by Kate Hewitt
Why, Ellen asked herself again and again, should she care if Louisa and Jed flirted, or even fell in love for that matter? Hadn’t Louisa told her all those years ago she reckoned she could make Jed fall in love with her? Ellen hadn’t taken her seriously, had never taken her seriously perhaps, because the thought of Jed falling for someone like Louisa seemed too ludicrous for words. He was smarter than that, no matter that he hadn’t attended high school or university. He deserved better than Louisa.
Yet as Ellen gazed at the oak tree’s ice-encased branches outside her window on Christmas Eve, her sketchbook untouched on her lap, she was forced to acknowledge that perhaps Jed wasn’t as smart as she thought. Perhaps his head would be turned by Louisa’s pretty ways and he’d fall in love with her. And she could no longer tell herself she didn’t care what Louisa or Jed did, because she knew she did care. She cared a great deal.
Sighing dispiritedly, she leaned her forehead against the cold glass. There could be nothing in Jed and Louisa’s moments together, she told herself. Jed hadn’t really seen Louisa in three years. He was no doubt humoring her, as she was amusing herself.
And yet... and yet... what if there was something it? What if Jed fell for Louisa, with her glossy hair and dimpled cheeks and fancy clothes?
Ellen knew she had not thought seriously of her feelings for Jed before, and now she knew why. She was afraid. She was afraid that Jed felt nothing for her but a light, brotherly affection that could quite easily be disposed of. It was a fear she did not want to face, and one she certainly did not wish Jed to confirm openly, even as she still stubbornly refused to acknowledge what she felt for him.
“He’s rude and oafish and bad-mannered,” she whispered fiercely, and recognized how hollow her words sounded. Jed was no longer the sullen boy she’d met all those years ago, and she wasn’t the timid and uncertain girl fresh off the boat. Yet even though they’d both changed, at least on the outside, Ellen knew that first meeting had marked her forever. She’d been drawn to Jed from the moment she’d met him, had always thought of him and looked for him, and now she could no longer tell herself she didn’t like him.
Restlessly Ellen tossed the sketchbook aside and went downstairs. It was nearing supper, and everyone had gathered in the front parlor before the meal. Ellen could see Peter and Caro playing jackstraws, the light from the fire and the oil lamps casting a cozy glow over the happy, domestic scene.
“Come join us,” Caro entreated. She was thirteen years old now and turning into quite the beauty with her glossy dark hair and green eyes like Dyle’s. “Jed and Lucas have promised to come and roast chestnuts later, too, Ellen.”
“Have they?” Ellen murmured, her heart skipping a beat before beginning to pound.
“Come play,” Sarah called, but Ellen just smiled and slipped from the room. She didn’t think she could bear their jolly company at this moment.
She heard a sound from the kitchen, and thought it must be Pat, whining to be let out. She hurried into the kitchen and saw her dog scratching at the door. Smiling, she opened the latch, bracing herself for the blast of icy air, only to have her heart seem to stop right in her chest for the porch was already occupied. Dressed in their winter coats and scarves, their faces reddened with cold, Jed was helping Louisa up the icy steps. Neither of them saw Ellen as Louisa came to the last stair and smiled coquettishly at Jed who, to Ellen’s numb disbelief, drew her into his arms and lowered his head to kiss her.
It wasn’t, Ellen acknowledged even as she stood frozen to the spot, a simple chaste kiss. Jed did not pull away, and neither did Louisa. His arms came around her and pulled her even closer as the kiss deepened and went on and on. Ellen stumbled backwards, leaving the door open, the icy air pouring in as she fled from the kitchen.
THREE
The day Ellen was to return to Kingston was clear and still, with a sharp coldness that stole the breath right from her lungs.
She was grateful for the cloak and scarf that kept her warm, and more importantly, hid her features from worried eyes. Although on the surface Ellen had maintained a pleasant if abstracted air these last few days, inside she felt as frozen as the lake stretching out under a blanket of snow; a hard and brittle layer of ice which covered the churning emotions underneath.
