29. April Magic — Pat of Silver Bush by Lucy Montgomery
1
One dim wet evening in early spring, when a shabby old world was trying to wash the winter grime from its face before it must welcome April, there was wild music among the birches and Pat listened to it as she chatted with Judy in the kitchen. Mother was tired and had been packed off to bed early. Somehow, everybody at Silver Bush, without saying anything about it, was becoming very careful of mother.
Cuddles was singing to herself in the Little Parlour . . . Cuddles had such a sweet voice, Pat reflected lovingly. Judy was mixing her bread with Gentleman Tom on one side of her and Bold-and-Bad on the other. Snicklefritz was curled up by the stove, snoring. Snicklefritz was getting old, as nobody would admit.
And then . . . there was the sound of footsteps on the stone walk. Dad or Sid coming in from the barn, thought Pat. But Snicklefritz knew better. In an instant he was awake and had hurled himself at the door in a frenzy of barks and scratches.
"Now, whativer's got into the dog?" said Judy. "Sure and it's long wakes since he bothered his liddle old head about inny stranger . . . and it's the quare dream I had last night . . . and, hivenly day, am I draming still?"
For the door was open and a bronzed young man was on the stop . . . and Snicklefritz was speechless in ecstasy . . . and Pat had flown to his arms, wet as he was. Sid and dad were rushing in from the barn . . . and mother, who had been disobedient and hadn't gone to bed after all, was flying down stairs . . . and Bold-and-Bad was spitting and bristling at all this fuss over a stranger. And everybody was a little crazy because Joe had come home . . . Joe so changed and yet the same Joe . . . hugging mother and the girls and Judy and laughing at the antics of Bold-and-Bad and pretending to be in a fury because the white kittens in Judy's picture hadn't grown up after all.
They had a gay fortnight at Silver Bush. Snicklefritz simply refused to be parted one moment from Joe and insisted on sleeping on his bed at night. And every night Judy crept in to see if Joe was warm and ask the Good Man Above to bless him, as she had done when he was a child.
There were tales to tell of far lands and strange faces and everybody was happy. Pat was too happy, Judy thought, with several wise shakes of her head.
"The Ould Ones don't be giving ye a gift like that for nothing, as me grandmother used to say. No, no, you would have to be paying."
And then Joe was gone again. And this time those he left knew that Joe would never belong to Silver Bush again. He would be home for a visit once in a while . . . with longer intervals between each visit . . . but his path was on the sea and his way on the great waters. To Pat came bitterly the realisation that Joe was an outsider. The life of Silver Bush closed over his going with hardly a ripple.
"Judy, it seems a little terrible. I was so broken-hearted when Joe went away the first time . . . I felt sure I couldn't live without him. And now . . . I love him just as much as ever . . . and it was queer and lonely without him for a few days . . . but now it's as if he'd always been away. If . . . if he had wanted to stay home . . . it doesn't seem as if there was any real place for him. His old place seems to have grown over. And that hurts me, Judy."
"It do be life, Patsy darlint. They come and they go. But there do be one liddle heart that can't find comfort. Do ye be looking at the eyes av that poor Snicklefritz. He's too old to be standing such another parting."
Judy was right. The next morning Snicklefritz was found on Joe's bed, with his head on Joe's pillow. And Snicklefritz would waken no more to wail or weep. Pat and Sid and Hilary and Bets and Cuddles buried him in a corner of the old grave-yard. Judy made no objections to this although she would never let a cat be buried there.
"I thought you liked cats better than dogs, Judy," said Cuddles.
"I do that same, but a cat do be having no right in a grave-yard," was all Judy's explanation.
Cuddles prayed that night that Snicklefritz wouldn't be lonesome. Pat knew he wouldn't. He slept with his own. What more could an old dog ask? And perhaps on the nights when Wild Dick sang and Willy wept a jolly little ghost dog would come out of his grave and bark.
2
Pat and Bets were lingering by the little green gate at the top of the hill path, making plans. They were full of plans that spring . . . plans for the summer . . . plans for college in the fall . . . plans for life beyond. They were going to camp out for a week this summer . . . they were going to room together at Queen's . . . and in a few years' time they were going to take a trip to Europe. They had been planning imaginary journeys through all their years of comradeship but this one was going to be real . . . some day.
