18. Under a Cloud — Pat of Silver Bush by Lucy Montgomery
1
When in mid-September Long Alec suddenly announced to his family that, harvest being over, he meant to take a trip out west to visit a brother who had settled there years ago Pat took it more calmly than they had feared. It was rather dreadful, of course, to think of dad being away for a whole month, but, as he said himself, if he didn't go away he couldn't come back again. There would be his home-coming to expect and plan for, and meanwhile life was very pleasant at Silver Bush. She liked the fall nights because the fires were lighted. Jingle was building an elegant bird-house for her to be put up in the maple by the well when finished; and Mr. Wilcox was going to take Bets and her to the Exhibition in Charlottetown. Pat had never been to one yet. To the small denizens of North Glen a visit to the Exhibition loomed up with as much of excitement and delight as a trip to Europe or "the coast" might to older folks. Socially you were not in the swim unless you had been to the Exhibition. There were the weeks of delightful anticipation . . . the Exhibition itself . . . then weeks of just as delightful reminiscence. All things considered, Pat was quite cheerful about dad's absence. It was Judy who seemed to view it most gloomily . . . Pat couldn't understand why. For the week preceding Long Alec's departure Judy had done an extra deal of talking to and arguing with herself. Disjointed sentences reached Pat's ears every now and again.
"I'm not knowing what gets into the min be times. It do be saming as if they had to have a crazy spell once in so long" . . . "a bit av Wild Dick coming out in him I'm telling ye" . . . "'tis the curse av the wandering foot" . . . "oh, oh, it's too aisy to get about now. Sure and that's what's the matter wid the world."
But when Pat asked what the trouble was Judy's only reply was a curt:
"Ax me no questions and I'll be telling ye no lies."
Dad went away one windy, cloudy September morning. Uncle Tom and the aunts came along the Whispering Lane to say good-bye. Everybody was a little sober. The "west" was a long way off . . . the good-byes a bit tremulous.
"May the Good Man Above give us all good health," muttered Judy, as she dashed back into the kitchen and began to rattle the stove lids fiercely. Pat hopped into the car and went as far as the road with dad. She stood and watched the car out of sight and then turned towards home with a choking sensation. At that moment the sun broke through a black cloud and poured a flood of radiance over Silver Bush. Pat realised afresh how beautiful home was, nestling under its misty blue hill with its background of golden trees.
"Oh, how lovely you are!" she cried, holding out her arms to it. The tears that filled her eyes were not caused by dad's going. She was pierced by the swift exquisite pang which beauty always gave her . . . always would give her. It was almost anguish while it lasted . . . but the pain was heavenly.
It was well that Pat had her trip to the Exhibition over before she heard the terrible thing. She did have it . . . two glorious days with Bets . . . and, as the gods themselves cannot recall their gifts, she always had it, although for a time it seemed as if she had nothing . . . would have nothing for evermore . . . but pain and fear.
Again it was May Binnie who told her . . . that dad meant to buy a farm out west and settle there!
A strange icy ripple, such as she had never felt before, ran over Pat.
"That isn't true," she cried.
May laughed.
"It is. Everybody knows it. Winnie knows it. I s'pose they were afraid to tell you for fear you'd make a scene."
Pat looked passionately into May's bold black eyes.
"I wouldn't have hated you for telling me this, May Binnie, if you hadn't liked telling it. But I am going to tell God about you to-night."
May laughed again . . . a little uncomfortably. What she called Pat Gardiner's "rages" always made her uncomfortable. And who knew what Pat might tell God about her?
Pat went home sick and cold with agony to the very depth of her being.
"Mother, it isn't true . . . it isn't . . . say it isn't!"
Mother looked compassionately into Pat's tortured young eyes. They had tried to keep this from Pat, hoping she might never have to be told. Dad might not like the west. But if he did, go they must. When easy-going Long Alec did make up his mind there was no budging it, as everybody at Silver Bush knew.
"We don't know, dear. Father is thinking of it. He had a hankering to go when Allan went, years ago, but he couldn't leave his parents then. Now . . . I don't know. Be brave, Pat, dear. We'll all be together . . . the west is a splendid country . . . more chances for the boys perhaps . . ."
She stopped. Better not say more just now.
"So ye've heard?" was all Judy said, when Pat came, white-faced, into the kitchen.
"Judy, it can't happen . . . it just can't. Judy, God wouldn't let such a thing happen."
Judy shook her head.
"Long Alec will settle that, laving God out av the question, Patsy, me jewel. Oh, oh, it's a man's world, so it is, and we women must just be putting up wid it."
