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“No high school for you?” he asked a bit shrewdly, and Ellen forced herself to meet his gaze squarely.
“No, sir.”
“Well, I’ve always said a formal education is overrated. Life, in my opinion, is the best education on offer.” He smiled and slapped his desk with both hands. “It’s settled then. Write to me when you expect to be back on our island, and I’ll get you started.”
It sounded almost too simple. “I think I’ll stay with my aunt and uncle in Vermont at least until May,” Ellen said tentatively.
“Then you can start in June!” Dr. Bandler returned cheerfully. “June first, 1907 How does that sound?”
Far away, Ellen thought, wondering if she should stay on the island after all. As tempting as that seemed, she felt deep in her bones that she needed to see Aunt Ruth and Uncle Hamish, live with them properly again. She couldn’t even explain to herself why. “Thank you, sir. I’ll try and be a credit to you.”
‘I’m sure you will.” He rose from behind his desk, and Ellen felt a little startled that the interview had been conducted with such alacrity.
“So... that’s all?” she asked a bit uncertainly.
“That’s all. I know a good egg when I see one.”
Ellen had never heard herself described as a good egg, but she took Dr. Bandler’s meaning. He stuck out his hand for her to shake and then she was on her way back to Jasper Lane.
That night, curled up by the window of her bedroom, her pencil tapping her teeth, Ellen gazed at the nearly blank page on her lap.
/> Dear Aunt Ruth and Uncle Hamish...
She hadn’t written anything else. She didn’t know what to write, how to explain her choice not to go to high school when her aunt and uncle had as good as offered her a place at the high school in Rutland.
Would they be disappointed or relieved? And what if they didn’t want her back? What if returning to Seaton made her feel more like a burden than ever?
“Then I’ll just return to the island, straightaway,” she told herself, but she felt nervous all the same. She could just hear Ruth saying in that sharp voice, And I suppose you’ll want us to pay your train fare back to that wretched island, won’t you?
She closed her eyes, conjuring Ruth’s face, the stern line of her mouth, the flintiness of her eyes, but for some reason all she could see in her mind’s eye was Ruth as she’d drawn her, her expression resolute but weary, a certain vulnerability in the curve of her cheek and rounded set of her shoulders.
And Uncle Hamish, with his slipped sweets and jolly smiles, the nervousness and perhaps even sorrow shadowing his faded blue eyes. Did he want her back? Sighing, Ellen put the paper aside. She was an artist, not a writer, and tonight it seemed the words wouldn’t come.
A knock sounded on the door, and then Louisa peeked her head around the corner. “May I come in?”
“Of course.” Ellen tucked her ink bottle and paper away, out of sight.
“Aunt Rose told me you’re returning to Vermont,” Louisa said. “But not for high school.” She leaned against the door and watched Ellen speculatively.
“Yes, I am. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Louisa. It has all happened so quickly—”
“I’m sure.” Louisa’s smile was a little twisted. “I suppose you’ll have a grand time, coming back here and working for the doctor. This is home to you, isn’t it?”
Ellen’s glance slid inadvertently to the unfinished—unstarted—letter. “Yes,” she said quietly, “it is.”
Louisa sighed. “I wish it were for me,” she said, and Ellen almost felt sorry for her, until she added, a haughty note in her voice, “perhaps it will be one day.”
A strange prickling crept down Ellen’s spine. “What do you mean, Louisa?”
Louisa shrugged. “Aunt Rose invited me for next summer. I thought I’d accept.”
Aunt Rose, not Mrs. McCafferty, Ellen noticed. Somehow Louisa Hopper, with her snooty ways and snobbish air, had weaseled her way into the McCaffertys’ affections, or at least her aunt’s. And, Ellen considered with a sudden chill, perhaps others’ affections as well.
She knew she was being unfair. Worse, she knew she felt jealous, and she wasn’t sure why. The McCaffertys loved her; she had never felt slighted in the least. And yet, just as Louisa had observed, the island was hers. The people were hers. She still didn’t want to share them.
“That will be nice,” she finally said, realizing the silence between them had stretched on too long. Louisa laughed, the sound a spiteful reminder of the younger girl who had dropped Ellen as a friend and stuck her finger in the middle of a lemon tart.
“It’s gracious of you to say so,” she replied, “even if you don’t feel it. I know this island is yours, Ellen, but I want my own little piece of it.” The curve of her mouth seemed spiteful as she added, “It shouldn’t bother you too much, should it?”
