Mistress Pat (28 page)

Tillytuck did not show up for supper, having gone on an errand, real or pretended, to Silverbridge. But he slipped into the kitchen at night, when Judy and Rae and Pat were roasting apples around the fire, and slid into his own corner. Judy bustled about to get him a liddle bite and was markedly cordial. Sure and couldn't she be as civil to Tillytuck now as she pleased when nobody could ever again be thinking she was setting her cap for him!

“I suppose you were all a bit surprised to learn I was a family man?” he said, in a tone of mingled sheepishness and bravado.

“Tillytuck, tell us all about it,” pleaded Rae. “We're dying of curiosity.”

Tillytuck fitted his fingertips carefully together. “There ain't much to tell,” he said…and proceeded to tell it, punctuated by gentle snorts from Judy.

“I've often wondered how I came to do it. It all begun with a moon. You can never trust a moon.”

“Oh, oh, we must have something to blame our mistakes on,” said Judy, good-humoredly, as she set a large plateful of his favorite cinnamon buns beside him on the corner of the table.

“I'd known her for some time in a kind of a way, but the first time I really met her was at a friend's house and we sot out on the porch and talked. She was a fine figger of a woman then…some meat on her bones…and them eyes of hers was kind of devastating by moonlight. I won't deny there was a touch of glamour about it. But I didn't really mean to propose to her…honest, I didn't. It
wasn't
a proposal…just a kind of a hint. Partly out of sympathy and partly because of the moon. But she snapped me up so quick I was an engaged man before I knew what had happened to me. Hog-tied, that's what I was. Well, we was married and went to live in her house. It was rather prosy for a man of my romantic temperament but we was well enough for a spell, though the boys called us the long and short of it. I was devoted to that woman, Judy. (Snort.) Many a time I've got up in the middle of the night and made a cup of tea for her. She always liked a cup of tea when she got up in the night. Claimed it was good for her heart. And she was the best wife in the world except for a few things. She sighed too much and she used to get hopping mad if I hung my cap on the wrong hook. Likewise she had an edge to her tongue if I went in without scraping my boots. I ain't denying we had a few surface quarrels but no more than enough to spice life up a bit. It was her theology we went to the mat about finally. I couldn't stomach it and I told her so. She was a fundamentalist…oh, was she a fundamentalist? I was one myself but I wouldn't give her the satisfaction of admitting it, and anyhow I stopped short at predestination. As for my saying there was no Adam or Eve I was only talking poetically out when I saw how she got her dander up over it I pretended to be in earnest. From that on there was no living with her and when she up and told me to go I went as quick as I could get. I was tired of her lumpy gravy anyhow, and the dishwater she called soup. If she'd been a cook like you, Judy, I could have believed in anything.”

Tillytuck rumbled and took a large bite out of a cinnamon bun.

“Life would be dull if we hadn't a few traggedies to look back on,” he said philosophically.

But three days later the world of Silver Bush temporarily toppled into chaos. Tillytuck had given warning.

Everybody went into a state of consternation. Long Alec and Sid, because they were losing a good man, Judy and Rae and Pat, because they were losing Tillytuck. It did not seem possible. He had been a part of their life so long that it was unthinkable that he could cease to be such. Another change, thought Pat sadly.

“It's just that he feels he's lost face,” said Rae. “He would never have thought of going if that horrid woman hadn't come here and given him away. That is his real reason for going, whatever he may say. I'm just going to sit here and hate her hard.”

“It do be too bad ye can't be putting up wid us inny longer,” said Judy bitterly to him that evening.

“You know it ain't that, Judy. I've stayed longer here than any place I've been in. But I'm getting too contented here. It's always been my motto to move on if I got too contented anywhere. And I'll admit there's been too much Binnie around here of late for my liking. Besides, I'm getting on in years. You can't escape Anno Domini. Farm work on a place like this is a bit hard on me now. I've saved up a little money and me and a friend on the South Shore are going to start up a fox ranch of our own. But I'll never forget you folks here. I'll miss your soup, Judy.”

There was a tremble in Tillytuck's voice. Judy was setting the supper-table and trying to make an obstreperous salt-cellar shake. Suddenly she snatched it up and hurled it through the open window.

“I've put up wid that thing for twinty years,” she said savagely, “but I'll not be putting up wid it another day.”

Tillytuck went away one bleak November evening. He turned in the doorway for a last word.

