Anne of Windy Poplars - L. M. Montgomery [49]
‘ “The quality of mercy is not strained”,’ giggled Sally, wriggling into her dinner dress.
‘Don’t quote the Bible flippantly!’ rebuked Aunt Mouser. ‘You must excuse her, Miss Shirley. She just ain’t used to getting married. Well, all I hope is the groom won’t have a hunted look, like so many of them do. I s’pose they do feel that way, but they needn’t show it so plain. And I hope he won’t forget the ring. Upton Hardy did. Him and Flora had to be married with a ring off one of the curtain-poles. Well, I’ll be taking another look at the wedding presents. You’ve got a lot of nice things, Sally. All I hope is it won’t be as hard to keep the handles of them spoons polished as I think likely.’
Dinner that night in the big glassed-in porch was a gay affair. Chinese lanterns had been hung all about it, shedding mellow-tinted lights on the pretty dresses and glossy hair and white, unlined brows of girls. Barnabas and Saul sat like ebony statues on the broad arms of the doctor’s chair, where he fed them with titbits alternately.
‘Just about as bad as Parker Pringle,’ said Aunt Mouser. ‘He has his dog sit at the table with a chair and napkin of his own. Well, sooner or later there’ll be a judgement.’
It was a large party, for all the married Nelson girls and their husbands were there, besides ushers and bridesmaids; and it was a merry one, in spite of Aunt Mouser’s ‘felicities’ – or perhaps because of them. Nobody took Aunt Mouser very seriously; she was evidently a joke among the young fry. When she said, on being introduced to Gordon Hill, ‘Well, well, you ain’t a bit like I expected. I always thought Sally would pick out a tall, handsome man,’ ripples of laughter ran through the porch. Gordon Hill, who was on the short side, and called no more than ‘pleasant-faced’ by his best friends, knew he would never hear the last of it. When she said to Dot Fraser, ‘Well, well, a new dress every time I see you! All I hope is your father’s purse will be able to stand it for a few years yet,’ Dot could, of course, have boiled her in oil, but some of the other girls found it amusing. And when Aunt Mouser mournfully remarked, apropos of the preparations for the wedding dinner, ‘All I hope is everybody will get her teaspoons afterwards. Five were missing after Gertie Paul’s wedding. They never turned up,’ Mrs Nelson, who had borrowed three dozen, and the sisters-in-law she had borrowed them from all looked harried. But Dr Nelson haw-hawed cheerfully.
‘We’ll make every one turn out their pockets before they go, Aunt Grace.’
‘Ah, you may laugh, Samuel. It is no joking matter to have anything like that happen in the family. Someone must have those teaspoons. I never go anywhere but I keep my eyes open for them. I’d know them wherever I saw them, though it was twenty-eight years ago. Poor Nora was just a baby then. You remember you had her there, Jane, in a little white embroidered dress? Twenty eight years! Ah, Nora, you’re getting on, though in this light you don’t show your age so much.’
Nora did not join in the laugh that followed. She looked as if she might flash lightning at any moment. In spite of her daffodil-hued dress and the pearls in her dark hair she made Anne think of a black moth. In direct contrast to Sally, who was a cool, snowy blonde, Nora Nelson had magnificent black hair, dusky eyes, heavy black brows, and velvety-red cheeks. Her nose was beginning to look a trifle hawk-like, and she had never been accounted pretty, but Anne felt oddly attracted to her in spite of her sulky, smouldering expression. She felt that she would prefer Nora as a friend to the popular Sally.
They had a dance after dinner, and music and laughter came tumbling