The Higher Court Part 6

"How interesting," said Mrs. Hartley. "Do the auctions take place every season?"

"Always in the spring. And they are such an education!" Mrs. Grace persisted. "Then it is so exciting when you really want something. Of course one does not always know what to do with so many trifles, for often one does not expect to get caught on a bid. Still the sport is great and usually the things are good enough to send East to relatives, or else to give to maids about the hotel." Mrs. Grace laughed at her frank confession. "To be honest," she continued, "I am bored to death by our present mode of life. What Isabel finds in housekeeping I can't understand."

"Poor Aunt Julia!" Mrs. Doan flushed at an unexpected chance. "I see that I have been very selfish," she owned, mischievously. "Alas! I am too content to give up, after working hard to find so much! Then outside of personal delight--there is my boy. He is the happiest little soul imaginable! You should see him in his overalls! How could I deprive him of his home for another whole year?" the mother pleaded.

"He was well enough last winter," said Mrs. Grace.

"Dear Aunt Julia, our friends will think that we are quarreling. I had no idea that you were unhappy. As soon as the Archangel reopens you must take rooms and enjoy yourself as usual."

The woman, never prepared for a climax, rose from her pillows. "Take rooms at the Archangel! leave you unchaperoned!" she cried in blunt dismay. "Why, Isabel Doan, what are you thinking of?"

"I should not be alone," the niece answered. "My old French governess, Madame Sabot, is begging to come to California. By this time she is doubtless an ogress, well able to guard me."

A hot wave of suspicion swept the aunt's countenance.

"For that small matter," cried Miss Lewis, "I might do as well as madame. Take me for your chaperone! won't you, dear? I should love to act in the capacity. You know, a mere infant companion is all that is necessary nowadays--the best of form. And I am positively old, older than yourself," she coolly owned. Miss Lewis rose from her chair with vanishing hopes of Ned Hartley's continued devotion. The boy was heeding Isabel's slightest word.

"You must over think my application," she jested. "If Mrs. Grace decides to join mother at the Archangel I shall certainly hope to displace your French ogress. Meantime, we must be going. I have asked a man from the city to dinner; he will put in an appearance before I am fit. So sorry we cannot stop to see the boy in his nest. I understand he slumbers on a roof top--under the stars--like every one else out here. Isn't sleeping out of doors a fad? So admirable for the complexion! Really one might leave the country with a decent bank balance, if only one had nerve to rent an oak tree instead of rooms in a hotel." She chattered gaily above the others, to the verge of the waiting car.

While the machine gathered power, Ned Hartley hung on Isabel's promise just gained. "To-morrow--to-morrow at three," he impressed again. Miss Lewis heard his invitation, then blew the horn with ironic smile.

CHAPTER XIV

Mrs. Grace had not accompanied the departing guests to the door. As the machine sped away Isabel realized her aunt's displeasure and braced against a scene. The time for plain words had arrived. She went slowly into the living-room, building up as best she could a line of defense for certain attack. By the glow of a wood fire, wreathing flame up the wide chimney, she saw her aunt's face; it was pale and tense with suspicion. Hate for the man, once her idolized confessor, had transformed the carefully preserved woman into one far from attractive.

She seemed to gather vituperative force beyond her strength, for suddenly she stopped pacing the room to sink to a chair. Isabel turned, frightened.

"Aunt Julia! Aunt Julia, what is the matter?" She spoke, running forward.

Mrs. Grace motioned her away. "Don't pretend!" she cried. "I have seen from the very beginning--known exactly what you were both doing." Isabel said nothing. It was the older woman's opportunity. "Not building the cathedral was only an excuse for all that is still to come. You have ruined a man who otherwise must have been a saint!" She buried her face in her hands, which suddenly became gray and drawn beneath their weight of glistening gems. In anger, Mrs. Grace looked old.

"What kind of a life do you expect to lead with a traitor to both his faith and his honor? Do you suppose for a moment that he will forget!

throw away his soul without longing to repent? I wish you joy of your conquest, Isabel Doan; and remember, I am telling you the truth, even though you have turned me from your house after all my devotion." Mrs.

Grace sobbed hysterically. Isabel was at first stunned by her aunt's evil predictions; then she tried to speak. "You needn't excuse him!" the angry woman forbade. "I have heard your loose arguments before now.

Don't tell me that it is better to break a sacred vow than to keep it with rebellion! I will not listen to you." She crossed herself against possible harm. "Read all the pagan books you can find; but don't forget my words. I must leave you as soon as possible, for, of course, after my treatment this afternoon I cannot intrude."

"Aunt Julia!" Isabel sank at her feet. "Please let us part friends," she pleaded. "You have been very good to me; if only you could understand--let me tell you things which you do not know----"

Mrs. Grace sprang up.

