Mistress Pat

by L. M. Montgomery

  “Oh, oh, that was very affable av him,” said Judy in a gratified tone.

  Judy’s bed had been moved so that she could see out of the window when propped up. Pat raised her on her pillows and she looked out with a relish on a scene that was for her full of memories. The owls were calling in the silver bush. The patient acres of the old farm were lying in the fitful light of a windy sunset. But the twilight shadows were falling peacefully over the sheltered kitchen garden where Long Alec was burning weeds. Tillytuck, who had asked Long Alec if he might have a few parsnips, was squatted down on his haunches, busily digging, while a stick of some kind which he had thrust into his pants pocket stuck up behind him with a grotesque resemblance to a forked tail.

  Judy reached out and clutched Pat’s hand.

  “‘Did ye iver see the divil

  Wid his liddle wooden shovel

  Digging pittaties in the garden

  Wid his tail cocked up?’”

  she quoted, laughing, and fell back on her pillows. Her kind loving eyes closed. Judy, who had laughed so bravely, gaily, gallantly all her life, had died laughing.

  CHAPTER 52

  Silver Bush was made ready to receive death. Judy lay in state in the Big Parlor…Pat had a queer feeling that it should really have been in the kitchen…while outside great flakes of the first snowfall were coming down. Her busy hands were still, quite still, at last. Beautiful flowers had been sent in, but Pat searched her garden and found a few late ’mums and some crimson leaves and berries to put in Judy’s hands, folded on the breast of her blue dress-up dress. Judy’s face took on a beauty and dignity in death it had never known in life. The funeral was largely attended…Pat couldn’t help feeling that Judy would have been proud of it. And then it was over…the house, so terribly still, to be put in order and no Judy to talk it over with in the kitchen afterwards! Pat reflected, with a horrible choke, how Judy would have enjoyed talking over her own funeral…how she would have chuckled over the jokes. For there had been jokes…it seemed that there were jokes everywhere, even at funerals. Old Malcolm Anderson making one of his rare remarks as he looked down on Judy’s dead face, “Poor woman, I hope you’re as happy as you look,” …mournfully, as if he rather doubted it; and Olive’s son yowling because his sisters pushed him away from the window and he couldn’t see the flowers being carried out…“Never mind,” one of his sisters comforting him, “you’ll see the flowers at mother’s funeral.”

  When all was done, Pat, wondering how she could bear the dull, dead ache in her heart, averted her eyes from the spectral winter landscape and went to the kitchen expecting to find it a tragedy of emptiness. But mother was there in Judy’s place, with a chairful of cats beside her. Pat buried her head in mother’s lap and cried out all the tears she had wanted to cry out since Judy was stricken down.

  “Oh, mother…mother…I’ve nothing but you and Silver Bush left now.”

  THE ELEVENTH YEAR

  CHAPTER 53

  There were many times in the year following Judy’s death when cold waves of pain went over Pat. At first it seemed literally impossible to carry on without Judy. Life seemed very savorless now that Judy’s tales were all told. But Pat found, as others have done, that “we forget because we must.” Life began to be livable again and then sweet. Silver Bush seemed to cry to her, “Make me home-like again…keep my rooms lighted…my heart warmed. Bring young laughter here to keep me from growing old.”

  Almost every one she had loved was changed or gone…the old voices of gladness sounded no more…but Silver Bush was still the same.

  That first Christmas without Judy was bitter. Winnie wanted them all to go to the Bay Shore for the day but Pat wouldn’t hear of it. Leave Silver Bush alone for Christmas? Not she! Every tradition was scrupulously carried out. It was easier because mother could share in things now, and they had a good Christmas Day after all. Uncle Tom and Aunt Barbara and Winnie and Frank and their children came. May went home for the day, so there was no jarring presence. A letter came from Rae with the good news that in two years’ time she and Brook would be coming “home” to take charge of the Vancouver branch. Compared to China Vancouver seemed next door. As Judy used to say, there was always something to take the edge off. Nevertheless Pat was glad when the day was over. The first Christmas above a grave can never be a wholly joyous thing. She and mother talked it over in the kitchen afterwards and laughed a little over certain things. The cats purred around them and Uncle Tom and dad played checkers. But once or twice Pat caught herself listening for Judy’s step on the back stairs.

