The Complete Anne of Green (108 page)

‘We’ll make every one turn out their pockets before they go, Aunt Grace.’

‘Ah, you may laugh, Samuel. It is no joking matter to have anything like that happen in the family.
Someone
must have those teaspoons. I never go anywhere but I keep my eyes open for them. I’d know them wherever I saw them, though it was twenty-eight years ago. Poor Nora was just a baby then. You remember you had her there, Jane, in a little white embroidered dress? Twenty eight years! Ah, Nora, you’re getting on, though in this light you don’t show your age so much.’

Nora did not join in the laugh that followed. She looked as if she might flash lightning at any moment. In spite of her daffodil-hued dress and the pearls in her dark hair she made Anne think of a black moth. In direct contrast to Sally, who was a cool, snowy blonde, Nora Nelson had magnificent black hair, dusky eyes, heavy black brows, and velvety-red cheeks. Her nose was beginning to look a trifle hawk-like, and she had never been accounted pretty, but Anne felt oddly attracted to her in spite of her sulky, smouldering expression. She felt that she would prefer Nora as a friend to the popular Sally.

They had a dance after dinner, and music and laughter came tumbling in a flood out of the broad, low windows of the old stone house. At ten Nora had disappeared. Anne was a little tired of the noise and merriment. She slipped through the hall to a back door that opened almost on the bay and flitted down a flight of rocky steps to the shore, past a little grove of pointed firs. How divine the cool salt air was after the sultry evening! How exquisite the silver patterns of moonlight on the bay! How dreamlike that ship which had sailed at the rising of the moon, and was now approaching the harbour bar! It was a night when you might expect to stray into a dance of mermaidens.

Nora was hunched up in the grim, black shadow of a rock by the water’s edge, looking more like a thunderstorm than ever.

‘May I sit with you for a while?’ asked Anne. ‘I’m a little tired of dancing, and it’s a shame to miss this wonderful night. I envy you with the whole harbour for a backyard like this.’

‘What would you feel like at a time like this if you had no beau?’ asked Nora abruptly and sullenly. ‘Or any likelihood of one,’ she added still more sullenly.

‘I think it must be your own fault if you haven’t,’ said Anne, sitting down beside here.

Nora found herself telling Anne her troubles. There was always something about Anne that made people tell her their troubles.

‘You’re saying that to be polite, of course. You needn’t. You know as well as I do that I’m not a girl men are likely to fall in love with. I’m the “plain Miss Nelson”. It
isn’t
my fault that I haven’t anybody. I couldn’t stand it in there any longer. I had to come down here and just let myself be unhappy. I’m tired of smiling and being agreeable to everyone, and pretending not to care when they give me digs about not being married. I’m not going to pretend any longer. I
do
care. I care horribly. I’m the only one of the Nelson girls left. Five of us are married, or will be tomorrow. You heard Aunt Mouser casting my age up to me at the dinner-table. And I heard her telling Mother before dinner that I had “aged quite a bit” since last summer. Of course I have. I’m twenty-eight. In twelve more years I’ll be forty. How will I endure life at forty, Anne, if I haven’t got any roots of my own by that time?’

‘I wouldn’t mind what a foolish old woman said.’

‘Oh, wouldn’t you? You haven’t a nose like mine. I’ll be as beaky as Father in ten more years. And I suppose you wouldn’t care either if you’d waited years for a man to propose – and he just wouldn’t?’

‘Oh, yes, I think I would care about
that
.’

‘Well, that’s my predicament exactly. Oh, I know you’ve heard of Jim Wilcox and me. It’s such an old story. He’s been hanging round me for years, but he’s never said anything about getting married.’

‘Do you care for him?’

‘Of course I care. I’ve always pretended I didn’t; but, as I’ve told you, I’m through with pretending. And he’s never been near me since last January. We had a fight – but we’ve had hundreds of fights. He always came back before, but he hasn’t come this time – and he never will. He doesn’t want to. Look at his house across the bay, shining in the moonlight. I suppose he’s there – and I’m here – and all the harbour between us. That’s the way it always will be. It – it’s terrible! And I can’t do a thing.’

‘If you sent for him wouldn’t he come back?’

