Janet: Her Winter in Quebec/Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
THE clang of the knob brought Rob to his senses, brought him to a swift realization that he must not let Janet escape him like this. Since his infantine squabbles with Day, his life had been uncommonly free from quarrels of any sort. Nevertheless, he was quick to know that, between friends such as he and Janet had been, every minute that a misunderstanding is prolonged, increases by tenfold the difficulty of breaking it. Rob's own irritation had been short-lived, the irritation of a mastiff when a terrier nips at his ears. Janet had been cross, off her nerve. Possibly she was not feeling well, or something had gone wrong at home, that morning. Anyway, he could not afford to quarrel with the girl; they had been too good friends for that.
As fast as his lame leg would let him, Rob hobbled across to the door, opened the door and peered over the rail into the hall beneath.
"Janet!" he said to the silence. "Oh, Janet!"
But the silence vouchsafed no answer.
For a moment longer, he waited there in the chilly hall. It seemed incredible to him that Janet could have escaped. Then he remembered that he was not so quick of motion as he had been, and he shrugged his shoulders. Meanwhile, the air of the hall was as chilly as the silence. He returned to the library and put on his coat and hat.
"Party's over," he said whimsically to himself, as he turned up his collar about his cars. "I may as well be starting for home." Then, as he glanced out the window by his side, he added, "Considering all things and the weather, I wish I were at home now." Then slowly, laggingly, he went down the stairs and out into the snow-filled air of the street.
For a time, he was so much dazed by Janet's recent display of mental pyrotechnics that he took no heed of the fact that the rails of the streetcar track were buried beneath an unbroken heap of snow. He merely stood there on the curb, his shoulders shrugged together and his back to the storm, while he beguiled the period of waiting for a car by wondering what in thunder he had done to put Janet's back up, and what in thunder her back was up for, anyway. Then a sudden and most violent gust of wind, swirling a handful of flakes down the nape of his neck, roused him to the point of discovering that the car was unreasonably long in coming, and that the marrow of his bones was being chilled by its delay.
"I may as well go inside the door and wait, though they'd never hear me call, the wind makes such an infernal row," he said to himself, with a backward, homesick glance over his shoulder at the yellow walls of Morrin College. Then his glance sought the track. "By Jove," he added; "do you believe the cars have stopped running?"
Again and more thoughtfully he peered through the falling flakes, hoping to see some break in the smooth white level of the street, some sign to show that a car had passed the corner within the last half hour. The white level was unscarred; no distant hum marked the approach of car or sweeper, and the wind was rising with every moment. Rob whistled to himself.
"Oh, come now," he said aloud. "Here's a mess for a poor football cripple! What's doing now?"
The roar of the storm was his only answer, and Rob was forced to set his own wits to work to answer the question.
Swiftly he vetoed the idea of going back into the library. In such a storm as this, there was scanty chance that the librarian would return. No telling how long he might have to stay there, awaiting succour. And, if the fires went low? And, besides, he would need things to eat. Canadian beef might be tough; but, at least, it was preferable to book bindings. It was plain no car was coming. He could telephone for a cab, if he only knew where he could find a telephone. He tried to study the skyline, in the hope of discovering some friendly wire branching into a house near by; but the snowflakes, veiling the air, set his eyes to tingling with their impact and then, discovering the opening in the front of his coat collar, sought a watery grave in the warm recesses of his throat. He gasped a little, as he gave up the attempt and tucked his chin down in his collar again.
"No go," he said then. "Well, all right. I'll have to trip it on the light, fantastic toe. Glad my mother isn't here, to hold up her hands in terror for her first-born son. She'd throw a fit, if she knew what I am doing." And, pulling his hat still lower over his eyes, he started for the Ursule Street corner.
