Maud

by Melanie Fishbane

  Maud stood up, rocking Bruce so her former teacher wouldn’t see her shaking. “I assure you, Mr. Mustard, that is not what is happening here.” She regained her composure and sat back down, at the far end of the couch. Shifting Bruce to the other shoulder, she took the opportunity to sit as tall as she could. “I’m completely sincere in my refusal of your proposal. I thank you and wish you a good evening.”

  Perhaps finally understanding that he had lost, Mr. Mustard stood up, straightened his jacket, sniffed, and stretched out his hand. As Maud literally had her hands full with the baby, he retracted it. “I…truly…hope…you aren’t…offended by my question, Miss Montgomery. I certainly don’t wish to have any…misunderstandings between us.”

  “Of course not, Mr. Mustard.” Maud put on her most winning smile, walking him to the door. Soon this excruciating evening would be over.

  “Good night, then,” he said.

  “Good night,” she said, practically slamming the door behind him. She cooed to Bruce, “Here’s to that being the last of him.”

  —

  That Sunday, there was another church picnic at Maiden Lake. Will gave Maud a bag of penny candies and they walked quietly through the asters, bluebells, and daisies. He picked a bouquet of flowers and pinned them to her dress. They then found a quiet place under a grove of trees and, with their backs against a poplar, leaned comfortably into each other. It felt so right to be together, and Maud found herself wishing he would propose to her because then she might say yes and stay with him. But with only this summer to be together, she wanted to enjoy her time with him without the talk of marriage complicating things.

  At first she had wanted to tell Will about Mr. Mustard’s proposal, but she hadn’t the nerve. She thought if she didn’t talk about it, perhaps that meant it never happened. But she hated to keep things from Will. She had seen what happened when she hid things from those she loved, so she gave him the full account of what Mr. Mustard had said and how she responded. Even now she couldn’t get that piece of yellow yarn out of her mind.

  “Has he called again?” Will asked when she was done.

  “No,” she said. “Thank goodness.”

  Will held her hand. “I swear to you, Maud, if he tries to do this to you again, I will whip him myself.”

  “Will—” Maud laughed, she was so surprised. “That won’t be necessary.”

  He let go of her hand. “I am sorry. I don’t mean to be this—” He broke off. “I suppose I’m a little jealous. If anyone was going to propose to you, it was going to be me.” Maud’s heartbeat quickened, and for once, she couldn’t find any words at all.

  She was aware of his warm breath against her skin, and as she turned her head, he took her face in his hands. He slowly kissed her cheek, her mouth. She returned his kiss. They had kissed before, but this was different. A passion that scared her so much she had to pull away. Her body was hot, and she took a moment to catch her breath.

  “I’m sorry,” he said and took her hand, and Maud resisted the urge to pull him back into a kiss. They stood up and continued walking.

  “What you said…if things were different…”

  His sigh was different now. “Maybe we should take a page from Laura’s book and believe in Providence. Who knows what He has planned?” Will kissed her hand, and she caressed his cheek.

  Hope was something Maud had practically forgotten about, but when she returned home that night, she pressed the bouquet Will had given her into her scrapbook.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  A week later, Maud was all ready to go to Laurel Hill. As promised, Will would drive her and had planned a surprise stop along the way. No manner of pressing would persuade him to tell her what it was.

  After leaving Sunday School, Will and Maud headed for Eglintoune Villa, and as they got closer, they noticed someone sitting on a porch chair. She stiffened.

  It was Mr. Mustard.

  Will offered his arm and she took it. “Don’t get any ideas, Will,” she whispered, remembering his threat at Maiden Lake.

  “Only if he doesn’t,” Will muttered.

  As they strode over to their old teacher, Maud caught the outline of her stepmother’s shadow through the upstairs window. No doubt she was behind this, putting him—and her—through this one last ordeal.

  Mr. Mustard stood. “I came to say goodbye, Miss Montgomery. I’m leaving tomorrow.”

