Return to the Island: An utterly gripping historical romance

by Hewitt, Kate

  It was after ten o’clock before the women retired for the night, and Ellen was looking forward to seeing her own bed. She was bone-weary, aching in every muscle and sinew as she settled under the covers, a high crescent of moon sending an arc of silver light across the floor. Tomorrow she’d take the ladies to the south shore, where they could paint the lake in watercolors. She wondered how Patience would handle a paintbrush. Edith, she felt sure, would find something to complain about.

  Perhaps she would do a bit of painting herself. She flexed her fingers, remembering the pleasure she’d felt at sketching again, like exercising an old, forgotten muscle. Maybe she’d even get out her old sketchbooks again…

  It felt as if Ellen had only just dropped off to sleep when she was being shaken awake, and Caro’s face was pressed close to hers.

  “What…” Ellen began on a gasp, only to have Caro shush her.

  “Don’t wake Mam, or our guests.”

  “I won’t.” Ellen sat up, pushing her heavy braid over her shoulder as she blinked sleep out of her eyes.

  Caro perched on the edge of the bed, her expression drawn and serious.

  “Caro, what is it?”

  “It’s Peter,” Caro whispered starkly, her hands knotted in her lap. “He’s missing, Ellen.”

  Chapter Eight

  “Missing?” Ellen rose from her bed, her heart starting to thump. “What do you mean, missing?”

  “He’s not in his bed. He’s not even in the house,” Caro explained, looking more and more anxious with every passing second. “I couldn’t sleep and so I went downstairs. The back door is wide open, and his boots are gone.” In the moonlit room, Caro’s face was pale and grim, fear flashing in her hazel eyes. “I don’t know where he is, Ellen, but we need to find him.”

  “And we will.” Ellen swallowed hard. She hadn’t mentioned Peter’s nocturnal wanderings to anyone, because she’d thought they were harmless. He’d always come back to the house before too long. But as she and Caro stared at each other, she heard the grandfather clock in the hall chime three somber notes. He had never been out that late before.

  With a pang of guilt, Ellen realized she hadn’t paid too much attention to Peter since the arrival of their guests. He’d been quiet at supper, even for him, and he’d gone off immediately afterward. She didn’t think Caro or Rose had given him much thought, either; they’d all been wrapped up in Viola Gardener and her sisters. What if something had happened to him?

  “Ellen,” Caro urged, reaching for her arm. “What shall we do?”

  “We’ll look for him.” Ellen hurried to dress, her finger flying over the buttons. “Let’s not tell your mother just yet. She’d only worry, and he might be close by. Perhaps he fell asleep in the barn. You know how he goes out there sometimes, just to get away?”

  “Yes…” Caro nodded, a new hope lighting her eyes. If only it could be that simple… and yet Ellen already feared that it wasn’t.

  She grabbed a shawl and stuck her bare feet into boots before quietly heading downstairs and then outside to the still, moonlit night, with Caro following behind her. The sky was clear and scattered with stars, the only sound the gentle whoosh of the breeze, and the occasional distant cry of a fox.

  Ellen walked across the barnyard, peaceful in the darkness, and slipped into the animal- and hay-scented yard. The animals rustled in their displeasure at being disturbed, and it only took a few moments of slipping among the stalls to realize Peter wasn’t there.

  “Well?” Caro demanded as Ellen came out of the barn. She shook her head. “Where else could he be? Why would he walk out so late at night?”

  “He’s gone out before,” Ellen admitted. “I’ve been downstairs when he’s come in.”

  Caro pressed her lips together. “I didn’t realize…”

  “I’m sorry, I should have told you. We both know Peter has been troubled, but I wasn’t truly worried… it was never this late.” Ellen trailed off, feeling wretched. Why hadn’t she mentioned Peter’s late-night walks to Caro or Rose? Surely they deserved to know.

  She supposed it was because she felt a certain empathy for Peter’s restlessness, in a way she knew her cousin and aunt couldn’t. They hadn’t been in France. They hadn’t lain under a fiery sky, listening to the shelling, waiting for the thud. They didn’t understand how hard it could be to remember that life wasn’t like that any longer, or even that it once had.

