House of Dreams

by Liz Rosenberg

  Grandfather Montgomery tried to provide company on their long journey west, but he was quite deaf — and trains in those days were noisy, dusty affairs. Conversation was impossible. Maud stayed in her tiny sleeping berth — so cramped that she kept sitting up too quickly and banging her head on the ceiling. The one place she could safely venture on her own was the balcony of the Ladies’ Parlor, where she could only sit and wait and hope to be addressed. One old lady plied her with questions — till she discovered Maud was Presbyterian. Hearing this, she fled without another word. Another “Yankee” lady, who seemed at first severe and silent, turned out to be friendly and companionable. Maud was sorry to see her depart on the Halifax train.

  When they stopped at a city, Grandfather Montgomery would disappear for hours, leaving Maud to fend for herself. She’d steel herself to disembark and walk around the train depot — usually on the outskirts of town, as in Winnipeg, which, she wrote, looked as if someone had tossed out a handful of houses and streets “and forgotten to sort them out afterwards.” But then, she consoled herself, the real town might be a good deal more promising — if only she could get anywhere near it.

  On August 18, 1890, after more than a week of grueling travel, Maud and Grandfather Montgomery pulled into the western town of Regina. There, a marvelous surprise awaited them. Grandfather left to check for the mail. He came back a little while later declaring that he had a special friend who wanted to see Maud. She opened her door and nearly fell into the arms of her father.

  Maud had not laid eyes on Hugh John in five years. He had not changed from the merry, openhearted man she’d adored. Father and daughter laughed and cried for joy. That instant of reunion made the whole arduous journey worthwhile. Hugh John arranged to drive them around Regina — a barren place in those days — but Maud couldn’t take her eyes off her father.

  The next day they set off by caboose and then buckboard for Prince Albert. The countryside was covered with gay blue wildflowers. Prince Albert was less than thirty years old, barely more than a settlement along the riverbank. It was too new for its own train station. In 1890, the year Maud arrived, Prince Albert had a population of a little over one thousand, in addition to the Indian settlement to the west. Where everything back home in Cavendish was familiar and filtered through hundreds of years of history, Prince Albert was true pioneer country — raw and untested.

  Hugh John had given his modest new house the lofty name Eglintoun Villa in honor of the family’s supposed connection to the Scottish earls of Eglinton. Hugh John had met and married his boss’s stepdaughter, Mary Ann McRae, niece of a railway millionaire. They had lived exiled in Battleford for three years before moving back to Eglintoun Villa with their growing family. It was to Eglintoun Villa, her new house of dreams, that Maud came with such high hopes that August afternoon.

  Maud met her new “Mamma” and her two-and-a-half-year-old half sister, Kate, “a very pretty child.” The newest member of the household was Edith Skelton, or Edie, a girl Maud’s age responsible for helping Mary Ann Montgomery with household chores.

  Maud quickly became friends with Edie — and just as quickly grew to dislike her twenty-seven-year-old stepmother. Maud had been brought west to serve as a mother’s helper and unpaid nanny — treated more like a servant than a family member. The name “Mamma” quickly fell by the wayside, though Maud used it to please her father around company. Otherwise Mary Ann Montgomery was simply “Mrs. Montgomery” to her stepdaughter.

  Hugh John earned too little to please his ambitious young wife. He worked numerous jobs at once, as homestead assessor, auctioneer, real estate salesman, and inspector for the local railroad. The Senator had already helped financially and in locating employment for his son out west. Now Hugh John was on his own. Mary Ann Montgomery had grown up in wealth and comfort. She nagged her husband to earn more and mocked him for his dreams of grandeur. With one small child at home and pregnant again, Mary Ann resented Maud’s presence in the house. She told Hugh John that his pet names for his older daughter were “babyish” and wouldn’t let him use them. She begrudged any time that father and daughter spent alone together. She was determined never to wait on Maud, refusing even to pour her a cup of tea at mealtime.

