Maud

by Melanie Fishbane

  Nate. He was taller, but otherwise, except for a more defined chin and mustache, he looked the same. She dropped her head and pretended to read, praying there was no stamp ink on her face or clothes, nervously closing her book and then reopening it. She wouldn’t give Nate the satisfaction of seeing how much he’d flustered her. She hadn’t heard from him in months and had thought their friendship finished, a long-ago pleasant memory. She focused on Tennyson.

  “Reading love sonnets?”

  She slowly lifted her head up over the book. “You know what I think about those, Nate Lockhart.”

  “I know what you would wish people to believe, Maud Montgomery.”

  How was it that he could still charm her with that grin?

  “I wondered if we could go for a walk?”

  “You’re not here for the mail?”

  “Yes, but it would be nice to reconnect with you, Polly.”

  The nickname rekindled an old spark that was as familiar as a hymn on Sunday morning.

  “I’ll check to see if there is any mail.” She thought she had overcome the way she used to feel when he looked at her, but perhaps one never quite recovers from one’s first love. There were two envelopes, which she brought back and handed to him.

  “Give me a few moments to put these things away,” she said, while he inspected his mail.

  About twenty minutes later, Maud and Nate were rambling through Lover’s Lane, the boughs and arches protecting them, giving them a place to walk unnoticed.

  Nate talked of poetry and the law, and how he hoped to eventually set up a practice. As he spoke he grabbed hold of a branch, breaking off a leaf, snapping it in half.

  They stopped and leaned against the broken fence.

  “Will you be coming back here?” she asked.

  “To visit. But if I plan to go to Dalhousie in Halifax, I think Nove Scotia is my home now. It is where I was originally from, after all,” he said. “How about you?”

  Maud took a few steps toward the brook, leaning into the leafy embrace of her favorite tree. “After traveling across Canada, things are different; they’re smaller here than they once were.” She turned around and faced him. “I would love to go to college in Halifax.”

  “A college education is certainly tougher than what we did back in our school days,” he teased.

  “Excuse me.” Maud pushed off the tree trunk and marched right up to him. “I think I could still study circles around you.”

  Nate put his two hands up as if to surrender. “You definitely could.” The familiarity of their banter was like coming home to something she had forgotten she missed.

  “How long do you expect to be in Cavendish?” she asked.

  “A few weeks.”

  “It will be nice to have you here to talk over old times. You, me, Mollie, and Jack.”

  “Yes, it will be nice.” His smile hid his crooked teeth. “This is nice, now.”

  He was right. It was. She would never admit it to him, but there was, and always would be, something between them.

  Nate was the first boy who had told her he loved her. He would always hold a place in her heart.

  They stood there, under the arc of trees on Lover’s Lane, in that in-between place where they had first kissed…and she wanted to kiss him now. It would be so simple to go back. But it wouldn’t be fair to him, or to the boy she still loved in Prince Albert—or to her.

  “Come,” she said, extending her hand. “Walk me home.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  As Maud returned to the homestead, she briefly stopped at the turn that led up to the path past the schoolhouse. She admired the evening sun hovering over the Gulf and the small cemetery central to the whole village, watching over the people who still lived on this side of the veil. She whispered “good night” to her mother and turned toward home. Her grandparents were sitting outside, cool in the shade of Grandfather’s nearby apple trees, which had started to sprout white flowers. The trees were calm tonight; there were only a few bugs and a little wind, and from a distance she could hear the Gulf murmuring. It was a truly perfect Island summer evening.

  “How was Uncle John Franklin?” Maud asked, sitting down in an empty chair.

  “He is well,” Grandfather said.

  “Lu was asking after you,” Grandma said. “Perhaps you can go see her after supper. There are some raspberries over the hill and we can make a nice pie.”

  “A splendid idea, Grandma,” Maud said and stood up. “Should I get supper on?”

  “Just wait a moment, Maud.” Grandfather said. “Please sit down.”

