Lucy Maud Montgomery

by Mary Henley Rubio

  Ewan would again serve two parishes: Norval and Glen Williams. (Each congregation had voted to remain Presbyterian rather than become part of the new United Church.) Each little village lay in a glen with a river curving through it. The Presbyterian churches themselves were huge, stately edifices, very unlike the modest little structures of Leaskdale and Zephyr. The Norval manse, a two-storey, red-brick house, was a large and handsome one, a big step up from Leaskdale’s plainer yellow-brick manse.

  The Barracloughs, who lived in Glen Williams, seemed like old-world aristocracy to Maud. Ernest Barraclough, a small, dapper man with patrician manners, was a prominent elder in the Union Presbyterian Church of Glen Williams, and reputedly the wealthiest man in either congregation. Originally from England, he owned and ran a large and prosperous woollen mill. His large brick house at 25 Mountain Street stood atop a hill overlooking his mills and the town below. His wife Ida Stirrat came from a prosperous local family. The gracious Ida was much larger than her slim husband—indeed, she was stylishly ample in size, with regal carriage, and was always tastefully and handsomely attired. She was well liked in the community. The Barracloughs had no children.

  There was much to learn about the new community and parish. As talk rambled, Ewan and Maud shot to attention upon learning that the treasurer for both churches, a young man named John Russell, had a connection to Zephyr: he was engaged to a woman whose brother was married to one of Marshall Pickering’s daughters. They were horrified. Now Ewan would have to explain the whole lawsuit to the church managers, requesting to be paid in advance. People here would not know the circumstances of the case and would assume that their new minister had skipped out on a bona fide legal judgment against him. What would people say? The Macdonalds did not sleep well that night.

  As soon as their furniture arrived a few days later, the now-anxious Macdonalds returned to Norval to set up their new home. From the top of the hill at the radial train station stop, they surveyed the dark village below, and saw the church spire rising out of the gloom, with the manse beside it.

  Maud knew that Norval and its surrounding area was considered one of the “beauty spots” of Ontario, and although it was a cold February night with whipping winds, she was thrilled with her new home. She could live in this self-contained rural community, and yet hop on the “radial” train (an electric train much like a streetcar) and go to Toronto. The radial station was adjacent to the home of John Russell’s parents’ farm at the top of the glen, an easy walk from the manse. Norval itself resembled a Scottish glen as envisioned in novels by J. M. Barrie or Sir Walter Scott. The Credit River reminded Maud of the tumbling mountain streams she had seen in Scotland. It was far more romantic than the quiet little brook that bubbled through “Lovers’ Lane” in Cavendish. She wrote her Scottish pen-pal, G. B. MacMillan, that Norval was more like an “old-world” village than a Canadian one. She could not have found a place in southern Ontario more to her liking. She was prepared to put down deep roots here.

  Norval was nestled in a long valley, with steep hills on each of the four sides. The Credit River curved into town from the north-west and exited through the south-east part of the glen, on its way down to Lake Ontario.

  The picturesque village was anchored by two imposing structures: the red-brick Presbyterian church at the west end and a huge stone gristmill straddling the river at the east end. Topping the mill roof was a small cupola, with a gnome-like weather vane. The main street—with its hotel, general store, hardware store, bank, butcher shop, bakery, and candy store—was lined with both small and large homes. In the middle of the village, a road came down the south hill (named “Cemetery Hill”) from the cemetery and close to the radial station at the top of the glen, crossed the main street and then the river, and curved up the facing northern hill (“Station Hill”) past the rail road station, then headed through the scenic countryside of farms towards the Union Church, which lay at the top of the glen above Glen Williams.

  Norval had been founded on land that had been purchased from the chiefs of the Otter and Eagle native tribes around 1818 by a Loyalist of Scottish descent named Alexander McNab, and was soon joined by his brother James. They saw the potential in the Credit River and built the first gristmill in the 1820s. By 1827 James was offering free land grants to tradesmen who would settle there.

