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Ellen took another deep breath. “I don’t like you,” she said. “I’m sorry you’re ill, but you’ve been selfish and stubborn and vain since the day I met you, and nothing you’ve done since then has convinced me otherwise. Don’t burst into tears now,” she warned. “I’ll just leave anyway and I don’t care what your mother thinks of me. I’m leaving for the island in another two months, and I won’t be coming back here at all.”
Saying the words made it feel real, and even though Ellen was not sure if she spoke the truth or not, sincerity throbbed in her voice for she so wanted it to be true. She might feel a bit sad that things hadn’t worked out with her aunt and uncle, but she still didn't want to come back and work in their store for the rest of her life.
Louisa’s eyes widened. “Not ever?”
“I don’t know,” Ellen allowed. “But not for a while, at least.”
“What about high school?” Louisa asked, her eyes wide.
“I don’t know,” Ellen admitted. “I suppose I’ll take the entrance exam just in case, but... well, it’s not simple.” She didn’t want to talk to Louisa about money, and her lack of it. “Anyway, I’d rather be on the island.”
“Don’t you see, Ellen?” Louisa said, picking at a loose thread on her coverlet, her voice quiet and her expression almost sorrowful. “When you talk about that island, your eyes light up like you have the most wonderful secret. That’s why I want to go. I want that secret too.”
Ellen leaned back against the bedpost, at a loss for words. But it’s mine, she wanted to say. I don’t want to share it, and especially not with you. Yet then wasn’t she as selfish as she’d accused Louisa of being? Unhappy confusion churned within her, and all she managed was a weak and rather resigned smile. She was afraid that Louisa was determined enough to make her wish come true.
EIGHT
The wheels of Louisa’s plan were set in motion before the week was out. Mrs. Hopper called on Aunt Ruth, and Ellen didn’t need to eavesdrop on their hushed conversation in the front parlor to know what they were talking about.
The blow fell at suppertime, when Aunt Ruth announced, “Louisa Hopper has taken it into her contrary head to come with you this summer to visit your cousins. Her mother was quite against it, naturally, but her father can’t deny her any foolish notion and so it’s agreed.”
Ellen stared at the mound of mashed potato Ruth had dolloped onto her plate. “Doesn’t Aunt Rose have any say in it?” she asked, although what she really wanted to ask was, Don’t I?
“I’ll send her a telegram, of course,” Ruth allowed. “But I can’t see as she’ll mind. They’ve a houseful already, and the Hoppers will pay generously for Louisa’s bed and board. I dare say those McCaffertys could use the extra money.”
Ellen stiffened at the implied slight. “Don’t I have any say in the matter?” she blurted, and Ruth’s lips thinned.
“No,” she replied bluntly, and sat down to eat.
The next two months passed by far too quickly, for although Ellen was looking forward to her return to Amherst Island, the addition of Louisa to her summer plans left her feeling quite sick with dread. She could not imagine Louisa on the island, did not want to imagine it. Would she turn her nose up at the McCaffertys’ ramshackle home? Say some snide remark to Peter or Caro, or dear little Ruthie? And what would she make of Lucas, Jed, or even Captain Jonah? The island was hers, and even though Ellen knew it was unreasonable to feel this way she could not keep herself from doing so. From not wanting to share a bit of it, and definitely not with Louisa Hopper.
Her excitement and dread at leaving for the island was mixed also with a guilty ambivalence about saying goodbye to Uncle Hamish and Aunt Ruth. Nothing had precisely changed in their household; Ruth was as stern as ever, and Hamish just as uneasily jocular. Maybe she was the one who had changed, for she realized she would be sad, if only a little bit, to say farewell. She did not know what the future held for any of them.
She’d received her Year Eight certificate and taken the entrance exam for high school in Rutland, although she had not yet received her results.
“You will have to decide what you want to do before the summer is out,” Ruth warned as Ellen packed her valise. “Once you receive your exam results.” Aunt Ruth paused, her lips pressed together. “I know you’ve taken this notion to go to high school, but it is expensive, and you’d have to find a place to board...”
“I know that.” Ellen swallowed. “My da hasn’t sent any money, has he?” she asked after a moment, her throat so tight she could barely find the words. “Besides that silver dollar, I mean.”
Ruth said nothing for a long, tense moment. “That doesn’t matter,” she finally said, and Ellen wished she could believe it.
She stared down at the starched pinafores Aunt Ruth had ironed for her, now neatly folded in her valise. “I could go to high school in Kingston,” she said quietly. “I might have to wait a year, to take the exam, but...” Her voice trailed away, that momentary courage to suggest such a thing depleted.
Ruth was silent for another long moment, her face turned away from Ellen so she could only see her aunt’s cheek, the sunlight touching the gray strands in Ruth’s hair, the deep crow’s feet by her eyes. “I suppose you’d rather go there,” she finally said. “With your friends.”
“Jed Lyman is there,” Ellen said. “And his brother Lucas will be, come September. Their farm neighbors Uncle Dyle’s.” Lucas had written her in the autumn, letting her know that Jed had finally agreed to go to high school; he’d be finishing his first year now. If Ellen went, she would overlap with him for one year
, his last and her first.
“Where would you board?” Ruth asked with a little shake of her head. “And the money, I’m sure, is the same. Where would that come from?”
Ellen stared down at her neatly folded clothes. It was always about money. Why hadn't her father sent any home? She wondered just what he was doing with his wages... his life, even. The few letters he’d written gave little away.
“I wish I had money of my own.” Ellen didn’t realize she’d said it out loud until she saw Ruth’s startled look.
“That’s as it may be,” Ruth said, “but you don’t. We’re Christian people, we’ve a notion of charity.”
But charity, it seemed, did not extend to high school. Ellen reached for her nightgown and folded it on top of the other clothes, knowing there was nothing to say. If Aunt Ruth didn’t want to pay for her high school, she didn’t have to. It was simple as that.
