Return to the Island: An utterly gripping historical romance

by Hewitt, Kate

  “My dear. My dear.” Tears sparkled in Elvira’s eyes as she stepped closer and pressed Ellen’s hands between her own. “You cannot know what this means to me. To finally meet you…”

  “I’m sorry?” Ellen was truly startled now, as well as a little wary. Had Elvira confused her with someone else?

  “Your painting, Starlit Sea.”

  Ellen looked at her uncertainly; she’d painted that canvas, a darkened sea lit by stars, in 1912, after the sinking of the Titanic. It had come from a deep, wounded part of her, and she’d been consumed by the effort of creating it for several months. Even though it had been exhibited by the Society of Lady Artists in Glasgow, Ellen had never expected a woman from New York to have heard of it.

  “You know it?” she asked, and Elvira gave her hands a little squeeze.

  “I saw it in the newspaper, and I wrote to Glasgow, to ask if it could be loaned to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York. They agreed, and it was brought to New York right after the end of the war.”

  “It was?” Ellen had had no idea. She’d donated the painting to the Glasgow Society of Lady Artists right after its first exhibition; in a strange way, creating the canvas had served as a catharsis, and she’d had no desire to deal with it again. Yet to think her work had been in the Metropolitan Museum of Art…!

  “It’s there to this day,” Elvira exclaimed. “I’m amazed you didn’t know.” Ellen shook her head, and Elvira pressed trembling lips together. “It meant so much to me, for our firstborn, Charles, died on that terrible ship.”

  A wave of understanding rushed through her. “Oh, Mrs. Frampton, I’m so sorry.”

  “Call me Elvira, please, my dear. I’m just so pleased to meet you. That painting offered me such comfort and hope. It reminded me that even in the darkest of days, there can be light. Hope.”

  “I’m so glad.”

  “You lost someone too, didn’t you?” Elvira said with a knowing nod. “I could sense it, from the painting.”

  Ellen could only nod back. She hadn’t spoken of Henry McAvoy to anyone, beyond the barest of details; his family had only given her the briefest of acknowledgements, as his marriage proposal had been a secret, but at least they had honored his will in bequeathing her a modest yet still substantial amount that had allowed her a certain level of financial freedom.

  “I’m so sorry for your loss,” Elvira murmured.

  “Sarah will show you to your rooms, and after you’ve refreshed yourselves you can take tea in the parlor,” Ellen managed to say before she stepped aside to let the two women into the house.

  “It all sounds enchanting,” Elvira assured her as the two women came inside.

  “Ellen, you really are famous,” Gracie exclaimed as she and Ellen began to prepare the tea and cakes. “To think we have a celebrity right here on the island! Fancy that.”

  “Oh, but I’m not, Gracie,” Ellen protested. She felt oddly shaken that Elvira had recognized her painting and had actually arranged it to be brought to New York; it was as if something she’d been keeping secret had been exposed. “It’s just an amazing coincidence that Mrs. Frampton knew my painting.”

  “I don’t think it is,” Rose returned as she came into the kitchen. “But, Ellen, did she say you’d lost someone on the Titanic? I never knew.” She looked both surprised and hurt by the omission, but Ellen knew she couldn’t tell her about Henry McAvoy right then. She’d hinted at it before, and she suspected Rose knew she’d had her heart if not entirely broken then badly damaged, although Ellen had never gone into the particulars.

  “Yes, I did,” she said, and began slicing the cake, her gaze lowered.

  Rose seemed as if she wanted to ask more questions, but as Ellen kept slicing, she just gave a little shake of her head and got out the cups.

  Soon, the two Frampton women were happily having tea; it only took a few moments of conversation for Ellen to realize Elvira and Imogen were much more accomplished than Viola or her sisters, and intended to have a full program of art tuition.

  “I hope I am up to the task,” Ellen returned with a smile, although in truth she was apprehensive of the extent of the Framptons’ ambitions.

  “I’m sure you are,” Elvira replied. “Were you not a lecturer at the Glasgow School of Art?”

  “I never actually took up the position.” No doubt Elvira had gleaned all her information from that newspaper article, written so long ago. Ellen felt like an entirely different person from the worldly young woman who had been about to step onto the stage of Glasgow artistic life. Here she was in homespun clothes, worried about what they would serve for lunch tomorrow, and whether Iris Wilson would pull through, never mind what she could paint or draw. “It all seems a very long time ago,” she told Elvira frankly, and the woman gave a commiserating smile.

