Pat of Silver Bush Page 32

  Sarah Cody was a Sunday School teacher and looked very meek and devout beside her easy-going Abner. Very likely Judy had made it all up.

  (What was that horrid Mrs. Stephen Russell whispering…“made the mistake of choosing a prettier bridesmaid than herself.” It wasn’t true…it wasn’t…Allie Russell wasn’t half as pretty as Winnie.) Old Grant Madison, who had told dad once that he had read too many dreadful things in old histories ever to believe in God. How dreadful not to believe in God. How could one live? Mrs. Scott Gardiner had ironed out her wrinkles in some way…“beauty tricks,” said Judy contemptuously. Why in the world didn’t Winnie come back? But there was no Winnie now…only a mysterious stranger known as Mrs. Frank Russell. What was darling Cuddles thinking of as she gazed dreamily up at the tinted window, nimbused in its blue and gold. She was really a delightful little thing. Pat recalled in amazement that she hadn’t wanted Cuddles to be born.

  • • •

  Home again. Hand-shakings and congratulations and kisses. Pat even kissed Frank. But she hugged Winnie fiercely.

  “Here’s a whole heartful of good wishes for you, dear one,” she whispered.

  Then she must fly for her ruffled organdy apron. The chilled cocktails must be got out of the ice-house, the creamed chicken put in the patties, the wedding gifts placed with just the right emphasis. Children ran about the grounds like small roses. The house was full. Every Gardiner and half-Gardiner, every Selby, every Russell was there. “This looks like the Day of Judgment,” said old Cousin Ralph Russell. He caught Pat by the arm as she flew by him.

  “Long Alec’s girl. I hear you’ve got to be a beauty, hey? Let me look at you. No, no, not a beauty…and you’ve no great brains they tell me…but you’ve got a way with you. You’ll get a man.”

  How people did harp on getting married! It was disgusting. Even oldish Ellery Madison, who still congratulated himself on escaping traps, called Pat “Ducky” and told her he’d take her if she liked.

  “If you wait till we’re both grown-up I might think of it,” retorted Pat.

  “Oh, oh, but that’s the way to talk to them,” Judy told her as they lighted the candles. “’Twas mesilf that shut him up quick whin he sez to me, sez he, ‘It’s time you were married, Judy.’ ‘How the min do be hating a woman that’s dared to do without thim,’ sez I. Sure and I’ve been snubbing the craturs right and left. They’ve no more sinse than to be cluttering up me kitchen and ruining the rugs. Ould Jerry Russell sez to me, sez he, ‘Miss Plum, do ye be thinking God is God or just a great first cause?’ And Mark Russell sez, wid a face as grave as a jidge’s, ‘What is yer opinion av the governmint bringing on an election this fall, Miss Plum?’ Sure and didn’t I know they was pulling me leg? I sez to thim, sez I, ‘Ye haven’t the sinse ye was born wid,’ sez I, ‘if ye don’t know a widding is no place to be talking av God or politics. And I’ll thank ye to stop Miss Plumming me,’ sez I, and that finished thim. Sure and wasn’t the cirrimony grand, Patsy dear? Jake Russell sez to me, ‘She’s the prettiest bride ye’ve iver had at Silver Bush, and I sez to him, sez I, ‘For once in yer life ye’ve said a mouthful.’ But that platinum ring now, do ye be thinking it’s rale legal? I’m thinking Winnie’d fale a bit safer wid an old-fashioned gold one.”

  “Judy, how can I bear to see Winnie go away?”

  “Ye must sind her away wid a smile, Patsy darlint. Whativer comes after, sind her away wid a smile.”

  CHAPTER 38

  Laughter and Tears

  It was all over. Winnie had gone.

  “Pat darling,” she whispered, with her eyes softly full of farewell, “everything was lovely. I’ve really enjoyed my own wedding. You and Judy were wonderful.”

  Pat managed to smile as Judy had exhorted, but when Judy found her looking at the deserted festal board she said, “Judy, isn’t it nice to be…able to…stop smiling? I…I hope there won’t be another wedding at Silver Bush for a hundred years.”

  “Why, I wish we could have a wedding every day,” said Cuddles. “I suppose the next one here will be your own. And then it will be my turn. That is,” she added reflectively, “if I can get anyone to have me. I don’t want to be an old maid.”

