Lucy Montgomery - Anne of Windy Poplars

”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 paper-hanger 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 new- comers 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.

”Oh, Miss Shirley, I'm sure I don't love him enough to marry him.

I realize that now ... now that it is too late. I was just moonlighted into thinking I loved him. If it hadn't been for the moon I'm sure I would have asked for time to think it over. But I was swept off my feet ... I can see that now. Oh, I'll run away ... I'll do something desperate!”

”But, Hazel dear, if you feel you've made a mistake, why not just tell him ...”

”Oh, Miss Shirley, I couldn't! It would kill him. He simply adores me. There isn't any way out of it really. And Terry's beginning to talk of getting married. Think of it ... a child like me ... I'm only eighteen. All the friends I've told about my engagement as a secret are congratulating me ... and it's such a farce. They think Terry is a great catch because he comes into ten thousand dollars when he is twenty-five. His grandmother left it to him. As if I cared about such a sordid thing as MONEY! Oh, Miss Shirley, WHY is it such a mercenary world ... WHY?”

”I suppose it is mercenary in some respects, but not in all, Hazel.

And if you feel like this about Terry ... we all make mistakes ... it's very hard to know our own minds sometimes....”

”Oh, isn't it? I KNEW you'd understand. I DID think I cared for him, Miss Shirley. The first time I saw him I just sat and gazed at him the whole evening. WAVES went over me when I met his eyes.

He was SO handsome ... though I thought even then that his hair was TOO curly and his eyelashes too white. THAT should have warned me. But I always put my soul into everything, you know ... I'm so intense. I felt little shivers of ecstasy whenever he came near me. And now I feel nothing ... NOTHING! Oh, I've grown old these past few weeks, Miss Shirley ... OLD! I've hardly eaten anything since I got engaged. Mother could tell you. I'm SURE I don't love him enough to marry him. Whatever else I may be in doubt about, I know THAT.”

”Then you shouldn't ...”

”Even that moonlight night he proposed to me, I was thinking of what dress I'd wear to Joan Pringle's fancy dress party. I thought it would be lovely to go as Queen of the May in pale green, with a sash of darker green and a cluster of pale pink roses in my hair.