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“I think not,” Mrs. Hopper replied. “Thank you for your offer, but we must return home. As you can see, Louisa is quite exhausted from such a hurtful experience.”
“Yes,” Aunt Ruth replied dryly. “I can see she has quite worked herself into a state.”
A few minutes later, having gathered their things, the Hoppers had left. Ellen stood in the hallway, the splendid tea still laid out behind her in the kitchen. Aunt Ruth stood at the door, the spring sunshine streaking through the glass panes and bathing her face in light, showing Ellen the fine lines of age and strain around her eyes and mouth.
There was an expression on her aunt’s face that she couldn’t quite fathom, one of weariness and sorrow and even regret. She ached to draw it, capture the somber mood on paper, yet she knew there was something else to be got through first.
“I’m very sorry, Aunt Ruth,” she said quietly.
Aunt Ruth didn’t look at her. “As am I.”
“They’ll come round, I’m sure,” Uncle Hamish said in a feeble attempt at cheerfulness. “Awfully stuck up folk if you ask me, but anyhow...”
Ellen took a breath. “I didn’t put my finger in that tart...” she began, but Aunt Ruth cut her off.
“I don’t care what you did or didn’t do, Ellen Copley. Louisa Hopper was your guest, and that’s all that matters.”
“But...” Ellen swallowed down the injustice she felt, struggled for words. “But she’s horrible.”
“Go to your room.” Aunt Ruth sounded tired. “Go to your room and you can stay there till bedtime. There will be no supper for you tonight.”
Wordlessly Ellen went upstairs. Her mind seethed with protestations she knew she could not voice. Why was Aunt Ruth so angry with her, if she knew Ellen hadn’t been the one to put her finger in that awful tart?
She threw herself on her bed, taking several deep breaths to compose herself, before she reached underneath her pillow for her sketchbook and charcoal pencils. With grim determination, her fingers shaking only a little bit, she began to draw.
SIX
Hamish Copley wasn’t happy. The debacle with the Hoppers had cast a pall over home life, with which he was normally mostly content.
It had also fed the gossip at his own counter, with plenty of elbowing and winks, and worse, disapproving frowns and nods, as customers asked him just what the Copley girl—his brother’s daughter, for heaven’s sake—had done to work the entire Hopper family into such a state.
“Far too many airs, they have,” Hamish muttered to himself as he stacked cans of Benson’s Best Gravy onto the shelves. The store was blessedly silent, and unusually for him, Hamish was relieved. He needed a little peace and quiet.
He’d seen Louisa Hopper walk down the street, her nose in the air, ignoring Ellen with such pointed malice. She’d chosen another best friend, poor little Hope Cardle, who looked terrified every time the Hopper girl latched onto her.
The Hoppers were cordial to Hamish and Ruth, for in a town like Seaton the bank manager couldn’t be on bad terms with the owner of Seaton’s finest store. It was just bad sense.
Their cold courtesy went down hard with Hamish, though. He was used to being liked. He liked it.
Worst of all, however, was poor little Ellen. Although she wasn’t so little anymore, growing taller and more gracious every day, just like her mother Ann, who had always preferred silence to chatter, smiles to laughter.
Although in truth Hamish had always been a bit unsure of Ann, that sense of inner stillness, deep waters that nothing could ripple or touch. Ellen was the same way and yet beneath her cool façade Hamish thought he saw hurt in his niece’s clear hazel eyes, and that tore at his soul.
She walked alone to school, her lunch pail banging against her knees, and when Hamish had walked past the school to the depot, he’d sometimes seen her in the schoolyard, eating her lunch alone while children gathered in happy clusters around her.
It wasn’t fair, Hamish thought, and it wasn’t right. Ellen was a lovely girl, and the only reason Seaton hadn’t taken to her was because her father had hightailed it out of town, and then that spoiled little Hopper girl had started making Ellen’s life a misery. Coupled with this thought was an uncomfortable shaft of guilt, for Hamish knew that he and Ruth had not made things easier for Ellen. They hadn’t, he acknowledged sadly, taken her in like a loved daughter. Hamish had a suspicion that neither of them knew how. He certainly didn’t, and Ruth could be so prickly about things. She didn’t know how to act with a child, and he could hardly blame her.
Still, it wasn’t right for Ellen to be so miserable. She deserved better.
Ruth came in from the store room, the account books in her arms.
“I’ve been thinking, Ruth,” Hamish called from behind his stacked tins, before he could lose his nerve. “We ought to do something about Ellen.”
“And just what should we do?” Ruth asked, her tone sharp.
“She’s not happy here,” Hamish said quietly. “And she’s not likely to be, with that Hopper brat turning everyone against her.”
“Hamish, Ellen was the one who insulted Louisa Hopper. She made her bed, now she can—”
