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. “Hello, Nora, when are we going to have a chance to dance at your wedding?”
Nora did not answer in words. She went closer 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.”
Chapter XVI
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 every one 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 some one 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, baskets of flowers everywhere; and in the big north room upstairs Sally and her three bridesmaids were in quivering splendor. 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 bring 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 grosgrain 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.
“Now, 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 around at the room which looked as forlorn and disheveled 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 … a dark stain on the ceiling where the water from a jug Aunt Mouser had overturned in a guestroom 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 harbor 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, gave her pause.
“She’s so unhappy. If there was anything I could do!”
An