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 around 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 harbor 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 any one 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 have flung back my head and howled. 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. “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
