The Window-Gazer


CHAPTER XIV

Mornings are beautiful all over the earth but Nature keeps a special kind of morning for early summer use at Friendly Bay. In sudden clearness, in chill sweetness, in almost awful purity there is no other morning like it. It wrings the human soul quite clear of everything save wonder at its loveliness.

Desire never bathed until the sun was up, not because she feared the dawn-cold water but because she would not stir the unbroken beauty of its opal tide. With the first rays of the sun, the spell would break, the waves would dance again, the gulls would soar and dip, the crabs would scuttle across the shining sand, the round wet head of a friendly seal would pop up here and there to say good-morning. Then, Desire would swim—far out—so far that Spence, watching her, would feel his heart contract. He could not follow her—yet. But he never begged her not to take the risk, if risk there were. Why should she lose one happy thrill in her own joyous strength because he feared? Better that she should never come back from these long, glorious swims than that he should have held her from them by so much as a gesture.

And she always did come back, glowing, dripping, laughing, her head as sleek as a young seal's, salt upon her lips and on her wave-whipped cheek. Spence, whose swims were shorter and more sedate, would usually have breakfast ready.

But upon this particular morning Desire loitered. Though the smell of bacon was in the air, she sat pensively in the shallows of an outgoing tide and flung shells at the crabs. She would have told you that she was thinking. But had she used the word "feeling" she would have been nearer the truth. And the thing which she obscurely felt was that something had mysteriously altered for the worse in a world which, of late, had shown remarkable promise. It was a small thing. She hardly knew what it was. Merely a sense of dissonance somewhere.

Whatever it was, it had not been there yesterday. Yesterday morning she had felt no desire to sit in the shallows and throw shells at crabs. Yesterday morning her mind had been full of that happy inconsequence which feels no need of thought. Today was different. Mentally she shook herself with some irritation. "What is the matter with you?" she asked. But the self she addressed seemed oddly reluctant. "Come now," said Desire, hitting an especially big crab, "out with it! There's no use pretending that you don't know." Thus adjured, the self offered one single and sulky word. The word was "Mary." "Oh, nonsense!" said Desire hastily.

But there it was. She had forced the answer and had to make the best of it. Her memory trailed back. Once started, it had small difficulty in tracking her dissatisfaction to its real beginning. Everything, it reminded her, had been perfect until she and Benis had sat upon the hill in the sunset and talked about Mary. Something had happened then. Like a certain ancestress she had coveted the fruit of knowledge and knowledge had been given her. Not at once—Benis had at first been distinctly reluctant—but by gentle persistence she had won through his cool reserve. Abruptly and without visible reason, his attitude had changed. He had said in that drawling voice of his, "You wish me to talk about Mary?" And then, suddenly, he had talked.

He had told her several things. The color of Mary's hair, for instance. Her hair was yellow. Benis had been insistent in pointing out that when he said "yellow" he did not mean goldish or bronze, or fawn-colored or tow-colored or Titian, but just yellow. "Do you see that patch of sky over there where the mountain dips?" he had said. "Mary's hair was yellow, like that."

That patch of sky, as Desire remembered it, was very beautiful. Quite too beautiful to be compared to any-one's hair. No doubt it was only in Benis's imagination that Mary's hair was anything like it.

But nevertheless it was there that the world had gone wrong. It was while Benis had sat gazing into that patch of amber sky that Desire, gazing too, had, for the first time, realized the Other. Up until then, Mary had been an abstraction—thenceforth she was a personality. That made all the difference. Desire, throwing shells at crabs, admitted that, for her, there had been no Mary until she had heard that her hair was yellow.

It was ridiculous but it was true. Mary without hair had been a gentle and retiring shade. A phantom in whom it had been possible to take an academic interest. But no shade has a right to hair like an amber sunset. Desire threw a shell viciously. Very little more, she felt, and she would positively dislike Mary!

She jumped up and stamped in the shallow water. The crabs, big and little, scuttled away.

"Hurr-ee!" called the professor waving a frying-pan.

"Com-ing!" Desire's voice rose gaily. For the present, her small dissatisfaction vanished with the crabs.

"This coffee has been made ten minutes," grumbled the getter-of-breakfast with a properly martyred air. "Whatever were you doing?"

"Thinking."

"It isn't done. Not before breakfast."

"I was thinking," fibbed Desire, "that I have never been so spoiled in my life and that it can't go on. My domestic conscience is beginning to murmur. As soon as we are at home, you will be expected to stay in bed until you smell the coffee coming up the stairs."

