“Thank you,” she said.
“I also read your essay on the Marco Polo,” Mr. Maveety said. “Actually, Stovel and I here were talking about it, and we wondered if you would be willing to write a piece for us on your perspective on our town.”
Maud wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly. “You want me to write for you?”
Mr. Maveety laughed. “Yes! You heard correctly.”
She felt lightheaded as she heard herself agreeing.
The rest of the day was a haze. Maud kept thinking about the kind of article she would write about Prince Albert. Mr. Maveety was looking for a piece that would show how much she loved Prince Albert. She certainly couldn’t write about the disappointment she’d experienced here. She thought she would find a loving family, the promise of a fine future. Not what happened at school. Not what happened to Edie. Not—thinking about what Prime Minister Macdonald had said on the train about his plans for the Indians—those poor, hungry men shuffling under blankets.
She remembered how the Cree and Métis women had told stories and secrets while they picked berries that day across the river, and how hard they worked to create those beautiful beaded clothes for trade. She had read how one day they will all be gone.
And suddenly, she understood.
All that she had imagined about coming to Prince Albert—about her father’s house, even about what she’d thought the Indians would be like, something out of Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans—had been a lie.
She was so focused on these musings that she agreed to Will’s offer of a ride home without a second thought, forgetting what people might say about seeing them together. Indeed, for once she didn’t care. She would be leaving soon anyway.
“Isn’t this out of your way?” Maud said, noticing this only when they were halfway home. He didn’t answer, and Maud realized that he hadn’t said anything for a while.
“Are you all right?” she asked, retracing the afternoon in her mind. She really had been hazy! Perhaps Will had felt ignored?
“Yes,” he said. “I’m trying to think about how to tell you something.”
Maud wrapped her shawl around herself.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I sometimes get lost in my head.”
Will stopped the buggy on the side of the road under a few trees.
“Why are you apologizing?” he said, taking her hand. She stroked her ring on his finger. It was somehow comforting seeing it there.
“I feel dreadful about this, but my father wants to send me to Battleford for a few days on business. I told him I didn’t want to go.” He paused. “But when he pressed me for a reason why, I couldn’t tell him. Forgive me, Maud; I knew Father wouldn’t understand me not wanting to leave you. I would have to explain to him who—what—we are to each other.”
What could she say? Here was a boy who didn’t want to leave her, even for only a few days. Couldn’t she stay in Prince Albert for him? Maybe things between them really could be as they dreamed: her writing, him farming. She had never really considered marrying a farmer, but there was something about being with Will that made her imagine it could be possible. He encouraged her writing and certainly wouldn’t stop her from doing it, but when she imagined a life with no more education, something hollow swept up inside her.
She held his hand. “I’ll be here when you get back.”
“At least”—he kissed one cheek and then the other—“we are here now.”
—
Will left the first week in June. And despite herself, Maud missed him dreadfully. “It’s only a few days,” she had told him. “You won’t be gone long enough for us to miss each other.”
But she found herself looking for him in the library when she was teaching Sunday School, wishing he was sitting beside her in Bible Study. She realized she had become used to him being on one side of her, while Laura was on the other.
Father had finally hired a new maid, so Mrs. Montgomery stopped complaining about not having help because her stepdaughter was out “gallivanting with that Pritchard boy.”
Having a writing project made it easier. Maud worked on the piece for the Times, and read other articles in the paper to become familiar with its style. She focused on every detail, making sure she didn’t forget to mention the characteristics of the town and its people, but she struggled with the balance of honestly showing the things she’d seen while delivering what she knew people were expecting to read. Mr. Maveety was expecting an essay describing how Prince Albert and Saskatchewan were an important part of the Dominion. But she knew that it wasn’t the whole story. Nor was it one that people were ready to hear. At least not directly. Mr. Maveety was giving her a chance and she couldn’t waste it. Still, there were things here she couldn’t ignore. And she wrote and rewrote whole passages about the Cree people. But it felt false.
—
Maud would never have believed it, but the solution ultimately came in the form of one bashful and horribly awkward suitor.
Oblivious to Maud’s complete disregard of him, Mr. Mustard continued to call in the evenings when she wasn’t at Bible Study or out with Will and Laura. One night, he called with flowers and they went for a walk. She couldn’t think of an excuse not to go. Bruce and Katie were in the care of the new nanny, and there was nothing she could do but go with him.
Another night, when Father and Mrs. Montgomery had left her alone with the children, Mr. Mustard arrived, his thin mustache looking thinner than usual.
“I’ve been thinking, Miss Montgomery, of making a change,” he said, when they sat down in their usual spot in the parlor, with Maud holding her sleepy baby brother. “I don’t believe my calling is teaching.”
Maud heartily agreed, but held her tongue and let him continue.
“But I’m not sure what the Almighty wishes of me.” He frowned. “What do you think I should do?”
Maud said, as seriously as she could, “I couldn’t ever tell you what you should do.”
“I’ve been considering going back East, perhaps attending Knox College in Toronto to be a minister.”
“I see.” Maud tried to keep her composure by rocking Bruce.
“Yes, a minister.” He smoothed his mustache with his index finger and thumb. “What do you think, Miss Montgomery?”
Maud cleared her throat to stop the laughter bubbling up. The idea! This man, who couldn’t even command a classroom, providing theological and spiritual insight to a congregation.
“He should follow the road out the door and into the lake,” Maud said, when she recounted the story to Laura the next day. They were sitting on Aunt Kennedy’s porch.
“I pity the woman who marries him,” Laura said.
“I have a sinking suspicion he wants me to have that honor,” Maud said.
“My mother and Mrs. Stovel mentioned they saw you two walking together the other night.”