Mistress Pat (10 page)

“Whose?” Pat shivered deliriously.

“Oh, oh, WHOSE? That did be the question, Patsy dear. No good Christian, I’m telling ye. The poor bride fainted and the widding had to be put off and the groom was killed on the way home, being thrown from his horse. Minny’s the time I did be seeing the wardrobe whin I was working there but niver wud the McDermotts allow that door to be opened agin. The story wint that the widding dress was still hanging there. Oh, oh!” Judy sighed. “I belave I’ll have to be paying a visit to ould Ireland this fall. I do be having a hankering for it I haven’t had for years.”

Cuddles came running up the stairs, preceded by Bold-and-Bad who covered three steps at a leap.

“Oh, I hope I’m in time. I’ve finished that Latin. No wonder Latin died. DID people ever really talk that stuff? Talk it just as you and I do? I can’t believe it. Joe made me promise I’d lead my class in it and if I did he’d tattoo my arm next time he came no matter what fuss YOU made. So I’m going to do it or bust.”

“The young ladies av Castle McDermott niver did be talking av busting,” said Judy reproachfully.

“Oh, I suppose they talked a brogue you could cut with a knife,” retorted Cuddles. “Well, let’s get at the old chest. It’s such fun to rummage through old boxes. You never know what you may come across. It’s like living for a while in yesterday.”

They dragged the old black chest out of its corner to the window. Bold-and-Bad, deciding that it was not a thing likely to do a cat any good, crept off into the darkness under the eaves and imagined himself a Bengal tiger. The black chest was full of the usual miscellany of old garret chests. Ancient lace and velvet and flower-trimmed hats, bundles of banished Christmas cards, limp ostrich feathers, faded family photographs, strings of birds’ eggs, discarded dresses with the pointed basques and polonaises and puffed sleeves of other vintages, old school-books, maps the Silver Bush children had drawn, packets of yellow letters, a “rat” worn in the days of pompadours, old faded things once beautiful. They had oceans of fun over them.

“What on earth is this?” demanded Cuddles, holding up an indescribable mass of crushed wire. Judy gave a snort of laughter.

“Oh, oh, that do be yer Aunt Helen’s ould bustle. I rimimber how yer dad yelled whin she brought it home. It’s the dashing lady she was and always the first in the clan to be out in a new fashion. She wint to a concert that night at the Bridge wid her beau and they say he was crimson to the ears, he was that ashamed av it. But in a few wakes’ time iverybody did be wearing thim. He shud have been thankful she didn’t wear it like Maggie Jimson at the South Glin did whin her sister as was working up in Bosting sint her one home … a rale fancy one all covered wid blue sating.”

“How did she wear it, Judy?”

“Outside her dress,” said Judy solemly. “They say the folks who were in church that day were niver the same agin. Oh, oh, but the fashions do be changing always. Only kissing stays in. Mebbe this ould bustle will be took down some av these days and displayed on the parlour mantelpiece be way av an heirloom.”

“Look at this!” Cuddles held up a huge brown velvet hat with a draggled and enormous shaded-green ostrich feather on it. “Fancy living up to a hat like that!”

“Oh, oh, that was yer Aunt Hazel’s hat wid what they called a willow plume and rale nice it did be looking over her pompydore. Though I niver fancied velvet hats mesilf iver since the mouse jumped out av Mrs. Reuben Russell’s one Sunday at the Bridge church. THAT was a tommyshaw.”

“If Tillytuck was here he’d say he was the mouse,” giggled Cuddles.

Pat pounced on an article.

“Judy, if here isn’t my old little cheese hoop! I’ve often wondered where it disappeared to. I wanted to keep it always in remembrance of those dear little cheeses you used to make me in it … one for myself every year. You don’t remember Judy making cheese, Cuddles, but I do. It was such fun.”

“And here do be one av yer Great-grandmother Gardiner’s ruffled caps,” said Judy. “Minny’s the time I’ve done it up for her … she always said that nobody cud be giving the frills the right quirk like young Judy. Oh, oh, I was young Judy thin and I’d larned the trick at Castle McDermott. Ould lady Gardiner always made her caps hersilf … it’s the beautiful himstitcher she was. She was a rale fine ould lady, if some folks did be thinking her a bit too uppity. Did I iver be telling ye av the night she was knaling be her bed be an open windy, saying her prayers and her thoughts in hiven … I’m s’posing … and a big cat crawled through the windy and lit on her back suddent-like wid a pair av claws that tuk hold?”

“Oh!” Cuddles shrieked in delight. “What did Great-grand say?”

“Say, is it?” Judy looked cautiously around. “It was thirty-nine years ago and I’ve niver told a living soul afore. She said a word beginning wid D and inding wid N.”

