Maud sighed. She knew he could never stand being left out of things.
“You know us girls are allowed to have our secrets,” Maud said, trying to lighten the mood. “You don’t need to know all of our business.”
Nate scowled. “While that’s true, there are things that a fellow can help with if he’s given the chance.”
Maud wished she could say something, but this was too personal, and a family matter. “Nate, this is really between Mollie and me.”
He frowned. “I guess I thought we had gotten past this—”
“It’s not—”
“No, Maud. I know when I’m not wanted.” And he sulked off into the snow.
Mollie put her arm around Maud. “He’ll come around. You know he can’t be angry at you for long.” Maud hoped Mollie was right.
Pensie came out of the hall dressed in her navy blue wool cape. “Maud, I saw you leave,” she said. “Is everything all right?”
She’d already embarrassed them tonight by not sitting with them, and now there was the matter of her lie! “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Pensie put her hand on Maud’s arm, but Maud shook it off. “Tell you what?”
“Didn’t you know?…About my parents?” Maud couldn’t look at her.
“What about your parents?”
Maud put her head on Mollie’s shoulder. Pensie glared at Mollie. “You finally did it, didn’t you? Spread lies about me.”
“I did no such thing,” Mollie said, rubbing Maud’s shoulders. “This has something to do with—” She stopped and shook her other hand as if to think.
Maud lifted her head. “This has nothing to do with Mollie,” she said. “It has to do with you keeping something from me.”
“I haven’t kept anything from you,” Pensie said, her eyes watering. “Maudie, I promise.”
At the sight of Pensie’s tears, Maud felt her chin tremble. What was she doing? Pensie wouldn’t lie to her, keep things from her. “I’m sorry,” Maud said, hugging her friends close.
“She has had a shock,” Mollie said.
“My poor Maudie,” Pensie said, as Maud pulled away. “Tell me. What happened?”
But just as Maud got up the courage, Quill emerged. “Are you ready to go, Pensie?”
Pensie took a long look at Maud. “I might have to stay for a little while longer.”
“It is getting rather cold,” Quill said. “I promised your parents I would have you home promptly after refreshments.”
Of course he had, but it was enough to Maud that she had wanted to stay. “It’s all right, Pensie. Mollie’s here with me. I promise to tell you, but not tonight.”
Pensie bundled herself deeper underneath her cape. “I shall hold you to that.” She said good night and she and Quill walked down the hill.
“I’ll go and let Jack know we are leaving,” Mollie said. “Wait here.”
Maud was grateful to be left alone. She was tired and cold and wished she could take a long walk through Lover’s Lane to clear her head. But it was getting dark, and with all of the snow, the lane was precarious.
A few moments later, Mollie emerged with Jack and the three friends walked toward home. Maud tried to pretend that she was having fun, even though Mollie certainly knew the truth and covered for her, but she couldn’t stop thinking about what those women had said. How was she ever going to find out the truth when no one was willing to talk to her about Mother?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
For the next week, Nate was like the Island weather: cold one moment and warm the next. Some days he would come to school and she would get the friendly Nate, inviting her to go sledding and sending her silly notes, including a poem about the night of the lecture when he had walked her home for the first time. But when she still wouldn’t tell him why she had been so upset the night of the prayer meeting, he would pout.
Whatever worries she had about Mrs. Simpson telling Grandma about their behavior at the prayer meeting were forgotten. Instead, she focused on figuring out the truth about what she and Mollie had started calling their “secret discovery.” She couldn’t come out and ask her grandparents if her parents had eloped; they would most likely deny it, or tell her it wasn’t her place to ask such questions. Worse, they might be too mortified to even respond. Her grandparents and Aunt Annie had never said anything, so why would they now? And Aunt Emily in Malpeque was so cold to Maud last time she was there, Maud was sure she couldn’t talk with her.
One day after school, the older students went up to the Cavendish Hall to hear a lecture by the Reverend Archibald on a missionary effort under way in South America. Now that Maud had gone to a number of lectures without—as far as her grandparents knew—incident, they had been more lenient about letting her attend. Nate was in one of his better moods, and he joined Mollie, Maud, and Jack on the way up the hill. Clemmie, Nellie, and the others were right behind them.
“Are you girls ready to tell me that secret yet?” Nate asked in a tone that Maud decided was much too loud.
Mollie pulled Maud a step or two ahead and whispered, “Maybe you should tell him.” Mollie hated what was happening between Maud and Nate because it was causing tension between the Four Musketeers, as Jack always stood by Nate.
“No,” she said. She couldn’t tell him. What might he think of her when he found out? She turned to face Nate. “Secrets are kept for a reason.”
Not getting the answers he was looking for, Nate hung back and went home instead of going to the lecture.
“I guess he’s in one of his moods,” Maud said, pretending it didn’t bother her.
“You do make it difficult,” Mollie said.
“It isn’t my fault he takes things so personally.”
“You know he can’t think straight when he’s around you,” Jack said.
Maud and Mollie stopped in surprise. “Jack Laird, you are always so quiet, but when you speak, sheer nonsense comes out,” Maud said, immediately regretting it.
Jack’s ears went a bit pink and he shuffled off ahead.
“Now you’ve done it,” Mollie said. “I was hoping he’d sit with us.”
“I’m sorry,” Maud said. “This whole thing…”
“I know.” She took Maud’s hand. “Jack doesn’t hold a grudge. I’m sure if we apologize, he will forgive us.”
Maud had enough people displeased with her. They found Jack inside and sat beside him. Mollie was right: he forgave them instantly.
But that night after the lecture, Maud couldn’t sleep. She desperately missed Nate. She felt heavier, grayer, as if she were trying to move after a dense dream. Sitting in the front parlor with her grandparents after supper, she had to redo the crazy quilt squares she was sewing three times because she kept making mistakes.
It rained all weekend, adding to her desperate loneliness and melancholy. She went over to Mollie’s on Saturday, but her head ached and even her best friend couldn’t make her feel better, so she returned home. Grandma gave Maud a cold compress and told her to go to bed.
But on Monday, Maud found a note slipped into a copy of Shakespeare’s Sonnets: