"Once of her poetical flights," whispered Tillytuck to Judy. But Pat and Rae both heard him and almost choked trying not to laugh. Mrs. Binnie, who never dreamed any one could be laughing at her, kept on.
"Is it true the Kirks are putting up a sun-dial in the Long House garden?"
"Yes," said Pat shortly.
"Well now, I never did hold with them modern inventions," said Mrs. Binnie complacently. "An old-fashioned clock is good enough for ME."
"Never mind," said Rae, when Mrs. Binnie had finally waddled off to the "living room," "it will soon be lilac time."
"With white apple boughs framing a moon," said Pat.
"And violets in the silver bush," said Rae.
"And a new row of lilies to be planted along the dyke," said Pat.
"And great crimson clovers in the Mince Pie Field."
"And blue-eyed grass around the Pool ..."
"And pussy-willows in Happiness ..."
"And a dance of daisies along Jordan."
"Oh, we've heaps of precious things left yet, Pat--things nobody, not even a Binnie can spoil." Were the days when she could wash her being in the sunrise and feel as blithe as a bird gone forever? Perhaps they would come back when the new house would be built and Silver Bush was all their own again. But that was as yet far in the future. There was Judy coming across the yard, bringing in some drenched little chickens May had forgotten to put in. Was Judy getting bent? Pat shivered.
But still life seemed sadly out of tune, struggle as bravely as one might.
3
"I'll have nothing to do with anything to-day but spring," said Pat ... even gaily. For May had gone home that morning and they had a whole day to be alone ... three delightful meals to eat alone when they could sit around the table and talk as long as they liked in the old way. Sometimes Pat and Judy thought those frequent visits of May home were all that saved their reason. Everything seemed different. Judy vowed that the very washing machine ran easier when she was away. Even the house seemed to draw a breath of relief. It had never got used to May.
It had not been an easy spring at Silver Bush despite its beauty. House-cleaning with May was rather a heartbreaking business. She was so full of suggestions.
"Why not do away with that messy old front garden, Pat and make a real lawn?" ... or, "I'd have a window cut there, Pat. This hall is really awfully dark in the afternoons." ... or, "The orchard is really trying to get into the house, Pat. Why not have that tree cut down?"
May simply could not or would not get it into her head that Pat was not having trees cut down. In regard to this particular tree, May was not, perhaps, so far wrong as in some of her suggestions. It really was too close to the house ... a young apple tree that had started up of itself and grew so slyly that it was a tree before any one took much notice of it. Now it was pushing its boughs into the very window of the Big Parlour. When May spoke it was a thing of beauty, all starred with tiny red buds just on the point of bursting.
"I think it's lovely having the orchard coming right into the house like this," said Pat.
"You would," said May. It was a favourite retort with her and she always contrived to put a vast amount of contempt into it.
None of her suggestions were adopted and May tearfully told her mother, in Judy's hearing, that she "simply couldn't do a thing in her husband's house." She was determined to have a "herbaceous border" and nagged at Sid until he interceded with Pat and it was decided that it might be made across the bottom of the little lawn, where hitherto nothing but lilies of the valley had grown wildly and thickly. There were plenty of other lilies of the valley about but Pat hated to see those ploughed up and May's iris and delphiniums and what Mrs. Binnie called "concubines," set in their place. Because May really did not care a bit for flowers. She wanted her herbaceous border because Olive had told her they were all the fashion now and every one in town was making one.
"Do you know that May badgered Sid at last into taking her back and showing her the Secret Field?" asked Rae.
Yes, Pat knew it. May had laughed on her return.
"I've seen your famous field, Pat ... nothing but a little hole in the woods. And you've been making such a fuss over it all these years."
To Pat it was the ultimate treason that Sid should have showed May the Secret Field ... THEIR Secret Field. But she could not blame him. He had to do it for peace' sake.
"You love your sister better than your wife," May told him passionately, whenever he refused to do anything Pat didn't want done. He and May had begun to quarrel violently and life at Silver Bush was made bitter all that summer by it. Meal times were the worst. The bickering between them was almost incessant.
"Oh, do let us have one meal without a fight," Long Alec remarked in exasperation one day. Pat, who had been listening in silence to May's sarcasm and Sid's sulky replies, rose and went to her room.
"I can't bear it any longer ... I can't," she said wildly. She twitched the shade to pull it down and shut out the insulting sunlight. It escaped her and whizzed wildly to the top, thereby nearly scaring to death Bold-and-Bad, asleep on Rae's bed.
"You don't deserve a cat," said Bold-and-Bad, or words to that effect.
Pat glared at him.
"To think that it has come to this at Silver Bush!"
Rae, coming in a little later with the mail and an armful of blossom, turned the key in the door. That was necessary now. There was no longer the old-time privacy at Silver Bush. May might bounce in on them at any time without the pretence of knocking. She merely laughed at the idea of knocking and called it "Silver Bush airs."
"Pat, darling, don't take it so to heart. I admit there's a time every day when May makes me yearn for the good old days when you could pull peoples' wigs off. But when I feel that way I just reflect what Brook's eyes would make of her ... can't you see the twinkle in them? ... and she shrinks to her proper perspective. It isn't going to last forever."
"It is ... it is," cried Pat wildly. "Rae, May doesn't WANT to have a house built on the other place ... she wants to have Silver Bush. I've heard her talking to Sid ... I couldn't help hearing ... you know what her voice is like when she's angry. 'I'll never go to live on the Adams' place ... it would be so far out of the world ... you can't move all them barns. You told me when you persuaded me to marry you that we would live at Silver Bush. And I'm going to ... and it won't be under the thumb of your old-maid sister either. She's nothing but a parasite ... living off your father when there's nothing now to prevent her from going away and earning her own living when I'm here to run things.' She's doing her best to set Sid against us all ... you know she is. And she attributes some petty motive to everything we do or say ... or DON'T say. Remember the scene she made last week because I hadn't taken any notice of her new dress ... that awful concoction of cheap radium lace over that sleazy bright blue silk. I thought the kindest thing I could do was NOT to take notice of it. I was ashamed to think any one at Silver Bush could wear such a thing. And she tells Sid we're always laughing at her."