The Whole Truth (12 page)

Polly wished Maud had said
This is my family!
first. She stared suspiciously at the strangers who had taken over Maud’s life.

The American girl, Ann, was the prettiest. Edith was giggly, Sylvia looked haughty, and Mary shy. Sadie smiled at Polly and said, “Hi, there, kiddo!” She had twinkly blue eyes and a large mouth. Polly couldn’t smile back.

A bell clanged and Maud led them downstairs. Miss Guppy sailed out of her study and extended her hand to them. “How very nice to see you again, Polly!” she blared. “I’m looking forward to the day when we have
you
at the school as well.”

Polly stepped behind Noni, out of the Guppy’s hungry gaze. She would
never
come to this place—it was like a prison! And she could never leave Tarka! She’d have to figure out a way to convince Noni not to send her. At least she had almost three years to think of something.

“We’ll let you go to lunch now, Maud,” said Noni. “After the play we’ll take you out to dinner.”

“Break a leg, chickie!” said Aunt Jean merrily.

Polly was shocked. “Why did you tell Maud to
break a leg?”
she asked when they were in the taxi.

“Oh, that’s just a theatre expression—it means good luck,” laughed Aunt Jean.

The three of them had lunch at the hotel, where they had arrived late the night before. The waiter was carving a delicious-smelling roast and Polly couldn’t help accepting a piece.

This is a cow,
she told herself sternly, but the beef was so juicy and delicious that she kept eating.

They went up to their rooms to rest before the play. Noni and Aunt Jean slept, but Polly knelt on a chair by the window. A gull hopped right onto the stone sill and cocked his head expectantly at her; she wished she had some crumbs to give him.

Polly remembered the last time she’d been in this hotel and how she couldn’t stop crying. Now tears threatened her again. If only Maud hadn’t become a hearty schoolgirl, and if only Daddy could return! Maybe he could live on the island! Then Polly would have her old family together with her new family and everything would be perfect.

Noni and Aunt Jean woke up and got dressed for the play. Aunt Jean fastened the back buttons on Polly’s best dress and brushed out her tangled hair.

“Maud’s roommates seem like nice girls,” she said. “Did you like them?”

Polly shrugged. “I guess so.”

“You know, hen, friends are everything to girls Maud’s age,” said Noni. “They get so involved with one another that their families don’t seem to exist. Una was like that with Blanche Tuttle. When Maud comes home for Christmas, she’ll pay more attention to us—I’m sure of it.”

Polly remembered Maud’s hug. “She seemed glad to see us, didn’t she?”

“Yes, she did. I’m sure she misses us—especially you—more than she realizes. And tonight we get her all to ourselves for dinner! She’s so nice and plump I bet she’ll taste good!” Noni added, making Polly laugh.

A string quartet was playing in the lobby and people were having tea, but Noni led them across the street to the Crystal Gardens—a large building with a glass roof enclosing a swimming pool. They had tea in the arboretum, breathing in the humid air while they watched the swimmers below them.

“The next time we come to Victoria we’ll bring our bathing costumes,” said Aunt Jean. “You would love the pool, Polly—the water is much warmer than the sea.”

Gregor must have told her how Polly was afraid of swimming. “Thank you,” she whispered. She couldn’t tell Aunt Jean that it wasn’t the sea’s coldness she feared, but the scary depths underneath the surface.

The play was
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
by William Shakespeare. Maud had warned Polly that she might not understand the words, but Noni had already read aloud some of the play to Polly and she enjoyed its lilting lines.

Polly almost forgot that all the male parts were acted by girls. Maud, a chubby Peaseblossom, made the most of her small role, leading the other fairies around bossily and scratching Bottom’s head in an exaggerated manner. Polly sat on the edge of her seat, enthralled by the love stories and laughing so hard she almost choked. She clapped and clapped at the end, her eyes riveted proudly on Maud as the cast bowed.

The family pounced on Maud when she emerged from the dressing room. “You were excellent, hen!” said Noni. “I didn’t know we had an actor in the family!”

Polly flinched, remembering Daddy’s funny imitations of Buster Keaton and Boris Karloff.

Sadie came up and introduced her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Harvey. “We’re hoping Maud can join us for a week after Christmas,” Mrs. Harvey told Noni. “The girls are such good friends, and Sadie is longing to show Maud everything.”

“We’ll see,” said Noni again. “I’ll think about it and write to you.”

Mrs. Harvey looked as disappointed as Maud, but she smiled and said that she’d wait for Noni’s letter.

They drove to a fancy restaurant nearby. Almost every table was filled with boarders and their families; Maud and her roommates kept turning around and waving to one another.

“Chickie, they must hardly feed you at school!” teased Aunt Jean, after Maud had eaten two desserts and finished Polly’s.

“They do, but it’s not nearly as good as this,” said Maud. “The worst meal is liver and onions, and we have it every Tuesday! The best is the roast we get on Sundays.”

Maud chattered unceasingly about the play, about every mistake and every triumph. Finally she turned to Polly and asked, “How’s your puppy?”

Polly talked quickly, so Maud couldn’t interrupt with something else about school. “He’s a
wonderful
dog!” she said proudly. “He can sit and lie down on command and he never has accidents in the house any more.”

“He’s no angel, though,” said Noni dryly. Yesterday he had chewed one of her best shoes.

Polly and Maud went to the ladies’ room. “If only Daddy could have seen you in the play!” Polly said as they were washing their hands. “He would have been so proud!”

“You’re not supposed to be thinking about Daddy, Poll!”

