by Bret Harte
CHAPTER VIII.
IN SANCTUARY.
When James Hurlstone reached the shelter of the shrubbery he leanedexhaustedly against the adobe wall, and looked back upon the gardenhe had just traversed. At its lower extremity a tall hedge of cactusreinforced the crumbling wall with a cheval de frise of bristlingthorns; it was through a gap in this green barrier that he had found hisway a few hours before, as his torn clothes still testified. At one sideran the low wall of the Alcalde's casa, a mere line of dark shadow inthat strange diaphanous mist that seemed to suffuse all objects. Thegnarled and twisted branches of pear-trees, gouty with old age, bentso low as to impede any progress under their formal avenues; out of atangled labyrinth of figtrees, here and there a single plume of featherypalm swam in a drowsy upper radiance. The shrubbery around him, of someunknown variety, exhaled a faint perfume; he put out his hand to graspwhat appeared to be a young catalpa, and found it the trunk of anenormous passion vine, that, creeping softly upward, had at last invadedthe very belfry of the dim tower above him; and touching it, his soulseemed to be lifted with it out of the shadow.
The great hush and quiet that had fallen like a benediction on everysleeping thing around him; the deep and passionless repose that seemedto drop from the bending boughs of the venerable trees; the cool,restful, earthy breath of the shadowed mold beneath him, touched only bya faint jessamine-like perfume as of a dead passion, lulled the hurriedbeatings of his heart and calmed the feverish tremor of his limbs. Heallowed himself to sink back against the wall, his hands tightly claspedbefore him. Gradually, the set, abstracted look of his eyes faded andbecame suffused, as if moistened by that celestial mist. Then he rosequickly, drew his sleeve hurriedly across his lashes, and began slowlyto creep along the wall again.
Either the obscurity of the shrubbery became greater or he was growingpreoccupied; but in steadying himself by the wall he had, withoutperceiving it, put his hand upon a rude door that, yielding to hispressure, opened noiselessly into a dark passage. Without apparentreflection he entered, followed the passage a few steps until it turnedabruptly; turning with it, he found himself in the body of the MissionChurch of Todos Santos. A swinging-lamp, that burned perpetually beforean effigy of the Virgin Mother, threw a faint light on the singlerose-window behind the high altar; another, suspended in a low archway,apparently lit the open door of the passage towards the refectory. Bythe stronger light of the latter Hurlstone could see the barbaric redand tarnished gold of the rafters that formed the straight roof. Thewalls were striped with equally bizarre coloring, half Moorish and halfIndian. A few hangings of dyed and painted cloths with heavy fringeswere disposed on either side of the chancel, like the flaps of a wigwam;and the aboriginal suggestion was further repeated in a quantity ofcolored beads and sea-shells that decked the communion-rails. TheStations of the Cross, along the walls, were commemorated by paintings,evidently by a native artist--to suit the same barbaric taste; while alarger picture of San Francisco d'Assisis, under the choir, seemedto belong to an older and more artistic civilization. But the sombrehalf-light of the two lamps mellowed and softened the harsh contrast ofthese details until the whole body of the church appeared filled with avague harmonious shadow. The air, heavy with the odors of past incense,seemed to be a part of that expression, as if the solemn and sympathetictwilight became palpable in each deep, long-drawn inspiration.
Again overcome by the feeling of repose and peacefulness, Hurlstone sankupon a rude settle, and bent his head and folded arms over a low railingbefore him. How long he sat there, allowing the subtle influence totransfuse and possess his entire being, he did not know. The fainttwitter of birds suddenly awoke him. Looking up, he perceived that itcame from the vacant square of the tower above him, open to the nightand suffused with its mysterious radiance. In another moment the roof ofthe church was swiftly crossed and recrossed with tiny and adventurouswings. The mysterious light had taken an opaline color. Morning wasbreaking.
The slow rustling of a garment, accompanied by a soft but heavy tread,sounded from the passage. He started to his feet as the priest, whomhe had seen on the deck of the Excelsior, entered the church from therefectory. The Padre was alone. At the apparition of a stranger, tornand disheveled, he stopped involuntarily and cast a hasty look towardsthe heavy silver ornaments on the altar. Hurlstone noticed it, andsmiled bitterly.
