by Kate Hewitt
“I think that’s enough, Peter.” He took the spoon and tucked it into the waistband of his trousers.
“That’s my tomahawk,” Peter protested, looking mutinous.
“We’re playing Indians,” the girl explained, before her gaze fell on Ellen. “But who are you? Are you the girl who’s come to stay with us?”
Ellen found her voice at last. “I suppose I am. My name is Ellen Copley.”
The girl nodded. “Yes, Mama told us about you. She said we were to be awfully good so as not to scare you right off the island.”
Ellen swallowed a bubble of startled laughter. She wasn’t scared precisely, but something close to it. Surprised, certainly. “I thought you were ill.”
“Oh, we were,” the girl assured her. “Terribly ill, weren’t we, Peter? Mama thought of calling the minister. Last rites and all that.”
“Don’t be daft, Caro,” Peter rejoined irritably. “We’re not Catholic. It was just to pray, and do what ministers do.”
“But you’re not ill now, it would seem,” Ellen clarified, and heard Jed’s barely suppressed snort of disbelief.
“Oh, no,” Caro said. “We’re con... con...”
“Convalescing,” Ellen supplied, and she nodded happily.
“Yes, that’s it.”
“But where is your mother?” Ellen felt sure an adult presence would have made itself known by now.
“She went to the doctor, with the baby,” Caro said. “Andrew’s still ill, and he’s only little. He had a fever. Mrs. Hepple was watching us, but she forgot she’d left a pie in the oven and went home to take it out. I expect she’s forgotten to come back. It was a while ago now.”
“I see.” Although Ellen didn’t really see at all. The island seemed to be filled with odd people, from the nonchalant Captain Jonah, leaving her alone in the cold and dark, to the absent Mrs. Hepple. Ellen wasn’t sure she liked it. In fact, she was quite sure she didn’t.
“I suppose we should see about supper,” she said after a moment. “Have you eaten?”
“No,” Peter piped up, “and I’m hungry.”
“Show me the way to the kitchen, then,” Ellen said, and Jed shuffled towards the door.
“I’ll just be off, then...”
Ellen rounded on him. “No, you won’t,” she said fiercely. “You can stay till Aunt Rose comes back. I don’t know the first thing about any of this.” And she would not be left alone in such a strange situation.
“You seem bossy enough to me,” Jed muttered, but he slouched into the kitchen after them.
The kitchen was a large, cheerful room in the back of the house, with an impressive blackened range and a large, square table of scrubbed pine. There was not an icebox in sight. Ellen felt heartened by these familiar sights, and she set about pumping water into a basin and making everyone wash their hands.
An inspection of the pantry revealed a bag of potatoes, a few carrots, and half of a cold game pie. Soon Caro was setting the table, Peter peeling potatoes, and Ellen sorting out the rest.
She leaned over the table, and her foot hit something soft underneath.
“Ouch!”
Jerking in surprise, Ellen looked down and saw two black-haired, black-eyed girls crouching underneath the table.
“Who are you?” she exclaimed. “And what are you doing under there?”
The girls scrambled out. One looked to be about six; the other maybe four. “We’re hiding from the Indians,” the older girl said shyly. “I’m Sarah.” Her dark hair was done in plaits, and she had a quiet, rather dreamy air about her. The other girl was quite the opposite; her hair was a riot of curls and her black eyes snapped fire, her little red mouth pursed in disapproval.
“You’re not Mrs. Hepple.”
“No, indeed,” Ellen replied crisply. “My name is Ellen, and I’ve come to look after you.”
“Mrs. Hepple said she’d bring an apple pie,” the girl said, and Sarah gave her a poke.
“Don’t be rude, Ruthie.”
“Well, she did,” Ruthie said, lip jutting out, and Peter cuffed her gently on the side of the head.
“You mind Ellen,” he said, his chest swelling importantly, and Ellen suppressed a smile. She had been expecting sickrooms, the stillness and despair she’d come to associate with such things, but despite the confusion and strangeness, she realized she liked this much better.
“Let’s sit down to supper,” she said.
Once again Jed tried to slouch off, but Ellen cornered him in the hallway. “You can’t leave me here,” she declared, to which he scowled.
“You seem to be handling all these little ones fine, Miss Bossy.”
