Janet: Her Winter in Quebec/Chapter 20

HREE weeks later, as Ronald came up from the office for the Saturday half-holiday, an unwonted mood of buoyancy lay upon him, making even the rivulets in the streets, sloppy with the first spring thaw, matters of small account. For two or three weeks, the office had been coming upon Ronald's nerves: the early punctuality of his morning start down town, the long, dull day which began and ended under the electric lights, the growing responsibility of business which had been thrown upon him after his last talk with his chief, the care and anxiety, growing even faster, as to whether the contents of the coal-bin would outlast an abnormally severe winter: all these had worn upon him and strained his nerves to their utmost tension. Under the wear and tear of small worries which concerned themselves with the length of life of his shoes and gloves, with the least possible amount of draft which could be given to the furnace, his step was losing its alertness, his rich colour was fading a little, his shoulders were less erect. By steady self-control, he kept his temper level; but the winter, long and pitiless, had told upon his sense of humour. He talked less, and he left to Rob and Janet the sparring which enlivened the hours at table. Now and then, as the clock struck two, and then three, and then four, he rolled over on his pillow and wondered what would be the end of it all. And Mr. Argyle was talking of returning home at Easter. There would be three long months, before the summer tide of boarders would set in, even supposing that his mother would feel herself able to cope with the transient tourist tribe.

That noon, however, with a sudden and unaccountable rush, all depression had fled from Ronald's mood. With his head held high, his tread ringing out upon the pavement, he went tramping up the hill towards home. It was something that his tread could ring out on any pavement, so long had the walks been muffled in their winter coats. The streets which led to Lower Town were crossed and crossed again by threads of running water; and the sky above, a clear Italian blue, held in its tints the promise of an early spring. Ronald's tread grew even more alert, as he ran up the steps at home and fitted his latchkey in the T-shaped hole. It was a glorious day. He would lure Rob out for the longest possible walk.

To his surprise, he found Sir George Porteous enthroned before the library fire. Rob, in a chair at the opposite end of the rug, was making heroic efforts to keep the conversation going; but it was plain to Ronald's eye that Sir George was low in his mind, and that Rob's benevolent efforts were fast coming to an end. Rob Argyle was broad-minded and open to conviction. He had been quite ready to take Jack Blanchard, Pullman hireling though he was, upon familiar, friendly terms. Not all the broad-mindedness in the world, however, could make Rob understand the new position of Sir George Porteous inside the Leslie home.

"I never yearned to own a monkey, myself," he confided to Day, one night. "Still, if you must keep one, I'm glad he never fails to be amusing."

Nevertheless, if only out of deference to his mother's wish, Rob treated Sir George with a scrupulous courtesy whose only lapses were marked by occasional hasty retreats from the room.

"I've a beastly cough, you know," Rob had said, by way of explanation of one such exit. "It seems to hang on me, too. I begin to think I sha'n't get rid of it, until I'm back in New York."

As Ronald's step sounded in the hall, Sir George sat up in his chair and betook himself to his eye-glass.

"Oh, it's you; is it? I came to see you. How do you do?" he explained, when Ronald appeared upon the library threshold.

"Glad to see you." Ronald nodded affably, for his buoyant mood was still upon him. "Where have you been keeping yourself, this last week?"

"I have been thinking," Sir George announced sombrely.

And Rob, choking, fled from the room.

It was merciful, perhaps, that he did flee, for Ronald, disconcerted by his hurried exit, fitted his reply to the accent of Sir George, rather than to his words.

"I'm sorry," he said politely.

And then silence fell.

Sir George broke the silence, but only after a long interval.

"I'm in a regular brute of a mess," he said.

Swiftly Ronald's mind journeyed to and fro from policemen to usurers. Sir George scarcely seemed a roistering blade, neither was he likely to be in financial difficulties. Ronald's mind leaped for- ward and took its stand upon a third alternative. Sir George must be in love.

