The Third Year — Mistress Pat by Lucy Montgomery
1
Rae was off to Queen's and Pat was very lonely. Of course Rae came home every Friday night, just as Pat had done in her Queen's year, and they had hilarious week ends. But the rest of the time was hard to endure. No Rae to laugh and gossip with . . . no Rae to talk over the day with at bedtime . . . no Rae to sleep in the little white bed beside her own. Pat cried herself to sleep for several nights, and then devoted herself to Silver Bush more passionately than ever.
Rae, after her first homesick week, liked town and college very much, though she was sometimes cold in her boarding house bed and the only window of her room looked out on the blank brick wall of the next house instead of a flower garden and green fields and misty hills.
And Judy was getting ready for her trip to Ireland. She was to go in November with the Patterson family from Summerside, who were revisiting the old sod, and all through October little else was talked of at Silver Bush. Pat, though she hated the thought of Judy going, threw herself heart and soul into the preparations. Judy must and should have this wonderful trip to her old home after her life of hard work. Everybody was interested. Long Alec went to town and got Judy her steamer trunk. Judy looked a bit strange when he dumped it on the walk.
"Oh, oh, I know I do be going . . . but I can't belave it, Patsy. That trunk there . . . I can't fale it belongs to me. If it was the old blue chist now . . ."
But of course the old blue chest couldn't be taken to Ireland. And Judy at last believed she was going when a paragraph in the "North Glen Notes" announced that Miss Judy Plum of Silver Bush would spend the winter with her relatives in Ireland. Judy looked queerer than ever when she saw it. It seemed to make everything so irrevocable.
"Patsy darlint, it must be the will av the Good Man Above that I'm to go," she said when she read it.
"Nothing like a change, as old Murdoch MacGonigal said when he turned over in his grave," remarked Tillytuck cheerfully.
Everybody gave Judy something. Uncle Tom gave a leather suit-case and mother a beautiful brush and comb and hand mirror.
"Oh, oh, niver did I be thinking I'd have a t'ilet set av me own," said Judy. "Talk av the silver backed ones the Bishop stole! And wid me monnygram on the back av the looking glass! I do be hoping me ould uncle will have sinse enough lift to take in the grandeur av it."
Pat gave her a "negleege" and Aunt Barbara gave her a crinkly scarf of cardinal crêpe which she had worn only once and which Judy had greatly admired. Even Aunt Edith gave her a grey hug-me-tight with a purple border. Pat nearly went into kinks at the thought of Judy in such a thing but Judy was rather touched.
"Sure and it was rale kind av Edith. I hadn't ixpicted it for we've niver been what ye might call cronies. Mebbe I'll see some poor ould lady in Ireland that it'll set."
Judy's travelling dress exercised them all but one was finally got that pleased her. Also a grey felt hat with a smart, tiny scarlet feather in it. Judy tried the whole outfit on one night in the kitchen chamber and was so scared by her stylish reflection in the cracked mirror that she was for tearing everything off immediately.
"Oh, oh, it doesn't look like me Patsy. It does be frightening me. Will I iver get back into mesilf?"
But Pat made her go down to the kitchen and show herself to everybody. And everybody felt that this hatted and coated and scarlet-feathered Judy was a stranger but everybody paid her compliments and Tillytuck said if he'd ever suspected what a fine-looking woman she really was there was no knowing what might have happened.
"I hope nothing will prevent Judy from going," said Rae. "It would break her heart to be disappointed now. But when I think of coming home Friday nights and Judy not here! And that horrid old Mrs. Bob Robinson, with her pussy cat face!" Rae blinked her eyes fiercely.
"Mrs. Robinson isn't really so bad, Rae," protested Pat half-heartedly. "At any rate she is the best we can get and it's only for the winter."
"I tell you she's an inquisitive, snooping old thing," snapped Rae. "You didn't see her going down the walk after you'd hired her, giving her chops a sly lick of self-satisfaction every three steps. I did. And I know she was thinking, 'I'll show them what proper housekeeping is at Silver Bush.'"
One burning question had been . . . who was to be got in to help Pat for the winter? From several candidates Mrs. Bob Robinson of Silverbridge was finally chosen, as the least objectionable. Tillytuck didn't take to her and nicknamed her Mrs. Puddleduck at sight. It was not hard to imagine why for Mrs. Robinson was very short and very plump and very waddly. The Silver Bush family could never again think of her as anything but Mrs. Puddleduck. Tillytuck's nicknames had a habit of sticking.
To Judy, of course, Mrs. Puddleduck was nothing but a necessary evil.
"She do be more up to date than mesilf I'm not doubting" . . . with a toss of her grey head. "They do be saying she took that domestic short course last year. But will she be kaping our cats continted I'm asking ye?"
"They say she's a very careful, saving woman," said Long Alec.