Pat doubled up with laughter. Stately old Great-grandmother Gardiner whose picture hung in the Big Parlour with her white cap encircling her saintly face! Really, the things Judy knew about respectable people were dreadful.

“This ould rag was a dress yer grandmother wore in her day.” Judy held up a faded affair with manifold flounces. “Striped silk jist like ribbing grass. Mebbe it’s the very one—I’m not saying it is but it might be … she wore jist the twicet.”

“Why didn’t she wear it again?” asked Cuddles.

“Oh, oh, if it’s the one … mind ye. I’m not saying it is … yer grandmother and her cousin, Mrs. Tom Taylor, were great rivals, it did be said, in the matter av dresses and both av thim fond av gay colours. And whin yer grandmother come to church quite gorgeous-like in her striped dress Mrs. Tom turned quite grane and said nothing but wint to town nixt day and bought a dress av the same piece and give it to her ould scrubwoman at the Bridge. The poor ould soul was pleased as Punch and got it made up at oncet and wore it to church the nixt Sunday. Oh, oh, ‘twas rale cruel av Mrs. Tom and there was a judgmint on her, for her own father died and she did have to be wearing black for two years. It was rale bitter, for black didn’t set her. But niver wud yer grandmother put the striped dress on her back agin.”

“How foolish of her,” said Cuddles loftily.

“Oh, oh, it’s the foolish folks as does all the int’risting things,” chuckled Judy. “There’d not be minny stories to tell if ivery one was wise. And if here isn’t Siddy’s ould Teddy bear! Niver a night wud he go to slape widout it. It’s mesilf sewed thim shoe-buttons in for eyes whin Ned Binnie picked the first ones out and poor Siddy’s liddle heart was broken.”

“They’re saying in school Sid has a case on Jenny Madison,” said Cuddles.

“Sid has a new ‘case’ every two months,” said Pat lightly. “What a pretty dress this must have been in its time, Judy … a sort of silvery stuff with lace frills in the sleeves.”

“Silvery, is it? If ye cud see it as I see it! That was a dress yer Aunt Lorraine had for her first liddle party the summer I come here. Ye niver cud imagine innything bluer than her eyes. I can see her dancing in the orchard be moonlight yet to show it off to us afore she wint. She’s been churchyard dust for forty years. Her first liddle party was her last. Ye’ll rimimber her tombstone av white marble wid a baby’s head and wings sticking out behint its ears. Sure I niver thought it suitable for a girl’s tombstone but I’ve been tould it wasn’t a baby but a cherub, whativer that may be. I’m not forgetting the day I took Siddy through the South Glin churchyard whin he was six. He did be looking at the cherub and thin at me. ‘Where is the rist av it, Judy?’ he sez, solemn like.”

“Are these her letters?” asked Cuddles, holding up a yellowed packet.

“I’m thinking those are yer Great-aunt Martha’s. She did be dying young, too, but she had a beau as was a great letter-writer. Her father didn’t hould wid him and some say Martha died av a broken heart and some from wearing too thin stockings in the winter time. Ye can be taking the romantic or the sinsible explanation, whichiver’s suiting ye bist.”

“Why didn’t her father approve of her beau?”

“I’m not thinking he had much agin the young man himself but he was after having an uncle who was hanged for taking part in some rebellion and cut down and recovered. He niver talked agin. Some said his throat had been injured … but there was some as thought he’d seen something as scared him out av talking foriver. Anyhow, her father wasn’t wanting inny half-hanged person in his fam’ly.”

“Now, here’s something!” exclaimed Pat, fishing up a silver ‘chain’ bracelet. “It’s a bit black but it could be cleaned.”

“The padlock and kay’s missing, Patsy dear, so it wudn’t be much use. That was yer Aunt Hazel’s, too. They did be all the rage thin. I had a hankering after one mesilf but whin I heard the story av Sissy Morgan’s chain bracelet up at the Bay Shore it tuk the fascination out av thim for me.”

“What was that?”

“Oh, oh, her beau was a capting and afore he wint on the v’yage that proved his last he locked a chain bracelet on her arm … a gold one it was, no less … and tuk the kay wid him, making her promise she’d niver marry inny one ilse unless he come back and unlocked the bracelet. Sissy promised light enough. The Morgans wud promise innything. But she was pretty, that Sissy, and the capting was crazy about her. He was swept overboard in a storm and the kay wint to the bottom av the Atlantic wid him. Liddle Sissy tuk on a bit but the Morgans soon get over things and in a year she did be wanting rale bad to marry Peter Snowe. But she was scared to bekase av her promise about the bracelet. Her dad wanted the match bekase Peter was rale well to do but Sissy stuck to it she dassn’t and siveral tommyshaws they had over it all. Oh, oh, but there was the funny squeal to it.”