Ellen wasn’t quite ready to be left alone with this boisterous bunch. She wasn’t used to so many children, having spent her life with adults. She pointed the spoon she’d been holding at him. “You stay,” she commanded, and for a tiny second it seemed as if humor lighted Jed’s gray eyes before he shrugged.
“Suit yourself. I’m hungry, anyway, and you can’t have ruined the pie, at least.”
Over supper the children talked non-stop, informing Ellen of many salient facts. Peter was eight and Caro was seven, they all went to the island school in Stella except for Ruthie and Andrew, of course, as he was just a baby. Peter had been the most ill; Papa had prayed over him with tears running down his cheeks.
“They all thought I was going to die,” Peter explained with obvious relish.
“That’s when Mama sent for the minister,” Caro added.
“Where’s your papa now?” Ellen asked. “It’s too dark to be out in the fields.”
Caro shrugged. “He forgets to come home for dinner sometimes.”
“Does he?” Ellen said, shaking her head in disbelief. “Just like Mrs. Hepple, then.” She saw Jed chuckle, although the laughter quickly turned into something more like a scowl.
“He doesn’t forget,” Peter said quickly, glaring at his sister. “He’s probably out in the barn, seeing to the cows.”
Or perhaps in the taproom with the station master, Ellen thought. She did not know what to make of anyone in this family. With a sigh she pushed herself up from the table. “We’ll all help with the dishes, and then we’ll sort out baths,” she decided.
“But it’s not bath night!” Peter cried, horrified.
“Perhaps not, but you’re filthy.”
They only cracked two plates while washing up, and the clock in the front parlor chimed seven o’clock.
“I should go,” Jed said, looking relieved to finally be making his escape. “Ma’s expecting me.”
Ellen nodded, stiff with dignity. “Thank you for helping. I expect Aunt Rose will be home soon.”
Jed nodded back. “All right, then.” He sloped off to the front door, and Ellen watched him go with a strange sense of longing. As unpleasant and contrary as he could be, there was a steady sureness about Jed Lyman that she needed amidst the chaos of the McCafferty home.
Peter tugged insistently on her sleeve. “We don’t really have to take baths, do we?”
“Yes,” Ellen replied. “You do.”
Ellen couldn’t find a bathtub, though, and the thought of heating all that hot water on the stove made her feel so tired she decided they could all make do with sponging down with pump water in the kitchen.
Ellen had just managed to get all three girls in their nightgowns, hair freshly plaited, with Peter hopping around and hooting like a savage in his nightshirt, when the front door opened.
“Mama!”
The children rushed to her, and she awkwardly put her arms around them, a baby still cradled in the crook of one arm.
“Darling ones. I’m sorry I’m late. Did Mrs. Hepple take good care of you?”
There was a moment’s silence and Ellen stepped forward. “Hello, ma’am. I’m Ellen Copley. I’m afraid Mrs. Hepple left to see about a pie and didn’t return.”
Rose McCafferty stared at her in surprise, and Ellen saw that she was a pretty woman, with san
dy hair put loosely up, and light blue eyes like Da’s. There was a certain weariness to her rounded shoulders, but there was also strength and humor in her face, and she managed a little gasp of laughter now.
“Oh, my dear! How terrible for you, to be greeted with these wild ones. And you’ve bathed them, I see! You must be a saint.”
“No,” Peter said, “but she’s strict.”
“How delightful,” Rose murmured, giving Ellen a sideways smile. “Let’s go into the kitchen, dear. Not you lot,” she admonished her children, “I’m sure Ellen has had quite enough of you. Upstairs, then. You can keep out of mischief before bedtime, can’t you?”
Ellen doubted that very much, but the children trooped upstairs obediently.
“Let me put Andrew in his cradle,” Rose said, “and then we can talk properly. He’s exhausted, poor lamb, but his fever’s down, thank heaven.”
While Rose went upstairs, Ellen set out a plate for her, and put the kettle to boil on the range. She felt she needed to prove how useful she could be, although why, she wasn’t sure. Didn’t she want to be sent back to Seaton as soon as possible? At least there she could go to school and not work like a maid.
Yet the cheerful jumble of the McCafferty house, as overwhelming as it was to a child who’d grown up in a sickroom, had a certain odd appeal. She realized she wasn’t homesick for Seaton; she’d been too busy all evening even to think of it. And she didn’t want to be sent away again. Ever since arriving in America she’d felt one rejection after another: Aunt Ruth, the schoolchildren, her own father. Swallowing past the tightness in her throat, she turned towards her aunt as she came into the kitchen.
