Janet: Her Winter in Quebec/Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
"QUEBEC is a queer place. I fancy there's nothing else here like it."
His Baedeker propped open before him and a sheaf of paper by his side, Sir George Porteous sat in the writing-room of the Château, two days later, arduously engaged in composing a letter to his step-mother. His step-mother, who was also the source of future supplies, was fond of hard, concrete facts. Sir George bit the end of his pen-holder, while he conned the red-bound volume with intent and frowning brow.
"It is called the Gibraltar of America. Built on a high cliff over the Saint Lawrence, it is crowned with the Citadel. The soldiers are Canadians, and not at all swagger, like our Guards. There are several convents and monasteries here, and one meets a priest at every corner. Down by the river, there are shabby streets called Lower Town. Up on the hill, which the inhabitants call The Cape, there are two main roads and a lot of cross streets; but they all seem to lead to the terrace or the Basilica. That last is the French church, two hundred and fifty years old. There is a university, too; but I haven't seen it yet. I fancy it hasn't any boats."
Sir George drew a long sigh, as he laid down his pen and, leaning back in his chair, allowed his indolent glance to roam to and fro about the room, before it finally sought the terrace beneath the window and the broad blue river beyond. His step-mother was so fond of facts; and he had accumulated so very few of them, during the two weeks he had spent in Quebec.
Looking back over the two weeks, Sir George Porteous found it hard to account for the time. Two weeks! That made fourteen days, and there were twenty-four hours in the day. Of course, he had not kept awake all the time. No fellow could do that. He had had to do some dressing, and the meals had taken such a lot of time. Still, he had been out, every day. Really, he had walked quite a lot. Every morning, he had walked past the post office and the Basilica and down into Saint John Street to the florist shop. And, every afternoon, he had gone out the Grande Allée. Funny name, that, for such a little street I But everybody seemed to walk there. Vaguely he wondered what might he beyond the tollgate.
Suddenly his face lighted, and he picked up his pen, while the other hand, its index finger outstretched, trailed along the open page before him.
"Quebec was the scene of a famous battle. On the thirteenth of September, seventeen hundred and fifty-nine, the English climbed the cliff at the back of the city, and defeated the French outside the city wall. Both generals were killed, and now have the same monument on which my bedroom window looks down. This marks the fall of France in America. If Wolfe had lived, who knows—"
Once more he leaned back in his chair. This time, however, his long sigh of relief merged itself into an unmistakable yawn.
"Awful bore, this history!" he observed to himself. "I believe I'll go out for a walk and see if I can't find out some more facts. It's facts she wants, by George! The only question is how to get them."
Notwithstanding the fact that he had travelled for many months on end and in many climes, Sir George Porteous possessed a marked hollow where his bump of locality ought to have been. He knew the Ring as being the ancient Place d'Armes of the French epoch. He knew the long, straight road which runs westward from the Château wall, and calls itself Saint Louis Street, or the Grande Allée, or the Sillery Road, according to its location in regard to the tollgate and the city wall. He had a vague notion that the Citadel was at the summit of all things, as befitted a British fortress; and he had another vague notion that all downhill roads led into a vast unknown and shabby area dubbed the Lower Town. Beyond these very finite limits, his local knowledge stopped short. And so it came to pass that, by the time he had made a dozen turns after leaving the Château court, Sir George Porteous was almost irretrievably lost. To his surprise, he met with unexpected difficulties in finding himself. When at length he accomplished that end, it was quite by accident and by strange and devious courses. That accident and those courses landed him all at once before a streetcar whose front was plainly labelled Château Frontenac. Behind him was a huge gray stone building, also plainly labelled, and something in the label captured Sir George Porteous's languid attention.
"By George, here's a hospital!" he said. "She always did go in for hospitals, you know."
