Return to the Island: An utterly gripping historical romance

by Hewitt, Kate

  “Yes…” Rose smiled back tiredly. “Do you think there’ll be any more bookings?”

  “I couldn’t say, Aunt Rose. Hopefully our three lady guests will go back and tell all their friends about us.” Ellen didn’t mention her fears that they’d only come out of curiosity and nothing more. Rose had enough to worry about, and it seemed arrogant to think these women had come all this way simply to find out about her and her relationship to Lucas.

  As Rose went into the parlor to see to their guests’ comfort, Ellen stepped out to the front porch and breathed in the cool evening air. Golden light spread like syrup over the horizon, and pale lavender clouds drifted by like shreds of silk. If she strained her ears, she could hear the lap of the lake waters against the rocky shore, a sound that had lulled her to sleep many a night. It was a perfect, tranquil scene, and yet Ellen still felt uneasy.

  Peter had joined them for supper, saying little, and had then headed out to the barn afterwards. A normal enough thing for him to do, but tonight it made Ellen afraid. With a moment’s quiet, she decided it was as good a time as any to speak to him. Steeling herself, Ellen stepped off the porch and went in search of him.

  Peter was in with the cows, settling them in their stalls after they’d been driven into the barn. Ellen stepped inside the barn, breathing in the pungent yet comforting scents of hay and animal.

  “Peter,” she said gently, and he looked up, hazel eyes narrowing as if he already knew what she was about.

  “Do you need something, Ellen?”

  “Just to talk to you.”

  “Oh?” Peter’s tone was not encouraging. “I have work to do here.”

  “I know, I can help if you like.”

  “Muck in with the cows?” he asked with a shake of his head, before he folded his arms. “Well, then? What is it?”

  Ellen took a quick, steadying breath as she tried to pitch her voice friendly and casual. “Do you… do you remember last night, Peter?”

  He frowned, his eyes narrowing. “What do you mean?”

  “You went walking in the night—”

  “I often do, when I can’t sleep. What of it?”

  “It’s just, it seemed different last night. It was later, quite a bit later…” She trailed off, feeling as if she were fumbling in the dark as much as she had last night, stumbling through fields with only a lantern for light.

  “What of it?” Peter repeated, sounding aggressive now. Ellen wasn’t sure if he was reacting angrily because he remembered what he’d done—or he didn’t. “It hardly seems worth your mentioning it, especially when you have so many other things to do, with those ladies in there.” He nodded meaningfully towards the house.

  “It’s just… you had mud on your face,” Ellen explained in a fumbled rush. “You’d taken off your boots and you were holding them in your lap.”

  Peter’s jaw tightened as anger flickered in his eyes. Ellen realized that despite her so-called experience, she’d handled this all wrong. She’d damaged his pride, just as Caro had said, and made him feel humiliated.

  “Do you remember what you were doing?” she asked gently.

  Peter stared at her for a long moment, that anger still in his eyes, his jaw bunched. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said finally.

  “Peter, last night you were talking as if—as if it was still wartime!” Ellen pressed, feeling the need to explain why she was concerned. “You mentioned Captain Smythe and trench foot and falling into a crater made by a shell—” He flinched, and she took a step towards him, one hand held out. “Do you not remember? It was—”

  “I don’t,” Peter cut her off, his voice flat and final. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He walked out of the barn without looking at her once, leaving Ellen standing there with the cows.

  Caro had just come back from the Wilsons as Ellen came into the kitchen. She gave Ellen a sharp, questioning look, and Ellen shook her head. She didn’t want to tell Caro about her conversation with Peter now, especially as she realized she feared her cousin wouldn’t appreciate her having spoken to him without her permission.

  “How is Iris Wilson?” she asked instead.

  “Not very well, I’m afraid. She’s taken poorly with a bad summer cold that just won’t shift and the little ones need so much care. The oldest is only eight, poor mite, and they’re all just about half-starved.” Caro sighed. “It’s as heartbreaking a scene as you could ever imagine. I don’t know what will happen if she doesn’t start getting better.”

