Pat of Silver Bush Page 29

  This was simply ridiculous. Of course, some day…but she wasn’t going to even think of getting married for years yet. She must teach school and help them at home…reshingle and repaint Silver Bush…get a hardwood floor in the dining-room…a brass knocker for the front door…pay for Cuddles’ music lessons.

  Lester just laughed at this the night of the Saturday Satellites’ Easter dance.

  “You are too lovely, Pat, to be wasted any longer on a shabby, obscure old farm like Silver Bush,” he said.

  A little madness came over Pat. The very soul of her was aflame.

  “Don’t ever speak to me again, Lester Conway,” she said, each word falling like a tinkling drop of icy water on a cold stone.

  “Why, what have I done?” said Lester in genuine amazement.

  That made it worse, if anything could make it worse. He didn’t realize at all what he had done. Pat turned her back on him and flew upstairs. To get her wraps was the work of a minute…to slip down the back-stairs and through the side-hall, another minute. Then out…and back to Linden Avenue. The bite and tang of the cold air seemed to increase her anger. Patricia Gardiner of Silver Bush had never in all her life been so furious.

  Lester came down the next evening, looking more Lara-like than ever. He ignored the incident…he thought that would be the best policy…and told her she was going with him to the Easter Prom.

  “Thank you, I’m not,” said Pat, “and please don’t waste any more of those charming scowls on me. When I tell anybody I’m through with him I’m through.”

  When Pat said anything in a certain way she was believed.

  “Of all the fickle girls,” said Lester. Just like Harris. Men were so tiresomely alike.

  “I was born in moonlight, they tell me,” said Pat coolly. “So I’m naturally changeable. No one can insult Silver Bush in my hearing. And I’m tired…very tired…of taking orders from you.”

  The Conway temper…Judy could have told you a few things about it…flared up.

  “Oh…well…if you’re going off the deep end about it!” he said nastily. “Anyway, I just began going about with you to put a spoke in Hilary Gordon’s wheel.”

  She was glad he had said that. He had set her free. She had been hating him so bitterly that her hate had made her as much of a prisoner as love had. Now he had simply ceased to exist.

  “I’ve heard Judy use a phrase,” said Pat to herself after he had flung away, scowling for once in real earnest, “‘fancy’s fool.’ Well, I’ve been fancy’s fool. And that is that.”

  • • •

  It was a good while before she could talk the whole thing over with Judy. Now Judy sympathized and understood.

  “Oh, oh, Patsy dear, I niver did be liking yer taking up wid a Conway, not aven if his pockets were lined wid gold. Gintleman Tom didn’t like him…there was something in that cat’s eye whiniver he saw him. And he was always a bit too lordly for me taste, Patsy. A man shud be a bit humble like whin he’s courting for if he isn’t whin will he be? I’m asking ye.”

  “I can never forgive him for making fun of Silver Bush, Judy.”

  “Making fun av Silver Bush, was he? Oh, oh, if ye’d seen the liddle shack his father was raised in, wid the stove-pipe sticking out av its roof. Sure and the Conways were the scrapings av the pot in thim days. And the timper av the ould man. One time he wasn’t after liking the color av a new petticoat his wife did be buying…it was grane when he wanted purple. He did be taking it up to the attic av his grand house in Summerside and firing it out av the windy. It caught on the top av a big popple at the back av the house and there it did be hanging all the rist av the summer. Whin the wind filled it out ’twas a proper sight now. The folks did be calling it the Conway flag. Ould Conway cudn’t get it down becase the popple was ralely in Ned Orley’s lot and Ned and him were bad frinds and Ned wudn’t be letting inny one get at the tree. He said he was a better Irishman than ould Conway and liked a bit av rale Paddy grane in his landscape.”

  “Lester admits his father was a self-made man, Judy.”

