The Window Gazer

I >> Isabel Ecclestone Mackay >> The Window Gazer

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THE WINDOW-GAZER

ISABEL ECCLESTONE MACKAY

So in ye matere of Life's goodlie showe
Some buy what doth them plese.
While others stand withoute and gaze thereinne--
Your eare, good folk, for these!
--OLD ENGLISH RHYME.

THE

WINDOW-GAZER

BY

ISABEL ECCLESTONE MACKAY

AUTHOR OF "MIST OF MORNING," "UP THE HILL AND OVER," "THE SHINING
SHIP," ETC.

THE WINDOW-GAZER

CHAPTER I

Professor Spence sat upon an upturned keg--and shivered. No one had
told him that there might be fog and he had not happened to think of
it for himself. Still, fog in a coast city at that time of the year
was not an unreasonable happening and the professor was a reasonable
man. It wasn't the fog he blamed so much as the swiftness of its
arrival. Fifteen minutes ago the world had been an ordinary world.
He had walked about in it freely, if somewhat irritably, following
certain vague directions of the hotel clerk as to the finding of
Johnston's wharf. He had found Johnston's wharf; extracted it neatly
from a very wilderness of wharves, a feat upon which Mr. Johnston,
making boats in a shed at the end of it, had complimented him
highly.

"There's terrible few as finds me just off," said Mr. Johnston.
"Hours it takes 'em sometimes, sometimes days." It was clear that he
was restrained from adding "weeks" only by a natural modesty.

At the time, this emphasizing of the wharf's seclusion had seemed
extravagant, but now the professor wasn't so sure. For the wharf had
again mysteriously lost itself. And Mr. Johnston had lost himself,
and the city and the streets of it, and the sea and its ships were
all lost--there was nothing left anywhere save a keg (of nails) and
Professor Benis Hamilton Spence sitting upon it. Around him was
nothing but a living, pulsing whiteness, which pushed momentarily
nearer.

It was interesting. But it was really very cold. The professor, who
had suffered much from sciatica owing to an injury of the left leg,
remembered that he had been told by his medical man never to allow
himself to shiver; and here he was, shivering violently without so
much as asking his own leave. And the fog crept closer. He put out
his hands to push it back--and immediately his hands were lost too.
"Really," murmured the professor, "this is most interesting!"
Nevertheless, he reclaimed his hands and placed them firmly in his
coat pockets.

He began to wish that he had stayed with Mr. Johnston in the boat
shed, pending the arrival of the launch which, so certain letters in
his pocket informed him, would leave Johnston's wharf at 5 o'clock,
or there-abouts, Mondays and Fridays. Mr. Johnston had felt very
uncertain about this. "Though she does happen along off and on," he
said optimistically, "and she might come today. Not," he added with
commendable caution, "that I'd call old Doc. Farr's boat a 'launch'
myself."

"What," asked Professor Spence, "would you call her yourself?"

"Don't know as I can just hit on a name," said Mr. Johnston.
"Doesn't come natural to me to be free with language."

It had been pleasant enough on the wharf at first and certainly it
had been worth something to see the fog come in. Its incredible
advance, wave upon wave of massed and silent whiteness, had held him
spellbound. While he had thought it still far off, it was upon him--
around him, behind him, everywhere!

But perhaps it would go as quickly as it had come.

He had heard that this is sometimes a characteristic of fog.
Fortunately he had already selected a keg upon which to sit, so with
a patient fatalism, product of a brief but lurid career in Flemish
trenches, he resigned himself to wait. The keg was dry, that was
something, and if he spread the newspaper in his pocket over the
most sciatic part of the shrapneled leg he might escape with nothing
more than twinges.

How beautiful it was--this salt shroud from the sea! How it eddied
and funneled and whorled, now massing thick like frosted glass, now
thinning to a web of tissue. Suddenly, while he watched, a lane
broke through. He saw clearly the piles at the wharf's end, a
glimpse of dark water, and, between him and it, a figure huddled in
a cloak--a female figure, also sitting upon an upturned keg. Then
the magic mist closed in again.

"How the deuce did she get there?" the professor asked himself
crossly. "She wasn't there before the fog came." He remembered
having noticed that keg while choosing his own and there had been no
woman sitting on it then. "Anyway," he reflected, "I don't know her
and I won't have to speak to her." The thought warmed him so that he
almost forgot to shiver. From which you may gather that Professor
Spence was a bachelor, comparatively young; that he was of a
retiring disposition and the object of considerable unsolicited
attention in his own home town.

