Down Jasper Lane (Amherst Island Trilogy Book 1)

by Kate Hewitt

  Ellen tried to help her as much as she could, although she soon realized that she did Louisa no favors by treating her differently.

  “She’s a bit snooty, isn’t she?” Caro said one evening as they were washing up the supper dishes. She pumped water into the pail, the rusty squeaking of the pump keeping them from being overheard by Rose.

  “She’s been ill,” Ellen said, and Caro simply looked at her.

  “So? She acts like a princess, excusing herself after supper without so much as taking in her plate! And when we asked her if she wanted to come berry picking, she looked as if we were telling her to scrub the outhouse! I don’t like her.”

  Ellen looked at Caro’s mutinous face, her sturdy ten-year-old body, still with a childish chubbiness, in a stance of stubborn dislike, and sighed. “Louisa is from a wealthy family, it’s true,” she said, “and she’s an only child. This is all very strange for her.”

  “What I want to know,” Caro asked, “is why she wanted to come?”

  Ellen shook her head. “I honestly don’t know.” She hadn’t really asked Louisa if she was enjoying being here, for she didn’t think she wanted to hear the answer. Louisa kept herself apart from everyone most of the time, often not leaving her bedroom until ten o’clock in the morning, when everyone else had been up for hours. Ellen had taken to making a breakfast plate up for her and putting it aside until Louisa saw fit to greet the world.

  The rest of Louisa’s days were spent in pursuits worthy only of an invalid: resting on the porch or in the front parlor (she was the only one who really went in there), or occasionally taking a walk with Ellen into Stella for a sarsaparilla at the general store.

  Despite Louisa’s discomfort with this new world, Ellen still found time to enjoy all her old island pursuits. She took the children for walks, Patch frisking by her heels, and then found a rock or grassy meadow to sit in while she sketched the many delights of the island in full summer: Andrew, now two and a half, running through a field as the grass tickled his face; the fat, red raspberries fairly dripping from brambles; the tumbled stones of an old barn overlooking the placid bay. All these and more went into her sketchbooks, which Ellen showed no one, save Lucas.

  Their friendship began to deepen unexpectedly over the summer, fed by the letters they’d exchanged over the winter. Now Ellen found she trusted Lucas’ quiet, thoughtful replies and enjoyed his soothing, steady presence. If, when at the Lyman farm, she found her gaze wandering for a familiar, solitary figure, she did not admit it even to herself. At nearly seventeen, Jed was too busy for childish pursuits such as berry picking or woodland walks. He worked on the farm now from dawn to dusk, and Ellen hardly ever saw him.

  Lucas, with a hoped-for high school career ahead of him, was exempt from some of the more demanding farm labor just as he’d always been. Still, Ellen knew Lucas helped out in other ways; he was always willing to sit by his mother’s bedside and read to her from the Bible or a novel taken out of Stella’s small but steadily growing library, and he even tried making the noontime meal, although the good ladies of St Paul’s soon put paid to that, and kept the Lymans in casseroles and baked pies for the entire month of July.

  One afternoon in the middle of July, he and Ellen sat in the hayloft of the Lymans’ barn, the bales of hay as good as any pillow, the sun streaming in from the open hatch. It had become their hiding place, by default, Ellen supposed, for they’d never really discussed it.

  Yet up in the quiet solitude of the hayloft their conversation would often turn to the future, and both of their otherwise unconfessed dreams. Lucas spoke of wanting to go to Queen’s to study biology and then on to explore the last untouched corners of the earth, cataloguing plants and animals.

  “There’s still so much to be seen,” he told Ellen in his earnest way, his hair falling over his forehead. “But time’s running out too—some say Shackleton will reach the South Pole when he sets off on his next expedition.”

  Ellen nodded, for Lucas had told her all about two of his heroes, Robert Scott and Ernest Shackleton. They’d explored the Antarctic a few years ago, but the bitter cold had forced them back. Shackleton, Lucas had told her, was hoping to make his own attempt on the Pole in another year or two.

  “And what about you, Ellen?” Lucas asked, stretched out among the bales, chewing on a piece of straw. “Will you go to Glebe or high school back in Rutland? And onto Queen’s?”

