"Oh, surely dad wouldn't want a Ledbury round," said Cuddles.
"Ye can't pick and choose, Cuddles dear. That do be the trouble. Hired hilp is be way av being scarce and yer dad must be having a man that understands cows. Sim do be thinking he does. But a Ledbury wid the freedom av me kitchen will be a hard pill to swallow and him wid a face like a tombstone and born hating cats. Gintleman Tom took just the one look at him the day he was here and thin made himsilf scarce. If we can be getting a man who'll be good company for the cats ye'll niver hear a word av complaint from me about him, as long as he's willing to do a bit av work for his wages. Yer dad has got his name up for niver being put out at innything so he cud be imposed upon something shameful. But we'll all be seeing what we'll see and now we've finished wid this tree I'm going in to bake me damsons."
"I'm going to stay out till the sunshine fails me. I think, Judy, when I grow VERY old I'll just sit and bask in the sunshine all the time ... I love it so. Cuddles, what about a run back to the Secret Field before sunset?"
Cuddles shook a golden-brown head.
"I'd love to go but you know I twisted my foot this morning and it hurts me yet. I'm going over to sit on Weeping Willy's slab in the graveyard for a while and just dream. I feel shimmery to-day ... as if I was made of sunbeams."
When Cuddles said things like that Pat had a vague feeling that Cuddles was clever and ought to be educated if it could be managed. But it had to be admitted that so far Cuddles seemed to share the family indifference to education. She went in unashamedly for "a good time" and pounced on life like a cat on a mouse.
Pat slipped away for one of her dear pilgrimages to the Secret Field ... that little tree-encircled spot at the very back of the farm, which she and Sid had discovered so long ago and which she, at least, had loved ever since. Almost every Sunday evening, when they walked over the farm, talking and planning ... for Sid was developing into an enthusiastic farmer ... they ended up with the Secret Field, which was always in grass and always bore a wonderful crop of wild strawberries. Sid had promised her he would never plough it up. It was really too small to be worthwhile cultivating anyhow. And if it were ploughed up there might never be any more of Judy's famous wild strawberry shortcakes or those still more delicious things Pat made and which she called strawberry cream pies.
It was nice to go there with Sid but it was even nicer to go alone. There was nothing then to come between her and the silent, rapt communion she seemed to hold with it. It was the loneliest and loveliest spot on the farm. Its very silence was friendly and seemed to come out of the woods around it like a real presence. No wind ever blew there and rain and snow fell lightly. In summer it was a pool of sunlight, in winter a pool of frost ... now in autumn a pool of colour. Musky, spicy shadows seemed to hover around its grey old fences. Pat always felt that the field knew it was beautiful and was happy in its knowledge. She lingered in it until the sun set and then went slowly back home, savouring every moment of the gathering dusk. What a lovely phrase "gathering dusk" was ... almost as lovely as Judy's "dim", though the latter had a certain eerie quality that always gave Pat a rapture.
At the top of the hill field she paused, as always, to gloat over Silver Bush. The light shone out from the door and windows of the kitchen where Judy would be preparing supper, with the cats watching for a "liddle bite" and McGinty cocking a pointed ear for Pat's footstep. Would it be as nice when that unknown creature, the all-too-necessary hired man, would be hanging round, waiting for his supper? Of course it wouldn't. He would be a stranger and an alien. Pat fiercely resented the thought of him.
They would have supper by lamplight now. For a while she always hated to have to light the lamp for supper ... it meant that the wind had blown the summer away and that winter nights were closing in. Then she liked it ... it was so cosy and companionable and Silver Bushish, with Judy's "dim" looking in through the crimson vines around the window.
The colour of home on an autumn dusk was an exquisite thing. The trees all around it seemed to love it. The house belonged to them and to the garden and the green hill and the orchard and they to it. You couldn't separate them, Pat felt. She always wondered how any one could live in a house where there were no trees. It seemed an indecency, like a too naked body. Trees ... to veil and caress and beshadow ... trees to warn you back and beckon you on. Lombardies for statelines ... birches for maiden grace ... maples for friendliness ... spruce and fir for mystery ... poplars to whisper secrets. Only they never really did. You thought you understood as long as you listened ... but when you left them you realized they had just been laughing at you ... thin, rustling, silky laughter. All the trees kept some secret. Who knew but that all those white birches, which stood so primly all day, when night and moonlight came, might step daintily out of the earth and pirouette over the meadows, while the young spruces around the Mince Pie field danced a saraband? Laughing at her fancy, Pat ran into the light and good cheer of Judy's white-washed kitchen with life singing in her heart.
3
"Tillytuck! Did ye iver be hearing the like av that for a name?" said Judy, quite flabbergasted for once. "Niver have I heard such a name on the Island before."
"He's been working on the south shore for years but he really belongs to Nova Scotia, dad says," said Cuddles.
"Oh, oh, that ixplains it. Minny a quare name I've known coming out av Novy Scoshy. And what will we be after calling him? If he's a young chap we can be calling him be his given name if he do be having one but if he's a bit oldish it'll have to be Mr. Tillytuck, since hired hilp is getting so uppish these days, and it'll be the death av me if I do have to be saying 'Mr. Tillytuck' ivery time I open me mouth. MISTER Tillytuck!"
Judy savoured the absurdity of it.
"He's quite old, dad says. Over fifty," remarked Cuddles.
"And dad says, too, that he's a bit peculiar."
"Peculiar, is it, thin? Oh, oh, people do be saying that I'm a bit that way mesilf, so there'll be a pair av us. Is he peculiar in being worth his salt in the way av work? That do be the question."
"He comes well recommended and dad was almost in despair of getting any one half suitable."
"And is MISTER Tillytuck married, I'm asking. MISTRESS Tillytuck! Oh, oh."
"Dad didn't say. But he's to be here to-morrow so we'll find out all about him. Judy, what HAVE you got in that pot?"
"A bit av soup lift over from dinner. I did be thinking we'd like a liddle sup av it be bed-time. And lave a drop in the pot for Siddy. He's gone gallivanting and it's a cold night and mebbe a long drive home."
There was no trace of disdain in Judy's "gallivanting." Judy thought gallivanting one of the lawful delights of youth.
It was a wild wet November evening, with an occasional vicious swish of rain on the windows. But the fire glowed brightly: Gentleman Tom was curled up on his own prescriptive chair and McGinty slumbered on the rug; Bold-and-Bad on one side of the stove, and Squedunk, a half-grown, striped cat on his promotion, on the other, kept up a lovely chorus of purrs: and Cuddles had a cherry-red dress on that brought out the young sheen of her hair. Cuddles had such lovely hair, Pat thought proudly. Nothing so pallid and washed out as gold, like Dot Robinson's ... no, a warm golden brown.
Judy's soup had a very tempting aroma. Judy was past-mistress of the art of soup-making. Long Alec always said all she had to do was wave her hand over the pot. Mother was mending by the table. Mother had never been strong since her operation and Pat, who watched her with a jealous love, thought she ought to be resting. But mother always liked to do the mending.
"It will be the last thing I'll give up, Pat. Most women don't like mending. I always did. The little worn garments ... when you were children ... they seemed so much a part of you. And now your bits of silk things. It doesn't hurt me really. I like to think I'm a little use still."