"It will be the end of everything, Judy."
"I'm fearing it will be worse than that," muttered Judy. "I'm fearing it will be the beginning av a lot av new things. Sure, the heart av me will be bruk."
She did not say this aloud. Pat must not know until it became necessary that Judy would not be going west with them. To Judy, the idea of leaving Silver Bush was as dreadful as it was to Pat; but she could not leave the Island. Judy had a secret conviction that if the Gardiners went west she would end her days at the Bay Shore farm, taking Danny's part and waiting on the ould leddy who would live forever . . . and eating her soul out with longing and loneliness for her own.
"Oh, oh, they do be all I've got," she mourned. "And all I axed was to be let go on working for thim as long as I was on the hoof. To the divil wid Long Alec and his notions and his stubbornness . . . him that ye wudn't think cud stand up aginst a moonbame. But 'tis in the blood to be set that way whin they think they want innything. His ould Great-uncle Alec was the same but he had a bit av sinse in his pate and whin he onct tuk a notion he wanted to go somewhere he was knowing he shudn't didn't he go and shave his head complate and thin he cudn't go till the hair grew in and be that time the danger was over. Minny's the time I've heard ould Grandfather Gardiner tell av it. 'Twas be way av being a fam'ly joke."
"When will we know, Judy?"
"That I can't tell ye, darlint. Long Alec said he'd write as soon as he made up his mind. God hasten the day! There's nothing we can be doing but wait."
Pat shivered. The words were so terrible and so true. How could one wait? To-morrow would be more cruel than to-day.
2
In the weeks that followed Pat felt as if her heart were bleeding drop by drop. She seemed to be alone in her anguish. Sid rather hoped dad wouldn't go west but was not terribly cut up about it. Joe frankly hoped he would go. Winnie thought it might be fun. Mother seemed quite indifferent to it, in her usual calm, gentle fashion. Even Judy was fiercely silent and would give tongue to neither regrets nor hopes. Bets and Jingle were both in despair but Pat found she could not talk the matter over with them. It went too deep.
She got through the days in school somehow and then wandered about Silver Bush like an unhappy little ghost. She could not read. The books she had loved were no more than printed words. She and Bets had been half way through The Wind In The Willows, reading it under the Watching Pine on the hill-top, but now it lay neglected in the bookcase at the Long House. She could not play with Bets or Jingle . . . she could not bear it when she might soon have to leave them forever. She could not play with Sid because Sid could play and showed thereby that he was not feeling as badly as he should be. She could not play with Salt and Pepper because they were too cheerful. McGinty was the only animal that seemed to realise the situation. He and Jingle were a gloomy pair.
Pat slept badly and ate next to nothing.
"That thin she do be getting," worried Judy to Mrs. Gardiner. "Sure there isn't a pick on her bones. It's me belafe that if Long Alec drags that child out west it'll be killing her. She can't live away from Silver Bush. Sure and she do be loving ivery inch av it."
"I wish she didn't love it so much," sighed mother. "But she is young . . . she will forget. We older ones . . ." Mother stopped quickly. That was like mother. Mother never showed what she felt. That had been a Bay Shore tradition. The more emotional and expressive Gardiners sometimes thought she had no "feelings."
Pat was having plenty and very dreadful ones they were. Everything she looked at hurt her. It hurt her to be in the house . . . to think of those dear rooms being cold . . . perhaps nobody even bothering to light a fire in them. Perhaps there would be no light in the windows at night . . . in the house that had always overflowed with light: no plumes of homely smoke going up from its chimneys: nobody looking on beauty from the round window. And if there were people in it . . . she hated that thought, too. Who would be sleeping in her room . . . who would be ruling in Judy's kitchen?
It was worse outside. The garden would be so lonely. No one there to love or welcome the flowers. The daffodils and the columbines would come up in the spring but she would not be there to see. The bees would hum in the Canterbury bells and she not there to listen. The poplars would whisper but she would not hear them whispering. The tiny, pointed, crimson buds would come on the wild rose-bushes in the lane, not for her gathering. Perhaps the people who would come to Silver Bush would root up the old garden entirely. Pat had heard Uncle Brian say once it was really only an old jungle and Alec should clear it out. They would change and tear up. Oh, she could not bear it!
And yet, somehow, it could never be theirs. In after years Pat said of this time, "I knew they could never have the soul of Silver Bush. That would always be mine."