  Caro squared her shoulders, a determined set to her chin. “We just need to find him, then. Surely he won’t have gone too far. I’ll check the rest of the outbuildings, and you can go towards the wood.”

  Ellen took a deep breath as she scanned the darkened fields, gentle pastures stretching to the wood of birches and maples that separated their property from the Lymans’. An owl called softly in the night, the only sound in the stillness. Where on earth could Peter be?

  While Caro headed to the chicken coop and milking parlor, Ellen took a lantern and then started off through the fields. It felt strange to be out alone in the darkness, the sky wide and black above her, the grass alive with the rustlings of field mice and who knew what else.

  Ellen lifted her lantern and swung it an arc as she called out as loud as she dared. “Peter! Peter, where are you?”

  There was no reply.

  Still she walked on, through the gently rolling fields and towards the wood whose darkness seemed impenetrable under a sliver of moon, the whisper of grass against her nightdress as the damp chill in the air penetrated through her thin wrap.

  How long had Peter been out here? What if he’d been hurt? She dreaded to think of him lying somewhere in the wood or lost in a field, bleeding, insensible, or worse.

  “Peter…” she called again, a ragged edge to her voice. “Peter, it’s Ellen, where are you?”

  Ellen spent an hour going through the wood; the sky was starting to lighten to a dank gray, the wood turning into recognizable shapes of trees and rocks, as she finally turned back towards Jasper Lane.

  Caro was waiting on the porch as she came through the fields, both worried and weary.

  “You didn’t find him?” Caro called out, and Ellen shook her head. “What should we do?” Caro asked as she pulled her shawl more tightly around her shoulders. “Should we wake Mam?”

  “Not yet…” Ellen bit her lip. She hated to think of how worried Rose would be. “Perhaps we should tell someone else, though.”

  “But who?” Caro sounded despairing. “Peter’s old friends from school are gone—either dead or moved away. He has no one now.”

  “What about Jed?” Ellen asked quietly.

  Caro stared at her. “Jed…”

  “He’s a veteran, too.”

  “Yes, and he’s even more sullen than Peter is,” Caro returned with some heat, frustration now taking the place of fear. “He’s so unfriendly these days and he doesn’t want to help anyone, not even himself.”

  “Perhaps, but at heart he’s always been one to help others. You know that, Caro. You’ve seen it yourself.” She just hoped it was still true.

  “I know the war has changed everyone, Jed included.” Caro squinted towards the wood as if she could make Peter out among the trees, her shoulders slumping when she saw no one. “Peter’s not anywhere. We could spend the whole night tramping these woods looking for him, and then what good would we be for our guests tomorrow? Let’s go back to the house and hope he finds his way back eventually.”

  Ellen stared at her in alarmed dismay. “But what if he’s hurt? He could be out there suffering, Caro. Shouldn’t we let someone know?”

  Caro gave her a quelling look, one that Ellen had never been the subject of before. “Peter has his pride, Ellen. The last thing he’d want is the whole island up in arms about him, trawling the woods and lanes, thinking he’s lost his senses, or worse.”

  “No, I suppose not,” Ellen said slowly, but she still felt deeply uneasy by Caro’s decision as they headed back to the farmhouse, the sky now a pale, pearly gray, the
horizon pink with the approach of dawn.

  “There’s no point going back to sleep, I suppose,” Caro said with a sigh as they climbed the weathered steps to the front porch. “The animals will need seeing to, especially without Peter here.”

  “Yes, I suppose.” Ellen put away the lantern and opened the screen door to the kitchen, stopping in surprise at the sight that greeted her.

  “Peter…!”

  He sat at the kitchen table, his expression dazed and unfocused, mud smudged on his face and his boots, inexplicably, clutched in his lap.

  Ellen ran towards him, stopping before she reached him as she registered the blank look on his face.

  “Peter, we’ve been looking for you everywhere,” she said softly. “Where have you been?”

  “I was on patrol,” he said, as if it were obvious, and Ellen gaped at him.

