Janet: Her Winter in Quebec/Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
A TEMPEST in a teapot is a small thing, unless it ends with the teapot's boiling over and putting out the fire. In the case of the newly-kindled friendship between the young Leslies and the young Argyles, this narrowly escaped occurring. Civil war within the meagre limits of a single house is an impossible state of things; yet, in the days which followed the two storms, Janet's and that of the elements, the Leslie house achieved the impossible. In a sense, circumstances helped on the achievement.
On the night following the storm, the four young people went to bed in four wholly distinct moods. Janet was ill at ease, anxious about Rob, sturdily determined to brave it out and conceal both emotions. Ronald was penitent; Day was impenitent, and Rob was filled with an amused disgust with the whole situation. Had the four of them met at breakfast, the air would have cleared. Janet, however, was in her room with a most prosaic cold in her head. Day overslept herself, and Rob was under bonds to lie still. As result, Ronald breakfasted alone with his mother. Then, when he went up to see how Janet was feeling, his step lagged a bit, outside of Rob's door. There was no answering stir from within the room, however, and he went on up the stairs. By dinner time, the frost lay thick on the surface of the talk.
For four whole days, Rob was invisible. It was the result of a compromise with his mother whereby, if she would forego a doctor, he would agree to captivity and the pungent aroma of liniment. He rebelled the less at his captivity, because walking was a painful operation just at present, and because Day's accounts of the glacial atmosphere below stairs failed to attract him, to the point of making him repine at the thought of being out of it all.
In the meantime, he and Day were fast becoming the best possible chums. Day, on her dignity by reason of Janet's outbreak and Ronald's curt rudeness to her brother, had taken council with her girlish mind and decided that the blame was entirely theirs; that, moreover, the best way to bring them to terms was to signify that her own good times were complete without them. Accordingly, she took care to see them only at their meals. Much of the remaining time she spent with Rob, moved thereto less by devotion to Rob than by the desire to emphasize the difference in her attitude to the different members of the household. When she did meet them, she was perfectly polite, but in a frigid fashion that was far more cutting than open discourtesy. In return, Janet sniffed and said she didn't care. Ronald, however, took it more seriously. He had grown genuinely fond of Day, and he missed her hearty, happy comradeship far more than he liked to confess.
A good deal of this complex mingling of tempers drifted up into Rob's room. He laughed at Day's shrewd comments upon the existing order of things; but, at the back of his brain, he was decidedly of the impression that all four of them deserved to be spanked and put to bed without their suppers. Such a wholesale family jar was neither dignified nor decorous. Volcanic in its origin, it was reaching a point where nothing short of an earthquake could break it up, and Rob hated earthquakes. As a matter of course, he had had no glimpse of Janet. Ronald, on two occasions, had stopped at his door with a wholly dutiful inquiry for his health. Rob's answer had been soft; but it had been coupled with a strong desire to throw a footrest at Ronald and observe the way he took it.
"Confound him! He needn't put on his funeral voice, when he talks to me," he had exploded to Day, on the second of these occasions. "I'm mentally sound, if I can't do things. I wish he'd oil his boots and get the squeak out of them, before he comes again."
In regard to Day's sudden access of devotion, Rob had no hallucinations. He knew that her motives were not unmixed. Nevertheless, he was resolved to take his good times when he could get them, and ask no questions. And they were good times, too. More and more Rob was learning to delight in his young sister. He liked her bright self-reliance, her fun, her shrewd young judgment; he liked her swift, sure motions; he liked her pretty clothes. All these details attracted him and won his full approval. But when, now and then, one of her rare, sweet moods of gentleness was upon her, the liking yielded its place to a whole-souled love such as only a healthy-minded boy can give. As a rule, Day perched herself in the deep windowseat and chattered nonsense by the yard. Now and then, though, usually while the twilight was darkening over the room, she left her windowseat and came to sit on the floor at his side, her head nestled against the chair and one slim arm resting across his knee. And Rob, his hand on her shoulder, cuddled it a bit now and then, while the talk rambled on fitfully, or dropped into fitful silence. It was always an unwelcome break, when Marie came in with the tray.
At first, they had talked only of the present, of the things they had already done, or still were planning to do, that winter. Then by degrees the talk went trailing back into the past when Rob was delighted to find Day's memory as good as his own for all the trifling details of their childhood. Or it wandered on into the future, and they surprised themselves and each other when they found how far the plans of each were changing to include the other. And then, just before Marie came in on the last night of Rob's captivity, some sudden mood led Rob to speak of the way, all the previous winter and spring, he had been conscious of missing the real Day out of his life. And Day's only answer had been the laying her cheek upon her arm as it rested in its usual place across Rob's knee. They both had blinked a little, when Marie, without warning, had switched on the electric light.
