Mistress Pat (9 page)

When Judy read an item from “Events of the Week” in a Charlottetown paper to the Silver Bush girls one evening they were only mildly and pleasantly excited over it. The Countess of Medchester, the paragraph stated, was visiting friends in Ottawa on her way home from Vancouver to England.

“That do be the lady married to the earl as is uncle av yer cousin, Lady Gresham,” said Judy proudly. “Oh, oh, it do be giving me a bit av a thrill, as Cuddles says, to rade that item and riflict that we do be in a manner connected wid her.”

“Even though she doesn't know of our existence,” laughed Pat. “I don't suppose Lady Gresham brags to her friends of her very distant relationship to certain unimportant people on a Canadian farm.”

“Likely she thinks we're Indians,” grinned Cuddles. “Still, as Judy says, there's a thrill in it.”

“Whin ye see May Binnie nixt time ye can be saying…to yersilf, av coorse
…
‘
Ye
don't be having a fourth cousin in the English aristocracy,
Miss
Binnie.' And
that'll
be a satisfaction.”

“I shall say it to Trix,” said Cuddles.

“Indeed, you won't,” cried Pat. “Don't make yourself ridiculous, Cuddles. We're of no more importance in the Countess of Medchester's eyes…supposing she ever heard of us…than the Binnies. And who cares? Look at that froth of cherry bloom behind the turkey house. I'm quite sure there's nothing lovelier on the grounds of Medchester Castle…if there is a castle.”

“Av coorse there's a castle,” said Judy, carefully cutting out the item. “An earl cudn't be living in innything humbler. I'm pinning this up on the wall be me dresser to show Tillytuck. He's niver quate belaved me whin I tould him av yer being third cousin to Lady Gresham.”

“Fourth, Judy, fourth.”

“Oh, oh, I might have made a bit av a mistake in the figure but does it be mattering? Innyhow,
this
will convince him. He was be way av being a bit cranky this morning whin he come in for breakfast though he cudn't be putting a name to the rason…like the cintipede that had rheumatism in one av his legs but cudn't tell which. He was putting on some frills wid me but
this
will be one in the eye for him. A rale countess wid a maid to button her boots! Oh, oh! I had a faling last night there did be something strange in the air.”

When the letter came that day…being left in the mailbox at the road just like any common epistle and carried up to the house in Tillytuck's none too clean hand…Judy felt there was something stranger still in the air. A heavy cream-tinted envelope with a dainty silver crest on the flap, addressed in a black distinctive hand to Mrs. Alex Gardiner, North Glen, P. E. Island, and post-marked Ottawa. The crest and the post-mark had a very queer effect on Judy. She gave a gasp and looked at Gentleman Tom. Gentleman Tom winked knowingly.

“Anybody dead?” said Tillytuck.

Judy ignored him and called for Pat in an agitated voice. Pat came in from the garden, her arms full of the plumes of white lilac, McGinty ambling at her heels. Cuddles came running across the yard, the spring sunlight shining on her golden-brown head. Judy was standing in the middle of the kitchen floor holding the letter at arm's length.

“Judy, what is it?”

“Ye may well ask,” said Judy. “Will ye be looking at the crest? And the post-mark?”

Pat took the letter.

“I feel a thrill…several thrills,” whispered Cuddles.

“Thrills, is it? Sure and ye'll be having thrills wid a vengeance if that do be what I'm thinking it is.”

“It's for mother,” said Pat slowly. Mother was away for a visit at Glenwood. “I suppose we'd better open it. It may be something requiring prompt attention.”

Judy handed Pat the paring knife. She had a presentiment that the letter should not be torn open like an ordinary epistle. Pat slit the envelope, took out the letter…likewise crested…and glanced over it. She turned red…she turned pale…she stared at the others in silence.

“What is it?” whispered Cuddles. “Quick…I've got such a queer prickly feeling in my spine.”

“It's from the Countess of Medchester,” said Pat in a hollow voice. “She says she promised Lady Gresham she would see her
cousins
before she returned to England…she's coming to Charlottetown to visit friends and she wants to come out here…
here
…next Saturday. Saturday!”