Louisa stood next to her, waiting to get on the sleigh. Ellen sensed rather than saw Louisa’s tension; it was palpable between them. The friends had not spoken to one another beyond stiff pleasantries for several days. Ellen would not easily forget the conversation they’d had on Christmas morning.
After seeing Jed and Louisa Ellen had stumbled out of the kitchen, but not before she saw Jed spring guiltily away, and she knew she’d been seen.
She hurried upstairs, breathing as fast as if she’d run all the way down Jasper Lane. She didn’t want to examine her reaction—its terrible force or the feelings which had caused it—and so she sat numbly staring out the window as twilight fell softly over the barren winter landscape.
She’d hoped to avoid Jed and Louisa for the rest of the holidays, since the Lymans would be having Christmas celebrations at their own house, but of course it proved impossible.
There was church on Christmas morning, and as everyone exchanged greetings in the frosty air after the service, Louisa walked determinedly up to Ellen.
“Ellen, you must talk to me.”
“I think I’ve said Happy Christmas, Louisa,” Ellen replied with a small, tight smile.
“Don’t speak such nonsense. Ever since you saw Jed and me together you’ve been strung tighter than a bow. I can only wonder at the reason why.” There was a hard glint in Louisa’s eye that Ellen did not like at all. She lifted her chin.
“You surprised me, that’s all. Admittedly, it was a bit uncomfortable to witness such a—a display of impropriety, but I dare say I shall recover in time.” As a joke, it fell flat.
“If you had set your cap at Jed,” Louisa answered in a hard voice, “you should have made your feelings known. I told you how I felt about him all those years ago.”
“You told me you could make him fall in love with you!”
“And I did, didn’t I?”
Ellen swallowed the bitterness churning through her and turned her face away from Louisa. She did not want to ask if Louisa was in love with Jed. She did not want to have this conversation at all.
“Are you jealous?” Louisa asked, this time without spite. “Do you want him for yourself or do you just want no one to have him?”
“Want him for myself!” Ellen sputtered indignantly. Her cheeks were flushed with cold and humiliation that she should be having such a discussion with Louisa, especially when it was obvious where Jed’s affections lay. “I should think not! He’s had nothing but mockery or scorn for me from the day I met him. I’d never fall in love with Jed Lyman, never.” She spoke vehemently, perhaps too vehemently, for she knew she was lying.
“You almost talk as if you don’t like him.”
“I don’t!”
“Yet you’ve been friends these last three years—”
“You can have him, Louisa,” Ellen said, a ragged edge to her voice. She added, hurt and humiliation spiking her words, “if you think your parents will be best pleased! Do they want you courted by an ignorant farm boy who hasn’t even been to high school?”
Louisa’s mouth opened soundlessly, but it wasn’t her friend’s reaction that drained the color from Ellen’s face. It was Jed’s.
He’d approached them without either woman seeing, and he stood in the snow, his hands shoved into the pockets of his overcoat, his face quite expressionless.
Ellen struggled to form a coherent thought or word, but her mind was numb. Her scornful words seemed to still reverberate in the air, a terrible echo, impossible to forget or erase.
Louisa shut her mouth and swept towards Jed, linking arms with him, her eyes blazing.
“If you plan to snitch to my parents, Ellen Copley, you can tell them I am very happy—and proud—with my choic
e!” She shook her head slowly, her voice shaking. “I never took you for a snob.”
With that, Jed and Louisa walked out of the churchyard together, and Ellen was left standing there, blinking back tears of rage and misery.
The injustice of it burned in her soul—she, the lass from Springburn, a snob! And yet the words she’d so harshly spoken were the words of a snob, and patently untrue. She’d spoken them from malice and hurt and fear. And she’d never, ever wanted Jed to hear them.
Yet he had, and there could be no taking them back. There could be no going back, Ellen quickly realized, for both Jed and Louisa avoided her, and she spent as much time as she could alone and aching in her room. For the first time she looked forward to leaving the island with a quiet, miserable desperation.
For the sake of the family and the anticipated celebration, Ellen pulled herself together to participate in the opening of presents, the grand goose dinner, and the parlor games and sleigh rides that no Christmas would be without.
