The Blythes Are Quoted (31 page)

Patrick thought that he, himself, was afraid of everything. Perhaps that was why Uncle Stephen had never liked him. He was quiet and dreamy and sensitive ... like Walter Blythe again ... and Uncle Stephen liked boys to be robust and
aggressive ... real “he-boys” ... or said he did. As a matter of fact, he did not like any kind of boy. Patrick did not know very much ... but he knew
that
. Though people were always telling him how good his uncle was to him and how grateful he ought to be to him.

The maids, in their stiff, starched uniforms, were busy restoring the rooms to order ... and talking in low voices of how little Master Patrick seemed to feel the death of his uncle. Patrick went into the library where he could escape hearing them and the sense of guilt they gave him ... because he knew quite well that what they were saying was true and his uncle’s death did not really matter much to him. It ought to have ... he felt that ... but there was no use in pretending to oneself.

He knew how Walter Blythe would have felt if his father had died or even his Uncle Davy. But he could not feel that way about Uncle Stephen. So he made his escape into the quiet library and curled up on the window seat in the early September sunshine, where he could look out into the maplewood and forget the house.

The house had never liked him either. In his few brief visits to Ingleside ... there was some distant relationship between Dr. Blythe’s mother and Uncle Stephen or they would not have been permitted, he felt quite sure ... he had felt, without any telling, that the house loved all the people in it ... “Because
we
love it,” Walter had explained to him. But Oaklands was always watching him ... resenting him. Perhaps it was because it was so big and splendid it had no use at all for a little boy who felt lost and insignificant in its magnificence ... who did it no credit. Perhaps it liked people to be afraid of it, just as Uncle Stephen had liked people to be afraid of him. Patrick knew
that
, too, though he could never have told how he knew
it. Walter Blythe, even, could not explain it. Walter owned up to being afraid of many things but he could not understand being afraid of your own relations. But then Walter’s relations were very different. Patrick would never have been afraid of Dr. or Mrs. Blythe either.

It was very strange to think of Uncle Stephen being dead. In fact, it was impossible. Patrick could see him plainly still ... as plainly as when he was alive ... sitting over there in his high-backed chair, wearing his heavy brocaded dressing gown, and looking as if he had never been young ... had he, really? A little boy like him and Walter? It seemed absurd ... and would never be old. He did not look old, although he had been silver-haired as long as Patrick could remember. He had some heart ailment and Dr. Galbraith often came to see him. Sometimes Dr. Blythe came in from Glen St. Mary for a consultation. Patrick always had a queer feeling of shame on these occasions, much as he liked Dr. Blythe. Uncle Stephen was always so rude to him. But Dr. Blythe never seemed to mind. He could sometimes hear him and Dr. Galbraith laughing as they drove away from the house, as if at some exquisite joke. He loved Dr. Blythe and Mrs. Blythe, but he was very careful never to let Uncle Stephen suspect it. He had a secret feeling that if he did he would never be allowed to go to Glen St. Mary again.

Uncle Stephen was usually very sarcastic and remote; but he could be affable and amusing when he liked to be. At least other people thought him amusing. Patrick didn’t. He remembered that he had never heard his uncle laugh. Why? Ingleside rang with laughter. Even old Susan Baker laughed upon occasion. He wondered what it would be like to live with a person who laughed sometimes.

He wondered, too, what would become of him, now that Uncle Stephen was dead. Would he just go on living in this
unfriendly house, with Miss Sperry giving him lessons and glaring at him through her glasses when he spelled wrongly? The prospect filled him with horror. If he could only escape ... get away anywhere ... hop on that bus which had just gone tearing past the big gates ... go to some place like Ingleside to live!

Patrick had always longed to ride on a bus. The Ingleside children often did. He never could, of course. When Patrick went out he went in the big car driven by Henry. He didn’t like the big car and he knew Henry thought him a dumb kid. He had heard him tell the housekeeper so.

If he could only have one single ride on a bus! Or, as he and Walter Blythe had planned, fly across the country on a black courser ... Walter’s choice was a white one, and his mother didn’t laugh when he told her ... taking fences and everything as a matter of course! That would be glorious. He did that in his other world. But just now that other world seemed too far away. He could not get into it.

