Pat of Silver Bush (8 page)

And then the going away! For the first time in her life Pat found out what it was like to say good-bye to someone who was not coming back. But she could cry then because everybody cried, even Judy, who seldom cried.

“When I feels like crying,” Judy was accustomed to say, “I just do be sitting down and having a good laugh.”

She would not let Pat stand too long, looking after Aunt Hazel, tranced in her childish tears.

“It's unlucky to watch a parting friend out av sight,” she told her.

Pat turned away and wandered dismally through the empty rooms. With everything so upset and disarranged upstairs and down Silver Bush wasn't like home at all. Even the new lace curtains seemed part of the strangeness. The table, that had been so pretty, looked terrible…untidy…crumby…messy…with Aunt Hazel's chair pushed rakily aside just as she had risen from it. Pat's brown eyes were drowned again.

“Come along wid me, darlint, and help me out a bit,” Judy…wise Judy…was saying. “Sure and yer mother has gone to bed, rale played out wid all the ruckus, and small wonder. And Winnie's tying hersilf into kinks wid the stomachache and that's no puzzle ather wid the way she was after stuffing hersilf. So there's nobody but us two to look after things. We'll lave the dining-room as it is till the morning but we'll straighten up the parlors and the bedrooms. Sure and the poor house do be looking tired.”

Judy had doffed her silk and high heels and company voice and was in her comfortable old drugget and brogans…and brogue…again. Pat was glad. Judy seemed much more homelike and companionable so.

“Can we put all the furniture back in its right place?” she said eagerly. Somehow it would be a comfort to have the sideboard and the old parlor rocker that had been put out of sight as too shabby, and the vases of pampas grass that had been condemned as old-fashioned, back again where they belonged.

“Oh, oh, we'll do that. And lave off looking as doleful as if yer Aunt Hazel had been buried instid av being married.”

“I don't feel much like smiling, Judy.”

“There's rason in that. Sure and I've been grinning that much today I fale as if I'd been turned into a chessy-cat. But it's been one grand widding, so it has, and the like av it Jen Binnie will never see for all av her city beau. As for the supper, Government House itsilf cudn't bate it. And the cirrimony was that solemn it wud av scared me out av the notion av getting married if I iver had inny.”

“I would have cried and spoiled it all if it hadn't been for you, Judy dear,” said Pat gratefully.

“Oh, oh, I wasn't blaming ye. I knew a big, handsome bridesmaid onct and she burst out waping right in the middle av the cirrimony. And the things people did be saying…such as she was crying bekase she wasn't getting married hersilf, whin it was just her full heart. And that it was better than the bridesmaid that was laughing in the middle av things at Rosella Gardiner's widding. No one iver did be knowing what she laughed at…she wud niver tell…but the groom thought it was at him, and he niver wud spake to her again. It started a ruckus in the fam'ly that lasted for forty years. Oh, oh, the liddle things that do be having a big inding!”

Pat didn't think that for the bridesmaid to laugh in the middle of the ceremony was a little thing. She was very glad nothing like that had happened to make Aunt Hazel's wedding ridiculous.

“Come now and we'll swape up all this confetti stuff first. The ould days av rice were better I'm thinking. The hins got a good fade innyhow. Oh, oh, this table do be looking like the relics of ould dacency, doesn't it now? I'm seeing one av the good silver crame jugs has got a dint in it. But whin all's said and done it don't be looking much like the table did after yer Great-aunt Margaret's widding over at the Bay Shore farm. Oh, oh, that was a tommyshaw!”

“What happened, Judy?”