  Tradition said that the village took its name from a line in a Scottish play by John Home (1722–1808) called Douglas: “My name is Norval; on the Grampian Hills …” The area was rich in oak and white pine trees which could be floated down the Credit River to Lake Ontario. The original gristmill supported other industries: a cooper shop to make barrels for shipping flour, an ashery that burned hardwood cleared for farmland and produced the potash from which soap was made, and the Gooderham & Worts distillery. Later, Norval included a tannery, brickyard, bakery, woollen and flax mills, a broom factory, brass foundry, and a carriage works. Norval was a main stagecoach stop along the earlier plank road between Guelph and Toronto, and had several hotels and inns. At its peak in the nineteenth century, it was a thriving town of four hundred people.

  The Norval gristmill, said at one point to be the largest in Canada, produced some three hundred barrels of wheat flour per day during World War I. Wheat was shipped from the west for processing in Norval, and by the late nineteenth century Norval billed itself the “wheat processing capital” of Canada. Traffic came through on the railroads, and immigrants from the United States were said to “flow like a flood towards the golden acres of the setting sun” out west on the railway. Norval grew into a thriving village with three churches, a Mechanics’ Institute, and an Orange Lodge.1

  When the Grand Trunk Railway had come through in the later nineteenth century, however, farmers near town held out for a too-high price for their land, and the railway was subsequently laid out one mile north of the village. This distance was fatal, and the main train made its last stop at the Norval station in July 1926. When the Macdonalds moved there, Norval had shrunk to about two hundred and fifty inhabitants.

  The Toronto-Guelph electric suburban radial railway, opened on the south side of Norval in 1917. Maud could travel to Toronto on her own, for shopping or to attend literary meetings and events, or in the other direction, to Guelph, where she made shopping trips to see her favourite millliner to buy the fancy hats she had always loved. For a woman who never learned to drive a car, accessible public transportation was a godsend.

  Because Norval lay in a valley, it was an echo chamber. Maud loved the double echo in Norval. When she called her cats, the sound echoed back twice, first from the buildings, then from the hills.

  At Ewan’s induction, nearly three hundred people braved three-foot-high snowdrifts to attend, some arriving two hours early to get a good seat in the large church. The local paper noted that one of the important ministers attending was the Reverend John Mustard of Toronto. The paper also boasted that “the Rev. Ewen McDonald [sic] was married to Anna [sic] Montgomery, author of Green Gables.” Maud was now fifty-one years old, author of fifteen internationally acclaimed books.

  Ewan soon met John Russell, the church treasurer. To Ewan’s astonishment and relief, Mr. Russell revealed that he already knew about the Pickering case, and had told the Session managers that it was “a framed-up job to extort money” from the Macdonalds. He had already arranged for Ewan’s salary to be paid in advance. Ewan and Maud were mystified by this loyal support, given before Russell had even made their acquaintance, but they nevertheless welcomed it. The Russell family became their fast and loyal friends. Their house was visible at the top of a hill with a picturesque fringe of pine trees; Maud would always affectionately call “Russells’ Hill” the “hill o’ pines.”

  Ewan and Maud felt immediately at ease with the people in both parishes. The earliest settlers there had been mostly Scots or Scots-Irish (many from County Antrim in Ireland).2 The first Presbyterian worship group had been founded in 1833, with a circuit minister riding to Norval on horseback
and holding church services in people’s homes. The Presbyterians had built a frame church around 1839, but a quarter century later replaced it with the splendid Gothic brick church, costing the huge sum of $7,000 in 1879 (The Anglicans had built themselves a modest frame church in 1846 and the Methodists had built their little church in 1850.) By the 1860s, Norval had erected a fine brick school to replace its wooden one. Norval had even had its own militia group and drill shed during the Fenian raids. The land around the village was so scenic that Upper Canada College of Toronto purchased five hundred acres of land on the Credit River upstream from Norval, to be used for student retreats.

  It secretly pleased the Macdonalds that the church and stately manse (built ten years after the church at a cost of $2,700) were the most outstanding buildings in the picturesque little village, and far nicer than most others in Ontario villages. Several other houses were beautifully landscaped with trees, shrubs, and flowers.