"Don't alarm yourself. I only sought this place for shelter."
He spoke in French--the language he had heard Padre Esteban address toMrs. Brimmer. But the priest's quick eye had already detected his ownmistake. He lifted his hand with a sublime gesture towards the altar,and said,--
"You are right! Where should you seek shelter but here?"
The reply was so unexpected that Hurlstone was silent. His lips quiveredslightly.
"And if it were SANCTUARY I was seeking?" he said.
"You would first tell me why you sought it," said Padre Esteban gently.
Hurlstone looked at him irresolutely for a moment and then said, withthe hopeless desperation of a man anxious to anticipate his fate,--
"I am a passenger on the ship you boarded yesterday. I came ashore withthe intention of concealing myself somewhere here until she had sailed.When I tell you that I am not a fugitive from justice, that I havecommitted no offense against the ship or her passengers, nor have Iany intention of doing so, but that I only wish concealment from theirknowledge for twenty-four hours, you will know enough to understand thatyou run no risk in giving me assistance. I can tell you no more."
"I did not see you with the other passengers, either on the ship orashore," said the priest. "How did you come here?"
"I swam ashore before they left. I did not know they had any idea oflanding here; I expected to be the only one, and there would have beenno need for concealment then. But I am not lucky," he added, with abitter laugh.
The priest glanced at his garments, which bore the traces of the sea,but remained silent.
"Do you think I am lying?"
The old priest lifted his head with a gesture.
"Not to me--but to God!"
The young man followed the gesture, and glanced around the barbaricchurch with a slight look of scorn. But the profound isolation, themystic seclusion, and, above all, the complete obliteration of thatworld and civilization he shrank from and despised, again subdued andovercame his rebellious spirit. He lifted his eyes to the priest.
"Nor to God," he said gravely.
"Then why withhold anything from Him here?" said the priest gently.
"I am not a Catholic--I do not believe in confession," said Hurlstonedoggedly, turning aside.
But Padre Esteban laid his large brown hand on the young man's shoulder.Touched by some occult suggestion in its soft contact, he sank againinto his seat.
"Yet you ask for the sanctuary of His house--a sanctuary bought by thatcontrition whose first expression is the bared and open soul! To thefirst worldly shelter you sought--the peon's hut or the Alcalde'scasa--you would have thought it necessary to bring a story. You wouldnot conceal from the physician whom you asked for balsam either thewound, the symptoms, or the cause? Enough," he said kindly, as Hurlstonewas about to reply. "You shall have your request. You shall stay here. Iwill be your physician, and will salve your wounds; if any poison I knownot of rankle there, you will not blame me, son, but perhaps you willassist me to find it. I will give you a secluded cell in the dormitoryuntil the ship has sailed. And then"--
He dropped quietly on the settle, took the young man's hand paternallyin his own, and gazed into his eyes as if he read his soul.
And then . . . Ah, yes . . . What then? Hurlstone glanced once morearound him. He thought of the quiet night; of the great peace that hadfallen upon him since he had entered the garden, and the promise ofa greater peace that seemed to breathe with the incense from thosevenerable walls. He thought of that crumbling barrier, that even in itsruin seemed to shut out, more completely than anything he had conceived,his bitter past, and the bitter world that
recalled it. He thought ofthe long days to come, when, forgetting and forgotten, he might find anew life among these simple aliens, themselves forgotten by the world.He had thought of this once before in the garden; it occurred to himagain in this Lethe-like oblivion of the little church, in the kindlypressure of the priest's hand. The ornaments no longer lookeduncouth and barbaric--rather they seemed full of some new spiritualsignificance. He suddenly lifted his eyes to Padre Esteban, and, halfrising to his feet, said,--
"Are we alone?"
"We are; it is a half-hour yet before mass," said the priest.
"My story will not last so long," said the young man hurriedly, as iffearing to change his mind. "Hear me, then--it is no crime nor offenseto any one; more than that, it concerns no one but myself--it is of"--
"A woman," said the priest softly. "So! we will sit down, my son."
