Her train arrived in Ottawa at five a.m., but Grandfather Montgomery, who was scheduled to meet her, had overslept. He finally caught up with her “in a great flurry . . . bless his dear heart.” Maud had hoped to spend some more time with him, but he quickly sent her home to Prince Edward Island, now with a proper chaperone.
When Maud arrived at Prince Edward Island on September 5, 1891, there was no one at the station to meet her. She sat for two hours alone in the waiting room at Summerside, then took another train to Kensington. Still nobody came. “It did seem a chilly home-coming,” she admitted. Undaunted, she hired a wagon team to take her to Park Corner, where Aunt Annie, Uncle John, and her cousins greeted her joyfully. She stayed on a few more days, still hoping for some word of welcome and invitation from her own grandparents in Cavendish.
None came. Maud waited. And waited. Maud’s uncle Crosby — a Park Corner relative — finally took pity on her and drove her back to Cavendish. Maud perked up as soon as she began to see familiar landmarks. She nearly fell out of the cart, wild with excitement, by the time she caught a glimpse of home. Poor Uncle Crosby, she decided, “must have thought he had a crazy girl on his hands.”
“Do not imagine that places don’t love us back,” she once wrote. Maud might have been cautious with suitors, but the trees, ponds, red clay, and blue waters of Prince Edward Island she loved passionately, without reservation. The dream of a home life with her father was now forever at an end. She must build her own new house of dreams.
Maud arrived in Cavendish only to find Grandfather Macneill more peevish and opposed to all her plans than ever. He hoped his granddaughter would stay home and behave. Both grandparents expected her to settle down into learning more housewifely arts — at which, in fact, Maud excelled. She skillfully quilted, sewed, embroidered, and baked. But the Macneills could not have been more wrong about their granddaughter’s goals and ambitions.
The first place Maud visited on her return was her old one-room schoolhouse. She spotted the nail where she’d always hung her hat; above that nail, Nate had carved her name in a special cipher. Here were the old desks where she’d sat with her friends; there, the worn wood door and carved initials of now-defunct couples. At first glance, the old school seemed unchanged. The next day, a Saturday, she and Mollie went back together — pushing up a window to climb in.
They found the place sadly abandoned, with its rows of empty chairs. Maud and Mollie climbed out again and crept to the nearby wood, half-expecting Nate Lockhart and Jack Laird to come along, listening for the sound of their familiar whistle. But Nate was off at Arcadia College; Jack already teaching school. Only a year had passed, but to Maud it seemed “ages” had gone by.
While all her schoolmates had moved forward, Maud had fallen sadly behind. She’d lost a valuable year in Prince Albert. College was farther from her grasp than ever. “If I could only manage to get a little more education!” she fumed. That dream at the moment seemed “impossible.” The Macneills had no intention of supporting Maud in a college education — even if they’d had the easy means to do so, or had she acquired the needed academic preparation.
Miss Gordon remained one of Maud’s few supporters. She organized one of her elaborate school concerts that fall and encouraged Maud and other former students to lend a hand. Maud threw herself into the preparations — helping to decorate the hall, cleaning, arranging seats, delivering dramatic dialogues that “brought down the house.”
With Miss Gordon’s encouragement, Maud set herself a course of independent study that winter, anxious to make up lost ground. She studied English history, physical geography, Latin, geometry, and English literature. All this study kept Maud from feeling lonely and lost. The sheer volume of her writing output in these early years was impressive: stories, poems, and essays. She had her old pals Mollie, Penzie, and others for company. She attended the Cavendish Literary Society. And she woke early and stayed up late to study alone.
Grandmother Macneill, at least, must have taken notice. That February, Lucy Macneill did something strikingly out of character. Ever a creature of habit and isolation, she suddenly took it into her head to visit her relatives at Park Corner — unaccompanied.
No one knows exactly what Grandmother Macneill said or did there. But when she came home, it had somehow been arranged that sixteen-year-old Maud would live at Park Corner for a few months, giving music lessons to her cousins there. And . . . miracle of miracles, she would be paid for her teaching.
