Mistress Pat

by L. M. Montgomery

  “Never be sorry. This is an adventure. What a storm! It’s been brewing all day but I really didn’t expect it so soon. What time is it?”

  “Eight-thirty. The trouble is this is such a back road. Very few people travel on it at any time. And houses are few and far between. But I think that last glare of lightning showed one off to the right. As soon as the rain stops I’ll go to it and see if I can get somebody to haul us out…or at least phone for help.”

  It was an hour before the storm passed. It was pitch dark by now and the ditch in which they sat so snugly was a rushing river.

  “I’m going to try to make that house,” said Pat resolutely.

  “I’ll go with you,” said Suzanne. “I won’t stay here alone. And I’ve got a flashlight in my bag.”

  They managed to get out of the car and out of the ditch. There was no use in hunting for the gate, if there was a gate, but when Suzanne’s flashlight showed a place where it was possible to scramble over the fence they scrambled over it and through a wilderness of raspberry canes. Beyond this a barn loomed up and they had to circumnavigate it in mud. Finally they reached the house.

  “No lights,” said Pat as they mounted the crazy steps to a dilapidated veranda. “I’m afraid nobody lives here. There are several old uninhabited houses along this road and it’s just our luck to strike one.”

  “What a queer, old-fashioned place!” said Suzanne, playing her flashlight over it. She couldn’t have said anything more unfortunate. Pat, who had thawed out a trifle, froze up again.

  She knocked on the door…knocked again…took up a board lying near and pounded vigorously…called aloud…finally yelled. There was no response.

  “Let us see if it is locked,” said Suzanne, trying the latch. It wasn’t. They stepped in. The flashlight revealed a kitchen that did not seem to have been lived in for many a day. There was an old rusty stove, a trestle table, several dilapidated chairs, and a still more dilapidated couch.

  “Any port in a storm,” said Suzanne cheerfully. “I suggest, Miss Gardiner, that we camp here for the night. It’s beginning to rain again…listen…and we may be miles from an inhabited house. We can bring in the rugs. You take the couch and I’ll pick out the softest spot on the floor. We’ll be dry at least and in the morning we can more easily get assistance.”

  Pat agreed that it was the only thing to do. They would probably not worry at Silver Bush. It had not been certain that she would return home that night…an old Queen’s classmate had asked her to visit her. They went back to the car, got the rugs and locked it up. Pat insisted that Suzanne should take the couch and Suzanne was determined Pat should have it. They solved it by flipping a coin.

  Pat wrapped a rug around her and curled up on the couch. Suzanne lay down on the floor with a cushion under her head. Neither expected to sleep. Who could sleep with a sploshy thud of rain falling regularly near one and rats scurrying overhead. After what seemed hours Suzanne called softly across the room,

  “Are you asleep, Miss Gardiner?”

  “No…I feel as if I could never sleep again.”

  Suzanne sat up.

  “Then for heaven’s sake let’s talk. This is ghastly. I’ve a mortal horror of rats. There seem to be simply swarms of them in this house. Talk…talk. You needn’t pretend to like me if you don’t. And for the matter of that, as one woman to another, why don’t you like me, Pat Gardiner? Why won’t you like me? I thought you did that night by the fire. And we liked you…we thought there was something simply dear about you. And then when we called on our way to the concert…why, we seemed to be looking at you through glass! We couldn’t get near you at all. David was hurt but I was furious…simply furious. I’m sure my blood boiled. I could hear it bubbling in my veins. Oh, how I hoped your husband would beat you! And yet, every night since, I’ve been watching your kitchen light and wondering what was going on in it and wishing we could drop in and fraternize. I can’t imagine you and I not being friends…real friends. We were made for it. Isn’t it Kipling who says, ‘There is no gift like friendship?’”

  “Yes…Parnesius in Puck,” said Pat.

  “Oh, you know Puck, too? Now, why can’t we give that gift to each other?”

  “Did you think,” said Pat in a choked voice, “that I could be friends with anyone who…who laughed at Silver Bush?”

  “Laugh at Silver Bush! Pat Gardiner, I never did. How could I? I’ve loved it from the first moment David and I looked down on it.”

  Pat sat up on the creaking couch.

