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John Greenleaf Whittier - "Anti Slavery, Labor and Reform, Complete"

Edgar Allan Poe - "The Works of Edgar Allan Poe Volume 3 of the Raven Edition"

Unknown - "The World English Bible (WEB): Jude"

The Window Gazer

I >> Isabel Ecclestone Mackay >> The Window Gazer




Benis Spence had taken his medical adviser up the slope to the
Indian burying-ground. It was the one place within reasonable radius
where they were not likely to be interrupted by periodic appearances
of Aunt Caroline. Aunt Caroline never took liberties with burying-
grounds. "A graveyard is a graveyard," said Aunt Caroline, "and not
a place for casual conversation." There-fore, amid the graves and
the crosses, the friends felt fairly safe.

"Why shouldn't she believe it?" countered Spence. "Don't you suppose
I can tell a lie properly?"

"To be honest--I don't."

"Well," somewhat gloomily, "this one seemed to go over all right. It
went much farther than I ever expected. It's far too up-and-coming.
The way it grows frightens me. At first there was nothing--just an
'experience.' A mild abstraction, buried in the past, a sentimental
'has-been' without form or substance. Then, without warning, the
experience acquired a name, and then a history and then, just when I
had begun to forget about it, hair suddenly popped up, yellow hair,
and, the day after, eyes--blue eyes, misty. The nose remains
indeterminate, but noses often do. Only yesterday I felt compelled
to add a mouth. Small and red, I made it--ugh! How I hate a small
red mouth. Oh, if it amuses you--all right!"

"Laugh at it yourself, old man! It's all you can do. But what a
frightful list of blunders. If you had to tell a lie why didn't you
take Mark Twain's advice and tell a good one? The name, for
instance--why on earth did you choose 'Mary?' Even 'Marion' would
have been safer. Don't you know you can't turn a corner in Bain-
bridge or anywhere else without stumbling over a Mary? There's a
Mary in my office at the present minute and--yes, by Jove, she has
golden hair!"

The professor looked stubborn.

"My Mary's hair was not golden. It was yellow, plain yellow. I
remember I made a point of that."

"Well then, there's Mary Davis. You remember her?"

"The one who visited Aunt Caroline?"

"Yes. Pretty girl. About your own age! 'Twas thought in Bainbridge
that her thoughts turned youward. Her hair was yellow then, and may
be again by now. And she had blue eyes, bright blue."

"My Mary's were not bright blue. Hers were misty, like the hills."

"Forget it, old man! You'll find you won't be able to insist on
shades. Any Mary with golden, yellow, tawny or tow-colored hair, and
old blue, grey blue, Alice blue or plain blue eyes will come under
Mrs. Spence's reflective observation. Your progress will be a
regular charge of the light brigade with Marys on all sides."

"Now you're making yourself unpleasant," said the professor. "And,
to change the subject, why do you insist upon calling Desire 'Mrs.
Spence?' She calls you John."

To his questioner's infinite amazement the doctor blushed.

"She has told me I might," he admitted. "But it seemed so dashed
cheeky."

"Why? You are at least ten years older than she. And a friend of the
family."

"Ten years is nothing," said the doctor. "And I want to be her
friend, not a friend of the family. Besides, she, herself, is not at
all like the girls of twenty whom one usually meets."

"She is simpler, perhaps."

"In manner, but not in character. There is a distance, a poise, a--
surely you feel what I mean."

"Imagination, John. It is you who create the distance by clinging to
formality."

"All right. You're sure you don't object?"

"My dear Bones, why should I possibly?"

The doctor looked sulky. Benis smiled.

"Look here, John," he said after a reflective pause. "Desire is as
direct as a child. If she calls you by your first name you can
depend that she feels no embarrassment about it. So why should you?
And there's another thing. She may not find everything quite easy in
Bainbridge. She will need your frank and unembarrassed friendship--
as well as mine."

"Yours?"

"Yes. You understand the situation, don't you? At least as far as
understanding is necessary. And you are the only one who will
understand. So you will be of more use to her than anyone else,
except me. I am going to do my best to make her happy. It's my job.
I am not turning it over to you. But there may be times when I shall
fail. There may be times when I shan't know that she isn't happy--a
lack of perspective or something. If ever there comes a time like
that and you know of it, don't spare me. I have taken the
responsibility of her youth upon my shoulders and I am not going to
shirk. It will be her happiness first--at all costs."

"People aren't usually made happy at all costs," said the doctor
wisely.

"They may be, if they do not know the price."

"I see."