  “Maud,” Will stressed her first name, making it clear to the teacher who her suitor was, “is doubtless grateful for your consideration.”

  “Indeed I am. Thank you, Mr. Mustard,” she said. “I wish you luck in Ontario. Now, Mr. Pritchard and I have a journey of our own ahead of us, so if you will excuse us.”

  After a dreadfully long silence, in which Maud was keenly aware of some rustling behind the upstairs curtains, Mr. Mustard fumbled with his hat, and mumbled some excuse of his own she didn’t quite hear—nor did she care to!—and shuffled away.

  From inside the house, Maud heard a door slam shut. That was one fence that would probably never be mended, she thought.

  After Maud got her bag, Will drove her out of town and she forgot all about disappointed relatives and bumbling suitors and focused on the bluffs and the poplar trees. They rode in silence, content in the quiet of being together. Maud took the opportunity of being so close to Will to memorize his profile, fixing it firmly in her memory so she would still have it in her mind’s eye in a few months. The long eyelashes over those keen green eyes, his lips, the way his hands grasped the reins. Even though the buggy was covered, she felt quite warm. When she looked back over at Will, he quickly turned away, as if she had caught him staring at her.

  “Are you going to tell me your surprise?” she asked.

  He put his finger to his lips. A little farther on, they stopped at the grove of trees near Maiden Lake where the church picnic had been the week before. He came around to her side of the buggy and helped her down. His hand was warm, and Maud kept a hold of it as they walked. When they came to a muddy patch, Will helped her across, stepping around it and guiding her through. They came to a spot where four trees bent and curved back on each other. Will undid his jacket and laid it out for her so she could sit down.

  “Why are we here?” she asked.

  “I was thinking about last week and how we”—he cleared his throat—“walked here.” Maud grew warmer at the memory.

  “You have your gift of words,” he said, removing a small knife from his jacket pocket. “I have my own talents.”

  The leaves whispered as she watched his arm move in deep swift curves, the little knife scraping softly against the ancient bark. He was carving their initials into the tree, starting with the L and moving swiftly to the M.

  How was it that the idea of carving one’s initials in a tree was overly romantic—ridiculous, even—but now, watching his arm dance with the tree, it obviously went deeper than some fancy romantic notion? It reminded her of an old tale.

  “Do you know the story of Sir Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth?” she asked as his arm swung smoothly, finishing the M. He blew on the tree and flakes of bark fell.

  “I know he was one of her suitors and a loyal soldier,” he said, wiping the knife off and adding an ampersand.

  “She had given him a diamond ring as a reward for placing his cloak at her feet—”

  “That is quite a reward,” he said, finishing the W and moving swiftly to P.

  “Yes, yes it was,” she said. He was chiseling a heart around their initials now, and she flushed.

  With the inscription complete, he sat down. “So, what happened?” She wasn’t sure what he was asking; she was fixated on his jaw, the way his lips curved. “With Raleigh…”

  “Oh.” She knew he would know her cheeks weren’t red from the heat. She cleared her throat and turned her gaze to the tree. “Raleigh was deeply in love with Elizabeth and wanted to show her how much she meant to him, so he went to her bedroom and carved a quote into the windowpane
with the diamond from the ring.”

  “What was it?”

  She dared to look at him. He had stretched out and was leaning on his elbows. She held back her desire to kiss him.

  “Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall.”

  “Was he afraid of falling in love?” Will said, turning on his left side, crossing one ankle over the other, and letting his right hand fall, softly, on her forearm.

  “She knew how afraid she was of falling in love, but it was worse not to,” she said. “Queen Elizabeth saw the carving and responded using her own diamond ring.” His hand was now on her shoulder.

  “What did she carve?” he prompted.

  What were the words? She knew this, but there were hands on her back, and the sun against her neck. When did her hat fall away? And, as he drew her into a kiss, Maud found them: “If thy heart fails thee, climb not at all.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Despite their detour, Maud and Will arrived at Laurel Hill just in time for dinner.