Pushing his hat far to the back of his head, he put up his glass and fell to ogling the massive front of the Hôtel Dieu, as though he expected its windows to open and a shower of little facts to come flying forth, as if in answer to his winning glance. Nothing of the kind happened, however. The place was as still and deserted as the grave, save for a workman putting up a storm door somewhere in the depths of the arch. Sir George let his eyeglass fall, and compressed his lips until the wrinkles of flesh met above the heavy creases which ran slantwise from his nose to the outer corners of his chin. Then he cast a distrustful glance over his shoulder, to see if the streetcar were still in sight.
After the fashion of streetcars, it had moved itself out of the landscape. Its place was taken by a stout little Canadian pony that came scrambling around the bend of Palace Hill, its sturdy forelegs stiff and straight under the pull of its high, wood-laden cart. Another pony followed, and still another, their drivers seated astride the load, shouting and cracking their whips in a lusty chorus which reminded Sir George of something he had heard once in an opera. As if to verify the impression, he glanced up at the background of mountains, purple in the light of a coming storm, which ringed in the Saint Charles valley at his feet. Then, as the unmistakable buzz of an electric car came faintly up to his ears, he faced about again with a jerk. An instant later, the car came around the turn from the trestle, and, by rare good fortune, its end also bore the reassuring label Château Frontenac. Sir George's brow cleared, and he relaxed the pressure on his lips.
"I'm here," he communed with himself; "and I can't well lose myself, with the tram passing the gate. It looks the sort of thing she'd like, and I fancy I'd best go inside and see the place for myself. She'll row, if I crib too much out of Baedeker, you know."
Once more and a bit distrustfully, he glanced back over his shoulder. Then for an instant, he showed signs of hesitating between the two means of entrance. A high, wide flight of steps led to the main door. A low archway seemed to give admission to the inner recesses of the place. Sir George chose the latter path, moved thereto, however, less by the instinct of exploration than by his natural indolence which made the steps look to him unduly high and steep.
The man working at the door sought to challenge his passage through the arch; but Sir George, giving him a card and a stony glare, prevailed and went his way.
"I must, you know," he said firmly. "I must see what's inside."
Dubiously the man shook his head. Contact with many tourists had taught him to understand a few words of the American tongue. Sir George, however, might have been talking in Cingalese, for anything the man could prove to the contrary. He shook his head; then he stepped back and Sir George passed in beyond him.
The archway opened on a square and grassy court, flanked on four sides by the building. At right angles to it, another arch, lower and much more ancient, pierced the wall and led into another court which was barred across by a high wooden fence. Sir George, straying aimlessly onward, came to the fence and, of a sudden, discovered that the fence was cut by a narrow door and that the door was slightly ajar. Modesty was not a ruling attribute of the life of Sir George Porteous. He pushed open the door and walked in. A garden was beyond, and beyond that another fence. On the west, a long, low wing of the building showed itself; and, on the opposite side of the enclosure, a high stone wall shut off all sight of the outer world. Everywhere was quiet; everywhere was the mark of age-long peace. Sir George's step grew more alert. He had not counted on finding anything in America so ripely artistic as this quiet nook. He crossed the garden and laid his hand boldly upon the latch of the gate in the wall at the farther end. The gate yielded, and he walked into the place beyond. Then he halted and stared about him.
"By George!" he said. "Oh, by George! How rummy!"
His chin raised, that his eyeglass might be brought to bear upon the walls around him, he still went straying forward, stumbling slightly over irregularities in the ground. Then suddenly he gave a violent start. He had been supposing the place quite deserted. It was most disconcerting to be brought to an abrupt halt by a hand laid on one's arm. The touch was gentle; but its gentleness held no hint of indecision.
"Eh? Oh, I say, what's the matter?"
