On Renfrew Street (Amherst Island Trilogy Book 2)

by Kate Hewitt

  It took her a few moments, but she finally found the retiring room for ladies, off the house’s main corridor, which was bigger than the whole downstairs of Jasper Lane. A few young women were chatting as they powdered their noses, and they glanced speculatively at Ellen, falling silent as she hurried past them and sat down on a chaise in the corner, her hands pressed to her cheeks.

  Mrs. McCallister’s insult had cut her to the core, because it had played on every fear she’d had. She didn’t belong; she was a stray. And now everyone knew it, although of course they’d guessed before. She couldn’t bear to stay at the wretched ball for another moment.

  Could she sneak out without saying goodbye to Henry? She’d have to. The last thing Ellen wanted to do was go back into that room and face everyone’s sneering stares.

  She’d plead a headache when she saw him again, or perhaps she’d just tell him the truth. She shouldn’t have come here. He shouldn’t have invited her. She should have known what she was capable of, where she belonged… and so should have Henry. Wherever that actually was.

  Two young women dressed as brightly as peacocks came into the room with a swish of silk and a toss of their elegantly-coiffed heads, strings of pearls gleaming against their white bosoms.

  “Who on earth is that country bumpkin in the green gown?” one of them asked in a carrying voice, and Ellen shrank into the corner of the chaise, wishing the shadows would shroud her. A few of the women already in the room shared knowing glances, clearly aware that the country bumpkin was only a few feet away.

  “That dress is at least two years old,” the other young lady contributed with gleeful malice. “Although Henry McCallister certainly seems fond enough of her! He always had queer taste.”

  “But loads of money,” someone else said, and they all giggled.

  “Do you think that’s why she’s here?” the first woman asked with a sniff as she examined her reflection in the gilt-edged mirror and clearly found it satisfying. “To set her cap at him and his money? What do you suppose she’s offering, to make him look at her twice?”

  One of the woman tutted. “Don’t be common, Rosemary—“

  “Well, why else would he be interested in her?” Rosemary demanded. “She’s a complete nobody. She must be enticing him with something.”

  With every word they’d uttered Ellen had shrunk farther back into the chaise, wishing she could disappear. But as the querulous Romseary’s voice rang out for everyone to hear, she felt something inside her snap.

  She wouldn’t apologize for who she was anymore. She wouldn’t hang her head in shame simply because she didn’t have the clothes or the money, the opportunities or the sense of privilege, that these young women did. Poor lass from Springburn she might be, she still had more breeding and class than to gossip like fishwives as these young women were doing, and impugn an innocent woman’s character on no basis at all.

  She rose from the chaise, shaking out her skirts with deliberation, her fingers trembling against the silk. The movement caught the women’s eyes, and Ellen saw how their eyes widened as they realized who she was. Not one of them had the grace so much as to blush, and Rosemary merely lifted her chin in smirking challenge.

  “I’m not here for Mr. McCallister’s money,” Ellen said clearly, meeting each of their shocked gazes in tur although it cost her. She was caught between an empowering rage and a deep, terrible sadness. “But I can assure you, I’m not here for the company either,” she added. She raked them with as much dignified contempt as she could, even as she fought the urge to cry. “I’m afraid I find it sadly lacking,” she finsihed, and with her head held high and her heart beating hard she sailed out of the room.

  She walked directly to the foyer, which had emptied out, and asked one of the footmen to fetch her wrap. Her face was still flaming, tears far too close, and she had to keep herself from trembling, but she was glad she’d said what she had. No doubt she’d feed society’s gossip mill for a year, but it didn’t matter. She would never attend another ball again, because no matter whether she belonged or not, she didn’t want to.

  “Ellen!” Henry’s voice rang out behind her. “Surely you’re not going already?”

  “Yes, I am. I should never have come, Henry.” Ellen didn’t look at him as she thanked the footman for her wrap and put it around her shoulders.

