Pat of Silver Bush (3 page)

The barns where Joe was whistling were near the orchard, with only the Whispering Lane that led to Uncle Tom’s between them. The little barn stood close to the big barn like a child … such an odd little barn with gables and a tower and oriel windows like a church. Which was exactly what it was. When the new Presbyterian church had been built in South Glen Grandfather Gardiner had bought the old one and hauled it home for a barn. It was the only thing he had ever done of which Judy Plum hadn’t approved. It was only what she expected when he had a stroke five years later at the age of seventy-five, and was never the same again though he lived to be eighty. And say what you might there hadn’t been the same luck among the Silver Bush pigs after the sty was shifted to the old church. They became subject to rheumatism.

The sun had set. Pat always liked to watch its western glory reflected in the windows of Uncle Tom’s house beyond the Whispering Lane. It was the hour she liked best of all the hours on the farm. The poplar leaves were rustling silkily in the afterlight; the yard below was suddenly full of dear, round, fat, furry pussy-cats, bent on making the most of the cat’s light. Silver Bush always overflowed with kittens. Nobody ever had the heart to drown them. Pat especially was fond of them. It was a story Judy loved to tell … how the minister had told Pat, aged four, that she could ask him any question she liked. Pat had said sadly, “Why don’t Gentleman Tom have kittens?” The poor man did be resigning at the next Presbytery. He had a tendency to laughing and he said he couldn’t preach wid liddle Pat Gardiner looking at him from her pew, so solemn-like and reproachful.

In the yard were black Sunday, spotted Monday, Maltese Tuesday, yellow Wednesday, calico Friday, Saturday who was just the colour of the twilight. Only striped Thursday continued to wail heartbrokenly at the granary door. Thursday had always been an unsociable kitten, walking by himself like Kipling’s cat in Joe’s story book. The old gobbler, with his coral-red wattles, had gone to roost on the orchard fence. Bats were swooping about … fairies rode on bats, Judy said. Lights were springing up suddenly to east and west … at Ned Baker’s and Kenneth Robinson’s and Duncan Gardiner’s and James Adams’. Pat loved to watch them and wonder what was going on in the rooms where they bloomed. But there was one house in which there was never any light … an old white house among thick firs on the top of a hill to the south-west, two farms away from Silver Bush. It was a long, rather low house … Pat called it the Long Lonely House. It hadn’t been lived in for years. Pat always felt so sorry for it, especially in the “dim” when the lights sprang up in all the other houses over the country side. It must feel lonely and neglected. Somehow she resented the fact that it didn’t have all that other houses had.

“It wants to be lived in, Judy,” she would say wistfully.

There was the evening star in a pale silvery field of sky just over the tall fir tree that shot up in the very centre of the silver bush. The first star always gave her a thrill. Wouldn’t it be lovely if she could fly up to that dark swaying fir-top between the evening star and the darkness?

Concerning Parsley Beds

The red rose was nearly finished and Pat suddenly remembered that Judy had said something about rooting in the parsley bed.

“Judy Plum,” she said, “what do you think you’ll find in the parsley bed?”

“What wud ye be after thinking if I told ye I’d find a tiny wee new baby there?” asked Judy, watching her sharply.

Pat looked for a moment as if she had rather had the wind knocked out of her. Then …

“Do you think, Judy, that we really need another baby here?”

“Oh, oh, as to that, a body might have her own opinion. But wudn’t it be nice now? A house widout a baby do be a lonesome sort av place I’m thinking.”

“Would you … would you like a baby better than me, Judy Plum?”

There was a tremble in Pat’s voice.

“That I wudn’t, me jewel. Ye’re Judy’s girl and Judy’s girl ye’ll be forever if I was finding a dozen babies in the parsley bed. It do be yer mother I’m thinking av. The fact is, she’s got an unaccountable notion for another baby, Patsy, and I’m thinking we must be humouring her a bit, seeing as she isn’t extry strong. So there’s the truth av the matter for ye.”

“Of course, if mother wants a baby I don’t mind,” conceded Pat. “Only,” she added wistfully, “we’re such a nice little family now, Judy … just mother and daddy and Aunt Hazel and you and Winnie and Joe and Sid and me. I wish we could just stay like that forever.”

“I’m not saying it wudn’t be best. These afterthoughts do be a bit upsetting whin ye’ve been thinking a family’s finished. But there it is … nothing’ll do yer mother but a baby. So it’s poor Judy Plum must get down on her stiff ould marrow-bones and see what’s to be found in the parsley bed.”

“Are babies really found in parsley beds, Judy? Jen Foster says the doctor brings them in a black bag. And Ellen Price says a stork brings them. And Polly Gardiner says old Granny Garland from the bridge brings them in her basket.”

