Janet: Her Winter in Quebec/Chapter 22

ANET," Mrs. Argyle said, a few days later; "I have decided that I want to borrow you for a month."

Janet looked up from the handkerchiefs she was marking with an R. L. and many tears.

"Borrow me?"

"Yes." Mrs. Argyle smiled at the absolute wonderment in the girl's tone. "May I?"

"Of course. Anything I have," Janet assented readily, for Mrs. Argyle was not only herself, but she was also Rob's mother and, to Janet, that was coming to count for a good deal.

"I want just you, yourself, dear."

"What for?"

"To take you home with me to spend a month."

"Oh, Mrs. Argyle!" For a moment, Janet held her breath, speechless."Spend a month, a whole great, long month in New York, with you and Day and Rob! How I wish, wish, wish I could!"

"Why can't you?" Mrs. Argyle asked lightly, for, only the night before, she had had a long talk with Mrs. Leslie.

But already Janet's shoulders had fallen together, with her ebbing breath.

"I just can't," she said flatly.

"Why not?"

"I can't leave my mother."

"Not if she is willing?"

"She won't be."

"But she is. I asked her, first."

For an instant, the light blazed up again in Janet's eyes. Then the light was quenched.

"Mrs. Argyle," she said steadily; "her saying she is willing doesn't make a bit of difference. I know, 'way down inside herself, she'd hate to have me go."

"No, dear; I think she really is quite willing," Mrs. Argyle urged. "We talked it all over together: how you had never had a real journey, how much new there would be for you to see and learn, how much good it would do you."

Janet lifted her head proudly.

"Yes," she said; "and did you talk over what my mother would do without me?"

"Mrs. Waters is coming here to board, you know, as soon as she can have my room," Mrs. Argyle reminded her.

But Janet interrupted her impatiently.

"Yes, and would Mrs. Waters cuddle her, and talk to her in the twilight, when she gets lonesome waiting for Ronald to come in to supper? And would Mrs. Waters talk over Ronald's letters with her, and plan what we'd write back again?"

"But only for a month, Janet. And we all want you so. Rob and I planned it together, and Day is as eager for it as we are. Rob is writing to Sidney about it now. And a month is such a little bit of a time."

However, Janet's head had drooped again; the fire had left her eager young voice, and now the words dragged a little.

"Mrs. Argyle," she said slowly; "it is lovely of you to ask me, lovelier still of you to want me. I only wish I could go; it would be just like going into heaven, the journey, and the visit, and the seeing New York and all the rest of it. If I were a little bit of a girl, I should just sit down and cry for it all; but, even then, I am not sure I should go."

"But I can't see why you shouldn't." Mrs. Argyle spoke thoughtfully, her eyes on Janet's face, while her thoughts went over and over her talk with Mrs. Leslie. "I truly think your mother believes it would be the best thing in the world for you."

Again Janet raised her head.

"Best for me, of course; but what about its being best for her?" she asked stubbornly. Then once more her tone changed. "Mrs. Argyle, please don't think I don't want to go," she begged; "please don't think I don't appreciate your asking me. I love it all, love it ever so much more than you will ever know. But—I promised Ronald I would take care of mother."

"I know, dear child; but—"

Janet shook her head.

"I shouldn't be keeping my promise, if I went off to have a good time, just as soon as Ronald's back was turned. Mrs. Argyle, when I was a little, little mussy baby, my mother had to give up things and stay at home with me. It's my turn, now; and I ought to be glad to do it." She looked up bravely; then the bravery ended in a sudden wave of girlish disappointment. "But I'm not glad a bit. I want to go, want it more than I ever wanted anything else in all my life."

And Mrs. Argyle answered slowly, while she patted the brown head which all at once had come against her shoulder,—

"Janet dear, I wish you could. And yet, I think perhaps you are right."

Once more Janet raised her head and spoke rapidly.

"It is right, I know. I wish it weren't; but it's no use. I shouldn't be happy for one single moment. All the time I was doing things and seeing things, I should keep thinking of my mother here alone, with my father dead, and Ronald away, and me running off to leave her as soon as ever I could. You know how I'd love it, if things were only different. Day is a dear, and, next to Ronald, I like Rob best of all the boys I've ever known. And I never went on a journey over night, nor saw the United States. It is going to be so lonesome, too, with Ronald gone and you all going." Suddenly she lifted her head, which had fallen back into its old place. "Mrs. Argyle," she asked, and her voice was sharp with anxiety; "does Ronald know?"

