by Kate Hewitt
Hamish fidgeted in his seat. “My brother Douglas is coming in,” he admitted, “with his daughter. They’ve come all the way from Scotland, on the ship, you know.”
“I didn’t think they’d come all the way on a train,” Orvis replied with a chuckle, and Hamish suppressed a sigh. It seemed he was always saying something foolish.
He leaned back in his seat, enjoying the sun on his face. Ever since he and Ruth had opened the Seaton General Store eight years ago, he’d spent most of his time indoors, behind the counter. It worked better that way; the people of Seaton liked to see Hamish, jovial and easygoing, slip the children barley sugar and chat with the old-timers. But they preferred to do business with Ruth.
Orvis stuck his head to look down the railway line. “Nothing yet,” he announced cheerfully. “Three more minutes.” He leaned back, looking again at Hamish. No one else was at the station, and sometimes nobody got off the train at Seaton at all.
“Your brother, you said? What made him finally come, then?”
“His wife died.” Hamish didn’t remember Ann Copley all that well. She’d been a fragile, wispy little thing, although he knew Douglas had loved her to distraction. She’d been sickly even when he and Ruth and Rose had left all those years ago. He remembered Douglas telling him they hadn’t saved enough money, and he knew why they hadn’t. Medicines were expensive, brown bottles of costly hope. Besides, they’d all known Ann Copley wouldn’t be let through Ellis Island with that rattling cough, and Douglas wouldn’t go without her. Hamish had almost volunteered to take Ellen with them, but something in him had held him back. He’d never been a brave man, and even at four years old Ellen Copley had been a queer little thing, with all that hair and those serious eyes. The way she’d stared at you, as if she knew what you were thinking! Hamish had decided Ellen would be better off with her own parents. Besides, he and Ruth had been hoping for their own family once they were settled. By God’s design it hadn’t happened.
Now Hamish wondered how his little brother had changed in the last eight years. Before they’d emigrated, Douglas had been the one with the energy, the dreams.
“The secret,” Douglas would say, tapping a row of advertisements in the newspaper, “is to find your market. Something that hasn’t been made before. Something that’s needed.”
Hamish always nodded, although he didn’t quite see himself as an inventor. And whenever he asked Douglas just what they’d be inventing, his younger brother would shrug and laugh.
“Who knows, as long as it sells?”
It made sense, of course, and there were hundreds, even thousands, of men in America who had invented something no one else had even known was necessary. What about Coca-Cola, that funny, fizzy drink, and even the iceboxes to keep it in?
Hamish chuckled to himself. It had all been nonsense, of course. He wasn’t an inventor, and running a general store suited him admirably. He’d done well enough so now he could put Coca-Cola in his own icebox, if he so desired, no matter who’d done the inventing.
Would Douglas still have the old dreams, he wondered, the ambitions to invent something and be a man of the world? The thought gave Hamish a vague sense of alarm. He liked his life, comfortable and ordinary as it was, and he wasn’t quite sure how he saw his brother and his queer little girl fitting into it.
“It’ll be good to see him again,” he told Orvis with more heartiness than he actually felt. “Him and the girl.” He wondered again about Ellen—was she still as serious as before? He liked children, always had a kind word for the schoolchildren who came into the store for sweets. He’d like to be kind to Ellen, and of course, he’d be seeing more of the girl since she would be living with them... even now, Hamish wasn’t quite sure how it was all meant to work out. Would Douglas work in the store with him? Would he get a job in Seaton?
When Ruth had read the letter from Douglas, she’d merely pressed her lips together, her nostrils flaring. “I suppose it’s our Christian duty to put them up.”
“Douglas is a good worker,” Hamish had offered, awkwardly, and Ruth had given him a hard stare.
“I remember him as a foolish dreamer. But his girl should know how to be of some use, having nursed her sick mother. And in any case, it’s no more than we ought to do, taking them in. Christian charity.” Yet Ruth hadn’t sounded very charitable, and after eight years of managing their own shop and its rather easy prosperity, Springburn, and the family he’d left there, seemed very far away.
