Janet: Her Winter in Quebec/Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
LESS than a week later, tragedy befell Ronald Leslie. It befell by way of Famille Street hill and a dust-covered streak of ice, and it sent him home to nurse a sprained wrist. The tragedy took place at noon of Saturday. On Sunday morning, just as the boom of the Basilica bells came crashing down across the clean, cold air, Sir George Porteous mounted the Leslie steps, and asked to see Ronald.
"Good morning," he greeted his host. "I heard you were ill, you know. I thought you'd be in bed."
His accent was rebuking. For reply, Ronald held up his bandaged wrist.
"This is all the damage. But how did you hear?"
"At dinner, last night."
"Oh, you dined with the chief?"
"Yes, he invited me," Sir George made level answer. "He told me you were injured."
Ronald laughed.
"He told the truth. I'm injured in my body and my pocket."
Sir George sat gazing up at him with wrinkled brow. Ronald, tall and hearty and handsome, as he stood leaning against the mantel, was scarcely the sort of invalid Sir George had expected to find.
"You had your hand in your pocket?" he queried at length.
"No. I laid it down in front of me and fell down on top of it."
"You must be very heavy," Sir George made thoughtful comment.
"I am, amazingly."
Sir George's voice took on a minor key.
"I am very sorry. It must have hurt you."
"It did, like the deuce," Ronald responded fervently.
"I am really sorry." Sir George's voice, accentless though it was, yet left no doubt of his sincerity. "I haven't many friends here, you know, and it makes a fellow sorry, when one of them gets hurt. Will it last you long?"
"A week or so." Ronald crossed the room and flung himself into a chair. "That's the beastly part of it."
"Is it so very painful?"
"No; but it knocks me out of going to the office."
Sir George leaned back in his chair and straightened out his legs.
"I shouldn't think you'd mind," he said placidly.
"But I do."
"Mind missing the chance of sitting on a stool?"
Ronald coloured.
"Mind not getting paid for it," he answered briefly.
"Oh; but they don't pay a fellow enough to count for much," Sir George reminded him.
"It counts to me," Ronald answered still more briefly. "I need the money."
Sir George drew off his glove, drew out his handkerchief, then paused with the handkerchief suspended in mid-air.
"Need the money for what, old man?" he asked, and there was an indescribable kindliness in his voice which Ronald found it hard to resent.
"Need it to run things," he replied carelessly. "I am a family man, Sir George."
Slowly Sir George shook his head.
"I am afraid I don't understand," he said vaguely.
Ronald gave one comprehensive glance at the figure before him.
"No," he said then; "I'm afraid you don't."
There came a long, long silence, while Sir George appeared to be communing with himself. Suddenly he looked up.
"I say," he said alertly; "would you be able to go for a drive? You could have a cushion and things, and it's a jolly sort of day."
Ronald hesitated. While he was hesitating, his mother came into the room, and Sir George sprang to his feet.
"I didn't suppose the fellow had it in him," Ronald said, late that night.
"You can't tell, by looking at a toad, how far he'll hop," Day quoted succinctly, from her seat across the room.
And Janet added,—
"And every clown has his sober minutes."
But Ronald shook his head.
"Not all clown, either. He may not be a genius; but he's a good-hearted little chap, and, once he gets to talking, he has an occasional idea."
"Semi-occasional, you mean," Day corrected him.
Ronald, however, was on the defensive.
"Anyway, he was the first person to come to ask after my broken bones," he retorted. "That is something, and I was glad when the mater was inspired to be nice to him."
"Weren't we all nice to him?" Janet interposed. "I let him sit in Rob's place, and put the sugar in his tea. Day showed him pictures, and Mrs. Argyle made up some sort of an acquaintance with his step-mother. What more could you ask?"
Mrs. Argyle glanced up from her book. Day had coaxed the two young Leslies into her sitting-room where she sat reading and contributing an occasional phrase to the talk.
"I didn't have to make it up, Janet. I knew Lady Dudsworth well; she was very nice to me, the first time I was in England. I remember this boy, for he was a boy then; but I had forgotten his name."
"How old is he?" came in duet from Day and Janet.
But Mrs. Argyle pursued her own train of thought.
"Lady Dudsworth is a delightful woman. It seems that she gave Sir George a letter to me in New York. For her sake, I should like to be kind to him."
Day shook her head.