“Happened, is it? Ye may well ask. They had a fringed cloth on the table be way av extry style and whin the groom's cousin…ould Jim Milroy he is now…Jim wid the beard he was called thin…oh, oh, he had the magnificent beard. Sure and 'twas a shame to shave it off just bekase it wint out av fashion…well, where was I at? He wint to get up from the table in a hurry as he always did and didn't one av his buttons catch in the fringe and away wint fringe and cloth and dishes and all. Niver did inny one see such a smash. I was down to the Bay Shore to hilp thim out a bit and me and yer Aunt Frances claned up the mess, her crying and lamenting all the time and small blame to her. All the illigant dishes smashed and the carpet plastered wid the stuff that was spilled, niver to spake av the poor bride's dress as was clane ruined be a great cup av tay tipped over in her lap. Oh, oh, I was a young skellup av a thing thin and I thought it a great joke but the Bay Shore people were niver the same agin. Now, run up to yer room, and put off yer finery and we'll get to work. I belave we're after having a rainy night av it. The wind's rising and it's dark as a squaw's pocket already.”

It was such a comfort to put things back in their places. When the job was finished Silver Bush looked like home again. Darkness had fallen and rain was beginning to splash against the windows.

“Let's go into the kitchen now and I'll get ye a tasty liddle bite afore I do be setting the bread. I noticed ye didn't ate inny thing av their fine spread. I've a pot of hot pay soup I brewed up for mesilf kaping warm on the back av the stove and there's some chicken lift over I'm thinking.”

“I don't feel like eating with Aunt Hazel gone,” said Pat, rather mistily again. That thought
would
keep coming back.

“Oh, oh, fat sorrow is better than lean sorrow, me jewel. Here now, ain't this snug as two kittens in a basket? We'll shut out the dark. And here's a liddle cat wid an illigant gray suit and a white shirt, be the name av Thursday, wid his small heart breaking for a word after all the neglict av the day.”

A fierce yowl sounded outside. Gentleman Tom was demanding entrance.

“Let me let him in, Judy,” said Pat eagerly. She did so love to let things in out of the cold. Pat held the door open for a moment. It was a wild night after the lovely day. The rain was streaming down. The wind was thrashing the silver bush mercilessly. Snicklefritz was howling dolefully in the church barn since Joe was not yet back from the station to comfort him.

Pat turned away with a shiver. The peace of the old kitchen was in delightful contrast to the storm outside. The stove was glowing clear red in the dusk. Thursday was coiled up under it, thinking this was how things should be. It was so nice to be in this bright, warm room, supping Judy's hot pea soup and watching the reflection of the kitchen outside through the window. Pat loved to do that. It looked so uncanny and witchlike…so real yet so unreal…with Judy apparently calmly setting bread under the thrashing maple by the well.

• • •

Pat loved to watch Judy set bread and listen to her talking to herself as she always did while kneading and thumping. Tonight Judy was reviewing the church wedding.

“Oh, oh, she was dressed very gay outside but I'm wondering what was undernath. Sure and it's well if it was no worse than patches…Bertha Holms is the pert one. Only fifteen and she do be making eyes at the b'ys already. I remimber her at her own aunt's widding whin she was about the age av Pat here. She was after throwing hersilf on the floor and kicking and screaming. Oh, oh, wudn't I like to have had the spanking av her! Simon Gardiner was be way av being rale groomed up today. Sure and whin I saw him, so starched and proper in his pew, looking as if he was doing the world a big favor be living, it was hard to belave the last time I saw him he was so drunk he thought the table was follying him round, and crying like a baby he was bekase it wud be sure to catch him, having four legs to his two. It tickled me ribs, that. Oh, oh, it's liddle folks know what other folks do be thinking av thim in church. And wud ye listen to Ould Man Taylor calling his wife sugar-pie and him married thirty years, the ould softy. Though maybe it's better than George Harvey and his ‘ould woman.' There was ould Elmer Davidson stumbling in late whin the cirrimony had begun and sp'iling the solemnity. He'll be late for the resurrection, that one. Mary Jarvis and her yilping whin they were signing the papers! Thim that likes can call it singing. Singing, indade! The Great-aunts av the Bay Shore farm were after being a bit more stately than common…be way of showing their contimpt for both Gardiners and Madisons I'm thinking. Sure and it's a wonder they condescend to come at all. Oh, oh, but the supper wud give thim one in the eye. It's a long day since they've set down to such a spread I'm thinking. Oh, oh, but I got square wid Ould Maid Sands. Sez I to her, sly-like, ‘While there's life there's hope.'
She
knew well what I was maning, so she did.”

