Lighted Windows, page 11
“Don’t be absurd! As though those few words spoken by that wheezy little notary meant anything. You know and I know that Bruce only pulled me out of a silly shell-hole I had dug for myself.”
Grant’s usually cherubic expression hardened. “Says you. No one must know that it wasn’t a carefully planned flight—object matrimony. And if you ask me, I’ll add, at the risk of being thought a butter-in, that you’re in luck to have Bruce step up. That millionaire boy I’ll bet is a bad loser.”
Janice, indifferent to the crowd milling by, slipped her arm within his as they stood before the shop-window.
“Will Ned Paxton follow me, Tubby, when he thinks it over? The dread of his appearance will hang over me like the sword of Damocles.”
He patted her hand. “Lady, pull yourself together. Just remember that the sword of that old sport never fell—that is, it didn’t get into the news if it did. Suppose he does follow you? We’re not living in the dark ages, when a girl can be dragged off captive. Yours truly can land a telling left to the jaw even if he is a bit overweight, and you have a perfectly good husband to look after you, haven’t you?”
“A hus—” The word broke and rattled in her throat. Her fingers tightened on Grant’s arm. “That word makes the ceremony we went through this morning seem horribly real.”
“Looked like the real thing to me. If you’ve decided not to buy that mandarin coat, let’s go. Perhaps sometime you’ll strike pay-dirt. Then you can come back for it.”
It was fifteen minutes after the hour set, when they rattled up to the flying-field in a taxi spilling over with huge pink and red geranium blooms.
Would Bruce be annoyed at the delay, Janice wondered. Anything but—she told herself caustically as she saw him standing beside a smart roadster. A girl was leaning toward him. He was laughing as he held a lighter to her cigarette. So, that had been the “business” which had prevented him from joining the shopping expedition. She shrank back among the plants.
“To whom is Bruce talking, Tubby?”
He poked his head forward with the motion of a short-necked bird reconnoitering. “That girl in the snappy roadster? Peggy Casson, a gold king’s daughter. She’s forever running Our Hero down. Lucky she doesn’t pilot her own plane or we’d have her dropping in on us at headquarters. Want to meet her?”
“No. Not with this scratched face.”
“Your face scratched has hers beaten a mile. She’s going anyway. Hi, Bruce.”
Janice watched Harcourt as he approached. He was in his jumpers, his helmet swung from his hand. She never had thought of him as having social contacts in this wilderness. Her mind went back to the days when he and Billy had stepped out with girls before the war. She had flamingly resented his popularity then. Was that what pricked like a burr against her heart now? Hadn’t she grown up? Apparently he was not annoyed at the delay. Why should he be? Doubtless he had been well entertained.
“Why didn’t you bring the greenhouse?” he teased. As he and Grant helped extricate her from among the mass of plants, a radio broadcast over the field:
“Weather report. Few broken clouds. Ceiling three thousand feet. Visibility eight miles. Northwest winds.”
“That’s all right. Leave the plants where they are for a minute, Tubby. I want to talk with you while Janice gets into her flying-suit.”
He drew Grant one side. Janice heard the murmur of his voice, punctuated by an occasional eager assent from Tubby “Sure!” “Great idea!” “Ba-gosh! I get you.” “I’m all excited.”
As Harcourt turned away with a final word he caught his sleeve. “Hold on, Bruce, I forgot something.” He held his chief by a strap on the sheepie coat.
“Of course, get it. Look for us at five o’clock.”
She watched in amazed unbelief as Grant returned to the plant-laden taxi, stepped in, gave an order to the driver who wheeled the cab and started townward.
“Is Tubby returning the plants, Bruce?”
“No. Come on.”
The plane had more the look of a sinister-eyed creature than before, as Janice approached it.
“Hop in!” He fastened the straps. “Decided that I would stop on the way back and inspect a gang which is repairing a stretch of track not far from the shore of a beautiful lake. The camp has a good landing-field—we keep in touch with the various outfits by plane—and this bus was designed to take-off and stop in a small area. We’ll fly over hidden reservoirs of oil more extensive than any yet discovered, above gold deposits richer than the Yukon. They are so far from the railroads and shipping facilities that it would cost more to develop them than they are worth. No telling what magic aviation will work. It may prove the ‘Open Sesame!’ to fabulous wealth. It’s a grizzly and Kodiak belt. Might see a bear!” His laughing eyes met hers. “No danger at this time of day or I wouldn’t take you. Thought you would like to see the country. Seemed a pity not to use the contents of that bulging basket the Samp girls provided. We will lunch on land and takeoff in time to reach headquarters in the late afternoon. You said you liked parties.”
