Читать книгу The Complete Pat of Silver Bush Series: Pat of Silver Bush + Mistress Pat - Люси Мод Монтгомери - Страница 10

Table of Contents

1

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.”

2

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.”

And all was well again for a while.

Father took mother and Winnie and Judy and Joe in the Silver Bush Lizzie but Pat and Sid went in Uncle Tom’s “span.” No Lizzie or any other such lady for Uncle Tom. He drove a great roomy, double-seated “phaeton” drawn by two satin bay horses with white stars on their foreheads and Pat liked it far better than any car. But why was Uncle Tom so slow in coming? “We’ll be late. There’s a million buggies and cars gone past already,” worried Pat.

“Oh, oh, don’t be exaggerating, girleen.”

“Well, there was five anyway,” cried Pat indignantly.

“There he’s coming now,” said Judy. “Mind yer manners,” she added in a fierce whisper. “No monkey-didoes whin things get a bit solemn, mind ye that.”

Pat and Sid and Aunt Barbara sat in the back seat. Pat felt tremendously important and bridled notably when May Binnie looked out enviously from a car that honked past them. Generally she and Sid walked to church by a short cut across the fields and along a brook scarfed with farewell summers. But the road was lovely, too, with the sunny, golden stubble fields, the glossy black crows sitting on the fences, the loaded apple boughs dragging on the grass of the orchards, the pastures spangled with asters, and the sea far out looking so blue and happy, with great fleets of cloudland sailing over it.

Then there was the crowded church among its maples and spruces — the arrangement of the procession — the people standing up — Aunt Hazel trailing down the aisle on father’s arm — Jean Madison and Sally Gardiner behind her — Pat bringing up the rear gallantly with her basket of roses in her brown paws — the sudden hush — the minister’s solemn voice — the prayer — the lovely colours that fell on the people through the stained glass windows, turning them from prosaic folks into miracles. At first Pat was too bewildered to analyse her small sensations. She saw a little quivering ruby of light fall on Aunt Hazel’s white veil … she saw Rob Madison’s flying jibs … she saw Sally Gardiner’s night-black hair under her green hat … she saw the ferns and flowers … and suddenly she heard Aunt Hazel saying, “I will,” and saw her looking up at her groom.

A dreadful thing happened to Pat. She turned frantically to Judy Plum who was sitting just behind her at the end of the front pew.

“Judy, lend me your hanky. I’m going to cry,” she whispered in a panic.

Judy fairly came out in gooseflesh. She realised that a desperate situation must be handled desperately. Her hanky was a huge white one which would engulf Pat. Moreover the Binnies were at the back of the church. She bent forward.

“If there do be one tear out av ye to disgrace Silver Bush I’ll niver fry ye an egg in butter agin as long as I live.”

Pat took a brace. Perhaps it was the thought of Silver Bush or the fried egg or both combined. She gave a desperate gulp and swallowed the lump in her throat. Savage winking prevented the fall of a single tear. The ceremony was over … nobody had noticed the little by-play … and everybody thought Pat had behaved beautifully. The Silver Bush people were much relieved. They had all been more or less afraid that Pat would break down at the last, just as Cora Gardiner had done at her sister’s wedding, erupting into hysterical howls right in the middle of the prayer and having to be walked out by a humiliated mother.

“Ye carried yerself off well, darlint,” whispered Judy proudly.

Pat contrived to get through the reception and the supper but she found she couldn’t eat, not even a chicken slice or the lovely “lily salad” mother had made. She was very near crying again when somebody said to Aunt Hazel,

“What is it like to be Hazel Madison? Do you realise that you are Hazel Madison now?”

Hazel Gardiner no longer! Oh, it was just too much!