As he spoke, Sir George turned about sharply. Then he dodged back and made an ineffective snatch at his hat. Instead of the masculine caretaker that he had expected, Sir George Porteous found himself staring at a thin French face set in stiff folds of white. His eyes dropped, trailing aimlessly over the bunchy dress, the stout, coarse shoes and at last coming to rest upon the ground. Then he raised his eyes again. The nun's face was plainly accusing. Another nun, sprung up from somewhere, was at his other side, and, from across the courtyard, two more nuns, framed in an open doorway, pointed their fingers at him in ghostly admonition.
"Oh, good morning," Sir George said, as affably as he was able. "It's a fine place here. I think I'd like to come back to-morrow, you know, and bring a fellow to take some pictures."
The first nun shook her head.
"It would not be permitted," she said in French.
Sir George fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, produced his card and held it out to the nun. The nun stared at it uncomprehendingly.
"I do not wish a ticket," she said, in slow, halting English. "There is no admission here."
Sir George shook his head slowly.
"I know. Of course, you can't have any tourist fellows here. But Lady Dudsworth is interested in hospitals, you know. She is on boards and things, and she likes facts and—" Sir George suddenly felt an inspiration coming, and his tone grew more animated; "and I thought you could give her a lot of new ideas. It's ideas, you know, she ought to have."
The nun's narrow comprehension of English caused her inability to comment upon the strange workings of heredity. Instead, her clutch on his arm tightened.
"Monsieur must go out," she said firmly.
"But I can come back?" Sir George's tone was charged with hope.
"It is impossible."
"Oh, but I must."
"No one is allowed to come here."
Sir George peered up at his companion, and his countenance expressed vague wonderment.
"But I'm here, you know, and so are you," he protested.
"It is not allowed."
Sir George shook his head.
"But it is. Else, how did I get here?"
The question was unanswerable. The nun could only repeat her order for exit. This time, the second nun came to her aid.
"You must go," she said, with calm and spectral dignity; and, as she spoke, Sir George felt her hand, gentle, but viselike, shut upon his other arm.
For one long instant, he stood there, powerless to step and staring alternately from one to the other of the placid, determined faces swathed in their linen folds. Then he sought his glass; but, dangling just out of reach, it eluded his fingers. The clasp on his arm relaxed no whit of its steadiness. Then Sir George Porteous yielded to the inevitable.
"Oh, I say, I'll go, if you want," he said hurriedly. "But aren't you a bit, oh, a bit exacting with a fellow?"
As he spoke, he took a step forward in the direction of the gate by which he had entered the court. To his surprise, the two nuns each made a step forward also, and their steps were measured to his with a mathematical exactness. Sir George made a tentative gesture with his pinioned arms. The gesture ended with the first inch of swing.
"Oh, you needn't trouble yourselves to come along, too," Sir George protested hastily. "I know the way out."
Without loosing her hold of her captive, the first nun paused to lock the gate through which they had come and to pocket the key. Then she faced forward again.
"It is necessary," she said.
"But I know the way quite well. It is only a step, you know, just around the corner to the street."
The second nun spoke.
"We will accompany monsieur."
Again Sir George made an almost imperceptible experiment on his arms. In response, the grip on either side tightened a little. Sir George lost his temper.
"Oh, by George!" he said testily. "You needn't take me all the way out to the street in this fashion. It's beastly, you know. A fellow would think you thought I was watching my chance to break into your blasted garden and steal things."
But the grip held firm, and the silence was unbroken. And so, protesting volubly and facing one and then the other of his impassive jailers with irate glances which, however, lacked the compelling power of his eyeglass, dangling and clicking impotently against the buttons of his waistcoat, Sir George Porteous was conducted forth from the garden, a twentieth-century Adam in the unrelaxing grasp of a pair of Eves.
