Anne of Windy Poplars - L. M. Montgomery [82]
‘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.
‘You’re the prettiest thing, darling,’ she said admiringly.
Hazel stood very still. Then she lifted her eyes and stared clear through the ceiling of the tower room, clear through the attic above it, and sought the stars.
‘I shall never, never forget this wonderful moment, Miss Shirley,’ she murmured rapturously. ‘I feel that my beauty – if I have any – has been consecrated. Oh, Miss Shirley, you don’t know how really terrible it is to have a reputation for beauty, and to be always afraid that when people meet you they will not think you as pretty as you were reported to be. It’s torture. Sometimes I just die of mortification because I fancy I can see they’re disappointed. Perhaps