“The train’s here,” Orvis announced with pride. “I see her coming down the line.” A few minutes later the black engine came into view, with two dusty, tired-looking passenger cars behind. Hamish swallowed and jumped down from the buckboard, cramming his hat back on his head.
As the train slowed to a stop, he saw a child’s face in one of the carriage windows, little more than wide eyes and a tangle of hair. Then the train stopped, Orvis threw the passenger door open, and Douglas Copley stepped out, the girl behind him.
“Hamish?” Uncertainty flickered in his eyes for the barest of moments before he went forward to embrace his brother. Hamish’s arms closed around Douglas automatically. “It’s been a while, eh? You look well.”
“Lost most of my hair,” Hamish said self-consciously, for he’d removed his hat when Douglas and his daughter stepped from the train. “And you...” Hamish did not finish for he did not know what to say. The truth was, the sight of his younger brother had shocked him into speechlessness. He may have lost his hair, but Douglas had lost his vitality.
Eight years ago Douglas had been young, dark haired, handsome and charming. Now his hair was gray, his face tired and lined, his shoulders stooped.
“It’s been a long time,” Douglas acknowledged, “but we’re finally here.” He moved aside, bringing his daughter forward with an arm around her shoulders. “You remember my girl, Ellen. She’s been a blessing to me and her mam.”
“I’m sure she has.” Hamish smiled at the girl, who looked, he thought, pale and underfed, and still with far too much hair. It surrounded her face in a dark tangle, and she regarded him out of those wide, hazel eyes he remembered, so unsettlingly serious. She hadn’t changed much then, just grown a bit taller. She had coal smuts on her face.
“Pleased to meet you, Uncle Hamish.”
Uncle...! The realization surprised Hamish into giving her an awkward hug. “Well, of course I’m pleased to meet you, little miss. Though I’ve known you since you weren’t higher than my knee.” He laughed, a rather forced sound, and said, “Let’s get your bags.”
Hamish received another shock when he saw what they were traveling with, just one worn carpetbag and a small, battered steamer trunk. Sometimes it was hard to remember that he and Ruth had come to America with little more. Prosperity had a way of dulling the memories, or sweetening them, perhaps.
“You must be tired,” Hamish said. “I’ll take you right home. Ruth’s minding the store. We live next door, you know, built our own house five years ago, when the store started doing well.” He found himself swelling proudly, and then looked away, ashamed of his own smugness.
“We can hardly wait to see it,” Douglas said cheerfully, and Ellen smiled. Hamish felt soothed as he put their cases in the wagon and helped Ellen climb aboard. Perhaps it would be all right.
They were silent on the short journey from the station into Seaton. Out of the corner of his eye Hamish watched Ellen gaze at everything with wide eyes. He thought of Springburn, with its grime and noise, and vaguely remembered his own surprise and delight at the simple greenness of Vermont. The grass was soft, vivid, and hopping with crickets; the clouds in the sky looked like bits of cotton wool. Hamish smiled.
“You’ll like Seaton,” he said, and Ellen regarded him seriously.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I will.”
Hamish tipped his hat to most everyone in Seaton, murmuring his greetings. Douglas and Ellen stared and nodded, and Hamish tried to imagine the village through their eyes.
&
nbsp; Twenty years ago Seaton had been little more than a few shabby farmhouses built by a creek. Then one of the big manufacturers had built a mill, and another company had discovered a quarry. People came for the work, and then they began building. First houses, then a doctor’s surgery, a blacksmith, a church and even a school. The rail line was extended, and the Copleys built their general store.
Now Seaton bustled with folk. On the corner across from the store was the unlikely combination of a barber and ice cream parlor. The blacksmith had even started selling bicycles. And there was talk of streetlights coming one day, at least to the main street.
“Here we are,” Hamish announced. The Copleys’ house wasn’t too grand, because Ruth said it wasn’t Christian to be showy. Still, Hamish thought it was nice enough, with its wide front porch and two rows of double windows, set back a bit from the general store on the corner of Main Street. On the other side of the house the street turned into a country road that joined up with the main road to Rutland, with no more than a few farmhouses along the way.
“You head on in,” he continued. “I’ll just put the wagon away. Poor old Polly needs her oats.”