  “I’m sure it does. Do you intend to return to Glasgow soon?”

  She asked it so expectantly, as if it were a foregone conclusion, that for a second Ellen could only blink. “Oh no… no, I don’t think so,” she said.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Rose give her a thoughtful, troubled look, and she reached for the teapot, intent on refreshing everyone’s cups as well as changing the conversation.

  The next two days passed well enough; the Framptons were easily pleased, and both mother and daughter took to Ellen’s gentle instruction with enthusiasm and alacrity. Ellen had even shown Elvira some of her old sketches, along with a few new ones she’d done in recent weeks, the desire to draw reignited in her once more. Elvira had enthused about them all, making Ellen feel both embarrassed and pleased.

  Amidst it all, she’d even had time to check on Iris Wilson, who had recovered a little, and Ellen was hopeful she might make a full recovery in time. Iris’s husband’s brother, Jack Wilson, had not yet responded to the telegram Ellen had sent, which made the Wilsons’ situation all the more precarious, and the need for Iris to get well all the greater.

  Jed stopped by one evening when Ellen and Rose were sitting out on the porch, watching the stars come out, their guests having already retired after a long day of walking and painting. Caro was still at the Wilsons, and Gracie and Sarah had gone visiting friends, while Andrew was seeing to the animals in the barn.

  “Jed,” Rose called as he walked across the barnyard with his slow, steady tread. “Come join us. I’ve just made coffee.”

  “I won’t stay,” Jed began, but Rose was having none of it.

  “You must,” she said firmly and went into the kitchen to get him a cup.

  Ellen gave Jed a wry smile as he took a seat on the rocking chair next to Rose’s. “She won’t take no for an answer.”

  “So it seems.” He managed a small smile back, which heartened her. After that surprising moment on the road to the Wilsons, Ellen was starting to hope she and Jed might be getting their friendship back—friendship, and nothing more. “Do you still have the weight of the world on your shoulders?” he asked quietly as they settled into their chairs.

  “Just the weight of one island,” Ellen quipped. “Although tonight I feel carefree indeed. Isn’t the sky lovely?” She glanced at the palette of blue and violets with a dreamy smile. “It’s like a swathe of watered silk.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what watered silk looks like,” Jed returned, “but I’ll take your word for it.”

  Ellen let out a little laugh. “I love the island skies. I know I wasn’t born here and that I moved away, but I’ll always feel like an island girl at heart.”

  “Has someone told you you weren’t one?” Jed asked, far too shrewdly, and Ellen thought of Caro’s comments that still stung. She still hadn’t had a chance to speak to her about Peter, although perhaps that was Rose’s responsibility now.

  “No,” she told Jed. “Not really. I’m just happy to be home.”

  Rose came out with Jed’s coffee cup, handing it to him before sitting down. “So, have you got something to tell us?” she asked, a thread of anxiety running through her friendly
tone. “About Peter?”

  “Not about Peter directly,” Jed replied, “but I have written Lucas, and I received his reply today. He knows the military hospital, and he’s acquainted with one of the doctors there. He’s coming back to the island next week, and he told me to let you know that he’ll talk to you then.”

  “Lucas is coming back? For a visit?” Ellen felt a little lift of excitement and pleasure at the thought of seeing Lucas again. It had only been a month since the barn dance when he’d first given her the idea of having guests, but it felt like an age.

  “Yes, just for the weekend, though.” Jed’s eyes narrowed slightly as he gazed out at the tranquil, twilit scene. “He can’t spare more time than that.”

  Ellen thought she heard a note of bitterness in his voice, and wondered again at the two brothers, one stuck struggling on the farm, the other living the seeming high life in Toronto. Ellen knew Lucas wasn’t suited to farm life, and never had been, but surely he could have helped more than he was? It was a sore point with her, and one she didn’t feel she could mention to anyone, although she knew that if she and Lucas were truly friends, she should be able to say something of it to him.

  “Thank you, Jed,” Rose said. “You’ve been so kind. Peter’s seemed more himself these last few days, don’t you think, Ellen?”