“There. Peace for a moment, anyway.” Rose sat down at the table, looking at the plate of pie and potatoes in surprised delight. “You are a treasure! How did you know I’d be famished?”
Ellen shrugged, discomfited. “It’s late. Will Uncle Dyle be coming back for supper?”
Rose smiled. “Eventually. I’m afraid farming doesn’t come easily to my Dyle, but he does try his best and I love him for it. I’ll make up a plate for him when I’m finished.”
“I can do it—” Ellen began.
“Nonsense,” Rose said, smiling. “You’ve been run off your feet since the moment you arrived, I shouldn’t wonder. Come sit down and tell me all about yourself. I’m so glad Aunt Ruth let you come.”
“But I thought you asked her to come,” Ellen said uncertainly, and Rose gave a vigorous shake of her head.
“Well, one has to be clever with Ruth, you know?” she said, her eyes sparkling. “I might have suggested she come, because I knew to ask her for you outright would set her firmly against it. But she certainly couldn’t be bothered to come herself, could she? Ruth is always so busy. So I hoped she’d think to send you.”
Ellen digested this information silently. “Are the children very ill, then?” she asked.
Rose gave a little laugh. “You saw them yourself. They were ill, and when I wrote it seemed a good idea to mention it. And I do find it hard to cope with all of them, that I confess. But no, my dear, I didn’t send for you to be our skivvy.” Rose’s smile was gentle. “I simply wanted to see you. You are quite the image of Douglas, do you know that?”
Ellen couldn’t quite meet her aunt’s gaze. “I suppose.”
“I’m sorry he left the way he did,” Rose said quietly. “My brother was always a dreamer, like my Dyle.” She shook her head. “It’s not always easy to live with someone like that.”
“I didn’t get a choice,” Ellen said, the words slipping out before she could stop them. “He didn’t give me one.” She stared down at her lap, blinking hard, felt the heat rush to her face.
“Oh, my dear child.” Ellen stiffened in surprise as she felt her aunt’s arms come around her and she pulled her into a sudden and tight embrace. “I’m so sorry for what you have endured. But always know you have a home and a family here.”
Ellen pressed her hot cheek against her aunt’s shoulder, emotion sweeping through her in a wave of suppressed sorrow and a new tide of hope. A home and a family? She had thought such things out of her reach. Even now she could not truly believe in them. Hadn’t Aunt Rose wanted her here just to be useful?
Ellen sniffed and drew back, blinking back the tears that she did not want her aunt to see. “Thank you, Aunt Rose,” she murmured. She could not manage anything else.
Rose smiled in understanding. “I do hope Ruth will let you stay through the year. You’ll do well at the island school, I should think.”
“School?” Ellen repeated, and her startled gaze met her aunt’s knowing one. “But I thought...”
Rose laid a hand on her arm. “I can tell what you thought, simply by all the work you’ve already done,” she said gently. “But you must put those old ideas quite out of your head. You’re family, Ellen, I do mean that, and that’s why we want you here.”
“But...”
“I had to tell Ruth something,” Rose said mischievously, and as a loud crash sounded from upstairs she nodded cheerfully. “Ah. They’re ready for bed.”
She walked briskly out of the kitchen, and Ellen, a tender new hope blossoming inside her, looked around her new home in cautious wonder.
PART TWO
ONE
The next few weeks seemed to Ellen the sweetest she’d known since her arrival in America. Every morning she walked to school with Sarah, Caro and Peter; Jasper Lane was ablaze with turning leaves, a tunnel of crimson and yellow and gold. At the end of the lane, Jed and his younger brother Lucas joined them.
If Jed hadn’t informed her in his surly way that Lucas was his brother, Ellen would have never known. The two were as different as could be, in both looks and demeanor. Lucas had light brown hair and blue eyes and a ready, easy smile Ellen preferred to Jed’s usual frown. Lucas also approached school with the same kind of eager anticipation Ellen felt, unlike Jed who carried his slate and satchel of books with an air of grim resignation.
Ellen knew Jed wanted to quit school—he made no secret of it—but according to Lucas his father had hopes for both of his sons to go to Glebe Collegiate in Kingston, and then perhaps even on to Queen’s University.
