The Window-Gazer

CHAPTER XV

To understand Aunt Caroline's arrival at Friendly Bay we should have to understand Aunt Caroline, and that, as Euclid says, is absurd. Therefore we shall have to take the arrival for granted. The only light which she herself ever shed upon the matter was a statement that she "had a feeling." And feelings, to Aunt Caroline, were the only reliable things in a strictly unreliable world. To follow a feeling across a continent was a trifle to a determined character such as hers. To insist upon Dr. Rogers following it, too, was a matter of course.

"I shall need an escort," said Aunt Caroline to that astonished physician, "and you will do very nicely. If Benis is off his head, as you suggest, it is my plain duty to look into the matter and your plain duty, as his medical adviser, to accompany me. I am a woman who demands little from her fellow creatures, knowing perfectly well that she won't get it, but I naturally refuse to undertake the undivided responsibility of a deranged nephew galavanting, by your own orders, Doctor, at the ends of the earth."

"I did not say he was deranged," began the doctor helplessly, "and you said you didn't believe me anyway."

"Don't quote me to excuse yourself." Aunt Caroline sailed serenely on. "At least preserve the courage of your convictions. There is certainly something the matter with Benis. He has answered none of my letters. He has completely ignored my lettergrams. To my telegram of Thursday telling him that I had been compelled to discharge my third cook since Mabel for wiping dishes on a hand towel, he replied only by silence. And the telegraph people say that the message was never delivered owing to lack of address. Easy as I am to satisfy, things like this cannot be allowed to continue. My nephew must be found."

"But we don't know where to look for him," objected her victim weakly.

Aunt Caroline easily rose superior to this.

"We have a map, I hope? And Vancouver, heathenish name! must be marked on it somewhere. If not, the railroad people can tell us."

"But he is not in Vancouver."

"There—or thereabouts. When we get there we can ask the policeman, or," with a grim twinkle, "we can enquire at the asylums. You forget that my nephew is a celebrated man even if he is a fool."

The doctor gave in. He hadn't had a chance from the beginning, for Aunt Caroline could answer objections far faster than he could make them. They arrived at the terminus just four days after the expeditionary party had left for Friendly Bay.

If Aunt Caroline were surprised at finding more than one policeman in Vancouver, she did not admit it. Neither did the general atmosphere of ignorance as to Benis daunt her in the least. She adhered firmly to her campaign of question asking and found it fully justified when inquiry at the post-office revealed that all letters for Professor Benis H. Spence were to be delivered to the care of the Union Steamship Company. From the Union Steamship Company to the professor's place of refuge was an easy step. But Dr. Rogers, to whom this last inquiry had been intrusted, returned to the hotel with a careful jauntiness of manner which ill accorded with a disturbed mind.

"Well, we've found him," he announced cheerfully. "And now, if we are wise, I think we'll leave him alone. He is camping up the coast at a place called Friendly Bay—no hotels, no accommodation for ladies—he is evidently perfectly well and attending to business. You know he came out here partly to get material for his book? Well, that's what he's doing. Must be, because there are only Indians up there."

"Indians? What do you mean—Indians? Wild ones?"

"Fairly wild."

Aunt Caroline snorted. She is one of the few ladies left who possess this Victorian, accomplishment. "And you advise my leaving my sister's child in his present precarious state of mind alone among fairly wild Indians?"

"Well—er—that's just it, you see. He isn't alone—not exactly."

"What do you mean—not exactly?"

"I mean that his—er—secretary is with him. He has to have a secretary on account of never being sure whether receive is 'ie' or 'ei.' They are quite all right, though. The captain of the boat says so. And naturally on a trip of that kind, research you know, a man doesn't like to be interrupted."

Aunt Caroline arose. "When does the next boat leave?" She asked calmly.

"But—dash it all! We're not invited. We can't butt in. I—I won't go."

Aunt Caroline, admirable woman, knew when she was defeated. She had a formula for it, a formula which seldom failed to turn defeat into victory. When all else failed, Aunt Caroline collapsed. She collapsed now. She had borne a great deal, she had not complained, but to be told that her presence would be a "butting in" upon the only living child of her only dead sister was more than even her fortitude could endure! No, she wouldn't take a glass of water, water would choke her. No, she wouldn't lie down. No, she wouldn't lower her voice. What did hotel people matter to her? What did anything matter? She had come to the end. Accustomed to ingratitude as she was, hardened to injustice and desertion, there were still limits—

There were. The doctor had reached his. Hastily he explained that she had mistaken his meaning. And, to prove it, engaged passage at once, for the next upcoast trip, on the same little steamer which a few days earlier had carried Mr. and Mrs. Benis H. Spence.