"And you intend to really marry that man!" Isabel flamed scarlet. "You actually expect to go through with the farce of a religious service?

Well, you had better remember that marriage vows are more easily broken than any others. Don't be a fool--a prude about mere form--if you care to keep a lover; for mark my words, the man who has been untrue to his Church will find it much easier to forget a wife." Vindictive zeal gave Mrs. Grace hard fluency. And the insult which Isabel had not expected made her own part clear. She rose from the floor straight and firm.

"I feel that it is not too late for you to leave me this evening; if you think differently, I can take Reginald and Maggie into Los Angeles while you find another home. After what you have said it is impossible for us to sleep beneath the same roof."

Her wounded womanhood stood out superbly. She walked from the room.

Above, with her door locked against every one, she burst into tears.

With burning face in the pillow she wept out her heart. In all her life she had never felt so hurt and miserable. Would the world regard her marriage to Philip Barry in the same wretched light as her aunt? Then perhaps the Catholic woman was right; after all she--a heretic--might not be able to hold the man who was now willing to give up everything for love. And she had induced him to take the fatal step. Perhaps she did not understand the force of Catholic vows.

She sat up, gazing through the window at the full top of a eucalyptus tree, dark, and wonderfully etched against lingering gold of sunset. Why should she be miserable in a world as lovely as the one about her? She longed for the happiness which belonged to her youth and station. Again she recalled every word which she had said to Philip Barry at the side of his mother's casket. To her straightforward nature she had advised him wisely. With reason unbiased by dogmatic training; with her soul, honest as a child's, she felt no shame for what she had done. And it was now too late to hesitate. She had sent the message and she must hold to it with her life, her womanhood. She bathed her eyes, still going over the main facts of her lover's disgrace in the Catholic world. She came back always to the main point; he only committed a mistake when he had gone into the priesthood without realizing the price. He had tried in vain to live a life of self-denial, of enforced conformity, whereas both attempts were totally unsuited to his temperament and mentality. He had made a false step in the wrong direction; why, then, should he go on? It were better to stop than to stumble and fall. When a lawyer failed in the profession none thought worse of him when he succeeded with literature. And the doctor, unable to grasp physical ills of casual patients, carried no stain on his honor if he discovered some other calling. It could not be right to denounce a physician in charge of souls because he would not go on with a spiritual travesty. Philip's disappointment in regard to the cathedral, his unjust treatment by his bishop, his thwarted ambition,--these things she put to one side in a final summing up. All seemed secondary to the confession of the man who had stood by the side of his dead Catholic mother. He had said that he could no longer continue his priesthood, because he had ceased to be false with himself. That to Isabel made sufficient reason for all that had happened--for all to follow. She covered the case by direct standards of her own truthful nature. This evening, looking into the golden sunset, she could find no justifiable bar to marriage with Philip Barry.

When Maggie tapped on the door she opened it calmly. The girl was vaguely conscious of sudden disturbance. "Come in," said Mrs. Doan.

"Mrs. Grace is leaving this evening," she explained. "If possible, you must help with her packing. I shall not be down to dinner. I am tired and will lie down outside with Reginald; you need not disturb me. Should I need you I can ring." Isabel had partly undressed.

"You won't have anything to eat?" the nursemaid questioned.

"Nothing now, perhaps later." Mrs. Doan hastened to put on a padded robe. Her hair fell about her shoulders.

She separated the shining ma.s.s, weaving it into braids, as she went, almost running, to her sleeping son. An upper balcony, partially protected by canvas, made his cozy nest. At the south and east there was nothing to shut out the stars, while at dawn peaks beyond the northern range rose dark and sharp through zones of burning rose. Isabel cast herself upon her own bed. Delicious air cooled her burning cheeks and she could hear the gentle, regular breathing of her boy. She had no thought of sleep. Her only wish was to escape to a place cut off from her aunt's temporary territory. Now she would wait. Her heart was kind, and in retreat she began to feel sorry for the woman with whom she had parted. Mrs. Grace was only half sister to Isabel's father, and far back the little girl had wondered why her pretty aunty so often quarreled with her family. Once she heard her father declare that Julia's nose and hands seemed to guarantee a lady, but she had caught no more. At the time she did not understand; since then she had grown older and wiser. She sank upon the pillow gratefully. Below there was a stir of running feet, a commotion at the telephone. Isabel tried to forget her own inhospitable part. Once she half rose from bed, half believed that she would face her hysterical aunt with overtures of peace. Then she felt the foolishness of going through with everything again. Mrs.

