“You already have some money saved up from your teaching this winter,” Grandfather went on, “but you will have to manage the rest on your own. Perhaps one of those scholarships you wanted so badly.”
She glanced at her grandmother, who was hiding the tiniest smile, and a suspicion quickly formed in Maud’s mind. The organ teaching. Had this been Grandma’s plan all along? She hadn’t sent Maud away for being queer; she had orchestrated a way for Maud to make money. Maud had to admit that she’d wondered how her Campbell cousins, with all of those mouths to feed, could afford to pay for her room and board and salary each week. Now she understood where the money had come from. Grandma had devised a way for Maud to make money without Grandfather finding out. She was the one who had paid for Maud’s months in Park Corner. If she weren’t rooted to the spot—and if it wouldn’t have shocked her grandparents—Maud would have leaped into their arms.
Grandfather stood up and absently patted Maud’s arm. “Going to tend to the horses.”
“Grandma. I…thank you, Grandma,” Maud finally said, after he walked away.
“Close your mouth, girl, you look like a gutted fish.” Grandma held Maud’s gaze for a moment, still with that faint trace of a smile. “And you can thank us by studying hard and not falling prey to your emotions.” She stood up. “Now, I need to go and get supper on. I’m sure you want to tell your friends the good news, but don’t be long.” As she watched her grandmother walk down the winding road to the house, Maud remembered what Aunt Annie had said about how much her grandmother really loved her.
A rush of wind and a crow’s cry carried the silence into song and Maud ran down to the shore, the sun low and lapping against the Gulf. She undid her bun, the wind freeing her hair, carrying it up to the sky. Maud stood, gazing out past the Hole in the Wall to the far-off shore, tracing the place where her ring once was and knowing that one day it would be back on her finger.
Grandma was usually right about most things, but tonight she had been wrong: Maud didn’t want to see her friends right now. There would be enough time to tell them the news, and Miss Gordon, before she left. Maud would write to Will and Laura, and even tell Nate when the Four Musketeers reunited over the summer.
For now, she welcomed the solitude of the moment between her and the land she loved.
Grandma was wrong about something else too. She had always tried to instil in Maud the idea that there was no place for her sensitive nature in this world, but that wasn’t true. Maud could anchor herself in story.
She would write about girls who dreamed of words, art, music, and love—girls who were embraced by their communities and families, even if they were considered queer. She would create stories that came from the dark corners of her soul, giving voice to her rainbow valleys, shining waters, and disappointed houses. She would find a home for herself within them, living in the in-between.
REFERENCES
p. 1, 76: Montgomery, L.M. The Alpine Path: The Story of My Career. Markham, ON: Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 1997.
pp. 111-112: Montgomery, L.M. L.M. Montgomery Journals. L.M. Montgomery Collection, University of Guelph Archives.
Rubio, Mary, and Elizabeth Waterson. The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery: The PEI Years, 1889–1900. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2012.
p. 188, 191: Bolger, Francis W.P. The Years Before Anne: The Early Career of Lucy Maud Montgomery, Author of Anne of Green Gables. Halifax: Nimbus Publishing, 1991.
L.M. Montgomery to Pensie MacNeill, 1886–1894, L.M. Montgomery Institute Collection, Robertson Library, University Archives and Special Collections, University of Prince Edward Island.
p. 147, 299, 305: Bolger, Francis W.P. The Years Before Anne: The Early Career of Lucy Maud Montgomery, Author of Anne of Green Gables. Halifax: Nimbus Publishing, 1991.
p. vii: Bolger, Francis W.P. ed. My Dear Mr. M: Letters to G.B. MacMillan from L.M. Montgomery. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1992.
p. 40: Motte Fouqué, Friedrich de La. Undine. London: Chapman and Hall, 1888.
MORE ABOUT MAUD AND HER TIMES
This story is not a biography. While the plot, characters, and places are based on many primary and secondary sources, this is first and foremost a work of historical fiction.
After I was given this opportunity to write a fictional account about one of my favorite authors—a person whose novel Anne of Green Gables is so embedded in Canadian culture that people travel from all over the world to Prince Edward Island looking for Anne Shirley’s grave—I remembered the biggest question I had while completing my first MA in history: What is the role of the historical fiction writer in creating a truth about who their subject really was, and how does that role influence our understanding of that subject? L.M. Montgomery is beloved by so many people, and I was cognizant of this, but in the end, I needed to listen to the heart of my story—who Maud without an e really is to me. My Maud had to be inspired by history, but she also had to be authentic. I needed to make her my own.
When Maud was fourteen, she burned the journal she had kept since she was nine and started a new one, but this one she vowed she would keep “locked up.” I had to wonder: What was in it she didn’t want people to see? And why?
This is where my story begins.
Maud left behind journals, scrapbooks, and other personal items (including her library), which are now mostly housed in the archives at the University of Guelph, in Ontario, Canada, and at the L.M. Montgomery Institute at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown. Although all of these items provide so many details about her life, Maud was very specific about what she wanted us to know about her. As she got older, Maud was focused on how her readers might think about her, so she created an image of a good minister’s wife and mother, who was somehow able to balance both family and a prolific and prosperous writing career.