Down Jasper Lane (Amherst Island Trilogy Book 1)

by Kate Hewitt

  Harriet gave her a watery smile, and Ellen reached for the pail.

  Besides the routine work of changing sheets and the like, Ellen listened to endless lectures on every kind of subject—anatomy, physiology, biology, hygiene, and medicine. This was far more rigorous than any high school she might have attended, and Ellen wasn’t sure she liked it. She liked the doing of nursing more than the learning part of it, and she knew the examinations she was meant to take at the end of the first year would not come easily to her. Perhaps, she considered with a sudden bleakness, none of it would.

  She pushed that thought away as soon as she’d considered it. She did not have many other choices in life, and she was not about to give up on this one. Surely all junior nurses felt the same when they first started. Ellen refused to think it could be anything else.

  By the time her first afternoon off arrived on the following Sunday Ellen felt both relieved and exhausted. She’d written Lucas a short note, and he’d replied with alacrity, declaring he’d call for her at one o’clock, after church. Ellen thrilled to think of wearing a proper dress, the rose wool Aunt Ruth had sent, and eating fine pastries in an elegant tearoom, in a city no less. It felt like a wonderful, decadent luxury.

  “You look lovely, Ellen,” Lucas said when she came into the sitting room where Miss Cothill had had him cool his heels. He looked every inch the Queen’s man in a frock coat and tie, his brown hair slicked back from his blushing face with pomade. Ellen had to take a few seconds to gather her wits for the sight of him looking so sophisticated and grown-up had quite shocked her.

  “You look quite the university man, Lucas. I’m proud to be seen on your arm.” Immediately she wondered if that was too forward, although Lucas looked only delighted by her remark.

  The tearoom he took her to was in the center of Kingston and was every bit as elegant as Ellen could have wished for, with fine linen tablecloths and dainty little cups made of porcelain, the bow windows in front looking out onto Princess Street where a new electric-powered street car rattled by.

  “Are you surviving?” Lucas asked frankly after the tea had been served.

  Ellen wrinkled her nose. “Just. We’re rushed off our feet from dawn till dusk, but I don’t really mind. The work keeps me from being homesick. What about you?”

  “The lectures are wonderful. I’ve always wanted this, time to read and learn and just think. It feels such a luxury.” He gave a lopsided smile. “I feel a bit guilty, leaving everyone at home...”

  “They want the best for you,” Ellen protested, and Lucas glanced down at his tea, his expression turning brooding.

  “I know, but sometimes I wonder if it’s the best for them.”

  Ellen thought of Jed and Mr. Lyman, both working so hard on the farm, especially after the flooding of a few years ago. The farming life was never an easy one, the work constant and endlessly demanding. “Somehow I don’t think Jed would trade places with you,” she teased, and Lucas gave her a half-smile.

  “No indeed. But it’s hard not to feel guilty when I’m enjoying myself so much.”

  “And the university fees, I suppose,” Ellen said, and then could have bitten her tongue. As if Lucas needed reminding that his education was costing his family! Besides, the Lymans didn’t have to worry about money the way the McCaffertys or even Ellen herself did.

  “Yes, it is quite a sacrifice,” he said tonelessly, and Ellen reached over to touch his hand.

  “I’m sorry, Lucas. I didn’t mean to sound as if—”

  “It’s not you, Ellen.” He patted her hand awkwardly. “It’s me. The truth is I feel guilty and selfish for coming to university while Jed’s toiling away at home, even though I know it’s exactly what he wants.” He stared unseeingly into the distance, the sound of the other tearoom patrons a soothing murmur in the background. “Jed could have gone to university if he chose.”

  “Do you really think so? How would your father have coped with the two of you gone?” Once again Ellen cursed her thoughtlessness. Yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that university had never really been a choice for Jed, not the way it was for Lucas.

  Lucas’ face, usually so open and smiling, hardened briefly. “My father can afford to hire a man, Ellen, or even two. Or a woman to help in the house! He just doesn’t want to, because Jed’s willing to do it all for free, and work himself to the bone in the process. I won’t do that. I have other things in mind for my life.”