Breakfast over, that Monday morning, Day had stood long before her window, staring down into the street with unseeing eyes which took no heed of the procession streaming towards the post office and the business streets beyond. All the day before, as if to prove to Ronald how little difference their talk had really made, Day had watched his moods and fitted herself into them with the skill which came to her now and then. Ronald's face, overcast at breakfast when the memory of his late talk with his mother was still fresh upon him, had brightened by noon. Over the dinner table at night, it still wore the alert smile it had taken on during their long afternoon tramp out the Grande Allée and far into the country beyond. It was in a frame of mind dangerously near to smug content that Day watched him starting for vespers at Saint Matthews in company with Janet. Then she turned away and entered her mother's sitting-room. She found Rob there alone; and, for the hour, Rob showed himself taciturn and glum. When Day put herself to bed, that night, her girlish head was full of the notion that boys were extremely hard to manage, and cranky withal.
The notion was still there, the next morning; but it was tempered with a hazy idea that, up to now, she had made no especial effort to manage her brother; that, rather than that, she had lavished all her care upon Ronald Leslie. To be sure, Ronald needed it more. Life was very full of disappointments to him just then, and no decent girl could sit by and watch his brave way of going without things he liked, and make no effort to fill in the gap. Ronald was such a dear, and so plucky. He answered so quickly to her efforts to cheer him up. It did seem as if Rob—
Three soldiers passed the window, their brief capes swinging in time to their stride, their diminutive caps poised insecurely above their right ears. Two nuns followed them, nuns whose dove-coloured cloaks showed that they had come from the Franciscan convent out on the Grande Allée. Then came a portly, scarlet-coated officer, and behind him the Dean, stepping briskly along on his gaitered legs which offered trig contrast to the trio of black soutanes behind him. Day recalled her wandering attention with a jerk. Starting with the soldiers, it had gone, by swift and devious courses, around to her brother, now shut up in his own room across the hall. Perhaps Rob was facing some disappointments, too.
Day rarely was a girl of many hesitations. Now, opening her door, she crossed the hall and tapped lightly on the opposite panels. "Come." The answering tone was indifferent, indifferent the eyes which looked up from the book.
However, Day was not to be daunted. If, as she shrewdly suspected, hers was the blame, then hers, also, the cure.
"What are you doing?" she demanded.
"Reading."
"What?"
"A book."
"So I observe," she said coolly, as she drew up a chair and dropped down at his side. "Look up, Rob, and tell me whether it is half so interesting as I am."
Her wheedling tone was not to be resisted. Rob's hand shut on her hair, then turned her head about, until their eyes met
"Not half," he answered, smiling. "Now trot along and be a good girl."
"But I can't," she said. "It's not in me." Then, obeying some sudden impulse, she reached out and took possession of his hand. "Rob," she added, with manifest effort; "I—I believe I've been a good deal of a pig."
The book, sliding to the floor, was allowed to rest there, face down and a leaf turned edgewise, while Rob leaned back in his chair and faced his sister in astonishment.
"Why, Day, what's the matter?" he asked her.
"You." The answer was accompanied by a laugh which threatened to become hysterical.
"I? What have I done?"
"Nothing. It's I. At least, I haven't done things," she explained incoherently. "Rob, do you think I'm very horrid?"
Rob Argyle possessed no more than his own due share of masculine obtuseness. Nevertheless, he was at a loss to explain Day's sudden outburst of self-reproach. Whatever its cause, however, her woe was obviously real. Obeying the sixth sense which comes, at times like this, to young fellows who have lived much in the open air, he put out his arm and gathered Day into its curve. To his surprise, he was conscious of a momentary nestling against his shoulder.
"What is it, Day?" he asked again. "Is something wrong?"
"Everything is," she made comprehensive answer for, like most self-reliant girls, once she gave in to her emotions, they swept her off her feet.
Over the top of her unconscious head, Rob smiled ever so slightly. He had had little experience of girlish woe. Nevertheless, he kept the amusement all out of his voice, as he said,
"What, for instance?"
"I've been off too much with Ronald."
Light suddenly began to dawn upon the dark places of Rob's mind.
"Oh, I see. You and Ronald have been fighting. Never mind, dear. Let him alone, and he'll come round in time."