  “Oh, oh, that wud be a very pretty story if it was the true one. Ould Conway didn’t be making himsilf. The Good Man Above attinded to that. And he made his pile out av a grane and feed store. But I’m saying for him he wasn’t skim milk…like his brother Jim. He was the miser, now. ‘Take out that lamp,’ sez he whin he was dying. ‘A candle do be good enough to die by.’ Oh, oh there do be some quare people in the world,” conceded Judy. “As for me poor Lester, they tell me he’s rale down-hearted now that his temper fit do be over. I’m afraid it’s ye that do be the deluthering cratur, Patsy. He did be thinking ye were rale fond av him.”

  “Of course I admit I was a perfect idiot, Judy. But I’m cured. I’ll never fall in love again…if I can help it,” she added candidly.

  “Oh, oh, why not, me jewel?” laughed Judy. “As yer Aunt Hazel used to say it’s a bit av fun in a dull life. Only don’t be carrying it too far and breaking hearts, aven av the Conways. There do be a big difference atween falling in love and loving, Patsy.”

  “How do you know all this, Judy? Were you ever in love?” said Pat impudently.

  Judy chuckled.

  “One can be larning a lot be observation,” she remarked.

  “But, Judy, how can one tell the difference between loving and being in love?”

  “It do be taking some experience,” acknowledged Judy.

  Pat burned Poems of Passion but when she came across the line…“spilt water from a broken shard,” in one of Carman’s poems she underlined it. That was all love really was, anyway.

  She went to the Easter Prom with Hilary.

  “Poor Jingle!” said Judy to Gentleman Tom. “That does be twicet. If she gets over the third time…”

  CHAPTER 34

  “Let’s Pretend”

  “Let us see the handsome houses where the wealthy nobles dwell,” quoted Hilary. “In other words let us take a stroll along Abegweit Avenue. There’s one of the new houses there I want to show you. I won’t tell you which one it is…I want you to guess it. If you’re the lass I take you to be, Pat, you’ll spot it at sight.”

  It was a Saturday afternoon in spring with sudden-sweeping April winds. The world seemed so friendly on a day like this, Pat thought. She wore her crimson jersey and tam and knew she looked well in them and that Lester Conway, scowling by in his roadster, knew it, too. But let Lester scowl on. Hilary’s quizzical smile was much pleasanter in a companion and Hilary looked brown and wholesome in the spring sunshine. Not much like the ragged little lad who had met her on that dark, lonely road of long ago. But the same at heart. Dear old Hilary! Faithful, dependable Hilary. Such a friend was better than a thousand of Judy’s “beaus.”

  They had not gone home for this weekend, since the Satellites were having a wind-up jamboree that night. Pat could by now survive staying a weekend in town. Yet she felt that she always missed something when she did. Today, for instance, the wild violets would be out in Happiness…the white ones…and they not there to find them.

  Abegweit Avenue was the finest residential street in town and at the end it ran out into the country, with a vision of distant emerald hills beyond. It always compelled Pat to admit that there were a few satisfying houses in the world beside Silver Bush. All kinds of houses were built on it—from Victorian monstrosities with towers and cupolas, to the newest thing in bungalows. Pat and Hilary loved to walk along it, talking when they felt like it, holding their tongues when they didn’t, discussing and criticizing the houses, making changes in most of them, putting in a window here and slicing one off there, lifting or lowering roofs…“a low roof gives a house a friendly air,” said Hilary.

  Some houses thrilled them, some charmed them, some annoyed them. Some were attractive, some repellent…“I’d like to smash a few of your windows,” was Pat’s reaction to one. Even the doors were fas
cinating. What went on behind them? Did they let you out…or in?

  Then they had to settle which house they would accept as a gift, supposing they were simply compelled to take one.

  “I think I’d take that gentle house on the corner,” said Pat. “It has an attic…I must have an attic. And it looks as if it had been loved for years. I knew that the first time I ever saw it. It would like me, too. And that funny little window away off by itself has a joke it wants to tell me.”

  “I’m choosing one of the new houses this time,” said Hilary. “I like a new house better than an old one when all is said and done. I would feel that I owned a new house. An old house would own me.”

