Mistress Pat (8 page)

“I’m hoping it may be,” said Judy, with an ear cocked ceilingward. “What did ye do wid yer cherry, Tillytuck? If ye put it in the granary the place’ll burn down tonight.”

“I hove it into the pig-pen,” said Tillytuck sourly.

“Oh, oh, God hilp the poor pigs thin,” retorted Judy.

“I’ll never forget Aunt Frances’ face,” giggled Cuddles.

“Oh, oh, Aunt Frances, is it? Niver be minding her, Cuddles dear. Things have happened at the Bay Shore, too. Don’t I be minding one time I was over there hilping them out at a big time and whin yer Aunt Frances was jist in the act av setting a big bowl of red currant preserves on the table she did be giving the awfullest yell ye iver heard and falling over backward wid the bowl. Talk av soup! She did be looking as if she was lying murdered in her blood. At first ivery one thought she’d had a fit. But whin they come to find out a wee divil av a b’y had slipped down under the table and grabbed holt av her leg. Oh, oh, minny’s the time I’ve laughed over it. Her dress was clane ruint, and her timper … Pasty darlint!”

“Judy … What is it?”

“Oh, oh, nothing much,” said Judy in a despairing tone. “Only I niver rimimbered to put me dress-up dress on after all! It wint clare out av me head after the dog-fight … and me puddling round afore all the company in me old drugget.”

“Never mind, Judy,” comforted Pat, seeing Judy was really upset. “Nobody would notice it. And you might have got spots on it and then what about Castle McDermott?”

“Yer Aunt Edith wud be thinking I’d nothing but drugget to wear,” groaned Judy. “Though she hadn’t got all the basting thrids out of her own dress, if ye noticed. It’s meself isn’t used to dog-fights in me kitchen” … with a malevolent glance at Tillytuck. “It’s minny a year since I saw one … the last was in South Glin church all av tin years ago. Oh, oh, that was a tommyshaw! Billy Gardiner always brought his dog to church. It was be way av being winked at for iverybody knew poor Billy was only half there, and they did be setting in a back pew, the dog behaving himself fine, though he did be giving a tarrible howl whin a lady visitor from town got up one day to sing a solo. Sure, nobody blamed the dog. But this day I’m telling ye av, another dog wandered in, the door being open, and Billy’s dog wint for him. The strange dog flew up the aisle wid Billy’s dog after him. He was caught jist under the pulpit! Oh, oh!” Judy rocked with laughter at the recollection, forgetful of her unworn splendors.

“What did they do, Judy?”

“Do, is it? Elder Jimmy Gardiner and Elder Tom Robinson aich grabbed a dog and carried it out be the scruff av the neck. Picture to yersilves, girls dear … a solemn ould elder wid a long beard and a most unchristian ixpression walking down the aisle, one on one side av the church and one on the other, houlding a dog at arm’s length.”

“Ah,” said Tillytuck, “I was in the church that day. I remember it well.”

This was too much for Judy. She got up and went into the pantry. Sid came out to say that Cousin Nicholas wished to go to bed and wanted a hot water bottle to take with him. Pat convoyed him to the spare room. Tillytuck, realising that he was out of favour, went off to the granary.

Pat had just come down when there was a knock at the door. Who on earth could it be at this time of night? Cuddles opened it … and in out of the starless dripping night stepped Joe! Captain Joe, tall and bronzed and changed, after years of typhoons on China seas, but unmistakably Joe.

“Flew here,” said Joe laconically. “Flew from Halifax. Got into Charlottetown at dusk and hired a motor to bring me out. Thought I’d make it in time for supper anyhow. Everything happened to that car that could happen … and finally a broken axle. Nevertheless, here I am … and why are you all up as late and looking so solemn?”

Pat told him. Joe whistled.

“Not little Winnie! Why, I always think of her as a kid herself. What a night for the stork to fly! Anything in the pantry, Judy?”

His old grin robbed the question of insult. Joe KNEW there would be something in the pantry. Judy had a whole turkey stowed away, as well as the pot of soup. By the time mother had come down and hugged Joe and hurried anxiously back upstairs Judy had another table spread and they all sat down to it, even forgiven Tillytuck, whom Cuddles haled in from the granary.

“Ah, this is worth coming home for,” said Joe. “Cuddles, you’re almost grown up. Any beau yet, Pat?”

“Oh, oh, ye’d better be asking her that,” said Judy. “Don’t ye think it’s time we had another widding at Silver Bush? She snubbed Elmer Moody last wake so bad he wint off vowing he’d niver set foot in Silver Bush agin.”

“He breathes through his mouth,” said Pat airily.

“Listen at her. Some fault to find wid ivery one av the poor b’ys. And what about yersilf, Joe? Do ye be coming home to find a wife?”