‘Send for him! Do you think I’d do
that
? I’d die first. If he wants to come there’s nothing to prevent him coming. If he doesn’t
I
don’t want him to… Yes, I do! I do! I love Jim – and I want to get married. I want to have a home of my own, and be “Mrs”, and shut Aunt Mouser’s mouth. Oh, I wish I could be Barnabas or Saul for a few moments, just to swear at her! If she calls me “poor Nora” again I’ll throw a scuttle at her. But, after all, she only says what everybody thinks. Mother has despaired long ago of my ever marrying, so she leaves me alone; but the rest rag me. I hate Sally. Of course, I’m dreadful – but I hate her. She’s getting a nice husband and a lovely home. It isn’t fair she should have everything and I nothing. She isn’t better or cleverer or much prettier than me – only luckier. I suppose you think I’m awful… Not that I care what you think.’

‘I think you’re very, very tired after all these weeks of preparation and strain, and that things which were always hard have become
too
hard all at once.’

‘You understand. Oh, yes, I always knew you would. I’ve wanted to be friends with you, Anne Shirley. I like the way you laugh. I’ve always wished I could laugh like that. I’m not as sulky as I look. It’s these eyebrows. I really think they’re what scare the men away. I never had a real girl friend in my life. But, of course, I always had Jim. We’ve been – friends ever since we were kids. Why, I used to put a light up in that little window in the attic whenever I wanted him over particularly, and he’d sail across at once. We went everywhere together. No other boy ever had a chance. Not that anyone wanted it, I suppose. And now it’s all over. He was just tired of me, and was glad of the excuse of a quarrel to get free. Oh, won’t I hate you tomorrow because I’ve told you this!’

‘Why?’

‘We always hate people who surprise our secrets, I suppose,’ said Nora drearily. ‘But there’s something gets into you at a wedding. And I just don’t care. I don’t care for anything. Oh, Anne Shirley, I’m so miserable! Just let me have a good cry on your shoulder. I’ve
got
to smile and look happy all day tomorrow. Sally thinks it’s because I’m superstitious that I wouldn’t be her bridesmaid. “Three times a bridesmaid never a bride” – you know. ’Tisn’t! I just couldn’t endure to stand there and hear her saying “I will” and know I’d never have a chance to say it for Jim. I’d fling back my head and howl. I want to be a bride – and have a trousseau – and monogrammed linen – and lovely presents. Even Aunt Mouser’s silver butter-dish. She always gives a butter-dish to every bride. Awful things with tops like the dome of St Peter’s. We could have had it on the breakfast-table just for Jim to make fun of… Anne, I think I’m going crazy.’

The dance was over when the girls went back to the house hand in hand. People were being stowed away for the night. Tommy Nelson was taking Barnabas and Saul to the barn. Aunt Mouser was still sitting on a sofa, thinking of all the dreadful things she hoped wouldn’t happen on the morrow.

‘I hope nobody will get up and give a reason why they shouldn’t be joined together.
That
happened at Tillie Hatfield’s wedding.’

‘No such good luck for Gordon as that,’ said the groomsman.

Aunt Mouser fixed him with a stony brown eye. ‘Young man, marriage isn’t exactly a joke.’

‘You bet it isn’t,’ said the unrepentant one. ‘Hello, Nora! When are we going to have a chance to dance at your wedding?’

Nora did not answer in words. She went close up to him and deliberately slapped him, first on one side of his face and then on the other. The slaps were not make-believe ones. Then she went upstairs without looking behind her.

‘That girl,’ said Aunt Mouser, ‘is overwrought.’

17

The forenoon of Saturday passed in a whirl of last-minute things. Anne, shrouded in one of Mrs Nelson’s aprons, spent it in the kitchen helping Nora with the salads. Nora was all prickles, evidently repenting, as she had foretold, her confidences of the night before.

‘We’ll be all tired out for a month,’ she snapped. ‘And Father can’t really afford all this splurge. But Sally was set on having what she calls a “pretty wedding”, and Father gave in. He’s always spoiled her.’

‘Spite and jealousy,’ said Aunt Mouser, suddenly popping her head out of the pantry, where she was driving Mrs Nelson frantic with her hopings against hope.

‘She’s right,’ said Nora bitterly to Anne. ‘Quite right. I
am
spiteful and jealous. I hate the very look of happy people. But, all the same, I’m not sorry I slapped Jud Taylor’s face last night. I’m only sorry I didn’t tweak his nose into the bargain… Well, that finishes the salads. They do look pretty. I love fussing things up when I’m normal. Oh, after all, I hope everything will go off nicely for Sally’s sake. I suppose I do love her underneath everything, though just now I feel as if I hated everyone, and Jim Wilcox worst of all.’

‘Well, all I hope is the groom won’t be missing just before the ceremony,’ floated out from the pantry, in Aunt Mouser’s lugubrious tones. ‘Austin Creed was. He just forgot he was to be married that day. The Creeds were always forgetful, but I call that carrying things too far.’

