Anne of Windy Poplars - L. M. Montgomery [44]
‘Yes, Ma.’
‘You don’t smell respectable – drenched with scent.’
‘Oh, no, Ma dear. Just a little… the tiniest bit.’
‘I said “drenched”, and I mean “drenched”. There isn’t a rip under your arm, is there?’
‘Oh, no, Ma.’
‘Let me see’ – inexorably.
Pauline quaked. Suppose the skirt of the grey dress showed when she lifted her arms?
‘Well, go, then.’ With a long sigh, ‘If I ain’t here when you come back remember that I want to be laid out in my lace shawl and my black satin slippers. And see that my hair is crimped.’
‘Do you feel any worse, Ma?’ The poplin dress had made Pauline’s conscience very sensitive. ‘If you do I’ll not go –’
‘And waste the money for them shoes? Course you’re going. And mind you don’t slide down the banister.’
But at this the worm turned. ‘Ma! Do you think I would?’
‘You did at Nancy Parker’s wedding.’
‘Thirty-five years ago! D’you think I’d do it now?’
‘It’s time you were off. What are you jabbering here for? Do you want to miss your train?’
Pauline hurried away, and Anne sighed with relief. She had been afraid that old Mrs Gibson had, at the last moment, been taken with a fiendish impulse to detain Pauline until the train was gone.
‘Now for a little peace,’ said Mrs Gibson. ‘This house is in an awful condition of untidiness, Miss Shirley. I hope you realize it ain’t always so. Pauline hasn’t known which end of her was up these last few days. Will you please set that vase an inch to the left?… No, move it back again. That lampshade is crooked… Well, that’s a little straighter. But that blind is an inch lower than the other. I wish you’d fix it.’
Anne unluckily gave the blind too energetic a twist. It escaped her fingers and went whizzing to the top.
‘Ah, now you see!’ said Mrs Gibson.
Anne didn’t see, but she adjusted the blind meticulously.
‘And now wouldn’t you like me to make you a nice cup of tea, Mrs Gibson?’
‘I do need something. I’m clean wore out with all this worry and fuss. My stomach seems to be dropping out of me,’ said Mrs Gibson pathetically. ‘Kin you make a decent cup of tea? I’d as soon drink mud as the tea some folks make.’
‘Marilla Cuthbert taught me how to make tea. You’ll see. But first I’m going to wheel you out to the porch, so that you can enjoy the sunshine.’
‘I ain’t been out on the porch for years,’ objected Mrs Gibson.
‘Oh, it’s so lovely today it can’t hurt you. I want you to see the crab-tree in bloom. You can’t see it unless you go out. And the wind is south today, so you’ll get the clover scent from Norman Johnson’s field. I’ll bring you your tea, and we’ll drink it together, and then I’ll get my embroidery and we’ll sit there and criticize everybody who passes.’
‘I don’t hold with criticizing people,’ said Mrs Gibson virtuously. ‘It ain’t Christian. Would you mind telling me if that is all your own hair?’
‘Every bit,’ laughed Anne.
‘Pity it’s red. Though red hair seems to be gitting popular now. I sort of like your laugh. That nervous giggle of poor Pauline’s always gits on my nerves. Well, if I’ve got to git out I s’pose I’ve got to. I’ll likely ketch my death of cold, but the responsibility is yours, Miss Shirley. Remember I’m eighty – every day of it, though I hear old Davy Ackman has been telling all round Summerside I’m only seventy-nine. His mother was a Watt. The Watts were always jealous.’
Anne moved the wheelchair deftly out, and proved that she had a knack of arranging pillows. Soon after she brought out the tea, and Mrs Gibson deigned approval.
‘Yes, this is drinkable, Miss Shirley. Ah, me, for one year I had to live entirely on liquids. They never thought I’d pull through. I often think it might have been better if I hadn’t. Is that the crab-tree you was raving about?’
‘Yes. Isn’t it lovely? So white against that deep blue sky.’
‘I ain’t poetical,’ was Mrs Gibson’s sole comment. But she became rather mellow after two cups of tea, and the forenoon wore away until it was time to think of dinner.
‘I’ll go and get it ready, and then I’ll bring it out here on a little table.’
‘No, you won’t, miss. No crazy monkey-shines