Mistress Pat (4 page)

Tillytuck was short and almost as broad as he was long. His red face was almost square, made squarer, if possible, by a pair of old-fashioned mutton-chop whiskers of a faded ginger hue. His mouth was nothing but a wide slit and his nose the merest round button of a nose. His hair could not be seen for it was concealed under a mangy old fur cap. His body was encased in a faded overcoat and a rather gorgeous tartan scarf was wrapped around his neck. In one hand he carried a huge, bulging old Gladstone bag and in the other what was evidently a fiddle done up in a flannel case.

Tillytuck stood and looked at the three wimmen critters out of twinkling little black eyes almost buried in cushions of fat.

“How pleased ye look to see me!” he said. “Only sorter paralysed as it were. Well, I can’t help being good-looking.”

He went into what seemed an internal convulsion of silent chuckles. Pat jerked herself out of her trance. Mother had gone upstairs … somebody must do … say … something. Judy, probably for the first time in her life, seemed incapable of speech or movement.

Pat scrambled up from the rug and went forward.

“Mr … Mr. Tillytuck, is it?”

“The same, at your service … Christian name, Josiah,” said the newcomer, with a bow that might have been courtly if he had had any neck to speak of. It was not till afterwards that Pat thought what a nice voice he had. “Age, fifty-five … in politics, Liberal … religion, fundamentalist … gentleman-at-large, symbolically speaking. And an Orangeman,” he added, looking at a large picture of King William on a white horse, crossing the Boyne, that hung upon the wall.

“Won’t you … take off your coat … and sit down?” said Pat rather stupidly. “You see … we didn’t expect you tonight. Father told us you would be here tomorrow.”

“I got a chance up on a truck to Silverbridge so I thought I’d better take it,” rumbled Mr. Tillytuck. He hung his cap up on a nail, revealing a head thatched with thick pepper-and-salt curls. He took off his scarf and coat and the cause of a mysterious bulge at one side was explained … a huge, stuffed, white Arctic owl which he proudly set up on the clock shelf. He put his bag in one corner with his fiddle on top of it. Then, with unerring discrimination, he selected the most comfortable chair in the kitchen … Great-grandfather Nehemiah Gardiner’s old glossy wooden armchair with its red cushions … sank into it and produced a stubby black pipe from his pocket.

“Any objections?” he rumbled. “I never smoke if ladies object.”

“We don’t,” said Pat. “We’re used to Uncle Tom smoking.”

Mr. Tillytuck deliberately loaded and lighted his pipe. Ten minutes before no one in the room had ever seen him. And now he seemed to belong there … to have been always there. It was impossible to think of him as a stranger or a change. Even Judy, who, as a rule, didn’t care what any man thought of her clothes, was thanking her stars that she had on her new drugget dress and a white apron. McGinty had sniffed once at him approvingly and then gone to sleep again, ignoring the new dog entirely. The two grey cats went on purring. Only Gentleman Tom hadn’t yet made up his mind and continued to stare at him suspiciously.

Mr. Tillytuck’s body was almost as square as his face and was encased in a faded and rather ragged old grey sweater, revealing glimpses of a red flannel shirt which brought a sudden peculiar gleam into Judy’s eyes. It was so exactly the shade she would be wanting for the red rosebuds in the rug she meant to hook coming on spring.

“If ye’ve no objection to the pipe have ye any to the dog?” went on Mr. Tillytuck. “If ye haven’t maybe ye wouldn’t mind him lying down in that corner over there.”

Judy decided that it was time she asserted herself. After all, this was HER kitchen, not MISTER Tillytuck’s.

“Oh, oh, and is it a well-behaved dog he is, MISTER Tillytuck, I’m asking ye.”

“He is,” replied Tillytuck solemnly. “But he’s been an unfortunate kind of dog … born to ill-luck as the sparks fly upward. Ye may not believe me, Miss … Miss …”

“Plum,” said Judy shortly.

“Miss Plum, that dog has had a hard life of it. He’s had mange and distemper once each and worms continual. He got run over by a truck last summer and poisoned by strychnine the summer before that.”

“He must have as many lives as a cat,” giggled Cuddles.

“He’s in good health now,” assured Mr. Tillytuck. “He’s a bit lame from cutting his foot with a sliver of broken glass last week but he’ll soon be over it. And he throws a fit once in a while … epileptic. Foams at the mouth. Staggers. Falls. In ten minutes gets up and trots away as good as new. So ye need never be worrying about him if ye see him take one. He’s really a broth of a dog, only kind of sensitive, and fine with the cows. I have a great respect for dogs … always touch my cap when I meet one.”

“What is his name?” asked Pat.

“I call him just Dog,” responded Mr. Tillytuck. And Just Dog he remained during his entire sojourn at Silver Bush.

