But Pat did feel unhappy and the feeling persisted more or less under all the outward happiness of the autumn and winter. For it did seem to be a happy time. Long Alec had definitely stated that in a year from the next spring he hoped to build on the other farm for Sid and May. Every one knew this was final and May, with much pouting and sulking, had to reconcile herself to the fact that she would never be mistress of Silver Bush.
Mother, too, was stronger and better than she had been for years. She said with a laugh that she was having a second youth. She was able to join in the family life again and go about seeing her friends. It seemed like a miracle for they had all accepted the fact for years that mother would always be an invalid, with a "good day" once in a while. Now the good days were the rule rather than the exception. So in spite of May that year was the pleasantest Pat had known for a long time ... except for that odd persistent little ache of indefinable longing under everything. It never exactly ceased ... though she forgot about it often ... when she was gardening ... sewing ... planning ... when Little Mary came to Silver Bush and wanted some of Judy's "malicious toast" ... when Bold-and-Bad trounced some upstart kitten for its own good ... when she and Suzanne and David sat by the Long House fire ... when she and Rae took sweet counsel together over plans and problems ... when she wakened early to revel in Silver Bush lying in its misty morning silence ... HER home ... her dear, beloved, all-sufficing home ... when Winnie came to Silver Bush, purring over her golden babies. For Winnie had twins ... Winnie and Rachel ... babies that looked as if they had been lifted bodily out of a magazine advertisement. When Pat looked at the two absurd, darling, round-faced, blue-eyed mites on the same pillow she always swallowed a little choke of longing.
Rae expected to be married in another year. Her hope chest was full to overflowing and she and Pat were already planning the details of the wedding ... a regular clan wedding, of course.
"The last big wedding at Silver Bush," said Pat.
"What about your own?" asked Rae.
"Oh, mine. It won't be a smart event. David and I will just slip away some day and be married. There isn't going to be any fuss," said Pat hurriedly ... and turned the conversation to something else. She was very, very fond of David but things were nice just as they were. She did not want to think of marrying at all. The thought of leaving Silver Bush was not bearable.
Rae looked at her curiously but said nothing. Rae was very wise in her generation.
"It doesn't do to meddle," she reflected sagely. "I sometimes wish I'd never written Hilary about Pat's various beaus. Perhaps it did more harm than good ... if he had come sooner ..."
Well, life was full of "ifs." For instance IF she had not gone to the dance where she met Brook? She had been within an inch of NOT going. Rae shuddered.
"When Rae is married," Pat told Judy, "I want her to have the loveliest wedding we've ever had at Silver Bush."
"Oh, oh, it ought to be wid a whole year to get riddy in," agreed Judy.
But nothing ever happens just as you imagine it will, as Pat had many times discovered. A week later came the bolt from the blue. Brook wrote that the manager of the Chinese branch had suddenly died. It had become absolutely necessary for him to start for China at once instead of next year. Would Rae go with him?
Of course Rae would go with him. It meant a marriage at three day's notice, but what of that?
"You ... can't," gasped Pat.
They were sitting in the hay-mow of the church barn, having discovered that it was about the only place where they were safe from May or some prowling Binnie coming down on them. The fragrance of dried clover was around them and an arrogant orange- gold barn cat sat on a rafter and looked at them out of mysterious jewel-like eyes.
"I can and will," said Rae resolutely. "Lily Robinson will take the school and be thankful to get it. We won't bother with a wedding cake ..."
"Rae, do you want Judy to drop dead! Of course we'll have a wedding cake. It won't have time to ripen as good wedding cake should but in all else it shall be the weddingest cake ever seen. But what about your dress?"
"Will it be possible to have a white dress, Pat ... a white satin dress? I'm old-fashioned ... I'm Victorian ... I want to be married in a white satin dress. I love satin."
"We'll make it possible," said Pat. Forthwith she and Rae and Judy and mother went into committee on the subject. Pat and Rae hustled off to town for the dress ... Inez Macaulay came to make it and sewed for dear life. Mother, who hadn't done such a thing for years, declared she would make the cake.
"Oh, oh, and she do be the lady as can do it," said Judy. "All the Bay Shore girls cud make fruit-cake to the quane's taste."
Judy pleaded for "just a liddle wedding." They could have the aunts and uncles and cousins surely. But nobody agreed with her.
"We can't have all the two clans, and since we can't have all we must have none. No, Judy, Brook and I are just going to be married here with you home folks looking on."
Judy had to reconcile herself. But she shook her grizzled head. Times indeed were changed at Silver Bush when one of its daughters could be married off like this.
"Sure and I fale ould and done," said Judy ... looking cautiously about, however, to make sure nobody heard her.
"You've taken your own time about telling me," said May with a toss of her head when Pat informed her that Rae was to be married.
"We've only known it for twenty-four hours ourselves," said Pat. May, however, was determined to be sulky. Nevertheless, there were times when Judy surprised a smug look on her face.
"She do be thinking there'll be one more out av her way," reflected Judy scornfully.
"I'm glad to hear you're getting another of your gals married off," Mrs. Binnie told mother patronisingly. "You'll soon be like myself ... only one left." A sentimental sigh. "What about you, Pat? Isn't it time you were thinking of leaping the ditch? The men don't seem to be what they were in MY young days."
Pat fled to her room where Rae had piled all her belongings on the bed.
"Forget Mother Binnie, Pat, and help me pack. I never was any good at packing. Tell me what to take or leave."
The yawning trunk gave Pat a stab. Rae was really going away ... going to China! Why couldn't it have been Rae's fortune to settle down near home like Winnie? Yet she remembered that she had thought Winnie's going a tragedy. How life grew around changes until they became a part of it and were changes no more! Winnie coming home with her babies ... Winnie's home to visit ... why, it was all delightful. But China! And yet Rae was serenely happy over it all. A line of some old-fashioned song Aunt Hazel used to sing long ago came back to Pat, as she folded and packed. "The one who goes is happier far than the one that's left behind."
Perhaps it was true. She almost envied Rae her happiness. And yet she felt sorry for her ... for Rae, who was leaving Silver Bush. How COULD any one be happy, leaving Silver Bush?
"This time to-morrow I'll be an old married woman," said Rae, scrutinising herself in the mirror. "I believe it's high time I was married, Pat. It seems to me that I'm getting a certain school-teacherish look already. Do you know Brook is having the wedding ring specially made. No hand-me-downs for him, he says. I hope I'll get through the ceremony respectably. Mother Binnie will be there, watching me."