Una Meredith married Shirley Blythe on a cool autumn afternoon in Rainbow Valley. It was a gray late September day and the sky was like gun-metal. Una, waking to it, thought it suited her mood exactly.

The wedding was festive enough despite the threatening sky. The maple grove was ablaze with crimson splendor. There were starry mums in secret corners and the air was sweet and warm. The bells from the Tree Lovers rang on the little wandering gypsy breeze that came up from the sea and they were Una's procession march. They touched her heart as she took Shirley's hands reluctantly in her own. Walter had put the bells there. Una wondered if there was any place on earth where Walter could not reach out to her from beyond the grave to her and touch her heart.

Una wore her mother's gray silk wedding dress. It was an old-fashioned garment and a frill went around her throat while the hem hung in folds to her pretty ankles. Nan Meredith had thought it very old fashioned and drab and had offered Una the loan of her pretty, modern wedding duds. Una thanked her, but set her small white teeth in a determined smile. She would wear her mother's dress. Rosemary Meredith had said nothing, but offered her own dress that Una had once dreamed of wearing at her wedding. It hurt Una to refuse it but Una refused it now. She had always dreamed of wearing it – at her wedding to Walter. A silly, unsupported girl's-dream – but Una could not wear the dress she had dreamed of wearing at her wedding to Walter when she wedded Shirley.

So she looked very pretty in the gray dress but she had not stopped once all morning to admire her appearance. Una thought it she stopped moving for a moment she would be swept away on a strong current – swept out into a sea of remembrance – and then she would scream. So she kept moving. If only this dreaded day was over! In an hour it would be done – she could get through it. Couldn't she? And then everything would be settled and Una would not have to think of it coming any more – and would not have to dread it.

Shirley thought she looked like a gray moth and was drawn to her like a flame. With the dress and her black hair, the only spot of color about her was the blood-red late roses that she held in her hand and the flaming color of her cheeks. Una thought Shirley did not look like himself in his new black suit. He was handsome – she realized this with a shock – but she thought she preferred him in his dungarees. He did not look like Shirley this way – companionable friend Shirley. He looked like someone else. And he looked so happy that Una had to look away. She could not bear to see the happiness that played across his face – not today – and not when she knew that she could not make him happy in all the ways that he wanted. She clutched her roses so fiercely that the thorns bit into her skin. But she did not cry out. The pain cut through the terrible tightness in her chest and throat and Una was able to bear it as she always had.

It was very much a family affair. Jerry married them. He gave a beautiful wedding speech that all the guests took to heart and were touched by. Una and Shirley scarcely heard what he was saying. Shirley because he was afraid to pay attention to anything except this elusive woman before him. If he took his glance from her for a second surely she would fly away and he would find it had all been a dream? Una did not hear it because her mind was wandering.

She thought back to the first time she had seen the little troupe of Blythes as they came over the hill into Rainbow Valley. Walter, his hair shining black and face dreamy – Jem, sturdy and capable – the twins holding hands. Where was Shirley? Probably in the back of the gang somewhere. Una remembered a thousand little things about Walter now – the gentle, friendly touch of his hand – the dreaminess of his mouth – the poetry in his voice – the poetry that was innate in every thing about him. She remembered that horrible day, five Septembers ago, now, when her father had come to tell them that Walter had died. That was the first day the little, horrible ache had first come to live in Una's breast. It would be there until she died herself.

From a great distance, it seemed, she heard Jerry ask Shirley if he would take Una Meredith as his wife and love and cherish her all the days he was living? Shirley said he would. Then Jerry was asking Una if she would do the same to Shirley. Una said she would, in a voice that was dull and flat. She tried to put some life in it. She could not. She wondered if she was lying now, before God? That was a sin, wasn't it? A horrible sin, to lie before God!

As Jerry gave a benediction, Una could only remember a poem that Walter had read to her once:

There's flowers yet, though summer's flown,
There's happiness that can be shown,
And when you act 'tis then your own,
Oh, make somebody happy.