The words were wholly soothing. Not so the tone. Day raised her head abruptly.
"Ronald never fights," she said, with sudden tartness. "He is a dear." Then she rose to her feet, albeit a little reluctantly, for the curving grasp of Rob's strong arm had somehow carried her back to the memory of her little childhood which, a moment before, had seemed so remote and dim.
Rob looked up at her in surprise. As yet, he was wholly unable to fathom the workings of the feminine mind. Slowly he rose and stood facing her.
"You're not going to leave me alone in my glory, Day? I thought you had come to stay."
She had meant to leave him at once. His accent broke down her sudden antagonism, however, and her step halted. Swiftly she went back to the first intention which had brought her to his room.
"I came to see if you'd take me out for a drive," she suggested.
Gravely Rob looked down into her uplifted face, noting, as he did so, the unwonted gentleness which rested in her brown eyes.
"Fibbing, Day; or do you truly want to go?" he asked.
And she did fib bravely.
"I do want to go, Rob. Else, I shouldn't ask you."
Apparently his scrutiny of her face satisfied him, for his own face brightened.
"Good child! I'd love it. Let's make it a walk, instead; that is, unless you'd freeze at my pace."
"But ought you?" she queried.
"Hang the ought. I'll risk it, if you will. Everyone says it is bound to snow, to-morrow, and that will shut me up, tighter than a drum. Get your hat on, Day, and we'll take our last fling and forget the consequences," he said jovially, as he stooped for his stick. "These cabbies all turn the same corners and spin the same yarns. Take me into a new quarter, Day, there's a good soul."
And Day, as she went hurrying away for her hat and coat, ransacked her mind how best to obey his behest. It was not too easy to explore new territory within the limits of a half-mile radius. Nevertheless, Day's mood was one of supreme content. Bob had ceased to glower, and her own conscience had ceased to lacerate her self-esteem. Moreover, Rob in his present mood promised to be a comrade second in interest to none.
Half an hour later, at the bend of Palace Hill, Day stood waiting for Rob to get himself down the steps of the car.
"Just a little way around here," she said eagerly. "It's the sweetest place, endlessly old and picturesque. I know you'll love it."
Rob, safely on the ground, started to reply. Then he held his peace and raised his head to listen to a faint and distant hail.
"Oh, I say! Come here, you know."
The voice was familiar, familiar, too, the wide-spanned A. Rob turned about alertly. The next instant, he burst into a roar of laughter. Close at hand rose the massive bulk of the Hôtel Dieu, its front pierced by one wide archway. Out through the archway towards the street, protesting, vociferating, expostulating, his hat awry and his arms rampantly akimbo, there came Sir George Porteous. And, on either side of Sir George Porteous, clasping his manly arm with an iron, but nerveless hand, there walked a guardian nun, stern, impenetrable and wholly unrelenting.
From afar, Sir George spied Rob, hailed him as an old acquaintance.
"Come here," he iterated shrilly.
And Rob came, more hastily than was quite good for his lame leg; but Sir George manifestly considered himself in need of succour.
"What's the trouble?" he queried, just as the two nuns, arriving at the end of the arch, let go their captive's elbows and stepped back into its shadowy interior.
Sir George looked helplessly at Rob, distrustfully at the nuns, made a tentative gesture to discover whether his arms were really free; then, finding that they were, he straightened his hat and grasped the string of his eyeglass.
"There's been an awful row, you know," he explained then. "These—er—these ladies took me for a sneak thief after their fruit, or something, and they insisted upon putting me out. Really, they're very strong ladies," he added reminiscently. "They must go in for a great deal of exercise, and that. I wish you'd please tell them that you know me, and that I'm not given to breaking into things."
But Day had come up to Rob's side.
"What about the fort at Levis?" she inquired unexpectedly.
Sir George faced around and stared at her in amazement.
"Oh, is it you?" he said dispassionately then. "Seems to me you are always about."