Once Rob was downstairs again, the situation showed no signs of mending. For no assignable cause, Ronald had clambered up on his dignity and had hoisted up Janet with him. Rob was swift to see how insecurely they were poised, and on what a tottering foundation; and he lost no opportunity to upset their balance. It was impossible to resent the bland good humour of his conversation which showed an astounding agility in skating out upon thin ice, and then dodging backwards, just as the ice began to crack.
"Mrs. Leslie, what are we going to do with those bad children of ours?" Mrs. Argyle made direct question, one night.
Mrs. Leslie shook her head.
"I wish I knew," she answered.
"Do you think we'd better interfere?"
"Sit down." Mrs. Leslie pushed forward a hospitable-looking chair. "I really wish I knew," she reiterated musingly. "What do you think?"
Mrs. Argyle took possession of the chair, arranged herself at her ease, gave a prolonged look at the coals in the grate, then, turning, gave another prolonged look into the face of her companion.
"I'm afraid of making it worse," she said then. "Of course, for us looking on, it couldn't be much worse; but it could be more permanent. I don't want that. I've watched your children closely; I like to have Rob and Day with them. I really think I have felt worse than anyone else about the trouble."
Mrs. Leslie lifted her eyes from her work and slightly shook her head. Like Mrs. Argyle, she too had been making her own observations, the past two months. She liked the Argyle children; more and more, also, she liked the Argyle children's mother. Mrs. Argyle was not by any means the wayward, superficial society woman that Mrs. Leslie had judged her at first sight. Living in one house, the two women had drifted into no semblance of intimacy. Nevertheless, they were conscious of a growing admiration, each for the other.
"I suppose," Mrs. Argyle continued thoughtfully; "the best thing for me to do, would be to take the children into another home. Still, I dislike the idea; it seems too much like running away from a difficult situation. If you feel that you can endure it a little longer, Mrs. Leslie," as she spoke, she looked up once more; "I should like to stay and face the matter out."
Mrs. Leslie's needle had unthreaded itself. It was taking all her attention to thread it again, and the droop of her head concealed the consternation in her eyes. Boarders were not plenty in Quebec at that season; and one's coal bill and one's account with the butcher must stand before mere questions of injured dignity resulting from childish tiffs and misunderstandings. Nevertheless, Mrs. Leslie's low voice was full of dignity, as she answered,—
"I should dislike to have you go away, Mrs. Argyle."
Mrs. Argyle leaned back in her chair.
"I am glad. I dislike the thought of a change," she said heartily. "We all like the dear old house. And I think the children will come to terms in time. Anyway, Rob has to go back to New York, after the holidays."
"To stay?"
"Only for a week or two. He was to have gone in February; but this last strain makes me a little uneasy, and I'd rather he went at once. We've compromised on the day after Christmas. He and Day both wailed at the idea of being parted on that day."
"What good times they have together!" Mrs. Leslie said thoughtfully. "They seem peculiarly intimate."
"No more so than Janet and Ronald. But about this trouble: I could speak to the children, Mrs. Leslie. Sometimes, I think I ought. Still, there's nothing I can put my finger on. They are desperately polite to each other. Besides, there is always the chance of changing armed neutrality into open war. Rob has more than a dash of red in his hair, and Day's temper isn't of the most quiet sort. I really wish you would advise me. It is so hard to act, when I haven't any notion of the cause of the fray, nor where the first blame lies."
Mrs. Leslie looked up sharply.
"Don't you know, either?" she asked.
"No. Don't you?"
"Not at all."
"Hasn't Ronald talked it over with you?"
"Not he. Ronald thinks a good deal more than he talks."
"But I thought you were so intimate."
"So we are. Still, in a case like this, Ronald shuts his mouth, all the more when Janet is in it, too. But your children?"
"Have never mentioned it; that is, to me. Of course, I know they talk it over together. Once or twice, when I've been in the next room, I have caught just a word."
"Why don't you ask them?" Mrs. Leslie queried.