  Caro came in through the door, stopping as suddenly as she had. “Peter…”

  “No man’s land,” Peter explained without looking at either of them. “Made it all the way to the trenches, but I couldn’t see anything in the dark. A Jerry came round the corner and I shot him.”

  Ellen felt a cold, creeping dread steal through her at his flat tone, his unfocused gaze. And why was he holding his boots? “Peter, are you remembering something from the war?” she asked gently. “It must have been very terrible.”

  “Ran for cover in a shell crater full of mud. There were bodies in there… old ones.” A shudder ran through him and he clutched his boots more tightly. “Felt as if they were drowning me, but I managed to get out. I took my boots off when I got back.” He gestured to the boots in his lap. “Trench foot is a nasty business, you know. Can’t let your feet get wet.”

  Ellen made no reply, her mind spinning. Peter didn’t seem as if he were remembering a night from months or even years ago. He seemed as if he were reliving it now. He hadn’t looked at either her or Caro once since they’d come into the kitchen.

  Ellen glanced at Caro, whose face was pale, one hand at her throat.

  “Peter…” Caro spoke with authority although she looked shaken. “Listen to me. You’ve had a bad night of it, to be sure, but you need to go to sleep now. You’re off duty and your commanding officer insists you get some rest. You’ll have another patrol tomorrow, and you need to be prepared.”

  Ellen struggled not to gape at Caro; why on earth was she participating in this fantasy? In all her years at Royaumont, the doctors had never suggested such a thing. They had always striven to reassure soldiers caught in the midst of their nightmares, to comfort them and remind them of their reality—that they were safe and well.

  Before she could say anything, however, Peter blinked, his expression becoming a little more focused, although he didn’t turn to look at Caro. “How do you know Captain Smythe?” Before Caro could come up with an answer, he shook his head slowly, gazing around the kitchen in confusion. “Where am I?”

  “You’re home, Peter,” Ellen said, her voice trembling. “You’re safe on Jasper Lane. You’re home.”

  Both women held their breaths as Peter absorbed this news. Ellen wondered if he would get angry with them, if he was still in this haunted dream world of terrible memories. But he rose slowly and stiffly from his chair.

  “I need some sleep,” he said, and walked from the room, still holding his boots.

  In the ensuing silence, Caro and Ellen stood there, both of them reeling from the terrible, surreal exchange.

  “We can’t talk about this now,” Caro said finally. “He’s safe in bed, that’s all that matters. Later, we’ll decide what to do, who to tell. Right now we need to get started with the day.”

  Numbly, Ellen nodded and went to get dressed properly before she helped Caro with the morning chores.

  After such a tumultuous start, the rest of the morning went smoothly enough, although Ellen was aching with tiredness and still reeling from Peter’s strange episode.

  Viola, Patience, and Edith all happily ate the breakfast that Rose and Caro cooked, Edith taking triple helpings of porridge so back in the kitchen Caro muttered that there wouldn’t be any for Peter when he came downstairs.

  “Is Peter still sleeping?” Rose exclaimed in surprise, and Ellen and Caro exchanged looks.

  “He seemed tired,” Caro said evasively.

  “But he always gets up at dawn, to milk the cows,” Rose said, frowning. “And the pair of you look like Gracie and Andrew did when they’d dipped their fingers in the cooling jam. What’s going on? Has something happened?”

  “Peter’s fine, Mam,” Caro said. “He’s asleep in bed.”

  “Yes, but why?” A rare anger flashed in Rose’s eyes as she gazed sternly at her daughter. “Don’t coddle me, Caro, and don’t keep the truth from me, either. What’s going on?”

  “Peter was wandering in the night,” Ellen said quietly.

  Caro flashed her an angry look that surprised her with its ferocity.

  “Wandering…” Rose looked between them both. “What do you mean?”

  “He was having a stroll, Mam, nothing more. He couldn’t sleep. It’s common enough with ex-soldiers.” Caro gave Ellen another quelling look that she understood plainly enough. Her cousin didn’t want her telling Rose about Peter’s odd episode.

  “I feel as if I haven’t got to the bottom of this,” Rose said as she went to slice more bread for toast. “But I will eventually, I promise you.”