"Oh, oh, careful, is it? I'm not doubting it." Judy waxed very sarcastic. "She do be getting that from no stranger. Her grandfather did be putting a sun-dial in his garden and thin built a canopy over it to pertect it from the sun. Oh, oh, careful! Ye've said it!"
"She'll never make such apple fritters as yours, Judy, if she took fifty short courses," said Sid, passing his plate up for a second helping.
Then there was the matter of the passport. They had quite a time convincing Judy that she must have a photograph taken for it.
"Sure an' wud ye want to be photygraphed if ye had a face like that, Rae, darlint," she would demand, pointing to the kitchen mirror which never paid any one compliments. But when the picture came home Judy, in her new hat, with the crinkled crêpe scarf about her throat looked so surprisingly handsome that she was delighted. She kept the passport in the drawer of the kitchen cupboard and took frequent peeps at it when nobody was about.
"Did I iver be thinking a hat cud make such a difference? I can't be seeing but that I do be ivery bit as good-looking as Lady Medchester, and her a blue-blood aristocrat!"
Had it not been for Judy's going that October would have been a perfectly happy month for Pat. It was a golden, frostless autumn and when the high winds blew it fairly rained apples in the orchards and the ferns along the Whispering Lane were brown and spicy. There were gay evenings up at the Long House with Suzanne and David . . . hours of good gab-fest by the light of their leaping fire. David developed a habit of walking down the hill with Pat which Judy did not think at all necessary. Pat had come down that hill many a night alone.
"Thim widowers," she muttered viciously . . . but took care that Pat did not hear her. Judy had soon discovered that Pat resented any criticism of David Kirk.
Then McGinty died. They had long expected it. The little dog had been feeble all summer: he had grown deaf and very wistful. It broke Pat's heart when she met his pleading eyes. But to the very last he tried to wag his tail when she came to him. He died with his golden brown head pillowed on her hand. Judy cried like a child and even Tillytuck and Long Alec blew their noses. McGinty was buried beside Snicklefritz in the old graveyard and Pat had to write and tell Hilary that he was gone.
"I feel as if I could never love a dog again," she wrote. "I miss him so. It is so hard to remember that he is dead. I'm always looking for him. Hilary, just before he died he suddenly lifted his head and pricked his ears just as he used to do when he heard your step. I think he did hear something because all at once that heart-breaking look of longing went out of his eyes and he gave such a happy little sigh and cuddled his head down in my hand and . . . it seems too harsh to say he died. He just ceased to be. I wish you had come home, Hilary. I'm sure it was you his eyes were always asking for. Do you remember how he always came to meet us those Friday evenings when we came home from college? And he was with you that night so long ago when you saved me from dying of sheer terror on the base-line road. He was only a little, loving-hearted dog but his going has made a terrible hole in my life. It's another change . . . and Rae is gone . . . and Judy is going. Oh, Hilary, life seems to be just change . . . change . . . change. Everything changes but Silver Bush. It is always the same and I love it more every day of my life."
Hilary Gordon frowned a bit when he read this. And he frowned still more over a certain paragraph in a letter Rae had written.
"I do wish you'd come home this summer, Jingle. If you don't soon come Pat will up and marry that horrid David Kirk. I know she will. It's really mysterious the influence that man has gained over her. It's David this and David that . . . she's always quoting him. So far as I can see he doesn't do anything but talk to her . . . and he can talk. The creature is abominably clever."
Hilary sighed. Perhaps he should have gone to the Island last summer. But he was working his way through college . . . for accept help from the mother who had neglected him all his life he would not . . . and summer visits home . . . to Hilary "home" meant Silver Bush . . . could not be squeezed into his budget.
2
The first day of November came when Judy must pack. It was mild and calm and sunny but there had been hard frost the night before, for the first time, and the garden had suffered. Pat hated to look at her flowers. The nasturtiums were positively indecent. She realised that the summer was over at last.
Judy's trunk was in the middle of the kitchen floor. Pat helped her pack. "Don't forget the black bottle, Judy," Sid said slyly as he passed. Judy ignored this but she brought down her book of Useful Knowledge.
"I must be taking this, Patsy. There do be a lot av ettiket hints in it. Or do ye be thinking they're a trifle out av date? The book is by way av being a bit ouldish. I wudn't want me cousins in Ireland to be thinking I didn't know the latest rules. And, Patsy darlint, I'm taking me ould dress-up dress as well as the new one. I did be always loving that dress. The new one is rale fine but I haven't been wearing it long enough to fale acquainted wid it. Do ye rimimber how ye always hated to give up any av yer ould clothes, Patsy? And, Patsy dear, here's the kay av me blue chist. I'm wanting ye to kape it for me whin I'm gone and if innything but good shud be happening to me over there . . . not that I'm thinking it will . . . ye'll be finding me bit av a will in the baking powder can in the till."