He lifted his hand with a soothing gesture--the movement of a physicianwho has just arrived at an easy diagnosis of certain uneasy symptoms.There was also a slight suggestion of an habitual toleration, as ifeven the seclusion of Todos Santos had not been entirely free from theinvasion of the primal passion.
Hurlstone waited for an instant, but then went on rapidly.
"It is of a woman, who has cursed my life, blasted my prospects, andruined my youth; a woman who gained my early affection only to blightand wither it; a woman who should be nearer to me and dearer than allelse, and yet who is further than the uttermost depths of hell from mein sympathy or feeling; a woman that I should cleave to, but from whomI have been flying, ready to face shame, disgrace, oblivion, even thatdeath which alone can part us: for that woman is--my wife."
He stopped, out of breath, with fixed eyes and a rigid mouth. FatherEsteban drew a snuff-box from his pocket, and a large handkerchief.After blowing his nose violently, he took a pinch of snuff, wiped hislip, and replaced the box.
"A bad habit, my son," he said apologetically, "but an old man'sweakness. Go on."
"I met her first five years ago--the wife of another man. Don't misjudgeme, it was no lawless passion; it was a friendship, I believed, due toher intellectual qualities as much as to her womanly fascinations; for Iwas a young student, lodging in the same house with her, in an academictown. Before I ever spoke to her of love, she had confided to me her ownunhappiness--the uncongeniality of her married life, the harshness, andeven brutality, of her husband. Even a man less in love than I was couldhave seen the truth of this--the contrast of the coarse, sensual, andvulgar man with an apparently refined and intelligent woman; but any oneelse except myself would have suspected that such a union was notmerely a sacrifice of the woman. I believed her. It was not until longafterwards that I learned that her marriage had been a condonation ofher youthful errors by a complaisant bridegroom; that her characterhad been saved by a union that was a mutual concession. But I loved hermadly; and when she finally got a divorce from her uncongenial husband,I believed it less an expression of her love for me than an act ofjustice. I did not know at the time that they had arranged the divorcetogether, as they had arranged their marriage, by equal concessions.
"I was the only son of a widowed mother, whose instincts were fromthe first opposed to my friendship with this woman, and what sheprophetically felt would be its result. Unfortunately, both she and myfriends were foolish enough to avow their belief that the divorce wasobtained solely with a view of securing me as a successor; and itwas this argument more than any other that convinced me of my duty toprotect her. Enough, I married, not only in spite of all opposition--butBECAUSE of it.
"My mother would have reconciled herself to the marriage, but my wifenever forgave the opposition, and, by some hellish instinct diviningthat her power over me might be weakened by maternal influence,precipitated a quarrel which forever separated us. With the littlecapital left by my father, divided between my mother and myself, I tookmy wife to a western city. Our small income speedily dwindled underthe debts of her former husband, which she had assumed to purchaseher freedom. I endeavored to utilize a good education and someaccomplishments in music and the languages by giving lessons andby contributing to the press. In this my wife first made a show ofassisting me, but I was not long in discovering that her intelligencewas superficial and shallow, and that the audacity of expression,which I had believed to be originality of conviction, was simplyshamelessness, and a desire for notoriety. She had a facility in writingsentimental poetry, which had been efficacious in her matrimonialconfidences, but which editors of magazines and newspapers found to beshallow and insincere. To my astonishment, she remained unaffectedby this, as she was equally impervious to the slights and sneers thatcontinually met us in society. At last the inability to pay one of herformer husband's claims brought to me a threat and an anonymous letter.I laid them before her, when a scene ensued which revealed theblindness of my folly in all its hideous hopelessness: she accused me ofcomplicity in her divorce, and deception in regard to my own fortune. Ina speech, whose language was a horrible revelation of her early habits,she offered to arrange a divorce from me as she had from her formerhusband. She gave as a reason her preference for another, and her beliefthat the scandal of a suit would lend her a certain advertisement andprestige. It was a combination of Messalina and Mrs. Jarley"--
"Pardon! I remember not a Madame Jarley," said the priest.