  “Sure and don’t be hurting me falings,” said Judy. “I’m an ould maid.”

  “I always forget that,” said Cuddles contritely. “You aren’t a bit like an old maid, Judy. You’re…you’re just Judy.”

  “Mr. Ronald Russell of St. John told me mother was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen,” said Pat.

  “And ye’ll be loving Mr. Ronald Russell foriver bekase av it. But I’m thinking he’s right. Did ye hear him saying to Winnie, ‘Are ye going to be making a Prisbytarian av him?’…maning Frank. And Winnie sez, sez she, ‘Prisbytarians don’t be made, they’re born,’ sez she. Oh, Oh, wasn’t that the answer to me smart gintleman? St. John can’t be getting far ahead av Silver Bush I’m thinking. He had his appetite wid him, that one. But I do be liking a man who enj’ys his vittles.”

  “He’s a member of Parliament,” said Pat, “and they say he’ll be Premier some day.”

  “And him ould Short-and-dirty Russell’s son! A fat chanct!” said Judy scornfully.

  “I hope the pictures will turn out well,” said Cuddles. “I was in them all.”

  “Innyway, Winnie wasn’t photygraphed wid her arm round her groom like Jean Madison was. Ondacint I call it. And now, Patsy darlint, will we start claning up or lave it till the morning?”

  “Whatever you like, Judy.”

  “Oh, oh, it’s ye are the mistress here now, wid Winnie gone and yer mother niver to be troubled. It’s for ye to give orders and for me to obey them.”

  “Nonsense, Judy. Fancy me giving you orders!”

  “I’d rather it that way, Patsy darlint,” said Judy firmly.

  Pat hesitated. Then quietly accepted the sovereignty of Silver Bush.

  “Very well, Judy. We’ll leave things just as they are tonight. We’re all tired. Do you remember the night after Aunt Hazel’s wedding when we did the dining room?”

  “It’s the darlint ye was, working like a liddle slave to kape from crying.”

  “And you told me funny stories: Judy, let’s have a bit of a fire…there’s a chill in the air and the first fire is such a delightful thing. And we’ll sit by it and you’ll tell stories.”

  “Ye must av been hearing all me stories a million times over, Patsy. Though I do be thinking whin I saw the Joe Kellers to-day—he did be marrying his wife bekase a liddle girl he was swate on jilted him and she married him bekase Sam Miller av the Bay Shore jilted her. So what wud ye ixpect?”

  “That they wouldn’t be very happy, Judy.”

  “Oh, oh, and that’s where ye wud be wrong, me jewel. The marriage was be way av being a big success. That do be life, ye know.”

  “Life is queer, Judy. Winnie and her Frank now…she doesn’t seem to have a fear or doubt, I’d be frightened…I could never be sure I loved any one enough to marry him. And then today…away down in my heart I was just sick over Winnie going…and yet on the surface I was enjoying the excitement, too.”

  “There do be always something to take the edge off things,” said Judy shrewdly. “That do be why nothing is iver as hard as ye think it’s going to be.”

  Hilary came in after having driven some of the guests to the station and joined them. Bold-and-Bad, who had been sulking all day because nobody had admired him, lay down on the rug, gathered his feet and nose and tail into a snug circle, and forgave the world. Old Aunt Louisa, who had seen so much come and go, looked down on them from the wall. The white kittens still gamboled in immortal youth. King William still rode proudly across the Boyne. It was…rather nice to have a feeling of leisure and tranquility again. And yet Pat was afraid that upstairs there was a dreadful stillness and silence after all the fuss was over that would pounce on her when she went t
o bed. She kept Hilary as long as she could and was so nice to him that when he said good-night to her on the poplar-patterned doorstep he was bold enough to ask her to kiss him.

  “Of course I’ll kiss you,” said Pat graciously. “I’ve been kissing so many friends today one more or less doesn’t matter.”

  “I don’t want a friendly kiss,” said Hilary…and went off on that note.

  “Oh, oh, and ye might av give him his kiss,” said Judy, who was always hearing what she had no business to. “He’ll be going away far enough all too soon, poor b’y.”

  “I…I…was perfectly willing to kiss him,” cried Pat chokily. “And don’t…don’t…talk of his going away. I can’t bear it tonight.”