  Ellen could only nod, taking a sip of tea, her mind spinning. She didn’t like the implacable note in Lucas’ voice, as if he were warning her. Did he never want to return to the island? “Tell me about university,” she finally said, and seeming as eager as she was to lighten the mood, Lucas was soon regaling her with tales of the Freshers’ Week at Queen’s and the many antics he and his classmates got up to in between their lectures.

  “Have you managed to do any drawing?” Lucas asked when the tea things were cleared.

  Ellen thought of the sketchbooks and charcoals in the trunk at the foot of her bed, untouched since she’d arrived. There had been plenty of subjects in the hospital, stored in her head, aching to be released on paper. There had simply been no time or energy.

  She shook her head. “No, I haven’t had a moment.”

  Lucas frowned. “You need to, Ellen. That’s as important as breathing to you.”

  “Yes, well, I’ve managed without breathing for the last fortnight then,” Ellen said with a touch of asperity. He smiled wryly in acknowledgement.

  “I never understood why you didn’t try for art school. There’s a good one in Toronto or even New York. You could have gone a hundred different places. You have the talent—”

  “If only I had wings,” Ellen said lightly, for she didn’t want to dredge up the uncomfortable topics of money or ambition with Lucas. He wouldn’t understand the need to be independent, to have financial security. To not be a burden. She could hardly swan off and do a course that had no useful purpose, all on someone else’s bank account.

  Besides, a little voice whispered inside her heart, what if I'm no good?

  Ellen didn’t listen to that voice, instead inquiring brightly after Lucas’ lectures and the people he’d met. He was happy to regale her with several more tales, and the rest of the afternoon passed pleasantly enough.

  The Nurses’ Home was half in shadow when Lucas finally walked her home. Ellen knew she’d been gone too long, and hoped she would not suffer the sharp edge of Superintendent Cothill’s tongue, or worse, for it.

  “You’ll keep writing me, won’t you, Ellen?” Lucas asked as he took her to the door. “I can take you out whenever you’ve a day off. If you’ve an evening free, we could even take in a play or a concert.”

  “You don’t want to spend all your spare time with me,” Ellen protested.

  “Oh, but I do,” Lucas assured her, his tone so low and heartfelt that Ellen felt a frisson of both excitement and alarm.

  “I’ll write soon,” she promised and this time without kissing his cheek, she hurried inside, her thoughts tumbling and whirling inside her head.

  The days at the hospital were long, yet they passed in a blur for Ellen never felt as if she had a moment to catch her breath. She soon became used to the barked orders of the attending physicians, and kept her head meekly bowed as she changed sheets or bathed a patient.

  The patients, for the most part, Ellen discovered, were kind; she encountered a few crusty termagants but in general she found she preferred patients to doctors or senior nurses. Amity and Harriet had both become good friends; Amity hated nursing and was clearly miserable while Harriet possessed a burning vocation that Ellen envied, for the truth was she didn’t know what she felt about nursing, and she was afraid she felt closer to Amity’s despair than Harriet’s passion.

  “Why don’t you just quit?” Ellen asked one evening as they sat in the cozy parlor of the Nurses’ Home. Amity was glumly repairing a tear on the sleeve of her uniform; to leave it could result in, as
Superintendent Cothill reminded them sternly, immediate dismissal.

  “I can’t,” she said, biting off a thread. “The last thing I want to do is slink back home with my tail between my legs, and my father telling me I-told-you-so. Besides, what’s really left for me there? I was twenty-three in August and I haven’t stepped out with a boy even once.”

  “I can’t imagine why.”

  “Too plain, I suppose.”

  “You’re not plain, Amity.” Her friend might not be a stunning beauty, but there was a pleasant evenness to her features and her eyes, a muddy hazel, were so friendly that you couldn’t help but like her. “You just need to meet the right man.”

  “Well, it’s more likely I’ll meet the right man in Kingston than in boring old Gananoque!” Amity replied with a smile. “What with all these college men about, and doctors too.” She lowered her voice. “I quite fancy Dr. Trowbridge, actually.”

  “Do you? He’s handsome enough, I suppose, but he seems a bit stuck-up to me.”

  Amity just laughed. “Handsome enough! I’d say so. And all the doctors are stuck up. It’s practically part of the job description.”