But she would not be there. There would be no more jolly meals in the old kitchen . . . no more chronicles of Judy on the sandstone steps . . . no more kitten hunts in the old barns . . . no more delightful days and nights at the Long House . . . no more pilgrimages over Jordan . . . no Happiness . . . no Secret Field . . . no Hill of the Mist. There wouldn't be any hills at all on the prairie.
This must be a dream. Oh, if she could only wake up!
So many poisonous things were said in school. The girls talked so casually of the Gardiners going west . . . some a little enviously as if they would like to go, too. Jean Robinson said she only wished she could get away from this dull old hole.
And then one day May Binnie said that her father had decided to buy Silver Bush!
"If he does we'll fix it up a bit, I can tell you," she said to Pat. "Pa says he'll cut down that old part of the orchard and plough it up and sow it with beans. We'll build a sun-porch of course. And pa says he'll cut down all them birch trees. He says too many trees aren't healthy."
Only sheer malice could have made her say that. Pat dragged herself home.
"The Binnies will cut down all our birches, Judy."
"Oh, oh, the Good Man Above may have something to say to that," said Judy darkly. But her faithful old heart was heavy. She knew Mac Binnie already looked on Silver Bush as his and was telling everybody about the "improvements" he meant to make.
"Improvements, is it?" Judy had demanded. "Sure he'd better be making some improvements in the manners av himsilf and his daughters, if it's improvements he do be wanting, the ould wind-bag. Mrs. Binnie hersilf cud do wid a few. Fancy her in me kitchen and her looking like a haystack, niver to mintion her presiding at the dining room table where a Selby from Bay Shore has been sitting. Oh, oh, 'tis a topsy-turvy world, so it is, and getting no better fast."
"I was so happy just a little while ago, Judy. And now I'll never be happy again."
"Oh, oh, niver's a long day, me jewel."
"I hate May Binnie, Judy . . . I hate her!"
"Sure, Patsy dear, hating do be something that's always bist done yisterday. Life do be too short to waste inny av it hating. Though, if a body did have a liddle more time . . . but thim Binnie craturs do be clane benath hating."
"If there was anything we could do to prevent it," sobbed Pat.
Judy shook her head.
"But there isn't . . . not in Canady innyhow. That's the worst av a new land where nather God nor the divil have had time to be getting much av a hold on things. Now, if there was a wishing well here like there was in me home in ould Ireland sure and ye cud make it all right in the twinkle av a fairy's eye. All ye'd have to do is go to it at moonrise and ye'd get yer wish."
Pat went to Happiness that night and wished over the Haunted Spring. Who knew?
It was horrible to live with fear . . . and suspense. Dad's first letter came when Pat was in school and Judy told her first thing that there was no news yet. Long Alec thought the west a grand country. Allan had done well. But he hadn't decided yet . . . he was looking about . . . he would be able to tell them next letter.
"So kape up yer pecker, Patsy darlint. There's hope yet."
"I'm afraid to hope, Judy," said Pat drearily. "It hurts too much to hope. It would be so much worse when you had to stop hoping."
"Oh, oh, but ye're too young to be larning that," muttered Judy. She pounded and thumped and battered her bread, wishing it were Long Alec. Oh, oh, but wudn't she knead some sinse into him! Him wid the good Island farm and a fine growing fam'ly to be draming av pulling up stakes and going to a new country at his age!
3
The next letter came. It was Saturday and Pat had wakened to a grey dawn. The rain against the windows was very dreary. Everybody at Silver Bush expected dad's letter that day though nobody said anything about it, and Pat felt that the rain was a bad omen.
"Oh, oh, cheer up, Patsy darlint," said Judy. "Sure and I remimber a bit av poetry I larned whin I was a girleen . . . 'a dark and dreary morning often brings a pleasant day.' Often have I seen it mesilf."
It stopped raining at noon, although the clouds still hung dark and heavy over the silver bush. Pat was watching from the garden as the old postman drove up to the mail box. He was a little bent old man with a fringe of white beard, driving a crazy buggy behind a lean old sorrel horse. It seemed incredible that her destiny was in his bag. She went slowly down the lane, a pale moth of a girl, hardly knowing whether she wanted to see a letter or not. It would be so terrible to wait for its opening but at least they would know.
The letter was there. Pat took it out and looked at it . . . "Mrs. Alex. B. Gardiner, Silver Bush, North Glen, P. E. Island." All her life after a letter seemed to Pat a terrible intriguing, devilish thing. What might . . . or might not . . . be in it? She remembered that when she had been very small she had been horribly frightened of a "dead" letter she had carried home. She had thought it had come from a dead person. But this was even worse.