He arose cautiously from the keg of nails. It might he well to
return to the boatshed, even at the risk of falling into the Inlet.
But he had not proceeded very far before, suddenly, as he had hoped
it would, the mist began to lift. Swiftly, before the puff of a
warmer breeze, it eddied and thinned. Its soundless, impalpable
pressure lessened. The wharf, the sea, the city began to steal back,
sly, expressionless, pretending that they had been there all the
time. Even Mr. Johnston could be clearly seen coming down from the
boatshed with a curious figure beside him--a figure so odd and
unfamiliar that he might have been part of the unfamiliar fog
itself.

"Well, you've certainly struck it lucky today," called the genial
Mr. Johnston. "This here is Doc. Farr's boy. He's going right back
over there now and he'll take you along--if you want to go."

There was a disturbing cadence of doubt in the latter part of his
speech which affected the professor's always alert curiosity, as did
also the appearance of the "boy" reputed to belong to Dr. Farr. How
old he was no one could have guessed. The yellow parchment of his
face was ageless; ageless also the inscrutable, blank eyes. Only one
thing was certain--he had never been young. For the rest, he was
utterly composed and indifferent, and unmistakably Chinese.

"I hope there is no mistake," said Professor Spence hesitatingly.
"Dr. Farr certainly informed me that this was the wharf at which his
launch usually--er--tied up. But--there could scarcely be two
doctors of that name, I suppose? It's somewhat uncommon."

"Oh, it's him you want," assured Mr. Johnston. "Only man of that
name hereabouts. Lives out across the Narrows somewheres. Used to
live here in Vancouver years ago but now he don't honor us much.
Queer old skate! They say he's got some good Indian things, though--
if it's them you're after?"

The professor ignored the question but pondered the information.

"I think you are right. It must be the same person," he said. "But
he certainly led me to expect--"

A chuckle from the boat-builder interrupted him. "Ah, he'd do that,
all right," grinned Mr. Johnston. "They do say he has a special gift
that way."

"Well, thank you very much anyway." The professor offered his hand
cordially. "And if we're going, we had better go."

"You'll be a tight fit in the launch," said Mr. Johnston. "Miss
Farr's down 'ere somewhere. I saw her pass."

"Miss Farr!" The professor's ungallant horror was all too patent. He
turned haunted eyes toward the second nail keg, now plainly visible
and unoccupied.

"Missy in boat. She waitee. No likee!" said the Chinaman, speaking
for the first time.

"But," began the professor, and then, seeing the appreciative grin
upon Mr. Johnston's speaking countenance, he continued blandly--
"Very well, let us not keep the lady waiting. Especially as she
doesn't like it. Take this bag, my man, it's light. I'll carry the
other."

With no words, and no apparent effort, the old man picked up both
bags and shuffled off. The professor followed. At the end of the
wharf there were steps and beneath the steps a small floating
platform to which was secured what the professor afterwards
described as "a marine vehicle, classification unknown." Someone,
girl or woman, hidden in a loose, green coat, was already seated
there. A pair of dark eyes looked up impatiently.

"I am afraid you were not expecting me," said the professor. "I am
Hamilton Spence. Your father--"

"You're getting your feet wet," said the person in the coat. "Please
jump in."

The professor jumped. He hadn't jumped since the sciatica and he
didn't do it gracefully. But it landed him in the boat. The Chinaman
was already in his place. A rattle and a roar arose, the air turned
suddenly to gasoline and they were off.

"Has it a name?" asked the professor as soon as he could make
himself heard.

"What?"

The professor was not feeling amiable. "It might be easier to refer
to it in conversation if one knew its name," he remarked, "'Launch'
seems a trifle misleading."

There was a moment's silence. Then, "I suppose 'launch' is what
father called it," said his companion. He could have sworn that
there was cool amusement in her tone. "I see your difficulty," she
went on. "But, fortunately, it has a name of its own. It is called
the Tillicum.'"

"As such I salute it!" said Spence, gravely.

The other made no attempt to continue the conversation. She retired
into the fastness of the green cloak, leaving the professor to
ponder the situation. It seemed on the face of it an absurd
situation enough, yet there should certainly be nothing absurd in
it. Spence felt a somewhat bulky package of letters even now in the
pocket of his coat. These letters were real and sensible enough.
They comprised his correspondence with one Dr. Herbert Farr,
Vancouver, B. C. As letters they were quite charming. The earlier
ones had dealt with the professor's pet subject, primitive
psychology. The later ones had been more personal. Spence found
himself remembering such phrases as "my humble but picturesque
home," "my Chinese servant, a factotum extraordinary," "my young
daughter who attends to all my simple wants" and "my secretary on
whose efficient aid I more and more depend--"

"I suppose there is a secretary?" he asked suddenly.

"Oh yes," answered the green cloak, "I'm it."

"And, 'a young daughter who attends'--"

"--'to all my simple wants?' That's me, too."

"But you can't be 'my Chinese servant, a factotum extraordinary?'"