  By spring hope was her friend again and her delight in Silver Bush was keen and vivid once more. Her love for it kept her young. To be sure, often now came little needlelike reminders of the passing years. Now and again there was another gray hair and she knew the quirk at the corner of her mouth was getting a little more pronounced. “We’re all growing old,” she thought with a pang. But she really didn’t mind it so much for herself. It was the change in others she hated to see. Winnie was getting matronly and Frank…who had just been elected to membership in the Provincial House…was gray above the ears. If other people would only stay young, Pat thought, she wouldn’t mind growing old herself. Though it was rather horrid to be told you “looked young,” as Uncle Brian once did. She knew the Binnies regarded her as definitely “on the shelf” and that they were calling her among themselves “the single perennial.” Even Little Mary once gravely asked her, “Aunt Pat, did you ever have any beaus?” It sometimes amused her to reflect that she was really quite a different person to different people. To the Binnies she was a disappointed spinster who had been “crossed in love”…to the Great-aunts at the Bay Shore she was an inexperienced child…to Lester Conway she was a divine, alluring, unobtainable creature. For Lester, who was now a young widower, had tried vainly to warm up the cold soup. Pat would none of him. The time when she had been so wildly in love with him in her Queen’s days seemed as far away and unreal as the days of immemorial antiquity. To be sure, he had been slim and romantic and dashing then, whereas he was stout and plump-faced now. And he had once laughed at Silver Bush. Pat had never forgiven him for that…never would forgive him.

  In the spring Long Alec again announced that the next year the new house would be built. It had been postponed twice but the mortgage was paid at last and there would be no more postponements. Pat lived on this through the summer. Nevertheless, when the autumn came again it was not just a wholesome time for Pat. Sometimes mother watched her a little anxiously. Pat seemed to have an attack of nerves now and then. She developed a taste for taking lonely walks by herself among the twilight shadows. They seemed to be better company than she found in the sunlight. She came back from them looking as if she were of the band of gray shadows herself. Mother didn’t like it. It seemed to her that the child, on those lone rambles, was trying to warm herself by some fire that had died out years ago. She had that look on her face when she came in. Mother wanted Pat to go away for a visit somewhere but Pat only laughed.

  “There is nowhere I could go where I would be half as happy as I am at Silver Bush. You know I’ve died several times of homesickness when I was away. Don’t worry over me, sweetheart. I’m fine and dandy…and next year Silver Bush will be ours again…and I’ve a hundred plans for it.”

  A night came when Pat found herself alone at Silver Bush…absolutely alone for the first time, in that old house where there had been always so many. Mother and father were over at the Bay Shore and would not be back till late. It was wonderful that mother could gad about like that again. Pat thought she wouldn’t mind being alone…could she be alone with dear Silver Bush?…but some restlessness drove her outside. There was a moan of the autumn wind in the leafless birches and a wonderful display of northern lights. Pat recalled that Judy had always been superstitious about northern lights. They were a “sign.” How Judy seemed to come back on a night like this! Dead and gone years see
med to be whispering to themselves all about her. The crisp leaves rustled under her feet as she went along the path to the orchard. She recalled old autumns when she and Sid had raced through the fallen leaves. There were voices in the wind, calling to her out of the past. Many things came back to her…bitter, beautiful, sad, joyous things…crises that had seemed to wreck life and were only dim memories now. She was haunted. This would not do. She must shake this off. She would go in and light up the house. It did not like to be dark and silent. Yet she paused for a moment on the door-step, the prey of a sudden fancy. That shut door was a door of dreams through which she might slip into the Silver Bush of long ago. For a fleeting space she had a curious feeling that Judy and Tillytuck and Hilary and Rae and Winnie and Joe were all in there and if she could only go in quickly and silently enough she would find them. A world utterly passed away might be her universe once more.