"I am sorry," he repeated. "Can I be of any use?"

"I really don't know," Sir George responded blankly. "My uncle is dead."

The matter-of-course announcement, coupled with the fact of his twice having used the same phrase of sympathy, hampered Ronald's tongue.

"How very sad!" he said at length.

Sir George leaned back in his chair.

"You find it so?" he queried dispassionately.

"Of course. Don't you?"

"Oh, no. Why should I? He was so old, you know, and had lost his mind and the use of his legs," Sir George made tranquil explanation. "It wasn't sudden in the least."

"How did you hear?" Ronald inquired politely, although somewhat at a loss how to frame his condolences.

"They cabled. You see, I inherit," Sir George explained, with utter nonchalance.

"Inherit?"

"Yes, the title, and the estates, and all that. I'll have to be going home. There's the mess."

Ronald's face cleared a little, as he grasped what appeared to be the only clue to Sir George's depression.

"And you hate to say good-by to us, Sir George?"

"Oh, no; I don't mind about that," Sir George gave disconcerting answer.

"But you feel badly about your uncle?"

"Oh, no; it's not that, either. I never saw him but once. He was a queer old duck, and he and my father had a row," Sir George made still more disconcerting answer.

"Then what do you mind?" Ronald asked bluntly. "I don't see that you have much cause to complain."

His head immovable against the back of his chair, Sir George allowed his eyes to follow the tall figure of his companion who had risen impatiently and gone to pacing the rug. His jaw, meanwhile, sagged slightly, and his expression was one of tranquil complacency.

"I'm feeling fussed," he said at length. "It really is a brute of a mess."

"What is?" Ronald demanded, while he halted midway of the rug and rested his elbow beside the clock on the mantel.

"It all," Sir George explained. "My going home, and the things I'll do, when I get there."

Ronald curbed his impatience. Never had Sir George appeared more futile; never, though, had he been more plainly worried. Suddenly he looked up with a smile.

"That's what I want of you, you know," he added.

Ronald stared.

"What is?"

"To do the things."

"What things?"

"The things to be done at home."

This time, Ronald permitted himself to laugh.

"But I'm not inheriting, Sir George."

The next moment his conscience smote him, for Sir George's glance was appealing, his voice full of pathos.

"No," he assented. "I only wish you did, you know. You'd do it better than I can."

Ronald dropped down again into his chair.

"Don't worry, Sir George," he said kindly. "Of course, I know at first there'll be a lot of care and responsibility. But it will get itself to running easily enough in time."

Sir George's face cleared at Ronald's change of tone.

"That's what I said to myself," he said eagerly. "I sat and thought, and thought. All at once, it came like a flash, and I said, 'Leslie's the very fellow.'"

"Thanks," Ronald said. "For what?"

"To get things running. You see," Sir George fell to checking the items on his fingers; "there's the town house, and the country place, and the tenants' dinner, and the hunt ball, and the—" He paused and sought the corners of his mind. "Oh, yes, I know. There's the mourning liveries and that. That's why I want you," he added helplessly. "I don't know about such things."

"Nor I," Ronald asserted with energy.

"Oh, no; but you can learn."

"And so will you," Ronald suggested.

But Sir George shook his head.

"I can't. I can't learn things," he said, and there came a sadness in his tone. "I know it, know it as well as you do. I was plucked at college, and they tried to buy me into the army; but I couldn't make that, either. I'd like to be clever like you, you know; but I fancy I never could. And now look at me!" And Ronald, looking, was astounded at the sudden determination in Sir George's face. "Here I am, not clever in the least, and I've just come into one of the largest estates in England. And, by George!" Sir George added, in a desperate outburst; "what am I going to do with it, now I've got it?"

"Manage it," Ronald said, with an optimism which he was far from feeling.

Sir George spoke again. This time his tone betokened a steady determination.

"With you," he said.

Ronald looked, as he felt, bewildered.

