Mistress Pat (9 page)

When Judy “tasted” spring it was time to begin housecleaning and as Tillytuck was away for the day on “the other farm” as the “old Adams place” was now called, Judy and Pat took the opportunity to clean the granary chamber … a task which Judy performed rather viciously, for Tillytuck was temporarily out of favour with her, partly because Just Dog had killed three of her chickens the day before and chewed up one leg of Siddy’s khaki pants, and partly because …

“He did be coming home drunk agin last night and slipt in the stable.”

Judy’s “agin” seemed to imply that Tillytuck came home drunk frequently. As a matter of fact this was only his second offence and Tillytuck was such an excellent worker that Long Alec winked at his very occasional weakness.

“Not that he’d be giving in he was tight … Oh, no. He wud only say the moon seemed a bit unsteady-like. And he was after warning me not to be getting inny notion av marrying into me head aven if he did be liking to talk to me. Me! But wud it be inny use getting mad wid the likes av him? It ann’ys him more to be laughing at him. He did be trying to get up the granary stips … me watching him through the liddle round windy and having me own fun … but he cudn’t trust his legs, so he paraded to the stable, walking very stiff and pompous. Oh, oh, the dear knows what we’ll be finding in his din … a goat’s nest, I wudn’t be wondering.”

“Tillytuck says he’s going to get a radio,” said Cuddles, who was not in school, as it was Saturday.

“Oh, oh, a radio, is it? I’m relaved to hear it. Mebbe if he gets one he won’t be rading such trash as this.” Judy indignantly held up a book she had discovered on Tillytuck’s table. “Do ye be seeing it … The Mistakes av Moses. It do be a rank infidel book he borryed off ould Roger Madison av Silverbridge and whin I rated him for rading it he sez, ‘I like to see both sides av a question,’ sez he. Him and his curiosity!”

Judy tossed the offending volume out of the window into the pig-pen and ostentatiously washed her hands.

“You can’t stick Tillytuck on the catechism though,” said Pat. “And he really is a great hand to read his Bible.”

“But he has his doubts about the story of Jonah and the whale,” said Cuddles. “He told me so.”

“Does he be talking to children av such things?” Judy was horrified. “It’s telling him me opinion av that I’ll be. Don’t ye be hading him, Cuddles. We’ve niver hild wid infidelity at Silver Bush and if Moses did be making a mistake or two it’s me considered opinion that he knew more about things in gineral than Josiah Tillytuck and ould Roger Madison put together.”

“You’re just a bit peeved with Tillytuck because he tried to cap your stories,” suggested Cuddles slyly. For there had been quite a scene in the kitchen two evenings previously when Judy had told a tale of some lady on the south side who put rat poison by mistake for baking powder in the family pancakes and Tillytuck had said he had eaten one of them.

“It isn’t a chanct I do be having wid Tillytuck,” said Judy passionately. “I stick to the truth but he do be making things up as he goes along.”

“But you made candy for him afterwards, Judy.”

“Oh, oh, so I did,” admitted Judy with a deprecating grin. “He gets round a body somehow wid his palaver. There do be times whin he cud wheedle the legs off an iron pot. Niver be laughing at an ould woman, Cuddles dear. Tillytuck and I do be understanding each other rale well, for all av our tiffs. If he likes to think I’m dying about him he’s welcome to it. He hasn’t minny pleasures. And now we’ve finished the chamber so we’ll …”

“The pigs are in the graveyard, Judy,” cried Cuddles.

“I’ll pig thim,” ejaculated Judy viciously as she whirled down the granary stairs in horror. But after all cud ye be blaming the poor pigs? They had niver been thimsilves since they et the Jeruselem cherry.

In the afternoon they tackled the garret. Pat always loved cleaning in general and the garret in particular. It was delightful to make Silver Bush as clean and sweet as the spring … a new curtain here … a new wall-paper there … a spot of paint where it would do most good. Little changes that didn’t hurt … much. Though Pat was always sorry for the old wall-papers and missed them.

When you came to the garret you always found so many things you had almost forgotten and all the family ghosts got a good rummaging.

“Sure, housecleaning and diggin’ a well do be the only two things I know av that ye begin at the top and work down wid,” said Judy. “Well, the garret do be done and that do be making the fortieth time I’ve been at the cleaning av it. Forty-one years this very May, Pasty dear, since I tuk up wid Silver Bush, hoping to put the summer in if Long Alec’s mother was suited wid me … and here I do be still.”