Grace was impossible after what had taken place. Sounds about the house continued. The angry woman proposed to take her own time for packing; and it was nearly midnight before Isabel became sure that an unwelcome guest had gone. Above with the boy, she watched the stars grow brighter, listened to night calls of stirring birds, wondered about Philip Barry at the other side of the world. Now at last she was alone in the house with Reginald and the servants. She got up and went below, to find Maggie crying in the hall. The girl hid a crimson face and Isabel knew that Mrs. Grace had enlightened her in regard to a coming event. As one Catholic to another, she had warned the nursemaid to protect her soul from evil influence.

"You may go to bed," Mrs. Doan commanded. Maggie turned away, then came back. Her voice failed and she pointed to the dining room, where a little supper was daintily set out. She sobbed her way to the back of the house, then above to her room. Isabel was alone. She had hardly dreamed of freedom, yet now it was here. The fire in the living-room still burned; and like a child, she took a bowl of milk and bread and sat down on a rug before glowing embers. In spite of all she felt happy.

She was hungry, too; and after she had eaten every mouthful she sat on,--thinking of Philip.

CHAPTER XV

It took Isabel nearly a month to throw off the effect of her aunt's angry departure. At the end of that time the cheery French woman arrived to take the place of Mrs. Grace, who had gone from the town to St.

Barnabas. Still later, Isabel heard with strange relief that her aunt no longer enjoyed California and was about to seek excitement in New York.

She felt glad that Mrs. Grace would be at the far side of the continent before the coming of Philip Barry.

Isabel had not kept her engagement with Ned Hartley the morning after the trouble; but the next day and for days following she toured in the machine with the elate boy and his mother. Mrs. Lewis and Gay were often of the party. To spin through a country growing fresher, more enchanting with each welcome rain was a tonic. Isabel rebounded. And at last Philip had started for home. She now thought of little else and her heart grew light as days slipped away. To restore the man whom she had unduly influenced; to bring him in touch with happiness; to lead him in his new career to honor, even to fame, grew into a pa.s.sionate hope as time went by. Philip was already hers. She would make him forget, help him to consecrate his talents anew to art and letters. He must write books and be glad that he was no longer a priest, bound with forms and obsolescent vows. His brilliant mind should be free to develop, his manhood to grow unrestrained. Isabel's own unorthodox view was so wholly conceived out of intellect and evolving mercy that retribution and remorse were not pictured as possible punishments reserved for an apostate Catholic once a priest.

Her one thought was to make the man who had suffered from an almost fatal mistake happy. When once he felt the surging joy of love, opportunity, his past life would cease to trouble him. Isabel was young and confident. She felt sure of everything. The day, wonderfully bright and exhilarating, called her into the garden, where she found Reginald.

The boy had dug a flower bed with a tiny spade; then, too impatient to think of seeds, had broken full blooming geraniums into stubby shoots and planted each one with a shout of laughter.

"See my garden! mother dear," he cried, as Isabel approached. "It's all weddy--growed beau-ti-ful!" He clapped dirt-stained hands and bounced about in his blue overalls.

Maggie raised a tear-stained face from where she was sitting. Her only outlet seemed to be weeping. "To think that I must leave him!" she sobbed. "It breaks my heart to go, and nothing but Mike insisting that we get married could part me from my boy." She wound her arms about her little charge. Mrs. Doan saw that the girl held a letter. "It's to San Francisco he bids me come," she went on. In her excitement she had lapsed into old-country expression. "And he thinks I can get married with no warnin'. Married indeed! Married without a st.i.tch but store clothes. I would like to send him walkin' back East, with the chance of a better man."

"You must not do that," said Mrs. Doan, now reconciled to the girl's departure. Reginald was growing fast, and with Madame Sabot and an English nurse in readiness to fill the Irish maid's place, the boy would find his daily education an easy matter.

"Poor Maggie's so sick, mother dear," the little fellow explained. He threw his arms about the neck of his weeping nurse, kissing her loudly.

"Now poor Maggie is all well!" he exulted. "Didn't Reggie give Maggie a nice, big, fat kiss!" He went back satisfied to his miniature garden, while at the same moment Ned Hartley rushed down the terrace. "Where are you all?" he cried. His manner had grown free and confident since his first tea-drinking in Mrs. Doan's drawing-room. This morning his boyish face glowed with expectation. "Do hurry," he begged. "You are surely coming? 'The mater' is waiting in the machine and the day's bully." He pressed his wish at Isabel's side. She led him beyond the range of Maggie's ears.

"I am afraid that I cannot go; Reginald's nurse is leaving at once," she explained.

"But I have found your horses!" young Hartley tempted. "You must come and pa.s.s judgment on the finest span in the country. They are beauties--perfect beauties! I ran the owner down by mere chance; and we'll find him on a foothill ranch, with the pair in question, saddle horses, too. You simply must come if you really wish for a snap." His enthusiasm was contagious.

"You are good," Isabel answered.

"Then you should reward me with your company. Bring old madame and the boy."