27. Glamour of Youth — Pat of Silver Bush by Lucy Montgomery
1
Bets had passed her entrance but refused to go to Queen's until Pat could go, too. Pat, having missed her exams, must wait until next year.
A nice thing had happened. Hilary had failed to pass his entrance . . . that was not the nice thing . . . owing to the fact that the teacher at the South Glen school had been a poor one. Larry Gordon took Hilary away and sent him to the North Glen school. Consequently every morning Hilary and Bets and Pat walked gaily to school together and found life good. Sid went no longer. He was father's right-hand man now. But Cuddles was going. She started blithely off one September morning and Pat, recalling the day she had "started school," felt very motherly and protective and sentimental as she watched dear Cuddles trotting along before them, hand in hand with another small, gleeful mite from the Robinson family. How little they knew of life, poor wee souls! How very aged and experienced Pat felt herself!
"Can you believe we were ever as young as that?" she asked of Bets incredulously.
Bets couldn't and sighed. Yet both of them tripped along the road as if they had been born, like Beatrice, under a dancing star. It was lovely to be old enough to remember childhood with a sigh. It was lovely to have before them a road filled with soft amethyst mist. It was lovely to see dark young fir trees edging harvest meadows. It was lovely to take a short cut through the little wood lane in Herbert Taylor's woods. It was lovely to be together. For it all came back to that. Nothing would have had just the same flavour if it had not been shared with each other.
Joe had never been home. Letters came from him from spicy tropic lands and Arctic wastes and Mediterranean ports, and were great events at Silver Bush. After everybody had read them they were sent over to Swallowfield and from there to the Bay Shore and then back for mother's "glory box," as they called it in imitation of Judy's glory box. Pat had a glory box of her own now in which she kept all kinds of "souvenirs," labelled somewhat systematically . . . "a flower from Bets' garden" . . . "new plan for 'my house,' drawn by Hilary Gordon" . . . "letters from my brother, Joseph A. Gardiner" . . . "a snap-shot of Bets and me under the Watching Pine" . . . "a packet of notes from my beloved friend, Elizabeth Gertrude Wilcox" . . . "the pencil I wrote my first letter to H.H. with."
For "H.H." was Harris J. Hynes . . . and Pat was over head and ears in love with him! Absolutely sunk, Winnie said. It had happened in church, one dull November day, when the moan of an eerie wind sounded around the tower and Pat was feeling sad for no earthly reason than that it pleased her to feel so. She had not felt sad when she had left Silver Bush for she had on her new scarlet hat under which her amber eyes glowed like jewels. Her skin, which had looked sallow with ginger hair, looked creamy with dark brown. Her lips were as red as her hat.
"Oh, oh, and isn't that chick now!" said Judy admiringly. "I niver saw innything chicker. Oh, oh, Patsy darlint" . . . Judy sighed . . . "the beaus will soon be coming."
Pat tossed her head.
"I don't want beaus, Judy."
"Oh, oh, ivery girl shud have a few beaus, Patsy. Sure and it's her right and so I do be telling ould Tillie Taylor last wake whin she was saying she didn't hold wid beaus. 'Ather they manes nothing or they manes too much,' sez she but what she was maning hersilf the Good Man Above only knows and maybe He'd be puzzled."
"Anyway they don't call them beaus now, Judy. That's old fashioned. It's boy-friends now."
"Boy-friends, is it? Oh, oh, Patsy me jewel, some day ye'll be finding the difference atween a frind and a beau."
Pat and Bets were both pleased to be a bit sorrowful during that walk to church. They confessed they felt old. November was such a dreary month.
"Oh, Bets, the years will just go round like this . . . and changes will come . . . you'll marry some one and go away from me. Bets, when I think of it I couldn't suffer any more if I was dying. Bets, I just couldn't bear it."
"I couldn't either," said Bets in a broken voice. Then they both felt better. It was so wonderful to be young and sad together.