  “That’s terrible.” For a moment, Ellen was distracted from her own worries. “What more can we do?”

  “I left her with enough food in the house for several days and the children settled. I’ll go back tomorrow and see if she’s any worse, and make sure they’re managing. The oldest is good with the little ones, at least.”

  “There seems no end to people’s difficulties these days,” Ellen said with a troubled frown. “When will it get better, Caro?”

  “I don’t know.” Caro nodded towards the parlor. “How are our guests?”

  “Enjoying themselves, I think. At least, they’re not asking for anything at the moment.” Ellen sank into a chair at the kitchen table with a little sigh of relief. “I hope they’ll occupy themselves for the rest of the evening. Aunt Rose could certainly use the rest.”

  “That pinch-faced one had some gall, asking for a second pudding!” Caro said in a low voice. “What does she think we are? A restaurant in Toronto, with a menu to boot?”

  “I don’t know if she thought about it at all. But they’re only here for a few more days.”

  “Yes.” Caro tidied her hair, bending to peer in the small, cracked mirror above the washbasin. “Well, I’ll check on them, at any rate. You look ready to drop.”

  “I’m not. But, Caro…” Ellen lowered her voice. She knew she couldn’t hide her conversation with Peter from Caro for very long, as tempting as it was to do just that. There had always been honesty between them, and yet this morning Caro had seemed so sharp and cold. Ellen hoped that, in her tiredness, she had just been imagining it. “I spoke to Peter a few moments ago, in the barn.”

  Caro stiffened. “Oh?” she said, sounding, for a moment, remarkably like her brother.

  “Yes, I asked him about last night, and he said he didn’t know what I was talking about.”

  Caro sighed impatiently, her eyes snapping with anger just as they had that morning. “Of course he would. He’s proud, Ellen. He wouldn’t want to admit it. You never should have talked to him, especially without speaking to me first.”

  Stung, Ellen tried to form an even-tempered reply. “But I was worried…”

  “And I’m worried as well,” Caro fired back. “But there’s nothing we can do about it, is there? Besides keep an eye on him.”

  “I’m not sure that’s true,” Ellen protested.

  Caro’s gaze narrowed. “What do you mean?”

  “If Peter…” Ellen took a deep breath. “If he has shell shock—”

  “He does not have shell shock!” Caro lowered her voice as she cast a concerned, furious look towards the parlor. “He’s just troubled, Ellen, the same as every soldier that managed to come home from France. Surely you, as a nurse, know how that is?”

  “Yes, of course I do.” Ellen hesitated, knowing she needed to tread gently. “But, Caro, Peter thought it was wartime—”

  “He was dreaming. Or maybe just remembering. He knew he was in the kitchen sure enough.”

  “Only after you acted as if he were still on the Front. Why did you talk to him as if it was still wartime—”

  “I just wanted to get him back to bed! He came to soon enough. It doesn’t have to mean anything, Ellen.” Caro’s eyes flashed. “Just because you were in France you think you know more than I do, but you don’t.”

  This was such a blatantly unfair remark that Ellen did not know how to respond to it. “You know I have Peter’s best interests at heart, don�
��t you?” she asked.

  Caro straightened her cuffs and apron and shot Ellen a shockingly scornful look. “Do you?” she asked. “He’s not your brother, after all.” She walked out of the room, leaving Ellen feeling even worse than before. She’d never fallen out with Caro, not even when they were young girls, prone to quarrel.

  Her cousin’s icy demeanor and seeming determination to remind Ellen that she wasn’t a McCafferty hurt more than Ellen wanted to let it. Jasper Lane was her home. The McCaffertys were her family. She couldn’t bear for it to change now.

  Chapter Nine

  Ellen and Caro kept a silent truce for the next few days, as they managed their guests, with Caro and Rose doing the cooking and cleaning and Ellen taking the three sisters to various points around the island to sketch and paint.

  Although Patience, Viola, and Edith were all mediocre artists at best, Ellen discovered she enjoyed thinking about design and form again, and even the feel of a stick of charcoal between her fingers was a welcome relief, a kind of homecoming she hadn’t expected. It made her ache to open up her own sketchbook and look through drawings from years ago, perhaps even create new ones, something she’d wondered whether she would ever do again.