"What have I to do with it?" he asked.

"Come home with me, as my secretary."

"I can't."

"Why not?" The determination was still there.

"Impossible. I m tied up here with mother and Janet."

Sir George's jaw shut, as he rose to his feet and stood looking down at the young Canadian.

"There's the salary, too, you know," he said, and he named the sum.

"Sir George, I never could take that."

"But it's what it's worth to me. Listen!" He raised his hand, white and shapely and marked with a single ring, a crest in its plain setting. "I can't do it alone, you know. I have no head for business. I can do the social things, drink tea and dance. Perhaps, with you to coach me, I could even do the politics. But the business would be in no end of a mess. I must have some fellow to do it for me, and there's no fellow else I want, you know."

"But if I can't?" Ronald said slowly.

Sir George's accent lost its determination and took on a new tone, one of pleading.

"I don't like many fellows," he explained, simply as a child might have done. "I took to you that first night at dinner, and I've liked you ever since. You never chaff, you know, and—" the words came with a dropping cadence; "and any fellow gets a bit tired of being chaffed."

And even Ronald's direct gaze fell before the steady, trusting eyes.

"Sir George," he said at length; "I'm sorry. I wish I could go."

"You'd like it, then?" Sir George made eager question.

Ronald reflected swiftly, swiftly balanced all the pros and cons.

"Yes," he answered honestly then. "Yes, I'd like it. Still, it is quite impossible."

"Really, I don't see why."

Ronald looked up.

"I'm not for myself alone," he answered. "There's Janet and my mother."

Standing bolt upright in the middle of the room, Sir George compressed his lips until the wrinkles were graven deeply in his cheeks. Then of a sudden he faced about and started for the door.

"I say," he exclaimed alertly; "I say, let's ask them now." And, before Ronald could stop him, he had crossed the hall and knocked on the dining-room door. Late that night and for two nights after, the Leslie library became the scene of such a detailed argument as its walls had never known till then. After her first consternation at the thought of losing her oldest-born child out of the home, Mrs. Leslie had thrown herself, heart and soul, upon the side of Sir George Porteous. The offered salary, she confessed to herself, was abnormally large. Nevertheless, mother-like, she looked beyond that, far beyond. To one like Ronald, steady, earnest, there would be by far more education in the new life offered him than in years of McGill and graduate schools. Moreover, she had been by no means blind to the way even Ronald's vigorous young strength was faltering before the rigid confinement of his office life. Sir George's offer would bring him freedom from the deadly routine which led nowhere; while she had assured herself, both by her own observations and by the careful inquiries of Mr. Argyle, that Sir George's influence, while not exactly stimulating, would yet be upon the side of cleanly, manlike living. She urged the new position upon Ronald with all the fervour of the same iron will which, months before, had led her, even in the first shadow of her grief, to open her home to the Argyles.

To her will, however, Ronald opposed one just as firm. He was in no way deceived by her statements that she would be happier with him in England; it was no part of his plan to go to live in the comparative luxury of his offered surroundings, and leave his mother and Janet to tug on alone. Had he been wholly free, he would have leaped at the chance to go, would have grasped it with both hands. Like his mother, he had been quick to see its opportunities for his growth. Nevertheless, he had also seen the blue-white ring come into sight about his mother's lips, when Sir George, with unwonted directness, had stated to her his need of Ronald's services. He stoutly refused to listen to one single word in favour of his going.

For two whole evenings and a fraction of the third, the tide of argument ebbed and flowed. At last, however, late upon the third evening, Janet flung herself headlong into the discussion.

"Ronald?"

Ronald had been pacing, pacing the floor. Now he turned sharply to face his sister, as she sat curled up in a deep chair, her feet tucked under her and her hands clasped tightly in her lap.

"Well?"

"If mother were dead and I were in college, what should you do?"

"Janet!" he rebuked her sharply.

