Janet: Her Winter in Quebec/Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE house was silent and dark, that night, when Ronald Leslie came up the steps. The click of his latchkey, however, was answered by the softer click of an electric button, and by the creak of an upstairs door.
"Ronald!" Janet called softly, from over the banisters.
"You up?"
Janet's arm, plunging about in search of the second sleeve of her dressing-gown, cast strange shadows on the wall.
"I heard you come, and I got up. I want to hear about it."
"To-night?" Even his whispered question had a laugh lurking in it.
"Now. I'm not sleepy, truthfully. Come up and tell me," she begged. And Ronald, shaking himself free of his coat, mounted the stairs.
He found a tight little bundle of blue blanket and blue dressing-gown huddled in a corner of the couch, and the sole arm-chair the room afforded, drawn forward and evidently awaiting him.
"Bad child! You'll catch a cold," he admonished her, as, with one strong hand, he dragged the coverings from the bed and heaped them about her. "You ought to be asleep."
A shapeless lump of bedclothes pointed vaguely in the direction of the clock.
"It's early yet, and I want to hear about it. Sit down and tell me. Something funny has happened; I know it from the look in your eyes."
Ronald laughed, as he settled himself in the arm-chair. His laugh increased, until his broad shoulders shook.
"Somebody happened, Janet," he corrected her.
"Who?"
"Sir George Porteous."
"Who's he?"
"An embodied joke." Ronald felt about in his pockets, produced a card, and tossed the card across to Janet. "This was it," he added then. "He's out from London, says he has been here since October; but, if he has, I don't see how I can have missed him. He's not the sort to pass in a crowd."
"Why not?" Janet asked again, and again Ronald laughed.
"Because he is so funny, funny. He seems a good little chap, well-bred and good-natured; but I never saw any human being with so little sense, nor so little idea how to show off what sense he has."
"Where did he come from?" Janet demanded a bit impatiently, for it seemed to her that Ronald held a monopoly of the joke.
"London."
"Yes, you said so. But at your dinner?"
"The chief asked him. It seems, he brought a letter to the chief, and there was some talk of his coming into the office for the winter. I fancy the talk will go up in smoke, though, for Sir George Porteous was never constructed for office life. He asked me if I didn't find it very tiresome, sitting on a stool, all day; and, after he had digested my answer, he followed it up with a question as to whether a fellow mightn't bring his own footrest, the stools were so beastly high."
"Ronald!" Janet protested.
"For a fact, Janet. I'm not making up a word. You see, I had him to talk to. The chief told me about him, as soon as I went in, told me he was a stranger here and asked me to look out for him. He may have thought the other fellows were more likely to chaff him. Sir George was late coming; we were half through dinner, when he came sauntering in with some wild excuse about having sat too long in the snow and being so stiff that it took him a good while to dress."
"Ronald!" Janet protested again.
And again Ronald replied concisely,—
"Fact."
"What is he like?"
"The sort of thing that drifts out here, now and then, to keep us content with being colonials."
"Then he's not of our sort?" Janet queried.
"Thank the Immortals, no!" Ronald said fervently. Then he relented. "And yet, after all, Janet, I rather liked the fellow. He is funny, the funniest thing that ever talked; but now and then he had an idea, and the idea was generally good. The only trouble was that they came so rarely that they took me by surprise, and I answered at random and threw him off the track. He's easily thrown off the track, too," Ronald added reminiscently.
"What does he look like?" Janet demanded. "Maybe I have seen him somewhere."
Ronald searched his mind for words.
"I'm no good at description, Janet," he said then. "He is little and dark, with lanky dark hair that dangles all over his forehead, and a lean little lower jaw that dangles all over his collar. It has dangled there till it has worn a pair of deep, deep wrinkles in his cheeks. He has a monocle, and he carries his mouth ajar, and, when he wants to be extra impressive, he gesticulates with his forefinger."
Janet sat up alertly.
"And sticks his nose in the air, and turns his head back and forth without moving his eyes, and looks as if he didn't know enough to stop a streetcar?" she asked.
"The very same."
She sank back again among her blankets.
"Hh! I know him," she asserted.
"Know him?"
"Yes. I've seen him on the terrace."
"Ever heard him talk?" Ronald queried.
"No."