  “Queen’s!” Ellen shook her head. She’d never dared think of such a thing; high school seemed grand enough. “Aunt Ruth said I might be able to go to high school if I pass the exam” she said slowly. “But I don't know if I will.”

  Lucas raised his eyebrows. “Why not?” Ellen just shook her head, unwilling to put into words all her doubts and concerns, and he leaned forward. “Why not go to school, Ellen? If you can? You’re not like Jed.” Ellen stiffened, hearing the slightest sneer in Lucas’ voice.

  “What do you mean by that, Lucas Lyman?”

  Lucas shrugged. “Jed is clever enough, if he puts his mind to it. He passed the exam, didn’t he? But he’s content to work away on the farm and stay his whole life on this island. He doesn’t want to know things. Not like you and I do.”

  Ellen said nothing, for she wasn’t sure if she was as like Lucas as he seemed to think. And the thought of living out her life on the island seemed like a glorious possibility rather than the prison Lucas’ tone suggested he considered such a choice.

  “Maybe I can’t go to high school,” she finally said. “I’m not as clever as you are, Lucas, no matter what you say, and I might not pass the exam. And it’s expensive, you know.” She blushed, hating to mention money, but she and Lucas had surely become too close not to be honest.

  “It is, at that,” Lucas agreed after a moment. “I think Pa was a bit relieved Jed didn’t go back for a second year.”

  “As was Jed, I suppose.” She hadn’t spoken to him much at all this summer, yet she assumed he was happier back on the island. She hoped he was.

  “I think he couldn’t hightail it back here fast enough,” Lucas said, and again Ellen thought she heard a slight sneer in Lucas’ voice that she didn’t like. Then Lucas’ expression sobered and he gazed unseeingly at the bright blue sky visible through the loft’s hatch. “I hope I can go in the autumn,” he said in a low voice. “Is that wrong of me?”

  Ellen shook her head. She knew what Lucas meant; he might be needed on the farm this year to help with his ailing mother. High school might have to wait. “I know about wanting things,” she said quietly. “It doesn’t make it wrong.”

  Lucas was silent for a moment, his expression still grim. Then he sighed and gave Ellen a half-smile. “Well, you need to decide what you want.”

  What did she want? Lucas’ question stuck with Ellen, fluttered around in her mind like a caged bird seeking the freedom of the open air. What dreams did she really have? In all her years she hadn’t allowed herself to want much. So many of her young hopes had come to nothing. She thought of the house Pa was going to build, the pretty little bedroom she’d been meant to have, and then the two kittens, Silk and Satin, as well as the dog for Da. None of it had come to anything at all.

  Now she was afraid to hope for high school, even though Ruth had said they’d see if she passed the exam. Maybe she wouldn’t, and that would be that. She wasn’t nearly as clever as Lucas. And then there was the matter of money. At fourteen she could be making a living wage rather than having someone pay for her schooling and board, whether it was Ruth or Rose, Hamish or Dyle.

  And then of course there were other, deeper dreams, vague formless things she could not even share with Lucas. Dreams of her drawings being framed on museum walls, and even more secret dreams of her own farmhouse on Amherst Island, with her own family. Not Pa, because Ellen now accepted he’d never settle anywhere. But when she was grown, and she had a husband and children of her own...? Would she settle here, and live the kind of life she’d always wanted, for real, for always?

&n
bsp; That was a dream she didn’t speak of to anyone. Still Lucas encouraged her in what she told him, and one afternoon up in the hayloft Ellen got up the nerve to show him her sketchbook.

  “These are good,” he said quietly as they sat amidst the hay and sunshine. He turned the pages slowly, giving each drawing careful and intent study.

  Ellen ducked her head and tucked her bare feet under her skirt. Louisa chided her for running around the island barefooted like a hoyden, but Ellen loved feeling so free.

  “Thank you,” she said. “But to tell the truth, I’m not sure it matters to me whether they’re good or not. It’s just something I need to do.”

  “Which makes it all the more important,” Lucas said. He gazed at her sternly over her sketchbook. “Ellen, you could have a serious future as an artist—”

  “I wouldn’t even know where to begin—”

  “All the more reason to find out,” Lucas interjected firmly. “I’m going to high school to learn things, Ellen. To know things. You could, as well, about art.”

  Ellen looked away. “I told you, high school costs money.”

