"David and Suzanne Kirk ... brother and sister ... friends of mine ... they're away just now." Pat spoke rather jerkily. "Shall we have our walk back to Happiness now, Hilary?"
Our walk back to Happiness! Was it possible to walk back to happiness? At all events they tried it. They went through a golden summer world ... through the eternal green twilight of the silver bush ... through the field beyond ... over the old stone bridge across Jordan. "We made a good job of that, didn't we?" said Hilary. "There isn't a stone out of place after all these years."
It was all so like the old days. They were boy and girl again. The wind companioned them gallantly and feathery bent-grasses bathed their feet in coolness. On every hand were little green valleys full of loveliness. Everything was wrapped in the light of other days. The dance of sunbeams in the brook shallows was just as it had been so many years ago. And so they came to Happiness and the Haunted Spring again.
"I haven't been here for years," said Pat under her breath. "I couldn't bear to come ... alone ... somehow. It's as lovely as ever, isn't it?"
"Do you remember," said Hilary slowly, "the day ... my mother came ... and you burned my letters?"
Pat nodded. She felt like slipping her hand into Hilary's and giving him the old sympathetic squeeze. Something in his tone told her that the pain and disillusionment of that memory was still keen.
"She is dead," said Hilary. "She died last year. She left me ... some money. At first I didn't think I could take it. Then ... I thought ... perhaps it would be a slap in her dead face if I didn't. So I took it ... and had my year in the East. After all ... I think she loved me once ... when I was her little Jingle- baby. Afterwards ... she forgot. HE made her forget. I mean to try to think of her without bitterness, Pat."
"It doesn't do to hold bitterness," said Pat slowly. "Judy always says that. It ... it poisons life. I know. I'm trying to put a certain bitterness out of my own life. Oh, Hilary ... I know it is babyish to long as I do for the old happy days ... they can never come back, although, now that you are here, they seem to be just around the corner."
In the evening they went through the woods to the Secret Field. Hilary had always understood her love of that field. The woods had a beautiful mood on that evening ... a friendly mood. They didn't always have it. Sometimes they were aloof ... wrapped up in their own concerns. Sometimes they even frowned. But she and Hilary were two children again and the woods took them to their heart. They were full of little pockets of sunshine and ferny paths and whispers and clumps of birches that the winds loved ... wild growths and colours and scents in sweet procession ... a sunset seen through fir tops ... great rosy clouds over the Secret Field ... all the old magic and witchery had come back.
"If this could last," thought Pat.
It was raining moonlight through the poplars when they got back. They went into the old garden, lying fragrant and velvety under the moon. White roses glimmered mysteriously here and there. A little wind brought them the spice of the ferns along the Whispering Lane. Pat was silent. Talk was a commonplace which did not belong to this enchanted hour. It was one of the moments when beauty seemed to flow through her like a river. She surrendered herself utterly to the charm of the time and place. There was no past--no future-- nothing but this exquisite present.
Hilary looked at the moonlit brilliance of her eyes and bent a little nearer ... his lips opened to speak. But a car came whirling into the yard and May got out of it, amid a chorus of howls without words from its other occupants. Pat shivered. May was back. The day of enchantment was over.
May saw them in the garden and came to them. Scent of honeysuckle ... fragrance of fern ... breath of tea-roses, were all drowned in the wave of cheap perfume that preceded her. She greeted Hilary very gushingly and looked vicious over his cool courtesy. Hilary had never liked May and he was not going to pretend pleasure over meeting her again. May gave one of her nasty little laughs.
"I suppose I'm a crowd," she remarked. "Isn't it ... lucky ... David isn't home, Pat?"
"I don't know what you mean," said Pat icily ... knowing perfectly.
"Of course Pat has told you of her engagement to David Kirk," May said maliciously, turning to Hilary. "He's really quite a nice old chap, you know. Such a pity you couldn't have met him."
Nobody spoke. May, having gratified her spite, went into the house. Pat shivered again. Everything was spoiled. Suddenly Hilary seemed very remote ... as remote as those dark firs spiring above the silver birches.
"Is this true, Pat?" he asked in a low tone.
Pat nodded. She could not speak.
Hilary took her hand.
"As an old friend there is no happiness I don't wish you, dear. You know that, don't you?"
"Of course." Pat tried to speak lightly ... airily. "And I return your good wishes, Hilary. We ... we heard of your engagement last year."
She thought miserably, "I'm simply not going to let him off with it. I would have told him about David ... if he had told me ..."
"My engagement?" Hilary laughed slightly. "I'm not engaged. Oh, I know there was some silly gossip about me and Anna Loveday. Her brother is a great friend of mine and I'm going into his firm when I go back. Anna's a sweet thing and has her own 'beau' as Judy would say. There's only one girl in my life ... and you know who she is, Pat. I didn't think there was any hope for me but I felt I must come and see."
"You'll find ... some one yet ..."
"No ... you've spoiled me for loving any one else. There's only one YOU."
Pat said nothing more ... there did not seem anything she could say.
They went into the kitchen for a parting hour before Hilary must leave for the boat train. They were all there ... Judy, Rae, Sid, and Long Alec. Even mother had stayed up late to say good- bye. It should have been a merry evening. Judy was in great fettle and told some of her inimitable tales. Hilary laughed with the others but there was no mirth in his laughter. Pat had one of her dismal moments of feeling that she would never laugh again.
She and Judy stood together at the door and watched Hilary go across the yard to his waiting car.
"Oh, oh, it's a sorryful thing to watch inny one going away by moonlight," said Judy. "I'm thinking, Patsy, I'll never be seeing Jingle again, the dear lad."
"I don't think he will ever come again to Silver Bush," said Pat. Her voice was quiet but her very words seemed tears. "Judy, why must there be so much bitterness in everything ... even in what should be a beautiful friendship?"
"I'm not knowing," admitted Judy.
"The scissors are lost AGAIN," May told them as they re-entered the kitchen, her tone implying that every one at Silver Bush was responsible for their disappearance.
"Oh, oh, if that was all that did be lost!" Judy sighed dismally, as she climbed to her kitchen chamber. Judy was quite unacquainted with Tennyson but she would wholeheartedly have agreed with him that there was something in the world amiss ... oh, oh, very much amiss. And she was far from being sure ... now ... that it would ever be unriddled.
The Ninth Year
1
Hilary wrote just once to Pat after he went away ... one of his old delightful letters, full of beautiful little pencil sketches of the houses he was going to design. Just at the last he wrote:
"Don't feel badly, Pat, dear, because I love you and you can't love me. I've always loved you. I can't help it and I wouldn't if I could. If the choice had been mine I would still have chosen to love you. There are people who try to forget a hopeless love. I'm not one of them, Pat. To me the greatest misfortune life could bring would be that I should forget you. I want to remember and love you always. That will be unspeakably better than any happiness that could come through forgetting. My love for you is the best thing ... always has been the best thing ... in my life. It hasn't made me poorer. On the contrary it has enriched my whole existence and given me the gift of clear vision for the things that matter; it has been a lamp held before my feet whereby I have avoided many pitfalls of baser passions and unworthy dreams. It will always be so. Therefore don't pity me and don't feel unhappy about me."