The Higher Court Part 5

Mrs. Doan's second season in the most beautiful town in southern California had begun. She had forestalled the demand of tourists, and was already established in a furnished house, with a garden. She was very happy and believed that she had found the idyllic spot of a life-long dream. To-day a glorious perspective of purple mountains spread out before her, when she lifted her eyes from the bit of needlework which she was trying to finish for a friend's firstborn.

Having spent the previous season in a large hotel she rejoiced in seclusion. Now she might face the future without indefinite dread, something she could not quite get rid of when thinking of the man whom she had undoubtedly influenced. For Philip Barry was no longer in orders. Almost a year lay between his life as a priest and the strained, difficult existence of one adrift, beginning over, feeling his way with a prejudiced public. But he had gone abroad, as Isabel advised; and at first excommunication appeared to be no harder to bear than his earlier Catholic punishment.

During months in Paris he had wrought himself into lofty independence, occupying his time with feverish writing. The result was an unpublished book on "The Spirit of the Cathedral." Disdaining many lurid accounts of his apostacy, he had worked with his whole intellect, thinking constantly of Isabel. Yet withal he kept his promise. Through six months he had sent her no word of his welfare. Isabel's pure name lent no color to a startling sensation, exciting the entire Middle West and Catholics throughout the world. With Mrs. Grace, alone, suspicion rested. For others, Mrs. Doan had no part in the priest's unusual course.

Fortunately, but one stormy scene had ensued between the aunt and the niece, then both women agreed to ignore a painful subject. It was not until the second season in California, when European letters began to come with unguarded frequency, that Mrs. Grace again grew chilly.

Glancing askance at foreign postmarks, she declined to ask the most trivial question concerning the man wholly excluded from the thoughts of a good Catholic. The lady's bitterness brewed fresh measure. Isabel was deeply hurt. Still, as during the previous winter, days pa.s.sed without rupture. To all appearances things were as usual. It was not until Mrs.

Grace rebelled over quiet that Isabel fully realized her aunt's unfitness. She now barely endured her chaperone, while more than ever she regretted the woman's unexecuted threat to return to apartments in a favorite hotel. However, Mrs. Grace stayed on, unsettling an otherwise contented household.

Isabel was obliged to keep open house without regard to chosen guests. A dream of freedom seemed ruthlessly dispelled. Yet to-day she was happy, at last free to indulge her thoughts. Early in the morning the restless relative had departed, and should good fortune continue, the touring car would not return before late afternoon. Isabel glanced down the gentle slope of her garden, shut in from streets beyond by hedge rows that in springtime were s...o...b..nks of cherokee roses. Early rain had cleansed the mountains. The range was already prismatic, sharpened into fresh beauty below a sky as blue as June. No suggestion of winter touched the landscape. As usual the paradox for November was summer overhead and autumn on the foothills. "Old Baldy" still rose without his ermine. On the mesa brown and yellow vineyards lay despoiled of crops lately pressed into vintage or dried into raisins. What is known as "the season" had not begun. To Isabel the absence of the ubiquitous tourist, together with simple demands upon time, expressed a "psalm of life,"

which she might well have sung.

As she sat under a tree sewing, her mind went naturally to a land far distant--a land which held Philip Barry. For a letter had come that very morning. The excommunicated priest was in Paris awaiting her answer. A year of probation was almost over, yet he begged as a boy for shortened time. While Isabel worked she examined herself with judicial care. The unerring precision of each tiny, regular st.i.tch seemed like testimony in her lover's case. She sewed exquisitely at infrequent intervals, and generally to compose her mind. Philip Barry's wish to come to her at once had upset both her plans and her judgment. Should she let him cross--two full months before the time agreed upon? All that her answer might involve p.r.i.c.ked into soft cambric. She drew a thread, again and again struck back sharply into dainty s.p.a.ce for a hemst.i.tched tuck. It was hard--so hard--to refuse. Yet if he came, came within the month, then everything must be changed, not only for herself but for Reginald.

