Down Jasper Lane (Amherst Island Trilogy Book 1)

by Kate Hewitt

  A strange prickling crept down Ellen’s spine. “What do you mean, Louisa?”

  Louisa shrugged. “Aunt Rose invited me for next summer. I thought I’d accept.”

  Aunt Rose, not Mrs. McCafferty, Ellen noticed. Somehow Louisa Hopper, with her snooty ways and snobbish air, had weaseled her way into the McCaffertys’ affections, or at least her aunt’s. And, Ellen considered with a sudden chill, perhaps others’ affections as well.

  She knew she was being unfair. Worse, she knew she felt jealous, and she wasn’t sure why. The McCaffertys loved her; she had never felt slighted in the least. And yet, just as Louisa had observed, the island was hers. The people were hers. She still didn’t want to share them.

  “That will be nice,” she finally said, realizing the silence between them had stretched on too long. Louisa laughed, the sound a spiteful reminder of the younger girl who had dropped Ellen as a friend and stuck her finger in the middle of a lemon tart.

  “It’s gracious of you to say so,” she replied, “even if you don’t feel it. I know this island is yours, Ellen, but I want my own little piece of it.” The curve of her mouth seemed spiteful as she added, “It shouldn’t bother you too much, should it?”

  “It’s not a competition, Louisa.”

  “Maybe not,” Louisa agreed, “although, after all, there is only one island.”

  “One Amherst Island,” Ellen amended although she had the odd feeling that they weren’t talking about the island at all. Louisa nodded with a grim smile.

  “Yes. Exactly.”

  They both left the island a week later. The wind off the lake was chilly, blowing up white caps, and the leaves were touched with crimson and gold. Jed drove them to the ferry, his hat pulled down low over his eyes. He didn’t speak to either of them.

  “Thank you for driving me to the ferry, Jed,” Louisa said with a pretty smile, and he just nodded, tipping the brim of his hat at her. It was, Ellen thought, a touching farewell—for Jed.

  Then he turned to Ellen, and she could barely make out his expression under the low brim of his hat. “We’ll see you soon enough, I suppose.”

  “In May, I hope.”

  “You’ll come with the black flies.”

  “And annoy you just as much, perhaps,” Ellen dared to tease. Then Jed smiled and chucked her under the chin. “Good thing the black flies disappear after a month. But I reckon you’ll stick around.”

  “I mean to.”

  “Working with the good doctor.”

  She nodded, her throat suddenly ridiculously tight. Under the brim of his hat she caught sight of Jed’s eyes, dark and gray and as unreadable as ever. “Goodbye, Jed,” she said quietly.

  He stared at her for a long moment, his eyes dark, his expression still so impossible to read, and yet Ellen had the strangest feeling that he was going to say something—something important.

  Then Louisa gave a dainty little cough. “I think the Captain is waiting, Ellen,” she said, and sure enough, Captain Jonah was there in his boat, grinning toothlessly at them. She nodded and turned to leave.

  “Goodbye, Miss Bossy,” Jed called after her, and for the first time it didn’t feel like he was teasing her.

  Neither she nor Louisa spoke as Captain Jonah carried them to the mainland. Ellen sat facing the island, watching it until it was no more than a speck on the horizon, and then turned back to face the mainland that was coming up fast.

  She felt a weight settle heavily inside her and knew that despite her intentions to try to enjoy being with Hamish and Ruth, already she was counting the days until she was back on the island... and her true life began once more, and not just that, but a new life brimming with possibilities and hope. Maybe not high school, but something. A future she could call her own.

  “I’ll be back,” Louisa said, almost smugly, and Ellen turned to her, startled from her own thoughts.

  “For the summer, you mean?”

  “At least that,” Louisa said, and neither of them spoke again until they’d reached the mainland and all that awaited them there.

  PART THREE

  ONE

  September, 1909

  Three years later

  The birch trees by the pond were tinged with yellow as Ellen sat with her sketchbook on her knees. It was early September, and there was a chill to the air that hadn’t been there a week or even a few days ago.