Judy was shaking with silent laughter as she patted her bread. Then she grew sober.

“Oh, oh, there was one at the widding that'll be to none other. Kate MacKenzie has got the sign.”

“What sign, Judy?” asked Pat drowsily.

“Oh, oh, I forgot liddle pitchers have the long ears, darlint. 'Tis the death sign I mint. But it do be life. There's always the birth and the death and the bridal mixed up togither. And a nice cheerful widding it was in spite av all.”

Pat was almost asleep. The down-trodden black cats were beginning to trot around the rug under her very eyes.

“Wake up, me jewel, and go to bed properly. Listen at that wind. There'll be apples to pick up tomorrow.”

Pat looked up, yawning and comforted. After all, life at dear Silver Bush was going on. The world hadn't come to an end just because Aunt Hazel was gone.

“Judy, tell me again about the man you saw hanged in Ireland before I go to bed.”

“Oh, oh, that do be a tarrible story for bedtime. It wud make yer hair stand on end.”

“I
like
having my hair stand on end. Please, Judy.”

Judy picked Pat up on her knee.

“Hug me close, Judy, and tell me.”

The harrowing tale was told and Pat, who had heard it a dozen times before, thrilled just as deliciously as at the first. There was no doubt about it…she enjoyed “tarrible” things.

“Sure and I shudn't be telling ye all these tales av bad people,” said Judy, a bit uncomfortably, looking at Pat's dilated eyes.

“Of course, Judy, I like to
live
with good people better than bad, but I like
hearing
about bad people better than good.”

“Well, I do be thinking it wud be a dull world if nobody iver did anything he oughtn't. What wud we find to talk about?” asked Judy unanswerably. “Innyway it's to bed ye must be going. And say a prayer for all poor ghosts. If Wild Dick or Waping Willy or ather or both av thim are on the fence tonight 'tis a wet time they'll be having av it.”

“Maybe I won't be so lonesome if I say my prayers twice,” thought Pat. She said them twice and even contrived to pray for her new uncle. Perhaps as a reward for this she fell asleep instantly. Once in the night she wakened and a flood of desolation poured over her. But in the darkness she heard a melodious purring and felt the beautiful touch of a velvet cat. Pat swallowed hard. The rain was still sobbing around the eaves. Aunt Hazel was gone. But Silver Bush held her in its heart. To lie in this dear house, sheltered from the storm, with Thursday purring under her hand…apples to be picked tomorrow…oh, life began to beckon once more. Pat fell asleep comforted.

Again it was September at Silver Bush…a whole year since Aunt Hazel was married: and now it seemed to Pat that Aunt Hazel had always been married. She and Uncle Bob often came “home” for a visit and Pat was very fond of Uncle Bob now, and even thought his flying jibs were nice. The last time, too, Aunt Hazel had had a darling, tiny baby, with amber-brown eyes like Pat's own. Cuddles wasn't a baby any longer. She was toddling round on her own chubby legs and was really a sister to be proud of. She had been through all her teething at eleven months. It was beautiful to watch her waking up and beautiful to bend over her while she was asleep. She seemed to know you were there and would smile delightedly. A spirit of her own, too. When she was eight months old she had bitten Uncle Tom when he poked his finger into her mouth to find out if she had any teeth. He found out.

And now had come the invitation for Pat to spend a Saturday at the Bay Shore farm, with Great-aunt Frances Selby and Great-aunt Honor Atkins…not to mention “Cousin” Dan Gowdy and a still greater aunt, who was mother's great-aunt. Pat's head was usually dizzy when she got this far and small wonder, as Judy would say.