Poor Pat repeated the word as if Saturday meant the end of the world.

For a moment nobody spoke…could speak. Even Tillytuck seemed to have passed into a state of coma. In the silence Gentleman Tom reached over and dug a claw into his leg but Tillytuck did not even wince.

Cuddles was the first to recover.

“Have the Countess of Medchester
here
,” she gasped. “We
can't
.”

But Judy had got her second wind. She was an expert in dealing with situations without precedent.

“Oh, oh, mebbe we can't…but we will. What's a countess whin all is said and done? Sure, she'll ate and drink and wash behind her ears like inny common person. What time av day will she be here, Patsy?”

“The forenoon…she's leaving on the night boat. That means she'll be here for dinner, Judy!”

“She will be in a good place for the same thin, I'm telling ye. It will be a proud day for Silver Bush and no countess was iver ating a better male than we can be putting up. But 'twill take some planning, so kape up yer pecker, Patsy, and let's be getting down to brass tacks. We've no time for blithering. Sure and yer countesses can't be ating lilac blossoms.”

Pat came up gasping. She felt ashamed of herself. It was positively Binnie-like to be flabbergasted like this.

“You're right, of course, Judy. Let me see…this is Tuesday. The floors in the dining room and the Big Parlor must be done over…they're simply terrible. I'll paint them today and stain them to-morrow. I wish I could do something to the front door. The paint is all peeling off. But I daren't meddle with it. We must just leave it open and trust she won't notice it. Then, Cuddles, we have to go to Winnie's one day this week to help her get her sewing done. We should have gone last week but I wanted to wait till this week to see their big crab-apple tree in bloom. We'll go Thursday. That will give us Friday to prepare. We must take her to the Poet's room because the ceiling isn't cracked there as it is in the spare room and we must put the spread mother embroidered on the bed. Sid can go for mother Friday evening. It
is
a shame to have her visit cut short when it's her first for years…but of course she'd like to be here.”

“Oh, oh, and there'll be two great ladies together thin,” said Judy. “I'll match yer mother agin inny countess in the world. Sure and a Bay Shore Selby cud hould up her hid wid inny av the quality.”

Pat was herself again. Tillytuck was lost in admiration of her. From that moment Silver Bush was a place of excited but careful planning and overhauling and cleaning and decorating and discussing. Even Tillytuck had his say.

“The dinner's the thing,” he told them. “A good meal is never to be sneezed at, speaking symbolically.”

Everyone agreed with this. The dinner must be such as even the wife of a belted earl could not turn up her nose at. Pat did endless research work among all her recipe books. Cuddles cut school to help. What was Latin and the chance of tattooing compared to this?

It was decided to have fried chicken for dinner…Judy's fried chicken was something to dream about.

“Wid sparrow grass. Sure and sparrow grass is a sort av hardy vegetable. Ye'll be making the sauce ye lamed at the Short Coorse, Patsy dear. And will ye be having time to hemstitch the new napkins?”

“Cuddles and I are going to sit up all night to do them. I think we'll have iced melon balls and ice-cream for dessert and a lemon coconut cake. We mustn't attempt too much.”

“Not to be ostentatious,” agreed Judy who dearly loved a big word now and then.

“And, after all, she may be on a diet,” grinned Cuddles. Cuddles had regained all her insouciance. Trix Binnie would be sunk when she heard of it all, positively sunk.

“I hope she'll think Silver Bush nice,” breathed Pat. That was all she really cared about.

“She cudn't be hilping it,” said Judy. “Let's be hoping it will be fine on Saturday. If it rains…”

Judy left it to the imagination what it would be like to entertain a countess in a rainstorm.

“It
must
be fine,” was Pat's ultimatum.

“Do you think it wouldn't be a good thing to…to pray for fine weather?” suggested Cuddles, who felt that no chances should be taken.

Judy shook her head solemnly.