Joe blushed surprisingly. Pat only half liked it. She had heard rumours of several girls Captain Joe had been writing to occasionally. None of them were quite good enough for Joe. But it was the old story … change … change. Pat hated change so. And little, cool, unexpected breaths of it were always blowing across everything, even the jolliest of times, bringing a chill of foreboding.

“And you’re not tattooed after all, Joe,” said Cuddles, half disappointedly.

“Only my hands,” said Joe, displaying a blue anchor on one and his own initials on the other.

“Will you tattoo mine on mine?” asked Cuddles eagerly.

Before Joe could answer an indignant old man suddenly erupted into the kitchen, wrapped in a dressing gown. It was Cousin Nicholas and Cousin Nicholas was distinctly in a temper.

“Cats!” he snarled. “Cats! I had just fallen into a refreshing slumber when a huge cat jumped on my stomach … on my stomach, mark you. I detest cats.”

“It … must have been Bold-and-Bad,” gasped Pat. “He does so love to get into the spare room bed. I’m so sorry, Cousin Nicholas …”

“Sorry, miss! I never can get to sleep again after I am once wakened up. Will your sorrow cure that? I came down to ask you to find that cat and secure him.
I
don’t know where the beast is … probably under the bed, plotting more devilment.”

“Peevish … very peevish,” muttered Tillytuck quite audibly. Cuddles meowed and Cousin Nicholas glared at her.

“The manners of Silver Bush are not what they were in my day,” he said crushingly. “I had a very hard time to get to sleep at all. There was too much going and coming upstairs. Is anybody sick?”

“Yes … but it don’t be catching,” said Judy reassuringly.

Pat, trying not to laugh, hurried upstairs and discovered Bold-and- Bad crouching in the corner of the hall, evidently trying to figure out how many lives he had left. For once in his life Bold-and-Bad was cowed. Pat carried him down and shut him up in the back porch, not without a pat or two … for she was not overly attracted to Cousin Nicholas.

That irate gentleman was finally persuaded to go back to bed. Evidently some idea of what was going on had filtered through his aged brain, for, as Pat assisted his somewhat shaky steps up the stairs, he whispered,

“Mebbe I shouldn’t mention it to a young girl like you … but is it a baby?”

Pat nodded.

“Ah, then,” said Cousin Nicholas, peering suspiciously about him, “you’d better watch that cat. Cats suck babies’ breaths.”

“What an opinion our Cousin Nicholas will have of Silver Bush,” said Pat, half mournfully, half laughingly, when she returned to the kitchen. “Even our cats and dogs can’t behave. And you, Cuddles … I’m ashamed of you. Whatever made you meow at him?”

“I wasn’t meowing at HIM,” said Cuddles gravely. “I was just meowing.”

“Oh, oh, ye naden’t be worrying over what ould Nicholas Gardiner thinks av our animals,” sniffed Judy. “I wasn’t saying innything before for he’s your cousin and whin all is said and done blood do be thicker than water. But did ye iver hear how me fine Nicholas got his start in life? Whin his liddle baby brother died ould Nicholas … only he was jist eliven thin … earned fifty cents be letting all the neighbourhood children in to see the wee dead body in the casket for a cint apace. That did be the foundation av HIS fortunes. He turned that fifty cints over and over, it growing wid ivery turn, and niver a bad spec did he make.”

“Judy, is that really true? I mean … haven’t you mixed up Cousin Nicholas with some one else?”

“Niver a bit av it. The Gardiners don’t all be angels, me jewel. Sure and that story was laughed over in the clan for years. Aven his mother laughed wid the bist av thim. She was a Bowman and he got his quare ways from her. So he’s more to be pitied than laughed at.”

“Yes, indeed,” agreed Pat. “Think of never knowing the delight of loving a nice, prowly, velvety cat.”

“He’s awfully rich though, isn’t he?” said Cuddles.

“Oh, oh, wid one kind av riches, Cuddles darlint. But it’s better to be poor and fale rich than to be rich and fale poor. Hark!”

Judy suddenly held up her hand.

“What’s that?”

“Sounds like a cat on the porch roof,” said Sid.

Pat dashed upstairs, returning in a few minutes flushed with excitement.

“Come here, AUNT Cuddles,” she laughed.

Joe and Sid and dad went to bed. Tillytuck, mildly remarking that he had had enough passionate scenes for one day, betook himself to the granary. But Pat and Cuddles and Judy decided to make a night of it. It was three now. They sat around the fire and lived over that fateful Christmas Day. They roared with laughter over the look of Cousin Nicholas.