  Pat had kept a keen look-out for Hilary’s house. She had thought several of the new ones might be it. But when she saw it she knew it. A little house nestled in a hollow halfway up a little hill. Its upper windows looked right out on the top of the hill. Its very chimneys smacked of romance. A tremendous maple tree bent over it. The tree was so enormous and the house so small. It looked like a toy house the big tree had picked up to play with and got fond of it. It had a little garden by its side, with violets in a corner and in the center a pool with a border of flat stones, edged with daffodils.

  “Oh!” Pat drew a long breath. “I’m so glad I didn’t miss that. Yes, if they give you that house, Hilary, take it. It’s so…so right, isn’t it?”

  “That tree in the front should be cut down though,” said Hilary thoughtfully. “It breaks the line…and spoils the view.”

  “It doesn’t…it simply guards it as a treasure. You wouldn’t cut that lovely birch down, Hilary.”

  “I’d cut any tree down if it wasn’t in the right place,” persisted Hilary stubbornly.

  “A tree is always in the right place,” said Pat just as stubbornly.

  “Well, I won’t cut it down yet awhile,” conceded Hilary. “But I’ll tell you what I am going to do some dark night, Pat. I’m going to sneak up here and carry off that cast-iron deer next door and sink it in the bay fathoms deep.”

  “Would it be worthwhile? The whole place is so awful. You couldn’t carry off that enormous portico. The house looks like a sanitarium. Did you ever suppose any place could be so hideous?”

  “The house next to it isn’t hideous…exactly. But it has a cruel, secretive look. I don’t like it. A house shouldn’t be so sly and reserved. And there’s a house I’d like to buy and groom it up. It’s so out at elbows. The shingles are curling up and the veranda roof is sagging.”

  “But at least it isn’t self-satisfied. The next one is…positively smug. And that one…they say it cost a fortune and it’s as gloomy as a tomb.”

  “Shutters on those stark windows would make an amazing difference,” said Hilary reflectively. “It’s really wonderful, Pat, how much a little thing can do to make or mar a house. But I don’t think there’s any place for dreaming in that house…or for ghosts. There must be a place for dreams and ghosts in every house I’ll design.”

  “There’s that unfinished house, Hilary…it always makes my heart ache. Why don’t they finish it?”

  “I’ve found out why. A man began to build that house just to please his wife and she died when it was only half done. He hadn’t the heart to finish it. That white place is a house for the witch of the snow. It’s positively dazzling.”

  “What is the matter with that house in the middle of the block, Hilary? It’s very splendid but…”

  “It hasn’t enough restraint. It bulges like…like…”

  “Like a fat woman without corsets,” laughed Pat. “Like Mary Ann McClenahan. Poor Mary Ann died last week. Do you remember how we thought she was a witch, Hilary?”

  One house was as yet only a hole in the ground, with men setting pipes and running wires in it. Who was waiting for that house? Perhaps a bride-to-be. Or perhaps some tired old body who had never in her life had a house to her liking and meant to have one before she died. There was a house that wanted to be wakened up. And there was one with Dr. Ames coming away from it. He looked grave. Perhaps someone was dying in that house. He wouldn’t be looking like that if a baby had come.

  “I would like to see all the houses in the world…all the beautiful ones at least,” said Hilary. “And I’ve got a new idea for your house today.”

  He was always getting new ideas for it but nowadays he never told her what they were. Everything was to be a surprise.

  They walked back in silence. Hilary was dreaming. All men dream. His dream was of building beautiful homes for love to dwell in…houses to keep people from the biting wind and the fierce sun and the loneliness of dark night. It must be a fascinating thing to build a house…to create beauty that would last for generations and be shelter and protection and friendliness as well as beauty. And some day he would build a house for Pat…and she must live in it.

  Pat was thinking again how nice it was to walk with Hilary. With Harris and Lester she had felt that she must be always bright and witty and sparkling lest they might think her “dumb.” Hilary was restful. And he never said embarrassing things. To be sure his looks sometimes said many things his tongue never did. But who could quarrel with looks?

  CHAPTER 35

  Shadow and Sunshine

  Care sat visibly on Patricia’s brow.