“And will be for forty more years I hope,” said Pat with a hug. “But we haven’t quite finished, Judy. I want to see what’s in that old black chest in the corner. It hasn’t been turned out properly for years.”

“Oh, oh, there’s nothing much there but the relics av ould dacency,” said Judy.

“We really should examine it. The moths may have got into it.”

“Sure and it’s always aisy to find an excuse for what ye want to do,” said Judy slyly. “But we’ll ransack it if ye wait till I get supper. We’ll come up here in the dim and see what’s in it.”

Accordingly, after supper Pat betook herself to the garret, which was growing shadowy, although the outside world was still in the glow of sunset. It was a spring sunset … pale golds and soft pinks and ethereal apple greens shading up to silvery blue over the birches. Pat ached with the loveliness of it, being one of those

“who feel the thrill Of beauty like a pang.”

Violet mists were veiling the distant hills. The little green-skirted maples over at Swallowfield were dancing girls with the dark spruces behind them, like grim, old-maid duennas. Sid had ploughed the Mince Pie field that day and it lay in beautiful, red, even furrows. From the Field of the Pool there sounded the dreamy trill of a few frogs through the brooding spring evening and there was some indefinable glamour over everything. Things were a little “queer” as they had sometimes seemed in childhood on certain evenings.

“This makes me think of the night you told me Cuddles was coming,” she said to Judy, who came up the stairs, panting a little. “Oh, Judy dear, just look at that sunset.”

“Innything spacial about it?” asked Judy a little shortly … because she didn’t like the idea of being out of breath after only two flights of stairs.

“There’s something special about every sunset, Judy. I never saw a cloud just that colour and shape before … see … the one over the tall fir-tree.”

“I’m not denying it’s handsome. Sure and I wudn’t be like ould Rob Pennock at the South Glen. His wife was rale ashamed av his insinsibility. ‘He doesn’t know there’s such a thing as a sunset,’—she sez to me once, impatient-like.”

“How terrible it must be not to see and FEEL beauty,” said Pat softly. “I’m so glad I can find happiness in all lovely little things … like that cloud. It seems to me that every time I look out of a window the world gives me a gift. Look at those old dark firs around the pool. Judy, does it ever seem to you that the Pool is drying up? It seems to me that it isn’t as deep as it used to be.”

“I’m fearing it is,” acknowledged Judy. “It’s a way thim pools has. There was one below Swallyfield whin I was here first … and now it’s nothing but a grane dimple wid some ferns and bracken in it.”

“I don’t know how I’ll bear it if it dries up. I’ve always loved it so.”

“What don’t ye be loving around the ould place, Patsy dear?”

“The more things and people you love the more happiness you get, Judy.”

“Oh, oh, and the more sorrow too. Now, whativer made me go and say that! It jist slipped out.”

“It’s true, I suppose,” said Pat thoughtfully. “It’s the price you pay for loving, I guess. If I hadn’t loved Bets so much it wouldn’t have hurt me so terribly when she died. But it was worth the hurt, Judy.”

“It always do be,” said Judy gently. “So niver ye be minding me silly talk av the sorrow.”

“Well, how about the black chest, Judy?”

“Cuddles wants us to be waiting till she can come. She said she wudn’t be long … she had a bit av Lating to look over. She do be getting int’rested in her books at last. Joe did be giving her a bit av advice now and thin.”

“I hope we’ll be able to afford to give her a real good education, Judy. We never do seem to have much money, I admit.”

“Too hospitable, I’m supposing some do be thinking. Mrs. Binnie says we throw out more wid a spoon than the min can bring in wid a shovel … Binnie-like. OUR min like the good living. And what if we don’t be having too much money, Patsy dear? Sure and we have lashings av things no money cud be buying. There’ll be enough squazed out for Cuddles whin the time comes, niver fear. The Good Man Above will be seeing to that.”

The drone of the separator came up from the yard below where Tillytuck was operating under the big maple over the well and singing a Psalm sonorously, with McGinty and some cats for an audience. It struck Pat that Tillytuck had a remarkably good voice. And he was setting the saucer for the fairies, just as Judy always did.

“I used to think the fairies really came and drank it. I wish I could believe things like that now, Judy.”

“It do be fun belaving things. I often wonder, Patsy dear, at all the skiptics do be losing. As for the saucer av milk, the dog McGinty gets it now mostly. Look at him sitting there and thumping his bit av a tail ivery time Tillytuck gets to the end av a verse. He may not be having inny great ear for music but he do be knowing how to get round Tillytuck.”

