by Kate Hewitt
“How very exciting,” Ellen answered with a polite smile. “Louisa did mention it to me, I believe.”
A moment later Louisa came down the stairs, stiffly, a look of caution on her handsome face. She looked older, Ellen saw, and more dignified. All traces of childish bad humor were gone, and she was a young woman indeed, beautiful and proud. No wonder Jed loved her.
Louisa held both her hands out to Ellen, who clasped them in her own with awkward grace. “I’m so glad you came, Ellen.”
“Shall we all take tea in the parlor?” Mrs. Hopper suggested, and Louisa gave a little laugh.
“As delightful as that sounds, Mother, Ellen and I haven’t seen each other in a long while.” She turned to Ellen, her eyes bright. “I know what we’ll do. We’ll go to the soda fountain on Main Street. Have you been, Ellen? It’s new and all the rage.”
“Soda fountain?” Ellen repeated dubiously, and Louisa giggled.
“It’s 1910, you know! You must keep up with the times!”
They didn’t have a chance to speak until they were in Welton’s Druggists, a smart new building with stone steps and ornate iron scrollwork flanking its glass doors. Ellen vaguely remembered that the building there before had been an old brick one, a blacksmith’s whose services were obviously no longer needed.
Louisa pushed confidently through the glass doors, striding towards the back where a row of high, cushioned stools stood in front of a long, marble counter, similar to the one in the general store, save that behind it was a young man in a white apron and cap, and there were rows and rows of taps and bottles.
“I’ll have a strawberry fizz,” Louisa said with a flirtatious little smile, and she turned to Ellen. “Have you ever had a soda?”
Ellen thought of the brown bottles of sarsaparilla Hamish sold in buckets of ice in the summertime, and had a feeling this was another notion entirely. “Not really.”
“You must try a black cow! They’re simply delicious.”
“Black cow?” Ellen repeated, but the soda jerk was already making her a drink in a tall, frosted glass. He put it in front of her with a flourish, and Ellen gazed down at the dark, foaming drink with some trepidation.
“Chocolate syrup and root beer,” Louisa informed her. She took a sip of her own bubbling pink soda. “Like I said, it’s really delicious.”
Ellen took a sip, and the bubbles went right up her nose. “Oh!” She clapped her hand to her face, startled, and Louisa laughed.
“You are old fashioned, aren’t you, Ellen? Don’t they have soda fountains in Kingston?”
“I’m sure they do, but I’ve been kept too busy to sample their delights,” Ellen answered. She pushed her drink away from her and glanced around the store, its high glass cabinets filled with bottles and boxes.
She read a few of the brand names—Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound, Wampole’s Tonic—and realized with a jolt that these were items Hamish normally stocked, now with a store to themselves. Patent medicines, useless as they were, certainly hadn’t gone out of style. “I’d no idea Seaton was becoming such a metropolis,” she said after a moment. “Having a druggist! It’s moving up in the world, I suppose.”
“Moving with the times,” Louisa answered. “Most towns have drugstores now, and department stores as well. Things change, you know. I go to the soda fountain all the time when I’m in Rutland. I’ve been to three different ones.”
“What have you been doing with yourself?” Ellen asked, and Louisa shrugged.
“This and that. Lots of visiting, of course, and I help with the Ladies’ Aid.” She sighed and pushed her drink away. “Waiting, really,” she admitted, and Ellen forced herself to ask,
“For marriage, you mean?” There was a pause full of meaning, and Ellen prodded her drink with the straw, watching the brown bubbles churn and foam. “I’ve been expecting to hear an announcement any day,” she said, trying to keep her voice light.
“We’ve discussed it,” Louisa said, and Ellen’s heart gave a painful little twist. Maybe it hadn’t been broken, but it had certainly taken some damage. “Jed wants to wait until he’s well settled. He’s considering buying the old Jamison farm on the other side of the island, so we can have our own place.”
Ellen stared in surprise. “But what will Mr. Lyman do without Jed? He depends on him!”
Louisa tilted her chin, and in her expression Ellen saw a ghost of the stubborn girl she’d once known. “We can hardly start our married life with Lucas and Mr. Lyman about.”