  Maud had come hoping to be welcomed as a daughter. Instead she became a Cinderella figure in her father’s home. Maud shared a small room with Edie. When Mrs. Montgomery left the house, she locked up the pantry. Mary Ann spent days at a time not speaking to Maud at all. She forbade the five-foot-five-inch Maud to wear her hair up, for fear that an older daughter would make her look old. Maud felt desperately homesick. It was only her hopes of a good education, and the sight of her father looking at her with eyes that “just shine with love” that kept her in Prince Albert.

  Maud and Edie attended the same small free public high school in town. There were only nine pupils, six boys and three girls, including Mrs. Montgomery’s half sister, Annie McTaggart. The young teacher, John Mustard (“What a funny name!” Maud exclaimed in her diary), was a former school friend of Mrs. Montgomery’s. John Mustard was well educated and ambitious, studying to become a minister.

  The old Prince Albert schoolhouse had burned down, so Maud and her schoolmates had their classes in the town hall, formerly a hotel. Their tiny classroom doubled as a ladies’ dressing room on ball nights, and students would find hairpins, feathers, flowers, and an occasional broken hand mirror on the floor the next morning. The police headquarters and town jail were located there in the schoolhouse. Petty criminals and drunks were locked up right behind their classroom. Maud once went exploring and accidentally locked herself into a jail cell.

  Maud disliked her new schoolmaster, Mr. Mustard, though he was strikingly handsome — fair-haired and tall, with blue eyes and a “golden moustache which he cultivates very carefully.” But she did not believe he would make “a very brilliant preacher.” The teacher’s long-standing friendship with her stepmother didn’t improve Maud’s opinion of him. John Mustard was intelligent, but he taught stiffly, by rote, without the energy Maud was used to from Miss Gordon. He was authoritarian, and did not hesitate to use a leather whip on boys who misbehaved.

  Maud decided to earn her teacher’s degree, adding to her coursework. Maud liked going to school, especially as more students arrived. Earning a teaching degree would give her credentials she could use in the future. And Grandfather Macneill was not there to oppose her plans.

  By October, young Edie had fled the Montgomery household. Mrs. Montgomery had pressed Edie to spy on Maud, though the loyal Edie resisted. Hugh John was always away on business, trying to earn money every way possible. More and more household duties fell upon Maud, and her relationship with her stepmother unraveled. Mrs. Montgomery opened and read Maud’s letters from home and would certainly have read Maud’s journal had she not kept it carefully locked and hidden away.

  Winter brought record-breaking cold to Prince Albert, with temperatures plummeting many degrees below zero. It also brought an unexpected gentleman caller to the Montgomery household — the schoolmaster himself, John Mustard.

  Maud’s father was out that first evening, so Maud ran to tell her stepmother John Mustard was there, only to find that Mrs. Montgomery had mysteriously jumped into bed, clothes and all, and refused to come downstairs. Mary Ann Montgomery clearly believed she’d found a good match for her stepdaughter and was doing her best to move things along. So Maud was left to entertain Mr. Mustard for the evening — the first of many long evenings to follow.

  Maud was clever and vivacious, a good student, and, John Mustard had obviously decided, a likely prospect for a minister’s wife. He did not take any of Maud’s hints that she disagreed. He couldn’t be put off by her coolness, even when it bordered on outright rudeness. He went on calling night after night, while Mrs. Montgomery kept herself conveniently out of sight.

  By day in the classroom John Mustard was often low-spirited or sulky for no apparent reason. But back he would come again, each week, hat
in hand. “And he is such a bore!” Maud fumed. All winter and spring, Mr. Mustard continued his unwelcome calls. She found the courtship unbearable. Even Maud’s father joined in the teasing, grinning each time he asked her at the dinner table to pass him the mustard.

  That spring, Maud made two treasured new friends: a brother and sister named Will and Laura Pritchard. Like most girls in town, Laura attended the local private convent school — but Mrs. Montgomery was not about to spend good money on Maud when a free education was available. The friends found ways to be together after school. Laura and Maud could talk happily for hours on any and every subject imaginable. “We are twin spirits in every way,” Maud declared.