  Maud had loved the natural beauty of Cavendish, and she thrilled that their new home was a youngster’s paradise, for the sake of her boys. Upstream, the Credit River wound down through much higher hills, cascading, twisting, and turning through rugged bush until it forked and flowed peaceably into Norval. The river’s tributaries and branches meandered in a leisurely way through town, making an extensive riverbank for play and picnics. The Credit was then gathered by a large dam that provided the water power for the flour- and gristmills in the south-east part of the village (where Highway 7 runs now). In summer, youngsters could fish, sit along the bank and talk, or swim in the large reservoir of dammed-up water. In winter, they cleared the snow off the dam to make a large rink for skating. The girls figure-skated or played “crack-the-whip” and the boys played tag or “shinny-hockey,” using wads of Eaton’s catalogue pages to pad their shins. Mindful of the hazard posed by rapids, which did not freeze-over solidly, children could skate for miles on the river. On bright starry nights, parents sometimes built a bonfire on the shore and the skating continued. According to old-timers reminiscing in the 1980s, some of the families brought organs, guitars, and mouth-harps, and after outdoor activity on the river, they would congregate in one of the homes to sing, play games, or make pull-taffy.

  The roads coming down the hills at each side of the glen made wonderful sledding for the children, too. The main road through Norval was paved around this time, since it was the only provincial highway from Guelph to Toronto, but the lack of snow-clearing equipment meant that cars were rarely taken out after winter snows began in earnest. Horses and sleighs moved more easily through the snow and they went slowly enough that children could hitch their sleds to a farmer’s sleigh as he left town, getting a ride up the steep hills, then slide back down the hill. Or sometimes they went “hookeying”—hooking their sleds to the sleigh of a farmer leaving town, and when they met another farmer coming in, switching sleighs to get pulled back. For those who wanted even more speed and danger, there was a toboggan chute down Russells’ Hill.

  Glen Williams had as much charm as Norval. Its huge grey-stone Union Presbyterian Church, even more striking than Norval church, stood at the top of the hill that climbed out of Glen Williams. The countryside between the two parishes was filled with expansive farms, and in some areas there was some red soil, as in PEI. The well-to-do farmers maintained their two parishes well, and were very glad to get a minister because, after a bitter fight over Church Union, their pulpit had been empty for five months.

  Ewan felt proud to have secured this idyllic location for his family. As for Maud, she could live in the kind of scenic country setting she loved, in a place with extensive walking areas as beautiful as “Lovers’ Lane.” Her boys were growing up fast, and if Ewan only remained reasonably well, she would get her life back again.

  Maud had brought her maid, Elsie Bushby, from Leaskdale. For all her good housekeeping qualities, however, Elsie was inexperienced with men, and easily flattered by any attention. Trouble began when a young man named Rob began courting her. He hung around the Macdonalds’ manse all day, staying (uninvited) for meals, talking incessantly, and bad-mouthing many in the church and community. The Macdonalds found his presence intrusive, but since his parents were in the congregation, they had to endure him. When Rob and Elsie started coming in late after rides in his car, people talked. Maud knew that if Elsie got herself “in trouble,” Elsie’s family would hold her responsible.

  Heating systems in a house like the Norval manse were a great conduit for conversations from other rooms. One evening after Elsie returned home late, Maud sat by the heating grate above the kitchen and listened to Rob encouraging Elsie to come to work in Toronto, where he had recently taken a job in a garage. She then heard Rob abuse her and Ewan for using their living room for their own guests when Elsie was entertaining there. Carried by Rob’s volubility, the easily led Elsie declared that she “hated the Macdonalds.” (June 11, 1926).

  Maud prided herself on treating her employees well, and she had often heard Elsie tell others how much she liked working for the Macdonalds. Maud was particularly fond of Elsie, but her code of behaviour demanded absolute loyalty and honest dealing from others. She retreated to her bedroom, feeling furious—and deeply hurt.

  A few days later she heard angry voices downstairs at 2:00 a.m., and she crept down the back stairs to listen. Elsie and Rob had come in late, made a snack for themselves, and ransacked Maud’s private desk. They were reading her notes—the dated daily jottings of factual events to write up in her journals when she had time. She kept these in a private desk in the library. That they had rifled through her private desk was the last straw for Maud. Although Maud blamed Rob for everything, Maud would never trust Elsie again.

  The next day she summoned Elsie, gave her two weeks’ severance pay, and told her sharply to go home to her mother. Elsie was floored, not being privy to what Maud had overheard, and also not knowing that Maud objected to her boyfriend, since he was, after all, in the congregation. Elsie went home to her family in total confusion, feeling disgrace and shame. For many years people in both communities speculated about why she had left the manse so suddenly, without explanation. No one knew.

