Anne of Windy Poplars - L. M. Montgomery [54]
Nora snatched the handkerchief up and applied it to her face.
‘Jim Wilcox, what does this mean?’ said the doctor, with exceeding sternness.
‘I don’t know what it means,’ said Jim Wilcox rather sulkily. ‘All I know is Nora signalled for me. I didn’t see the light till I got home at one from a Masonic banquet in Summerside, and I sailed right over.’
‘I didn’t signal for you,’ stormed Nora. ‘For pity’s sake, don’t look like that, Father! I wasn’t asleep. I was sitting at my window – I hadn’t undressed – and I saw a man coming up from the shore. When he got near the house I knew it was Jim, so I ran down. And I – I ran into the library door, and made my nose bleed. He’s just been trying to stop it.’
‘I jumped in at the window and knocked over that bench.’
‘I told you I heard a bump,’ said Aunt Mouser.
‘And now Nora says she didn’t signal for me, so I’ll just relieve you of my unwelcome presence, with apologies to all concerned.’
‘It’s really too bad to have disturbed your night’s rest and brought you all the way over the bay on a wild-goose chase,’ said Nora as icily as possible, while hunting for a bloodless spot on Jim’s handkerchief.
‘Wild-goose chase is right,’ said the doctor.
‘You’d better try a door-key down your back,’ said Aunt Mouser.
‘It was I who put the light in the window,’ said Anne shamefacedly, ‘and then I forgot –’
‘You dared!’ cried Nora. ‘I’ll never forgive you!’
‘Have you all gone crazy?’ said the doctor irritably. ‘What’s all the fuss about, anyhow? For heaven’s sake, put that window down, Jim! There’s a wind blowing in fit to chill you to the bone. Nora, hang your head back, and your nose will be all right.’
Nora was shedding tears of rage and shame. Mingled with the blood on her face, they made her a fearsome sight. Jim Wilcox looked as if he wished the floor would open and gently drop him in the cellar.
‘Well,’ said Aunt Mouser belligerently, ‘all you can do now is marry her, Jim Wilcox. She’ll never get a husband if it gets round that she was found here with you at two o’clock at night.’
‘Marry her!’ cried Jim in exasperation. ‘What have I wanted all my life but to marry her? Never wanted anything else!’
‘Then why didn’t you say so long ago?’ demanded Nora, whirling about to face him.
‘Say so? You’ve snubbed and frozen and jeered at me for years. You’ve gone out of your way times without number to show me how you despised me. I didn’t think it was the least use to ask you. And last January you said –’
‘You goaded me into saying it!’
‘I goaded you! I like that! You picked a quarrel with me just to get rid of me –’
‘I didn’t. I –’
‘And yet I was fool enough to tear over here in the dead of night because I thought you’d put our old signal in the window and wanted me! Ask you to marry me! Well, I’ll ask you now and have done with it, and you can have the fun of turning me down before all this gang. Nora Edith Nelson, will you marry me?’
‘Oh, won’t I – won’t I!’ cried Nora so shamelessly that even Barnabas blushed for here.
Jim gave her one incredulous look, then sprang at her. Perhaps her nose had stopped bleeding, perhaps it hadn’t. It didn’t matter.
‘I think you’ve all forgotten that this is the Sabbath morn,’ said Aunt Mouser, who had just remembered it herself. ‘I could do with a cup of tea, if anyone would make it. I ain’t used to demonstrations like this. All I hope is poor Nora has really landed him at last. At least, she has witnesses.’
They went to the kitchen, and Mrs Nelson came down and made tea for them; all except Jim and Nora, who remained closeted in the library, with Barnabas for chaperon. Anne did not see Nora until the morning – such a different Nora, ten years younger, flushed with happiness.
‘I owe this to you, Anne. If you hadn’t set the light… Though just for two and a half minutes last night I could have chewed your ears off!’
‘And to think I slept through it all!’ moaned Tommy