“Please,” Maud said. “Say something.”
Pensie turned around. “I know that I can be difficult. That I am bossy and always telling you what I think. But it is only because I love you, Maudie.”
“I love you too, Pensie,” Maud said. “But you were off with Quill, and Mary, acting as though you didn’t need us—need me—anymore, as though our friendship didn’t mean anything.”
“That’s not true!”
“It is true! Ever since the week of lectures in January you’ve been different. Sitting with Quill and Mary, saying that my friends and I were like children.”
“Well, what about you and Mollie, and those boys? You had your own little group that didn’t include me,” Pensie said. “And if I have been different, it is because I’ve had things going on too.”
“What things?” Maud asked.
Pensie sniffed. “Quill has asked me to marry him, and I have not refused him exactly, but I haven’t accepted either.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I know what you think of him—oh, don’t give me that look, Maudie. You think him dull, and one thing you cannot tolerate is someone who is dull.”
Maud smiled then. She couldn’t help it. Pensie knew her so well. Seeing Maud smile, Pensie did too.
“I guess we both have something to be sorry about,” Pensie said.
“Do you forgive me then?” Maud said.
“Yes,” Pensie said. “But it might take me a while to trust you.”
The idea that Pensie didn’t trust her clawed at Maud’s heart, but she was learning that certain things needed time to heal.
—
The next day was Sunday, and after church, Maud took one last walk to the cemetery, alone. “It is all my fault,” she said to her mother’s stone as the warm August wind gently blew on her face. How disappointed her mother must be.
Afterwards, there was a little gathering of friends and family to say farewell to Maud. Pensie came, but she was quiet much of the time and only gave Maud a brief goodbye. Maud wanted to run after her, but after last night what more could be said? In time her friend would fully forgive her.
Even Grandma was silent most of the day. When she did speak, she told Maud to be respectful of her stepmother’s rules, then later stuck some money into Maud’s hand when no one was looking. Miss Gordon paid a call and gave Maud a small book of poems, Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
“To me, this is some of the most truthful writing on love,” Miss Gordon said.
Maud took the red-bound book and caressed its edges. Even now, after all that had happened between them, her first instinct was to tell Nate about the book—perhaps even find a poem to read together. But she couldn’t now. Not today. They might have left things on a friendlier note, but it still hurt too much to see him.
Packing her trunk later that evening—the poems she had written, Aunt Annie’s quilt, Nate’s letters—everything seemed significant. She packed her beloved books: Little Women, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Pride and Prejudice, and The Last of the Mohicans, which she planned to read on the train as it had good descriptions of Indians. Aunt Annie had suggested that Maud wear her hair up for the trip, and showed her how to do it. The first time Maud saw herself with her hair pinned up she realized she was no longer the scared young girl who had come back from Park Corner last summer.
Maud wrapped Nate’s letters in the white shawl she’d worn that first night he walked her home and placed them delicately in the chest. She wasn’t sure if she would be returning to the Island again, and she didn’t want to think what Grandma would do if she ever saw them. She still thought of the old journal, the one she had burned not even a year before. So much had changed since then. It was probably just as well that she had burned it—it was as if it had been written by some other girl.
“Come in,” Maud said, when she heard a soft knock at the door.
Grandma entered, holding something against her chest, and sat down on the bed beside a pile of clothes. Maud could see she was cradling a square item in her hand. Maud sat down beside her grandmother. The only sound was the waves of the Gulf lapping the shore.
“It is almost your mother’s room again,” Grandma said.
“I’m going to miss the sound of the water,” Maud said. “Father says there is a river near his house, but I’m not convinced it will be the same thing.”
Grandma gave a kind of strangled half laugh. “It won’t be. You can be sure of that.” Then she cleared her throat and sniffed. “I have been keeping something for you. I was considering giving it to you for your sixteenth birthday, but as you won’t be here, I was thinking you could have it now.” Grandma held on to the item for a long while and then passed it to Maud.
Maud took it from her as delicately as she could. It was wrapped in a worn piece of cotton, faded brown with flowers. It would make a lovely quilt square.
“Before you open it, there is a story I want to tell you. I suspect you’ll be too distracted by the item once you unwrap it. You should know what it is, who it belonged to, and why you are getting it now.”
Maud placed the package carefully upon her lap, suppressing the urge to open it.
“When your mother was nineteen years old, there was a popular notion among her friends to collect signatures and stories. Not unlike an autograph book, but it was called something different. Although I suspect that they are similar in nature.”
Maud’s heart thumped loudly.
“This belonged to your mother when she was a little older than you.”
Everything went silent. Even the waves.
“I don’t have anything that belonged to Mother.”
Grandma took a deep, long breath. “You do now.”
With shaking fingers, Maud delicately unwrapped the cloth, revealing a brown square book about the size of a prayer book. The spine was a little frayed but it was still in excellent condition. Leaning it over to the lamp, Maud could see the cover had the word Scrap written in gold across the middle with raised borders of fancy swirls, reminding her of royal carvings.
Maud’s tears fell on the old worn cover.
“It is called a Commonplace Book,” Grandma said.
“You’ve had this all this time?” Maud said. She was too surprised to be angry.
Her grandmother didn’t respond. Maud tore herself away from the Commonplace Book in time to catch Grandma discreetly wiping her eyes.
“It was too painful,” she said, after a while. “You know I don’t enjoy talking about…her.”
Because of what she did and the shame she caused? The question was on the tip of Maud’s tongue. But if she asked, would Grandma take the book away? Would it ruin one of the few good moments she had had with Grandma since that awful day almost a year ago when her journal was discovered?