She walked back up the lane. Half way up she paused in a little bay of the fence which was full of the white-gold of the "life everlasting" that blooms in September. Her knees were shaking.
"Oh, dear God, please don't let there be any bad news in this letter," she whispered. And then desperately . . . because old Alec Gardiner in South Glen had a daughter Patricia, middle-aged and married, and there must be no mistake . . . "Dear God, it's Long Alec's Pat of Silver Bush speaking, not just Alec's Pat."
Somehow everybody was in the kitchen when Pat entered. Judy sat down on a chair rather suddenly. Bets was just arriving, having torn breathlessly down the hill when she saw the postman. Jingle and McGinty were hanging around the doorstep. McGinty had his ears turned down. Mother, her eyes very bright and with an unusual little red spot on either cheek, took the letter and looked around at all the tense, waiting faces . . . except Pat's. She could not bear to look at Pat's.
It was a thousand fold worse than when the letter had come about Winnie.
"We must all be as brave as possible if father says we must go," she said gently.
She opened the letter steadily and glanced over it. It seemed as if the very trees outside stopped to listen.
"Thank God," she said in a whisper.
"Mother . . ."
"Father is coming back. He doesn't like the west as well as the Island. He says, 'I'll be very happy to be home again.'"
And at that very moment, as if waiting for the signal, the sun broke out of the clouds above the Silver Bush and the kitchen was flooded with dancing lights and elfin leaf shadows.
"So that's that," said Joe, a bit glumly. He whistled to Snicklefritz and went out.
Pat and Bets were weeping wildly in each other's arms. Judy got up with a grunt.
"Oh, oh, and what's all the tears for, I'm asking ye? I thought ye'd be dancing for joy."
"You're crying yourself, Judy." Pat laughed through her tears.
"Sure and it's the tinder heart av me. I cud niver see inny one crying that I didn't jine in. Haven't I wept the quarts at the funerals av people who didn't be mattering a hoot to me? I'm that uplifted I wudn't call the quane me cousin. Oh, oh, and it's me limon pies that are burned as black as a cinder in me oven. Well, well, I'll just be making another batch. We've had minny a good bite here and plaze the Good Man Above we'll have minny another. It's been a hard wake av it but iverything do be coming to an ind sometime if only ye do be living to see it."
Pat had put on gladness like a garment. She wondered if anybody had ever died of happiness.
"I just couldn't have borne it, Pat, if you went away," sobbed Bets.
Jingle had said nothing. He had sniffed desperately, determined not to let any one see him cry. He was at that moment lying face downwards in the mint along Jordan and McGinty could have told you what he was doing. But McGinty wasn't worried. His ears stuck up for he knew somehow that, in spite of shaking shoulders, his chum was happy.
4
Pat came dancing down the hill that night on feet that hardly seemed to touch the earth. She halted under the Watching Pine to gloat over Silver Bush, all her love for it glowing like a rose in her face. It had never looked so beautiful and beloved. How nice to see the smoke curling up from its chimney! How jolly and comfortable the fat, bursting old barns looked, where hundreds of kittens yet unborn would frisk! The wind was singing everywhere in the trees. Over her was a soft, deep, loving sky. Every field she looked on was a friend. The asters along the path were letters of the poem in her heart. She seemed to move and breathe in a trance of happiness. She was a reed in a moonlit pool . . . she was a wind in a wild garden . . . she was the stars and the lights of home . . . she was . . . she was Pat Gardiner of Silver Bush!
"Oh, dear God, this is such a lovely world," she whispered.
"A nice hour to be coming in for yer supper," said Judy.
"I was so happy I forgot all about supper. Oh, Judy, I'll always love this day. I'm so happy I'm a little frightened . . . as if it couldn't be right to feel so happy."
"Oh, oh, drink all the happiness ye can, me darlint, whin the cup is held to yer lips," said Judy wisely. "Now be after ating yer liddle bite and thin to bed. I packed yer mother off whin Cuddles wint. She hasn't been slaping much of late ather I'm telling ye, though the Selbys kape their falings to thimselves. Oh, oh, and so Madam Binnie won't be bossing things here for a while yet. And what may ye be thinking av that, me Gintleman Tom?"
"I don't know if I'll be able to sleep much even to-night, Judy. It's lovely to be so happy you can't sleep."
But Pat was sound as a bell when Judy crept in to see if the little sisters had the extra blanket for the chill September night.
"Oh, oh, she'll niver be quite that young agin," whispered Judy. "It's such a time as she's had that makes even the liddle craturs old in their sowls. If one cud be after spanking Long Alec now as I did whin he was a b'y!"