Janet, all this time, was sitting enthroned on a dusty heap of Mounted Police reports, waiting for Rob to get out of the way. Thoroughly ashamed of herself by now, she had no wish to meet his keen blue eyes until the memory of her recent bad temper had had a chance to blunt itself a little. Her earlier disagreement with Day had been but a summer squall in comparison with the storm of her battle with Rob. And Rob, of late, had been walking straight into the king-row of her chiefest friends and cronies. Janet shook her head forlornly, as she recalled the glint in his blue eyes and the tawny red which now and then showed itself, when the sunlight struck across his yellow hair. She had been altogether abominable; she knew it now. Her penitence came as suddenly as her wrath had done. It was less sound, perhaps, for as yet she was not quite ready to speak out and tell how truly sorry she was. Instead of that, when Rob's opening the door above had caught her at the foot of the stairs, she had dodged away, out of his sight. Then, fearful of his following her, she noiselessly pushed open a door which chanced to be unlatched, crossed the threshold and, still noiselessly, closed the door behind her. The next moment, she found herself safe from pursuit, in one of the library vaults. Rob would probably start for home now. She would wait there, until he had had time to get safely out of the way. Then she would betake herself home by another path. She would make herself late for lunch; and, by dinner time, the whole fray would have passed into oblivion, and she and Rob, under the combined eyes of their two families, would meet as if nothing unusual had occurred.
Bravely as she gave herself this assurance, however, in her secret heart she was conscious of misgivings. Suddenly and for no assignable cause, she had been volcanic. Under such an assault, even a worm would have turned, and Rob Argyle was no worm. It might be that his forgiveness would be slow in coming. At least, though, he was too much the gentleman to show his open hostility, and Janet knew his code well enough to be sure he would never tell tales to anyone but Day. The worst he could do, would be to let her severely alone. Janet sought to extract from that surety what lean consolation she could. And, after all, both he and Day did turn up their noses at Quebec. Only the night before, Day had made irreverent comment upon some newly-arrived wedding cards. To Janet's loyal mind, comparisons were wholly odious, save when the balance of credit was obviously upon the side of her own city. Still, viewed in perspective, a haughty disdain would have been a better rebuke than any amount of dudgeon. Besides, she was not altogether sure, now it was all over, that Rob ought to have been held responsible for the utterances of his sister.
In the intervals of her musings, she listened intently for the sound of Rob's halting step upon the stairs. The vault was chilly, and she had no wish to linger in it longer than was absolutely necessary. The roar of the storm, however, cut out all other sounds, and, measured only by its fitful gusts, she found it impossible to make any reckoning of time. She resolved to wait a little longer. Any physical discomfort was preferable to the ignominy of throwing open the door and stepping out just in season to face Rob, as he came slowly down the stairs. She could fancy the mirth which would come into his eyes as he met her, and her cheeks grew hot at the thought. Rather than that, she would stay in the vaults until the crack of doom.
Restlessly she rose and began to explore her narrow quarters, moved less by curiosity than by the chill of the place. Long decades back, the building had been the old prison; and Janet found herself now in what had been the outer court which gave access to the solitary cells. One cell was now given up to the furnace; another to a ragged pile of blue-bound government reports, while the court itself was partly filled with coal and lighted but dimly by one window at its farther end. And the base of the window, sunk below the level of the ground beyond, was already covered with a light, white heap of snow. Janet crossed to the window and peered out, shielding her eyes with her hand, the while, as if to ward off the whirling flakes which clicked ceaselessly against the panes. Then she gave a little shiver of disgust. Born and bred in a land where winter attains its full perfection, a storm even such as that held no terrors for her. Her disgust was all for the lack of foresight which had led her to come out with neither umbrella nor overstockings, and arrayed in her best felt hat.
Impatiently she turned away from the window. It was stupid and dusty and cold in there. Rob must be gone by now. She had been in there for ages, and not even his stiff leg could consume such an amount of time in taking him out of the building. Anyway, she would risk it. She could dodge back again out of sight, if she heard him coming. Recklessly she crossed the room again and laid her hand upon the knob of the door.
Again and again she tried to turn the knob, twisting her slender wrists until they ached, throwing her light weight against the massy door and, the while, making little impatient groans of baffled energy. At last she abandoned the attempt, abandoned, too, the pride which heretofore had kept her in silent hiding. The dusty old vault echoed with her calls for help. The roar of the storm, drowning her cries, mocked her with its fury just as, a moment before, the metal bar of a spring lock had made mockery of her futile girlish strength. Alone in the vault of the ancient prison, Janet Leslie was herself a prisoner, and the storm was the jailer who saw to it that her outcries should be unavailing.