Pat loved the sound of “a day to spend.” It sounded so gloriously lavish to “spend” a whole day, letting its moments slip one by one through your fingers like beads of gold.

But she was not enthusiastic over spending it at the Bay Shore. When she and Sid had been very small they had called the Bay Shore the Don't-touch-it House guiltily, to themselves. Everybody was so old there. Two years ago, when she had keen there with mother, she remembered how Aunt Frances frowned because when they were walking in the orchard, she, Pat, had picked a lovely, juicy, red plum from a laden tree. And Aunt Honor, a tall lady with snow-white hair and eyes as black as her dress, had asked her to repeat some Bible verses and had been coldly astonished when Pat made mistakes in them. The great-aunts always asked you to repeat Bible verses…so said Winnie and Joe who had been there often…and you never could tell what they would give when you got through…a dime or a cookie or a tap on the head.

But to go
alone
to the Bay Shore! Sidney had been asked, too, but Sidney had gone to visit Uncle Brian's while his teeth were attended to. Perhaps it was just as well because Sidney was not in high favor at the Bay Shore, having fallen asleep at the supper table and tumbled ingloriously off his chair to the floor, with an heirloom goblet in his hand, the last time he was there.

Pat talked it over with Judy Friday evening, sitting on the sandstone steps at the kitchen door and working her sums to be all ready for Monday. Pat was a year older and an inch taller, by the marks Judy kept on the old pantry door where she measured every child on its birthday. She was well on in subtraction and Judy was helping her. Judy could add and subtract. When her head was clear she could multiply. Division she never attempted.

The kitchen behind them was full of the spicy smell of Judy's kettle of pickles. Gentleman Tom was sitting on the well platform, keeping an eye on Snicklefritz, who was dozing on the cellar door, keeping an eye on Gentleman Tom. In the corner of the yard was a splendid pile of cut hardwood which Pat and Sid had stacked neatly up in the summer evenings after school. Pat gloated over it. It was so prophetic of cozy, cheerful winter evenings when the wind would growl and snarl because it couldn't get into Silver Bush. Pat would have been perfectly happy if it had not been for the morrow's visit.

“The aunts are so…so stately,” she confided to Judy. She would never have dared criticize them to mother who had been a Selby and was very proud of her people.

“The grandmother av thim was a Chidlaw,” said Judy as if that explained everything. “I'm not saying but they're a bit grim but they've had a tarrible lot av funerals at the Bay Shore. Yer Aunt Frances lost her man afore she married him and yer Aunt Honor lost hers after she married him and they've niver settled which got the worst av it. They're a bit near, too, it must be confessed, and thim wid lashings of money. But they do be rale kind at heart and they think a lot av all yer mother's children.”

“I don't mind Aunt Frances or Aunt Honor, but I'm a
little
afraid of Great-great-aunt Hannah and Cousin Dan,” confessed Pat.

“Oh, oh, ye nadn't be. Maybe ye'll not be seeing the ould leddy at all. She hasn't left her own room for sixteen years and she's ninety-three be the clock, so she is, and there don't be minny seeing her. And ould Danny is harmless. He fell aslape at the top av the stairs and rolled down thim whin he was a lad. He was niver the same agin. But some do be saying he saw the ghost.”

“Oh, Judy, is there a ghost at Bay Shore?”

“Not now. But long ago there was. Oh, oh, they were tarrible ashamed av it.”

“Why?”

“Ye know they thought it was kind av a disgraceful thing to have a ghost in the house. Some folks do be thinking it an honor but there ye are. I'm not denying the Bay Shore ghost was a troublesome cratur. Sure and he was a nice, frindly, sociable ghost and hadn't any rale dog-sense about the proper time for appearing. He was a bit lonesome it wud seem. He wud sit round on the foot-boards av their beds and look at thim mournful like, as if to say, ‘Why the divil won't ye throw a civil word to a felly?' And whin company come and they were all enjying thimselves they'd hear a dape sigh and there me fine ghost was. It was be way av being tarrible monotonous after a while. But the ghost was niver seen agin after yer great-great-uncle died and yer Great-aunt Honor took to running things. I'm thinking she was a bit too near, even for a ghost, that one. So ye nadn't be afraid av seeing him but ye'd better not be looking too close at the vase that makes the faces.”