  Ellen tried to meet Caro’s eyes, but the younger woman refused to look at her as she went back into the dining room to see to their guests. Fighting a deepening unease, Ellen went upstairs to gather her art supplies together for the morning’s lesson.

  By the time their guests had finished breakfast, Peter had come downstairs and, after a cup of coffee and some porridge, was ready to drive the ladies and Ellen to a vantage point by the Bay of Quinte Reach.

  He made no mention of the events of last night, which wouldn’t have surprised Ellen, except neither did he seem embarrassed or defensive about his actions. She had a terrible feeling he didn’t remember them, but she said nothing of it to either him or Caro, who had seemed determined to avoid her.

  It was a lovely day, the sky cornflower blue with fleecy white clouds that matched the surface of the lake, ruffled with whitecaps. Ellen did her best to put her worries to one side as she focused on the art lesson at hand—painting the lake in watercolors.

  The three women arranged themselves at various comfortable spots on the bluff and Ellen walked between them, offering advice and encouragement.

  Despite the sunshine and the beauty of the day, she could not relax into the moment and enjoy the women’s attempts, amateurish as they undoubtedly were, at capturing the beautiful view. Her stomach seethed with her nerves and she kept going over that odd conversation with Peter, remembering the queer, dazed look in his eyes, the way he’d spoken in a monotone…

  She hated to admit it, even in the anguished privacy of her own thoughts, but she feared that Peter was indeed afflicted with the terrible shell shock—the dreaded “thousand-yard stare” and all it encompassed. She needed to talk to Caro again, she decided. Her cousin had seemed quite touchy that morning, as if she didn’t want Ellen to interfere, and yet she’d looked to her for advice before. Surely she would wish to hear Ellen’s thoughts on the matter, especially considering that she, of all of them, had the most experience with shell-shocked soldiers? Perhaps between them they could decide on an appropriate course of action.

  “Oh, Miss Copley,” Patience called in a girlish trill, despite the fact that she had to be at least fifty. “What do you think of my maple tree? These are maples trees, aren’t they?”

  “Actually, they’re hickory,” Ellen said, summoning a smile as she went forward to inspect Patience’s rather simplistic drawing. “This is lovely, but I do think it would benefit from a bit more depth…”

  At noon, Peter returned with the wagon and took the women back to Jasper Lane for a cold luncheon. Thankfully, they all
chose to rest in the afternoon, giving Ellen a few hours to catch up on the sleep she missed the night before, although she felt so worried about Peter that she thought she wouldn’t sleep.

  She’d only just managed to drop off into an uneasy doze before she was woken by Rose knocking on the door; Viola and her sisters wished to have help with their still lifes in the parlor, which they’d started last night.

  The rest of the day passed in a rush of chores and tasks, with Ellen feeling as if she were constantly scurrying to and fro, between Rose and the rest of the family and their three guests, who, as pleasant as at least two of them could be, still seemed to have endless demands, whether it was cups of tea, “something to nibble on,” or hot bath water at an inconvenient time of day.

  By evening, Ellen felt ready to drop, and she hadn’t had a chance to speak to Caro about Peter. She hadn’t even seen Peter since lunchtime, and she had no idea what sort of frame of mind he was in now.

  After supper, Ellen tidied up with Rose while their three guests relaxed in the parlor. Caro had gone to see Iris Wilson again, and bring her and her three little ones something to eat.

  “Truth be told, Ellen, I’ll be glad when these ladies have gone,” Rose whispered. “They’ve been lovely, but it’s hard work, looking after three ladies like this. They do like things a certain way, even Viola, and she’s the nicest of the bunch.”

  “It is challenging,” Ellen agreed. At supper, Edith had asked for a different dessert than the shortcake with strawberries that Rose had made, and of course there wasn’t any. Rose had been mortified, and Ellen had felt like giving the persnickety Edith a good shake. She’d opened a jar of preserves instead and served it with some shortbread biscuits, and Rose had given her a grateful look. “But it will be well worth it, I hope,” she said now to Rose with an encouraging smile.