"I'm not sure, dear. I think not, though. He was at the Château with Sir George, all last night."

"He mustn't be told at all," Janet said resolutely, as she rose from the arm of Mrs. Argyle's chair and crossed the room to the window.

"But why?"

For a long moment, Janet's gaze rested on a knot of soldiers coming down from the Citadel. The sunlight, striking on their scarlet coats, brought them out in bold relief against the gray old wall beyond. The vivid bit of colour, their laughing faces and their swift, alert tread, all seemed to throw into stronger contrast the shadow of disappointment which lay upon the girl within. Then, facing about, she answered Mrs. Argyle's question with a voice she strove in vain to keep level.

"Because it would tangle all his plans and make him worry. He was determined he'd not go, Mrs. Argyle; he was going to give it up, all the money and the fun and all, for mother and for me. He only said he'd go, when I promised I would see to mother and keep her from missing him too much. Mrs. Argyle," her voice grew firm once more; "I love you all; you know I do, even if I have had queer ways of showing it sometimes. But my mother and Ronald stand first. They would give up anything in this world for me. It would be a shame to me, if I wouldn't give up this one thing for them."

And Mrs. Argyle, watching the sad, resolute young face, told herself that Janet was right.

Nevertheless, there was mourning and lamentation among the younger Argyles, when Janet's decision was made known; and only Janet's eager pleading held Day back from making a final appeal to Ronald. Quite unexpectedly, however, Mr. Argyle took his stand upon the side of Janet.

"I like your pluck, my dear, " he said to her, one night. "I think you are in the right of it; it's no time to leave your mother, when she's in her first woe over Ronald's going. Wait a few months, and then we'll have a visit from you both. Just now, your place is here."

And, meanwhile, the hours were ebbing fast, and the day was at hand when Sir George Porteous was to sail for home and take Ronald Leslie with him. It was an early spring, that year. Already the ice had left the river below Quebec; already the ocean liners were coming in and out. Sir George had been waiting for the opening of the river; his one experience of American railways had led him to shun the journey to Halifax by rail. Rather than that, he would have delayed until the end of summer the returning to his home and his new duties. In fact, now that Sir George had arrayed himself in mourning garments and taken to himself a secretary, he appeared to feel that his whole duty was done; and it was only in response to a vigorous prodding from his lawyers in England that he had aroused himself to the point of booking his passage homo. At length, however, the final morning came, and Sir George, hat in hand, sat on his bed and languidly surveyed his heap of luggage.

"Oh, I say, you've been very good to me," he observed to Mrs. Leslie, as she straightened up her bent and aching back. "A fellow has so many things, you know. If it hadn't been for you and Leslie, they'd have been in shocking heaps."

Sir George spoke truthfully. He had spent all of Thursday and most of Friday morning in alternately putting up his glass to stare at his possessions, then in resting his head against the back of his chair and closing his puzzled eyes. On Wednesday night, Sir George had gone so far as to order his various boxes and bags brought to his room. When he went up from dinner, they stood awaiting him in serried rank.

"By George!" Sir George remarked to himself, as he beheld them. "I'd best begin my packing."

For the next half-hour, he worked diligently, so diligently that his bureau drawers and his two wardrobes yawned at him emptily, their former contents strewn on couch and table and across the open trunks. Then Sir George turned weary, and betook himself to bed. Once after that, he went so far as to gather up his neckties and hang them, sorted by colours, across the footboard of his bed. Otherwise, nothing had been moved when, late on Friday morning, Ronald had come into the room. Two hours later, Mrs. Leslie was assisting her son to pack the raiment of Sir George Porteous.

The steamer was to sail, early that Saturday afternoon; and the noonday sun was still warm over the city when two carriages drove away from the door of the Leslie home. The first one held the four Argyles, for Mrs. Argyle had realized that no alien eyes should look on Ronald's parting from the old home where all his childhood had been spent. Accordingly, they had hurried through the mid-day dinner, and taken a long drive out the Sainte Foy Road before they turned and went down Palace Hill. The streets of Lower Town were deep in mud, as the horses plashed their way eastward and came out upon the pier, where the great steamer was puffing lazily and straining at her moorings with the ebbing of the tide.

Sir George Porteous was there before them, three brown-clad porters by his side, while the inspector toiled his weary way through the vast pile of luggage. All at once, Sir George lifted his voice in shrill remonstrance.