Walter Blythe had another world, too. His mother seemed to understand it. But he remembered Dr. Blythe laughing and saying that if they broke their leg on some wild drive it would be a very painful matter, since anaesthetics had not been discovered. Dr. Blythe seemed to think the present century better than all that had gone before.

As long as Patrick could remember he had lived at Oaklands with Uncle Stephen. At first, like a dim dream, there had been a mother; and, like a dimmer dream still, the memory of being with that mother in a lovely place ... a place something like Ingleside ... in a house that smiled at you on a hill ... in a garden where the walks were bordered with crimson geraniums and big white shells ... and far down, over long, still fields, sand dunes lying in a strange, golden magic
of sunshine, with white gulls soaring over them. There was a flock of white ducks in the yard and somebody gave him a slice of bread with honey on it. He had, he remembered, felt so near his other world then ... so near that a step would have taken him into it forever. And somebody like Dr. Blythe, only younger, carried him about on his shoulder and called him Pat.

Mother was nowhere soon after that ... some people told him she had gone to heaven but Patrick believed she had just stepped into his other world. Uncle Stephen had told him she was dead ... Patrick did not know what that meant ... and had said he didn’t like squalling brats. So Patrick had not cried much except when he was in bed at night.

He did not cry now. In fact, he felt no inclination to cry, which perhaps was why the housekeeper said he was the most unfeeling child she had ever known. But he wished he had a dog. Uncle Stephen had hated dogs and he knew Miss Sperry would never let him have one. She said dogs were insanitary. Yet they had dogs at Ingleside and Dr. Blythe was a doctor. There were dogs in his other world ... and slim little deer, racing through vast forests ... horses with shining skins and dainty hooves ... squirrels so tame, they fed from your hands ... only there were plenty of them at Ingleside ... and lions splendidly maned. And all the animals were very friendly.

And there was a little girl in a scarlet dress! Not one of the Ingleside girls, much as he liked them. He had never told even Walter about
her
. But she was always there, ready to play with him ... talk with him ... ready to stick her tongue out so saucily at him, like little Rilla out at Ingleside ... only she wasn’t really a bit like Rilla.

What would Miss Sperry say if she knew about her? Likely, in a voice as cold as rain,

“Control your imagination, Patrick. It is this world with which we are concerned at present. Your answer to this multiplication sum is WRONG.”

Just like that, in capitals. Just as Susan Baker would have spoken if she had been a teacher and a pupil had brought her a sum with a wrong answer. Only Susan was not a teacher and he rather liked her except when she scolded Walter for writing poetry.

When they came back from the cemetery they all came into the library to hear Uncle Stephen’s will read. Lawyer Atkins had asked them all to be present. Not that any of them had much interest in it. The money would go to Patrick. Stephen had told them so often enough. He was only their half-brother, while Patrick’s father was his full brother. Still, there was the matter of a guardian. There would have to be one or more. Likely Lawyer Atkins but you could never tell, with an eccentric creature like Stephen.

Patrick watched them filing in. They had all been pretending to be crying. Aunt Melanie Hall, Uncle John Brewster and Aunt Elizabeth Brewster, Uncle Frederick Brewster and Aunt Fanny Brewster, Aunt Lilian Brewster and her cousin who lived with her, Miss Cynthia Adams. He was afraid of every one of them. They were always finding fault with him. As his eye caught Aunt Lilian’s he nervously unwrapped his legs from the chair rungs.

Her very look said,

“Sit properly at once.”

Strange. When he was at Ingleside Susan Baker was always scolding the children for that very thing. And he never minded her but strove to obey her.

Lawyer Atkins followed them with a paper in his hand. The tortoise-rimmed glasses on his big handsome face made
Patrick think of an owl ... an owl that had pounced on a poor trembling mouse. Which did Lawyer Atkins a great injustice. He was an honest man who had had a hard time of it with his client, Stephen Brewster, and did not approve of the will at all.

Also he liked poor little Patrick and felt sorry for him. However, he cleared his throat and read the will.

It was short and to the point. Even Patrick understood it.