  Lucas was silent for a moment, and Ellen wished she hadn’t said anything. “You could sell your drawings,” he said at last. “You know day trippers come to the island in the summer, from Kingston and even New York State. You could sell them at the ferry office, or even on the dockside. I wager people would snap them up.”

  Ellen turned to him, her mouth dropping open. “I couldn’t!” The idea was both ludicrous and frightening.

  “Why not?”

  “Because...” Ellen shook her head. She didn’t want to explain to Lucas that the idea of nameless tourists pawing through her drawings, dismissing them out of hand, liking one but discarding another, was too terrible to contemplate.

  “What if it’s the only way to go to high school?” Lucas persisted. “Is your pride too high a price to pay?”

  “It isn’t just pride—”

  “And what about a book of sketches eventually? Island Life, you could call it. I bet it would sell in Kingston or even Ottawa. Who knows?”

  “Away with you.” Ellen shook her head, trying to laugh, to dismiss it all as fanciful folly. She was afraid to do anything else, and she still wasn’t sure how she felt about anyone beside Lucas seeing her drawings. “I’ve never even taken a course, or been taught properly. I’m sure I’d be laughed out of a gallery or studio... I wouldn’t even know...”

  “You could learn,” Lucas insisted earnestly.

  Ellen looked down at the sketchbook, open to a drawing of Jed tossing Ruthie into the air. She’d been proud of the way she’d captured the look in Jed’s eyes, simple pleasure hidden by the usual gruffness. Something in his look made her stomach tighten, and her heart hardened with resolve.

  She shook her head. “I’m flattered you think these are worth selling, but I’ve no plans like that. They’re really just for me. I couldn’t bear to think of them being looked at and not liked—thrown away even, like yesterday’s newspaper. They mean too much.”

  Lucas nodded slowly, accepting defeat. “Sometimes,” he said quietly, “when something or someone means that much, you need to take a risk.”

  Ellen looked up, her breath drying in her throat and leaking out of her lungs as she took in Lucas’ intent look. There was something deep and purposeful in his eyes and the set of his jaw that made her feel as if she’d missed the last step in the staircase, all jolted inside. Lucas took a breath, as if he was about to say something more, but then a voice from below in the stable yard broke that silent, suspended moment.

  “Ellen! Ellen, are you here?”

  Lucas peered out of the hatch, his eyes widening in surprise. “It’s Louisa. What on earth is she doing here?”

  “Looking for me, it would seem,” Ellen answered with twinge of guilt. She’d been leaving Louisa on her own too often. Louisa was still her friend and guest, even if Ellen accepted that responsibility reluctantly. “I’d better go down...” Brushing bits of hay from her skirt, she made for the ladder.

  “Wait!” Lucas’ look of surprise had turned to one of mischief. “She doesn’t know you’re up here. It’s a perfect opportunity.”

  Ellen could tell from the glint in Lucas’ eye what he was thinking. “Louisa’s not one for jokes, Lucas...”

  “Maybe that’s what’s wrong with her.” With a grin Lucas ducked back from the hatch and out of sight.

  “Ellen?” Louisa called out uncertainly, for the yard was bare and silent save for the rustlings of the animals below. Mr. Lyman was out in the fields with Jed, and Mrs. Lyman lay, as usual, in her bedroom.

  Suddenly Lucas made a noise—something bestial although not quite a cow—that had even Ellen jumping a little in surprise. Louisa screamed.

  Covering his mouth to stifle his laughter, Lucas glanced at Ellen, his hazel eyes dancing with merriment.

  Ellen felt a bubble of laughter rising in her own chest. It felt good to get the better of Louisa just once.

  “Ellen?” Louisa sounded frightened now. She wasn’t a country girl, even after a year in Seaton. “Are you there? Your aunt said you’d come this way...” Her voice sounded thin and strained, and then Lucas moaned again, the animal-like noise raising the hairs on the back of Ellen’s neck.

  Louisa made a noise that sounded like a sob, and then ran from the yard. Lucas let out aloud guffaw of laughter. “That should teach her.”

  “Oh, Lucas, we shouldn’t have,” Ellen said, regretting the whole incident now. She hadn’t expected Louisa to become quite so scared. “Louisa is delicate, and she’s not used to country ways. We’ve probably scared her witless.”