Isabel evaded the natural conclusion of the whole matter. As she sat below the towering mountains--very close they seemed to-day--she had a sense of being in retreat from everyone. She would take ample time to prove herself, to feel sure that her wish for Philip Barry's love was not selfishness. Nothing must make her forget the boy and the possible consequence of his mother's marriage to an apostate Catholic priest. She sighed, looking up at the purple peaks. The very serenity of her environment developed the longing for happiness. She was too young to accept blighting sacrifice. And yet, because of those two months on which she had counted, she was undecided. But withal she smiled. "He might have stayed away the year!" she murmured. Her son's glad shouts echoed on the lawn. Impatience is unreasonable. Why has he asked me to cable my answer? He should have waited for my letter, she told herself, in flat denial to what she really wished.

She sat idle. Stirring pepper boughs roused her from revery. She looked above at swaying branches, only to remember how admirably Reginald's father had waited for everything. Half stoical force, which described the man's power during a period of successful railroading, had always restrained him. When he died, his unsoiled record and splendid business success had both been achieved through the mastery of waiting. She smiled. The curve of her lips charmed. She was yet undecided. Yes, the man she married had not been impatient. He had waited three months for the one word she would not say. At last, when she became his wife, he still waited for something she could never give him. He did not complain. Again pepper branches trembled, and a shower of tiny berries began to fall. Commotion ensued among leaves, until a dark, slender mocker shot out, onto the back of Reginald's fox terrier. Suspicion, rage, shrieked in the bird's shrill war cry. The beleaguered dog retreated beneath Isabel's chair. The enemy flew off, but came back, finally to settle just below the cherished nest which his excitement had duly located. Egotism and pride made plain his secret.

Isabel laughed, as she patted the dog crouching at her feet. "Poor fellow!" she said. "You surely had no thought to harm domestic prospects." Then through the garden her boy rushed headlong, a toy spade swung recklessly, as Maggie the nurse pursued. Jewels of moisture glistened on the child's warm forehead. His cheeks glowed, the violet of his eyes shone flowerlike. He flung himself into waiting, outstretched arms. "O mudder dear!" he cried. "I just love you so, it most makes me cry." The joy of his baby pa.s.sion, the depths reserved for years to come, seemed the expression of another, a stronger will; and Isabel knew that she had made ready her answer to Philip Barry.

CHAPTER XIII

Shortly before five Isabel heard the horn of the returning car. She ran to a mirror and gazed at her reflection with new interest, for after useless struggle with Fate she had decided to let Philip Barry cross the water. The telegram had been sent to New York and soon her message would vibrate over the Atlantic cable. Early in the afternoon she had overhauled gowns not intended to be worn until several months later. Her changed toilet was a matter of significance, almost a challenge to her aunt, who would readily construe a transformation from half mourning to violet crepe and amethysts. She listened to the horn, dreading an ordeal. Fortunately, intuitions concerning Mrs. Grace always developed her own mastery. And to-day Isabel ignored the aunt's startled expression and crude outcry, as she hastened on to meet arriving guests.

"So glad to see you looking so well!" cried Gay Lewis, a school acquaintance of years back. "I was afraid we might be late! But luck is on our side, and with my mother, who so wishes to know you, are our very dear friends, Mrs. Hartley and her son." Miss Lewis a.s.sumed social responsibility with ease. While Mrs. Doan received the ladies, she fairly drove the man--or rather youth--of the party forward.

"Let me present you, Ned. And remember! I am doing something very sweet. Mrs. Doan is a darling to have us for tea; do you not think so?"

"You were kind to come," said Isabel, looking at young Hartley. "How did you manage to hit the hour exactly? Was there no trial of patience underneath your machine?"

"Not the least," Miss Lewis volunteered, as the strangers went onward to an immense living-room. "You should have joined us, not stayed at home on a day like this!"

Hartley's adoring eyes renewed a previous invitation. "You will come next time--to-morrow?" he implored.

"Have we not had a delicious run?" said Miss Lewis, speaking to the older women, relaxing in chairs and ready for tea.

"Yes, indeed," said her mother. "Everything has been perfect."

"And Mr. Hartley is such a precious driver," the daughter went on. "He left his chauffeur on the road--came home alone--without a mishap! You may fancy his skill from the time we made--ninety-nine miles, was it not? Yes, of course! a regular bargain run. And we started so late; not until after ten, with luncheon at one. Part of our way was simply drenched with fresh oil."

"Just like a greasy river," Mrs. Grace complained.

"An outrage upon strangers who wish to enjoy the country," chimed Mrs.

Lewis.

"I should think people who live here--and many of them own most expensive cars--would protest. It doesn't seem fair to spoil good sport by such aggravating conditions," said Mrs. Hartley.