  That familiar creepy-crawly feeling tickled Maud’s neck. Were they sending her away again? Had they discovered her journal? And if they had, would she burn it? It was one thing to condemn it to the flames when it had only been full of the trivialities of a girl who mostly described the weather, but it was entirely another to burn away the hard work of the last three years.

  “Don’t be so concerned, Maud,” Grandma said, but she didn’t say it unkindly. “One can always see what you’re thinking.” Grandma paused. “Like your mother.”

  Maud sat down, staring at her index finger where her ring had been.

  “She does have that way about her,” Grandfather said.

  Grandma turned to Grandfather. “Much like you.”

  Maud stared, amazed. Had Grandma just teased Grandfather?

  “Maud, your Grandma and I have been talking,” Grandfather said. “We have been watching you these past few weeks, and we think you’re wasting your talents.”

  “My talents?” Maud rubbed the back of her neck. “I-I didn’t think you noticed.”

  Grandfather harrumphed.

  “Just because we’re old doesn’t mean we don’t see,” Grandma said. “You’ve been working hard at the post office, but if we paid you a compliment it would give you airs, and people talk enough. But, we aren’t getting any younger.”

  Maud’s heart thrummed. What were they saying? Were they forcing her to move again?

  And then Grandma said it: “Your grandfather and I have decided you can go back to school this year to prepare for the college entrance exam.”

  The Island grew quiet.

  “While I still don’t think it’s appropriate for girls to teach,” Grandfather said, “it’s true we aren’t getting any younger.”

  Maud was speechless.

  “You already have some money saved up from your teaching this winter,” Grandfather went on, “but you will have to manage the rest on your own. Perhaps one of those scholarships you wanted so badly.”

  She glanced at her grandmother, who was hiding the tiniest smile, and a suspicion quickly formed in Maud’s mind. The organ teaching. Had this been Grandma’s plan all along? She hadn’t sent Maud away for being queer; she had orchestrated a way for Maud to make money. Maud had to admit that she’d wondered how her Campbell cousins, with all of those mouths to feed, could afford to pay for her room and board and salary each week. Now she understood where the money had come from. Grandma had devised a way for Maud to make money without Grandfather finding out. She was the one who had paid for Maud’s months in Park Corner. If she weren’t rooted to the spot—and if it wouldn’t have shocked her grandparents—Maud would have leaped into their arms.

  Grandfather stood up and absently patted Maud’s arm. “Going to tend to the horses.”

  “Grandma. I…thank you, Grandma,” Maud finally said, after he walked away.

  “Close your mouth, girl, you look like a gutted fish.” Grandma held Maud’s gaze for a moment, still with that faint trace of a smile. “And you can thank us by studying hard and not falling prey to your emotions.” She stood up. “Now, I need to go and get supper on. I’m sure you want to tell your friends the good news, but don’t be long.” As she watched her grandmother walk down the winding road to the house, Maud remembered what Aunt Annie had said about how much her grandmother really loved her.

  A rush of wind and a crow’s cry carried the
silence into song and Maud ran down to the shore, the sun low and lapping against the Gulf. She undid her bun, the wind freeing her hair, carrying it up to the sky. Maud stood, gazing out past the Hole in the Wall to the far-off shore, tracing the place where her ring once was and knowing that one day it would be back on her finger.

  Grandma was usually right about most things, but tonight she had been wrong: Maud didn’t want to see her friends right now. There would be enough time to tell them the news, and Miss Gordon, before she left. Maud would write to Will and Laura, and even tell Nate when the Four Musketeers reunited over the summer.

  For now, she welcomed the solitude of the moment between her and the land she loved.

  Grandma was wrong about something else too. She had always tried to instil in Maud the idea that there was no place for her sensitive nature in this world, but that wasn’t true. Maud could anchor herself in story.

  She would write about girls who dreamed of words, art, music, and love—girls who were embraced by their communities and families, even if they were considered queer. She would create stories that came from the dark corners of her soul, giving voice to her rainbow valleys, shining waters, and disappointed houses. She would find a home for herself within them, living in the in-between.