  “This is nonsense,” said Pat, giving herself a shake. “This won’t do. These moods are coming too often now.”

  She flung open the door and went in…lighted a lamp. There was nobody there except Bold-and-Bad. But Pat could have sworn that Judy had been there a moment before.

  She did not sleep for a long time that night. She felt vaguely apprehensive, although she could assign no reason for it. As she said afterwards her soul knew something she did not. Late in the night she fell into a troubled slumber. Thus was passed her last night in that beloved old room where she had dreamed her dreams of girlhood and suffered the heartaches of womanhood, where she had endured her defeats and exulted over her victories. Never again was she to lay her head on its pillow…never again waken to see the morning sunshine gleaming in at her vine-hung window. She had looked from that window on spring blossom and summer greenness, on autumn fields and winter snows. She had seen star-shine and sunrise from it. She had knelt there in keen happiness and bitter sorrow. And now that was all finished. The Angel of the Years turned the page whereon it was writ while she lay in that uneasy slumber…and she knew it not.

  It was Sunday and everybody went to church. Pat remembered as she went out of the door that when she was a child she had always been so sorry for Silver Bush when everybody went to church. It must feel lonely. She had always been glad when she was left home because she would be company for it.

  Something made her turn her head as the car went down the lane. Silver Bush looked beautiful, even on that dour November day, against its sheltering trees. She felt her heart go out to it as they turned the corner and it was hidden from her sight.

  The minister had just announced his text…it was always remarked as a curious coincidence that it was, “Thy house shall become a desolation”…when young Corey Robinson entered the church, hurried up the aisle and whispered a word to Long Alec. Pat heard it…everyone in the church heard it in a few moments.

  Silver Bush was burning!

  Pat seemed to die a thousand deaths on that ride home. Yet when she got there she was curiously numb…terror seemed to have washed her being clean of everything. Even when she saw that terrible fire blazing against the gray November hillside she gave no sign…made no sound.

  It seemed as if everybody in both the Glens and Silverbridge and Bay Shore were there…but nothing could be done…nothing but stand helplessly and see a home that had been a home for generations wiped out. That night Silver Bush, with all its memories, all its possessions, was in ashes!

  CHAPTER 54

  They all went to Swallowfield until things could be settled. Pat took no part in the settling. Life had suddenly become for her like a landscape on the moon. She had the odd feeling of not belonging to this or any world that she had felt once or twice after a bad attack of flu. Only…this feeling would never pass. Mother, who bore up wonderfully, watched her anxiously.

  It turned out that May had left the oil stove in the porch burning when she went to church. It was supposed to have exploded. Pat was not in the least interested in how it had happened. She was not interested in anything…not even in the finding of Judy’s “cream cow” quite unharmed amid the ashes in the cellar and the old front door with its knocker, lying on the lawn. Somebody had wrenched it off in a first vain attempt to enter the blazing house. She did not care when it was discovered that all the hooked rugs Judy had stored in the garret for her were safe, Aunt Barbara having borrowed them to copy the patterns the day before the fire. When you are horribly, hopelessly tired you can’t care about anything.

  The only thing that seemed to be the least bit of comfort to her was that the white kittens had not been burned. She had packed the picture up after Judy’s death and sent it to Hilary. He had never even acknowledged it…that hurt her…but as she had sent it to his office she felt quite sure he must have received it. Yes, she was faintly glad Judy’s kittens had not been burned.

  At first Long Alec talked of rebuilding Silver Bush. It was insured. Everybody seemed very pleased about the insurance…but no insurance could restore the old heirlooms…the old associations. And then, four days after the fire, Great-aunt Frances at the Bay Shore died and it was found that she had left the Bay Shore farm to mother.

  “It’s strange how things work out,” said Aunt Barbara.

  “Very strange,” agreed Pat bitterly.

