Mistress Pat (32 page)

They could even laugh over Mrs. Binnie’s malapropisms. It was so delicious when she asked Rae gravely whether “phobias” were annuals or perennials. To be sure, neither Judy not Tillytuck was very sure just where the point of the joke was but it was heartening to see the girls laughing again as of old. Those evenings were almost the only time it was safe to laugh. If May heard laughter she took it into her head that they were laughing at her and sulked. Once in a while, when May had gone for one of her frequent visits home, Sid would creep in, too, for a bit of the old-time fun and one of Judy’s liddle bites. Sid and Pat had had their hour of reconciliation long ere this: Pat couldn’t endure to be “out” with Sid. But there were no more rambles and talks and plans together. May resented any such thing. She went with him now on his walks about the farm and expounded her ideas as to what changes should be made. She also aired her views to the whole family. A lot of trees should be cut down … there were entirely too many … it was “messy,” especially that aspen poplar by the steps. And the Old Part of the orchard ought to be cleaned out entirely; it was a sheer waste of good ground. She did not go so far as to suggest ploughing up the graveyard though she said it was horrid having a place like that so near the house and having to pass it every time you went to the barn or the hen-house. When she went to either of these places after dark she averred it made her flesh creep.

“If I were you,” she would remark airily to Pat, “I’d make a few changes round here. A front porch is so out of date. And there really should be a wall or two knocked out. The Poet’s room and our room together would just make one real nice-sized room. You don’t need two spare rooms any more’n a frog needs trousers.”

“Silver Bush suits us as it is,” said Pat stiffly.

“Don’t get so excited, child,” said May provokingly … and how provoking May could be! “I was only making a suggestion. Surely you needn’t throw a fit over that.”

“She would do nothing but patch and change and tear up if she could have her way here,” Pat told Rae viciously.

“Oh, oh, just like her ould grandad,” said Judy. “He did be having a mania for tearing down and rebuilding. Innything for a change was HIS motto.”

“Judy, last night as I passed the Little Parlour I heard May say to Sid, ‘Anyway you’ll have Silver Bush when your father dies.’ Judy, she did! WHEN YOUR FATHER DIES.”

Judy chuckled.

“It do be ill waiting for dead men’s shoes. Yer dad is good for twinty years yet at the laste. But it’s like a Binnie to be saying that same.”

Sometimes Pat would escape from it all to her fields and woods, at peace in their white loveliness. It carried her through many hard hours to remember that in ten minutes she could, if she must, be in that meadow solitude of her Secret Field, far from babble and confusion. There were yet wonderful ethereal dawns which she and Rae shared together … there were yet full moons rising behind snowy hills … rose tints over sunset dells … slender birches and shadowy nooks … winds calling to each other at night … apple-green “dims” … starry quietudes that soothed your pain … April buds in happiness … “Thank God, April still comes to the world” … and Silver Bush to be loved and protected and cherished.

And with the spring Joe came home, to be married at last; after every one had concluded, so Mrs. Binnie said, that poor Enid Sutton was never going to get him.

“Many’s the time I’ve said to her, ‘Don’t be too sure of him. A sailor has a sweetheart in every port. It isn’t as if you was still a girl. You never can depend on them sailors. Take Mrs. Rory MacPherson at the Bridge … a disappointed woman if ever there was one. HER husband was a sailor and she thought he was dead and was going to get married again when he turned up alive and well.’”

There was a big gay wedding at the Suttons and every one thought bronzed Joe remarkably handsome. Pat thought so, too, and was proud of him; but he seemed a stranger now … Joe, whose going had once been such a tragedy. She was even a little glad when all the fuss was over and Joe and his bride were gone on a wonderful bridal trip around the world in Joe’s new vessel. She could settle down to housecleaning and gardening now … at least, after Mrs. Binnie had had her say about the event.

