for a few moments outside."

"Simplicity becomes you," Mrs. Grace acknowledged. "You really look well without the slightest effort. I have always been improved by good clothes; even when I was a girl I shone in the latest styles. I do love up-to-date gowns." She ran a comb through her fluffy pompadour, which should have been silver but was counterfeit gold.

"Good gracious, Isabel, how your color has come back!" she enviously exclaimed. "When Reginald first took sick you were ghostly; now I believe you are fresher than ever. I can't understand you. Being shut away from everything has actually done you good!"

Mrs. Doan perceived the drift of her aunt's compliment. "You are certainly stunning in your new gown," she answered. "And you know I wish to get back to Reggie as soon as possible. Will you not come?"

The older woman moved slowly from the mirror. "About the flowers,"

Isabel went on; "only mine were sent--the lilies. The wreath you ordered will not be finished until to-morrow in time for service at the church.

Grimes wrote me, explaining that the piece was so large that it could not be delivered sooner."

Mrs. Grace accepted a disappointment. "To-morrow will answer. I wish the wreath to be perfect." She followed her niece downstairs and outside to the waiting carriage. It was still cold, but the blizzard was dead in a shroud of stars. Mrs. Grace settled expansively, while Isabel protected her lilies as best she could.

"It is, after all, fortunate that my wreath was not sent," the aunt affirmed. "We never could have taken it inside, and Thomas might have objected to minding it on the box. When I asked you to telephone about it I did not realize how crammed a coupe is. The piece will be wonderful in the church--pink carnations, orchids, and maidenhair ferns. I am sure it will be the biggest thing of the kind Grimes has ever sent out. I preferred a cross, but so many were already ordered that I decided to have a wreath. I do hope Father Barry will like the color--pink suits his dear mother much better than white; don't you think so?"

Mrs. Grace judged grief by circ.u.mference and perpendicular measurement.

It seemed as fitting to send her priest a wreath as large as a wagon wheel as it had been inc.u.mbent to wear the longest c.r.a.pe veil procurable during two distinct periods of widowhood. Isabel's armful of lilies struck her as shockingly unconventional, not even a ribbon confined the long green stems; and to Mrs. Grace this falling away from custom was highly amusing. But Isabel was Isabel. One never dared to count upon what she would do. Individuality was too strenuous for Mrs. Grace.

Besides every one paid for good form, nowadays, while it was much easier to adopt accepted practice than to run the risk of appearing eccentric.

Original people were generally poor--too "hard up" to be altogether proper.

"I should think you might have tied your flowers with white gauze and put them in a box," she said bluntly.

"Father Barry will like them as they are," Mrs. Doan answered.

The older woman sank back. A long feather on her large hat brushed Isabel's cheek. The niece moved away. In the corner of the carriage she held the lilies closer, praying that her companion might restrain frank opinions. Fortunately both women enjoyed independent fortunes. Affluence represented distinct value for each one. The aunt loved money for what it bought, the niece for what it brought. Mrs. Grace reveled in splendid things, Isabel in unusual opportunities. The one reverenced abundance, the other freedom and the luxury of not overdoing anything. Neither one was congenial with the other, yet for a time, at least, it seemed necessary for their conflicting tastes to remain politely sugared.

Before the world aunt and niece appeared to be in well-bred harmony.

To-night the irritating chatter of Mrs. Grace kept Isabel silent.

Shrugged in her corner she scarcely heard, for suddenly she was wishing that she had written to her friend in trouble, instead of going to him.

But for her aunt, she would have turned back. But Isabel had done many difficult things, things that other women shrank from. Her intuitions were fine, and she seldom regretted a first impulse. Almost at once Philip Barry's letter seemed rewritten for her eyes. Sentence by sentence she pondered the tempestuous, then broken, despondent appeal.

Yes, he needed her; she was glad that she had ventured to come to him. A jar against the curb furnished Mrs. Grace with petulant opportunity, and while that lady settled her hat and adjusted her ermine, Isabel grew calm for an approaching ordeal. As her aunt alighted, hotly deploring the careless driving of a new coachman, a flood of light burst from Father Barry's temporary refuge. Two women, going forth from their dead friend's little home, tarried a moment with the son, who stood in the illuminated doorway. Suddenly the priest accompanied them forward. His eager eyes had clearly outlined a coupe and faultless horses. She had come! Isabel was before his house. He bade his neighbors a crisp good night and hurried to the side of Mrs. Grace. "So good of you, so good of you both!" he exclaimed, searching beyond for the lady's niece, still within the carriage. Mrs. Doan moved to the open door. "I was not intending to get out," she told him softly. "I came only with Aunt Julia, to bring these lilies for to-morrow, to let you know that I understand. When you have leisure to listen I want to help you to be brave and steadfast. You cannot--you must not give up." Her voice swept over him like music.

"Come in!" he commanded. "There is not the slightest danger for any one.

My only visitors are Sister Agnes and Sister Simplice, both from the hospital."

Mrs. Grace, evidently annoyed, called from the footpath, "I am freezing!"

Isabel accepted the priest's hand, running forward. "Father Barry insists that I come in," she explained, while all three entered the house. Nuns, alert for notable callers, stood in the hall. Mrs. Grace shed outer ermine and clung significantly to her splendid rosary. In a room beyond she dropped upon her knees. The lady, addicted to posing, had unusual opportunity. The very atmosphere called for a graceful posture and devotional calm. In the presence of her recently bereaved confessor, flanked by praying nuns, she took no thought of Isabel standing apart an accepted heretic.