It was a heavenly day. The mountains lifted them-selves out of veils of tinted mist, the islands lay like jewels—but Aunt Caroline, impervious to mere scenery, turned her thought severely inward.

"I suppose," she said to her now subdued escort, "that we shall have to pay the secretary a month's salary. Benis will scarcely wish to take him back east with us."

The doctor attempted to answer but seemed to have some trouble with his throat.

"It's the damp air," said Aunt Caroline. "Have a troche. If Benis really needs a secretary I think I can arrange to get one for him. Do you remember Mary Davis? Her mother was an Ashton—a very good family. But unfortunate. The girls have had to look out for themselves rather. Mary took a course. She could be a secretary, I'm sure. Benis could always correct things afterward. And she is not too young. Just about the right age, I should think. They used to know each other. But you know what Benis is. He simply doesn't—your cold is quite distressing, Doctor. Do take a troche."

The doctor took one.

"Of course Benis may object to a lady secretary—"

"By Jove," said Rogers as if struck with a brilliant idea. "Perhaps his secretary is a lady!"

"How do you mean—a lady! Don't be absurd, Doctor. You said yourself there was no proper hotel. Benis is discreet. I'll say that for him."

The doctor's brilliance deserted him. He twiddled his thumbs. But although Aunt Caroline's repudiation of his suggestion had been unhesitating there was a gleam of new uneasiness in her eye. She said no more. It was indeed quite half an hour before she remarked explosively.

"Unless it were an Indian!"

Her companion turned from the scenery in pained surprise.

"An Indian what?" he asked blankly.

"An Indian secretary—a female one."

"Nonsense. Indians aren't secretaries."

But Aunt Caroline had "had a feeling." "It was your-self who suggested that she might be a girl," she declared stubbornly, "and if she is a girl, she must be an Indian. Indians are different—look at Pullman porters."

The doctor gasped.

"Even I don't mind a Pullman porter," finished Aunt Caroline grandly.

"That's very nice," the doctor struggled to adjust him-self. "But Pullman porters are not Indians, and even if they were I can't quite see how it affects Benis and his lady secretary."

"The principle," said Aunt Caroline, "is the same."

Rogers wondered if his brain were going. At any rate he felt that he needed a smoke. Aunt Caroline did not like smoke, so comparative privacy was assured. Also, a good smoke might show him a way out of his difficulty.

It didn't. At the end of the second cigar the cold fact, imparted by the clerk in the steamship office, that Professor Spence and wife had preceded them upon this very boat, was still a cold fact and nothing more. The long letter from the bridegroom which would have made things plain had passed him on his trip across the continent and was even now lying, with other unopened mail, in his Bainbridge office.

If Benis were married, then the bride could be no other than the nurse-secretary he had written about in that one inconsequent letter to which he, Rogers, had replied with unmistakable warning. But the thing seemed scarcely credible. If it were a fact, then it might very easily be a tragedy also. Marriage in such haste and under such circumstances could scarcely be other than a mistake, and considering the quality of Benis Spence, a most serious one.

John Rogers was very fond of his eccentric friend and the threatened disaster loomed almost personal. He felt himself to blame too, for the advice which had thrown Spence directly from the frying-pan of Aunt Caroline into the fire of a sterner fate. Add to all this a keen feeling of unwarranted intrusion and we have some idea of the state of mind with which Dr. John Rogers saw the white tents of the campers as the steamer put in at Friendly Bay.

"There are two tents," said Aunt Caroline lowering her lorgnette. "I shall be quite comfortable."

The doctor did not smile. His sense of humor was suffering from temporary exhaustion and his strongest consciousness was a feeling of relief that neither Benis nor anyone else appeared to notice their arrival. Even the unique spectacle of a middle-aged lady in elastic-sided boots proceeding on tiptoe, and with all the tactics of a scouting party, toward the evidently deserted tents provoked no demonstration from anyone.

