Her grandparents talked about sacrifice, but they would never know—no one would ever know—what she had given up.
After that beautiful day at the Hole in the Wall, she had to make it clear to Nate that she no longer loved him. If she told him that her grandparents had discovered their secret, and about their ultimatum, she was sure Nate would only see this as another obstacle to cross. Nate was as romantic as she was, believing that their love could weather any storm. So, she would have to show him her feelings had changed. She would become detached. It was the only way.
Even more challenging, she was still taking organ lessons. Grandma didn’t want to bring any attention, so she told Maud to go, but to behave herself and come straight home. It was impossible to refuse Nate when he offered to walk her home. She made him say goodbye to her before the cemetery. If his mother suspected anything, she didn’t let on.
At school, it was worse. Maud avoided Nate, hoping that some distance would ease the blow to come. So when Nate approached her at lunch hour to go for one of their walks, Maud pulled Mollie away as if she hadn’t seen him, ignoring the profound hurt on his face. It also made it difficult for Mollie to see Jack. Maud felt bad about this, but Mollie was her friend first. She just hoped Mollie understood.
Maud eventually told Pensie that she was leaving. She had looked so sad. She said she was sorry to have misjudged Maud’s father, and promised to write long letters, full of all the news. Maud almost mentioned the elopement then, but something stopped her. Soon she would see Father and ask him about it herself.
But the longer Maud held off telling Nate—not only that she was leaving, but that they could no longer be together—the worse it became. No matter what she did, Nate would surely despise her, and the thought of him hating her was unbearable. It would be something she would have to live with forever.
A week after Grandpa’s letter, Maud invited Nate for a walk through the Haunted Woods. They walked in silence for a long time. Knowing that this could be the last time they would have alone together, she found she couldn’t quite let him go.
“I have something for you,” he said, pulling out a letter.
She didn’t take it. She knew the kinds of things it said, and she couldn’t bring herself to read them. She couldn’t bring herself to tell the truth.
“I’m going to Prince Albert in August,” she said simply.
Nate crumpled the note. “So you decided it was better to ignore me rather than tell me the truth?”
She stared at the letter. If she had taken it, then at least she would have had one last note from him.
“I thought we were done keeping secrets.” He touched her arm. She knew she should pull away, but she couldn’t. She had a sudden desire to push his brown hair behind those irresistible ears.
“I didn’t want to hurt you,” she said instead.
“Your behavior hurts me,” he said. “After all we’ve been through, don’t you know how much I love you and will wait for you?”
Maud’s chin shook from holding back her tears. It was true. His words echoed what she had always known. They were similar, so similar. For if she had loved him the way he loved her, she might have waited for him. Loving Nate meant not only defying her grandparents but also denying herself what she most desired—independence, a life of writing and education.
She had something that would cut deep into his heart, something that would make him stop pursuing her, fighting for her, fighting for them. She hadn’t known until that moment if she would have to use it. But she did have to. She reached into her satchel and pulled out the book with the exquisite mermaid cover he had “lent” her all those months ago and held it out to him.
He gasped.
She turned away from Nate, focusing on Lover’s Lane, their woods. Would she ever be able to be here without thinking of him? Then the words bubbled up, echoing something Pensie had told her so many months ago. Maud spun around, finding the kernel of emotion that made her believe what she was about to say was true. Forcing the book into his hand, she said, “I think we were fooling ourselves, Nate. We love the idea of Love. That is what this is. I wish you weren’t so moony all of the time. It ruins things.”
Nate’s face went white. Would he actually weep? She couldn’t bear it. “I believed that’s what you loved about me,” he stammered.
Romance was wonderful in books, but in real life, love was something altogether complicated, painful. It was time for the final blow.
“I think we can only be good friends,” she said.
Nate took two steps, fumbling backwards, dropping Undine on the ground. She reached out to stop his fall, but he flung his arm out of the way. His casual demeanor was gone; his normally warm, gray eyes suddenly as cold as an Island storm.
“Don’t you see, Maud,” he said, picking up the book. “We never were.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
We never were.
The words cut through her like shards of glass.
Maud tried to forget Nate and what he had said, but he was everywhere: school, concert practice, the Cavendish Hall. She’d see a boy on the road and think he was Nate. A final turn of the knife came when Nate sent Jack to return Little Women by way of Mollie. He couldn’t even give it to Maud himself.
For a while she wasn’t sure she would be able to look at or read it again, but a few days later she was in her room after dinner and picked it up from where she had left it on her bureau. She cried when she read about Jo reading Undine, but then she found herself back in Alcott’s world. There was comfort in returning to a place where she knew what was going to happen. She communed with it, cutting out a picture from the Young Ladies’ Journal of a young man with floppy hair and a clever smile who reminded her of Nate, and what she imagined Laurie to look like, and glued it to the title page. She underlined different sections this time, understanding Jo better now, and her ambition.
When Maud finished reading it, her heart still ached for Nate, but she felt more sure of her decision. She hoped one day he would forgive her. Things weren’t always as clear in life as they were in books—and sometimes not even then. But she would never forget the first boy who loved her. Whom she had loved.
—
At the end of May, Miss Gordon announced the results of the Montreal Witness newspaper contest, with Nate coming in second and Maud third. Somehow, in all of the drama, Maud had completely forgotten about it.
It smarted when Miss Gordon reminded Nate and Maud that they would read their essays at the June concert, and Nate wouldn’t even congratulate her. Not even when she wished him luck did he acknowledge her.