Pat of Silver Bush (19 page)

“There's thirn that thinks a brown skin handsomer than all yer Miss Pink-and-whites. She'll freckle in summer, that one.”

“And I'm not even clever, Judy. I can only love people…and things.”

“Oh, oh, 'tis a great gift that…and its not ivery one that has it, me jewel. Now, we'll just be seeing where ye are for looks, rale calm and judicial like. Ye've got the fine eyes, as Jingle told ye…”

“And a cute nose, he said, Judy.
Have
I?”

“Ye have that…and the dainty liddle eyebrows…oh, oh, but ye've got no ind av good pints…and the nice ears like liddle pink shells. I warrant ye that Kathie one hasn't much to brag av in ears…not if she's a Madison.”

“Her hair hid them mostly but I got a glimpse of one…It
did
stick out,” confessed Pat.

“I'm telling ye! Yer mouth may be a bit wide but ye're not seeing the way it curls up at the corners whin ye laugh, darlint. Oh, oh, ye've got a way av laughing, Patsy. And the 'ristocratic ankles av ye! I'll be bound that Kathie one has a bit too much beef on hers.”

“Yes, Kathie
has
fat ankles,” Pat recalled to her comforting. “But she has such lovely hair. Look at mine…straight as a string and just the color of ginger.”

“Yer hair will be getting darker all the time, me jewel. Sure and the wonder is ye girls have inny skin or hair at all, running round in sun and wind bare-headed as ye do. Yer mother and her leddy sister all wore sunbonnets I'm telling ye.”

“Oh, Judy, that would be horrid. I
love
the sun and wind.”

“Oh, oh, thin don't be howling bekase yer skin is brown and yer hair all faded. Ye can't ate yer cake and have it, too. I'm guessing it's healthier.”

“Winnie has such lovely curls. I don't see why I haven't any.”

“Winnie do be Selby and ye do be Gardiner. Yer mother now…oh, oh, but she had the rale permanent, so she had, that yer Aunt Jessie cudn't have if she had her head boiled and baked for a year. But ye've got a flavor av yer own and a tongue as swate as violets whin ye begin blarneying…and whin ye smile yer eyes twinkle like yer Grandmother Gardiner's…and she was the prettiest ould leddy I iver laid me eyes on. And ye've got a way av looking at a body and dropping yer eyes and thin looking agin that's going to play havoc some day. I've seen me lad Jingle's face whin ye looked at him so.”

“Judy…have I really?”

“Oh, oh, maybe I shudn't be telling ye av it…not but what ye'd find it out sooner or later. I'm telling ye, Patsy darlint, a look like that is worth all the blue eyes and liddle red mouths in the world. Yer mother had it. Oh, oh,
she
knew all the tricks in her day.”

“Father says mother was a great belle when she was a girl, Judy.”

“Well may he say it for the hard time he had to get her! Ivery one thought she wud take Fred Taylor. Oh, oh, but he had the silver tongue. He cud wheedle the legs off an iron pot. But whin it came to the last ditch sure and she laped it wid yer dad. Minny was the sore heart at her widding.”

“But she was pretty, Judy.”

“Her own sister…yer Aunt Doris…wasn't pretty I'm telling ye, and she had more beaus than yer mother aven. Sure and I think it was bekase she always looked so slapy the min wanted to wake her up. She was the lazy one av the Bay Shore girls but ivery one liked her nixt to yer mother. Yer Aunt Evelyn had the prettiest arms and shoulders av the lot…as ye'll have yersilf someday, darlint, whin ye get a liddle more mate on yer bones. Yer Aunt Flora now…
she
was the flirt. She tried to flirt wid ivery one in sight. Now there's niver no sinse in that, Patsy dear. A few like to kape yer hand in…but not ivery one. Remimber that whin yer time comes.”

“Kathie told me that Jim Madison climbed to the top of the biggest tree at Silverbridge to see if he could pick a star for her.”

“Oh, oh, but did he get the star, darlint? There's inny number av ways av showing off. Now just ye be going to slape wid a good heart. Ye've got a liddle better opinion of yersilf I be thinking?”

“A whole lot better, Judy. I guess I've been pretty silly. But I did look so brown…”

“Sure and I'll tell ye an ould beauty secret, Patsy dear. Whin the spring comes just ye run out ivery morning and wash yer face in morning dew. I'm not saying it'll make ye pink and white like Kathleen but it'll make yer skin like satin.”

“Really, Judy?”

“Sure and isn't it in me book av Useful Knowledge? I'll be showing it to ye tomorrow.”

“Why haven't
you
done that, Judy?”

