Anne of Ingleside - L. M. Montgomery [37]
15
Anne and Susan were both up very early, desiring to complete certain last preparations before Aunt Mary Maria should be about. Anne always liked to get up early and catch that mystical half-hour before sunrise when the world belongs to the fairies and the old gods. She liked to see the morning sky of pale rose and gold behind the church spire, the thin, translucent glow of sunrise spreading over the dunes, the first violent spirals of smoke floating up from the village roofs.
‘It’s as if we had had a day made to order, Mrs Doctor dear,’ said Susan complacently, as she feathered an orange-frosted cake with coconut. ‘I will try my hand at them new-fangled butter-balls after breakfast, and I will phone Carter Flagg every half-hour to make sure that he will not forget the ice-cream. And there will be time to scrub the veranda steps.’
‘Is that necessary, Susan?’
‘Mrs Doctor dear, you have invited Mrs Marshall Elliott have you not? She shall not see our veranda steps otherwise than spotless. But you will see to the decorations, Mrs Doctor dear? I was not born with the gift of arranging flowers.’
‘Four cakes! Gee!’ said Jem.
‘When we give a party,’ said Susan grandly, ‘we give a party.’
The guests came in due time, and were received by Aunt Mary Maria in garnet taffeta, and by Anne in biscuit-coloured voile. Anne thought of putting on her white muslin for the day was summer warm, but decided otherwise.
‘Very sensible of you, Annie,’ commented Aunt Mary Maria. ‘White, I always say, is only for the young.’
Everything went according to schedule. The table looked beautiful, with Anne’s prettiest dishes and the exotic beauty of white and purple iris. Susan’s butter-balls made a sensation, nothing like them having been seen in the Glen before; her cream soup was the last word in soups: the chicken salad had been made of Ingleside ‘chickens that are chickens’; the badgered Carter Flagg sent up the ice-cream on the tick of the dot. Finally, Susan, bearing the birthday cake with its fifty-five lighted candles as if it were the Baptist’s head on a charger, marched in and set it down before Aunt Mary Maria.
Anne, outwardly the smiling, serene hostess, had been feeling very uncomfortable for some time. In spite of all outward smoothness she had an ever-deepening conviction that something had gone terribly wrong. On the guests’ arrival she had been too much occupied to notice the change that came over Aunt Mary Maria’s face when Mrs Marshall Elliott cordially wished her many happy returns of the day. But when they were all finally seated around the table Anne wakened up to the fact that Aunt Mary Maria was looking anything but pleased. She was actually white… it couldn’t be with fury!… and not one word did she say as the meal progressed, save curt replies to remarks addressed to her. She took only two teaspoonfuls of soup and three mouthfuls of salad; as for the ice-cream, she behaved to it as if it wasn’t there.
When Susan set the birthday cake, with its flickering candles, down before her Aunt Mary Maria gave a fearful gulp, which was not quite successful in swallowing a sob and consequently issued as a strangled whoop.
‘Auntie, aren’t you feeling well?’ cried Anne.
Aunt Mary Maria stared at her icily.
‘Quite well, Annie. Remarkably well, indeed, for such an aged person as myself.’
At this auspicious moment the twins popped in, carrying between them the basketful of fifty-five yellow roses, and, amid a suddenly frozen silence, presented it to Aunt Mary Maria, with lisped congratulations and good wishes. A chorus of admiration went up from the table, but Aunt Mary Maria did not join in it.
‘The… the twins will blow out the candles for you, Auntie,’ faltered Anne nervously, ‘and then… will you cut the birthday cake?’
‘Not being quite senile… yet… Annie, I can blow the candles out myself.’
Aunt Mary Maria proceeded to blow them out, painstakingly and deliberately. With equal painstaking and deliberation