“My father says the way this world’s changing we’re going to need some book learning,” Lucas told her one October morning a week or so after she’d arrived. “Even if we reckon on just being farmers.”
“How’s the world changing?” Ellen asked, for she’d never thought of such a thing before.
“Inventions,” Lucas answered succinctly. “Automobiles, escalators, bicycles, even roller coasters! The world is going to be a different place, Ellen, by the time we’re both grown.”
He looked so earnest, with his brown hair flopping across his forehead, his eyes alight with excitement. Ellen shook her head slowly.
“Escalators?”
“Moving staircases.”
She could not conceive of such a thing. “Have you ever seen one?”
Lucas let out a self-conscious laugh. “Well, no, of course not! I don’t think an escalator will ever come to the island. But mark my words, you’ll see one someday. Someday soon, I don’t doubt, in Kingston maybe. Same with automobiles. Mr. Stevenson is bringing one over to the island, he says, when the lake freezes over and he can drive it straight across.”
Jed reached over and grabbed Lucas’ cap, tossing it in the air before chucking it back at him. “Moving staircases sound like the stupidest thing I ever heard,” he scoffed. “Why not just walk? Who’d want such a clattering thing in your house?”
Lucas glared at him. “They’re not for houses,” he said loftily. “They’re for shops and things, with lots of floors.”
Jed just shrugged, completely dismissive, and although Ellen privately agreed with him about the usefulness of escalators, she still felt sorry for Lucas. She gave him a conciliatory smile.
“I don’t doubt it, Lucas. I just can’t imagine it, that’s all.”
“Well, it will happen,�
�� Lucas said firmly. “Just you wait and see.” Ellen thought he was talking more to his brother than to her.
School for Ellen was a delight. It was a one-room building on the edge of Stella, and the teacher, Miss Gardiner, was young and cheerful. Jed, Lucas, and Ellen were the oldest pupils; the other children their age had already quit school, usually to work on the farm, and anyone older who wished for more schooling had gone to high school in Kingston, where they would board for the term.
When Ellen confessed, stammering a little, her Scottish brogue thicker than ever, that her arithmetic was quite poor, Miss Gardiner had merely shrugged and said, “I shall have to find time to get you up to scratch, then. And you can help teach the little ones to read, if you’d like to. Your voice is so pretty, and you read so very well.”
Ellen flushed with pleasure, and soon she was spending the mornings with Sarah and three other little children, primers on their knees as they stiltedly sounded out letters by the wood stove. She loved those moments, when she felt needed and clever and liked. Sometimes Sarah put her head on Ellen’s shoulder, and the other little ones would press close. Their simple, childish affection warmed Ellen right through.
Every once in a while she’d glance covertly at Jed crammed into his child’s desk, knees barely fitting underneath, elbows out at angles, and she felt a surprising pang of sympathy at the way he scowled while doing his own sums, one hand driven through his dark, unruly hair. He had more trouble than she did with his arithmetic, but at least Ellen liked being in school. It was quite clear that Jed was counting the days and maybe even the minutes until he was free to go back to the farm.
Ellen loved everything about school: the cozy little schoolhouse with the wood stove in the middle; Miss Gardiner’s merry voice as she called out sums or spelling words; and she loved that the other children accepted her with amazing ease. The children of Amherst Island were, in some ways, as much a bunch of misfits as Ellen had ever been. There was Johnny Spearson, with his carrot-colored hair and so clumsy that Miss Gardiner wouldn’t let him get within six feet of the wood stove, in case he burned all his hair off like his older brother had; Lily McAndrew, who had freckles and gap teeth and slipped her arm through Ellen’s very nearly the moment she arrived, offering to share her bench; and Archie Anderson who laughed like a donkey and was hopeless at reading but could do sums straight in his head, even the big ones. Ellen was soon friends with them all. Of course, not every child at the island school was kind; that, Ellen knew, would have been too much to ask. Yet she didn’t really mind. Julia Charbonneau, who had airs because her family was from Montreal, could stick her nose as high in the air as she liked and still no one paid her any mind. Michael Wilson reminded Ellen a bit of Artie Dole back in Seaton; he tried to snatch her hair ribbon that very first day but she neatly stepped aside before he could, and with flashing eyes surprised herself by warning him that he’d best not do that again. So far he hadn’t.