“A bit too glib wid yer tongue, MISTER Tillytuck,” thought Judy. But she only said,

“And what may yer mind be in regard to cats?”

“Oh,” said Mr. Tillytuck, who seemed quite contented with a whiff of his pipe between speeches, “I have a feeling for cats, Miss Plum. When I wandered in here the other morning I thought I’d like the people here because there was a cat on the window sill. It’s a kind of instink with me. So thinks I to myself, ‘This place has got a flavour. I could do with a job here.’ And how right I was!”

“Where might your last place be?”

“On a fox farm down South Shore way. No names mentioned. I’ve been there three years. Got on well … liked it well … till the old missus died and the boss married again. I couldn’t pull with the new one at all. Everything on the table bought and only enough to keep the worms quiet at that. A terrible tetchie old woman. Ye couldn’t mention the weather to her but she’d quarrel with ye over it. Seemed to take it as a personal insult if you didn’t like the day. Then she picked on Dog right along. ‘Even a dog has some rights, woman,’ I told her. ‘You and me ain’t going to click,’ I told her. I’m rather finnicky as to the company I keep,’ I told her. ‘My dog is better company than a contentious woman,’ I told her. ‘I’m nobody’s slave,’ I told her … and give notice. When I can’t stay in a place without quarrelling with the folks I just mosey along. Likely I’ll be here quite a while. Looks like a snug harbour to me. This armchair just fits my kinks. I’ve had my ups and downs. Escaped from the Titanic for one thing.”

“Oh!” Cuddles and Pat were all eyes and ears. This WAS exciting. Judy gave her soup a vicious swirl. Was she to have a rival in the story telling art?

“Yes, I escaped,” said Mr. Tillytuck, “by not sailing in her.” He put his pipe back into his mouth and emitted a rumble which they were to learn he called laughter.

“Oh, oh, so that do be your idea of a joke,” thought Judy. “I’m getting yer measure, MISTER Tillytuck.”

“Not but what I’ve had my traggedies,” resumed Mr. Tillytuck. He rolled up his sweater sleeve and showed a long white scar on his sinewy arm. “A leopard gave me that when I was a tamer in a circus in the States in my young days. Ah, that was the exciting life. I have a peculiar power over animals. No animal,” said Mr. Tillytuck impressively, “can look me in the eye.”

“Oh, oh, and are ye married?” persisted Judy remorselessly.

“Not by a jugful!” exclaimed Mr. Tillytuck, so explosively that every one jumped, even Gentleman Tom. Then he subsided into mildness again. “No, I’ve neither wife nor progeny, Miss Plum. I’ve often tried to get married but something always prevented. Sometimes every one was willing but the girl herself. Sometimes nobody was willing. Sometimes I couldn’t get the question out. If I hadn’t been such a temperance man I might have been married many a time. Needed something to loosen my tongue.”

Mr. Tillytuck winked at Pat and Pat had a horrible urge to wink back at him. Really, some people did have a queer effect on you.

“I’ve always thought nobody understood me quite as well as I understood myself,” resumed Mr. Tillytuck. “It isn’t likely I’ll ever marry now. But while there’s life there’s hope.” This time it was at Judy he winked and Judy felt that she was not half as “mad” as she should be. She gave her soup a final stir and stood up briskly.

“Wud ye be jining us in a sup av soup, MISTER Tillytuck?”

“Ah, some small refreshment will not be amiss,” responded Mr. Tillytuck in a gratified tone. “I am not above the pleasures of the palate in moderation. And ever since I entered this dwelling I’ve been saying to myself whenever you stirred that pot, ‘Of all the smells that I ever did smell I never smelled a smell that smelled half as good as that smell smells.’”

Pat and Cuddles proceeded to set the table. Mr. Tillytuck watched them with approbation.

“A pair of high-steppers,” he remarked presently in a hoarse aside to Judy. “Some class to THEM. The little one has the wrist of an aristycrat.”

“Oh, oh, and so ye’ve noticed that now?” said Judy, highly gratified.

“Naturally. I’m an expert in regard to weemen. ‘There’s elegance for you,’ I said to myself the moment I opened the door. Some difference from the girls at the fox farm. Just between friends, Miss Plum, they looked like dried apples on a string. One of them was as thin as a weasel and living on lettuce to get thinner. But these two now … Cupid will be busy I reckon. No doubt you’ve a terrible time with the boys hanging round, Miss Plum?”

“Oh, oh, we’re not altogether overlooked,” said Judy complacently. “And now, MISTER Tillytuck, will ye be sitting in?”

Mr. Tillytuck slid into a chair.