"Oh, I say, be careful; can't you? All my trousers are in there, you know. Don't root about like that!" Then, turning, he saw Day and rose to his feet "I thought you'd come," he said. "It's like the old times, you know, when you always used to be about. I'll miss you, when I get to England. You're not like our girls, you know."

Then, with a cursory nod at Rob, he turned once more and grasped Mrs. Argyle's hands.

"You've been so good to me," he said simply. "A fellow does get lonely, and you've tried to put it right."

But Day had whirled about, for Ronald's voice was in her ears; and, all at once, it seemed to her that the great black steamer, puffing and straining at her moorings, had blotted out for her the sky and sun.

"Ronald," she said bravely, though with a queer little catch in her voice; "I told you I'd be glad, gladder than any of your other friends. I am glad, too, only—"

And Ronald understood.

Then the moments dragged on slowly, with forced talk and frequent pauses, till at last the signal came and the many groups parted into two, one for the sea and one for shore. The last rope plashed overboard, the great vessel shivered, moved, and there came a narrow thread of open water between the shipside and the pier. Then, for an instant, Mrs. Leslie hid her face; but Janet, scarlet, dry-eyed, waved a brave farewell.

Far towards the stern, Sir George and Ronald leaned upon the rail. Ronald's eyes were eagerly racing to and fro across the little group of familiar faces; but Sir George, his jaw sagging and his eyeglass in his hand, surveyed them with a calm regret. Suddenly Day, standing on the very edge of the pier, lifted her hand for silence. Clear and distinct across the water, in all its languid cadence there floated back to them the voice of Sir George Porteous.

"Oh, I say," he was observing mournfully; "really, it's a brute of a thing to bid your friends good-by." As the group on shore turned back to the waiting carriages, Rob stepped to his father's side.

"Take Mrs. Leslie in my place," he said. "Janet and I will walk up together."

Nevertheless, before they did walk up together, they lingered long upon the pier. Slowly the crowd about them dwindled away, until the place was wellnigh deserted. Slowly the sun dropped behind the gray old city on the cliff. Slowly the Levis heights across the river dyed themselves with the rosy purple which heralds the sunset gold to come. Down and away from before their feet, the great river flowed on in silent majesty, bearing the steamer from their sight. Already she was dwindling to a toy-like shape, far down the southern channel. Janet stared after it with dreary eyes. The scarlet had left her cheeks, her lashes drooped heavily and her chin had lost its resolution. For the hour, her bright courage had left her; and it was a piteous face which she turned to Rob, in answer to his touch upon her arm.

"Just let me make my wail," she begged him, humbly as a little child might have done. "Mummy mustn't see me cry; I promised Ronald I'd be brave. But—" with a swift, tragical gesture at the banner of smoke which hung in the sky above a far-off point of land, she added; "but that steamer is carrying off my Ronald, and I just can't live without him."

Furtively Rob rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes; still more furtively he rubbed the back of his hand across the side of his coat.

"Don't mind, Janet," he said then. "You'll feel better, when you've cried it out."

But she shook her head.

"Crying never helps; it only gives one headache and a swollen nose," she said, with brave practicality. "Talk to me, Rob, and make me forget things."

And, with Rob's assenting gesture, they turned away, came off from the pier and followed the muddy pavements back to Dambourges Hill. At the top of the hill, Rob halted irresolutely; then he led the way out to the edge of the bastion. For a long moment, they stood there silent, leaning on the rail and staring out across the flats at the distant ring of dark blue mountains which shuts in the changing picture in its mighty, changeless frame. Then slowly, gravely Rob turned about and laid his hand on Janet's which rested, tightly shut, upon the black muzzle of one of the ancient guns.

"Janet," he said; "I'm going away, next week. I hope you're sorry."

Instantly her face changed. In her sorrow for Ronald, she had forgotten this other parting, now so near at hand.

"I am," she said; but the words were scarcely audible.

"We've had some good times together," Rob went on; "likewise some rows." He smiled a little, as he spoke. Then he added, "But, after all, I think we're the best kind of friends. It has been fun, our being here; some day, we'll all get together again. I'm sorry you can't come home with us; but I honestly do agree with Dad: your place is here."

He had been speaking with slow thoughtfulness, and now he allowed the silence to drop over his last words, while his blue eyes fell from Janet to the river at his feet. Then suddenly he turned back to face her, and gave her hand a steady, hearty grip.

"Janet," he said; "you're a good little soul, and a plucky. I'm glad I've known you, and I'm sure we'll keep on being friends."

And, hand in hand, they faced about and vanished around the angle of the Ramparts.