"Another biscuit, Ned dear; I am shamefully hungry." Gay Lewis, who had pa.s.sed too many seasons of unavailable conquest to be accounted young by debutantes, leaned forward. "Dear Mrs. Hartley, take two. Such jolly biscuit, aren't they? Our hostess must indulge us all, we poor people who stop in a hotel."

She turned to Isabel, a.s.siduously occupied with a steaming samovar. "You do it like an old hand; and I simply envy you this house." Miss Lewis swept the immense, rich room with alert eyes, keen to artistic values.

"You were lucky. I am surprised that Mrs. Grant consented to rent.

However, I am told that her stay abroad is apt to be protracted. You know she is most ambitious for her daughters?"

"Yes," a.s.sented Isabel, "she lives here only a few months each year."

"Is there a Mr. Grant?" asked Mrs. Hartley.

"Oh, dear yes; but he doesn't count. His wife has the money, and the taste, too," Miss Lewis volunteered.

"We must examine those antique bra.s.ses before we leave." Gay again addressed Mrs. Hartley. "Mrs. Grant has wonderful things," she explained.

"I always want to clean tarnished bra.s.s up a bit," the lady answered.

"Of course! I quite forgot your wonderful housekeeping."

Ned Hartley flushed at his mother's philistine candor.

"In this particular room, with its embrasures, dull richness, almost medieval simplicity, I should hardly dare to shine any landlady's cathedral candlesticks," said Mrs. Doan. The humor in her remark was not too plain.

"How charmingly the whole outside approaches into the very house," Miss Lewis put in. "There are no grounds in town quite so appealing. I love dear wild spots in a garden when vegetation admits of them. Where everything grows the year round it is a mistake to be too tidy with Nature."

"Mrs. Grant is an artist--a genius--in her way," the hostess rejoined.

"She certainly understands semi-tropical opportunities, whereas some of her neighbors seem only to think of the well-kept lawns of an Eastern city."

"Since the town has grown so large and shockingly up to date, there is very little natural charm left anywhere," said Gay Lewis. "Really one has to have better gowns and more of them out here than in New York or Chicago. I never accepted so many invitations for inside affairs in my life before. I positively have no time for tennis, horseback, or golf. I just submit to the same things we do at home and spend almost every afternoon at bridge, under electric light."

Isabel laughed. "I am threatening to abjure electricity altogether in this particular room--burn only candles and temple lamps. I should like to try the effect of softened light on nerves," she confided. "After sitting in a jungle of the garden, I could come indoors and disregard everything but day-dreams."

"The test would be worth while," Gay agreed. "And really, I should like to have a day-dream myself."

"Absurd!" cried Mrs. Grace. "The room is dark enough already. With nothing but candles it would be worse than a Maeterlinck play. And how could one see cards by a temple lamp?"

"Won't you be seated?" Isabel asked of Ned Hartley, still standing. "You have worked so hard pa.s.sing tea; do enjoy yourself." A momentous question went unanswered. "See! I am dropping preserved cherries into your cup--true Russian brewing. Delicious!" the hostess promised.

Hartley moved a chair. "May I sit here?" he begged.

"Of course. You deserve my fervent attention. Shall I give you orange marmalade with your biscuit?"

"Anything--everything!" he answered, all but dead to the sustained prattle of the other women. "It's awfully good of you to look out for me," he added, with an adoring glance. "And you will let me take you out in the machine--to-morrow?" he pleaded.

Isabel smiled. "You are very kind."

Miss Lewis was standing by the table with her cup. "We shall never let you rest until the thing is quite empty," she declared. "Cherries, please, instead of lemon. As I said before, you are a lucky, lucky girl to drop into such a place."

From a pillowed lair Mrs. Grace protested. "Don't tell her that," she begged. "The house and garden are well enough, to be sure; yet after all one comes from home to be free from care. I cannot understand Isabel's prejudice against hotels. There is nothing so pleasant as a good one, when one is a stranger in a strange land. I like life!

something doing. Last winter we had bridge every afternoon and evening.

The guests at the Archangel were delightful--so generous about buying prizes. And of mornings the j.a.panese auctions right down the street were so diverting. Of course we went every day--got such bargains, even marked Azon vases for almost nothing. It was so easy to buy your Christmas presents."