  REFERENCES

  p. 1, 76: Montgomery, L.M. The Alpine Path: The Story of My Career. Markham, ON: Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 1997.

  pp. 111-112: Montgomery, L.M. L.M. Montgomery Journals. L.M. Montgomery Collection, University of Guelph Archives.

  Rubio, Mary, and Elizabeth Waterson. The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery: The PEI Years, 1889–1900. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2012.

  p. 188, 191: Bolger, Francis W.P. The Years Before Anne: The Early Career of Lucy Maud Montgomery, Author of Anne of Green Gables. Halifax: Nimbus Publishing, 1991.

  L.M. Montgomery to Pensie MacNeill, 1886–1894, L.M. Montgomery Institute Collection, Robertson Library, University Archives and Special Collections, University of Prince Edward Island.

  p. 147, 299, 305: Bolger, Francis W.P. The Years Before Anne: The Early Career of Lucy Maud Montgomery, Author of Anne of Green Gables. Halifax: Nimbus Publishing, 1991.

  p. vii: Bolger, Francis W.P. ed. My Dear Mr. M: Letters to G.B. MacMillan from L.M. Montgomery. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1992.

  p. 40: Motte Fouqué, Friedrich de La. Undine. London: Chapman and Hall, 1888.

  MORE ABOUT MAUD AND HER TIMES

  This story is not a biography. While the plot, characters, and places are based on many primary and secondary sources, this is first and foremost a work of historical fiction.

  After I was given this opportunity to write a fictional account about one of my favorite authors—a person whose novel Anne of Green Gables is so embedded in Canadian culture that people travel from all over the world to Prince Edward Island looking for Anne Shirley’s grave—I remembered the biggest question I had while completing my first MA in history: What is the role of the historical fiction writer in creating a truth about who their subject really was, and how does that role influence our understanding of that subject? L.M. Montgomery is beloved by so many people, and I was cognizant of this, but in the end, I needed to listen to the heart of my story—who Maud without an e really is to me. My Maud had to be inspired by history, but she also had to be authentic. I needed to make her my own.

  When Maud was fourteen, she burned the journal she had kept since she was nine and started a new one, but this one she vowed she would keep “locked up.” I had to wonder: What was in it she didn’t want people to see? And why?

  This is where my story begins.

  Maud left behind journals, scrapbooks, and other personal items (including her library), which are now mostly housed in the archives at the University of Guelph, in Ontario, Canada, and at the L.M. Montgomery Institute at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown. Although all of these items provide so many details about her life, Maud was very specific about what she wanted us to know about her. As she got older, Maud was focused on how her readers might think about her, so she created an image of a good minister’s wife and mother, who was somehow able to balance both family and a prolific and prosperous writing career.

  When she was in her forties, Maud sat down and decided to copy out her old journals into new, uniform ledgers, destroying the originals. These ten volumes can be found in Guelph and contain pictures that she took of her home, places she traveled, and the people she loved. And while Maud says that she copied her journals “word for word,” there are sections that are so heavily edited (such as the mock trial scene that appears in this novel) they read like fiction. Also, some entries were sliced out, and then new ones, like Nate’s love letter, were inserted. Maud’s journal—normally a private document—was edited and revised into a version of her life she wished for us to see.

  Another example of this is when Maud published her autobiography, “The Alpine Path,” in Everywoman’s Magazine in 1919, which focused on all of the things that influenced her writing career. Her editor had asked her to write about her old boyfriends, but she refused. Instead, she wrote about them in her journal. However, she had left specific instructions to her son Stuart that one day he could publish her journals. So, she wrote about something that she says she didn’t want anyone to see with the full knowledge that her journals would one day be published!