“Girls dear, I wudn't. Ye can niver be telling what comes av such praying. Well do I rimimber the day in South Glen church whin the minister, ould Mr. McCary, did be praying for rain wid all his might and main. Whin the people were going home from church down comes a thunderstorm and drinches iverybody to the skin. Ould James Martin and ould Thomas Urquhart were together and ‘Thomas sez, sez he, I do be wishing he hadn't prayed till we got home. Thim McCarys niver cud be moderate,' sez he. So ye'd better be laving it to nature, girls dear. And thank the Good Man Above there'll be no Jerusalem cherries around. Whin she comes, Patsy dear, av coorse I'll kape in the background but don't ye be thinking I'd better have me dress-up dress on, in case she might catch a glimpse av me coming or going?”

“Of course, Judy. And oh, Judy, do you think you could coax Tillytuck to leave off that terrible old fur cap of his for one day? If she saw him going through the yard!”

“Niver be worrying over Tillytuck. He'll be away to town that day wid the calves yer dad sold. And none too well plazed about it. Him thinking he wanted a glimpse av a countess! And trying to be sarcastic. He sez to me, sez he, ‘Kape a stiff upper lip, Judy. After all, yer grandmother was a witch and that's a sort of aristocracy, symbolically spaking.' ‘I'm not nading to stiffen me upper lip,' sez I. ‘I do be knowing me place and kaping it, spaking the plain truth and no symbols.' Tillytuck do be getting a bit out av hand. He was after smoking his pipe in the graveyard today, setting on Waping Willy's tombstone as bould as brass.”

“Aunt Edith and Aunt Barbara are terribly excited,” said Pat. “I wanted them to come over for dinner but they wouldn't. Aunt Edith vetoed it. However, she very kindly offered to lend us her silver soup spoons. She said a countess could tell at a glance if the spoons were solid or only plated. I'm so glad our teaspoons are solid…only they're so old and thin.”

“Oh, oh, they do be all the more aristocratic for that,” comforted Judy. “The countess will be saying to hersilf, ‘There's
fam'ly
behind
thim
. Nothing av the mushroom in
thim
,' she'll be saying. And spaking av the Swallowfield folks, have ye noticed innything odd about yer Uncle Tom's beard?”

“Yes…it has almost disappeared,” sighed Pat. “It's nothing more than an imperial now.”

“Whin it disappears altogether we'll be hearing some news,” said Judy with a mysterious nod.

But Pat had no time just then to be worrying over Uncle Tom's vanishing whiskers. By Wednesday night Silver Bush was ready for the countess…or for royalty itself. On Thursday Sid took Pat and Cuddles over to the Bay Shore to help Winnie with her spring sewing. They really sewed all the forenoon. In the afternoon Winnie said, “Never mind any more for a while. Come out in the wind and sun. We don't often have such an afternoon to spend together.”

They prowled about the garden, picking flowers, drinking in the crab-apple blossoms, watching the harbor and making nonsense rhymes. In the midst of their fun they heard the telephone ring in the house.

Pat went in to answer it, as Winnie had her Christmas baby in her arms. When Pat heard Judy's voice she knew that something tremendous had occurred for Judy never used the telephone if she could help it.

“Patsy dear, is it yersilf? I do be having a word for you.
She's here
.”

“Judy! Who? Not the countess?”

“I'm telling ye. But I can't be ixplaining over the phone. Only come as quick as ye can, darlint. Siddy and yer dad have gone to town.”

“We'll be right over,” gasped Pat.

But how to get right over? Frank was away with the car. There was nothing for it but the old buggy and the old gray mare. It would take them an hour to get to Silver Bush. And Uncle Brian must be 'phoned to and asked to bring mother right home. Between them Pat and Cuddles got the mare harnessed and after several hundred years…or what seemed like it…they found themselves alighting in the yard of Silver Bush…which looked as quiet and peaceful as usual with Just Dog sleeping on the door-stone and three kittens curled up in a ball on the well platform.

“I suppose the countess is in the Big Parlor,” said Pat. “Let's slip into the kitchen and find out everything from Judy first.”

“How do you talk to countesses?” gasped Cuddles. “Pat, I think I'll go and hide in the barn loft.”