"They're not here!" called the scouting party in a carrying whisper.

"Obviously not." The doctor wiped his heated fore-head. "Probably they've gone for the night. Then you'll have to marry me to save my reputation."

"Jokes upon serious subjects are in very bad taste, young man," said Aunt Caroline. But her rebuke was half-hearted. She looked uneasy. "John," she added with sudden suspicion, "you don't suppose they could have known we were coming?"

"How could they possibly?"

"If she is an Indian, they might. I've heard of such things. I—oh, John! Look!"

"Snake?" asked John callously. Nevertheless he followed Aunt Caroline's horrified gaze and saw, with a thrill of more normal interest, a pair of dainty moccasins whose beaded toes protruded from the flap of one of the tents.

"Indian!" gasped Aunt Caroline. "Oh John!"

"Not a bit of it!" Our much tried physician spoke with salutary shortness. "They may be Indian-made but that's all. I'll eat my hat if it's an Indian who has worn them. Did you ever see an Indian with a foot like that?"

Indignation enabled Aunt Caroline to disclaim acquaintance with any Indian feet whatever.

"It's a white girl's moccasin," he assured her. "Lots of girls wear them in camp. Or," hastily, "it may be a curiosity. Benis may be making a collection."

Aunt Caroline snorted. Her gaze was fixed with almost piteous intensity upon the tent.

"D'you think I might go in?" she faltered.

"You might" said John carefully.

Aunt Caroline sighed.

"How dreadful to have traditions!" she murmured. "There's no real reason why I shouldn't go in. And," with grim honesty, "if you weren't here watching I believe I'd do it. Anyway we may have to, if they don't come soon. I can't sit on this grass. I'm sure it's damp."

"I'll get you a chair from Benis's tent," offered John unkindly. "There are no traditions to forbid that, are there?"

"No. And, John—you might look around a little? Just to make sure."

The doctor nodded. He had every intention of looking around. He felt, in fact, entitled to any knowledge which his closest observation might bring him. But the tent was almost empty. That at least proved that the tent belonged to Spence. He was a man with an actual talent for bareness and spareness in his sleeping quarters. Even his room at school had possessed that man-made neatness which one associates with sailor's cabins and the cells of monks. The camp-bed was trimly made, a dressing-gown lay across a canvas chair, a shaving mug hung from the centre pole—there was not so much as a hairpin anywhere.

John crossed thoughtfully to the folding stand which stood with its portable reading lamp beside the bed. There was one unusual thing there, a photograph. Benis, as his friend knew, was an expert amateur photographer—but he never perched his photographs upon stands. This one must be an exception, and exceptions are illuminating.

It was still quite light inside the tent and the doctor could see the picture clearly. It was an extraordinarily good one, quite in the professor's happiest style. Composition, lighting, timing, all were perfect. But it is doubtful if John Rogers noticed any of these excellencies. He was absorbed at once and utterly in the personality of the person photographed. This was a girl, bending over a still pool. The pose was one of perfectly arrested grace and the face which was lifted, as if at the approach of someone, looked directly out of the picture and into Roger's eyes. It was the most living picture he had ever seen. The lips were parted as if for speech, there was a smile behind the widely opened eyes. And both face and form were beautiful.

The doctor straightened up with a sharply drawn breath. It seemed that something had happened. For one flashing instant some inner knowledge had linked him with his own unlived experience. It was gone as soon as it came. He did not even realize it, save as a sense of strangeness. Yet, as a chemist lifts a vial and drops the one drop which changes all within his crucible, so some magic philtre tinged John Roger's cup of life in that one stolen look.

"Have you found anything?" Aunt Caroline's voice came impatiently.

"Nothing."

But to himself he added "everything" for indeed the mystery of Benis seemed a mystery no longer. The photograph made everything clear. And yet not so clear, either. The doctor looked around at the ship-shape bachelorness of the tent, at the neat pile of newly typed manuscript upon the bed, and felt bewildered. Even the eccentricity of Benis, in its most extravagant mode, seemed inadequate as a covering explanation.

Giving himself a mental shake, the intruder picked up the largest chair and rejoined Aunt Caroline.

"It's Benis right enough," he announced. "He is probably off interviewing Indians. I had better light a fire. It may break the news."