Lucy Maud Montgomery

by Mary Henley Rubio

  By October 1933, both boys seemed settled in their respective studies in Toronto. Maud hoped that Chester would stick at law long enough to graduate, but she was rapidly losing hope of him ever using his potential. She wrote in her journals that “Stuart is all I have to live for now and if he fails me I am done” (September 26, 1933).

  —

  Maud spent much negative energy worrying about her sons’ romances during the Norval period. But in a strange twist, she had spent equal amounts of energy trying to encourage a match between Marion Webb, Myrtle’s daughter, and Murray Laird, who was also descended from the Laird clan, and whose father had also been a pillar in the church. She had promoted this romance when they first moved to Norval in 1926, only to see it fall apart. There were very few choices for Marion on the Island. Ambitious young men who would not inherit a family farm usually left. As a result, and for the same reasons, young women often left the Island too. And Maud, who by now hoped to retire in Norval, wanted family closer. Marion was her particular pet.

  Back in 1930, Maud had brought Marion to Norval to promote the romance. Maud would gain a daughter, and be able to count on more visits from Island relatives for the rest of her life. Like so many other Islanders who had moved to the mainland, she tried to persuade friends to follow.

  In this same period, there was another change of maids—a major upheaval in Maud’s life. The capable Mrs. Mason, who had been their maid since January 1927, announced in March 1931 that she was engaged to a man in Kitchener and was leaving. The search for a new maid started, and through contacts back at Leaskdale, Maud found another woman, Faye Thompson, who needed a position. Like Mrs. Mason, Mrs. Thompson had a small child. She was escaping an unhappy marriage, and she needed somewhere to go where she could take her young daughter, June, with her. Faye Thompson was trim, efficient, alert, and very competent, and Maud was pleased with her. For her part, Mrs. Thompson was delighted to get such a good position.

  However, after an expensive engagement ring from her husband disappeared from her room, Mrs. Thompson learned that when Chester was home, she had to watch her possessions. Although she knew that the only person who could have taken it was Chester, Mrs. Thompson did not tell Maud. She did, however, mention this story to friends she made in the community.

  The next year, 1932, Maud turned her mind to sorting out a serious family problem on the Island. The fate of the Campbell farm at her beloved Park Corner had been an ongoing concern since 1919 when the Spanish influenza killed George Campbell, leaving his widow to cope with running the farm and raising their large family alone. Maud had always provided money to cover the shortfalls, but after 1929 she had lost so much on her investments that she felt she could no longer subsidize the family, especially when she was facing the costs of educating two sons in the professions. Fortunately, by 1929 Ella’s sons were old enough to assume responsibility for the farm. But things had become a tangled mess at Park Corner, and Maud could not help dealing with the situation since she had so much money and love invested in the farm.

  The farm had been in Maud’s Aunt Annie Macneill Campbell’s name when her son, George Campbell, died. After George’s death, Aunt Annie had made over ownership of the farm to George and Ella’s oldest son, Dan, stipulating that Dan be responsible for supporting his mother and younger siblings. But as Dan grew up, it was obvious that he had no interest in the farm. Dan was happy-go-lucky, not hard-working, disciplined, and thrifty, like his younger brother, Jim, who was both bright and independent. Since Jim didn’t want to work as his older brother’s hired man, he was thinking of leaving the farm to take a job in a Charlottetown bank. Dan, living in California with his Aunt Stella, was unwilling to come home, but he didn’t want to give up his inheritance, either. If neither son was willing to try to save the farm, Maud felt she was throwing money away trying to keep it in the family.

  Heath Montgomery, one of Grandfather Montgomery’s sons, had been renting much of the farm, but he refused to do so in 1928 and again in 1931. It was a rundown, marginal farm and Maud knew that it could be saved only if Jim made an all-out commitment to it. He might be persuaded to do so if he was promised that the farm would become his if he succeeded. Ella consulted Maud, and Maud took on the problem of convincing Jim—and Dan—that this was the only way to keep the farm in the Campbell family.

  Maud’s personal identity was tied up with the family ownership of the Campbell farm. Her Scottish ancestors had come to the new country so that they could own their own land, and to lose their “ancient heritage” after more than a century would have damaged her sense of being a member of the “landed aristocracy”—an old-world concept of great importance to her.

  Maud took up her pen. In a letter dated March 7, 1932, she wrote Dan that he was not a farmer—everyone agreed to that. If he would not relinquish his title to the farm, it would have to be sold. If it was sold, she was going to call in her mortgages on it because she needed the money to put her sons through university. This would take most of the proceeds. Then, she continued, Ella and Dan’s younger siblings would have to be looked after—that was stipulated in the will that left the farm to him—and this would take the rest of the money. There would be little if anything left for him. He could either sell the farm under these conditions, or he could sign it over to his younger brother Jim, letting Jim, who had been living and working it already, try to make good on it. If Jim failed, then the farm would be sold, and the proceeds would be distributed as above.

