The Window-Gazer

CHAPTER III

Yawningly, the professor reached for his watch.

It had run down.

"Evidently they do not wake guests for breakfast," he mused. "Perhaps," with rising dismay, "there isn't any breakfast to wake them for!"

He felt suddenly ravenous and hurried into his clothes. It is really wonderful how all kinds of problems give place to the need for a wash and breakfast. Somewhere outside he could hear water running, so with a towel over his arm and a piece of soap in his pocket he started out to find it. His room, as he had noted the night before, was one of two small rooms under the eaves. There was a small, dark landing between them and a steep, ladderlike stair led directly down into the living-room. There was no one there; neither was there anyone in the small kitchen at the back. Benis Spence decided that this second room was a kitchen because it contained a cooking stove. Otherwise he would not have recognized it, Aunt Caroline's idea of a kitchen being quite otherwise. Someone had been having breakfast on a corner of the table and a fire crackled in the stove. Window and door were open, and leafy, ferny odors mingled with the smell of burning cedar. The combined scent was very pleasant, but the professor could have wished that the bouquet of coffee and fried bacon had been included. He was quite painfully hungry.

Through the open door the voice of falling water still called to him but of other and more human voices there were none. Well, he could at least wash. With a shrug he turned away from the half cleared table and, in the doorway, almost ran into the arms of a little, old man in a frock coat and a large umbrella. There were other items of attire, but they did not seem to matter.

"My dear sir," said the little, old man, in a gentle, gurgling voice. "Let me make you welcome—very, very welcome!"

"Thank you," said the professor.

There were other things that he might have said, but they did not seem to suggest themselves. All the smooth and biting sentences which his mind had held in readiness for this moment faded and died before the stunning knowledge of their own inadequacy. Surprise, pure and simple, stamped them down.

"Unpardonable, my not being at home to receive you," went on this amazing old gentleman. "But the exact time of your coming was somewhat indefinite. Still, I am displeased with myself, much displeased. You slept well, I trust?"

The professor was understood to say that he had slept well.

Dr. Farr sighed. "Youth!" he murmured, waving his umbrella. "Oh, youth!"

"Quite so," said the professor. There was a dryness in his tone not calculated to encourage rhapsody. The old gentleman's gurgle changed to a note of practical helpfulness.

"You wish to bathe, I see. I will not detain you. Our sylvan bathroom you will find just down the trail and behind those alders. Pray take your time. You will be quite undisturbed."

With another dry "Thank you," the professor passed on. He was limping slightly, otherwise he would have passed on much faster. His instinct was to seek cover before giving vent to the emotion which consumed him.

Behind the alders, and taking the precaution of stuffing his mouth with a towel, he could release this rising gust of almost hysterical laughter.

That was Dr. Herbert Farr! The fulfilled vision of the learned scholar he had come so far to see capped with nicety the climax of this absurd adventure. What an utter fool, what an unbelievable idiot he had made of himself! For the moment he saw clear and all normal reactions proved inadequate. There was left only laughter.

When this was over he felt better. Withdrawing the towel and wiping the tears of strangled mirth from his eyes he looked around him. The sylvan bathroom was indeed a charming place. Great rocks, all smooth and brown with velvet moss, curved gently down to form a basin into which fell the water from the tiny stream whose musical flowing had called to him through his window. Around, and somewhat back beneath tall sentinel trees, crept the bushes and bracken of the mountain; but, above, the foliage opened and the sun shone in, turning the brown-green water of the pool to gold. With a sigh of pure delight the laughter-weary professor stepped into its cool brightness—and with a gasp of something very different, stepped quickly out again. But, quick as he was, the liquid ice of that green-gold pool was quicker. It ran through his tortured nerve like mounting fire—"Oh—oh—damn!" said the professor heartily.

The sweat stood out on his forehead before he had rubbed and warmed the outraged limb into some semblance of quietude again. The pool seemed no longer lovely. Very gingerly he completed such ablutions as were strictly necessary and then, very cold, very stiff and very, very empty he turned back toward the house.