"You'll know where I stand a bit better when you've read a letter
you'll find waiting for you at home. But here is the whole point of
the matter--I had to get desire away from that devilish old parent
of hers. And marriage was the only effective way. But Desire did not
want marriage. She has never told me just why but I have seen and
heard enough to know that her horror of the idea is deep seated, a
spiritual nausea, an. abnormal twist which may never straighten. I
say 'may,' because there is a good chance the other way. All one can
do is to wait. And in the meantime I want her to find life pleasant.
She once told me that she was a window-gazer. I want to open all the
doors."

"Except the one door that; matters," said Rogers gloomily.

"Nonsense! You don't believe that. Life has many things to give
besides the love of man and woman."

"Has it? You'll know better some day--even a cold-blooded fish like
you."

"Fish?" said Spence sorrowfully. "And from mine own familiar friend?
Fish!"

"What will you do," exploded the doctor, "when she wakes up and
finds how you have cheated her? When she realizes, too late, that
she has sold her birthright?"

The professor rose slowly and dusted the dry grass from the knees of
his knickers. "Tut, tut!" he said, "the subject excites you. Let us
talk about me for a change. Observe me carefully, John, and tell me
what you think of me. Only not in marine language. Am I an Apollo?
Or a Greek god? Or even a movie star of the third magnitude? Or am
I, not to put too fine a point on it, as homely as a hedge fence?"

"Oh, hang it, Benis, stop your fooling."

"I'm not fooling. I want you to understand that I have consulted my
mirror. And I know just how likely I am to appeal to the imagination
of a young girl. I take my chance, nevertheless. Your question,
divested of oratory, means what shall I do if Desire finds her mate
and that mate is not myself? My answer, also divested of oratory, is
that I do not keep what does not belong to me. Is that plain?"

The doctor nodded. "Plain enough," he said. "But how will you know?"

"Well, I might guess. You see," resuming his seat and his ordinary
manner at the same time, "Desire is my secretary. I make a point of
studying the psychology of those who work with me. And, aside from
the slight abnormality which I have mentioned, Desire is very true
to type, her own type--a very womanly one. And a woman in love is
hard to mistake. But," cheerfully, "she is only a child yet in
matters of loving. And she may never grow up."

"You seem quite happy about it."

" 'Call no man happy till he is dead.' And yet--I am happy. If tears
must come, why anticipate them?"

"There speaks the hopeless optimist," said Rogers, laughing. "But
because I called you a fish, I'll give you a bit of valuable advice.
I can't see you scrap quite all your chances. Kill Mary."

"I can't. Besides, why should I? Desire likes to hear about her. Or
says she does. It provides her with an interest. And a little
perfectly human jealousy is very stimulating."

"You think she is jealous?"

"Oh, not in the way you mean. But every woman likes to be first,
even with her friends. And if she can't be first, she is healthily
curious about the woman who is. Desire would miss Mary very much."

"You've been a fool, Benis."

"I shall try not to be a bigger one."

The friends looked polite daggers at each other. And suddenly
smiled.

"To be continued in our next," said Rogers. "Is it finally settled
that we turn homeward tomorrow?"

"Yes. We did our last extracting from the hawk-eyed one yesterday.
He has been a real find, John. Do you know what he calls Aunt
Caroline? 'The-old-woman-who-sniffs-the-air.' Desire did not
translate. Isn't she rather a wonder, John? Did you ever see any-
thing like the way she manages Aunt?"

But the doctor's eyes were on the distant tents.

"Someone in blue is waving to us," he said. "It must be your Aunt."

Spence lazily raised his eyes.

"No. That's Desire. She is wearing blue."

"She was wearing pink this morning."

"Yes. But she won't be wearing it this afternoon."

"How do you know?" curiously.

The professor yawned. "By psychology! I happened to mention that
pink was Mary's favorite color."

Rogers opened his lips. He was plainly struggling with himself.

"Don't trouble," said Spence serenely. "I know what you feel it your
duty to say. But it isn't really your duty. And there would be no
use in saying it, anyway. I take my chances!"




CHAPTER XVIII

The long Transcontinental puffed steadily up toward the white-capped
peaks of a continent. They were a day out from Vancouver--a day
during which Desire had sat upon the observation platform, drugged
with wonder and beauty. She had known mountains all her life. They
were dear and familiar, and the sound of rushing water was in her
blood. But these heights and depths, these incredible valleys, these
ever-climbing, piling hills pushing brown shoulders through their
million pines, the dizzy, twisting track and the constant marvel of
the man-made train which braved it, held her spellbound and almost
speechless.

Fortunately, Aunt Caroline was indisposed and had remained all day
in the privacy of their reserved compartment. Only one such
reservation had been available and the men of the party had been
compelled to content themselves with upper berths in the next car.