“Oh, oh, nothing cud make inny diffrunce to me old elephant's hide. Ye've got to begin it young. Georgie Shortreed made a rigular beauty av hersilf that way, so she did, and made a good match in a fam'ly that was as full av ould maids as a pudding av plums. Was I iver telling ye how her sister Kitty lost her one chanct? Sure and didn't she throw a pan av dish-water over her beau one night, accidental like, whin he was standing on the kitchen durestep, trying to get up enough spunk to knock…him being a bould young lad av fifty wid a taste for ugly girls and not used to sparking. Away he wint and niver come back, small wonder, for wasn't his bist suit ruint entirely wid grase? The Shortreeds all had that lazy trick av opening the dure and letting the dish-water fly right and lift widout looking. Was I iver telling ye how their ould dad, Dick Shortreed, quarreled wid his marching neighbor, Ab Bollinger, over a hin?”

“No.” Pat snuggled down on her pillow, happy again and ready to taste Judy's yarns.

“They fought over the hin for three years and wint to law about it…to the magistrate innyway…and 'twas the joke av the countryside. And after they had spint more money than wud buy a hundred hins this same Ab Bollinger's daughter up and married ould Dick Shortreed's son and the ould folks made up their quarrel and killed the hin for the widding supper. 'Twas a tough bite I'm thinking be that time.”

After Judy went out Pat slipped out of bed to the window where the moonlight was glittering on the frosted panes. Winnie had not come up yet and the night was very still. Pat could see the fields of crystal snow, the shadows in the Whispering Lane, and the silver fringe of icicles on the church barn. A light was shining in Bets' dormer up at the Long House. She was good friends with the world again. What did it matter if she had no great beauty herself? She had the beauty of shining meadows…of moon secrets in field and grove…of beloved Silver Bush.

Still, it was a comfort as she crept to bed again to remember that Kathie had the Madison ears.

“Sure and it'll rain afore night,” said Judy at noon. “Look how clare ye can see yer Hill av the Mist.”

Pat hoped it wouldn't rain. She and Jingle had planned a walk to the shore. This was by way of being a treat to Pat for although you could, from Silver Bush see the great gulf to the north and the shimmering blue curve of the harbor to the east, it was a mile and a half to the shore itself and the Silver Bush children did not often get down. Pat felt that she needed something to cheer her up. Buttons, the dearest kitten that had ever been at Silver Bush…to be sure, every kitten was that…had died that morning without rhyme or reason. All his delights were over…frisking in the “dim”…flying up trees…catching small mice in the jungle of the Old Part…basking on the tombstones. Pat had tearfully buried this little dead thing that only yester-night had been so beautiful.

Besides, she was “out” with Sid over his frog. Pat was always so sorry for imprisoned things and Sid had had that poor frog in a pail in the yard for a week. Every time Pat looked at it it seemed to look at her appealingly. Perhaps it had a father or mother or husband or wife in the pool. Or even just a dear friend to whom it longed to be reunited. So Pat carried it away to the Field of the Pool and Sid hadn't spoken to her for two days.

All the afternoon the heat waves shimmered over the Buttercup Field and the sun “drew water”…as if some far-off Weaver in the west were spinning shining threads of rain between sky and sea. But it was still a lovely evening when Jingle and Pat…and McGinty…started for the shore, although far down on the lowlands was a smudge of fog here and there, with little fir trees sticking spectrally up out of it.

“Don't ye go and get drownded now,” warned Judy, as she always did when anybody went to the shore. “And mind ye don't fall over the capes or get caught be the tide or run over by an auty afore ye get to the shore road or…” but they were out of hearing before Judy could think up any more “ors.”

Pat loved that long red road that wandered on until it reached the sea, twisting unexpectedly just because it wanted to, among the spruce “barrens,” where purple sheep laurel bordered the path and meadow-sweet and blue-eyed grass grew along the fences. “Kiss-me-quicks,” Judy called the blue-eyed grasses. Pat liked this name best but you couldn't call it that to a boy. They rambled happily on, sucking honey-filled horns of red clover, a mad, happy little dog tearing along before them with his tongue out. Sometimes they talked and sometimes they didn't. That was what Pat liked about Jingle. You didn't have to talk to him unless you wanted to.

Halfway to the shore they had to call at Mr. Hughes', where Jingle had an errand for his uncle. The Hughes house was a rather tumbledown one but it had some funny twinkly windows that Jingle liked. Jingle was always on the lookout for windows. They had a peculiar fascination for him. He averred that the windows of a house made or marred it.

“Will I put windows like that in your house, Pat?”

Pat giggled. Jingle had put all kinds of windows in that imaginary house of hers already.

She would rather have waited outside and looked at the windows, even if more than one of the panes was broken and stuffed with rags, while Jingle did his errand but he dragged her in. Jingle knew that there were three Hughes girls there and face them alone he would not.

