A WAR-WEDDING
"I can tell you this Dr. dear," said Susan, pale with wrath, "that
Germany is getting to be perfectly ridiculous."
They were all in the big Ingleside kitchen. Susan was mixing biscuits
for supper. Mrs. Blythe was making shortbread for Jem, and Rilla was
compounding candy for Ken and Walter--it had once been "Walter and Ken"
in her thoughts but somehow, quite unconsciously, this had changed
until Ken's name came naturally first. Cousin Sophia was also there,
knitting. All the boys were going to be killed in the long run, so
Cousin Sophia felt in her bones, but they might better die with warm
feet than cold ones, so Cousin Sophia knitted faithfully and gloomily.
Into this peaceful scene erupted the doctor, wrathful and excited over
the burning of the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa. And Susan became
automatically quite as wrathful and excited.
"What will those Huns do next?" she demanded. "Coming over here and
burning our Parliament building! Did anyone ever hear of such an
outrage?"
"We don't know that the Germans are responsible for this," said the
doctor--much as if he felt quite sure they were. "Fires do start
without their agency sometimes. And Uncle Mark MacAllister's barn was
burnt last week. You can hardly accuse the Germans of that, Susan."
"Indeed, Dr. dear, I do not know." Susan nodded slowly and
portentously. "Whiskers-on-the-moon was there that very day. The fire
broke out half an hour after he was gone. So much is a fact--but I
shall not accuse a Presbyterian elder of burning anybody's barn until I
have proof. However, everybody knows, Dr. dear, that both Uncle Mark's
boys have enlisted, and that Uncle Mark himself makes speeches at all
the recruiting meetings. So no doubt Germany is anxious to get square
with him."
"I could never speak at a recruiting meeting," said Cousin Sophia
solemnly. "I could never reconcile it to my conscience to ask another
woman's son to go, to murder and be murdered."
"Could you not?" said Susan. "Well, Sophia Crawford, I felt as if I
could ask anyone to go when I read last night that there were no
children under eight years of age left alive in Poland. Think of that,
Sophia Crawford"--Susan shook a floury finger at
Sophia--"not--one--child--under--eight--years--of--age!"
"I suppose the Germans has et 'em all," sighed Cousin Sophia.
"Well, no-o-o," said Susan reluctantly, as if she hated to admit that
there was any crime the Huns couldn't be accused of. "The Germans have
not turned cannibal yet--as far as I know. They have died of starvation
and exposure, the poor little creatures. There is murdering for you,
Cousin Sophia Crawford. The thought of it poisons every bite and sup I
take."
"I see that Fred Carson of Lowbridge has been awarded a Distinguished
Conduct Medal," remarked the doctor, over his local paper.
"I heard that last week," said Susan. "He is a battalion runner and he
did something extra brave and daring. His letter, telling his folks
about it, came when his old Grandmother Carson was on her dying-bed.
She had only a few minutes more to live and the Episcopal minister, who
was there, asked her if she would not like him to pray. 'Oh yes, yes,
you can pray,' she said impatient-like--she was a Dean, Dr. dear, and
the Deans were always high-spirited--'you can pray, but for pity's sake
pray low and don't disturb me. I want to think over this splendid news
and I have not much time left to do it.' That was Almira Carson all
over. Fred was the apple of her eye. She was seventy-five years of age
and had not a grey hair in her head, they tell me."
"By the way, that reminds me--I found a grey hair this morning--my very
first," said Mrs. Blythe.
"I have noticed that grey hair for some time, Mrs. Dr. dear, but I did
not speak of it. Thought I to myself, 'She has enough to bear.' But now
that you have discovered it let me remind you that grey hairs are
honourable."
"I must be getting old, Gilbert." Mrs. Blythe laughed a trifle
ruefully. "People are beginning to tell me I look so young. They never
tell you that when you are young. But I shall not worry over my silver
thread. I never liked red hair. Gilbert, did I ever tell you of that
time, years ago at Green Gables, when I dyed my hair? Nobody but
Marilla and I knew about it."
"Was that the reason you came out once with your hair shingled to the
bone?"
"Yes. I bought a bottle of dye from a German Jew pedlar. I fondly
expected it would turn my hair black--and it turned it green. So it had
to be cut off."
"You had a narrow escape, Mrs. Dr. dear," exclaimed Susan. "Of course
you were too young then to know what a German was. It was a special
mercy of Providence that it was only green dye and not poison."
