Part 2 of "The Three of Us"

213. The Morning Of

When Anne opened her eyes the next morning, she felt a burst of giddy excitement before she even knew why.

Today is my wedding day, it hit her after a moment. 

She sat up quickly, too happy to spend another moment in bed.

She was glad Walter wasn't awake yet as she needed her chamber pot first thing and the wintry morning was too cold to rush outdoors.

After using it she thought to herself, He's too old to share a room with his mama now. I could've moved him into the spare room long ago, but I would have missed him. Anyway, after today, he'll have his own big boy bedroom at Gilbert's house...I mean at our house.

With that lovely thought, she washed her hands and face and slipped her robe on. She started to wake Walter up but decided to leave him sleeping for a few more minutes. She went downstairs.

Marilla was already at the stove.

"And what would the bride like to have for breakfast on the morning of her wedding?" Marilla asked with a smile.

Anne threw herself at Marilla with tears in her eyes. "Oh Marilla! I'm so happy, but- but- but this is the last morning!"

Marilla swallowed hard and put on a smile. "Nonsense, there's nothing sad about it! This is a happy morning, and the first of many. Now what will you let me make for you?"

"I'm too excited, I can't eat," Anne admitted with a laugh. "Anyway I ought to be making breakfast for you, Marilla."

Walter appeared. "I want cookies," he demanded before he was even down the stairs.

"Cookies for breakfast?" Anne asked. "All right, that sounds good." She ignored his rude tone and unusual request because she was too light to be bothered by anything today, and she went to get a mixing bowl.

"Certainly not," Marilla said, stopping her. "Cookies for breakfast! You both need a good hearty meal that will stay in your stomachs on a cold morning like this, and it's such an important morning, too!"

Anne put the mixing bowl away. Marilla had exactly one day left to tell her what to do, and then she was a married woman, free of her parents, and so she decided she didn't really mind being mothered a bit more. "All right, Walter, grandma's going to make us breakfast. No cookies! She's right, anyway, cookies aren't breakfast. Besides, we'll have cake later today."

Marilla, satisfied, went back to the stove, and soon the kitchen smelled heavenly.

---

"Now I thought we'd wrap up your dress to take to the church," Marilla began when breakfast was over, but Anne interrupted-

"I can wear it over to the church," she said.

"I dread it getting wet or spotted, is all," Marilla explained. "I thought we'd go over and get you all ready there, safely inside."

"But I want to get ready here!" Anne protested loudly. "Here, in my own room! This is where I dreamed of getting ready."

"Well, all right, if it's that important to you," Marilla conceded. "Anyway, I'll run you a bath in front of the fire so you don't catch your death before we get you married. Do you think Walter needs one again?"

"No, last night was fine for him," Anne said. "He went to bed clean and it's too cold to play outdoors so he won't have opportunity to dirty himself up again. Oh, Marilla, I can hardly believe this, it feels like a dream! Finally my wedding, after all this time!"

Marilla smiled. "That it is- a dream come true. My dear girl, the time has flown. ....Sometimes I wish I could keep you a little girl, but- do you know what Matthew told me, when I said that to him?"

Anne shook her head.

"He said, if we kept her a little girl, we wouldn't get to meet the woman she's become. And how right he is! Look at you now, so grown up and stylish." Marilla patted her daughter's hair, already imagining how Anne would look in the puffed-sleeved ivory gown made with such love.

---

Matthew knocked gently at Anne's door just as Marilla was doing up the last of the hundred or so silk buttons on the back of her dress.

Anne turned to see Matthew with an expression she'd seen on his face only once before- the moment he first met her new baby boy.

She smiled. "Do I look all right?" she asked, pointlessly.

Matthew came over and placed one gentle peck on her forehead. "Never seen nothing prettier," he told her.

Anne could see the tears in his eyes, and despite her pristine gown, she threw her arms around him.

"Got somethin' for ya," he said huskily when she had finally let go. He brought out a small box.

Lifting a tiny silver bracelet out of it, Anne saw that there was a charm dangling from it- a tiny hat, no bigger than a thimble. He explained to her, "You'll get more of these, for all the Anne's you'll become. This here is for the first Anne, the one I met that day at the station. The one who became my daughter."

"Don't make her cry, her eyes will get all red and watery," Marilla warned, but it was too late.

Anne sniffled as Matthew put the bracelet on her wrist. "Oh, Matthew, I don't know what to say. It's so perfectly perfect and I adore you, I- I don't want to leave you, Matthew!"

"You're not leaving," he said, shaking his head with a bit of a smile. "Just down the road a ways, is all. It'll be like nothing's changed a bit- that's what I keep telling Marilla."

Marilla blushed pink and shook her head at Matthew, not wanting him to let on that she had had her own cry over their Anne heading out on her own.

"I suppose," Anne said shakily. "You're right. I'll be so very near...but..."

"No more tears," Marilla said firmly, giving Anne a squeeze. "You aren't moving across the earth, why Gilbert walked over here every day, it's not even a distance!"

Anne nodded finally. "I'll miss my room...my window...my tree..."

"Your room will be right here, same as always," Marilla said. "And you're welcome to it any time you like. Come now. No fuss. We must do something about your hair!"

Anne laughed. "All right."

---

When Matthew drove them to the church, Marilla was glad for the fresh blanket of snow on the ground so she didn't have to fret over dust from the road.

"I told Gilbert, the other day, that he's not to come until later," Rachel Lynde said in greeting. "So he won't see the bride before the wedding. It's bad luck."

"Good morning, Rachel," Marilla said merrily.

"My, Anne, you look lovely, you really do," Rachel said, beaming. "I don't think I've ever seen a lovelier bride."

Anne grinned from ear to ear.

"Well, let's get in and be sure the church still looks ready," Marilla said. "I checked it last night but- I hope none of the greenery fell down."

Emily came earlier than the other guests because she had Clara who was to be Anne's flower girl, and because she had agreed to keep an eye on Walter until the wedding started.

"Clara!" Walter shouted as if he had not seen his friend for a hundred years. "You're here! Where's your wedding dress?"

"It's not a wedding dress, Walter," Clara said. "It's a flower girl dress. And my mother wouldn't let me put it on until we got here. I'll go change now. You wait for me."

Clara is awfully bossy, Anne thought, but she laughed to herself because Walter sat down right where Clara told him to and waited patiently for her to come back.

The guests began arriving.