Mistress Pat (5 page)

Cuddles screamed over the tale but Pat felt a little troubled. It
was
a dreadful thing to have happened at Silver Bush even if it had been a quarter of a century before. Nothing worse could have been told of the Binnies.

“I do hope nothing disgraceful will happen at our Christmas dinner,” she said anxiously.

“Niver worry, Patsy dear. There do be no paycock's feathers in the house now. Sure and I burned thim all the day after
that
. Yer Uncle Horace said I was a superstitious ould woman and was rale peeved bekase he had brought thim home. So there'll be nothing to bring us bad luck but still I'll be thankful whin it's all well over. As Tillytuck was remarking yisterday, there do be a certain amount av nervous strain over it all.”

“Tillytuck told me today that his grandfather was a pirate,” said Cuddles. “Also that he was through the Halifax horror when that ship loaded with munitions blew up in the days of the war. Do you really think, Judy, that Tillytuck has had all the adventures that he says he has?”

Judy's only reply was a sardonic laugh.

Christmas was drawing nearer and there was so much to be done. Pat and Cuddles worked like beavers and Judy flew about, or tried to, in three directions at once. A big box of goodies had to be packed and sent to Hilary…poor Hilary who must spend his Christmas in a dreary Toronto boarding-house. Mincemeat and Christmas cake must be concocted. Judy had to go for fittings of the new dress and nearly died of them. The silver and brasses had to be cleaned: everything must be made spick and span.

“The things in this house
are
nice,” said Cuddles, as she rubbed at the spoons. “I wonder why. They're not really so handsome but they're
nice
.”

“They're loved, that's why,” said Pat softly. “They've been loved and cared for for years. I love everything in this house
terribly
, Cuddles.”

“I believe you love them too much, Pat. I love them, too, but you seem to worship them.”

“I can't help it. Silver Bush means everything to me and it seems to mean more every year of my life. I do want this Christmas to go off well…everything just right…all the folks enjoying themselves. Judy, do you think six mince pies will be enough? It would be disgraceful if we didn't have enough of everything.”

“Loads and lashings,” assured Judy. “Mrs. Tom Robinson do be thinking we're tarrible extravagant. ‘A fat kitchen makes a lean will,' she did be sighing to me the other day whin she was in, borrying the quilt clamps off av me. ‘Oh, oh,' sez I, ‘we're not like the Birtwhistles at the bridge,' sez I. ‘After they do be having a bit av company,' sez I, ‘not a dab av butter will be et in that house till all the extry bills are made up,' sez I. She tuk it wid her chin up but she was faling it all right. Ould Mrs. Birtwhistle was her mother's cousin. Oh, oh, I'm knowing too much about all the folks in these parts for inny av thim to be giving me digs in me own kitchen. A lean will indade! Plaze the Good Man Above it'll be a long time afore there's inny nade to talk av wills at Silver Bush.”

“But Aunt Edith says we do live too high at Silver Bush,” said Cuddles. “She says we really ought to be more frugal.”

“Frugal! I hate that word,” said Pat. “It sounds so…so porridgy. I do hope Joe will get home in time. We must give a party for him if he does, some night between Christmas and New Year's. I love to give parties. It's so nice to see people coming to Silver Bush in pretty dresses, all smiling and happy. I hope everybody will have a good appetite Christmas Day. I love to feed hungry people.”

“Oh, oh, and what are women for if it's not to fade the world?” said Judy complacently. “Sure and it do be giving me pleasure just to see a cat lapping his milk. It's glad I am you girls do be having the rale Silver Bush notions av hospitality. I'm minding the fuss yer Aunt Jessie did be making once bekase company came unixpicted like and she had nothing to give thim to ate. Niver was Silver Bush in inny such predicament I'm telling ye.”

“There ain't so much fun here as the Jebbs' though,” said Tillytuck, who was sandpapering an axe-handle in his corner and thought Judy needed taking down a bit. “They were always quarreling there. Two would start and then all the rest would join in. It was interesting. You folks here never quarrel. I never saw such a harmonious family.”

“I should think we wouldn't quarrel,” said Pat indignantly. “It would be terrible to have quarrels at Silver Bush. I hope we never, never will have.”

“You'll be a fortunate family then,” said Tillytuck. “There ain't many families but have a ruction once in a while.”

“I think I would
die
if any of us quarreled,” said Pat. “We leave that to people like the Binnies.”

Hope died hard in the matter of Joe but the days passed without any word of him or his ship. It was over three years since Joe had been home and Pat always knew, when she surprised a certain look in mother's eyes, that she was longing for her sailor boy. It would shadow mother's Christmas a bit if Joe didn't get home in time for it.