To Desire, who presented that happy combination, a good traveller
still uncloyed by travel, every deft arrangement of the comfortable
train provided matter for curiosity and interest--the little ladders
for the upstair berths, the tiny reading-lamps, the paper bags for
one's new hat, the queer little soaps and drinking cups in sealed
oil paper--all these brought their separate thrill. And then there
was the inexhaustible interest of the travellers themselves. When
night had fallen and the great Outside withdrew itself, she turned
with eager eyes to the shifting world around her, a human world even
more absorbing than the panorama of the hills.

What was there, for instance, about that handsome old lady, from
Golden (fascinating name!) which permitted her to act as if the
whole train were her private suite and all the porters servants of
her person? She was the most autocratic old lady Desire had ever
seen and far younger and more alert than the tired-looking daughter
who accompanied her. They were going to New York. They went to New
York every year. desire wondered why.

She wondered, too, about the rancher's wife going home to Scotland
for the first time since her marriage. What did it feel like to be
going home--to a real home with a mother and brothers and sisters?
What did it feel like to be taking two dark-haired, bright-eyed
babies, as like as twins and with only a year between them, for the
fond approval of grand-parents across the seas? . . . The rancher's
wife looked as if she enjoyed it. But women will pretend anything.

Desire's eyes shifted to the inevitable honeymoon couple who were
going to Winnipeg to visit "his" people. The bride was almost
painfully smart, but she was pretty and "he" adored her. Her mouth
was small and red. It fascinated Desire. She could not keep her eyes
off it. It was like--well, it was the kind of mouth men seemed to
admire. She tried honestly to admire it her-self, but the more she
tried the less admirable she found it. She wondered if Benis--

"What do you think of the bride?" she murmured, under cover of a
magazine.

"Where?" said Benis, in an unnecessarily loud voice, laying down his
paper.

"S-ssh! Over there. The girl in green."

"Pretty little thing," said Benis. His tone lacked conviction.

"Lovely eyes, don't you think? Nice hair and such a darling nose.
But her mouth--isn't her mouth rather small?"

"Regular 'prunes and prisms,'" agreed Benis.

"It is very red, though."

"Lipstick, probably."

"But I thought you liked small, red mouths."

"Hate 'em," said Benis, who had a shockingly bad memory.

Desire went to bed thoughtful. "I suppose," she thought as she lay
listening to the swinging train, "men like certain things because
they belong to certain people and not because they like them really
at all." This was not very lucid but it seemed to satisfy Desire for
she stopped thinking and went to sleep.

Morning found them on the top of the world. desire was up and out
long before the mists had lifted. She watched the wonder of their
going, she saw the coming of the sun. She drew in, with great deep
breaths, the high, sweet air. The cream of her skin glowed softly
with the tang of it.

"Quite lovely!" said a voice behind her, and Desire turned to find
her solitude shared by the young old lady from Golden.

"Your complexion, I mean, my dear," said she, sitting down
comfortably in the folds of a fur coat. "I never use adjectives
about the mountains. It would seem impertinent. How old are you?"

Desire gave her age smiling. "Charming age," nodded the old lady.
"Youth is a wonderful thing. See that you keep it."

"Like you?" said Desire, her smile brightening.

The old lady looked pleased.

"Quite so," she said. "Never allow yourself to believe that silly
folly about a woman being as old as she looks. As if a mirror had
more mind than the person looking in it! I remember very well waking
up on the morning of my thirtieth birthday and thinking, 'I am
thirty. I am growing old.' But, thank heaven, I had a mind. I soon
put a stop to that. 'Not a day older will I grow!' I said. And I
never have. What's a mind for, if not to make use of?"

Desire looked a little awed at an audacity which defied time.

"Don't misunderstand me," went on her companion. "I don't mean that
I tried to look young. I was young. I am young still."

"Yes," said Desire. "I see what you mean. But--wasn't it lonely?"

The old lady patted her arm with an approving hand.

"Clever child!" she said. "Yes, of course it was lonely. But one
can't have everything. Pick out what you want most and cling to it.
Let the rest go. It's a good philosophy."

"Isn't it selfish?"

"Youth is always selfish," complacently. "I feel quite complimented
now when anyone calls me a selfish creature. You are a bride, aren't
you?"

Desire blushed beautifully. But one couldn't resent so frank an
interest.

"Yes," she said.

"That thin, dark man is your husband? The one with the chin?"

"He has a chin," doubtfully. "Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, he is my
husband."

"Odd you never noticed his chin before," commented the old lady.
"Well, look out! That man has reserves. Who is the other one?"

"A friend."