  Ellen gave her aunt a smile of sympathy. She knew what Rose wanted to believe… and what was true. While Peter did have his good moments, ones where he was alert and even cheerful, the truth was he was often living in his own dazed reality, stuck somewhere in Flanders. Some days it was more apparent than others—when he seemed to retreat into himself entirely, or spent the night in the rocking chair or wandering the fields—but he wasn’t well. She hoped Lucas would be able to help Peter get an appointment at the hospital.

  “I should get back,” Jed said as he drained his coffee cup and rose from his seat. With a sigh, Ellen rose from the rocking chair on the porch. “I’m glad Peter seems a bit better.”

  “Thank you, Jed,” Ellen said, and Rose thanked him again as he gave a single wave and then headed back into the darkness.

  “Poor man,” Rose said softly as Jed rounded the corner of the barn. “He seems so lonely. It’s a tragedy, what happened with him and Louisa.”

  “What did happen, Aunt Rose?” Ellen asked. “Because I don’t feel as if I ever heard the whole story.”

  Rose’s mouth tightened as she continued to gaze out into the distance. “I don’t want to gossip…”

  “Nor do I,” Ellen said quickly. “I just want to understand.”

  Rose sighed. “Of course you do. I haven’t forgotten that you two were such close friends.” She paused meaningfully and Ellen blushed. Rose had comforted her after Jed and Louisa had announced their engagement, but Ellen hardly wanted to remember, much less talk about that now.

  “I only want to help,” she murmured as she looked away.

  Rose was silent for a moment as the night drew in and the stars came out in the velvety sky. “The truth is, and I’m sure you know it as well as I do, Ellen, that Jed and Louisa weren’t really suited to each other. It was a case of opposites attract, perhaps, although I can’t blame Jed for letting his head be turned. Louisa’s pretty and sociable, after all.”

  “Yes…” Ellen had always been surprised by the unlikely romance, but she’d made her peace with it years ago, or thought she had.

  “Of course we all knew Louisa wasn’t suited to farm life. I don’t think there’s a person on the island who thought otherwise. But we all hoped she’d take to it eventually, and I think Jed tried to be as accommodating as a man in his position could, although I know he can be a bit sullen when it suits him.” Rose let out a sigh. “In any case, there was only so much he could do… and only so far a person could expect Louisa to bend. I don’t blame her for wanting to move back to Seaton, and to have Jed work in a bank. But he put his foot down on that one quite quickly. He knew he wouldn’t manage it, and he’d see it as charity, which he never could stand.”

  Ellen had been told the vague outline of it all, but she’d never heard Rose speak so plainly or so dispiritedly before. “It must have been very difficult.”

  “And then when dear little Thomas came… she’d had a hard pregnancy, and the little lad came early. He was always a bit frail, and Louisa coddled him, which anybody could understand. But she kept him from Jed, if I can put it like that… it was as if she had to have him all to herself. It just made things worse between them, in the end. And then when Jed joined up when the lad wasn’t much more than a bairn… well, no one was surprised Louisa went back to Seaton.” Rose shook her head sorrowfully. “I’m not surprised the ’flu took him. Poor little man.”

  They were both silent as they contemplated the tragedy that had befallen Jed and his wife; Ellen had visited the little headstone the Lymans had had placed outside the Presbyterian church when she’d first arrived on the island, and laid a bouquet of daisies by it.

  “I think,” Rose said at last, “that if it hadn’t been for that dear child departing this world too soon, Jed and Louisa might have made a go of it, after the war. I hoped they would, anyway. Hardship can bind people together just as much as it can pull them apart.”

  “They still could,” Ellen protested. “If Louisa comes back…?”

  “Yes.” Rose was quiet as she gave Ellen a rather knowing look. “Whether she comes back or not, they’ve said their vows, good and proper. Jed Lyman is a married man, Ellen.”

  An icy ripple of shock went through Ellen as she took in the implication of her aunt’s words. “I—I know that, Aunt Rose,” she said after a moment, stammering in her surprise and unease.