  “You’re not going because of what my mother said, are you? She didn’t mean it unkindly, I assure you—“

  “She most certainly did,” Ellen snapped. “You can’t have it both ways, Henry. You can’t say I’m a snob, and then pretend your mother isn’t. She was warning me off, and I am heeding it. I knew I didn’t belong here, and the truth is, I don’t even want to. I never should have allowed you to coax me into coming.”

  “But we haven’t even danced yet,” Henry protested, with a nod towards the empty card dangling from her wrist by a silk ribbon.

  In one vicious movement Ellen ripped it from her wrist and thrust it at him. “As far as I am concerned, you may waltz alone,” she said, and she started to turn away. Henry caught her hand in his, staying her.

  “Ellen, please. I’m sorry my mother upset you. She think she’s being humorous—“

  “No, she doesn’t,” Ellen said fiercely. “Country bumpkin I may be, but I know that much. She was trying to insult me, and she succeeded, although I think less of her, and everyone else here, for it. You’re all a bunch of parasites, feeding off people’s pain and difficult, laughing behind your hands. Do you know how hard your servants work?” she demanded. “The tweenies were most likely up before four in the morning to prepare for this ridiculous ball.”

  Henry stared at her in amazement. “Why on earth are we talked about the—the tweenies?” he asked in genuine befuddlement, and Ellen let out a ragged laugh.

  “Because they matter, and they were most likely born into better circumstances than I was.”

  “Surely not,” Henry protested. “Ellen, you are exaggerating, because you are cross. I understand it—“

  “But I’m not,” she said quietly. “Perhaps you didn’t realize that.” How could he? How could someone of Henry’s wealth and status understand where she’d come from?

  “That doesn’t matter to me,” he said at last, reaching for her hands once more.

  “But it matters to me.” She took a step away. “I’m sorry, Henry. I’ve enjoyed being your friend. But this was a step too far. I… I don’t think we should see each other again, in any capacity.”

  “Ellen, you don’t mean that.” Henry looked crestfallen, but Ellen hardened her heart.

  “I do,” she said, and then turning away from him, she strode out of the grand house, into the night.

  CHAPTER NINE

  January 1912

  “Well done, Miss Copley. Your most recent painting is quite… competent.”

  Ellen suppressed a smile as Professor Grieffenhagen moved past her. Competent was, she knew, high praise indeed from her demanding instructor, and the biggest compliment he’d paid her in the four months she’d been at the school.

  “Clearly you’re coming on,” Amy told her after the painting lesson was over and they were walking towards the refectory. “I’ve certainly never been called competent.”

  “You can dream,” Ellen teased back and Amy grinned.

  They settled at one of the tables with cups of tea and pieces of ginger cake. Ellen glanced around at all the pupils chatting and eating and felt contentment settle deep in her bones. She’d worked hard these last few months, not just to improve her artistic ability, but to increase her confidence, and to, as Norah liked to say, ‘suck the marrow out of life’ here in Glasgow.

  Besides her days at school, she’d started taking an active part in the Glasgow Society of Lady Artists, and had attended dinners and lectures there regularly. She’d made a few more friends among the female pupils at both the art school and the Society, and she nourished a secret hope that she might be chosen to take part in the Society’s winter
exhibition.

  She had not seen Henry since that disastrous evening back in October, at the ball. He’d written her a formal letter of apology afterwards, and promised not to seek her out. Ellen found she missed his company, but she knew she’d made the right decision. Their worlds were simply too far apart, and she needed to focus on why she’d come to Glasgow in the first place—for her art.

  Amy had been sympathetic when Ellen had told, albeit briefly, what had happened at the ball.

  “Oh, Mrs. McCallister is dreadfully catty. No one gets on the right side of her, as far as I can see. I wish I’d seen you first, Ellen, and I would have warned you off her.”

  “It was better this way,” Ellen reassured her. “I had my doubts about attending that ball in the first place, and they were proved right. I shan’t be borrowing any more gowns, I promise!”

  “You act as if you’ve been put in your place,” Amy argued, “but it doesn’t have to be that way. Glasgow society really is very enlightened.”

  Ellen thought of Amy’s casual dismissal of her maid, whose first name she did not even know, and simply shook her head. “As I said, it’s better this way.”

