The Window-Gazer

CHAPTER XII

Comprising a lengthy letter from, Benis Spence to John Rogers, M.D.

DEAR and Venerable Bones: Your fatherly letter came too late. What was going to happen has happened. But I will be honest and admit that its earlier arrival would have made no difference. Calm yourself with the thought that our fates are written upon our foreheads. I have been able to read mine for some little time now. For there are some things which are impossible and leaving Desire here was one of them.

I call her "Desire" to you because it is what you will be calling her soon. Strange, how that small fact seems to place her' Fancy my marrying someone whom you would naturally call "Mrs. Spence"? There are such people. All Aunt Caroline's young friends are like that. You would say, "I have looked forward to meeting you, Mrs. Spence," and she would giggle and say, "Oh, Dr. Rogers, I have heard my husband speak of you so often!" But Desire will say, "So this is John." And then she will look at you with that detached yet interested look and you will find yourself saying "Desire" before you think of it. You see, she belongs.

But before I bring you up to date with regard to recent events, I had better tell you a few facts about my more remote past. I refer to Mary. I have already told you that I found a past necessary. At that time I hoped that something fairly abstract would do. But Desire does not like abstractions. She likes to "know where she is." So I had to tell her about Mary. I'll tell you, too, before I forget details and for heaven's sake get them right! You never can tell when your knowledge may be needed. In the first place there is the name. I'm rather proud of that. I had to choose it at a moment's notice and I did not hesitate. Desire herself says it is a lovely name. And so safe—amn't I right in the impression that every second girl in Bainbridge and elsewhere is called Mary? Mary, my Mary, might be anybody.

Here, then, are the main facts. I have had (pre-war) a serious attachment. It was an affection tragically misplaced. She did not love me. She loved another. She may, or may not, have married him. (It would have been better to have had the marriage certain, but I didn't see it in time.) I will never care for another woman. Her name was Mary. Please tabulate this romance where you can put your hand on it. I may need your help at any time. As a doctor your aid would be invaluable should it become necessary for Mary to decease.

And now to leave romance for reality. Your long and lucid discourse on masked epilepsy was most helpful. It was almost as informing as Li Ho's diagnosis of "moon-devil." Both have the merit of leaving the inquirer with an open mind. However—let's get on. If you have had my later letters you will know that circumstances indicated an elopement. But the more I thought of eloping, the more I disliked the idea. My father was not a man who would have eloped. And, in spite of Aunt Caroline's lobsters and lemons, I am very like my father. "That I have stolen away this old man's daughter—" Somehow it seemed very Othelloish. I decided to simply tell Dr. Farr, calmly and reasonably, that Desire and I had decided to marry. I did tell him. I was calm and reasonable. But he wasn't.

There is a bit of sound tactics which says, "Never let the enemy surprise you." But how is one to keep him from doing it if he insists? The surer you are that the enemy is going to do a certain thing, the more surprised you are when he doesn't. Now I felt sure that when Dr. Farr heard the news he would have a fit. I expected him to use language and even his umbrella. But nothing of this kind happened. He simply sat there like a slightly faded and vague old gentleman and said "So?"—just like that.

I assured him, as delicately as possible that it was so.

Then, without warning, he began to weep. John, it was horrible! I can't describe it. You would have to see his blurred old face and depthless eyes before you could understand. Tears are healthy, normal things. They were never meant for faces like his. I must have said something, in a kind of horror, for he got up suddenly and trotted off into the woods, without as much as a whisper.

It looked like an easy victory. But I knew it wasn't. I admit that I felt rather sorry we had not eloped. Li Ho made me still sorrier.

"Not much good, you make honorable Boss cly," said Li Ho. "Gettie mad heap better."

I felt that, as usual, Li Ho was right. And, just here, let me interpose that I am quite sure Li Ho can speak perfectly good English if he wishes. He certainly understands it. I have tried to puzzle him often by measured and academic speech and never yet has he missed the faintest shade of meaning. So I did not waste time with Pigeon English. I told him the facts briefly.

"Me no likee," said Li Ho.

"You don't have to," said I.

Li Ho explained that it was not the contemplated marriage which received his disapproval but the circumstances surrounding it. "Me muchy glad Missy get mallied," said he. "Ladies so do, velly nice! When you depart to go?"

"Tomorrow," I said. Since we had given up the elopement it seemed more dignified to wait and depart by daylight.

Li Ho shook his head.

"You no wait tomolla," said he, "You go tonight. You go click."

"We can't go too quickly to suit me," I said. "It is for Miss Desire to decide."

"Me tell Missy," he said and hurried away.