Luncheon hour, that noon, found the Leslie house in a state of wild confusion. The midday gun, almost inaudible in the storm, had boomed out over the terrace before Rob Argyle, coated with snow from head to heel, had struggled around the corner of Ursule Street into the boisterous tunnel of Saint Louis. Twice he had slipped and fallen in the snow; three times, floundering along through the irregular drifts, he had wandered off the board sidewalk into the gutter. Tired, cold and aching in every joint and muscle, he reached his own front steps and, too chilled to seek his latchkey, rang the bell.
Day, passing through the hall, glanced up at the opening door. With a cry which summoned her mother to the hall, she dashed forward and dragged her brother into the house.
As a matter of fact, the case was rather serious. As a matter of course, the three women made the most of it, and Rob was rubbed and dosed and packed into bed between hot blankets, before he was allowed to tell his tale. When at last he did tell it, it was brief.
"The blasted cars had stopped running, and I had to walk home," was all the account of his adventures that he deigned to give, and it was not until some days later and by way of a friend living on Sainte Ursule Street that Mrs. Leslie knew how full of suffering that brief walk must have been.
Two hours later, the house had regained its wonted calm, and Rob, his inner man parboiled with scalding hot tea and his outer man swathed in liniment, was beginning to regain his sense of humour. His mother, worn out with the sudden alarm, had retired to her own room for a nap, and Day, a bit of sewing in her idle hands, sat curled up in Rob's arm-chair, her feet under her, and her head pillowed comfortably against the angle of one of its wide arms.
"I wonder where Janet is," she said suddenly.
Rob laughed.
"In cold storage, we'll hope."
Day rarely needed explanations. Now her response came swiftly.
"You caught it, too?"
Rob nodded, as he freed his lips from a mouthful of blanket.
"And the mischief of it is," he added; "I haven't the ghost of an idea what it was all about."
Day shook her head thoughtfully.
"Nor I. I suppose that is the way with us girls. Something goes wrong with us, and then we strike fire on the first thing that comes. I thought Janet was too quiet to be so spunky, though. Did you have a bad time of it?"
Rob turned evasive.
"It might have been worse, I suppose. However, I hadn't much to judge by. As a rule, Day, you don't make a row about things."
Something in his tone pleased her. Her eyes showed it, though her answer was careless. "Possibly I don't care enough about things, in the first place."
"Nor people?" he asked.
"It depends on the person," she made elusive reply.
For a moment, Rob lay staring up at her thoughtfully. She was good to look at, this dainty young sister of his; and, for the passing hour, an unwonted mood of gentleness was upon her. Even in his exhaustion of the hour before, Rob had taken swift heed of her little cry of alarm as she had caught sight of him on the threshold, of the deft gentleness with which she had helped him rid himself of hat and coat and overshoes. Afterwards, in the bustle of getting him warmed and anointed with liniments, she had been swift to see, efficient to act. Her brown eyes, meanwhile, had been only merry; and Rob had found her carefree expression a welcome contrast to the manifest alarm of his mother. The past year's experience had taught him to recognize the whole gamut of feelings that centered in his leg. He was perfectly convinced that the morning's adventure had wrought no serious harm. His mother, though, refused to be convinced. She looked worried, and talked about the doctor. Day, on the other hand, did what she could to allay his present aches; then she settled herself beside him, prepared to talk over the situation or remain silent, as might suit his mood. To Day's mind, Rob had never shown himself more attractive than in the stoic fashion in which he accepted both discomfort and dosing, accepted them and rose superior to them in all their ignominy. Her last pat on the blanket had been aimed straight down upon Rob's muscular shoulder, and she had smiled squarely into his eyes, as she asked,—
"Comfy, Rob?"
Motionless as a cocoon, he had nodded up at her gayly.
"Can't help it, Day, with such a jolly little nurse. What now?"
"My work," she said. "I'll be back in a minute."
And Rob found himself counting the time, until her dark red frock reappeared around the corner of the doorway.
Both Rob and Day were surprised, when the falling twilight drove Day out of her chair to turn on the electric lights, surprised again when the bell for dinner sounded in the hall below. Then reluctantly Day rose to her feet.
