Lucy Maud Montgomery - The Complete Novels of Lucy Maud Montgomery - 20 Titles in One Volume - Including Anne of Green Gables Series, Emily Starr Trilogy, The Blue Castle, The Story Girl & Pat of Silver Bush Series

“No, dearest, I’m not crazy … not yet. It’s only that Cousin Ernestine Bugle is catching.

“I know now why Rebecca Dew has always called her ‘Miss Much-afraid.’ The poor soul has borrowed so much trouble, she must be hopelessly in debt to fate.

“There are so many Bugles in the world … not many quite so far gone in Buglism as Cousin Ernestine, perhaps, but so many kill-joys, afraid to enjoy today because of what tomorrow will bring.

“Gilbert darling, don’t let’s ever be afraid of things. It’s such dreadful slavery. Let’s be daring and adventurous and expectant. Let’s dance to meet life and all it can bring to us, even if it brings scads of trouble and typhoid and twins!

“Today has been a day dropped out of June into April. The snow is all gone and the fawn meadows and golden hills just sing of spring. I know I heard Pan piping in the little green hollow in my maple bush and my Storm King was bannered with the airiest of purple hazes. We’ve had a great deal of rain lately and I’ve loved sitting in my tower in the still, wet hours of the spring twilights. But tonight is a gusty, hurrying night … even the clouds racing over the sky are in a hurry and the moonlight that gushes out between them is in a hurry to flood the world.

“Suppose, Gilbert, we were walking hand in hand down one of the long roads in Avonlea tonight!

“Gilbert, I’m afraid I’m scandalously in love with you. You don’t think it’s irreverent, do you? But then, you’re not a minister.”

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“I’m so different,” sighed Hazel.

It was really dreadful to be so different from other people … and yet rather wonderful, too, as if you were a being strayed from another star. Hazel would not have been one of the common herd for anything … no matter what she suffered by reason of her differentness.

“Everybody is different,” said Anne amusedly.

“You are smiling.” Hazel clasped a pair of very white, very dimpled hands and gazed adoringly at Anne. She emphasized at least one syllable in every word she uttered. “You have such a fascinating smile … such a haunting smile. I knew the moment I first saw you that you would understand everything. We are on the same plane. Sometimes I think I must be psychic, Miss Shirley. I always know so instinctively the moment I meet any one whether I’m going to like them or not. I felt at once that you were sympathetic … that you would understand. It’s so sweet to be understood. Nobody understands me, Miss Shirley … nobody. But when I saw you, some inner voice whispered to me, ‘She will understand … with her you can be your real self.’ Oh, Miss Shirley, let’s be real … let’s always be real. Oh, Miss Shirley, do you love me the leastest, tiniest bit?”

“I think you’re a dear,” said Anne, laughing a little and ruffling Hazel’s golden curls with her slender fingers. It was quite easy to be fond of Hazel.

Hazel had been pouring out her soul to Anne in the tower room, from which they could see a young moon hanging over the harbor and the twilight of a late May evening filling the crimson cups of the tulips below the windows.

“Don’t let’s have any light yet,” Hazel had begged, and Anne had responded,

“No … it’s lovely here when the dark is your friend, isn’t it? When you turn on the light, it makes the dark your enemy … and it glowers in at you resentfully.”

“I can think things like that but I can never express them so beautifully,” moaned Hazel in an anguish of rapture. “You talk in the language of the violets, Miss Shirley.”

Hazel couldn’t have explained in the least what she meant by that, but it didn’t matter. It sounded so poetic.

The tower room was the only peaceful room in the house. Rebecca Dew had said that morning, with a hunted look, “We must get the parlor and spare-room papered before the Ladies’ Aid meets here,” and had forthwith removed all the furniture from both to make way for a paperhanger who then refused to come until the next day. Windy Poplars was a wilderness of confusion, with one sole oasis in the tower room.

Hazel Marr had a notorious “crush” on Anne. The Marrs were newcomers in Summerside, having moved there from Charlottetown during the winter. Hazel was an “October blonde,” as she liked to describe herself, with hair of golden bronze and brown eyes, and, so Rebecca Dew declared, had never been much good in the world since she found out she was pretty. But Hazel was popular, especially among the boys, who found her eyes and curls a quite irresistible combination.

Anne liked her. Earlier in the evening she had been tired and a trifle pessimistic, with the fag that comes with late afternoon in a schoolroom, but she felt rested now; whether as a result of the May breeze, sweet with apple blossom, blowing in at the window, or of Hazel’s chatter, she could not have told. Perhaps both. Somehow, to Anne, Hazel recalled her own early youth, with all its raptures and ideals and romantic visions.

Hazel caught Anne’s hand and pressed her lips to it reverently.

“I hate all the people you have loved before me, Miss Shirley. I hate all the other people you love now. I want to possess you exclusively.”

“Aren’t you a bit unreasonable, honey? You love other people besides me. How about Terry, for example?”

“Oh, Miss Shirley! It’s that I want to talk to you about. I can’t endure it in silence any longer … I cannot. I must talk to some one about it … some one who understands. I went out the night before last and walked round and round the pond all night … well, nearly … till twelve, anyhow. I’ve suffered everything … everything.”

Hazel looked as tragic as a round, pink-and-white face, long-lashed eyes and a halo of curls would let her.

“Why, Hazel dear, I thought you and Terry were so happy … that everything was settled.”

Anne could not be blamed for thinking so. During the preceding three weeks, Hazel had raved to her about Terry Garland, for Hazel’s attitude was, what was the use of having a beau if you couldn’t talk to some one about him?

“Everybody thinks that,” retorted Hazel with great bitterness. “Oh, Miss Shirley, life seems so full of perplexing problems. I feel sometimes as if I wanted to lie down somewhere … anywhere … and fold my hands and never think again.”

“My dear girl, what has gone wrong?”

“Nothing … and everything. Oh, Miss Shirley, can I tell you all about it … can I pour out my whole soul to you?”

“Of course, dear.”

“I have really no place to pour out my soul,” said Hazel pathetically. “Except in my journal, of course. Will you let me show you my journal some day, Miss Shirley? It is a self-revelation. And yet I cannot write out what burns in my soul. It … it stifles me!” Hazel clutched dramatically at her throat.

“Of course I’d like to see it if you want me to. But what is this trouble between you and Terry?”

“Oh, Terry!! Miss Shirley, will you believe me when I tell you that Terry seems like a stranger to me? A stranger! Some one I’d never seen before,” added Hazel, so that there might be no mistake.

“But, Hazel … I thought you loved him … you said …”

“Oh, I know. I thought I loved him, too. But now I know it was all a terrible mistake. Oh, Miss Shirley, you can’t dream how difficult my life is … how impossible.”

“I know something about it,” said Anne sympathetically, remembering Roy Gardiner.