Mistress Pat (18 page)

Pat was in a store in town one evening when Suzanne Kirk came up to her and, in spite of Pat’s frigid bow, said smilingly,

“May I have a chance home with you, Miss Gardiner? David was to have run in for me but something must have gone wrong with our Lizzie.”

“Oh, certainly,” said Pat graciously.

“You are sure it won’t crowd you?”

“Not in the least,” said Pat more graciously still. Inwardly she was furious. She had promised herself a pleasant leisurely drive home through the golden August evening, over a certain little back road where nobody ever went and where there were such delicious things to see. Pat knew all the roads home from town and liked each for some peculiar charm. But now everything was spoiled. Well, she would go by the regular road and get home as soon as she could. She made the car screech violently as she rounded the first corner. It seemed to express her feelings.

“Don’t let’s go home by this road,” said Suzanne softly. “There’s so much traffic … and it’s so straight. A straight road is an abomination, don’t you think? I like lovely turns around curves of ferns and spruce … and little dips into brooky hollows … and the things the car lights pick up as you turn corners, starting out at you in the undergrowth like fairy folk taken by surprise.”

“A thunderstorm is coming up,” said Pat, more graciously every time she spoke.

“Oh, we’ll out-race it. Let us take the road out from that street. David and I went by that last week … it’s a dear, lost, bewitching road.”

Oh, didn’t she know it! Pat turned the car so abruptly in the direction of the back road that she narrowly avoided a collision. How dare Suzanne Kirk, who had called Silver Bush queer, like that road? It was an insult. She hated to have Suzanne Kirk like anything she liked. Well, the road was rough and rutty … and the thunderstorm was an excuse for driving fast. Suzanne Kirk should have a good bumpy drive that would cure her of her liking for back roads.

Pat did not talk or try to talk. Neither, after a few futile attempts, did Suzanne. They were about half way home when the latter said, with a tinge of alarm in her voice,

“The storm is coming up rather quickly, isn’t it?”

Pat had been grimly aware of that for some time. It was growing dark. Huge menacing black masses were piling up in the northwest in the teeth of a rapidly rising wind. This was a frightful road to be on in a rain … narrow and twisting with reedy ditches on either side. Curves and dips and startled fairy folk were all very well in fine weather, but in wind and rain and darkness … and all three seemed to envelop them at once … a wall of black … an ocean of driving rain … a howl of tempest … a blue-white flare of lightning … a deafening crash of thunder … and then disaster. The car had swerved on the suddenly greasy road and the next moment they were in the ditch.

Well, it might have been worse. The car was right-side up and the ditch was not deep. But it was full of soft mud under its bracken and Pat knew she could never get the car back to the road.

“There’s nothing to do but stay here till the storm is over and some one comes along,” she said. “I’m … I’m sorry I’ve ditched you, Miss Kirk.”

“Never be sorry. This is an adventure. What a storm! It’s been brewing all day but I really didn’t expect it so soon. What time is it?”

“Eight-thirty. The trouble is this is SUCH a back road. Very few people travel on it at any time. And houses are few and far between. But I think that last glare of lightning showed one off to the right. As soon as the rain stops I’ll go to it and see if I can get somebody to haul us out … or at least phone for help.”

It was an hour before the storm passed. It was pitch dark by now and the ditch in which they sat so snugly was a rushing river.

“I’m going to try to make that house,” said Pat resolutely.

“I’ll go with you,” said Suzanne. “I won’t stay here alone. And I’ve got a flashlight in my bag.”

They managed to get out of the car and out of the ditch. There was no use in hunting for the gate, if there was a gate, but when Suzanne’s flashlight showed a place where it was possible to scramble over the fence they scrambled over it and through a wilderness of raspberry canes. Beyond this a barn loomed up and they had to circumnavigate it in mud. Finally they reached the house.

“No lights,” said Pat as they mounted the crazy steps to a dilapidated veranda. “I’m afraid nobody lives here. There are several old uninhabited houses along this road and it’s just our luck to strike one.”

“What a queer, old-fashioned place!” said Suzanne, playing her flashlight over it. She couldn’t have said anything more unfortunate. Pat, who had thawed out a trifle, froze up again.

She knocked on the door … knocked again … took up a board lying near and pounded vigorously … called aloud … finally yelled. There was no response.

