Pat of Silver Bush (22 page)

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.

Shores of Romance

“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 harbour 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.

Half way 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 longshore 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 harbour 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 some day, 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 any more.”

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 grey 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 grewsome 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 it 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.