“May the years be kind to ye all, speaking poetically,” he said. “You are as fine a bunch of folks as I ever had the good luck to live among. You understand a man of my caliber. It's a great thing to be understood. Long Alec is the right kind of a man to work for and your mother is a saint if ever there was one. I haven't cried since I was a child but I come near it when she told me good-bye before she went up to bed. If that wild woman of mine ever pays you another call, Judy, for pity's sake don't tell her I believe in predestination now. If she knew it she'd drag me back by hook or crook. I'll send for my radio when I get settled. Ajoo.”

He waved his hand with a courtly air, sniffed sadly the aroma of Judy's beans and onions, and turned his back on her cheery domain. They watched him going down the lane in the dim, with his stuffed owl under his arm and the same old fur cap on his head that he had worn upon his arrival. Just Dog walked close beside him, with a tail that had apparently no wag left in it. A weird moon with a cloud-ribbed face was rising over the Hill of the Mist. The surging of wind in the tree branches was very mournful.

Rae's face crumpled up.

“I…I…think I'd like to cry,” she said chokily. “Do you remember the night he came? You sent me to show him the way to the granary and he said ‘Good-night, little Cuddles,' as he went up the stair. I felt he was an old friend then.”

“Sure and I wish I'd niver found fault wid him for playing his fiddle in the graveyard,” said Judy. “Maybe the poor soul will niver get a taste ave dape apple pie again. That wife av his was wondering what wud become av his soul but I'm wondering what's going to happen to his poor body.”

“He was a genial old soul,” said Mrs. Binnie.

“There was something so quaint about him,” whimpered May.

Pat wanted to cry but wouldn't because May was doing it. She slipped an arm about Judy, who, somehow, was looking strangely old.

“Anyway, we've got Silver Bush and you left,” she whispered.

Judy poked the fire fiercely.

“Sure and it's a could world and we must all do our bist to bring a liddle warmth into it,” she said briskly.

And so passed Josiah Tillytuck from the annals of Silver Bush.

Life seemed to change somehow at Silver Bush after Tillytuck's going though it was hard just to put your finger on the change. The evenings in the kitchen didn't seem half so jolly for one thing, lacking the rivalry in tale-telling between Judy and Tillytuck. Tillytuck's place had been taken by young Jim Macaulay from Silverbridge who was efficient as a worker but was only “young Jim Macaulay.” He occupied the granary chamber but when evening came he departed on his own social pursuits. He never went on “sprees” and was more amenable to suggestion than Tillytuck had been, so that Long Alec liked him. But Judy said the pinch av salt had been left out of him. Pat was just as well pleased; nobody could ever take Tillytuck's place and it was as well there was nobody to try. She spent more evenings at the Long House that winter than ever before. David sometimes came down but he was always rather a misfit in Judy's kitchen. She Mr. Kirked him so politely and always shut up like a clam. He and Pat were, as Pat frequently told herself, very happy in their engagement. They had such a nice friendly understanding. No nonsense. Just good comradeship and quiet laughter and a kiss or two. Pat did not mind David's kisses at all.

So another winter slipped away…another miracle of spring was worked…another summer brought its treasures to Silver Bush. And one evening Pat read in the paper that the
Ausonia
had arrived at Halifax. The next day the wire came from Hilary. He was coming to the Island for just a day.

Rae found Pat in a kind of trance in their room.

“Rae…Hilary is coming…Hilary! He will be here tomorrow night.”

“How jolly!” gasped Rae. “I was just a kid when he went away but I remember him well. Pat, you look funny. Won't you be glad to see him?”

“I would be glad to see the Hilary who went away,” said Pat restlessly. “But will he be? He must have changed. We've all changed. Will he think I've got terribly old?”

“Pat, you goose! When you laugh you look about seventeen. Remember he has grown older himself.”

But Pat couldn't sleep that night. She re-read the telegram before she went to bed. It meant Hilary…Hilary and the fir-scented Silver Bush…Hilary and the water laughing over the rocks in happiness…Hilary and snacks in Judy's kitchen. But did it…could it? Could the gulf of years be bridged so easily?

“Of course we'll be strangers,” thought Pat miserably. But no…no. Hilary and she could never be strangers. To see him again…to hear his voice…she had not been thrilled like this for years. Did his eyes still laugh when they looked at you? With that hint of wistful appeal back of their laughter? And in the back of her mind, thrust out of sight, was a queer relief that David was away. He and Suzanne had gone for a visit to Nova Scotia. Pat would not acknowledge the relief or look at it.

Judy was almost tremulous over the news. She spent the next day making all the things she knew Hilary had liked in the old days and polished everything in the kitchen till it shone. Even the white kittens and King William and Queen Victoria all had their faces washed. May said you would have thought the Prince of Wales was coming.

“I suppose he'll be married as soon as he gets back to Vancouver,” she said.

