Pat of Silver Bush (27 page)

Harris tightened his arm.

“It mustn't be cross,” he said fatally.

Pat stepped back and removed his arm.

“I don't want to see you again, Harris Jemuel Hynes,” she said clearly and distinctly.

Harris found out eventually that she meant it.

“You're as fickle-minded as a breeze,” were his bitter parting words.

Pat was not worried over her fickleness but she was rather worried over the conviction that Harris had always taken a bit too much for granted from the start. He was what horrid May Binnie called horridly, “a fast worker.” And she, Pat Gardiner of Silver Bush, had fallen for it.

Judy used a dreadful phrase sometimes of certain girls…“a bit too willing.”

“Have I been too willing?” Pat asked herself solemnly.

When it became manifest that Pat's case with Harris Hynes was off she was tormented a good deal. Bets was very sweet and understanding and comforting, but Pat did not feel entirely easy until she had talked the matter over with Judy.

“Oh, Judy, it was very exciting while it lasted. But it didn't last.”

“Oh, oh, darlint, I niver thought it wud come to innything. Ye're too young for the sarious side. He was just a bit of an excursion like for ye. I wudn't be after criticizing him as long as ye'd a liking for him, Pat, but wasn't he a bit too free and aisy now? I do be liking the shy ones better that don't be calling the cows be their first name at the second visit. And he do be standing wid his legs too far apart of real illigance. Now did ye iver notice the way Jingle stands? Like a soldier. He do be such a diffrunt looking by since he do be wearing better clo'se and having his hair cut at Silverbridge, niver to mintion his stylish glasses.”

It was strange but rather nice just to feel quietly happy again, without thrills and chills and semi-demi-quavers.

“Sid and Hilary are better than all the beaus in the world, Judy. I'm never going to fall in love again.”

“Not before the nixt time innyway, Patsy.”

“There won't be any next time.”

“Oh, oh, it's much more comfortable not to be in love, I'm agreed. And wud ye be wanting that blue dress av yours much longer, darlint? It's all gone under the arms and it do be just the shade for that bit av blue scroll in me mat.”

“Oh, you can have it,” said Pat indifferently. She burned the letter just as indifferently. Nevertheless, years after, when she came across a little tasseled pencil in an old box in the attic she smiled and sighed.

Hilary came in with his lean brown hands filled with the first mayflowers for her and they went off on a ramble to Happiness.

“Sure and it's the happy b'y that Jingle is this blessed night,” chuckled Judy.

“Friendship is much more satisfactory than love,” Pat reflected, before she went to sleep.

One dim wet evening in early spring, when a shabby old world was trying to wash the winter grime from its face before it must welcome April, there was wild music among the birches and Pat listened to it as she chatted with Judy in the kitchen. Mother was tired and had been packed off to bed early. Somehow, everybody at Silver Bush, without saying anything about it, was becoming very careful of mother.

Cuddles was singing to herself in the Little Parlor…Cuddles had such a sweet voice, Pat reflected lovingly. Judy was mixing her bread with Gentleman Tom on one side of her and Bold-and-Bad on the other. Snicklefritz was curled up by the stove, snoring. Snicklefritz was getting old, as nobody would admit.

And then…there was the sound of footsteps on the stone walk. Dad or Sid coming in from the barn, thought Pat. But Snicklefritz knew better. In an instant he was awake and had hurled himself at the door in a frenzy of barks and scratches.

“Now, whativer's got into the dog?” said Judy. “Sure and it's long wakes since he bothered his liddle old head about inny stranger…and it's the quare dream I had last night…and, hivenly day, am I draming still?”

For the door was open and a bronzed young man was on the step…and Snicklefritz was speechless in ecstasy…and Pat had flown to his arms, wet as he was. Sid and dad were rushing in from the barn…and mother, who had been disobedient and hadn't gone to bed after all, was flying down stairs…and Bold-and-Bad was spitting and bristling at all this fuss over a stranger. And everybody was a little crazy because Joe had come home…Joe so changed and yet the same Joe…hugging mother and the girls and Judy and laughing at the antics of Bold-and-Bad and pretending to be in a fury because the white kittens in Judy's picture hadn't grown up after all.