“Indeed you won't! You're not a Binnie! We'll see Judy and then we'll slip upstairs and get some decent clothes on before we beard the lion in her den.”

Pat had on her blue linen afternoon dress…which, incidentally, was the most becoming thing she owned. Cuddles wore her pretty green sweater with its little white embroidered linen collar, above which her wind-tossed hair gleamed, the color of sunlight on October beeches. Both girls ran, giggling with nervousness, up the herring-bone brick walk to the kitchen door and rushed in unceremoniously. Then they both stopped in their tracks. Cuddles' eyes wirelessed to Pat, “Do you really live through things like this or do you just die?”

Judy Plum and the Countess of Medchester were sitting by the table, whereon were the remnants of a platterful of baked sausages and potatoes. At the very moment of the girls' entry Judy was pouring cream from her “cream cow” into her ladyship's cup and the latter was helping herself to a piece of the delightful thing Judy called “Bishop's bread.” Gentleman Tom was attending meticulously to his toilet in the center of the floor and Bold-and-Bad was coiled on the countess' lap, while McGinty was squatted by the legs of her chair. Tillytuck was sitting in his corner…fortunately minus the fur cap, which, however, hung on his chair back. Judy was in her striped drugget but with a beautiful white apron starched stiff as a board. She was as completely at her ease as if the countess had been a scrubwoman. And as for Lady Medchester, Pat, amid all her dumfounderment, instantly got the impression that she was enjoying herself hugely.

“And here,” said Judy, with incredible nonchalance, “are the girls I've been telling ye av…Mrs. Long Alec's daughters. Patricia and Rachel.”

The countess instantly got up and shook hands with Patricia and Rachel. She had mouse-colored hair and a square, reddish face, but the smile on her wide mouth was charming.

“I'm so glad you've come before I have to go,” she said. “It would have been dreadful to go back home and have to tell Clara that I hadn't seen any of her cousins at all. She has always had such a dear recollection of some wonderful days she spent on Prince Edward Island when a child. It was too bad to come down on you like this. But I got a cable from England last night which made it imperative I should leave tonight, so I had to come this afternoon. Your Judy…” she flashed a smile at Judy…“made me delightfully welcome and showed me around your lovely home…and, last but not least, has given me a most delicious meal. I was
so
hungry.”

Somehow they found themselves all sitting around the table. Pat realized thankfully that Judy had had sense enough to put the best tablecloth on it and the silver spoons. But why on earth hadn't she got supper in the dining room? And what was the silver teapot doing on the dresser while the old brown crockery one graced the table?

And there was Tillytuck sitting in his shirt sleeves! Was there really anything to do but die? What was one to say? Pat wildly thought of an article in a recent magazine on “How to Start a Conversation With People You Have Just Met,” but none of the gambits seemed to fit in here exactly. However, they were not necessary. The countess kept on talking in a frank, friendly, charming way that somehow included everybody, even Tillytuck. Pat, with a reckless feeling that nothing mattered now anyhow, flung conventionality to the winds. Cuddles was never long rattled by anything and in a surprisingly short time they were all chatting gaily and merrily. The countess insisted on their having some tea and Bishop's bread with her…she was on her third cup herself, she said. Judy trotted to the pantry and brought back some forgotten orange biscuits. Lady Medchester wanted to hear all about mother and was only sorry she couldn't see her way clear to taking a Silver Bush kitten back with her to England.

“You see one of your cats has already quite made up his mind to like me,” she laughed, looking down at the placidly heaving, furry flanks of Bold-and-Bad.

“And that cat don't condescend to everyone, speaking symbolically, ma'am,” said Tillytuck.

Pat had a confused impression that it was quite proper to say “ma'am” to a queen but hardly the way to address a countess. A countess!
Was
this stout, comfortable lady, in the plain, rather sloppy tweed suit, really a countess? Why…why…she seemed just like anybody else. She had the oddest resemblance to Mrs. Snuffy Madison of South Glen! Only Mrs. Snuffy was the better looking!

And there was no mistaking it…she was enjoying the bread and biscuits.

