The rest of the clan were surprised and amused. Pat sensed that none of them quite approved. Winnie and the Bay Shore aunts said absolutely nothing, but silence can say a great deal sometimes. Only Aunt Barbara said deprecatingly,
"But, Pat, he's GREY."
"So am I," said Pat, flaunting her one grey hair.
"Let's hope it lasts this time," said Uncle Tom. Pat thought he might have been nicer after the way she had stood by him in the affair of Mrs. Merridew.
May was frankly delighted, though her delight faded a little when she learned that there was no prospect of an immediate marriage. Mrs. Binnie, rocking fiercely, had her say-so as well.
"So you've hooked the widower at last, Pat? What did I tell you ... never give up. I've never understood how a gal could bring herself to marry a widower ... but then any port in a storm. Of course, as I said to Olive, he's a bit on the old side ..."
"I don't like boys," said Pat coolly. "I get on better with men. And you must admit, Mrs. Binnie, that his ears don't stick out."
"I call that flippant, Pat. Marriage is a very serious thing. As I was saying, when I said that to Olive she sez, 'I s'pose it's better to be an old man's darling than a young man's slave. Pat isn't so young as she used to be herself, ma. She'll make a very good wife for David Kirk.' Olive always kind of liked you, Pat. She always said you meant well."
"That was very kind of her."
Pat's amused, remote smile offended Mrs. Binnie. That was the worst of Pat. Always laughing at you in her sleeve. Mebbe she'd find out marrying an old widower was no laughing matter.
Suzanne was wild with delight.
"I've been hoping for it from the first, Pat. You're made for each other. David worries a bit because he's so much older. I tell him he's growing younger every day and you're growing older so you'll soon meet. He's a darling if he is my brother. He never dared to hope ... till lately. He always said he had two rivals."
"Two?"
"Silver Bush ... and Hilary Gordon."
Pat smiled.
"Silver Bush WAS his rival, I'll admit. But Hilary ... he might as well call Sid a rival."
Yet her face had changed subtly. Some of the laughter went out of it. She was wondering why there was such a distinct relief in the thought that, since her correspondence with Hilary seemed to have died a natural death, she would not have to write him that she was going to marry David Kirk.
The Eighth Year
1
It rained Thursday and Friday and then for a change, as Tillytuck said, it rained Saturday. Not the romping, rollicking, laughter- filled rain of spring but the sad, hopeless rain of autumn that seemed like the tears of old sorrows on the window-panes of Silver Bush.
"I love some kinds of rain," said Rae, "but not this kind. Doesn't the garden look forlorn? Nothing but the ghosts of flowers left in it ... and such unkempt ghosts at that. And we had such good times all summer working in that garden, hadn't we, Pat? I wonder if it will be the same next summer? I've a nasty, going-to-happeny feeling this morning that I don't like."
Judy, too, had had some kind of a "sign" in the night and was pessimistic. But nobody at first sight connected these forewarnings with the tall, thin lady who drove up the lane late in the afternoon and tied a spiritless grey nag to the paling of the graveyard.
"One more av thim agents," said Judy, watching her from the kitchen window, as she stalked up the wet walk, a suit-case dangling from the end of one of her long arms.
"Sure and I've been pestered wid half a dozen of thim this wake. She don't be looking as if business was inny too prosperous."
"She looks like an angleworm on end," giggled Rae.
"I wouldn't let her in if I was you," said Mrs. Binnie, who seldom let a Saturday afternoon pass without a call at Silver Bush.
Judy had had some such idea herself but that speech of Mrs. Binnie's banished it.
"Oh, oh, we do be more mannerly than that at Silver Bush," she said loftily, and invited the stranger in cordially, offering her a chair near the fire. No Binnie was going to tell Judy who was to be let in or out of HER kitchen!
"It's a wet day," sighed the caller, as she sank into the chair and let the suit-case drop on the floor with an air of relief. She was remarkably tall and very slight, dressed in shabby black, and with enormous pale blue eyes. They positively drowned out her face and gave you the uncanny impression that she hadn't any features but eyes. Otherwise you might have noticed that her cheek-bones were a shade too high and her thin mouth rather long and new-moonish. She gave Squedunk such a look of disapproval that that astute cat remarked that he would go out and have a look at the weather and stood not upon the order of his going.
"It's a wet day for travelling but I've allowed myself just ten days to do the Island and time is getting on."
"You don't belong to the Island?" said Rae ... quite superfluously, Judy thought. Sure and cudn't ye be telling THAT niver belonged to the Island!
"No." Another long sigh. "My home is in Novy Scoshy. I've seen better days. But when you haven't a husband to support you you've got to make a living somehow. I was an agent before I was married and so I just took to the road again. Every little helps."
"Sure and it do be hard lines to be a widdy in this could world," said Judy, instantly sympathetic, and hauling forward her pot of soup.
"Oh, I ain't a widdy woman, worse luck." Another sigh. "My husband left me years ago."
"Oh, oh!" Judy pushed the pot back again. If your husband left you there was something wrong somewhere. "And what might ye be selling?"
"All kinds of pills and liniments, tonics and perfumes, face creams and powders," said the caller, opening her suit-case and preparing to display her wares. But at this juncture the porch door opened and Tillytuck appeared in the doorway. He got no further, being apparently frozen in his tracks. As for the lady of the eyes, she clasped her hands and opened and shut her mouth twice. The third time she managed to ejaculate,
"Josiah!"
Tillytuck said something like "Good gosh!" He gazed helplessly around him. "I'm sober ... I'm sober ... I can't hope I'm drunk now."
"Oh, oh, so this lady is no stranger to you I'm thinking?" said Judy.
"Stranger!" The lady in question rolled her eyes rapidly, making Rae think of the dogs in the old fairy tale. "He is ... he was ... he is my husband."
Judy looked at Tillytuck.
"Is it the truth she do be spaking, MR. Tillytuck?"
Tillytuck tried to brazen it out. He nodded and grinned.
"Oh, oh," said Judy sarcastically, "and isn't the truth refreshing after all the lies we've been hearing!"
"I've always felt," said Tillytuck mournfully, "that you never really believed anything I said. But if this ... person has been telling you I left her she's been speaking symbolically. I was druv to it. She told me to go."
"Because he didn't ... and wouldn't ... believe in predestination," said Mrs. Tillytuck. "He was no better than a modernist. I couldn't live with a man who didn't believe in predestination. Could you?"
"Sure and I've niver tried," said Judy, to whom Mrs. Tillytuck had seemed to appeal. Mrs. Binnie asked what predestination was but nobody answered her.
"She told me to go," repeated Tillytuck, "and I took her at her word. 'There's really been too much of this,' I said ... and it was all I did say. I appeal to you, Jane Maria, wasn't it all I did say?"
Tears filled Mrs. Tillytuck's eyes. You really felt afraid of drowning in them.
"You're welcome back any time, Josiah," she sobbed. "Any time you believe in predestination you can come home."
Tillytuck said nothing. He turned and went out. Mrs. Tillytuck wiped her eyes while Judy regarded her rather stonily and Pat and Rae tried to keep their faces straight.