Anne of Windy Poplars - L. M. Montgomery [42]
‘That’s the very nicest compliment I’ve ever had paid me, Pauline.’
‘There’s just one thing, Miss Shirley. I’ve nothing to wear but my old black taffeta. It’s too gloomy for a wedding, isn’t it? And it’s too big for me, since I got thin. You see, it’s six years since I got it.’
‘We must try to induce your mother to let you have a new dress,’ said Anne hopefully.
But that proved to be beyond her powers. Mrs Gibson was adamant. Pauline’s black taffeta was quite good enough for Louisa Hilton’s silver wedding.
‘I paid two dollars a yard for it six years ago and three to Jane Sharp for making it. Jane was a good dressmaker. Her mother was a Smiley. The idea of you wanting something ‘light’, Pauline Gibson! She’d go dressed in scarlet from head to foot, that one, if she was let, Miss Shirley. She’s just waiting till I’m dead to do it. Ah, well, you’ll soon be quit of all the trouble I am to you, Pauline. Then you can dress as gay and giddy as you like. But as long as I’m alive you’ll be decent. And what’s the matter with your hat? It’s time you wore a bonnet, anyhow.’
Poor Pauline had a lively horror of having to wear a bonnet. She would wear her old hat for the rest of her life before she would do that.
‘I’m just going to be glad inside and forget all about my clothes,’ she told Anne, when they went out to the garden to pick a bouquet of June lilies and bleeding-heart for the widows.
‘I’ve a plan,’ said Anne, with a cautious glance to make sure that Mrs Gibson couldn’t hear, though she was watching from the sitting-room window. ‘You know that silver-grey poplin of mine? I’m going to lend you that for the wedding.’
Pauline dropped the basket of flowers in her agitation, making a pool of pink-and-white sweetness at Anne’s feet.
‘Oh, my dear, I couldn’t! Ma wouldn’t let me.’
‘She won’t know a thing about it. Listen! Saturday morning you’ll put it on under your black taffeta. I know it will fit you. It’s a little long, but I’ll run some tucks in it tomorrow – tucks are fashionable now. It’s collarless, with elbow-sleeves, so no one will suspect. As soon as you get to Gull Cove take off the taffeta. When the day is over you can leave the poplin at Gull Cove, and I can get it the next week-end I’m home.’
‘But wouldn’t it be too young for me?’
‘Not a bit of it. Any age can wear grey.’
‘Do you think it would be – right, to deceive Ma?’ faltered Pauline.
‘In this case entirely right,’ said Anne shamelessly. ‘You know, Pauline, it would never do to wear a black dress to a wedding. It might bring the bride bad luck.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that for anything! And, of course, it won’t hurt Ma. I do hope she’ll get through Saturday all right. I’m afraid she won’t eat a bite when I’m away; she didn’t the time I went to Cousin Matilda’s funeral. Miss Prouty told me she didn’t – Miss Prouty stayed with her. She was so provoked at Cousin Matilda for dying – Ma was, I mean.’
‘She’ll eat. I’ll see to that.’
‘I know you’ve a great knack of managing her,’ conceded Pauline. ‘And you won’t forget to give her her medicine at the regular times, will you, dear? Oh, perhaps I oughtn’t to go after all!’
‘You’ve been out there long enough to pick forty bokays,’ called Mrs Gibson irately. ‘I dunno what the widows want of your flowers. They’ve plenty of their own. I’d go a long time without flowers if I waited for Rebecca Dew to send me any. I’m dying for a drink of water. But then I’m of no consequence.’
On Friday night Pauline telephoned Anne in terrible agitation. She had a sore throat, and did Miss Shirley think it could possibly be the mumps? Anne ran down to reassure her, taking the grey poplin in a brown-paper parcel. She hid it in the lilac-bush, and late that night Pauline, in a cold perspiration, managed to smuggle it upstairs to the little room where she kept her clothes and dressed, though she was never permitted to sleep there. Pauline was not quite easy about the dress. Perhaps her sore throat was a judgement on her for deception. But she couldn’t