  Maud’s letter made it clear to Dan that he would get no money from the farm, no matter what happened. Maud knew that this would upset the grasping Stella, who had been billeting Dan, but Maud did not care. She had been astute enough to construct her many cash bailouts to the Campbells in the form of loans on the property, even if she expected to forgive the loans in the end. This now gave her leverage in forcing Dan to do the right thing for his mother and siblings. With Maud’s rhetorical screws turned tightly on him, Dan capitulated. Maud scraped together $700 in start-up money, and Jim, still in his teens, took over the farm, and did manage to keep it going.

  Maud had sound business instincts. She resolved the mess at the Campbell farm brilliantly. However, she could not resolve her own anxieties and her own family’s problems. But what she could do was transmute them into fiction.

  CHAPTER 18

  From 1929 to 1935, Maud’s writing life continued to reflect her lived experience—particularly her emotions—refracted through her imagination into stories. She found pleasure, as well as release from her troubles, by creating the more tranquil mental space in which she wrote. In the Norval years, the act of writing moved from being a source of pleasure to a therapeutic activity.

  Maud was always happiest when she was writing, living in the imaginary world of her characters, where she controlled everything. She was amused by her characters, with their full range of eccentricities, prejudices, and human limitations. Her sense of humour kept her laughing at the misadventures and comical ironies in their lives. She might temporarily lose her sense of humour about her own life, but she could always laugh over her characters. They always grew out of the human nature she had observed, and her female protagonists were always fashioned out of some elements in their very complex creator.

  She had written happily and furiously on A Tangled Web all through 1930, finishing her first draft in September. It was a very complex and densely plotted book, aimed at adults. It reconfigured the memories of her own youth, recalled through laughing with Nora over their escapades in Cavendish, and mixed these with the on-again-off-again romance of Marian Webb and Murray Laird.

  A Tangled Web (1931)

  On one level, A Tangled Web is a humorous study of love and romance in a series of intermarried clans like those in PEI or Ontario. The character who precipitates the action of the novel is a manipulative and cantankerous old woman, Aunt Becky. The novel opens with a meeting she has called to discuss the inheritance of a family heirloom (a decorated antique jug), in advance
of her imminent death. Aunt Becky says she may leave the jug to family members, on certain conditions, or she may not: they will have to wait and see. Her instructions will not be revealed for a year. The community is stirred into frenetic agitation, facing the suspense of who will ultimately be the “chosen” one. Everyone attempts to lead an exemplary life for the next year.

  Given that greed motivates everyone, the result is a community edginess that precipitates feuds, romances, re-alliances, and general mayhem. All is handled with a comic touch, and the main players are characters whose love affairs keep readers laughing. At the end, just as the contents of the will are to be revealed, it turns out that the will has been lost, accidentally dropped by the person entrusted with it, and most likely eaten by his pigs. And before anyone inherits the jug, it is smashed by the deranged “Moon Man.” Maud has had a good poke at folly in human nature; or, in theological language, she has shown that “all is vanity” in this world.

  On another level the book shows characters twisting their reality out of shape by obsessing about an unknown future, something Maud knew that she herself often did. On yet another plane, Aunt Becky’s will creates a situation that mimics the doctrine of Predestination. Because these characters, all caught up in a “tangled web,” do not know what is “written” about their future, they spend all their time trying to keep their credentials intact. Many mess up their lives in the process.

  The book was finished right before Maud went on her trip to Prince Albert and the west.

  In the years following the publication of A Tangled Web, Maud’s domestic situation did not grow any easier. The economic depression worsened throughout the 1930s, with Maud losing ever more money. Ewan’s salary barely covered basic family expenses. Her sons and their romances kept her on edge. Her asthma grew much worse, and was at times life-threatening. The seemingly endless church events began to wear on her nerves. When she was asked to take on a Sunday School class in the Union church at Glen Williams, she complained in her journal that parishioners expected too much, evidently thinking to themselves, “What do they pay a minister a salary for, if his wife won’t work all the time for them?” (January 9, 1931). In July 1931, Maud wrote an article for publication in the October issue of Chatelaine. Entitled “An Open Letter from a Minister’s Wife,” it is revealing as a self-description, and it shows her frayed nerves:

  If at times the minister’s wife is a bit absent-minded or preoccupied or “stiff,” the congregation should not imagine that she is unfriendly or uninterested or trying to snub them. She has a right to expect that they make a few excuses for her. Perhaps she is so tired that she is not quite sane; perhaps she is one of those people to whom it is torture to show their feelings—dead and gone generations of sternly repressed forefathers may have laid their unyielding fingers of reserve on her lips; perhaps she is wondering if anyone could sell her a little time; perhaps there are many small worries snapping and snarling at her heels; perhaps she has had one of those awful moments when we catch a glimpse of ourselves as we really are; perhaps she has the odd feeling of not belonging to this or any world, that follows an attack of flu; perhaps she is just pitifully shy at heart. Or her own feelings may have been hurt. Because minister’s wives have feelings that are remarkably like the feelings of other women, and injustice and misunderstanding hurt us very keenly. (October 1931, Chatelaine)51

  When Maud was asked to judge a speech contest and pleaded that she was feeling unwell, a female parishioner told her: “You’ll have to give up writing, Mrs. Macdonald.” Maud fumed. Her normal diplomacy failed her, as her journal account shows: “Half my worry this winter is that I can’t find time to do my own work. I glared at the little fool and permitted myself the luxury of a biting retort. ‘No, Mrs. Sinclair, I shall not give up my writing. But I do intend to give up running all over the country doing other people’s work for them.’ ” She added in her journal: “Oh, I can tell you I licked my chops over that” (January 9, 1931).

