CHAPTER IX

“‘THEY’LL HAVE FLEET STEEDS THAT FOLLOW,’ QUOTH YOUNG LOCHINVAR”

The third floor suddenly became to Jan quite as familiar as the second, which Gwen had informed her on her arrival was disrespectfully dubbed by Sydney “the hennery.” Her first visit daily on her return from school and numerous ones from that time until she went to bed were made to poor little yellow Drom, her and Sydney’s interesting patient. “Patient” the little dog certainly was in both senses. It is doubtful if either of the other denizens of that floor of the house would have borne affliction so sweetly, and as a reward for the meekness which submitted to bandages and splints with only grateful kisses for the hands which reluctantly hurt, and for lying motionless through the long hours, the broken leg set fast and the obtruding ribs disappeared under flesh.

More than Drom’s broken bones were knitted during those days. Sydney never fell back into his disregard of “Miss Lochinvar,” and, united in their nursing and pride in their patient’s progress, the cousins became real friends.

At times there were glimpses of something in Sydney which Jan did not understand, but which vaguely troubled her, but it was never coolness toward her. On the contrary, she could not help fancying that the taciturn boy was glad of the affection she gave him, and found girlish sympathy very acceptable. In her loyal little heart Jan resolved never to rest until she had brought Gwen into this pleasant comradeship, feeling quite sure that Sydney would enjoy his clever, big-hearted sister as much as she would enjoy him, if only they might make each other’s acquaintance.

In the meantime a wonderful thing happened. Sydney asked Jan to play with him in the tennis tournament, and “Miss Lochinvar” was not less frightened than elated over the honor.

Syd had taken her out to the courts to practise, and was delighted with her swift underhand serve as much as with her sure returns and expert volleying, in which she seemed to be all over the court at the same time. It proved to be a “court” in another sense to the pretty girl, for she instantly became a prime favorite with the players, not only with the boys, who pronounced her “great,” but with the girls. These were not pupils of “the Hydra,” but another set and kind. Jan found them pleasanter, as a whole. They were frank, jolly, natural young creatures, such as the boys would be likely to choose to play with them when the choice was left them. They all declared that they had not a ghost of a chance playing against Jan, and the boys announced that “Graham had a cinch, with that cousin of his to back him.” But though the boyish slang made her feel more at home than she had since leaving her brothers, it could not set Jan’s mind at rest. She found herself starting up out of her sleep at imaginary calls of “Play!” and once served a dream ball with such a thump of her hand against the nursery wall that Jerry awoke screaming, and Hummie hastened in, feeling sure nothing less than fire was the matter.

There was not much time for practise. Sydney laughed at Jan for wishing they had longer to get used to each other’s methods, but could not help realizing that victory would have been more assured if they had played together more. It would never do, however, to let Jan lose confidence. At the best, Sydney had little faith in “girls’ nerve.”

On the day before the games, which were to be held on the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving, Jan played so badly that Sydney was seriously alarmed. She seemed nothing but a bundle of nervousness, serving weakly or else beyond the bounds, receiving uncertainly, and acquitting herself generally as badly as possible. Jan came home profoundly cast down.

“Don’t be discouraged, Syd,” she said, though she needed cheering more than her partner. “You know I can play a decent game, and I often go to pieces beforehand, but pull together again when the time comes. Maybe I’ll be all right to-morrow.”

“Of course. I know how that is,” said Sydney lightly. “You’re all right, and I wish I was as sure of everything I wanted as I am of winning to-morrow. You had your funk out to-day. To-morrow you’ll be right on deck when the umpire calls time.”