  She leaned her head against the maple tree behind her and closed her eyes. This last summer at Jasper Lane had been a golden one, full of happy memories, days tending the garden or playing with the children, evenings telling stories by the fire. Berry picking and jam making, working in the garden, the MacDougall wedding (Captain Jonah had had too much to drink and serenaded the bride, singing terribly off key) and long, lazy days on the shore, paddling in the lake or looking for smooth skipping stones.

  And it was all about to change. Ellen opened her eyes, shielding them from the sun as she gazed out at the fields that seemed to roll right into the blue-green waters of Lake Ontario.

  Dyle and Peter were tending the harvest, and she could see on the other side of the pond Jed and Lucas were hard at work with their father. Ellen, Rose, Caro, Sarah and even Ruthie had all taken turns bringing in the wheat, and they jealously tended the McCafferty kitchen garden with its fat tomatoes and waxy yellow beans. The groundhog had eaten all the peas—Rose had been pragmatic about it.

  “I never liked them anyway,” she said as she inspected a stripped plant. “So much fuss and bother for such a few little peas!”

  One more week of harvesting, and then everyone would be going their separate ways. Ellen thrilled to think of it, even as she felt a shudder of trepidation reverberate through her very bones.

  In the spring she’d been accepted to Kingston General Hospital’s nursing school, which had been no small feat. The hospital had received, Ellen had been told, ninety-nine applications for a mere six positions. When she’d decided to aim for Kingston General’s training scheme three years ago, she’d had no idea of how competitive a program it was. Yet thanks to her Year Eight Certificate and Dr. Bandler’s tutelage, she had been accepted and would be leaving on Captain Jonah’s ferry that Tuesday. Peter would be joining her in Kingston to go to Glebe Collegiate, and Lucas would be on that boat as well, as he was about to start his first year at Queen’s University.

  It seemed incredible that it was all about to begin, the adventure she’d been waiting for the last three years to start.

  Not, Ellen acknowledged wryly, that those three years had been just a waiting period. No, they’d been wonderful years, filled with their own joys and a few sorrows. She’d stayed in Seaton as she had intended, and the year with Ruth and Hamish had been bittersweet. She’d helped in the store and also at home, and while both her aunt and uncle had seemed glad of her, nothing had really changed between the three of them. Even so Ellen felt as if something had shifted in her. Perhaps she was simply growing older, or maybe a little wiser, but she felt more charitably towards her aunt and uncle, and her farewell to them in the following May had been tinged with sorrow.

  She’d returned to the island that May, nearly sixteen years old and ready to work. Lucas had just returned from his first year at Glebe, and at eighteen years old Jed was fully a man, working on the farm with his father, with few words for Ellen or anyone, for that matter. But then Jed had always been a boy, and now a man, of few words.

  A few days after her arrival Ellen had started with Dr. Bandler. On her very first day a farmhand from up near Emerald had stumbled into the surgery with an arm that had a broken bone sticking right out of it.

  Ellen had swayed on her feet at the sight—Dr. Bandler had warned her about blood, bruises, and bones, and in one swoop she’d seen all three. Dr. Bandler barked at her not to stand there like a dolt, and Ellen hurried to fetch bandages and carbolic soap. She held the man steady while Dr. Bandler reset the bone, the poor farmhand passing out before he’d finished, but by March the man was nearly as good as n
ew. “Just a little stiffness, doc,” he said with a grin, stopping by to give Dr. Bandler a quart of maple syrup in thanks. Many of the doctor’s patients, Ellen soon learned, paid this way; actual money was scarce.

  Ellen’s days were full helping Dr. Bandler and she was grateful for the medical knowledge he’d given her; from how to dress a wound to instructing someone on preparing a mustard plaster, to soothing an anxious father as his wife prepared to give birth.

  Her evenings were spent with the McCaffertys, chatting or sewing by the fire, and pitching in when she could with the chores of farm life, whether it was gathering eggs or tapping trees for syrup in the early spring. She saw little of Lucas, up at Glebe, and not much more of Jed, who was busy managing the Lyman farm with his father. Yet when she did see Jed, in church or at a social gathering, she felt as if he’d softened towards her a bit, or perhaps they’d both just grown up. He didn’t call her Miss Bossy anymore, and the way he smiled at her made Ellen feel a bit funny inside.

