Janet: Her Winter in Quebec/Chapter 11

HERE now, Ronald?"

Ronald, in dinner coat and spotless tie, had halted before his mirror for one last brushing of his thick, dark hair. His door stood ajar, and Janet's face was in the crack. At her question, he sent her a welcoming smile by way of the glass.

"It's the office dinner, to-night, you know."

Also by way of the glass, Janet sent him a wry face. Then she accepted the welcome and, pushing open the door, entered the room.

"How can you go to that thing?" she asked disdainfully. "How can I help it?"

"Stay at home. There will be all sorts of stupid people there," she said, as she crossed the room and stood staring into the mirror with obvious satisfaction in the rich, dark beauty of the pictured face.

"I can't well get out of going. The chief wouldn't like it."

"Why not?"

"He counts a lot on this annual dinner of his. Says it makes us better acquainted."

"But you don't want to get better acquainted," Janet said sagaciously.

"No; I can't say I do," Ronald made honest confession. "I like to pick my own friends. Still, one can't stand out on a matter like this."

"I don't see why."

"Because, next time, I'd be left to sit it out alone, either in the office, or outside." Ronald laid down his brushes and gave one final tweak to his tie. "Besides," he added then; "one or two of the fellows aren't so bad; and, if it comes to that, there are stupid people here."

Swiftly Janet made a face at the opposite wall.

"Even in this house?" she queried, in a whisper.

Ronald laughed. Then he nodded. However, Janet promptly disagreed with the ground that she herself had taken.

"And they aren't stupid, either, only pesky," she said thoughtfully. "Yes, brother, I mean just pesky. It's not slang, only a dowdy old word that most people are too fashionable to use; but it fits some people to a T." Resting one elbow on the dressing-table, she arranged the ebony-backed brushes to her liking, rubbed her finger across and across their intricate monograms, and then glanced up once more. "I wonder which is worse: to be just pesky, or downright bad?" she added. "For my part, I'd rather get on with the bad ones. You can generally tell what they will do next; but Rob and Day—" Silently Ronald pointed to the opposite wall. Janet's voice was rising to the danger limit.

"People catch their own names, when they can't hear anything else," he explained. "I really don't think Day is in her room, though."

But Janet had cast herself down on the bed.

"Oh, I do want to see Sidney," she said. "She always made things go right."

Turning his back to the mirror, Ronald sat down on the edge of the low dressing table and fell to swinging one foot to and fro.

"The thing I can't understand, is what set them going wrong in the first place," he said meditatively.

Janet cast one swift, shrewd glance up at him; then she lowered her eyes. Until that moment, she had supposed that Ronald was in possession of all the facts, that his loyalty to her arose from approval, not from ignorance. Again and again the two Leslies had discussed the hostility of the two Argyles, but in such general terms that never once had it dawned upon Janet that her brother might be lacking the clue to the entire situation. Granted that he held it, no need to discuss it. Penitential thoughts came easily to Janet; not so, penitential words. Nevertheless, it is doubtful whether, loving and trusting Ronald absolutely, she could so long have kept him in ignorance of her leading share in the general catastrophe, had she not taken it for granted that he was already in possession of it in all its details. From certain utterances of Ronald, she had gathered the fact that sparks had flown freely between himself and the Argyles, just before he had dashed out to her rescue. Quite as a matter of course, Janet had assumed that Day had spoken to her discredit and that Ronald had resented Day's tale. Under such conditions, it was scarcely to be wondered at that Janet, knowing the real truth of any charges Day might bring, should prefer to maintain a sturdy reticence regarding them. Discussion would lead to an inevitable acknowledgment that she was indefensibly in the wrong.

"Then you really don't know what is the matter?" she asked slowly.

And Ronald made despairing answer,—

"No; I'm blest if I do."

For an instant, Janet started to speak. Then, as her eyes fell to the little watch that dangled from its pin, she checked the impulse. Inside of ten minutes, Ronald must leave the house; and her own accountability for the present state of war could never, she felt, be properly discussed within the narrow limits of ten minutes. Instead,—

"Do you care?" she asked flippantly.

"Yes," Ronald said honestly; "I do care a long way more than I like to own."