They had a gay fortnight at Silver Bush. Snicklefritz simply refused to be parted one moment from Joe and insisted on sleeping on his bed at night. And every night Judy crept in to see if Joe was warm and ask the Good Man Above to bless him, as she had done when he was a child.

There were tales to tell of far lands and strange faces and everybody was happy. Pat was
too
happy, Judy thought, with several wise shakes of her head.

“The Ould Ones don't be giving ye a gift like that for nothing, as me grandmother used to say. No, no, you would have to be paying.”

And then Joe was gone again. And this time those he left knew that Joe would never belong to Silver Bush again. He would be home for a visit once in a while…with longer intervals between each visit…but his path was on the sea and his way on the great waters. To Pat came bitterly the realization that Joe was an outsider. The life of Silver Bush closed over his going with hardly a ripple.

“Judy, it seems a little terrible. I was so brokenhearted when Joe went away the first time…I felt sure I couldn't live without him. And now…I love him just as much as ever…and it was queer and lonely without him for a few days…but now it's as if he'd always been away. If…if he had
wanted
to stay home…it doesn't seem as if there was any real place for him. His old place seems to have grown over. And
that
hurts me, Judy.”

“It do be life, Patsy darlint. They come and they go. But there do be one liddle heart that can't find comfort. Do ye be looking at the eyes av that poor Snicklefritz. He's too old to be standing such another parting.”

Judy was right. The next morning Snicklefritz was found on Joe's bed, with his head on Joe's pillow. And Snicklefritz would waken no more to wail or weep. Pat and Sid and Hilary and Bets and Cuddles buried him in a corner of the old graveyard. Judy made no objections to this although she would never let a cat be buried there.

“I thought you liked cats better than dogs, Judy,” said Cuddles.

“I do that same, but a cat do be having no right in a graveyard,” was all Judy's explanation.

Cuddles prayed that night that Snicklefritz wouldn't be lonesome. Pat knew he wouldn't. He slept with his own. What more could an old dog ask? And perhaps on the nights when Wild Dick sang and Willy wept a jolly little ghost dog would come out of his grave and bark.

• • •

Pat and Bets were lingering by the little green gate at the top of the hill path, making plans. They were full of plans that spring…plans for the summer…plans for college in the fall…plans for life beyond. They were going to camp out for a week this summer…they were going to room together at Queen's…and in a few years' time they were going to take a trip to Europe. They had been planning imaginary journeys through all their years of comradeship but this one was going to be real…someday.

“Isn't it fun to make plans?” Pat would say happily.

They had spent the afternoon together at the Long House. Pat loved the Long House next to Silver Bush. It was a house that always invited you to enter…a house, Pat often thought, that always said, “So glad you've come.” Open doors…geraniums in the windows…wide, shallow, well-trodden steps up to the porch. Inside, to take off the chill of the early spring, glowing fires. They had read poetry, together savoring the wealth of beauty found in linked words; they had discussed their grievances. Bets' mother wouldn't let her wear pajamas but insisted on nightdresses. And Bets did so crave a lovely pair of yellow ones like Sara Robinson had. So up to date. They did a great deal of laughing, pouncing on their jokes like frolicsome young kittens. And at the end Bets walked to the green gate with Pat and stood there talking for another hour. They just couldn't get talked out. And anyway Pat was going the next day to the Bay Shore for a visit and there were so many last things to say. It was, they agreed, just tragic to be parted so long.

It was the first mild evening of that late, cold spring. Beyond the lowlands the sea was silver gray, save just at the horizon where there was a long line of shining gold. Far, far away a bell was ringing…some bell of lost Atlantis perhaps. A green, mystical twilight was screening all the bare, ugly fields from sight. Faint, enchanted star-fire shone over the spruces behind them. Down below them Uncle Tom was burning brush. Was there anything more fascinating than a fire in the open after night? And somewhere beyond those chilly skies was the real spring of blossom and the summer of roses. They gazed out over the world with all the old hill rapture no dweller in the valley ever knows. Oh, life was sweet together!