  “I suppose it is, but Dr. Trowbridge seems prouder than most. He won’t let anyone touch his precious instruments.” Although the hospital had purchased a complete set of surgical instruments for physicians’ use, Dr. Trowbridge carried his own with him, kept in a silk-lined wooden box, and used only those, sterilizing them himself since he didn’t trust a lowly nurse to do it.

  “They belonged to his father,” Amity said. “One of the senior nurses told me. He died in the Boer War.” She eyed Ellen mischievously. “I know why you don’t have the time of day for Dr. Trowbridge. What about that Queen’s fellow who has taken you to tea a dozen times?”

  Ellen blushed and looked down at the book forgotten in her lap, a slim volume of poetry Lucas had lent her. “It hasn’t been a dozen times. We’ve only had three afternoons off since we arrived.”

  “And every one of those afternoons has seen you swanning off in your rose wool, on the arm of Lucas Lyman,” Amity filled in. “He’s sweet on you, Ellen.”

  “No, we’re just friends—”

  “He doesn’t think you’re just friends,” Amity returned bluntly. “Or at least, that’s not all he’s hoping you’ll be. Don’t you care for him? I’d snatch him up in a heartbeat—”

  “Oh, Amity, honestly—”

  “Well, what’s wrong with him? Because he looks a fine catch to me.”

  Helplessly Ellen shook her head. “I’ve never thought of him that way.”

  Amity stared at her in that open way of hers and snipped another thread. “Well then, perhaps you should start.”

  A month before Ellen was due home for Christmas she received a letter from Louisa Hopper. Louisa had been living in Seaton since she’d finished high school; from her intermittent letters Ellen knew her mother had taken her to New York for several weeks of shopping, and she’d involved herself in various charities and fundraisers in Seaton’s small but active social circle. Still, Ellen could not help but think it a sort of dreary existence, and she felt as if Louisa were simply biding her time—but for what? Or perhaps the question really was, for whom?

  Now Louisa wrote that her father was taking her mother on a Grand Tour of Europe over the winter, and while Louisa was staying with relatives she would prefer to spend Christmas somewhere more congenial.

  Of course I could stay in Rutland as ever, she wrote, but they’re so stuffy and dull, it seems a dreary way to pass the holidays. I pondered and pondered just what to do, for Christmas can be such a lovely time! And then, of course, it came to me: I could come to the island and spend the holidays there. It would, I dare say, be quite like old times.

  “Old times!” Ellen muttered, sinking onto her bed. She felt a frisson of alarm at Louisa inviting herself back to Amherst Island. It made sense, of course, considering how much time Louisa had spent on the island. It made perfect sense, and yet Ellen didn’t like it.

  Yet she could hardly refuse her, especially when Louisa made it so plain that she’d nowhere comfortable to stay, and so Ellen duly wrote Rose, who, as expected, replied in the affirmative, and then Ellen wrote to Louisa.

  Within a fortnight it was all arranged, tickets bought, and Louisa wrote that she would see Ellen on Captain Jonah’s ‘dear little ferry’ on December the twentieth.

  “Ice boat, more like,” Ellen muttered, for it had been a cold winter and the lake had frozen over. If Louisa had found the island rustic in the summer, she had no idea what the winter would be like.

  December twentieth came soon enough. Ellen was looking forward to an entire week of days spent at her own command, although she would miss friends like Amity and Harriet, both who were returning to their own homes for the week’s holiday.

  “You look like you’ve been worked to the bone,” Lucas half-scolded when he came to fetch her for the train. He jumped out to haul her valise into the back, and Peter waved madly.

  “Hallo, Ellen! Lucas is right, you know. You look far too thin.”

  “Thank you very much,” Ellen replied, taking Lucas’ hand to help her into the carriage. Ever since Amity’s suggestion she found she couldn’t quite look at Lucas the way she’d used to, although she didn’t know how she should look at him. She felt uneasy and tongue-tied in his presence, and the last two times he’d taken her to tea had been filled with sudden awkward silences.

  Their friendship had certainly been rekindled away from the island, yet Ellen wondered if Amity was right and Lucas wanted more than friendship. And what did she want? Could she think of Lucas that way? Did she want to?