“Adore them.”
“Can’t have our wedding day all business.”
This time she was quite sure that her heart had parked in her throat for keeps. “Our wedding day! Bruce. You are not taking this crazy mix-up seriously, are you?”
He lowered his goggles, climbed into the seat beside her, adjusted the earphone. “You voice sounds terrified. Afraid to fly with me alone? I’m a reliable pilot.”
He had deliberately misunderstood her. What had she started by her cowardly lie? He should find that she could be a good sport some of the time.
“Of course I am not afraid. Tubby says that you’re a wow of an aviator. Aren’t we to wait for him?”
“No. He will charter a small plane which will take him—and those million or two plants, directly to headquarters. He has things to do for me. Pull down your goggles.” As her fingers fumbled, he stripped off his gloves, gently pushed aside her hand, adjusted the glasses.
“Remember the fishing trips, Jan? You trusted me then. Can’t you now?”
At his smile, the friendliness of his voice, her heart folded contented wings. Her spirit stood a-tiptoe with eagerness.
“I do trust you. I would rather be tagging along with you, Bruce, than be doing anything else in the world.”
He opened his lips, closed them in a grim line. She remembered that she had called it a fighting line the night they had dined together in New York. What had he been about to say? He leaned over, nodded to the man at the tie-chain. The dusky breed called:
“All set?”
“All set.”
“Give her the gas.”
The mechanic snapped the chain-catch free. Harcourt opened the throttle. The plane taxied along the field gathering headway, soared.
On and on, through thin cloud, out again. Janice’s thoughts were a chaotic jumble of past, present and future. What had she done to the life of the man sitting as still as a bronze pilot beside her? Was that a torch of flame spouting from the serrated mountain-top? What had she done to her own life? Shut the door of it in Ned Paxton’s face. She had that satisfaction. She hadn’t been fair to him about the army. Even if influence had boosted him into a captaincy, he had been decorated for extraordinary bravery. He had many good qualities to offset those she hated. Was that why he had held her so long? How dense the forests were. What would Billy think when he heard of her marriage? Was the silver ribbon clinging to the rocky cliffs a railroad? Would Ned follow her into the wilderness? That sinister gorge with precipices on both sides dropped sheer to the turbulent bed of a mountain torrent. She could hear the ceaseless roar, the hollow boom of the cataract. Flying gave one too much time to think. Suppose Ned Paxton did appear at headquarters?
“Cold?” Harcourt asked through the phone. Had he felt her shiver at thought of her late fiancé? She shook her head.
“Coming down on that shore.”
Problems and doubts vanished as she watched the twin lakes below. One was as blue as a sapphire, one as green as a chrysoprase. Through the narrow, rocky gorge which connected them plunged and frothed a noisy cataract. As the plane lost altitude forests and fields and glinting water came up to meet it. From among the trees back of a field three tiny columns of smoke rose and spread like the violet gauze skirts of a danseuse.
The wheels lighted like a butterfly. The plane staggered a little, shuddered a little, stopped. Harcourt cut the switch, pushed up his goggles, smiled.
“Like it?”
Janice released the breath she had been holding during the landing.
“Love it! It’s marvelous! How still the world seems!”
The lake stretched smooth as a mirror, with a mirror’s sheen. The shrubs and trees and tall seed-grass which bordered it plunged their reflected tops down into its deep-lying shadows. A man with several days’ growth of beard grinned a welcome as he approached.
“Glad to see you, Chief. We’ve been hoping you’d get around.”
“Janice, this is Johnson, the section boss here. I wanted Mrs. Harcourt to see this lake. Know of a good spot beside the stream where we can have luncheon?”
So easily and casually he announced his marriage. Janice felt her color mount as she met the man’s astonished eyes. He pulled himself together with obvious effort.