"Then, after all, it is another case of Kismet." she said whimsically. "We met in the fort at Levis. Remember, Ronald? And Rob met him in the train. Now what do you propose to do about it all?"
"Make it as pleasant for him as I can," Mrs. Argyle said decidedly.
"Mother! That monkey!"
Mrs. Argyle smiled.
"Too late, Day! As Rob said, you've eaten his salt."
But Day protested.
"I don't see what that has to do with it. Besides, it was Rob, not I, who accepted the invitation. He's funny; I like to hear him talk. Still, he drives me frantic, he is so immortally futile. Think of him, mother, beside our Rob!"
And, in spite of herself, Mrs. Argyle laughed, as she made answer,—
"Day, I can't."
However, Ronald had the last word.
"He may be futile, and he may be funny," he said. "Still, as I said, he is a good-hearted little chap; and, between you and the chief, Mrs. Argyle, we have proved that he's socially sound. You girls can do as you like; but, for my part, I hope he'll come again."
Sir George did come again, and yet again. Under his languid, futile exterior, he had a heart that was singularly human and boyish; and his heart had been touched by the welcome accorded him at the Sunday night supper which had followed their drive. Sent out from England in deference to the general theory that a potential heir should see something of the colonies before settling down for life in the home kingdom, Sir George had been a lonely British stranger in a strange French city. Somewhere in the core of his being was a fervent love of children and of home. His Christmas party had testified to the one; his eager acceptance of Mrs. Leslie's invitation had borne witness to the other.
Even Ronald had been surprised at Sir George, that night at supper. Shining social success he would never be; but, under the friendly questionings of Mrs. Leslie, somewhat of his vacant futility had dropped from him, and he had told her of his home life, speaking with a simple dignity which was new to all their eyes. It was then that Mrs. Argyle had made her discovery of his kinship to Lady Dudsworth, and, in the talk which followed, Sir George had wakened into something resembling a normal man. Funny he was and would be, consummately funny. Nevertheless, when he said good night and went his way, he left behind him an impression of gentle breeding and kindly thoughtfulness which went far to atone for his mental eccentricities.
"I hope you'll be better soon," he said, as he shook Ronald's hand in parting. "Perhaps I may look in on you again, you know, to see if you are feeling fit."
He did look in, the very next afternoon. Before that, however, he journeyed down into Saint Paul Street in search of Ronald's chief.
One of the minor clerklets found him there, straying aimlessly about among the stoves, rescued him and escorted him to the official sanctum. Sir George tapped on the door, then walked in.
"Good morning!" he observed.
The chief looked up.
"Good morning, Sir George! Glad to see you," he said crisply. "Excuse me for one moment. Then I'll be with you."
"Oh, no hurry!" Sir George answered calmly. "I've the whole morning, you know."
For one moment, and for two, the chief wrote busily. Then he whirled about in his chair with a suddenness which caused Sir George to start and draw up his feet in alarm.
"Well, what can I do for you?" The tone was brisk, alert.
"I came to have a talk."
"Not to go into the business?"
Hurriedly Sir George shook his head.
"No. Oh, no. I fancied we had settled that already."
What then?"
Sir George's reply came with unexpected directness.
"I came to talk about young Leslie."
"What about him?"
"He has broken his bone."
"Sprained it. Yes. I told you. What then?"
"The fellow says he needs some money."
The other man frowned.
"And sent you to ask for it?" he inquired sharply. "That's not like Leslie."
The glass fell with a click.
"He didn't send me. I came," Sir George explained. "It's not just now he needs it. I fancy it is all the time. At least, he said so. What do you suppose the fellow meant?"
"He probably meant what we all know: that they have had severe reverses, and that he is short of money."
"But what should a fellow like that want of money?"
"To live on."
Sir George pondered.
"For coals and things?" he asked presently.
"Yes."
"By George!" He shook his head. "By George! A fellow like young Leslie! That's hard lines." Then he looked up, and a sudden determination added lustre to his eyes. "Of course you pay him his salary, now he's ill?" he demanded.
"As a rule, we pay half."
Sir George stiffened slightly.
"Oh, I think you'd best pay him the whole," he said.
"But it's not according to our rule."
Sir George blundered upon an epigram.