Mr. Hughes was out but they were asked to sit down and wait until he came in. Neither felt at home. The Hughes kitchen was in what Judy would have called a “tarrible kilter” and a black swarm of flies had settled on the dirty dishes of the supper table. Sally and Bess and Cora Hughes sat in a row behind the table and grinned at the callers…a malicious grin not in the least likely to put shy or sensitive people at their ease. Pat knew them only slightly but she had heard of them.

“Which of us girls,” said Bess to Jingle with an impish, green-eyed smile, “are you going to marry when you grow up?”

Jingle's face turned a dark, uncomfortable red. He shuffled his bare feet but did not answer.

“Oh, ain't you the bashful one?” giggled Sally. “Just look how he's blushing, girls.”

“I'm going to get ma's tape and measure his mouth,” said Cora, sticking her tongue out at Jingle.

Jingle looked hunted and desperate but still would not speak…could not, probably. Pat was furious. These girls were making fun of Jingle. She recalled a word she had heard the minister use in his sermon last Sunday. Pat had no idea what it meant but she liked the sound of it. It was dignified.

“Don't mind them, Jingle. They are nothing but protoplasms,” she said scornfully.

For a moment it worked. Then the Hughes temper broke.

“Skinny!” cried Bess.

“Shrimp!” cried Cora.

“Moon-face!” cried Sally, and,

“You
needn't get your Scotch up, Pat Gardiner,” they all cried together.

“Oh, I'm not angry, if that's what you mean,” said Pat icily. “I'm only sorry for you.”

This got under the Hughes skins.

“Sorry for us?” Bess laughed nastily. “Better be sorry for your old Witch Judy. She's going straight to the Bad Place when she dies. Witches do.”

There was an end to all dignity. Pat tossed her head.

“Judy isn't a witch. I think your father is a cousin of Mary Ann McClenahan's, isn't he?”

There was no denying this. But Sally got even.

“Why doesn't your mother ever come to see you,” she asked Jingle.

“I don't think that is any business of yours,” said Pat.

“I wasn't addressing you,
Miss
Gardiner,” retorted Sally. “Better hang
your
tongue out to cool.”

“Now, now, what's all this fuss about?”

Mrs. Hughes waddled into the room with an old felt hat of her husband's atop of her rough hair. She subsided into a mangy old plush chair and looked reproachfully at everybody.

“Who's been slapping your face, Jingle? You girls been teasing him I s'pose. I declare I don't see why you can't try and act as if you'd been
raised.
You mustn't mind their nonsense, Jingle. They're a bit too fond of their fun.”

Fun! If it was fun to insult callers! But Mr. Hughes came in at last. Jingle delivered his uncle's message and they got away. McGinty had long since fled and was waiting for them on the shore road.

“Let's forget all about it,” said Pat. “We won't spoil our walk by thinking about them.”

“It's not
them,”
said Jingle, too miserable to care whether he was ungrammatical or not. “It's what they said about…about mother.”

• • •

It was so lovely at the shore that they soon forgot the Hughes episode. They passed by the old, wind-beaten spruces of Tiny Cove and ran down to where the wind and shore were calling each other. Fishing boats went past, wraith-like. Far-off was the thunder of waves on the bar but here the sea crouched and purred. They raced along the shore with the sting of the blowing sand in their faces. They waded in the pools among the rocks. They built “sea-palaces” with shells and driftwood. Finally they sat them down on a red rock in a little curve below the red “capes” and looked far out in the soft fading purple of the long-shore twilight to some magic shore beyond the world's rim.

“Would you like to go away 'way out there, Pat?”

“No.” Pat shivered. “It would be too far from home.”

“I think
I
would,” said Jingle dreamily. “There's so much in the world I want to see…the great palaces and cathedrals men have built. I want to learn how to build them, too. But…”

Jingle stopped. He knew it was no use to hope for such a thing. He must, as far as he could see, spend his life picking up stones and grubbing out young spruce trees on his uncle's farm.

“Joe used to say he would like to be a sailor like Uncle Horace,” said Pat. “He said he hated farming, but he hasn't said anything about it lately. Father wouldn't listen to him.”

“School will begin next week,” said Jingle. “I hate to go. Miss Chidlaw will want me to join the entrance class…and what's the use? I can't get to Queen's…ever.”

“You want to go, Jingle?”

“Of course I want to go. It's the first step. But…I can't.”

“Next year they'll want
me
to join the entrance but I'm not going to,” said Pat resolutely. “I don't want to go to college. I'm just going to stay at Silver Bush and help Judy. Oh, isn't the salt tang in the air here lovely, Jingle? I wish we could come to the shore oftener.”

