Down Jasper Lane (Amherst Island Trilogy Book 1)

by Kate Hewitt

  “We don’t need her labor,” Hamish protested. “Let her go.”

  Ruth’s expression remained distant and shuttered. Hamish had no idea what she was thinking. “Next summer,” she said at last. “In a year, after she’s got her Year Eight Certificate. She’d be thinking of going to high school then anyway.”

  “She wants to go to high school?”

  “She said something about it. I doubt it will come to anything. I don’t know where the money will be found, and she hasn’t proven herself an able student in any case.”

  “She did rise a grade,” Hamish objected, his voice mild. “And we have the money put by if it’s needed.” Ruth simply pressed her lips together, saying nothing. Hamish decided he’d pushed enough and he straightened, rubbing his hands together. “So she can go next summer then?” Ruth nodded. “I’ll tell her.” He felt a curious mixture of relief and disappointment. He didn’t really want Ellen to leave, yet he still wanted her to be happy. The two, he realized, seemed to be forever separate, and the stark realization, and what it meant about his and Ruth’s own failings, made him sad. “She’ll go next summer, for who knows how long.”

  Ruth glanced at him sharply. “Not forever.”

  “No,” Hamish agreed. “Not forever.”

  That evening he knocked on Ellen’s bedroom door. When she bid him enter, he saw she was curled up by her window, a sheet of paper across her knees, her expression guarded.

  “Uncle Hamish? Is everything all right?”

  “Yes, of course, my dear.” He smiled awkwardly, realizing like nearly every other conversation with Ellen, he did not know how to handle this one. “May I sit down?”

  “Of course.” Ellen put the paper aside, looking at him with a wary curiosity.

  “Your aunt and I have been discussing your future.”

  “My future?”

  “You’re getting older, aren’t you? Fourteen in the autumn.”

  “Yes...”

  “Thinking about things, I’m sure. What’s next and such.” Ellen just nodded, still wary, and Hamish took a breath. “It seems to us you might do better back on Amherst Island.”

  Ellen’s face was still, expressionless. Hamish wished he could tell what she was thinking. He’d expected his news to make her happy, or at least smile. She looked down at her lap. “Is it because of the falling out with Louisa?” she asked in a low voice.

  “Partly,” Hamish admitted. “Not that I—we—think you’re to blame, Ellen, about that. It’s pretty clear to me what Louisa is like.”

  Ellen turned her face away so he could only see her profile. “And is it clear to Aunt Ruth?”

  Hamish shifted in his seat. “I don’t yet know a person who can fool your Aunt Ruth, and that’s a fact.”

  Ellen turned back to him with a faint smile. “I suppose that’s true.”

  “In any case, this isn’t about Louisa, Ellen. And goodness knows it’s not meant to be—well, some sort of punishment. We’re not sending you away.” Ellen gazed at him, her eyes so wide and clear it made Hamish uneasy, and he hurried to explain. “It’s what we’re sending you to, Ellen. Because... well... you’re not happy, are you?”

  Ellen took a deep breath. “No,” she confessed quietly, “I’m not.”

  “You see?” Hamish felt again that unsettling mixture of relief and disappointment. “I wish... I wish things could be different,” he told her awkwardly.

  Ellen looked up at him, surprise evident in her young face. “You do?”

  Hamish smiled sadly. The very fact that Ellen was surprised shamed him. “Of course I do, sweetheart.” He wished lots of things could have been different. He wished his brother Douglas hadn’t lit out the way he had, and he wished Ellen was happier here in Seaton. He wished she didn’t have to go all the way to Amherst Island to find a friend, and he wished he and Ruth had provided her with cousins. If they’d had children of their own, would they know what to do with Ellen now? Sighing, he touched her hair lightly. “We want what’s best for you, Ellen. I wish it could be us.” Ellen looked down, saying nothing, and Hamish wondered if she believed him. He wondered if he believed himself, for he recognized his own vague relief at the thought of Ellen’s eventual departure, mixed in with the sorrow and guilt. Having her around, so quiet and unhappy, could be uncomfortable, to say the least. “In any case, I think you’ll be happier on Amherst Island, with your McCafferty cousins.”