The mind should see the good in men,
Should scan each heart for virtues, then
Give praise, and it will bloom again
And make somebody happy.

If it was a lie, it was a lie that 'made somebody happy.' Surely God would forgive her for that? But Una could not think of it any more because Jerry was pronouncing them husband and wife – and then Shirley kissed her.

It was the first time Una had ever been kissed in anything but a brotherly fashion. Shirley's arm went around her waist – strong – and he drew her to him. Shirley would spare Una the complete force of his feelings simply because he loved her and he knew she did not love him – she would not have to be a wife to him in the ways she would not want to be – but he fully intended on claiming his kiss. He had wanted it for so long, with a passion that allowed him to be selfish this once. He touched his lips to Una's own and he kissed her.

Una found her heart beating very fast. A bewildered, startled look came over her little face. Why – why should she be so startled at Shirley's kiss? And she was even more startled to find that it had not been an altogether unpleasant experience.

Shirley released her, with a look that was like another kiss, and suddenly they were all about her, shouting congratulations, shaking her hand, kissing her. Una surprised herself again by keeping her lips from them. For Shirley's kiss still seemed to be upon them. She did not know why she wanted to keep her lips for Shirley's kiss only – except that it seemed the loyal thing to do now. She was his wife, after all – his wife! It began to wash over her in a slow wave what she had done.

Rilla dropped a cool kiss on Una's cheek and stood back to watch her with gently reproachful eyes. And Mrs. Blythe said, in a low voice, "I hope you will be very happy, dear." There was a certain knowledge in her eyes and voice and Una wanted to shriek. Oh, how did Mrs. Blythe know?

"Just think – you're Mrs. Blythe now, yourself," whispered Nan, clutching her hand. Una nodded her head like a puppet on a string. Yes – she had always dreamed of being Mrs. Blythe.

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There was a little wedding-feast up at Ingleside. Una could not eat a bite though it all looked so good, and they all laughed at her. It was nerves, they said merrily. Una wanted to laugh in their faces for being so stupid. But one could not laugh – not more than one could eat – when one felt so hopeless of heart.

Shirley led her away after they had cut the cake – a beautiful plummy cake made from Susan's own recipe. He seemed to understand that she did not want to dance on the verandah, lit with bright, gay paper lanterns. She wanted to be in the dark where she could take off this mask she had worn all day. He led her out into the night, faint stars beginning to take their places overhead.

They walked in the cool twilight to Red Apple Farm. They did not talk, but as they went the cool sea wind washed the day's troubles from Una's heart. She began to feel lighthearted enough to talk with Shirley about the day. And she wanted to see her dear little house again. She began to feel so excited that she did not notice when Shirley took her hand and tucked it into his own.

They spent their wedding night in the old orchard where they had trysted not so long ago. It was companionable if not romantic. Shirley gave her his wedding gift to her. It was a pretty gold locket, warm with the glow of an age-old thing. He fastened it around her slim throat and it was like a warm small sun against her white skin.

Una would not have minded sitting there under the ghostly, whispering leaves all night. But the cool night air overtook them and Shirley rose reluctantly to his feet and said they should go in.

"Shirley," said Una softly, "Would you like to kiss me?"

"No," he said lightly, but his eyes said something else.

"You may kiss me – if you want to," she said shakily. "It is my wedding gift to you." And she flushed and touched her locket. He had given her this pretty trinket and she felt that her gift of a kiss must sound very paltry and presupposing. Una did not know that her lips were to him dearer than all the diamonds and rubies in the world.

She lifted her face to him and Shirley kissed her, putting his arm about her waist again. When he drew back his eyes were twin stars of love and happiness. And Una remembered the last stanza of the poem Walter had once said to her:

For happiness reacts and grows
And spreads sweet sunshine as it goes.
It is Life's garden's sweetest rose,
"The making someone happy."

If she could make Shirley happy then perhaps – one day – she could be happy, too.

A/N: The poem is "Make Somebody Happy" by Ed Blair. Published in 1914.