  Louisa returned the summer after Ellen came back, sixteen years old and as pretty as ever, with a proud tilt to her chin and a valise full of silk and satin dresses. Rose embraced her like a long lost daughter, and Ellen tried to suppress the stab of jealousy she felt at their joyful reunion. She wanted to feel compassion for Louisa, and maybe even affection, yet she found both emotions difficult when it came to her erstwhile friend.

  Louisa had softened somewhat too, and seemed more amenable to trying to fit into island life. She helped Rose in the kitchen, and went raspberry picking with Ellen and the children, and generally did not expect to be waited on hand and foot. Yet despite these concessions, Ellen knew she still didn’t trust her.

  Every once in a while she saw the same glitter of determination in her friend’s eyes, and she knew that some things about Louisa hadn’t changed. She also watched her with the Lyman brothers, and it was quite clear that Louisa had set her cap for Jed. Whenever he was around Louisa dropped a glove or handkerchief, and smiled so charmingly when Jed stooped to retrieve it. She tilted her pretty head and batted her eyelashes at him, irritating Ellen no end with her simpering.

  Ellen didn’t think Jed would be taken in by Louisa’s pretty, silly ways, but her heart constricted every time she saw them together, and she didn’t dare ask herself why—or what Jed might mean to her. Jed was a friend, and she was quite sure someone like Louisa Hopper could only cause him trouble, and maybe even break his heart.

  The following summer Louisa went to the Adirondacks with her parents, and the summer after that they took her to Europe. Islanders asked after her, for they had, after all this time, accepted her and her fancy ways, and while Ellen was glad to give them Louisa’s news, she was also glad Louisa hadn’t returned to the island—her island.

  As those years passed the islanders had experienced their own share of tragedies—a bad harvest, a blizzard that killed two people who had got lost in the snow, a long illness of Sarah’s which had left her breathless and easily tired, unable to go to high school.

  Perhaps saddest for Ellen in the last three years had been the death of her beloved dog, Patch, the winter before last. She’d caught cold and simply hadn’t recovered. For her seventeenth birthday, Jed had got her another puppy, this one buttery yellow with long silky ears. She called him Pat, because curled up in front of the coal stove he looked just like a pat of golden butter.

  Yet despite these sorrows and cares, the last three years on Amherst Island had been the happiest Ellen had ever known. When she was on the island she was home, and she knew that would never change.

  “Penny for your thoughts, lazybones.”

  Ellen looked up in surprise to see Jed striding in his easy, long-limbed way towards her. His hat was in his hand and he raked his fingers through his sweaty hair.

  “I’m having a well-earned rest,” Ellen replied tartly. “I’ve been in the kitchen all morning canning tomatoes, and Rose practically chased me out. What’s your excuse?”

  “It’s almost dinner, or hadn’t you noticed? How long have you been out here, Ellen Copley?”

  There was something about the way Jed said her name, how it rolled off his tongue with such laughing ease, that made Ellen feel as if she wanted to shiver.

  She looked at him, saw his usual smile that was teasing and friendly and just a tiny bit mocking, and smiled back.

  “When I draw, I lose track of time,” she confessed.

  Jed stretched out next to her and before Ellen could say a word, he reached for her sketchbook. “Let’s have a look, then.”

  “Jed!” Ellen tried to grab the book back. “They’re private.”

  He looked at her, his gaze speculative. “You let Lucas look at them.”

  “That’s different...”

  “Oh? How so?”

  Ellen bit her lip, unsure if she could explain. Unsure if she even knew. “It just is.”

  “I won’t laugh, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

  “You will so laugh!” Ellen retorted. “When have you missed an opportunity to tease me?”

  “Rarely, it’s true.” Jed grinned and slowly crossed his heart. “Promise, though.” He paused, his hand on the sketchbook, the laughter gone from his gaze. “May I?”

  Ellen took a deep breath. “All right.” She realized two things then: first, the thought of Jed seeing her sketches terrified her; and second, she desperately wanted him to see and like them. Her heart thudded with a new, thrilling anxiety as Jed slowly turned the pages. There were several months of sketches in there—she usually filled a book quite quickly, and Mrs. Smith at the general store laughed that Ellen kept them in business just with all the paper she bought.