"Rules are made to be broken," he said. Then, quite unexpectedly, he rose to his feet. "Oh, I say," he remarked persuasively then; "Leslie's a good fellow. You told me so, yourself. He's down on his luck, you know. You'd best give him all his money. He can't live on half a coal, such weather as this. Just give it to him, and, by George," Sir George added in one tremendous outburst; "if your shop is going to suffer, I'll come down here and sit on a stool half of his time, myself." And, his face wrinkled heavily from the unaccustomed shutting of his jaw, Sir George Porteous marched out of the office and neglected to close the door behind him.
"But I like young Leslie," he said to himself, as he turned away down the street. "He's a good fellow, and he's not always chaffing one. It's a brute of a thing to be wanting money, you know. A fellow would almost do his work for him, to save him that."
And, filled with a vague desire to make some contribution to the Leslie resources, Sir George betook himself to the florist shop and ordered violets sent to Mrs. Leslie.
The end of the following week found Ronald back at the deserted desk which Sir George had threatened to occupy in his stead. With rare self-control, the chief omitted to make known the details of his call from Sir George. Nevertheless, a week later, he summoned Ronald to his private room.
"You are quite worth it to me," he said kindly, at the conclusion of their talk; "and I fancy it won't come amiss to you. You are carrying a heavy care, for so young a man. No; don't thank me. I'll get it back out of you, in the shape of work. You have proved that you are the man for the place. By the way," he added casually; "Sir George Porteous says he is seeing a good deal of you."
Ronald laughed.
"Yes, he's at the house rather often. He and my mother are getting to be great friends. He's not a bad little chap; he's only funny."
The older man nodded.
"You're right. He has good blood, and that tells, in the end. I knew his father. Make it as pleasant for the fellow as you can. You won't be sorry." And he gave a curt, kind nod of dismissal.
In talking to his chief, Ronald had spoken truly. His mother and Sir George Porteous were getting to be great friends, fast friends. In fact, during the past ten days, Sir George's calls had been frequent. He had ended by dropping in to see them all, usually appearing simultaneously with the tray and sitting out his second cup of tea. In the beginning, however, his calls had been for Ronald, and for him alone, for the tall, ruddy-faced Canadian appeared to have won the little Englishman's whole heart. Sir George himself would have found scant difficulty in accounting for this sudden liking. Accustomed all his life long to be the butt of ill-suppressed mirth, Ronald's grave courtesy, albeit superficial and hard to maintain, had won his undying gratitude. Sir George, as a rule, was just shrewd enough to discover that there usually was a joke about, when he was present; but to be quite unable to determine where the point of the joke might lie. He had liked Rob Argyle; but Rob's whole manner to him had been suggestive of a veiled and elusive form of chaff. Ronald, however, had treated him with a portentous seriousness, and Sir George's gratitude directed itself accordingly. It was as well, perhaps, that Sir George had no inkling of the real thoughts which underlay the superficial gravity of Ronald Leslie.
Nevertheless, Ronald had been touched by the true kindliness of Sir George's initial call. Later on, he admitted to himself, in the intervals of his mirth, a sound respect for the little Englishman whose heart was palpably so superior to his head. And to them all, Ronald included, it was equally palpable that that heart had been given over wholly to the long Canadian. Janet Sir George treated exactly as he would have treated a telephone, could he have so far recovered from his London conservatism as to treat that instrument with anything bordering upon familiarity. Day, on the other hand, he viewed with exceeding interest and curiosity.
"I suppose it's because you're American, you know, that makes you so very brisk," he said, one day. "You get about so fast that a fellow never knows where he'll find you next, and you talk as fast as you get about. I get quite tired, trying to keep up with you." And, puffing noisily, Sir George halted his snowshoes and turned his back to the wind.
It might well have tired a sturdier man than Sir George Porteous to keep pace with Day Argyle, in those last weeks of January. The charm of the Canadian winter was upon her. Furred to her ear-tips, a plaid tam o'shanter hat cocked cornerwise upon her head, and Scotch plaid leggings covering her from her heels to the hem of her short kilted skirt, Day Argyle was to be seen abroad in sunshine and in storm. She defied all weathers, all temperatures. Hardy, happy, glowing with contentment and with exercise, she spent long hours in the open air, walking, driving, or sliding, according to the state of the weather and to the wish of her companion of the moment. With Janet and on snowshoes, she scoured the surrounding country, wandering to and fro across the old battleground until she could tell to a nicety where Wolfe's line of march deviated from the easiest trail. Under Ronald's teaching, she learned the trick of taking her toboggan down every slide in the region. She taught herself skiing and, once she succeeded in training her own feet to await her signal for starting down the slopes of the Cove Fields, she set about teaching the same lesson to the feet of Sir George Porteous. As pupil, Sir George was less apt than enthusiastic. He had a trick of allowing his skis to run away with him, and Day, after he had picked himself out of a drift for the twentieth time, abandoned the attempt.
