She leaned her head against his chest. They fit together so well.
Will rubbed her back, and she dared to look up at him and looped her arms around his neck. “Take good care of my ring,” she said.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Maud and Will were as discreet as possible. And, as Laura would say, Providence provided many opportunities for them to meet. There was Bible Study at the manse and, as Will predicted, now that the weather was getting warmer, there were picnics almost every weekend. Maud still hadn’t heard from Grandma, so she decided that she might as well enjoy what time she had left. And what better way than with people she adored.
One of the trustees, Mr. McArthur, held a special picnic on his ranch to celebrate Queen Victoria’s birthday. The ranch was twelve miles out of town, and Maud drove out with Lottie, Alexena, and Dr. and Mrs. Stovel over a beautiful trail. Mrs. Montgomery had one of her headaches, so Father stayed home with her.
“Have you been working on your writing, Maud?” Dr. Stovel asked from the front seat. Since her publication in the Charlottetown Patriot, he was always asking what she was writing.
“I have been reworking a poem I started in Cavendish called ‘June,’ ” Maud said.
“Marvelous,” he said.
“I don’t know how you do it, Maud,” Lottie said. “Words don’t come to me easily. I sometimes have a hard time writing a letter.”
“Maybe it is who you are writing it to,” Alexena said. “I know there are people whom I don’t care to write to and my letters to them are dull. But then there are others…”
“Such as Frank?” Lottie teased.
“Perhaps,” Alexena said, picking an imaginary piece of dirt off her sleeve. “But that is not who I meant.”
“Ladies,” Mrs. Stovel said. “It isn’t appropriate to talk about these matters, particularly around Dr. Stovel.”
Alexena was about to open her mouth in retort when Maud interjected. “I think the poem on June is almost ready to send for publication.”
“I would love to read it,” Dr. Stovel said.
“Dr. Stovel scribbles a bit himself,” Mrs. Stovel said.
“My wife is much too kind,” he said. “I dabble in what some might call writing, but I have no aspirations.”
“I’m sure that isn’t so,” Maud said. “Truthfully, I rarely share anything with anyone before I think it is ready.” It was rare she could find someone to discuss writing with anyway.
When they arrived, Maud, Lottie, and Alexena helped Mrs. Stovel set up her basket, and then Maud went looking for Laura and Will. She found them helping their mother set up her basket, with a number of their siblings running around. Mrs. Pritchard had the same kind eyes as Laura, and had given Will her sturdy chin; she appeared exhausted, but she had a pleasant smile.
Maud helped the siblings finish unpacking the last of the luncheon. She and Will had decided to take a long walk when Dr. Stovel came over, insisting they join in on a baseball game. Maud hadn’t played sports in a long time and she was rusty and winded quickly, but it felt good to run and focus on winning a simple game of ball, rather than wondering about what would happen to her if Grandma and Grandfather Macneill wouldn’t take her. Would she have to rely on one of her other cousins? Depend on their charity? It was so frustrating to wait, but there was little else she could do.
After the game, Maud was on her way to find refreshments with Will, Laura, and Dr. Stovel when J.D. Maveety, the editor of the Prince Albert Times, approached them. The three friends saw this as a good opportunity to go off on their own, but the editor stopped Maud and said, “I was thoroughly impressed with the way you conducted yourself at the Reverend’s manse on Sunday, Miss Montgomery.” Maud smiled. She had led the Bible Study the previous week for the second time, choosing Timothy 4:12, the same verse that had inspired her last year at the Reverend Mr. Carruthers’s lecture.
“Thank you,” she said.
“I also read your essay on the Marco Polo,” Mr. Maveety said. “Actually, Stovel and I here were talking about it, and we wondered if you would be willing to write a piece for us on your perspective on our town.”
Maud wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly. “You want me to write for you?”
Mr. Maveety laughed. “Yes! You heard correctly.”
She felt lightheaded as she heard herself agreeing.