  And so it was—without the distraction of a friendship with Henry, she had far enough time and mental energy to focus on improving her skills, and she spent the evenings sketching in her room, or sometimes in the parlor with Norah, listening to music as they read or sketched. Although her landlady had not said anything about the matter, Ellen knew she approved of her friendship with Henry ending.

  “It’s a shame you can’t be friends with Mr. McCallister,” Amy remarked now as they sipped their tea.

  Ellen rolled her eyes. “Not this again, Amy…” Her friend had a romantic streak and seemed intent on casting Ellen and Henry as star-crossed lovers, while Ellen kept insisting that they were nothing of the sort.

  “It’s only that he doesn’t visit the school as much as he used to. He’s positively avoiding you, Ellen.”

  “He’s respecting my wishes.”

  “It’s so tragic of him, don’t you think? He hasn’t escorted any ladies anywhere since October, you know. He’s positively pining.”

  “I think you read too many story papers, Amy,” Ellen said tartly.

  “And I don’t think you read enough. Do you have any romance in your heart at all? You could at least renew your acquaintance—“

  “I don’t wish to.” Although, Ellen acknowledged, that wasn’t quite true. Henry had been an easy companion, and she’d enjoyed his company. Still, she knew she would not change her mind. “Why don’t we talk about something else? Are you submitting something for the winter exhibition?”

  Amy wrinkled her nose. “Certainly not. I’m a dilettante, remember?”

  “Your work is still accomplished,” Ellen protested. Amy made fun of her artistic ambitions, but she had a raw talent for capturing still lifes in all their peaceful beauty. “Why don’t you try, at least?”

  “I will, if you will renew your acquaintance with Mr. McCallister.”

  “Amy! I can do no such thing. It would be far too forward.”

  “Then at least allow him to think of approaching you,” Amy argued. “Word could get to him…”

  “I’m sure it could.” Amy, of course, moved in the same exalted circle as the McCallisters. “No, thank you. Suit yourself if you won’t submit to the exhibition.”

  “You will, I suppose?”

  “Yes, I might as well try.” She was choosing between a still life in oils, a medium she still struggled with, and a pencil sketch of a flower seller on Renfrew Street.

  Amy sighed and shook her head. “Very well, I shan’t mention Mr. McCallister again. But Ellen… don’t you want to be with someone, someday? You can’t pine for this mysterious man back in Canada forever.”

  “I’m not pining,” Ellen replied, and meant it. Mostly. Rose continued to give her news of Jed and Louisa, and how they were both settling into married life on the island. It didn’t hurt her nearly as much now as it had a few months ago.

  “But surely you want to marry?” Amy pressed. Her own engagement was imminent; she’d been escorted to several balls by a local gentleman named Charlie Whittaker for a few weeks now, and blushed whenever she spoke of him, although Ellen had yet to meet the fine fellow. “Besides,” Amy continued, “there is no reason why you can’t be a Lady Artist and a respectable married woman. A society matron, even. Look at Frances or Margaret Macdonald, or Jessie King. They all married, and continued their careers. We’re far more forward thinking than you seem to believe.”

  “Amy,” Ellen retorted tartly, “I’m not looking to marry.”

  “Not now, perhaps,” Amy allowed. “But eventually, surely.”

  Ellen just shook her head. The pain of loving Jed and losing him to Louisa had certainly diminished, but that didn’t mean she was ready to consider someone else. Just the thought of giving herself to a man, body and soul, made her shrink inside. The risk of being hurt, of becoming heartbroken, was simply too great. She’d always been a quiet, self-contained sort of person, and she supposed she always would be, even if the idea of a soulmate somewhere held a distant, dreamy appeal.

  “I have more important things to consider now,” she told Amy firmly. “And I like my life just as it is.”

  Yet back at Norah’s cozy house, Ellen’s mind drifted once more to the past, and what had and hadn’t happened between her and Henry, as well as between her and Jed. Yes, she liked her life now, but something vital still felt as if it were missing. She cherished her letters from Lucas, yet they were a poor substitute for a friendship with someone living and breathing in the same city as she was.