The daylight hours were far too few for the girl's enjoyment. Night after night, she and Janet and Ronald pushed back their chairs from the table and, stopping only for their wraps and the toboggan, betook themselves to the terrace. Or else, slinging their snowshoes on their backs, they hailed a car for the toll-gate whence they started for a long cross-country tramp, over the level fields glistening white in the moonlight, along the crest of the cliff above the gleaming river, then on and on through the trees, until Sillery Point was behind them and the stillness of the winter night was unbroken by any human sound. And the evening always ended with a row of chairs drawn up before the blazing fire at home, while they ate the supper which Mrs. Leslie had made ready for their coming. And always, before the evening was ended, one of the young voices was sure to say wishfully,—
"If only Rob were here!"
To Day Argyle, Rob's absence was the one faulty spot in her life. Otherwise, just then, she was perfectly content. She missed her brother at every turn, missed him, to her surprise, far more acutely with each passing day. Her old-time friendship with Ronald had renewed itself completely. Their companionship was closer, their understanding of each other better than it had ever been before. In the long winter evenings, in the golden Saturday afternoons, Ronald did with her all the things she had so often longed to do with Rob. Day entered into all his plans with zest. She enjoyed them wholly; she was perfectly aware that, in her gay, care-free society, Ronald was forgetting some part at least of the worries which were cramping him at every turn. If it were all she could do for him, this making him forget things and be jolly, at least, she would do it with all her might. Doing it, moreover, it was impossible for her to keep from glorying in the strength and vigorous beauty of her companion, in the constant, brotherly care for her comfort which he lavished upon her. Day came in from their long expeditions, eager, alert, happy, to find the final pleasure missing. If only she could have talked it all over afterwards with Rob! Ronald, in those days, was a continual pleasure and delight; Rob was a part of her very self. Between the lines of his frequent letters, she sought to read the assurance that he mourned for her as she for him.
And then, one day in early February, Sir George Porteous came to ask Day to go snowshoeing. There was an instant of hesitation in her acceptance of the invitation, as she glanced out at the sour gray sky which hung low above the rocky cape. It was not a day to tempt one out. Nevertheless, Day bethought herself that, with Janet in school and her mother in Montreal for the night, time was bound to hang heavy on her hands. Sir George's face was wishful; she was indifferent. As result, she went.
For the first half hour, all was well. Sir George was extraordinarily expert in the management of his shoes, extraordinarily likable in his mood of half-homesick confidence. Glowing and warm with the brisk exercise, Day forgot somewhat of the sourness of the sky; and, as they halted to rest at the foot of the Aux Braves monument, she was wholly glad that she had ventured forth. Then, of a sudden, troubles began. Sir George attempted to tighten the thong of one of his shoes, lost his mitten in the process, lost off his other shoe in hunting for his mitten. And, meanwhile, Day, waiting there beside the monument, felt her warm glow fast changing to a clammy chill, as the wind came sweeping up, bleak and cold, from the bare mud flats which border the Saint Charles, when the tide is low. She waited long and patiently, until Sir George was once more shod and mittened. Then she stepped forward to the trail.
"Come," she said. "Shall we go on?"
Sir George surveyed her anxiously.
"I say, you aren't cold, are you?" he asked. "You really look quite blue, you know."
She forced herself to laugh a little.
"No; I am all right. I shall be warm as soon as we are stirring again. Suppose we hurry. It is growing late."
But not all the hurry in the world could force the chill out of Day's tired bones. She stumbled a little, and her teeth were chattering, as she mounted the steps at home.
"Then she stepped forward to the trail" Page 276
All that evening and all that night, she was hot and cold, cold and hot by turns; but, even in the heat, she could still feel that bleak, bleak wind blowing upward from the Saint Charles valley. And then, just as the little travelling clock on the table struck three, she suddenly pulled the sheet over her head and began to cry, cry silently, piteously, lonesomely for Rob. And Rob was in New York, too far away to hold her shivering, aching body in his strong, warm grasp.