  A small, sad smile curved her mouth. “Thank you, Uncle Hamish.”

  And that, Hamish supposed, was that. He had a vague sense that he should ask more questions, make sure Ellen was satisfied with this plan. He’d never talked to her about Douglas, whether she missed her father. He realized he wasn’t about to start now. He nodded and slapped his knees as he made to rise. “You never know how life is going to treat you, I suppose, though your aunt would say it’s more how you treat life.”

  Ellen watched her uncle rise, knew he was glad their little conversation was over. She felt a curious mix of elation and sorrow at the knowledge she would be returning to the island. Would she actually miss Seaton, and her aunt and uncle? Or did she simply miss what could have, at least in her childish dreams, once been? “When am I to go?” she asked.

  “Next summer, a year from now,” Hamish replied. “I know it seems a long time, but your aunt thought you should have another year of proper schooling—”

  “The island school is just as proper,” Ellen could not keep from protesting. Uncle Hamish gave a little smile.

  “Maybe it’s because your aunt wants you here, Ellen, for another year at least. We might not be able to make you happy, sweetheart, but we do like having you around.”

  Ellen said nothing. She couldn’t think of a single thing to say, except to deny quite vigorously that her aunt wanted her here. Aunt Ruth had never given her any indication of enjoying her company.

  “In any case,” Uncle Hamish said, “I thought I’d tell you now. Something to look forward to, eh? And perhaps we can all make the best of the next year.”

  “Yes, I hope so.” Still, her hopes sank like a stone. After Louisa had talked to her at school, she’d thought she might go to the island this summer, not the next. A whole year seemed like an eternity. Why, little baby Andrew would be walking and talking, and Peter would be nearly eleven! Jed, perhaps, would be in high school. Ellen had not yet heard how that battle had ended. She would miss so much.

  She looked out the window, the stars pricking an indigo sky, and imagined the night settling softly on Jasper Lane, the oak trees’ leaves whispering in the evening air. One more year and she would be there, maybe for good.

  Hamish made to leave, and then his gaze fell on the paper next to her. “What’s that?”

  “Nothing—” Before Ellen could cover it, Hamish had picked up the sheet of paper and looked in surprise at the sketch of Ruth Ellen had drawn from memory. “I just...” she began, but trailed off, for the drawing, with Ruth’s surprisingly sad eyes, the weary set of her shoulders and the thin line of her mouth seemed all too revealing. Ellen hadn’t expected the drawing to turn out that way. When she thought of Ruth, she thought of a stony expression, hard eyes, self-righteous determination in every stern line of her body. Yet this drawing was completely different.

  “It’s a good likeness,” Hamish said quietly. “You’ve quite a hidden talent there, Ellen. You told me you liked to draw, but I had no idea you were as capable as this.”

  Ellen felt both surprised and discomfited by his quiet, almost sorrowful compliment. Did he see the sadness in Ruth’s eyes—both in the portrait and in life? “Thank you, Uncle Hamish.”

  Hamish stroked his chin, still studying the portrait. “You could go far with that, you know.”

  His words caused a strange thrill to run through her, even though Ellen couldn’t even begin to imagine where she would go with her drawing, or how. She gathered up the other sheets of paper, too shy to let her uncle see the rest. “I’m not sure I want to go anywhere with it,” s
he said. “It’s just something I do.”

  “May I keep this?”

  Ellen bit her lip. The only person she’d given a drawing to was Mam, yet she could hardly refuse her uncle. And it felt right for him to have it. “All right. I don’t know if Aunt Ruth will like it, though.”

  “I won’t show it to her.” Uncle Hamish’s smile was still a little sad. “It’s just for me.” He carefully folded the drawing and tucked it in his breast pocket.

  After he’d left, Ellen tucked her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on top, and gazed out again at the starry night. A whole year until she was back on Amherst Island! And yet perhaps, wondrously, she might be back forever. Maybe she’d go to high school in Kingston, if she worked up the courage to take the entrance exam and could figure out a way to pay for it.

  “And no Louisa coming with me,” Ellen murmured with a little smile of relieved satisfaction, for surely Louisa would not want to go to Amherst Island with her now. Yet even as the thought of returning to the island filled her with hope, Ellen could not shake that twinge of sorrowful guilt that she had not found a home or happiness in Seaton. And she suspected that her uncle, and perhaps even her aunt, felt it as well.