“A grand wedding. Some people don’t see how old Charlie Sutton could afford it but I always say most folks is only married once and why not make a splurge. I always did like a wedding. Wasn’t May the naughty thing to run off the way she did, so sly-like? I’ll bet you folks here wasn’t a bit more flabbergasted than I was when I heard it. And maybe I didn’t feel upset about her coming in here with you all. But I always believed it would work out in time and it has. People said May could never live in peace here, Pat was such a crank. But I said, ‘No, Pat isn’t a crank. It’s just that you have to understand her.’ And I was right, wasn’t I, dearie? May made up her mind when she come here that she’d get along with you. ‘It takes two to make a quarrel, ma, you know,’ she said. And I said, ‘That’s the right spirit, dearie. Behave like a lady whatever you do. You’re a Gardiner now and must live up to their traditions. And you must make allowances.’ That’s what I said to her. ‘You must make allowances. And don’t be scared. I hope MY daughter isn’t a coward,’ I said. It’s a real joy to me to see how well you’ve got on together, though I don’t deny that Judy Plum has been a hard nut to crack. May has felt certain things … May always did feel things so deeply. But she just made allowances as I advised her. ‘Judy Plum has been spoiled as every one knows,’ I told her, ‘but she’s old and breaking up fast and you can afford to humour her a bit, dearie.’ ‘Oh, I’m not going to stoop to argue with a servant,’ May says. ‘I’m above that.’ May always was so sensible. Well, I’m glad poor Enid Sutton has got married at last … she’s gone off terrible these past three years waiting for Joe and not knowing if he’d ever come. And what about you, Pat dearie? I can’t imagine what the men are thinking of. Isn’t your widower a bit slow?” … with a smirk that had the same effect on Pat as a dig in the ribs … “Folks think he’s trying to back out of it but I tell them, ‘no, that’ll be a match yet.’ Just you encourage him a little more, dearie … that’s all he needs. To be sure, May said to me the other day,
I
wouldn’t take another woman’s leavings, ma.’ But you’re not getting any younger, Pat, if you’ll excuse my saying so.
I
was married when I was eighteen and I could have been married when I was seventeen. My dress was of red velvet and my hat was of black velvet with a green plume. Every one thought it elegant but I was disappointed. I’d always wanted to be wedded in a sky-blue gown, the hue of God’s own heaven.”

“Once of her poetical flights,” whispered Tillytuck to Judy. But Pat and Rae both heard him and almost choked trying not to laugh. Mrs. Binnie, who never dreamed any one could be laughing at her, kept on.

“Is it true the Kirks are putting up a sun-dial in the Long House garden?”

“Yes,” said Pat shortly.

“Well now, I never did hold with them modern inventions,” said Mrs. Binnie complacently. “An old-fashioned clock is good enough for ME.”

“Never mind,” said Rae, when Mrs. Binnie had finally waddled off to the “living room,” “it will soon be lilac time.”

“With white apple boughs framing a moon,” said Pat.

“And violets in the silver bush,” said Rae.

“And a new row of lilies to be planted along the dyke,” said Pat.

“And great crimson clovers in the Mince Pie Field.”

“And blue-eyed grass around the Pool …”

“And pussy-willows in Happiness …”

“And a dance of daisies along Jordan.”

“Oh, we’ve heaps of precious things left yet, Pat—things nobody, not even a Binnie can spoil.” Were the days when she could wash her being in the sunrise and feel as blithe as a bird gone forever? Perhaps they would come back when the new house would be built and Silver Bush was all their own again. But that was as yet far in the future. There was Judy coming across the yard, bringing in some drenched little chickens May had forgotten to put in. Was Judy getting bent? Pat shivered.

But still life seemed sadly out of tune, struggle as bravely as one might.

“I’ll have nothing to do with anything to-day but spring,” said Pat … even gaily. For May had gone home that morning and they had a whole day to be alone … three delightful meals to eat alone when they could sit around the table and talk as long as they liked in the old way. Sometimes Pat and Judy thought those frequent visits of May home were all that saved their reason. Everything seemed different. Judy vowed that the very washing machine ran easier when she was away. Even the house seemed to draw a breath of relief. It had never got used to May.

It had not been an easy spring at Silver Bush despite its beauty. Housecleaning with May was rather a heartbreaking business. She was so full of suggestions.

“Why not do away with that messy old front garden, Pat and make a real lawn?” … or, “I’d have a window cut there, Pat. This hall is really awfully dark in the afternoons.” … or, “The orchard is really trying to get into the house, Pat. Why not have that tree cut down?”