  He gazed at each sketch silently, his expression unfathomable. Ellen sat with her hands clenched in her lap, watching as the sketches went by under his fingers. There was a chipmunk peeking out from a pile of logs; the birch trees with a few leaves beginning to flutter down; Rose caught in an unguarded moment, leaning against the kitchen table, her expression thoughtful and a bit weary.

  And then there was Jed. Ellen bit her lip; she’d forgotten that particular sketch was in the book. She’d drawn Jed from memory, putting him in a setting she’d never actually seen. He leaned against a fence post, hands shoved in his pockets, his gaze faraway and wistful. It was an intimate sketch, showing a vulnerability that Ellen hadn’t fully realized was there until they were both staring at it.

  She felt as if that sketch revealed something about Jed, but even more so it revealed something about her. She felt her cheeks warm and she looked away, studied a distant birch tree with desperate concentration even as she waited for Jed to finish, to say something—

  After a long, silent moment, Jed turned the page. He finished looking at the sketches, and then he handed back the book.

  “Thank you,” Ellen murmured. She couldn’t quite meet his eyes.

  “I suppose no one is safe from your pencil,” Jed said lightly, and Ellen felt both relieved and disappointed that he was going to dismiss the sketch—and that funny, intense moment—so quickly. Yet in the past few months there had been more moments such as that, moments that suddenly turned tense and expectant and made Ellen wonder just what she wanted from Jed. Just what she felt for him.

  Yet as soon as her mind grasped that idea, it skittered away again. Whatever she felt, it didn’t bear much thinking about. Not when she had no idea what Jed thought or felt.

  Jed stood up, reaching his hand down to help Ellen to her feet. “I imagine it’s dinnertime at the McCaffertys as well as the Lymans.”

  “Did you like the sketch?” Ellen blurted, then felt her cheeks turn bright red. Why had she asked that? He would have told her if he did.

  “I liked them all,” Jed answered, and they didn’t speak again as he walked her back to Jasper Lane. Ellen slowly walked up the lane, and she felt rather than saw Jed watching her from the copse of beeches at its end.

  The night before Ellen was due to leave with the others, Rose came i
n as she was packing her valise. “You have everything you need?” she asked, placing a stack of lace handkerchiefs embroidered with Ellen’s initials on top of her other things.

  “Oh, those are lovely,” Ellen exclaimed with a smile. “Thank you, Aunt Rose.”

  Rose sat on the edge of Ellen’s bed, smoothing the old patchwork quilt. “It shall feel so strange to have you gone,” she said quietly. “You’ve become part of the family, Ellen, as much one of my own as if I’d given birth to you myself.”

  Tears pricked Ellen’s eyes and she refolded a chemise, blinking hard. “I feel part of this family, Aunt Rose,” she said, when she trusted herself to speak without bursting into noisy sobs like a child. “I shall miss you all so very much.”

  “And we shall miss you. Will you come back at Christmas, or do you think you’ll go to Vermont?”

  “I’m not sure. I haven’t seen Aunt Ruth and Uncle Hamish since last spring.” In the three years since Ellen had been living with the McCaffertys, she’d gone back to Vermont only once for a few weeks. She’d been surprised at how much older and careworn her Aunt Ruth and Uncle Hamish had looked. The visit had been subdued yet also pleasant enough, although without, Ellen thought, any genuine love or affection on either side. In any case, she had been glad to see them—but also glad to return to her real home. “I’d rather come back here,” she said, and Rose smiled sadly.

  “Don’t you think they might want to see you?”

  Ellen gave a little shrug. “We had a nice enough visit the last time, but I think we all breathe a sigh of relief when I leave.”

  Rose was silent for a moment, her fingers tracing the vine pattern in the quilt. “I think you’re confusing what seems so with what truly is.”

  “What do you mean? What do you think truly is, with Aunt Ruth and Uncle Hamish?”

  Rose sighed. “It’s difficult to know, especially with someone as prickly as Ruth. But think on things Ruth and Hamish have done for you, not just how they acted when they were with you. Didn’t Ruth send you a lovely Christmas parcel last winter? There was some beautiful rose wool in it, as I recall, enough for two dresses.”