When Hamish rejoined his brother and niece in the sitting room, they were both standing, Douglas with his hat twisted in his hands, gawping at the room as if it were Buckingham Palace.
“You’ve done well for yourself, Hamish, and that’s a fact.” There was no rancor or jealousy in Douglas’ voice, merely awe. Hamish blushed and fidgeted.
“Ruth made lemonade earlier. She thought you’d be thirsty, from the train.”
“Lemonade!” Ellen whispered in amazement, and Hamish felt another prickling of discomfort.
“I’ll go fetch it.” He hurried to the kitchen, and Ellen followed him. She watched from the doorway as he took a pitcher from the icebox.
“Is that an icebox?” she asked. “A real one?”
“Yes. We have ice delivered every day.” He paused uncertainly. “Almost everyone in Seaton has an icebox, you know.”
Ellen didn’t say anything for a moment. Hamish was unnerved by her clear, comprehending stare. “I see,” she said quietly, after a moment, and went and fetched three glasses from the cupboard.
Hamish watched as she moved about the kitchen, first looking for the cupboard with glasses, then putting them on the table. This girl surprised him, he realized, because she wasn’t like the little girls he knew, the girls with plaits and pinafores who came into the store for hair ribbons and sweets, giggling all the way.
“I’m sorry about your mother,” Hamish said, realizing he should have mentioned Ann before.
“Thank you,” Ellen said simply, and together they walked back to the sitting room.
The lemonade was cool and sweet and Hamish drained his glass in one gulp. He sat, twisting the cool, empty glass between his sweaty palms while both Douglas and Ellen drank theirs slowly, as if savoring every tiny sip.
“I’ll show you the store, afterwards,” he said. “And your rooms of course. Ruth got them all ready.” There was a brief, charged moment of silence, or so it seemed to Hamish, so he kept talking. “She’ll be back any moment, I expect. Couldn’t wait to see you, really she couldn’t.” Realizing he was talking too much, Hamish smiled shamefacedly and stood up. “I’ll take your bags upstairs.”
Before he could move any further, the front door opened, and sunlight slanted through on the floor of polished oak floorboards. Hamish looked up to see Ruth, and smiled in relief. Ruth would know what to do.
“Ah, here she is. Ruth, come see my brother and his daughter. We’re so glad to have them, aren’t we?”
Ruth eyed him coolly for one moment before moving into the room to meet her relatives.
*****
Ellen’s mouth seemed dry, even though she’d just taken a sip of the cold, sweet lemonade. She wasn’t sure why she was nervous to meet her Aunt Ruth. Perhaps it was because of the way Uncle Hamish spoke of her, in that timid way. Almost as if she were somebody to be afraid of. Maybe it was just because everything was so strange and new here—even the wood to build the houses smelled new. Nothing old or grimy or covered in coal dust. Ellen thought she’d like it all being so nice and shiny, but it just made her feel like the dirty one.
Ruth moved into the room, her skirts sweeping the floor. She was tall, with graying blond hair swept up into one of the new, loose styles. She wore a simple but well-made dress of blue chambray, with leg o’mutton sleeves and shiny black buttons. Ellen thought it was the most elegant dress she’d ever seen. Over the dress Ruth wore a clean, starched apron trimmed with lace. Ellen had never seen such sparkling white cotton.
“Well, here you are.” Ruth moved to Douglas and shook his hand. Douglas returned the handshake with a deferential awkwardness Ellen didn’t recognize. Da had always been his own man, confident in himself, yet since they’d stepped foot in this palace he seemed like someone else entirely, apologetic and overwhelmed. Ellen realized she felt the same way... as if she didn’t belong, and didn’t know if she ever would. After the hope she’d felt on the steamer and then the train, she didn’t like feeling so wrong-footed. She didn’t want her dream to be spoiled.
“It’s good to see you, Ruth,” Douglas said. “Been a long time, then.”