"Judy, just imagine it . . . this time next week you'll be in the middle of the Atlantic."
"Patsy dear," said Judy soberly, "there's a favour I'd be asking ye. Will ye be saying that liddle hymn ivery night whin ye say yer prayers . . . the one where it does be mintioning 'those in peril on the say.' It'd be a rale comfort to me on the bounding dape. Well, me trunk's packed, thank the Good Man Above. Sure and I knew a woman that tuk four trunks wid her whin she wint to the Ould Country. I'm not knowing how she stud it. Iverything do be ready but what if something'll be previnting me from going at the last minute, Patsy? I'm that built up on it I cudn't be standing it."
"Nothing will happen to prevent you, Judy. You'll have a splendid trip and a lovely visit with all your cousins."
"I'm hoping it, girl dear. But I've been seeing so minny disappointmints in life. And, Patsy dear, kape an eye on Gintleman Tom, will ye and see that Mrs. Puddleduck don't be imposing on him. I'm not knowing how the poor baste will be doing widout me."
"Don't worry, Judy. I'll look after him . . . if he doesn't go and disappear as he did the last time you were away from home."
Pat lingered a little while that evening on the back-stair landing looking out of the round window. There was a promise of gathering storm. A peevish wind was tormenting the boughs of the aspen poplar. Scudding clouds seemed to sweep the tips of the silver birches. Soon the rain would be falling on the dark autumn fields. But even a wild wet night like this would have been delightful at Silver Bush if her heart had been lighter. Judy would be gone by this time tomorrow night and Mrs. Puddleduck would be reigning in her stead. No Judy to come home to . . . no Judy to give you "liddle bites" . . . no Judy to stir pea soup . . . no Judy to slip in on cold nights with the eiderdown puff off the Poet's bed.
"And what," said Gentleman Tom on the step above, "is a poor cat to do?"
Long Alec took Judy to the station next morning through a drizzling rain. She was going to Summerside to spend the night at Uncle Brian's and take the boat train with the Pattersons the next day. Everybody stood at the gate and waved her off, smiling gallantly till the car was out of sight. Pat turned back to the kitchen where Mrs. Puddleduck was already making a cake and looking quite at home.
"I hate her," thought Pat, wildly and unjustly.
Dinner . . . the first meal without Judy . . . was a sorry affair. The soup of Mrs. Puddleduck was not the soup of Judy Plum.
"She doesn't know how to stir the brew," Tillytuck whispered to Pat.
Rae came home that night but supper was a gloomy affair. Mrs. Puddleduck's cake, in spite of her domestic short course, rather looked as if somebody had sat down on it: Long Alec was very silent: Tillytuck went straight to his granary roost as soon as the meal was over. Nothing pleased him and he did not pretend to be pleased.
"I feel old, Pat . . . as old as Methuselah," said Rae drearily, as they peeped into the kitchen before going to bed.
"I feel middle-aged, which is far worse," moaned Pat.
Mrs. Puddleduck was sitting there, knitting complacently at a sweater. No cat was in sight, not even Gentleman Tom.
"I wish I could be a cat for a little while, just to bite you," whispered Rae to the fat back of the unconscious Mrs. Puddleduck, who really was quite undeserving of all this hatred and, in fact, thought quite highly of herself for "helping the Gardiners out" while Judy Plum was gallivanting off to Ireland.
Saturday was dark and dour but a pleasant letter from Hilary helped Pat through the forenoon. Dear Hilary! What letters he could write! Hilary as a friend, even in faraway Toronto, was worth all the beaus in the Maritimes.
In mid-afternoon it began to rain again, battering everything down in the desolate garden. Tillytuck and Mrs. Puddleduck were already at loggerheads because when she complained that Just Dog had barked all night he had indulged in one of his silent fits of laughter and said blandly, "If you'd told me he'd purred I'd have been more surprised."
Sid took the girls over to the Bay Shore to help Winnie paper a room. The air was as full of flying leaves as of rain, and floods ran muddily down the gutters of the road. It was just as bad when they returned at night.
"I suppose Judy is on board ship now. They were to sail from Halifax at five o'clock," sighed Rae. "There's Tillytuck playing his fiddle. How can he have the heart? But I suppose he's trying to get on the good side of Mrs. Puddleduck. That man has no soul above snacks."
"I don't know how we'll ever get through the winter," said Pat.
They ran up the wet walk and opened the kitchen door . . . then stood on the threshold literally paralysed with amazement. Tillytuck's fiddle was purring under his hands. Mother was mending by the table whereon was a huge platterful of fat doughnuts. Long Alec lay on the sofa, snoozing blissfully with Squedunk on his chest and Bold-and-Bad and Popka curled up at his feet. Gentleman Tom, with the air of a cat making up his mind to forgive somebody, was sitting on the rug, with his tail stretched out uncompromisingly behind him.