"No, you have already met Li Ho."

"There?" queried the professor, gesturing weakly.

"Yes."

Spence pulled himself together. "There must be a home, though," he
asserted firmly, "'Humble but picturesque'--"

"Well," admitted the voice from the green cloak, "it is rather
picturesque. And it is certainly humble."

Suddenly she laughed. It was a very young laugh. The professor felt
relieved. She was a girl, then, not a woman.

"Isn't father too' amusing?" she asked pleasantly.

"Quite too much so," agreed the professor. He was very cold. "I beg
your pardon," he added stiffly, remembering his manners.

"Oh, I don't mind!" The girl assured him. "Father is a dreadful old
fraud. I have no illusions. But perhaps it isn't so bad after all.
He really is quite an authority on the West Coast Indians,--if that
is what you wish to consult him about."

Professor Spence was in a quandary. But perfect frankness seemed
indicated.

"I didn't come to consult him about anything," he said slowly. "I am
a psychologist. I wish to do my own observing, at first hand. I came
not to question Dr. Farr, but to board with him."

"BOARD WITH HIM!"

In her heartfelt surprise the girl turned to him and he saw her
face, young, arresting, and excessively indignant.

"Quite so," he said. "Do not excite yourself. I perceive the
impossibility. I can't have you attending to my wants, however
simple. Neither can I share the services of a secretary whose post,
I gather, is an honorary one. But I simply cannot go back to Mr.
Johnston's grin: so if you can put me up for the night--"

She had turned away again and was silent for so long that Spence
became uneasy. But at last she spoke.

"This is really too bad of father! He has never done anything quite
as absurd as this before. I don't quite see what he expected to get
out of it. He might know that you would not stay. He wouldn't want
you to stay. I can't understand--unless," her voice became crisp
with sudden enlightenment, "unless you were foolish enough to pay in
advance! Surely you did not do that?"

The professor was observing his boots in an abstracted way.

"I am afraid my feet are very wet," he remarked.

"They are. They are resting in at least an inch of water," she said
coldly. "But that isn't answering my question. Did you pay my father
anything in advance?"

The professor fidgeted.

"A small payment in advance is not very unusual," he offered.
"Especially if one's prospective host is anxious to add a few little
unaccustomed luxuries--"

"Yes, yes," she interrupted rudely. "I recognize the phrase!"
Without looking up he felt her wrathful gaze upon his face. "It
means that father has simply done you brown. Oh, well, it's your own
fault. You're old enough to know your way about. And the luxuries
you will enjoy at our place will certainly be unaccustomed ones.
Didn't you even ask for references?"

Her tone irritated the professor unaccountably.

"Are we nearly there?" he asked, disdaining to answer. "I am
extremely cold."

"You will have a nice climb to warm you," she told him grimly, "all
up hill!"

"'A verdant slope,'" quoted the professor sweetly, "'rising gently
from salt water toward snowclad peaks, which, far away,--'" They
caught each other's eyes and laughed.

"Here is our landing," said the girl quite cheerfully. "And none too
soon! I suppose you haven't noticed it, but the 'Tillicum' is
leaking like a sieve!"

CHAPTER II

Salt in the air and the breath of pine and cedar are excellent sleep
inducers. Professor Spence had not expected to sleep that night; yet
he did sleep. He awoke to find the sun high. A great beam of it lay
across the foot of his camp cot, bringing comforting warmth to the
toes which protruded from the shelter of abbreviated blankets. The
professor wiggled his toes cautiously. He was accustomed to doing
this before making more radical movements. They were a valuable
index to the state of the sciatic nerve. This morning they wiggled
somewhat stiffly and there were also various twinges. But
considering the trying experiences of yesterday it was surprising
that they could wiggle at all. He lifted himself slowly--and sank
back with a relieved sigh. It would have been embarrassing, he
thought, had he not been able to get up.

All men have their secret fears and Professor Spence's secret fear
was embodied in a story which his friend and medical adviser
(otherwise "Old Bones") had seen fit to cite as a horrible example.
It concerned a man who had sciatica and who didn't take proper care
of him-self. One day this man went for a walk and fell suddenly upon
the pavement unable to move or even to explain matters
satisfactorily to a heartless policeman who insisted that he was
drunk. The doctor had laughed over this story; doctors are
notoriously inhuman. The professor had laughed also, but the
possible picture of him-self squirming helplessly before a casually
interested public had terrors which no enemies' shrapnel had ever
been able to inspire.