Janet gave a sniff of unalloyed hostility.

"I don't," she said mendaciously.

"I miss them; at least, I miss Day," Ronald said slowly, and, as he spoke, his face clouded.

"I don't," Janet repeated.

In spite of his trouble, Ronald smiled.

"Nor Rob?" he queried.

"Not when I have you," she retorted.

"But you used to have us both."

"Not so much as you might think. There was always Day, you see."

"I don't see what she had to do with it—"

"Oh!" Janet's tone was conclusive. "You don't."

And there came an interval of silence. Ronald broke it

"Anyway, I wish it would end. I hate this sort of thing, and I'd give a good deal to know what it really was that started it."

"Ask them," Janet suggested, her eyes on the loosening edge of her shoe-sole.

"I did."

"What did they say?"

"Nothing. It was Rob, and he just laughed and said, 'Speaking of rats, I believe I left my book upstairs.'" Janet pondered.

"What in the world did he mean?" she said at last, unable to read any sinister statement into the words.

"You'll have to ask him. Then he picked up his stick and himself, and went off and left me sitting there." In spite of herself, Janet's sigh of relief was audible. Then, as Ronald arose and began looking about for his hat, she asked abruptly,—

"When have you heard from Sidney?"

"Tuesday. Why?"

"Nothing." Janet rose in her turn, for it was obvious that the discussion must end. "I only wish she were here to bully her compatriots into behaving themselves."

Nevertheless, as she mounted the stairs to her own room, Janet Leslie was uncomfortably conscious that it was someone besides the Argyles who needed to be bullied into good behaviour. Blame lay on both sides; to one side alone belonged the honour, or the dishonour, of being the first cause of blame, and Janet, in her saner moments, admitted to herself that she was it. Worst of all, up to the present hour, she had supposed that everybody in the house was aware of her position, and half of her defiant disregard of consequences had had its source in that belief. Now that, for no cause whatsoever, she had assumed this attitude of brazen indifference, she found it hard to see how she could return to the paths of meekness, and yet sacrifice no whit of her dignity. Some day, she would talk it over with Ronald, perhaps confess the truth, perhaps even ask his advice, although she knew in advance what form that advice would take. As for Rob— She shrugged her thin little shoulders. His opinions did not count. He was an American and rude withal, critical and rude. She would be glad when the time came for his return to New York.

Descending the stairs, a half-hour later, Janet met Rob at the top of the lower flight. She stepped back to allow him to pass, moved less by consideration for his lameness than by a sudden memory of the old-time superstition that it is ill luck to pass on the stairs. For the moment, as he saw her standing there, Rob forgot the feud and hailed her jovially, for the intoxication of the wintry air and of the moonlight was upon him, and other and indoor things seemed of small account. All that glorious, clean, clear afternoon, he had been sleighing with Day, out past Sainte Foy church to Cap Rouge and home by the Sillery Road. In the still, cold air, the snow had squeaked beneath the horses' hoofs, the bells had rung out crisply, and the dropping sun had cast long bluish shadows across the glistening fields. Then the sun had fallen through the yellow west, and the golden afterglow had risen up to meet the licking tongues of the aurora, until both afterglow and aurora had lost their lustre before the dazzling circle of the winter moon. The driver's calls to his horses sounded out as sharply as ever; but, on the seat behind him, the talk had fallen into silence while, as though to take the place of words, one fur-clad shoulder had nestled against the other. And Rob, in the growing darkness, had smiled to himself, as he had recalled the dainty remoteness, only a year before, of that same little gray fur coat.

Just outside the toll-gate, the horses broke their trot and fell to plodding soberly along. An instant later, however, they shied violently. From out the darkening landscape, a vision had sprung up from beneath their very feet, a vision whose stiff black hat was bound to his head with a knotted handkerchief, and who pried himself to his feet by means of a snowshoe in each mittened hand.

"Oh, it's you again," the vision said, in level, unaccented voice. "I thought it was you, you know."

Day omitted conventional greeting. Not all the repetition in the world could accustom her to Sir George's trick of springing up upon the scene like a roving British Jack-in-the-box.

"Where did you come from?" she asked abruptly.

"Here. I was resting a bit, you know. I've learned to do as you said."

