The Wedding Dress

by Mary O'Donnell

  After the closing hymn, the pastor returned to the pulpit to give the announcements. Asking Tony and Dervla to stand, he announced their engagement and asked the congregation to join him in congratulating the family. There was a burst of applause. Though many in attendance were at the Palmers’ house on Saturday, just as many were not, and when the announcements had ended, Dervla and Tony were once again engulfed by well-wishers.

  After they had made their way out of the church building, Mary Beth apprised Annie of her idea.

  “What would you think if we plan a shower for Dervla?” asked Mary Beth. “It might be a bit early for a bridal shower—I haven’t heard anything about a date for the wedding, but I got the impression from Gwen that it wouldn’t be anytime soon. I thought it might be nice if we could do a ‘hope chest’ shower—you know, each of us make something that could be useful for her to set up household. Alice told me that Dervla is an orphan, and I don’t know what she has or whether she was able to bring much in that way over with her. What do you think?”

  “I think that’s a lovely idea, Mary Beth,” said Annie. “You can present the idea on Tuesday and see what the others think. If they agree, then we’ll work out the details.”

  Back home at Grey Gables, Annie changed into more comfortable clothing and decided she would use the afternoon to try to complete the items that she had been crocheting, so that she could begin working on something for Dervla. The cloche for her friend in Texas was done, and the lapghan was close to being finished—she needed to crochet several more rows, weave in the loose ends, and add some braided fringe.

  She thought she might set the baby blanket aside for the time being since it wasn’t for someone specific. She was always wary of doing that, fearing that she would set it aside and not get back to it. The other ladies at the club often talked about their “UFOs”—their UnFinished Objects—the projects they started and hadn’t finished. Gram had always insisted that she finished what she started, and that had always made her careful about beginning a new project before finishing a current one. Still, she thought, she would make an exception this time. She promised herself that after she completed something for Dervla, she would get back to the baby blanket before going on to a new project.

  Annie was surprised when Dervla returned to Grey Gables late in the afternoon. She looked hot and tired. Tony had walked her to the door, but didn’t come in. Dervla was quiet, and Annie resisted the urge to ask questions. Sitting in the living room as she crocheted, Annie had put on a CD of stringed instrumental music at a low volume as she worked on the lapghan. Dervla joined her; having found Annie’s grandmother’s flower guide in the library, she was attempting to find the unidentified flower from the painting on the hatbox. But she was restless, and after scanning a few pages she would suddenly stand and pace around the room. She declined dinner and went to her bedroom to retire early. Annie supposed she wasn’t used to that sort of heat. At least she hoped that was all that was bothering Dervla.

  * * * *

  Andrew Gareth had called Annie on Sunday afternoon and arranged to come over to Grey Gables at two o’clock on Monday, so when she awoke well before six on Monday morning, all of the chores that she hadn’t completed on Saturday came back to her mind. She wanted Grey Gables to look its best. In her experience, most men didn’t notice the details, like dust in a corner, but she thought an artist might be more attuned to the particulars.

  There was no need to throw off the covers before she got out of bed; the night did not bring appreciably cooler temperatures, and even the covering of a sheet seemed to be too much. Boots had sprawled out on the wooden floor seeking coolness instead of snuggling up to Annie as she usually did. It felt like it was going to be another sweltering day. All the more reason to get going early, thought Annie.

  Downstairs in the kitchen, she looked out the window to see the sun’s first light just breaking over the ocean. It was a “rosy-fingered dawn.” A broad stripe of orange sky seemed to lie atop the violet-color sea, and above it the sky was streaked yellow, rose, lavender, and deep blue. It was a beautiful sight—God’s painting, she thought. She also remembered the old saying, “Red sky at morning, sailor take warning.” She hadn’t paid attention to the forecast. She wondered if Maine was in for thunderstorms that would break the heat.

  “Good morning.”

  Annie jumped at the unexpected sound of Dervla’s voice, nearly spilling the glass of orange juice she held in her hand. She laughed. “Good morning, Dervla. I didn’t hear you come down the steps—I was so enthralled with the sunrise this morning.”