And Judy . . . Judy . . . in her old drugget dress was sitting beside the stove stirring the contents of a savoury pot! Her knitting was on her lap and she looked like anything but a heart-broken woman.
For a moment the girls stared at her unbelievingly. Then with a shriek of "Judy!!!" they hurled themselves upon her. Wet as they were she hugged them with a fierce tenderness.
"Judy . . . Judy . . . darling . . . but why . . . why . . .?"
"I just cudn't be going, that do be all, me jewels. I was knowing it in me heart as soon as I lift. Poor Alec hadn't a word to throw to a dog. Ye cud have been scraping the blue mould off av him be the time we got to the station. But thinks I to mesilf, 'I'd look like a nice fool backing out now, after all thim prisents,' thinks I. So I did be sticking it out till I got into me bed at yer Uncle Brian's that night . . . the second bist spare room it was . . . oh, oh, they trated me fine, I'll be saying that for thim. But niver the wink wud I be slaping. I kipt thinking av me kitchen here, wid Mrs. Puddleduck reigning in me stid . . . and of all the things that might be happening to me, roaming abroad. Running inty an iceberg maybe . . . or maybe dying over there. Not that I'd be minding the dying so much but being buried among strangers. And thin if innything but good shud be happening to some av ye here! Thinks I, 'Perhaps they'll be larning to like Mrs. Puddleduck better'n me and her as smooth as crame.' I cud see ye all, snug and cosy, wid the beaus slipping along in the dim. Thinks I, 'There do be all the turkeys to be fattened for Christmas and the winter hooking to be done and mebbe Joe coming home to be married,' . . . and I cudn't be standing it. So at breakfast I up and told Brian I'd been after changing me mind and I'd just be going back to Silver Bush instead av to Ireland wid the Pattersons."
"Judy, you said the other day it would break your heart if anything prevented you from going . . ."
"Oh, oh, yisterday and to-day do be two different things," said Judy complacently. "Whin ye thought I was all ixcited over me trip I was just talking to kape me spirits up. It's the happy woman I am to think I'll slape in me own snug bed to-night wid Gintleman Tom curled up at me fate. Brian brought me home this afternoon and whin I stepped over the threshold of me kitchen I wudn't have called the quane me cousin. Oh, oh, ye shud have been seeing Madam Puddleduck's face! 'I thought this was how it wud be,' sez she, as spiteful as a fairy that had just got a spanking."
"Judy, where is Mrs. Puddleduck?"
"Safe back at the bridge where she belongs. Sure and she wasn't for staying long whin she saw me back. Oh, oh, she'll be saying plinty besides her prayers to-night. I wint inty me pantry thinking I'd see fine things in the ways av Sunday baking, what wid her domestic short course and all. But all I did be seeing was a cake looking like nothing on earth and a pie wid a lot of hen tracks on it. Tillytuck tells me he did be ating a pace av it and niver will his stomach be the same agin. Oh, oh, domestic science, sez I! I did be putting it in the pig's pail and frying up a big batch av doughnuts."
"Praise the sea but keep on land is a good proverb, symbolically speaking," said Tillytuck. After which he ate nine doughnuts.
Everybody was shamelessly glad and showed it, much to Judy's secret delight and relief. They shut out the rain and the cold wind. Never had the old kitchen held a more contented, more congenial bunch of people. Grief and loneliness had gone where old moons go and even King William looked jubilant in his never-ending passage of the Boyne. Outside it might be a dank and streaming November night but here was the eternal summer of the heart.
"Isn't it nice to look out into a storm?" said Rae. "Listen to that wind roaring. I love it. Judy, I'm glad you're not on the Atlantic."
"I do be just where I want to be, Cuddles darlint, and faling rale high and hilarious. Sure and I do be good frinds wid Silver Bush agin. It's been looking at me reproachful-like for a long time. I'm knowing now I cud niver be laving it. It's got into the marrow av me. So here I am, wid enough fine clothes to do me for the rist av me life and all the fun av getting ready. Oh, oh, 'twill be a stirring tale . . . the story av how Judy Plum wint to Ireland and got back so quick she met hersilf going. And now we'll begin planning a bit for Christmas."
Judy crept in that night to see if the girls were warm . . . the darling, thoughtful old thing.
"You're such a dependable old sport, Judy," said a drowsy Pat, sitting up and hugging her. "It seems unbelievably lovely that you're here . . . here . . . and not far away on the billow."
Judy was not acquainted with Wilson Macdonald's couplet,
"For this is wealth to know my foot's returning
Is always music to a friend of mine,"
but she felt that she was a very rich woman with only one small cloud on her perfect joy.
"Patsy darlint, do ye think I ought to be giving thim back . . . the prisents, I mane?"
"Certainly not, Judy. They were given to you and they are yours."
Judy gave a sigh of relief.