  “You…you asked in the Silverbridge store who lived in that queer old-fashioned place. Sid heard you.”

  “Pat! Let me think. Why, I remember…I didn’t say ‘queer.’ I said, ‘Who lives in that dear, quaint, old-fashioned house at the foot of the hill?’ Sid forgot one of the adjectives and was mistaken in one of the others. Pat, I couldn’t call Silver Bush ‘queer.’ You don’t know how much I admire it. And I admire it all the more because it is old-fashioned. That is why I loved the Long House at first sight.”

  Pat felt the ice round her heart thawing rapidly. “Quaint” was complimentary rather than not and she didn’t mind the “old-fashioned.” And she did want to be friends with Suzanne. Perhaps Suzanne was prose where Bets had been poetry. But such prose!

  “I’m sorry I froze up,” she said frankly. “But I’m such a thin-skinned creature where Silver Bush is concerned. I couldn’t bear to hear it called queer.”

  “I don’t blame you. And now everything is going to be all right. We just belong, somehow. Don’t you feel it? You’re all so nice. I love Judy…the wit and sympathy and blarney of her. And that wonderful old, wise, humorous face of hers. She’s really a museum piece…there’s nothing like her anywhere else in the world. You’ll like us, too. I’m decent in spots and David is nice…sometimes he’s very nice. One day he is a philosopher…the next day he is a child.”

  “Aren’t all men?” said Pat, tremendously wise.

  “David more than most, I think. He’s had a rotten life, Pat. He was years getting over his shell-shock. It simply blotted out his career. He was so ambitious once. When he got better it was too late. He has been sub-editor of a Halifax paper for years…and hating it. His bit of a wife died, too, just a few months after their marriage. And I taught school…and hated it. Then old Uncle Murray died out west and left us some money…not a fortune but enough to live on. And so we became free. Free! Oh, Pat, you’ve never known what slavery meant so you don’t know what freedom is. I love keeping house…it’s really a lovely phrase, isn’t it? Keeping it…holding it fast against the world…against all the forces trying to tear it open. And David has time to write his war book at last…he’s always longed to. We are so happy…and we’ll be happier still to have you as a friend. I don’t believe you’ve any idea how nice you are, Pat. And now let’s just talk all night.”

  They talked for a good part of it. And then Suzanne fell suddenly silent. Pat rather envied her the floor. It was level, at least…not all bumps and hollows, like the couch. Would it ever stop raining? How the windows rattled! Great heavens, what was that? Oh, only a brick blowing off the chimney and thumping down over the roof. Those rats! Oh for an hour of Gentleman Tom! It was…so nice…to be friends…with Suzanne…she hoped…a great wave of sleep rolled over Pat and engulfed her.

  When she wakened the rain had ceased and the outside world was lying in the strange timeless light of early dawn. Pat raised herself on her elbow and looked out. Some squirrels were scolding and chattering in an old apple tree. A little pond at the foot of the slope was softly clear and pellucid, with spruce trees dark and soft beyond it. An old crone of a hemlock was shaking her head rebukingly at some giddy young saplings on the hill. Gossamer clouds were floating in a clear silvery eastern sky that looked as if it had not known a thunderstorm in a hundred years. And a huge black dog was sitting on the doorstep. This was like a place Judy use
d to tell of in Ireland that was haunted by the ghost of a black dog who bayed at the door before a death. However, this dog didn’t look exactly like a ghost!

  Suzanne was still asleep. Pat looked around and saw something that gave her an idea. She got to her feet cautiously.

  CHAPTER 19

  When Suzanne wakened half an hour later she sat up and gazed around her in amazement. A most delectable odor came from a sizzling frying pan on the stove in which crisp bacon slices could be discerned. On the hearth was a plateful of golden-brown triangles of toast and Pat was putting a spoonful of tea in a battered old granite teapot.

  The table was set with dishes and in the center was a bouquet of ferns and meadow-queen in an old pickle jar.

  “Pat, what magic is this? Are you a witch?”

  “Not a bit of it. When I woke up I saw a pile of firewood behind the stove and a frying pan on a nail. I found plates and cups and knives and forks in the pantry. Evidently this house is occupied by times. The owner probably lives on some other farm and camps here for haying and harvest and things like that. I lit the fire and went out to the car. Took a chance with the dog…there is a dog…but he paid no attention to me. I had a package of bacon in the car and a couple of loaves of bread. Mother likes baker’s toast, you know. I found some tea in the pantry…and so breakfast is served, madam.”