  Dervla came to stand next to Annie to look out the window and said, “Ach, ’tis a ‘glowing dawn of brighter day’ I hope.”

  “That sounds like a line from a poem—is it from one of your mother’s?” asked Annie.

  “No, it’s a line from a poem by Robert Burns. That was one advantage of having a mother who was a poet. She made sure that I not only read poetry, but memorized it too.”

  Annie smiled and said, “That’s a fine gift. The things you memorize as a child stay with you forever. My parents were missionaries and made sure I memorized scripture, and it’s amazing how often those words come to me, as a help in all sorts of situations.”

  “I memorized scripture too. My mom was especially keen on the Psalms. You’re right about it—I never thought of it as a gift before. There are times when I hear her voice in my head, speaking those lines, helping me to not only learn the words, but to understand what the Poet meant. … I … I wish she were here now.”

  Tears filled Dervla’s eyes and began splashing down her cheeks. Annie reached over to the table to grab a napkin and gave it to Dervla to wipe her face, and then placed her arm around her shoulders. Annie kept silent for some time. All the highs and lows of the last few days must have been building up—a proposal of marriage, leaving her home, meeting her in-laws … it seemed best to just let Dervla have a good cry.

  After a while, Annie said, “I can’t replace what you have lost, Dervla, but I am here, and I am a friend. Whatever I can do to be of help to you, I will.”

  Dervla wiped away the tears from her face. Her cheeks and nose were extra rosy, and her eyes were still sad and full of unshed tears, but she smiled at Annie. “Thanks, Annie, for all that you have already done. Just to have someone here who is so willing to be a friend to a stranger helps more than you know.”

  “I don’t think of you as a stranger, and I’m glad to be your friend. No matter how things work out with the Palmers, there’s a place for you here as long as you need it,” said Annie. “Now, let’s get some breakfast, and you can tell me your plans for the day, and I’ll tell you mine.”

  “You know, I am hungry now. I just couldn’t eat last evening. It’s amazing what a good cry can do for your appetite,” said Dervla.

  As they prepared their breakfast, Dervla said, “I don’t really have any plans for the day. Tony’s father asked him to spend the whole day with him at the bank. Mrs. Palmer and Meredith are going shopping in some other town … I can’t remember the name of it.”

  That pulled Annie up short, and she asked without really thinking, “Didn’t they ask you to go along?”

  Dervla hesitated. “Meredith did. I got the impression from Mrs. Palmer that she wanted to keep it just a mother-daughter outing, so I declined. I’m not really much of a shopper anyway.”

  Annie could see the hurt in Dervla’s expression that she was trying to brush aside as if the snub wasn’t important.

  Dervla continued, “After closing time, Tony’s going to come by to pick me up for dinner. I … I think his father would like him to take a job at the bank here in Stony Point.”

  “How do you feel about that?” asked Annie.

  “It’s really up to Tony. As long as we’re together, it doesn’t matter if it’s in Stony Point or Boston, or any other place. I’ll go wherever he goes.”

  Annie smiled. Unbidden, the words of Ruth from the Old Testament, spoken to her mothe
r-in-law no less, came to Annie’s mind, “Whither thou goest I will go.” Would Gwen and Dervla ever have a relationship as caring as Naomi and Ruth?

  Then Annie explained her plans for the day—the chores that needed to be done before Andrew Gareth showed up at two that afternoon.

  “You must let me help with the cleaning,” said Dervla, “it’s the least I can do.”

  “That would be very helpful—thank you!” said Annie. “If you could dust the library, the living room and the dining room, I could mop the floor in here and the mudroom, and vacuum the rugs.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” said Dervla. “It will feel good to do something useful!”

  After breakfast, Annie and Dervla changed into work clothes, and swept and scrubbed and dusted and polished, going far beyond the few tasks Annie had intended. It was nearly twelve when the two of them stopped working.