  Two people, Mary Rubio and Elizabeth Waterston, were asked by Stuart to edit the journals when the time was right, and they did. Most of the material that I used came from the original journals at Guelph, but also the ones that Rubio and Waterston edited: The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery: The PEI Years, 1889–1900; The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery: The PEI Years, 1901–1911; and the Selected Volumes III, IV, and V.

  Maud wouldn’t have known that her pen pals, G.B. Macmillan and Ephraim Webber, and friends, like Pensie, would keep her letters, giving us more information about their friendships and Maud’s time in Prince Albert. I looked to these as well.

  Some timelines were changed for the purpose of plot and pace. For example, the situation with Miss Izzie Robinson occurred in 1887 or 1888, when Maud was twelve or thirteen; Will doesn’t appear in the journals until December 1891, and Laura appears a few weeks before that. I brought the time forward to strengthen the development of these relationships.

  And, while most characters in the novel are based on people mentioned in Maud’s journals and sources, my interpretation and creation of them is entirely fictional. A list of characters appears at the beginning of the novel. Certain friends and family members, such Mary Ann McRae Montgomery’s half-siblings, and Mollie’s and Pensie’s siblings and others, were omitted to avoid reader confusion. This also meant that certain scenes, like the school trial, may have not included everyone: in the journal Clemmie, Nellie, Annie, Mamie, and others were there. As well, the character Mary Woodside’s real name is Maud Wakefield, and Mrs. Elvira Simpson and Mrs. Matilda Clark are composites of some of the people Maud might have encountered.

  The province of Saskatchewan was part of the North-West Territories and didn’t officially become a province until 1905. In her letters to Pensie, Maud uses Prince Albert, N.W.T., as an address marker, but her journal says Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. This is most likely because the area was called the District of Saskatchewan in the North-West Territories. To avoid reader confusion, and because the area she was living in is Saskatchewan, I decided to simply refer to the province as we know it today. As well, Regina didn’t officially become a city until 1903, but Maud mentions it by name in her journals.

  It was also important for me to show what was happening with the Métis and Cree Nation peoples (Nehiyawak, specifically) while also being authentic to Maud’s story. From her essay “A Western Eden,” another essay she wrote in college, and a short story, “Tannis of the Flats,” it is clear Maud was affected by what was happening to the Indigenous peoples.

  “A Western Eden” and her journals have lang
uage and opinions that are offensive to us today, and some of this was replicated to show the times. Middle-class, Euro-Canadians like Maud believed that there was a big difference between themselves and Indigenous people. Maud would have felt compassion for the plight of the Métis and Cree Nation (Nehiyawak), but she would have seen them as less than her.

  During the late nineteenth century, Indigenous people referred to themselves as either “Indian” or “Native.” When Indigenous people called themselves “Indian,” they didn’t realize they were accepting an identity defined and controlled by the government. As Indigenous people’s awareness grew, they began to insist on different terms. At first it was “Native”, but this would also be rejected. More recently, people have preferred to use language or cultural names, such as Nehiyawak. The idea of identifying as a Nation is also relatively new.

  As well, marriages between Indigenous and French settlers, which were forbidden by the Roman Catholic Church and Hudson’s Bay Company, created a new people, identified as Métis by the French, who spoke Michif, a combination of French and Cree. These people established their own communities and cultural traditions. The term “Métis” was not used during this period by English people, who would have called them “Half-Breeds.” Only the Métis would have identified themselves as Métis.

  Maud did share a room with the maid, Edith (Edie) Skelton, but it isn’t clear that she was Métis. It was common for people to hire Métis as maids, and given Maud’s connection to this character, I decided to give Edie this identity. This also provided a personal reason for Maud’s decision to write about the Métis and Cree Nation in “A Western Eden.” I worked closely with Gloria Lee, a Cree–Métis from Chitek Lake, Saskatchewan, to help give Edie a voice. I’m indebted to her counsel for this part of the novel and for answering my questions on the Métis and Cree Nation in Saskatchewan. Every attempt was made for authenticity and accuracy; any errors are my own.