The Higher Court Part 11

But Isabel blindly rejoiced in her husband's balance, while each gay canter past the mission brought fresh a.s.surance of his good sense. Then suddenly one morning he asked her to dismount for an interior view of the old church. She did not hesitate. It seemed manly, natural, that he should be strong enough to put aside personal feeling, should be able to enjoy an esthetic opportunity at hand. And she shrewdly divined that he was tired of denying his interest in the supreme tourist sight of the locality. By going through the mission his noticeable att.i.tude might be changed. She had no appreciation of his risk from the Catholic standpoint. As she walked forward by his side she felt neither embarra.s.sment nor fear. After all, they were both strangers, coming with thousands of others who looked, departed, and left an offering of money.

The gold of heretics had really restored the mission. The man once a priest led his wife beneath an historic arch of the long gallery. Here the two stopped. Three brown-cloaked monks sat on a bench enjoying the sun.

"We should like to go through the mission," said Philip.

The oldest "brother" of the trio arose. "You are welcome," he answered pleasantly.

The two younger monks got up quickly, pa.s.sed before the visitors, crossed a whitewashed anteroom, unlocked a solid door, then sprung it back in the face of oncoming Isabel. But despite the haste of a fleeing order she had caught a glimpse of the sacred garden beyond, and it did not occur to her disqualified judgment to regard herself as a natural temptation for carnal thoughts. She simply smiled at the rude opportunity enjoined by holiness. As she followed the "brother" in charge of the regulation tour for strangers, she kept wondering about the tall, handsome monk who had used a pa.s.s key on the spring lock of the oaken door.

He was a splendid specimen of manhood, and Isabel could still see his fine head, his modeled jaw and chin, the strong mouth; above all, the swinging freedom of his limbs underneath his rough brown habit. She regretted the unattractive personality of the attending brother, yet at the same time she tried--as she always tried--to repay a debt with simple grat.i.tude. It was soon plain that the austere monk regarded her with favor.

As they went from one small whitewashed room to another, pausing to examine some rude relic of early mission days, Isabel led in the conversation. "It is all very interesting," she declared. "And the church has been so consistently restored," she went on. "I do not wonder that you are proud of the only mission in California which has not been treated to some shocking innovation. Even the dear old church at San Gabriel has taken on a modern redwood ceiling utterly devoid of art's religion."

The brother's thin lips drew apart in a quizzical smile. "You must become a Catholic and help us to preserve the crumbling architecture of the good fathers," he suggested.

"I should love to help the work along," she answered. They had finished with the small, chilly, almost antiseptically treated rooms, open to strangers, and were now standing at the foot of the old stairway leading above to the towers. On account of previous experience Isabel regarded the high stone steps with trepidation. The brother, not intending to mount, bade them take their time, then meet him again outside in the suns.h.i.+ne. Philip offered to help his wife with an initial lift, but she refused a.s.sistance, declaring that to be game when mounting historic steps was the only way. "I may not be able to move to-morrow, but to-day I shall not think of future punishment," she gayly jested. Philip went behind to guard her as she took the penitential climb. And at last both were resting in the ancient belfry, close to the old bells from Spain.

Below the sacred garden lay plain to their view. Philip pictured the first sinful man peering into forbidden Eden. Then he remembered that Adam still had Eve.

CHAPTER XXII

Philip stood looking down, with his hand lightly resting on Isabel's shoulder. Beyond the fountain, before the timeworn cloister, sat an aged brother surrounded by monks. It was plain that the old brother was ill, perhaps nearing the end of a chosen life on earth, for he was speaking to the young monks, who seemed to hang on every word, hovering around his chair with awkward, masculine devotion. In all probability these same vigorous men would carry the old brother on his bier to the little cemetery, where he might displace the whitened bones of some monk long dead and forgotten.

As Philip gazed down on the scene below, translating as well he might the end of justified means to Catholic grace, his eyes filled with tears. For some unaccountable reason the dying monk suggested his mother. The reproach which she had never given him in life now seemed to ascend from the old garden--from the invalid brother leaning back on pillows. Philip turned away, and Isabel saw that he was hurt. Instantly her hand held his. "Let us go," she implored. But he smiled back refusal.

"I was just thinking of my mother," he confessed. "You must not forget that she was a Catholic, consistent and happy to the end of her days. I could not help a.s.sociating her in my mind with the good brother below us. I have been told that an old monk has never been known to pa.s.s away with regret; only the young ones, sometimes, feel restless in the cloister."

He had not spoken in this manner before. Isabel covertly scanned his countenance. His cheeks held a slight hollow, almost imperceptible, except when his face was turned in a certain way. Standing with his back to the light, in the arch of the belfry, his eyes seemed too bright for normal condition. Isabel remembered the strain of his past year.

"Let us not climb above onto the roof," she pleaded. Still he would not forego the broader view, and helped her to cross from one tower to the other. As they halted, spellbound, to breathe mountain air, to drink salt breeze, Isabel again looked at her husband. He was smiling in sensuous pleasure. It came to her joyously that time alone could heal his wounded spirit. It seemed manly that he should be able to delight in his present environment without prejudice; that he should face phases of Catholic power without pain. It were preposterous to try to wipe out the realm of Romish influence; for to do that meant to give up "old world"

cathedrals and universal art, inspired by popes and cardinals. Yes, Philip was wise to tread his new way freely as a free man.

But when they had descended from the tower Isabel stood undecided. "Are you sure that you wish to enter the church?" she asked.

Her husband hesitated, with eyes on the stone floor. The flas.h.i.+ng recollection of an awful interdict held him; then he looked up. "I am no longer a Catholic," he acknowledged coldly. "I have the right to see the interior of the mission church, like any other American citizen.

