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The dress was pale green silk, with a lace bodice and three flounces of ruffles at the hem, which was a good half-inch above Ellen’s ankle, displaying Sally’s kid slippers to great advantage. The sleeves were also trimmed in lace, capped quite short, so Amity’s long, elbow-length gloves could be put to good use.
She was missing a hat and a reticule, not to mention a shawl, but Ellen didn’t mind. Marjorie had dressed her hair in a loose, upswept style and had given her a pearl necklace as well.
“Don’t lose it,” she warned, and Ellen nodded.
“I promise. I’ll take care of everything. You’ve all been so good to me.”
She glanced round at the happy, excited faces of her friends, and felt emotion rise like a tide within her. Her friends. She’d made a life for herself here, she realized; it had been made for her. She’d been accepted, welcomed, and loved, and the enormity and value of it hit her now so she had to blink back tears. If she left, she would miss it, and all of them, very much.
“Ellen, you look as if you might cry!” Harriet exclaimed, and Ellen gave a trembling little laugh.
“Now that wouldn’t do! Then my nose would turn red and my eyes would puff up—I’d send Lucas running before we made it out of the parlor. No,” she finished, blinking back more tears, “I’m just so grateful for you all.”
“Then show us some gratitude by having a wonderful time,” Amity said, “and telling us all about it when you return.”
“Promise.” Smiling, feeling truly happy for the first time in months, Ellen fairly floated downstairs to the parlor where Lucas waited.
“Ellen!” Lucas stood up, straight and tall in his eveningwear, his brown hair slicked back from a high, broad forehead. His eyes glowed with admiration and perhaps a little more, yet instead of alarm Ellen only felt gratitude. His admiration, at this point, felt like a balm. “You look lovely, lovelier than I ever could have imagined.”
Ellen felt like a blossom opening to the sun under his praise, and she smiled as he took her hand and led her out into the warm, fragrant night.
The walk to Queen’s was a short one from the hospital, although Ellen stepped slowly and rather carefully in her borrowed slippers.
Even in the few months since she’d been at KGH, Queen’s and Kingston had changed, new buildings constructed out of the famous gray limestone, motorcars trawling the streets.
“Everything moves so fast,” Ellen said as they walked to Grant Hall. “I feel as if the world is growing right up around me.” A motorcar honked its horn, and Ellen jumped in surprise. Lucas chuckled.
“It is growing, and faster every day. It’s a new century, a new decade. Who knows what could happen. The world is wide open, Ellen, more than ever before. ”
Lucas sounded so excited, so certain about h
is purpose, but all the rapid change made her a bit uneasy. Hemlines were higher, motorcars more commonplace, and there was even talk of installing a telephone in the Nurses’ Home. Yet where, Ellen wondered, did this leave her? Or Da? Or even Uncle Hamish and Aunt Ruth? Would Seaton General Store have a telephone, Uncle Hamish an automobile? One day, perhaps, and yet it seemed hard to imagine. Hard to bear, somehow, although she didn’t know why. She supposed she didn’t like change, perhaps because her life had changed too much, too many times.
“Florence Nightingale died this year,” Ellen said after a moment. “It feels a bit like the end of an era.”
“Still—”
“Progress, I know.” She smiled wryly at Lucas. “Nursing has moved on a great deal from her day, of course. It is, as you said, a new century.”
“There are only good things to come, Ellen,” Lucas promised, his voice ringing with sincerity, and with a little frisson of nervous anticipation Ellen wondered if they were still talking about progress and motorcars, or something else entirely. “Here we are,” he said, and putting his arm around her, he ushered her into the hall.
Ellen blinked as she glanced around at the dancing couples in the crowded room, the air hot and stuffy. The music was loud and unlike anything she’d ever heard; there would be no sedate waltzes tonight. It sounded, she thought, as if a child was banging on the piano.
“Ragtime,” Lucas informed her. “It’s all the rage now.”
“Is it?” Working ten or twelve hour days had kept her from learning any of the latest fads or fashions. She watched a couple dance in the most bizarre fashion she’d ever seen, the woman with her arms around the man’s neck, his hands made into claws.
“The Grizzly Bear,” Lucas said, following her gaze.
“I’ve never seen such a thing in my life!”
“I could show you.”
Ellen glanced at Lucas in surprise. “I had no idea you were such the man about town.”
He grinned. “I’m not really, but I do know all the dances.”
She glanced again at the couple. The man looked as if he were actually growling. “I don’t think I’m up to the Grizzly Bear,” she told Lucas, “but I could manage a waltz.”
