“You need not concern yourself about me. I will always make do.”
“You are my aunt. Of course I concern myself about you.” She sat down beside her, but Aunt Emily immediately stood up and went over to the sink. Laughter from the parlor crackled through the walls. Maud observed the old kitchen. The dark green paper, the window over the sink with its green pump, and the stove in the corner. What could she possibly say to make it better?
“Aunt Emily, I played nanny to my brother and sister in Prince Albert.” Her aunt didn’t move from the window. “And while I love them deeply, there were many times I couldn’t be with my friends or even go to school because of my responsibilities at home.” Her aunt half-turned from the sink, her face hidden in shadow. “I don’t pretend to know what you had to give up to take care of me, but I know a little.”
Maud waited to see if her aunt’s demeanor would change. She imagined Aunt Emily running over, embracing Maud, and apologizing for being so ill-humored. But her aunt didn’t show any sign of forgiveness. Maybe this had always been her style, and Maud had been too young to notice.
“You’re right, Maud,” her aunt said. “You cannot pretend to know me.” She sat back down heavily at the kitchen table. “But there was no one else to take care of you.” She paused. “My parents asked me to step in while they took care of the arrangements. Lord knows, your father was useless.”
Feeling defensive, Maud remembered Father’s sadness when they had both looked down at her beautiful mother in her coffin. “He had lost his wife.”
“I suppose so,” Aunt Emily said. “There were things going on then, Maud. Things you don’t understand. It was my Christian duty to take care of my sister’s child. But I watched my friends get husbands, and I didn’t want to end up alone.”
“I remember,” Maud said.
“I’m not you, Maud.” Her hand shook. “I didn’t have any talents to fall back on. And they weren’t too keen on lady teachers then—not that my father would have let me.”
“His opinion hasn’t changed,” Maud said dryly.
Aunt Emily leaned against the back of the chair and placed her hands on her stomach. They didn’t speak for a long time, allowing the gaiety next door to carry the silence. Maud didn’t know what more could be said. Her aunt had invited her out of a sense of duty, not because she actually cared about her. Maud did her best to make peace with things that had been, and continued to be, outside her control.
“We all do the best we can,” Maud said, after a while.
Her aunt, finally, met her gaze. “Don’t lose heart, Maud. Perhaps Providence will find a way to make your dreams come true. Just as He did mine.” She slowly pushed herself up. “Come, help me with the tea.”
PARK CORNER, PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND JUNE 1892
CHAPTER TEN
Back in Park Corner, Maud sat on the Campbells’ porch, facing the field. She was writing in her journal, recalling the past few months there, taking in the fresh beauty of spring. It was June, her favorite month. In a few weeks the lupines would pepper pink and purple petals across the green pastoral fields and the red earth, and (on a good day) with a clear blue sky, turn the Island into a rainbow of color. A warm wind danced across the shining pond. The long winter was finally over, and, after months of teaching organ and preparing for the college examinations, she would be leaving for Cavendish tomorrow. Frede was playing with her dolls in the front yard, talking to herself and making up stories.
The squeaky front door pulled Maud from her writing, and she smiled up at her aunt in silent greeting.
“Can I sit with you awhile?”
Maud nodded and shifted over so her aunt could sit down. Together, they watched Frede pick up a doll with dark hair and go dancing over the grass as if she were a flittering ladybug.
Aunt Annie leaned back on her palms, and the stance made her appear younger than her years. Until that moment, Maud had never considered how old her aunt actually was.
“Maud, there is something I’ve been wanting to ask you.” Aunt Annie glanced quickly down at Maud’s hand. “But I wasn’t sure if there was a delicate way of putting it.”
“The ring?” Maud asked, feeling heat rise to her cheeks.
“Yes. Your ring,” Aunt Annie said. “I wondered if you needed it resized?”
Maud laughed. Aunt Annie had thought the indelicacy was related to her figure. “No.”
“You lost it?”
“Not quite,” Maud said. How could she explain it? If she did, it might sound more inappropriate than any change in her figure. But she didn’t want to lie to her aunt either. “I gave it to a dear friend of mine to remember me by. It was the most precious thing I had. Who knows if we will ever see one another again—” At the thought, Maud choked and almost started to cry, but she held it in.
Aunt Annie placed her hand over Maud’s. “It was your ring to do with as you wanted. I’m happy it is in a safe place. But, you’re so young.”
“There’s so much pressure,” Maud said. “All of my friends are looking for husbands.”
“There were certainly some men in French River who expressed interest,” Aunt Annie said.
“Yes, Lem and Edwin were vying for my attention at first, but it isn’t…” Maud sighed. “Why can’t we be friends?”
Aunt Annie laughed. “Men and women are not supposed to be friends; that is the role of the women in your life. And if you find the right ones, they can be your lifelong, dearest companions.”
Maud thought of Laura, Mollie, and Pensie—even Annie and Edie—and how each were so dear to her, how much, even after all that had transpired between them, she adored them. But they were taking another path; she was climbing something altogether different.
Maud glanced down at her journal. Had she traveled so far and seen so much to leave the most important question unanswered? She had learned part of the story from Father, but she still had questions, and maybe Aunt Annie would be willing to answer them.
“Why don’t we ever talk about Mother? There are so many things I want to know. About her. I thought when Grandma finally gave me Mother’s Commonplace Book—”
“Ah, I wondered what Mother had done with it,” Aunt Annie said. “I’m glad you have it.”
Maud closed her journal and leaned her head against the post. “That’s what Father said.”
“Clara was so young.” Annie focused her gaze on Frede playing. “And she died so terribly quickly.” She rubbed her shoulders as if she was hugging herself.
“Father hinted at an elopement, but he wouldn’t go into much more.” The words had tumbled out, words Maud hadn’t even dared to think out loud.
Annie pulled her gaze away from Frede and placed her hand on Maud’s knee. “Is this what you thought?” When Maud didn’t respond, Annie embraced her. Then, suddenly, another little hand was on her shoulder.