The Whole Truth (27 page)

“What does that mean?” whispered Polly.

“It means that Daddy should go to jail, but if he doesn’t commit any crimes for six months, he won’t and he’ll be free. He has to stay in Winnipeg until the end of the year so they know where he is.”

They sat together in silence. Polly felt as unreal as she had on the train coming to the island. “I still can’t believe it,” she said dully. “You did, though.”

“I think I
always
suspected Daddy had taken the money. At first I didn’t want to, but the more I thought about it, the more his story didn’t make sense. How could Mr. Spicer have put the money in his pocket? He had already left before lunch. Daddy just told me that crazy story in desperation—he wasn’t thinking. And he
was
desperate. He did it to help us. That doesn’t make it right, but I understand why he did it.”

“You’re not being as hard on him as you were before,” said Polly.

Maud flushed. “No … because he’s finally told us the truth! I
hated
it that he lied. And he did it in such an underhanded way. After that first letter he wrote me, he never
said
he didn’t take the money. He lied by omission, but that’s just as much of a lie.”

That was why Polly felt as if Daddy had slapped her. It was wrong that he had stolen something, but it seemed far more wrong that he had lied.

“Will you forgive him now?” she whispered.

“I’m happy to forgive him! I’ve been praying and praying that Daddy would come clean, and now he has! He’s like the prodigal son. He committed a sin, but now he’s repented. I’m really proud of him, Poll. It must have taken a lot of courage to go to that police station. He could have gone on like he had before, but he didn’t. And he did it for us, remember. Oh, Doodle, I feel as if a huge weight has rolled off me, don’t you?”

Polly shook her head. “I don’t feel happy at all. I feel kind of … frozen.”

Maud hugged her. “That’s because you’ve been so loyal. It’s going to take some time to get used to this, but I know you’ll come round. And just think, Poll, after Daddy’s allowed to leave Winnipeg he can come and see us again!”

“He can?”

“Of course! He’ll be free! There’s no way Noni can stop him, no matter what she thinks of him. He’s given us his address in Winnipeg. I’m going to write to him right now and tell him how proud I am. You write too, Doodle.”

Polly couldn’t imagine what she would say. “Maud, are we going to tell Noni?”

“Sure we are! Daddy is afraid it’s going to get into the papers—after all, it’s not every day that someone who is presumed drowned
walks into a police station! So we should tell the family before they hear about it.”

Polly wanted to melt into a puddle. “You go and tell them, Maud. I’m going to lie down.”

She retreated to her bed for the rest of the day. Tarka pressed into the crook of her knees, as if he was as miserable as she was. Maud kept checking on her and offering her food, but Polly couldn’t eat.

That evening, Noni sat on her bed stroking her hair. “Poor wee bairn,” she said. “Maud has told me everything. This must be a terrible shock to you, hen. You’ve been so loyal to your father, and now you’ve found out he was wrong after all.”

Polly wanted to hide under the covers as if she were a little child. All she could do was keep her face turned away. How
stupid
she felt! How humiliated! The grown-ups had been right all along. Her father, whom she had always thought was good, was a thief and a liar.

“It was brave of Daniel to confess,” said Noni, “and I’m glad for you both that he’ll be a free man. He’s very lucky the judge was so lenient—he could have gone to jail for a long time.” Then she added awkwardly, “Maud has asked if your father can visit and I’ve given my permission. I don’t know if Daniel and I will ever see eye to eye, but it’s not fair of me to keep him from you.”

Everything Noni was saying just made things worse. Polly didn’t
want
to see Daddy! She wanted to disown him, just as Maud had once wanted to.

“You’re too upset to talk, aren’t you … would you like me to bring you some soup?” When Polly shook her head, Noni kissed her gently and left the room.

Polly’s peaceful summer had exploded. She spent August trying to pretend she was as happy as Maud. To her relief, after the rest of the family had told her how glad they were that Daniel had confessed, the wedding plans again preoccupied the household.

Polly received a long, loving letter from Daddy. She could hardly bear to read it. “I know you are probably upset with your old dad, Doodle, but I hope you will forgive him,” he ended.