“So it has.” Ruth did not sound particularly regretful of that fact. She moved to stand in front of Ellen, examining her as thoroughly as the customs officer had on Ellis Island. Ellen looked up at her, deciding to do a fair examination of her own. Her aunt’s face was handsome rather than pretty, with strong lines and light blue eyes, but when she smiled Ellen felt a little spasm of relief. She’d needed that smile. Ruth reached down to press her cool cheek against Ellen’s, and she breathed in the clean scent of talcum powder.
“Dear Ellen. Douglas has written about what you’ve been through. Such a help to your mother and father. A credit to them, and us, to be sure.” There was a pause as she touched Ellen’s hair with one fingertip. “No doubt your hair is so dirty and tangled from the journey. The trains are frightful.”
Ellen’s face turned red and she struggled to murmur an appropriate response. “Yes, ma’am. I apologize for my hair, ma’am.” She wouldn’t humiliate Da or herself.
“Listen to that!” Aunt Ruth laughed, the sound a bit sharp. “You’ll have to get rid of that burr, my girl. No one in Seaton will understand you. Now, why don’t you go upstairs and clean yourself? I’m sure you wish to make yourself presentable to us.”
Recognizing she was dismissed, Ellen walked woodenly to the stairs. She felt rebuked, ashamed, and defiant all at once. She turned once, trying to keep her expression neutral. “Which way to my room, ma’am?”
“The little box room, at the back,” Ruth replied. “I’m sure you’ll like it and be glad.”
Ellen nodded her acceptance and gave one fleeting look to her father, who was staring at his feet. She walked slowly upstairs.
Her room was small, but to Ellen, who had slept on a cot in the kitchen, it seemed like heaven. There was a pine bed frame with a feather mattress and a white and blue patchwork quilt. A small bureau with a wash basin and pitcher stood across from the bed, and a little mirror hung above it. Above the bed was an embroidered Bible verse, Proverbs 11:29.
“He who brings trouble on his family will inherit only wind, and the fool will be servant to the wise,” Ellen read aloud. She’d heard the verse in kirk before, but somehow now it felt like a warning. She thought of Ruth’s dismissal of her, and the coldness she was afraid she’d seen in her eyes. Why didn’t her aunt like her?
Ellen turned to the window. At least she had her own window, the blue checked curtains ruffling in the breeze. It looked out onto a scrubby barnyard with an orderly kitchen garden and a hen house behind, and no trees. A barn blocked her view of the countryside, although she could see the tops of the trees, full and green, in the distance.
Perhaps she would plant a tree, right there in the yard, among the hens. An apple tree, or maybe a plum. She
tried to picture it growing, to see herself sitting beneath its shade, picking its ripe fruit, as if she could conjure a future for herself right then and there. It felt as insubstantial as smoke, as going on the ship had all those years ago. Yet they had gone, and they were here now, so why did she still feel like the old dreams were out of reach?
Ellen turned away from the window and took her brush from the carpetbag which Uncle Hamish had left by the bed. She drew it fiercely through her hair, which tended towards unruliness, till it lay flat against her head, her eyes stinging from the pain. She set her mouth in a determined line.
Now was not the time to feel sorry for herself, simply because her aunt and uncle had not welcomed her with loving arms flung open wide. They had to get used to her, just as she and Da did to them. It was silly to dream of fairy tales, of long lost reunions that belonged in the Treasury of Much Loved Stories she’d read once, in school.
Ellen put the brush on her bureau, and then decided to unpack the rest of her belongings. It didn’t take long. Her two dresses went on the clothing pole by the door, and her second set of undergarments and stockings in the drawer. She put her mother’s Bible in the bureau as well, and her rag doll, Celia, on the bed.
Mam had sewn her in her better days, and Ellen had made several dresses for Celia with scraps of cloth. Now she looked far too worn, the red stitching of her mouth half undone, one button eye gone, but Ellen loved her.
For a moment her eyes stung again, this time from memory, as she remembered Mam lying propped up in bed, her pale face glowing, as she handed Celia to Ellen.
“It’s not much, but I know you’ll take care of her.”
Ellen fingered her doll now, wishing she’d taken better care of the one thing Mam had given her. She’d almost forgotten how Mam had spent many days sewing so laboriously, but always with a quick, tired smile. Sometimes it was hard to remember the good days her mother had had. They had stopped so long ago.