The old lady shook a well-kept finger.

"Inconvenient things, friends!" said she. "Far better without them."

"Haven't you any?"

"Not one. They went on. All old fogies now." Her air of boredom was
unfeigned.

"But you have your daughter."

"Too old!" The youthful eyes twinkled maliciously. "Now you, my
dear, would be nearer my age. For you have youth within as well as
without. Keep it. It's all there is worth having."

Desire smiled. But the words lingered. She had never valued her
youth. She had been impatient of it. And now to be told that it was
all there was worth having! It was the creed of selfishness. And
yet--had life already given her one of her greatest treasures and
had she come near to missing the meaning of the gift?

At breakfast she observed her husband's chin so narrowly that he
became uneasy, wondering if he had forgotten to shave. She looked at
John's chin, too, with reflective eyes. Undoubtedly it was much
inferior.

The train had conquered the mountains now and was plunging down upon
their farther side. Soon they were in the foot-hills and then
nothing but a flashing streak across an endless, endless tableland
of wheat. Desire, who had never seen the prairie, smiled
whimsically.

"It is like coming from the world's cathedral to the world's
breakfast-table!" said she.

Aunt Caroline snorted. For her part, she said, she found train
breakfasts much the same anywhere except near the Great Lakes, where
one might expect better fish.

It grew very hot. The effortless speed of the train rolled up the
blazing miles and threw them behind, league on league. The sun set
and rose on a level sky. The babies of the rancher's wife grew tired
and sticky. They were almost too much for their equally tired
mother, so half of them sat on Desire's lap most of the time.
desire's half seemed to bounce a great deal and gave bubbly kisses,
but the rings around its fat wrist and the pink dimples in its
fingers were well worth while keeping clean and cool just to look
at. It was true, as Desire reminded herself, that she did not care
for children, but anyone might find a round, fat one with cooey
laughs a pleasant thing to play with! She did it mostly when Benis
was in the smoker with John.

At Winnipeg the honeymoon couple left them and the old lady from
Golden, much to her disgust, was also compelled to stay over for a
day because her middle-aged daughter was train-sick. Other and less
interesting faces took their places.

Desire watched them hopefully but the only one who seemed appealing
was a sturdy prairie school teacher going "home." Desire liked the
school teacher. She was so solid, so sure of herself, so wrapped up
in and satisfied with something which she called "education." She
asked Desire where she had been educated. desire did not seem to
know. "Just anywhere," she said, "when father felt like it and had
time. And I taught myself shorthand."

"Then you aren't really educated at all?" said the teacher with
frank pity. "What a shame! Education is so important."

Benis was frankly afraid of her.

"But you need not be," Desire assured him. "She looks up to you. She
thinks that, being a professor, you have even more education than
she has."

"God forbid!" said Benis devoutly.

"Besides, she knows all about you. I found out today that she is an
Ontario girl. And she lives--guess where? In Bainbridge!"

Aunt Caroline (they were at dinner) looked up from her roast lamb
and remarked "Impossible."

"But she does, Aunt. She says so."

Aunt Caroline fancied that probably the young person was mistaken.
"Certainly," she said, "I have never heard of her."

"She lives," said Desire, "on Barker Street and she took her first
class teacher's certificate at Bainbridge Collegiate Institute."

Aunt Caroline fancied that they gave almost anyone a certificate
there. All one had to do was to pass the examinations. As to Barker
Street--there was a Barker Street, certainly. And this young person
might live on it. She, herself, was not acquainted with the
neighborhood.

"But she knows you," Desire persisted. "She said, 'Oh, is Miss
Caroline Campion your Aunt? I remember her from my youth up.'"

"Very impertinent," said Miss Campion. Her nephew's eyes began to
twinkle.

"Oh, everyone knows Aunt Caroline," he explained. "But then,
everyone knows the Queen of England."

Aunt Caroline was mollified. "Of course, in that sense--" She felt
able to go on with her roast lamb.

Dr. Rogers, who had listened to this interchange with delight, said
now that the young lady had been quite right about her place of
residence. She did live in Bainbridge, on Barker Street. He did not
know her personally but her older sister was a patient of his. The
mother and father were dead. Very nice, quiet people.

Desire was quite young enough to laugh and to point this with "Dead
ones usually are."

The school teacher, at another table, heard the laugh and felt a
passing sense of injustice. It seemed unfair that anyone so
obviously without education could feel free to laugh in that
satisfying way. It was plain that young Mrs. Spence scarcely
realized her sad deficiency. And it certainly was a little
discouraging that the cleverest men almost invariably. . . .