  The greater loss was Maud’s. She missed Elsie’s joie de vivre for a very long time afterwards, feeling a mixture of indignation, betrayal, and, most of all, the loss of a young person she had genuinely liked. Finding a good maid was difficult: business was booming after the war, and locally, the Glen Williams woollen mills offered employment to young women. Maud contacted an agency in Toronto and interviewed a woman named Margaret MacKenzie who had just arrived from Scotland. Maud did not like her, but decided to try her anyway, given the lack of other candidates. She could not do without help and continue in her professional life.

  At the end of June, the Canadian Women’s Press Club (CWPC), which now had four hundred members and had been going for some twenty years, sponsored a massive meeting called a “Triennial.” It was a conference of high-powered professional women, with about a hundred delegates from across Canada. The Honourable G. Howard Ferguson, Premier of Ontario, opened the Triennial Congress with a speech arguing that Canada would disintegrate without the pull of “the Empire,” and extolling imperial virtues.3Next, selected delegates spoke about their provinces. A newspaper article continued that “Prince Edward Island was represented by a charming speech by Mrs. Ewan MacDonald,” singling her out alone for praise. The many male speakers in the CWPC Triennial Program included Mayor Lorne Pierce, Donald G. French, F. J. B. Livesay, Norman McIntosh, H. Napier Moore, Newton McTavish—all distinguished publishers, literary critics, and journalists of the era.

  Newspapers covered the event and listed the important women journalists and writers attending: Judge Emily Murphy of Winnipeg, Agnes Swinnerton, Cora Hind, Madge MacBeth (“Gilbert Knox”), J. G. Sime, Charlotte Whitton, Isabel Ecclestone MacKay. Maud was one of the speakers: she attended functions at the Toronto Press Club, the Grange, and the Royal Canadian Yacht Club. Her old friend, journalist Ma
rjory MacMurchy, gave a tea in her honour. Maud loved circulating once again in the literary culture of Toronto, and enjoyed the role of a successful older writer who promoted new Canadian writers. The good fellowship improved her spirits for weeks afterwards.

  Maud enjoyed these trips to Toronto events, staying over with Marjory MacMurchy, Mary Beal, or her Montgomery cousins, Cuthbert and Ada McIntyre. Her publishers, Mr. McClelland and Mr. Stewart, were always ready to take her out to dinner. They discussed new titles and sent her free books, hoping for her promotional blurbs. And she loved shopping at Eaton’s, her favourite department store.

  As for Ewan, he had a slight mental slump in April and May after their move, but he soon improved, and it became clear that the parishioners were pleased with their new minister. He left in early August for a month’s holiday with his own relatives in Prince Edward Island. Maud looked forward to having a little solitude in her new home. She wanted a rest—from packing, from stress, and from Ewan himself. She wanted to “own” her new landscape through long, appreciative, often solitary walks.

  Chester, now fourteen years old, was continuing to worry her. Maud confided to her journal that he made a “fool” of himself over “every pretty girl he sees” (August 14, 1926). She wondered if this “girl crazy” phase would pass, or if it would cause serious damage in his life. She was relieved that he did some work in the gristmill for part of his summer, hoping that would keep him out of serious trouble. It was great comfort that his reports from St. Andrew’s were good. He clearly had a fine brain.

  Maud turned back to her work on the third Emily book, which she had set aside in 1924 when she started The Blue Castle. Between Chester and Elsie, she felt out of patience with young love, but she had to deal with it in the next stage of Emily’s life. Maud had no interest in the inevitable— consigning Emily to marriage. In Toronto, she had met talented professional women like Marjory MacMurchy, who had married only late in life, and her sister, Dr. Helen MacMurchy, who had stayed single. Both had fulfilling and self-supporting careers. But Maud’s reading public was not ready for Emily to choose a career over marriage, even though “companionate marriages” were a hot topic in the media at the time. (These marriages, in which a couple married to have companionship and conjugal rights without intending to have children, were generally condemned. Conservatives and clergymen argued alike that it was God’s plan for women to marry and procreate.)