If Eddie had an issue with this, he didn’t say, as it would require speaking, but Maud resolved to make the best of it and took the room. It was wretched, the size of Aunt Annie’s pantry. There was nothing in it but a bed, a cracked basin, and a pitcher for washing. The floor needed washing as much as the woman who had served her did.
After an uncomfortable night, Maud was more than relieved to be back on the train to Toronto, where she said good riddance to Eddie three days later. The train to Ottawa wasn’t due to leave until 8:30 p.m., so she went with Eddie to visit with his cousins and then was dropped off at the station that evening.
There was some confusion in Ottawa. Grandpa had forgotten her arrival time, so she took a cab on her own to the Windsor Hotel, where she knew he was staying. When he finally arrived, he apologized and tried to make up for it by showing her the Parliament buildings and the library. The joyful reunion was short-lived; Grandpa informed her that he would not be traveling with her back to the Island. Instead, he had arranged for a young couple from Charlottetown, the Hoopers, to be her chaperones.
Maud was thoroughly disappointed. She had enjoyed traveling with Grandpa and didn’t know the Hoopers at all! Mrs. Hooper was nice enough, but Mr. Hooper was never satisfied with the service, the food, or the weather. It had been a relief to leave them behind in Kensington Station…where she now found herself wondering what she was going to do.
She wasn’t ready to go to Cavendish. Her grandparents would be so disappointed in her; they would blame her for everything. Could she have done more? Been better? Grandma would certainly say that when they reunited, and then Grandfather would undoubtedly remark cruelly about Father. No. Not yet.
Maud assumed Grandpa had sent a telegram to one of her uncles in Park Corner, but he had been forgetful lately…
It was now 4 p.m.; she couldn’t stay at the station all night. She was like an orphan, a stranger in a strange land she had once known but where she was now no longer sure she belonged.
Much of the trip home had seen her taking control and managing on her own. Hadn’t she been the one to find that wretched room in Fort William? Hadn’t she navigated around two cities that were much larger than Charlottetown or Prince Albert? There was only one place where she knew she would be accepted as she was right now: with her Campbell cousins.
Standing up, Maud headed across the street to call a coach. She was going to have to finish this trip—on her own.
ON THE ROAD TO PARK CORNER, PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND SEPTEMBER 1891
CHAPTER TWO
By the time the carriage stopped in front of the Campbells’ house in Park Corner, it was late in the afternoon, and Maud had spun herself into such a fit that she worried she would be turned away. While she had called often when she stayed at Grandpa’s house across the road, Maud had never shown up at her aunt’s house tired, worn, and with her entire life packed in her dear old trunk. Would Aunt Annie notice the ring was missing and ask if she’d lost it?
Maud was grateful it was her eight-year-old cousin Frede who opened the door. “Mamma! Cousin Maudie is here!” She grinned her impish grin.
And with those words, Maud felt some of her nervous shakes begin to ebb away. It had been so long since anyone had called her Maudie without fear of retribution. The Campbell cousins all ran down to the kitchen and clung to her, chattering all at once. It was almost too much to be the reason for so much excitement.
“I hardly recognize you,” Aunt Annie said, once Maud’s cousins had been detached from her. “You’ve grown up.”
“No longer the girl we saw drive away last year!” Uncle John joked.
Frede grasped Maud’s hand and whispered, “Promise me you will never leave us again.”
“One should not make a promise one cannot keep, Frede,” Aunt Annie said, and gave Maud a sympathetic smile. “But we are so glad to have you home.”
“How did you get here?” Uncle John asked. He had a mustache that was as jovial as his manner, but there was a serious undertone to his question.
“I took a cab from the Commercial House in Kensington,” Maud said.
“Didn’t anyone pick you up?” fourteen-year-old Clara said, turning to her mother. “Mamma, didn’t you say a woman must never travel alone?”
Aunt Annie and Uncle John exchanged a quick look.
“There must have been a mix-up,” Maud said, trying to cover up the awkwardness. “Grandpa is so busy with things in Parliament since Prime Minister Macdonald’s passing, perhaps he thought he had already sent word to my uncles.”
“Come,” Aunt Annie quickly said. “You must be hungry.” Maud gratefully nodded. “Let’s get you fed.” She put her arm around Maud’s shoulders and squeezed. The kind gesture almost made Maud cry, but she had much practice now at hiding her emotions.
After a rousing dinner—where her cousins Frede, Stella, George, and Clara did much of the talking—Maud followed them upstairs, smiling at the screw stuck in the wall where she used to measure herself when she was young, and got ready for bed in her old room at top of the stairs where she had stayed two summers ago. Her cousins fought about who was going to sleep with her, and it was decided that because she was the oldest, tonight would be Clara’s turn.
“Is Saskatchewan really like the Wild West?” Clara asked, when they had said good night to the others and gotten into bed.
“It certainly isn’t as lush as the Island, but the town is growing, with a new church being built across the street from Father.” Maud kept her voice steady, swallowing the lump in her throat when she spoke his name.
Sensing it anyway, Clara squeezed Maud’s hand. “Don’t worry, we’ll have such fun while you’re here. Mamma says that you, Stella, and I can go over to French River this Wednesday. They’re having literaries there practically every night.”
Maud kissed her cousin on the forehead. “Mollie and I performed in those concerts back in Cavendish—they were so much fun.”
“I don’t know if I could do that.” She picked at the covers. “I think I’m too shy.”
Maud laughed. “Clara, you’re anything but shy. But it does take a certain amount of confidence and practice to stand up in front of others and recite. They’re teaching that in school, aren’t they?”
They talked for a little while longer, until Clara fell asleep, but Maud could not, despite the fact that she was so fatigued from her journey. She stared out the window at the half moon, wondering what was to come next. It was confusing to feel both lonesome for Laura, Father, her siblings, and, yes, Will, but to be so grateful to be in her cousins’ loving embrace. The small clock beside the bed said 11 p.m. Normally, she would have gotten up and gone over to the window of her room to write, but with Clara sleeping, Maud quietly slipped out of bed, brought her pen, ink, and journal down to kitchen, and proceeded to make herself some warm milk.
There was a rustle in the doorway. It was her aunt, dressed in her white nightgown with a single long braid down her back. “Can’t sleep?”