Pat of Silver Bush (7 page)

“Oh, Judy, what did they do?”

“Do, is it? Sure they cud do nothing and they did it. Poor Chrissy had to be married widout her veil, sobbing all troo the cirrimony. A great scandal it made I’m telling ye. It’s meself that will kape the key av the Poet’s room this time and if I catch that Snicklefritz prowling about the house it’s meself that’ll put a tin ear on that dog, if Joe takes a fit over it. And now, whin we’ve finished this lot av silver, ye’ll come out to the ould part and help me pick the damsons. Sure and I’m going to do up a big crock av baked damsons for yer Aunt Hazel. Hasn’t she always said there was nobody cud bake damsons like ould Judy Plum … more be token of me name perhaps.”

“Oh, hurry with the silver, Judy.”

Pat loved picking damsons with Judy … and the green gages and the golden gages and the big purple-red egg plums.

“Oh, oh, I’m niver in a hurry, me jewel. There’s all the time in the world and after that there’s eternity. There’s loads and lashins av work if yer Aunt Hazel is to have the proper widding but it’ll all be done dacently and in order.”

Pat couldn’t help feeling pleasantly excited when she found that she was to be Aunt Hazel’s flower girl. But she felt so sorry for Winnie who was too old to be a flower girl and not old enough to be a bridesmaid, that it almost spoilt her own pleasure. Aunt Hazel was to have two bridesmaids and all were to be dressed in green, much to Judy’s horror, who declared green was unlucky for weddings.

“Oh, oh, there was a widding once in the Ould Country and the bridesmaids wore grane. And the fairies were that mad they put a curse on the house, that they did.”

“How did they curse it, Judy?”

“I’m telling ye. There was niver to be inny more laughter in that house … niver agin. Oh, oh, that’s a tarrible curse. Think av a house wid no laughter in it.”

“And wasn’t there ever any, Judy?”

“Niver a bit. Plinty of waping but no laughing. Oh, oh, ‘twas a sorryful place!”

Pat felt a little uneasy. What if there never were to be any more laughter at Silver Bush … father’s gentle chuckles and Uncle Tom’s hearty booms … Winnie’s silvery trills … Judy’s broad mirth? But her dress was so pretty … a misty, spring-green crepe with smocked yoke and a cluster of dear pink rosebuds on the shoulder. And a shirred green hat with roses on the brim. Pat had to revel in it, curse or no curse. She did not realise … as Judy did … that the green made her pale, tanned little face paler and browner. Pat as yet had no spark of vanity. The dress itself was everything.

The wedding was to be in the afternoon and the “nuptial cemetery,” as Winnie, who was a ten-year-old Mrs. Malaprop … called it, was to be in the old grey stone church at South Glen which all the Gardiners had attended from time immemorial. Judy thought this a modern innovation.

“Sure and in the ould days at Silver Bush they used to be married in the avening and dance the night away. But they didn’t go stravaging off on these fine honeymoon trips then. Oh, oh, they wint home and settled down to their business. ‘Tis the times that have changed and not for the better I do be thinking. It used to be only the Episcopalians was married in church. Sure and it’s niver been a Presbytarian custom at all, at all.”

“Are you a Presbyterian, Judy?”

Pat was suddenly curious. She had never thought about Judy’s religion. Judy went to the South Glen church with them on Sundays but would never sit in the Gardiner pew … always up in the gallery, where she could see everything, Uncle Tom said.

“Oh, oh, I’m Presbytarian as much as an Irish body can be,” said Judy cautiously. “Sure and I cud niver be a rale Presbytarian not being Scotch. But innyhow I’m praying that all will go well and that yer Aunt Hazel’ll have better luck than yer grand-dad’s secound cousin had whin she was married.”

“What happened to grand-dad’s second cousin, Judy?”

“Oh, oh, did ye niver hear av it? Sure and it seems nobody’d iver tell ye yer fam’ly history if ould Judy didn’t. She died, poor liddle soul, of the pewmonia, the day before the widding and was buried in her widding dress. ‘Twas a sad thing for she’d been long in landing her man … she was thirty if she was a day … and it was hard to be disap’inted at the last moment like that. Now, niver be crying, me jewel, over what happened fifty years ago. She’d likely be dead innyhow be this time and maybe she was spared a lot av trouble, for the groom was a wild felly enough and was only taking her for her bit av money, folks said. Here, give me a spell stirring this cake and don’t be picking the plums out av it to ate.”