"It seems hundreds of years since those Green Gables days," sighed Mrs.
Blythe. "They belonged to another world altogether. Life has been cut
in two by the chasm of war. What is ahead I don't know--but it can't be
a bit like the past. I wonder if those of us who have lived half our
lives in the old world will ever feel wholly at home in the new."
"Have you noticed," asked Miss Oliver, glancing up from her book, "how
everything written before the war seems so far away now, too? One feels
as if one was reading something as ancient as the Iliad. This poem of
Wordsworth's--the Senior class have it in their entrance work--I've
been glancing over it. Its classic calm and repose and the beauty of
the lines seem to belong to another planet, and to have as little to do
with the present world-welter as the evening star."
"The only thing that I find much comfort in reading nowadays is the
Bible," remarked Susan, whisking her biscuits into the oven. "There are
so many passages in it that seem to me exactly descriptive of the Huns.
Old Highland Sandy declares that there is no doubt that the Kaiser is
the Anti-Christ spoken of in Revelations, but I do not go as far as
that. It would, in my humble opinion, Mrs. Dr. dear, be too great an
honour for him."
Early one morning, several days later, Miranda Pryor slipped up to
Ingleside, ostensibly to get some Red Cross sewing, but in reality to
talk over with sympathetic Rilla troubles that were past bearing alone.
She brought her dog with her--an over-fed, bandy-legged little animal
very dear to her heart because Joe Milgrave had given it to her when it
was a puppy. Mr. Pryor regarded all dogs with disfavour; but in those
days he had looked kindly upon Joe as a suitor for Miranda's hand and
so he had allowed her to keep the puppy. Miranda was so grateful that
she endeavoured to please her father by naming her dog after his
political idol, the great Liberal chieftain, Sir Wilfrid
Laurier--though his title was soon abbreviated to Wilfy. Sir Wilfrid
grew and flourished and waxed fat; but Miranda spoiled him absurdly and
nobody else liked him. Rilla especially hated him because of his
detestable trick of lying flat on his back and entreating you with
waving paws to tickle his sleek stomach. When she saw that Miranda's
pale eyes bore unmistakable testimony of her having cried all night,
Rilla asked her to come up to her room, knowing Miranda had a tale of
woe to tell, but she ordered Sir Wilfrid to remain below.
"Oh, can't he come, too?" said Miranda wistfully. "Poor Wilfy won't be
any bother--and I wiped his paws so carefully before I brought him in.
He is always so lonesome in a strange place without me--and very soon
he'll be--all--I'll have left--to remind me--of Joe."
Rilla yielded, and Sir Wilfrid, with his tail curled at a saucy angle
over his brindled back, trotted triumphantly up the stairs before them.
"Oh, Rilla," sobbed Miranda, when they had reached sanctuary. "I'm so
unhappy. I can't begin to tell you how unhappy I am. Truly, my heart is
breaking."
Rilla sat down on the lounge beside her. Sir Wilfrid squatted on his
haunches before them, with his impertinent pink tongue stuck out, and
listened. "What is the trouble, Miranda?"
"Joe is coming home tonight on his last leave. I had a letter from him
on Saturday--he sends my letters in care of Bob Crawford, you know,
because of father--and, oh, Rilla, he will only have four days--he has
to go away Friday morning--and I may never see him again."
"Does he still want you to marry him?" asked Rilla.
"Oh, yes. He implored me in his letter to run away and be married. But
I cannot do that, Rilla, not even for Joe. My only comfort is that I
will be able to see him for a little while tomorrow afternoon. Father
has to go to Charlottetown on business. At least we will have one good
farewell talk. But oh--afterwards--why, Rilla, I know father won't even
let me go to the station Friday morning to see Joe off."
"Why in the world don't you and Joe get married tomorrow afternoon at
home?" demanded Rilla.
Miranda swallowed a sob in such amazement that she almost choked.
"Why--why--that is impossible, Rilla."
"Why?" briefly demanded the organizer of the Junior Red Cross and the
transporter of babies in soup tureens.
"Why--why--we never thought of such a thing--Joe hasn't a license--I
have no dress--I couldn't be married in black--I--I--we--you--you--"
Miranda lost herself altogether and Sir Wilfrid, seeing that she was in
dire distress threw back his head and emitted a melancholy yelp.
Rilla Blythe thought hard and rapidly for a few minutes. Then she said,
"Miranda, if you will put yourself into my hands I'll have you married
to Joe before four o'clock tomorrow afternoon."