"It's rale glad I am to hear ye say so, Patsy. It wud have been bitter hard to give up that illigant t'ilet set. But I'm thinking I'll give yer Aunt Edith's hug-me-tight back to her. Niver will I let her be saying I come be it under false pretences."
Just as a great wave of sleep was breaking over Pat a sad premonitory thought drifted across her mind.
"And yet . . . for all she didn't go . . . I feel as if things were going to change."
3
When Rae came home from Queen's in the spring, the happy possessor of a teacher's license, she got the home school and settled down for a summer of good fun before school should open. "Fun" to Rae at this stage meant beaus and, as Judy said, they were standing in line. Pat couldn't quite get used to the idea of "little Cuddles" being really old enough to have beaus but Rae herself had no doubts on that point. And she admitted quite candidly that she liked having them. Not that she ever flirted, in spite of the Binnies. "College has improved Rae Gardiner some," Mrs. Binnie was reported to have said, "but it ain't cured her of being boy-crazy."
Rae just looked. "Come," said that look. "I know a secret you would like to know and no one can tell it to you but me."
She was not really as pretty as Winnie or as witty as Pat but there was magic in her . . . what Tillytuck called "glamour, symbolically speaking." "The little monkey has a way with her," said Uncle Tom. And the youth of both Glens knew it. It did not matter how much or how severely she snubbed them, this creature of cruelty and loveliness held them in thrall. Long Alec complained that Silver Bush was literally overrun and that they never had a quiet Sunday any more. But Judy would listen to no such growling.
"Wud ye be wanting yer girls to be like John B. Madison's," she enquired sarcastically. "Six av thim there and niver a beau to divide between them."
"There's reason in all things," protested Long Alec, who liked to have an undisturbed Sunday afternoon nap.
"Not in beaus," said Judy shrewdly. "And I'm minding that the yard at the Bay Shore used to be full of rigs on Sunday afternoons, young Alec Gardiner's among them. Don't be forgetting you were once young, Long Alec. We'll all have a bit av quiet fun be times watching the antics. Were ye hearing what happened to Just Dog last Sunday afternoon whin one av the young Shortreed sprouts . . . Lloyd I'm thinking his name was . . . was sitting on the front porch steps, looking kind av holy and solemn, for all the world like his ould Grandfather Shortreed at prayer mating. Sure and the poor baste . . . not maning Lloyd . . . met up wid a rat in the stone dyke behind the church barn and cornered it. But me Mr. Rat put up a fight and clamped his teeth in Just Dog's jaw. Such howling ye niver did be hearing as he tore across the yard and through me kitchen and the hall and out past the young fry on the steps and through me bed av petunias. Roaring down the lane he wint, the rat still houlding on tight. The girls wint into kinks and Tillytuck come bucketing out, rale indignant, and saying, the divil himself must have got inty the modern rats. 'Oh, oh,' sez I, 'don't be spaking so flippant av the divil, Mr. Tillytuck. He's an ancient ould lad and shud be rispicted,' sez I. Lloyd Shortreed looked rale shocked."
"And no wonder. I don't hold with such goings-on in my house on Sunday."
"Sure and who cud be hilping it?" protested Judy. "It was Just Dog's doings intirely, going rat-hunting on Sunday. Before that the young fry were all quiet and sober-like. As for Tillytuck and his langwidge, iverybody do be knowing him. It's well known he didn't larn it at Silver Bush. Just Dog did be coming back later on wid no rat attached, rale meek and chastened-like. Lloyd hasn't been back since and good riddance. The Shortreeds do be having no sinse av humour."
"Lloyd's a very decent fellow," said Long Alec shortly.
"And that cliver wid his needle," added Judy slyly. "He did be piecing a whole quilt whin he was but four years ould and he's niver been able to live it down. His mother brings it out and shows it round whiniver company comes."
Long Alec got up and went out. He knew he was no match for Judy.
They celebrated Rae's home-coming by another party to which all Rae's college friends came. Rae loved dancing. Her very slippers, if left to themselves, would have danced the whole night through. But Pat's feet were not as light as they had been at the last party. Sid was not there. Sid was a very remote and unhappy boy. There had been a social sensation in North Glen early in the winter. Dorothy Milton, who had been engaged to Sid for two years, ran away with and married her cousin from Halifax, a dissipated, fascinating youth who "travelled" for a Halifax firm. Sid would have nothing of sympathy from his family. He would not talk of the matter at all. But he had been hard and bitter and defiant ever since and Pat felt hopelessly cut off from him. He worked feverishly but he came and went among his own like a stranger.
"Patience," said mother. "It will wear away in time. Poor Dorothy! I'm sorrier for her than for Sid."
"I'm not," sobbed Pat fiercely. "I hate her . . . for breaking Sid's heart."
"Oh, oh, iverybody's heart gets a bit av a crack at one time or another," said Judy. "Siddy isn't the first b'y to be jilted and he won't be the last, as long as the poor girls haven't got the sinse God gave geese."