"Then you've lost a treat. His first words to me were astounding. The chief introduced us, and he put up his glass and looked at me, up and up and up and up, for he's a little fellow. Then he dropped his glass and said, 'Oh, how do you do? Do you happen to have a safety pin anywhere about you?'"
Janet subsided among her blankets.
"To pin on his bib? " she giggled.
"Nobody knows. Latoure sat on the other side, and he choked until he had to leave the table. Under the circumstances, I didn't feel like asking too many questions," Ronald confessed. "Do you know, Janet, it was a funny thing; but I kept thinking, all the time I was talking to him, how Day would have taken him in. I was out on the Cove Fields with her, one afternoon, and another fellow of about the same sort came along and spoke to us. He wasn't nearly so funny; but I thought Day would die of him." As he spoke, Ronald started to rise. Janet had sobered at his words. All at once, there had come back to her the memory of her real reason for summoning Ronald to her room. The talk, drifting into other channels, had made her forget her resolution. Now she gripped it sturdily.
"Don't go yet, Ronald. You aren't sleepy, I know."
Something in her tone caught his attention, always vigilant where Janet was concerned.
"What is it, dear? Is something wrong?" he asked instantly.
"Yes. No. Not now. But are you too tired to stay and talk it over?"
For his answer, Ronald seated himself and waited, waited long and patiently for, now that her chance was come, Janet seemed loath to speak.
"Now that her chance was come, Janet seemed loath to speak" Page 200
"Do you remember the day of the storm, Ronald?" she blurted out at length.
"The day things happened?"
She nodded. Under her muffling blankets, he could see her hands working uneasily. The pause lengthened once more.
"Did you ever know what started all the fuss?" she blurted out again.
"No."
"Well, I did."
"You?"
"Yes, I." She reiterated her statement, with a sudden wave of the satisfaction girls sometimes take in heaping blame upon their own heads. "It was all my fault; at least, not all, but mostly. Anyway, I started it."
"But, Janet, how?"
Her reply came crisply.
"Fighting Day. Then fighting Rob."
"Rob?" Ronald looked up from the carpet. "I didn't suppose anybody ever fought with him."
"You've fought him, your own self, ever since that night," Janet retorted sharply, for she was quick to feel the disappointment which sounded underneath Ronald's surprise. "Besides, you said, yourself, that you had a fuss with him, that very night."
Ronald's face grew scarlet.
"So I did, Janet. I was wild about you, and off my nerve."
"So was I off my nerve, I suppose," she responded. "Let's not get mad at each other, Ronald." She laughed a little nervously. "That would be the last straw."
But his answering smile was free from all trace of anger.
"I'm not cross, Janet. I'm only trying to think it out. What started you and Day off?"
Janet hesitated. Then she resolved to make a clean breast of the matter.
"I was cross, that morning. I got up, cross. My hair wouldn't do. It tangled and threw the comb, and that broke. Then I tore the placket of my skirt, not straight, but all off cornerwise. Then I came down to breakfast, and found Marie had burned the porridge till it tasted like a salt-hay bonfire. By the time breakfast was over, I didn't care what happened, so, when Day began to criticize the Quebec shops, I turned around and told her just what I thought of her." Janet had straightened up, blankets and all, in the fervour of her tale. Now she sank back again, with a nervous little giggle. "And I didn't think nice things at all," she added.
Ronald's eyes were once more on the carpet. He spoke without lifting them,—
"I'm sorry."
Janet coloured. Then,—
"So was I, the minute I had done it," she said. "And, the worst of it was, the more sorry I felt, the more I longed to go at her again. It has been so, ever since. I've been sorry and ashamed; but she has been so fluffy and superior about it all that I have been tempted, a dozen times over, to start fresh and do it all over again. It seemed a shame to be so sorry about something that hadn't taken any more effect."
A little pause followed her last words. Suddenly she broke it by asking,—
"Do you think I'm very horrid, Ronald?"
He roused himself at the question.
"No, dear; not horrid. I'm only sorry and a good deal surprised."
Her colour came again, while she looked at him through her long lashes.
"You didn't think I had it in me, Ronald?" she inquired.
"No, Janet. I didn't."
"Well, I have," she said, with sudden spirit. "What's more, I suspect most girls have, if the truth were known. It's there, all the time; it is only a question whether something comes up to set us off. Some of us take more setting than others; some of us go farther than others, when we're set. But I don't believe there's a girl living, a real, live, healthy girl, that hasn't a streak of gunpowder in her, somewhere or other. If there is, then I don't want to meet her."