May simply could not or would not get it into her head that Pat was not having trees cut down. In regard to this particular tree, May was not, perhaps, so far wrong as in some of her suggestions. It really was too close to the house … a young apple tree that had started up of itself and grew so slyly that it was a tree before any one took much notice of it. Now it was pushing its boughs into the very window of the Big Parlour. When May spoke it was a thing of beauty, all starred with tiny red buds just on the point of bursting.

“I think it’s lovely having the orchard coming right into the house like this,” said Pat.

“You would,” said May. It was a favourite retort with her and she always contrived to put a vast amount of contempt into it.

None of her suggestions were adopted and May tearfully told her mother, in Judy’s hearing, that she “simply couldn’t do a thing in her husband’s house.” She was determined to have a “herbaceous border” and nagged at Sid until he interceded with Pat and it was decided that it might be made across the bottom of the little lawn, where hitherto nothing but lilies of the valley had grown wildly and thickly. There were plenty of other lilies of the valley about but Pat hated to see those ploughed up and May’s iris and delphiniums and what Mrs. Binnie called “concubines,” set in their place. Because May really did not care a bit for flowers. She wanted her herbaceous border because Olive had told her they were all the fashion now and every one in town was making one.

“Do you know that May badgered Sid at last into taking her back and showing her the Secret Field?” asked Rae.

Yes, Pat knew it. May had laughed on her return.

“I’ve seen your famous field, Pat … nothing but a little hole in the woods. And you’ve been making such a fuss over it all these years.”

To Pat it was the ultimate treason that Sid should have showed May the Secret Field … THEIR Secret Field. But she could not blame him. He had to do it for peace’ sake.

“You love your sister better than your wife,” May told him passionately, whenever he refused to do anything Pat didn’t want done. He and May had begun to quarrel violently and life at Silver Bush was made bitter all that summer by it. Meal times were the worst. The bickering between them was almost incessant.

“Oh, do let us have one meal without a fight,” Long Alec remarked in exasperation one day. Pat, who had been listening in silence to May’s sarcasm and Sid’s sulky replies, rose and went to her room.

“I can’t bear it any longer … I can’t,” she said wildly. She twitched the shade to pull it down and shut out the insulting sunlight. It escaped her and whizzed wildly to the top, thereby nearly scaring to death Bold-and-Bad, asleep on Rae’s bed.

“You don’t deserve a cat,” said Bold-and-Bad, or words to that effect.

Pat glared at him.

“To think that it has come to this at Silver Bush!”

Rae, coming in a little later with the mail and an armful of blossom, turned the key in the door. That was necessary now. There was no longer the old-time privacy at Silver Bush. May might bounce in on them at any time without the pretence of knocking. She merely laughed at the idea of knocking and called it “Silver Bush airs.”

“Pat, darling, don’t take it so to heart. I admit there’s a time every day when May makes me yearn for the good old days when you could pull peoples’ wigs off. But when I feel that way I just reflect what Brook’s eyes would make of her … can’t you see the twinkle in them? … and she shrinks to her proper perspective. It isn’t going to last forever.”

“It is … it is,” cried Pat wildly. “Rae, May doesn’t WANT to have a house built on the other place … she wants to have Silver Bush. I’ve heard her talking to Sid … I couldn’t help hearing … you know what her voice is like when she’s angry. ‘I’ll never go to live on the Adams’ place … it would be so far out of the world … you can’t move all them barns. You told me when you persuaded me to marry you that we would live at Silver Bush. And I’m going to … and it won’t be under the thumb of your old-maid sister either. She’s nothing but a parasite … living off your father when there’s nothing now to prevent her from going away and earning her own living when I’m here to run things.’ She’s doing her best to set Sid against us all … you know she is. And she attributes some petty motive to everything we do or say … or DON’T say. Remember the scene she made last week because I hadn’t taken any notice of her new dress … that awful concoction of cheap radium lace over that sleazy bright blue silk. I thought the kindest thing I could do was NOT to take notice of it. I was ashamed to think any one at Silver Bush could wear such a thing. And she tells Sid we’re always laughing at her.”

“Well, you DID laugh last night when she said that thing about the moon,” grinned Rae.

“Who could help it? I forgot myself in the delight of seeing that new moon over the crest of that fir in the silver bush and I pointed it out to May. ‘How cute!’ remarks my sister-in-law. And that creature is … by law … a Gardiner of Silver Bush!”