  “You’re a born home-maker, Pat. This awful place actually looks quite homey and pleasant. I never thought a pickle jar bouquet could be so charming. And I’m hungry…I’m positively starving. Let’s eat. Our first meal together…our first breaking of bread. I like that phrase…breaking bread together…don’t you? Who is it speaks of ‘bread of friendship’?”

  “Carman,” said Pat, dishing up her bacon.

  “What a lovely clean morning it is!” said Suzanne, scrambling up. “Look, Pat, there’s a big pine down by that pond. I love pines so much it hurts me. And I love crisp bacon and crisper toast. Thank heaven there is plenty of it. I never was so hungry in my life.”

  They were half through their breakfast when a queer strangled noise behind them startled them. They turned around…and stiffened with horror. In the hall doorway a man was standing…a tall, gaunt, unshaven creature in a motley collection of garments, with an extraordinarily long gray mustache, which didn’t seem to belong to his lean, lantern-jawed face at all, hanging down on either side of his chin. This apparition was staring at them, apparently as much taken aback as they were.

  “I thought I was over it,” he said mournfully, shaking a grizzled head. “I mostly sleeps it off.”

  Pat rose and stammered out an explanation. The gentleman waved a hand at her.

  “It’s all right. Sorry you had to sleep on the floor. If I’d been awake I’d have give you my bed.”

  “We knocked…and called…”

  “Just so. Old Gabe’s trump couldn’t have roused me last night. I was a bit lit up, to state facts. You did right to make yourselves at home. But it’s a wonder the dog didn’t tear you to pieces. He’s a savage brute.”

  “He wasn’t here when we came…and he seemed quite quiet this morning.”

  “’Zat a fact? Then I’ve been fooled. Bought him on the grounds that he was a tartar. I keep him here for tramps. My name is Nathaniel Butterbloom and I’m just sorter camping here while I take off the harvest. I live down at Three Corners.”

  “Won’t you sit down and share our breakfast?” said Pat lamely.

  “Don’t care if I do,” said Mr. Butterbloom and sat down without more ado. “Sorry there ain’t no table-cloth. I had one but the rats et it.”

  Pat, exchanging a grin with Suzanne, poured him a cup of tea and helped him liberally to bacon and toast.

  “This is a pleasant surprise and that’s a fact. I’ve been scraping up my own meals. When I run out of provisions I fry a kitten,” he added mournfully. “That barn out there is overrun with cats. I started out with three cats two years ago but there must be hundreds now.”

  “It’s a wonder they don’t keep the rats down,” said Suzanne mischievously. “And your roof leaks very badly, Mr. Butterbloom.”

  “Well,” said Mr. Butterbloom placidly, “when it rains I can’t get up on the roof to work, can I? And when it’s fine it doesn’t leak.”

  “I’m sorry there is no milk for your tea,” said Pat.

  “There’s some in the pantry if the spiders haven’t got into it.”

  “They have,” said Pat briefly.

  Mr. Butterbloom drank his cup of tea and champed his bacon in silence. Suzanne had just whispered solemnly to Pat, “A strong silent man,” when he wiped his mustache with the back of his hand and spoke again.

  “What mought your names be?”

  “This is Miss Kirk…and I’m one of the Gardiner girls from North Glen.”

  “Pleased to meet you both. And so you ain’t married women?”

  “No…no.” Suzanne shook her head in demure sadness.

  “Neither am I. I’ve a widder woman keeping house for me at Three Corners. She isn’t much of a cook but she rubs my back for me. I have to have my back rubbed for half an hour every night before I can sleep…unless I’m lit up. I’ve heard of the Gardiners. Very genteel. I’ve never been in North Glen but I courted an old maid in South Glen for a while. I was younger then. She kept me dangling for a year and then up and married a widower. Since then I’ve sorter lost my enthusiasm for marriage.”

  He relapsed into silence while he polished off another helping. When the platter was empty he sighed deeply.