  But in the third week of January 1931, she pulled herself together and gave “a most unusual paper on the well-known and sometimes loved and often hated little animal, the cat,” at the Brampton Literary and Travel Club.52 And she continued to publish, out of financial necessity.

  In February 1931, she published a story in the Canadian Home Journal called “The Mirror.” It is built around a 120-year-old mirror that hung in a home inherited by the heroine, plain, shy Hilary (whose description recalls Maud at a younger age). The mirror, with unique magical powers, reveals the truth to whoever looks into it.

  In mid-February she spoke at the Toronto branch of the Canadian Authors Association, reading from her new book. She chose a chapter about the Island clans that, one newspaper reported, “provided rare enjoyment.”53 She explained to the audience that there had been much trouble finding a name for the book, and joked that Donald French was staying up nights reading the Bible to find a title for it, and “even if he doesn’t find one,” she added, “it will do him good.” Three days later, she directed the annual Old Tyme Concert in Norval, said to be the “greatest success ever,” filling every seat in the Anglican hall to the back steps.54 In June, she attended the CAA convention in Toronto as a delegate, attending a full round of luncheons, receptions, dinners, and meetings with other authors. Along with Nellie McClung and the novelist Madge MacBeth (“Gilbert Knox”), she made an address.

  In July through September 1931, Maud continued in high-profile activities. She was a judge for a Kodak photography competition held in Toronto, along with other well-known people like Nellie McClung, “Janey Canuck” (Judge Emily Murphy), Wyly Grier (a well-known artist), Canon Cody (prominent clergyman and chairman of the board of governors at the University of Toronto), and Colonel Gagnon (managing director of Le Soleil, and vice-president of the Canadian Press). The competition gave Maud a psychological lift. She wrote a high-spirited entry in her diary on the day after she learned she was to help judge, for the other judges were Canada’s elite. She was particularly pleased when her arguments decided the winning picture: the silhouette of a Canadian prospector and his pickaxe seen against the darkening sky. She was presented with a moving-picture camera for her services. Her mind was already on the subject of memories: “I hate to think of all the lovely things I remember being forgotten when I’m dead!” (July 11, 1931).

  At this time, she was recopying her handwritten journals by typewriter (partly so each son could have a copy), and she had come to the Herman Leard story.55 Amid all her activities, and her soul-searching in her own journals to understand the intensity of her former attraction to Herman, she fielded the pesky Isabel, eyed Chester for signs of mental instability, and agonized over Stuart’s fondness for Joy. She kept up her speaking engagements through the autumn of 1931. In October she went to Montreal to make several appearances. On this trip she confided to her journal that “It is not a disagreeable sensation to be lionized!!” (November 27, 1931). She took heart in every confirmation that she was still respected in a literary world where styles were changing fast, where critics were attempting to remould popular taste.

  The Canadian novelist Raymond Knister (1899–1932) wrote an article around this time that demonstrates Maud’s disappearance from the literary screens of young Canadian critics. Entitled “The Canadian Girl,” it begins:

  Why is it that though Canadian authors are known and read the world over, one cannot think of a single heroine who lingers in the memory …? The long line of English romance and fiction reveals a prodigious gallery of charming creatures, and American literature, though younger, can boast its own types. But why have we no such thing as a fictional character who is at once convincingly real, convincingly charming, and convincingly Canadian?

  Anne, who had enchanted millions of readers worldwide since 1908 and created a tourist bonanza for the province of Prince Edward Island, had not impressed Knister.56

  Still, Maud retained her readership, but she also was under pressure to continue producing books to avoid a dr
op in income. In 1930 she had earned $8,314 from book royalties, reflecting the sales of Magic for Marigold (which were mostly achieved before the effects of the stock market crash were fully felt). But she brought out no new book in 1930, so in 1931 her book income was only $1,897. It rose in 1932 to $4,805, thanks to A Tangled Web. But A Tangled Web—by far her most ambitious book to date, and one aimed at adults—did not sell as well as earlier novels. Was this because she was locked into a children’s market, or because of people’s obviously diminished buying power in the Depression, or were her books finally going out of fashion? She felt nervous.

  Political events and allegiances were changing too. Maud alludes in her journal to “Red Russia” and the “Red menace in Spain and Germany.” In 1932, she wrote of her mother’s and grandmother’s generations:

  They lived their lives in a practically unchanged and apparently changeless world. Nothing was questioned—religion—politics—society—all nicely mapped out and arranged and organized. And my generation! … Everything we once thought immoveable wrenched from its pedestal and hurled to ruins. All our old standards and beliefs swept away—our whole world turned upside down and stirred up—before us nothing but a welter of doubt and confusion and uncertainty. Such times have to come, I suppose, but woe to us whose kismet it is to live in them. (January 24, 1932)