Mrs. Doan still wore her sable coat, the armful of blossoms resting like snow against the fur. She had stepped from darkness into light, unconscious of her dazzling appearance. Clasping the lilies, pressing them hard to still agitation, she might have been a saint of Catholic legend dispensing charity beneath flowers. "Come," said Father Barry, close at her side, "come across the hall." Isabel knew that he was leading the way to his beloved dead. She went softly, not wishing to disturb the kneeling aunt and devout sisters. Father Barry had spoken about his mother so often that at first she followed on as one ent.i.tled to a last privilege. At the threshold of an old-fashioned parlor she hesitated. "Come," the priest entreated. "She would be glad to know that you had placed the flowers with your own hands. Ascension lilies were her joy! she always chose them." Isabel moved slowly forward. The room, lighted with wax tapers, was long and narrow. At the extreme end stood the bier and improvised altar. There were beautiful flowers on all sides; the casket alone seemed to be waiting for the son's last offering.

"Will you not put them here?" He touched gently the spot of honor. "I should like to have them with my own, for I too have chosen lilies."

She thought of Reginald; of the difficult part in the boy's sick chamber which the priest had a.s.sumed, and thankfully complied. Father Barry watched her handle each lily with reverent touch. One by one she laid them down, then turned and smiled.

"How beautiful!"

"To me they are the symbolic flowers of the world," she answered.

"Yes," he told her, "they express my mother's life; it was white, pure, true, simple--fragrant with love." He sank his face touching the bed of bloom. "She lived perfectly," he went on in tender revery. "I never knew such faith--such faith in her friends, in her Church. And now I have lost her, lost her at the very time when she might have helped me. But thank G.o.d she did not know! Thank G.o.d always that she never dreamed the truth about her boy--about the priest she almost worshipped. And she could never have understood."

"I think she would have seen everything clearly, as you would have wished her to see it," Mrs. Doan protested. "I am sure she must have counseled you to be strong, begged you not to give up. She would have told you to wait--then to appeal your case to an authority higher than a very unreasonable old man. I do not understand your church government,"

she acknowledged. "I am too ignorant to advise you--yet surely there is some way, otherwise there would be need of neither archbishops nor of a pope!" She spoke valiantly. In her heretical judgment the Vatican had no significance if its ruler refused to step outside, to listen to individual cases of injustice.

"His Holiness bless your dear soul! bless you always!" the priest murmured huskily. His eyes glowed. "But you do not understand, do not see that it is not an ignominious downfall; not the bishop's power to keep me from going on with the cathedral, that has changed everything--made it impossible for me to remain a priest. All the time I have been nothing but a hypocrite, nothing but a coward."

"Do not say such things!" she cried.

"But I speak truth! Nothing shall ever silence my honest tongue again.

You shall know at last why I went into a monastery, took false vows, adopted a sham profession."

She raised her face appealingly. Her whole being implored him not to hurt her again after the lapse of years.

"Forgive me!" he begged. "I am not blaming you, no one but my miserable self. I was not man enough to stand disappointment. The only way I could live! live without----" Isabel's eyes forbade him to finish. But he persisted. "The only way I could go on with life was to forget through forms, ceremonies, and flattery. When I began to work for the cathedral I had new hope. In reality I was less a priest than before. Yet I was more of a man, thank G.o.d! I intended to do my part like an honest architect. I wished to give my Church something worth while."

"And you will do so yet," she pleaded.

"Not now. I shall never act as priest again."

His words fell slow and hard. "I cannot live falsely one day longer."

The avowal deceived her; and now she had no fear for herself. Only the thought to help the man drove her on. Not being a Catholic, she was vaguely sure of the priest's words. For Isabel excommunication meant nothing but an unpleasant form which must eventually react on an intelligent victim. She held out her hand.

"Any one has the right to change. I am glad that you have decided so splendidly. It is like you to know when you have been wrong. And now that you have really found out you can begin all over--study architecture--build something as great as the cathedral. Vows that have ceased to be real are much better broken."

Her words evolved a simple plan. She had no understanding of the disgrace attending an apostate priest of the Catholic faith. Father Barry knew that she was innocent, that she had no wish to tempt him. But longing for all that he might still receive swept away his reason. He thought only as a man.

"And you will help me?"

"Why not?" she answered.

"Because you do not understand; do not know what your asking me to begin life over implies." His mother's face beneath the lid of the casket was no whiter than his own. All that he had lived through in the last three days made fresh renunciation vain. Discarded vows fell away from him as a cast-off garment. He was simply begging life from the woman he loved.

"Not here!" she pleaded. "Do not forget where we are!" Her voice broke.

"You are still a priest; your vows hold before the world. I will not listen to you. Everything must be changed--absolutely changed, before I can see you--ever again." Her anger restored him.

"I will do anything!" he promised.

"Then go abroad--at once," she entreated. Voices admonished her to be prudent. She moved away. "I will help you! help you! But you shall wait.

Nothing must shadow your honest life to come." She spoke in French, fearing her words might reach the hall. Mrs. Grace stood outside the parlor door. Dreading to look upon death, she yet resented her confessor's neglect. Nuns had ceased to hold her from an evident living attraction, as she swept into the room. But she was scarcely satisfied; for the length of the casket divided her niece from Father Barry. The priest, unconscious of an intruder, wept out his shame above Isabel's lilies.

CHAPTER XII

Isabel sat beneath the trees, while Reginald turned successful somersaults on the lawn. The boy was well and strong, adorable in blue overalls.