"What was that?" Day demanded, wholly at a loss to remember the especial nugget of wisdom to which Sir George was obviously referring.

"To sit on my shoes," he made reply. "If I lay one across the other, they don't leak so very much and it's far more comfortable than sitting on the snow."

"But what do you sit down for at all?" Day persisted.

In the pale yellow moonlight, Sir George bent upon her a glance of rebuke for her limited understanding.

"Because I get so very tired," he made answer then.

From an ominous trembling of the gray-furred shoulder beside him, Rob judged that Day was likely to be speechless, judged, too, that it would be well for him to come to her relief.

"Good evening, Sir George," he said.

"Oh, good evening!" Sir George sought for his glass, but missed it by reason of the size of the thumb of his mitten. Without the glass, he peered up uncertainly at the face above him. "I'm afraid I haven't—"

"Oh, yes, you have. I'm Rob Argyle."

"Oh! The fellow in the sleeping car?"

"Yes."

"The lame one?"

"The very same."

"Good evening. I say, how's your leg?"

"Cold as blazes," Rob made cheery answer. "How are yours?"

"Mine? Oh, but mine aren't lame, you know," Sir George explained dubiously.

"Not yet. They will be, though."

Sir George cast an anxious glance down at the members under discussion.

"What makes you think they will?"

"Because it's not good for them to go snowshoeing all over the Cove Fields, and then sit down in the snow to rest."

Sir George looked up at the occupants of the sleigh, his lower jaw dangling loosely in the sling of the kerchief.

"Perhaps it isn't," he gave assent. "But it's so tiresome, this snowshoeing, that a fellow has to rest up a bit now and then."

Day once more plunged into the conversation.

"What makes you do it, if you find it so tiresome?" she asked.

"Because it's the thing to do here, you know. When I go home, they'll all ask me if I went snowshoeing in Quebec, just as they'll ask me if I saw Wall Street, when I was in New York, or if I ate cheese in Neufchâtel," Sir George explained. Then he started suddenly, his languid attention evidently impaled upon the point of a new idea. "I say, you know," he queried; "how does it happen that you two chaps are together?"

This time, Day stared at him in unmixed astonishment Could it be that Sir George Porteous was losing that minus quantity, his wits?

"Why shouldn't we be together?" she demanded, so shortly that Sir George Porteous dodged at the question as at a physical blow.

"No reason," he reassured her; "no reason at all. It's all right, you know. I only thought it a bit strange, when you're the only two friends I have in the city, that you should happen to be friends of each other, too."

Day hunted for her handkerchief. Rob's own voice was so unsteady as to drive him to seek the briefest possible words.

"Very strange, inasmuch as this is my sister."

"Really?"

"Yes."

Sir George turned to Day.

"And he is your brother?"

"Yes."

For the space of a moment, Sir George pondered. Then,—

"How rummy!" he observed, with thoughtful satisfaction.

It ended with their bringing Sir George home to the Château. Wedged bodkinwise between them and supported by a snowshoe in either mittened hand, Sir George came riding in the Grande Allée. For the most part, he communed with himself. Once, however, he broke the silence and gave tongue to the stars.

"It's quite my own idea," he assured an imaginary audience. "A fellow's hat comes off in the drifts, and it's no end of a fuss to get down and pick it up. Once it's tied on, you see, there's no more trouble."

And so it was that, intoxicated with ozone and cold and suppressed hilarity, Rob Argyle, coming up the stairs, was in a frame of mind to forget his feuds and all similar concerns and share his overflowing jollity with whomsoever he might meet. And, as it chanced, he met Janet just at the head of the stairs.

"Hullo, Janet!" he called jovially. "How goes it?"

"Very well, thank you."

The echo of his own voice dulled his ears to the icy chill of Janet's reply. From below, through the open door of his mother's room, he could hear, by occasional words and many giggles, that Day was giving her mother a full account of their recent meeting. It was for him to pour the same tale into the ears of Janet.

"You've missed it, Janet. You ought to have been with us," he continued, with a bland disregard of the fact that, uninvited, Janet would scarcely have been likely to have made a part of their expedition. "We've been interviewing the freak of the ages, and you'd better believe he was amusing."