“I wonder if you’d mind leaving out the ‘mister,’” he said. “I’m not used to it and it makes me feel like a pilgrim and sojourner. Josiah, now … if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Oh, oh, but I wud,” said Judy decidedly. “Sure and Josiah has always been a name I cudn’t bear iver since old Josiah Miller down at South Glen murdered his wife.”

“I was well acquainted with Josiah Miller,” remarked Mr. Tillytuck, taking up his spoon. “First he choked his wife, then he hanged her, then he dropped her in the river with a stone tied to her. Taking no chances. Ah, I knew him well. In fact, I may say he was a particular friend of mine at one time. But after that happened of course I had to drop him.”

“Did they hang him?” demanded Cuddles with ghoulish interest.

“No. They couldn’t prove it although everybody knew he did it. They kind of sympathised with him. There’s an odd woman that HAS to be murdered. He died a natural death but his ghost walked. I met it once on a time.”

“Oh!” Cuddles didn’t notice Judy’s evident disapproval of this poaching on her preserves. “Really, Mr. Tillytuck?”

“No mistake, Miss Gardiner. Most ghosts is nothing but rats. But this was a genuwine phantom.”

“Did he … did he speak to you?”

Mr. Tillytuck nodded.

“‘I see you’re out for a walk like myself,’ says he. But I made no reply. I have discovered it is better not to monkey with spooks, miss. Interesting things, but dangerous. So irresponsible, speaking romantically. So, as Friend Josiah was right in the road and I couldn’t get past him I just walked through him. Never saw him again. Miss Plum, this IS soup.”

Judy had spent the evening swinging from approval to disapproval of Mr. Tillytuck … which continued to be the case during his whole sojourn at Silver Bush. His appreciation of her soup got him another bowlful. Pat was wishing father would come home from Swallowfield. Perhaps Mr. Tillytuck didn’t know he had to sleep in the granary. But Mr. Tillytuck said, as he got up from the table,

“I understand my quarters is in the granary … so if you’ll be kind enough to tell me where it is …”

“MISS RACHEL will be taking the flashlight and showing ye the way,” said Judy. “There do be plinty av good blankets on the bed but I’m afraid ye’ll find it cold. There do be no fire since we didn’t be knowing ye were coming.”

“I’ll kindle one in a jiffy.”

“Oh, oh, thin ye’ll be smoked out. That fire has to be lit for an hour afore it’ll give over smoking. There do be something out av kilter wid the chimney. Long … Mr. Gardiner is maning to have it fixed.”

“I’ll fix it myself. I worked with a mason for years. Down at the fox farm they had a bad chimney and I built it over in fine shape.”

“Did it draw?” asked Judy sceptically.

“Draw! Miss Plum, that chimney drew the cat clean up it one night. The poor animal was never seen again.”

Judy subsided. Mr. Tillytuck possessed himself of his bag and his violin and his owl and his dog.

“I’m ready, Miss Gardiner. And as for the matter of names, Miss Plum, the Prince of Wales called me Josiah the whole summer I worked on his ranch in Alberta. A very democratic young man. But if you can’t bring yourself to it plain Tillytuck will do for me. And if you’ve warts or anything like that on your hands” … Cuddles guiltily put a hand behind her … “I can cure them in a jiffy.”

Judy primmed her mouth and took a high tone.

“Thank ye kindly but we do be knowing a few things at Silver Bush. Me grandmother did be taching me a charm for warts whin I was a girleen and it works rale well. Goodnight, MISTER Tillytuck. I’m hoping ye’ll be warm and slape well.”

“I’ll be in the arms of old Murphy in short order,” assured Mr. Tillytuck.

They heard Cuddles’ laughter floating back through the rain all the way to the granary. Evidently Mr. Tillytuck was amusing her.

“Certainly he is peculiar,” said Pat. “But peculiar people give colour to life, don’t they, Judy?”

Cuddles ran in, her face sparkling and radiant from wind and rain.

“Isn’t he a darling? He told me he belonged to one of the best families in Nova Scotia.”

“Av which statement I have me doubts,” said Judy. “I’m thinking he was spaking symbolically, as he sez himsilf. And it didn’t use to be manners, taking yer story right out av yer mouth as ye heard him do to mesilf. But he sames a good-natured simple sort av cratur and likely we can put up wid him as long as our family animals can.”

“He thinks you’re wonderful, Judy. And he wishes you WOULD call him Josiah.”

“That I’ll not thin. But I’m not saying I won’t be laving off the Mister after a day or two. It’s too much of a strain. Cuddles dear, to-morry I’ll be fixing up a bit av a charm for that liddle wart av yours. I’m knowing it shud av been attinded to long ago but what wid all these comings and goings and hirings it wint out av me head. Oh, oh, I’ll not be having any MISTER Tillytuck wid a side-whisker casting up the fam’ly warts to me!”