Mistress Pat (33 page)

One evening two weeks later Pat slipped away in the twilight and went along the Whispering Lane like a ghost, to where home had been. She had never dared to go before. But something drew her now.

Where Silver Bush had been was only a yawning cellar full of ashes and charred beams. Pat leaned on the old yard gate…which had not burned because the wind had blown the flames back against the bush…and looked long and quietly about her. She wore her long blue coat and the little dress of crinkled red crepe she had worn to church…the only clothes she owned just now. Her head was bare and her face was very pale.

The evening was soft and gentle and almost windless. No living thing stirred near her except a lean adventurous barn cat that picked its way gingerly through the yard. Bold-and-Bad and Popka had been transferred to Swallowfield and Winnie had taken Squedunk.

It hurt Pat worse than anything else to see the dead stark trees of the birch grove. She shuddered as she recalled standing there that fatal Sunday and seeing the flames ravage them. It had seemed to hurt her even more than seeing her home burn…those trees she had always loved…trees that had been akin to her. More than half the bush was killed. The old aspen by the kitchen door was only a charred stump and the maple over the well was an indecency. The hood of the well was burned. May would have a pump put in now. But that didn't matter. Nothing mattered.

All the flower clumps near the house had been burned…Judy's bleeding-heart…the southernwood…the white lilac. The lawn itself looked like an old yellow blanket. Beyond stretched a russet land of shadows and lonely furrows and woods that stirred faintly in their dreams. Far away, in the direction of Silverbridge, Angus Macaulay must have been working in his forge for she could hear the ring of his anvil, faintly clear, as if some goblin forger were at work among the hills.

“I suppose I can teach,” thought Pat. “I have my old license. They won't need me at the Bay Shore…they've had Anna Palmer there for years to help and she'll stay on. But I can't build up a new life…I'm too tired. I'll just go on existing…withering into unimportance…drifting from one place to another…rootless…living in houses I hate…oh, can it be I standing here looking at the place where Silver Bush was?…that old Bible verse…‘it shall be a heap forever…it shall not be built again'…I wish that were true…I wish no house could ever be built here again…it will be a desecration. Oh, if I could only wake up and find it all a dream!”

“Pat, darling,” said a voice from the shadows around her.

She turned…incredulous…amazed…

“Jingle!”

The old name sprang to her lips. The autumn dusk was no longer cold and loveless over the remote hills. Something seemed to have come with him…courage…hope…inspiration…that same dear sense of protection and understanding that had come to her that evening of long ago when he had found her lost in the dark on the Base Line road. She held out both her hands but he caught her in his arms…his lips were seeking hers…a tremor half fear, half delight, shook her. And then that old, old, unacknowledged ache of loneliness she had tried to stifle with Silver Bush vanished forever. His lips were on hers…and she
knew
. It was like a tide turning home.

“I've made you mine forever with that kiss,” he said triumphantly. “You can never belong to anyone else. And I've waited long enough for it,” he added with his old laugh.

Pat stood quivering with his arms about her. Life was not over after all…it was only beginning.

“I…I don't deserve you, Hilary,” she whispered humbly. “It seems…it seems…oh, are you
really
here? I'm not dreaming it, am I?”

“I'm real, sweetheart…joy…delight…wonder! I started as soon as I saw the account of the fire in an Island paper. But I was coming anyway…I had only been waiting to finish our house. I know what this tragedy of Silver Bush must have meant to you…but I've a home for you by another sea, Pat. And in it we'll build up a new life and the old will become just a treasury of dear and sacred memories…of things time cannot destroy. Will you come to it with me?”

“I'll go to the end of the world and back with you, Hilary. I can't understand my not knowing all these years that it was you I loved. Those other men…some of them were so nice…I thought I couldn't marry them because I couldn't leave Silver Bush…but I know now it was because they weren't
you…
.”