2
Pat's mood lasted until the second hymn. Then everything was changed in the twinkling of an eye.
He had come in with some other boys. He was standing just across the aisle from her. He was looking right at her over his hymn book. Looking admiringly. It was the first time Pat had ever noticed a boy looking at her admiringly. She suddenly felt that she was beautiful. And . . . also for the first time she blushed devastatingly and dropped her eyes. There had never been a boy she couldn't look squarely at before.
She knew what had happened to her . . . just what had happened years ago at the blind men's concert . . . and by the same sign. Her legs were trembling.
But this was real.
"I wonder if I dare look at him," she thought . . . and dared.
The hymn was over now. They were all sitting down. He appeared to find his boots interesting. Pat had a good chance to look at him.
He was handsome. Wonderful crinkly golden-brown hair . . . clear-cut features--all the heroes in stories had clear-cut features . . . great brown eyes. For he lifted his eyes at that moment and looked at her again. Thousands of electric thrills went over Pat.
She heard not one word of the sermon, not even the text, much to Long Alec's indignation, for it was one of his rules that every one in his family must be able to tell the text at the dinner table on Sundays. But if Pat could not remember the text she would always remember the anthem. "Joy to the world," sang the choir. Could anything be more appropriate? She never glanced his way again but when they left the church she passed him in the porch and again their eyes met. It was quite terrible and Pat was breathless as she went down the steps.
Everything was changed. Even November had its points. The clouds were gone. The wood-path was beaded with pale sunlight. Quiet grey trees on all sides treasured some secret of loveliness.
"Did you see Harris Hynes?" asked Bets.
"Who is Harris Hynes?" asked Pat, knowing quite well, although she had never heard the name before.
"The new boy. His people have bought the Calder place. He sat just across from us."
"Oh, that boy? Yes, I noticed him," said Pat casually. She felt horribly disloyal. It was the first time she had kept anything from Bets.
"He would be rather handsome if it wasn't for his nose," said Bets.
"His nose? I didn't see anything wrong with his nose," said Pat, rather coldly.
"Oh, it's crooked. Of course you only notice it in profile. But he has gorgeous hair. They say he goes with Myra Lockley at Silverbridge."
A dreadful sinking feeling engulfed Pat. Joy to the world, indeed! Where had the sunlight gone? November was a horrid month.
But that look in his eyes.
3
The invitation to Edna Robinson's party came the next day. Would he be there? She thought of nothing else for two days. When Wednesday night came it was an exquisite night of moonlight and frost but because Harris Hynes might be at Edna's dance she was blind to its beauty. It was sweet agony to decide which of two dresses she should wear . . . the red was the smartest but the blue and silver made her look more grown up . . . a slender swaying thing of moonshine and twilight. She put it on--she put little dabs of perfume on her hair and throat . . . she even borrowed a pair of Winnie's milky pearl ear-drops for her ears. It was wonderful to dress for him . . . to wonder if he would notice what she wore. For the first time she made a little ritual of dressing.
Then she went down to show herself to Judy who was making sausage meat in the kitchen. Judy knew there was something in the wind the moment she sniffed the perfume, but she said only,
"Ye're looking lovely, darlint."
Would he think her lovely? That was the question. But she pretended to be interested only in the sausage meat. Judy mustn't forget to put nutmeg in. Father liked nutmeg. Judy shook with laughter when the door closed behind Pat.
"It isn't sausage meat the darlint is thinking av. Oh, oh, I do be knowing the signs."
How dreadful to think he mightn't be there! How thrilling to look at that dark hill against the sunset, just behind which was the Calder place, now the Hynes place. He lived there. If he were at the party and she met him what would she say? Suppose she talked too much . . . or not enough? Would his people . . . his mother . . . like her? She heard not a word that Sid and Bets said. But when May Binnie, seeing the blue and silver dress for the first time in the Robinson guest room, said,
"That's the new shade they call twilight, isn't it? It would be a lovely colour on some people. But don't you think you're too sallow for such a trying blue, Pat?" it worried her. Not that she cared what May Binnie thought . . . but would he think her sallow? She seemed to remember Myra Lockley had a lovely complexion.