  Annie surveyed the results with satisfaction; she could never have accomplished so much in such a short time without Dervla’s assistance. Annie thought how pleased Gram would have been to see Grey Gables looking so spiffy. Every wooden surface glowed, and the air was full of the scent of citrus from the cleaning products they had used. Grey Gables was ready to welcome the artist who was going to capture “her” likeness on canvas for posterity—it seemed only right to think of Grey Gables as a fine lady who would be posing for her portrait. Looking down at her own perspiration-soaked clothing, Annie thought, Now it’s about time the lady of the house got ready to welcome Andrew Gareth to Grey Gables.

  8

  After Annie and Dervla had taken their showers and changed clothing, they met in the kitchen to set about preparing a light lunch. Because they had been so busydoing housework, they hadn’t noticed that it was getting progressively darker outside until they sat down at the kitchen table. Annie got up from the table to flip the switch by the door for the overhead light.

  “I wonder where Boots is,” said Annie as she sat back down. “She never misses prowling around under the table when I’m eating, in hopes that the odd piece of food will find its way to the floor.”

  “When I was in the library, before you came back downstairs, I saw her under the desk. I tried to coax her out, but she wouldn’t budge,” said Dervla.

  “That’s odd behavior for Miss Boots. Maybe all our rushing around as we were cleaning has her spooked,” suggested Annie.

  After they had finish eating, as they cleared away the dishes, Annie and Dervla heard the low rumble of thunder.

  “Sounds like a storm might be on its way,” said Annie. “That might be what has Boots acting so strangely. Let’s go outside and have a look.”

  Passing through the mudroom, Annie opened the back door, and she and Dervla stepped onto the flagstone patio in the backyard, closing the door behind them to keep the heat from entering the house. The air was almost suffocating with humidity and felt eerily still. The grass and the leaves in the trees ranged in appearance from deep forest green to almost black, and the sky was a smoky gray color. In the distance, they could see roiling, dark clouds, and occasional streaks of lightning as it raced across the sky. Soon the wind began to pick up, and the sound of thunder became louder.

  No sooner had Annie said, “I think we’d better get inside,” than giant raindrops started to fall. She and Dervla made it back inside without getting too wet, but if they’d remained a moment longer, they would’ve been drenched. Almost as soon as they closed the door, there was a brilliant flash of light, followed almost immediately by a deafening crack of thunder, and then the rain began to fall in wind-driven sheets.

  The overhead light in the kitchen flickered several times, and then it went out completely. In contrast to the sounds of the storm outside—the rush of the wind, the rain pelting at the windows, the periodic boom of thunder—Grey Gables itself grew quiet within. The noises that accompany the use of electricity, which normally fade into the background unnoticed, ceased, and the silence called attention to their absence. The only sound that seemed to remain inside the house was the tick-tock of the antique clock hanging on the kitchen wall.

  It was dark inside Grey Gables—not as dark as night, but dark like a late, winter afternoon in Maine when the sun sets shortly after four o’clock. Annie reached into a crock she kept on a shelf over the sink and pulled out a box of wooden matches. From under the hutch, which she and Alice had previously moved from the attic, she pulled out a variety of candles—pillars, votives, a bag half full of tea lights—along with various candleholders and put them on the kitchen table. Indicating the candles, Annie said, “I’ll leave these out in case the power doesn’t come back on soon; we may need them tonight. I’ll try to call the power company once the weather settles down a bit. I hope you don’t mind storms,” said Annie, lighting a pillar candle and placing it in a small clear-glass dish shaped like a sunflower.

  “Not as a rule,” said Dervla, “but this is a bit more extreme than I’m used to.” She winced as there was another loud crash of thunder. “We get a lot rain in Killarney, but not so many thunderstorms.”

  “Maybe it won’t last too long,” said Annie. Picking up the sunflower dish and candle she had just lit, she continued, “Let’s put this out in the hallway and relax a while in the living room. There’s not much we can do until the storm blows over and the power is back on.”