“Couldn't we have our tent back in the Secret Field the nights we sleep out?” said Bets. Bets knew about the Secret Field now. Sid had told her and Pat was glad. She couldn't have told herself, after her pact with Sid, but she hated to have Bets shut out of any of her secrets.

“Think of it,” she breathed. “Sleeping there…with the woods all around us…and the silver birches in the moonlight…we must arrange for a moon, of course. Bets, can't you
see
it?”

Bets could. Her cherry-blossom face, wrapped in a scarlet scarf, reflected Pat's enthusiasm. That scarf became Bets, Pat reflected. But then everything did. Her clothes always seemed to love her. She could wear the simplest dress like a queen. She was so pretty…and yet you always thought more of the sweetness than the prettiness of her face.

“Sid says we'd be scared to death back there,” she said. “But we won't. Not even if the wee green folks of the hills Judy talks about came to our tent door and peeped in.”

Suddenly the night laid its finger on their lips. Something uncanny…something fairy-like was abroad. The spruces on the hill against the pale sunset were all at once a company of old crones. They seemed to be listening to something. Then they would shake with scornful laughter. The near-by bushes rustled as if a faun had slipped through them. Pat and Bets instinctively put their arms around each other. At that moment they were elfin-hearted things themselves, akin to the shadows and the silences. They could have knelt down on the dear earth and kissed its clods for very gladness in it.

Did it last for a moment or a century? They could never have told. A light flashing out in the kitchen of Silver Bush recalled Pat to reality.

“I must go. Sid is going to run me over to the Bay Shore when the chores are done.”

“Tell them hello for me,” said Bets lightly.

“I wish you were going with me. Nothing has the same flavor without you, Bets.” Pat leaned over the gate and dropped a kiss on Bets' cool cheek. Life had as yet touched them both so lightly that parting was still “sweet sorrow.”

Pat ran lightly down the path, turning her back, although she knew it not, on her years of unshadowed happiness.

A flock of geese flying over in the April night…a gray cat pouncing out from the ferns in the Whispering Lane…lantern shadows in the barn-yard…a girl half-drunk with the sweet, heady wine of spring.

“Oh, Judy, life is so beautiful…and spring is so beautiful. Judy, how can you help dancing?”

“Dancing, is it?” Judy sat down with a grunt. She was tired and she did not like it because it meant that she was growing old. Judy had just one dread in life…that she might grow too old to be of use to Silver Bush. “Whin ye come to my years, Patsy darlint, dancing don't be coming so aisy. But dance while ye can…oh, oh, dance while ye can. And rap a bit av wood.”

Pat was to have stayed two weeks at the Bay Shore farm. She did not mind…much. She had learned how to get along with the aunts and they thought her “much improved.” A good bit of Selby in her after all. The Great-great had “passed away” a year ago but nothing else had changed at the Bay Shore. Pat liked this…it gave her a nice sensation of having cheated Time.

But at the end of a week Long Alec came for her one evening. And his face…

“Dad, is anything wrong? Mother…”

No, not mother. Bets. Bets had flu pneumonia.

Pat felt an icy finger touch…just touch…her heart.

“Why wasn't I sent for before?” she said very quietly.

“They didn't think she was in danger until this evening. She asked for you. I think we'll be in time.”

Bets “in danger”…“in time,”…the phrases made a meaningless jumble in Pat's head. The drive home was like a nightmare. Nothing was real. It couldn't be real. Things like this simply didn't happen. God wouldn't let them. Of course she would waken soon. Meanwhile…one must keep very quiet. If one said a word too much…one might have to go on dreaming. She had such a queer feeling that her heart was a stone…sinking, sinking, sinking…ever since that finger had touched it.

They drove up to Silver Bush. Pat would go up the hill path. It was quicker so because the lane of the Long House ran to the Silverbridge road. Judy caught Pat in her arms as she stumbled from the car.

“Judy…Bets…” but no, one must be quiet. One mustn't ask questions. One dared not.

“I'll walk up the hill with you, Pat.”