  Mrs. Pritchard had made a pork roast with potatoes and carrots, enlisting Laura to bake fresh bread and Laura’s sisters to help with dessert. She had wanted Maud’s first night with them to “be special,” and Maud assured her hostess that the meal was delicious, and that being on a farm with sloping emerald hills and charming baby poplars was special enough.

  During the meal, Mr. Pritchard took the opportunity to admonish Will, “I’m disappointed in you. You misled me when you asked permission to get Maud.”

  Will’s knife scraped his plate.

  “You took the whole day, and I needed you here.”

  “Things sometimes happen that are beyond even your control, Father,” Will said.

  “Mr. Pritchard, it was my fault,” Maud said, using the voice she reserved for people like Mrs. Simpson. “My father and stepmother needed my help with the children before we left.”

  “I’m sure,” Mr. Pritchard said in a tone that showed he wasn’t convinced.

  Laura’s suitors were also in fine form. Both Andrew and George Weir had arrived in the afternoon and Laura hadn’t had the heart to send them away, so both stayed. After supper, they all went into the parlor and Maud showed her skills at the organ by playing the hymns from Isaac Watts’s Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs. Will stood near her, turning the pages. With the memory of their afternoon fresh in her mind, she had a difficult time concentrating.

  Later, as Laura played and Andrew and George fought over who was going to help her with the music, Maud and Will sat on opposite ends of the couch, but somehow, by the last hymn, the space between them had narrowed. She wanted to show Will how much she felt about him, to return his gallant gesture.

  It came like one of her flashes of insight when she was writing: a daring idea.

  “Will,” she said. “Will you give my ring back?”

  “Oh.” He frowned. His thumb skated off his pinkie finger, but he didn’t remove it. “Why?”

  “Just for the night,” she assured him.

  Reluctantly, he pulled the ring off and placed it in her palm.

  “What are you up to?” he said.

  “You’ll see soon enough,” Maud said, standing up. “Laura, I’m going up to do a bit of”—she turned to Will—“writing.”

  “All right,” Laura said. “I’ll be up as soon as I bid these two fellows good night.”

  Carrying a candle, Maud went upstairs and walked down the hall to the back bedroom, which she knew Will’s to be. Easing his door open, she quickly ducked inside and went over to the window. Her heart thumped as, with the edge of her ring, she started carving.

  —

  About an hour later, Laura found Maud safely tucked in for the night, writing in her journal.

  “Who do you think we’ll be?” Laura said, when she had finished getting ready and crawled in beside Maud.

  “When?” Maud asked, putting her journal, pen, and ink on the bedside table.

  “When we grow up?”

  “Many would say we are already grown up.”

  Laura’s laugh mingled with the night wind. “It is true. If those two boys downstairs have any ideas, we’ll be an old married couple soon.” Laura grew serious. “But I meant ten years from now.”

  Maud didn’t know how to answer the question. “All I’ve ever wanted to be is a writer,” she said. Before her bittersweet Prince Albert journey, Maud had had so many dreams; writing the piece for the Prince Albert Times and having her poem published had rekindled something in her that she thought had been burned out.

  “Of course you will be writing.” Laura turned over and lay on her front, kicking her heels in the air. “But I wonder what else we shall be doing. Will you come back here so that we can be sisters for real? Will we have a brood of children at our feet?”

  “That would be a wonderful dream.” Maud didn’t know which would be more perfect, being Laura’s sister-in-law—which would be splendid—or being Will’s wife. “I wonder if it will come to anything—your brother and I.”

  “If my brother has his way, it will.”

  “We’ll probably end up being good friends.” She played with the ring.

  “Be hopeful, Maud,” Laura said. “If the Lord wishes it, you’ll return and marry Will.”

  Maud wasn’t sure. There were so many things she wanted to accomplish before she got married.