“Are you really my girl…
my
girl at last, Pat? You remember how furiously you used to deny it? And your eyes are as brown as ever, Pat. I can't see in this dimness but I'm sure they are. And I know you look just as much as ever like a creamy rose with gold in its heart. Do you know, Pat, I never got your letter or Judy's kittens till two months ago? I've been in Japan for over a year, studying Japanese architecture. Letters were forwarded but parcels weren't. And you broke the postal laws shamelessly by tucking your letter inside the parcel. Dearest, let's go into the old graveyard and sit on a slab. I want to have you wholly to myself for an hour before we go back to Swallowfield. There's going to be a moonrise tonight…how long is it since we watched a moonrise together?”

“A moonrise tonight.” That was always a magical phrase. Pat was in a maze of happiness as they walked to the old graveyard and sat on Weeping Willy's flat tombstone. She hadn't felt like this for years…had believed she could never feel like this again…as if some supernal musician had swept her very soul with his fingers and evolved some ethereal harmony. Was it possible life could always be so rich…so poignant…so
significant
as this?

“I want to tell you all about the home I have ready for you,” said Hilary. “When I came back from Japan and found the picture and your letter I wanted to come east at once. But that very day when I was prowling on the heights above the city I found a spot…a spot I
recognized,
although I had never seen it before…a spot that
wanted
me. There was a spring in the corner with a little brook trickling out…four darling little apple trees in another corner…and a hill of pines behind it, with a river and a mountain within neighborly distance…a faint blue mountain. I don't know its name but we'll call it the Hill of the Mist. That spot was just crying for a house to be built on it. So…I built one. It's waiting for you. It's a dear house, Pat…fat red chimneys…sharp little gables on the side of the roof…a door that says ‘come in' and another one that says, ‘stay out.' It's painted white and has bottle green shutters like Silver Bush.”

“It sounds heavenly, Hilary…but I'd live in an igloo in Greenland if you were there.”

“There's a lovely jam closet,” said Hilary slyly. “I thought you'd want one.”

Pat's eyes flickered.

“Of course I want one. While I live and move and have my being I'll want a jam closet,” she said decidedly. “And we'll have Judy's rugs on the floor and the old Silver Bush knocker on the door that says ‘come in.'”

“The dining-room has a wide, low window opening into the pine wood at the back. We can eat with the sound of the pines in our ears. And from the other window we can see the sunset while we eat our supper. I've built the house, Pat…I've provided the body but you must provide the soul. There's a lovely big fireplace that can hold real logs…I left it all laid ready for lighting…you will light the fire and make the room live.”

“Like the old kitchen at Silver Bush. It
will
be home-like.”

“You could make any place home-like, Pat. We'll sit there caring only when we want to care for what is outside…wind or rain, mist or moonshine. We'll have a dog that wags his tail when he sees us…more than one. Lots of jolly little dogs and furry kittens. And a Silver Bush cat. I suppose Bold-and-Bad is too old to endure emigration to a far land.”

“Yes, he must end his days at Swallowfield. Aunt Barbara loves him. But I'm sure it will be possible to send a kitten by express—it has been done. Hilary, why did you give up writing to me?”

“I thought it wasn't any use. I thought the only decent thing to do was to leave you in peace. Besides, you
were
taking me too much for granted, Pat. You were blinded by our years of friendship. When can we be married, Pat?”

“As soon as you like,” said Pat shamelessly. “At least…when I've had time to get a few clothes. I haven't a rag but what I'm wearing.”

“We'll spend our honeymoon in a chalet in the Austrian Tyrol, Pat. I picked it out years ago. Then we'll go home…
home
. Listen to me rolling the word under my tongue. I've never had a home, you know. Oh, how tired I am of living in other people's houses! Pat, there is water in the house, of course, but I've made a little well out of the spring in the corner and stoned it up…a delightful little well where we can dip up water under the ferns. And we'll put a saucer of milk there every night for the fairies. Judy's white kittens are already hanging on the wall of our living room and that old china dog with the blue eyes you gave me years ago is squatting on the mantelpiece.”