“The things youngsters do be talking av nowadays,” ejaculated Judy. “Ye’ve seen Dr. Bentley whin he was here be times. Did ye iver see him wid inny black bag?”

“No … o … o.”

“And do there be inny storks on P. E. Island?”

Pat had never heard of any.

“As for Granny Garland, I’m not saying she hasn’t a baby or two stowed away in her basket now and again. But if she has ye may rist contint she found it in her own parsley bed. What av that? She doesn’t pick the babies for the quality. Ye wudn’t want a baby av Granny Garland’s choosing, wud ye, now?”

“Oh, no, no. But couldn’t I help you look for it, Judy?”

“Listen at her. It’s liddle ye know what ye do be talking about, child dear. It’s only some one wid a drop av witch blood in her like meself can see the liddle craturs at all. And it’s all alone I must go at the rise av the moon, in company wid me cat. ‘Tis a solemn performance, I’m telling ye, this finding av babies, and not to be lightly undertaken.”

Pat yielded with a sigh of disappointment.

“You’ll pick a pretty baby, won’t you, Judy? A Silver Bush baby MUST be pretty.”

“Oh, oh, I’ll do me best. Ye must remimber that none av thim are much to look at in the beginning. All crinkled and wrinkled just like the parsley leaves. And I’m telling ye another thing … it’s mostly the pretty babies that grow up to be the ugly girls. Whin
I
was a baby …”

“Were YOU ever a baby, Judy?” Pat found it hard to believe. It was preposterous to think of Judy Plum ever having been a baby. And could there ever have been a time when there was NO Judy Plum?

“I was that. And I was so handsome that the neighbours borryed me to pass off as their own whin company come. And look at me now! Just remimber that if you don’t think the baby I’ll be finding is as good-looking as ye’d want. Of course I had the jandies whin I was a slip av a girleen. It turned me as yellow as a brass cint. Me complexion was niver the same agin.”

“But, Judy, you’re not ugly.”

“Maybe it’s not so bad as that,” said Judy cautiously, “but I wudn’t have picked THIS face if I cud have had the picking. There now, I’ve finished me rose and a beauty it is and I must be off to me milking. Ye’d better go and let that Thursday cratur into the granary afore it breaks its heart. And don’t be saying a word to inny one about this business av the parsley bed.”

“I won’t. But, Judy … I’ve a kind of awful feeling in my stomach …”

Judy laughed.

“The cliverness av the cratur! I know what ye do be hinting at. Well, after I’m finished wid me cows ye might slip into the kitchen and I’ll be frying ye an egg.”

“In butter, Judy?”

“Sure in butter. Lashings av it … enough to sop yer bits av bread in it the way ye like. And I’m not saying but what there might be a cinnymon bun left over from supper.”

Judy, who never wore an apron, turned up her drugget skirt around her waist, showing her striped petticoat, and stalked downstairs, talking to herself as was her habit. Gentleman Tom followed her like a dark familiar. Pat uncoiled herself and went down to let Thursday into the granary. She still had a queer feeling though she could not decide whether it was really in her stomach or not. The world all at once seemed a bit too big. This new baby was an upsetting sort of an idea. The parsley bed had suddenly become a sinister sort of place. For a moment Pat was tempted to go to it and deliberately tear it all up by the roots. Judy wouldn’t be able to find a baby in it then. But mother … mother wanted a baby. It would never do to disappoint mother.

“But I’ll hate it,” thought Pat passionately. “An OUTSIDER like that!”

If she could only talk it over with Sid it would be a comfort. But she had promised Judy not to say a word to anybody about it. It was the first time she had ever had a secret from Sid and it made her feel uncomfortable. Everything seemed to have changed a little in some strange fashion … and Pat hated change.

Half an hour later she had put the thought of it out of her mind and was in the garden, bidding the flowers goodnight. Pat never omitted this ceremony. She was sure they would miss her if she forgot it. It was so beautiful in the garden, in the late twilight, with a silvery hint of moonrise over the Hill of the Mist. The trees around it … old maples that Grandmother Gardiner had planted when she came as a bride to Silver Bush … were talking to each other as they always did at night. Three little birch trees that lived together in one corner were whispering secrets. The big crimson peonies were blots of darkness in the shadows. The blue-bells along the path trembled with fairy laughter. Some late June lilies starred the grass at the foot of the garden: the columbines danced: the white lilac at the gate flung passing breaths of fragrance on the dewy air: the southernwood … Judy called it “lad’s love” … which the little Quaker Great-grand had brought with her from the old land a hundred years ago, was still slyly aromatic.