"Aunt Caroline," said the professor, "does not believe in coffee for breakfast, except on Sunday."

"I do."

"Eh? Oh—I see. Well, I'll put my money on you. Only I hope you aren't really set on making it yourself. Because the cook would leave.'"

"Good gracious! Do we have a cook?"

"We do. At least, we did. Also a maid. But maids, I understand, are greatly diminished. There appear to have been tragedies in Bainbridge. Have you eaten sufficient bacon to listen calmly to an extract from Aunt Caroline's last? Sit tight, then—

"'As to what the world is coming to in the matter of domestic service,'" writes Aunt Caroline, "I do not know. I do not wish to worry you, Benis, but as you will be marrying some day, in spite of that silly doctor of yours who insists that it's not to be thought of, you may as well be conversant with the situation. To put it briefly—I have been without competent help for two weeks. You know, dear boy, that I am easily satisfied. I expect very little from anyone. But I think that I am entitled to prompt and willing service. That, at the very least! Yet I must tell you that Mabel, my cook, has left me most ungratefully after only three months' notice! She is to be married to Bob Summers, the plumber. (Lieutenant Robert Summers, since the war, if you please!) Well, she can never say I did not warn her. I did not mince matters. I told her exactly what married life is, and why I have never tried it. But the foolish girl is beyond advice. I have had two cooks since Mabel, but one insisted upon whistling in the kitchen and the other served omelette made with one egg. My wants are trifling, as you know, but one cannot abrogate all personal dignity—'

"Do you get the subtle connection between the one egg and Aunt Caroline's personal dignity?" asked Spence with anxiety. "Because if you don't, I'll never be able to ask you to live in Bainbridge. I may as well confess now that it was only my serene confidence in your sense of humor which permitted me to marry you at all. I should never have dared to offer Aunt Caroline as an 'in-law' to anyone who couldn't see a joke."

"You are very fond of her all the same," said Desire shrewdly. "And though she expects very little from anyone, she evidently adores you. She can't be all funny. There must be an Aunt Caroline, deep down, that is not funny at all. I think I'm rather afraid of her. Only you have so often said that she wished you to get married—"

"Excuse me, my dear. What I said was, 'Aunt Caroline wished to get me married.' The position of the infinitive is the important thing. Aunt Caroline never intended me to do it all by myself."

"Oh. Then, in that case, she may resent your having done it."

"Resent," cheerfully, "is a feeble word. It doesn't express Aunt Caroline at all."

"You take it calmly."

"Well, you see I've got you to fight for me now."

They looked at each other over the empty coffee cups and laughed.

It is easy to laugh on a fine morning. But if they had known where Aunt Caroline was at that moment—how-ever, they didn't.

"Once," said Spence "my Aunt read a book upon Eugenics. I don't know how it happened. It was one of those inexplicable events for which no one can account. It made a deep impression. She has studied me ever since with a view to scientific matrimony. Alas, my poor relative!"

"I once read a book upon Eugenics, too," said Desire with a reminiscent smile. "It seemed sensible. Of course I was not personally interested and that always makes a difference. One thing occurred to me, though—it didn't seem to give Nature credit for much judgment."

Benis chuckled. "No, it wouldn't. Terrible old blunderer, Nature! Always working for the average. Never seems to have heard the word 'specialize.' We've got her there."

"Then you think—"

"Oh no," hastily, "I don't. I observe results with interest, that is all."

Desire began to collect the breakfast dishes. "That was where the book seemed weak," she said thoughtfully. "It hadn't much to say about results. It dealt mostly with consequences. They," she added after a pause, "were rather frightening."

The professor glanced at her sharply. Had she been worrying over this? Had she connected it with that dreadful old man whom she called father? But her face was quite untroubled as she went on.

"I think they've missed something, though," she said. "There must be something more than the things they tabulate. Some subtle force of life which isn't physical at all. Something that uses physical things as tools. If its tools are fine, it will do finer work, but if its tools are blunt it will work with them anyway. And it gets things done."

"By Jove!" said Spence. This was one of Desire's "windows with a view." He was always stumbling upon them. But he knew she was shy of comment. "We'll tell Aunt Caroline that," he murmured hopefully. "It may distract her mind." ...

That day they found and followed the trail to the shack of Hawk-Eye Charlie. It proved to be neither long nor arduous. The professor managed it with ease. But he would have been quite unable to manage the hawk-eyed one without the expert aid of his secretary. To his unaccustomed mind their quarry was almost witless and exceedingly dirty. But Desire knew her Indian.

"It isn't what he is, but what he knows," she explained. "And he has a retiring nature."

