Anne of Windy Poplars - L. M. Montgomery [83]
Having a nose, Anne could.
‘Isn’t it just divine? I hope heaven will be all flowers. One could be good if one lived in a lily, couldn’t one?’
‘I’m afraid it might be a little confining,’ said Anne perversely.
‘Oh, Miss Shirley, don’t, don’t be sarcastic with your little adorer! Sarcasm just shrivels me up like a leaf.’
‘I see she hasn’t talked you quite to death,’ said Rebecca Dew, when Anne had come back after seeing Hazel to the end of Spook’s Lane. ‘I don’t see how you put up with her.’
‘I like her, Rebecca, I really do. I was a dreadful little chatterbox when I was a child. I wonder if I sounded as silly to the people who had to listen to me as Hazel does sometimes?’
‘I didn’t know you when you was a child, but I’m sure you didn’t,’ said Rebecca. ‘Because you would mean what you said, no matter how you expressed it, and Hazel Marr doesn’t. She’s nothing but skim milk pretending to be cream.’
‘Oh, of course she dramatizes herself a bit, as most girls do, but I think she means some of the things she says,’ said Anne, thinking of Terry. Perhaps it was because she had a rather poor opinion of the said Terry that she believed Hazel was quite in earnest in all she said about him. Anne thought Hazel was throwing herself away on Terry in spite of the ten thousand he was ‘coming into’. Anne considered Terry a good-looking, rather weak youth who would fall in love with the first pretty girl who made eyes at him, and would, with equal facility, fall in love with the next one if Number One turned him down or left him alone too long.
Anne had seen a good deal of Terry that spring, for Hazel had insisted on her playing gooseberry frequently; and she was destined to see more of him, for Hazel went to visit friends in Kingsport, and during her absence Terry rather attached himself to Anne, taking her out for rides and ‘seeing her home’ from places. They called each other ‘Anne’ and ‘Terry’, for they were about the same age, although Anne felt quite motherly towards him. Terry felt immensely flattered that ‘the clever Miss Shirley’ seemed to like his companionship, and he became so sentimental the night of May Connelly’s party, in a moonlit garden where the shadows of the acacias blew crazily about, that Anne amusedly reminded him of the absent Hazel.
‘Oh, Hazel!’ said Terry. ‘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 as little for Hazel as this the child was far better freed from him. Perhaps this was a heaven-sent 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