  • • •

  Pat was very lonely when she went up to bed. The house seemed so strangely empty now that Winnie’s laugh had gone out of it. Here was the mirror that had reflected her face. That little vacant chair where she had always sat was very eloquent. Her little discarded slippers that could have danced by themselves the whole night through, so often had Winnie’s feet danced in them, comforted each other under the bed. They looked as if her feet had just stepped out of them. Her fragrance still lingered in the room. It was all terrible.

  Pat leaned out of the window to drink in the cold, delicious air. The wind sounded eerie in the bushes. A dog was barking over at Swallowfield. Pat had rather thought that when she found herself alone she would cast herself on the bed in an abandonment of anguish. But there was still moonlight in the world…still owls in the silver bush. The old loyalties of home were still potent and…it would be nice to have a room of one’s very own.

  A house always looks very pathetic and unfriended on a dawn after a festivity. Pat found happiness and comfort in restoring it all from cellar to garret. The presents were packed and sent to the Bay Shore. It was fun to read the account of the wedding in the papers.

  “The bride before her marriage was Winifred Alma, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Alec Gardiner.” That hurt Pat. Wasn’t Winnie still their daughter? “The bridesmaids wore dresses of pink Georgette crepe with pink mohair hats and bouquets of sweet peas. Little Emmy Madison made a charming flower girl in a smocked frock of pink voile.” Fancy little Emmy having her name and dress in the papers! “Miss Patricia Gardiner, sister of the bride, was charming in marigold voile.” And oh, oh…“Miss Judy Plum wore blue silk with corsage of roses.” It must have been that rogue of a Jen Russell who had put that in. Judy was tremendously pleased. Her name right there with all the quality, bracketed with the groom’s aunt, the haughty Mrs. Ronald Russell in her black satin with mauve orchids! Though Judy was a bit dubious about “corsage.” It sounded…well…a liddle quare.

  Then there were visits to the Bay Shore to help Winnie get settled in her big white house with its background of sapphire water, where there was a colorful, fir-scented garden, full of wind music and bee song, that dipped in terraces to the harbor shore and was always filled with the sound of “perilous seas forlorn.” Pat would have been quite happy if she could have forgotten that Hilary was going away.

  CHAPTER 39

  The Chatelaine of Silver Bush

  Pat was feeling older than she would probably feel at fifty. Life had all at once grown bare and chilly. Hilary was going to Toronto to take the five-year course in architecture.

  His mother had arranged it, he told Pat briefly. Since that bitter day, when Doreen Garrison had finally turned her back on her Jingle-baby Hilary had never spoken of his mother. Pat knew he never heard from her except for some brief note containing a check for his college expenses.

  Pat was glad for Hilary’s sake. He was on the way to realize all his dreams and ambitions. But on her own account she was very bleak. Nobody to prowl with…nobody to tell things to…it was always so easy to tell things to Hilary. Nobody to joke with.

  “We’ve always laughed at the same things, Judy.”

  “Oh, oh, and that’s why ye do be such good frinds, Patsy. It’s the rale test. It’s sorry I am mesilf that Jingle is going. A fine young gintleman he’s got to be, that tall and straight standing. And ye tell me he’s to be an arkytict. Oh, oh, I’m hoping he won’t be like the one I heard of in ould Ireland. He did be buying the plan av a fine house from the Bad Man Below. And the price he had to be paying was his swateheart’s soul. ’Twas a grand house I’m telling ye but there was few iver wanted to live in it.”

  “I don’t think Hilary will spend souls buying plans from the devil,” said Pat, with a forlorn smile. “He can design plenty himself. But, Judy, it seems to me I just can’t bear it. Bets dead…Winnie gone…and now Hilary.”

  “It’s mesilf that’s noticed how things do be going in threes like that, Patsy. It do be likely nothing but good’ll happen to ye for a long time now.”

  “But life will be so…so empty, Judy.”

  “He’ll be coming back some fine day.”

  Pat shook her head. Talk of Hilary’s return was empty and meaningless. She knew he would never come back, unless for a vacation month or two. Their days of happy comradeship were over…their hours in Happiness…their rambles by field and shore. Childhood was gone. The “first fine rapture” of youth was gone.

  “What’s to become av McGinty? Oh, oh, there’ll be one poor broken-hearted liddle dog.”

