L. M. MONTGOMERY Ultimate Collection: 20 Novels & 170+ Short Stories, Poems, Letters and Autobiography. Lucy Maud Montgomery
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“That child!”
“You’re engaged to ‘that child,’ aren’t you?” said Anne severely.
“Not really engaged … nothing but some boy-and-girl nonsense. I … I guess I was just swept off my feet by the moonlight.”
Anne did a bit of rapid thinking. If Terry really cared so little for Hazel as this, the child was far better freed from him. Perhaps this was a heavensent opportunity to extricate them both from the silly tangle they had got themselves into and from which neither of them, taking things with all the deadly seriousness of youth, knew how to escape.
“Of course,” went on Terry, misinterpreting her silence. “I’m in a bit of a predicament, I’ll own. I’m afraid Hazel has taken me a little bit too seriously, and I don’t just know the best way to open her eyes to her mistake.”
Impulsive Anne assumed her most maternal look.
“Terry, you are a couple of children playing at being grown up. Hazel doesn’t really care anything more for you than you do for her. Apparently the moonlight affected both of you. She wants to be free but is afraid to tell you so for fear of hurting your feelings. She’s just a bewildered, romantic girl and you’re a boy in love with love, and some day you’ll both have a good laugh at yourselves.”
(“I think I’ve put that very nicely,” thought Anne complacently.)
Terry drew a long breath.
“You’ve taken a weight off my mind, Anne. Hazel’s a sweet little thing, of course, I hated to think of hurting her, but I’ve realized my … our … mistake for some weeks. When one meets a woman … the woman … you’re not going in yet, Anne? Is all this good moonlight to be wasted? You look like a white rose in the moonlight … Anne… .”
But Anne had flown.
Chapter XI
Anne, correcting examination papers in the tower room one mid-June evening, paused to wipe her nose. She had wiped it so often that evening that it was rosy-red and rather painful. The truth was that Anne was the victim of a very severe and very unromantic cold in the head. It would not allow her to enjoy the soft green sky behind the hemlocks of The Evergreens, the silver-white moon hanging over the Storm King, the haunting perfume of the lilacs below her window or the frosty, blue-penciled irises in the vase on her table. It darkened all her past and overshadowed all her future.
“A cold in the head in June is an immoral thing,” she told Dusty Miller, who was meditating on the windowsill. “But in two weeks from today I’ll be in dear Green Gables instead of stewing here over examination papers full of howlers and wiping a worn-out nose. Think of it, Dusty Miller.”
Apparently Dusty Miller thought of it. He may also have thought that the young lady who was hurrying along Spook’s Lane and down the road and along the perennial path looked angry and disturbed and un-June-like. It was Hazel Marr, only a day back from Kingsport, and evidently a much disturbed Hazel Marr, who, a few minutes later, burst stormily into the tower room without waiting for a reply to her sharp knock.
“Why, Hazel dear …” (Kershoo!) … “are you back from Kingsport already? I didn’t expect you till next week.”
“No, I suppose you didn’t,” said Hazel sarcastically. “Yes, Miss Shirley, I am back. And what do I find? That you have been doing your best to lure Terry away from me … and all but succeeding.”
“Hazel!” (Kershoo!)
“Oh, I know it all! You told Terry I didn’t love him … that I wanted to break our engagement … our sacred engagement!”
“Hazel … child!” (Kershoo!)
“Oh, yes, sneer at me … sneer at everything. But don’t try to deny it. You did it … and you did it deliberately.”
“Of course, I did. You asked me to.”
“I … asked … you … to!”
“Here, in this very room. You told me you didn’t love him and could never marry him.”
“Oh, just a mood, I suppose. I never dreamed you’d take me seriously. I thought you would understand the artistic temperament. You’re ages older than I am, of course, but even you can’t have forgotten the crazy ways girls talk … feel. You who pretended to be my friend!”
“This must be a nightmare,” thought poor Anne, wiping her nose. “Sit down, Hazel … do.”
“Sit down!” Hazel flew wildly up and down the room. “How can I sit down … how can anybody sit down when her life is in ruins all about her? Oh, if that is what being old does to you … jealous of younger people’s happiness and determined to wreck it … I shall pray never to grow old.”
Anne’s hand suddenly tingled to box Hazel’s ears with a strange horrible primitive tingle of desire. She slew it so instantly that she would never believe afterwards that she had really felt it. But she did think a little gentle chastisement was indicated.
“If you can’t sit down and talk sensibly, Hazel, I wish you would go away.” (A very violent kershoo.) “I have work to do.” (Sniff … sniff … snuffle!)
“I am not going away till I have told you just what I think of you. Oh, I know I’ve only myself to blame … I should have known … I did know. I felt instinctively the first time I saw you that you were dangerous. That red hair and those green eyes! But I never dreamed you’d go so far as to make trouble between me and Terry. I thought you were a Christian at least. I never heard of any one doing such a thing. Well, you’ve broken my heart, if that is any satisfaction to you.”
“You little goose …”
“I won’t talk to you! Oh, Terry and I were so happy before you spoiled everything. I was so happy … the first girl of my set to be engaged. I even had my wedding all planned out … four bridesmaids in lovely pale blue silk dresses with black velvet ribbon on the flounces. So chic! Oh, I don’t know if I hate you the most or pity you the most! Oh, how could you treat me like this … after I’ve loved you so … trusted you so … believed in you so!”
Hazel’s voice broke … her eyes filled with tears … she collapsed on a rocking-chair.
“You can’t have many exclamation points left,” thought Anne, “but no doubt the supply of italics is inexhaustible.”
“This will just about kill poor Momma,” sobbed Hazel. “She was so pleased … everybody was so pleased … they all thought it an ideal match. Oh, can anything ever again be like it used to be?”
“Wait till the next moonlight night and try,” said Anne gently.
“Oh, yes, laugh, Miss Shirley … laugh at my suffering. I have not the least doubt that you find it all very amusing … very amusing indeed! You don’t know what suffering is! It is terrible … terrible!”
Anne looked at the clock and sneezed.
“Then don’t suffer,” she said unpityingly.
“I will suffer. My feelings are very deep. Of course a shallow soul wouldn’t suffer. But I am thankful I am not shallow whatever else I am. Have you any idea what it means to be in love, Miss Shirley? Really, terribly deeply, wonderfully in love? And then to trust and be deceived? I went to Kingsport so happy … loving all the world! I told Terry to be good to you while I was away … not to let you be lonesome. I came home last night so happy. And he told me he didn’t love me any longer … that it was