"I'll bring yours up, myself," she said. "You don't want Marie upsetting things all over you. I'll gobble mine, and then come up and feed you yours."
"No hurry, Day."
She made a little grimace of disgust.
"Remember, I have no especial wish to sit long at the family board," she reminded him. "Janet may throw a potato at me, for anything I know to the contrary."
Rob laughed unfeelingly.
"Isn't she over her grouch yet?"
Day shrugged her shoulders after a fashion which unconsciously she had picked up of late. It was less elegant than expressive.
"How should I know? I've not seen her since just after breakfast. Then I went out of the room and left her talking. For all I know, she may be talking still. Be a good boy, and I'll be back soon with your dinner." And, with a mocking, mischievous gesture, she was gone.
Ten minutes later, she came back, bringing the tray, bringing, too, exciting news.
"Janet's not back yet, and her mother is worried to pieces," she proclaimed.
Rob sat up in bed and reached for his dressing gown.
"Steady with the tray!" he protested. "I don't care to have my fish swim off on a wave of soup. Where has Janet gone?"
"Nobody knows. She just hasn't come. That's the trouble."
Rob whistled.
"That's bad. What do they think is the matter?" he asked.
Day balanced the tray on his knees, then settled herself on the edge of the bed.
"They don't think," she said shortly. "They have lost their heads utterly and their brains have turned into cotton wool. Mrs. Leslie is sure she is snowed up in the street; but I don't worry about that. She'd thaw herself out, unless she has cooled off a good deal since morning."
"Where is Ronald?"
"Tearing about like a hen with its head cut off. You'd think Janet was a year-old baby, by the way he goes on. For goodness' sake, Rob, if I ever do get lost, do try to conduct yourself like a sane being."
Rob waved his soup spoon at her.
"If you ever do get lost, young woman, I'll look for you at the nearest spot where they sell ice cream soda," he responded.
"You'll have to go a good long way to do it," she retorted, as she took possession of his empty plate. "Up here, these people do nothing but guzzle tea. But how did you happen to mention ice cream soda? That was the rock we split on, this morning."
Rob picked up his knife and fork.
"I might have known," he murmured.
"Don't laugh. You know you like it, yourself. But you should see Ronald. He has been telephoning all over town, from the Hôtel Dieu to the jail. In the intervals of his telephoning, he rushes to the front door and stares up and down the street. The house is as cold as a barn. I do believe here's Ronald now," she added, as a short, sharp knock sounded upon the door.
Ronald entered abruptly, abruptly cast his question at the comfortable-looking pair on the bed.
"Have, either of you seen Janet?"
"Not since morning. Rob is better, thank you," Day responded calmly.
Ronald, in all his alarm, looked puzzled.
"Of course. Why not?"
"Nothing; only I thought perhaps you had forgotten to ask," Day made demure response.
"Shut up, Day!" Rob said good-naturedly. "Can't you see that Ronald hasn't any time to fuss with us?"
Ronald gave a quick, excited nod.
"Not with Janet missing. When did you say you saw her?"
"This morning."
"When?"
"In the dining-room, after breakfast." Day slid off the edge of the bed and went to get the plate of fruit she had left on the table.
"That's no use. My mother saw her after that. She was just putting on her hat in the hall."
"I saw her in the library," Rob suggested.
"When?"
"About eleven."
"Why didn't you say so sooner?" Ronald inquired, with a crisp ungraciousness of which he was wholly unaware.
"Because I had no idea that counted."
"Of course it counted. You knew she hadn't been home since then."
Rob was in the peaceable mood which follows a good dinner. Nevertheless, he resented being assaulted and battered by Ronald's tongue. A bunch of grapes dangling in his hand, he leaned back at his ease and made careless answer,—
"No; I can't say I did. You see, I got busy on my own account, and didn't keep track of Janet's doings."
Ronald walked to the window and stared out into the street, then walked back again. His code of honour forbade his taking vengeance on a fellow in bed. Nevertheless, he would have relished the idea of pitching Rob, bed and all, out into the snowy streets.
"She was at the library?"
"Yes."