The rest of the day was a haze. Maud kept thinking about the kind of article she would write about Prince Albert. Mr. Maveety was looking for a piece that would show how much she loved Prince Albert. She certainly couldn’t write about the disappointment she’d experienced here. She thought she would find a loving family, the promise of a fine future. Not what happened at school. Not what happened to Edie. Not—thinking about what Prime Minister Macdonald had said on the train about his plans for the Indians—those poor, hungry men shuffling under blankets.
She remembered how the Cree and Métis women had told stories and secrets while they picked berries that day across the river, and how hard they worked to create those beautiful beaded clothes for trade. She had read how one day they will all be gone.
And suddenly, she understood.
All that she had imagined about coming to Prince Albert—about her father’s house, even about what she’d thought the Indians would be like, something out of Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans—had been a lie.
She was so focused on these musings that she agreed to Will’s offer of a ride home without a second thought, forgetting what people might say about seeing them together. Indeed, for once she didn’t care. She would be leaving soon anyway.
“Isn’t this out of your way?” Maud said, noticing this only when they were halfway home. He didn’t answer, and Maud realized that he hadn’t said anything for a while.
“Are you all right?” she asked, retracing the afternoon in her mind. She really had been hazy! Perhaps Will had felt ignored?
“Yes,” he said. “I’m trying to think about how to tell you something.”
Maud wrapped her shawl around herself.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I sometimes get lost in my head.”
Will stopped the buggy on the side of the road under a few trees.
“Why are you apologizing?” he said, taking her hand. She stroked her ring on his finger. It was somehow comforting seeing it there.
“I feel dreadful about this, but my father wants to send me to Battleford for a few days on business. I told him I didn’t want to go.” He paused. “But when he pressed me for a reason why, I couldn’t tell him. Forgive me, Maud; I knew Father wouldn’t understand me not wanting to leave you. I would have to explain to him who—what—we are to each other.”
What could she say? Here was a boy who didn’t want to leave her, even for only a few days. Couldn’t she stay in Prince Albert for him? Maybe things between them really could be as they dreamed: her writing, him farming. She had never really considered marrying a farmer, but there was something about being with Will that made her imagine it could be possible. He encouraged her writing and certainly wouldn’t stop her from doing it, but when she imagined a life with no more education, something hollow swept up inside her.
She held his hand. “I’ll be here when you get back.”
“At least”—he kissed one cheek and then the other—“we are here now.”
—
Will left the first week in June. And despite herself, Maud missed him dreadfully. “It’s only a few days,” she had told him. “You won’t be gone long enough for us to miss each other.”
But she found herself looking for him in the library when she was teaching Sunday School, wishing he was sitting beside her in Bible Study. She realized she had become used to him being on one side of her, while Laura was on the other.
Father had finally hired a new maid, so Mrs. Montgomery stopped complaining about not having help because her stepdaughter was out “gallivanting with that Pritchard boy.”
Having a writing project made it easier. Maud w
orked on the piece for the Times, and read other articles in the paper to become familiar with its style. She focused on every detail, making sure she didn’t forget to mention the characteristics of the town and its people, but she struggled with the balance of honestly showing the things she’d seen while delivering what she knew people were expecting to read. Mr. Maveety was expecting an essay describing how Prince Albert and Saskatchewan were an important part of the Dominion. But she knew that it wasn’t the whole story. Nor was it one that people were ready to hear. At least not directly. Mr. Maveety was giving her a chance and she couldn’t waste it. Still, there were things here she couldn’t ignore. And she wrote and rewrote whole passages about the Cree people. But it felt false.
—
Maud would never have believed it, but the solution ultimately came in the form of one bashful and horribly awkward suitor.
Oblivious to Maud’s complete disregard of him, Mr. Mustard continued to call in the evenings when she wasn’t at Bible Study or out with Will and Laura. One night, he called with flowers and they went for a walk. She couldn’t think of an excuse not to go. Bruce and Katie were in the care of the new nanny, and there was nothing she could do but go with him.
