Anne of Windy Poplars - L. M. Montgomery [81]
‘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