Anne of Windy Poplars - L. M. Montgomery [41]
‘Talk!’ said Mrs Gibson sharply. ‘What will they talk about?’
‘Dear Mrs Gibson’ (‘May I be forgiven the adjective,’ thought Anne), ‘in your long life you have learned, I know, just what idle tongues can say.’
‘You needn’t be casting my age up to me,’ snapped Mrs Gibson. ‘And I don’t need to be told it’s a censorious world. Too well, too well I know it. And I don’t need to be told that this town is full of tattling toads, neither. But I dunno’s I fancy them jabbering about me, saying, I s’pose, that I’m an old tyrant. I ain’t stopping Pauline from going. Didn’t I leave it to her conscience?’
‘So few people will believe that,’ said Anne, carefully sorrowful.
Mrs Gibson sucked a peppermint lozenge fiercely for a minute or two. Then she said, ‘I hear there’s mumps at White Sands.’
‘Ma, dear, you know I’ve had the mumps.’
‘There’s folks as takes them twice. You’d be just the one to take them twice, Pauline. You always took everything that come round. The nights I’ve set up with you, not expecting you’d see the morning! Ah, me, a mother’s sacrifices ain’t long remembered. Besides, how would you get to White Sands? You ain’t been on a train for years. And there ain’t any train back Saturday night.’
‘She could go on the Saturday morning train,’ said Anne. ‘And I’m sure Mr James Gregor will bring her back.’
‘I never liked Jim Gregor. His mother was a Tarbush.’
‘He is taking his double-seated buggy and going down Friday, or else he would take her down too. But she’ll be quite safe on the train, Mrs Gibson. Just step on at Summerside, step off at White Sands. No changing.’
‘There’s something behind all this,’ said Mrs Gibson suspiciously. ‘Why are you so set on her going, Miss Shirley? Just tell me that.’
Anne smiled into the bead-eyed face. ‘Because I think Pauline is a good, kind daughter to you, Mrs Gibson, and needs a day off now and then, just as everybody does.’
Most people found it hard to resist Anne’s smile. Either that or the fear of gossip vanquished Mrs Gibson.
‘I s’pose it never occurs to anyone I’d like a day off from this wheelchair if I could get it. But I can’t. I just have to bear my affliction patiently. Well, if she must go she must. She’s always been one to get her own way. If she catches mumps or gets poisoned by strange mosquitoes don’t blame me for it. I’ll have to get along as best I can. Oh, I s’pose you’ll be here, but you ain’t used to my ways as Pauline is. I s’pose I can stand it for one day. If I can’t – well, I’ve been living on borrowed time many’s the year now, so what’s the difference?’
Not a gracious assent by any means, but still an assent. Anne, in her relief and gratitude, found herself doing something she would never have imagined herself doing: she bent over and kissed Mrs Gibson’s leathery cheek.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘Never mind your wheedling ways,’ said Mrs Gibson. ‘Have a peppermint.’
‘How can I ever thank you, Miss Shirley?’ said Pauline, as she went a little way down the street with Anne.
‘By going to White Sands with a light heart and enjoying every minute of the time.’
‘Oh, I’ll do that! You don’t know what this means to me, Miss Shirley. It’s not only Louisa I want to see. The old Luckley place next to her home is going to be sold, and I did so want to see it once more before it passed into the hands of strangers. Mary Luckley – she’s Mrs Howard Flemming now, and lives out West – was my dearest friend when I was a girl. We were like sisters. I used to be at the Luckley place so much, and I loved it so. I’ve often dreamed of going back. Ma says I’m getting too old to dream. Do you think I am, Miss Shirley?’
‘Nobody is ever too old to dream. And dreams never grow old.’
‘I’m so glad to hear you say that. Oh, Miss Shirley, to think of seeing the Gulf again! I haven’t seen it for fifteen years. The harbour is beautiful, but it isn’t the Gulf. I feel as if I’m walking on air. And I owe it all to you. It was just because Ma likes you she let me go. You’ve made me happy; you are always making people happy.