“If you can call any place in this God-awful country good. As though we hadn’t trouble enough fighting flies and mosquitoes, a couple of hunters have been stirring up the bears. Better take some cushions. I’ll carry them. This way.”
He crashed into what seemed an unbroken wilderness. Gray-bearded trees stood like spectral sentinels on guard. Weathered branches held great beds of moss, like mammoth hanging gardens, from which sprouted and dripped ferns and vines. Under them the ground was a maze of fallen branches and tree trunks, some of them brilliantly green. The air was stirred by the murmur of running water, perfumed with the scent of flowering shrubs, the spicy fragrance of spruce, the smell of rich leaf mold. Janice tripped in a net-work of trailing vines. Harcourt caught her arm.
“Watch your step!”
He kept his hold as they dodged overhanging boughs which reached out clutching tendrils, stumbled over the rough ground, crossed crushed and broken underbrush, where some huge creature had left the story of its passing. They emerged into a clearing through which the brook flowed swiftly, singing to itself, now softly, now loudly, as it tumbled and rippled its way to the lake. Mammoth ferns with drooping fronds clustered along its banks. The devil’s club spread wide tropical leaves. Bushes of berries splashed a tangled mass of vines with yellow gold. The swift water was white as snow, the deep pools black, the shallows clear amber. Part way up the stream a fall, a few feet high, plunged into a sombre, bush-rimmed pool. The pagan beauty of the spot was awe inspiring.
Harcourt arranged the cushions on a comparatively smooth stretch of ground. “Sit here while I get a fire started.”
In a few moments twigs and small logs crackled cheerily. Johnson, having accumulated a pile of wood, departed. Janice laid a white cloth the Samp sisters had provided, bordered it with feathery ferns. She spread out the tempting lunch. Gulls’ eggs stuffed with anchovy; sandwiches so wafer thin you could taste the knife, as the English say. Little balls of minced salmon, coated with tomato jelly. A jar of mayonnaise to accompany them. Dates stuffed with orange marmalade or marshmallows. Coffee, hot, pungent. From the distance came the sound of men’s voices, the ring of steel on steel.
“We seem very near the workmen.” She passed sandwiches to Harcourt seated on the ground across the cloth.
“Their camp is just beyond here. Later I will talk business with Johnson, after which we’ll take-off again. This harmless appearing brook did its darndest during the spring thaw and flooded our tracks. We are raising them to a new grade line.”
His voice ran off her mind like rain from a slanting roof. Not a word soaked in. She felt his hand on hers.
“You haven’t been listening, have you?”
She shook her head. Her eyes met his steadily, directly. “No, Bruce, I haven’t. I was thinking that it was a pity I hadn’t been dropped from the plane before I messed your life up as I have done.”
He clasped his brown, muscular hands about one knee. “You haven’t messed up my life, Jan. Today merely precipitated what had to be done if you are to stay here. When I’ve been away from headquarters my mind has been half on you, half on my work. When I saw you in the kennel yard—it stops my heart now to think of it—I swore to myself that either you would go back to Billy, or you would give me the right to look after you here. I intended to fight it out with you tonight. Paxton’s appearance merely precipitated the crisis.”
“Crisis! I’d call it a climax.”
“Not a climax, only the end of a chapter. I had thought we would talk things over when we reached the H house, but I believe you’ll be happier if we get it behind us now. Let’s begin at the moment Paxton touched you on the shoulder at the hotel. You set me up between you as a barrier, didn’t you?”
She nodded. “I’m soggy with remorse every time I think of it.”
“Stop thinking of it. It will be weeks before the last boat goes out. I told you that one acquired the habit of thinking things through in the wilderness. You will know by the time you leave just what you want.”
“I know now that I don’t want Ned Paxton.”
“You think you don’t. Wait till he appears at the mouth of the inlet in his palatial yacht. Meanwhile, get this straight, except that you will take up residence in my cabin and be called Mrs. Harcourt, life for you will go on as usual. You will have your secretarial work to help make time fly. I shall be away days at a time. I shan’t bother you.”
“You wouldn’t bother me if you stayed, Bruce.”
He stood up. He looked immensely tall, his face bronzely immobile.
