by Kate Hewitt
“It’s not my island,” Ellen replied, her lips compressed. “And I don’t think they’d like being thought of as funny characters.”
“Don’t become all prim on me.” Louisa narrowed her eyes, lips pursed. “Don’t you want me to go with you?”
Ellen gazed at her friend, and knew two things. First, that Louisa had chosen her as her friend for shallow reasons at best, and manipulative ones at worst. And second, she did not want Louisa to come to Amherst Island. At all.
“No, I don’t,” she said after a moment. “Louisa, if you think Seaton is dull, you’d find Amherst Island far, far duller. There are no shops except for a little store that’s barely the size of my uncle’s broom cupboard, and the school is just one room that’s freezing in the winter. We take turns about who can sit closest to the wood stove.”
“Well, I won’t be there in winter.”
“Why do you want to go?” Ellen asked, desperation edging her voice now, for she had a terrible feeling that Louisa Hopper would not take to Amherst Island at all, and the islanders wouldn’t take to her. Her summer would be quite ruined.
“Why don’t you want me to go?” Louisa challenged, eyes snapping. “I’ll like it, I know I would.”
Ellen just shook her head. There was no point continuing this conversation, and besides she suspected that Louisa’s parents would not allow her to travel all day and night by train, to stay with relatives Aunt Ruth had made no secret of thinking questionable. She hoped as much, anyway. Desperately.
Still the whole question of Louisa’s friendship tugged irritably at Ellen’s mind as she set the table that afternoon, in preparation for the Hoppers’ visit.
Louisa was just spoiled, she told herself, not mean. At least not too mean. She’d teased Hope, but she’d made up with her afterwards and seemed genuinely sorry. She was impulsive, Ellen decided, and she liked to be entertained, for things to be jolly and fun. There wasn’t any harm in that, surely.
“I’m just a novelty to her,” Ellen murmured to herself as she laid the last crisply starched napkin on Aunt Ruth’s polished dining room table. “She’ll tire of me soon and move on to someone else.” Preferably before the summer arrived, and Ellen’s plans to return to the island were discussed.
The thought of Louisa abandoning their friendship brought a certain amount of relief, coupled with a twinge of disappointment. As silly and vain as she might be, Louisa was still the only friend she had at school.
Her eight months away, Ellen realized, had made her more of a stranger to Seaton than ever. No one seemed to know what to do with her, although they hadn’t before either. Ellen had a terrible feeling that no matter how much she changed, Seaton wouldn’t, and she would never fit in. No one would let her.
Aunt Ruth came into the dining room in her second best dress, her silvery blond hair swept up in a loose style recently made fashionable by the drawing of a Gibson Girl in Scribner’s.
“Haven’t you finished?” she asked, clucking her tongue.
“I have,” Ellen replied, and Aunt Ruth moved a napkin a half-inch to the left, frowning slightly.
There was a knock at the front door, and Aunt Ruth swept out of the room again. “Hamish, they’re here!”
Uncle Hamish came downstairs, having changed his collar and tie, his face shiny and red, and his expression as affable as always. Ellen felt a flutter of nervousness and wasn’t even sure why. She didn’t care about impressing the Hoppers. She suspected they were the sort of people who couldn’t be impressed, and yet...
She had a bad feeling that if anything—anything—went wrong this afternoon, the blame would fall squarely on her shoulders.
With a sigh she went to greet her aunt’s guests.
The first half hour of the visit went smoothly enough. Aunt Ruth led the Hoppers into the sitting room and they made polite and rather dull conversation while Louisa kicked her feet in a fit of obvious boredom and Ellen sat as straight and quietly as she could.
Mr. Hopper was a dapper man, his hair and the ends of his mustache slicked back with pomade, his suit the latest style. Mrs. Hopper looked much like Louisa, with her hazel and chestnut coloring, a great deal of powder on her nose to conceal what could only be described as freckles.
She smiled indulgently at her daughter, and then suggested in a sweet, girlish voice, “Why don’t the two young ones go out and play? Such talk as ours is sure to be deadly dull.”
“It is,” Louisa said sullenly, and Ruth’s lips compressed, her nostrils flaring in disapproval of such bad manners.