Jan went slowly up-stairs, hoping this was to prove true. Her spirits rose considerably at the sight that met her eyes when she opened her chamber door. There on the bed lay a tennis dress of which any one might be proud. It was beautiful broadcloth, rich, warm red in color, with tiny bands of black fur around the short skirt and perfectly defining the fine lines of the short jacket which surmounted the delicate tucked white-silk shirt-waist. But most bewitching of all was the cap of the crimson cloth, with its outlining of black fur and its single black quill bidding defiance to the world in its saucy setting on the left side. Jan promptly donned the cap, admiring the effect in her glass, which told her that she had never worn anything so becoming, and resolving to do or die, to live up to her costume. She would not be one of those girls whom the Crescendo boys despised, whose skill in tennis consisted solely in selecting a gorgeous sash and knotting it gracefully. They had had an axiom at home that the better the sash the worse the playing.

Jan, concluding that Gwen had been at the bottom of her welcome gift, went to find and thank her. She learned to her surprise that her aunt had designed and ordered the costume, wishing that her boy should have not only the most skilful partner, but the prettiest one, and with this discovery Jan made another, which was that her busy aunt had unsuspected pride and affection for her eldest born.

The entire family, with the exception of Mr. Graham and Jerry, went out to the games on the following day. The sun was warm, but the air cool; there was not much wind. Altogether it was a day which justified the wisdom of holding games so late in the season.

Most of the big girls from the Misses Larned’s were in the grand stand, interested from more or less personal connection with the contestants, and filling the place with gay colors, lively chatter, and candy odors.

The races preceded the tennis, as did the wrestling. Sydney was not among the wrestlers, but he ran and jumped, and the Graham party nearly fell over the rail in its enthusiasm as he came in first in the foot-races and when he marched up to the judges’ stand later to have the first medal for the race and the second medal for the standing jump fastened on the breast of his white sweater.

“Isn’t he gloriously handsome?” whispered Mrs. Graham in Jan’s ready ear. “There isn’t a boy here to compare with him! I am proud of my beautiful boy and my clever Gwen, Janet, and I sometimes think I love them more than all the others put together.”

Jan felt the injustice of these words, although she realized that the pride of the hour might have made her aunt exaggerate her partiality. But as she looked at Sydney she felt that they were almost to be excused. With his face flushed, his head thrown back, his lips proudly smiling, and his straight young form drawn up to its fullest height, showing his fine muscles at their best, Sydney Graham was a son to glory in, and Jan clapped her loudest, feeling that her big cousin was very dear to her, too, and that she was grateful to Drom for being the link that had drawn them together.

The time for the tennis had come, and Jan rose in her seat to make her way through the crowd down to the courts. She heard but faintly the clapping of hands with which her school friends sped her, but she heard as distinctly as if a megaphone had shouted the hateful words, Daisy Hammond’s whisper to Flossie Gilsey: “Look at the Wild West Show! I suppose she thinks she’ll paint this town red to match her own war-paint.”

A little righteous indignation often does wonders. Jan had risen with her heart in her rubber-soled shoes. As she heard Daisy’s ugly, vulgar speech her nerves suddenly steadied, and with a profound contempt for the speaker came a resolution to show these girls that she could excel them in sport as easily as she could not help knowing that she surpassed them in class.

Sydney met her at the foot of the stairs, and he read the steady light in her eyes and the firm curl of her lips aright, and with unspeakable relief saw that Janet could be relied on.

“O Sydney, we are all so proud of you!” cried Jan, saluting her cousin with a wave of her racket in her left hand and a tight clasp of his hand with the right one. “No, you mustn’t take my racket. It is part of my costume! Don’t you see that Aunt Tina had a cover for it made to match my dress?”

“You certainly are a picture,” said Sydney, “and I’m proud of you! Shall we let them score a few points?”

“Just a few, to add to the interest,” laughed Jan. “But ‘“they’ll have fleet steeds that follow,” quoth young Lochinvar.’”

Sydney echoed her laugh with a mind at rest, and the cousins stepped out on the hard clay court.

They found that their opponents were in fine form. Jan and Sydney fought hard, but do what they would they could not keep them from getting the winning ten after they had held them tied at “forty all” some exciting minutes.