So very retiring was it that only fair words, aided by tactful displays of tea and tobacco, could penetrate its reservations. Desire was quite unhurried. But presently she began to extract bits of carefully hidden knowledge. It had to be slow work, for, witless as he of the hawk-eye seemed, he was well aware of the value (in tobacco) of a wise conservation. He who babbles all he knows upon first asking is a fool. But he who withholds beyond patience is a fool also. Was it not so? Desire agreed that a middle course is undoubtedly the path of wisdom. She added, carelessly, that the white-man-who-wished-stories was in no hurry. Neither had he come seeking much for little. Payment would be made strictly on account of value received. The tea was good. And the tobacco exceptionally strong, as anyone could tell from a distance. Why then should the hawk-eyed one delay his own felicity?

This hastened matters considerably and the secretary's note-book was soon busy. Spence felt his oldtime keenness revive. And Desire was happy for was not this her work at last? It was a profitable day. Should anyone care to know its results, and the results of others like it, they may look up chapter six, section two, of Spence's Primitive Psychology, unabridged edition. Here they will find that the fables of Hawk-Eye Charlie, properly classified and commented upon, have added considerably to our knowledge of a fascinating subject. But far be it from us to steal the professor's thunder. We are not writing a book upon primitive psychology. We are interested only in the sigh of pleasurable satisfaction with which the professor's secretary closed her fat note-book and called it a day.

From that point our interest leads us back to camp along the trail through the warm June woods with the late sunlight hanging like golden gauze behind the fretted screens of green. We are interested in sunsets and in basket suppers eaten in the dim coolness of a miniature canyon through which rushed and tumbled an icy stream from, the snow peaks far above. We are interested in a breathless race with a chattering squirrel during which Desire's hair came down—a bit of glorious autumn in the deep green wood—and the tying of it up again (a lengthy process) by the professor with cleverly plaited stems of tender bracken. All these trifles interest us because, to those two who knew them, they remained fresh and living memories when the note-book and its contents were buried in the dust of yesterday.

It was twilight when they came out of the wood. The sun had gone and taken its golden trappings with it. A clear, still light was everywhere and, in the brilliant green of the far sky, a pale star shone. They watched it brighten as the green grew dark. A wonderful purple blueness spread upon the distant hills.

Desire sighed happily.

"It is the end of the first day of real work," she said. "The end and the beginning."

Her companion, usually like wax to her moods, made no answer. He did not seem to hear. His gaze seemed drowned in that wonderful blue. Desire, who had been unaccountably content, felt suddenly lonely and disturbed.

"What is it?" she asked. Her voice had fallen from its glad note. She put out her hand, touching his coat sleeve timidly. It was the first time she had ever touched him save in service. But if her touch brought a thrill there was no> sign of it. Her voice dropped still lower, "What are you thinking of?" she almost whispered.

The professor did not answer. Instead he turned to her with a sad smile. (Very well done, too!)

Desire dropped her hand with a sharp exclamation. "Oh," she said, "I forgot! You were thinking—"

The professor's smile smote her.

"Her eyes were blue like that!" he said.

Desire tripped over a fallen branch. And, when she recovered herself, "Purple, do you mean?" she asked. "I have always thought purple eyes were a myth."

"Now you are making fun," said the professor after a reproachful pause.

"How do you mean—making fun?"

"'I never saw a purple cow,'" quoted he patiently.

"Oh, I wasn't!" cried Desire in distress.

Spence begged her pardon. But he did it abstractedly. His eyes were still upon the sky.

"You'll fall over that root," prophesied she grimly. "Do look where you are going!"

The professor returned to earth with difficulty. "Sorry!" he murmured. "I doubt if I should allow these moods to bother you. But you told me it might do me good to talk."

"Not all the time!" said Desire a trifle tartly.

He looked surprised. "But—" he began.

"Oh, I'm so hungry!" said Desire. "Do let's hurry."

She hastened ahead down the slope towards the camp. The tents lay in the shadow now but, as they neared them, a flickering light shot up as if in welcome. Desire paused.

"Someone lighting a fire!" she exclaimed in surprise. "Who can it be?"

Against the glow of the new-lit blaze a tall figure lifted itself and a clear whistle cut the silence of the Bay.

Spence's graceful melancholy dropped from him like a forgotten cloak.

"Bones!" he gasped in an agitated whisper. "Oh, my prophetic soul, my doctor!"

Another figure rose against the glow—a wider figure who called shrilly through a cupped hand.

"Ben—is!"

"My Aunt!" said the professor.

He sat down suddenly behind a boulder.




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