This time, instead of passing through the small vegetable garden behind the kitchen, he skirted the clearing, coming out into the wide, open space in front of the cottage. On one side of him, and behind, spread the mountain woods but before him and to the right the larger trees were down. There was a vista—for the first time since he had sat upon a keg in the fog he forgot him-self and his foolishness, his hunger, his aching nerves, his smarting pride, everything! The beauty before him filled his heart and mind, leaving not a cranny anywhere for lesser things. Blue sea, blue sky, blue mountains, blue smoke that rose in misty spirals as from a thousand fairy fires and, nearer, the sun-warmed, dew-drenched green—green of the earth, green of the trees, green of the graceful, sweeping curves of wooded point and bay. Far away, on peaks half hidden, snow still lay—a whiteness so ethereal that the gazer caught his breath.

And with it all there was the scent of something—something so fresh, so penetrating, so infinitely sweet—what could it be?

"Ambrosia!" said Benis Spence, unconscious that he spoke aloud.

"Balm of Gilead," said a practical voice beside him. "It smells like that in the bud, you know."

"Does it?" The professor's tone was dreamy. "Honey and wine—that's what it's like—honey and wine in the wilderness! You didn't tell me it would be like this," he added, turning abruptly to his companion of the night before.

"How could I tell what it would be like—to you?" asked the girl. "It's different for everyone. I've known people stand here and think of nothing but their breakfast."

At the word "breakfast" (which had temporarily slipped from his vocabulary) the famished professor wheeled so quickly that his knee twisted. Miss Farr smiled, her cool and too-understanding smile.

"There's something to eat," she said. "Come in."

She did not wait for him but walked off quickly. The professor followed more slowly. The path, even the front path, was rough (he had noticed that last night); but the cottage, seen now with the glamour of its outlook still in his eyes, seemed not quite so impossible as he had thought. The grace of early spring lay upon it and all around. True, it was small and unpainted and in bad repair, but its smallness and its brownness seemed not out of keeping with the mountain-side. Its narrow veranda was railed by unbarked branches from the cedars. Its walls were rough and weather-beaten, its few windows, broad and low. The door was open and led directly into the living room whence his hostess had preceded him.

The marvellous scent of the morning was everywhere. The room, as he went in, seemed full of it. Not such a bad room, either, not nearly so comfortless as he had thought last night. There was a fireplace, for instance, a real fireplace of cobble-stones, for use, not ornament; a long table stood in the middle of the room, an old fashioned sofa sprawled beneath one of the windows. There was a dresser at one end with open shelves for china and, at the other, a book-case, also open, filled with old and miscellaneous books....

And, best and most encouraging of all, there was breakfast on the table.

"I told Li Ho to give you eggs," said Miss Farr. "It is the one thing we can be sure of having fresh. Do you like eggs?"

The professor liked eggs. He had never liked eggs so well before, except once in Flanders—he looked up to thank his hostess, but she had not waited. Nevertheless the breakfast was very good. Not until he had finished the last crumb of it did he notice that the comfort of the place was more apparent than real. The table tipped whenever you touched it. The chair upon which he sat had lost an original leg and didn't take kindly to its substitute. The china was thick and chipped. The walls were unfinished and draughty, the ceiling obviously leaked. There had been some effort to keep the place livable, for the faded curtains were at least clean and the floor swept—but the blight of decay and poverty lay hopelessly upon it all.

And what was a young girl—a girl with level eyes and lifted chin—doing in this galley? ... Undoubtedly the less he bothered himself about that question the better. This young person was probably just as she wished to appear, careless and content. And in any case it was none of his business.