Pat had hoped for a fine Christmas day, clear and crisp, with a crackle of frost and unspoiled fields of snow and caps of lovely white fur on the posts down the lane: but she felt dubious as she took her last look from the kitchen door late on Christmas Eve. She and Judy had stayed up to make the stuffing for “the birds” but Judy was now folding weary hands for slumber in the kitchen chamber and Tillytuck had gone to sleep, perchance to snore, in the granary loft. A snarling, quarrelsome wind was fighting with the white birches and wailing around the barns. It did not sound like a fine day on the morrow but one must hope for the best, as Judy said. Pat shut out the chill of the winter night and paused a moment in the warm old kitchen to gloat over things in general. Everything she loved best was safe under her roof. The house seemed breathing softly and contentedly in its sleep. Life was very sweet.

Pat's hopes for a fine day were vain. Christmas morning dawned on a dreadful combination of fog and rain. Rain by itself, Pat always thought, was an honest thing…fog lovely and eerie…but together they were horrible. Tillytuck agreed with her.

“It's fogging, Judy,” he said dolefully when he came in for breakfast. “Fogging hard. I can put up with a rainy day but I can't come these half-and-halfs, like a woman who never knows her own mind. No, sir.”

“Oh, oh, and I'm not knowing what's to be done, wid people tramping all over me clane floor in dirty boots,” said Judy viciously.

“We'll just have to do as they do in Nova Scotia, Judy.”

Judy bit.

“Oh, oh, and what is it they do in Novy Scoshy, if a body may ask?”

“They do the best they can,” said Tillytuck solemnly, as he went out with the milking pails. Tillytuck mostly did the milking now. Judy had surrendered the chore unwillingly. She was afraid, when Long Alec insisted on it, that he thought she was growing too old for it. And she never could be brought to believe that Tillytuck stripped the cows properly. Besides, wasn't he ruining the young barn cats by milking into their mouths? That was no way to be training cats. Ye wudn't be catching Gintleman Tom or Bold-and-Bad or Squedunk at inny such capers.

After breakfast the blue and gold and purple and silver parcels were distributed and everyone was pleased. Pat had been afraid Sid might not like the rather gorgeous silk pajamas she had got him but Sid did.

“They're the very niftiest pajamas I ever saw in my life,” vowed Cuddles.

“And where have you seen so many pajamas, miss?” demanded Long Alec, thinking to “get a rise” out of Cuddles.

“On the bargain counters,” retorted Cuddles…and the laugh was on dad. It did not take much to make the Silver Bush people laugh. Laughter came easily to them.

“Isn't she the cliver one,” said Judy…and then stiffened in horror.

Tillytuck was proudly uncovering his Christmas present for “the missus.” A Jerusalem cherry! A pretty thing, to be sure, with its glossy green leaves and ruby red fruit, and mother was delighted with it. But Judy beat a sudden retreat to the kitchen, followed by Pat.

“Judy, what is the matter? You're never going to be sick today!”

“Patsy darlint, it's well if there's nothing worse than me being sick happens here this blissed day. Were ye seeing what that Tillytuck did be giving to yer mother? A Jerusalem cherry no less! Sure and didn't I come all out wid gooseflesh whin I saw it.”

“But what about it, Judy? It's a pretty thing. I thought it lovely of Tillytuck to remember mother.”

“Oh, oh, don't ye be knowing a Jerusalem cherry brings bad luck? There was one brought into this house thirty years ago and yer Uncle Tom slipped on the stairs and bruk three ribs that very night. I'm telling ye. Patsy darlint, can't ye be contriving to set the thing outside somewhere till the dinner be over at laste?”

Pat shook her head.

“We couldn't do that. It would offend Tillytuck. Anyway, I know mother wouldn't hear of it. You mustn't be superstitious, Judy. A pretty thing like a Jerusalem cherry can't bring bad luck.”

“I'm hoping ye're right, Patsy, but we'll be seeing what we'll see. ‘Fogging, Judy,' sez he. No wonder it do be fogging, and him wid that Jerusalem thing in his granary that blissed minute! But wid all there is to see to I'm not to stand bithering here.”

“I'm going to see about the spare room right off so that it will be all in order if any one comes early,” said Pat briskly. “May I have that new hooked rug you've got stored away in the attic to lay by the bed…the one with the great soft, plushy roses?”

