Uncle Horace did not come Wednesday, nor on Thursday or Friday. Long Alec shrugged disappointedly. Likely he had changed his mind at the last minute and wouldn't come at all. That was Horace all over.
"But if he does come I want all you folks to mind your p's and q's," said Long Alec warningly. "Horace is a bit peculiar in some ways. He was a regular martinet on board ship I understand. Everything had to be just so, running smooth as oil. And he was just the same about a house. That's why he never married, he told us the last time he was home. Couldn't find a wife neat enough. It's all very well to listen to Judy's yarns of his pranks. He used to be a rip for them, I admit, but nobody else was to play them and accidents had no place in his scheme of things. I don't know what he'll think of your dance. The last time he was home he was badly down on dancing."
"And him the liveliest dancer on the Island forty years ago," marvelled Judy.
"He's reformed since then ... and the reformed ones are generally the stiffest. Anyhow, all of you do your best to keep things moving smoothly. I don't want Horace to go away thinking things not lawful to be uttered of my household."
Pat and Rae promised, and then forgot all about him in the excitement of the party preparations. Hundreds of last minute things to do. Cream to be whipped ... floors and furniture to be polished ... at the very last an extra cake to be made because Pat was afraid they mightn't have enough. Judy declared that the queen's pantry couldn't be better stocked but gave in when Pat insisted.
"Oh, oh, ye do be the mistress here," she said with a touch of grandeur. Pat made an old-fashioned jelly roll that would cut into golden coils with ruby jelly between them. A pretty cake ... just as pretty as any new-fangled thing. Where on earth was Rae? Prinking in her room of course ... fussing over her hair. And so much yet to be seen to! Pat had always been conscious of a sneaking sympathy with Martha. But she was very happy. Silver Bush looked beautiful. She loved the shining surfaces ... the flowers in bowls all over the house ... the glitter of glass and silver in the dining-room ... everything in the best Gardiner tradition. Sid had strung Chinese lanterns on the trees all around the platform and Tillytuck was to be fiddler, with old Matt Corcoran from the Bridge to spell him. The day of gold would be followed by a night of silver, for the weather was behaving perfectly. And at dusk, pretty girls and girls not so pretty were gazing into mirrors all over the two Glens and Silverbridge and Bay Shore. Judy, with groans that could not be uttered, was donning her wine-hued dress and Tillytuck was struggling into a white collar in the granary loft. Even the cats were giving their flanks a few extra licks. For the party at Silver Bush was easily the event of the season.
Pat, hurrying into a frock of daffodil chiffon, fluffed out her dark-brown cloud of hair and looked in her mirror with pleasure. She was feeling a trifle tired but her reflection heartened her up wonderfully. She had forgotten that she was really rather pretty. "Nae beauty" of course ... Pat had never forgotten Great-great- Aunt Hannah's dictum ... but quite pleasant to look upon.
And Rae, in her dress of delphinium blue, was a dream.
"Blue is really the loveliest colour in the world," thought Pat. "I'm sorry I can never wear it."
The dress suited Rae. But for that matter any dress did. Rae's clothes always seemed to BELONG to her. You could never imagine any one else wearing them. Once she slipped a dress over that rippling gold-brown head you thought she must have been born in it. Pat reflected with a thrill of pride that she had never seen this darling sister looking so lovely. Her eyes had such starry lights in them behind her long lashes ... eyes that were as full of charm as wood violets. To be sure, Rae wouldn't have wanted her eyes compared to wood violets ... or forget-me-nots either. That was Victorian. Cornflower blue, now ... that sounded so much more up to date. Don Robinson had told her at the last club dance that her eyes were cornflower blue.
The Binnies were the first to come ... "spying out the land," Judy vowed. They heard May's laughter far down the lane. "Ye always hear her afore ye see her, that one," sniffed Judy. May was very gorgeous in a gown of cheap, mail-order radium lace that broke in billows around her feet and afforded a wonderful view of most of the bones in her spine. She tapped Pat condescendingly on the shoulder and said,
"You look dragged to death, darling. If I were you I'd stay in bed all day to-morrow. Ma always makes me do that after a spree."
Pat shrugged away from that hateful, fat, dimpled hand with its nails stained coral. What an intolerable phrase ... "if I were you"! As if a Binnie ever could be a Gardiner! She was thankful that the arrival of the Russells and Uncle Brian's girls saved her from the necessity of replying. Winnie was looking like a girl again to-night, in spite of her two children. For there was a new baby at the Bay Shore and Judy was going to take care of it during the evening, as she loved to do.
Pat did not dance till late. There were too many things to see to. And even when she was free she liked better to stand a little in the background, where a clump of stately white fox-glove spikes glimmered against the edge of the birches, and gloat over the whole scene. Everything was going beautifully. The dreamy August night seemed like a cup of fragrance that had spilled over. The gay lilt of Tillytuck's fiddle rippled through the moonlight to die away magically, through green, enchanted boughs, into the beautiful silences of the silver bush and the misty, glimmering fields beyond. It was really a wonder that Wild Dick didn't rise up out of his grave to dance to it.
The platform, full of flower-like faces and flower-like dresses, looked so pretty. Everybody seemed happy. How sweet darling mother looked, sitting among the young folks like a fine white queen, her gold-brown eyes shining with pleasure. Uncle Tom was as young as anybody, dancing as blithely as if he had never heard of Mrs. Merridew. His beard had grown out in all its old magnificence and the streaks of grey in it did not show in that mellow light. What a lovely dress Suzanne was wearing ... green crepe and green lace swirling about her feet. Suzanne was not really pretty ... she said herself that she had a mouth like a gargoyle ... but she was distinguished looking ... a friend to be proud of. May Binnie, with all her flashing, full-blown beauty, looked almost comical beside her. Poor Rex Miller was not there. At home, sulking, Pat thought with a regretful shrug. She had not exactly refused him two evenings before ... Pat did not often actually have to refuse her lovers ... she was, as Judy would have said, too diplomatic-like ... but she had the knack of delicately making them understand a certain thing and thus avoiding for herself and them the awkwardness of a blunt "no."
Where was Sid's Dorothy, with her sweet dark face? She had not come either. Pat wondered why. She hated herself for half hoping Sid and Dorothy had quarrelled. But if that were the reason Sid was dancing so often with May Binnie Pat felt she was already punished for her selfish hope. Of course May was a good dancer ... of her kind. At any rate, the boys all liked to dance with her. May was never in any danger of being a wallflower.
Amy's new ring flashed on the shoulder of her partner as she drifted by. Amy was engaged. Another change. What a pity people had to grow up ... and get married ... and go away. She had always liked Amy much better than Norma. She recalled with considerable relish the time she had slapped Norma's face for making fun of Silver Bush. Norma never dared to do it again.