Yet her distracted air, the pall of misery that hung around her like a gray cloak, did not escape Rose.
“Are you quite well, Ellen?” she asked quietly one evening when the two of them were seated alone by the fire.
Ellen looked up from the novel she’d been trying to read; she’d barely turned a page. “Oh, yes, Aunt Rose. It’s been a lovely holiday.”
“Has it?” Rose pursed her lips in a knowing way, but left it at that. Ellen was suddenly aware of Louisa’s absence in the cozy parlor; Jed had taken her for a sledge ride. Lucas had invited Ellen, but she’d pleaded a headache.
“It’s never too late to mend things,” Rose said quietly, and Ellen looked up in uncomfortable surprise. The last thing she wanted was for her falling out with Jed to be noticed, or did Rose just mean Louisa?
“I’m just tired, Aunt Rose,” she said firmly. “Nursing school has quite fatigued me. I’m sorry if I don’t seem myself.”
“No, child,” Rose replied with a weary smile. “Don’t be sorry.”
Now all the farewells had been said, and Ellen and Louisa, Lucas and Peter were climbing in the sledge to take them back to the train and Kingston.
Ellen pulled the traveling rug over her; the air was freezing and still. Louisa sat next to her and wordlessly Ellen handed her a bit of the rug. Jed, at least, had not come to say a touching farewell to his beloved.
“All ready?” Captain Jonah called cheerfully, and then he cracked his whip and the ponies began their methodical trotting, the sleigh skimming across the hardened crust of snow.
“You haven’t asked,” Louisa said into the silence, her voice low enough to reach only Ellen’s ears. “So I’ll tell you. I love Jed and I hope to marry him.”
Ellen stared out at the flat stretch of snowy lake, amazed at how she felt nothing at all at this revelation. “Has he asked you, then?”
“Not yet, but I think he will.” Louisa grabbed Ellen’s sleeve with one mittened hand. “Ellen, look at me! You’ve been as pale and lifeless as a ghost these past few days. What is wrong with you? Is it because of Jed?”
“Louisa, please!” Ellen glanced quickly at Lucas, who was engaged in a conversation about ice fishing with Peter and Captain Jonah. “You must stop these theatrics. I’m not in love with Jed and never have been. I was surprised, that’s all. You must admit you are somewhat of an unlikely pair.”
“Then why have you been so pale, so withdrawn?”
Ellen met Louisa’s gaze and saw the genuine anxiety in her friend’s eyes. She dredged up a smile from the depths of her soul and used the excuse she’d given Rose.
“The work at the hospital tries me. I’ve been tired and—” she took a breath, the icy air searing her lungs—“that’s all. Really, Louisa.”
Louisa did not look convinced, but Ellen thought she might be persuaded simply because it was easier to believe than the truth.
The truth. Even Ellen did not want to face the truth. She drew her cloak more tightly around her shoulders and closed her eyes against the stark beauty of the day—and the memory of two lovers that had seared itself on her soul.
The Nurses’ Home was buzzing with chatter and laughter as Ellen settled back into her room. Everyone had presents to show, stories to tell, and one junior nurse was not returning at all as she’d become engaged to a shopkeeper back in Hamilton.
“Just like that,” Amity said with a trace of longing in her voice. “Said he’d missed her so much, he couldn’t live without her. She’ll be married by the end of the month, lucky girl.”
Ellen couldn’t face the crowded parlor with its laughter and piano music and so she retired early upstairs, thinking once again that she would sketch. She’d tried to do a bit of drawing back on the island, and was determined to keep at it even with her rigorous duties at the hospital. Lucas had been right; drawing was a bit like breathing to her. She needed to do it.
Except she couldn’t. For once the sure strokes she loved to put on the page wouldn’t come. She felt nothing; there was nothing in her head or heart, no idea waiting to be given life with a charcoal and a blank page. She sat with the sketchbook unopened on her lap, a pencil clasped loosely between her fingers, staring into space, the bleak despair that had been skirting the edges of her mind and the corners of her heart now threatening to swamp her completely.
“Ellen?” Amity stood in the doorway, slightly flushed from the warm parlor, an uncertain look on her face. “You’ve hardly said a word since supper. Are you ill?”
