Cuddles was another of Pat's problems ... or rather Rae, as she must henceforth be called. On her birthday she had gathered all the family around her and told them without circumlocution that they were not to call her Cuddles any more. She would simply not take any notice of anything that was said to her unless she was called Rae. And she stuck to it. It was hard at first. They all hated to give up the dear, absurd old name that was linked with so many sweet memories of Cuddles when she was an adorable baby, when she was a new school-girl, when she was in her arms-and-legs stage, when she was just stepping daintily into her teens. But Cuddles stood to her guns and they got into the new habit sooner than they would have thought possible ... all except Judy. Judy did try her best but she could never do better than "Cud-Rae," which was so ridiculous that Rae eventually yielded a point and let Judy revert to the old name.
The Silver Bush folks had suspected for some time that Rae was going to be the beauty of the family and at last they were sure of it. Martin Madison, who had three ugly daughters, said contemptuously that Rae Gardiner was only two dimples and a smile. But there was more to her than that. Tillytuck considered that he had put it in a nutshell when he said she had all the other North Glen girls skinned a mile. There was some "glamour" about her that they didn't have. She really had a headful of brains and talked of being a doctor ... more to horrify Judy than anything else since she had really no especial hankering for a "career." And she was clever enough to conceal her cleverness, especially from the youths who began to come to Silver Bush ... boys of the generation after Pat, whom they regarded as quite elderly. Rae was very popular with them: she had a come-and-find out air about her that intrigued them and she had practised a faraway, mysterious smile so faithfully before her mirror that it drove them quite crazy guessing what she was thinking of. None of them interested her at all, not being in the least like the pictures of the movie stars she kept pinned on the wall at the head of her bed. But, she coolly told Pat, they would do for getting your hand in.
Rae was full of life. Her every step was a dance, her every gesture full of grace and virility. She went about looking for thrills and always found them. Pat, looking at the exquisite oval of her little unwritten face, sighed and wondered what life had for this dear sister. She was far more worried over Rae's future than her own and mothered her to what Rae considered an absurd degree. It WAS provoking when you were feeling romantic and ethereal to be cautioned to put on your overshoes! And to be told you were a snob because you complained of Tillytuck saying queer things in the kitchen when you were entertaining a Charlottetown boy and his sister in the Little Parlour.
"I'm NOT a snob, Pat. You know very well Tillytuck is always saying odd things. Of course they're great fun and WE laugh at them but STRANGERS don't understand. And that Little Parlour door WON'T stay shut. I'll NEVER forget the look on Jerry Arnold's face last night when he heard Judy and Tillytuck in one of their arguments."
Rae came to an end of breath and italics which gave Pat a chance to say bitingly,
"Jerry Arnold's father was a junk man twenty years ago."
"Who is being the snob now?" retorted Rae. "Jerry is going to have money. Oh, you needn't look at me like that, Pat. I've no notion of ever marrying Jerry Arnold ... he isn't my style" ... (was this ... could this, be little Cuddles who was a baby day before yesterday?) ... "but when I DO marry I'm going to marry a rich man. I admit I'm worldly. I like money. And you know, Pat, we've never had quite enough of that at Silver Bush."
"But think of the other things we've had," said Pat softly. Rae, sweet, absurd little Rae, was not to be taken too seriously. "Not much money I admit but everything else that matters. And besides we've always got tomorrow."
"That sounds very fine but what does it mean?" Rae had taken up a pose of being hard-boiled this spring. "No, my Patricia, one has to be practical in this kind of a world. I've thought it all over carefully and I've decided that I'll marry money ... and have a good time the rest of my life."
"Have you any one in mind?" enquired Pat sarcastically.
Rae's blue, black-lashed eyes filled with laughter.
"No, darling. There's really plenty of time. Though Trix Binnie is married ... married at seventeen. Just think of it ... only two years older than I am. Her face while she was being married was simply a scream. Jerry Arnold says she looked exactly like a kitten that had caught its first mouse."
"Well, we had an excellent view of May's shoulder blades for the space of a quarter of an hour," said Pat, who had been so furious over the Binnies presuming to invite the Gardiners to the wedding that it took Rae a whole evening to persuade her to go to church.
"Those raw-boned girls certainly shouldn't wear backless dresses," said Rae, with a complacent glance over her own shoulder. "Trix really didn't care a bit for Nels Royce, but when she failed in the Entrance last year there was really nothing else for her. It was so funny to hear Mrs. Binnie pretending Trix wouldn't have gone to Queen's even if she had passed. 'I wouldn't have Trix teaching school. I ain't going to have MY daughter a slave to the public.'"
Pat howled. Rae's mimicry of Mrs. Binnie was inimitable.
"I'm sure May is furious because Trix is married before her," continued Rae. "I suppose she has finally given up hope of Sid, now that he is really engaged to Dorothy Milton."
"Do you suppose ... he really is?" asked Pat.
"Oh, yes. She's got her ring. I noticed it last night at choir practice. I wonder when they'll be married."
Pat shivered. She suddenly felt like a very small cat in a very big world. The gold was fading out of the evening sky. A great white moth flew by in the dusk. The spruce wood on the hill had turned black. The moon was rising over the Hill of the Mist. Far down the sea shivered in silver ecstasy. Everything was beautiful but there was something in the air ... another chill of change. Rae had suddenly grown up and Sid belonged to them no longer. Then one of her April changes came over her. After all, the world was full of June and Silver Bush was still the same. She sprang up.
"It's a waste of time to go to bed too early on moonlight nights. And all the wealth of June is ours, no matter how poor we may be according to your worldly standards, darling. Let's get out the car and run over to Winnie's."
Pat had learned to run the car that spring. Judy had been much upset about it and talked gloomily of a girl at the Bridge who had tried to run her father's car, put her foot on the accelerator instead of the brake and had gone clean through a haystack ... or so Judy had heard. Pat managed to acquire the knack without any such disaster, although Tillytuck averred that on one occasion he saved his life only by jumping over the dog-house, and Judy still came out in goose-flesh when she saw Pat backing the car out of the garage.
"Times do be changed," she remarked to Gentleman Tom. "Here's Patsy and Cuddles dashing off in the car whin they shud be thinking av their bed. Cat dear, is it that I do be getting ould whin I can't get used to it?"