The two girls looked at each other and laughed. Nora’s whole face changed when she laughed – lightened… glowed… rippled. And then someone came out to tell her that Barnabas had been sick on the stairs. Too many chicken livers, probably. Nora rushed off to repair the damage, and Aunt Mouser came out of the pantry to hope that the wedding-cake wouldn’t disappear, as had happened at Alma Clark’s wedding ten years before.

By noon everything was in immaculate readiness: the table laid, the beds beautifully dressed, and baskets of flowers everywhere; and in the big north room upstairs Sally and her three bridesmaids were in quivering splendour. Anne, in her Nile-green dress and hat, looked at herself in the mirror, and wished that Gilbert could see her.

‘You’re wonderful!’ said Nora half enviously.

‘You’re looking wonderful yourself, Nora. That smoke-blue chiffon and that picture hat brings out the gloss of your hair and the blue of your eyes.’

‘There’s nobody to care how I look,’ said Nora bitterly. ‘Well, watch me grin, Anne. I mustn’t be the death’s-head at the feast, I suppose. I have to play the Wedding March after all. Vera’s got a terrible headache. I feel more like playing the Dead March, as Aunt Mouser foreboded.’

Aunt Mouser, who had wandered round all the morning, getting in everybody’s way, in a none-too-clean old kimono and a wilted boudoir cap, now appeared resplendent in maroon gros grain, and told Sally one of her sleeves didn’t fit, and she hoped nobody’s petticoat would show below her dress, as had happened at Annie Crewson’s wedding. Mrs Nelson came in and cried because Sally looked so lovely in her wedding-dress.

‘Well, now, don’t be sentimental, Jane!’ soothed Aunt Mouser. ‘You’ve still got one daughter left – and likely to have her, by all accounts. Tears ain’t lucky at weddings. Well, all I hope is nobody’ll drop dead, like old Uncle Cromwell at Roberta Pringle’s wedding, right in the middle of the ceremony. The bride spent two weeks in bed from shock.’

With this inspiring send-off the bridal party went downstairs to the strains of Nora’s Wedding March somewhat stormily played, and Sally and Gordon were married without anybody dropping dead or forgetting the ring. It
was
a pretty wedding group, and even Aunt Mouser gave up worrying about the universe for a few moments.

‘After all,’ she told Sally hopefully later on, ‘even if you ain’t very happy married it’s likely you’d be more unhappy not.’

Nora alone continued to glower from the piano stool, but she went up to Sally and gave her a fierce hug, wedding veil and all.

‘So that’s finished,’ said Nora drearily, when the dinner was over and the bridal party and most of the guests had gone. She glanced round the room, which looked as forlorn and dishevelled as rooms always do in the aftermath – a faded, trampled corsage lying on the floor, chairs awry, a torn piece of lace, two dropped handkerchiefs, crumbs the children had scattered, and a dark stain on the ceiling where the water from a jug Aunt Mouser had overturned in a guest-room had seeped through.

‘I must clear up this mess,’ went on Nora savagely. ‘There’s a lot of young fry waiting for the boat train and some staying over Sunday. They’re going to wind up with a bonfire on the shore and a moonlit rock dance. You can imagine how much I feel like moonlight dancing.
I
want to go to bed and cry.’

‘A house after a wedding is over does seem a rather forsaken place,’ said Anne. ‘But I’ll help you clear up, and then we’ll have a cup of tea.’

‘Anne Shirley, do you think a cup of tea is a panacea for everything? It’s you who ought to be the old maid, not me. Never mind. I don’t want to be horrid, but I suppose it’s my native disposition. I hate the thought of this shore dance more than the wedding. Jim always used to be at our shore dances. Anne, I’ve made up my mind to go and train for a nurse. I know I’ll hate it – and heaven help my future patients! – but I’m not going to hang around Summerside and be teased about being on the shelf any longer. Well, let’s tackle this pile of greasy plates and look as if we liked it.’

‘I do like it. I’ve always liked washing dishes. It’s fun to make dirty things clean and shining again.’

‘Oh, you ought to be in a museum!’ snapped Nora.

By moonrise everything was ready for the shore dance. The boys had a huge bonfire of driftwood ablaze on the point, and the waters of the harbour were creaming and shimmering in the moonlight. Anne was expecting to enjoy herself hugely, but a glimpse of Nora’s face, as the latter went down the steps carrying a basket of sandwiches, made her pause.