“Judy, I’m almost sure dear little dogs like McGinty must have souls.”

“A liddle bit av one mebbe,” said Judy cautiously. “I niver cud hould wid the verse ‘widout are dogs,’ Patsy dear, though niver be telling the minister or Tillytuck I said it. Whiniver I see the dog McGinty I think av Jingle. Wasn’t it a letter from him ye got to-day? And is there inny word av him coming home this summer?”

“No,” Pat sighed. She had been hoping Hilary would come. “He has to work in vacation, Judy.”

“I s’pose his mother doesn’t be thinking inny more about him than she iver did?”

“I don’t know. He never mentions her name now. Of course she is quite willing to send him all the money he needs … but he’s terribly independent, Judy. He is determined to earn all he can for himself. And as for coming home … well, you know, since his uncle died and his aunt went to town he really has no home to come back to. Of course I’ve told him a dozen times he is to look upon Silver Bush as home. Do you remember how I used to set a light in this very window when I wanted him to come over?”

“And he niver failed to come, did he, Patsy? I’m almost belaving if ye set a light in this windy tonight he’d see it and come. Patsy dear,” … Judy’s voice grew wheedling and confidential … “do ye iver be thinking a bit about Jingle … ye know …”

Pat laughed, her amber eyes full of roguish mirth.

“Judy darling, you’ve always had great hopes of making a match between Hilary and me but they’re doomed to disappointment. Hilary and I are chums but we’ll never be anything else. We’re TOO good chums to be anything else.”

“Ye seen so set on turning ivery one else down,” sighed Judy. “And I always did be liking Jingle. It’s not a bad thing to be chums wid yer husband, I’m tould.”

“WHY are you so set on my having a ‘real’ beau, Judy? Any one would think you wanted to get rid of me.”

“It’s better ye’re knowing than that, me jewel. Whin ye lave Silver Bush the light av ould Judy Plum’s eyes will go wid ye.”

“Then just be glad I mean to stay, Judy. I never want to leave Silver Bush … I want to stay here always and grow old with my cats and dogs. I love the very walls of it. Look, Judy, the Virignia creeper has got to the roof. It’s lucky we have so many vines here, for the house does need painting terribly and dad says he can’t afford it this year.”

“Yer Uncle Tom is painting Swallyfield … white, wid grane trimmings, it’s to be. He started to-day.”

“Yes.” A shadow fell over Pat’s face. Every one in North Glen knew by this time that Tom Gardiner was writing to a lady in California, though not even the keenest of the gossips had found out anything more, not even her name. “Swallowfield really needs painting but it has needed it for years. And now Uncle Tom seems to have a mania for sprucing things up. He’s even going to have that dear old red door stained and grained. I’ve always loved that red door so much. Judy, you don’t think there is anything in that story of his going to be married, do you?”

“I wudn’t be saying. And me fine Aunt Edith wudn’t be liking it,” said Judy in a tone which indicated that for her, at least, there would be balm in Gilead if Tom Gardiner really up and married at last. “There do be another story round, Patsy, that Joe do be ingaged to Enid Sutton. Is there inny truth in IT?”

“I can’t say. He saw a good deal of her when he was home. Well, she is a very nice girl and will suit Joe very well.”

Pat felt herself very magnanimous in thus according approval to Joe’s reputed choice. If it had been Sid … Pat shivered a little. But Sid wouldn’t be thinking of marrying for years yet.

“Oh, oh, if it iver comes to a widding I hope Enid will be having better luck wid her dress than her mother had. There was a dressmaker in town making it … the Suttons houlding thimsilves a bit above the Silverbridge dressmaker … and she was sick, but she sint word she’d have the dress ready for the widding day widout fail. Whin the morning come, she did be phoning up she had sint it be the train but whin the train come in niver a widding dress was on it. And, what’s more, that dress niver turned up … niver, Patsy dear. The poor liddle bride was married in a blue serge suit and tears.”

“Whatever became of the dress, Judy?”

“The Good Man Above knows and Him only. It was shipped be the ixpress agent at Charlottetown and that was the last iver seen or heard av it. White sating and lace! But at that I do be thinking she was luckier than the bride at Castle McDermott.”

“What happened to her?”

“Oh, oh, it was a hundred years afore me time there but the story was tould me. She wint to the wardrobe and put her hand in to fetch out her widding dress and …” Judy leaned forward dramatically in the gathering gloom … “AND IT WAS GRASPED BY A BONY HAND.”