"Oh, you couldn't."
"I can and I will. But you'll have to do exactly as I tell you."
"Oh--I--don't think--oh, father will kill me--"
"Nonsense. He'll be very angry I suppose. But are you more afraid of
your father's anger than you are of Joe's never coming back to you?"
"No," said Miranda, with sudden firmness, "I'm not."
"Will you do as I tell you then?"
"Yes, I will."
"Then get Joe on the long-distance at once and tell him to bring out a
license and ring tonight."
"Oh, I couldn't," wailed the aghast Miranda, "it--it would be so--so
indelicate."
Rilla shut her little white teeth together with a snap. "Heaven grant
me patience," she said under her breath. "I'll do it then," she said
aloud, "and meanwhile, you go home and make what preparations you can.
When I 'phone down to you to come up and help me sew come at once."
As soon as Miranda, pallid, scared, but desperately resolved, had gone,
Rilla flew to the telephone and put in a long-distance call for
Charlottetown. She got through with such surprising quickness that she
was convinced Providence approved of her undertaking, but it was a good
hour before she could get in touch with Joe Milgrave at his camp.
Meanwhile, she paced impatiently about, and prayed that when she did
get Joe there would be no listeners on the line to carry news to
Whiskers-on-the-moon.
"Is that you, Joe? Rilla Blythe is speaking--Rilla--Rilla--oh, never
mind. Listen to this. Before you come home tonight get a marriage
license--a marriage license--yes, a marriage license--and a
wedding-ring. Did you get that? And will you do it? Very well, be sure
you do it--it is your only chance."
Flushed with triumph--for her only fear was that she might not be able
to locate Joe in time--Rilla rang the Pryor ring. This time she had not
such good luck for she drew Whiskers-on-the-moon.
"Is that Miranda? Oh--Mr. Pryor! Well, Mr. Pryor, will you kindly ask
Miranda if she can come up this afternoon and help me with some sewing.
It is very important, or I would not trouble her. Oh--thank you."
Mr. Pryor had consented somewhat grumpily, but he had consented--he did
not want to offend Dr. Blythe, and he knew that if he refused to allow
Miranda to do any Red Cross work public opinion would make the Glen too
hot for comfort. Rilla went out to the kitchen, shut all the doors with
a mysterious expression which alarmed Susan, and then said solemnly,
"Susan can you make a wedding-cake this afternoon?"
"A wedding-cake!" Susan stared. Rilla had, without any warning, brought
her a war-baby once upon a time. Was she now, with equal suddenness,
going to produce a husband?
"Yes, a wedding-cake--a scrumptious wedding-cake, Susan--a beautiful,
plummy, eggy, citron-peely wedding-cake. And we must make other things
too. I'll help you in the morning. But I can't help you in the
afternoon for I have to make a wedding-dress and time is the essence of
the contract, Susan."
Susan felt that she was really too old to be subjected to such shocks.
"Who are you going to marry, Rilla?" she asked feebly.
"Susan, darling, I am not the happy bride. Miranda Pryor is going to
marry Joe Milgrave tomorrow afternoon while her father is away in town.
A war-wedding, Susan--isn't that thrilling and romantic? I never was so
excited in my life."
The excitement soon spread over Ingleside, infecting even Mrs. Blythe
and Susan.
"I'll go to work on that cake at once," vowed Susan, with a glance at
the clock. "Mrs. Dr. dear, will you pick over the fruit and beat up the
eggs? If you will I can have that cake ready for the oven by the
evening. Tomorrow morning we can make salads and other things. I will
work all night if necessary to get the better of Whiskers-on-the-moon."
Miranda arrived, tearful and breathless.
"We must fix over my white dress for you to wear," said Rilla. "It will
fit you very nicely with a little alteration."
To work went the two girls, ripping, fitting, basting, sewing for dear
life. By dint of unceasing effort they got the dress done by seven
o'clock and Miranda tried it on in Rilla's room.
"It's very pretty--but oh, if I could just have a veil," sighed
Miranda. "I've always dreamed of being married in a lovely white veil."
Some good fairy evidently waits on the wishes of war-brides. The door
opened and Mrs. Blythe came in, her arms full of a filmy burden.
"Miranda dear," she said, "I want you to wear my wedding-veil tomorrow.