Somehow, Li Ho always knows where to find Desire. She vanishes from my ken often, but never from his. He must have found her quickly this time for she came at once. She looked troubled.

"Li Ho says we had better go tonight," she said.

"Can you be ready?"

"Yes. It isn't that. It's just that it would seem more—more sensible by daylight. But Li Ho says you have told father, and that father was—upset. He said something about tonight being the full moon. But I can't see why that should matter. Do you?"

"Only that it will be easy to cross the Inlet."

"It can't be that. Li Ho can take the Tillicum' over on the darkest night. It has something to do with father. He seems to think that the full moon affects him. And it's true that he often goes off on the mountain about that time. But I can't see why that should hurry us."

I did not see it either. And yet I felt that I should like to hurry.

"We certainly will not go unless you wish," I began. But Li Ho interrupted me in his colorless way.

"Alice same go this eveling," he said blandly. "No take 'Tillicum' tomolla. Velly busy tomolla. Velly busy next day. Velly busy all week."

"Look here," I said, "you'll do exactly what your mistress tells you."

His celestial impudence was making me hot. But Desire stopped me. "It's no use," she explained. "I have really no authority. And he means what he says. We must go tonight or wait indefinitely."

I was eager to be gone. But it went against the grain to be hustled off by a Chinaman. Perhaps my face showed as much, for Desire went on. "You needn't feel like that about it. He doesn't intend to be impudent. He probably thinks he has a very real reason for getting us away. And Li Ho's reasons are liable to be good ones. We had better go."

The rest of the day was uneventful, save for the incident of Sami. I think I told you about Sami, didn't I? A kind of brown familiar who follows Desire about. He is a baby Indian as much a part of the mountain as the leaping squirrels and not nearly so tame. He is the one thing here that I think Desire is sorry to leave. And for this reason I hoped he wouldn't appear before we were gone. I had done all my packing—easy enough since I had scarcely unpacked—and I could hear Desire moving about doing hers. The place seemed particularly peaceful. I could, have felt almost sorry to leave my cool, bare room with its tree-stump for a table and all the forest just outside. But as I sat there by the window there came upon me, for the second time that day, a mounting hurry to be gone. There was nothing to account for it, but I distinctly felt an inward "Hurry! Hurry!" So propelling was it that only the knowledge that the "Tillicum" would not float until high tide kept me from finding Desire and begging her to come away at once. I did go so far as to wander restlessly down into the garden where she had gone to feed the chickens. Perhaps I would have gone farther and mentioned my misgivings but just then Sami came and I forgot all about them. I don't believe I have ever seen any child so frightened as that little Indian! He simply fell through the bushes behind the chicken house and shot, like a small, brown catapult, into Desire's arms. His round face was actually grey with fear. And he huddled in her big apron shivering, for all the world like some terrified animal.

Naturally the first thing to do was to get the thing that had frightened him. An axe seemed a likely weapon, so, picking it up, I slid into the bushes at the point where Sami had come out of them.

Perfect serenity was there! The afternoon light lay golden on the moss above the fallen trees. No hidden scurrying in the underbrush told of wild, wood things hastening to safety from some half-sensed danger. No broken branches or trampled earth told of any past or present struggle. There was no trace of any fearsome creature having passed along that peaceful trail.

I searched thoroughly and found nothing. On my way back to the clearing I met Li Ho.

'"Find anything, Li Ho?" I asked eagerly.

The Celestial grinned.

"Find honorable self," said he. "Missy she send. Missy heap scared along of you."

"Nonsense!" I said. "I can take care of myself. Even if it had been a bear, I had an axe."

"Bear!" said Li Ho. And then he laughed. Did you ever hear a Chinaman laugh? I never had. Not this Chinaman anyway. It was so startling that I forgot what I was saying. Next moment I could have sworn that he had not laughed at all.

We found Sami, much comforted, sitting upon Desire's lap, a thing he could seldom be induced to do. At our entrance he began to shiver again but soon quieted. Desire had tried questioning but it was of no use. He either couldn't, or wouldn't, say anything about what had frightened him. Desire was inclined to think that he did not know. But I was not so sure. It's a fairly well established fact that children simply can't speak of certain terrors. And the more frightened they are the more powerful is the inhibition. In any case it was useless to question Sami so we fed him instead and presently he went to sleep.