For a moment, Mrs. Arygle looked at her in surprise. Then she said quietly,—
"I've never been used to teasing for the confidence of my children. If I am the mother I ought to be, they will tell me anything I ought to know. For the rest, they have the same right to their secrets that I have to mine." Then, smiling, she rose and held out her hand. "The truth is, Mrs. Leslie, I suspect this matter is something we are powerless to touch. If we can hold our peace and keep our own heads level, time will do the rest. Meanwhile," she laughed lightly; "meanwhile, the peace commission will have to adjourn, until it gathers up a few facts of the case. At least, it is a comfort that you are not longing to turn my quarrelsome children out of your house."
Day, in the meantime, had been finding the past week rather a drag. During Rob's imprisonment, she had spent a large share of her time with him. She had enjoyed him absolutely, had almost regretted the ending of her monopoly of his time and attention. Nevertheless, she already was feeling the effects of her unwonted lack of out-door exercise. Her girlish humour suffered; she was languid, and, now and then, irritable. At the end of a week of sitting about the house, however, her mother interfered and ordered her out into the snow-crisp air. It was then and for the first time that Day suddenly came to a realizing sense of how much she missed the Leslies. It was too cold for much driving. At best, Rob's walks were of the briefest; and now they were curtailed to the extent of the width of the side-walk. Under such circumstances and other conditions, Day would have thrown herself upon the society of Janet and Ronald. Under the present conditions, she was driven to seek the alternative of faring forth alone.
After one day when it seemed to her that she was the only solitary person upon the length of the Grande Allée, after a day when only her own shadow kept her company upon the thronged and sunshiny terrace, Day resolved to abandon those two main pleasure grounds and betake herself to the byroads where her lonesomeness would arouse less comment. Accordingly, she formed the habit of making a daily tour of the Ramparts, down Palace Hill and up the Côte d'Abraham, not from any especial interest in the antiquity of the route; but because it filled the allotted time her mother had ordained for her exercise. To Day's present frame of mind, it mattered nothing that Montcalm's house still stood upon the Ramparts; that the Côte d'Abraham was the scene of the disordered retreat of the French Regulars from the battlefield outside the city wall. It scarcely mattered, even, that the distant Laurentides stood up and out, a dark blue ring around the dazzling, snow-heaped levels to the north and west of the city. For the time being, the girl was heartily sick and tired of Quebec and of all that it contained. She longed for her own home city, for her own home friends, for American food and for the American sense of humour. Her father's business interests were dragging themselves out interminably; and Mrs. Argyle, modern wife and mother that she was, yet held to the old-fashioned notion that, in so far as possible, a wife should keep in touch with her husband. For the sake of that notion, she was willing to put up with a winter in the sleepy, foreign little city, on the chance that now and then Mr. Arygle might be able to spend a leisure day at home. Day, however, had neither a husband nor a notion. With all her heart, she envied Rob his dreaded trip to New York. Nevertheless—
She shook herself and glanced out over the distant hills. Nevertheless, given her choice between the States and Rob, she would never hesitate. And Rob was here, not in the States. The only trouble was that there were no more Robs in the world.
"Oh, good morning. How do you do again?"
Yielding to a sudden wave of despondency, Day had halted on the bastion above Dambourges Hill, and, her elbows on the wall and her chin on her muff, she had stood long, staring out across the gleaming flats beyond. She started abruptly, as there came up to her ears the unmistakable voice and accent of Sir George Porteous.
"Where are you?" she demanded, when a hasty glance had revealed the fact that both bastion and hill were empty of straying Englishmen.
"Here." The voice was minor and altogether pitiful. It appeared to be disembodied, however. It came from beneath; but Day, craning her neck over the wall, was totally at a loss to discover the wrinkle-bordered lips from which that voice should properly have come.
"Where is here?" she asked in amazement.
"Here. Where I am, you know."
"Where is that?"
"On the steps."
Hurriedly Day crossed to the side of the bastion and looked down. Up the steep flight of steps Sir George Porteous was toiling painfully. His own steps were impeded by one single snowshoe which, dangling loosely by its thong, had worked around until it lay on the top of his foot where it clattered protestingly against the stairs. The other snowshoe was in his hand; and his back was coated thickly with hard-packed snow, save for one point where a mire-encrusted shoulderblade bore witness to an ungentle meeting with the sunny roadway, a witness which was corroborated by the unseemly condition of Sir George's stiff black hat.
For an instant, Day held her breath in mingled terror and hilarity. Step by step, Sir George came stubbing towards her, his free foot first, followed by its hampered comrade, and the arrival of the second foot upon each stair was accompanied by a look of anxious doubt, a tentative shifting of weight, a sinking to the level and a deep sigh of satisfaction. At length, Day gained control of her voice.