But Judy didn't like to look at Sid's eyes herself.
When the party was over Pat and Rae went by a mossy, velvety path to their tent in the bush, amid a growth of young white, wild cherry trees. They had achieved their long-cherished dream of sleeping out in the silver bush and the reality was more beautiful than the dream, even when the wind blew the tent down on them one night and Little Mary was half smothered before they could find her. There was another new baby at the Bay Shore and Little Mary had been committed to the care of Aunt Pat until her mother should be about. They all loved Little Mary but Aunt Pat adored and spoiled her. To see Little Mary running about the garden on her dear chubby legs, pausing now and then to lift a flower to her small nose, or following Judy out to feed the chickens, or chasing kittens in the old barns, where generations of furry things had frisked their little lives and ceased to be, gave Pat never-ending thrills. And the questions she would ask . . . "Aunt Pat, why weren't ears made plain?" . . . "Aunt Pat, have flowers little souls?" . . . "Where do the days go, Aunt Pat. Dey mus' go somewhere" . . . "Does God live in Judy's blue chest, Aunt Pat?" Once or twice the thought came to Pat that to marry and have a dimpled question mark like this of your very own might even make up for the loss of Silver Bush.
Judy came through the scented darkness to see if they were all right and gossip a little about various things. Judy had been to a funeral that day . . . a very unusual dissipation for her. But old William Madison at the Bridge had died and Judy had worked a few months for his mother before coming to Silver Bush.
"Sure and iverything wint off very well. It was the grand funeral he had and he'd have been rale well plazed if he cud have seen it. He had great fun arranging it all, I'm told. Oh, oh, and he died very politely, asking thim all to ixcuse him for the bother he was putting thim to. His ould Aunt Polly was rale vexed because she didn't be getting the sate at the funeral she thought she shud have but nobody else had inny fault to find wid the programme. It do be hard to plaze ivery one. Polly Madison is one av the Holy Christians . . . holier than inny av thim, I'm hearing."
For the "go-preacher's" disciples had formed themselves into a "Holy Christian church" and were cruelly referred to in the Glen as the Holy Christians.
"I hear they're going to build a church," said Pat.
"That they are . . . but they're not calling it a church. It do be 'a place av meeting.' The same Aunt Polly do be giving the land for it. And Mr. Wheeler is coming back to be their minister . . . or their shepherd as they do be saying, not approving av ministers or av paying thim salaries ather. He'll be living on air no doubt. Aunt Polly says he is very spiritual but I'm thinking it's only the way he was av lifting his eyes and taffying her up. Innyway her husband don't be houlding wid new-fangled religions. 'Are ye prepared to die?' the go-preacher asked him rale solemn-like, I'm tould. But ould Jim Polly was always a hard nut to crack. 'Better be asking if I'm prepared to live,' sez he. 'Living comes first,' sez he."
Pat had detected a sudden movement of Rae's when Judy mentioned Mr. Wheeler's name, and felt her worry increase. Suppose he made up to Rae again!
4
Mr. Wheeler did return and did "make up to" Rae. That is, he fairly haunted Silver Bush and made himself quite agreeable socially . . . or tried to. The Gardiners no longer went to any of his services and the Holy Christians thought he might find more spiritual ways of spending his time than playing violin duets with Rae Gardiner and mooning about the garden with Pat until the very cats were bored. For Pat decidedly put herself forward to entertain him when he came and contrived to be present during most of the duets. To be sure, Rae laughed at and made constant fun of him. But she never seemed her usual saucy, indifferent self in his presence. She was quiet and subdued, with never a coquettish look, and Pat was not exactly easy. The creature was handsome in his way, with his dark eyes and crinkly sweep of hair, and his voice in which there were echoes of everything. Aunt Polly's daughter, who taught in South Glen, was reputed to have said that he had a certain Byronic charm. Byronic charm or not Pat wasn't going to have any nonsense and she played gooseberry with amiable persistence whenever he appeared. He looked a great deal at Rae and dropped his voice tenderly when he spoke to her: but he showed no aversion to talking with Pat . . . "currying favour," Tillytuck said.
Judy teased Rae sometimes about him.
"Sure and he'd be easy to cook for, Cuddles darlint. They're telling me he niver ates innything but nuts and bran biscuits. No wonder he's not nading a salary. But how about kaping a wife?"
"You do say such ridiculous things," said Rae rather snappishly. "What is it to me whether he can keep a wife or not?"
Tillytuck was not quite easy in his mind about it. He considered Mr. Wheeler a dangerous creature and wondered why Long Alec tolerated his presence at all. As he entirely disapproved of the Holy Christians he decided he would take up with church-going again as a token of his disapproval. He took several weeks to accumulate enough courage to go, being afraid, as he told Judy, of making too much of a sensation. But when he finally did go and nobody took any particular notice of it he was secretly furious.