"Well, I know. But we aren't, and my supposing it doesn't make us so; does it, mummy? But what should you do?"

Ronald shut his lips until his face was lined with two deep creases, not unlike those of Sir George.

"Go," he said shortly.

Janet unclasped her hands, leaned her elbows on the chair-arm and put her chin on her palms. For an instant, she watched him, while she beat a tattoo on either cheek. Then,—

"Why?" she asked.

"Because I'd have nothing to keep me here."

Far back in Janet's eyes there came a mocking gleam.

"Thanks, dear boy! But, even then, you just said you didn't want to go, in any case."

Fairly cornered, Ronald opened his mouth to speak, then shut it, speechless. Again Janet watched him. Then she slid out of her chair, crossed the rug and slipped her hand in his.

"Brother," she said slowly; "it will half kill me to have you go; and yet I want to have you do it. It is the best thing for you, the best thing and the biggest. If you like it over there, some day you can send for mummy and me, and we'll all live there together. We are English, you know, just as English as Sir George is. It may be like a going home for you. You've always said you liked Sir George, in spite of his queerness. He's been good to you, to us all. Now, for a while, you can be good to him. And, besides, if you truthfully don't like it, you can always take the first steamer that sails for home. Only," her voice broke a little; "only send us word in time, so we can get the fattest calf that ever lived."

"But you and mother," Ronald urged.

Janet's chin rose in the air.

"I will look out for mother," she said conclusively. And she kept her word.

Nevertheless, the tide of argument rose again, and again it ebbed. However, each ebbing and flowing now was only washing them nearer to one fixed point, and that point was Ronald's going.

Janet accompanied her brother, the next evening, when he set out to the Château, to acquaint Sir George with his decision. The decision had been wrung from him with infinite toil, and Janet had no mind to have that toil set at naught by any possible change in Ronald's intention. Back in the depths of her girlish brain, she had settled the point for herself once and for all. Ronald must go. It was the chance of a lifetime, not only in itself, but for the sake of other chances which might come in its train. Janet already looked upon Ronald as the coming premier of England. Mrs. Leslie took the case more simply. She regarded Ronald as facing a future which held in its grasp more opportunity than anything she had it in her power to offer. Mother-like, she was willing to endure his absence for the sake of what that absence might do for him. Like Janet, she was wholly resolved upon his going. Like Janet, she feared his promise would be revoked in the end, and she had hailed gladly Janet's suggestion of acting as his escort.

They found Sir George in the main drawing-room, lounging on the circular divan which rings the central pillar. His eyes were fixed upon the ceiling; but his mouth, slightly ajar, stirred now and then, as if speaking words relating to the obvious anxiety which furrowed the brow above. Clothed from head to foot in decorous and sombre black, Sir George looked a very youthful and a futile heir to all the responsibility which awaited him; and Janet, as she studied him, did not wonder that, in view of what was now before him, he was putting off from day to day the engaging of his passage home.

Absorbed in his silent communings, Sir George paid no heed to their coming; and, quite unseen, they paused close at his side. Then,—

"Sir George," said Janet.

Sir George started abruptly.

"Eh? Oh, I say, how do you do? I was thinking about you. Sit down." And, as they obeyed his hospitable bidding, Sir George apparently returned to his former meditation, for no further word fell from his moving lips.

Once, twice, Ronald started to speak. But he checked the impulse, checked it in sheer dread of all to which his speech was sure to bind him. Then he rose to his feet, straightened his shoulders, and resolutely, courageously looked the future in the eyes.

"Sir George," he said briefly; "I came, to-night, to tell you that I have made my decision. I accept your offer, and I am ready to sail when you see fit."

Slowly the vacant gaze of Sir George gathered itself to a focus upon Ronald Leslie's strong young face, gathered to a focus, then lighted with sudden, earnest pleasure. Then he sank back in his seat again, as if, for him, anxiety were at an end.

"How rummy!" said Sir George Porteous.