“Thanks. I will interview the section boss, then we’ll take-off.”
“Why not give these eats to the men? Miss Martha provided for an able-bodied army.” As she re-packed the basket he frowned down upon her.
“Didn’t you eat anything?”
“I’m not hungry. I ate an enormous breakfast.”
He caught her hands in his. Held them. “Don’t let this marriage spoil our friendship, Jan.”
She smiled at him valiantly. “I won’t. My mind will settle down after a time. At present it still rocks. Don’t worry about me. Go interview your section boss.”
“I’ll be back in fifteen minutes. Don’t mind what Johnson said about bears. They are not feeding at this time of day. You are perfectly safe here, I can hear you if you call. Exercise all you can, we have a long flight ahead of us, but don’t wander away from the brook.”
Janice watched till his tall, lean figure was lost in the underbrush. She poked about humming, “If a great big bear should come along down, what would I do, what would I do?” Having collected a dozen varieties of ferns, she perched on a huge boulder beside the chattering stream. She rearranged her hair with the aid of the small mirror in her compact. Rays of sunlight filtered through the trees, dappled it with gold. A dry leaf floated down, settled on a patch of emerald moss like a broken butterfly.
Heavenly peaceful. Not that she would want to spend her life in this back-water—she would much rather live where she had to do some hard, muscle-straining swimming—but the quiet gave her a chance to think things through, made her realize again what an atom she was in the scheme of things. It couldn’t be mere chance that Bruce should have appeared at the exact psychical moment. She could see his eyes, his clear, direct eyes. Hear his clipped voice.
“Met an acquaintance, Jan?”
Having blundered into this situation, was she big enough to meet it staunchly, without self-consciousness, confusion? Trial companionship, Bruce had called it. Not such a bad idea. She looked at the narrow band on the third finger of her left hand, saw it for the first time. Platinum and diamonds! He must have bought it during the ten minutes he had given her to decide. Could he afford a ring so choice? She knew so little about him. He was taking it for granted that she would go out on the last boat. Would she? Millicent Hale had remained at headquarters through a winter. Millicent Hale? How much had Bruce cared for her?
Brows knit, color coming and going, she sat motionless so long that two martens in a driftwood dam down stream resumed their interrupted house building. Their stealthy motions brought Janice’s attention back to her surroundings. What a picture! For the first time she thought of her camera safely reposing in the cockpit. In the excitement of landing she had forgotten it. Tubby would be exasperated when he heard of her forgetfulness. She watched the little animals thoughtfully. How the instinct of home-making persisted everywhere. Those two furry creatures laboring, Bruce Harcourt and the sick boy planning and building a cabin in this wilderness. Bruce mushing back to headquarters through the snow, sensing home behind the lighted windows of the H house.
How still the forest was. The fire had died down to blinking red coals and flaky gray ashes. Violet haze hung above it like a brooding spirit. A bluejay as large as a New York State crow, which had perched on a swaying branch across the stream, regarded her from beady eyes in a pert, tip-tilted head. A humming bird flashed and stabbed into the hearts of pink blossoms on a tall spike. Bees hummed. Long festoons of moss swung like flitting gray wraiths. The shadows were turning to amethyst dusk. She could hear the men’s voices, the crashing of branches.
Squawking protest, the curious bluejay took wing. The martens vanished. She jumped to her feet, her heart pounding. The sound of snapping branches wasn’t coming from the direction in which Bruce had gone. The alders across the stream shook violently. A bear! Darn her imagination! Hadn’t Bruce said that they weren’t feeding at this time of day? Just the same—
Her eyes dilated in terror. Across the brook a great Kodiak crashed through a clump of alders. It stopped. Regarded her, its head swaying from side to side as though in pain. Two bloody marks on a shoulder were alive with flies. To the girl’s excited fancy the creature looked as big as a house. With an infuriated growl it splashed one great foot into the brook. Coming for her? She kept her eyes on it as she backed cautiously away. She tried to call. Her voice wouldn’t come. Nightmare, that was what it was, nightmare. What red eyes! Terrible eyes! An ear-splitting roar. That ought to bring the men. They were coming. She could hear their yells. Branches crashing. The bear stopped in the middle of the brook.