"Nor I," Ronald assented unexpectedly. "Neither do I want to meet a girl who leaves her gunpowder lying around loose. If a spark drops on it, she is as likely to blow up her best friend as her worst enemy. It's as uncomfortable for one as for the other; but it generally makes some difference afterwards to the girl herself." He spoke with the quiet dignity which he assumed at times, a dignity which never failed to make Janet think back to their father, now sleeping under the Mount Hermon trees. Then he held out his arms. "Come over here, Janet," he said.
And Janet came. Great girl that she was, blankets and all she curled herself up on Ronald's knee and nestled to the circling grasp of his strong arms.
"Isn't it all horrid?" she said brokenly at length.
And Ronald answered gravely,—
"Yes, dear, it is. Still, I'm glad you've told me."
"I should have told you before, only I supposed you all knew it."
"But how could we know?"
Janet lifted her head from his shoulder, with a touch of her former spirit.
"I should think you had time enough to talk it over and get all the facts, while I was freezing in the coalhole," she responded.
"But who was there to tell them?"
"Day."
"You're not quite fair to Day, Janet. You never were."
"What's the use, when she's so more than fair to herself?" Janet protested mutinously. "It never seems to occur to Day Argyle that she isn't just right, never. Perhaps she is all right. She may be, for all I know. Still, I do wish she would show occasional misgivings on the subject. I'd like to see her, just once, all mussed up and crying her eyes out."
Prudently Ronald changed the subject. He felt that Janet was sounding feminine depths which he could never hope to fathom. Rather than flounder about too aimlessly, he dived in another direction.
"But you said you fought with Rob, too," he suggested.
Janet sat up straight.
"So I did. It was afterwards, and it almost killed me," she confessed. "I didn't care about Day so much; but it has worried me into mental cramps, this fuss with Rob. I was all to blame, and he is such a dear. I can see him now, poor old boy, stooping down to get his stick and then getting up and looking at me, as if he thought I had gone crazy. Perhaps I had." Again Janet's laugh threatened to become hysterical.
With rare patience, Ronald waited until she was quiet once more. Then he said gently,
"Tell me all about it, Janet; that is, if you don't mind."
"But I don't mind, Ronald. It's what I stayed awake for. It's worse than ever, to-night, and I've just got to tell somebody or die," Janet burst out, in a sudden access of woe.
"What is wrong, to-night?"
"Everything," Janet wailed comprehensively. "It was my fault again, though, if that is any comfort to you. You had gone, and I was just going downstairs, when I met Rob coming up. All at once, he was just like his dear old jolly self, and talked away just as he used to do. I was stiff and poky and horrid, for I was surprised and didn't know what to make of it; but he didn't take any notice and went on talking, till I almost forgot we had been keeping still. And then, all at once, I heard a little noise, and there was Day, snipping up her nose at me and making fun of me behind my back, and I just snapped out something and marched up here to my room, and I haven't been down since."
"But, Janet—"
"Don't let's argue," she said impatiently. "What's the use? I know just how bad I was; I've bitten off my own nose to spite my face. If Day had only kept herself out of it, Rob and I would have been good friends, within ten minutes. I felt it coming; and then, all at once, she spoiled it all."
"But she didn't spoil your friendship, in the first place," Ronald suggested.
"Yes, she did, too. She stirred me up and made me cross," Janet insisted, quite oblivious of the fact that, a quarter of an hour earlier, she had assigned another cause for her bad temper.
"And so you took it out on Rob?"
"Don't laugh, Ronald," she begged him. "Truly it isn't funny. You wouldn't think so, if you'd seen Rob's face. He was all white, white, and his eyes grew big, and his lips twitched. I think he was afraid of what I'd do next. You see, I went to the library and found him there, all sole alone, and I went over and sat down beside him to talk. He looked as lonesome as I felt. And then, all of a sudden, he began teasing me. I hate being teased; I'm not used to it, and, that day, I didn't like it a bit. I was all edgewise, and I—I rather think I hoped he'd cuddle me, instead. But he didn't; he teased. Then I lost my temper, and said things I didn't mean, and then, while he was getting on his feet, I ran away and left him."
Ronald's arm tightened suddenly.
"And that was how you came in the vault?" he inquired, for, up to now, Janet had maintained a sturdy reticence in regard to the motive which had led to her explorations.