“Lucas is at Queen’s.”
“But he'll be back for summers and holidays. I want my own home.”
Whatever it meant for Mr. Lyman, Ellen filled in silently. And was Jed really willing to buy a whole new homestead for his bride? It surely wasn’t any of her business.
“I wish you well,” she said after a moment. They both sat in silence, lost in their own thoughts. Ellen was suddenly assailed by a memory of Jed stretched out next to her, looking through her sketches, his expression so thoughtful and serious, and she felt suddenly near tears. Hastily, to distract herself, she took a sip of soda and erupted into a fit of coughing.
“Oh, Ellen, you must get used to things!” Louisa said with a little laugh and Ellen forced herself to smile.
“I’m afraid I’m slower to take to things than most. Lucas was trying to teach me the latest dances—I’m hopeless, really.”
“Oh?” Louisa arched her eyebrows. “Have you seen much of him in Kingston, then?”
“A bit.”
“I’m sure he’s pleased by that.”
Ellen swallowed. “I don’t know about that, Louisa.” She had no intention of discussing Lucas or his feeling for her. She paused, took a breath. “Do you think,” she asked hesitantly, “you will like being a farmer’s wife? There are no soda fountains in Stella, you know, and I doubt there ever will be.”
“You’re mistaken if you think I hold soda fountains that dear!” Impulsively Louisa leaned forward, putting her hand on Ellen’s arm. “Oh, Ellen, I love him!” she exclaimed, her face turning radiant. “That’s what makes all the difference. I know what I saw in your face when Jed kissed me—and as for when you said those things after church—”
“Don’t,” Ellen said quickly. “Please don’t think of that again, Louisa. I didn’t mean a word of it.”
“I know you didn’t. I know you said it because you thought you loved him. But you don’t, Ellen, not really. When you love someone, it’s so consuming, so wonderful...”
Ellen couldn’t speak; she could barely think. The thought that Louisa knew how she felt about Jed was too humiliating to consider or endure. Did Jed know? Had he guessed? She could not bear to think of it. As for true love... she thought of the last six months, her determination to forget Jed and the many lonely, miserable hours she’d spent towards that end, and had to agree with Louisa that it was consuming. Wonderful she’d yet to experience.
She smiled stiffly and even took a sip of her drink, the bubbles buzzing on her tongue. “Louisa, I told you before that I didn’t love Jed,” she said firmly, setting her glass down. “You might fancy I do because I was a bit cold after Christmas, but I can tell you it wasn’t that. The truth is, I thought the island and all of its residents were, well, mine. I didn’t want to share them with anyone—you know well enough I was reluctant to have you come that first summer. Childish jealousy, I know, but there it is.” Ellen shrugged, and Louisa looked both uncertain and relieved. Ellen knew it was better for everyone to believe she’d never loved Jed, or even imagined herself in love with him. If only it could have been a childish flight of fancy instead of this consuming ache.
“I am glad to hear it, Ellen. I would hate to think you were pining.”
“Certainly not,” Ellen replied with the barest of smiles. “I have never pined in my life.”
“You will come to our wedding, then?” she asked with a little smile. “Although Jed must ask first, as you know!”
“Of course I will.”
Ellen occupied herself by taking another sip of her drink, and then instantly regretted it. The bubbles were too much, and went right up her nose.
“And what will you do?” Louisa asked. “Go back to nursing school, I suppose? Will you stay at the hospital there after you graduate?”
The picture Louisa painted, which Ellen had already imagined far too many times, was as bleak as ever. Spend the rest of her life at KGH? She could not. Yet she did not know what other choices she had.
“I don’t know what I shall do,” she said. “I shall have to wait and see.” She thought of Ruth, waiting to die, and Hamish’s store, perhaps already becoming a thing of the past, and she wondered if anyone’s future was certain, even Louisa’s, waiting as she was for a marriage proposal that had yet to come.
SIX
As July moved into August, the fields turned dry and brown under a blazing sun and Ruth’s health continued to worsen. Ellen and Hamish took turns sitting by her bed, bathing her wasted, feverish skin, trying to get her to take a little broth, although it barely wetted her lips before she turned her face away.