“Sure and he naden’t have been making such a fuss over a poor cat,” said Judy. “Well do I remimber what happened to a man in Silverbridge years ago. He jumped into his bid one night and found a dead man atwane the shates.”

“Judy!”

“I’m telling ye. It was his own brither but if Tillytuck was here he’d be saying he was the dead man. And now let’s be having another liddle bite. I’m faling as if I hadn’t had a dacent male for wakes, what wid dog-fights and ould cousins and people flying like birds. It’s thankful I am that I frog-marched me Tillytuck out wid that Jerusalem cherry afore Joe did be starting from Halyfax.”

“To think that mother is a grandmother and we’re aunts,” said Cuddles. “It makes me feel awfully old. I’m glad it’s a girl. You can dress them so cute. They’re going to name it Mary Laura Patricia after its two grandmothers and call it Mary. Frank put the Patricia in for you, Pat, because he said if it hadn’t been for you that child would never have been born. What did he mean?”

“Just some of his nonsense. He persists in thinking I gave up a career so that Winnie could get married. I’m glad they’re calling it mother’s name. But I always think a second name seems woeful and reproachful because it is never mentioned often enough to give it personality. As for a third name, it’s nothing but a ghost.”

“Tillytuck was really quite excited over it, wasn’t he?”

“Can you imagine Tillytuck ever being a baby?” said Pat dreamily.

“Oh, oh, he was, and mebbe somebody’s pride and joy,” sighed Judy sentimentally. “It do be tarrible what we come to wid the years. Sure and another Christmas is over and we can’t be denying it was merry in spots.”

And then it was morning. The rain was over; the whole world was soaked and sodden but in the east was a primrose brightening and soon the Hill of the Mist was like a bare, brown breast in the pale early sunshine. The house, after all the revel and excitement, had a dishevelled, cynical, ashamed look. Pat longed to fall upon it and restore it to serenity and self-respect.

Winnie, white and sweet, was asking them with her pretty laugh what they thought of her little surprise party. Sid was declaring to indignant Cuddles that the baby had a face like a monkey. Mother was played out and condemned to a day in bed. And Judy stole out to see if the pigs had survived the Jerusalem cherry.

“Oh, oh, I do be tasting spring to-day,” said Judy one early May morning. It had been a long cold winter, though a pleasant one socially, with dances and doings galore. They had two dances at Silver Bush for Joe … one the week after he came home and one on the night before he went away again. Tillytuck had been the fiddler on both occasions and Cuddles had danced several sets and thought she was nearly grown up. It was a family joke that Cuddles had cut Pat out in the good graces of Ned Avery and had been asked to go with him to a dance at South Glen. But mother would not allow this. Cuddles, she said, was far too young. Cuddles was peeved.

“It seems to me you’re always too young or too old to do anything you like in this world,” she said scornfully. “And you won’t let Joe tattoo my initials on my arm. It would be SUCH a distinction. Nobody in school is tattooed ANYWHERE. Trix Binnie would just be wild with envy.”

“Oh, oh, since whin have the Gardiners taken to caring what a Binnie thought av innything?” sniffed Judy.

Spring was late in coming that year. Judy had a saying that “it wudn’t be spring till the snow on the Hill av the Mist melted and the snow on the Hill av the Mist wudn’t melt till spring.” There were fitful promises of it … sudden lovely days followed by bitter east winds and grey ghost mists, or icy northwest winds and frosts. But on this particular day it did seem as if it had really come to stay. It was a warm day of entrancing gleams and glooms. Once a silver shower drifted low over the Hill of the Mist … over the Long House … over the Field of the Pool—over the silver bush … and away down to the gulf. Then the day made up its mind to be sunny. The distances were hung with pale blue hazes and there was an emerald mist on the trees everywhere. The world was sweet and the Pool was a great sapphire. Cuddles found some white and purple violets down by the singing waters of Jordan and young ferns were uncoiling along the edge of the birch grove. Pat discovered that the little clump of poet’s narcissus on the lawn was peeping above ground. It gave her a pang to remember that she had got it from Bets … Bets who had loved the springs so but no longer answered to their call. Pat looked wistfully up the hill to the Long House … the Long Lonely House once more, for the people who had moved into it when the Wilcoxes went away had gone again and the house was untenanted, as it had been when Pat was a child and used to wish its windows could be lighted up at night like other houses. Now she no longer felt that way about it, though she still felt a thrill of pleasure when the sunset flame kindled its western windows into a fleeting semblance of life and colour, and still shivered when it looked cold and desolate on moonlit winter nights. She resented the thought of any one living there when Bets, sweet, beloved Bets, had gone, never to return. When it was empty she could pretend Bets was still there and would come running down the hill, as in the old fair and unforgotten days, on some of these spring evenings that seemed able to call anything out of the grave.