But the second game Sydney and Janet won, and took their places ready to make the third theirs by any heroic effort. Unfortunately the boy and girl opposing them were of the stuff that soldiers are made from--or rather fortunately, for Syd and Jan wanted to win gloriously. But they had hard work to win at all. Once more the game halted at “forty all,” and the ball was volleyed back and forth without pausing, each side and both partners of each side playing nobly. Once Sydney played a back stroke that nearly settled it, but the girl across the net saved the day, and immediately on the ball’s return her partner gave a swift cut that made it skim the net and fly out to the right corner of the service-line. With a bound Jan pursued it. It had been a clever stroke, for neither she nor Syd was near that spot at the moment. How she got there Jan did not know, but get there she did, and, swinging her racket without more than time for instinctive planning, she smashed the ball, and it crossed the net, barely clearing it, sped close to the ground out to the outer court of their opponents, and stopped before either raised racket could get down to its level or either player on the opposite side could pursue the ball. A ringing cheer announced the game won and Jan the victor. Sydney shook her violently by both hands, while cries of: “Well played!” “Splendid!” “What a stroke!” fell on the ears of happy “Miss Lochinvar.”

“It was the prettiest sight I ever saw,” said Mrs. Graham, kissing Jan on her return, and more inclined to regard the affair as a spectacle than a sport. “You are sweet in that crimson, Janet, and Sydney is delicious! I am so proud of you both!”

Gwen hugged her cousin breathless, Jack and Viva trying vainly to get at her the while. Even Gladys was swept away by the glory to her family, to which for the first time Jan had contributed, into something like cordiality toward “Miss Lochinvar.” All the girls Jan liked at the Misses Larned’s congratulated her jubilantly, and the other faction was forced into silence. Altogether Jan enjoyed a little triumph, and came home blissful, to dream of the theater-party to which Mrs. Graham was to take her, Gwen, Gladys, Sydney, his most intimate chum, and Dorothy Schuyler, in celebration of the victory, on the following day.

It was the more shocking that she ran up the stairs later to visit Drom, full of these anticipations for Jan to find Sydney with his head bowed on his arms across his table and to meet the tragic face which he raised as he tried to smile at her.

“Why, Sydney, what has happened?” she cried, standing still on the threshold and paying no attention to Drom’s cordial greeting.

“Nothing,” said Sydney. “I--perhaps I ran too hard. I don’t feel quite well. How are you after our victory?” He tried to speak easily, but Jan was too well versed in boys’ ways to be deceived.

“You’re in a scrape, Syd,” she said decidedly, entering and shutting the door behind her with a discretion Sydney admired even then. “Won’t you tell me what it is? Or have you told your mother?”

“My mother! No, I guess not,” said Sydney. “I’d be sorry to tell her--if I were in a scrape,” he added, realizing his indirect admission.

“Then tell me,” said Jan, sitting down at the other side of the table with an air that suggested not rising again until she had been told. “Two heads are better than one, and you can trust me.”

“Well, I’m in debt,” said Sydney, yielding at once, glad, perhaps, to share a burden that had been oppressive for some time. “And the fellow writes to say he won’t wait any longer. If I don’t pay up he’ll go to my father. I can’t pay up, so I suppose there’s no help for it, and he’ll have to go.”

“In debt!” Jan exclaimed, her voice low and horror-stricken. “O Syd, that’s awful! What will uncle do if that man goes to him? Who is the man, anyway? Tell me more.”

“He’ll raise the roof, as to father’s part of it, and very likely send me off to boarding-school,” said Sydney, flushing. “The man, as you call him, is a shopkeeper who likes to get the fellows at our school to buy things on tick from him, if he knows there is some one at home who will pay in case they don’t. He even offers to lend us money and put it on the books and not charge any interest. He’s a scamp to do it, and I know it, but I’ve been fool enough--and scamp enough, too--to get things charged and to borrow a little now and then, thinking I could pay up myself. Well, I can’t, and now I’ve got to face the music. It serves me right, but that doesn’t make me enjoy myself any better.”

“O Syd, how could you?” said Jan, who had been brought up to regard debt with horror, and whose father might have to deny his children luxury, but by practise and precept he taught them to live within their means.