It is twenty-four years since I was a bride at old Green Gables--the
happiest bride that ever was--and the wedding-veil of a happy bride
brings good luck, they say."
"Oh, how sweet of you, Mrs. Blythe," said Miranda, the ready tears
starting to her eyes.
The veil was tried on and draped. Susan dropped in to approve but dared
not linger.
"I've got that cake in the oven," she said, "and I am pursuing a policy
of watchful waiting. The evening news is that the Grand Duke has
captured Erzerum. That is a pill for the Turks. I wish I had a chance
to tell the Czar just what a mistake he made when he turned Nicholas
down."
Susan disappeared downstairs to the kitchen, whence a dreadful thud and
a piercing shriek presently sounded. Everybody rushed to the
kitchen--the doctor and Miss Oliver, Mrs. Blythe, Rilla, Miranda in her
wedding-veil. Susan was sitting flatly in the middle of the kitchen
floor with a dazed, bewildered look on her face, while Doc, evidently
in his Hyde incarnation, was standing on the dresser, with his back up,
his eyes blazing, and his tail the size of three tails.
"Susan, what has happened?" cried Mrs. Blythe in alarm. "Did you fall?
Are you hurt?"
Susan picked herself up.
"No," she said grimly, "I am not hurt, though I am jarred all over. Do
not be alarmed. As for what has happened--I tried to kick that darned
cat with both feet, that is what happened."
Everybody shrieked with laughter. The doctor was quite helpless.
"Oh, Susan, Susan," he gasped. "That I should live to hear you swear."
"I am sorry," said Susan in real distress, "that I used such an
expression before two young girls. But I said that beast was darned,
and darned it is. It belongs to Old Nick."
"Do you expect it will vanish some of these days with a bang and the
odour of brimstone, Susan?"
"It will go to its own place in due time and that you may tie to," said
Susan dourly, shaking out her raddled bones and going to her oven. "I
suppose my plunking down like that has shaken my cake so that it will
be as heavy as lead."
But the cake was not heavy. It was all a bride's cake should be, and
Susan iced it beautifully. Next day she and Rilla worked all the
forenoon, making delicacies for the wedding-feast, and as soon as
Miranda phoned up that her father was safely off everything was packed
in a big hamper and taken down to the Pryor house. Joe soon arrived in
his uniform and a state of violent excitement, accompanied by his best
man, Sergeant Malcolm Crawford. There were quite a few guests, for all
the Manse and Ingleside folk were there, and a dozen or so of Joe's
relatives, including his mother, "Mrs. Dead Angus Milgrave," so called,
cheerfully, to distinguish her from another lady whose Angus was
living. Mrs. Dead Angus wore a rather disapproving expression, not
caring over-much for this alliance with the house of
Whiskers-on-the-moon.
So Miranda Pryor was married to Private Joseph Milgrave on his last
leave. It should have been a romantic wedding but it was not. There
were too many factors working against romance, as even Rilla had to
admit. In the first place, Miranda, in spite of her dress and veil, was
such a flat-faced, commonplace, uninteresting little bride. In the
second place, Joe cried bitterly all through the ceremony, and this
vexed Miranda unreasonably. Long afterwards she told Rilla, "I just
felt like saying to him then and there, 'If you feel so bad over having
to marry me you don't have to.' But it was just because he was thinking
all the time of how soon he would have to leave me."
In the third place, Jims, who was usually so well-behaved in public,
took a fit of shyness and contrariness combined and began to cry at the
top of his voice for "Willa." Nobody wanted to take him out, because
everybody wanted to see the marriage, so Rilla who was a bridesmaid,
had to take him and hold him during the ceremony.
In the fourth place, Sir Wilfrid Laurier took a fit.
Sir Wilfrid was entrenched in a corner of the room behind Miranda's
piano. During his seizure he made the weirdest, most unearthly noises.
He would begin with a series of choking, spasmodic sounds, continuing
into a gruesome gurgle, and ending up with a strangled howl. Nobody
could hear a word Mr. Meredith was saying, except now and then, when
Sir Wilfrid stopped for breath. Nobody looked at the bride except
Susan, who never dragged her fascinated eyes from Miranda's face--all
the others were gazing at the dog. Miranda had been trembling with
nervousness but as soon as Sir Wilfrid began his performance she forgot
it. All that she could think of was that her dear dog was dying and she
could not go to him. She never remembered a word of the ceremony.