"Isn't it fun to make plans?" Pat would say happily.
They had spent the afternoon together at the Long House. Pat loved the Long House next to Silver Bush. It was a house that always invited you to enter . . . a house, Pat often thought, that always said, "So glad you've come." Open doors . . . geraniums in the windows . . . wide, shallow, well-trodden steps up to the porch. Inside, to take off the chill of the early spring, glowing fires. They had read poetry, together savouring the wealth of beauty found in linked words; they had discussed their grievances. Bets' mother wouldn't let her wear pyjamas but insisted on nightdresses. And Bets did so crave a lovely pair of yellow ones like Sara Robinson had. So up to date. They did a great deal of laughing, pouncing on their jokes like frolicsome young kittens. And at the end Bets walked to the green gate with Pat and stood there talking for another hour. They just couldn't get talked out. And anyway Pat was going the next day to the Bay Shore for a visit and there were so many things to say. It was, they agreed, just tragic to be parted so long.
It was the first mild evening of that late, cold spring. Beyond the lowlands the sea was silver grey, save just at the horizon where there was a long line of shining gold. Far, far away a bell was ringing . . . some bell of lost Atlantis perhaps. A green, mystical twilight was screening all the bare, ugly fields from sight. Faint, enchanted star-fire shone over the spruces behind them. Down below them Uncle Tom was burning brush. Was there anything more fascinating than a fire in the open after night? And somewhere beyond those chilly skies was the real spring of blossom and the summer of roses. They gazed out over the world with all the old hill rapture no dweller in the valley ever knows. Oh, life was sweet together!
"Couldn't we have our tent back in the Secret Field the nights we sleep out?" said Bets. Bets knew about the Secret Field now. Sid had told her and Pat was glad. She couldn't have told herself, after her pact with Sid, but she hated to have Bets shut out of any of her secrets.
"Think of it," she breathed. "Sleeping there . . . with the woods all around us . . . and the silver birches in the moonlight . . . we must arrange for a moon, of course. Bets, can't you see it?"
Bets could. Her cherry-blossom face, wrapped in a scarlet scarf, reflected Pat's enthusiasm. That scarf became Bets, Pat reflected. But then everything did. Her clothes always seemed to love her. She could wear the simplest dress like a queen. She was so pretty . . . and yet you always thought more of the sweetness than the prettiness of her face.
"Sid says we'd be scared to death back there," she said. "But we won't. Not even if the wee green folks of the hills Judy talks about came to our tent door and peeped in."
Suddenly the night laid its finger on their lips. Something uncanny . . . something fairy-like was abroad. The spruces on the hill against the pale sunset were all at once a company of old crones. They seemed to be listening to something. Then they would shake with scornful laughter. The near-by bushes rustled as if a faun had slipped through them. Pat and Bets instinctively put their arms around each other. At that moment they were elfin-hearted things themselves, akin to the shadows and the silences. They could have knelt down on the dear earth and kissed its clods for very gladness in it.
Did it last for a moment or a century? They could never have told. A light flashing out in the kitchen of Silver Bush recalled Pat to reality.
"I must go. Sid is going to run me over to the Bay Shore when the chores are done."
"Tell them hello for me," said Bets lightly.
"I wish you were going with me. Nothing has the same flavour without you, Bets." Pat leaned over the gate and dropped a kiss on Bets' cool cheek. Life had as yet touched them both so lightly that parting was still "sweet sorrow."
Pat ran lightly down the path, turning her back, although she knew it not, on her years of unshadowed happiness.
A flock of geese flying over in the April night . . . a grey cat pouncing out from the ferns in the Whispering Lane . . . lantern shadows in the barn-yard . . . a girl half-drunk with the sweet, heady wine of spring.
"Oh, Judy, life is so beautiful . . . and spring is so beautiful. Judy, how can you help dancing?"
"Dancing, is it?" Judy sat down with a grunt. She was tired and she did not like it because it meant that she was growing old. Judy had just one dread in life . . . that she might grow too old to be of use to Silver Bush. "Whin ye come to my years, Patsy darlint, dancing don't be coming so aisy. But dance while ye can . . . oh, oh, dance while ye can. And rap a bit av wood."