  “She deserves it,” Lucas replied with a shrug. “I don’t like the way she treats you.”

  “Me?” Ellen’s eyebrows rose in surprise, for Louisa had lost her spitefulness, or so she’d thought. “She’s my friend—”

  “And she treats you like her maid. ‘Fetch me a glass of iced tea, Ellen. Oh, I forgot my book! Will you get it, Ellen?’” Lucas mocked in a falsetto, seeming unkind for the first time since Ellen had known him. Yet even so there was an uncomfortable grain of truth in his words. “And you allow her to, Ellen,” he continued, dropping his voice to its normal pitch. “You’re better than that. More important...” His voice lowered, his gaze averted. “To me, anyway.”

  Ellen’s heart skipped a beat and she made for the ladder. Right now she needed to think about Louisa. “I’d better go find her, before she runs screaming all the way home.”

  “I’ll come with you. It was my idea, and I won’t have you taking the blame.”

  They didn’t have far to go; halfway across the yard Jed came round the corner of the barn, his arm around a shaking Louisa, his face a mask of grim fury. Ellen faltered in her steps, for she’d never seen Jed look so genuinely angry, but Lucas stood with his feet spread apart, hands on his hips.

  “Louisa heard a noise from the barn,” Jed said in a voice that was somehow more terrible by its calm and even tone. “Said it sounded like some frightening beast.”

  “More like an ailing cow,” Lucas replied. He flicked his gaze towards Louisa, who was trying to recover herself with some dignity, yet, Ellen could not help but think cynically, still trying to play the frightened maiden for Jed’s benefit. “Cows won’t hurt you, Louisa. They’re gentle animals.”

  “It wasn’t a cow,” Louisa said with a sniff.

  “And we don’t have any ailing ones,” Jed cut in. His eyes narrowed. “Not unless they’re up in the hayloft.” He glanced at Ellen, and she quelled at the look of contemptuous judgment she saw in his eyes. She’d been the recipient of his scorn before, yet there had been something gentle and good-natured about it, not like this. She looked down at the ground, her cheeks flushing.

  “It was you two!” Louisa exclaimed, realization dawning, albeit rather belatedly. “You were up in the hayloft... making a fool of me!”

  “It’s not a difficult task,” Lucas replied coolly. �
�But it was just a harmless joke, Louisa.”

  “Harmless!” Louisa shrugged off Jed’s arm, her eyes blazing. “How could you treat me in such a manner, Ellen? And I thought you were my friend!” Anger gave way to tears, as Ellen had known it would, and with a choked cry, Louisa whirled away, heading back to the McCafferty farmhouse in a flurry of bright skirts.

  The moment after Louisa left was taut with silence, broken only by the rustling of the animals in the barn.

  “It was just a joke, Jed,” Lucas said after a moment. He shrugged, although his voice, pitched low, carried a current of intensity. “And one you would’ve played yourself a year ago.”

  “Maybe so,” Jed replied evenly, “but I’ve had to put such things behind me, and so should you, Lucas. We’re not children anymore.” He turned to Ellen, and she flinched beneath his gaze. “None of us are. Louisa might be a silly fool, but I thought she was your friend and you should know better than anyone how that kind of prank would end.” Ellen felt her face flush with shame. “It was just a little joke...”

  Jed shrugged this aside. “I have work to do,” he said brusquely, “even if the pair of you don’t.” And before either of them could say anything in reply, he turned on his heel and made for the fields once more.

  Ellen curled her bare toes in the dust of the farmyard. What had seemed silly and lighthearted a few moments ago now made her ache with guilt and humiliation. She felt worse than when Aunt Ruth had shouted at her about the lemon tart, more stupid than when she’d arrived off the train at Seaton with tangled hair and coal smuts on her cheek.

  “I’m sorry, Lucas,” she said after a moment. Lucas shrugged, his jaw tight, his eyes sparking.

  “I’m not. It was just a bit of fun. Jed thinks just because he’s the one staying at home no one else—” He broke off, shaking his head, and Ellen knew the argument between the brothers had been about more than just Louisa’s tender feelings. Whatever simmered between the two of them had been going on a long time, and Ellen was quite sure she didn’t know the half of it—and didn’t want to. She was only sorry she’d been caught in the middle.