Polly bent over the sink. What if Maud knew that she wrote letters to him? “In a month you can finally meet Tarka,” she said, to change the subject.

A month was a very long time, Polly thought as they drove Maud back to school and kissed her goodbye. But after that she’d have Maud to herself for all of the holidays—unless Noni let her go to visit Sadie.

The weather became colder and darker. Polly kept expecting it to snow, but it only got wetter. Even when she wore her gumboots and raincoat to school, she would often arrive home soaked and bone cold—far colder than in Winnipeg, where the temperature had been lower but the air much dryer. It was so misty that she couldn’t see the other islands, and at night the fog bell clanged through her dreams.

“The days are drawing in,” said Aunt Jean one evening. “Christmas will be upon us before we realize it!”

“I want to talk to you and Rand about that,” said Noni. “Today I received a rather unsettling letter. Lydia Tuttle wants to come for part of the holidays.”

Aunt Jean put down her cards. “I
told
you you shouldn’t have asked her!”

Polly was sitting in a chair, working on her knitting. The Turtle! She’d thought she would never see her again!

“I had to be polite, Jean. And we can’t refuse her request, not after how kind she was, bringing the girls on the train.”

Aunt Jean sighed. “How long is she staying?”

“She wants to come for a week, starting on December twentieth.”

“A week!” said Aunt Jean. “That’s much too long. And why would she want to come at all? She’s never liked the island.”

“She says she wants to see the girls again. And her daughter and her son-in-law will be away for Christmas—I suppose she has nowhere else to go.”

“But she’s such a busybody and she never stops talking!” said Aunt Jean. “This is the girls’ first Christmas with us—it’s not a good time to visit. Does she know?”

Polly held her breath. Does she know
what?
Sometimes, if she sat very still in her chair, the grown-ups talked as if she weren’t there. She kept her head down.

“Of course she knows,” said Noni in a low voice. “I knew she’d find out in Winnipeg, so I told her before she went. Don’t worry, she won’t breathe a word about it.”

Uncle Rand patted his wife’s arm. “Now, my dear, we’ll just have to make Lydia feel welcome. We wouldn’t want her to be alone at Christmas.”

“She’s a lazy old cow,” said Aunt Jean.

Polly tried to smother her gasp.

“Jean, remember the bairn!” said Noni. “Polly, it’s getting late. Take Tarka out to do his business and then go up to bed.”

Polly jumped up and down to keep warm as she watched the steamer carrying Maud come around the point.

“You’re going to be the Angel Gabriel in the Nativity play!” she told her, hugging Maud so hard that Maud begged for mercy.

“Gabriel?”

“Yes! Aunt Jean says you’re such a good actress that you won’t have any trouble learning your lines. We’re having a rehearsal in half an hour!”

Maud was going to be a splendid Gabriel, Aunt Jean said, after Maud had run out from the side of the church and shouted “Fear not!” to the shepherds.

Polly sat beside Maud at the manger as all the little angels came shyly up the aisle. “Walk faster and speak louder!” begged Aunt Jean as they whispered “Glory to God in the highest.”

“I’m so glad you’re home,” Polly told Maud. “Isn’t Tarka nice?” Tarka was licking Maud’s face.

“He’s very nice. And I’m glad to be home too,” said Maud.

Polly grinned. Now everyone she loved—except Daddy, of course—was on the island. Noni had given Maud permission to visit Sadie, but that wasn’t until the day after Boxing Day. Until then, Polly had her all to herself. It was going to be an almost perfect Christmas.

But Polly had forgotten about Mrs. Tuttle.

The Turtle arrived three days later. “Now, I don’t want to be a bother,” she told them, after she and her large suitcase were shown to the spare room off the living room. “You just carry on with your Christmas preparations as if I wasn’t here.”

But she
was
a bother. Her constant appetite meant that someone was always having to bring her cups of tea and cookies. She wanted to see several old friends on the island, so one of the adults had to interrupt what he or she was doing to drive her somewhere. Whenever she was alone with Maud and Polly she was nosier than ever, as if they were still on the train.

“Why, Maud, look how fat you’ve become!” the Turtle said. “You’d better be careful—you don’t want to look like me! And Polly is still much too thin. The two of you are like Jack Sprat and his wife!” She chuckled at her own joke.

Maud flounced out of the living room. Polly couldn’t think of an excuse to leave. She had to spend the next hour nodding politely while Mrs. Tuttle gave her an endless description of how she was redecorating her house in Vancouver.

“She’s like a tap someone has forgotten to turn off!” said Aunt Jean when they were walking to a rehearsal. “I don’t envy you girls, having her in the house all the time. At least I can escape.”

“Noni, do you think I’m too fat?” asked Maud, when she and Polly were in Noni’s bedroom one morning. “The Tur—I mean, Mrs. Tuttle said I was.”

“Of course not, hen! You’re just pleasingly plump. You’ll fine down when you’re older. Mrs. Tuttle shouldn’t have told you that.” She sighed. “Our guest is rather wearing, isn’t she? But never mind, at least she has a lot of naps, and she’s leaving on Boxing Day. Thank you for putting up with her, girls. I’m proud of you both for being so polite.”

On the last day of school, all the island families gathered in the community hall to hear the concert. Polly stood beside Biddy and watched Mrs. Waddington carefully as they struggled through each carol. They were mostly familiar ones like “Silent Night” and “The First Noel,” but some had complicated parts that no one quite managed to get note perfect; Polly was thankful that she was a soprano and had the familiar tunes to sing.