“What was the sequel?”

“Oh, oh, sequel, is it? Well, Sissy, was slaping sound in her bed one moonlight night and whin she woke the bracelet was unlocked … just that. She didn’t be seeing nothing or nobody but it was unlocked.”

“I don’t think that is funny, Judy,” said Cuddles with a little shiver. “That was … horrible.”

“Oh, oh! Sure and it was funny thin whin Peter Snowe wudn’t have her after all … said he wasn’t taking inny ghost’s lavings. The rist av the min samed to be having the same faling and she died an ould maid in the ind av it.”

“Why, here’s Joe’s silver spoon,” pounced Pat. “This IS a find. We never knew what became of it. How in the world did it get here? Won’t mother be pleased!”

The little silver spoon with the dents where Joe had cut his teeth … Joe who was half way to China now. Pat sighed and rose.

“Well, that is all. I wonder if we should burn those old letters. In a way I’d like to read them … there’s something fascinating in old letters … they seem to open ghostly gates … but I suppose Aunt Martha wouldn’t have liked it.”

Pat picked the packet up. An old dim, flattened four-leaved clover slipped from it. Who had found luck with it? Not Aunt Martha at all events. The letters were brittle and yellow … full of old words of love written years ago from hearts that were dust … full of old joys that had once been raptures and dim old griefs that had once been agonies.

“We must drag the chest back into its corner. Look at Bold-and-Bad peering out of it.”

Bold-and-Bad’s eyes were glowing in his lair, giving that uncanny expression cats’ eyes often do … as if they were merely transparent, letting the burning fires behind them become visible.

“They did be saying that Martha’s beau’s uncle looked like that be times,” Judy whispered as she went downstairs.

It was rather too spooky. Cuddles fled in Judy’s wake. But Pat still lingered, going back to the window where the full moon was beginning to weave beautiful patterns of vine leaves on the garret floor. The spookier the garret was the more she loved it. The letters in her hands made her think of Hilary’s letter that day. Like all his letters it had a certain flavour. It LIVED. You could almost hear Hilary’s voice speaking through it … see the laughter in his eyes. Every time you re-read one of his letters you found something new in it. To-day’s had enclosed a sketch of his prize design for a house on the side of a hill. There was something about it faintly reminiscent of Silver Bush. Pat had one of her moments of wishing passionately that Hilary was somewhere about … that they could join hands as of old and run across the old stone bridge over Jordan. Surely they had only to slip over the old bridge to find themselves in the old fairyland. They would go back to Happiness and the Haunted Spring, following the misty little brook through the old fields where the moonlight loved to dream. They would linger there, lapped round by exquisite silence. Shadowy laughter would echo faintly about them. Cool elusive night smells would be all around. Little white sheep would be out on the hills. Surely Happiness kept their old days for them and they would find them there. Pat shivered. The rising wind moaned rather eerily around the lofty window. She felt suddenly, strangely lonely … right there in dear Silver Bush she felt lonely … HOMESICK. It was uncanny. She ran downstairs and left the garret to its ghosts.

When Judy read an item from “Events of the Week” in a Charlottetown paper to the Silver Bush girls one evening they were only mildly and pleasantly excited over it. The Countess of Medchester, the paragraph stated, was visiting friends in Ottawa on her way home from Vancouver to England.

“That do be the lady married to the earl as is uncle av yer cousin, Lady Gresham,” said Judy proudly. “Oh, oh, it do be giving me a bit av a thrill, as Cuddles says, to rade that item and riflict that we do be in a manner connected wid her.”

“Even though she doesn’t know of our existence,” laughed Pat. “I don’t suppose Lady Gresham brags to her friends of her very distant relationship to certain unimportant people on a Canadian farm.”

“Likely she thinks we’re Indians,” grinned Cuddles. “Still, as Judy says, there’s a thrill in it.”

“Whin ye see May Binnie nixt time ye can be saying … to yersilf, av coorse … ‘Ye don’t be having a fourth cousin in the English aristocracy, MISS Binnie.’ And THAT’LL be a satisfaction.”

“
I
shall say it to Trix,” said Cuddles.

“Indeed, you won’t,” cried Pat. “Don’t make yourself ridiculous, Cuddles. We’re of no more importance in the Countess of Medchester’s eyes … supposing she ever heard of us … than the Binnies. And who cares? Look at that froth of cherry bloom behind the turkey house. I’m quite sure there’s nothing lovelier on the grounds of Medchester Castle … if there is a castle.”