Aunt Annie and Uncle John had never expressed any interest in music lessons before — a luxury they could scarcely afford. But Grandmother Macneill had a little independent money. She’d earned it by doing extra work at the homestead, and by taking in boarders. In all likelihood, she herself paid Maud’s salary. It would help to keep her granddaughter occupied in a more sociable house. It was also a way to sneak some education money into Maud’s pocket without Grandfather Macneill realizing it.
Maud spent three happy months at Aunt Annie and Uncle John’s. There were sleigh rides, family parties, and weddings. Park Corner buzzed with life and activity. Other relatives lived nearby, including Maud’s handsome and clever cousin, Edwin Simpson.
Maud’s literary prospects took a turn for the better, too. She had begun publishing children’s stories in Sunday-school magazines, heavy on preachy endings. Her favorite kind of story for young readers, she declared, was “a good jolly one” without a hidden sermon stuck inside it “like a pill in a spoonful of jam.” But at least this treacly work was getting published and noticed. The lieutenant governor of the Northwest Territories praised Maud to Grandpa Montgomery, asking for her photograph and for copies of other stories she had written.
Will Pritchard was now only a pen pal living thousands of miles away. When Nate Lockhart came home to visit, he loftily informed Maud she had “a fair intellect” and might make something of herself someday — if she could go to college. Maud continued to write, to dream, and to hope. But the world was moving on without her. Even ever-faithful Miss Gordon left Cavendish for Oregon. Maud felt the loss keenly. She had lost “a true friend,” she wrote sadly, the last in Cavendish “who sympathized with me in my ambitions and efforts.”
As it turned out, Maud was wrong. She still had one significant ally: Grandmother Lucy Macneill. Maud had earned a little money giving music lessons at Park Corner, but not enough to pay for college. She had set her sights on Prince of Wales College in nearby Charlottetown — the nearest and least expensive place to earn her teacher’s certificate. Even this modest goal remained hopelessly out of reach.
That fall, without telling anyone about it, Lucy Macneill wrote to her former son-in-law, Hugh John, begging him to contribute something, anything at all, toward his daughter’s education. When he failed to respond, Lucy made up the difference herself, paying the money out of her own meager household account. It was a great personal and financial sacrifice. With this unexpected windfall, Maud’s dream of attending Prince of Wales College came within her grasp. It was to be, as she later declared, “the happiest year” of her life.
Once Maud had gained Grandmother Macneill’s financial support, all that was needed was hard work — and that had never kept Maud from anything. She returned to school and readied herself for the difficult entrance exam to Prince of Wales College. She missed her “old crowd” but part of her thrilled just to be back in a classroom again. She sat in her former seat with the view of spruce woods, and went for long walks alone during recess. She studied with a vengeance, read every book she could lay her hands on. Once she teased a red-haired boy classmate who would not speak to her again for months. That episode made its way into Anne of Green Gables — but in her novel it was redheaded Anne who held the grudge.
Maud grew fond of the young new Cavendish schoolteacher, Miss Selena Robinson. They worked hard preparing Maud for college, and by June the young scholar was bubbling over with anticipation. Just one hurdle lay ahead — the dreaded entrance exams. Maud was tantalizingl
y close to what had seemed a hopeless fantasy — the dream of “a little more education.”
In July 1893, eighteen-year-old Maud headed off to Charlottetown, full of excitement and dread. The entrance exams lasted a full week. They were exhaustive and exhausting. “I am still alive,” she wrote in her journal, “but so tired I don’t know if it is worthwhile!” She took her English exam in the morning, in a room with sixty hopeful strangers. That same afternoon she sat through her history test — “and a hard paper it was,” she remarked. The next day’s schedule was even worse: agriculture, geography, French, and arithmetic, all on the same day. The following morning brought exams in Latin, algebra, and “dreaded” geometry.
Two weeks later the “pass list” appeared in the local paper. There was no possibility of slipping quietly by. Friends, neighbors, and relatives all shared the public results — exulting in triumphs, or cringing in embarrassment. Out of 264 candidates, Maud placed fifth, close to the top, and only twenty-one points shy of the highest mark.