Oaklands was to be sold ... he was glad of that. At least, he would not have to live
there
. Lawyer Atkins was appointed his legal guardian, but Patrick was to live with an uncle or aunt until he was twenty-one when a sum of money so enormous that it had no meaning for Patrick was to be his. Only he felt sure it would be enough to buy a place like Ingleside. He was to choose for himself the relative with whom he preferred to live. Having made his choice, there could be no change, unless the chosen one died. But in order that he might know what he was doing he was first to live with each uncle and aunt for three months. When he had done this he was to make his permanent choice. The sum of two thousand a year was to be paid to the temporary guardian until Patrick was twenty-one, as compensation for his board, lodging and care generally.

Patrick desperately wrapped his legs around the chair rungs again. Aunt Lilian might look her eyes out, he thought, but he had to do something to steady his body.

He didn’t want to live with any of them. If he could only go to Glen St. Mary now, and live at Ingleside! The very thought seemed like heaven. But alas, the Ingleside people were of no relation to him, except so distantly it didn’t count.

And he didn’t want to live with any who were. He hated the very thought ... hated it bitterly, as he knew Uncle Stephen had known very well.

Aunt Melanie Hall was a widow. She was big, capable, and patronizing. She patronized everybody. He had heard Dr. Blythe say once she would patronize God.

Uncle John Brewster always thumped him on the back and Aunt Elizabeth Brewster had such an extraordinarily long face ... long forehead, long nose, long upper lip and long chin. Patrick could never bear to look at her.

Live with that face for years and years! He just couldn’t!

Uncle Frederick Brewster was a thin, beaten little man of no importance. But Aunt Fanny was every inch an aunt. He had heard Uncle Stephen say she wore the breeches ... a favourite expression of Susan Baker’s at Ingleside also. Patrick didn’t know what it meant ... but he did know he didn’t want to live with Aunt Fanny.

Aunt Lilian was not married and neither was Cynthia Adams. They pretended not to care but Patrick knew somehow that they
did
care. Susan Baker, now, was honest about it. She always admitted frankly that she would have liked to have been married.

Uncle Stephen would never see Aunt Lilian and Cynthia Adams at the same time.

“I can stand only one old maid at once,” he used to say.

Patrick thought that even one old maid, at least one like Aunt Lilian, was more than he could stand. Still, Susan Baker was an old maid and he liked her. It was all very puzzling.

“Wouldn’t you know Stephen would make a crazy will like that!” Aunt Fanny was saying in a disgusted tone. “I see Dr. Blythe is one of the witnesses. I shouldn’t wonder if he put him up to it.”

She was thinking,

“
I
should have him. He should live with other children. He always seemed so different for a while after he came back
from one of those Ingleside visits. I never cared for either Dr. Blythe or his wife ... but they have a family ... and Patrick never seemed so odd for a while. Not so odd and unchildlike. But I suppose he won’t choose me ... I’ve always felt he never liked me. I suppose Stephen poisoned his mind against me. Still ... there’s the three months ... it might be possible to win his affection if we were all very nice to him. That two thousand ... it would take care of the boys’ education ... otherwise I don’t see how we can ever manage it. And Frederick and I could have a holiday. I wish I’d made more of him ... but he’s always been such a strange, shy child ... more like that little Walter Blythe at Ingleside than any of his own kin. And I know I’ll have trouble with the boys ... they do love to tease ... I don’t seem to have any influence over them. Ah, children are not what they were in
my
young days. They listened to their parents
then
.”

“It would provide for Amy’s wedding,” Aunt Elizabeth was thinking. “He’ll never be happy with those awful boys of Fanny’s. They are really young demons. And the very idea of an old maid like Lilian having him is laughable. That chinchilla cape ... Fanny couldn’t put on any more airs about her moleskin coat. I saw the most marvellous lace tablecloth at Moore and Stebbins’. Of course I know Patrick doesn’t like me ... Stephen knew it, too ... but in three months ...”

“He should come to
me
,” thought Aunt Lilian. “Stephen knew that perfectly well. I need the money more than any of them. I’m tired of scrimping and pinching. And if I had money perhaps George Imlay ... of course it’s rather dreadful to think of having a boy in the house, especially when he begins to grow up. And he’s frightened of me ... he’s never tried to hide that ... but in three months ... only Cynthia is so very uncertain. She may pretend to like him ... but he’ll be
sure to see through her ... I don’t see how anyone can really like children anyhow. They may pretend to ... that Mrs. Dr. Blythe makes me sick ...”