"Why don't you take off your shoe?" she called down, over the edge of the wall.
"I didn't need. It came."
"Yes. But the other?"
"The fellow tied it on too tight." And, lifting his foot, shoe and all, Sir George clung to the rail and gave a skittish little kick, in support of his statement. According to the unreliable custom of its kind, the snowshoe came off and went bouncing and thudding down to the bottom of the steps. Sir George, still on one leg and clasping the rail with both scarlet-mittened hands, peered after it ruefully. "Oh, by George!" he said. Then, as it came to rest not far from the foot of the hill, he lifted up his voice. "Oh, down there! Oh, some fellow, please bring me my shoe!" And, regardless of the fact that the hill was empty, he sat himself down on the step and prepared to await the return of his missing property.
"Why don't you sit on the other shoe?" Day suggested from above.
Without stirring otherwise, Sir George screwed his head about, until he faced her.
"Oh, I won't let that get away. I am holding it quite fast."
"Yes; but the steps are so cold," she urged.
"Of course. It's the snow, you know. But the snowshoe leaks," he explained lucidly. "Have you been away, since I saw you last?"
"No."
"Strange that I haven't seen you. You always used to be about. Have you learned to walk on snowshoes?"
"Not yet. You must be very skilful, to attempt such a hill as this," Day said politely.
"Oh, I found it was the only way, you know. The man in the shop told me I'd best go out to the Cove Fields; but I couldn't seem to make them walk on a level, so I hunted out the steepest spot I could find. I thought they'd go all right, once they were started."
"I see." Again Day's mirth threatened to overwhelm her. "And did they?"
"They went all right. The only trouble was, they wouldn't stop going, when I wanted. Took the bits and bolted, you know. When they did stop, one had come quite off." And Sir George made an effort to rub his shoulderblade reminiscently. Then he added, "I think the fellow couldn't have known just how to tie them on."
"What fellow?"
Sir George stared up at her blankly.
"I'm not sure. He didn't tell me his name. The fellow at the top of the steps."
"Oh, I understand. You mean that somebody, some stranger, helped you put them on?"
"Yes. How else? I couldn't make them walk all the way out from the hotel," Sir George explained testily.
Day gave him a comprehensive glance which included both his injured hat and his damaged shoulderblade.
"No; I should imagine not," she assented.
Sir George cast an uneasy eye down the hill.
"I wonder how I'll get my shoe," he said helplessly.
"Go down and get it." Day's tone was unsympathetic.
"But I've only just come up. I was down there, when I saw you first. I didn't like to call out, though, even when I knew it was you. I was afraid you'd jump and fall, you know."
"Thank you." Day measured the height of the four-foot wall with her eye. Then she buried her face in her muff. "Excuse me. I was just warming my nose," she said discursively at length.
"How rummy! Don't you think my mittens would be just as good?"
"To warm my nose?" Day queried blankly, for Sir George's meaning was opaque to her.
"No; for mine. It's very cold. In fact, you know, it's very cold to be sitting here." Sir George chafed the tip of his blue nose with one scarlet mitten and then the other. "I bought them at Renfrew's, when I got my shoes," he added, with seeming irrelevance. Then he fell to massaging his nose again.
For a long moment, Day once more sought the shelter of her muff. Sir George's voice recalled her.
"I say?"
"Well?"
"Oh, I say, I've just come up this hill. It's a real brute of a hill, and it's quite knocked me out. You're quite fresh; aren't you?"
"Quite," Day assented, for, as yet, she had no notion whither Sir George's fertile brain was leading.
"That's what I thought. You look it, you know. And I'm so very tired. Would you mind just stepping down and bringing me my shoe?"
And Day went. She would have gone ten times that distance, for the sake of carrying home to Rob the story of her going. Sir George watched her tranquilly as she went slipping and sliding down the steep slope, crawling and clambering up again. Breathless and with the shoe in her hand, she reached his side. Smiling and with his battered hat in his hand, he rose to greet her.
"Thank you so much," he said affably, as he held out his unoccupied mitten for his missing footgear. "I'm sure you are very kind. When you get your own shoes, let me know about it, and we'll go out for some walks together. You'd find it much safer, you know, than starting out to walk alone." And, settling his hat on his head with an anxious care for its balance, he clasped a shoe under either arm and started up the steps, leaving Day to follow or not, as she might choose.