One evening as twilight began to settle over the fields, Ellen sat by Ruth’s bed while the older woman slept. In sleep, Ruth’s face was relaxed instead of taut with pain, her chest barely rising with each labored breath.
Ellen breathed in the smell of cut grass from the open window. She heard a child run with a hoop down the street, the tinkling laughter floating up to the room like the sound of bells. As dusk deepened, the sound of crickets began in earnest, a chorus that could become deafening in the middle of the night.
Ellen smiled in bittersweet memory of when she and Da had first arrived in Seaton. She’d never heard such a ruckus before, and had slept with a pillow over her head those first few weeks, as had Da.
Until he left. Ellen’s smile faltered slightly as she thought of her father. The letters from New Mexico had been less and less frequent; she had not one all year. It was hard to remember his face, his Scottish burr. It was hard to remember Mam as well.
“Ellen.”
Ellen started in surprise. Ruth had wakened, and was looking up at her with a faint smile.
“I’m glad to see you’re awake.” She smiled back. “Will you take some broth?”
“No, I’m not hungry.”
“You need to keep your strength up—”
“No, I don’t.” Ruth smiled again, and even in her wasted condition her face looked, for a moment, quite beautiful. “At some point, Ellen, there’s no need for that anymore.”
Ellen paused, swallowed. “Is there anything I can get you?”
“Yes, there is.” Ruth’s hand reached for Ellen’s own. “Your sketchbook.” Ellen stared, speechless. “You didn’t think I knew, did you? Hamish told me.” Each word was drawn out slowly, with effort. “He showed me the drawing you’d done of me. It was like looking in a mirror, only better. You saw me as I didn’t even see myself. Didn’t even know I could.” This speech caused Ruth to close her eyes, a sheen of sweat on her forehead.
“Sometimes I don’t know what I’m going to draw,” Ellen confessed quietly, “or why. I hope it didn’t offend you—”
“It amazed me.” Ruth opened her eyes. “I’d like to see your other sketches,” she said, “if you’ll show me.”
Ellen nodded. This was the last thing she’d expected, yet it was a request she could not deny. She’d brought her sketchbooks to Seaton, though she had not opened them. She had not touched them in months. She went quickly to her room. There was a pile of them now, in her trunk, and after a second’s hesitation Ellen took the ones from her first years in Seaton.
“I haven’t drawn much of anything in this last year,” she confessed. “I’ve been too busy.”
“That’s just as well. I have enough to catch up on.”
Ellen helped Ruth sit up a bit in bed, propped by pillows. She was amazed at how fragile Ruth had become; it was as if her bones were hollow.
With trembling hands Ruth began to turn the pages. She studied each sketch carefully—the ones of the robin on the tree outside Ellen’s window, the rows of sweet jars in the store, the brook encased in winter ice.
When the sketches became more personal—Hamish laughing, Elmira Cardle pursing her lips fussily, she smiled.
“You’ve got a good eye,” she said once, at the sketch of Elmira, and then turned the page.
At the back of the first book, one Ellen had filled a long time ago, there was a folded sketch. Ellen had almost forgotten about it.
Ruth unfolded it, and they both stared at the picture of Da. He was laughing, happy—the picture she’d meant to give him as a goodbye present, but he’d never allowed her the chance.
“I—I’d forgotten that was there,” Ellen said after a moment. “I haven’t looked at it in years.”
“It’s a good likeness,” Ruth said in a raspy voice. “I can tell how much you love him. And even though he never saw that picture, I think he knew. ” She closed the book and leaned back against the pillows. “Thank you for showing me.”
“I’m glad you wanted to see them,” Ellen admitted, and Ruth gave her a ghost of a smile.