  In the current circumstances, however, she was kept busy enough encouraging the three ladies in their artistic ambitions.

  By the time Viola Gardener and her sisters were on their way back to the mainland, Ellen, Rose, and Caro were exhausted, relieved, and excited all at once.

  “That eases the burden, certainly,” Rose said as she carefully put the money received from the sisters for their food and board in an old flour tin kept on a high shelf in the kitchen; she’d never held with banks.

  “Do you think we’ll get more bookings?” Caro asked. It was the question they’d all been asking themselves, and Ellen had no answers.

  “I suppose we can only wait and see,” she said, although she certainly hoped they did. Although the last few weeks had had their challenges, Ellen knew this was the only way forward to save the farm.

  “Gracie, Sarah and Andrew will be returning home next week,” Rose said, her forehead furrowing. “We’ll be pinched for space if we do get many more.”

  “Gracie and Sarah can share the little bedroom,” Caro said, and Rose looked at her, startled.

  “But that’s Ellen’s bedroom! It always has been.”

  “I don’t mind,” Ellen said quickly. “I’ll sleep wherever, honestly, Aunt Rose.” She felt a flush come to her face at the way Caro had broached the subject, as if where she slept was of no consequence.

  “I don’t know…”

  “I’m already sharing with you,” Caro pointed out. “Ellen could share as well.”

  Rose gave her daughter a troubled look, but Ellen jumped in again with alacrity. “Of course I can. I can make up a bed on the floor of the back bedroom, and Gracie and Sarah can take the bed. It’s no bother.”

  “We can’t have you sleeping on the floor,” Rose protested, and then sighed. “In any case, it’s most likely not even going to be a concern. We have to get the bookings first.”

  It was early evening, the day still warm and golden, and with everything quiet at Jasper Lane, Ellen decided to walk across to the Lymans’ farm. She was still smarting from Caro’s comments, and she was also still worried about Peter. Although he hadn’t had another episode since they’d found him in the kitchen, she felt he’d been more quiet and distant than usual.

  Whenever Ellen looked concerned, Caro had shot her a warning look, a silent command not to say anything. That hurt too—since she’d arrived at Jasper Lane as a tangle-haired twelve-year-old, Ellen had felt embraced and loved by the McCaffertys. She’d always felt part of the family, unquestioningly and unreservedly, and now, for the first time, it seemed as if Caro was making the point that she wasn’t. It wasn’t Ellen’s place to interfere, or even to worry about Peter. If Caro had her way, it seemed she wouldn’t even have a place to sleep!

  And yet Ellen couldn’t help but both worry and interfere, for Peter’s sake—and so she found herself climbing the steps to the Lymans’ front porch, looking for Jed.

  “Ellen.” He greeted her at the door as unsmiling as ever, his shirt pinned neatly across his shoulder, his other arm well-muscled, his hand covered with nicks and scars from his work in farm and field.

  “May I come in, Jed?” Ellen asked, and after a second’s pause he stepped aside.

  The kitchen bore evidence of being home to two bachelors, with dirty dishes piled up by the large stone sink and dust or grime on most surfaces.

  Jed noticed her looking around and gave a slight, challenging grimace. “I wasn’t expecting guests.”

  “I know.” Ellen tried to smile. She hated how hostile Jed seemed, as unreachable as Peter, but in a completely different way. “Jed, I wanted to talk to you about Peter.”

  “Peter?” Jed frowned. “What have I to do with him?”

  “What do you have to do with him?” Ellen repeated incredulously, amazed even now at how dismissive he seemed. “He’s your neighbor, and a childhood friend, and a fellow soldier. Surely that is more than enough?”

  Jed’s jaw tightened and he didn’t answer.

  Ellen sighed. “I don’t want to fight with you.”

  “Then don’t.”

