Anne of Windy Poplars - L. M. Montgomery [86]
12
A week later a letter came for Anne, written on pale blue paper edged with silver:
DEAR MISS SHIRLEY,
I am writing this to tell you that all misunderstanding is cleared away between Terry and me, and we are so deeply, intensely, wonderfully happy that we have decided we can forgive you. Terry says he was just moonlighted into making love to you, but that his heart never really swerved in its allegiance to me. He says he really likes sweet, simple girls, that all men do, and has no use for intriguing, designing ones. We don’t understand why you behaved to us as you did; we never will understand. Perhaps you just wanted material for a story, and thought you could find it in tampering with the first sweet, tremulous love of a girl. But we thank you for revealing us to ourselves. Terry says he never realized the deeper meaning of life before. So really it was all for the best. We are so sympathetic; we can feel each other’s thoughts. Nobody understands him but me, and I want to be a source of inspiration to him for ever. I am not clever like you, but I feel I can be that, for we are soul-mates, and have vowed eternal truth and constancy to each other, no matter how many jealous people and false friends may try to make trouble between us.
We are going to be married as soon as I have my trousseau ready. I am going up to Boston to get it. There really isn’t anything in Summerside. My dress is to be white moiré, and my travelling suit will be dove grey, with hat, gloves, and blouse of delphinium blue. Of course, I’m very young, but I want to be married when I am young, before the bloom goes off life.
Terry is all that my wildest dreams could picture, and every thought of my heart is for him alone. I know we are going to be rapturously happy. Once I believed all my friends would rejoice with me in my happiness, but I have learned a bitter lesson in worldly wisdom since then.
Yours truly,
HAZEL MARR
P.S. You told me Terry had such a temper. Why, he’s a perfect lamb, his sister says. H.M.
P.S. 2. I’ve heard that lemon-juice will bleach freckles. You might try it on your nose. H.M.
‘To quote Rebecca Dew,’ remarked Anne to Dusty Miller, ‘postscript Number Two is the last straw.’
13
Anne went home for her second Summerside vacation with mixed feelings. Gilbert was not to be in Avonlea that summer. He had gone west to work on a new railway that was being built. But Green Gables was still Green Gables, and Avonlea was still Avonlea. The Lake of Shining Waters shone and sparkled as of old. The ferns still grew as thickly over the Dryad’s Bubble, and the log bridge, though it was a little crumblier and mossier every year, still led up to the shadows and silences and wind-songs of the Haunted Wood.
And Anne had prevailed on Mrs Campbell to let little Elizabeth go home with her for a fortnight – no more. But Elizabeth, looking forward to two whole weeks with Miss Shirley, asked no more of life.
‘I feel like Miss Elizabeth today,’ she told Anne with a sigh of delightful excitement, as they drove away from Windy Willows. ‘Will you please call me “Miss Elizabeth” when you introduce me to your friends at Green Gables? It would make me feel so grown up.’
‘I will,’ promised Anne gravely, remembering a small, red-headed damsel who had once begged to be called Cordelia.
Elizabeth’s drive from Bright river to Green Gables, over a road which only Prince Edward Island in June can show, was almost as ecstatic a thing for her as it had been for Anne that memorable spring evening so many years ago. The world was beautiful, with wind-rippled meadows on every hand and surprises lurking round every corner. She was with her beloved Miss Shirley; she would be free from the Woman for two whole weeks; she had a new pink gingham dress and a pair of lovely new brown boots. It was almost as if Tomorrow was