  “It will be strange to see Louisa again,” Lucas commented as he settled himself next to her and the carriage rolled down the hospital’s lane. Ellen had already told him of Louisa’s planned visit the last time they’d taken tea together. “Jed always said she was too fancy for the island.”

  “Did he?” Ellen asked diffidently, unsure what to make of this comment or the fierce dart of joy—or was it relief?—she felt at knowing Jed had said it.

  “I’m surprised she wants to come back again. I thought she’d marry some city slicker and live in New York or Boston.”

  “Perhaps she will, in time. In any case, she hasn’t any other place to go this Christmas, and she’s always liked the island, in her own way.” Lucas shrugged, unconvinced, and Ellen adjusted her hat. “It will be good to see an old friend,” she said firmly, needing to convince not just Lucas but herself.

  When Ellen finally did see Louisa waiting at the dock in Millhaven, her friend fell joyfully into her arms.

  “Oh, Ellen, it’s so good to see you!” Louisa cried. “It’s so good to be here!”

  Lucas and Peter stood back, bemused, while Ellen and Louisa exchanged greetings, and Ellen accepted Louisa’s warm embrace with surprise but also affection. She’d actually missed Louisa, silly and spiteful as she could be. Louisa linked arms with her, just as she’d done so many years ago in the Seaton schoolyard, and together they clambered into the sledge driven by Captain Jonah and his two pack ponies across the ice.

  All of Ellen’s doubts about Louisa’s visit were quite nearly wiped away in the light of her friend’s bubbling good humor and delight in being on the island and in the McCaffertys’ home. Both Ellen and Louisa were pleased at the winter festivities and amusements that had been planned, from an ice sculpture contest in Stella to a sleigh ride arranged by Jed and Lucas.

  Bundled up in their warmest coats and scarves, with thick fur rugs piled over them, Jed led the horse-drawn sleigh down a Jasper Lane transformed by snow and ice into a fantastic fairy land.

  Ellen squashed the disappointment and irritation she felt when Louisa took the seat next to Jed, content to share the backseat with Lucas.

  She smiled at Lucas, conscious of his closeness under the heavy rugs, and he smiled back. She watched as Louisa merrily tucked her arm into Jed’s, giving a light, little laugh as sh
e did so. Ellen’s stomach clenched as Louisa, giving that irritating little laugh again, brushed a dusting of snow from Jed’s dark hair. Surely that was a bit forward.

  “Looks like Jed has an admirer,” Lucas murmured, and Ellen forced herself to smile.

  “Louisa loves to be charming,” she agreed, and then turned to gaze at the passing scenery, the evergreens heavy laden with snow, the sky a dazzling blue.

  The wind nipped their cheeks and ears, and Louisa, Ellen saw, remained cuddled quite close to Jed. Why did she mind? Why did it hurt? It was nothing to her what Louisa did with Jed. Yet no matter how many times she told herself that, she could not acknowledge it as the truth.

  She did mind. It did hurt. And the realization was both alarming and appalling.

  Determinedly Ellen turned to Lucas, giving him her full attention. It was a silly, childish ploy, and one that would only hurt her in the end she realized too late, as Lucas’ eyes brightened and he even dared to rest his arm along the top of the sledge, so although he was not touching Ellen, it was as if he had his arm around her shoulders. Almost.

  Once Ellen saw Jed glance back, his eyes flicking along the length of Lucas’ arm, but he said nothing, his expression not changing in the least before he turned back to the horses.

  It was ridiculous, Ellen thought despondently, to feel this way, to act this way. She was eighteen years old, and yet she felt like a spoiled child, wanting to stamp her feet and cry ‘not fair’.

  Jed was her friend. They’d been together for the last three years, without Lucas or Louisa, and while their friendship hadn’t really changed from the teasing mockery and affection of an earlier time, it had deepened and strengthened somehow... or at least Ellen had thought it had.

  Perhaps it hadn’t.

  For as the days passed, however, there could be no denying the preference Louisa showed for the older Lyman brother. Ellen watched with slightly narrowed eyes as Louisa always took Jed’s arm, lightly and laughingly, yet with a steady purpose all the same. She saw how Jed obliged, even though he seemed to regard Louisa, with her fine clothes and bright gaiety, with some bemusement.