Another night, when Father and Mrs. Montgomery had left her alone with the children, Mr. Mustard arrived, his thin mustache looking thinner than usual.
“I’ve been thinking, Miss Montgomery, of making a change,” he said, when they sat down in their usual spot in the parlor, with Maud holding her sleepy baby brother. “I don’t believe my calling is teaching.”
Maud heartily agreed, but held her tongue and let him continue.
“But I’m not sure what the Almighty wishes of me.” He frowned. “What do you think I should do?”
Maud said, as seriously as she could, “I couldn’t ever tell you what you should do.”
“I’ve been considering going back East, perhaps attending Knox College in Toronto to be a minister.”
“I see.” Maud tried to keep her composure by rocking Bruce.
“Yes, a minister.” He smoothed his mustache with his index finger and thumb. “What do you think, Miss Montgomery?”
Maud cleared her throat to stop the laughter bubbling up. The idea! This man, who couldn’t even command a classroom, providing theological and spiritual insight to a congregation.
“He should follow the road out the door and into the lake,” Maud said, when she recounted the story to Laura the next day. They were sitting on Aunt Kennedy’s porch.
“I pity the woman who marries him,” Laura said.
“I have a sinking suspicion he wants me to have that honor,” Maud said.
“My mother and Mrs. Stovel mentioned they saw you two walking together the other night.”
“Oh, Laura!” Maud grabbed her arm. “I had no way of refusing him. For once my parents were home, so I had no excuse.”
“You could refuse,” Laura said.
Maud supposed Laura was right, but she had no idea how, not when Mr. Mustard was apparently oblivious to ordinary social decorum.
“He came by and asked if we could go for a walk. And, Laura, he had flowers! As though he was trying to be a romantic hero.”
“Flowers.” Laura laughed. “Oh, dear. That does sound serious.”
“There was no way I wanted anyone to see us, but we bumped into Aunt Kennedy and Mrs. Stovel, who nodded to me as if she knew of Mr. Mustard’s intentions. You know how she does that. Laura, don’t laugh. It was terrible. You would think that my spending the whole walk ripping one flower petal after the other would offend him, but it hasn’t deterred him in the slightest.”
“Maud, for such a dreadful situation, you do have a talent for finding the humor in it,” Laura said, laughing. “I’m sorry, my darling, but it is true. You are quite funny.”
Later that night, Maud was thinking about what Laura had said as she reread some of her writing and passages in her journal. There were indeed some amusing moments and anecdotes, particularly when the pathetic Mr. Mustard was involved. It had been fun writing him as a fool; Maud felt that it gave him less power over her. She remembered something Miss Gordon had said about humor when they’d been writing their compositions, about how certain writers used satire as a way for us to laugh at ourselves, but also to show the truth.
Perhaps Laura was right. The power lay in the laugh itself. If she could use humor to persuade the Prince Albert Times’s readers to laugh at how they believed things to be, at their own preconceived notions, perhaps she could at least show some of the hidden truths.
—
Maud worked hard on the piece for the next few days, grateful to have something to distract her from thinking about how much she missed Will. When he returned home the following week, he accompanied Maud to the convent school to see Laura’s art show. Maud had seen Laura’s art before, but viewing it hanging on the wall among her classmates’ work, she understood how good her friend really was. When Maud suggested that Laura continue her artistic studies, she reached up and touched the edge of her painting and said that her father had decided it was time for her to stay home and help her mother.
“It was never a real choice for me,” Laura dropped her head to the side as if to surrender. “I will probably marry Andrew, or someone similar. I’ll have children and be content. I don’t have the same ambition as you, Maud.”