Come, let us hasten."

Isabel followed, dimly conscious of his defiant mood. The brother, waiting without, led them across ancient flagstones to timeworn steps of generous dimension. In fancy Philip saw flocking dark-faced Indians of early days mounting to service. The work of the unselfish fathers accused him even before he entered the fine old edifice; but he went on, with intent to stifle all but esthetic feeling. He felt relieved when his wife a.s.sumed a questioning att.i.tude that was cordially appreciated by the brother in charge.

Here in the old church, by the side of a brown-habited monk, Isabel shone as usual. It became clear to Philip that his wife and not himself attracted their guide. He walked on, listening to the brother's story of early mission life and art, with no outward sign of inculcated knowledge. At every curtained confessional, before Spanish pictures of saints, at every sacred shrine, he told himself defiantly that he played no dishonorable part. The curious temper of the observer condoned his bold action. He was "a stranger within the gates." He went forward to the foot of the chancel as a man in a dream. That less than two years back he might have penetrated with full right beyond to the flower-dressed altar brought him a momentary pang, but he stifled it and looked at Isabel. Did she know--understand? Her serene face expressed no undercurrent of emotion. The reserve force of splendid womanhood had walled in her husband's past with natural, incidental, impersonal interest for everything at hand. Then, as they stood on listening to the brother's fervent account of work done by early mission Indians, notes from the organ broke the strain; while presently a baritone voice of wonderful quality floated below from the choir loft. Isabel turned in surprise. Even at the far end of the church she saw clearly the two young monks who had gone through the heavy door to the secret garden.

The tall, lithe-limbed monk was the singer; his cloister brother accompanied him on the organ.

"How beautiful!" she exclaimed, sitting down by Philip, in a convenient pew. "They are practicing--for service?" she asked.

The brother in charge nodded. He seemed disappointed that his own rhetorical opportunity should be eclipsed by the mere song of a youngster. But the charming heretic no longer listened to a story of dark, slow-moving converts. Her eyes had ceased to rest on fantastic colored designs carved by early Indians and now transferred to the new wooden ceiling of the old church. The voice in the choir loft held her; and with a woman's will she chose to end the brother's attentions.

Besides, Philip seemed worn with sacred tradition.

"We have enjoyed everything very much!" she said with enthusiasm. "If we may come another day for a glimpse of the old cemetery, we should now prefer to listen to the music." She smiled, one hand extended. As the brother hesitated she drew a goldpiece from her glove. When Philip too responded with natural impulse, the brown monk moved away. He turned once to look back, then went on. They caught the gleam in his eyes.

After all, they had paid in full, were not intruders in the mission always open to a curious public.

CHAPTER XXIII

Philip and Isabel were in full time for luncheon. The wife noticed that her husband ate his toast and squab with appet.i.te. His cheeks were flushed from the canter back to the hotel, while during the half hour at table he appeared both happy and talkative.

"Shall you mind if I go off this afternoon for golf?" he asked, as they went from the dining-room.

Isabel's face expressed satisfaction. Her husband had hardly left her side since their arrival. She believed in casual separation. She knew instinctively that Philip must feel renewed interest in his own s.e.x, to be quite the man he had been before his trouble of months back.

"Go, by all means," she encouraged, as they went from the elevator to their rooms. "Golf must be your game; it will do you a world of good to follow the links."

"And you won't miss me?"

"Not a bit," she answered. "Besides, I want to expect you back. I wish to feel the pang of parting, so that I may know how very, very lonely I used to be." She spoke lightly, but he knew that in reality she did not jest. "And the man--your opponent in golf?" she asked.

Philip stooped and kissed her. "How do you know that I am not going to tread the turf with a fair lady?" he teased.

"I should be awfully jealous," she confessed. He knew that she spoke the truth. It came over him at the time that men were few who might claim such love as Isabel's. In her starry eyes he read salvation, felt the depth of her womanly will. Inadequate power to repay his debt made him humble. He kissed her again, holding her close with adoring tenderness.

Then he told her that he was about to play golf with the great publisher whom he had recently met. The triumph on her lips amused him.

"Build no air-castles!" he begged. But she freed herself from his arms and danced like a child.

"What a chance!" she cried. "You must make him your friend. I saw last evening that he was immensely interested in you, and now he may ask you to write for his magazine." Isabel's estimate of her husband's genius, of his ability to rush into print in one of the foremost monthly publications in the country, was fresh proof of her blind pa.s.sion.

"Don't think such foolish things, dear little girl," Philip commanded.

"The road to solicited ma.n.u.scripts is a long way off--as yet. I shall have to get my stuff back many, many times before I can count on an indulgent editor." He spoke humbly, yet withal the eternal spark of hope had kindled for his literary career.

"Shall you tell him of your book--about 'The Spirit of the Cathedral'?"

Philip shook his head. "That might frighten him. He would think that I had an ax to grind."

"But you have sent your ma.n.u.script to another publis.h.i.+ng house," she persisted.

"That is true," he a.s.sented, "but until I hear definitely, I do not care to talk of my forthcoming book. Besides, the man is here for rest and change. If I am able to make him my friend he may possibly tell me things. Above all, I must not bore him with my own uncertain achievements." He laughed, tugging at his golf shoe. "But you shall try your art on the man this evening; I have promised to present him."

"I will do my best," Isabel answered. "And by reason of the dance to-night the bride may wear white satin. She is irresistible in la robe empire."

Philip faced her. "I see all my ma.n.u.scripts accepted at once," he said jestingly.

"Of course. Now run along; do not keep our great man waiting. I shall rest for an hour, then write to madame and Reginald."

"And you are really able for a ball, after the high steps of the mission tower?"

It was the first time that he had spoken of their morning's experience.