  She shook her head, realizing that any remarks she made about Jed’s attitude should be saved for another day; her first concern right now was Peter. “I came here to ask for your help and advice. Because no matter how you seem to—to hate me now, I know we were friends once and I know you care about the McCaffertys almost as much as I do.”

  Jed turned away, taking the dented kettle from on top of the range and filling it with water. “I don’t hate you,” he said in a low voice, his back to her.

  “Oh.” Ellen managed a strained laugh, although she felt far from happy. All her old relationships had begun to feel fraught, or even as if they were failing. “That’s a relief, I suppose.”

  “But I don’t know what I can do for Peter. I didn’t see him even once during the war. I don’t know what he’s been through, and in any case he’s nearly ten years younger than me. We’ve never been close friends.”

  Ellen sighed. “I don’t know what you can do, either. But I’m worried about him, and you’re the only person I could think of to talk to. You’ve been through what he has, Jed. You know what it was like, on the Front.”

  Jed turned around, his face impassive as he folded his good arm across his waist. “So why are you worried about him, then?”

  “Because… because I think he might be suffering from shell shock.” She hated even saying it; it made it feel more real.

  Jed’s expression didn’t change; if anything, he looked even less impressed than before. “Every boy or man I know who fought in the war has scars, Ellen. Nightmares, or the shakes, or both. It doesn’t mean he’s got shell shock.”

  “A few nights ago he went wandering—”

  “A man likes to have a little space.”

  “I know that, Jed, but when we found him…” Ellen took a steadying breath, trying to curb her impatience. “He was acting as if it was still wartime. Talking about patrols and no man’s land and trench foot like it was all happening right there and then. And he wouldn’t look at either Caro or me, it was as if we didn’t exist in that moment. As if he was somewhere else entirely…”

  The kettle started to whistle and Jed turned away. Ellen suppressed a stab of frustration. No one seemed as worried about Peter as she was. No one seemed to want to worry about him. Perhaps she was overreacting, but she still remembered the boy who had careened down the stairs with a wooden spoon brandished like a tomahawk. A boy who had so much irrepressible energy and cheer, whose boisterous laughter had echoed through the rooms of the McCafferty farmhouse, whose eyes had sparkled as he’d detailed all his madcap adventures. Where had that boy gone? And was there any way she could help to get him back?

  “Caro refuses to talk about it,�
�� Ellen said quietly. “She more or less told me to mind my own business.”

  “Then maybe you should.”

  Ellen drew a sharp, hurt breath. She should have expected no less from Jed, considering how surly he’d been, but she hadn’t. “After all these years, am I to be treated as an off-islander?” she asked, the words scraping her throat.

  Jed turned and gave her a level look. “You were gone a long time.”

  “So were you.” Hurt flashed through her, pang after pang. No one was on her side, it seemed. Leaving all those years ago for Glasgow and then France had severed something; the ties she’d always believed would bind her to this beloved place had been well and truly cut.

  It didn’t matter that both the McCaffertys and Lymans, as well as a host of other islanders, had encouraged her to follow her dreams, or that Jed, Lucas, Peter, and a handful of other island boys had joined up as soon as they could. Lots of people had been gone from the island, but she felt alone in her off-islander status, which got trotted out when it was convenient and no one wanted her interfering.

  “Jed, I’m trying to help,” she stated, a throb of urgency in her voice. “I’m serious about Peter. Something’s wrong. Caro might not want to admit it, but if you could just talk to him. See for yourself…”

  Jed made coffee, the process taking twice as long on account of his one arm. Ellen waited, her fists clenched, hope and hurt and frustration all warring within her. How had it all come to this?

  “And if he is suffering as you say?” Jed asked at last. “Then what? What am I supposed to do?”

  “I’m not asking you to do anything besides talk to him and help me decide if he really is shell-shocked. After that we could take him to a doctor. There are hospitals that specialize in treatment for men like Peter.”

  “They cost money. A lot of money.” Jed handed her a cup of coffee, his expression less hostile now, although no less sullen. “Money the McCaffertys don’t have.”

  “I have it,” Ellen said quietly.

  Jed cocked his head, surprise flaring in his gray-green eyes. “You do?”