She wrote back a curt note saying that she was glad he had confessed and would be free. She couldn’t ask Daddy the questions that buzzed in her head. Why did he
do
such a stupid thing? Why didn’t he stay and confess instead of running away and abandoning them? He would have gone to jail, but at least they would have known where he was. He didn’t need to act like someone in a movie and pretend he had drowned. He’d been thinking more about himself than his daughters!

Worst of all, Daddy had lied to them. Polly couldn’t say in the letter that she had forgiven him. That would make
her
a liar.

She took off her heart necklace and put it in her drawer. It stabbed her to notice that Maud had now started wearing hers.

“Let’s just hope the news stays in Manitoba,” Noni kept saying.

A Vancouver paper picked up the story, however, and then it reached the island. Everywhere Polly went, people either stared rudely or told her haltingly how glad they were that her father was alive.

“I can’t go anywhere without someone commenting on it,” complained Aunt Jean. “Mildred Cunningham kept me for half an hour in the store just now, pumping me for more information. I don’t have time to deal with this—I have a wedding to plan!”

“Jean, it’s not the girls’ fault that the news became public,” said Noni. “I’m so sorry this had to happen, hens. Never mind, it will
soon die down like any other gossip. Just smile and try to change the subject.”

No one who talked to Polly was brave enough to say anything about Daddy’s crime—except for Vivien. “Why didn’t you
tell
us he was accused of stealing?” she demanded.

“He didn’t want us to,” said Polly stiffly.

“Never mind, Polly,” said Biddy. “Mother says he’s paid his price by confessing and facing the music.
I
don’t think it matters that he stole the money—he did it for you! Oh, Polly, I’m so glad we don’t have to keep it a secret any more that your father is alive! It was really hard sometimes!”

“But we never told anyone,” Vivien assured her. “We had a pact. Whenever one of us was tempted to say anything we’d tell each other first.”

“Thank you for that,” said Polly. “It was a lot to ask of you. Thank you for being so loyal.”

“Polly!”

Polly turned around. She was sitting on the wharf with her paints, Tarka snoozing beside her in the sun. Painting was a good way to escape from everyone.

It was Alice. “I want to talk to you,” she told Polly.

Polly finished applying a blue wash. Then she put down her brush and waited for one of Alice’s nasty comments.

To her surprise, Alice looked uncomfortable. She sat down beside Polly. “I just wanted to tell you I heard about your father. I don’t care about what he did, but I’m really glad for you that he’s alive.”

“Thanks,” said Polly warily.

“I … well, I understand what you’ve been through, pretending all this time that your father is dead.”

“You do?”

Alice nodded. “My father is alive too!” she blurted out. “Oh, Polly, what a relief it is to tell someone!”

Polly stared while Alice continued. She told Polly how her father had left her and her mother when Alice was six. “He just didn’t come home one day. I’m sure it’s because my mother drove him crazy. She was always nagging at him. He could never do anything right.”

Mrs. Mackenzie had brought Alice to live on the island with
her
father. After he died, she’d continued to live in his house. “She told everyone that she was a widow,” said Alice bitterly. “I had to promise to say that too. She kept saying Dad might as well
be
dead, because I’d never see him again.”

“Have you?” asked Polly.

Tears slid down Alice’s cheeks and her voice shook. “No, I never have. But you know what, Polly? When I’m a famous singer, I bet he’ll hear about me and come to one of my concerts!”

“I bet he will,” said Polly. “Do you remember him?”

“I remember him perfectly! He was so nice to me, much nicer than Mother. We used to sing together. He had a good voice—he was in a choir.”

Alice wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “Polly, you are so lucky! When are you going to see your dad?”

“I don’t know,” mumbled Polly. “Maybe after Christmas.”

“You must be so excited!”

Polly couldn’t answer. How could she tell Alice, who might never see
her
father again, that she didn’t want to see Daddy?

P
olly took a sip of champagne, watching Sadie’s radiant face as she and Gregor walked around arm in arm, passing out slices of wedding cake.
My heart is like a singing bird …
that was the first line of the love poem Noni had read to Polly this morning, in honour of Gregor and Sadie. Was that what Sadie felt like—a singing bird?