"I didn't mind that," she said shortly. "It was a fair punishment. I knew it was going to be a fearful storm; I knew that very likely the cars would stop running. Instead of sticking to Rob and seeing that he came home safely, I ran away from him and left him to get on alone as best he could."
"And the vault?" Ronald questioned again.
Janet's colour rose in her cheeks.
"That was part of it. He came to the door and called after me down the stairs. I wasn't going to let him catch me then; I was too angry. I expected he would come downstairs after me, and I was bound I'd not be seen, so I dodged inside the nearest door."
"And?" Ronald asked.
"And the door had a spring lock," Janet answered conclusively. Then she added, "And, when I did get home, there was Rob put to bed for four mortal days, and his mother half-insane with fear he had done himself a harm he'd never get over. I used to lie awake, nights, and imagine him bedridden and it all my fault, and think how pale and thin and sad he probably was. And then, when he did come downstairs, there he was, jolly and big and handsome as ever, and not limping one bit more than he always had done. But do you wonder I hated myself and the Argyles and everybody else? Everything had gone wrong, and I didn't care for anybody, and I was to blame for it all, and the worst of it all was that—none of—you—took—the trouble—to ask—me—what the trouble—really was." And Janet, her head on Ronald's broad shoulder, fell to sobbing in good earnest.
It was growing late, before Ronald felt the last long sob go shivering through her thin, lithe little body. Then, and not till then, he said gently,—
"I'm sorry, Janet. It has been very messy. Still, it is done, and all we can do now is to go to work to undo it."
"We?" she queried incredulously.
"Yes, dear."
"But I began it."
"And I helped to keep it up," he reminded her.
Janet gave a sudden, vengeful sniff.
"But we weren't the only ones to blame."
"We were the first," he reminded her again.
"I suppose. But what are you going to do about it, Ronald?"
"Make friends."
"How?"
"Whatever way shows itself first."
She compressed her lips doubtfully.
"Apologize?" she questioned.
"Certainly."
"But, Ronald, I won't! At least, not now."
"Why not?"
"Because I'd rather get friends first, and apologize afterwards," she protested.
"When a cart gets to dragging the horse, it generally runs down hill and ends in the gutter," he suggested.
"Don't!" she said rebelliously. "You sound like a moral, an Æsop moral, and I can do my own moralizing. I know I ought to apologize; I've known it from the start, and the knowing it has helped to make me cranky. However, the long and the short of it is, I don't want to."
"Why not?" he questioned.
She slid down from his knee and stood facing him, a shapeless cocoon of blankets topped with a face which, just then, seemed to be all eyes.
"Because," she answered; "one feels such a fool, while the apology is being accepted and the fatted calf is being butchered. Wait till I go out to Cap Rouge, some day in the holidays, and I'll telephone in my apology from there."
"But next week is Christmas," he reminded her.
"What if it is?"
"And one can't fight on Christmas."
"One can let each other alone, then," she retorted. "We aren't going to hang up our stockings together."
Ronald smiled, as he rose to his feet.
"No," he assented. "Still, one hates to talk about Peace on Earth, when there's such a jolly row going on in the house. If I were you, Janet—"
"You aren't," she said. "But what about it?"
"If I were you, I rather think I'd apologize before then."
She stood, for a moment, her eyes on the floor, while she pondered the matter. Then she lifted her eyes and smiled, with somewhat of her old merriment.
"If I were you, brother, I should, and munch my humble pie for Christmas dinner. Being myself, I rather think I'll hold my peace and let the storm blow over as best it can. Rob is going away, the twenty-seventh. By the time he gets back, you and Day will have made it up, and taken me into grace once more. After that, things will go swimmingly. I'm sorry, and ashamed, and all the rest. Still, I do think, all things considered, that those two Argyles have been rather more superior and forgiving than the case warrants." She laughed, and her laugh was not wholly mirthful. Then, all of a sudden, her face gentled, as she looked up at her tall brother. "Ronald, you are a darling," she said impetuously. "I'm glad I've talked it out with you. Some day, I may even get to a state of sanctity where I am willing to take your advice. Anyway, I know you are in the right of it, and I'm glad I've got you to give me a lecture now and then. Now go to bed, you poor dear thing, or you'll be dead in the morning." And she stretched up her face for a good-night kiss.