“Hilary, you don't mean to say you've got that yet?”

“Haven't I! It has gone everywhere with me…it's been my mascot. We'll make it a family heirloom. And I have a few things picked up in my wanderings you'll love, Pat.”

“Is there a good place for a garden?”

“The best. We'll have a garden, my very own dear…with columbine for the fairies and poppies for dancing shadows and marigolds for laughter. And we'll have the walks picked off with whitewashed stones. Slugs and spiders and blight and mildew will never infest it, I feel sure. You've always been a sort of half-cousin to the fairies and you ought to be able to keep such plagues away.”

Delightful nonsense! Was it she, Pat, who was laughing at it…she, who had been in such despair an hour ago? Miracles
did
happen. And it was so easy to laugh when Hilary was about. That new, far, unseen home would be as full of laughter as Silver Bush had been.

“And Rae will be somewhere near after two years,” thought Pat.

They sat in a trance of happiness, savoring “the unspent joy of all the unborn years” in the moonlight and waving shadows of the ancient graveyard where so many kind old hearts rested. They had been dust for many years but their love lived on. Judy had been right. Love did not…could not die.

The moon had risen. The sky was like a great silver bowl pouring down light over the world. A little wind raised and swayed the long hair-like grass growing around the slab on Judy's grave, giving the curious suggestion of something prisoned under it trying to draw a long breath and float upward.

“I wish Judy could have known of this,” said Pat softly. “Dear old Judy…she always wanted it.”

“Judy knew it would come to pass. She sent me this. I got it in Japan after months of delay. I would have started for Silver Bush at the moment if I could have, but it was impossible to arrange. And anyway…I thought I might have a better chance if I waited a decent interval.”

Hilary had taken a cheap crumpled envelope from his pocket book and extracted a sheet of bluelined paper.

“Dear Jingle,” Judy had printed on it in faint, straggling letters, “She has give David Kirk the air. I'm thinking you'd have a good chance if you'd come back.

Judy Plum.”

“Dear, dear old Judy,” said Pat. “She must have written that on her dying bed…look how feeble some of the letters are…and got somebody to smuggle it out to the mailbox for her.”

“Judy knew that would bring me back from the dead,” said Hilary with pardonable exaggeration. “She died knowing it. And, Pat,” he added quickly, sensing that she was too near tears for a betrothal hour, “will you make soup for me like Judy's when we're married?”

Just as they had admitted they must really return to Swallowfield a gray shadow leaped over the paling, poised for a moment on Judy's slab and then skimmed away.

“Oh, there's Bold-and-Bad,” cried Pat. “I must catch him and take him back. He's too old to be left out o'nights.”

“This evening belongs to me,” said Hilary firmly. “I won't let you go chasing cats…not even Bold-and-Bad. He'll follow us back without any chasing. I've found something I once thought I'd lost forever and I won't be cheated out of a single moment.”

The old graveyard heard the most charming sound in the world…the low yielding laugh of a girl held prisoner by her lover.

L. M. Montgomery achieved international fame in her lifetime that endures well over a century later. A prolific writer, she published some 500 short stories and poems and twenty novels. Most recognized for
Anne
of
Green
Gables
, her work has been hailed by Mark Twain, Margaret Atwood, Madeleine L'Engle, and Duchess Kate, to name a few. Today, Montgomery's novels, journals, letters, short stories, and poems are read and studied by general readers and scholars from around the world. Her writing appeals to people who love beauty and to those who struggle against oppression.

Discover beautiful new editions of the beloved Anne series

Anne of Green Gables

Anne of Avonlea

Anne of the Island

Anne of Windy Poplars

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Anne of Ingleside

• • •

“One of the most extraordinary girls that ever came out of an ink pot.” —
New York Times

“The dearest and most lovable child in fiction since the immortal Alice.” —Mark Twain

• • •

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www.sourcebooks.com
.