  The hallway tended to be darker than the rest of the house, since the only direct natural light at the front came through the long, narrow windows on either side of the front door and the fan-shaped panes of glass in the top part of the door, and at the back through a single, tall, lace-curtained window. Indirect lighting came through the doors that led to the various rooms that bordered the hall, but that added very little to the light level during the storm. When Annie placed the candle on the hall table near the entry, the oval mirror on the wall behind the table reflected the flame and sent a bit more light into the space. The balusters along the staircase cast long, wavy shadows up the stairwell. The effect was rather eerie.

  As Annie and Dervla settled into two comfy, upholstered chairs in the living room, the rain continued its downpour outside, and the wind shook Grey Gables. Dervla seemed a little nervous, so Annie thought some conversation would take her mind off the storm.

  “Have you and Tony decided anything about your wedding yet?” asked Annie.

  “N … no, not really. Of course, I’ve thought about it, but everything has happened so fast there hasn’t been time to really make any decisions,” answered Dervla.

  An idea popped into Annie’s head. “What kind of dress are you thinking of?” she asked.

  “Something traditional, I suppose, but not too flamboyant. I don’t want a big hoop skirt and meters of tulle—I do know that much!”

  “What do you think of the wedding dress I found in the attic?” asked Annie.

  “It’s lovely. I think something similar to that would be just the thing for me,” answered Dervla.

  “That’s just what I was thinking. Let’s go upstairs, and you can try it on!” said Annie. “I think it would suit you very well.”

  Dervla looked confused for a moment. “You mean, you would let me wear that dress for my wedding?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I mean, and the veil and gloves as well,” answered Annie. “Our first order of business, though, is for you to try it on to see if it really is what you want. And if it needs to be altered, … well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  “Oh, Annie, thank you—I hope it does fit; it would be perfect,” said Dervla.

  “Let’s go!” said Annie. With that Annie stood up and grabbed Dervla’s hands to pull her out of her chair. “This is going to be fun!”

  Upstairs in Dervla’s bedroom, the storm continued to rage outside and the light through the window was still rather dim, but they could see well enough for their purposes. Annie and Dervla moved the mannequin from the corner so that they could remove the dress. The back opening was closed with a series of closely set co
vered buttons that fastened with tiny fabric loops; Annie started unfastening those while Dervla worked on unfastening the buttons on the cuffs, which matched those on the back.

  Dervla finished first, so while Annie was still working on the back buttons, she changed into a slip—she only had a short one. She and Annie discussed whether it would be better to make a long petticoat to go under the dress or to try to buy one. Annie was in favor of making one, to keep in line with the handmade details of the dress. Dervla said she didn’t have much experience with sewing, but if Annie would give her a hand, she’d be willing to give it a try.

  Once the buttons were all undone, Annie removed the dress from the mannequin and helped Dervla slip the dress over her head and arms. Then she began the process of refastening the back buttons while Dervla worked on the buttons on the cuffs. When Annie had finished placing the last loop over the last button at the top of the opening, she said, “I think this would be nearly impossible to do by yourself. These look lovely, but thank God for the man who invented zippers!”

  Dervla laughed at Annie’s comment, and Annie thought how good it was to hear her laugh. There had been too little of that since she’d arrived in Stony Point.

  Just then, Annie heard an insistent knocking sound. “What on earth—?” she started to say, and then she realized it was coming from the direction of the front door. Annie’s eyes grew wide. “Oh! I completely forgot that Andrew was coming over!” With that, she raced out the bedroom door and down the stairs to open the front door. She wasn’t sure how long Andrew had been standing on the porch, but fortunately, he looked as if he had been prepared for a hurricane. He was wearing a hooded yellow rain slicker that covered him for the most part, along with waterproof boots. Over his shoulder he carried a large vinyl-sided bag.

  “Oh Andrew! Please come in,” said Annie. The candle flame flickered and Annie shivered. The air outside was no longer hot. The temperature must have dropped twenty degrees. She closed the door as quickly as she could once Andrew had stepped inside.