“The mists down by the harbor look like ghosts, don't they? And look at that little, lonely ship away over there…it looks as if it was drifting over the edge of the world. There's a fog coming in from sea. I guess maybe we'd better be going, Pat.”

There was only one objection to their going. While they had sat there the tide had come in. It was almost at their feet now. The rocks at the cape points were already under water. They looked at each other with suddenly whitened faces.

“We…we can't get around the capes,” gasped Pat.

Jingle looked at the rocks above them. Could they climb them? No, not here. They overhung too much.

“Will we…be drowned, Jingle?” whispered Pat, clutching him.

Jingle put his arm around her. He must be brave and cool for Pat's sake.

“No, of course not. See that little cave in the cape? We can climb up to it. I'm almost sure the tide never rises as high as that.”

“Oh, you can't be sure,” said Pat. “Remember Judy's stories of people being caught by the tide and drowned.”

“That was in Ireland. I never heard of it happening here. Come…quick.”

Jingle caught up McGinty and they raced through the water which was by now almost to their knees. Two rather badly scared children scrambled up into the little cave. As a matter of fact they need not have been scared. The cave was well above high tide mark. But neither of them was quite sure of that. They sat huddled together with McGinty between them. McGinty at least was quite easy in his mind. Indian plains and Lapland snows were all the same to McGinty when the two people he loved were with him.

Pat's panic subsided after a few minutes. She always felt safe with Jingle. And it wasn't likely the tide rose this high. But how long would it be before they could escape? The folks at home would be wild with fright. If they had only remembered Judy's warning!

But, in spite of everything, the romance of it appealed to Pat. Marooned in a cave by the tide was romantic if ever anything was. As for Jingle, if he had been sure that they were quite safe, he would have been perfectly happy. He had Pat all to himself…something that didn't happen very often since Bets had come to the Long House. Not but what he liked Bets. But Pat was the only girl with whom Jingle never felt shy.

“If those horrid Hughes girls could see us now wouldn't they laugh,” giggled Pat. “But I'm sorry I let them make me mad. Judy says you must never lower yourself to be mad with
scum
.”

“I wasn't mad,” said Jingle, “but what they said about mother hurt. Because…it's
true
.”

Pat squeezed his hand sympathetically.

“I'm sure she'll come someday, Jingle.”

“I've given up hoping it,” said Jingle bitterly. “She…she never sent me a card last Christmas at all.”

“Doesn't she answer your letters, Jingle…ever?”

“I…I never send the letters, Pat,” said Jingle miserably. “I've never sent any of them. I write them every Sunday but I just keep them in a box in an old chest. She never answered the first one I sent…so I never sent anymore.”

Pat just couldn't help it. She felt so sorry for Jingle…writing those letters Sunday after Sunday and never sending them. Impulsively she put her arm around his neck and kissed his cheek.

“There's no one like you in all the world, Pat,” said Jingle comforted.

“Hear, hear,” said the thuds of McGinty's tail.

Far-away shores were now only dim gray lands. The dark shadows of the oncoming night were all around them.

“Let's pretend things to pass the time,” suggested Pat. “Let's pretend the rocks dance.”

“Let's pretend things about that old house up there,” said Jingle.

The old house was on the top of the right cape. It was not one of the fish-houses that sprinkled the shore. Two generations ago it had been built by an eccentric Englishman who had brought his family out from England and lived there mysteriously. He seemed to have plenty of money and there were gay doings in the house until his wife died. Then he had left the Island as suddenly as he had come. Nobody would buy a house in such a place and it had sunk into a ruin. Its windows were broken…its chimneys had toppled down. The wind and the mist were the only guests now in rooms that had once echoed to music and laughter and dancing feet. In the gathering shadows the old house had the look of fate which even a commonplace building assumes beneath the falling night…as if it brooded over dark secrets…grim deeds whereof history has no record.

“I wonder if anybody was ever murdered in that house,” whispered Pat, with a delicious creepy thrill.

They peopled the old house with the forms of those who had once lived there. They invented the most gruesome things. The Englishman had killed his wife…had thrown her over the cape…had buried her under the house…her ghost walked there on nights like this. On stormy nights the house resounded with weeping and wailing…on moonlit nights if was full of
shadows
…restless, uneasy shadows. They scared themselves nearly to death and McGinty, excited by their tragic voices, howled dismally.

All at once they were too scared to go on pretending. It was dark…too dark to see the gulf although they could hear it. The bar moaned. An occasional bitter splash of rain blew into their cave. The little waves sobbed on the lonely shore. The very wind seemed full of the voices of the ghosts they had created. It was an eerie place…Pat snuggled close to Jingle.