The wedding ceremony had “gone off without a hitch,” as Aunt Jean said. It had happened so quickly that Polly wished they could do it all over again. Polly was the first of the bridesmaids to walk up the aisle. She clutched her bouquet of cornflowers and roses to stop her hands from trembling. After her came Virginia, who was Sadie’s oldest friend from Duncan, then Sadie’s cousin Marion, then Cynthia. Maud was the maid of honour, followed by Sadie’s shy little niece, Christine, the flower girl. She kept her head down as she scattered rose petals from her basket.

Gregor waited eagerly at the front of the church. Aunt Jean had insisted he get a kilt made; he wore it with a black jacket that had shiny silver buttons. On one side stood Alec, his best man. Uncle Rand stood on the other side in his robes, his face filled with quiet
pride. Aunt Jean sat in the front pew beside Noni, in her new pink suit and flower-strewn hat. She was already dabbing her eyes.

Everyone gasped as Sadie appeared at the back of the church, clinging to her father’s arm. Mrs. Waddington boomed out “Here Comes the Bride” on the wheezy organ and Sadie walked up the aisle in her white organza dress. She couldn’t stop grinning, especially when she reached Gregor.

It seemed only seconds later that the wedding party burst out of the church into the August sunlight to the accompaniment of Captain Hay playing the bagpipes. Aunt Jean had fretted endlessly about rain, but the weather was warm enough to have the reception on the church lawn.

Everyone on the island seemed to be there, eagerly crowded around the long tables of dainty sandwiches and fancy squares. Children dashed around the grown-ups’ legs. The Carver brothers were playing a waltz on their fiddle and accordion, and some couples began dancing on the grass.

After the toasts were finished Polly took her glass of champagne to a chair, so she could remove her pinchy shoes. She wriggled her freed toes and took another swallow of the sweet, fizzy drink. It made the inside of her nose tickle, but it was so delicious! And it seemed to loosen her thoughts, as if
they
were singing birds zooming around her head.

What would it be like, to love someone so much that you wanted to spend the rest of your life with him? Maybe that would happen to
her
one day! Biddy would be her maid of honour. Her bridesmaids would be Maud and Vivien. They would wear yellow, and Polly would carry Noni’s yellow roses.

But who would the groom be? Polly remembered her fortune—would it be Chester? She glanced at him standing under a tree with
his parents. Just before the toasts he had come up to her and said quietly, “Hi, Polly. You look swell!” He had scurried away before she could reply.

Maybe she would marry Chester, maybe not. One day she would find out. One day she and her new husband would walk around this same lawn and pass wedding cake to their guests.

If only she didn’t have to go away to school next week! But she didn’t have a choice. Still, it was only for a year. Somehow she would get through it.

Polly stretched out her long legs, sheathed in silk stockings for the first time.
I
like
being almost thirteen,
she decided. She was getting used to her changing body, to being a “young lady,” as Aunt Jean called her. Even when she wasn’t dressed up, adults kept saying how pretty she was.

When Polly looked in the mirror, she realized they were right. Maybe it was vain to think that, but it seemed to be true. And being pretty kept her from worrying about her looks as much as her friends had started to. Vivien moaned about her greasy hair and Biddy had decided she hated her freckles.

Polly took another sip of her sweet drink, observing the joyful scene in front of her as if she were painting it. Biddy and Vivien were playing tag with some of the younger kids, shrieking as loudly as if they were the same age. Alice and Milly were passing around sandwiches—their mothers must have told them to.

Mrs. Mackenzie and Mrs. Taylor were talking in strident voices to Mr. and Mrs. Oliver. Aunt Jean was standing near Polly, boasting to Mrs. Cunningham about Gregor’s job. After their honeymoon in Seattle, Gregor and Sadie were moving to Chilliwack, where Gregor would be a curate. “He’s so lucky to get a position in these hard times,” said Aunt Jean, “but of course they recognized his skills in
the interview. It’s a very large parish, with lots of opportunities to move up.”

More and more people were dancing, some in couples and some holding hands in a tromping circle. Mrs. Hooper and her grandson George were dancing the polka; Polly moved her foot in time with the beat.

Noni came up to her. “How do you like your first taste of champagne?” she asked.