Maud was deeply disappointed that her friend wouldn’t fight for her art, but she also understood. She remembered Miss Gordon’s words about the difficult road that lay ahead for any woman who wanted a career. It took a special kind of determination, one that she knew she had.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
On July 1, Dominion Day, Maud watched men lay down the cornerstone of the new Presbyterian Church and wondered if a person could be homesick for the future. It was odd to think that she wouldn’t be here to see the church completed. It was warm, but not too humid, with a lovely breeze floating off the river. Everyone stood around in a semicircle, the sky was clear blue, and the world glowed green. There was a ceremony marking the laying of the first stone of the new church in the morning, and in the afternoon, there would be Dominion Day activities at the fairgrounds up the hill nearby that included horse racing.
Grandma had finally replied to her letter the week before, giving Maud permission to come home. Maud scarcely dared to dream about seeing her dear friends and Cavendish again. Maybe even returning to school. But the idea that she might never see Laura and Will again, and having to leave Father, made her feel cold. When she told Laura and Will about Grandma’s letter, Laura made her promise to ask Father for permission to go to Laurel Hill—as there was no time to lose.
The question now was when would she leave Prince Albert. Grandpa Montgomery wasn’t sure when he could leave Ottawa; Prime Minister Macdonald had just died, throwing the Parliament into chaos. It was strange to think how Maud had been traveling with him less than a year ago and now he was dead.
Maud pushed these thoughts away and focused on the present. The stone was laid, and now the townspeople all stood together, as Mr. Maveety had hired a photographer to commemorate the event. Maud stood between Laura and Alexena, with all of the townspeople around them. She was here, among these good people, to see something begin, and she thought how strange that there was joy and sadness in beginnings, as with endings.
After the stone ceremony, Maud waited until Father was alone to ask him if she could go to Laurel Hill for a few days. Father placed his hand on her arm and kissed her forehead, whispering, “I think we can spare you. We’re going to have to soon enough.”
She knew Father wasn’t trying to be harsh, but the words still burned. Why could they spare her? Why couldn’t they need her more? Why couldn’t they love her?
—
When Maud returned home after the day’s festivities, Mrs. Montgomery and Father departed quickly, as they were meeting the McTaggarts at the lodge, leaving her behind with the babies—and also, as she learned later, with her
fate.
There was a knock at the door, and Maud knew exactly who it was. She hadn’t seen him at the fairgrounds; he was probably too proper for such frivolities. As she had been trained, Maud brought the man into her parlor and offered him tea—which he, as usual, declined.
Maud sat down on the farthest corner of the yellow couch, rocking a snoozing Bruce and focusing on his perfect eyelashes. Mr. Mustard perched himself at attention on the other end. A tiny piece of yellow yarn from a booty Maud had been knitting had fallen on the carpet. She stared at it, noting the way it twisted in on itself.
Save for Mr. Mustard’s sniffing, the silence between them was awkward, giving Maud a familiar creepy-crawly feeling.
Mr. Mustard cleared his throat and sniffed. “Miss Montgomery, I have”—sniff—“immeasurably enjoyed our time together.” Sniff, sniff. “Do you think, Miss Montgomery, that our acquaintance could ever become something”—sniff—“deeper?”
That creepy-crawly feeling fluttered across the back of her neck and she shivered. He had finally mustered the courage. She had to give him that.
Staring at the twisted yellow string, Maud said in the most normal voice she could manage, “Mr. Mustard, you flatter me with your attentions, but I really don’t see what else can develop.”
“You don’t?” He actually appeared surprised. Sad.
Just then the front gate banged, and Mrs. McTaggart rushed in, searching for Maud’s parents.
“They were supposed to go with us to the river. Have they left yet?” she asked.
“I’m sorry, they left quite some time ago,” Maud said, ignoring how much Mr. Mustard was sweating.
“All right, dear, I’ll go see if I can catch them.” And she fluttered away.
Then there was silence. Dreadful silence. Even Bruce’s tiny snores failed to shatter the ghastly hush.
Finally, after another interminable stretch of speechlessness, Mr. Mustard said, “Miss Montgomery, I know that sometimes young women are told to deny a man’s attentions so they don’t appear”—sniff—“forward.”
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