It was Hilary…a pale, set-lipped Hilary. Judy…wise Judy…whispered to him,

“No, let her be going alone, Jingle. It'll be…kinder.”

“Don't you think there's a little hope, Judy?” asked Hilary huskily.

Judy shook her head.

“I do be getting the sign, Jingle. It's a bit hard to understand. Ivery one loved her so. Sure and hiven must be nading some laughter.”

Pat didn't know whether she was alone or not. She ran breathlessly along the Whispering Lane and down the field and up the hill. The Watching Pine watched…
what
was
it
watching
for?
A grim red sun with a black bar of cloud across it was setting behind a dark hill as she reached the green gate. She turned for a moment…just a moment before one had to…know. As long as one didn't
know
one could live. The black sea of a cold gray April twilight was far below her. That far-away bell was still ringing. It was only a week since she and Bets had listened to it and made their plans for the summer. A thing like this couldn't come in a week…it would need years and years. How foolish she was to be…afraid. One
must
waken soon.

May Binnie was in the Long House kitchen when Pat went in…always pushing herself in where she wasn't wanted, Pat reflected detachedly. Then the room where she and Bets had slept and whispered and laughed…and Bets lying on the bed, pale and sweet…always sweet…breathing too quickly. There were others there…Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox…the nurse…but Pat saw only Bets.

“Dearest Pat…I'm so glad you've come,” Bets whispered.

“Darling…how are you?”

“Better, Pat…much better…only a little tired.”

Of course she was better. One had known she must be.

Why, then, didn't one waken?

Someone put a chair by the bed for Pat and she sat down. Bets put out a cold hand…how very thin it had grown…and Pat took it. The nurse came up with a hypodermic. Bets opened her eyes.

“Let Pat do that for me, please. Let Pat do everything for me now.”

The nurse hesitated. Then someone else…Dr. Bentley…came up.

“There is no use in giving any more hypodermics,” he said. “She has ceased to react to them. Let her…rest.”

Pat heard Mrs. Wilcox break into dreadful sobbing and Mr. Wilcox led her from the room. The doctor went, too. The nurse adjusted the shade of the light. Pat sat movelessly. She would not speak…no word must disturb Bets' rest. Bets must be better if she were resting. Now and then she felt Bets' fingers give a gentle little pressure against her own. Very gently Pat squeezed back. In a few days she and Bets would be laughing over this…next summer when they would be sleeping in their tent in the moonlit Secret Field it would be such a joke to recall…

“My breath…is getting…very short,” said Bets.

She did not speak again. At sunrise a little change came over her face…such a little terrible change.

“Bets,” cried Pat imploringly. Bets had always answered when she called before. Now she did not even lift the heavy white lids of her beautiful eyes. But she was smiling.

“It's…over,” said the nurse softly.

Pat heard someone…Bets' mother…give a piteous moan. She went over to the window and looked out. The sky in the east was splendid. Below in the valley the silver birches seemed afloat in morning mists. Far-off the harbor lighthouse stood up, golden-white against the sunrise. Smoke was curling up from the roofs of Swallowfield and Silver Bush.

Pat wished sickly that she could get back into last year. There were no nightmares there.

The room was so dreadfully still after all the agony. Pat wished someone would make a noise. Why was the nurse tiptoeing about like that? Nothing could disturb Bets now…Bets who was lying there with the dawn of some eternal day on her face.

Pat went over and looked at her quite calmly. Bets looked like someone with a lovely secret. Bets had always looked like that…only now one knew she would never tell it. Pat dimly recalled some text she had heard ages ago…last Sunday in the Bay Shore church.
I
am
come
into
deep
waters
where
the
floods
overflow
me.
If one could only wake!

“I think if I could cry my throat wouldn't ache so much,” she thought dully.

• • •

Home…mother's silent hand-clasp of sympathy…Winnie's kind blue eyes…Judy's anxious, “Patsy darlint, ye've had no breakfast. Can't ye be ating a liddle bite? Ye must be kaping up yer strength. Don't grieve, me jewel. Sure and they tell me she died smiling…she's gone on a glad journey.”