"There wasn't a good-looking woman in church," he grumbled, "and no great shakes of a minister. He runs to words and I don't believe his views on the devil are sound. Sort of flabby. I like a devil with some backbone."
"Suppose you do be going to the Holy Christians," said Judy disdainfully, as she sliced up her red cabbage for pickling. "I'm hearing they have wrestling matches wid That Person quite frequent."
"The people of this place are having too much truck with Holy Christians as it is," said Tillytuck sourly, "and the time will come when they'll see it."
"There'll no harm come to Silver Bush from that poor lad," said Judy. "And ye'll all be getting a rale surprise some day."
"You've got wheels in your head," scoffed Tillytuck.
Pat, at that moment, was working in the garden, at peace with herself and all the world. Somehow, she always felt safe from change in that garden. Just now it seemed to be taking pleasure in itself. Its flowers were guests not prisoners . . . its blue delphiniums, its frail fleeting loveliness of poppies, its Canterbury bells, delicious mauve flecked with purple, its roses of gold and snow, its lilies of milk and wine.
Westward the sun was sinking low over a far land of shining hills. The air was sweet with a certain blended fragrance that only the Silver Bush garden knew. The whole lovesome place was full of soft amethyst shadows.
What fairy things the seeds of immortelles were! What a lovely name "bee balm" was! It was on evenings like this long ago she had listened for Joe's whistle as he came home from work. There was never any whistle now . . . Sid never whistled. Poor Sid! Would he never get over fretting for that hateful Dorothy? He was running around, here, there and everywhere, with all kinds of girls, rumour said. They saw very little of him at Silver Bush. At work all day . . . and off in the evening till late. Mother's eyes were very sad sometimes. Judy advised patience . . . he would come back to himself yet. Pat found it hard to be patient. At times she felt like shaking Sid. Why should he shut her out of his life as he did? That was always one of the little shadows in the background.
There was a hint of September coolness blowing across August's languor . . . another summer almost gone. The years were certainly beginning to spin past rather quickly. Well, to grow old with Silver Bush would not be hard, Pat reflected, with the philosophy of one who is as yet very far from age.
Suddenly Pat scowled. There was that wretched Mr. Wheeler coming up the lane. Thank goodness, Rae had gone to Winnie's. Now for another evening of boredom. When would he take the hint that his attentions to Rae weren't welcome to her or anybody else? Her lovely garden evening would be quite spoiled. And he had been here only last night. Really, he was becoming an intolerable nuisance.
Would it be violating Silver Bush traditions too flagrantly to give him a hint of it?
Pat's greeting was a trifle distant and she went on coolly snipping off delphinium seeds. Bold-and-Bad, who had been prowling among the shrubs, made a few spiteful remarks. You couldn't hoodwink Bold-and-Bad.
Mr. Wheeler stood looking down at her. Pat had an old sunburned felt hat of Sid's on her head which she would not have thought . . . if she had thought about it at all . . . likely to attract masculine admiration. And she wore an ancient brown crêpe dress which burrs and stick-tights could no longer injure. She did not know how its warm hues brought out the creaminess of her skin . . . the gloss of her hair . . . the fire of her amber eyes. She was really looking her best and when, after a rather overlong silence, she raised her eyes to her caller's she found his dark, soulful orbs . . . the adjectives were Aunt Polly's daughter's . . . gazing down at her with a strange expression in their depths. An incredible idea came to Pat . . . and was instantly dismissed. Nonsense! She wished he wouldn't stand so close to her. She knew at once what he had for supper. How overfull his red lips were! And when had his finger-nails been cleaned last? Why didn't somebody come along? People were always somewhere else when you wanted them and when you didn't you simply fell over them.
"You are smiling . . . you have such a fascinating smile. What are you thinking of, Patricia," he said in a low, caressing tone.
Merciful goodness, suppose she told him what she was thinking! Pat had hard work to avert a grin. And then the bolt fell, straight out of the blue.
Mr. Wheeler helped himself to one of her hands and looked at it.
"Little white hand," he murmured. "Little white hand that holds my heart."
Pat's hands were brown and not particularly little. She tried to pull it away. But he held on and put his arm around her. Worse and more of it, as Tillytuck would say. Suppose Judy were looking out of the kitchen window!
"Please, don't be so . . . foolish," said Pat coldly.
"I'm not foolish. I am wise . . . very wise . . . wise with the wisdom of countless ages." His voice was getting lower and tenderer with every word. "I've been wanting this opportunity for weeks. It has been so hard to find you alone. Dearest, sweetest of angels, have you any idea how much I love you . . . have loved you for a thousand lives?"
"I never thought of such a thing . . . I always thought it was Rae," was all poor Pat could gasp.
Mr. Wheeler smiled patronisingly.