“A vase…that makes faces!”

“Sure, me jewel. It's on the parlor mantel and it made a face once at Sarah Jenkins as was hired there whin she was dusting it. She was nather to hold nor bind wid fright.”

This was delightful. But after all, Pat thought Judy was a little too contemptuous of the Bay Shore people.

“Their furniture is very grand, Judy.”

“Grand, is it?” Judy knew very well she had been snubbed. “Oh, oh, ye can't be telling
me
innything about grandeur. Didn't I work in Castle McDermott whin I was a slip av a girleen? Grandeur, is it? Lace and sating bed-quilts, I'm telling ye. And a white marble staircase wid a golden banister. Dinner sets av solid gold and gold vases full av champagne. And thirty servants if there was one. Sure and they kipt servants to wait on the other servants there. The ould lord wud pass round plates wid gold sovereigns at the Christmas dinner and hilp yerself. Oh, oh, what's yer Bay Shore farm to that, I'm asking. And now just rin over thim verses ye larnt last Sunday, in case yer Aunt Honor wants ye to say some.”

“I can say them without a mistake to you, Judy. But it will be so different with Aunt Honor.”

“Sure and ye'd better just shut yer eyes and purtind she's a cabbage-head, darlint. Though old Jed Cattermole didn't be thinking her that whin she put him in his place at the revival meetings.”

“What did she do, Judy?”

“Do, is it? I'm telling ye. Old Jed thought he was extry cliver bekase he didn't belave in God. Just be way av showing off one night he wint to one av the revival matings ould Mr. Campbell was having whin he was minister at South Glen. And after all the tistimonies me bould Jed gets up and sez, sez he, ‘I'm not belaving there's inny God but if there is He do be a cruel, unrasonable ould tyrant.' And now sez Jed, swelling up all over wid consate, like an ould torn turkey, ‘if there is a God why doesn't he strike me dead for what I've said. I dare Him to do it,' sez ould Jed, feeling bigger than iver. Iverybody was so shocked ye cud have heard a pin fall. And yer Aunt Honor turns round and sez she, cool-like, ‘Do you really think ye're av that much importance to God, Jedediah Cattermole?' Iverybody laughed. Did ye iver be seeing one av thim big rid balloons whin ye've stuck a pin in it? Oh, oh, that was me proud Jed. He was niver the same agin. Now yer sums are done and me pickles are done, so we'll just have a bit av fun roasting some crab apples wid cloves stuck in thim for scint.”

“I wish Sid was here,” sighed Pat. “He does love clove apples so. Will he be back Sunday night, do you think, Judy? I
can't
live another week without him.”

“Ye set yer heart too much on Siddy, me jewel. What'll ye be after doing whin ye grow up and have to part?”

“Oh, that'll never be, Judy. Sid and I are never going to part. We'll neither of us marry but just live on here at Silver Bush and take care of everything. We have it all settled.”

Judy sighed.

“I wish ye wudn't be so set on him. Why don't ye be after getting yersilf a chum in school like the other liddle girls? Winnie has lashings av thim.”

“I don't want anybody but Sid. The girls in school are nice but I don't love any of them. I don't
want
to love any one or anything but my own family and Silver Bush.”

• • •

Since Pat had to go to the Bay Shore farm she was glad it was this particular Saturday because father was going to replace the old board fence around the orchard with a new one. Pat hated to see the old fence torn down. It was covered with such pretty lichens, and vines had grown over its posts and there was a wave of caraway all along it as high as your waist.

Judy had a reason for being glad, too. The ukase had gone forth that the big poplar in the corner of the yard must be cut down because its core was rotten and the next wind might send it crashing down on the hen-house. Judy had plotted with Long Alec to cut it down the day Pat was away for she knew every blow of the axe would go to the darlint's heart.