"Who was he?" Janet asked sedately, as Rob halted before her with the obvious intention of carrying the tale of his adventures into its last chapter.

"One of your crazy Britishers. We found him sitting on his snowshoes, out by the Cove Fields, and we have just deposited him at his own door."

"Where was that?" Janet still held her voice level, although, looking up at Rob, it took all her resolution not to meet his mood half way. Rob's face, alert and alight, was most friendly and winning just then, his yellow hair lay crisply about his forehead, his blue eyes were eager and alive with fun, while his fur-lined coat, reaching to his heels, added inches to his height and manliness to his whole figure. As he stood there, cap in hand, smiling at her with the gay friendliness she had supposed forever dead, Janet could feel the whole gentler, better side of her nature struggling to rush out and greet his own. It would be so good to be back again on the old, familiar, jovial terms. Not even to Ronald had she been willing to confess how much she had missed Rob out of her life. And now here he was, forgetting the past, and ready— She drew herself up sharply. That was just the trouble. He was forgetting the past, probably because it was a matter of no importance to him. Very likely he had not minded it in the least that they had quarrelled; very likely it never had occurred to him to notice how systematically she had held herself aloof from his society. That was all she had counted to him, something to play with when Day was busy, something to be thrown aside and forgotten when Day was at hand and at leisure. And, in the meantime, she had been wasting long hours of worry over a situation which, in so far as Rob's minding it was concerned, was wholly imaginary. Her bad temper, like most other sins, had reacted on herself and made only herself uncomfortable. And, as Janet's mind went leaping along from point to point, she was conscious of a furious regret for the tear-soaked handkerchief which she had just now rolled into a tight little ball and thrown into her top bureau drawer. She raised her head defiantly; but she turned her back to the light.

"Where was that?" Rob was echoing. "The Château, of course; that seems to be the freakshop for the entire province. This fellow is the gem of the whole show, though. He was in the sleeper, the day I came up. Since then, I've seen him, three or four times. He has a trick of appearing at odd hours, like the Fool in Shakespeare's plays, only Shakespeare never made one half so fooly."

"How interesting!" Janet's tone was modelled on that of certain of her mother's callers. It was remote and elderly and wholly indulgent to the vivacious viewpoint of her companion.

"You bet he is! Last time, we found him just as a couple of nuns were shooing him out from the Hôtel Dieu cloisters. To-day, togged out in scarlet mitties and a bandage over his hat to hold it on, he was doing a trick on snowshoes. At least, he is never trite. He does all the regulation things; but he manages to add a fresh, artistic touch to the way he goes about them. Some day or other, I expect to find him sliding down the face of Cape Diamond, to see if it hurt Montgomery when he fell. What have you been doing, all afternoon?" Rob wound up cheerily.

"Sewing."

Rob shrugged his shoulders. "Not out, this jolly afternoon?"

Janet's lips shut for a moment.

"I had nothing to take me out," she replied then.

"Why didn't you come along with us? There would have been plenty of room. You're so little, we could stick you in anywhere," Rob said benevolently.

The matter-of-course assurance of his tone nettled Janet.

"As a general thing, I don't invite myself," she answered, with an ominous dignity.

Rob laughed, as he mounted the last step of the stairs and turned towards his own door.

"I suspect that's one on me, Janet," he remarked, with easy good-humour. "Well, never mind. Next time, just remind me, and I'll invite you."

Janet started to speak. Then, as she heard Day's step in the hall below, she turned around just in time to catch the merry, mischievous gesture of warning and of feigned terror which Day was sending up to her brother in the hall above. For an instant, Janet flushed hotly. She was sure that Day had been there long, listening and keeping up a commentary of derisive gesticulation which, no doubt, had gone far to account for Rob's hilarity. Rob had called the stranger a crazy Britisher. Doubtless, he had been used to call her another and, when her back was turned, to make merry over her with Day. She stiffened with the thought, unjust, unmerited though it was. Then she cast one scornful glance down at Day, one glance of half-veiled antagonism up at Rob.

"Thank you," she said curtly. "I only accept invitations from my friends."

Then she turned away, and, mounting the stairs to her own room, she opened her top bureau drawer and sought for her handkerchief.