“Let us see if it is locked,” said Suzanne, trying the latch. It wasn’t. They stepped in. The flashlight revealed a kitchen that did not seem to have been lived in for many a day. There was an old rusty stove, a trestle table, several dilapidated chairs, and a still more dilapidated couch.

“Any port in a storm,” said Suzanne cheerfully. “I suggest, Miss Gardiner, that we camp here for the night. It’s beginning to rain again … listen … and we may be miles from an inhabited house. We can bring in the rugs. You take the couch and I’ll pick out the softest spot on the floor. We’ll be dry at least and in the morning we can more easily get assistance.”

Pat agreed that it was the only thing to do. They would probably not worry at Silver Bush. It had not been certain that she would return home that night … an old Queen’s classmate had asked her to visit her. They went back to the car, got the rugs and locked it up. Pat insisted that Suzanne should take the couch and Suzanne was determined Pat should have it. They solved it by flipping a coin.

Pat wrapped a rug around her and curled up on the couch. Suzanne lay down on the floor with a cushion under her head. Neither expected to sleep. Who could sleep with a sploshy thud of rain falling regularly near one and rats scurrying overhead. After what seemed hours Suzanne called softly across the room,

“Are you asleep, Miss Gardiner?”

“No … I feel as if I could never sleep again.”

Suzanne sat up.

“Then for heaven’s sake let’s talk. This is ghastly. I’ve a mortal horror of rats. There seem to be simply swarms of them in this house. Talk … talk. You needn’t pretend to like me if you don’t. And for the matter of that, as one woman to another, why don’t you like me, Pat Gardiner? Why WON’T you like me? I thought you did that night by the fire. And we liked you … we thought there was something simply dear about you. And then when we called on our way to the concert … why, we seemed to be looking at you through glass! We couldn’t get near you at all. David was hurt but I was furious … simply furious. I’m sure my blood boiled. I could hear it bubbling in my veins. Oh, how I hoped your husband would beat you! And yet, every night since, I’ve been watching your kitchen light and wondering what was going on in it and wishing we could drop in and fraternise. I can’t imagine you and I not being friends … REAL friends. We were made for it. Isn’t it Kipling who says, ‘There is no gift like friendship’?”

“Yes … Parnesius in Puck,” said Pat.

“Oh, you know Puck too? Now, why can’t we give that gift to each other?”

“Did you think,” said Pat in a choked voice, “that I could be friends with any one who … who laughed at Silver Bush?”

“Laugh at Silver Bush! Pat Gardiner, I never did. How could I? I’ve loved it from the first moment David and I looked down on it.”

Pat sat up on the creaking couch.

“You … you asked in the Silverbridge store who lived in that QUEER old-fashioned place. Sid heard you.”

“Pat! Let me think. Why, I remember … I DIDN’T say ‘queer.’ I said, ‘Who lives in that dear, quaint, old-fashioned house at the foot of the hill?’ Sid forgot one of the adjectives and was mistaken in one of the others. Pat, I couldn’t call Silver Bush ‘queer.’ You don’t know how much I admire it. And I admire it all the more because it IS old-fashioned. That is why I loved the Long House at first sight.”

Pat felt the ice round her heart thawing rapidly. “Quaint” was complimentary rather than not and she didn’t mind the “old-fashioned.” And she did want to be friends with Suzanne. Perhaps Suzanne was prose where Bets had been poetry. But such prose!

“I’m sorry I froze up,” she said frankly. “But I’m such a thin-skinned creature where Silver Bush is concerned. I couldn’t bear to hear it called queer.”

“I don’t blame you. And now everything is going to be all right. We just BELONG somehow. Don’t you feel it? You’re all so nice. I love Judy … the wit and sympathy and blarney of her. And that wonderful old, wise, humorous face of hers. She’s really a museum piece … there’s nothing like her anywhere else in the world. You’ll like us, too. I’m decent in spots and David is nice … sometimes he’s very nice. One day he is a philosopher … the next day he is a child.”

“Aren’t all men?” said Pat, tremendously wise.