Joe ran Pat down to the Bay Shore in the car. She bent from it as it whirled out of the lane to wave good-bye to Silver Bush. Cuddles' dear little rompers on the line behind the house were plumped out with wind and looked comically like three small Cuddles swinging from the line. Pat sighed and then resolved to make the best of things. The day was lovely, full of blue, sweet autumn hazes. The road to the Bay Shore was mostly down hill, running for part of the way through spruce “barrens,” its banks edged with ferns, sweet-smelling bay bushes, and clusters of scarlet pigeon-berries. There was a blue, waiting sea at the end and an old gray house fronting the sunset, so close to the purring waves that in storms their spray dashed over its very doorstep…a wise old house that knew many things, as Pat always felt. Mother's old home and therefore to be loved, whether one could love the people in it or not.

It still made quite a sensation at Bay Shore when any one arrived in a car. The aunts came out and gave a prim welcome and Cousin Dan waved from a near field where he was turning over the sod into beautiful red furrows, so even and smooth. Cousin Dan was very proud of his plowing.

Joe whirled away, leaving Pat to endure her ordeal of welcome and examination. The great-aunts were as stiff as the starched white petticoats that were still worn at Bay Shore. To tell truth, the great-aunts were really frightfully at a loss what to say to this long-legged, sunburned child whom they thought it a family duty to invite to Bay Shore once in so long. Then Pat was taken up to the Great-great's room for a few minutes. She went reluctantly. Great-great-aunt Hannah was so mysteriously old…a tiny, shrunken, wrinkled creature peering at her out of a mound of quilts in a huge, curtained bed.

“So this is Mary's little girl,” said a piping voice.

“No. I am Patricia Gardiner,” said Pat, who hated to be called anybody's little girl, even mother's.

Great-great-aunt Hannah put a claw-like hand on Pat's arm and drew her close to the bed, peering at her with old, old blue eyes, so old that sight had come back to them.

“Nae beauty…nae beauty,” she muttered.

“She may grow up better-looking that you expect,” said Aunt Frances, as one determinedly looking on the bright side. “She is terribly sunburned now.”

Pat's little brown face, with its fine satiny skin, flushed mutinously. She did not care if she were “no beauty” but she disliked being criticized to her face like this. Judy would have said it wasn't manners. And then when they went downstairs Aunt Honor said in a tone of horror,

“There's a rip in your dress, child.”

Pat wished they wouldn't call her “child.” She would have loved to stick her tongue out at Aunt Honor but that wouldn't be manners either. She stood very stiff while Aunt Honor brought needle and thread and sewed it up.

“Of course Mary can't attend to everything and Judy Plum wouldn't care if they were all in rags,” said Aunt Frances condoningly.

“Judy
would
care,” cried Pat. “She's
very
particular about our clothes and our manners. That shoulder ripped on the way over. So there.”

In spite of this rather unpropitious beginning the day was not so bad. Pat said her verses correctly and Aunt Honor gave her a cookie…and watched her eat it. Pat was in agonies of thirst but was too shy to ask for a glass of water. When dinner time came, however, there was plenty of milk…Judy would have said “skim” milk. But it was served in a lovely old gold-green glass pitcher that made the skimmiest of milk look like Jersey cream. The table was something of the leanest, according to Silver Bush standards. Pat's portion of the viands was none too lavish, but she ate it off a plate with a colored border of autumn leaves…one of the famous Selby plates, a hundred years old. Pat felt honored and tried not to feel hungry. For dessert she had three of the tabooed red plums.

After dinner Aunt Frances said she had a headache and was going to lie down. Cousin Dan suggested aspirin but Aunt Frances crushed him with a look.

“It is not God's will that we should take aspirin for relief from the pain He sends,” she said loftily, and stalked off, with her red glass, silver-stoppered vinaigrette held to her nose.