There is no record of what her grandparents said when they heard the good news. Maud went off by herself to the shore to celebrate alone in a “glorious evening” of a red-and-gold sunset, watching the boats pass over the water’s “shimmering glory.”
That same August, Maud learned that her “dear old” paternal grandfather, Senator Donald Montgomery, had died at Park Corner. He left most of his considerable property to his youngest son, James. The ever-unfortunate Hugh John received only a token sum. Maud neither expected nor received anything from the grandfather who had been so proud of her successes. Her male cousins never needed to fret about their educational expenses; their way forward was paid as a matter of course. A young woman could expect no such assistance. Help would come only from her stern, undemonstrative Grandmother Lucy Macneill, and from Maud’s own efforts.
It was Grandmother Macneill alone who drove Maud off to college that September. Grandfather Alexander Macneill stayed home sulking while the elderly Lucy harnessed the horse and buggy and drove her granddaughter and all her belongings twenty-five miles over bumpy dirt roads to Charlottetown, a bustling little city of eleven thousand. They did not talk much on the drive. Once again, Maud was sorry to leave her beloved Cavendish — but she was forging her path forward.
Maud had made arrangements to board as cheaply as possible in Charlottetown. Her landlady, Mrs. MacMillan, provided tasteless food, unsanitary living conditions, and so little heat that the temperature indoors often fell below freezing. Maud piled her clothing on the bed as blankets, even using the rugs from the floor for warmth. But Maud’s roommate, a lively girl named Mary Campbell, made up for the bad accommodations. Maud and Mary Campbell swiftly became close friends — and remained so. They joked about “cold ditto” — their nickname for the greasy boiled mutton they were served every day. One night Mary found a slice of soap in her bread — no extra charge.
The two young women went out boating and to the opera, on outings and picnics. They attended free lectures, including several by a well-known evangelist — a sort of early-day pop psychologist — who converted all the girls present, except Maud and Mary. Mary knew that Maud would have teased her mercilessly had she fallen in with the rest.
But before and beyond anything else, Maud dedicated herself to her studies. To save time and money, she undertook a double load of coursework — finishing two years’ worth of study at Prince of Wales in one year. The wealthier girls spent three years enjoying their educations at their leisure. Maud had to earn her teaching certificate as fast as possible. Maud took fourteen classes in her one precious year at Prince of Wales, including Agriculture, Algebra, Chemistry, Geometry, Greek, Horticulture, Hygiene, Latin, Roman History, School Management, and Trigonometry. Yet Maud loved every minute. She declared Prince of Wales College “absolutely delightful.” And she still found time to write fiction and poetry.
For the first time in her life, Maud was recompensed for her work — in the form of a subscription — for a poem called “The Violet’s Spell” in the Ladies’ World. She was thrilled by this token of success. And she found another kindred spirit and supporter at Prince of Wales College — gruff Professor Caven, who not only praised her work in private but was moved to write in praise of it in public. Maud made friends among the students, too, but she was choosy. She had little patience for lackadaisical teachers, but even less for the wealthy girls who simply sat “like statues” in class.
Maud’s landlady moved farther down Fitzroy Street, her new home no more accommodating than before, but Mary Campbell and Maud followed her, in a chaotic jumble of boxes. This time Maud claimed a back room on the third floor. One evening, Mrs. MacMillan ushered in an unwelcome young suitor who stayed courting for hours. It was the one time that Maud confronted Mrs. MacMillan, begging her not to let in callers unannounced — especially not this tiresome young man. If he ever came again, Mrs. MacMillan must remember that Maud was not in. “Remember!” Maud intoned sonorously, holding her surprised landlady by the shoulders — then fled the room.
Maud did entertain other, more welcome male suitors that year, including her favorite cousin, Jack Sutherland, whom she was once caught kissing goodnight. She still received lovelorn letters from the persistent John Mustard out in Prince Albert. A young man named Lem McLeod was her most consistent escort, but Maud kept things light. She liked driving about with Lem, and thought him “a nice jolly lad.” But if she saw Lem once a week, “that is quite enough for me.”
