"What became of her?"
"She went out to California ... she had an aunt there ... and married there. But she is a widow now, Pat. Two years ago ... you remember? ... the Streeters came home from California for a visit. George Streeter was an old pal of mine. He told me all about Merle ... she wasn't left well off and she's had to earn her own living. She's a public speaker ... a lecturer ... oh, she's very clever, Pat. Her letters are wonderful. I ... I couldn't get her out of my head after what George told me. And so ... I ... well, I wrote her. And we've been corresponding ever since. I've asked her to marry me, Pat."
"And will she?" Pat asked the question kindly. She couldn't hurt Uncle Tom's feelings ... poor old Uncle Tom who had loved and lost and went on faithfully loving still. It WAS romantic.
"Ah, that's the question, Pat," said Uncle Tom mysteriously. "She hasn't decided ... but I think she's inclined to, Pat ... I think she's inclined to. I think she's very tired of facing the world alone, poor little thing. And this is where I want you to help me out, Patsy."
"Me!" said Pat in amazement.
"Yes. You see, she's in New Brunswick now, visiting friends there. And she thinks it would be a good idea for her to run across to the Island and ... and ... sorter see how the land lays, I guess. Find out maybe if I'm the kind of man she could be happy with. She wanted me to go over to New Brunswick but it's hard for me to get away just now with harvest coming on and only a half-grown boy to help. Read what she says, Patsy."
Pat took the letter a bit reluctantly. It was written on thick, pale-blue paper and a rather heavy perfume exhaled from it. But the paragraph in reference to her visit was sensibly expressed.
"We have probably both changed a good deal, honey boy, and perhaps we'd better see each other before coming to a decision."
Pat with difficulty repressed a grin over the "honey boy."
"I still don't quite see where I come in, Uncle Tom."
"I ... I want you to invite her to spend a few days at Silver Bush," said Uncle Tom eagerly. "I can't invite her to Swallowfield ... Edith would--would have a conniption ... and anyhow she wouldn't come there. But if you'd write her a nice little note ... Mrs. Merle Merridew ... and ask her to Silver Bush ... she went to school with Alec ... do, now, Patsy."
Pat knew she would be letting herself in for awful trouble. Certainly Aunt Edith would never forgive her. Judy would think she had gone clean crazy and Cuddles would think it a huge joke. But it was impossible to refuse poor Uncle Tom, pleading for what he believed his chance for happiness again. Pat did not yield at once but after a consultation with mother she told Uncle Tom she would do it. The letter of invitation was written and sent the very next day and during the following week Pat was in swithers of alternate regret, apprehension, and a determination to stand by Uncle Tom at all costs.
There was a good deal of consternation at Silver Bush when the rest of the family heard what she had done. Dad was dubious ... but after all it was Tom's business, not his. Sid and Cuddles, as Pat had foreseen, considered it a joke. Tillytuck stubbornly refused to express any opinion. It was a man's own concern, symbolically speaking, and wimmen critters had no right to interfere. Judy, after her first horrified, "God give ye some sinse, Patsy!" was just a bit intrigued with the romance of it ... and a secret desire to see how me fine Edith wud be after taking it.
Edith did not take it very well. She descended on Pat, dragging in her wake poor Aunt Barbara who had been weeping all over the house but still thought they ought not to meddle in the matter. Pat had a bad quarter of an hour.
"How COULD you do such a thing, Pat?"
"I couldn't refuse Uncle Tom," said Pat. "And it doesn't really make any difference, Aunt Edith. If I hadn't asked her to come here he would have gone to New Brunswick to see her. And she may not marry him after all."
"Oh, don't try to be comforting," groaned Aunt Edith.
"Marry him! Of course she'll marry him. And she is a GRANDMOTHER. George Streeter said so ... and thinks she is still a girl. It's simply terrible to think of it. I don't see how I'm going to stand it. Excitement always brings on a pain in my heart. Everybody knows that. YOU know it, Pat."
Pat did know it. What if it all killed Aunt Edith? But it was too late now. Uncle Tom was quite out of hand. He felt that the situation was delicious. Life had suddenly become romantic again. Nothing that Edith could and did say bothered him in the least. He had even begun negotiating for the purchase of a trim little bungalow at Silverbridge for "the girls" to retire to.
"Him and his bungalow!" said Aunt Edith in a contempt too vast to be expressed in words. "Pat, you're the only one who seems to have any influence ... ANY influence ... over that infatuated man now. Can't you put him off this notion in some way? At least, you can try."
Pat promised to try, by way of preventing Aunt Edith from having a heart attack, and went up to the spare room to put a great bowl of yellow mums on the brown bureau. If she were to have a new aunt she must be friends with her. Alienation from Swallowfield was unthinkable. Pat sighed. What a pity it all was! They had been so happy and contented there for years. She hated change more than ever.
2
Mrs. Merridew was coming on the afternoon train and Uncle Tom was going to meet her with the span.
"I suppose I ought to have an automobile, Pat. She'll think this turn-out very old-fashioned."
"She won't see prettier horses anywhere," Pat encouraged. And Uncle Tom drove away with what he hoped was a careless and romantic air. Outwardly he really looked as solemn as his photograph in the family album but at heart he was a boy of twenty again, keeping tryst with an old dream that was to him as of yesterday.
Tillytuck persisted in hanging around although Judy hinted that there was work waiting on the other place. Tillytuck took no hints. "I'm always interested in courtings," he averred shamelessly.
It seemed an endless time after they heard the train blow at Silverbridge before Uncle Tom returned. Sid unromantically proffered the opinion that Uncle Tom had died of fright. Then they heard the span pausing by the gate.
"Here comes the bride," grunted Tillytuck, slipping out by the kitchen door.
Pat and Cuddles ran out to the lawn. Judy peered from the porch window. Tillytuck had secreted himself behind a lilac bush. Even mother, who had one of her bad days and was in bed, raised herself on her pillows to look down through the vines.
They saw Uncle Tom helping out of the phaeton a vast lady who seemed even vaster in a white dress and a large, white, floppy hat. A pair of very fat legs bore her up the walk to the door where the girls awaited her. Pat stared unbelievingly. Could this woman, with feet that bulged over her high-heeled shoes, be the light- footed fairy of Uncle Tom's old dancing dreams?
"And this is Pat? How ARE you, sugar-pie?" Mrs. Merridew gave Pat a hearty hug. "And Cuddles ... darling!" Cuddles was likewise engulfed. Pat found her voice and asked the guest to come upstairs. Uncle Tom had spoken no word. It was Cuddles' private opinion that his vocal cords had been paralysed by shock.
"Can that be all one woman?" Tillytuck asked the lilac bush. "I don't like 'em skinny ... but ..."
"Think av THAT in Swallowfield," Judy said to Gentleman Tom. "Oh, oh, it's widening his front dure as well as painting it Tom Gardiner shud have done."
Gentleman Tom said nothing, as was his habit, but McGinty crawled under the kitchen lounge. And upstairs mother was lying back on her pillows shaking with laughter. "Poor Tom!" she said. "Oh, poor Tom!"
Mrs. Merridew talked and laughed all the way upstairs. She lifted her awful fat arms and removed her hat, showing snow-white hair lying in sleek moulded waves around a face that might once have been pretty but whose red-brown eyes were lost in pockets of flesh. The red sweet mouth was red still ... rather too red. Lipstick was not in vogue at Silver Bush ... but the lavish gleam of gold in the teeth inside detracted from its sweetness. As for the laugh that Uncle Tom had remembered, it was merely a fat rumble ... yet with something good-natured about it, too.