  “Hilary is giving McGinty to me. I know he will be broken-hearted. But if love can help him…”

  Pat choked. She was seeing McGinty’s eyes when the morrow brought no Hilary.

  “Oh, oh, but I’m glad to hear that. I’m not liking a dogless house. Cats do be int’resting craturs, as Cuddles says, but there’s something about a dog, now. Sure and there’ll be some fun saving bones again.”

  Pat knew Hilary was waiting for her in Happiness. They had agreed to have their parting tryst there, before Hilary left to catch the night train. Slowly she went to keep it. The air was full of color; there was just the faintest hint of frost in its sweet mildness; the evening sunshine was exceedingly mellow on gray old barns; as she went over Jordan she noticed the two dark, remote, pointed firs among the golden maples in the corner of the field. Hilary loved those firs. He said they were the twin spires of some mystic cathedral of sunset.

  • • •

  Hilary was waiting in Happiness, sitting on an old mossy stone by the spring that the years had never touched. Beside him sat a gay little dog with a hint of wistfulness behind his gaiety. McGinty felt something coming to him…something formless and chill. But as long as he was with his dear master what did it matter?

  Hilary drew a quick breath: his eyes lit up slowly from within as was their way. She was coming to him over the field…a slip of a girl in a gold and orange sweater, the autumnal sunshine burnishing her dark-brown hair and glinting in her amber eyes; her face glowing with warm, ripe, kissable tints, her body like a young sapling never to be broken, however it might bend.

  “Trusty, dusky, vivid, true,

  With eyes of gold and bramble dew.”

  Why couldn’t he have said that instead of Stevenson? It was truer of Pat than it could be of anybody else. Why couldn’t he say to her all the burning and eloquent things he thought of in the night but could never utter the next day?

  Pat sat down on the stone beside Hilary. They talked only a little and that in rather jerky sentences.

  “I’ll never come to Happiness again,” said Pat.

  “Why not? I’d like to think of you sitting here sometimes…with McGinty.”

  “Poor little dorglums!” Pat absently caressed McGinty’s willing head with one of her slender brown hands…her dear hands, thought Hilary. “No, I couldn’t bear to come here without you, Hilary. We’ve been here so often…we’ve been chums for so many years.”

  “Can’t we…can’t we…some time…be more than chums, Pat?” blurted Hilary desperately.

  Pat instantly became just a little aloof, altho
ugh her face had flushed to a sudden warm rose. Hilary was such a nice friend…chum…brother…but never a lover. Pat was very positive on that point.

  “We’ve always been wonderful friends, Hilary. Don’t spoil it now. Why, we’ve been chums ever since that night you saved me from heaven knows what on the Line road. Ten years.”

  “They’ve been very good years.” Hilary seemed to have taken his repulse more philosophically than she had feared. “What will the years to come be, I wonder?”

  “They’ll be marvelous years for you, Hilary. You’ll succeed…you’ll reach the top. And then all your old friends here…’specially little old maid Pat of Silver Bush, will brag about having once known you.”

  “I will succeed.” Hilary set his teeth together. “With your…friendship…I can do anything. I want to tell you…if I can…what your friendship and the life I’ve shared with you at Silver Bush have meant to me. It’s kept me from growing up hateful and cynical. You’ve all been so sure that life is good that I’ve never been able to disbelieve it…never will be able to. You’ll write me often, won’t you, Pat? It will be…lonely…at first. I don’t know a soul in Toronto.”

  “Of course I will. And don’t forget, Hilary”…Pat laughed teasingly…“you’re to build a house for me someday. I’ll live in it when Sid gets married and turns me out of Silver Bush. And you’ll come to see me in it…I’ll be a nice old lady with silver hair…and I’ll give you a cup of tea out of Grandmother Selby’s pot…and we’ll talk over our lives and…and…pretend it’s all been a dream…and that we’re just Pat and Jingle home once more.”

  “Wherever you are, Pat, will always be home to me.”

  There he went again. If it were not that they must presently say a long good-bye she would be angry with him. But she couldn’t be angry tonight. He would soon forget this nonsense. Hundreds of beautiful clever girls in Toronto. But they would always be friends…the very best of friends…she couldn’t imagine not being friends with Hilary.