The sensible thing for him to do was to pack his bag and turn his back—the absurd old man with the umbrella ... pshaw! ... He wouldn't go home, of course. Aunt Caroline would say "I told you so" ... no, she wouldn't say it—she would look it, which was worse ... he had come away for a rest cure and a rest cure he intended to have ... with a groan he thought of the pictures he had formed of this place, the comfortable seclusion, the congenial old scholar, the capable secretary, the—he looked up to find that Miss Farr had returned and was regarding him with a cool and pleasantly aloof consideration.

"Are you wondering how soon you may decently leave?" she inquired. "We are not at all formal here. And, of course—" her shrug and gesture disposed of all other matters at issue. "Yours are the only feelings that need to be considered. I should like to know, though," she continued with some warmth of interest, "if you really came just to observe Indians. Father might think of a variety of attractions. Health?—any-thing from gout to tuberculosis. Fish?—father can talk about fish until you actually see them leaping. Shooting?—according to father, all the animals of the ark abound in these mountains. Curios?—father has an Indian mound somewhere which he always keeps well stocked."

Professor Spence smiled. "So many activities," he said, "should bring better results."

"They are too well known. Most people make some inquiry." The faint emphasis on the "most" made the professor feel uncomfortable. Was it possible that this young girl considered him, Benis Spence, something of a fool? He dismissed the idea as unlikely.

"Inquiry in my case would have meant delay," he answered frankly, "and I was in a hurry. I wanted to get away from—I wanted to get away for rest and study in a congenial environment. Still, I will admit that I might not have inquired in any case. I am accustomed to trust to my instinct. My father was a very far-sighted man—what are you laughing at?"

"Nothing. Only it sounded so much like 'nevertheless, my grandsire drew a long bow at the battle of Hastings'—don't you remember, in 'Ivanhoe?'"

The professor sighed. "I have forgotten 'Ivanhoe,'" he said, "which means, I suppose, that I have forgotten youth. Sometimes its ghost walks, though. I think it was that which kept me so restless at home. I thought that if I could get away—You see, before the war, I was gathering material for a book on primitive psychology and when I came back I found some of the keenness gone." He smiled grimly. "I came back inclined to think that all psychology is primitive. But I wanted to get to work again. I had never studied the West Coast Indians and your father's letters led me to believe that—er—"

It was not at all polite of her to laugh, but he had to admit that her laughter was very pleasant and young.

"It is funny, you know," she murmured apologetically. "For I am sure you pictured father as a kind of white patriarch, surrounded by his primitive children (father is certain to have called the Indians his 'children'!). Unfortunately, the Indians detest father. They're half afraid of him, too. I don't know why. Years ago, when we lived up coast—" she paused, plainly annoyed at her own loquacity, "we knew plenty of Indians then," she finished shortly.

"And are there no Indians here at all?"

"There is an Indian reservation at North Vancouver. That is the nearest. I do not think they are just what you are looking for. But both in Vancouver and Victoria you can get in touch with men who can direct you. Your journey need not be entirely wasted."

"But Dr. Farr himself—Is he not something of an authority?"

"Y-es. I suppose he is."

"What information the letters contained seemed to be the real thing."

"Oh, the letters were all right. I wrote them."

"You!"

"Didn't I tell you I was the secretary? My department is the 'information bureau.' I do not see the actual letters. There are always personal bits which father puts in himself."

"Bits regarding boarding accommodation, etc.?"

She did not answer his smile, and her eyes grew hard as she nodded.

"Usually I can keep things from going that far. I can't quite see how it happened so suddenly in your case."

"I happen to be a sudden person."

"Evidently. Father was quite dumbfounded when he knew you had actually arrived. He certainly expected an interval during which he could invent good and sufficient reasons for putting you off."

"Such as?"

"Such as smallpox. An outbreak of smallpox among the Indians is quite a favorite with father."

"The old—I beg your pardon!"

"Don't bother. You are certainly entitled to an expression of your feelings. It may be the only satisfaction, you will get. But aren't we getting away from the question?"

"Question?"

"When do you wish Li Ho to take you back to Vancouver?"

Professor Spence opened his lips to say that any time would suit. It was the obvious answer, the only sensible answer, the answer which he fully intended to make. But he did not make it.