“Cats don't,” said Lady Medchester, smiling at Tillytuck out of her hazel eyes and giving the wistful McGinty a nip of sausage. “That is why their approval, when they do bestow it, is really so much more of a compliment than a dog's. Dogs are so much easier pleased, don't you think?”

“You've said a mouthful, ma'am,” said Tillytuck admiringly.

Cuddles, who, up to now, had contrived to keep a perfectly demure face, narrowly escaped choking to death over a gulp of tea. Pat, glancing wildly around, suddenly encountered Lady Medchester's eyes. Something passed between them…understanding…comradeship…a delicious enjoyment of the situation. After that Pat didn't care what anybody did or said…which was rather fortunate, for a few minutes later, when Lady Medchester happened to remark that she had had friends on the
Titanic
, Tillytuck said sympathetically, “Ah, so had I, ma'am…so had I.”

“The ould liar!” said Judy under her breath. But everybody heard her. This time it was Lady Medchester who narrowly escaped disaster over a bit of biscuit. And again her twinkling eyes sought Pat's.

“Couldn't you stay till mother comes?” asked Pat, as the countess rose, gently and regretfully displacing her lapful of silken cat.

“I'm so sorry I can't. I've really stayed too long as it is. I have to catch that boat train. But it has been delightful. And I can tell Clara that at least I've seen Mary's dear girls. You'll be coming to England someday I'm sure, and when you do you must look me up. I'm so sorry to put this beautiful cat down.”

“You've got hairs all over your stomach, ma'am,” said Tillytuck. “Dogs ain't like that now.”

If looks could have slain Judy would have been a murderess. But the countess put her hands on Pat's shoulders, kissed her cheek and bowed her head, shaking with laughter.

“He's priceless,” she whispered. “Priceless. And so is your Judy. Darlings, I only wish I could have stayed longer.”

The countess picked up a little squashy hat with a gold and brown feather on it that looked like a hand-me-down from the Silverbridge store, adjusted a silver fox stole which Pat knew must have cost a small fortune, kissed Cuddles, made a mysterious visit into the pantry with Judy, donned a pair of antiquated gauntlets and went out to her car. Before she got in she looked around her. Silver Bush had cast over her the spell it cast over all.

“A quiet, beautiful place where there is time to live,” she said, as if speaking to herself. Then she waved her hand to Judy…“We had such a pleasant little chat, hadn't we?”…and was gone.

“Oh, oh, but Silver Bush has been honored this day,” said Judy as they went back in.

“Judy, tell us everything…I'm simply bursting. And how did you come to have supper in the kitchen?”

“Oh, oh, don't be blaming me,” entreated Judy. “It do be a long story that'll take some telling. Niver did I live through such an afternoon in me life. Tillytuck, do ye be wanting a liddle bite? Not that ye desarve it…but there's some av the pittaties and sausages lift if ye care for them.”

“What's good enough for a countess is good enough for me,” said Tillytuck, sitting down to the table with avidity. “She's a fine figure of a woman that, though maybe a bit broader in the beam than you'd expect of a countess, symbolically speaking. I found something alluring about her.”

“Come out to the graveyard,” whispered Judy to the girls. “We won't be disturbed there and I can be telling ye the tale. Sure and 'twill be one for the annals of Silver Bush.”

“Uncle Brian has just phoned that mother was away to a picnic with some friends of Aunt Helen's and he couldn't locate her.”

“It doesn't matter now,” sighed Pat. “Why, oh, why, do things never happen as you plan? But I don't care…she was lovely…and she enjoyed herself….”

“Oh, oh, that she did,” agreed Judy, settling herself on Weeping Willy's tombstone, while Pat and Cuddles and McGinty squatted on Wild Dick's, “and nothing could or magnificant about her. But whin she drove in, girls dear, I didn't be knowing for a minute whither I stud on me heels or me hid. I did be taking her up to the Poet's room to wash her hands…oh, oh, I did all the honors, aven to slipping in that extry nice cake av soap ye brought home the other day, the one wrapped up in shiny paper…and the bist av the embridered towels. I cudn't manage the new sprid but if ye'd heard her ladyship rave over the beautiful patchwork quilt!