“Now, you needn’t lecture,” said Sydney, who found the pained and disappointed look in the brown eyes opposite to him hard to meet. “I know all you can say about its being wrong, but I did it, and there you are! Five dollars a month isn’t much allowance, and that’s all I get.”

“Five dollars! Every month, and to spend on yourself?” cried Jan, to whom this seemed a fortune.

“Oh, you little goose!” said Sydney, almost ready to laugh at her simplicity. “What do you suppose that is among the boys I go with? But don’t you worry. I’m sorry I told.”

“Do you think it would be right to pay this man and not let Uncle Howard know?” said conscientious Jan. “You see, Sydney, I think fathers and mothers ought to be told things.”

“Don’t you think it makes a difference whether it would do harm or good?” asked Sydney. “Father would be angry and send me off, and I can’t see what good that would do. He is too busy to try to understand. And I’ve had enough of it. If I could pay up now I would keep clear of this sort of thing forever. It has worried me ever since September.”

Jan was thinking rapidly as Sydney spoke, and it seemed to her loving heart like sealing the boy’s fate to send him away from home, where it was her favorite dream to root him more closely. So she said: “I will lend you money, Syd. I have some that papa gave me to buy Christmas gifts for the children, but you can pay it back, perhaps, before then. It’s five dollars. Do you need so much?”

Sydney laughed outright, though it was a melancholy and kindly laugh. “Five dollars, you blessed innocent!” he said. “It is about a tenth of what I owe.”

Jan gasped. “Gwen has money saved,” she said with a sudden inspiration. “Tell her. She’ll be glad to help you out. And it will make you better friends,” she added in her thoughts.

“Indeed I won’t tell Gwen,” cried Sydney. “I’ll tell you what I will do. I’ll borrow your five and try to get him to take it on account, and wait before he tells father.”

“And then, if I were you, I’d try to earn the money to pay up,” cried Jan, with another inspiration.

“How could I?” asked Sydney.

“Errands after school, work in some store--lots of ways, if you mean it,” said Jan, springing to her feet in her earnestness.

“Gentlemen don’t do those things, Jan,” said Sydney. “Would you like to see me an errand-boy?”

“I’d rather see you anything than dishonorable,” said Jan hotly. “_Gentlemen_ don’t borrow and spend money they can’t pay back.”

“That’s it! Go ahead! Hit a man when he’s down!” said Sydney bitterly. “That’s the girl of it! I thought you were a square fellow, Janet.”

“Oh, please forgive me, Syd,” cried Jan, repentant. “I didn’t mean to say anything like that! I know you are honorable and are sorry for doing wrong, and I’ll do anything in the world to help you. But I hate to hear you talking like a fop and not seeing where the real disgrace would be. I’d be prouder of you if you joined the street-cleaning department than I would to see you getting mixed up in your ideas of honesty.”

Sydney laughed again. “All right, Miss Lochinvar,” he said good-naturedly. “You are somewhat mixed up in your speech, it strikes me. I accept your apology, and I’ll admit you are right in your ideas, if you want me to. And I’ll accept your five dollars, too, if you’ll lend it to me. And I won’t forget that you stood by me as well as you could. Perhaps I’ll pull through with this help.”

Janet could not help seeing that Sydney was too ready to throw off his burden in the relief of temporary relaxing of the pressure. She wished with all her heart that she was old enough and wise enough to help her cousin in the ways in which he needed help most. But it was something that he trusted her with his secret and accepted aid from her.

“I’ll run and get the money now, Syd,” she said. “I wish I wasn’t poor, for your sake. But think it over and see if you can’t earn some money. It would be so much more manly and fine than getting it from Uncle Howard or counting on presents. And fair, too, because you would be setting your own wrong-doing right.”

“All right, Miss Lochinvar, I’ll think,” said Sydney. “You’re a pretty good sort of fellow not to scold me harder and to be ready to hold out your hand to a sinner. I won’t forget it of you, Jan.”