  SEVEN

  The following winter was long and cold in Seaton. Blizzards blew from the north and covered the town in snow, weighing branches down heavily and delaying the trains. The little creek in the woods beyond the Copleys’ house froze completely, and an ice-encased branch broke off in a storm and smashed one of the windows of the store, although Hamish had it repaired quickly enough. Even with the wood stoves heating the inside of the store, things froze; Ellen spent several afternoons lining jars of honey up in front of the stove to thaw them out.

  Even at the beginning of April the ground was covered with a hardened crust of snow and the trees looked dead and black, their branches stark against a pewter sky. Spring was slow coming to Seaton that year, and Ellen felt it painfully.

  She had passed the months slowly, ticking each one off on the Farmer’s Almanac calendar Hamish had given her from the store. There had been a few letters to liven the long, cold days: two from Da, as brief and uninformative as ever. He had settled in Santa Fe, and was now working on the engines. He’d even sent a silver dollar, and although Ellen could think of a dozen ways to spend it, she’d dutifully handed the coin over to Aunt Ruth, who had taken it with a brisk little nod.

  “That will help some,” she’d said, and with an icy wave of dread Ellen had turned to her.

  “Hasn’t my da sent other money, for my keep?”

  Aunt Ruth had said nothing, and although her expression remained as stern and unyielding as ever, Ellen thought she saw a flicker of pity in those gray-blue eyes. Her father hadn’t sent any money, she knew in that moment. She’d been foolish to think he might have at all. He’d offloaded her like an unwanted parcel nearly the moment he’d arrived. Her gut churned and her eyes stung. She really was dependent on her aunt and uncle’s grudging charity.

  Knowing her father was well and truly settled, and hadn’t sent any money, gave her a leaden feeling in her middle, for it made it all the more certain that he would not return. That he didn’t even want to return. She hadn’t seen him in a year and a half, and in all that time there had only been three letters, with barely enough words to fill a single sheet of paper.

  Yet there had been other letters, cheerful, newsy missives that filled page after page, and Ellen determined to forget about her father’s decided lack of communication and concentrate on those. Rose had written, and Caro and Sarah and Lily; Lucas had written too—he was cataloguing all the plants of Amherst Island and sent Ellen pressed specimens which she kept between the pages of her rapidly filling sketchbook.

  Each letter from the island was like a burst of light into Ellen’s dreary existence; she sat silently through school before returning back to her aunt and uncle’s to do her chores or help in the store. The evenings were spent in quiet and usually solitary pursuits, although once in a while her uncle asked her to play checkers in the parlor, with Aunt Ruth sitting in her usual rocking chair, darning briskly, shooting them glances every so often that to Ellen, seemed full of censure.

  Yet one wintry evening, to her surprise, Hamish glanced over at Ruth and asked her to play jackstraws with them. Ruth’s mouth tightened and she darned all the faster.

  “I’ve these stockings to see to, Hamish, as you can very well see for yourself.”

  “Stockings will keep,” Hamish said in his easy way, although Ellen thought there was something a bit tentative about his expression, a shadow in his eyes. “Come play with us, Ruth.”

  Ellen waited for Ruth’s ringing set down, for she could not imagine her aunt playing anything. Then, to her utter shock, Ruth put her darning back in the basket. “Very well,” she said briskly, as if she were setting to just another chore. “One game of jackstraws.”

  Hamish grinned and spilled the jackstraws out from their jar, turning to give Ellen a sideways smile. “Our Ruth always was the best at jackstraws.”

  “It just takes patience,” Ruth said as she carefully studied the spill of jackstraws; the goal of the game was to withdraw one of the spindly sticks at a time without disturbing any of the others.

  Ellen gazed at her aunt and uncle, amazed by these small revelations. She could not imagine her aunt ever playing jackstraws, although she could certainly imagine her being the best at them. Aunt Ruth was the kind of person who was the best at anything she did. And yet at one time she must have been young and hopeful, full of dreams and maybe even laughter. Ellen tried to remember her aunt from the early days in Springburn, before they’d emigrated, but she could not. All of Springburn felt blurry now, as distant and faded as an old photograph, never mind when she was as young as three or four years old.