“Of course,” she said after a tiny pause. “Ellen, you may show Louisa your bedroom.”
There was nothing of interest to Louisa in that spartan chamber, Ellen was quite certain, but she rose from her place on the hard piano bench and led Louisa out of the sitting room.
“Let me see your dresses,” Louisa commanded when they were in her bedroom.
“I’ve only three,” Ellen replied dubiously. She was not going to show or even mention the red velvet dress still in its box under the bed. She was wearing her Sunday dress, another cut down from Rose’s, and the other two were plain and serviceable, having been worn many times to school.
“Is that all?” Louisa said incredulously, and favored Ellen with a look of real pity. “Your aunt’s so keen to impress us, I thought she’d have bought you five or six at least. She can get them right from the store, can’t she?” Louisa tossed her head. “Of course, I wouldn’t buy a store bought dress like that. Mama has my dresses made up by a seamstress, you know. She copies the styles from Paris and London.”
“You’re very fortunate.” There was much more Ellen would like to say, in surprising defense of Ruth, but she knew that to irritate Louisa now, with her parents downstairs and Aunt Ruth, as Louisa had rudely pointed out, so keen to impress them, would create a disaster.
“I am,” Louisa agreed placidly. She leapt off the bed and went out into the hallway.
“Where are you going?” Ellen asked, trying not to sound too anxious, as Louisa marched downstairs again.
“They’re still talking,” she whispered, rolling her eyes, and disappeared into the kitchen.
Aunt Ruth had laid the tea things out on the kitchen table, to be brought in with suitable pomp and formality, and Louisa surveyed them with a speculative air.
Ellen’s breath caught, and her pulse beat in her throat. “Louisa—”
With wide, horrified eyes she watched as Louisa deliberately plunged her finger in to the middle of the lemon tart, its smooth, creamily yellow surface now marred by a gaping, finger-shaped hole.
She licked her finger, grinning, her eyes snapping challenge. “Mmm. Delicious.”
“Louisa!” Ellen hissed. She was so angry, she was nearly shaking. “How could you! You know that tart’s for tea!”
Louisa shrugged in defiance. “I’d like to see Aunt Ruth’s face when she sees that tart now,” she said with a sharp little giggle.
“You will see it,” Ellen replied grimly. “Honestly, how could you be so selfish!” She could not imagine what Aunt Ruth would think when she saw the desecrated tart. She looked up, disgusted with Louisa’s purposeful malice. “How could you be so stupid!”
There was a terrible silence as Louisa’s face went white, then red with rage. “You’ll regret speaking to me like that!” she hissed. “You’re such a prim and proper little miss, aren’t you, Ellen Copley! Everyone told me you came here dressed like something from the rag basket with an accent so thick you could spread it on bread! You were worse than one of the Irish mill girls, and I made you my friend!”
“I’m not likely to thank you for that privilege,” Ellen snapped back, hurt despite her best intentions not to be by Louisa’s insults. “And at least I didn’t arrive in this town with my nose so high in the air I’d trip every time I took a step! You’re nothing more than a selfish, spoiled, vain little brat!”
Louisa gasped in shock, then did something Ellen immediately realized was quite
possibly the worst thing that could have happened. She burst into noisy tears.
There was a moment of silence that seemed to reverberate throughout the whole house, pierced only by Louisa’s obvious theatrics.
Then Aunt Ruth, Uncle Hamish, and both the Hoppers came hurrying into the kitchen.
“Oh, my Louisa!” Mrs. Hopper cried. “What on earth has happened? Are you hurt, my dear child?”
Louisa gulped noisily, her face streaked with tears. “My feelings are,” she said in a pathetic wail. “Ellen Copley said horrible things about me! Horrible! And all because I told her not to dip her finger into Mrs. Copley’s beautiful lemon tart!”
Ellen choked in disbelief, Mrs. Hopper gasped, Mr. Hopper frowned and glanced at his pocket watch, Uncle Hamish looked troubled and unhappy, and Aunt Ruth’s face was completely expressionless as she surveyed the scene, from Louisa’s reddened face to the desecrated tart.