"You couldn't have thought that, my darling. Miss Rachel is a charming child. But it is you, my sweet . . . and always has been since the first moment I drowned my soul in your beautiful eyes. I think I must have dreamed you all my life . . . and now my dream has come true." He tried to draw her closer. "You belong to me . . . you know you do. We will have such a wonderful life together, my queen."
Pat recovered herself. She wrested her hand from his clasp, feeling quite furious over her ridiculous position.
"You must forget all this nonsense, Mr. Wheeler," she said decisively. "I hadn't the slightest idea you felt that way about me. And . . ." Pat was growing angry, "just how did you come to imagine that I would marry you?"
Mr. Wheeler dropped her hand and looked down at her, with something rather unpleasant in his eyes.
"You have encouraged me to think so." His voice had lost a good deal of its smooth oiliness. "I cannot believe you do not care for me."
"Please try," said Pat in a dangerous tone. It flicked on the raw. A dark flush spread over Mr. Wheeler's face. He seemed all at once to be quite a different person.
"You have shown me very plainly that you liked my society, Miss Gardiner . . . almost too plainly. I consider that I had every right to suppose that my proposal would be welcome . . . very welcome. You have flirted with me shamelessly . . . you have lured me on, for your own amusement I must now suppose. I should have known it . . . I was well warned . . . I was told what you were . . ."
Pat, looking into his angry eyes, felt as she had felt one day when she had turned over an old, beautiful mossy stone in the Whispering Lane and seen what was underneath.
"I think you had better go, Mr. Wheeler," she said icily.
"Oh, I'm going . . . I'm going . . . and rest assured I shall never darken the doors of this place again."
Mr. Wheeler stalked off, his conceit considerably slimmed down, and Pat, still in a swither of various emotions, rushed into the kitchen, displaced a chairful of indignant cats, and gave tongue.
"Oh, oh, and what were you and His Riverince colloguing in the garden about that sint him down the lane at the rate av no man's business?" demanded Judy.
"Judy, I'm feeling so many different things I don't know which I'm feeling most. That horrible creature actually asked me . . . me, Pat Gardiner . . . to marry him! And he'd been eating onions, Judy!"
"Sure and weren't ye by way av knowing he was a vegetarian," said Judy coolly. "I've been ixpicting this for some time . . ."
"Judy! What made you expect it?"
"The way he had av looking at ye, whin ye weren't looking at him."
"Oh, Judy . . . the worst of it is . . . he thinks I encouraged him! I feel I'm disgraced. And when he found I wouldn't marry him . . . he was horrid. He hasn't any manners, not even bad ones."
"The higher a monkey climbs the more he shows his tail," quoted Judy. "Niver be taking it to heart, Patsy. Ye're rid av him now for good."
"I really think so, Judy. I've an idea he meant it when he said he would never darken our doors again."
"Sure now and that will be our loss," said Judy sarcastically. "He's kipt out considerable av the sunshine this summer. And . . . I'm not sticking up for him, Patsy . . . I did always be thinking he was no rale gintleman under the skin . . . but you did be always sticking round . . ."
"I did it to keep him away from Rae. I . . . I . . . thought he'd take the hint. I never dreamed he'd think I was in love with him . . . him! Judy, it's really a ridiculous and tiresome world by spells. I'm going up to the Long House . . . I've got to have something to take the taste of the Reverend Wheeler out of my soul and to talk nice scandal with David and Suzanne may do it."
"I'm wondering how Cuddles will be taking this," muttered Judy after Pat had gone out. "I'm thinking iverybody but ould Judy Plum is blind as a bat round here. Well, we're rid av the go-pracher, glory be. But I'm not knowing if I like that Kirk man much better. He's got his eye on her. He's not hurrying . . . whin it's yer second you do be more careful-like. But I do be knowing the signs. Oh, oh, it's a wonder me bit av corned ham wasn't being biled too much whin I was listening to Patsy's troubles. But it's done to the quane's taste and I'm setting it in the ice-house to cool. Beaus may come and beaus may go but we must be having our liddle comforts."
Pat, up at the Long House, soon forgot her anger and humiliation in the company of David and Suzanne. They talked and laughed together around the fireplace the Kirks had built in Bet's crescent of trees while Ichabod sat close to David and Alphonso shared his favours between the girls and the evening star looked over cloudy purple ramparts in the west. It seemed to Pat that every evening she spent there she grew wiser and maturer in some mysterious way. Their talk was so different . . . so rich . . . so stimulating . . . so brimming over with ideas. The ghosts of the past were laid. She had begun to think of the Long House as the home of Suzanne and David rather than as the home of Bets.
"She is growing older and I'm growing younger. Perhaps we'll meet," David was thinking.
"Their souls are the same age," Suzanne was thinking.
But nobody knew what Alphonso-of-the-emerald-eyes or Ichabod thought.