She knew the minute he came in . . . her heart beat suffocatingly when she heard his laugh in the hall. She had never heard it before but there was only one person in the world who could laugh like that. It was wonderful to see him enter the room with the other boys . . . with them but not of them . . . set apart . . . a young Greek god.
Oh, Pat had it very bad.
She was dancing with Paul Robinson when Harris cut in. Then she was dancing with him. It was like a miracle. They hadn't even been introduced. But then they didn't need any introduction. They knew each other . . . they had known each other for ages. It seemed as if they danced in silence for an eternity. Then . . .
"Won't you look at me, wonder-girl?" he was saying softly.
Pat lifted her face and looked at him. After that it was all over with her. But she was not Pat Gardiner for nothing. Judy's training stood her in good stead. She made her eyes mocking . . . challenging. He was not going to know . . . not just yet. Now that she knew what his eyes had told. Knowledge was power.
"So this is Patricia?" he said. The way he pronounced her name was enchanting. Never, so his tone said, had there been such a beautiful name. "Have you been thinking about me?"
"Now, why in the world should I have been thinking about you?" said Pat airily. Nobody could have dreamed that she had been thinking about nothing else. Nobody would have dreamed how exultant she was at this proof that Sunday had meant to him what it had meant to her.
"Indeed, I don't know why," he agreed with a masterly sigh. "I only know that I want you to be very, very nice to me."
He walked home with her. Sid and Bets faded away into the blue crystal of the night and they were alone. To walk with Harris over the hills, with the dark woods behind and a starry sky above and the cool white birches along the meadow fences, was something never to be forgotten. Pat was afraid everything she said was stupid. But Harris didn't seem to think so. Not that she said a great deal. Harris was the talker. She listened breathlessly while he described his recent trip in an aeroplane. He was going to be a bird-man. No tame career for him.
"What a dull old party," yawned Winnie, as she scrambled into bed. Frank had not been there.
And to Pat it had been cataclysmic. She held her pretty dress caressingly to her face before she hung it in her closet. He had liked it. She would keep that dress forever. Judy should never have it for her hooked rugs. She put the flowery paper serviette he had spread over her knee at supper in her glory box, smoothing and folding it with reverent fingers. She lay awake until the pale golden dawn came in, recalling all he had said and saying it over again to herself. She worried for fear she had been too stiff. Perhaps he wouldn't understand. Judy always said to give them the fun of a chase . . . but Judy was old-fashioned. When she wakened to find the sunshine raining all over her bed she wondered how any one could be unhappy in such a world. She could never feel sad again.
She went about in a dream all day haunted by the ghostly echoes of the violins . . . by his voice . . . and by lines of romantic poetry that came and went like beautiful wraiths in her memory. Read life's meaning in each other's eyes. Bets had a poem with that line in it in her glory box and Pat had once thought it silly. Oh, this was life. She knew its meaning now.
"Let me be seeing yer tongue," said Judy anxiously at night. "I'm thinking ye're after catching cold at that dance. Ather that or . . . is it a beau, Patsy darlint? Won't ye be telling ould Judy if it's a beau?"
"Judy, you're too ridiculous."
No matter how hard she tried Pat couldn't hide her secrets from her family. Soon they all knew that Pat "had a crush" on Harris Hynes and got no end of fun out of it. Nobody, to Pat's indignation, took it very seriously . . . except Judy and Bets. She told Bets all about it the first night she spent at the Long House. Every once in so long she and Bets simply had to sleep together and talk things over. Bets was quite enthralled to find herself the confidante of a real love affair. She got almost as many thrills out of it as Pat.