Anne of Windy Willows (18 page)

10

‘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 word in every sentence 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 anyone 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 harbour 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 parlour 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 Willows 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 someone about it – someone 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 someone 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 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! Someone 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 Gardner.

‘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, and a Maypole decked with tiny roses and hung with pink and green ribbons. Wouldn’t it have been fetching? And then Joan’s uncle had to go and die, and Joan couldn’t have the party after all, so it all went for nothing. But the point is, I really couldn’t have loved him when my thoughts were wandering like that, could I?’

‘I don’t know. Our thoughts play us curious tricks sometimes.’

‘I really don’t think I ever want to get married at all, Miss Shirley. Do you happen to have an orangewood stick handy?… Thanks. My half-moons are getting ragged. I might as well do them while I’m talking. Isn’t it just lovely to be exchanging confidences like this? It’s so seldom one gets the opportunity. The world intrudes itself so. Well, what was I talking of?… Oh yes – Terry. What am I to do, Miss Shirley? I want your advice. Oh, I feel like a trapped creature!’

‘But, Hazel, it’s so very simple –’

‘Oh, it isn’t simple at all, Miss Shirley. It’s dreadfully complicated. Mamma is so outrageously pleased, but Aunt Jean isn’t.
She
doesn’t like Terry, and everybody says she has such good judgement. I don’t want to marry anybody. I’m ambitious. I want a career. Sometimes I think I’d like to be a nun. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be the bride of heaven? I think the Catholic Church is
so
picturesque, don’t you? But of course I’m not a Catholic – and, anyway, I suppose you could hardly call it a career. I’ve always felt I’d love to be a nurse. It’s such a romantic profession, don’t you think? Smoothing fevered brows and all that, and some handsome millionaire patient falling in love with you and carrying you off to spend a honeymoon in a villa on the Riviera, facing the morning sun and the blue Mediterranean. I’ve
seen
myself in it. Foolish dreams, perhaps, but oh, so sweet! I
can’t
give them up for the prosaic reality of marrying Terry Garland and settling down in
Summerside
!’

Hazel shivered at the very idea, and scrutinized a half-moon critically.

‘I suppose –’ began Anne.

‘We haven’t
anything
in common, you know, Miss Shirley. He doesn’t care for poetry and romance, and they’re my very
life
. Sometimes I think I must be a reincarnation of Cleopatra – or would it be Helen of Troy? One of those languorous, seductive creatures, anyhow. I have such
wonderful
thoughts and feelings. I don’t know where I get them if that isn’t the explanation. And Terry is so terribly matter-of-fact He can’t be a reincarnation of anybody. What he said when I told him about Vera Fry’s quill pen proves that, doesn’t it, Miss Shirley?’

‘But I never heard of Vera Fry’s quill pen,’ said Anne patiently.

‘Oh, haven’t you? I thought I’d told you. I’ve told you so much. Vera’s
fiancé
gave her a quill pen he’d made out of a feather he’d picked up that had fallen from a crow’s wing. He said to her, “Let your spirit soar to heaven with it whenever you use it, like the bird who once bore it.” Wasn’t that just
wonderful
? But Terry said the pen would wear out very soon, especially if Vera wrote as much as she talked, and, anyway, he didn’t think crows ever soared to heaven. He just missed the meaning of the whole thing completely, its very essence.’

‘What
was
its meaning?’

‘Oh, why – why –
soaring
, you know. Getting away from the clods of earth. Did you notice Vera’s ring? A sapphire. I think sapphires are too dark for engagement rings. I’d rather have your dear, romantic little hoop of pearls. Terry wanted to give me my ring right away, but I said not yet awhile; it would seem like a fetter – so
irrevocable
, you know. I wouldn’t have felt like that if I’d really loved him, would I?’

‘No, I’m afraid not.’

‘It’s been so
wonderful
to tell somebody what I really feel like. Oh, Miss Shirley, if I could only find myself free again, free to seek the deeper meaning of life! Terry wouldn’t understand what I meant if I said
that
to him. And I know he has a temper: all the Garlands have. Oh, Miss Shirley, if you would just talk to him, tell him what I feel like… He thinks you’re
wonderful
. He’d be guided by what you say.

‘Hazel, my dear little girl, how could I do that?’

‘I don’t see why not.’ Hazel finished the last half-moon and laid the orangewood stick down tragically. ‘If you can’t there isn’t any help
anywhere
. But I can never,
never
,
NEVER
marry Terry Garland.’

‘If you don’t love Terry you ought to go to him and tell him so, no matter how badly it will make him feel. Some day you’ll meet someone you can really love, Hazel dear. You won’t have any doubts then. You’ll
know
.’

‘I shall never love
anybody
again,’ said Hazel, stonily calm. ‘Love brings only sorrow. Young as I am, I have learned
that
. This would make a wonderful plot for one of your stories, wouldn’t it, Miss Shirley?… I must be going. I’d no idea it was
so
late. I feel so much better since I’ve confided in you – “touched your soul in shadowland”, as Shakespeare says.’

‘I think it was Pauline Johnson,’ said Anne gently.

‘Well, I knew it was somebody, somebody who had
lived
. I think I shall sleep tonight, Miss Shirley. I’ve hardly slept since I found myself engaged to Terry – without the
least
notion how it had all come about.’

Hazel fluffed out her hair and put on her hat, a hat with a rosy lining to its brim and rosy blossoms round it. She looked so distractingly pretty in it that Anne kissed her impulsively.