  “I know you do,” Rose answered quietly. “I just thought I should say it, is all.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The rest of the Framptons’ visit went by uneventfully enough; Andrew drove them out to the south shore, and another day they took a little skiff out to the bare-swept beaches of Nut Island. Ellen was kept busying overseeing their artistic tuition, and it was Rose who went to the Wilsons’ homestead with Peter, to deliver more food and check on both Iris and Caro.

  “Iris seems a little better,” Rose told Ellen the evening before the Framptons were due to return to New York. “She’s sitting up in bed and taking some broth.”

  “Oh, that is good news,” Ellen exclaimed.

  “Although I don’t know how she will manage the farm, even if she does recover completely,” Rose continued frankly. “The place is falling down about their ears, and Iris hasn’t planted so much as a potato this spring. She was always such a slight thing, and not up to much, even before she took ill.” She sighed. “But there’s been no word from her brother-in-law, I suppose?”

  Ellen shook her head. “Not that I know of. Did you ever meet him?”

  “No, I don’t think he’s ever come to the island. Iris’s folks were island-born, but the Wilsons came from Oshawa way. It would be best if he took on the farm for Iris, but heaven knows if he’d even want to, or if he’s ever turned his hand to the plow. As far as I recall, the Wilsons were factory people.”

  “I suppose we shall just have to wait and see,” Ellen said pragmatically.

  “And no more bookings till the weekend,” Rose said as she glanced at the Farmer’s Almanac calendar hanging above the stove. One of the bookings Lucas had arranged had canceled, and the other was only for a few days. “It’s just as well,” Rose sighed pragmatically. “I think we’re all worn out. But the money won’t go amiss.”

  “Mrs. Frampton has promised to recommend us to all her friends,” Ellen reminded her. “We might be awash in bookings come August!”

  Rose smiled wearily. “I hope so.”

  Just then, Elvira herself came into the kitchen from the parlor, startling both Ellen and Rose.

  “Mrs. Frampton,” Rose said hurriedly. “Do you need anything? Another cup of tea or—”

  “No, no.” Elvira waved her away. “I am perfectly cont
ent, I assure you. I merely wished to speak with Ellen before I retired upstairs.”

  Ellen shot Rose an uncertain look before replying, “Of course. Shall we go into the parlor?”

  Rose looked as confused as Ellen felt as Mrs. Frampton led the way into the front parlor, which was empty; Imogen had already gone upstairs and the McCaffertys did their best to make themselves scarce and give their guests an evening of privacy.

  “Is everything all right, Mrs. Frampton?” Ellen asked uncertainly.

  Elvira was standing by the fireplace, empty now for the night was warm, her hands laced across her middle as she gave Ellen a rather appraising look.

  “Elvira, my dear, please do call me Elvira! And yes, everything is well, indeed. Imogen and I have so enjoyed our time here.”

  “I’m very glad to hear it.”

  “And we will recommend Jasper Lane to all our artistic-minded acquaintances, I assure you.” She paused, and Ellen had the sense there was more—much more—that she wanted to say.

  “But…?” she asked after a moment, managing a little laugh, and Elvira inclined her head in acknowledgment.

  “But I do wonder, my dear, as does Imogen, what you are doing in such a place as this.”

  Ellen stared at her in blank incomprehension. “Such a place as this?”

  “Miss Copley, you could be one of the most celebrated women artists of your time, if you so chose it! I am sure of it. I have not seen the like of Starlit Sea in all my years, and even the simple sketches you have done here have captured my eye. They could easily be exhibited in New York, along with your wonderful painting. I have already thought of the title—‘Island Sketches.’ A collection of charcoal sketches of everyday scenes, vignettes if you like, telling a story of life here. I assure you, people would be enchanted.”

  Ellen let out a huff of incredulous laughter. “I don’t think—”

  “But I am getting ahead of myself,” Elvira continued smoothly. “Speaking of exhibits! The truth is, I wanted to invite you to come and stay with us in the city, perhaps for the month of September? You would be so very welcome, my dear, and I know my husband would dearly like to meet you. You would be our guest—we’d arrange all the details. There are so many people we’d like you to meet, both friends and people we know in the art world. And perhaps then we could discuss a possible exhibition of your sketches. I’m sure you’d like to see Starlit Sea for yourself again. Think of all you could do.” Elvira smiled at her, clearly expecting an enthusiastic answer, but Ellen could only stare at her dumbly, too shocked to reply.