Lucy Maud and Me by Mary Frances Coady

Author:Mary Frances Coady
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: JUV000000
ISBN: 9781554885671
Publisher: Dundurn Press
Published: 1999-04-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Outside, Laura pulled her jacket tight and did up the buttons, then walked across the street and down the gravelled driveway. She peered through the Macdonalds’ back gate.

Mrs. Macdonald was on her knees, bent toward the ground, her back to Laura, wearing a spring coat against the sharp wind. Laura came through the gate and walked a wide circle around her so as to not startle her.

“Well, look who the cat dragged in,” Mrs. Macdonald said, looking up. She smiled. Her face seemed composed, her body still, unlike her confused state yesterday. “Isn’t that a dreadful expression, ‘look who the cat dragged in’? I picked it up from my sons.” She shook her head and chuckled, looking down at the clump of earth she held with both hands. Her gloves were black with dirt. “The weather is taking quite a turn. It promises to be rainy and cool for the rest of the week. I want to split some of these perennials and get them replanted today.”

“Would you like some help?” asked Laura.

Mrs. Macdonald held the clump toward her. “This is one of the miracles of spring. Phlox. In a few weeks it will be blossoming in all its pale radiance. Its fragrance will be perfuming the air.”

Laura took the plant from her. “Pry it apart gently,” Mrs. Macdonald continued. “Discard the woody centrepiece, leave the live shoots, and I’ll replant it in new ground.”

Laura worked at the clump of phlox with her fingers while Mrs. Macdonald turned back to the earth and began to dig with a small trowel. There was a peaceful silence between them.

“I was helping Bobbie do the wash. She’s engaged and her boyfriend is going overseas.”

Mrs. Macdonald raised one eyebrow. She lifted another clump of earth. A tiny green shoot was visible at the centre. “I was engaged to be married once, long before Mr. Macdonald came along. I ended up breaking the engagement, and I left poor Edwin with very hurt feelings. Still, I simply could not go through with it.”

“Weren’t you in love with him?” asked Laura.

“No, I was definitely not in love. I thought the respect I had for him might deepen into love, but that didn’t happen.”

“What happened?”

“Well, you see, I had known Edwin for a number of years. After I returned to the Island from Saskatchewan, I went to Prince of Wales College in Charlottetown—came fifth in the entrance exams, by the way, an accomplishment I’ve always been proud of—and from there went to teach school, in some of the little one-room schoolhouses they had in those days.”

“Grandpa has told me about them.”

“Yes, it was exhausting work. And I was also trying to write, remember. Writing was my first love. I used to get up at six o’clock in the shivering cold, and I’d wrap a blanket around myself while I scribbled away at my stories for an hour or so before getting ready for school.” She picked up the tiny phlox plant that Laura had set down and slid it inside a small hole.

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