Pat ran about from plot to plot and kissed everything. Tuesday ran with her and writhed in furry ecstasy on the walks before her … walks that Judy had picked off with big stones from the shore, dazzlingly whitewashed.

When Pat had kissed all her flowers goodnight she stood for a little while looking at the house. How beautiful it was, nestled against its wooden hill, as if it had grown out of it … a house all white and green, just like its own silver birches, and now patterned over charmingly with tree shadows cast by a moon that was floating over the Hill of the Mist. She always loved to stand outside of Silver Bush after dark and look at its lighted windows. There was a light in the kitchen where Sid was at his lessons … a light in the parlor where Winnie was practising her music … a light up in mother’s room. A light for a moment flashed in the hall, as somebody went upstairs, bringing out the fan window over the front door.

“Oh, I’ve got such a LOVELY home,” breathed Pat, clasping her hands. “It’s such a nice FRIENDLY house. Nobody … NOBODY … has such a lovely home. I’d just like to HUG it.”

Pat had her eggs in the kitchen with plenty of butter gravy, and then there was the final ceremony of putting a saucer of milk for the fairies on the well platform. Judy never omitted it.

“There’s no knowing what bad luck we might be having if we forgot it. Sure and we know how to trate fairies at Silver Bush.”

The fairies came by night and drank it up. This was one of the things Pat was strongly inclined to believe. Hadn’t Judy herself seen fairies dancing in a ring one night when she was a girleen in Ould Ireland?

“But Joe says there are no fairies in P. E. Island,” she said wistfully.

“The things Joe do be saying make me sometimes think the b’y don’t be all there,” said Judy indignantly. “Wasn’t there folks coming out to P.E.I, from the Ould Country for a hundred years, me jewel? And don’t ye be belaving there’d always be a fairy or two, wid a taste for a bit av adventure, wud stow himself away among their belongings and come too, and thim niver a bit the wiser? And isn’t the milk always gone be morning, I’m asking ye?”

Yes, it was. You couldn’t get away from THAT.

“You’re sure the cats don’t drink it, Judy?”

“Oh, oh, cats, is it? There don’t be much a cat wudn’t do if it tuk it into its head, I’m granting ye, but the bouldest that iver lived wudn’t be daring to lap up the milk that was left for a fairy. That’s the one thing no cat’d ever do … be disrespictful to a fairy—and it’d be well for mortal craturs to folly his example.”

“Couldn’t we stay up some night, Judy, and watch? I’d love to see a fairy.”

“Oh, oh, see, is it? Me jewel, ye can’t see the fairies unless ye have the seeing eye. Ye’d see nothing at all, only just the milk drying up slow, as it were. Now be off to bed wid ye and mind ye don’t forget yer prayers or maybe ye’ll wake up and find Something sitting on your bed in the night.”

“I never do forget my prayers,” said Pat with dignity.

“All the better for ye. I knew a liddle girl that forgot one night and a banshee got hold av her. Oh, oh, she was niver the same agin.”

“What did the banshee do to her, Judy?”

“Do to her, is it? It put a curse on her, that it did. Ivery time she tried to laugh she cried and ivery time she tried to cry she laughed. Oh, oh, ‘twas a bitter punishment. Now, what’s after plaguing ye? I can tell be the liddle face av ye ye’re not aisy.”

“Judy, I keep thinking about that baby in the parsley bed. Don’t you think … they’ve no baby over at Uncle Tom’s. Couldn’t you give it to them? Mother could see it as often as she wanted to. We’re four of a family now.”

“Oh, oh, do ye be thinking four is innything av a family to brag av? Why, yer great-great-grandmother, Old Mrs. Nehemiah, had seventeen afore she called it a day. And four av thim died in one night wid the black cholera.”

“Oh, Judy, how could she ever bear THAT?”

“Sure and hadn’t she thirteen left, me jewel? But they do say as she was niver the same agin. And now it’s not telling ye agin to go to bed I’ll be doing … oh, no, it’s not TELLING.”

Pat tiptoed upstairs, past the old grandfather clock on the landing that wouldn’t go … hadn’t gone for forty years. The “dead clock” she and Sid called it. But Judy always insisted that it told the right time twice a day. Then down the hall to her room, with a wistful glance at the close-shut spare-room door as she passed it … the Poet’s room, as it was called, because a poet who had been a guest at Silver Bush had slept there for a night. Pat had a firm belief that if you could only open the door of any shut room quickly enough you would catch all the furniture in strange situations. The chairs crowded together talking, the table lifting its white muslin skirts to show its pink sateen petticoat, the fire shovel and tongs dancing a fandango by themselves. But then you never could. Some sound always warned them and they were back in their places as demure as you please.