"Of viciousness and commercial calculation," continued Hurlstonehurriedly. "I don't remember what happened; she swore that I struckher! Perhaps--God knows! But she failed, even before a western jury, toconvict me of cruelty. The judge that thought me half insane would notbelieve me brutal, and her application for divorce was lost.
"I need not tell you that the same friends who had opposed my marriagenow came forward to implore me to allow her to break our chains. Irefused. I swear to you it was from no lingering love for her, for herpresence drove me mad; it was from no instinct of revenge or jealousy,for I should have welcomed the man who would have taken her out ofmy life and memory. But I could not bear the idea of taking her firsthusband's place in her hideous comedy; I could not purchase my freedomat that price--at any price. I was told that I could get a divorceagainst HER, and stand forth before the world untrammeled and unstained.But I could not stand before MYSELF in such an attitude. I knew thatthe shackles I had deliberately forged could not be loosened except bydeath. I knew that the stains of her would cling to me and become a partof my own sin, even as the sea I plunged into yesterday to escape her,though it has dried upon me, has left its bitter salt behind.
"When she knew my resolve, she took her revenge by dragging my namethrough the successive levels to which she descended. Under the pleathat the hardly-earned sum I gave to her maintenance apart from me wasnot sufficient, she utilized her undoubted beauty and more doubtfultalent in amateur entertainments--and, finally, on the stage. She wasopenly accompanied by her lover, who acted as her agent, in the hopeof goading me to a divorce. Suddenly she disappeared. I thought she hadforgotten me. I obtained an honorable position in New York. One nightI entered a theater devoted to burlesque opera and the exhibition ofa popular actress, known as the Western Thalia, whose beautiful andaudaciously draped figure was the talk of the town. I recognized my wifein this star of nudity; more than that, she recognized me. The next day,in addition to the usual notice, the real name of the actress was givenin the morning papers, with a sympathizing account of her romantic andunfortunate marriage. I renounced my position, and, taking advantage ofan offer from an old friend in California, resolved to join him secretlythere. My mother had died broken-hearted; I was alone in the world. Butmy wife discovered my intention; and when I reached Callao, I heard thatshe had followed me, by way of the Isthmus of Panama, and that probablyshe would anticipate me in Mazatlan, where we were to stop. The thoughtof suicide haunted me during the rest of that horrible voyage; only mybelief that she would make it appear as a tacit confession of my guiltsaved me from that last act of weakness."
He stopped and shuddered. Padre Esteban again laid his hand soft
ly uponhim.
"It was God who spared you that sacrifice of soul and body," he saidgently.
"I thought it was God that suggested to me to take the SIMULATION ofthat act the means of separating myself from her forever. When we nearedMazatlan, I conceived the idea of hiding myself in the hold of theExcelsior until she had left that port, in the hope that it would bebelieved that I had fallen overboard. I succeeded in secreting myself,but was discovered at the same time that the unexpected change in theship's destination rendered concealment unnecessary. As we did not putin at Mazatlan, nobody suspected my discovery in the hold to be anythingbut the accident that I gave it out to be. I felt myself saved theconfrontation of the woman at Mazatlan; but I knew she would pursue meto San Francisco.
"The strange dispensation of Providence that brought us into thisunknown port gave me another hope of escape and oblivion. While youand the Commander were boarding the Excelsior, I slipped from thecabin-window into the water; I was a good swimmer, and reached the shorein safety. I concealed myself in the ditch of the Presidio until Isaw the passengers' boats returning with them, when I sought the safershelter of this Mission. I made my way through a gap in the hedge andlay under your olive-trees, hearing the voices of my companions, beyondthe walls, till past midnight. I then groped my way along the avenueof pear-trees till I came to another wall, and a door that opened to myaccidental touch. I entered, and found myself here. You know the rest."
He had spoken with the rapid and unpent fluency of a man who cared moreto relieve himself of an oppressive burden than to impress his auditor;yet the restriction of a foreign tongue had checked repetition orverbosity. Without imagination he had been eloquent; without hopefulnesshe had been convincing. Father Esteban rose, holding both his hands.
"My son, in the sanctuary which you have claimed there is no divorce.The woman who has ruined your life could not be your wife. As long asher first husband lives, she is forever his wife, bound by a tie whichno human law can sever!"