During the last week the excitement was tremendous. Pat was allowed to stay home from school, partly because every one wanted her to run errands, partly because she would probably have died if she hadn’t been allowed. Judy spent most of her time in the kitchen, concocting and baking, looking rather like an old witch hanging over some unholy brew. Aunt Barbara came over and helped but Aunt Edith did her share of the baking at home because no kitchen was big enough to hold her and Judy Plum. Aunt Hazel made the creams and mother the sparkling red jellies. That was all mother was allowed to do. It was thought she had enough work looking after Cuddles … as the baby was called by every one in spite of all the pother about her name. Mother, so Judy Plum told Pat, had never been quite the same since that bad headache the night Cuddles was found in the parsley bed, and they must be taking care of her.

Pat beat eggs and stirred innumerable cakes, taking turns with Sid in eating the savory scrapings from the bowls. The house was full of delicious smells from morning till night. And everywhere it was “Pat, come here,” and “Pat, run there,” till she was fairly bewildered.

“Aisy now,” remonstrated Judy. “Make yer head save yer heels, darlint. ‘Tis a great lesson to learn. Iverything’ll sort itsilf out in God’s good time. They do be imposing on ye a bit but Judy’ll see yer not put upon too much. Sure and I don’t see how we’d iver get yer Aunt Hazel married widout ye.”

They wouldn’t have got the wedding butter without her, that was certain. Judy had kept the blue cow’s milk back for a week from the factory and the day before the wedding she started to churn it in the old-fashioned crank churn which she would never surrender for anything more modern. Judy churned and churned until Pat, going down into the cool, cobwebby cellar in mid-forenoon, found her “clane distracted.”

“The crame’s bewitched,” said Judy in despair. “Me arms are fit to drop off at the roots and niver a sign av butter yet.”

It was not to be thought of that mother should churn and Aunt Hazel was busy with a hundred things. Dad was sent for from the barn and agreed to have a whirl at it. But after churning briskly for half an hour he gave it up as a bad job.

“You may as well give the cream to the pigs, Judy,” he said. “We’ll have to buy the butter at the store.”

This was absolute disgrace for Judy. To buy the butter from the store and only the Good Man Above knowing who made it! She went to get the dinner, feeling that the green wedding was at the bottom of it.

Pat slipped off the apple barrel where she had been squatted, and began to churn. It was great fun. She had always wanted to churn and Judy would never let her because if the cream were churned too slow or too fast the butter would be too hard or too soft. But now it didn’t matter and she could churn to her heart’s content. Splash … splash … splash! Flop … flop … flop! Thud … thud … thud! Swish … swish … swish! The business of turning the crank had grown gradually harder and Pat had just decided that for once in her life she had got all the churning she wanted when it suddenly grew lighter and Judy came down to call her to dinner.

“I’ve churned till I’m all in a sweat, Judy.”

Judy was horrified.

“A sweat, is it? Niver be using such a word, girleen. Remimber the Binnies may SWEAT but the Gardiners PERSPIRE. And now I s’pose I’ll have to be giving the crame to the pigs. ‘Tis a burning shame, that it is … the blue cow’s crame and all … and bought butter for a Silver Bush widding! But what wud ye ixpect wid grane dresses? I’m asking ye. Inny one might av known …”

Judy had lifted the cover from the churn and her eyes nearly popped out of her head.

“If the darlint hasn’t brought the butter! Here it is, floating round in the buttermilk, as good butter as was iver churned. And wid her liddle siven-year-old arms, whin nather meself nor Long Alec cud come be it. Oh, oh, just let me be after telling the whole fam’ly av it!”

Probably Pat never had such another moment of triumph in her whole life.

Here Comes the Bride

The wedding day came at last.

Pat had been counting dismally towards it for a week. Only four more days to have Aunt Hazel at Silver Bush … only three … only two—only one. Pat had the good fortune to sleep with Judy the night before, because her bedroom was needed for the guests who came from afar. So she wakened with Judy before sunrise and slipped down anxiously to see what kind of a day it was going to be.

“Quane’s weather!” said Judy in a tone of satisfaction. “I was a bit afraid last night we’d have rain, bekase there was a ring around the moon and it’s ill-luck for the bride the rain falls on, niver to mintion all the mud and dirt tracked in. Now I’ll just slip out and tell the sun to come up and thin I’ll polish off the heft av the milking afore yer dad gets down. The poor man’s worn to the bone wid all the ruckus.”

“Wouldn’t the sun come up if you didn’t tell it, Judy?”