  “My vision cannot pierce beyond the darkness of next week, Judy. It is completely bounded by the gloomy shade of license exams. Judy, what if I don’t pass?”

  “Oh, oh, but ye will, darlint. Haven’t ye been studying all the term like a Trojan? Excipt maybe thim few wakes whin me bould Lester was ordering ye about. So don’t be worrying yer head about it. Just take a bit av a walk through the birches and fale thankful that spring do never be forgetting to come. And thin, maybe, ye’ll be making Siddy’s fav’rite pancakes for supper. It’s mesilf can’t give thim the turn at the right moment like ye can.”

  “Judy, you old flatterer! You know nobody can make pancakes like yours.”

  “Oh, oh, but the pastry now, Patsy. I niver had the light hand wid it that ye do be having. Sure that pie ye was after making last wake-ind…it did be looking as if it had just stipped out av the pages av that magazine Winnie takes.”

  “Sure and that’ll divart her a bit,” thought Judy. But it didn’t.

  “I can’t help worrying, Judy. It will be dreadful if I don’t pass…it will hurt mother so. And she mustn’t be hurt.”

  For everybody at Silver Bush had become very careful of mother without saying much about it. Nobody ever heard her complain but all winter she had been taking little bitter strychnine tablets for the heart and a “rest” in the afternoons. The shadow had crept towards Silver Bush so stealthily that even yet they hardly realized its grim presence. Father was looking gray and worried. Although none of the children knew it the doctor was advising an operation and Judy and Aunt Edith were, for the first, last, and only time in their lives of the same opinion about it.

  “They’ll just cut her up for an experiment,” said Aunt Edith wrathfully. “I know them.”

  “Indade and I wudn’t put it by thim,” agreed Judy bitterly.

  Mother herself would not hear of an operation. She felt that it couldn’t be afforded: but she didn’t tell Long Alec that. She merely said that she was frightened of it. Long Alec rather marveled at this. He had never associated fear of any kind with his wife. But then neither had he ever associated that strange languor and willingness to lie quietly and let other people do the work. Mother had never hurried through life; she had walked leisurely…Judy was wont to say she had never known anyone who made so little noise moving round a house…but she got a surprising amount of work done.

  Pat got through the exams eventually and even dared to hope she had done fairly well. She left Queen’s with a good deal of regret and grimy Linden Avenue with none at all. Home again to dear Silver Bush, never more to leave it…for the home school
was promised her and Pat had already in imagination spent a year’s salary on Silver Bush. Several years’, in fact…there were so many things she wanted to do for it. How she loved it! The house and everything about it were linked inextricably with her life and thought. There was one verse in the Bible she could never understand. Forget also thine own people and thy father’s house. It always made her shiver. How could anybody do that?

  She fell in love with life all over again on those spring evenings when she walked over the hill or by Jordan or in the secret paths of her enchanted birches. Winds…delicate dawns…starry nights…shore fields blurred by a silvery fog…the cool wet greenness of the spring rains…all had a message for her and all made her think of Bets…even yet Pat’s voice quivered when she pronounced that name.

  Where was Bets?

  “In what ethereal dances,

  By what eternal streams”

  did her footsteps wind?

  “I wonder if Bets isn’t homesick in heaven for this?” Pat pointed to the white lilac over the garden fence. “And she must miss the sunsets. This is just such a night as she loved, Judy. Oh, Judy, last spring she was here. All winter at Queen’s, where she had never been, it wasn’t so hard. But here…everything seems to speak of her. Tonight, when I smell that white lilac it seems to me that she must be near. She doesn’t seem dead any more. She just seems around the corner somewhere, still dear and loving. But oh, I want her so!”

  “Pat,” came Cuddles’ voice, clear and insistent at her elbow, “do you think I have It?”

  “We’ll be having our hands full wid that same young Cuddles,” Judy had confided to Pat that very day. “In a few years that is, whin she grows into her eyes. Yer Uncle Tom sees it. Wasn’t it only yisterday he sez to me, ‘Ye’ll be finding her a handful.’ Oh, oh, she’ll dance through life, that one.”