  “We could write ten-year letters to one another,” Maud said, changing the subject. “Miss Gordon told me about them. We write them, seal them, and then don’t open them until a decade has passed. It’s as though we are writing to our future selves.”

  Laura kicked her heels in the air again, clapping her hands. “That would be fun!”

  “Yes,” Maud said. “I had such plans when I came here.” Her mind flickered to the first journal, burned long ago now. She was glad she would never have to read that little girl’s diary again. But this would be different.

  —

  Laurel Hill was lovely, the perfect cure after months of servitude cooped up in a house with a woman who was always thinking the worst and locking up the food. Maud was relieved to be in a home with dear friends who cherished her as much as she them. It could be another forty years before she came west again, and by then she and Laura and Will would be too old and too mature to relax and have fun.

  The three of them lay out blithely together in the meadow, until Andrew called on Laura, asking her—rather nervously—if she wished to go for a drive. She agreed and left Will and Maud alone.

  “I think someone was making mischief last night on my window,” Will said. “Someone English? Perhaps Sir Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth?”

  “I have no idea what you mean, Mr. Pritchard,” she said with a British air.

  “Do I get my ring back now?” he asked.

  “Your ring?” Maud slipped it into his hand.

  “I have a confession to make,” Will said, putting it back on his pinky. “I talked with Andrew last night and asked him to come and take Laura out so we could be alone.”

  Maud pretended to be cross, but then laughed. “I’m sure Laura will be absolutely furious.”

  “I don’t know,” Will said. “I believe my sister enjoys her time with Andrew more than she says.”

  “She’ll get to see Andrew after I’m gone; I only have her for a few short weeks more.”

  “She told me about the ten-year letters you are writing,” he said, leaning on his side.

  “Yes. It should be interesting to read them.”

  “I wondered.” He picked at a blade of prairie grass. “If perhaps we could do the same?”

  “A ten-year letter?”

  “I think it would be—as you said—fun. And who knows? Maybe you’ll be beside me when we open them together.”

  She thought of those initials carved in the tree, the permanence of them.

  “Yes,” she said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Maud returned to Eglintoune Villa from Laurel Hill three days later
. She was putting away some of her things when her Father knocked on her door.

  Father rarely came into her bedroom. He always joked that Southview was Maud’s tower and he would never wish to disturb her. Father could never have disturbed her. She relished any moment they had together, there or otherwise.

  How was it that in a year she could count their time alone together in just a few precious moments? Those three weeks she had been ill and a few private buggy rides were all they had had. It was that woman’s fault; Maud was sure of it. She would never forgive Mary Ann Montgomery for ruining her relationship with Father. Never.

  Father sat down on the chair near the window, the curtain waving delicately behind him. He smiled, but Maud recognized the shadow behind the blue sparkle.

  “I have heard from Grandpa Montgomery.” He handed her a letter. She took it, scanning without quite reading it. “You are to leave with Eddie Jardine at the end of August—”

  “Eddie Jardine!” Maud had met him at church. The man was all arms and legs, stammering each time he tried to engage in basic formalities and then swiftly falling silent.

  “Yes. I wish I could take you myself, but your stepmother needs me here.” No, Mrs. Montgomery certainly wouldn’t let him go for something as frivolous as seeing his daughter home.

  “End of August. That’s only six weeks away!” After her beautiful time in Laurel Hill, Maud had almost allowed herself to forget she was leaving. But, as with most truths, there was no more hiding. “Is Eddie Jardine going all the way to the Island? I recall Mrs. McTaggart saying something about him going to school in Toronto.”

  Father laughed. “Good thing we have my mother-in-law or one would never know what was going on in town.”

  Maud feigned a small smile.

  “Eddie’s going to school in Toronto, so you can go with him as far as the city. Then you’ll have to travel alone until Ottawa, where my father will meet you.”

  A woman traveling alone was unheard of. People would think she was someone lower class, or worse. And it was dangerous. “You’re letting me travel alone?”