“I’m taking no chances on a widding day, me jewel.”

While Judy was out milking Pat prowled about Silver Bush. How queer a house was in the early morning before people were up! Just as if it were watching for something. Of course all the rooms had an unfamiliar look on account of the wedding. The Big Parlour had been filled with a flame of autumn leaves and chrysanthemums. The new curtains were so lovely that Pat felt a fierce regret the Binnies were not to be among the guests at the house. Just fancy May’s face if she saw them! The Little Parlour was half full of wedding presents. The table had been laid in the dining-room the night before. How pretty it looked, with its sparkling glass and its silver candlesticks and tall slender candles like moonbeams and the beautiful colours of the jellies.

Pat ran outside. The sun, obedient to Judy’s mandate, was just coming up. The air was the amber honey of autumn. Every birch and poplar in the silver bush had become a golden maiden. The garden was tired of growing and had sat down to rest but the gorgeous hollyhocks were flaunting over the old stone dyke. A faint, lovely morning haze hung over the Hill of the Mist and trembled away before the sun. What a lovely world to be alive in!

Then Pat turned and saw a lank, marauding, half-eared cat … an alien to Silver Bush … lapping up the milk in the saucer that had been left for the fairies. So that was how it went! She had always suspected it but to KNOW it was bitter. Was there no real magic left in the world?

“Judy,” … Pat was almost tearful when Judy came to the well with her pails of milk … “the fairies DON’T drink the milk. It’s a cat … just as Sidney always said.”

“Oh, oh, and if the fairies didn’t nade it last night why shudn’t a poor cat have it, I’m asking. Hasn’t he got to live? I niver said they come ivery night. They’ve other pickings no doubt.”

“Judy, did you ever really SEE a fairy drinking the milk? Cross your heart?”

“Oh, oh, what if I didn’t? Sure the grandmother of me did. Minny’s the time I’ve heard her tell it. A leprachaun wid the liddle ears av him wriggling as he lapped it up. And she had her leg bruk nixt day, that she had. Ye may be thankful if ye niver see any av the Grane Folk. They don’t be liking it and that I’m tellin ye.”

It was a day curiously compounded of pain and pleasure for Pat. Silver Bush buzzed with excitement, especially when Snicklefritz got stung on the eyelid by a wasp and had to be shut up in the church barn. And then everybody was getting dressed. Oh, weddings WERE exciting things … Sid was right. Mother wore the loveliest new dress, the colour of a golden-brown chrysanthemum, and Pat was so proud of her it hurt.

“It’s so nice to have a pretty mother,” she exclaimed rapturously.

She was proud of all her family. Of father, who had had a terrible time finding his necktie and who, in his excitement, had put his left boot on his right foot and laced it up before he discovered his mistake, but now looked every inch a Gardiner. Of darling wee Cuddles with her silk stockings rolled down to show her dear, bare, chubby legs. Of Winnie, who in her yellow dress looked like a great golden pansy. Of Sid and Joe in new suits and white collars. Even of Judy Plum who had blossomed out in truly regal state. The dress-up dress had come out of the brown chest, likewise a rather rusty lace shawl and bonnet of quilted blue satin of the vintage of last century. Judy would have scorned to be seen in public without a bonnet. No giddy hats for her. Also what she called a “paireen” of glossy, patent leather slippers with high heels. Thus fearsomely arrayed Judy minced about, keeping a watchful eye on everything and greeting arriving friends in what she called her “company voice” and the most perfect English pronunciation you ever heard.

Aunt Hazel and her bridesmaids were as yet invisible in the Poet’s room. Mother dressed Pat in her pretty green dress and hat. Pat loved it … but she ran upstairs to her closet to tell her old blue voile that she still loved it the best. Then the aunts came over, Aunt Barbara very weddingish in a dress and coat of beige lace which Aunt Edith thought far too young for her. Nobody could call Aunt Edith’s dress young but it was very handsome and Pat nearly burst with pride in her whole clan.

Uncle Brian from Summerside was going to take the bride and her maids to the church in his new car and it was a wonderful moment when they came floating down the stairs. Pat’s eyes smarted a wee bit. Was this mysterious creature in white satin and misty veil, with the great shower bouquet of roses and lilies of the valley, her dear, jolly Aunt Hazel? Pat felt as if she were already lost to them. But Aunt Hazel lingered to whisper.

“I’ve slipped the pansies you picked for me into my bouquet, darling … they’re the ‘something blue’ the bride must wear, and thanks ever so much.”