“No. A bit tired, perhaps.” The lie was becoming thinner, even though it held a fragment of truth. She certainly wanted nothing more than to climb into bed and pull the covers over her head.
Amity came into the room. “Well, here’s the rest of the gossip from downstairs. Cynthia Parlin is engaged—he asked on Christmas Day. Gladys Traipine isn’t coming back—she’s a second year, do you know her? Apparently her father said she hasn’t learned a thing here and he won’t let her return.” She sat on the bed. “And there’s a new doctor—a surgeon, Dr. Masters. No one seems to have seen him yet, but apparently he’s very handsome.” She paused, frowning. “You do look peaky. And going back home was meant to be a rest, you silly thing!”
Ellen gazed down at her sketchbook. “Yes,” she agreed quietly. “I am a rather silly thing.” She was horrified to realize she was quite suddenly near tears, and she blinked them back, her throat raw and aching with the effort.
“Ellen?” Amity lay a hand on her arm. “Ellen, whatever has happened?”
A tear plopped onto the cover of her sketchbook, and Ellen wiped it away with her thumb. “Nothing, really,” she said, “except that I’ve been a terrible, blind, stupid fool.”
Amity gave an uncertain little laugh. “That doesn’t sound very good.”
“No, it isn’t.” Ellen took a deep breath, the effort of holding the howling misery within her making her sides ache. “Amity, have you ever been in love?”
“No, not a bit. I wish I had. You know I’d have a husband, children, the lot, but it hasn’t happened and I don’t think it will.” She smiled slightly, the curve of her lips sad. “I know I’m only twenty-three, but I feel as if it’s passed me by already.”
“Yes,” Ellen agreed, “I know what you mean.”
“So, you must be in love with someone, then.” Amity kept her voice light, although there was real concern in her dark eyes.
“Yes, and I’ve only just realized it. I should have seen ages ago, years perhaps, but I never did. I didn’t want to. I... I suppose because I was afraid.”
“Afraid? Why?”
Ellen looked up, her eyes bright with tears. “I’m not even sure why. Maybe it’s because everyone I’ve loved has left. That’s putting it a bit too strong, I suppose. Just Mam and Da, but still.”
Amity frowned. “You were afraid this man would leave you?”
“No, not exactly. I didn’t ever think that far. I didn’t even consider loving him. Loving anyone. I’ve never really thought a
bout getting married, even. And yet somehow it has all crept up on me and been the most awful surprise.” She managed to laugh, just a little, and the sound trembled on the air.
“I think it could be quite a pleasant surprise, depending on the circumstances.”
“Ah yes, the circumstances. Those are this: he’s in love with my friend Louisa, and I found them together in an embrace.” Ellen flushed at the memory. “I was so shocked and horrified—and that’s when I realized. I would never have felt that awful, so betrayed, if...”
“If you didn’t care for him.”
Ellen nodded miserably. “I can’t believe I didn’t realize it sooner. It’s so glaringly obvious to me now. It’s most likely been obvious to everyone.” She nearly shuddered at that thought. “I expect they’ll get married. Louisa told me she aims to be his wife, although I can’t really imagine her living on a farm. She’s always had such airs and graces.” Ellen shook her head, forcing the thought away. “I could live with that, I suppose, since I never truly thought of getting married myself, but I’m afraid I’ve lost Jed’s friendship as well. I said some horrible things—about him. I shouldn’t have, it was just I was so angry and hurt and I didn’t know he was listening.” She looked up, swallowing hard. “But he was, of course. And I don’t see how anything can ever be the same between us again.”
Amity was silent for a moment. “It probably won’t,” she said quietly, “but you can move on. These things can heal over. There’s still a scar—you’ve seen it in surgery! But you can be almost new again. Can’t you?” She looked anxiously at her friend, and Ellen nodded slowly.
There was no point going back, living in regret for lost dreams she’d never even known she’d had. She was made of sterner stuff than that; the years in Springburn, in Seaton, attested to that.
Ellen smiled wanly. “Yes,” she said, and this time her eyes were dry. “Yes, I can.”