“I’m very sorry about this, Mrs. Hopper,” Aunt Ruth said after a moment, her voice scrupulously polite. “Clearly we need to teach the girl some more manners. You know we took her in when her father abandoned her, and there is more work to do.” Ellen gasped at this unfair statement, rage boiling thickly through her. “I do hope Louisa won’t take whatever Ellen said to heart.”
“It appears she already has,” Mrs. Hopper replied in a frosty voice. “She’s very sensitive, you know, and I had my doubts about her friendship with your niece, orphaned as she is, and so new to this country...”
“I’m not an orphan,” Ellen interrupted, her voice choked, only to be swiftly silenced by a poisonous look from Aunt Ruth.
“Indeed, I fear your doubts may have had some foundation,” Aunt Ruth replied with grim courtesy. “Although in the past Ellen has given very little reason for me to doubt her...”
“Has she? Perhaps you should pay more close attention,” Mrs. Hopper retorted, and Aunt Ruth inclined her head.
“I hope you will still stay for tea. Ellen, you must of course apologize to Louisa.”
Ellen’s chest felt so tight she could barely breathe, and she felt dizzy with the injustice of the situation, from Louisa’s lies to her aunt’s assumption of the worst in her. Worst of all was Louisa’s smug smile as she waited for an apology she had no right to.
“I’m very sorry, Louisa,” Ellen said in a cold voice, “for what happened today. I realize my judgment was entirely in error.”
Louisa frowned, suspecting the apology was not quite what it should be, and even the Hoppers looked slightly taken aback.
“You will stay for tea, I hope?” Aunt Ruth asked. “We can put this unfortunate episode behind us.”
“I think not,” Mrs. Hopper replied. “Thank you for your offer, but we must return home. As you can see, Louisa is quite exhausted from such a hurtful experience.”
“Yes,” Aunt Ruth replied dryly. “I can see she has quite worked herself into a state.”
A few minutes later, having gathered their things, the Hoppers had left. Ellen stood in the hallway, the splendid tea still laid out behind her in the kitchen. Aunt Ruth stood at the door, the spring sunshine streaking through the glass panes and bathing her face in light, showing Ellen the fine lines of age and strain around her eyes and mouth.
There was an expression on her aunt’s face that she couldn’t quite fathom, one of weariness and sorrow and even regret. She ached to draw it, capture the somber mood on paper, yet she knew there was something else to be got through first.
“I’m very sorry, Aunt Ruth,” she said quietly.
Aunt Ruth didn’t look at her. “As am I.”
“They’ll come round, I’m sure,” Uncle Hamish said in a feeble attempt at cheerfulness. “Awfully stuck up folk if you ask me, but anyhow...”
Ellen took a breath. “I didn’t put my finger in that tart...” she began, but Aunt Ruth cut her off.
“I don’t care what you did or didn’t do, Ellen Copley. Louisa Hopper was your guest, and that’s all that matters.”
“But...” Ellen swallowed down the injustice she felt, struggled for words. “But she’s horrible.”
“Go to your room.” Aunt Ruth sounded tired. “Go to your room and you can stay there till bedtime. There will be no supper for you tonight.”
Wordlessly Ellen went upstairs. Her mind seethed with protestations she knew she could not voice. Why was Aunt Ruth so angry with her, if she knew Ellen hadn’t been the one to put her finger in that awful tart?
She threw herself on her bed, taking several deep breaths to compose herself, before she reached underneath her pillow for her sketchbook and charcoal pencils. With grim determination, her fingers shaking only a little bit, she began to draw.
SIX
Hamish Copley wasn’t happy. The debacle with the Hoppers had cast a pall over home life, with which he was normally mostly content.
It had also fed the gossip at his own counter, with plenty of elbowing and winks, and worse, disapproving frowns and nods, as customers asked him just what the Copley girl—his brother’s daughter, for heaven’s sake—had done to work the entire Hopper family into such a state.
“Far too many airs, they have,” Hamish muttered to himself as he stacked cans of Benson’s Best Gravy onto the shelves. The store was blessedly silent, and unusually for him, Hamish was relieved. He needed a little peace and quiet.
He’d seen Louisa Hopper walk down the street, her nose in the air, ignoring Ellen with such pointed malice. She’d chosen another best friend, poor little Hope Cardle, who looked terrified every time the Hopper girl latched onto her.