  “Miss, that was a breakfast. After all, I may have made a mistake in not getting married.” He fixed a fishy, speculative eye on Suzanne. “I haven’t much book-larning but I’ve a couple of farms, nearly paid for.”

  Suzanne did not rise to this but she and Pat offered to wash the dishes before leaving.

  “Never mind,” said Mr. Butterbloom gloomily. “I don’t wash dishes. The dog licks em clean. If you must be going, I’ll get out the hosses and haul your buzz-wagon out of the ditch.”

  He refused an offer of payment sadly.

  “Didn’t you cook my breakfast? But could you do with a kitten? There’s several around just the right age.”

  Pat explained politely that they had all the cats needful at Silver Bush.

  “It’s of no consequence. I s’pose”…with a sigh…“it’ll come in handy sometime when the cupboard is bare.”

  When they got out of sight of the house Pat stopped the car so that they might have a laugh. When two people have laughed…really laughed…together they are friends for life.

  “Two unchaperoned females spending the night in a house with a drunken man,” gasped Suzanne. “Let’s pray the writer of ‘North Glen Notes’ never finds it out.”

  Nobody but Judy ever knew the whole story. Judy, of course, knew all about Nathaniel Butterbloom.

  “A bit av a divil in his day,” she said, “but he’s too old now to cut up much. Innyhow, ye can be thankful he didn’t ask ye to rub his back for him.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Pat had gone to her Secret Field, seeking the refreshment of soul she always found there. It was as beautiful and remote and mystic as ever, full of the sunshine of uncounted summers. The trees about it welcomed her and Pat flung herself down among the feathery bent grasses and listened to the silence until she felt at one with it and certain problems that had rather worried her of late dropped into proper focus as they always did in that sweet place, where the fairies still surely lingered if they lingered in the world at all. Under the ancient spell of the Secret Field Pat became a child again and could believe anything.

  She went from it to Happiness by a narrow wood lane where ferns grew waist-high on either side. Pat knew all the little lanes in the woods and was known of them. They had their moods and their whims. One always seemed full of hidden laughter and furtive feet. One neve
r seemed to know just where it wanted to go. In this one it always seemed as if you were in a temple. Overhead in the young, resinous fir boughs a wind was crooning a processional. The aroma drifting under the arches from old sunny hollows and lurking nooks was as the incense of worship, the exquisite shadows that filled the woods were acolytes, and the thoughts that came to her were like prayers.

  “If one could only feel always like this,” Pat had said once to Judy. “All the little worries swallowed up…all the petty spites and fears and disappointments forgotten…just love and peace and beauty.”

  “Oh, oh, but what wud there be lift for heaven, girl dear?” asked Judy.

  The lane finally led out to the back fields of the other place and Pat found her way to Happiness and sat down near the Haunted Spring in a little hollow among the ferny cradle-hills. Far down before her, beyond the still, golden pastures, was the sapphire of the gulf. Over the westering hill of spruce a sunset of crimson and warm gold was fading out into apple green. And all this beauty was hers just for the looking. In these silent and remembered places she could think of old, beloved things…of sunsets she and Hilary had watched there together…Hilary, who at this very moment would be somewhere on the ocean on his way back from his summer in Europe. He had written her most delightful letters but she was glad he would soon be back in Canada. It would be pleasant to think that the Atlantic no longer rolled between them. She wondered a little wistfully why he couldn’t have planned to stop off for a few days on the Island on his way to Toronto. She had asked him to. And he had never even referred to the invitation, although he had wound up his letter by saying “my love to Silver Bush.” She could see from where she sat her name and his cut on a maple tree and overgrown with lichen. Pat sighed sentimentally. She wished she could be a child again with no worries. To be sure she had thought she had worries then…father going west and thinking you were ugly and Joe running away to sea and things like that. But there had been no men then…no question of beaus and people who persisted in turning into lovers when all you wanted of them was to be friends. Jim Mallory was in love with her now. She had met him at a dance in Silverbridge and, as Rae told Hilary in her next letter to him, he fell for her with a crash that could be heard for miles. He was a really fine fellow…“oh, oh, that’s something like now,” Judy said, the first evening he came to Silver Bush. Pat liked him terribly…almost as much as she liked Hilary and David. Rae told Judy she believed Pat was really in love but Judy had grown pessimistic under repeated disappointments.