  Laura’s brother Will was Maud’s favorite classmate. He had red hair, bright green eyes, and a mischievous, crooked smile. He brought liveliness and high spirits into their dull classroom. The day he arrived, sitting in the row behind Maud, he told her he couldn’t concentrate with her beautiful hair right in front of him. He had a natural warmth that enchanted Maud, and soon he and Maud were cracking jokes, passing notes — and driving poor Mr. Mustard crazy. The threesome went out for long moonlight rides, joking, talking, stargazing. Here for the first time ever in her life, Maud declared that she had found her true “kindred spirits.”

  That winter there was one more glory to come. Maud had never forgotten her grandfather’s favorite tale, an exciting one about Cape LeForce. She’d composed a new poem about it and sent it off to the Charlottetown Patriot. Maud’s father presented her with a copy of the newspaper when it arrived by mail. Right there in print, for all the world to see, was Maud’s own poem! The paper shook in her hands; the letters of her name danced in front of her eyes. Here at last was a real, true publication.

  Maud called it “the proudest day” of her life. Hugh John was openly delighted; he praised Maud to the skies, while his wife merely glanced at the paper and refused to utter a word of congratulations.

  That winter, with the new baby due any time, Hugh John made a sudden turn toward politics. His luck and timing were poor, as always. He shifted his alliance from his father’s Conservative party to the Liberal ticket — and promptly lost his bid for parliament.

  In February, Mary Ann gave birth to a son named Donald Bruce. She hired a girl to replace Edie and gave her Maud’s own treasured “Southview” room. But the new girl lasted only a few days. She declared that Mrs. Montgomery was “too cross and particular” to bear. Mary Ann didn’t even pretend to look for new hired help. Instead she put Maud to work. The new baby was colicky; nerves were strained. Mary Ann used her energy to care for her two children. All the rest of the household drudgery fell upon Maud.

  It was impossible for Maud to keep up with all the chores and do schoolwork, too. The choice was clear. Maud had to drop out of the Prince Albert school altogether. She held up as best she could and refused to complain, “because it would make father feel so bad.” But the teenager began to suffer from headaches that would plague her the rest of her life.

  Maud confided her troubles only to her journal. Writing was her one escape. She kept on composing poems, stories, and articles as well writing in her diary. The poem printed in the Charlottetown paper had given her hope. She diligently practiced the “art she worshipped.” She later wrote of this period that the “flame of an ambition to write something big was beginning to sear my soul.” Her essay was published in the Prince Albert Times and Saskatchewan Review and reprinted in the Winnipeg papers. Another story won a prize competition and appeared in the Montreal Witness.

  Her father sang Maud’s praises to anyone who would listen. Her stepmother pointedly ignored each new success. But Maud was sixteen now, and determined. Years earlier she had clipped from a magazine a poem called “The Fringed Gentian” and pasted it into her writing portfolio. She quoted it in her Emily books, and later it was used as the title for her reissued memoir, The Alpine Path. She clung to those verses as a teenager doing backbreaking, thankless household work thousands of miles from home.

  Then whisper, blossom, in thy sleep

  How I may upward climb

  The Alpine path, so hard, so steep,

  That leads to heights sublime?

  How I may reach the far-off goal

  Of true and honored fame,

  To write upon its shining scroll

  A woman’s humble name.

  Though Maud no longer could attend school, she still enjoyed church events and Sunday school, and took part in school recitals, where her gifts won special praise in the local paper. Her father stayed away more often than ever, and Mary Ann Montgomery was harried and distracted. Once Maud’s chores were done, there was no one to supervise her. For the first time, she conducted a social life unchaperoned — attending tobogganing parties, picnics, and excursions, even dances in the nearby army barracks. The elderly Macneills would have been horrified — but of course Maud did not report to them.

  Maud felt terribly homesick, despite the social whirl. She wrote to her friend Penzie that the day she would return to Cavendish “will be the happiest one of my life.” She had traveled to Prince Albert in high hopes of getting a fine education and obtaining a teaching degree — and all that had fallen away. Even her coveted independence turned stale. Like a child who can finally eat all the junk food she likes, Maud found her new freedom lacked nourishment. No one watched over her, no one put her well-being first. Her only true friends were Will and Laura Pritchard, but both attended school during the day.