The Hoppers were cordial to Hamish and Ruth, for in a town like Seaton the bank manager couldn’t be on bad terms with the owner of Seaton’s finest store. It was just bad sense.
Their cold courtesy went down hard with Hamish, though. He was used to being liked. He liked it.
Worst of all, however, was poor little Ellen. Although she wasn’t so little anymore, growing taller and more gracious every day, just like her mother Ann, who had always preferred silence to chatter, smiles to laughter.
Although in truth Hamish had always been a bit unsure of Ann, that sense of inner stillness, deep waters that nothing could ripple or touch. Ellen was the same way and yet beneath her cool façade Hamish thought he saw hurt in his niece’s clear hazel eyes, and that tore at his soul.
She walked alone to school, her lunch pail banging against her knees, and when Hamish had walked past the school to the depot, he’d sometimes seen her in the schoolyard, eating her lunch alone while children gathered in happy clusters around her.
It wasn’t fair, Hamish thought, and it wasn’t right. Ellen was a lovely girl, and the only reason Seaton hadn’t taken to her was because her father had hightailed it out of town, and then that spoiled little Hopper girl had started making Ellen’s life a misery. Coupled with this thought was an uncomfortable shaft of guilt, for Hamish knew that he and Ruth had not made things easier for Ellen. They hadn’t, he acknowledged sadly, taken her in like a loved daughter. Hamish had a suspicion that neither of them knew how. He certainly didn’t, and Ruth could be so prickly about things. She didn’t know how to act with a child, and he could hardly blame her.
Still, it wasn’t right for Ellen to be so miserable. She deserved better.
Ruth came in from the store room, the account books in her arms.
“I’ve been thinking, Ruth,” Hamish called from behind his stacked tins, before he could lose his nerve. “We ought to do something about Ellen.”
“And just what should we do?” Ruth asked, her tone sharp.
“She’s not happy here,” Hamish said quietly. “And she’s not likely to be, with that Hopper brat turning everyone against her.”
“Hamish, Ellen was the one who insulted Louisa Hopper. She made her bed, now she can—”
“You don’t honestly believe that, do you?” Hamish demanded. “There was a bit of custard on Louisa’s chin! I saw it myself. That girl was lying through her lemon-stained teeth, if
you ask me.”
“I’m not asking you,” Ruth replied. “And I don’t care who stuck her finger in the tart. Louisa was Ellen’s guest, and it was up to Ellen to keep her happy and entertained.” She shook her head, clearly exasperated, although with Ellen or him Hamish couldn’t tell. “She should have seen that Louisa would make a formidable enemy! That girl is spoiled within an inch of her life. I’d take a strap to her myself, but it isn’t up to me.”
Hamish was silent for a moment, the earlier shaft of guilt deepening into a painful twist of his gut. “No, it isn’t,” he said at last, “but Ellen’s wellbeing is. She’s not happy here, Ruth. Let’s send her back to Amherst Island. She loved it there, and the children seemed to get along so well, if Rose’s reports were true.”
Ruth stared at him, and for a second Hamish thought he glimpsed sorrow flash in his wife’s eyes, an emotion he rarely saw there. It made a strange, nameless yearning open up inside of him, and instinctively he reached one hand out to her. “Ruth...”
“You want her to go?” Ruth cut him off, her voice as crisp as ever. “For good?”
Hamish twisted his hands in his apron, suddenly uncertain. He knew he’d miss Ellen, and maybe Ruth would too. They’d both got used to her, somehow. Maybe she could learn to be happy here, he thought, even as he miserably acknowledged that he really didn’t think she could.
“Hamish?” Ruth prompted sharply.
He shook his head. “No, of course I don’t. I... I like having her here. But I want her to be happy, and I think you want that as well.”
“I’d rather she was God-fearing and obedient,” Ruth snapped. Her lips compressed into a thin line, and her gaze slid away from Hamish to rest on a distant, unseen horizon. “Rose wrote me, asking for Ellen this summer,” she said quietly, her shoulders slumping just a little. “The whole summer, and she’s only just returned.”
“You missed her,” Hamish said, almost in wonder, and Ruth stiffened.
“She’s been helpful, in her own way. And summer is a busy time. We could use her in the store.”