  The kaleidoscope shifted again. Long Alec and mother and Pat would go to live at the Bay Shore. And the new house for Sid and May…a house without memories…would be built on the old foundation of Silver Bush. It would not be like the old Silver Bush. That was gone and the place thereof would know it no more.

  May was openly triumphant. A new house, with all the bay windows she wanted and a color-scheme kitchen like Olive’s! Lovely!

  Mother was really pleased at the thought of going back to her old home to live.

  “Mother is younger than I am,” thought Pat drearily.

  She felt horribly old. Her love for Silver Bush had kept her young…and now it was gone. Nothing was left…there was only a dreadful, unbearable emptiness.

  “Life has beaten me,” she told herself. She had had enough grief in her life to know that in time even the bitterest fades out into a not unpleasing dearness and sweetness of recollection. But this heart-break could never fade. Everything had fallen into ruins around her. She could never fit into the life at the Bay Shore. She had a terrible feeling that she did not belong anywhere…or to anybody…in this new sad lonely world.

  “I think…if I could ever be glad of anything again…I’d be glad that Judy died before this happened,” she thought. She did not say these things to anybody. Nobody but mother would have understood and she was not going to make things harder for mother. But her heart was like an unlighted room and nothing, she thought she knew, could ever illumine it again.

  CHAPTER 55

  One evening two weeks later Pat slipped away in the twilight and went along the Whispering Lane like a ghost, to where home had been. She had never dared to go before. But something drew her now.

  Where Silver Bush had been was only a yawning cellar full of ashes and charred beams. Pat leaned on the old yard gate…which had not burned because the wind had blown the flames back against the bush…and looked long and quietly about her. She wore her long blue coat and the little dress of crinkled red crepe she had worn to church…the only clothes she owned just now. Her head was bare and her face was very pale.

  The evening was soft and gentle and almost windless. No living thing stirred near her except a lean adventurous barn cat that picked its way gingerly through the yard. Bold-and-Bad and Popka had been transferred to Swallowfield and Winnie had taken Squedunk.

  It hurt Pat worse than anything else to see the dead stark trees of the birch grove. She shuddered as she recalled standing there that fatal Sunday and seeing the flames ravage them. It had seemed to hurt her even more than seeing her home burn…those trees she had always loved…trees that had been akin to her. More than half the bush was killed. The old aspen b
y the kitchen door was only a charred stump and the maple over the well was an indecency. The hood of the well was burned. May would have a pump put in now. But that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.

  All the flower clumps near the house had been burned…Judy’s bleeding-heart…the southernwood…the white lilac. The lawn itself looked like an old yellow blanket. Beyond stretched a russet land of shadows and lonely furrows and woods that stirred faintly in their dreams. Far away, in the direction of Silverbridge, Angus Macaulay must have been working in his forge for she could hear the ring of his anvil, faintly clear, as if some goblin forger were at work among the hills.

  “I suppose I can teach,” thought Pat. “I have my old license. They won’t need me at the Bay Shore…they’ve had Anna Palmer there for years to help and she’ll stay on. But I can’t build up a new life…I’m too tired. I’ll just go on existing…withering into unimportance…drifting from one place to another…rootless…living in houses I hate…oh, can it be I standing here looking at the place where Silver Bush was?…that old Bible verse…‘it shall be a heap forever…it shall not be built again’…I wish that were true…I wish no house could ever be built here again…it will be a desecration. Oh, if I could only wake up and find it all a dream!”

  “Pat, darling,” said a voice from the shadows around her.

  She turned…incredulous…amazed…

  “Jingle!”

  The old name sprang to her lips. The autumn dusk was no longer cold and loveless over the remote hills. Something seemed to have come with him…courage…hope…inspiration…that same dear sense of protection and understanding that had come to her that evening of long ago when he had found her lost in the dark on the Base Line road. She held out both her hands but he caught her in his arms…his lips were seeking hers…a tremor half fear, half delight, shook her. And then that old, old, unacknowledged ache of loneliness she had tried to stifle with Silver Bush vanished forever. His lips were on hers…and she knew. It was like a tide turning home.