Rilla, who in spite of Jims, had been trying her best to look rapt and
romantic, as beseemed a war bridesmaid, gave up the hopeless attempt,
and devoted her energies to choking down untimely merriment. She dared
not look at anybody in the room, especially Mrs. Dead Angus, for fear
all her suppressed mirth should suddenly explode in a most
un-young-ladylike yell of laughter.
But married they were, and then they had a wedding-supper in the
dining-room which was so lavish and bountiful that you would have
thought it was the product of a month's labour. Everybody had brought
something. Mrs. Dead Angus had brought a large apple-pie, which she
placed on a chair in the dining-room and then absently sat down on it.
Neither her temper nor her black silk wedding garment was improved
thereby, but the pie was never missed at the gay bridal feast. Mrs.
Dead Angus eventually took it home with her again.
Whiskers-on-the-moon's pacifist pig should not get it, anyhow.
That evening Mr. and Mrs. Joe, accompanied by the recovered Sir
Wilfrid, departed for the Four Winds Lighthouse, which was kept by
Joe's uncle and in which they meant to spend their brief honeymoon. Una
Meredith and Rilla and Susan washed the dishes, tidied up, left a cold
supper and Miranda's pitiful little note on the table for Mr. Pryor,
and walked home, while the mystic veil of dreamy, haunted winter
twilight wrapped itself over the Glen.
"I would really not have minded being a war-bride myself," remarked
Susan sentimentally.
But Rilla felt rather flat--perhaps as a reaction to all the excitement
and rush of the past thirty-six hours. She was disappointed
somehow--the whole affair had been so ludicrous, and Miranda and Joe so
lachrymose and commonplace.
"If Miranda hadn't given that wretched dog such an enormous dinner he
wouldn't have had that fit," she said crossly. "I warned her--but she
said she couldn't starve the poor dog--he would soon be all she had
left, etc. I could have shaken her."
"The best man was more excited than Joe was," said Susan. "He wished
Miranda many happy returns of the day. She did not look very happy, but
perhaps you could not expect that under the circumstances."
"Anyhow," thought Rilla, "I can write a perfectly killing account of it
all to the boys. How Jem will howl over Sir Wilfrid's part in it!"
But if Rilla was rather disappointed in the war wedding she found
nothing lacking on Friday morning when Miranda said good-bye to her
bridegroom at the Glen station. The dawn was white as a pearl, clear as
a diamond. Behind the station the balsamy copse of young firs was
frost-misted. The cold moon of dawn hung over the westering snow fields
but the golden fleeces of sunrise shone above the maples up at
Ingleside. Joe took his pale little bride in his arms and she lifted
her face to his. Rilla choked suddenly. It did not matter that Miranda
was insignificant and commonplace and flat-featured. It did not matter
that she was the daughter of Whiskers-on-the-moon. All that mattered
was that rapt, sacrificial look in her eyes--that ever-burning, sacred
fire of devotion and loyalty and fine courage that she was mutely
promising Joe she and thousands of other women would keep alive at home
while their men held the Western front. Rilla walked away, realising
that she must not spy on such a moment. She went down to the end of the
platform where Sir Wilfrid and Dog Monday were sitting, looking at each
other.
Sir Wilfrid remarked condescendingly: "Why do you haunt this old shed
when you might lie on the hearthrug at Ingleside and live on the fat of
the land? Is it a pose? Or a fixed idea?"
Whereat Dog Monday, laconically: "I have a tryst to keep."
When the train had gone Rilla rejoined the little trembling Miranda.
"Well, he's gone," said Miranda, "and he may never come back--but I'm
his wife, and I'm going to be worthy of him. I'm going home."
"Don't you think you had better come with me now?" asked Rilla
doubtfully. Nobody knew yet how Mr. Pryor had taken the matter.
"No. If Joe can face the Huns I guess I can face father," said Miranda
daringly. "A soldier's wife can't be a coward. Come on, Wilfy. I'll go
straight home and meet the worst."
There was nothing very dreadful to face, however. Perhaps Mr. Pryor had
reflected that housekeepers were hard to get and that there were many
Milgrave homes open to Miranda--also, that there was such a thing as a
separation allowance. At all events, though he told her grumpily that
she had made a nice fool of herself, and would live to regret it, he
said nothing worse, and Mrs. Joe put on her apron and went to work as
usual, while Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who had a poor opinion of lighthouses
for winter residences, went to sleep in his pet nook behind the
woodbox, a thankful dog that he was done with war-weddings.