“Oh, oh, that's as the Good Man Above wills,” said Judy, “and neither you nor I do be having innything to do wid it.”

“Pat always wanted him, didn't she?” said May. “She never took up with David Kirk until she heard Hilary was engaged.”

“Pat niver ‘wanted' him,” retorted Judy. “The shoe was on the other foot intirely. But ye cudn't be understanding.”

She muttered under her breath as she went into the pantry, “‘Spake not in the ears av a fool.'” May overheard it and shrugged. Who cared what Judy said!

There was a whispering of rain in the air and a growl of thunder when Pat went up to dress for Hilary's coming. She tried on three dresses and tore them off in despair. Finally she slipped on her old marigold chiffon. After all, yellow was her color. She fluffed out her brown hair and looked at herself with a little bit of exultation such as she had not felt for a long while. The mirror was still a friend. She was flushed with excitement…her gold-brown eyes were starry…surely Hilary would not think her so very much changed.

She moved restlessly about the room, changing things aimlessly, then changing them back again. What was it David had read to her from a poem the night before he went away?

“
Nothing
in
earth
or
heaven

Comes
as
it
came
before
!”

It couldn't be the old Hilary who was coming.

“And I can't bear it if he is a stranger…I
can't
,” she thought passionately. “It would be better if he never came back if he comes as a stranger.”

All at once she did something she couldn't account for. She pulled David's diamond and sapphire ring off her finger and dropped it in a tray on her table. She felt a thrill of shame as she did it…but she
had
to do it. There was some inner compulsion that would not be disobeyed.

Rae came running up.

“Pat, he's here…he's getting out of a car in the yard.”

“I simply can't go down to see him,” gasped Pat, going momentarily to pieces. “He'll be so changed…”

“Nonsense. There is Judy letting him in. He'll be in the Big Parlor…hurry.”

Pat ran blindly downstairs. She collided with somebody in the hall…she never knew who it was. She stood in the doorway for a moment. It was a very poignant moment. Afterwards Pat was sure she had never experienced anything like it. She always maintained she knew exactly what she would feel like on the resurrection morning.

“Jingle!” The old name came spontaneously to her lips. It
was
Jingle…Jingle and no stranger. How could she ever have feared he would be a stranger? He was holding her hands.

“Pat…Pat…I've years of things to say to you…but I'll say them all in one sentence…you haven't changed. Pat, I've been so terribly afraid you would have changed. But it was only yesterday we parted at the bridge over Jordan. But why aren't you laughing, Pat? I've always seen you laughing.”

Pat couldn't laugh just then. Next day…next hour she might laugh. But now at this longed-for meeting after so many years she must be quiet for a space.

Yet they had a wonderful evening…just she and Hilary and a rejuvenated Judy…and of course the cats…in the old kitchen. May was luckily away and Rae considerately effaced herself. Outside the whole world might be a welter of wind and flame and water but here was calm and beauty and old delight. It was so enchanting to be shut away from the storm with Hilary…just as of yore…to be drinking amber tea and eating Judy's apple-cake with him and talking of old days and fun and dreams.

He
had
changed a little after all. His delicately cut face was more mature and had lost its boyish curves. His slim figure…so nicely lean…had an added distinction and poise. But his eyes still laughed wistfully and his thin, sensitive lips still parted in the old intriguing smile. She suddenly knew what it was she had always liked in David's smile. It was a little like Hilary's.

Hilary, looking at Pat, saw, as he had always seen, all his fancies, hopes, dreams in a human shape. She, too, had changed a little. More womanly…even more desirable. Her sweet brown face…her quick twisted smile…the witchery of her brown eyes…they were all as he had remembered them. How lovely was the curve of her chin and neck melting into the glow of mellow lamplight behind her! She looked all gold and rose and laughter. And she had the same trick of lifting her eyes which had been wont to set his head spinning long ago…a trick all the more effective because it was so wholly unconscious.

How much like old times it was…and was not! Time had been kind to the old place. But Gentleman Tom and McGinty had gone and Judy had grown old. She looked at him with all her old affection in her gray-green eyes but the eyes were more sunken than he remembered them and the hair more grizzled. Yet she could still tell a story and she could still produce a gorgeous “liddle bite.” Through years of boarding houses Hilary had always remembered Judy's “liddle bites.”

“Judy, will you leave me that picture of the white kittens when…a hundred years from now I hope…you are finished with the things of this planet?”

“Oh, oh, but I will that,” Judy promised. “It do be the only picture I've iver owned. I did be bringing it wid me from the ould sod and I wudn't know me kitchen widout it.”

“I'll hang it in my study,” said Hilary.