“Thin I dashed up to me room for a squint in me book av Useful Knowledge. But niver a word cud I find about intertaining the nobility so I had to be falling back on what I cud rimimber av the doings at Castle McDermott. It do be a pity I niver thought av slipping into me dress-up dress. But I was a bit excited-like. Whin I'd finished ixplaining to her that I'd phoned for ye nothing wud do her but I must show her all round the place. She said she wanted to see a rale Canadian farm at close range. It did be suiting me for I didn't be knowing if it was manners to lave her all alone and to sit wid a countess in the Big Parlor was a fearsome thought. I did be taking her all through the orchard and the silver bush and the cats' burying ground. And thin all through the graveyard and telling her all the ould stories…and didn't she laugh over Waping Willy! Thin whin we wint back to the house she wanted to see me kitchen…and me not knowing how Just Dog wud behave. Whin we got in it she sez to me, just like one old frind to another, ‘Cud ye let me have a cup av tay, Judy…and what is that delicious odor I smell?' Well, girls dear, ye know just what it was…me bit av baked sausage and pittaties I had in the oven for Tillytuck and mesilf, ivery one ilse being away. ‘Will ye be giving me a taste av it?' she sez, wheedling-like. ‘Right here in the kitchen, Judy, where the scint av lilacs is coming in through that windy, Judy,' sez she, ‘and the very same white kittens that hung on me nursery wall more years ago than I'll admit aven to you, Judy,' sez she. Sure and I cudn't stand up to a countess so she had her way. I got out the bist silver taypot and one av the parlor chairs for her. But she plunked hersilf down on ould Nehemiah's and sez, sez she, ‘I want me tay right out av that ould brown pot. There's nothing like it for flavor,' sez she. And nothing wud do but I must sit down wid her and take a share av the sausages and pittaties. But I wasn't after ating minny, girls dear…me appetite wasn't wid me. Siven av thim sausages disappeared and I et only the one av thim. Think av it, me drinking tay wid a countess, and crooking me liddle finger rale illigant whin I happened to think av it! Madam Binnie'll niver be belaving it. And wud ye be belaving it, girls dear? She was at Castle McDermott hersilf whin she was a girleen and tould me all about the ould place. It did be making me fale I must be going to see it afore long. Prisently Bold-and-Bad comes along asking ‘have ye room for a cat?' and jumps up in her lap. Oh, oh, ye saw for yersilves she was a different brade from Cousin Nicholas. Well, we did be sitting there colloguing, her and me and the cats, rale cozy and frindly, whin I heard a tarrible noise in the back porch. It didn't sound like innything on earth but I did be knowing it was Tillytuck gargling his throat, him thinking it was a bit sore this morning. I did be glancing at the countess a bit apprehensive-like but she was admiring me crame cow and taking no notice apparently. I was fearing whin he finished wid his throat he'd be breaking out into a Psalm but niver did I think he'd have the presumption to come in. I was clane flabbergasted whin I saw him standing in the dureway. I did be giving him the high sign to take himsilf off but he paid no attintion and was all for setting down on her ladyship's hat which she had tossed on a chair careless-like. I got it away just in time, girls dear, and down he plumped. Wud ye belave it, her ladyship smiled at him in that nice way she has and passed a remark about the weather. And didn't Tillytuck tell her rain was coming bekase he had rheumatism in his arms! And thin tilting back on the hind-legs av his chair, wid his thumbs tucked into his bilt, casual-like, he wint on to tell her one av his ‘traggedies'…how the lion had got out av his cage and clawed him. ‘It was a lippard last time,' I cudn't hilp saying, sarcastic-like. But her ladyship tuk his measure and I cud see she was lading him on, and him thinking he was showing me how to hobnob wid the quality. Thin Just Dog started to throw one av his fits but Tillytuck whisked him out so quick I'm not thinking her ladyship tuk it in. What wid it all, me nerves were getting a bit jumpy and niver was there a more welcome sound to me ears than the ould Russell mare's trot up the lane.”