  John Mustard kept calling on Maud in the evenings, sometimes as often as three times a week, though she offered no encouragement. By now his romantic intentions were unmistakable, even to Maud, who had a gift for ignoring the obvious. She found her suitor interesting only when he talked about theology — but on nearly every other subject he was deadly tedious. She resented her stepmother’s assumption that John Mustard was a great catch. Maud wanted more than security; she craved a kindred spirit. She was barely civil to John Mustard’s face and mocked him cruelly in her journals.

  John Mustard was to prove himself a loyal friend to Maud all her life. He was an intelligent young man with a fine future ahead. He became a popular and highly respected minister, despite Maud’s dismissal. “Hate is only love that has missed its way,” Maud once wrote. She would come to regret her teenage rudeness, and puzzle over John Mustard’s early devotion to a hopeless cause.

  The poor man finally gathered his courage and asked Maud if she could see their friendship growing into something else.

  “I don’t see what it can develop into, Mr. Mustard,” she replied coolly.

  There were tears in his eyes, but none in Maud’s. She was relieved that the long, futile courtship was over. “I never could understand why John Mustard endured it. I was a pretty girl, but I was never such a distracting beauty that a man would be involved in such an infatuation. . . . Yet he kept up the crazy pursuit until he had to be flatly refused. . . . I have always felt queerly ashamed of the whole incident.”

  By spring, it was agreed that Maud would return home to Cavendish. Her stepmother was glad to get rid of her sulky teenage stepdaughter. Mary Ann didn’t even come to the station to say good-bye. Her father, that gentlest of men, may have been relieved to see an end to the squabbles — for if Maud refused to complain, Mary Ann Montgomery felt no such compunction.

  Maud felt very differently saying good-bye to the charming, green-eyed Will Pritchard than to John Mustard. Maud described Will as “the nicest boy” she’d ever known. She would not admit even to herself how strongly she felt. If Maud was lying to herself, she did it convincingly — she was, after all, a budding young fiction writer. “He just seems like a brother or a jolly good comrade,” she insisted in her journal.

  But in Maud’s last few days in Prince Albert, she was anxiously waiting for something. Time was running out. Will Pritchard always said “pretty things” to her, but nothing as definite as John Mustard. Laura Pritchard assured Maud that Will would be brokenhearted after s
he left. She told Maud, “I know this — he just worships the ground you tread on.” Will asked for Maud’s photograph, for a lock of her hair, and he coaxed from her finger a little gold ring that she always wore — “but then,” Maud admitted, “he didn’t have to coax very hard.”

  Their final farewell was sad, “dream-like,” and rather formal. He was going away on a short trip the next day. Will held out a hand to say good-bye and said to “have a very happy time — and don’t forget me.” He gave Maud a sealed going-away letter. Then they shook hands and parted.

  That night, Maud opened Will’s letter. In it he confessed that he loved her — but he had already left town. If he hadn’t been so far away, Maud confessed, she might have run after him. Instead she boarded the train for home the next morning.

  It was unthinkable in those days for a young woman to make such a long, harrowing journey alone. Yet that is just what Maud did. She had no other option. The solitary teenager passed through endless miles of dull prairie landscape, crowded upright, crammed three-in-a-row into train seats meant to accommodate two. She catnapped as best she could. Maud had to change trains several times, find her own overnight accommodations in strange cities, and walk through rough city streets unescorted. She boarded over noisy saloons. Her solitude made her an easy target for thieves and worse. She was sixteen, slender, and shapely, no longer a child. Mary Rubio, one of the great authorities on the life and work of L. M. Montgomery, writes flatly, “No decent father would have allowed his sixteen-year-old daughter to make such a trip alone.”

  Maud met the challenge head-on and with her eyes open. She admired the countryside, relished the spray off the Great Lakes, and spent her Sunday night in a saloon, jotting notes under a brilliant electric light with the din of the bar crowd around her. In Toronto, Maud called on family friends only to find they were not home — so she spent five hours sociably chatting with the governess and children.