Well, thank heaven it hadn't happened yet! The professor confided
his satisfaction to an inquisitive squirrel which swung, bright
eyed, from a branch which swept the window, and, sitting up,
prepared to take stock of the furnishings of his room. A grim smile
signalled his discovery that there were no furnishings to take stock
of. Save for his camp bed, an affair of stout canvas stretched
between crossed legs, the room was beautifully bare. Not a chair,
not a wash-stand, not a table cumbered it--unless a round, flat tree
stump, which looked as if it might have grown up through the floor,
was intended for both washstand and table. It had served the latter
purpose at any rate as upon it rested the candle-stick containing
the solitary candle by which he had got himself to bed.

"Single room, without bath," murmured the professor. "Oh, if my Aunt
Caroline could see me now!"

Oddly enough, something in the thought of Aunt Caroline seemed to
have a reconciling effect upon Aunt Caroline's nephew. He lay back
upon his one thin pillow and reviewed his position with surprising
fortitude. After all, Aunt Caroline couldn't see him--and that was
something. Besides, it had been an adventure. It was surprising how
he had come to look for adventures since that day, five years ago,
when the grim adventure of war had called him from the peace-filled
beginnings of what he had looked forward to as a life of scholarly
leisure. He had been thirty, then, and quite done with adventuring.
Now he was thirty-five and--well, he supposed the war had left him
restless. Presently he would settle down. He would begin his great
book on the "Psychology of Primitive Peoples." Everything would be
as it had been before.

But in the meantime it insisted upon being somewhat different--hence
this feeling which was not all dissatisfaction with his present
absurd position. He was, he admitted it, a badly sold man. But did
it matter? What had he lost except money and self-esteem? The money
did not matter and he was sure that Aunt Caroline, at least, would
say that he could spare the self-esteem. Besides, he would recover
it in time. His opinion of himself as a man of perspicacity in
business had recovered from harder blows than this. There was that
affair of the South American mines, for instance,--but anybody may
be mistaken about South American mines. He had told Aunt Caroline
this. "It was," he told Aunt Caroline, "a financial accident. I do
not blame myself. My father, as you know, was a far-sighted man.
These aptitudes run in families." Aunt Caroline had said, "Humph!"

Nevertheless it was true that the elder Hamilton Spence, now
deceased, had been a far-sighted man. Benis had always cherished a
warm admiration for the commercial astuteness which he conceived
himself to have inherited. He would have been, he thought, exactly
like his father--if he had cared for the drudgery of business. So it
was a habit of his, when in a quandary, to consider what his parent
would have done and then to do likewise--an excellent rule if he had
ever succeeded in applying it properly. But there were always so
many intruding details. Take the present predicament, for instance.
He could scarcely picture his father in these precise circumstances.
To do so would be to presuppose actions on the part of that astute
ancestor quite out of keeping with his known character. Would
Hamilton Spence, senior, have crossed a continent at the word of one
of whom he knew nothing, save that he wrote an agreeable letter?
Would he have engaged (and paid for in advance) board and lodging at
a place wholly supposititious? Would he have neglected to ask for
references? Hamilton Spence, junior, was forced to admit that he
would not.

But those letters of old Farr had been so blamed plausible!

Well, anyhow, he would have the pleasure of meeting and outfacing
the old rascal. This satisfaction he had expected the night before.
But upon their arrival at the "picturesque though humble" cottage
(after a climb at the memory of which his leg still shuddered), it
was found that Dr. Farr was not at home.

"He has probably gone 'up trail'" Miss Farr had said casually, "and
in that case he won't be back until morning."

"Did you say up?" The professor's voice held incredulity. Whereupon
his hostess had most unkindly smiled: "You're not much of a walker,
are you?" was her untactful comment.

"My leg--" He had actually begun to tell her about his leg! Luckily
her amused shrug had acted as a period. He felt very glad of this
now. To have admitted weakness would have been weak indeed. For the
girl was so splendidly strong! Only a child, of course, but so
finely moulded, so superbly strung--light and lithe. How she had
swung up the trail, a heavy packet in either hand, with scarcely a
quickened breath to tell of the effort! Her face?--he tried to
recall her face but found it provokingly elusive. It was a young
face, but not youthful. The distinction seemed strained and yet it
was a real distinction. The eyes were grey, he thought. The eyebrows
very fine, dark and slanted slightly, as if left that way by some
unanswered question. The nose was straight, delightful in profile.
The mouth too firm for a face so young, the chin too square--
perhaps. But even as he catalogued the features the face escaped
him. He had a changing impression, only, of a graceful contour, warm
and white, dark careless eyes, and hair--quantities of hair lying
close and smooth in undulated waves--its color like nothing so much
as the brown of a crisping autumn leaf. He remembered, though, that
she was poorly dressed--and utterly unconscious, or careless, of
being so. And she had been amused, undoubtedly amused, at his
annoyance. A most unfeminine girl! And that at least was fortunate--
for he was very, very weary of everything feminine!

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.

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