“Av coorse. I mint it for yer hope chist but the way ye're snubbing the min right and lift there'll be lashings av time for
that
. Put plinty av blankets on the bed, Patsy darlint. If the Bay Shore aunts come they may be staying all night. Style widout comfort is not the way av Silver Bush. Yer Aunt Helen at Glenwood now…ye do be knowing yersilf what style she puts on…silk spreads and liddle lace and ribbing cushions…but I've always been hearing that people who slipt there vowed they were cold in bed. The minister slipt there one night and so cold he was he started prowling for a blanket in the night and fell down the back stairs. That was be way av being a disgrace. I'm telling ye.”

Cuddles had already made the spare room bed and was infuriated because Pat insisted on making it over again.

“You'll be as bad as Aunt Edith before you're thirty, Pat. She imagines nobody can do anything right but herself. And Judy's no better, no matter what she thinks. She's been teaching me to make gravy for weeks but now when I want to make it today she won't let me. You all make me weary.”

“Don't be cross, Cuddles. You made the bed as nicely as anyone could but the extra blankets have to be put on. Cuddles, do you know I love to make up beds and think of all the tired people who will lie in them. I couldn't bear it if anyone should be cold in bed in Silver Bush. Will you get some of the silver polish and do the mirrors? I want them to shine like diamonds…especially the one in the hall.”

The hall mirror was one that had been brought out from France by Great-great-grandmother, Marie Bonnet. It was a long, softly gleaming thing in a ruddy copper frame and Pat loved it. Cuddles had an affection for it, too, because she thought she looked nicer in it than in any other mirror at Silver Bush.

“Sure and it was always the flattering one,” said Judy, as Cuddles rubbed at the frame. “Minny's the pretty face that's looked into it.”

“I wonder,” said Pat dreamily…passing carelessly through the hall just to make sure Cuddles was doing the polishing right…“if one came here some moonlit night one couldn't see all the shadowy faces that once looked into it looking out again.”

“Oh, oh, ye'd nade the enchanted mirror of Castle McDermott for that,” chuckled Judy. “That looking glass wasn't like other looking glasses. There did be a curse on it. I was always afraid av it. Be times it did be saming like a frind and thin agin like an inimy. And I was always wanting to look in it, in spite av me fear, jist to be seeing if innything looked out av it.”

“And did anything ever, Judy?”

“Niver a bit av it, girl dear. The looking glass wasn't for common folks like mesilf. Niver did I be seeing innything worse than me own frickled face. But there did be thim that did.”

“What did they see, Judy?”

“Oh, oh, there's no time for that now. It's me raisin gravy I must be seeing to this blissed minute.”

Pat shut the hall door and set her back against it resolutely.

“Judy, not one step do you stir from this hall till you've told us what was seen in the McDermott mirror, if there's no raisin gravy made this Christmas.”

“Oh, oh”…Judy surrendered…“it's mebbe as well to tell it whin Tillytuck can't be claiming to have stipped out av the glass. Did ye be hearing him the other avening whin I was telling av the dance one Saturday night in South Glin that they kipt up too late…past the stroke av twilve…and the Bad Man Below intered? Sez me Tillytuck solemnly, ‘I rimimber it only too well. I was at that dance.' ‘Indade,' sez I, sarcastic-like, ‘ye must be an aged man, Tillytuck, for the dance was all av eighty years ago.' But he carried it off wid a grin. Ye can't shame that man. But I can't be rimimbering all the tales av the looking glass now. There was a Kathleen McDermott once who was no better than she shud be and me fine lady whips out one night to meet her gintleman lover and run away wid him. But me grand gintleman was killed on his way to her and Kathleen hurried back home thinking no one wud know. But the doors were closed agin her. The McDermott had looked in the glass and seen it all. Bridget McDermott saw
her
soldier husband dying in India the night he was killed. But nobody iver knew what Nora McDermott saw for the pore liddle soul dropped the lamp she was holding and her dress caught fire and she was dead in two hours.”

“Oh!” Cuddles shivered deliciously. “Why did they keep such a terrible thing in the castle?”

“Sure, it
belonged
there,” said Judy mysteriously. “Ye wudn't have thim move it. And it was be way av being frindly as often as not. Eileen McDermott knew her man was alive, shipwrecked on a South Say island, whin iveryone else was sure for a whole winter that he was drowned. She saw him in the glass. And the McDermott av me own time saw a minuet danced in it one night and niver was inny the worse av it. And now I'm getting back to me kitchen. I've wasted enough time palavering wid ye.”

“Half the fun of making preparations for anything is in talking things over,” reflected Cuddles, giving the mirror a final whisk. It held no ghosts. But Cuddles felt secretly satisfied with what she saw in it.