"Came away before you did?"
"Yes."
"You saw her go?"
Rob gave an irrepressible chuckle.
"I heard her bang the door behind her."
The dark red flush mounted across Ronald's face and dyed the roots of his hair. He controlled himself, however.
"How soon did you follow her?"
"As soon as I could get my coat on."
"Which way did her tracks turn?"
Rob pondered, for a moment.
"I don't remember seeing any tracks."
"You must have seen them."
"N—no. Hold on, though!" Rob straightened up abruptly. "I do remember noticing that the snow on the steps made a straight, smooth slant down to the walk. It wouldn't have done that, if there had been any tracks in—"
But already Ronald was half way across the floor.
"Confound you for not saying it sooner!" he said curtly. "Then of course she's in the building."
"Why?"
Ronald halted on the threshold.
"Because she hadn't come out."
"Not then. She may have come later, though."
"Sloane went in at twelve. There was only one trail out, at that time. We supposed it was Janet's. If you had only spoken earlier, you might have saved us all this trouble."
Rob, the grapes still dangling from his fingers, listened until the sound of Ronald's steps died away into silence. Then he settled himself at his ease.
"Well," he observed. "I do like pretty manners."
"I like the way he jumps to conclusions," Day responded. "He's like a mad bull, when he thinks there's something wrong with Janet."
"Poor little soul! It would be hard lines, if she'd been shut up somewhere in that building, a day like this. I can't see why Sloane didn't find her."
"No matter. It will give her time to think of her sins," Day said tartly.
Rob shook his head.
"Rather more than she needs. Janet isn't usually a vixen." Then his compassion changed to mirth, as he added, "Ronald's progress will be easy, for he will set the snow on fire before him, if he dashes through it as he went downstairs."
Ronald, meanwhile, was making all speed to the library. Logic or no logic, Rob's words had convinced him that Janet was somewhere shut up in the building. The impression grew upon him, as he floundered through the half-cleared streets, mounted the steps and hailed the janitor whom he had telephoned to meet him.
"It's I, Leslie. For heaven's sake, open the door!"
The heavy door swung open with a clang. The clang was answered by a shrill hail.
"Come! Come quick and let me out!"
"Janet!" Ronald's voice went up an octave. "Where are you?"
A thudding of fists on a door beneath the stairs showed him the direction he should take, showed him, too, that Janet's imprisonment had in no sense told upon her strength.
"Ronald! It's you! I'm in the coalbin beside the furnace. Let me out, quick! It's so dark, and I'm so hungry." And, as the door opened, she sprang out to his encircling arms.
"How in the world—?"
And Janet told him, told him with a prolixity of detail which completely concealed the main cause of her retirement, while she nestled in his strong arms and rubbed her crocky cheek against his own.
A long hour later, Ronald mounted the stairs at home. His anxiety at rest, his conscience became uncomfortably alert, and his conscience was sending him in search of Rob. To his disappointment, Rob's door was closed. Across the hall, Day's door stood open, and Day sat reading just inside the door. She looked up, as Ronald's step sounded on the stairs, and her face was severe.
"Is Rob—" Ronald began hesitatingly.
"Rob has gone to bed."
"Is he asleep?"
"I hope so. He was very tired and a good deal worried. I hope he won't be disturbed," Day said sedately.
"Hang it, Day; don't be so hard on a fellow!" Ronald blurted out. "I know I was beastly rude to Rob; but I was half-wild about Janet, and didn't mind what I was saying."
And Day made serene reply,—
"Of course. We were worried about Rob, too, out in all that storm. But let's hope the poor fellow is asleep. Perhaps we'd better not stand here, talking. Good night." And she closed her door with every manifestation of anxious care.
Meanwhile, the "poor fellow," prostrate upon his pillow, was chuckling with ill-suppressed glee.
"Poor old Ronald!" he said to his enfolding blanket. "He's getting his punishment now. There was no sense in his kicking up such an unmannerly sort of row, and I don't know as I blame Day for taking it out of him a little. Still, she'd best leave a few pieces for Janet to pick up and put together. After all, the fellow isn't all bad." And, his mental amendments made, he turned over on the other side and drifted off into dreamland.