I suppose we all forgot him. I know I did. One doesn't elope every day. And it was never Sami's way to insist upon his presence as ordinary children do. Li Ho departed to tinker with the "Tillicum" and afterwards returned to give us a late supper. Desire kept out of my way. One might almost have thought that she was shy—if so, a most perplexing development. For why should she feel shy? It wasn't as if we had not put the whole affair on a perfectly business basis. Perhaps there is some elemental magic in names, so that, to a woman, the very word "marriage" has power to provoke certain nervous reactions?

However that may be, even Desire forgot Sami. We left the house just as the clearing began to grow brighter with light from the still hidden moon, and we were halfway down to the boat landing before anyone thought of him. Oddly enough it was I who remembered. "Sami!" I exclaimed, with a little throb of nameless fear. "We have forgotten Sami."

Desire, I thought, looked surprised and somewhat vexed at her oversight. But displayed no trace of the consternation which had suddenly fallen on me.

"He is all right," she said. "He will sleep till morning unless his mother comes for him."

"Where you leave um?" asked Li Ho briefly. He had already set down the bag he was carrying.

"In my own bed."

"Me go get!" said Li Ho.

But I had not waited. I had started to "go get" myself. The sense of breathless hurry was on me again. I did not pause to argue that the child was perfectly safe. I forgot that I had ever been lame. Perhaps that sciatic nerve is only mortal mind anyway. When I came out into the clearing the cottage was turning silver in the first rays of the full moon. Very peaceful and secure it looked. And yet I hurried!

I made no noise. To myself I explained this by a desire not to waken the youngster. No use frightening him. I stole, as quietly as one of his own ancestors, to the foot of the stairs. The door of Desire's room was open. I could see a moonlit bar across the dark landing....

I think I went straight up that stair. I hope so. You know that one of my worst nervous troubles has been a dread that I might fail in some emergency? I dread a sort of nerve paralysis.... But I got up the stair. The fear that seemed to push me back wasn't personal, or physical—one might call it psychic fear, only that the word explains nothing.... I looked in at the open door. There seemed to be nothing there but the moonlight. The room must have been almost as bare as my own. But over on the far side, beyond the zone of the window, was the dim whiteness of a bed. I could see nothing clearly—but the Fear was there. I dragged, actually dragged, my feet across the floor—my sight growing clearer, until at last—I saw!

I think I shouted, but it was so like a nightmare that I may not have made a sound.... The dragging weight must have left my feet as I sprang forward ... but it is all confused! And the whole thing lasted only a minute.

In that minute I had seen what I would have sworn was not human. Even while I knew It for the little old man with the umbrella, I had no sense of its humanness. Something bent above the bed—the old man's face was there, the thin figure, the white hair, and yet it seemed the wildest absurdity to call the Fury who wore them by any human name.

The eyes looked at me—eyes without depth or meaning—eyes like bits of blue steel reflecting the light of Tophet—, incarnate evil, blazing, peering ... I caught a glimpse of long, thin hands, like claws, around the folded umbrella, a flash of something bright at the ferrule ... and then the picture dissolved like an image passing from a dimly lighted screen. Before I could skirt the bed, whatever had been upon the other side of it had melted into the darkness beyond the moon. I bent over the bed. Sami was there—Sami, rolled shapelessly in the concealing bedclothes, his round face hidden in the pillow, his black hair just a blot of darkness on the white.... It might have been Desire lying there! ...

I found the door through which the Thing had slipped. But it was useless to try to follow. There was no one in the house nor in the moonlit clearing. And Desire and Li Ho were waiting on the trail. I picked up the still sleeping child and blundered down to them.

It seemed incredible to hear Desire's laugh.

"Good gracious!" she said. "You're carrying him upside down."

She had had no hint of danger. But with Li Ho it was different. He fell back beside me when Desire had relieved me of the child. I could feel his inscrutable eyes upon my face.

"You see um," said Li Ho. It was an assertion, not a question.

I nodded.

"No be scare," muttered he. "Missy all safe. Everything all safe now. Li Ho go catch um. Li Ho catch um good. All light—tomolla."

"You mean you can manage him and he'll be all right tomorrow?" I said. "But—what is it!"

The Celestial shrugged.

"Muchy devil maybe. Muchy moon-devil, plaps. Velly bad."

"There's a knife in that umbrella, Li Ho."

But though his eyes looked blandly into mine, I couldn't tell whether this was news to Li Ho or not....

Well, that's the story. I've written it down while it's fresh, sparing comment. Desire sang as we crossed the Inlet; little, low snatches of song with a hint of freedom in them. She had made her choice and it is never her way to look back. The old "Tillicum" rattled and chugged and the damp crept in around our feet. But the water was a path of gold and the sky a bowl of silver—and as an example of present day elopements it had certainly been fairly exciting.

Yours, Benis.