“David more than most, I think. He’s had a rotten life, Pat. He was years getting over his shell-shock. It simply blotted out his career. He was so ambitious once. When he got better it was too late. He has been sub-editor of a Halifax paper for years … and hating it. His bit of a wife died, too, just a few months after their marriage. And I taught school … and hated it. Then old Uncle Murray died out west and left us some money … not a fortune but enough to live on. And so we became free. Free! Oh, Pat, you’ve never known what slavery meant so you don’t know what freedom is. I LOVE keeping house … it’s really a lovely phrase, isn’t it? Keeping it … holding it fast against the world … against all the forces trying to tear it open. And David has time to write his war book at last … he’s always longed to. We are so happy … and we’ll be happier still to have you as a friend. I don’t believe you’ve any idea how nice you are, Pat. And now let’s just talk all night.”

They talked for a good part of it. And then Suzanne fell suddenly silent. Pat rather envied her the floor. It was level, at least … not all bumps and hollows, like the couch. Would it ever stop raining? How the windows rattled! Great heavens, what was that? Oh, only a brick blowing off the chimney and thumping down over the roof. Those rats! Oh for an hour of Gentleman Tom! It was … so nice … to be friends … with Suzanne … she hoped … a great wave of sleep rolled over Pat and engulfed her.

When she wakened the rain had ceased and the outside world was lying in the strange timeless light of early dawn. Pat raised herself on her elbow and looked out. Some squirrels were scolding and chattering in an old apple tree. A little pond at the foot of the slope was softly clear and pellucid, with spruce trees dark and soft beyond it. An old crone of a hemlock was shaking her head rebukingly at some giddy young saplings on the hill. Gossamer clouds were floating in a clear silvery eastern sky that looked as if it had not known a thunderstorm in a hundred years. And a huge black dog was sitting on the doorstep. This was like a place Judy used to tell of in Ireland that was haunted by the ghost of a black dog who bayed at the door before a death. However, this dog didn’t look exactly like a ghost!

Suzanne was still asleep. Pat looked around and saw something that gave her an idea. She got to her feet cautiously.

When Suzanne wakened half an hour later she sat up and gazed around her in amazement. A most delectable odour came from a sizzling frying pan on the stove in which crisp bacon slices could be discerned. On the hearth was a plateful of golden-brown triangles of toast and Pat was putting a spoonful of tea in a battered old granite teapot.

The table was set with dishes and in the centre was a bouquet of ferns and meadow-queen in an old pickle jar.

“Pat, what magic is this? Are you a witch?”

“Not a bit of it. When I woke up I saw a pile of firewood behind the stove and a frying pan on a nail. I found plates and cups and knives and forks in the pantry. Evidently this house is occupied by times. The owner probably lives on some other farm and camps here for haying and harvest and things like that. I lit the fire and went out to the car. Took a chance with the dog … there IS a dog … but he paid no attention to me. I had a package of bacon in the car and a couple of loaves of bread. Mother likes baker’s toast, you know. I found some tea in the pantry … and so breakfast is served, madam.”

“You’re a born home-maker, Pat. This awful place actually looks quite homey and pleasant. I never thought a pickle jar bouquet could be so charming. And I’m hungry … I’m positively starving. Let’s eat. Our first meal together … our first breaking of bread. I like that phrase … breaking bread together … don’t you? Who is it speaks of ‘bread of friendship’?”

“Carman,” said Pat, dishing up her bacon.

“What a lovely CLEAN morning it is!” said Suzanne, scrambling up. “Look, Pat, there’s a big pine down by that pond. I love pines so much it hurts me. And I love crisp bacon and crisper toast. Thank heaven there is plenty of it. I never was so hungry in my life.”

They were half through their breakfast when a queer strangled noise behind them startled them. They turned around … and stiffened with horror. In the hall doorway a man was standing … a tall, gaunt, unshaven creature in a motley collection of garments, with an extraordinarily long grey moustache, which didn’t seem to belong to his lean, lantern-jawed face at all, hanging down on either side of his chin. This apparition was staring at them, apparently as much taken aback as they were.

“I thought I was over it,” he said mournfully, shaking a grizzled head. “I mostly sleeps it off.”

Pat rose and stammered out an explanation. The gentleman waved a hand at her.

“It’s all right. Sorry you had to sleep on the floor. If I’d been awake I’d have give you my bed.”

“We knocked … and called …”

“Just so. Old Gabe’s trump couldn’t have roused me last night. I was a bit lit up, to state facts. You did right to make yourselves at home. But it’s a wonder the dog didn’t tear you to pieces. He’s a savage brute.”

“He wasn’t here when we came … and he seemed quite quiet this morning.”