“Did you think I wouldn’t want to?” Ellen was at a loss for an answer, and Ruth shook her head. “Of course you wouldn’t. I know I’ve been hard with you, Ellen, and it wasn’t always fair. But I knew I had to be, for my sake as well as yours. I’ve never been a mother, the Good Lord didn’t see fit to make me one, and I accepted that over the years, as did Hamish.” She took a deep breath which rattled through her chest like air through an empty cage. “But I still had something of a mother’s love in me, I suppose, because I knew I could feel that with you. And I knew I was the last kind of mother you needed, and this life here with us in the store, in Seaton, I saw what it was doing to you. Taking your pride, your joy, what little you had back then. I always knew you’d do better in Stella... with Rose.”
Ellen shook her head, amazed and saddened by this confession. “I could’ve been happy with you,” she whispered.
“Perhaps,” Ruth allowed after a moment. Her voice was harsh and ragged with the effort of speaking. “Perhaps I’ve just been selfish. I was afraid of showing I loved you, because I knew you could never love me back—not the way a mother loves her daughter. You had that for your own mother, and Lord knows I’m not very lovable. Oh, Hamish loves me, I know he does. Thank heaven for that. He’ll need you, Ellen, when I’m gone. Just for a little while. Don’t tie yourself to him, not for my sake, or his...” she shook her head, her voice trailing off, and Ellen clasped her hand.
“Oh, Aunt Ruth,” she choked, “I do love you.”
Ruth’s eyes brightened. “Well, that’s something to take with me.” She was silent, struggling for the strength to go on. Ellen held her hand as tightly as she dared, willing her fingers to somehow show Ruth what her actions and words never had.
She did love her, and, she knew now Ruth had always loved her. It was both strange and wonderful, a joy and a sorrow to think of it, to know it, to feel its truth in her bones, in her heart. A gasp broke from her and she could not keep from saying, “I wish we’d talked like this all those years ago.”
Ruth smiled weakly. “Everything in its time. We weren’t ready then, I suppose.” She drew in another rattling breath. “God’s been good to me, Ellen. He gave me you, after all.”
Ellen pressed her lips together and willed herself not to cry. It reminded her of what her mam had said, and part of her wanted to protest that God hadn’t given her aunt very much. She hadn’t been back to Seaton for years, after all—yet that was not God’s choice, but her own.
“I know you have your difficulties with God,” Ruth continued. “And in this troubled world, who hasn't?” Ellen started a bit, surprised by her aunt’s perception, and Ruth gave her a glimmer of one of her old, shrewd looks. “You couldn’t not do, what with your father leaving the way he did. And the Lord knows I’ve spent enough time thinking about what I didn’t have, rathe
r than what I did.” She paused, taking in another rattling breath. “I’d always wanted children. I spent a good deal of time being angry that I didn’t get them.”
“Oh, Aunt Ruth—”
“But don’t be like that, Ellen. I can tell you now, with death so close, I want to feel only peace and happiness. And I do feel it, here with you now, and with Hamish.” She drew another deep, tearing breath. “Don’t waste your life being angry with God for what He didn’t give you, in His wisdom. Celebrate what He did.” Her throat still tight, Ellen just nodded. “You’ll do that for me, won’t you, Ellen?”
“I’ll try, Aunt Ruth.”
“And what about your da?” Ruth weakly motioned to the folded sketch with one hand. “You need to see him. He’s your family, Ellen. Always will be. Don’t be angry with him either, though God knows he may deserve it. It won’t do anyone any good, child, to stay angry with your own father.”
Ellen sniffed and brushed at her eyes. “I’ve written him a time or two. But I don’t know him anymore, Aunt Ruth. I haven’t for a long time. I’m not even sure where he is.”
“You always know your family,” Ruth said. She closed her eyes, her voice little more than a whisper. “I did.” Her fingers faintly squeezed Ellen’s before she fell asleep once more.
Ruth died three days later. Standing at her freshly dug grave Ellen thought of her aunt’s sternness as well as her love. She remembered her last words, and she knew that the best way to honor Ruth’s memory, and to show her she loved her, would be to live them.
She’d spent too long wanting things to be different or better or more rather than accepting simply what was, and being thankful for the gifts she’d been given.
For Ruth’s sake, and her own, she was going to live her life differently now. Ellen turned away from the grave and slipped her arm through Hamish’s, a new resolve firing through her even as she grieved for the aunt she wished she’d known better.