Fort William came and passed and in the sparkling sunshine of
another morning the train dashed into the wild Superior country
where the wealth lies under the rock instead of above it. To Desire,
her first glimpse of the Great Lake was like a glimpse of home. The
coolness of the air was grateful after prairie heat but, scarcely
had she welcomed back the smell of pine and fir, before it, too, was
left behind and they swung swiftly into a softer land--a land of
rolling fields and fences and farmhouses; of little towns, with
tree-lined roads; of streams less noisy and more disciplined; of fat
cows drowsy in the growing heat.

"This," said Aunt Caroline with a breath of proprietary
satisfaction, "is Ontario."

Desire, always literal, pointed out that according to the map in the
time-table, they had been in Ontario for some considerable time.

Aunt Caroline thought that the map was probably mistaken. "For," she
added with finality, "it was certainly not the Ontario to which I
have been accustomed."

This settled the matter for any sensible person.

"We are nearly home now," she went on kindly. "I hope you are not
feeling very nervous, my dear."

"I am not feeling nervous at all," said Desire with surprise.

Fortunately Aunt Caroline took this proof of insensibility in a
flattering light.

"Yes, yes," she said. "It is not, of course, as if you were arriving
alone. You can depend upon me entirely. John, are you sure that your
car will be in waiting?"

"I wired it to wait," grinned John. "And usually it's a good
waiter."

"Because," said Aunt Caroline, "we do not wish to be delayed at the
station. If Eliza Merry weather is there, the quicker we get away
the better. I am determined that she shall be introduced to Desire
exactly when other people are and not before. Please remember that,
Benis. Introduce Desire to no one at the station. I think, my dear,
we may put on our hats."

"It's an hour yet, Aunt."

"I know, but I do not wish to be hurried."

Desire put on her hat. It was because she was always willing to give
Aunt Caroline her way in small matters that she invariably took her
own in anything that counted. It is a simple recipe and recommended
to anyone with Aunts. . . .

"There's Potter's wood!" said Benis, who had been somewhat silent.

Desire looked out eagerly. But Potter's wood was just like any other
wood and--

"There's Sadler's Pond!" said John.

"They've cut down the old elm!" Aunt Caroline voiced deep
displeasure.

"And put up a bill-board," said Benis.

Desire felt a trifle lonely. These people, so close to her and yet
so far away, were going home.

"Oh, how I wish you weren't stopping off," said the rancher's wife,
an actual tear on her flushed cheek. "You've been so kind, Mrs.
Spence. And anyone more understanding with children I never saw.
When you've got a boy like my Sandy for your own--"

"By jove!" exclaimed Benis. "They're starting to cut down Miller's
hill at last."

Aunt Caroline rose flutteringly. "There is the water-tank," she
announced in an agitated voice. "Desire, where is your parasol? My
dear, don't kiss that child again, it's sticky. WHERE is my hand-
bag? John, do you see your car?"

"I don't SEE it," admitted John, "but--"

"Bainbridge!" shouted the brakeman.




CHAPTER XIX

Desire was conscious of a brown and gabled station with a bow-window
and flower-beds, a long platform where baggage trucks lumbered, the
calling of taxi-men, a confused noise of greeting and farewell, and
Aunt Caroline's voice uncomfortably near her ear.

"There she is!" whispered Aunt Caroline hoarsely. "Be careful! Don't
look!"

"Who? Where?" asked Desire, wondering.

"Eliza Merryweather. Second to the left."

There was another confused impression of curious faces, of one face
especially with eager eyes and bobbing grey curls, and then she was
caught, as it were, in the swirl of Aunt Caroline and deposited,
somewhat breathless, in a car which, providentially, seemed to
expect her.

Miss Campion was breathing heavily but her face was calm.

"She nearly got it," she said. "But not quite."

"Got what?" asked Desire, still wondering.

"An introduction. Where is Benis? My dear, DON'T LOOK! She is the
most determined person."

Miss Campion herself was staring straight ahead. Desire, much
amused, endeavored to do the same.

"Surely it is a trifle!" she murmured.

But Miss Campion was preoccupied. "Where can Benis be? John, do you
know what is keeping Benis? Oh, here he is," with an exclamation of
relief. "Now we can start. Did I hear you say 'trifle,' my dear?
There are no trifles in Bainbridge. John, I think we might drive
home by the Park."

They drove home by the Park. It was not a long drive, just a dozen
or so of quiet streets, sentineled by maples; a factory in a hollow;
a church upon a hill; a glimpse of two long rows of prosperous
looking business blocks facing each other across an asphalted
pavement; a white brick school where children shouted; then quiet
streets again, the leisurely rising of a boulevarded slope and--
home.

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