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.