“In one of thim wonderful new houses ye'll be building,” said Judy slyly. “Sure and ye've got on a bit, haven't ye, Jingle? Oh, oh, will ye be excusing me? I'm knowing I shud be saying Mr. Gordon.”

“Don't you know what would happen to you if you called me that, Judy? I love to hear the old nickname. As for getting on…yes, I suppose I have. I've got about everything I ever wanted”…“except,” he added, but only in thought, “the one thing that mattered.”

Judy caught his look at Pat and went into the pantry, ostensibly to bring out some new dainty but really to shut the door and relieve her feelings.

“Oh, oh, I'm not wishing
Mr
. Kirk innything but good,” she told the soup tureen, “but if he'd just vanish inty thin air I'd be taking it as a kind act av the Good Man Above.”

The glow at Pat's heart when she went to sleep was with her when she woke and went with her through the day…an exquisite day of sunshine when beauty seemed veritably to shimmer over fields and woods and sea…when there were great creamy cloud-mountains with amber valleys beyond the hills…when the air was full of the sweet smell of young grasses in early morning. Pat and Hilary went back into the past. Its iridescence was over everything they looked at. They went to the well down which Hilary had once gone to rescue a small cat…and Pat, looking down it as she had not looked for a long time, saw the old Pat-of-the-Well with Hilary's face beside her in its calm, fern-fringed depths. They made pilgrimages to the Field of the Pool and the Mince Pie Field and the Buttercup Field and the Field of Farewell Summers. They went to the orchard and saw the little glade among the spruces of the Old Part where all the Silver Bush cats were buried.

“I wonder if the spirits of all the pussy folk and the doggy folk I've loved will meet me with purrs and yaps of gladness at the pearly gates,” said Pat whimsically, as they went through the graveyard to McGinty's grave. “We buried him right here, Hilary. He was such a dear little dog. I've never had the heart for a dog since. Dogs come and go…Sid always has one for the cows…and May's dog isn't so bad as dogs go…but I can never let myself really love a dog again.”

“I've never had one either. Of course I've never had a place I could keep a dog and do justice to him. Someday…perhaps….” Hilary stopped and looked at Judy's whitewashed stones along the graveyard paths and around her “bed” of perennials…Judy did not hold with herbaceous borders…by the turkey house, where bloomed gallant delphiniums higher than your head. May could never understand why her delphiniums didn't flourish the way Judy's did.

“It's jolly to see these again. I'll have some whitewashed stones…” Hilary checked himself again. He gazed about him greedily. “I've seen many wonderful abodes since I went away, Pat…palaces and castles galore…but I've never seen any place so absolutely
right
as Silver Bush. It's good to be here again and find it so unchanged.”

“I've tried to keep it so,” said Pat warmly.

“To see the Swallowfield chimney over there”…Hilary seemed to be speaking to himself…“and the delphiniums…and the Field of the Pool…and those Lombardies far away on that purple hill. Only there used to be three of them. Even McGinty must be somewhere round, I think. I'm expecting to feel his warm, rough little tongue on my hand any moment. Do you remember the time we lost McGinty and Mary Ann McClenahan found him for us? I really believed she was a witch that night.”

Their conversation was punctuated with “do you remembers.” “Do you remember the night you found me lost on the Base Line road?”…“Do you remember how you used to signal to me from the garret window?”…“Do you remember the time we were so afraid your father was going out west?”…“Do you remember the time the tide caught us in Tiny Cove?”…“Do you remember the time you almost died of scarlet fever?”…“Do you remember”…this was Pat's question, very tender and gentle…“do you remember Bets?”

“It seems as if your coming had brought her back, too…I feel that she
must
be up there at the Long House and might come lilting down the hill at any moment.”

“Yes, I remember her. She was a sweet thing. Who is living in the Long House now?”

“David and Suzanne Kirk…brother and sister…friends of mine…they're away just now.” Pat spoke rather jerkily. “Shall we have our walk back to Happiness now, Hilary?”

Our walk back to Happiness! Was it possible to walk back to happiness? At all events they tried it. They went through a golden summer world…through the eternal green twilight of the silver bush…through the field beyond…over the old stone bridge across Jordan.

“We made a good job of that, didn't we?” said Hilary. “There isn't a stone out of place after all these years.”

It was all so like the old days. They were boy and girl again. The wind companioned them gallantly and feathery bent-grasses bathed their feet in coolness. On every hand were little green valleys full of loveliness. Everything was wrapped in the light of other days. The dance of sunbeams in the brook shallows was just as it had been so many years ago. And so they came to Happiness and the Haunted Spring again.