  “Now let’s see...” Aunt Ruth murmured, and carefully, with two slender fingers, she withdrew a jackstraw with silent grace. Hamish cheered, and Ellen grinned, for no one could mistake the triumphant gleam in her aunt’s eyes. “Now that is how it is done,” she said as she sat back with a smile, and Hamish took his turn.

  The game only lasted a few minutes, yet Ellen thought it the most pleasant time she’d ever had with her aunt and uncle. And yet somehow even this little joy made her sad; why could they have not played jackstraws when she’d first arrived? Why couldn’t Ruth have softened, and Hamish been more natural, and they’d have somehow made a family, the three of them, odd as it was?

  As she and Hamish put the jackstraws back in their jar and Ruth returned to her darning, Ellen knew it was too late for such hopes.

  School, for Ellen, remained mostly something to be endured. She enjoyed her lessons under Miss Evans, and in November Louisa came down with scarlet fever and didn’t return to school until the spring, which made Ellen’s day to day existence much easier. Still, the other girls her age had yet to really welcome her, and Ellen recognized it was as much her fault as theirs. She had no interest anymore in becoming friends with the girls of Seaton; she simply wanted her island friends. Her island life.

  As for high school, she had not let herself think about it, and had not yet told Miss Evans whether she would sit the entrance exam in May. Lucas wanted her to go to high school in Kingston, but Ellen did not see how that would be possible—she couldn’t take the entrance exam for Glebe Collegiate all the way from Vermont. All she could hold onto was the promise of returning to the island in a few months, and hope that the other tangled threads of her life would form themselves into a pattern.

  One morning in April as Ellen was finishing her oatmeal in her usual silence, Aunt Ruth bustled in, hands on her hips, and announced, “Louisa is recovering and would like visitors.”

  Ellen’s spoon hovered halfway to her mouth as she stared at her aunt in surprise. “Surely you don’t mean me.”

  “Why else would I be telling you?” Ruth replied in her usual sharp way. She moved around the kitchen, wiping the already clean counter top and moving the
sugar bowl two inches to the right of its perfectly good place.

  Ellen sat still. She could tell Ruth was bothered, and not by her own actions for once. “She asked for me in particular?”

  “Yes. Of course. You’re to go this afternoon, and take a present. Something from the store, a hair ribbon or some such.”

  Ellen nodded, her mind still whirling. Why would Louisa want to see her? Could it be just to poke fun from her sickbed? Surely not, and yet... Ellen couldn’t think of another reason. Louisa had not had a kind word for her in nearly a year. Had being ill changed her? Ellen felt a chill of foreboding. She didn’t want to see Louisa, changed or the same. She didn’t want to see Louisa at all, for she knew no good could come of it.

  Yet judging from Ruth’s indomitable expression, her mouth set in a puckered line, Ellen knew there would be no arguing. There never was with Ruth.

  After school she went to the store and asked Hamish for something for Louisa.

  “Poor mite,” Hamish said affectionately, for though he’d disliked Louisa after the disastrous tea nearly a year ago, he couldn’t stay angry with anyone for very long, and Ellen suspected his unpleasant memories had the habit of conveniently fading. “We’ve some new hair ribbons in, lovely striped silk. Just the thing. And what about a bag of lemon drops? They always slip down nicely.”

  Dutifully Ellen took the presents. “I’m surprised she wants to see me,” she said after a moment, and Hamish’s brow wrinkled slightly before he gave her one of his jolly smiles.

  “I expect she wants to be friends again,” he said cheerfully, and Ellen could not quite smile back. She didn’t want to be friends with Louisa again, and she distrusted the very thought of Louisa announcing that she had decided to accept her as her friend once more. Louisa treated friends like old toys, to be picked up and discarded at her leisure. Ellen would not play along.

  Straightening her spine, she smiled fleetingly at Uncle Hamish before leaving the store. The breeze blowing a few leftover leaves down Main Street was chilly, and the sky was a pale gray that couldn’t make up its mind as to whether it would clear or not.