In Charlottetown, Maud experienced a new kind of freedom, her energies fed by her desires and ambition. According to her own account, she slept little, ate poorly, had little or no spending money — and was never happier in her life. She tumbled from one lively event to the next, surrounded by people equally interested in books, politics, and the world of ideas.
Maud’s rigorous studies provided discipline; her friends and classmates offered escape when needed. The chaos at Mrs. MacMillan’s boardinghouse did not faze her. By year’s end, Maud ranked sixth out of 126 students, even with her double load. She placed first in her class in English Drama, Literature, Agriculture, and School Management. This was no light accomplishment — nearly fifty students failed.
Maud’s final essay was featured at that year’s graduation. She wrote about Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, and the Charlottetown papers made much of her speech, in both substance and delivery. Maud’s speech was praised even above the speeches of the valedictorian and the lieutenant governor of the province. One article compared Maud to a teenage George Eliot, and described her essay as “a literary gem.”
The Macneills were not there to hear it. Neither grandparent attended Maud’s graduation from Prince of Wales. Maud passed her final exams and then, with only a few days to catch her breath, moved on to conquer the even more difficult license exams, earning a First-Class teaching certificate.
If Grandfather Alexander Macneill was impressed by any of these accomplishments, he gave no hint of it. Once again, it was only Maud’s aging Grandmother Lucy who came to pick up her granddaughter and all her belongings and drive her back home alone. For once, Maud had mixed emotions coming home. She looked forward to seeing her beloved Cavendish again, yet was sorry to leave her joyful, triumphant year behind.
As it turned out, not only was Grandfather Macneill unmoved by Maud’s accomplishments, but he would do nothing to help his granddaughter once she returned to Cavendish. Teaching was one of the few respectable professions open to an intelligent young woman who wanted to make her way in the world — and yet the likelihood of Maud finding a job remained slim. Men were always hired before women, for higher pay, with the understanding that for women, teaching was a temporary measure before marriage, not a lifetime career. Nor were Maud’s credentials strong. Maud had only one year of college, while many competing candidates had three.
Maud applied to numerous schools on Prince Edward Island, but one additional hurdle lay ahead. All of the good schools required a personal interview.
Maud had to show up in person to land a job. This should have been simple enough, but Grandfather Macneill refused to drive Maud to interviews. And, not to be out-maneuvered by wife or granddaughter, he even refused them the loan of his horse and buggy.
Housebound, Maud watched helplessly as one teaching job after another went to candidates who applied in person. All that June and July of 1894, Maud fretted about where — and if — she might find employment.
Finally Maud was offered a last-minute post at the tiny town of Bideford. The pay was low, and the school small and ill-equipped. Maud was hired on a Thursday and expected to arrive that Saturday. She was filled with trepidation and hope. The night before she left home, Maud brooded in her journal about what lay ahead — “a new life among new people.” She knew she would miss her “dear Cavendish” — that was a given. But, she promised herself, “if hard and persevering work can bring me good fortune,” she would triumph.
Her friends Lu and Penzie drove Maud to the station at five in the morning. A storm was brewing, but the two girls kept Maud laughing and distracted. She even enjoyed the train ride to Bideford. Only when Maud laid eyes on the school itself did she draw up short. It was “about as artistic as a barn, and bleakly situated on a very bare-looking hill.” That night Maud Montgomery met one of her future students — a girl almost twice as tall as herself. Maud felt like a stranger in a strange land, inadequate for the task ahead. Whenever someone addressed Maud as “Teacher,” she startled and was tempted to laugh.
By Monday morning, Maud felt too frightened for laughter. She faced twenty draggle-tailed students, ages six to thirteen. Bideford was a poor community. Many of Maud’s students had physical and mental challenges. The school, as she had feared from her first glimpse of it, was “big and bare and dirty” — and broiling hot in summer. The young schoolmarm Maud took down all the children’s names and made a short speech, barely knowing what she said, and feeling “as idiotic and out of place as I ever did in my life.”