  While she’d made friends with some of the other artists, and could, rather cautiously, call Norah her friend, she still felt she lacked a kindred spirit, someone who understood her truly—her artistic ambitions as well as where she came from, what she missed. Perhaps she would never find that person. Perhaps they didn’t exist.

  Still, there was nothing to complain about, Ellen told herself. She had spent a quiet and pleasant Christmas at home with Norah; over the last few months she’d finally progressed to calling her intimidating landlady by her Christian name, and they’d enjoyed many conversations about art and philosophy. She had even taken to wearing dresses in Norah’s loose, uncorseted style, although only when she was at home. She did not quite possess the daring to go out in the streets of Glasgow without the comforting armor of a corset and fitted gown.

  Her friend Letitia had come to visit over Hogmanay, and Ellen had been entertained with her many anecdotes about life as a female medical student at Edinburgh.

  “I had my first Anatomy lesson right before Christmas,” she told Ellen over cups of tea at Mrs. Cranston’s tearooms. “And I didn’t turn a hair! I admit it did make me a bit queasy, seeing the poor dead man laid out on a table, his skin as white as a fish’s belly. And when the scalpel first went in…! The sound of it, Ellen… I may have swayed a little. But another student, a man I hasten to add, fell to the floor in a dead faint. No one was giving him smelling salts, I warrant, and telling him he did not possess the constitution for such endeavors.”

  “Oh Letitia, it all sounds perfectly dreadful,” Ellen had said, laughing as she shook her head.

  “You ought to be used to it,” Letitia answered with a sniff. “Leonardo da Vinci used to study corpses to improve his understanding of human anatomy.”

  “Thankfully we have live models now,” Ellen replied. Although she had blushed mightily when they’d had their first nude model in the classroom, back in November. At least she hadn’t burst into fits of giggles like some of the other lady pupils, and she’d managed to keep her eyes firmly on her canvas when not actually looking at the model, whose expression had been a perfect study of boredom.

  Now, as dusk settled in the late afternoon in the iron-hard cold of winter, she arrived home to find a letter from Louisa for her on the hall table, the first she’d ever sent.

&nb
sp; Ellen picked up the envelope with Louisa’s untidy, childish scrawl on the front rather apprehensively, wondering what her erstwhile friend and occasional enemy might have to say to her, to write after all this time. She feared that hearing Louisa’s undoubtedly blissful descriptions of married life with Jed still held the power to sting.

  Slowly Ellen mounted the stairs to her bedroom. Amherst Island felt more and more distant with each passing day she spent in Glasgow, immersing herself in school as well as the Society for Lady Artists. She’d become used to city life, and even to the consuming attitude of most artists, as if nothing mattered but paint and charcoal, oils and clay.

  For a moment, she let herself linger on the world she used to know—the lake would be frozen now, the trees stark and bare, the fields and meadows long stretches of white, drifted with snow. Ellen gazed out her bedroom window at the slate roofs and soot-stained chimneys of Glasgow and felt as if she were another person entirely from the young woman who had walked across those fields in dusk, and knocked on the door of the Lyman farm.

  She glanced once more at the letter. She knew from Aunt Rose that Louisa and Jed had settled into a new farmhouse on the other side of the Lyman property. Jed had built it specially for her, even though there was plenty of room in the old farmhouse. It seemed a waste to Ellen, but Rose had been more accepting; a newlywed couple, she’d written, needed their space. Ellen hadn’t liked to think too much about why.

  At least it seemed Louisa had dropped her aspirations to move back to Seaton and have Jed work in a bank; Ellen was grateful for that. Btu why had Louisa written? What news did she have to share?

  Carefully Ellen slit the envelope and read what Louisa had written; her friend’s loopy handwriting filled up an entire page.

  Dear Ellen, I do apologize for not being a better correspondent, although truth be told I’ve never been good with letters, as you probably have guessed. It’s hard to imagine you all the way in Glasgow, which I’ve heard is quite a dreary city. Rose assures me you don’t find it so, but I’d rather not be stuck among the rail yards and chimney stacks! If I had to go anywhere, I suppose I’d like Paris well enough.