"Must I really go?" he asked. He was, so he had said himself, a sudden person.

His hostess met his deprecating gaze with pure surprise.

"You can't possibly want to stay?"

"I quite possibly can. I like it here. And I'm horribly tired."

The hostility which had begun to gather in her eyes lightened a little.

"Tired? I noticed that you limped this morning. Is there anything the matter with you?"

It was certainly an ungracious way of putting it. And her eyes, while not exactly hostile, were ungracious, too. They would make anyone with a spark of pride want to go away at once. The professor told himself this. Besides, his only possible reason for wishing to stay had been some unformed idea of being helpful to the girl herself—ungrateful minx!

"If there is anything really wrong—" the cold incredulity of her tone was the last straw.

"Nothing wrong at all!" said Professor Spence. He arose briskly. Alas! He had forgotten his sciatic nerve. He had forgotten, too, the crampiness of its temper since that glacial bath, and, most completely of all, had he forgotten the fate of the man-who-didn't-take-care-of-himself. Therefore it was with something of surprise that he found himself crumpled up upon the floor. Only when he tried to rise again and felt the sweat upon his forehead did he remember the doctor's story.... Spence swore under his breath and attempted to pull himself up by the table.

"Wait a moment!"

The cold voice held authority—the authority he had come to respect in hospital—and he waited, setting his teeth. Next moment he set them still harder, for Li Ho and the girl picked him up without ceremony and laid him, whitefaced, upon the sprawling sofa.

"Why didn't you say you had sciatica?" asked Miss Farr, belligerently.

It seemed unnecessary to answer.

"I know it is sciatica," she went on, "because I've seen it before. And if you had no more sense than to bathe in that pool you deserve all you've got."

"It looked all right."

"Oh—looked! It's melted ice—simply."

"So I realized, afterwards."

"You seem to do most things afterwards. What caused it in the first place, cold?"

"The sciatica? No—an injury."

There was a slight pause.

"Was it—in the war?" The new note in her voice did not escape Spence. He lied promptly—too promptly. Desire Farr was an observant young person, quite capable of drawing conclusions.

"I'm not going to be sympathetic," she said. "That," with sudden illumination, "is probably what you ran away from. But you'd better be truthfull Was it a bullet?"

"Shrapnel."

"And the treatment?"

"Rest, and the tablets in my bag."

"Right—I'll get them."

It was quite like old hospital times. The sofa was hard and the pillows knobby. But he had lain upon worse. Li Ho was not more unhandy than many an orderly. And the tablets, quickly and neatly administered by Miss Farr, brought something of relief.

Not until she saw the strain within his eyes relax did his self-appointed nurse pass sentence.

"You certainly can't move until you are better," she said. "You'll have to stay. It can't be helped but—father will have a fit."

"A fit?" murmured Spence. Privately he thought that a fit might do the old gentleman good.

"He hates having anyone here," she went on thoughtfully. "It upsets him."

"Does it? But why? I can understand it upsetting you. But he—he doesn't do the work, does he?"

"Not exactly," the girl smiled. "But—oh well, I don't believe in explanations. You'll see things for your-self, perhaps. And now I'll get you a book. I won't warn you not to move for I know you can't."

With a glance which, true to her promise, was not overburdened with sympathy, his strangely acquired hostess went out and closed the door.

He tried to read the book she had handed him ("Green Mansions"—ho-r had it wandered out here?) but his mind could not detach itself. It insisted upon listening for sounds outside. And presently a sound came—the high, thin sound of a voice shaking with weakness or rage. Then the cool tones of his absent nurse, then the voice again—certainly a most unpleasant voice—and the crashing sound of something being violently thrown to the ground and stamped upon. Through the closed door, the professor seemed to see a vision of an absurd old man with pale eyes, who shrieked and stamped upon an umbrella.

"That," said Hamilton Spence, with resignation, "that must be father having a fit!"