Pat was not grieving. Death was still incredible. Her family wondered at her calm.

“There's something in her isn't belaving it yet,” said Judy shrewdly.

The days were still a dream. There was the funeral. Pat walked calmly up to the Long House by the hill path. She would not have been surprised to see Bets coming dancing through the green gate to meet her. She glanced up at the window that used to frame Bets' laughing face…surely she must be there.

The Long House was full of people. May Binnie was there…May Binnie was crying…May Binnie who had always hated Bets. And her mother was trying to comfort her!

That was
funny.
If only Bets could share in her amusement over it!

But Bets only lay smiling with that white, sweet peace on her waxen face and Hilary's cluster of pussywillows from the tree in Happiness between her fingers. There were flowers everywhere. The Sunday School had sent a cross with the motto,
Gone
Home,
on it. Pat would have laughed at that, only she knew she was never going to laugh again. Home!
This
was Bets' home…the Long House and the garden she had loved and planned for. Bets was
not
gone home…she had only gone on an uncompanioned journey from which she must presently return.

May Binnie almost had hysterics when the casket was closed. Many people thought Pat Gardiner was very unfeeling. Only a discerning few thought that fierce, rebellious young face more piteous than many tears.

If only she could get away by herself! Somewhere where people could not look at her. But, if one persisted in dreaming, one must go to the graveyard. She went with Uncle Tom, because Sid and Hilary, who were pall-bearers, had taken the car. Spring still refused to come and it was a bleak, dull day. A few snowflakes were falling on the gray fields. The sea was black and grim. The cold road was hard as iron. And so they came to the little burying-ground on a western hill that had been flooded with many hundreds of sunsets, where there was a heap of red clay and an empty grave. The boys Bets had played around with carried her to it over a path heaped with the sodden leaves of a vanished year; and Pat listened unflinchingly to the most dreadful sound in the world…the sound of the clods falling on the coffin of the beloved.

“She is in a Better Place, my dear,” Mrs. Binnie was saying to the sobbing May behind her. Pat turned.

“Do you think there is a better place than Silver Bush and the Long House farm?” she said. “I don't…and I don't think Bets did either!”

“That awful girl,” Mrs. Binnie always said when she told of it. “She talked like a perfect heathen.”

Pat wakened from her dream that evening. The sun set. Then came darkness…and the hills and trees drawing nearer…no light in Bets' window.

Pat had never really believed that any one she loved could die. Now she had learned the bitter lesson that it is possible…that it does happen.

“Let me be alone tonight, Winnie,” she said; and Winnie sympathetically went away to the Poet's room.

Pat undressed and crept into bed, shivering. The wind at the window was no longer a friend…it was a malignant thing. She was so lonely…it was impossible to endure such loneliness. If she could only sleep…sleep! But then there would be such a dreadful awakening and remembering.

Bets was…dead. She, who loved everything beautiful, was now lying in that cold, damp grave on the hill with the long grasses and withered leaves blowing drearily around it. Pat buried her face in her pillow and the long-denied tears came in a flood.

“Darlint…darlint…don't be mourning like this.”

Judy had crept in…dear, tender old Judy. She was kneeling by the bed and her arms were about the tortured creature.

“Oh, Judy, I didn't know life could ever hurt like this. I can't bear it, Judy.”

“Dear heart, we do all be thinking that at first.”

“I can never forgive God for taking her from me,” gasped Pat between her racking sobs.

“Child dear, whoiver heard av not forgiving God,” said the horrified Judy who did not know her Omar. “But He won't be holding it aginst ye.”

“Life has all gone to pieces, Judy. And yet I have to go on living. How can I?”

“Sure and ye've only got to live one day at a time, darlint. One can always be living just one more day.”

“She was such a dear, Judy…we had so many plans…I
can't
go to Queen's without her. Oh, Judy, our friendship was so beautiful. Why didn't God let it go on? Doesn't He like beautiful things?”

“Sure and we can't be telling what He has in mind but we can be belaving it's nothing but good. Maybe He was wanting to
kape
your friendship beautiful, Patsy darlint.”